Tropes: Vigilantism and Victim Blaming in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

[Content Note: Violence, Rape, Vigilantism, Victim-Blaming]

Ana's Note: This is the third and last post in my series on The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. This post deals with vigilantism in the series and where it may or may not edge into victim blaming. There will also be some discussion of Larsson's surviving girlfriend, Eva Gabrielsson.

I don't like vigilantism. I don't think society is served by letting private citizens take the law into their own hands and settle their disputes violently. I think that the fantasy of vigilantism can be a fantasy that invites victims to exercise revenge in their heads while never feeling free to demand reparation in real life; a catharsis without social reform. I think that vigilantism can edge into victim-blaming, and the idea that if a victim doesn't react to a crime violently, then the crime must not have been serious. I have many problems with vigilantism.

The Millennium Trilogy -- a trilogy of novels I very much like -- is in many ways a story of vigilantism.

I honestly do not know what Larsson was going for in his story, when it comes to the issues of vigilantism in the series. For one thing, I'm not very familiar with the spy/thriller genre in general, so it's possible that he was falling back on established narratives rather than blazing a new trail. For another thing, it's worth noting that except when it comes to information gathering, the vigilantism in the series is something of a mixed-bag in terms of actually generating positive results. Let's look at a couple of examples -- the story of Lisbeth, and the story of Berger -- and then let's look at a real life example that is tied intimately to the novels.

In "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo", Lisbeth Salander is raped by her guardian Bjurman. She doesn't go to the police, because she has learned through extremely painful past experience that the police can and will do anything to illegally silence her in the name of 'national security'. So what can she do? She could flee, disappear into Swedish society with a new name and a new identity, but doing so would require her to give up her mother's apartment, the job that makes her happy, and the few friends and long-term lovers she's managed to acquire. Lisbeth chooses another option: vigilantism.

Lisbeth walks into Bjurman's apartment, tasers him unconscious, forcibly uses his sex tools on him in a re-creation of how he previously brutalized her, shows him the video tape that she plans to use to blackmail him into leaving her alone, and then as a reminder that she is dangerous, she tattoos the words "I AM A SADISTIC PIG AND A RAPIST" on his stomach. It's not a pretty scene, but it is a very effective piece of characterization. Lisbeth may not be "crazy", as her opponents label her, but she's not entirely working on the same behavioral rules as a lot of people in her society. After years and years of being victimized by almost everyone around her, she has hardened into someone who violently and markedly lashes out in response to violence. Her philosophy leads her to leave such a lasting impression on her abusers that they think twice before risking her revenge again.

Probably not surprisingly, her philosophy doesn't actually go very well. Bjurman takes out a contract killing on her, and this act will end with several people dead or seriously injured, including Lisbeth's long-time girlfriend and her kick-boxing mentor. Lisbeth herself will be framed for the crime, and a nation-wide manhunt and smear campaign will drive her to end up in a hospital with a bullet in her head and a prosecutor anxious to lock her away for life. Even Lisbeth's small actions of vigilantism backfire on her. When a man tries to attack and rape her in the scene shown above, she incapacitates him with her kick-boxing abilities. While he lies helpless on the ground, moaning and calling her a "bitch", she 'punishes' him with a gunshot wound to the foot. This action will end up causing her a good deal of legal trouble in the end, and she is ultimately only acquitted because the police have so badly muddled the handling of the case that further prosecution would be politically dangerous for them to engage in. In the end, Salander is saved from the consequences of her vigilantism by the dictates of narrative fiat.

Lisbeth Salander's story seems to be one where vigilantism is understandable but not effective. Her older, kinder guardian Palmgren outlines this in "The Girl Who Played With Fire" by saying:

"I've never been sympathetic towards people who take the law into their own hands. But I've never heard of anyone who had such a good reason to do so. At the risk of sounding like a cynic, what happens tonight will happen, no matter what you or I think. It's been written in the stars since she was born. And all that remains is for us to decide how we’re going to behave towards Lisbeth if she makes it back."

All this is said right before Lisbeth's final act of vigilantism -- her attempt to murder her father -- ends up backfiring to the point where she has a bullet lodged in her skull and she's buried in an unmarked shallow grave on the edge of a mobster's property. And yet I'm not sure that the series is really a story of vigilantism being an ineffective non-solution to marginalization in society. In stark contrast to Lisbeth Salander, we have the story of Erika Berger and Susanne Linder.

