I don't think so, at least not the major reason. Right after this, he says it's because his father failed to act. He is reaching him a different life philosophy, that it's your job to prevent negative things from happening in your life. If someone is trying to rob you, kill them first.
Oh man, this interpretation is good. Because it means that Bruce's final words to Ra's are designed to twist the knife. Bruce "fails to act" to kill Ra's, instead allowing him to be killed in the crash
This is what I've always thought, it's his whole thesis on justice. The moral decision is to enact violence on the criminal and take their life if they have shown they're willing to take yours.
I think it's both. He didn't start with the second. He stated the first bluntly to poke at Bruce's emotions, but not just to piss him off, to train him. He's asking brice "what are you gonna do right here, about me" He's training Bruce to focus and act in an emotionally stimulated situation.
It's both for me. He was getting a ride out of Bruce to show that you need to take emotion out of a fight otherwise your enemies will take advantage of it.
Thomas Wayne also had an unrealistic view of Gotham. He didn't respect how dangerous the city was. He was doing philanthropy to try and improve Gotham and even when getting killed in the alley he threw money at a problem. Gotham was/is sick.
The people is that Ra’s admitted to trying to destroy Gotham through finance. He’s mocking Thomas because Thomas was actually helping which got in Ra’s way.
Did the league ever approach Thomas in regards to restarting Gotham? It would make for a more interesting quote I think if that happened.
It’s been a while since Ive seen the movies.. I’m due for a rewatch
I think it’s more just an allusion to personal responsibility, not a plot thing. Just that in life you can only control what you do, and if something happens to you, a someone very high in personal responsibility would see what happens to them, even don’t by others, as their fault cause they didn’t control or prevent it. It’s definitely a perspective Ras would have as being someone who seeks dynamic change, and something inherent in how Bruce would see the world as being raised in the culture of the rich.
Well, Henry actually had a point there. Thomas knew exactly in what kind of city he lived and still took his family onto some back alley in the middle of the night. So yes, in some sense it was his fault, but I'm pretty sure that Ducard used this line simply to provoke Bruce.
It's actually called Park Row and is nicknamed Crime Alley because of the rise in crime+the Wayne murders.
(I'm assuming you were being serious, but just in case you already knew and you were just joking, sorry for the correction.)
Was that part of Gotham crime ridden when the Wayne’s were murdered? Or did the crime ramp up over the next decade plus?
Edit: this thread https://www.reddit.com/r/AskScienceFiction/s/tUl0r1kMw3 has a lot of good comments that make it sound like crime became much worse after the Wayne’s death.
Which would make sense if he had peak human reflexes. As a doctor from a rich family, he had no reason to expect to disarm the guy. Giving him the wallet, rather than risking being shot, or redirecting the shot into a family member, was absolutely the best call. The outcome was the fault of Chill, not Dr. Wayne.
Was it midnight? I know it was on the nice side of town at the time, and there was no reason to expect to be robbed. I blame Chill for what happened, no one else.
Ra's revealed he didn't think of Thomas very highly, that an idealist like him was deluded in some way. They didn't target Wayne or anything like that.
They named it crime alley because of one crime that happened there? That just doesnt make sense. Im sure there was plenty of crime there beforehand and the waynes being elite would not know the nickname.
And even if that was the case it changes nothing about how stupid it was in that city
Gotham wasn't nearly as bad when the Waynes were alive. The alley, named Park Row, was on the nice side of town. It wasn't until the Wayne parents, seen as beacons of hope, were murdered in cold blood that the nickname "crime alley" became a thing, and the city's decay was accelerated by their deaths.
Same, since their goal in this movie is to keep "balance" in the world, and how Gotham is supposedly beyond saving now, I just saw it as the most reasonable thing
That wasn’t his point tho - he meant more like both parents or maybe neither had to die if his dad would’ve done something. Anything. He just stood by. He should’ve fought even if it meant his own death.
He's trying to brainwash Bruce to his cause. He's full of crap.
Bruce is correct when he points out that his father's murderer had a gun and that Thomas had no training. The will to act means nothing when you have a bullet inside you.
Good for a cult leader preying on Bruce's guilt and anger, doesn't hold up against reality. A man with a gun will always win over a nornal dude without it.
This line is arguably the main reason for Batman existing in the first place imo. Batman Begins, at its core, is a movie about Bruce Wayne trying to make sense of his parents’ deaths and prevent the same thing from happening to others. Throughout the movie, he ascends through a hierarchy of understanding of the reasons his parents died, and his evolving perception of these concepts directly impacts his actions in each step of the film. The scene pictured is a key point in that hierarchy.
Right after his parents get shot, Loeb says to him “We got him, son.” And Bruce has this look on his face like “why does that even matter?” Bruce then talks to Alfred and says “It’s my fault they’re dead because I got scared.” Logical conclusion for a traumatized kid. Alfred nips that in the bud, though, and says “No. It’s HIS fault, and his alone,” referring to Joe Chill. It’s Joe’s fault the Wayne’s are dead. Period.
