Thou Shalt Not Kill / Batman

Batman is the poster boy for this trope. In fact, it's been heavily implied that Batman/Bruce Wayne almost psychotic compulsion to never kill is the only thing keeping him from being one of the psychopaths he regularly fights — he has outright stated that he fears if he started, he would never stop. Famously, Batman was willing to kill in the first year of his existence, but as early as Batman #4 in 1940, he was declaring "We never kill with weapons of any kind." Because of this trope, Batman Grabs a Gun is an easy way to convey just how serious a threat a villain is.

Comics

• Final Crisis has finally shown us the only person so evil and dangerous Batman was willing to kill him: Darkseid. Which just makes the Superman example even funnier. By the time Batman kills Darkseid the villain has taken several levels in badass, and was destroying the entire universe just by existing. Whereas Superman saved an alien warlord, but this point it's one life against all of time and space. It also helped Bats that he himself was going to die, so it was probably in his mind a fitting punishment for breaking his oath. Though it was ultimately revealed he was still alive.
• Flashpoint Batman aka Thomas Wayne dispenses with this altogether and shows himself to be an exceptionally violent and uncompromising psychopath who has killed off a good portion of the villains in that timeline and threatens to use lethal force all the time.
  • Similarly, his Earth 2 counterpart is more than willing to kill, and it's what tips Lois Lane off that the Batman in front of her isn't Bruce Wayne, since the Earth 2 Lois was in on his Secret Identity and was very close to him and his wife.
• In the Novelization of Knightfall, Batman's use of violence is explored. A monk refuses to teach Batman some of the most secret fighting techniques because he won't foreswear violence. Lady Shiva teaches Batman to fight again, but is mildly offended and amused when Batman learns how to enjoy violence again, but won't cross the line into lethal violence. Bruce has a startled, depressing "Eureka!" Moment when he realizes that he'd always loved the violence, despite what he told himself.
  • This is sometimes used to explain why Batman is so adamant in his refusal to kill: he's afraid that he would come to enjoy the killing and become just another costumed serial killer.
  • During an internal monologue, Gordon reveals he only tolerates Bats because he doesn't kill. The moment he crosses the line, according to Gordon, he'll be marked as a criminal like any other and his relationship with Gordon will be over.
• Cassandra Cain/Batgirl III had an even deeper aversion to killing as she could read human body language perfectly. After seeing death once she vowed to never see it again and tried to save a death row inmate to uphold that oath.
• This is so inherent to his character that it's called 'the Batman rule' by other characters, specifically Batwoman and her father.
• He came very close to breaking his oath in Batman: No Man's Land. After the Joker murdered Gordon's wife, Batman still refused to kill him, but told Jim he would not stop him from doing so. (And Jim almost did, restraining himself only because there had been too much death already.)
• Batman will often take this trope to extremes. Not only will he avoid killing his enemies, if his enemies are dying of natural causes or of a Hoist by Their Own Petard situation, if he can, he'll save them, even villains as bad as The Joker.
• This is the basis of Jean-Paul Valley's tenure as Batman during Knightquest as he would be lost within the System and constantly battling between acting like Batman and acting like Azrael. It's only when he allows Abattoir to die (which also leads to the death of Abattoir's current hostage) that everyone decides to shut him down.
• During a non-canon fight between Batman and Deadpool, Deadpool mocks that Batman can't beat him because he can't be killed. Batman snaps, "I'm counting on that." Cue Batmobile twin rocket launchers turning Deadpool into Ludicrous Gibs. After Bats leaves with Catwoman, Deadpool's head is mildly annoyed, chiefly because he has the munchies and Bats left before he could ask him to buy him chimichangas as consolation.
• In fact, Batman hates to see anyone die. It's the crux of Kingdom Come when Superman tells him the one thing they both had in common was they saved people. Heck, in JLA/Avengers, while Plastic Man is amused by The Punisher killing drug dealers in a firefight, Batman immediately goes to beat the everliving crap out of Frank, to save said dealers.
  • Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight explored this further, taking a more optimistic look at Bruce's philosophy. In Annual #1, after defeating the Joker Batman tells him that no matter how much he might want to kill him, it would be against everything he stood for as he believes in the absolute sacredness of human life above all else and that everyone has the capacity for change. This reinforced the end of The Killing Joke a few years prior, where Batman came close to redeeming him until he decided I've Come Too Far.
