Agency and Guilt in the Death of the Waynes
I was recently talking with @swtextstoandrew about the Harley Quinn TV show, specifically the episodes “Batman Begins Forever.” The title refers to how, in Bruce Wayne’s mind, he is depicted as always reliving the moment of his parents’ murder, the genesis of Batman, over and over… forever. And the show takes the approach that part of the reason that Bruce is stuck in this mode is that he harbors some guilt over it, and that’s what we ended up talking about.
I have some STRONG opinions about the death of the Waynes. I think that it is absolutely crucial, on a narrative scale, for the Waynes to to be fundamentally good and decent people who were victims of a senseless, unapologetically evil act. I don’t want them to be in cahoots with the Falcones, or the Court of Owls, or to be taking any sorts of bribes. I don’t even want them to be mustache twirling billionaires, or even the mundane garden variety billionaires that we have in the real world who are guilty for social inaction despite their insane amount of money and ability to make the world better. I want, and I think the narrative needs, the Waynes to be good people. In the Falcone example, Thomas Wayne helps Carmine Falcone because he is a doctor, and Carmine is in front of him dying, and the immediate and sacred call to save a life must be answered. (In this narrative, it must always be answered)
Because all of this leads directly into Bruce becoming Batman, and it informs how he is Batman. If his parents’ death isn’t random and senseless, I just don’t think his crusade makes as much sense, nor does it have the same narrative cohesion or satisfaction (and, let’s be real because this is a business that relies on lots of issues: long term story potential). If it wasn’t random and senseless, it would be avenge-able. Batman would get Joe Chill, justice would be done, and that would be that. If they were bad, the Waynes got what was coming to them and their son made it right. Maybe? Maybe then Bruce could be Batman as a way to atone for his parents’ crimes? Maybe? Even if Bruce doesn’t get Joe Chill, and is just punishing all crime as a proxy for that, it’s still about him and his parents. Of course, it’s always about his and his parents, but it’s usually as subtext to the larger message: Batman opposes Crime. If the Waynes are fundamentally good people killed by senseless evil, then Bruce’s mission becomes aimed at that senseless evil. Crime as a capital C concept. Now we have a crusade.
I could talk more here about how Robin-as-a-concept is such a natural progression out of this trauma, a man who is hurt so much by the death of his parents healing in part by becoming a parental figure, or about the Robin parallel of Bruce intervening in cases to try to keep these children from turning out like him, but this is ostensibly about the Harley Quinn episode.
In the episode, it’s revealed that Bruce harbors a lot of guilt about his perceived role in his parents’ death (the visual way in which the show presents this is such a great moment). I definitely agree that any version of Bruce Wayne will, inevitably, feel some amount of guilt for the death of his parents. It’s part of the whatever’s-wrong-with-him chemistry that makes an eight year old want to grow up to be Batman. It doesn’t matter how not-his-fault the event was, he will find a way to internalize some guilt from it. And that too, is narratively necessary, I think. It’s part of the drive. But to go with the above, I think stories that do give Bruce some part in the death of his parents does a greater disservice to the Batman mythos, even though it may seem like they’re doing something more intrinsically motivating. It has to be a tragedy of many moving pieces, of things coming together and failing to come together, to understand how the Waynes were failed by the notion of a just world and how Batman was created by that failure.
Anyway, go watch HBO’s Harley Quinn. It’s fun.
