What Happens in The Dark Knight
Spoilers, obviously.
As we’ve discussed, in Batman Begins 1960s-style full employment and antipoverty programs lead to skyrocketing crime while in The Dark Knight Rises 1980s-style tough-on-crime policies and neoliberal economics lead to a revolt of the economic underclass. The films are mirror images, one about the failure of liberal policies; the other about the failure of conservative policies. In this sense, The Dark Knight is truly the final film in this nihilistic trilogy, documenting the hopelessness of anything outside that usual left-right struggle.
From the start, the city is torn about how to handle the Batman, who has inspired a wave of second-rate imitators. Some believe it’s wrong to be idolizing a masked vigilante, but most (including the new DA, Harvey Dent) approve of his results.
Dent is doing his own part to lock up the criminals, working inside the system. He’s arrested all the mob bankers (except Lau) and is now going after the gangsters themselves, starting with mob boss Maroni (who took over for mob boss Falcone). But while the prosecutions bring him a great deal of political attention, they don’t seem to achieve much in the way of concrete results — new gangsters spring up to take the place of whoever Dent arrests.
Dent decides the only way to win is to go big — really big. He arrests everyone at once, on charges that are unlikely to stick. Dent doesn’t care that he’s breaking the rules, as long as it solves the problem. He cites the Romans who suspended democracy to protect their city. (Although, as Rachel points out, they ended up losing democracy.) “You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain,” Dent explains. He hopes to take up Batman’s mantle, but do it from inside the system.
But, as the mayor explains, Dent isn’t just taking on his own sense of ethics, he’s taking on the entire system: “the mob, politicians, journalists, cops — anyone whose wallet’s about to get lighter”. If he fails, both of their careers are over.
Just as Dent is frustrated with the justice system, the Joker is frustrated with the criminals. He tells them they need to go big: they need to kill the Batman. He offers to do it for a sizable sum of money, which the gangsters eventually agree to. The Joker is obsessed with the homo economicus of game theory (from whence his name?): when the gangsters ask why he needs the money to kill the Batman, he explains “Like my mother used to tell me: if you’re good at something, never do it for free.”
The film opens with the Joker hiring five men to rob a mob bank: Dopey silences the alarm, Happy shoots him and drills through the vault, Grumpy shoots him and empties the cash into duffel bags, a bus runs him over, Bozo shoots the bus driver. Finally, Bozo pulls off his mask to reveal he’s the Joker. This is a classic pirate game and, just as in the theory, the Joker gets to keep almost all the cash.
Batman eventually tries to track down the Joker by threatening the gangster Maroni. But it’s no use, as Maroni explains: “No one’s gonna tell you anything—they’re wise to your act—you got rules. The Joker, he’s got no rules. No one’s gonna cross him for you.” This is a straightforward application of game theory’s Davies-Folk theorem: the rational thing is to seem irrational so your opponents can’t count on you doing the rational thing.
Alfred sees this quickly, because it reminds him of a story from his own past:
I was in Burma. A long time ago. My friends and I were working for the local government. They were trying to buy the loyalty of tribal leaders, bribing them with precious stones. But their caravans were being raided in a forest north of Rangoon by a bandit. We were asked to take care of the problem, so we started looking for the stones. But after six months, we couldn’t find anyone who had traded with him. … One day I found a child playing with a ruby as big as a tangerine. … The bandit had been throwing the stones away. … Some men just want to watch the world burn.
Note the parallels. In Alfred’s story the entire status quo (including the local government and tribal leaders) is totally corrupt: the official plan is to bribe people. But the plan is defeated by someone even crazier, someone willing to steal the money but not interested in keeping it for himself.
Sure enough, when the Joker finally does get his hands on the money, he merely lights it on fire.
Meanwhile, Dent’s ethical compromises begin to grow and grow. When he kidnaps one of the Joker’s thugs, he tries to threaten information out of him. This is something Batman does routinely, but Batman reminds Dent that Dent can’t get away with that sort of thing — it’d destroy his credibility as an insider.
In a climactic scene, the Batman finally confronts the Joker in the middle of the street. The Joker knows Batman lives by just one rule (“I will not be an executioner”) and encourages him to break it and kill him. But Batman can’t
Spoilers, obviously.