• Batman's rule sometimes goes into Stupid Good territory, like in a Judge Dredd crossover when he expressed sorrow for (seemingly) destroying the zombified monster Judge Death. Dredd has to remind him that they're not even alive to begin with.
  • That said, during a later Batman/Dredd team-up where the Joker had joined the Dark Judges, Batman observed that the Joker had just made a great mistake in giving him an opponent that he could beat up as much as he wanted and know his enemy would survive, prompting Joker to flee back to his body to escape Batman's assault.
• The Dark Knight is called out on this in Batman: Under the Red Hood, in which Jason Todd asks "Why, on God's green earth, is he still alive?!"
• This was deconstructed in Detective Comics (Rebirth). To wit, Batwoman is forced to kill Clayface to save Cassandra Cain and Batman is furious. He calls in Dick, Jason, Tim, Damian, and Barbara to discuss this and possible punishments. While Dick and Tim side with Bruce, Jason and Barbara side with Kate. Jason accuses Bruce of playing to a double standard, though Barbara claims Bruce is scared of losing Kate as Kate is his last connection to his mother, Martha. Even more damning, he's afraid that if Martha knew of this, she would have sided with Kate, effectively killing any argument for his rule.
• In Batman (Chip Zdarsky), during Bruce's trip through the multiverse, he encounters various other versions of himself, including Batmen who did kill the Joker. Even those Batmen who only killed the Joker and nobody else make it clear that killing the clown ultimately didn't change Gotham for the better and just left them emotionally damaged, affirming to the Dark Knight that he's right to spare the clown's life even if he has to find another way to keep him contained for good.
• Batman's crossovers with Predator and Alien zig-zag this. In the Predator crossovers, Batman refused to kill the alien hunters despite them trying to kill him. This is mostly because they are intelligent and have a code of honor which he tries to use to his advantage. In the Alien crossovers, he's more than likely to kill them since they're animalistic.
• Discussed at various points in the Batman Vampire Elseworlds trilogy. In the first book, Batman kills at least three vampires directly in self-defence of himself and Alfred, lures the majority of them into a trap that he knows will be fatal, and ultimately sacrifices his human life to stake Dracula himself to save Gotham. Although he is a vampire himself in the second book, the Dark Knight freely kills other vampires, proclaiming at one point that they're "not even alive" so eliminating them from Gotham isn't killing even when one of them points out that he's a vampire himself now. Batman only considers himself as having crossed a line when he succumbs to the thirst for blood and drinks the Joker, which also leaves him vulnerable to crucifixes (prior to this the Joker had sprayed him in the face with holy water to no effect). He has Gordon and Alfred stake him to stop himself hurting anyone else, but the third book opens with Alfred removing the stake to restore his master and help Gotham face a new crime wave. Unfortunately, the months spent rotting in his coffin have left Batman consumed by his bloodlust, with the result that he goes around freely killing all of his old rogues. While his victims are all killers themselves, Gordon and Alfred each concede that the man they lost would have never killed, forcing them to ally with Two-Face and Killer Croc to stop Batman for good before he runs out of "deserving" prey and starts feeding on innocent people.
• Out of the Robins:
  • Dick Grayson (Robin I/Nightwing) followed this rule to a T during his tenure as Robin and as Nightwing is normally a firm believer and follower of this rule, however he did beat the Joker to death in rage when taunted about Robin's death (he was revived immediately).
  • Jason Todd (Robin II/Red Hood) kept to this rule save for one ambiguous interaction with a rapist who fell to his death until he returned from the dead and very much subverted it.
  • Tim Drake (Robin III/Red Robin) has followed his mentor's rule, though at one point he set up a test for himself to see if he would kill his father's murderer by setting up a death trap for Captain Boomerang; in the end, he saved him.
  • In Knightfall, Tim remains shaken by Abbatoir's death, saying he would never forget how he died in front of him thanks to Jean-Paul. Bruce approves sadly, telling him to never forget that feeling. Once he loses that feeling, he will have lost some part of his humanity.
  • Stephanie Brown/Batgirl IV had trouble with this rule when she first started out as Spoiler but Tim Drake and her experiences as a crimefighter convinced her early on to adopt Batman's no killing policy.
  • Damian Wayne (Robin V) was raised as a killer before he met his father and has some trouble with this rule initially during his tenure as Robin.
• Birds of Prey member Huntress had no time for this early in her vigilante career. She's getting better, but she still doesn't seem to have too much of a problem with killing criminals. It's the main reason Batman doesn't trust her. Barbara Gordon, being more forgiving and willing to offer second chances, does trust her.

