So I finally picked up a copy of "The Dark Knight" for my personal ownership, and I've been sporadically watching it between diaper changes, and while I've certainly enjoyed it multiple times, one thing that has stuck in my craw since viewing one is that Alfred is a crappy mentor.
Sure, I get it. He's sarcastic and offers a lighter side to Bruce Wayne's gloomy demeanor. But he also gives advice. Some of it insightful (the whole "some men want to watch the world burn" is insightful, if not very helpful). Some of it just seems illadvised.
THERE'S A SPOILERS A HEAD, Y'AR!
I'm thinking mostly of the scene after the death of Rachel Dawes, Bruce's oldest friend and long time love. She was blown up. She is not coming back. On top of everything else, Harvey Dent was nearly killed and lost half his face to an oil burn. Alfred enters the Wayne penthouse and finds Bruce still half in his Batman outfit, the mask and gloves strewn about.
These are VISUAL CUES, Alfred. Bruce is upset. He's in tears. The only other time in this series have we seen him in tears like this involve his parents' murder, so this is probably significant.
Bruce asks if he brought this horror upon the city and says that he wanted to inspire good. And what does Alfred say? "You have inspired good. But you spat in the face of Gotham's criminals. Didn't you think there would be casualties?"
Yeeeeeeeesh, man. You might get away with calling this tough love if there was a hint of love in it at all. But the way it's played, it sounds like an old man telling a boy who just lost his pet puppy, "Forget it. Puppies die. Who cares?" It's not exactly inspirational and I've never understood why Bruce didn't just jump out a window after this speech.
This corelates to my mutual obsession with "Star Wars" and the bad mentor of Yoda. Sure, he's trained generations of Jedis to do battle and use the Force, but Yoda's not what you'd call a "touchy feely" kind of guy. Luke Skywalker -- the galaxy's only hope at survival -- likes his friends, and when he sees a vision of them in trouble, he wants to go after them. Of course, it's a trap, and Yoda knows this. EVERYONE knows this. But Yoda doesn't explain it to Luke that way. Instead Yoda gives Luke what must be the shittiest bit of advice to ever come out of the "Star Wars" movies, and that includes the ways to flirt demonstrated in Episode II. When Luke asks if he should sacrifice Han and Leia, Yoda says, "If you honor what they fight for, yes." I know Yoda's not in the hero-making game, he's in the strong-Jedi-making game, but I've still never heard someone say, "In order to save the world, you should sacrifice a few innosent friends" and be considered a great guy.
Now it's true, the little puppet puts a little more care into this brand of "tough love" than Michael Cain did in his scene, but it still masks the crappy mentoring only so much. The crappy mentoring is made even more clear in the prequels where Yoda seems to go on and on about how Anakin's love for someone is going to get him in trouble (hey! and just like that, I found something that was actually CONSISTENT in the prequels to the original trilogy!). Ultimately, isn't this "Care only thiiiiiiis much" philosophy what cost the Jedi the galaxy, to say nothing of their lives? In a cruel irony, Yoda and his shit mentor abilities live on to train and poorly advise another 30 years before becoming the first Jedi to die of disappearing heart failure. But his creed remains clear in a Monty Burns way: Friends, family... these are the hurdles you must defeat if you are to be successful.
Oh, and in "JEDI" Yoda kind of lied to Luke about Anakin being Darth Vader... and then tries to pretend he's sleepy! Worst liar in the galaxy you are.
So here's to you, Yoda and Alfred. You seem like you're good at what you do, but many times the heroes succeed in spite of you.
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