Erika Berger is a woman of privilege in the trilogy. She comes from a financially well-off family, and has been given the best of educations. She is the head of a popular magazine and in the beginning of the third book ("The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest") she is recruited to head a nationally renowned publication in the hopes that she can turn it around and breathe fresh life into the failing company. She also has a stalker.

Berger's stalker represents a threat to almost every aspect of her life. He represents a threat to her safety by visiting her home at night, throwing bricks through her windows, and causing her to seriously injure herself on glass shards. But since Berger has the privilege of money and connections, the threat to her physical safety is one she can somewhat mitigate: she lays out the necessary expense to install a comprehensive security system with monitored cameras and locks and safe doors and her Own Private Bodyguard. What she can't easily mitigate is the threat to her career and reputation when her stalker steals a collection of private "home movies" that -- should they be released on the internet -- will completely ruin her life.

The stalker arc of Berger's story treads a fine line between legal solutions to social problems and vigilantism. The man who comes by to inspect Berger's home and install the new security system warns her of the dangers of taking her safety into her own hands:

"I notice that you have golf clubs planted here and there around the house."

"Yes. I slept here alone last night."

"I myself would have checked into a hotel. I have no problem with you taking safety precautions on your own. But you ought to know that you could easily kill an intruder with a golf club. [...] And if you did that, you would most probably be charged with manslaughter. If you admitted that you put golf clubs around the place with the intent of arming yourself, it could also be classified as murder."

The man from the security system is kind. He's not trying to frighten Berger; he's trying to warn her. Society has institutionalized rape culture to the point where you will be legally punished for defending yourself in your own home, he warns. Be sure you're aware of that before you bash in the skull of an intruder trying to rape and kill you!

Once Berger's stalker has stolen her private collection of videos and writings, there is almost no way for the narrative to cover the loss without resorting to vigilantism. Salander volunteers her illegal hacking services to Berger as a means of determining the identify of the stalker; Susanne Linder volunteers her extensive police training to track the stalker and catch him in the act of vandalizing Berger's home. Knowing that an official police action will almost certainly ruin Berger's reputation as handily as the stalker would have done (Berger is a public figure and the police department is riddled with leaks), Linder takes the law into her own hands by forcing the stalker to turn over all the stolen material, as well as his computer hard-drive, and destroys the evidence of his -- and her -- crime.

The approach to vigilantism within The Millennium Trilogy is muddled at best. Taking the law into your own hands doesn't work... except when it does. Revenge may be satisfying but dangerous... except when it works out perfectly. Violently defending oneself is illegal... except that the police are probably going to be even less help, so you might as well. As a caustic criticism of a flawed society, the books may hit the mark, but as a useful prescription for behavior, they fail utterly.

I want to believe that Larsson knew that. I like to think that the muddled mess of vigilantism in The Millennium Trilogy is a way of saying, This world? Completely messed up. No matter where you fall on the spectrum of victim responses -- whether you lash out at your attackers or stand up and go to the police or just huddle under and hope that the violence passes by -- no matter what you do, you will be blamed. And we need to fix that. I want to believe that's the point of the novels. But I honestly don't know. And then we come to Eva Gabrielsson.

Eva Gabrielsson was Stieg Larsson's live-in girlfriend and partner for 30 years. Because Larsson's job as a journalist caused him to be targeted by neo-Nazi groups, the two lived intensely private lives and did their best to keep their living address off the Swedish public records. They never formally married because to do so would put their address in the Swedish public records. Their wills were never properly formalized because to do so would put their address in the Swedish public records. And when Stieg Larsson became an internationally bestselling author after his death, his family went to court to have his will broken so that they could disenfranchise Eva and claim Larsson's inheritance for themselves. The irony of the story surrounding The Millennium Trilogy is palpable. A story written by a feminist ally about Men Who Hate Women has been awarded by the Swedish courts to a father over a common-law wife. 

The fan reaction to the story of Eva has been bumpy. In the early days of her disenfranchisement, the fans were largely sympathetic. There were public calls on the internet for a Real Life Lisbeth Salander to rise up and electronically pilfer the Larsson inheritance and give it back to Gabrielsson. The sentiment behind these calls was clear: a woman had been hurt by an unfair legal system and it was time for someone to take the law into their own hands and make it right.