Films

• In the infamous flashback scene in Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, the Joker plays a Berserk Organ with what he did to Tim "Robin" Drake. Just seeing the boy made Bruce beyond pissed; hearing the Joker's tale about how it all happened... he really was tempted to "break him in two". The film implies he actually would have done it, if Tim hadn't killed him first. Joker thinks otherwise.
  Joker: Oh Batman, if you had the guts for that kind of fun you would've done it years ago. I, on the other hand... (proceeds to attack)
• The wisdom of this trope is called into question by a different Robin, Jason Todd in Batman: Under the Red Hood centered around The Joker once again.
  Batman: You don't understand... I don't think you've ever understood.
  Jason Todd: What? What, your moral code just won't allow for that? "It's just too hard to cross that line"?
  Batman: No! God almighty, no. It'd be too damned easy. All I've ever wanted to do is kill him. Not a day goes by that I don't think about subjecting him to every horrendous torture he's dealt out to others, and then... end him.
  The Joker: Aww, so you DO think about me!
  Batman: But if I do that - if I allow myself to go down into that place... I'll never come back.
  Jason Todd: Why? I'm not talking about killing Penguin, or Scarecrow, or Dent. I'm talking about him. Just him! And doing it because... because he took me away from you.
• The Tim Burton/Joel Schumacher Batman movies have been a bit more flexible with this trope than the comic book version, with Batman demonstrating that he's not especially concerned if his enemies end up dead on numerous occasions. The Christopher Nolan movies, however, have been a bit closer to this trope, with Bruce Wayne's refusal to kill being a key element of his motivation. ("That's why it's so important. It separates us from them.") However, in Batman Begins, he informs Ra's Al Ghul that "I won't kill you... but I don't have to save you.", before flying off, leaving Ra's in a train car that soon after crashes and explodes, presumably killing him. Anyone who knows Ra's from the comics knows it's a case of Immortal Life Is Cheap, even if Batman doesn't.
  • The Nolan Film Justifies this (or at least tries to) because the last time he saved Ra's he came back and continued his Knight Templar plan despite that. It's even lampshaded:
  Bruce: "I saved your life."
  Ra's: "I warned you about compassion."
  • In Batman Returns, he gives a circus strongman a bomb, then smiles sadistically before knocking him down into the sewer to be blown to pieces. He enjoys killing in Burton's films.
  • By The Dark Knight his moral philosophy appears to have evolved somewhat, as towards the end he goes out of his way to save The Joker's life. On the other hand, the Joker was trying to drive Batman to murder, so this looked like the only way to beat him.
  • He also has another justification besides personal philosophy: he's a Hero with Bad Publicity in the Nolan films, so he knows acting as judge, jury, and executioner isn't going to help his reputation.
