Choice versus Predetermination: Batman v. X-Men
This is just an observation of mine that I've been thinking about, it's a bit unusual, but hear me out.
Lately I've been watching a lot of Batman: The Animated Series. Not too long ago, I finally got around to watching all the X-Men movies, after having seen X-Men First Class not long after it came out. Since that's what I've seen, I'll mainly be basing this off of my observations from those, though I may incorporate other sources if it's relevant.
This is mainly about the villains.
If you had to label one of the two franchises as being about choice, and the other being about predetermination, you'd probably say X-Men is about choice, since mutants have to choose between the X-Men and the Brotherhood; and Batman is about predetermination, as his rogues gallery all went insane at some point in the process, so they don't exactly have control of their actions. But after watching both of them, so closely one after the other, I came to the opposite conclusion.
Batman is about choice.
All of Batman's villains have pretty similar back stories, and even the individual episodes have pretty much the same pattern: a villain (or to be villain) is wronged by someone (usually a corrupt corporate executive, though it varies a bit), usually going insane in the process. The villain reacts violently to said wrong, usually attempting to kill whoever wronged them. Batman saves the obnoxious, but (usually, though not always) non-murderous wrongdoer, the villain is then sent to Arkham. Wash, rinse, repeat. There are exceptions, but that's the typical chain of events. Mr. Freeze's wife is killed and he tries to kill the man who killed her. Scarecrow tries to bring down Gotham University after it shuts down his unethical experiments. The Riddler tries to kill his former boss that stole his idea and fired him. Killer Croc goes after Detective Bullock for getting him put in jail. Poison Ivy gets revenge on various company CEOs for engaging in environmentally unfriendly practices by turning them into trees. Even the Joker, the most uncontrollable of Batman's foes, falls into the usual format sometimes; for example, when someone uses his identity as a theme for his casino, Joker decides to exact revenge by blowing it up. The oneshot villains are often trying to kill Batman or Commissioner Gordon or Detective Bullock, or various others for getting them put in jail.
Even though they do go varying degrees of insane in the process, they always make the choice to exact revenge. They could all react to their losses in various, more productive ways, but they always go for murderous revenge, which is always thwarted by Batman. One could say that their insanity is what makes them react so violently, but they all know that what they're doing is wrong and many of them even try to stop, and succeed for a time, before reverting to their criminal ways.
There's also the comparison between Batman and his villains. His story starts fairly similarly to those of his nemeses the young Bruce Wayne is wronged by the robbers that killed his parents. I have previously made the case that he goes insane in the process, and honestly, would a sane person dress like a bat to fight crime? But instead of deciding to go after the police for not making the city safe, instead of killing those who killed his parents, he decides to try and prevent others from suffering what was done to him. He doesn't exactly do it in the most logical or effective way possible, but he could become a villain with that back story and he chooses not to. He also chooses to do something about it, to not take the normal way out and become a normal person leading a normal life, living on his inheritance and devoting whatever money he sees fit to charity. Instead he decides to actively go out and fight crime in a possibly misguided attempt to make the world a better place.
X-Men is about predetermination.
This is mainly about Magneto, not the other villains throughout the series.
For a moment, try to put yourself inside his mind, see the situation as he sees it. He knows what people can and are willing to do to those only slightly different from them - don't forget, he survived the Holocaust - and mutants are more than slightly different. More than anything else, he is terrified of it happening again. He believes that the humans will do the same if they are not stopped. There is only one choice as far as he concerned, because he can't let it happen again, and he knows that it will as long as humans and mutants are forced to live together. Therefore, he must do everything in his rather considerable power to stop it from happening again. He sees no alternative, because to him, because of what he has experienced, there is no alternative. That doesn't make it right, and that doesn't make him not a villain, but it makes his "decision" less about choice and more about necessity, obligation, predetermination. When he does falter, its always because what he's doing isn't working and he's lost sight of his goal in some respect, or what he's done is nearing what he's trying to prevent.
The mutants that work under him are more varied, many of them do make choices in the matter, but they, and their individual motivations are less of a factor than his, so one can still say that the series as a whole is about predetermination, even though there is choice in some aspects.
The humans are in a similar predicament, though they're more than one person, so there are more varied opinions among them. But to the humans as a whole, they know that mutants are powerful, they know that they are dangerous, they've seen Magneto and his Brotherhood attack, and the only ones that could stop them were Professor Xavier and his X-Men. Despite that, they know very little about mutants, they know they're a threat, but not much more than that. They don't know how much of a threat they really are, and that's what makes them so terrifying. They can't let this mysterious threat harm them, they must protect themselves. While Magneto fears what he knows all too well, the humans fear what they do not know well enough. But still, like Magneto, they have only one choice; to protect themselves and do whatever that entails. There are people who go against that, but those are usually those who know more about mutants, and are therefore not facing so much of an unknown quantity.
Compare their enemies to the X-Men themselves. They are the balance, they don't have Magneto's understanding or fear of what could happen. Like the humans they fear the unknown; they fear what could happen if the humans who wanted them gone succeeded, but they also fear what could happen if they had an all out war with the humans and obliterated or subjugated them, as Magneto intends to do. They don't know exactly what would happen in either case, but they know that neither outcome can be any good. They want peace, and even more so, can't afford for there not to be peace. So, they also are not so much making a choice, as doing what must be done, based upon what they know.
