Knight of Justice

Forced to witness the murder of his parents at the tender age of seven, Bruce Wayne vowed to protect Gotham City so that never would another have to suffer like him. A hardened vigilante trained in every single martial art known to man; armed with a custom-made Kevlar armor, gadgets, an utility belt and a strategic mind prepped to calculate contingency plans for any possible situation, Batman has waged a crusade to safeguard innocents and deliver criminals to justice. However, there is one thing he won't do in his mission to defend Gotham: Kill.

The Batman franchise has extended itself reaching multiple media outlets producing TV shows, an animated series, video games, comic books and movies each presenting the Caped Crusader in an exclusive light of its own but always retaining a central foundation of moral values revolving around the theme of justice. Batman is justice.

Regardless of the opponent he is facing, whether it be the maniacal Joker or the demented Scarecrow, Batman has forever remained true to his word to never kill, believing every human being, no matter how twisted, how far beyond salvage, deserves a chance to plead at a fair trial, a chance at receiving salvation. Case in point:

Even after all that Joker has done to cause death and destruction, Batman still believed he deserved a chance and he wanted to help, to dig into the Joker's psyche, claw out whatever sanity that maybe left in him to try to save him. Nonetheless, Joker refused. We do not know why, but he refused. Yet, Batman wanted to help.

Embittered by the chaos and violence constantly barraging his life, Bruce Wayne has seen it all and it is a mystery how he has managed to hang on to any sense of normalcy without being driven a deranged, raving lunatic. However, regardless of the modality, the fact of the matter is that he has maintained to preserve his mind and use it for the good of others. And that is the core goal of Batman: fight for the good others, whether they be evil or righteous.

This philosophy is nowhere more pronounced than throughout the plot of the Batman video game, Arkham City.

The story of the video game revolves around the eponymous Arkham City, close to a year after the events of the previous game, Arkham Asylum. Following the events of the preceding title, Quincy Sharpe, formerly the warden of Arkham Asylum, hands over the ownership of his institution to Hugo Strange who then proceeds to expand it over a portion of Old Gotham barricading it off from the main city. The ramifications are absolutely disastrous.

With no supervision, the criminals of Gotham are set loose to roam the decrepit streets of Old Gotham raging war against one another as Arkham City boils into a free-for-all turf-brawl between the fat slugs of Gotham's underbelly: mobster mastermind, Oswald "The Penguin" Cobblepot, fallen tragic hero, Harvey "Two-Face" Dent and unhinged anarchist, the Joker. It is pure and raw pandemonium as Hell descends on Earth leashed only by a flimsy wall, pegged to crumble down any minute, from the helpless, oblivious citizens of Gotham.

The game opens with a cut-scene of Bruce Wayne standing outside the gates of Arkham City protesting against the institution and rallying for the closure of it. Minutes later, he is attacked by TYGER guards and imprisoned within the same complex he was protesting against merely moments ago.

Following the capture, Bruce Wayne is greeted by Hugo Strange who reveals that he knows the former's secret identity along with the ominous declaration that something called Protocol 10 is going to make him famous. After this, the psychiatrist leaves and Bruce hatches his plot to escape, stealing a chip from one of the TYGER guard's communication radios in the process. He is swiftly intercepted and forced to enter through the gates of Arkham City into the main body of the prison where he is rudely welcomed by Cobblepot.

After a brief altercation, Bruce takes out all of Penguin's thugs and calls in Alfred to send in his Batsuit on top of the Ace Chemicals building within Arkham. Following the suit-up, Batman heads to the abandoned courthouse where Two-Face has Catwoman hostage.

Rescuing the latter from the disgraced District Attorney, Batman questions her about Protocol 10. She doesn't know. The rendezvous is interrupted by a bullet aimed at the thief, missing the mark.

Batman tracks down the location from where the bullet was fired using its trajectory and investigates the gun which was being remotely controlled by none other than... the Joker.

The Caped Crusader manages to track down the Clown Prince of Crime down to his hideout at the Sionis Steel Mill but he is soon taken captive, bound and injected with Joker's blood which, he soon learns, is toxic due to overdosing on the TITAN drug a year ago at the Asylum. Joker asks Batman to help him find a cure or else they both will die, along with the rest of Gotham who have also been poisoned thanks to Harley Quinn shipping samples of Joker's blood to all of the city's hospitals.