  • Another fact to consider is that Batman personally threw the Joker off the building. If he didn't catch the Joker, then he explicitly killed him. But with Ra's, he willingly put himself on the train with the knowledge that Batman would try his absolute hardest to stop him. Ra's taught Batman everything he knows and remembers that one time that Bruce unintentionally burnt down an entire fortress to avoid killing. Ra's obviously understood the potential risk of going against Batman, and one could reasonably assume that he would have some sort of way to escape. Nolanverse's Batman follows the code that he will never intentionally kill a person, but if the bad guy puts himself into a position where s/he will be killed by collateral damage in the act of Batman saving Gotham / the innocent, and there is no way to save them, then there is nothing that can be done. Ra's had no way of saving himself on the mountain, but Bruce could save him, and so he did. On the train, Batman had reason to believe that Ra's could save himself, and the only choices were Batman and Gordon destroy the train, or every living thing in Gotham dies. The same exact problem comes up in The Dark Knight Rises, when the nuke will go off in less than ten minutes, the tanks are actively trying to kill Batman and Catwoman, they can't force the truck to go back to the generator, and all warning shots have failed to get the truck to stop. Either the truck and tanks are stopped with force, or literally everything in Gotham is wiped off the face of the earth and the rest of the US gets hit by the fallout.
  • In The Dark Knight Rises Batman explicitly tells Selina Kyle "No guns, no killing.". She is less than enamored with the idea, responding, "Where's the fun in that?!" Selina later saves Bruce's life by shooting Bane dead right as he is about to kill the hero, and jokingly states that she doesn't feel too strongly about the whole no-kill thing.
    • Later in the film, the Godzilla Threshold is crossed and Batman fires his weapons with lethal intent, when intimidation with them failed.
  • This is in comparison to Batman: The Movie. When Batman was trying to find a safe place to dispose of a bomb he refused to throw it where anybody could get hurt. Including at ducks. Later in the movie when he and Robin accidentally kill some mooks they do mourn for them as they weren't expecting them to combust.
• While the version of Batman from The Batman (2022) is more brutal than the other cinematic incarnations of the character, murder is a line that he will not cross, and he adamantly refuses to kill anyone. He tries to impart this philosophy to Selina as well, stopping her from killing Falcone as revenge for Annika's death.
• Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice zigzags the trope:
  • After 20 years of activity, one dead Robin and the trauma of witnessing people getting killed during General Zod's invasion, Batman has been noted to have gone up a level in brutality. When chasing down some mercenaries smuggling kryptonite into Gotham, Batman shows no hesitation over gunning them down so he can take their cargo. Even after reforming, Batman still kills the rest of the mercenaries as they were holding Martha Kent hostage with instructions to execute her within the hour.
  • It should be noted that unlike Batman's rogues' gallery, none of the people he killed were mentally ill, forced into a life of crime or run-of-the-mill thieves but contracted hitmen on Lex Luthor's payroll. Batman himself notes that he's got some "friends" in Arkham Asylum, four of his rogues' gallery appear in Suicide Squad (2016) (with Batman going easy on one and outright rescuing another) and Peacemaker (2022) mentions the Riddler and Mad Hatter are still alive, so presumably all of Batman's onscreen kills are just exceptions to his rule.