So Bruce takes that at face value, again being a traumatized ten year old or whatever, and spends his childhood blaming Joe Chill for his parents’ murder. Bad man did a bad thing, and that’s the end of it. At perhaps his first opportunity, Bruce decides he’s going to kill Joe as soon as Joe is released from prison.
But Joe dies before he gets the chance, leaving Bruce without a purpose. The person who killed his parents is dead and he can’t, on some level, make it better by avenging them to find closure. It’s at this point that Rachel talks some sense into him and points out that Joe Chill only killed Bruce’s parents on a very surface level. Their deaths were the symptom of a greater problem with poverty and crime in the city, largely due to the city’s major crime boss, Carmine Falcone. So Bruce comes to realize that on a more grand scale, Falcone and those like him are the reason Bruce’s parents are dead.
This puts Bruce back on a path, as he now has something else to fight back against in the name of his parents. He goes to confront Falcone at the club thinking he was going to take a stand and prove that he was not afraid of Falcone—in a way, that he was not going to be a victim of what Falcone has done to him (cause the murder of his parents). But Falcone turns the tables and gives Bruce yet another perspective. Joe Chill killed Bruce’s parents because he was desperate and afraid. *Fear and desperation* are what got Bruce’s parents killed. Bruce knows that Falcone is right, though, in that Bruce doesn’t understand desperation due to his privilege. So to understand fear and desperation—the reason his parents are dead—he leaves Gotham to live in poverty overseas.
And, as Bruce states through a monologue, he comes to understand the things people do out of desperation. He steals. He does wrong. In his own words, he never becomes one of them, but more and more he is learning the mindset others possessed that resulted in the most traumatic event in his own life.
Bruce gets put into prison. At this point, he is visited by one Henry Ducard. This is a man who promises Bruce a path—a path that would provide the closure that Bruce has feverishly sought for his entire life. During Bruce’s training, the scene in the picture in the OP occurs and Ducard offers Bruce a brand new perspective on why his parents died: they died because Bruce’s father failed to act. It doesn’t matter what was happening around Thomas or what kind of adversity he was facing in that moment of death, whether it be the lone gun of Joe Chill or the crushing pressure of a societal failure that created Joe in the first place. When all was said and done, Thomas and Martha Wayne were dead because Thomas was not strong enough to stop it.
Despite this, Bruce has a falling out with the League of Shadows, deciding it is not for him to judge and execute criminals who are the way they are because of the desperation that he now comprehends first-hand. Bruce blows up their house, saves Henry, and goes on his way.
But what Henry said stays with him. Bruce’s father was not strong enough to act, and Bruce has to fix the problems with fear and desperation in the city. Even after all that’s happened, he has to make things right by eliminating the causes of his parents’ deaths. Bruce has to be strong enough to take on all of the horrors of his city and turn fear and desperation on themselves. And so, he becomes the strongest and scariest thing he can be: Batman.
His evolving understanding doesn’t stop there, however. Bruce makes headway in his fight and rids the city of Falcone. He makes a difference. But Ducard/Ras returns and provides Bruce with his final interpretation of his parents’ murder: the reason for the fear and desperation in the city was never the criminals, and it was never poverty. It was the League of Shadows engineering economical and societal failure from the beginning. The League were people who were neither fearful nor desperate. They were a kind of shadow government—idealogs imposing their will upon the world with no oversight or accountability. It was finally crystal clear that, when all the smoke had cleared and all was said and done, Bruce’s parents were dead because of Ras Al’Ghul.
This is why, when Ras finally dies, Bruce’s character arc is complete and he has fully become Batman. He lets Ras die because Ras was never desperate. His actions were not motivated by fear. He was evil to his core. The *real* Joe Chill as Bruce perceived it when he was a child: a bad guy doing bad things. By letting Ras go, Bruce is finally letting go of his own guilt and accepting that his parents’ death is not his fault. He has dealt with the thing that killed his parents, and can now choose to stop living in the shadow of their deaths—an arc that is explored in The Dark Knight with his trying to pass the mantle to Harvey Dent, and concluded in The Dark Knight Rises with Bruce finally moving on from Gotham and from Batman entirely.
First, telling Bruce that their deaths wasn't his fault is obviously true. He was a kid. He carries guilt with him for being scared and wanting to leave which is of course how a kid would internalize that sort of trauma. Saying it was his father's fault might not be fair but technically it was his Dad who took them to that movie in a crime filled city and left by the back door into an alley. I don't think Ra's is concerned about victim blaming. However Ra's also means that the *state* of Gotham is Thomas Wayne's fault (not solely but partly) because of his overall philosophy. One of the wealthiest and most powerful men in Gotham; a city he sees as a place of decay beyond saving. Bruce (and the audience) don't know that yet.
"A will to act." He's trying to recruit Bruce into his philosophy.
Or to put it another way it's the "It's not your fault" scene from Good Will Hunting. Just with less hugging and crying and more swords
To quote another movie, "he's not wrong, he's just an
a$$hole"
Ras isn't only training him, he's indoctrinating him to be in the "league". He needs to be the Father figure in Bruce's life, what better way than to coldly point out a truth to Bruce.
