9. The Mentor Betrays The Mentee
When Bruce Wayne was lost in his journey to study the criminal mind, Ducard pulled him out and put him on a path. In Ducard, Bruce saw a mentor and father figure to take the place of his deceased biological father and Alfred, whom Bruce had left behind in Gotham. Bruce even saved Ducard's life after defeating the man Bruce thought was Ra's al Ghul. Later, Bruce and the audience were shocked to learn that Ducard had been the real Ra's al Ghul and thus the real threat all along. Obadiah Stane did not teach Tony Stark how to fight criminals, but he was a father figure charged with guiding the younger Stark and the family company after the death of Howard Stark. No audience member gasped, but Tony was surprised to learn that Stane had been double-dealing under the table to terrorists. Worse yet, Stane was the one who arranged the original attack on Tony that left the latter with shrapnel in is chest. Betrayal is hardly a concept that is unique to these two films, but the similarities in how each betrayal was structured are worth mentioning. In both cases, young men suffering from the loss of their respective fathers were preyed on by those they should have been able to trust. These examples help explain why it's so hard for Bruce and Tony to allow anyone to get too close.