Video Games

• Batman: Arkham Series: Maintaining the same belief in the comics, Batman in Batman: Arkham Asylum never kills. According to his detective mode, his enemies always wind up unconscious. Yes, even the ones who have been punched in the face, or had a wall they were standing in front of blown up. Unconscious, every one.
  • The game has many ways of preventing you from killing enemies, bordering on Developer's Foresight territory. Knock a guy off a tower, and Batman automatically attaches a cable to his foot. Throw a Mook down a bottomless pit and you hear a splash right away, implying that there's water just out of sight. There's even an invisible wall around the pool of electrified water, so you can't throw anyone in (Batman can still fall in himself, though).
    • The sequel Batman: Arkham City extends this selective invisible wall to all of the many rooftops Batman fights on. Pay no attention to the fact that he's beating people into immobility, and leaving them lying around unable to defend themselves in a city filled with psychopaths, while they're wearing light clothing in the middle of winter.
  • Taken to the extreme in Batman: Arkham Origins, where in the finale, Joker is so hellbent on forcing Batman to kill someone he connects a heart monitor Bane is wearing to an electric chair, which the Joker is sitting in. Either Batman kills Bane, the electric chair kills Joker, or Bane kills Batman. How does Batman solve this situation? He puts Bane into cardiac arrest so that his heart stops long enough for Gordon to secure the Joker, then uses his shock gloves to bring Bane back to life, knowing that Bane will try to kill Batman as soon as he wakes up again... and he does, leading to the boss battle with Titan-Infused Bane.
  • As pointed out by Outside Xbox, the people Batman nails in the head with propane tanks, drags off the GCPD roof to a multi-storey fall, pummels in the face at point-blank with "less-than-lethal" ammunition, or clonks in the throat with a car door should really not be as alive as Detective Mode claims they are.
    • Outside Xbox also pointed out that there were two times in Arkham Origins where Batman could have let the Joker die and the blood technically wouldn't be on his hands, meaning that the Joker would be out of the picture without Batman technically violating the trope. First was when they first met and Bane blasted the Joker off of a rooftop, the second time was the above mentioned electric chair scenario. In both cases, the Joker's death would have been on Bane and Batman could have walked away guilt-free, but nope.
  • In Batman: Arkham Knight, some soldiers in the Arkham Knight's militia start exploiting Batman's refusal to kill by wearing suicide vests that are programmed to explode and kill the wearer if they become unconscious. Against Batman, this is probably better protection than any body armour you can get. The only reason this doesn't cause the Dark Knight serious problems is because he manages to catch the militia briefing on the vests and prevent them from being carried into the street.
    • The Batmobile can knock out random thugs by shooting them in the head and center-mass with "non-lethal slam rounds", which are a "Flexible plastic casing filled with 50 grams of rubber pellets". Also, if you actually hit someone with the car, they go flying through the air, with an electrical effect on them to imply they're stunned. And you can chase cars and blow them up with missiles, which only knocks out the bad guys or stops their cars.
    • Also played with in Knight, when Batman has the option to destroy the last Lazarus sample in the "Shadow War" DLC mission, essentially dooming Ra's al Ghul to die. While Ra's won't die in-game, he has at most days to live in the mission's "Destroy the Cure" ending, according to Nissa Raatko. Ra's even tells Batman how he is So Proud of You for letting him die, but Batman's reaction is Your Approval Fills Me with Shame. Tellingly, when Batman enters the hospital with the sample, Alfred contacts him to ask whether letting Ra's unnatural existence end is the same as taking a life and states that he will support Batman's decision either way.
• In the NES Batman game, Batman averts movie canon and hurls the Joker off the cathedral. The rest of the ending is spent zooming in on the Joker's corpse. Then it plays it straight with the NES only sequel, Batman: Return of the Joker.
• Gotham Knights (2022): The Knights stick to Batman's rules on the matter. Red Hood didn't always but has returned to this approach since making up with Bruce.
  • His year one log revealed that he felt Batman shouldn't kill as he needed to demonstrate a higher standard, and without that Batman would be just another criminal. Talia attempted to remove this trait after reviving him with the Lazarus Pit by having him kill one of his proteges and mold him into a proper successor for the League, though ultimately it failed to stick.

Western Animation

• Batman: The Animated Series: Much like the rest of the franchise, Bruce Wayne enforces this trope, though there are times when he comes dangerously close to breaking this rule.
  • In "The Underdwellers", the villain Sewer King uses a small army of abandoned children to steal and commit crime for him, punishing them cruelly when they fail. Batman, furious about this, corners him at the end of the episode. He saves him from an incoming train. When the Sewer King hysterically asks why, Batman angrily responses that although he realizes that passing judgment is a matter for the courts, he was sorely tempted to take matters into his own hands.
  • In "His Silicon Soul", the robot copy of Batman that Hardac created in a final attempt to gain revenge on Batman and Kill All Humans follows his human template's example all too well. The robot has a Heroic BSoD when it thinks it killed Batman during their fight and sacrifices itself to foil the scheme it had earlier set in motion when it realizes more people will die because of it.
• Batman Beyond
  • Terry McGinnis seems to have an attitude somewhat similar to the Batman Begins version of Batman: the series makes it a specific point that he won't kill in cold blood, and he generally tries to make sure his villains rot in jail, but he often won't go very far out of his way to save them, either. He's also consistently willing to use lethal force in the heat of combat, usually in the form of combat pragmatism such as chucking handy barrels of toxic waste.
  • In "Sentries of the Last Cosmos", Simon Harper tricks three fans of the titular video game into thinking it is real and equips them with weapons and armor based on the game, telling them to destroy his enemies. He is infuriated when they capture Eldon Michaels instead of killing him. They remind him that the code of the Sentries forbids them from killing in cold blood. Simon then tries to kill Eldon himself before Batman interferes.