Mike Hoffman said:
Candidus said:
Not sure what you think is wrong with teaching a kid how to fight. Alfred's a model father in that scene. Pacifism is a fucking aberration, just plain harmful to the kids indoctrinated with it. Teaching kids that absorbing a beating and telling whoever constitutes the `authorities` at a given stage in their lives is "the high road, morally" is practically abuse.
The dude gave the kid a quick substitute for brass knuckles and had him go to another kid's home to bust his face open. Learning some self-defense is one thing, but that's not it. Sure, an argument can be made for using this to prevent future occurrences, but "Remember, I almost let him kill you" to a 14 year old? Damn.
The point of that scene and especially his words at the end was to get Tommy to fear Bruce and thus stop his abuse. Alfred knew that if a kid that insults another kid's dead mother, not to mention only a short while after that kid had just witnessed that mother be murdered was willing to go that far it would quickly escalate until Bruce was the one lying broken and bleeding on the floor, so he decided to nip that in the bud right off. That scene was Alfred's way of saying "do NOT F**K with this kid again!"
Plus, if one thing has been shown about Alfred is that he had great respect for the Waynes and considered them very close friends on top of being their servant. No doubt Tommy mocking Mrs. Wayne so brazenly right on Bruce's first day royally pissed him off.
I for one applaud Alfred for what he did. He's not teaching Bruce to be a thug, he's teaching him that some people sometimes REALLY deserve to get their faces bashed in, but he's also teaching Bruce that it's an occasional thing. That's what I wish parents across the world would really teach their children instead of this "don't fight no matter how much the other guy deserves it or even in your own defense" crap that most are on these days.
As for Gordon, he was well justified in his anger toward his fellow cops this episode. With the exception of Bullock and the captain every one of them abandoned him to probably die at Falcone's hands, if that isn't good reason to say "the hell with what they think of me" then I don't know what is.
Oh yeah, about Black Mask, that wasn't THE Black Mask. BM's name is Roman Sionis, and this one's name was Richard Sionis, so it's probably intended to be a "runs in the family" kind of thing. It's the writer's way of bringing in members of Batman's rogue's gallery that shouldn't exist yet. As for his motivation I thought that was pretty obvious, it's that he got off on violence and so just like the populace of Rome and their Colosseum he set it up so he could watch a bunch of accountants beat the crap out of each other to feed that, but he's more than willing to get into the ring himself. Gotham is just the kind of nutty place to breed the sorts of people that would not only set things like this up but participate in them.
