Problem I have with TDK Harvey Dent

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and apparently I appear to be in the minority on this from all of my discussions with people, and I want to see what a community of folks with my thinking comprehension and abilities thinks:

first, let me say I absolutely loved Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent in the Dark Knight.

However, I personally think Nolan dropped the ball a tad with Dent's descent into madness...in the sense that there really wasn't one.

As far as the beginning of the movie, during his first few appearances, absolutely nothing whatsoever got me to feel sad that "this guy is gonna crash and burn into Two Face", because it almost felt like right underneath the surface, he was already the guy that was gonna be that, anyway.

I first cite the scene where he punches the guy in the courtroom. Now, I know people say he was defending himself from the guy that pulled the gun on him. Well, fine, but....how did the guy get the gun into the courtroom to begin with? On top of that, punching him just...I don' know. I understand the guy was willing to go to extremes to do what needed to be done, but at the same time, there are ways of doing it without all but bashing over our heads "this guy is gonna turn rogue by the movie's end!! !! !! !!"

And when he was trying to defend Batman to Bruce's date over dinner, he seemed to get angry over it.

What actually shocks me most is that...we don't do well at picking up body language, yet to me all the signs were there that this guy was clearly headed down the rogue path.

now, granted we knew that from the trailers...but I wanted to sense the emotional spiral, and really feel that deep sense of tragedy that we were losing a true fighter of justice...and I just never felt it, cause I never honestly sensed it from him. And this is a Nolan flick, so I really expected it.

I seem to be in the minority on this one, and I find that weird seeing as most of the people who've told me I'm in the minority...are the type who can pick up body language.

He just always seemed like the type of guy who's passionate in justice...on the surface, and underneath it he's not so strong-principled.

What do you folks think?

I think that that irony is the point of the whole movie. Batman has alway had that "we're both the same you know" hero/villain duality. Or as it was put in this movie: you either die a hero, or live long enough to become the villain.

Basically you're saying you see it that Wayne wanted to put Dent up on a pedestal of being that great defender of Gotham, even despite every single--albeit many of them subtle-- indication that he was totally unqualified for such a level of gravitas?

To me, it seemed pretty clear from the start that there was something wrong with Dent—that all he needed was “just one bad day” to become the villain. And, of course, Joker gave him his bad day.


At first, I think Bruce Wayne was willfully blind to Dent’s flaws because he wanted Dent to become Gotham’s hero so that he could stop being Batman…

Later, he covered up/took the blame for Dent’s crimes because …well, one of the themes of this series is the power of symbols, legends, etc…

No matter what Dent was in reality, to the people of Gotham, Dent was a symbol of goodness, integrity, and justice in a city full of corruption. To expose him as a murderer would has been a crushing blow to a city of the verge of turning itself around.


PS

If you want a tragic TwoFace origin, watch BTAS.

Now, there was a show that could do tragic villians....

Wasn't part of the point in the movie that people already thought that he had a side was angry and dark, people were calling him Two face behind his back after all. The public only saw good side, and not how much of a sociopath he could be, I hear that sociopaths are said to be really good in things like law, where they always believe that they are right. Personally I think that I would have rathered him show more Two face behavior, as the supervillain persona had such a small appearance.

Oh, and I did not like the bad half face, mostly because it should have greatly messed up his speech, and it looked impractical that he could lose his entire eye lid, but not damage his eye.

I think you both make incredible points, and yeah Goonsquad, that's what I've been saying as well: it seemed like deep down, he was Two Face from the word "go".

Maybe as Bradleigh said though that was supposed to be the point.

Maybe the reason we don't tend to see his "fall" as tragic as opposed to our NT counterparts is because they're used to praising sociopathic behavior, and after a while we can see it for the BS it is?

I'm just trying to view this from all sides here.

I actually agree with you here.

Everyone bar the people in TDK saw him as a sort of bent cop who was apparently the Angel of Gotham.

How ironic that the guy who's real name is "Robin" would be the underestimated cop that would be the hero of Gotham in the sequel...

It makes you wonder how Bruce Wayne is so blind in the Nolan films regarding who is truly good or someone who has potential, but has a dark side.

Nolan's Films annoy me in that way actually, where certain characters in the films are supposed to fill out their roles but the characters who witness them are so blind at their apparent traits it's not funny.

I can understand Bruce's reasons, as these characters are new to them...but even then, anyone can read their intentions even if they based these characters off of their debut in the comics.

I knew Harvey was going to be Two Face, but the Joker to actually make him that was not surprising.

I already knew that he was going to become Two-Face when I first saw the movie, and since I knew that, I spotted some foreshadowing that reveals that there's something not quite right about him. But if I hadn't already known that, it's possible that I wouldn't have noticed the foreshadowing at all. My interpretation is that he has some psychological problems right from the start of the movie.

Well personally when you see his behaviors when he was conversing with Rachel, to me it seemed he was trying to hide something.
Not the time when they were both strapped in chairs but before that...
Mind the intention was to make Harvey clean and law worthy with no issues... plus it only took something that he lost (Rachel) due to injustice and failure on those he felt were responsible for the death of Rachel.
All he needed was a push in that direction, Joker always had his eye on him to turn him to his side.

Lately, I've been rereading Batman: Year One, The Man Who Laughs, The Long Halloween, and Dark Victory.

Together, these books cover the first 4-5 years of Batman's career in the modern canon and they serve as inspiration for Nolan's films.

In Year One Harvey Dent is Batman's first ally (Jim Gordon is actually hunting him). In the book, Dent is depicted as "honest" but very aggressive and unscrupulous. For example, he lets a drug dealer post bond just so Batman can beat him and coerce him into turning state's evidence...

In The Long Halloween, it's actually Batman and Dent who find a mob owned warehouse full of money, and they're the ones who torch it...

Dent also makes positive comments about the mobsters being murdered much to the shock and displeasure of Jim Gordon. Overall, Jim Gordon acts as the moral restraint for both Batman and Dent in that book. Much like Dent in The Dark Knight, all it takes for Dent to become Two-Face in The Long Halloween is a few facial scars...

Dent in the movies is actually a lot like Dent in the comics.

I think that was actually a Schumacher movie... and I'm not sure if I ever saw it.



As for BTAS, yes it was definitely the most "tragic" version of Dent/TwoFace as far as I know.

I'm not sure if there are any other versions in the comics, but I'm pretty sure The Long Halloween is the official version.

I gotcha... I have not seen any of those movies in a loooonnnggg time.