But the world doesn't work that way. The legal system has stood by its ruling that Gabrielsson deserves none of the inheritance left by her late partner of 30 years. No internet vigilante has intervened to right this wrong, nor is it likely that they could. And Gabrielsson has soldiered on and -- like Lisbeth Salander -- she seems a little annoyed about how she's been treated. And in a manner that I find heartbreaking and yet not even one bit surprising, the fans are starting to turn on her. Gabrielsson's recently released biography ("Millennium, Stieg, and Me") has been criticized as "a biography of Eva Gabrielsson, not about Stieg and 'Millennium,' Lisbeth Salander or Mikael Blomkvist".

If I can be permitted to paraphrase that, that quote says to me that people are upset because Gabrielsson released a biography about her life, and the readers are annoyed that the book is a biography about her life. Rather than, you know, about the fictional characters they'd prefer to read about. And readers are additionally annoyed at being called out for buying Millennium coffee mugs when the trilogy is about social justice instead of novelty entertainment. Once again we see that it is beyond the pale for a woman to be vocally upset about her marginalization.

Where I have a problem with the vigilantism in The Millennium Trilogy is perhaps with the depiction of vigilantism as something flashy and sexy and exciting. It's easy to cheer on the badass women of the series as they single-handedly stop rapists and stalkers and murders with their bare hands. There's a visceral feel of victory when Salander or Linder or any number of strong, competent, fearless, capable women batter down the doors of the worst elements of society in order to say This stops here.

The problem is that the assertion of women's rights generally doesn't look like that. The same people who cheer for Salander's violent outbursts and cold attitude then shy away from real victims like Gabrielsson who commit the social crime of being angry in public. The same people who appreciate Mikael's willingness to give Salander her space and not come sniffing around for privilege cookies then become angry and hurt when Gabrielsson fails to recognize their awesomeness for feeling sort of sorry for her in vague, not-acted-upon ways. We come to the problem that just about anyone in our culture can appreciate a good James Bond style beating-up-of-the-villain, while still feeling like women really need to be nicer to everyone because being angry doesn't help anything.

The idolization of vigilantism blames victims for not solving their own problems in cold, calculating Lisbeth Salander style. That whole thing? She's still complaining about that? Why doesn't she do something about it? When we write story after story after story about victims getting fed up and standing up for themselves and kicking butt and taking names, we create the impression that this is even possible. We feed into the cultural narrative that the world works that way. We create the impression that someone like Gabrielsson should be willing to hire/become a hacker, set right her own wrongs, and get on with not bothering the rest of us about the little details. We use what is ostensibly victim-cheerleading to really engage in victim-blaming.

I'm hesitant to condemn vigilante literature. I think there's a time and a place to remind the abusers in society that they are not untouchable. And yet I think when we indulge in vigilante literature, there's an important point to be remembered, that most victims simply don't have the resources to engage in vigilante retribution, and that no victim should be expected to.

I think Larsson got that. But I also think that a good many of his readers don't.

Ana's Note: Please remember while commenting that Eva Gabrielsson is a person who has been through a significant emotional loss and who has been thrust rather unexpectedly into the public eye by the death of her partner, the success of his books, and the loss of her inheritance. Please tailor comments accordingly and try to avoid victim-blaming.

26 comments:

Lonespark said...

Wow, this is a really interesting post.

I can't speak to the books, having not read them and planning to stay away from that triggery shit. Might read Gabrielsson's biography.

I feel like there can be value in a kind of "vigilanteism" that involves marginalized people banding together to create alternate centers of power and work toward some kind of justice or at least support. I don't think I'd really call it vigilanteism, though. Maybe just resistance?

Ana Mardoll said...

Might read Gabrielsson's biography.

I haven't read it myself, but I think it may well be equally triggery. She's been quoted as saying that everything in the books has happened to various Swedish women and a big part of the Larsson life-story is the rape he witnessed in his youth, so I'm guessing those will both be themes in her book.

Guest said...

I feel like there can be value in a kind of "vigilanteism" that involves marginalized people banding together to create alternate centers of power and work toward some kind of justice or at least support.

Neighborhood militia/watch?

By the way, I'm not sure that vigilantism is portrayed as positive in most media examples. At least, in the Batman movie trilogy, Batman might actually have made things worse - see Joker.

