Intro
I thought about making this after seeing Batman Begins a couple weeks ago, but I delayed it for whatever reason and am now deciding to talk about it today. Basically, I wanted to compare / chat about three instances of Batman's "No Killing Rule" and how it's affected Ra's Al Ghul the most.
The three instances are:
-Batman Begins (2003)
-Batman: Arkham Knight - Season of Infamy: Shadow War (2016)
-Gotham (2012-2019)
So a fair Spoiler Warning for all three of those, in the chance you haven't experienced them for yourself. I will be talking about these instances in the order I just listed them though, so if you have seen 2 of them but haven't seen the other, you can read about the two you have seen and skip the one you haven't. Just a little suggestion.
Batman Begins
In the final act of Batman Begins, Bruce's trainer and mentor Henri Ducard is revealed to be the true Ra's Al Ghul, the twisted leader of the League Of Shadows. He was using Jonathan Crane AKA The Scarecrow as a puppet as part of his big plan to purge Gotham into a city of fear until it rips itself apart. Batman must board the Gotham Rail Train with Ra's Al Ghul to slow it down while Jim Gordon destroys the railroad tracks to ensure the train never meets its destination. When this is done, and Ra;s is beaten, he demands that Batman kills him, knowing about Bruce's refusal to execute a man back in his training in the Mountains. Bruce says "I won't kill you. But I don't have to save you either." Bruce glides out of the train and watches as it falls off the tracks and crashes into the ground below.
I've seen many many many refer to this as Batman technically killing Ra's Al Ghul. Others think that choosing not to save someone as evil as Ra's is not the same as killing them. We see that Batman has decided to correct this "mistake" that he realizes he made by letting Ra's die in The Dark Knight, when as Joker is falling to his death, Batman uses his grapple to catch him and pull him back up to be arrested rather than killed. This shows strong development in Batman's character in The Dark Knight Trilogy in my opinion. But back to Begins. What is your opinion on this matter? Do you think Batman deciding to let a man like Ra's die is the same as killing a human being? What did you think of this scene as a whole? Did anyone else notice that Ra's did not look horrified, or scared, or angry as he was speeding to his death, but rather, he looked rather accepting of the fact?
Arkham Knight: Shadow War
In the DLC Side Mission known as Shadow War, Alfred alerts us, playing as Batman, that the League may have been seen in Gotham for the first time since the deadly events of Arkham City. He even cites the witness's words, telling us that "Crazy Ass Ninjas" have been spotted on the rooftops of Miagani Island. We see the remains of a deadly fight between three League members: Two dead, one escaped. As we track the third ninja back to Elliot Memorial Hospital and make our way through the parkour park of a demolished medical center, we find a group of The League Of Shadows surrounding a throne hooked up to wiring and medical supplies. The body in the throne: Ra's Al Ghul, clinging to life after his "death" in Arkham City. The League demands our help to revive Ra's, reminding Batman of his rule to not take one's life and to save as many people as possible. Batman decides to go to the location of the possible last remaining Lazarus supply left in Gotham, just to investigate it. His heist is interrupted by another group of The League of Assassins: The Rebels. The leader is Nyssa Al Ghul, sister to Talia and daughter of Ra's. She wants Ra's to die, and asks Batman to not save his life. She promises that when he dies, she'll take over the League, and they will leave Gotham forever and never return, taking their war elsewhere. When we return to the hospital and contemplate our decision, Alfred calls and asks "Is preventing some ungodly resurrection truly the same as taking one's life?" He says he will stand by us whatever we choose, but he would prefer Ra's's death.
When you get back to the hospital, you can choose either to save Ra's or to destroy the cure and machine to let him die. If you let him die, the Loyalists attack you. And then Nyssa arrives and tries to kill Ra's, to which Batman reminds her he is already dying. We take Ra's back to the GCPD, where he lies with mere days remaining of his life. He says he is proud of you for letting him die. Nyssa holds her word and takes the league away from Gotham. If you give him the cure, the Rebels attack you. Nyssa arrives just as Ra's rises again, and Ra's cuts her open with a sword. He escapes, and as she dies, Nyssa tells Bruce that Talia loved him because of his stubbornness when it comes to whether or not someone should die. The League is left in shambles, and war is averted because of which.
Which option did you choose the first time you played through this mission? Is Alfred right when insisting that preventing Ra's's resurrection is very different from killing him? Which option do you think is the best choice to make?
Gotham
This one is very messy, so I'll try and cut it down as best I can. Basically, Ra's has been alive for a very long time and wants to die now, and for some prophetic reason he wants Bruce Wayne to do it so Bruce can later become the protector of Gotham one day. Ra's goads Bruce into doing it, which sends Bruce down a dark spiral of douchebaggery, and once he snaps out of it, later on Ra's is resurrected, Barbara Kean got his powers and he took them back and now she hates him for it and wants him dead, she realizes only Bruce is able to kill him with the special blade he killed him with the first time, so she makes Bruce hold the blade as she kills him directly with Bruce more or so being a pawn in the part of it.
There isn't really any big questions I can ask about this one, I just included it here to build up to the big point...
"The Point"
...and that is that somehow Ra's Al Ghul is the man that suffers the most under Batman's rare breaking of his "No Taking Lives and Save Whoever Possible" rule. The most evil part about it is that Ra's wants this title though, he wants to die by Batman's hand, probably even more than Joker wants to get killed by Batman to make Batman insane. Because Ra's wants someone to be like him one day, and he looks to someone already on a not-so-light path and tries making him go on an even darker one, make the decisions Ra's makes, so that one day Bruce can see the world as he sees it. In my opinion this is a very powerful arc for the character to have, other than being known as just that one dude with a Ninja Clan who can heal himself by taking a green bath.
Personal Opinions
My favorite instance of the three listed is without a doubt Shadow War, because it shows you both endings of what happens when you want Ra's to live and when you don't want him to be resurrected. Nyssa dies if you resurrect him, and Ra's dies if you don't, but he is proud of Batman for choosing to "kill him" in a sense. Alfred's line about killing someone possibly not being the same as choosing to let them die is a powerful one (Even if not as powerful as Crazy Ass Ninjas).
My least favorite is Gotham. I really liked the show, but Ra's was one of my least favorite characters. It's like at times they didn't know what to do with him. The fact he died twice is also annoying since we already have two other big characters who did that in the show (Jerome Valeska and Theo Galavan). His prophecy is a fucking joke, by the way. They overused the idea of Bruce becoming Batman one day to be a prophecy and a destiny. It got really annoying and cringe sometimes to the point I thought it magically turned into a CW Show.
Conclusion
What are your thoughts on everything I talked about? I know it's long and it's a bit of a mess in certain areas, but if you made it this far, high five✋. This was more so me dumping some areas of my brain's thoughts into this topic, because it's something that's interested me for a while now regarding both the characters of Ra's and Batman. Make sure to answer the questions I asked in the three main paragraphs in the little reply part of this post. I would love to see more thoughts, opinions, and theories form from this post. I also wanted to kinda announce I plan on doing a "Week Of Batman" sometime soon this summer. That will include a bunch of posts ranking all things Batman, from Theme Songs to Suits to Crazy Ass Ninjas. Bye Bye for now, I suppose.
