The Dark Knight

I just saw Batman last night and it was very good. There was one scene especially that really struck me. If you haven't seen the movie yet then go see it before you read this post. It's a great movie, but if you read this first it will spoil a major plot point.

There's one point in the movie where the Joker rigs two ferries up with explosives - a ferry full of prisoners and one full of normal people. Both ferries are dead in the water and unable to off-load passengers. Both ferries also have a detonator, but it's a detonator for the other ferry. If the passengers of either ferry push the button to detonate the other ferry then they will survive. But if neither of the ferries pushes the button then the Joker will blow them both up in 15 minutes.

I want to focus for a moment on the prisoner's ferry. When faced with this choice I envisioned basically two scenarios. First, the prisoners would fight to gain control of the ship and the guards would heroically fight them off to prevent them from getting to the remote detonator. Second, the guards and prisoners would do the same thing, but at some point one of the guards would realize he doesn't want to die and push the button anyway.

The scenario as it ends up playing out has a third option that I'm ashamed to say I didn't even think of. There's a scene where the head prison guard is looking at the detonator among the prisoners, anguishing over the decision. You can tell that he doesn't know what to do, but that he just may push the button. At this point one of the scariest looking criminals comes up to him and offers to 'do what you are afraid to do.' He has killed men and knows what killing men is like. Therefore he can do what the guard wants to do but can't bring himself to do. He says to the guard "I'll do what you should have done 15 minutes ago." The guard gives him the detonator and I lose a little bit of faith in humanity. But then the prisoner surprises everyone by throwing the detonator out the window and I gain that faith back.

He did exactly what the guards should have done 15 minutes ago. And this option never crossed my mind. Even in the scenario where the guards were heroically defending the detonator from the prisoners I think that, placing myself in the shoes of one of the guards, I would have wanted to at least have the option to push the button when it really came down to it. Actions of self-defense are always choosing someone else's death over your own. Some of these scenarios may be more cut-and-dry than this, but it's still basically the same thing - 'I don't want to die, so you will instead.' It's a totally different mindset when the option of violence is ENTIRELY taken off the table. Maybe those loopy pacifists have something there.