Ana Mardoll said...

By the way, I'm not sure that vigilantism is portrayed as positive in most media examples. At least, in the Batman movie trilogy, Batman might actually have made things worse - see Joker.

Interesting point. Now I want to think of examples, but I can't think of many.

Kit Whitfield said...

It's not a pretty scene

I don't know; it kind of gave me a warm glow.

--

If this is the last post, can I raise an issue I didn't like? I thought it was creepy that the supposed hero got to have sex with Lisbeth. I thought it not implausible that she would offer him sex ... but I did think it was creepy that he accepted, and that this was considered a good thing.

I've previously recommended The Boy Who Was Raised As A Dog by Bruce Perry and Maia Szalavitz.

TW: sexual abuse of children, emotional scarring - very upsetting story

One of the case histories it mentions is that of a little girl referred to by the pseudonum 'Tina', who had been sexually abused at a young age. She had various behavioural problems, not surprisingly, and one of them was that she was inappropriately sexual with men and boys: the first thing she did on meeting the male psychiatrist was climb into his lap and try to open his fly.

Perry's point was that Tina was not actually being sexual when she did these things. Her early experiences had led her to form the subconscious conclusion that all men wanted from women and girls was sex; offering sexual services to a man was a gesture of submission and appeasement. It was a way of saying, 'Don't hurt me, I'll do what you want.'

And at least in the movie, Lisbeth's offering of sex came across as uncomfortably similar to that. It looked like she expected every man to want sex from her at some point and was getting it over with, and that a man who genuinely cared about her wellbeing would have recognised that the situation was sketchy and that what she really needed was to feel safe.

The book may have a different explanation, but to me it felt uncomfortably like fetishising her.

Ana Mardoll said...

I thought it not implausible that she would offer him sex ... but I did think it was creepy that he accepted, and that this was considered a good thing.

I'm a little uncomfortable with it, too, and not sure how to respond to the text. I've read that the publisher demanded MOAR SEX in the first book and that a lot of the sex-side-stuff with that random Vanger woman (Cecilia?) was Executive Meddling. I've also read that the later two books didn't have the same meddling, because Larsson had more control over the series at that point. I've wondered several times if he honestly meant Lisbeth and Blomkvist to have sex in that first book or not.

As regards the rest of the post (very interesting!) two things come to mind:

1. When Lisbeth moves in with Palmgren (her previous guardian), she deliberately walks around the house naked because she thinks he's probably a pervert and she wants to provoke him into getting it over with. (This is because men have largely treated her as a sexual object up until now.) Palmgren snaps at her and tells her not to do that anymore, and that's a point where she starts to respect him. The book notes that later she stops sleeping with men because they want her to, and she only sleeps with people if SHE wants to, so there's some evolution of character there?

2. When Lisbeth is introduced, there's a discussion of her employer Armansky. He comes on to her a tiny bit when he's drunk at a holiday party and she pushes him away and then later sets him straight when he's sober. She tells him that she has no intention of sleeping with her employer, and stresses that the incident is not to be repeated. He agrees, and they get on well after that.

The book is still frustrating though, in that the reason given for why she falls for Blomkvist is that he treats her like she's normal and he doesn't talk down to her or treat her any differently than he does anyone else. That shouldn't be a unique thing -- Palmgren and Armansky both do that to certain extents, and in the second novel it's revealed that Lisbeth has kickboxing partners and teachers who aren't total jerks to her. But Blomkvist may be the only person who treated her as normal from the very get-go (without her having to 'prove' herself), so... maybe that's meant to be justification? I don't know.

Anyway, yes, by all means, this is the last post so everyone have at it in the comments. :)

hapax said...

@Kit -- there is a wonderful scene in Lois Bujold's ETHAN OF ATHOS, where the male hero (who is one of my favorite heros in all of genre literature) manages to overcome his pathological culturally-instilled misogyny and confess sheepishly to the female hero his admiration, and ask of her an enormous favor. She -- like most women of our culture -- assumes that he wants to have sex. No -- what he wants is (ROT13 for spoilers) ure gb qbangr na binel fb ure trarf jba'g or ybfg gb shgher trarengvbaf (fur unq nyernql znqr vg pyrne gung fur jnfa'g cynaavat ba univat puvyqera).

There are so many ways that I loved that scene.

