Phew, old thread that I didn't see! -jumps right in-
wikoogle wrote:Sane people have a rigid moral core. No, threatening a person or being jealous doesnt mean they don't have a moral core. And that moral core doesn't go away just because a person they love dies. If a person doesn't have a moral core, they will show serious evidence of psychiatric issues well before their 20s. They are never going to suddenly show up in their 40s.
Tens of thousands of people lose loved ones every year. The only ones that go on killing sprees are those who already have a history of psychiatric issues. Thus, Harvey Dent being a completely normal functioning 40 year old man with no history of psychiatric problems at all in the past one moment, and becoming a psychopath who doens't care about who gets hurt, and doesn't even care about killing a child, is not a sensible transition.
Just because they don't show it on screen doesn't mean that he's completely incapable of it.
As I see it, in the movie (as well as the viral marketing storyline/prequel), Harvey was shown as someone whose life never had a misstep. In the ARG, his father died in a work accident, but that's not nearly the same as being shot by a crook. Everything he put his mind to, he was successful at. He never failed. Look at his face when the Mayor asks him if he'd be able to take the heat going after the mob. He's got it all under control.
So, if you have someone like this (type A overachiever), and you threaten to kill (and then actually kill) his girlfriend, burn his face, and oh, it also turns out that all of the cops he attempted to investigate for corruption actually WERE corrupt and had a direct hand in all of the above, it wouldn't be THAT farfetched that his entire life philosophy might change in an instant.
It wasn't just the loss of Rachel and the facial injury, it was him having to face the fact that he did not have everything under control. No matter how hard he tried, he could not change the circumstances he found himself in. He could not save Rachel. He could not get Ramirez or Wuertz off the GPD. He failed. It was the first time he had failed, and it was in a big way. And with Harvey in this delicate state of mind, the Joker pounced and manipulated him to see the world as he did.
He
thought he had a moral code, but it had never been tested. How do you know for sure about someone's moral code if it's never been tested? Judging by how eagerly people wanted to kill Reese and how they talked about blowing up the other boat, it's shown in the film that someone like Gordon and Batman is actually pretty rare.
Abbadon wrote:well... if you think about it... there is a SLIGHT mention of something that could be alusive to HD's phsycological problems. I mean, there's got to be a reason why he was called "two-face" behind his back, it fits his bipolar blackground (it's from the comics too, i know, but there IS an alusion to it on TDK after all)
It's because he investigated a bunch of cops and the police thought he was being "two-faced," putting on a pretty show for the media but being ruthless behind the scenes.