Lately I've been watching a lot of Batman: The Animated Series. Not too long ago, I finally got around to watching all the X-Men movies, after having seen X-Men First Class not long after it came out. Since that's what I've seen, I'll mainly be basing this off of my observations from those, though I may incorporate other sources if it's relevant.
This is mainly about the villains.
If you had to label one of the two franchises as being about choice, and the other being about predetermination, you'd probably say X-Men is about choice, since mutants have to choose between the X-Men and the Brotherhood; and Batman is about predetermination, as his rogues gallery all went insane at some point in the process, so they don't exactly have control of their actions. But after watching both of them, so closely one after the other, I came to the opposite conclusion.
Batman is about choice.
All of Batman's villains have pretty similar back stories, and even the individual episodes have pretty much the same pattern: a villain (or to be villain) is wronged by someone (usually a corrupt corporate executive, though it varies a bit), usually going insane in the process. The villain reacts violently to said wrong, usually attempting to kill whoever wronged them. Batman saves the obnoxious, but (usually, though not always) non-murderous wrongdoer, the villain is then sent to Arkham. Wash, rinse, repeat. There are exceptions, but that's the typical chain of events. Mr. Freeze's wife is killed and he tries to kill the man who killed her. Scarecrow tries to bring down Gotham University after it shuts down his unethical experiments. The Riddler tries to kill his former boss that stole his idea and fired him. Killer Croc goes after Detective Bullock for getting him put in jail. Poison Ivy gets revenge on various company CEOs for engaging in environmentally unfriendly practices by turning them into trees. Even the Joker, the most uncontrollable of Batman's foes, falls into the usual format sometimes; for example, when someone uses his identity as a theme for his casino, Joker decides to exact revenge by blowing it up. The oneshot villains are often trying to kill Batman or Commissioner Gordon or Detective Bullock, or various others for getting them put in jail.
Even though they do go varying degrees of insane in the process, they always make the choice to exact revenge. They could all react to their losses in various, more productive ways, but they always go for murderous revenge, which is always thwarted by Batman. One could say that their insanity is what makes them react so violently, but they all know that what they're doing is wrong and many of them even try to stop, and succeed for a time, before reverting to their criminal ways.
There's also the comparison between Batman and his villains. His story starts fairly similarly to those of his nemeses the young Bruce Wayne is wronged by the robbers that killed his parents. I have previously made the case that he goes insane in the process, and honestly, would a sane person dress like a bat to fight crime? But instead of deciding to go after the police for not making the city safe, instead of killing those who killed his parents, he decides to try and prevent others from suffering what was done to him. He doesn't exactly do it in the most logical or effective way possible, but he could become a villain with that back story and he chooses not to. He also chooses to do something about it, to not take the normal way out and become a normal person leading a normal life, living on his inheritance and devoting whatever money he sees fit to charity. Instead he decides to actively go out and fight crime in a possibly misguided attempt to make the world a better place.
X-Men is about predetermination.
This is mainly about Magneto, not the other villains throughout the series.
For a moment, try to put yourself inside his mind, see the situation as he sees it. He knows what people can and are willing to do to those only slightly different from them - don't forget, he survived the Holocaust - and mutants are more than slightly different. More than anything else, he is terrified of it happening again. He believes that the humans will do the same if they are not stopped. There is only one choice as far as he concerned, because he can't let it happen again, and he knows that it will as long as humans and mutants are forced to live together. Therefore, he must do everything in his rather considerable power to stop it from happening again. He sees no alternative, because to him, because of what he has experienced, there is no alternative. That doesn't make it right, and that doesn't make him not a villain, but it makes his "decision" less about choice and more about necessity, obligation, predetermination. When he does falter, its always because what he's doing isn't working and he's lost sight of his goal in some respect, or what he's done is nearing what he's trying to prevent.
The mutants that work under him are more varied, many of them do make choices in the matter, but they, and their individual motivations are less of a factor than his, so one can still say that the series as a whole is about predetermination, even though there is choice in some aspects.
The humans are in a similar predicament, though they're more than one person, so there are more varied opinions among them. But to the humans as a whole, they know that mutants are powerful, they know that they are dangerous, they've seen Magneto and his Brotherhood attack, and the only ones that could stop them were Professor Xavier and his X-Men. Despite that, they know very little about mutants, they know they're a threat, but not much more than that. They don't know how much of a threat they really are, and that's what makes them so terrifying. They can't let this mysterious threat harm them, they must protect themselves. While Magneto fears what he knows all too well, the humans fear what they do not know well enough. But still, like Magneto, they have only one choice; to protect themselves and do whatever that entails. There are people who go against that, but those are usually those who know more about mutants, and are therefore not facing so much of an unknown quantity.
Compare their enemies to the X-Men themselves. They are the balance, they don't have Magneto's understanding or fear of what could happen. Like the humans they fear the unknown; they fear what could happen if the humans who wanted them gone succeeded, but they also fear what could happen if they had an all out war with the humans and obliterated or subjugated them, as Magneto intends to do. They don't know exactly what would happen in either case, but they know that neither outcome can be any good. They want peace, and even more so, can't afford for there not to be peace. So, they also are not so much making a choice, as doing what must be done, based upon what they know.