Batman Begins Hero Cycle

Profile of a Classic Hero

Profile of Classic Hero

A classic mythical hero has around eight defining characteristics. The hero comes from a disadvantaged childhood, they get a call for journey, the hero often meets a helper, they have a quest, the hero crosses thresholds, they go through trials, they have some sort of goal, and they some type of resurrection/return.

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Summary of the Plot

Summary of the Plot

Batman begins, directed by Christopher Nolan, is about the main character Bruce Wayne, played by Christian Bale, overcoming the fear of bats and the guilt that he was the cause of his parents death. Bruce Wayne's parents were murdered by Joe Chill in an alleyway while Bruce watched. Bruce was tired of criminals having the power so he went and trained with "Ducard" later revealed to be the villain Ra's Al Ghul in a Snowy Temple. After he killed the fake Ra's Al Ghul he went on to save Ducard's life and go back to Gotham to liberate the city for criminals. That is when he dawns the alias of Batman. Batman finds out that Ra's Al Ghul was poisoning the city's water supply so he ended up disabling the device which would activate the poison and he let Ra's Al Ghul die but he did not kill him. After this Bruce kept the mantle of Batman

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Origins

Bruce Wayne fits the classic mythical hero cycle. One of the reasons he fits the cycle is that he comes from humble origins. Although Bruce was rich he had a traumatizing childhood because he was trapped in a cave with a ton of bats and they attacked him. But that was not the end of Bruce's troubles. After a couple months of that his parents were murdered by a mugger which led to Bruce being raised only by Alfred, his butler in Gotham City.

Origins

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Helper

Bruce Wayne's most important and most well known helper throughout the movie is Alfred Pennyworth. Alfred took care of Bruce since he was a child and when Bruce turned into Batman Alfred saved him multiple times. Alfred saved him when Bruce was set on fire and poisoned and another time when Bruce was left to die in the Wayne Mansion.

Helper

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The Call

The calling that Bruce received was an invitation by Ducard to come join the League Of Shadows. This led to Bruce Wayne starting his training which caused him not agreeing with Ra's Al Ghuls unorthodox methods of peace and burning the League of Shadow's temple down.

The Call

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The Quest

Bruce Wayne's quest was originally to kill Joe Chill, the murderer of his parents, but Bruce had a change of heart after he was trained because he knew that he could not decide if someone lived or died. After turning into Batman his quest was to save the city from Ra's Al Ghul's poison and to show everyone that their was still hope for Gotham. The poison was developed by Johnathon Crane, a psychologist in an insane asylum. The poison would make anyone who was exposed to it scared of everything. To Achieve this he would have to destroy the microwave emitter which would activate the poison.

The Quest

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Thresholds

One of the earlier thresholds that Bruce crosses is when he leaves Gotham to train with the League of Shadows but Bruce does not fully commit to it because he does not want to decide if a person is killed or not. The more important threshold that Bruce crosses is when he turns into batman. He leaves his past fear of bats in the past. Bruce crosses into the supernatural world because he starts fighting criminals to make them fear batman, the character created from Bruce's fear.

Thresholds

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Trials

Bruce had to train for around seven years fighting random thugs and criminals and he spent around two to three years training with the League of Shadows. But that was the not the end of his training. When Bruce started to adopt the Batman alias he first went out with rudimentary gear because he was not completed prepared to become batman. But after some experience he fully adopted the Batman.

Trials

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The Goal

Batman's goal is to eradicate evil from Gotham city and take down Ra's Al Ghul. He also will not kill anyone no matter what the person has done. To do this Batman had to take down Carmine Falcone, the drug kingpin of Gotham. Falcone was the main source of poison for Ra's Al Ghul's plan. Ra's Al Ghul's plan was to put the poison into Gotham's water supply and then to evaporate it with the Microwave Emitter which would turn the water into a gas, the only way the poison is activated is through the lungs. Batman destroyed the Microwave Emitter and with it Ra's Al Ghul died.

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The Return

After Bruce Wayne is left to die in his mansion by Ducard, who turned out to be the real Ra's Al Ghul, he puts on his Batsuit and goes to fight Ra's Al Ghul to stop him from ruining Gotham. Batman has to fight Ra's Al Ghul on a train with the Microwave emitter on it. Once he wins the train gets shot down by Officer Gordon which kills Ra's Al Ghul and destroys the Microwave Emitter, Batman escapes and Gohtam is saved.

The Return

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Citations

All images with the citation "Nolan, C. (n.d.). Batman Begins. "The Movie, Batman Begins". " are images from the movie Batman Begins

Citations

Image #1 - Younes, J. (2019). The Myth of Heroism. Retrieved from https://www.aier.org/article/the-myth-of-heroism/.

Image #2 - Nolan, C. (n.d.). Batman Begins. "The Movie, Batman Begins".

Image #3 - Nolan, C. (n.d.). Batman Begins. "The Movie, Batman Begins".

Image #4- Nolan, C. (n.d.). Batman Begins. "The Movie, Batman Begins".

Image #5 - Nolan, C. (n.d.). Batman Begins. "The Movie, Batman Begins".

Image #6 - Nolan, C. (n.d.). Batman Begins. "The Movie, Batman Begins".

Image #7 - Nolan, C. (n.d.). Batman Begins. "The Movie, Batman Begins".

Image #8 - Nolan, C. (n.d.). Batman Begins. "The Movie, Batman Begins".

Image #9 - Nolan, C. (n.d.). Batman Begins. "The Movie, Batman Begins".

Gif #10 - Nolan, C. (n.d.). Batman Begins. "The Movie, Batman Begins".