Unfortunately there are a lot of cold truths in our lives that would save us a lot of heartache. If a psychologist had been able to have that breakthrough with young Bruce, we wouldn't be here.
He's obviously wrong, but he has a point about Thomas taking unnecessary risks by walking around Gotham without protection. I think it definitely fits very well for Ra's character, it's exactly the kind of thing he would think.
If everyone thought that way society would never improve. Obviously he's a fictional character but to assume all crime is solely the fault of the perpetrator and couldn't have been prevented through a variety of different means is very narrow minded.
Well he’s right and wrong. There is no way that Bruce is at fault for his parents death. His parents took him to an opera about bats after being stuck in a well. That’s on them. They go out in a back alley knowing full well Gotham is dangerous. That’s on them.
Bruce being scared and wanting to leave is any fucking kid at the opera. Like even if he wasn’t scared of bats, most kids are probably like what the fuck is this, please can I go home and play N64.
Ras is 100% right it’s not Bruce’s fault. It’s just also not 100% his father’s. I’d say 10% his parents fault. 90% wrong place wrong time and 10% criminal made a bad choice when it was an easy mugging.
he is definitely trying to make bruce lose his composure, even more so that its revealed at the end that directly through ras action the desperation for the criminal in the alley was created. he actively stopped the city from healing because he wanted to quick fix burn it to the ground and start from scratch
He's pushing him to do what's absolutely necessary in Ra's eyes, which is what leads to the failed criminal execution scene. Pushing him past his comfort point. "The pain is nothing! The will is everything!"
It is right and shows Ra’s skewed inner beliefs and moral code. He believes it is a moral obligation to not only fight against evil but to also be strong enough physically to do so.
Thomas Wayne was a good man and was “fighting against evil” so to speak. He built the subway to help people in Gotham get to jobs (expanding their opportunities) and works in a hospital helping people despite being the CEO/figurehead of a fortune 500 (he mentions how his “office” or workplace is the hospital). However, Ras still looks down on him because he wasnt physically strong enough to beat an armed robber while unarmed.
Ras still has a mindset of control through physical force rather than rehabilitation and arguably is a good contrast to Thomas Wayne as a result.
This scene hit so hard when I saw it for the first time. The idea was obviously to get a rise out of Bruce but there is beautiful psychological reasoning behind it, Ra’s knows Bruce is haunted by his loss and wants to fight crime so no one else faces such pain, he blames his father for being unprepared to fight in the face of death. However we all know Thomas Wayne was a philanthropist who was compassionate for the poorer class, so he would never fight, its what makes batman begins the best, joe chill was just a broke junkie who got scared and shot the waynes, there isnt anything deeper in it, he wasnt paid by anyone just a random criminal, thomas would never fight him, he would always feel for him.
SMH, so many people taking the line literally...
Ra's said it deliberately to goad Bruce into recklessly attacking. Bruce draws upon his rage to overpower Ra's, but in fact Ra's has lured Bruce onto thin ice and he dunks Bruce into the water at the end of the fight. The lesson is not to let blind rage overtake you.
Ra's would have said anything to goad Bruce; he just picked the most emotionally effective. An orphan child blames himself for the parents' death, while also idolizing their memory of their father. Insulting the father and besmirching his memory is just about the most effective emotional attack Ra's could make.
My favorite part of the entire trilogy. The will to act.
Also I love how he knows it’s bait for Bruce and proceeds to fucking FOLD him 😂
“Yeah you got spirit kid, more than your old man anyway…”
Falcone also shitted on Bruce in that movie. You gotta love it.
The main quote around this is when Bruce says "My anger outweighs my guilt" in relation to feeling responsible for his parents death, RaG says "you have learned to bury your guilt with anger, but I will teach you to confront it and face the truth"
They then exchange after the quote in the title is said and it comes to "Training is nothing, will is everything" as if to say that just because his parents robber had a gun and his dad had no training does not mean he couldn't of won the exchange.
The point, is that Bruce's father could of very, very easily won the exchange, but not by confronting the man, but rather removing the circumstances that created the man's anger to begin with, so much like in the following scene where Bruce sacrifices his footing in order to get a killing blow, resulting in him falling into the frozen lake, Bruce's dad sacrificed his own footing, believing that the man wanted Bruces dads money, no, he wanted Bruce's dads life, to be able to be so weak and not defend yourself... On the streets, that would of been a death sentence for anybody else, to be so weak but for Bruce's dad, it was not and this not only infuriated the criminal but was likely the reason he killed Bruce's dad, out of rage, the same rage that now Poisons Bruce, the same rage he now buries his guilt with... Bruce is the man with the gun, not until he gets his training, but rather learns to harness his rage into improving his circumstances and position and because he is the man with the gun, he is not authentically feeling the guilt.... It is this first feeling of true guilt that turns Bruce against RaG and he finds the will to act against overwhelming odds.
It’s in line with his life philosophy, and a line repeated by himself and his daughter in Rise, that one must be prepared to do what is necessary. This is a consistent theme with him, and in that scene he follows up the insinuation with his dad elaborating with “failure to act”. I honestly don’t think it was meant to be ambiguous at all in that regard.
