“Your compassion is a weakness your enemies will not share.” - Ra’s al Ghul
That is why it is so important, it separates us from them.” - Bruce Wayne, Batman
In order to complete the final stage of his initiation into the League of Shadows Bruce Wayne must murder a criminal. So tempting this is. For Bruce is alone, without parents, without a creed, yearning to belong. The League of Shadows, an ancient secret society whose purpose it was to restore balance to the world by the purging of what they deemed to be evil, offered Bruce just this. A brotherhood to remedy the terrible void which lay within him, plaguing him for decades. But he refuses. Indeed he abstains from ever directly, intentionally, or deliberately murdering any one of his enemies. For if he does, he becomes the very thing which he pledged to destroy. He becomes the darkness, a monster, a villain. He becomes his enemy. Lest you forget, in cursing and lying and cheating and warring and hating like your enemy — in the name of vengeance or justice — you become him. And then he has won, defeated you, conquered you, for you have allowed his poison to blacken your heart and corrupt your soul. Such a principle is what makes Batman, Batman. It is what makes him so great, rendering him a hero, a Dark Knight.
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