Morality in Fiction

The great thing about Fictional Literature is that it offers entertainment — via grand stories filled with fantastical creatures and beings; and a respite from the mundane nature and troubles of everyday life. Getting lost in a book or a movie for a few hours, where the forces of good generally beat the forces of evil, lets us forget that the real world isn’t that simple. We all know, in theory, that the good should win over the bad, but life is always ready to give a harsh reality check to such theorists. Besides, good and bad are relative terms. In the eyes of the law, a thief would be a criminal. But, what if this thief stole just to provide for their crying child at home? In the fictional world, vigilantes like the Batman, or Spider Man could fight and defeat bad guys precisely because the criminals were shown to be immersed in evil. For all the talk of serving justice in their own way, it is abundantly clear that justice has been steeped in vengeance or as a form of therapy. For instance, Bruce Wayne fights as the Batman precisely because it offers him a form of catharsis for the death of his parents.

The concept has changed somewhat now. In “The Dark Knight Rises”, Batman asks Catwoman for help a second time despite initially being betrayed by her. This was because he realized that Selina Kyle had her own reasons for stealing, and what she really was hoping for was a fresh start.

Consider another movie from the same franchise — “The Dark Knight”. Due to the death of his fiancé, and the manipulations of the Joker, Harvey Dent turns from a District Attorney relentlessly fighting against crime to a criminal himself. He uses a coin, and based on whether the outcome is heads or tails, either shoots his enemies or lets them live respectively. Dent is a preferable criminal to the madness of the Joker. Similarly, when Dent dies, Batman takes the rap for his death — despite being innocent — to not let all the arrested criminals go free. Commissioner Gordon knows the Batman is innocent, but he goes along with it to preserve peace in the city. The action of letting an innocent man be called guilty is wrong, but if the alternative is to let hundreds of criminals roam free, is it really wrong? The lesser evil is the better option.

Morality cannot be talked about in black and white — it is generally always a grey area. But, one cannot be undecided and not take action. Maybe Batman’s way of spinning the situation was not the best, but had he stood back impassively and just watched, the consequences could have been much more serious. After all, as Edmund Berke says "The only thing needed for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”