Joker informs Batman that he tasked Mr. Freeze to make the antidote for the TITAN drug but he has gone missing since. He pleads Batman to find him and acquire the cure. Batman learns Mr. Freeze, unfortunately, is under the custody of the Penguin. The Caped Crusader then goes on to seek out the mob boss who has taken over the old Gotham Museum as his base of operations.

Batman rescues Freeze from the hands of the Penguin but is soon told by the cryogenic doctor that the cure for the TITAN drug is too unstable and will break down inside the human body without the help of an enzyme which the cowled detective identifies as one found in the blood of Ra's al-Ghul, head of the League of Assassins.

Batman tracks down the bio-terrorist hiding deep within the bowels of Arkham City underneath the ruins of the ancient Wonder Tower. There, Ra's offers to give Batman his blood at one cost: Batman must take his life. Naturally, the latter refuses and the two engage in battle which ends in the Caped Crusader's favor who succeeds in pacifying the Grandmaster Assassin without killing him. The detective returns to Freeze with the blood sample.

Mr. Freeze manages to concoct the cure to the TITAN drug successfully but refuses to hand it over to Batman revealing that Nora, his wife, has been kidnapped by the Joker's men. He asks Batman to return his wife to him if he wants the antidote. Batman does not have time for negotiations. The two initiate battle.

Batman proceeds to take down Mr. Freeze but by the time he is done with him, Harley Quinn has managed to steal the antidote for the TITAN drug and is on her way to the Sionis Steel Mill. The Caped Crusader takes pursuit.

Upon reaching the Steel Mill, Batman comes face-to-face with a rejuvenated Joker all ready for a final showdown. The latter calls forth a horde of thugs and a fight ensues.

Batman deftly sweeps through Joker's hooligans eventually leaving only himself and the Clown Prince of Crime behind. The two clash forces and the Caped Crusader comes out on top. However, just as he is about to land the finishing blow, Protocol 10 begins.

Protocol 10 turns out to be a plan to destroy Arkham City with all the captives locked up within it. Hugo Strange plotted the operation to eradicate every single criminal of Gotham along with any enemies he has locked up within the compound as political prisoners.

Arkham City is bombarded with missiles from choppers and Batman is pinned down under debris as Joker taunts to kill the detective once and for all until he is stopped by Talia al Ghul, daughter of Ra's al Ghul. She offers the Joker a trip to the Lazarus Pit in exchange for him to let Batman go. He agrees but before the two leaves, Talia signals to a GPS tracker implanted on her body to let Batman know how to find her. Batman blacks out.

Batman wakes up to Catwoman removing the debris off him.

She lends him a hand and the Caped Crusader manages to get up on his feet to witness the unfolding of Protocol 10.

Arkham City is burning. TYGER choppers have blanketed the decaying urban landscape with bombs and rockets ripping and blasting the city bit by bit. Batman watches on as he has a decision to make: save Talia from the hands of the Joker or save Arkham. Obviously, at this point, anyone would go for the former and leave Arkham City to smolder into ruins. Why care for a necropolis of criminals? Well, it seems Batman didn't quite get the memo.

After a brief debate with Alfred as to what should be the best course of action, Batman decides upon the latter, heading to Wonder Tower to stop Hugo Strange and his Protocol 10. But why save the lives of those who never cared for the sanctity of another? Because he is Batman.

Throughout the entire length of the game, we now realize, that Batman has been endeavoring not only to find the cure to Joker's disease and save him but also Arkham City: a hellhole of scum and filth. And he succeeds too, eventually managing to rescue Talia as well only to watch her die as Joker shoots her in the spine and reveals his plot: Clayface has been masquerading as the Joker all night while the real Joker was hiding at the Monarch Theatre.

After a battle against the monster of mush, the Batman and the Joker find themselves underneath the subterranean levels of the theater where the Joker fails to resist the urge to back-stab Batman one more time consequently causing Batman to drop the vial of cure containing Joker's half of the potion shattering upon contact with the concrete.

Joker scampers towards the crumbled shards of glass to scoop up any measly drops of the medicine he could find but to no avail. The cure was long gone. Joker was going to die. And in his final moments, the Clown Prince of Crime and the Dark Knight share one last dialogue,

The Joker:

Quick, the cure! What are you waiting for?
Come on! I killed your girlfriend, poisoned Gotham, and hell, it's not even breakfast.
But so what? We all know you'll save me.

