2. He Helped Talia Escape the Pit
While I will accept arguments about the other six points, this is the single, solitary option that indisputably proves Bane’s good nature, even if he ultimately became misguided. After all the smoke is cleared and it’s revealed to us that, in fact, it was not Bane who climbed out of the pit, but Talia, we see that Bane, also trapped in the pit with her many years previous, defended her as she fled, taking a severe beating that essentially defined his mask-clad existence thereafter.
To prevent the beating and potential rape of a young innocent, Bane takes it on the chin, mouthing “goodbye” to Talia as she proceeds to make the jump and flee for her life. Furthermore, though Talia gets her father Ra’s to send the League of Shadows down the pit to rescue everyone, Ra’s ends up rejecting Bane because his destroyed countenance reminds him too much of his dead wife. Again, Bane is out on his own – even if he did reconvene with Talia later – and so, it’s unsurprising that he was led down the wrong path; his kindness was his own worst enemy. It is in this sense that Bane’s character arc is the most tragic.
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6 Comments
Nice article, fun to have this counter-perspective, but – with all due respect – Bane is actively planning to destroy Gotham and with it milions of people including the smallest of childs: in my opinion he’s even more inhumane than the Joker is in sofar that is he is willing to go to greater lengths of evil, calling himself (and thus his actions) necessary evil – a reckoning. The Joker was a mad dog, a terrible fiend, yes, but he was not the destructive tyrant Bane is. Joker wanted to have fun and if that meant killing people he’d do it – terrible enough you’d say. Well Bane actively, consciously sets out to kill milions of people! One could say the Joker is humane in giving everyone plenty of time to evacuate the hospital in TDK. But those small points don’t really count with the Joker, nor Bane because their actions didn’t seem bent on having that “humane” outcome.
The outcome the Joker wants is to terrorize a city. Bane wants to fully obliterate one. You tell me who’s the worst villain out of those two…
(Actually, Ra’s is the worst, as he wouldn’t even grant Gotham a quick death and wanted to torment every man, woman and child by traumatically destroying them through fear.)
Still, thanks for a nice read!
I actually spelled my name wrong, I’m an idiot. My apologies.
Actually in the comics Bane isn’t all that bad either. Yes he does terrorize Gotham in the beginning, but he eventually recovers from his venom addiction and returns to Gotham to fight crime alongside Batman. That is until the Infinite Crisis storyline after being saved by Batman from being shot by his own father King Snake. And then almost being killed by Batman again (this time by Bruce Wayne Batman with Superman-like powers). This is why I don’t read comics a lot. Its complicated and I only love the parts of Batman that doesn’t mesh with the expanded DC universe.
Obviously this seems to be written to incite a discussion because you left out the part where he 1) killed the people on the airplane, including one of his followers, 2) killed another one of his followers in the sewer as James Gordon was escaping. 3) Killed the ONLY person who could disarm the bomb, 4) knowing let other people go out and murder innocent people during his occupation in which he himself stated “blood will be shed” and 5) and mercilessly killed Daggett, who was helping him (although maybe that was a good thing…at least Bruce Wayne might secretly think so.
On another note… if you have the opportunity, could you list how many gadgets Batman used throughout the trilogy? SURPRISINGLY! I came up with almost 20 different ones…including the numerous vehicles and that gadget he used to locate the fingerprints on the bullet fired into the wall. Some are very subtle like when in the Dark Knight he used some thing attached to his hand to bend a gun barrel and attempted to slice through the side of a van.
Ok, I’m sick of all the people who still cling to this idea that Bruce Wayne is dead in TDKR. Pay attention to the end scene…Alfred sees Bruce Wayne in the cafe with the same scars that Bane had inflicted on him during their first fight. The only people who know about the scars are the people that saw him in the prison pit. There’s is absolutely no way and I repeat NO WAY that Alfred could know about those battle scars. That was not a dream sequence. Bruce Wayne is alive and well with Selina Kyle. Also read the official TDKR script which is out online….it says in it, that Bruce Wayne is alive and sitting in a cafe with Selina Kyle. BRUCE WAYNE IS ALIVE! Oh btw Christopher Nolan is a cinematic genius!!!
I happened to think also, that bane was actually a good guy, a misunderstood hero, who always thought he was doing good, but was seen from “our side” ie batmans side as the villain. It was clearly obiously shown atleast between the lines in movie that bane is really a good guy, more deep person than villains generally are. Luckily I googled this idea and found out that i’m not the only one who shares this conclusion. Tricked by love he ended up doing bad things. oh god those women, what they make us men do. we should praise bane as he was the true hero in the movie, he even saved batman while sacrifising himself. R.I.P Bane