The Dark Knight is the second in Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy. Rare for any sequel, it’s the most celebrated of Nolan’s caped crusader films, thanks in huge part to the late, great Heath Ledger’s incredible performance as the Joker. The Dark Knight’s Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) has overcome the growing pains of vigilantism depicted in 2005’s Batman Begins. He’s defeated his corrupted mentor and leader of The League of Shadows, R’as Al Ghul (Liam Neeson), as well as Al Ghul’s ally, Dr. Jonathan Crane, better known as Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy).
Now, Bruce finds himself in a psychological and philosophical battle with Joker. Joker, of course, is no easy villain to defeat. His antics place Gotham City District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), his fiancée and Bruce’s sometimes paramour Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal), and all of Gotham in the crosshairs. Nolan creates a Gotham as modern (filmed in Chicago) and complex as Bale’s Bruce Wayne, letting Joker’s mania and Gotham’s systemic corruption blur the lines between billionaire playboy persona and the dark detective through constant, high-stakes pressure.
Harvey Dent Is the Heart of ‘The Dark Knight’
While Heath Ledger’s A Clockwork Orange-inspired Joker is the character most associated with the film—Ledger received a posthumous best supporting actor award for it—Harvey Dent is the real heart of the story. Dent is a district attorney who is competent and brave enough to take on organized crime. As he chips away at Gotham’s corruption, Batman has inspired a strain of violent and unhelpful vigilantes who don’t follow his moral code. This, paired with the combined good-guy ethics of Lieutenant James Gordon (Gary Oldman) and Dent, paints a potential future for Gotham where Batman is not only not needed but a hindrance. In a dinner scene where Bruce first meets Harvey Dent, he speaks of being proud of Batman, an everyday citizen standing up for good in a badly corrupted city. When he compares the role of Batman to Rome’s appointment of a strong leader to protect the city in times when democracy was threatened, Rachel chimes in, “The last man that they appointed to protect the Republic was named Caesar, and he never gave up his power.” In response, Harvey Dent establishes his own moral code, which will become ironic in the film’s final act: “You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”
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Seeing his opportunity to sow nihilism where there might be hope, Joker partners with all the current and would-be mob bosses—as well as the dirty cops and other judicial leaders—of the city to make saving Gotham impossible. Joker—obsessed with breaking the Batman’s honor—kidnaps Harvey and Rachel, keeping them in separate buildings rigged with explosives. Batman saves Dent but doesn’t make it to Rachel. Dent, disillusioned, grieving, and badly burned and disfigured on his left side, is approached in his hospital bed by Joker. Joker hands Dent a gun as he goes into a manifesto, framing people like Lieutenant Gordon and Batman as “schemers” and the real problem:
“I’m not a schemer. I try to show the schemers how pathetic their attempts to control things really are. So when I say that you and your girlfriend was nothing personal, you know that I’m telling the truth. It’s the schemers that put you where you are. You were a schemer. You had plans. And look where that got you.”
Holding the gun against Joker’s head, Dent presents the coin, turning it in his hand, “You live. You die.” Joker is spared by chance. Harvey Dent rises as Two-Face. He goes after crime boss Maroni, the particular goon Joker partnered with to find Harvey and Rachel, as well as Detective Ramirez, the officer who revealed his location to Maroni’s men. Two-face then goes after Gordon, believing he is more personally responsible for Rachel’s death.
Joker’s Success in Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy Is Ambiguous
Meanwhile, Batman is distracted by Joker’s latest cruel joke: two ferries, rigged with explosives. One is carrying average Gotham citizens; the other carries prisoners; but both parties are given a detonator. In a play on the Prisoner’s Dilemma, Joker tells them that if no one detonates, both ferries will explode at midnight. What the Joker does not expect is for one of the incarcerated men to take the detonator and toss it into the water so that it can’t be used. It doesn’t prove what Joker wants—that people are inherently self-serving and asocial—but it does reveal a flaw in Batman’s own black-and-white civilian or criminal thinking. Batman finds Joker as the civilian ferry is conflicted about what to do, preventing the end of Joker’s plan from coming to fruition. It’s only then that Batman finds out Two-Face is on a killing spree across Gotham.
Batman finds Two-Face, Gordon, and Gordon’s family in the blown-out building where Rachel died. Two-Face tells Gordon that if he had come down harder on corruption, none of this would’ve happened. Dent takes Gordon’s son and holds him at gunpoint. Batman tries to talk Harvey Dent down, pointing out that Joker chose him to hurt because Dent was the best of them, as well as the best for Gotham—but it only sways him enough for another coin toss. Unwilling to risk the murder of a child, Batman pushes Two-Face off of the ledge of the building.
Harvey Dent dies; “The Joker won,” Gordon says sadly. Joker successfully forces Batman to kill, even if in a roundabout way, and robs Gotham of at least one symbol of hope: the sometimes adored vigilante Batman or the first District Attorney to truly dedicate himself to changing Gotham from the inside out, Harvey Dent. “Harvey’s prosecution, everything he fought for. Undone. Whatever chance you gave us at fixing our city dies with Harvey’s reputation.”
Batman Protects Gotham’s Symbol of Hope
Batman repeats Dent’s earlier sentiment, “You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” Gordon and Batman realize that Harvey Dent’s death will cause even more strife in Gotham if he’s outed as a murderer himself. They decide to protect what Dent symbolized for Gotham by having Batman take the fall for the murders Dent commits under Joker’s influence. Explaining to his son why his savior Batman is now fleeing, Gordon says, “He’s the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now. So we’ll hunt him. Because he can take it.”
Where Batman’s vigilantism is ruled by rigid ideas of right and wrong and his outward facade of Bruce Wayne, heir to the Wayne fortune, allowed him to throw seemingly shallow galas and charity events to try to fix what couldn’t be handled by his nightly persona, it no longer resonated with the public at large. Harvey Dent showed people that there are some in power who will do the right thing and that steps could be taken within the system to at the very least slow systemic corruption, if not abolish it. In short, Harvey Dent gave people faith in Gotham and hope for the future. In the end, that symbol, even as a martyr, is more important than the band-aid Batman can provide.
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