Batman:

Every decision you've ever made ends in death and misery.
People die. I stop you. You'll just break out and do it again.

The Joker:

Think of it as a running gag... Nooooo!
Are you happy now?

Batman:

You want to know something funny?
Even after everything you've done... I would have saved you.

The Joker:

That actually is... pretty funny...

Batman has always been a symbol of a justice but oftentimes he has been more than that. He has been many a times been an icon of hope, even for the belly-crawlers and vermin of society. He has been an icon of mercy, always willing to forgive and forget, to give them another chance.

In Christopher Nolan's epic Dark Knight Trilogy we see the eponymous Dark Knight save the Joker after a trouncing in the ending segment of the second movie even after the latter had been directly responsible for the death of the love of his life, consequences of which had the Watchful Guardian of Gotham retire into oblivion for the next eight years, drowning in everlasting sorrow and depression. Yet, regardless of that, when the time came to avenge her demise, Batman opted rather to save the Joker's life and, in the process, save his own soul from descending into the darkness of the Joker's world. It is perhaps as a plaudits to this that the Joker offers his final few lines of the movie:

Oh, you. You just couldn't let me go, could you? This is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. You truly are incorruptible, aren't you?
You won't kill me out of some misplaced sense of self-righteousness.
And I won't kill you because you're just too much fun.
I think you and I are destined to do this forever.

And such is the morality of the Batman. He will never kill. He will never seek revenge. Only justice. His crusade against the demons of Gotham is a crusade to save the city and its people, not punish them. Every criminal of the city, every thug, every scum, to him, is a victim of the darkness that seeps through the city, not an active agent of it. And he is their savior. This is the promise he has made, as he walks the line between good and evil, that justice shall be served and not revenge. This thin line that he tiptoes delicately day after day and night after night has been made manifest by the voice of reason and sanity offered by Rachel Dawes early within the Nolan-verse movie that kicked off the franchise, "Batman Begins" when the deputy district attorney tells her seething friend Bruce Wayne who had appeared at the hearing of Joe Chill, the murderer of his parents, with a gun to exact justice that such is not justice. Such, as what Bruce was about to do, was revenge. After the death of Chill as decreed by Falcone, the two speak,

Rachel Dawes:

The DA couldn't understand why Judge Faden insisted on making the hearing public. Falcone paid him off to get Chill out in the open.

Bruce Wayne:

Maybe I should be thanking them.

Rachel Dawes:

You don't mean that.

Bruce Wayne:

What if I do Rachel? My parents deserved justice.

Rachel Dawes:

You're not talking about justice. You're talking about revenge.

Bruce Wayne:

Sometimes they're the same.

Rachel Dawes:

No, they're never the same, Bruce. Justice is about harmony. Revenge is about you making yourself feel better. Which is why we have an impartial system.

Bruce Wayne:

Your system is broken.

Rachel Dawes: 

You care about justice? Look beyond your own pain, Bruce. This city is rotting. 

People talk about the depression as if its history, and it's not.

Things are worse than ever down here. Falcone floods our streets with crime and drugs, preying on the desperate, creating new Joe Chills every day. Falcone may not have killed your parents Bruce, but he's destroying everything they stood for.

You wanna thank him for that, here you go. We all know where to find him, but as long as he keeps the bad people rich and the good people scared no one will touch him. 

Good people like your parents who will stand against injustice, they're gone. 

What chance does Gotham have when the good people do nothing?

Bruce Wayne:

I'm not one of your good people, Rachel.

Rachel Dawes:

What do you mean?

Bruce Wayne:

All these years I wanted to kill him. Now I can't.

Rachel Dawes:

Your father would be ashamed of you.

Batman ensures that his crusade is always about setting things right for the people of Gotham and not for himself. Every strike, every blow is a measure of justice, not revenge. A tale of Imam Ali from Fadhail-e-A'mal comes to mind:

In the battle of Khandaq, the Muslims dug a ditch around themselves for their defense, so that the enemy could not get across. A man from the enemy side called Amr ibn Abdul-Wud, who was known for his strength, courage and proficiency in martial arts managed to get across the ditch. All the Muslims were terrified to fight him except the valiant Imam Ali came forward to fight this man.

There was a fierce fight until at last Imam Ali threw Amr down onto the ground and mounted his chest ready to kill him. Just as Imam Ali was about to kill this enemy of Islam, he spat on the face of the Imam.

