In 2005, Christopher Nolan rebooted the Batman movies, full of occult imagery depicting the interplay of secret societies and billionaire capitalists as played out against the gothic noir landscape of Gotham City. It is also the tale of our protagonist learning to use fear as a means of changing the world around him. In many ways, Bruce Wayne’s rise as the dark knight is like the ascendance of Gautama Siddhartha as Buddha. As the archetype of Buddha brought peace through enlightenment, the archetype of the bat brought peace through fear; something which would bring about the end of corruption in Gotham, but would eventually cause the fall of our hero.
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