TM #195: Heroes and Villains.
It’s such an arbitrary line in the end.
I’ve seen the good people of Gotham stand by and let their city fall to pieces. It wasn’t their problem, not while it could be kept behind high, thick walls - even if some of those walls were invisible in every way except as lines on a map. Of course, it’s a naive belief; nothing stays behind those walls, not forever.
One night you’ll be out with your family, enjoying the opera, thinking that this really is a beautiful city and life really is good. You’ll be smiling and then you see him walking towards you, a little piece of that other world has crossed over into yours and it makes your heart beat faster, not just from fear but from some other emotion as well, something you want to acknowledge even less. It’s shame, I think, because on some level even the most vapid and mindless of us realise that we are responsible for this, for what he is, we just don’t want to be confronted with it.
Poverty is the last taboo. Sex, drugs, rock and roll - no one cares anymore and anyone who pretends they care is a liar - they can barely make a person cringe let alone blink - but poverty can make a person cross the road and look the other way. It’s the one thing left that no one wants to be confronted with because we’re good people and good people wouldn’t stand by and let this happen.
Good people stand by all the time content in the knowledge that the horrors of the world belong to someone else; they’re another person’s story. That man, our villain, he didn’t walk towards you with that gun. He didn’t shoot you in the head. That wasn’t you. The walls are still there and they still mean something.
I don’t know what a hero is. I just know I’m not one. I’m something else - one of those good people of Gotham.
Bruce Wayne
Batman Begins
330 Words
I’ve seen the good people of Gotham stand by and let their city fall to pieces. It wasn’t their problem, not while it could be kept behind high, thick walls - even if some of those walls were invisible in every way except as lines on a map. Of course, it’s a naive belief; nothing stays behind those walls, not forever.
One night you’ll be out with your family, enjoying the opera, thinking that this really is a beautiful city and life really is good. You’ll be smiling and then you see him walking towards you, a little piece of that other world has crossed over into yours and it makes your heart beat faster, not just from fear but from some other emotion as well, something you want to acknowledge even less. It’s shame, I think, because on some level even the most vapid and mindless of us realise that we are responsible for this, for what he is, we just don’t want to be confronted with it.
Poverty is the last taboo. Sex, drugs, rock and roll - no one cares anymore and anyone who pretends they care is a liar - they can barely make a person cringe let alone blink - but poverty can make a person cross the road and look the other way. It’s the one thing left that no one wants to be confronted with because we’re good people and good people wouldn’t stand by and let this happen.
Good people stand by all the time content in the knowledge that the horrors of the world belong to someone else; they’re another person’s story. That man, our villain, he didn’t walk towards you with that gun. He didn’t shoot you in the head. That wasn’t you. The walls are still there and they still mean something.
I don’t know what a hero is. I just know I’m not one. I’m something else - one of those good people of Gotham.
Bruce Wayne
Batman Begins
330 Words