Everybody was certain that because of this insult, Amr would meet his death even faster still, but to their amazement, Imam Ali moved from Amr’s chest and walked away. Amr attacked the Imam again and after a short while, Imam Ali, once more, overpowered Amr and killed him.

After the battle was over people asked Imam Ali the reason why he had spared Amr’s life when he had first overpowered him to which the Imam replied that if he had killed him then it would have not been purely and solely for the Sake of God but also for the satisfaction of his anger and so he let him free. Then the Imam controlled his anger and killed Amr purely for the Sake of God. Such was the virtue of the exalted Imam-e-Murtaza Ali ibn Abi Talib.

Similarly, Batman, too, seeks to deliver every hit for the sake of justice and solely justice. Never revenge. And if the time ever comes that this were to be untrue, Batman would cease to be Batman and the night that overcasts Gotham would never fade away. What is it then that keeps the Watchful Guardian from transforming into a Vengeful Warlord?

I don't know. Perhaps it is what he has seen within the shadows of malevolence. Perhaps, while tiptoeing the line between good and evil, he has realized that the two sides are not very different. Perhaps he knows that if he were to mete out harshness towards the critters of the dark side, he would have to exact the same judgment upon himself because, at the end of the day, pun intended, the dawn and the dusk may perhaps be one and the same.

Batman knows that he is not very different from the ones whom he fights. The criminals, the gangbangers, all victims of a corrupt system. Perhaps something happened in their lives that caused them to snap just like him. He knows he was not far from being the same when he sat by the corpses of his parents at Crime Alley. Perhaps he did snap? Perhaps his insanity and obsession just happened to be for the good of the denizens of Gotham by chance? I mean, what else would you call a man in a suit resembling a giant bat parkouring from rooftop to rooftop beating up thugs with his bare hands other than a raving lunatic? It is perhaps by a merciful twist of fate that this insane knight of the dark stands and fights amid the angels of light.

— Fahim Ferdous Kibria

Question is... Doctor Who?

Doctor Who is a British media franchise revolving around the tales and adventures of a humanoid alien time traveler from Gallifrey in the Constellation of Kasterborous, sailing across the Seams of Chronos and Threads of Aether, armed with a sonic screwdriver, aboard the TARDIS, almost always alongside a companion for good measure.

Oftentimes, actually quite more so than often, perhaps quite very consciously, the story arcs and concepts of the show delves with the philosophy of metaphysics and ethics. For example, the idea of Regeneration attempts to answer a fundamental question in metaphysics: how do we know we are who we are throughout our lives?

The question arises because over the years we shed dead cells off our bodies to be replaced by new ones, transforming completely over decades. Thus, after a decade or so, we are a totally new composition of cells.
Is this 'me' really biologically me or someone else with my consciousness?

See how when the Doctor regenerates he has a new body and personality? And the new body has a new level of health, strength, agility and durability; new modes of thinking due to a biologically new brain pulling the strings of hormones and neurotransmitters responsible for thought and behavior. So how do we decide that it is actually him?

Similarly, as we grow older our body sheds cells when they die and our brain patterns will constantly change,
therefore altering our personality. So, in a way, everyday, in fact every hour, every minute and every second, we are regenerating into a new person entirely.

Therefore, ten years down the line, all our dead cells will be replaced by completely new ones and we will have
a different personality overall with new likes and dislikes in response to our experiences and changes in
the chemical composition of our brains. Hence the question: new cells, new personality, new everything, so how am I still me? That is when we think about regeneration and the Doctor – how do we decide he is truly the Doctor?

Is it because of the same memories, the events that he has gone through? Are those the deciding factors to ascertain the identity of a person? Then the question arises: what if we displace all the memories of person A into the mind of person B? Is person A, now, person B? No? Why not? Let us take this a step further.

What if we displace all the memories of person A into the mind of person B and then replace every cell in
person B's body with the cells of person A – same biological and cognitive makeup. At this point, if we kill person A, would we be able to say person A is still alive since person B is now virtually person A? Or are they – are we – defined by more than just that? Ponder about the query for even a moment if you will. Thank you.

"It all just disappears, doesn't it? Everything you are, gone in a moment, like breath on a mirror... we all change. When you think about it, we're all different people all through our lives, and that's okay, that's good.

You gotta keep moving, so long as you remember all the people that you used to be.

I will not forget one line of this. Not one day. I swear. I will always remember when the Doctor was me."

