# And Where Is the Batman? He's at Home, Washing His Tights! tags: #thoughts/writing You know what? Let's take up this discussion, even though it's been literally beaten to death repeatedly with a crowbar in comic circles over the last 40 years: why *doesn't* the Batman just kill the Joker and save thousands of lives in so doing?  > "But Batman isn't Batman if he kills the Joker." > > No. DC comics just doesn't want to perma end their biggest Cash Cow of a villain so they gaslit their audience into thinking that ending the Joker would make Batman a worse person. > > But after the repeated Mass Murders of innocent people, it's so stupid to day "Can't kill him. It would be wrong." > > Yeah, sure, if the Joker was still Batman:TAS Joker, I'd believe it. > > But he's not. > > Between Jason Todd, Huntress, Catwoman, Azrael, someone should've ended the Joker by now. > > Western Comic Power Creep put a death to my suspension of disbelief. There is relevance to tabletop roleplaying games, I promise. It's actually a really strong and significant relevance. And something that if you play solo games or GM, you need to have some solidly planted in your brain. And that is as follows: all things have an expiration date, but especially plots. There is a certain point beyond which it becomes untenable to maintain a single plot within the context of a story with characters with recognizable human characteristics. In the case of the Batman universe, it makes sense that Batman has a no kill axiom that he will not betray in what is modern comics. Yes, old school Batman used to shoot mobsters all day long and twice on Sunday, but they never expected anything of those characters to have a long-term existence in the context of the narrative — so they didn't. Batman in the modern telling is essentially an emotionally arrested eight year old boy who watched his mother have her brains blown out by a guy in an alley with a pistol. It makes perfect sense that he would never want to kill anyone, even when it is to his personal detriment. In fact, the fact that it is often to his personal detriment and makes things much more complicated is part of why we like Batman as a moral character. It's not a moral choice if you choose the easy way every time. It is fine to have characters who make non-optimal decisions. In fact, it's fine to play characters who make non-optimal decisions. There is a vast well of fun there. The problem, despite what many critics will tell you, is not with the character of the Batman. The problem is with the character of Gotham City. Now we know that inanimate objects and places can be considered to be characters within the context of narrative. The best example available is the Enterprise, which itself is a character within the narrative of the Star Trek universe. It represents certain things. When it shows up on screen, it conveys certain attitudes. It does certain things which are predictable from appearance to appearance. It has a separable character from the people who inhabit it. When it dies, we feel sadness for it. This imbuement with character happens over time in anything that appears repeatedly and consistently in any narrative. Gotham City always started off with its own character. It is very clearly a different place than Metropolis. A deep analysis would suggest that Metropolis and Gotham represent the day and night aspects of New York City as it used to appear in the 70s or 80s (a little bit of both). Gotham City as a character is a rough place. It's run down from what it used to be. It is rough and ready. A dangerous place for dangerous people. It has an air of menace, like a man with a gun standing in a dark alley. Bad things can happen to you there, and probably will. That's why the Batman's iconic image of the dark man in a dark alley or on a dark rooftop is suited to be its champion but without being its avatar. Here's where things go off the rails: The character of Gotham City can countenance a goofy supervillain whose antics run to theft, even theft against the little guy on a regular basis. Kidnapping, sure. Even a little petty violence. The occasional murder, as long as it looks like it was collateral damage and not deliberately intentional. But regular, consistent, serial murder? That's not an issue for the Batman to punish — the city has other means of dealing with something like that, and those “other means” are rationally other criminal elements in the city who won't put up with that kind of thing in their turf. They are bad men, shadowy men, standing in shadowy alleys with big guns. And they are thematically everywhere. The city itself is a big, dark, scary place as a character — but it's not that kind of scary. Batman and Joker as a dynamic make perfect sense when Joker is a heavy duty criminal but not when he's a murderer. There is a certain line beyond which Batman does not cross because to do so would make him no longer Batman. But the context of the city tells us that there are many people who would be willing to cross that line, who would be eager to cross that line, and there is no reason that the Joker existing on the other side of that line should be a stable position for the Joker to be in. In a sense, this is why stories which involve a crossover between Batman and the Punisher are so good. They stand on opposite sides of that line facing each other. They know why the other character acts as they do and understand the fallout of that choice in both directions. But you can't have a story with both the Joker as serial killer and the Punisher or a character willing to step up into the Punisher's place in the same setting. It violates the character of Gotham City for that to be a long-term stable configuration. So let's loop around to tabletop RPGs. What is this in terms of thinking about RPG plots? Remember, everything has an expiration date, including plots. Think about the character of the places and spaces that you introduce in the context of your game, not just at the smallest scale but at the broadest scale. Does your setting really countenance bad people getting away with terrible actions in the long term? Some do! There's nothing wrong with that. You may have an essentially amoral universe, and that is fantastic. There may not be a moral expectation in your world. But if there isn't, be aware that it needs to be clearly stated, either in your own head or openly in the discussion of that setting. Then pull the scale in and think about kingdoms and nations. What is their character? Is it a place that ostensibly looks shiny and clean but is riddled with rot at the roots? Or is it a place which appears to be dark and corroded, but underneath there is a sense of hope and people are actively working to improve the place? Is this in either direction in synchrony with the universe or despite it? Now take the next step down and think about the city. The city itself can have character. What is the mood of the city? How does it portray itself as opposed to how it really is? Are these things the same thing, which is certainly possible? You can get away with violating the nature of a character on the short term as long as you explain it. Your shiny happy city may have a serial killer loose in it. The juxtaposition is part of why it's so interesting as a plot. It works fine on the short term, but once you start looking at the long term, if your shiny happy city has an ongoing serial killer problem, the character of the city changes. The character of the people tied to that city changes. Again, this can be used very well, and it's a perfectly serviceable and even interesting plot to watch the transition of the character of the city change over time as these threats and representations of its opposite manifest. But it needs to be a conscious act and it needs to make sense within the context of the characters involved. The DCU has no good reason that the Joker is still alive. Even if Batman didn't kill him — though that would be a perfectly reasonable departure from character for the Batman (and would have been decades ago) — that someone does not without a good reason grounded in the nature of the city's character violates what we know of that character. Don't be afraid to give your plots or even your characters expiration dates. Be willing to let them go, knowing that you need to let them go. Think ahead of how you want to give them a good sendoff. Make it worthwhile.