Kiss, marry, kill! Batman, Joker... and... Bruce Wayne!
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I'm continually impressed by the remarkable intellectual priorities of the general public.
If I must once again indulge this perennial exercise, I suppose I can spare the cognitive effort. Curiously, I've been presented with a variation of this dilemma before. You've altered the variables, however, which means I'm now burdened with the administrative inconvenience of recalculating the outcome.
Though, out of professional concern, I do hope this isn't the question that's occupied your thoughts throughout the day as you waited for my reply. It would indicate a troubling allocation of cognitive resources.
The Joker remains the obvious candidate for execution. Whatever intellectual curiosity his psychology inspires is consistently outweighed by the practical inconvenience of allowing him to remain alive. He's an exceptionally poor collaborator. And his unpredictability is only interesting until it begins attempting to double-cross me.
Previously, I was content assigning marriage to Mr. Wayne, if only for the practical advantages his resources would afford, when the alternative with Batman was…rather more intimate in nature. Now, don’t be encouraged to misunderstand me. I continue to regard the endeavor itself as fundamentally frivolous. Even so, if one were intent upon understanding a mind as carefully defended as the Batman's, there are very few circumstances under which even he could maintain complete psychological discipline. Physical and emotional intimacy seems, from a purely investigative standpoint, the more productive arrangement.
A kiss, though, is almost entirely devoid of diagnostic value. Marriage, by contrast, could afford prolonged observation. So, Bruce Wayne is demoted to the kiss. Batman inherits the marriage. I wouldn't expect matrimony alone to produce any remarkable psychological revelations. He strikes me as the sort of man who would remain guarded even under those circumstances.
And, given our history, establishing any meaningful degree of trust would be…ambitious. Nevertheless, it presents considerably greater research potential than a kiss ever could.
So. Kiss Bruce Wayne. Marry Batman. Kill the Joker.
There. Does that satisfy everyone's extraordinary fascination with my entirely hypothetical romantic and homicidal inclinations?
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