— Fahim Ferdous Kibria

Disney's "Frozen" — An Ode to Female Independence and Solidarity

Frozen, Disney’s Thanksgiving present to the world, is making the rounds around Tumblr and Facebook as viewers across the globe are tantalized by the musical sensation that takes flight from the usual mold of Disney princesses, generally requiring the crutch of a prince to save the day, to a novel tale of two sisters and a kingdom of perpetual winter. The story propagates the message of why it is important for girls to stay united and support each other while also conveys the significance of independence for women.

The synopsis of Frozen revolves around the sisters, Elsa, who is apparently cryokinetic, and Anna. Elsa has no idea how to control her powers and one night, while the two sisters are playing, she injures her younger sibling which promptly churns the story into motion. Their parents seek help from the trolls to heal Anna following which her memories are scrubbed so she no longer remembers the events of her older sister hurting her. Meanwhile, Elsa, distraught, practically grounds herself in her room in despair. Their parents vow to lock the family in their castle until Elsa learns to control her powers.

Elsa’s decision to condemn herself in her room wedges a rift in between herself and her sister Anna. When the girls reach their teens, their parents are lost at sea consequent of a storm. As Elsa comes of age, she is lined up to be the queen and the kingdom of Arendelle prepares for her coronation. The gates of the castle are opened again and Anna ventures through town coming across Prince Hans. The two are infatuated while Elsa is crowned queen. During her reception, Hans proposes to Anna but Elsa refuses to allow her sister to marry a man she has just met. The two engage in an argument resulting Elsa in losing control of her powers plunging the kingdom into an endless winter.

Elsa, repulsed by what she has done, leaves Arendelle and exiles herself in her own solitary ice palace. Anna leaves on a quest to find her, coming across mountain man Kristoff and his reindeer Sven. As the story unfolds from there on, Disney unveils its greatest ace-in-the-hole with the dramatic reveal of Hans as the main antagonist of the movie.

This stands as Frozen’s most remarkable legacy. Following the events of Anna finding Elsa in the mountains and trying to convince her to return to Arendelle, the two argue once more and Elsa yet again injures Anna inadvertently. Anna slowly begins to freeze from the inside and it is told that she can only be healed by an act of true love. At this point any prior Disney movie would have probably had Prince Hans kissing Anna back to life, capturing Elsa, saving a kitten from a tree, rescuing an infant from a flaming house of fire, heralding world peace and stopping Lord Satan from unleashing the apocalypse faster than you can say deus ex machina. Instead, Frozen takes another route, one that had never been traversed by Disney. As Prince Hans is approached to help Anna from turning into a chunk of ice, he turns her away exposing his true plans to have wanted to marry Anna only to seize the throne of Arendelle.

Unlike previous Disney villains, Hans is original in the sense that, while most Disney villains are pretty much evidently evil since their first appearance, usually symbolized exhibiting pasty skin or are garbed in dark shades of grey, black or purple, he appears trustworthy and shows none of his true nature throughout the bulk of the plot leaving the audience dumbstruck at his reveal. If for nothing else, Frozen most certainly snatches attention with this and it will remain a testament to the movie’s originality.

Nonetheless, there is more. Unlike the Disney movies of the past, often highlighting the main character’s relationship with her lead man, here the focal point of the story is the bond between the two sisters rather than one between a man and a woman. The movie preaches the importance of filial love: that you never give up on family. Ever.

Also, Frozen makes its mark with the climactic scene where Anna saves her sister Elsa from the blade of Hans, subsequently ending up saving her own self too as the sacrificing she was willing to make for her sister counted as an act of love that was required to undo the power turning her into ice. Elsa learns that the secret to controlling her abilities is love and the kingdom thrives happily ever after. So, in the end, rather than prince-charming saving the damsel-in-distress, the girls save themselves through love that binds their sisterhood.

Aside from the innovative plot, Frozen also does a great job with the scenic details in animation and its musical score with the song “Do You Wanna Build A Snowman?” pretty much becoming an internet meme overnight.

Overall, Frozen breaks stereotypes of the timeworn Disney fairy-tales and spins a fable anew with superb dextertity, ingenuity and a touch of icy magic. It’s definitely a must-watch for every Disney-fan and a great family movie for kids.

Oh, by the way, did I mention Elsa is not really a Disney princess? She is a queen. And Frozen nicks itself a solid A+!

— Ani Bunny