Re: HT Batman 1989 Coming
It's haytil.
Sure, I'll elaborate.
At this point for Batman, the gloves are off, the gauntlet is thrown. Not only is the Joker a murdering psychopath, but he is in fact the man that killed his parents when he was a boy. The Joker is essentially the reason that Bruce is the tortured soul that he. The lives of the Joker thugs that get in his way of eliminating the Joker and his plan are insignificant to Batman.
Before the third act (Bruce Wayne discovering that Jack Napier murdered his parents), Batman pretty much apprehends every criminal he comes across. The guys on the roof, the mob at Axis Chemicals, even the Joker's thugs. He doesn't kill. One might think that this Batman has "rules" and a "no-kill policy" as well. However, when things get personal all the rules with the Joker and his men are off.
Define "indirect."
He drops a bomb on the thug's foot. There was nothing "indirect" about that.
So, Axis Chemicals. Batman at this point learns the Joker's location, the plant where he produces smylex that's killing off innocent Gotham citizens.
What does Batman do, he has the Batmobile (he isn't driving it by the way) go into the heart of Axis Chemicals, and destroy it in hopes of eliminating the Joker and destroying the production of smylex.
He doesn't drive in, stop when he sees the thugs and purposely "drop a bomb on the thugs". The auto pilot Batmobile is directed towards the center, the Joker's men are trying to stop it and it sets off the bombs that are meant to destroy the factory (and boy it does).
The Thugs are casualties, not victims of a Batman on a killing spree.
An example of a DIRECT kill would be BATMAN driving in and driving the Batmobile, guns a blazin, shooting up every thug he could see, then seeing the small group and dropping the bomb right there.
Again, he essentially chains Joker to the top of a skyscraper, when the Joker's in mid-air, hanging from a helicopter ladder. Even if the gargoyle hadn't broken and had Joker just let go, he would've swung down and pancaked himself against the wall of the cathedral.
No matter what happened, there was no way Batman was in a position to save the Joker from the lethal consequences of chaining him like that.
Don't see how that's "indirect."
Batman intended to kill him, I'll give you that. I'm sure Wayne had great satisfaction in punching his parent's killer in the face, over the ledge, and to his would be death.
But how the Joker ultimately dies isn't DIRECTLY Batman's fault. Batman is hanging on for dear life, the Joker is about to get away. The Joker has killed so many people at this point, so would Batman just let him get away and risk him killing and causing more chaos? Of course not.
No, he fires a grappling hook that attaches a rope to the Cathedral and the Joker's leg.
The Joker was in a position that if he let go, before he was pulled up, he'd go back on to the Cathedral's ledge. He wouldn't have pancaked, the distance was only a few inches away from the ledge. The Joker's thugs were in a position where they could navigate the helicopter to the ledge, and not have the Joker fall to his death.
Did you see how goofy his helicopter crew was though? The Joker didn't have a chance. They don't even realize that he's stuck and they're yelling for him to come up.
So from Batman's perspective it's completely indirect and justifiable. He's essentially "apprehending" the Joker so that he can't get away. It would be no different than say, if in TDK, the rope line that the Joker was suspended on snapped, killing him while Batman goes off to find Dent and Gordon. Or Spider-Man hanging a thug on a lampost and the web snaps and the thug falls and breaks his neck on the street.
A DIRECT kill would be if he aimed a the grapple gun at him and shot him in the head or deliberately threw him off the ledge. Then yeah, I'd agree. That's direct and a murder full of intent. Even punching him over like he originally did would count if the Joker wasn't so lucky..
But this, he's clearly stopping him from getting away. He doesn't even get to relish in the fact that he's just killed the man that took so much away from him because he's too busy trying to make sure that they don't fall as well.
I gave you examples, but I'll define my view of "indirect".
Unintentional and incidental direction.
Batman's
intent at Axis was to blow it sky high, cease chemical production at the source, and most likely kill the Joker. You can see how pissed Batman is when he sees that the Joker wasn't in there while the Joker taunts him from the copter. I doubt Batman's intent was to take out the Joker's poor, poor men. The film doesn't state that Batman knows that his thugs are there, we only assume he does.
Batman's intent at the Cathedral was to stop the Joker from getting away on the helicopter. Was he just going to let him go? Maybe he planned to kill him afterwards, but I seriously doubt that Batman knew that not only would the Joker's men be dumb enough to not help the Joker, but that the gargoyle would break off the ledge before ripping the Joker's leg off.
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