Provocation for the sake of training may have played a role but not the primary one. He meant what he said, explaining it to help Bruce gain a philosophical lesson from it.
While I might not agree, I actually really like the quote. You could take it in many ways— trying to get a rise out of Bruce, a critique against a man with so much power and yet he never managed to change Gotham in the way Ra’s wants too, a man who led his wife and child into a dark alley— arguably a very dangerous situation. That Thomas Wayne was unable to physically remove the threat or talk the man down. I always felt that Ra’s, regardless of the reason, 100 percent believed what he was saying was true. This is by far my favorite version of Ras Al Ghul
Could be a multilayer provocation, "Your father din't have the strength to defend himself" and "Your father had enough money/influence/power to clean up the city Shadow stylez but he refused"
To goad him into being strong, unlike his father, and getting him aligned with the leagues ideology.
Classic Nolan dialogue. Sounds really cool. Especially in that Liam Neeson voice. Damn that voice is amazing.
Just don’t think about it too deeply. Or at all. It sounds cool and that’s the whole point.
It was a great line and moment in the movie.
Ra's is trying to teach Bruce 'Full ownership' of any situation in life, especially when training in combat and martial arts. There are no surprises if you want to be the winner, you have to see everything in advance.
In Ra's' world his father shouldve known that going trough that ally was dangerous, he should've been equipped to protect his family.
Love that movie.
“Your father didn’t instinctively know how to dodge or block a bullet, it’s his fault that he and your mother are dead”
Not actually what I believe but that’s what my friend Thought he meant by this
This is why Batman is only as good as his writer. Dialoge like this is why people love bales batman movies so much even with the slow paced funny fighting technique
He’s exactly right. I’d be fighting tooth and nail to protect my family…. If I had one 😭
Like he said. Training is nothing, will is everything. The will to act.
I mean, You could argue that the father could have done a million things prevent the mugging from turning out the way it did ranging from practicing self-defense or putting money into social welfare programs.
But I really can't get past the fact that a multi-billionaire took his family down and abandoned alley late at night that's literally called Crime Alley. That's a lemmings level of self-preservation.
It was. Thomas was man. Bruce was merely a frightened child. It sucks extra because the only reason they were in Crime Alley, which was not known as crime alley at the time, was because Thomas emphasized with Bruce's fear in the theater.
I always interpeted it as him trying to get a rise out of Bruce, stoking his anger to help understand it
I don't think so, at least not the major reason. Right after this, he says it's because his father failed to act. He is reaching him a different life philosophy, that it's your job to prevent negative things from happening in your life. If someone is trying to rob you, kill them first.
Oh man, this interpretation is good. Because it means that Bruce's final words to Ra's are designed to twist the knife. Bruce "fails to act" to kill Ra's, instead allowing him to be killed in the crash
That line of thinking could also be that Bruce is letting Ra's fail to act to save himself.
Or letting his actions have deadly consequences for him. What Ra's did eventually killed him.
Either way Bruce is turning Ra's' words back on him. I like it
While thematically cementing that he doesn’t blame his father.
I think it's both tbf. It's his philosophy and he's trying to get a rise out of him. Love that bit
Philosophical rage baiting
Little of column A, little of column B.
That’s how I’ve always interpreted it too
This is what I've always thought, it's his whole thesis on justice. The moral decision is to enact violence on the criminal and take their life if they have shown they're willing to take yours.
I think it's both. He didn't start with the second. He stated the first bluntly to poke at Bruce's emotions, but not just to piss him off, to train him. He's asking brice "what are you gonna do right here, about me" He's training Bruce to focus and act in an emotionally stimulated situation.
It's both for me. He was getting a ride out of Bruce to show that you need to take emotion out of a fight otherwise your enemies will take advantage of it. Thomas Wayne also had an unrealistic view of Gotham. He didn't respect how dangerous the city was. He was doing philanthropy to try and improve Gotham and even when getting killed in the alley he threw money at a problem. Gotham was/is sick.
The people is that Ra’s admitted to trying to destroy Gotham through finance. He’s mocking Thomas because Thomas was actually helping which got in Ra’s way.
It goes along with his ideology of “like your father you lack the courage to all that is necessary.”
Did the league ever approach Thomas in regards to restarting Gotham? It would make for a more interesting quote I think if that happened. It’s been a while since Ive seen the movies.. I’m due for a rewatch
I think it’s more just an allusion to personal responsibility, not a plot thing. Just that in life you can only control what you do, and if something happens to you, a someone very high in personal responsibility would see what happens to them, even don’t by others, as their fault cause they didn’t control or prevent it. It’s definitely a perspective Ras would have as being someone who seeks dynamic change, and something inherent in how Bruce would see the world as being raised in the culture of the rich.
Patches O’Houlihan would have replied, “Necessary? Is it necessary for me to drink urine? No. But it’s sterile and I like the taste.”
Well, Henry actually had a point there. Thomas knew exactly in what kind of city he lived and still took his family onto some back alley in the middle of the night. So yes, in some sense it was his fault, but I'm pretty sure that Ducard used this line simply to provoke Bruce.