With regard to the OP, one of my biggest problems with the vigilante fantasy (and I say this as someone who has *written* vigilante fantasies, in what I call my "id stories", that I don't plan on ever sharing with anyone) is the way that the violence is sexualized, and not in a good way. Particularly with female vigilantes.

Catwoman is of course Exhibit A, but there are plenty of others.

depizan said...

I have mixed feelings about vigilante fantasies. On the one hand, I really am basically a lawful person, and I think people going outside of the law is a terrible, terrible idea, just as all other anti-society things are terrible, terrible ideas. On the other hand, sometimes law/society is so utterly broken that the only way to right wrongs is to go outside the law. On the third hand*, I have supervillain fantasies about fixing the world by ordering people to act like decent human beings. The thing is, I fully acknowledge that they are supervillian fantasies. (Yes, well intentioned extremists are still villains. Even if they're committing villainy in favor of universal health care, living wages, etc...) On the fourth hand, there's that sticky ends/means argument - and once you've decided that the ends justify the means...

I am getting to have fun with a particularly odd sort of outside-of-the-law fantasy in SW:TOR, though. I've mentioned before that my Sith Empire (for those not familiar, imagine the British Empire at its colonial worst, only run by an absolutely evil religious cult with supernatural powers...in spaaaace) character is an Imperial Agent. Who, since I am playing him light side (good), is an absolute and utter traitor. But it's almost the inverse of the usual vigilante fantasy. Instead of committing illegal violence, I'm illegally not committing violence. Not a story one sees often.



*Just pretend I'm an octopus. Or a Hindu deity. Or some type of alien.

Loquat said...

Society has institutionalized rape culture to the point where you will be legally punished for defending yourself in your own home, he warns.

I don't think this is just a matter of rape culture, though. One of the other blogs I read mentions gun rights from time to time, and whenever the subject of self-defense and Europe comes up someone invariably comes up with an example of some European citizen getting into legal trouble for using violence to fend off criminal attack in a way that would be perfectly legal in the USA - elderly British farmer shooting a burglar and getting successfully sued, that sort of thing. How self-defense became unacceptable in those parts of Europe I don't know, but it's clearly considered unacceptable for men as well as women.

Loquat said...

I'm illegally not committing violence. Not a story one sees often.

I'd *like* to have seen it in Book 2 of The Hunger Games, when all the past victors who'd mostly known each other for years got tossed back into the arena, but nooooo.

depizan said...

By the way, I'm not sure that vigilantism is portrayed as positive in most media examples. At least, in the Batman movie trilogy, Batman might actually have made things worse - see Joker.

I have not seen the Batman movie trilogy (I assume you mean the current one) because it's sailed right off my "darkness" scale. I have heard very interesting things about it, though, particularly a scene involving bomb rigged boats that doesn't go as the Joker thought it would, so I wouldn't be surprised to find it was intentionally semi-deconstructing Batman.

But all superhero movies are vigilante movies, really. ... Most. Captain America, obviously, isn't. Thor really wasn't, either. But Iron Man, Spider-man, Superman, the Fantastic Four... gah, I swear I'm missing some... none of them are legally authorized to fight crime/supervillains. Granted, many of them are fighting supervillains, which complicates things. But I'm pretty sure we're supposed to cheer their vigilantism.

Launcifer said...

@Depizan: Flippancy aside, but the Fantastic Four don't really count as vigilantes, given that Reed Richards (Mr Fantastic) arguably works for the government. Never mind the fact that Doctor Doom (the FF's chief antoagonist) is a ruling head of state. There's an element of it in the second Fantastic Four film - and here I'm going to wax lyrical about Andre Braugher, who plays the general in charge of that particular fiasco. Point being: Alan Moore had a specific axe to grind when he created the Comedian.

@Loquat: Tony Martin (the elderly British farmer to whom you refer) is probably a special case over here, though, given the fact that he struck one of his burglars in the back when he shot at them. We tend to take a dim view of that in the United Kingdom, at least pre-Cameron. Right now, we're stil trying to decide what self-defence actually means.

depizan said...

In the first movie the Fantastic Four give, well, not vigilantism, but superheroing a try with very mixed success. They do better against Doctor Doom, if I recall correctly. It's been a while since I saw the movie. You may be right that they never do anything in the vigilante vein. I'm afraid I don't really remember the second movie at all...

