A NOLAN TRADEMARK OR MERE COINCIDENCE???

[OVERMAN]

Ellie is also a good female character I reckon, Nolan doesn't hate woman as the guy said above, they create a powerful emotional reaction.

[Sara]

So I don't think it is as if "I hate women so let us do this," but I think it is more "This is the best way to get the full range of emotions from my character."

Agreed. I think also, he's said before that when he writes he tends to use his own reactions and imagined reactions to things as his starting point. So, going from that, I would think he's thinking What is the worst possible thing that could happen to me, a large catastrophic event that I would struggle to come to terms with and effect me deeply? and finding that the answer is my wife dying/something awful happening to her, and so uses that as a plot device to get the aforementioned range of emotions from his leading male characters, as well as something that the audience as a whole can connect with. He's used dead parents in a similar way, can't off the top of my head think of any dead children situations, although there is a children in peril moment in TDK.

Anyway, on the subject of dead women... Did everyone see this? http://sarahdobbs.wordpress.com/2010/07 ... igerators/ it's all a bit haters-gonna-hate , but she does at least point out that the dead women as plot device thing isn't unique to him.

[Mr.Hmmm]

*His films' protagonists have mostly lost their loved ones &/or failed in love, a circumstance that causes them turn into malevolent &/or apathetic forever. (e.g. Leonard in Memento (2000) has lost his wife in a brutal murder in the past, Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins (2005) has lost Rachel Dawes' faith in him throughout the film, Borden in The Prestige (2006) does not get his wife's love because of his character's 'act' in the movie and Angier loses his beloved in a mishap during a magic trick, Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight (2008) loses Rachel as well as Bruce Wayne is not able to win her love back)

Also Batman villians had wife issues. Ra's said: "I wasn't here always in the mountains. Once I had a wife. She was taken from me." The Joker: "Once I had a wife, beautiful...like you."

[OVERMAN]

ha ha the joker was prebably joking but yeah, and it's funny that you mention it cause' in "the killing joke", probably the best joker story ever told he had a wife and was normal once, maybe this spired the Nolans to write that piece of dialogue.