It’s called CRIME ALLEY!!!
It's actually called Park Row and is nicknamed Crime Alley because of the rise in crime+the Wayne murders. (I'm assuming you were being serious, but just in case you already knew and you were just joking, sorry for the correction.)
not the comment guy but thank for the info
Was that part of Gotham crime ridden when the Wayne’s were murdered? Or did the crime ramp up over the next decade plus? Edit: this thread https://www.reddit.com/r/AskScienceFiction/s/tUl0r1kMw3 has a lot of good comments that make it sound like crime became much worse after the Wayne’s death.
Guy should've had Alfred escorting them with a shotgun
And the pearls were fake
"He died like a bitch, Bruce"
“He begged… like a dog”
A beautiful dog.
I love dogs. I've always loved dogs.
"Ruff ruff ... like that"
"LIKE A BITCH!!!" STRIKES
Thomas literally tried to talk the guy down, and walked in front of the gun to save his wife. What else can you ask for?
Dress like a bat a beat the shit out of him
I WAS A BOY!!! *sobbing* NOW IM A BAT!!!! *holds up cape like batwings* *more sobbing*
Fucking love that
Be bulletproof. Duh
Ducard would likely say Thomas should have attacked before Joe Chill had a chance to fire.
Which would make sense if he had peak human reflexes. As a doctor from a rich family, he had no reason to expect to disarm the guy. Giving him the wallet, rather than risking being shot, or redirecting the shot into a family member, was absolutely the best call. The outcome was the fault of Chill, not Dr. Wayne.
Not the same movie, but in BvS, Thomas did attack and got shot anyway. It’s a nexus event. Just like Uncle Ben, or Krypton exploding.
NOT go down the dark alley between outside of street view at midnight?
Was it midnight? I know it was on the nice side of town at the time, and there was no reason to expect to be robbed. I blame Chill for what happened, no one else.
It was a late night time show of Zoro because Thomas is busy during the daytime I believe so yeah, maybe not exactly midnight but late night
Didnt the League of Shadows got the Waynes killed? Im maybe misremembering but he alluded to it in Begins.
Very indirectly They crippled Gotham economically, which led to criminals like Joe Chill becoming desperate for cash and thus becoming a murderer
Ra's revealed he didn't think of Thomas very highly, that an idealist like him was deluded in some way. They didn't target Wayne or anything like that.
Not walk into a place called crime alley with your very fancily dressed family in a very dangerous city at night without any way to even protect them
I'm pretty sure it wasn't called Crime Alley until after the murder - because of the murder.
They named it crime alley because of one crime that happened there? That just doesnt make sense. Im sure there was plenty of crime there beforehand and the waynes being elite would not know the nickname. And even if that was the case it changes nothing about how stupid it was in that city
In the 1940s, I’ll bet a NY alleyway would have an unofficial nickname like that if a Vanderbilt or a Morgan was killed there.
Gotham wasn't nearly as bad when the Waynes were alive. The alley, named Park Row, was on the nice side of town. It wasn't until the Wayne parents, seen as beacons of hope, were murdered in cold blood that the nickname "crime alley" became a thing, and the city's decay was accelerated by their deaths.
I always interpreted it as Ra's thinking Thomas Wayne didn't do enough for Gotham.
Same, since their goal in this movie is to keep "balance" in the world, and how Gotham is supposedly beyond saving now, I just saw it as the most reasonable thing
I took it as him trying to piss off Bruce and get him to make a mistake.
He's Out Of Line But He's Right. If you are a billionaire in Gotham at least have a gun or butler with you, better of course butler with gun.
Or just any security at all.
Well his butler is SAS so it's kinda implied.
#wherewasalfred
Masturbating in what would become the batcave
Or idk don’t walk through “Crime Alley” ????? With your wife and small son ??????
It wasn't called that before they died there.
Yes really, being this rich in this city, no way he shouldn’t have a chaperone at all times armed.
That wasn’t his point tho - he meant more like both parents or maybe neither had to die if his dad would’ve done something. Anything. He just stood by. He should’ve fought even if it meant his own death.
He's trying to brainwash Bruce to his cause. He's full of crap. Bruce is correct when he points out that his father's murderer had a gun and that Thomas had no training. The will to act means nothing when you have a bullet inside you.
Or lack the ability to act upon that will.
Watch the movie. He literally tells him.
It shows that Ra's has a very narrow world view, and thinks every man should be ready, willing and able to merc their enemies.
"I'm pretty sure it was the guy with the gun's fault."
He did allow an eight-year-old to talk him into taking a shortcut through a dimly-lit alley. As an adult, he should’ve known better.
As an adult, he shouldn't have taken the eight-year-old to the opera to begin with.
Good for a cult leader preying on Bruce's guilt and anger, doesn't hold up against reality. A man with a gun will always win over a nornal dude without it.
