Batman Dark Knight Trilogy: An Analysis

"I teach you the overman. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him? (Nietzsche)

Christopher Nolan’s Batman Dark Knight Trilogy shows inimitable cinematic thinking whereby he uses fictitious plot which is deeply embedded in philosophical thought. Nolan adapts the comic book superhero and uses thrillingly emblematic tools to redefine the ‘hero’ and the ‘villain’, the rational and the irrational, the moral and the immoral, the right and the wrong. The trilogy questions the whole idea of establishment and anti-establishment by building complex characters that oscillate between the

Both parties are reasoning, each has its own morality and they are trying to provide ‘true’ justice. Batman and the League of Shadows act as enlightened beings but they are antithetical of Kant’s notion of Enlightenment. Kantian notion of enlightenment advocates for each human to use one’s own reasoning. Kant posits, “For this enlightenment, however, nothing is required but freedom, and indeed the least harmful of anything that could even be called freedom: namely, freedom to make public use of one’s reason in all matters” (Kant, 1784). Batman and the League of Shadows reject the philosophy of humanism which is based on the ability of humans to rationalize against the constraints of nature and uphold a common human nature. Batman and the League of Shadows are the self-proclaimed custodians who try to overpower the emancipation of humankind by setting themselves as their icon to save them from their doom. They are anti-humanist in their approach as they do not believe in the egalitarian and the reasoning human. They condemn the Universalist and essentialist conception of man. Both Batman and League of Shadows try to surpass the notion of man in their attempt to provide justice. In Batman Begins both Ducard who speaks for Ra’s al Gul of the League of Shadows and Batman at different instances of the movie justify the need to become greater than the