Spoiler alert. Here be spoilers. Big, shiny spoilers with sharp teeth. Boo.

Edited since original release, to add more depth to the discussion and to give credit where credit's due. Oh, and to fit your TV.

Now that that's taken care of:

Batman Begins is a movie about terrorism. More precisely, it's a movie about a long-standing philosophical debate in the theory of terror, as exemplified by the development of the Baader-Meinhof group and various other elements in the terrorist "community."

Y'see, Batman's a terrorist. No question about it -- his intention is to use violence and psychological warfare to induce change in a target population, which is the textbook definition thereof. It's just that his target population is "criminals".

(Though it's worth noting the expanded take upon this offered in Miller's Dark Knight Returns, which I have to credit with the first insight.)

But it's a carefully measured sort of violence, relying far more upon the psychological approach; like the early efforts of the Baader-Meinhof gang, where they started with arson in carefully watched and unoccupied stores, rather than the carbombings and the like that would become their trademark. Batman is trying to keep the collateral damage down when possible.

Ra's Al Ghul is akin to the later generation of terrorists, who have abandoned the effort to restrict collateral damage, indeed shifting their weight towards *inflicting* said damage, in an effort to get society to change. That they are trying to make society move towards a more just one does not matter; their weapons remain those of terror, even if inflicted in secret (I cannot imagine a League of Shadows manifesto akin to the papers of the Brigadi Rossi.)

The key moment of division occurs when Bruce Wayne refuses to act as executioner. He attempts to operate within a broad definition of the law (after all, aside from larceny, speeding, reckless driving, and assault and battery, he reaches new levels of his own lack of law-abidingness (with the help of a cop) at the very end of the film) and leave the judging to "duly appointed authority". At the very beginning, several rather famous terrorist organizations began trying to influence elections and actions "within the law", before turning to attempting to overthrow/destroy the state.

Wayne clearly acknowledges that the justice system to which he's turning over the criminals is flawed and corrupt; but to him, the principle thereof, that no one person set themselves up as sole arbiter of the law, is more important than the practical and operational weaknesses this introduces (e.g., a criminal is less afraid to be apprehended, even by Batman, if he thinks he'll walk. Which just means that Batman has to amp up the terror potential *during* the apprehension.) This seperates him even further from the "Do whatever we have to" mindset of the League of Shadows and Ra's Al Ghul.)

If I were even more of an ubergeek than this discussion makes me out to be, I'd dig up the names of the two sides and their proponents in this argument in the Italian terrorist movement, but it's simply worth noting that it's there.

(As I write this, I'm being told about the split from the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in the 70s, producing Islamic Jihad, etc... due to the issue of working within/without the law and its strictures. Synchronicity, eh?)

All of which suggests that the moment Bruce Wayne causes (deliberately) a criminal to die (since criminals are the target population of his terror), is when he crosses the line his own style of terror to Ra's Al Ghul's. He dances (beautifully) with the line at the end of Batman Begins, when he does not cause Ra's Al Ghul to die, but does permit it. He is letting gravity, in that case, be judge, jury, and executioner.

In an initial draft of this post, I referred to "early" and "late" terror to distinguish the Batman-style and the LoShadows-style terrors, but further reflection indicates this isn't correct; while some terrorist groups (R.A.F, Brigadi Rossi, the Muslim Brotherhood spinoffs) have followed this patter to some degree or another, others, such as the ETA in Spain, have tried to minimize collateral damage in their operations to date (hence why the blaming of the Madrid bombings on the ETA failed so quickly.) Similarly, had Ra's Al Ghul survived, one could see a similar confusion occuring had someone tried to blame on Batman something Ra's Al Ghul did, on the grounds that it did not fit with his terrorist modus operandi.

This is probably more thought than a (good, but not great) super-hero film deserves, but we cannot control that to which our mind sets its hands...(mixed metaphor alert.)

(Credit given to slit for this post and for the observations on the Muslim Brotherhood and to pantryslut for reading me slit's post (not knowing it was on my friendslist) while I was writing mine and for pointing out the ETA comparison. ;))