The Dark Knight Principles Quotes

We're setting the battle lines early on. Right away, the film sets the Joker apart from more ordinary criminals who clearly don't get his special little vibe. The rules are changing in Gotham, and as Batman puts the normal gangsters away, the freak show is rising to fill in the gap. On a deeper note, it gets back to the idea that the Joker is the Devil, punishing the wicked (like this bank manager) as much as he drives the righteous around the bend. Principles get put to the test in such an environment—including the Mafia's.

Harvey's jabbing the system here. He's willing to break the rules to make things come out the way he wants them. Already, he's showing us that the system isn't as pure and good as it should be, and that maybe, just maybe, the Joker has a point. He makes a similar compromise a few scenes later: pulling strings at a high-end restaurant to take Rachel on a date.

Like Dent, Gordon is a man of principle. And if you saw Batman Begins, you know how tough that was for him. But he has to compromise, too. The difference? He acknowledges it, unlike Harvey, who refuses to bend until he breaks. That may be why Gordon isn't all scabby and oozing (or indeed, threatening to murder children) by the end of it.

Rachel thinks that Bruce is being sarcastic when he says this, but it's actually a rare moment when he drops the "rich jerkwad" routine and tells people what he truly feels. He wants Dent to finish what Batman started, to do it legally, and to make Gotham safe enough so that it doesn't need a Batman.

Weirdly enough, the Joker has principles too. They're evil, psychotic, civilization-destroying principles, but principles nonetheless. He despises the money-grubbing ways of the mob and wants to replace them with something far more soul-searingly terrifying. Say what you will, it's a cause he clearly believes in.

Case in point: The Joker wants to show a pretty awful person what awful truly is, and that even the mob's twisted values—loyalty, respect, ruling through fear—mean absolutely nothing. He's going to torch this city in every conceivable way, and if you're too busy running drug rackets to get with the program, then…

This is pretty solid proof that Bruce Wayne will always stay on the side of the angels. Let's face it: he's pretty darn self-sufficient, and as one of the richest men in the world, he generally makes his own rules. We've seen what happens to people like that in the real world. They tend to think that only they can properly use power like this. But Bruce is better than they are, and he trusts Lucius to wield this device judiciously, this one time, to catch the Joker. When they're done, Lucius destroys it… and Batman's principles mean that the Caped Crusader is more than happy to let him.

Fox is that all-too rare figure: a CEO with real scruples. Hence, his balking at use of this colossal Big Brother device that, shall we say, tests basic notions of privacy. He's also reminding Bruce that even Batman can cross the line, and that doing so wouldn't be in the best long-term interests of Gotham.

Batman 1, Joker 0. When the passengers on the ferries ultimately decide not to blow each other up, it delivers the proof that Batman needed: the better angels of our nature can prevail if only people see it.

This is as succinct a definition of their philosophies as we're likely to see. Notice also how, with Batman's "one rule" about not killing people proven beyond the shadow of a doubt, he chooses to mock it. Pretty sour grapes from a guy who broke Harvey Dent's psyche in half just a few hours earlier. It's also a sign amid all the darkness and despair that Batman's principles are important, and can stand up to a guy as bad as this.