As we’ve discussed, in Batman Begins 1960s-style full employment and antipoverty programs lead to skyrocketing crime while in The Dark Knight Rises 1980s-style tough-on-crime policies and neoliberal economics lead to a revolt of the economic underclass. The films are mirror images, one about the failure of liberal policies; the other about the failure of conservative policies. In this sense, The Dark Knight is truly the final film in this nihilistic trilogy, documenting the hopelessness of anything outside that usual left-right struggle.
From the start, the city is torn about how to handle the Batman, who has inspired a wave of second-rate imitators. Some believe it’s wrong to be idolizing a masked vigilante, but most (including the new DA, Harvey Dent) approve of his results.
Dent is doing his own part to lock up the criminals, working inside the system. He’s arrested all the mob bankers (except Lau) and is now going after the gangsters themselves, starting with mob boss Maroni (who took over for mob boss Falcone). But while the prosecutions bring him a great deal of political attention, they don’t seem to achieve much in the way of concrete results — new gangsters spring up to take the place of whoever Dent arrests.
Dent decides the only way to win is to go big — really big. He arrests everyone at once, on charges that are unlikely to stick. Dent doesn’t care that he’s breaking the rules, as long as it solves the problem. He cites the Romans who suspended democracy to protect their city. (Although, as Rachel points out, they ended up losing democracy.) “You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain,” Dent explains. He hopes to take up Batman’s mantle, but do it from inside the system.
But, as the mayor explains, Dent isn’t just taking on his own sense of ethics, he’s taking on the entire system: “the mob, politicians, journalists, cops — anyone whose wallet’s about to get lighter”. If he fails, both of their careers are over.
Just as Dent is frustrated with the justice system, the Joker is frustrated with the criminals. He tells them they need to go big: they need to kill the Batman. He offers to do it for a sizable sum of money, which the gangsters eventually agree to. The Joker is obsessed with the homo economicus of game theory (from whence his name?): when the gangsters ask why he needs the money to kill the Batman, he explains “Like my mother used to tell me: if you’re good at something, never do it for free.”
The film opens with the Joker hiring five men to rob a mob bank: Dopey silences the alarm, Happy shoots him and drills through the vault, Grumpy shoots him and empties the cash into duffel bags, a bus runs him over, Bozo shoots the bus driver. Finally, Bozo pulls off his mask to reveal he’s the Joker. This is a classic pirate game and, just as in the theory, the Joker gets to keep almost all the cash.
Batman eventually tries to track down the Joker by threatening the gangster Maroni. But it’s no use, as Maroni explains: “No one’s gonna tell you anything—they’re wise to your act—you got rules. The Joker, he’s got no rules. No one’s gonna cross him for you.” This is a straightforward application of game theory’s Davies-Folk theorem: the rational thing is to seem irrational so your opponents can’t count on you doing the rational thing.
Alfred sees this quickly, because it reminds him of a story from his own past:
I was in Burma. A long time ago. My friends and I were working for the local government. They were trying to buy the loyalty of tribal leaders, bribing them with precious stones. But their caravans were being raided in a forest north of Rangoon by a bandit. We were asked to take care of the problem, so we started looking for the stones. But after six months, we couldn’t find anyone who had traded with him. … One day I found a child playing with a ruby as big as a tangerine. … The bandit had been throwing the stones away. … Some men just want to watch the world burn.
Note the parallels. In Alfred’s story the entire status quo (including the local government and tribal leaders) is totally corrupt: the official plan is to bribe people. But the plan is defeated by someone even crazier, someone willing to steal the money but not interested in keeping it for himself.
Sure enough, when the Joker finally does get his hands on the money, he merely lights it on fire.
Meanwhile, Dent’s ethical compromises begin to grow and grow. When he kidnaps one of the Joker’s thugs, he tries to threaten information out of him. This is something Batman does routinely, but Batman reminds Dent that Dent can’t get away with that sort of thing — it’d destroy his credibility as an insider.
In a climactic scene, the Batman finally confronts the Joker in the middle of the street. The Joker knows Batman lives by just one rule (“I will not be an executioner”) and encourages him to break it and kill him. But Batman can’t