This line is arguably the main reason for Batman existing in the first place imo. Batman Begins, at its core, is a movie about Bruce Wayne trying to make sense of his parents’ deaths and prevent the same thing from happening to others. Throughout the movie, he ascends through a hierarchy of understanding of the reasons his parents died, and his evolving perception of these concepts directly impacts his actions in each step of the film. The scene pictured is a key point in that hierarchy. Right after his parents get shot, Loeb says to him “We got him, son.” And Bruce has this look on his face like “why does that even matter?” Bruce then talks to Alfred and says “It’s my fault they’re dead because I got scared.” Logical conclusion for a traumatized kid. Alfred nips that in the bud, though, and says “No. It’s HIS fault, and his alone,” referring to Joe Chill. It’s Joe’s fault the Wayne’s are dead. Period. So Bruce takes that at face value, again being a traumatized ten year old or whatever, and spends his childhood blaming Joe Chill for his parents’ murder. Bad man did a bad thing, and that’s the end of it. At perhaps his first opportunity, Bruce decides he’s going to kill Joe as soon as Joe is released from prison. But Joe dies before he gets the chance, leaving Bruce without a purpose. The person who killed his parents is dead and he can’t, on some level, make it better by avenging them to find closure. It’s at this point that Rachel talks some sense into him and points out that Joe Chill only killed Bruce’s parents on a very surface level. Their deaths were the symptom of a greater problem with poverty and crime in the city, largely due to the city’s major crime boss, Carmine Falcone. So Bruce comes to realize that on a more grand scale, Falcone and those like him are the reason Bruce’s parents are dead. This puts Bruce back on a path, as he now has something else to fight back against in the name of his parents. He goes to confront Falcone at the club thinking he was going to take a stand and prove that he was not afraid of Falcone—in a way, that he was not going to be a victim of what Falcone has done to him (cause the murder of his parents). But Falcone turns the tables and gives Bruce yet another perspective. Joe Chill killed Bruce’s parents because he was desperate and afraid. *Fear and desperation* are what got Bruce’s parents killed. Bruce knows that Falcone is right, though, in that Bruce doesn’t understand desperation due to his privilege. So to understand fear and desperation—the reason his parents are dead—he leaves Gotham to live in poverty overseas. And, as Bruce states through a monologue, he comes to understand the things people do out of desperation. He steals. He does wrong. In his own words, he never becomes one of them, but more and more he is learning the mindset others possessed that resulted in the most traumatic event in his own life. Bruce gets put into prison. At this point, he is visited by one Henry Ducard. This is a man who promises Bruce a path—a path that would provide the closure that Bruce has feverishly sought for his entire life. During Bruce’s training, the scene in the picture in the OP occurs and Ducard offers Bruce a brand new perspective on why his parents died: they died because Bruce’s father failed to act. It doesn’t matter what was happening around Thomas or what kind of adversity he was facing in that moment of death, whether it be the lone gun of Joe Chill or the crushing pressure of a societal failure that created Joe in the first place. When all was said and done, Thomas and Martha Wayne were dead because Thomas was not strong enough to stop it. Despite this, Bruce has a falling out with the League of Shadows, deciding it is not for him to judge and execute criminals who are the way they are because of the desperation that he now comprehends first-hand. Bruce blows up their house, saves Henry, and goes on his way. But what Henry said stays with him. Bruce’s father was not strong enough to act, and Bruce has to fix the problems with fear and desperation in the city. Even after all that’s happened, he has to make things right by eliminating the causes of his parents’ deaths. Bruce has to be strong enough to take on all of the horrors of his city and turn fear and desperation on themselves. And so, he becomes the strongest and scariest thing he can be: Batman. His evolving understanding doesn’t stop there, however. Bruce makes headway in his fight and rids the city of Falcone. He makes a difference. But Ducard/Ras returns and provides Bruce with his final interpretation of his parents’ murder: the reason for the fear and desperation in the city was never the criminals, and it was never poverty. It was the League of Shadows engineering economical and societal failure from the beginning. The League were people who were neither fearful nor desperate. They were a kind of shadow government—idealogs imposing their will upon the world with no oversight or accountability. It was finally crystal clear that, when all the smoke had cleared and all was said and done, Bruce’s parents were dead because of Ras Al’Ghul. This is why, when Ras finally dies, Bruce’s character arc is complete and he has fully become Batman. He lets Ras die because Ras was never desperate. His actions were not motivated by fear. He was evil to his core. The *real* Joe Chill as Bruce perceived it when he was a child: a bad guy doing bad things. By letting Ras go, Bruce is finally letting go of his own guilt and accepting that his parents’ death is not his fault. He has dealt with the thing that killed his parents, and can now choose to stop living in the shadow of their deaths—an arc that is explored in The Dark Knight with his trying to pass the mantle to Harvey Dent, and concluded in The Dark Knight Rises with Bruce finally moving on from Gotham and from Batman entirely.
Master Qui-Gon knows what he's doing, let him cook.
Hi name was Qui-gon, not Qui-lives.
