Yeah for the lie to mean something and have weight, it needed to be successful. And so a significant amount of time needed to pass. It still makes a lot of sense to me. If you keep that quote from Nolan in mind, and then try to think about the opposite outcome (the ones that we had in our heads after TDK) it doesn't add up. Not when you take the lie into account and the consequences of those actions. It all feels like a fanboy dream, like we took the "cuz he can take it" line too literally in a physical sense, and completely dismissed the meaning of that ending. Which all comes down to the secret Gordon and Batman share. The bat signal is destroyed. Gordon tells the world what a hero Harvey is. Were we ignoring all of this? I think we were. Same goes for the Joker line about freaks lining up, and now he and Bats were meant to do this forever. We take those words and then see it as gospel, then turn around and bash Nolan for not following through. All without realizing that Joker said these things with the assumption that Harvey Dent would be caught, all his wrong doings out in the open, with more use for the heroic & incorruptible Batman. That's before Batman and Gordon shut that dream down, by making damn sure Two-Face is never found out. This would then create the opposite effect. A more peaceful time, gradually. Instead of the freak show fantasy that Joker thought up.
I think fans of this genre get caught up in the cool adventure factor of it all, and tend to look at the surface of a line of dialogue or a moment, without putting some brain power into what's beneath the surface. Bale even said, they always wanted to show the consequences of their actions. Even on a physical level.
It's funny, all these years and I could never put my finger on what it was about about the eight-year gap that felt inconsistent to me. I mean I get what Nolan was telling us - the people of Gotham were empowered with hope, so they didn't
need him anymore - still, did they
really not need him anymore? That's the part that always baffled me. There was just something about that that felt "off", that I just couldn't put into words. But I think now I can. I think it has to do with how I see the world.
Basically the more I grow, the more I think it's important for us to work together to change the problems in our society. And I get why guys like Harvey do a better job at bringing people together than guys like Batman do. They never come out and say this, but Harvey is a clear metaphor for archetypes like Bernie Sanders and MLK. He's that "ideal" political figure people would feel they can connect to because of his values. I mean he's
not - he's one of those who started out that way and was corrupted - but Batman and Gordon sell him that way. So now that Gotham has that figurehead to rally around by the end of TDK, they can finally enact change right?
Unfortunately it's not that simple. They almost always get beaten down and shredded by the system the first four, five, or even a hundred times, until they
finally succeed at their dream. And a lot of times the figurehead that started these movements is no longer around by then, instead it's their successor. Ambiguity of the Dent Act aside, we just have to look at how hard the system fought to prevent something like the New Deal from being passed, and how much struggle and defeat its proponents put up with even after electing the man they thought embodied it (FDR).
And that's why I don't buy Gotham not needing Batman anymore after TDK. They would still need him, I think, for all the times those inspired by Dent would have been crushed and forced to retreat to the cynicism at the start of Batman Begins, which in any real setting they most definitely would have. That's the one cause-and-effect I think Rises forgets, or at worst chooses to ignore.
Anyways, I'm not trying to reopen the debate on Rises, I'm just finally wording why it doesn't fit for me. More importantly, why I never explained it beyond "cuz freaks!" I believe that as kids we start grasping the problems in the world emotionally, but can't pick up on them logically. As we mature we begin to pick up on them logically. I said Gotham would still have "freaks" after TDK, the more mature fan in me would say "The system would step up its game after TDK, keeping with the realism and escalation theme of TDK." Or something along those lines. But anyways, I hope that makes a little more sense now.
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