Why I Don't Believe in Harvey Dent

[The Laughing Fish]

I've always wanted to discuss some of the things that ruined the film for me in depth, so I thought I'd break it down and explain one particular component. I'm talking about Harvey Dent. Warning - this is an extremely long post.

As everybody knows, the film begins with Batman having second thoughts about his impact on Gotham after an incident with copycats. Becoming disturbed that his presence only inspires more vigilantism, Batman believes that Gotham needs a new symbol - one that works within the legal system, and that person is district attorney Harvey Dent. Throughout the film, we're constantly told that Dent is Gotham's "White Knight" – the city's great big hope in decades, and people supposedly admire him.

So what's the problem? Well first of all, we don't get to see Dent doing anything that justifies this reputation as a "White Knight". He has a lot of guts to stand up to the mob, but that is hardly convincing enough to prove that people will admire him. In fact, not only does he come across as rather arrogant for someone whose life is in constant danger, but he is also rather useless without Batman's help. After all, if Batman didn't agree to bring Lau back from Hong Kong, then Dent's case against the Maroni gang wouldn't have gone anywhere. We don't really know anything about Harvey's character at all, other than that he seems to be a dedicated lawyer looking to bring the Maroni mob down.

Secondly, we're told that Bruce Wayne believes that he can retire from being Batman not only because of Rachel (despite she is currently Harvey's girlfriend), but he also believes that Dent and the justice system can take care of crime in Gotham City.  On the contrary, this film actually shows you that Bruce Wayne can never stop being Batman, because not only does he have to save Dent all the time and the Joker remains at large, but there are certain things that Batman can do that the legal system can't i.e. abducting a criminal suspect from overseas. Regardless how good his intentions may be, the film shows that it's not possible for Bruce to end his crime fighting crusade. So how can Dent take over the mantle from Batman as Gotham's heroic symbol?

Another problem I have with Dent's character is despite all the talk about how important he is to Gotham; we never get to see the public's view of him. What are the public's actual perception of Batman and Dent? We don't know because we're never shown. Does the public actually demand for a new symbol or any sort of change? Not really. We get a scene where people are panicking during Dent's public press conference because of the Joker's carnage, but that's it. And even then, they are only reacting out of fear, but they don't look up to Dent as an inspiration. They only demand action to be taken to the stop the bloodshed.

These films talk about symbolism for the people, so how come the people don't have the right to show their point of view? This is a constant problem in all three films by the way. Nolan's films love to explain everything but fail to apply those words into action. And because of this, characters constantly contradict themselves or say things that don't match what's happening on screen. I'm not suggesting that exposition should be avoided. That's not reasonable. After all, Burton's films used exposition to move the story along whenever they needed to e.g. Det. Eckhart telling Jack Napier that he's insane in the first fifteen minutes of B89. We don't see too much insanity in Napier yet but once he becomes the Joker, the exposition stops and we see how unhinged he really is. The point I'm making is that we need to see the actions backing up the exposition. Isn't that the whole point of "show, don't tell"? Otherwise, we're given no reason to believe in Harvey Dent is this great guy.  All we see is an arrogant douche. Nothing he does convinces me that his contribution to society is more crucial than, say, a vigilante who saved the entire town from the League of Shadows.

Of course, the biggest problem with Dent's character is his transformation into Two-Face. It just doesn't work. Not once do we really see him suffer from any believable signs of psychosis before he gets disfigured. As a matter of fact, the first half of the film shows Harvey cracking jokes at his own expense or appears as comedy relief e.g. telling Rachel that he's more nervous being around socialites than mobsters during the penthouse scenes, or punching the crook that turned a gun on him in court. People like to argue that the scene where Dent threatened the Joker's schizophrenic's henchman was a sign, but that's hardly convincing because Dent was distressed when he found out that Joker was targeting Rachel as his next victim, and desperately took matters into own hands by interrogating the man to find the Joker's whereabouts. People in real life do a lot of irrational things when they feel their lives or their loved ones are in danger, but that doesn't necessarily mean that there's something mentally wrong with them. If Dent at least completely lost his mind and viciously assaulted the goon, then perhaps it might have made a bit more believable.

Once Dent is seriously injured and the Joker succeeds in killing Rachel, the character development is incredibly handled badly. Not only is the film so poorly paced because the third act takes place without telling you how much time had passed since Rachel was murdered, but Dent's transformation is rushed too. He suddenly resents Gordon because the commissioner ignored Dent's warnings about the corrupt cops in the Major Crimes Unit earlier on, and it indirectly lead to Rachel and Harvey's tragic outcomes. But at the same time, Dent is manipulated by the Joker – the guy who is responsible for murdering Rachel.

Excuse me, but how the hell does that make any sense?! A couple of minutes earlier, Dent does everything he can to bring the Joker to justice i.e. interrogating the schizophrenic henchman and lying to the public that he's Batman to force Bruce to go after Joker during a car chase. He knows that the Joker is a murdering psychopath and one who especially can't be trusted – never mind the fact that he tried to kill Rachel twice before and eventually succeeded in his second attempt at her life. But now he allows the Joker to trick him into taking out his anger at everyone else that either worked with the Joker or failed to stop him? And at the same time, not really developing his character to make his descent into madness believable? It's bloody ludicrous!

If you ask me, the film was already long enough as it is, and we didn't need to see Two-Face in this movie. If anything, he should've been in the third film where his character development could've grown gradually and naturally. If he became mentally ill over time to the point his loses all grip on reality and eventually became a maniac during the third film, then it would've made more sense. Instead, he was tipped over the edge because the Joker made an incredibly pseudo-intellectual monologue about "chance" and "chaos", and the dumbass Dent not only falls for it, he uses it as his mantra. Say whatever you want about Venom in Spider-Man 3, but Eddie Brock's hatred for Peter Parker is a LOT more plausible compared to this BS. 

Finally, the worst thing about Harvey Dent in TDK (and to a certain extent, Rachel is to blame too) is that he makes Batman's own character development stunted and extremely contrived. How? Because instead of focusing on Batman coming to terms with mistakes he made in the first film (i.e. the recklessness, the killing of who knows how many people in the temple and Ra's al Ghul) and let the hero sort out his own contradictions, learns to become more cunning and actually make up his mind how he really wants to stop lunatics like the Joker, the whole point of Batman in this film is to give up and take the fall for Harvey because of some ludicrous idea that Gotham would lose all hope in humanity because the DA was driven crazy and killed a few people.

Of course, I'd argue the ending betrays Batman's belief about people's inherent goodness at the end of the boat scene, because his decision to take the blame means he doesn't trust how everybody would react to the truth about Harvey. And furthermore, taking the blame for Dent's crimes only contradicts Batman's intentions of becoming a symbol in the first place; in fact, wouldn't that be equally damaging for lots of people who may have looked up to him? Then again, why would anyone become so convinced that the lone vigilante who has been keeping Gotham safe for a year suddenly became a cold-blooded murderer overnight? For that to work, either Robin John Blake is the smartest person in Gotham, or the entire town is full of complete morons. But I digress.

The need to preserve Harvey's supposed reputation as a symbol not only ends the film in a way that leaves the story on an unfinished note with so many questions that remained unanswered to this day (the status surrounding Joker, how was the police complicit to the cover-up and so on), but it further screws up Batman's integrity and requires a ton of suspension of disbelief to make sense of it all. And let's not forget, this stupid ending screwed up the premise for the third film, where the hero is forced out of the action.

In conclusion: fark Harvey Dent! The most annoying douche that ruined TDK for me. If Batman wasn't such a complete moron throughout these films, I'd easily call Dent the worst character in trilogy without hesitation.