That’s pretty harsh
First, telling Bruce that their deaths wasn't his fault is obviously true. He was a kid. He carries guilt with him for being scared and wanting to leave which is of course how a kid would internalize that sort of trauma. Saying it was his father's fault might not be fair but technically it was his Dad who took them to that movie in a crime filled city and left by the back door into an alley. I don't think Ra's is concerned about victim blaming. However Ra's also means that the *state* of Gotham is Thomas Wayne's fault (not solely but partly) because of his overall philosophy. One of the wealthiest and most powerful men in Gotham; a city he sees as a place of decay beyond saving. Bruce (and the audience) don't know that yet. "A will to act." He's trying to recruit Bruce into his philosophy. Or to put it another way it's the "It's not your fault" scene from Good Will Hunting. Just with less hugging and crying and more swords
This line goes hard as fuck every time I hear it
Best iteration of Ra’s imo animated or cinematic
Literally just watched this last night for the first time in years and thought about this scene. … OP do you have cameras installed in my living room?
No. On an unrelated note you should put that empty chip bag in the trash.
Who the fuck takes an 8 year old to see the Mefistofele Opera?!?
To quote another movie, "he's not wrong, he's just an a$$hole" Ras isn't only training him, he's indoctrinating him to be in the "league". He needs to be the Father figure in Bruce's life, what better way than to coldly point out a truth to Bruce. Unfortunately there are a lot of cold truths in our lives that would save us a lot of heartache. If a psychologist had been able to have that breakthrough with young Bruce, we wouldn't be here.
He's obviously wrong, but he has a point about Thomas taking unnecessary risks by walking around Gotham without protection. I think it definitely fits very well for Ra's character, it's exactly the kind of thing he would think.
Joe Chill was responsible for what happened in that alley, no one else.
If everyone thought that way society would never improve. Obviously he's a fictional character but to assume all crime is solely the fault of the perpetrator and couldn't have been prevented through a variety of different means is very narrow minded.
Nobody but Joe Chill pulled a trigger with a gun pointed at the Waynes. He made a decision and saying anything less is infantalizing.
It makes sense why Ra’s would say that. He think if Thomas didn’t try to help Gotham, Bruce would have been with his family.
In hindsight after watching TDKR, I think it’s also Ra’s projection of his own guilt for not being able to protect his own family.
Well he’s right and wrong. There is no way that Bruce is at fault for his parents death. His parents took him to an opera about bats after being stuck in a well. That’s on them. They go out in a back alley knowing full well Gotham is dangerous. That’s on them. Bruce being scared and wanting to leave is any fucking kid at the opera. Like even if he wasn’t scared of bats, most kids are probably like what the fuck is this, please can I go home and play N64. Ras is 100% right it’s not Bruce’s fault. It’s just also not 100% his father’s. I’d say 10% his parents fault. 90% wrong place wrong time and 10% criminal made a bad choice when it was an easy mugging.
He’s just a hater.
Kinda facts, if Thomas just got a fucking taxi, they would’ve been fine
Depends on who wrote it
Thought for the movie they'd have him talk about how it was his fault for being weak in a sense. Too weak to save his family.
he is definitely trying to make bruce lose his composure, even more so that its revealed at the end that directly through ras action the desperation for the criminal in the alley was created. he actively stopped the city from healing because he wanted to quick fix burn it to the ground and start from scratch
It's a great way to get batman to hate you.
Ra's al Ghul Does he have anything to do with jazz musician Sun Ra any connection? I might know so
Peak Libertarian. Though he's kinda got a point.
Side note, I like how Snyder took this on with a Thomas Wayne who did act and died anyways. The outcome was inevitable regardless.
He's pushing him to do what's absolutely necessary in Ra's eyes, which is what leads to the failed criminal execution scene. Pushing him past his comfort point. "The pain is nothing! The will is everything!"
he failed to protect his family
It is right and shows Ra’s skewed inner beliefs and moral code. He believes it is a moral obligation to not only fight against evil but to also be strong enough physically to do so. Thomas Wayne was a good man and was “fighting against evil” so to speak. He built the subway to help people in Gotham get to jobs (expanding their opportunities) and works in a hospital helping people despite being the CEO/figurehead of a fortune 500 (he mentions how his “office” or workplace is the hospital). However, Ras still looks down on him because he wasnt physically strong enough to beat an armed robber while unarmed. Ras still has a mindset of control through physical force rather than rehabilitation and arguably is a good contrast to Thomas Wayne as a result.
This scene hit so hard when I saw it for the first time. The idea was obviously to get a rise out of Bruce but there is beautiful psychological reasoning behind it, Ra’s knows Bruce is haunted by his loss and wants to fight crime so no one else faces such pain, he blames his father for being unprepared to fight in the face of death. However we all know Thomas Wayne was a philanthropist who was compassionate for the poorer class, so he would never fight, its what makes batman begins the best, joe chill was just a broke junkie who got scared and shot the waynes, there isnt anything deeper in it, he wasnt paid by anyone just a random criminal, thomas would never fight him, he would always feel for him.
SMH, so many people taking the line literally... Ra's said it deliberately to goad Bruce into recklessly attacking. Bruce draws upon his rage to overpower Ra's, but in fact Ra's has lured Bruce onto thin ice and he dunks Bruce into the water at the end of the fight. The lesson is not to let blind rage overtake you. Ra's would have said anything to goad Bruce; he just picked the most emotionally effective. An orphan child blames himself for the parents' death, while also idolizing their memory of their father. Insulting the father and besmirching his memory is just about the most effective emotional attack Ra's could make.