Iron Man, Spider-man, and Superman, though, definitely do some taking the law into their own hands.

Patrick Knipe said...

Iron Man, Spider-man, and Superman, though, definitely do some taking the law into their own hands.

Yeah, this is all pretty much true, and curiously it doesn't seem to be touched upon within the works themselves (except maybe Iron Man? I can't remember...)

For me, personally, the most interesting case of superhero vigilantism is Batman's; as far as villains go, his tend to focus more on psychological problems that makes them who they are as opposed to having powers (this is not universal, of course). Ultimately that makes a difference, although Batman's villains are still dangerous and resourceful enough to pose threats that would do considerable damage without Batman's presence.

However, what he's doing is still vigilantism, but the scenario is muddled. He's a vigilante, taking the law into his own hands, in a city where the police are typically crooked and distrustful; one of the few straight men in Gotham's police force works with Batman pretty much constantly. Does that influence the morality of it- by somehow providing an implied legitimizing of his actions?

I'm not sure. Batman's situation isn't unique, either, and it's something Ana mentioned as well. Vigilantism stories often use an environment where law and its enforcement has failed, either through problems they simply cannot handle, or corruption or whatnot. "This person lives in a place where the law cannot be relied upon, ergo, he or she must rely upon themselves." My personal view is that this doesn't actually fix the problem- unless the law can become reliable once more, than any gains made by vigilantism don't really do much.

Which blurs the line even more in other situations: when, for example, does vigilantism become, say, rebellion or revolution? What does that change regarding the ethics of the actions?

Makhno said...

Tony Martin wasn't "elderly", he was 55. He shot an unarmed 16-year-old boy without warning, in the back. He avowedly "hated" the Irish Traveller community, to which the two burglars belonged. He has since endorsed the neo-Nazi BNP. Nice guy.

Ana Mardoll said...

Ah, I've heard of this case. We've had similar ones here, as well. Shooting a burglar in your home? Probably ok. Shooting a burglar as he flees your property, is no longer in your home, and not a credible threat? No, probably not ok.

Lonespark said...

That second FF4 movie was horrible. But I'm glad you reminded me Andre Braugher was in it...that's a bright spot.

Lonespark said...

the most interesting case of superhero vigilantism is Batman's; as far as villains go, his tend to focus more on psychological problems that makes them who they are

I kind of never get tired of jokes about Batman's psychological issues. Which is perhaps bad of me, but I think Batman provides a shorthand for a cultural narrative where privileged men are sometimes allowed or encouraged to revel in their pain and dysfunction. Iron Man touches on that in places, too...somehow it seems to me that movie!Tony lives in a world that's less fantastical (than recent movie!Gotham), so he's obviously a jerk and an asshole. The lack of supernatural powers makes those stories a more straightforward examination of vigilanteism, I guess.

And now I'm trying to think about female characters that are in some way analagous, and I can't come up with that many that fit. There are certainly "self-made super-hero" types, but I can't think of any that have all the same traits as, say, Batman. Like if you add up bits of Lara Croft and Sarah Connor and...others, you get something close?

Lonespark said...

when, for example, does vigilantism become, say, rebellion or revolution? What does that change regarding the ethics of the actions?

Yeah, this is what I'm trying to think on, too. I don't think in general that's going to be accomplished by a lone vigilante...but then if that person is the public face or a movement...

...and now I want an AtLA spinoff that's all about The Painted Lady.

Launcifer said...

Here's a random one: Does Batwoman fit the "Batman template"? I don't know very much about her background, so I'm just going to throw that one out there.

And I have absolutely no recollection of making that other post. So, er, yeah. Apologies for coming over as snarky, ill-informed, anything really.

Will Wildman said...

But Iron Man, Spider-man, Superman, the Fantastic Four... gah, I swear I'm missing some... none of them are legally authorized to fight crime/supervillains. Granted, many of them are fighting supervillains, which complicates things. But I'm pretty sure we're supposed to cheer their vigilantism.

I think one of the things that's supposed to make Spider-man the 'friendly neighbourhood superhero' is that he takes relatively little law into his own hands - he doesn't punish or otherwise sentence people; he intervenes on crimes-in-progress, incapacitates the criminals, and leaves them for the police. Iron Man, conversely, was pretty gleeful about executing terrorists, and those movies I think have a lot more in them about vigilanteism (the second movie in particular has a lot of stuff about trying to make him official or shut him down).

