The Dice Man, free will, and the question of whether or not Harvey even has a true "self" anymore

[about_faces]

In an interview for his one-shot story, Joker's Asylum: Two-Face (which I'll look at on its own later), writer David Hine explained the appeal of writing Harvey:

"Two-Face is the perfect distillation of the Dice Man character. 'The Dice Man' was a novel by Luke Rhinehart that featured a guy who led his life according to the role of a dice. I

Comments

For later reeeeading...

[bitemetechie]

Thiiis and this and this and finally, thiiiis.

[surrealname]

Giving one's life over to the roll of a di... jesus. I'm too tired to articulate my feelings about this in anyway other than people who do that need their right to reproduce taken away lest their harmful genes hold back the process of evolution.

[captaintwinings]

This has nothing to do with the topic of your post, but does Batman really think that throwing a second coin at Harvey's first coin is a good idea? Sure, he lucked out this time, but it was pure chance. It was just as likely that he would get two good heads or two bad heads. That's a 33% chance that Two-Face is incapacitated, a 33% chance that he surrenders without harming anyone, and a 33% chance that Two-Face goes with his "kill you all" plan, with no guarantee that Batman will be fast enough to stop him. Would Batman really take that kind of risk? He made the right call here, but only because he's the main character and the writers won't let him be wrong.

On the other hand, it's pretty great that Harvey was defeated not only by his own inability to make a decision, but by random chance itself. Poor Harvey indeed.

[lego_joker]

Maybe the coin Batman threw had two good heads, thus meaning that AT BEST, Harvey would be incapacitated by indecision?

It came from his utility belt, right?

[wo_meimei]

HOW DID I MISS THIS POST?

Why would anyone just choose to give up their free will to chance? WHAT KIND OF STUPID, SELF-CENTERED, LAZY, THOUGHTLESS, NO-GOOD...

*pants for breath*

Ugh... Okay, I'm fine now. But, as someone who actually did lose the ability to act solely on free will and not by chance, hearing that people actually listened to that book and took up its philosophy out of boredom and selfishness really upsets me.

**Warning: angsty personal life rant**As a rule, I avoid talking about my private life, especially something this personal, but DAMMIT THIS IS IMPORTANT TO ME

[about_faces]

As you can tell, you're not the only one who missed this post! Or perhaps, you're just one of the few who care!

There's always the possibility that I *may* have done some injustice to the Dice Man concept (once again, I didn't finish the last small chunk of the book, but I'm told that it doesn't matter from those who have), but... yeah, WTF is pretty much right. I really feel like Harvey himself would be exasperated too.

God, that's really powerful. He actually inspires you? Y'know, from my own experience, I used to see Harvey as a vision of what I could have been, and thus seen him as a warning or something. But that he was able to serve as an inspiration to you to keep fighting is something I truly couldn't have imagined the character being capable of doing for someone else, and it's wonderful that it's helped you get better. Thank you for sharing this, and keep up the good fight. *hugs*

[wo_meimei]

As you can tell, you're not the only one who missed this post! Or perhaps, you're just one of the few who care!

Or perhaps no one could think what to say. :)

There's always the possibility that I *may* have done some injustice to the Dice Man concept (once again, I didn't finish the last small chunk of the book, but I'm told that it doesn't matter from those who have), but... yeah, WTF is pretty much right. I really feel like Harvey himself would be exasperated too.

I think you did a great job, actually.

I imagine he considers people who follow flipism as a philosophy and not out of necessity right up there with people who pretend to have MPD/DID to avoid going to prison and abusive parents.

God, that's really powerful. He actually inspires you? Y'know, from my own experience, I used to see Harvey as a vision of what I could have been, and thus seen him as a warning or something. But that he was able to serve as an inspiration to you to keep fighting is something I truly couldn't have imagined the character being capable of

[icon_uk]

I confess I tries reading "The Dice Man", but couldn't comprehend the sort of mind that would abrogate responsibility for one's own decisions like that, and had no real interest in finding out, so in a rare occurrence, I stopped reading the book long before the end and felt remarkably sanguine about it.

[about_faces]

I'm amazed at the kind of passionate cult following it inspires. As I said above, the best comparison that comes to mind is Fight Club (or A Clockwork Orange, to a lesser extent, as that character doesn't have the any kind of ideology as Rhinehart and Durden do), where the cultists seem to entirely miss out on the satirical aspects of the book.