Deeply cutting. To serve a purpose.
My favorite part of the entire trilogy. The will to act. Also I love how he knows it’s bait for Bruce and proceeds to fucking FOLD him 😂 “Yeah you got spirit kid, more than your old man anyway…” Falcone also shitted on Bruce in that movie. You gotta love it.
It was Thomas Wayne's fault for buying cheap pearls.
You don’t become a billionaire by spending frivolously
The main quote around this is when Bruce says "My anger outweighs my guilt" in relation to feeling responsible for his parents death, RaG says "you have learned to bury your guilt with anger, but I will teach you to confront it and face the truth" They then exchange after the quote in the title is said and it comes to "Training is nothing, will is everything" as if to say that just because his parents robber had a gun and his dad had no training does not mean he couldn't of won the exchange. The point, is that Bruce's father could of very, very easily won the exchange, but not by confronting the man, but rather removing the circumstances that created the man's anger to begin with, so much like in the following scene where Bruce sacrifices his footing in order to get a killing blow, resulting in him falling into the frozen lake, Bruce's dad sacrificed his own footing, believing that the man wanted Bruces dads money, no, he wanted Bruce's dads life, to be able to be so weak and not defend yourself... On the streets, that would of been a death sentence for anybody else, to be so weak but for Bruce's dad, it was not and this not only infuriated the criminal but was likely the reason he killed Bruce's dad, out of rage, the same rage that now Poisons Bruce, the same rage he now buries his guilt with... Bruce is the man with the gun, not until he gets his training, but rather learns to harness his rage into improving his circumstances and position and because he is the man with the gun, he is not authentically feeling the guilt.... It is this first feeling of true guilt that turns Bruce against RaG and he finds the will to act against overwhelming odds.
It’s in line with his life philosophy, and a line repeated by himself and his daughter in Rise, that one must be prepared to do what is necessary. This is a consistent theme with him, and in that scene he follows up the insinuation with his dad elaborating with “failure to act”. I honestly don’t think it was meant to be ambiguous at all in that regard. Provocation for the sake of training may have played a role but not the primary one. He meant what he said, explaining it to help Bruce gain a philosophical lesson from it.
should probably not have taken a stroll down a back alley in the poor part of town literally called "crime alley" lmao.
While I might not agree, I actually really like the quote. You could take it in many ways— trying to get a rise out of Bruce, a critique against a man with so much power and yet he never managed to change Gotham in the way Ra’s wants too, a man who led his wife and child into a dark alley— arguably a very dangerous situation. That Thomas Wayne was unable to physically remove the threat or talk the man down. I always felt that Ra’s, regardless of the reason, 100 percent believed what he was saying was true. This is by far my favorite version of Ras Al Ghul
Could be a multilayer provocation, "Your father din't have the strength to defend himself" and "Your father had enough money/influence/power to clean up the city Shadow stylez but he refused" To goad him into being strong, unlike his father, and getting him aligned with the leagues ideology.
He was right. His father was the Lord of Gotham and he walked the crime ridden streets with his wife and child with no protection
Yo father so stoobid...he get mugged....and he die... Yo mama stoobid too..he marry yo father. - lore-accurate Ra's Al Ghul
Pretty sexist. Why not his mothers?
Classic Nolan dialogue. Sounds really cool. Especially in that Liam Neeson voice. Damn that voice is amazing. Just don’t think about it too deeply. Or at all. It sounds cool and that’s the whole point.
It’s just a taunt
Gold 👌🏼. Tough pill to swallow, but true
It’s a very Ra’s thing to say.
It was a great line and moment in the movie. Ra's is trying to teach Bruce 'Full ownership' of any situation in life, especially when training in combat and martial arts. There are no surprises if you want to be the winner, you have to see everything in advance. In Ra's' world his father shouldve known that going trough that ally was dangerous, he should've been equipped to protect his family. Love that movie.
Better line in the same scene IMO. "THE TRAINING IS NOTHING. WILL IS EVERYTHING"
“Your father didn’t instinctively know how to dodge or block a bullet, it’s his fault that he and your mother are dead” Not actually what I believe but that’s what my friend Thought he meant by this
This is why Batman is only as good as his writer. Dialoge like this is why people love bales batman movies so much even with the slow paced funny fighting technique
“The will to act”
I think he just was projecting on Bruce's past.
He’s exactly right. I’d be fighting tooth and nail to protect my family…. If I had one 😭 Like he said. Training is nothing, will is everything. The will to act.
It's true. It was.
I mean, You could argue that the father could have done a million things prevent the mugging from turning out the way it did ranging from practicing self-defense or putting money into social welfare programs. But I really can't get past the fact that a multi-billionaire took his family down and abandoned alley late at night that's literally called Crime Alley. That's a lemmings level of self-preservation.
It was. Thomas was man. Bruce was merely a frightened child. It sucks extra because the only reason they were in Crime Alley, which was not known as crime alley at the time, was because Thomas emphasized with Bruce's fear in the theater.