I think the Batman movies are a bit harder to follow on what views they're espousing, because there's a long-standing notion that Batman is fundamentally wrong - that the law-abiding figures such as Commissioner Gordon are supposed to be the 'real heroes' and Batman is the power fantasy of bullying people into doing the right thing. I really wish I could remember the source; I think the quote was "Gordon was the cop I should be, Batman was the cop I wished I could be". But depending on how closely one hews to that underlying idea, they can end up with very different interpretations of the story.

"This person lives in a place where the law cannot be relied upon, ergo, he or she must rely upon themselves." My personal view is that this doesn't actually fix the problem- unless the law can become reliable once more, than any gains made by vigilantism don't really do much.

Yeah, if Batman were really that impressive, the total number of supervillains terrorising the city would be going down, not up. And none of them would have been able to make a multi-decade career out of it. I'll be curious to see if Dark Knight Rises addresses this at all; I think it's had the subplots running to work it quite well, but I suspect it's going to end up more in the Everything Is Okay Forever Because Batman direction.

hapax said...

Here's a random one: Does Batwoman fit the "Batman template"?

Caveat -- despite all the terrific reviews (and the art is VERY pretty), I've only read the new Batwoman through the first story arc.

However, that really turned me off. She seemed such combination of "Lesbian fetishism for str8 boyz" and "Rich girl with Daddy issues" that I couldn't bring myself to care.

However, I'd say that BASED ON THAT, no. She's much more in the "bored playgirl" template.

(Barbara Gordon, I find interesting -- she's more of "I had to be a vigilante because Society wouldn't let me be a cop." I don't agree with that, but I respect that. But the Gnu52 Batgirl Does Not Exist in my personal fanon)

Inquisitive Raven said...

If you're keeping it to three hands, the canonical aliens for that are the Moties from Niven and Pournelle's The Mote in God's Eye. They have two hands for fine manipulation, and a third less dextrous hand (the "gripping hand") used for tasks requiring strength.

Rikalous said...

The stuff about Batman's activities increasing the total number of costumed freaks terrorizing Gotham has been addressed on occasion. For instance, The Dark Knight Returns had the Joker remaining catatonic until Batman went back into action. It also had Batman inspiring some vigilante behavior in Gothamites: a reluctant mob enforcer who got shot trying to kill his boss, a guy who shot up a porn studio, and a shop owner who protected an old lady from a mugger.

Saito said...

I think it's important to separate out vigilantism from self-defense. Where I live, it's legal for a nonfelon to carry a gun so that they can kill a criminal who is in the process of trying to harm them or someone else. There's a specific list of violent felonies that justify the use of deadly force. (I believe that self-defense is a basic human right, and so it disturbs me that Swedish citizens can't do the same.)

Vigilantism is different. A vigilance committee goes after people who haven't hurt them and aren't posing an immediate threat because they believe that those people have committed criminal acts in the past. That's a dangerous and illegal road that can end in some spectacular atrocities.

What Lisbeth did isn't quite vigilantism, because her rapist had hurt her in the past. It wouldn't qualify as self-defense, though, because it doesn't sound like he posed an immediate threat to her. I should mention that I haven't read the books and I don't intend to.

Apoidea Theorem said...

I'm coming very late to this discussion; I've only just found your blog. I'm Swedish, I haven't seen the movies but I've read the books. One thing that jumped out at me in your deconstruction was the thing about Erika Berger risking prosecution by hitting an intruder with a golf club. It's actually a bit more complicated than that.

The thing is, you're allowed to defend yourself. If, in your surprise and fear, you reach for something and hit your attacker, hurting or killing him, you're unlikely to be prosecuted (especially if you're white and privileged, as Berger is) - it' would fall under "nödvärnsrätt", "necessary protection in an emergency". What you're *not* allowed to do is make a plan for how you'd kill an intruder, set your place up to have all the necessary weapons in place, and then wait for the intruder to appear. Because if you do that, it's premeditation - instead of spending the time preparing for how to beat somebody to death, you should spend your time preparing for how to *not* have to beat the intruder to death.

In short, if you hit and/or kill somebody when you're in immediate and apparent fear for your life, that's OK. Planning how to do it and placing the equipment there for that express purpose, is not.

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