"Why do we fall Bruce?" asks Bruce's Father.
"To learn to pick ourselves up again." he concludes.
Bruce is a descendant of a family of noble people. His Father was using the Wayne Fortune to help improve the lot of less fortunate citizens of Gotham, an example of this being the construction of the low-cost public train featured in Batman Begins. One of Bruce's ancestors from the 19th Century used the caverns underneath Wayne Manor to transport slaves via the Underground Railroad.
It is part of Bruce's heritage and upbringing to help those in need. That he comes to do so in a more dramatic and "hands-on" way is a testament to the powerful emotions that storm inside of him.
The traumatic experience of Bruce's parents being murdered before his eyes, forever changes him to the very core of his being.
Bruce had planned to kill Joe Chill, the man who murdered his parents, but a hitwoman working for Carmine Falcone, one of Gotham's major Crime Bosses, murders Chill right in front of Bruce.
As Rachel Dawes (Bruce's child-hood friend) is driving him home, he reveals to her that he intended to kill Chill himself causing Rachel to be furious, pointing out that Bruce's father would have been ashamed. Bruce angrily leaves the car, and wanders the docks where he has an epiphany : killing Chill would not have brought him satisfaction nor closure. Bruce proceeds to confront Falcone, to tell him that he will not capitulate to a world of fear, one where people's parents are murdered for a wallet.
Strange as it is, Falcone inadvertently mentors Bruce.
He mocks Bruce's self-righteous anger and his desire to prove something to himself, pointing out Bruce cannot understand the “desperation” of criminals being the Prince of Gotham, where people from his happy, normal world have so much to lose.
Bruce does not understand the desperation which drives criminals to control a world which leaves them for dead, nor the intoxication of power that comes from achieving that control. Falcone describes the power of fear to control others, how people fear what they do not understand.
What one controls : One cannot be hurt by.
Falcone does admire Bruce's spirit and unwaringly gives Bruce the final push he needs to find an answer and a direction for the raging feelings inside of him.
Falcone points out that Bruce would have to travel 1000 miles to find someone who didn't know his name, and Falcone gives Bruce a taste of the anger and humiliation criminals feel by mocking Bruce's father, the way that society mocks the desperate men who become criminals.
The amount of time Falcone invests in “educating” Bruce begs the question : why? Perhaps Falcone wanted someone from Bruce's world, a once happy world, to understand why criminals, men like him, exist.
It is remarkable, the unexpected guides that appear in a person's life when they are in search of purpose.
Bruce leaves behind his worldly identity, and looks down unfamiliar paths to a purpose he can't see, but must seek out, and breaks into a run as he hurls himself forward into his journey of self-discovery.
When he is challenged and accepted by Ducard and The League of Shadows for training in the mastery of the fear and anger which fuels him, Bruce has already matured and grown a great deal.
In Ducard, Bruce finds a mentor, someone who understands his feelings.
Ducard lost his wife to the actions of criminals and the feelings of anger and grief this engendered nearly destroyed him.
Ducard is thus able to teach Bruce to channel his powerful emotions into profound strength, because, he has done so before himself.
Everyone needs a mentor they resonate with, who has traveled the path they need to walk, and can guide them to becoming truly strong.
Training with Ducard forces Bruce to take possession of his powerful emotions, to hone his resolve into an absolute purpose, to confront his fears and master them and use them as a tool to confront criminals with.
Ducard recognizes that Bruce traveled the world to understand the criminal mind and conquer his fears, what Ducard does not see is that Bruce developed empathy and compassion for the plight of criminals in his journey, and came to understand their feelings, though he never allowed himself to become corrupted by the surrender to complete disregard for the welfare of others.
Bruce decided to explore the criminal mind by being forced, through the necessity for survival, to become a criminal himself. He did so not to discover the resolve to be a righteous executioner; he wanted to understand the mindset of the men he had dedicated himself to stopping. Bruce holds true to the noble vision of humanity held by the Wayne family.
Ducard asks that Bruce throw away his compassion; Bruce points out that compassion is what separates him from criminals and is something he will not give up.
The student adopts the lessons of the teacher, but adapts them to fit his own unique personality and emotional landscape.
That is the way wisdom is passed from one generation to the next.
Bruce's training is brutal and intense, but he emerges from it a different person. He accomplishes what life in normal society ill affords, mastery of the powerful emotions that course within a person, encased within a powerful body.
Bruce finds a purpose in his parent's death and molds himself into a person able to carry out that purpose.
He fulfills his personal Coming of Age, and, as with all such experiences, entered as a questioning, confused child, and emerged a strong, confident, mature adult, filled with a sense of purpose.
Such has always been the reason behind a Coming of Age journey.
Bruce returns from his journey, to his former world, a wholly different person.
Undeniably one of the most powerful scenes in the film occurs when Bruce rediscovers the caverns underneath Wayne Manor, and wanders into the lair of the nesting Bats that reside there. The image of Bruce being surrounded, nearly suspended, by an endless stream of pulsating bats, is a moment of elemental catharsis for the emerging hero, one that impresses itself upon the mind.
It is a baptism of sorts, an affirmation of the successful confrontation of Bruce's fear, and the incorporation of it into the essence of his being.
A final ritual to confirm his successful Coming of Age.
At the end of the film, Rachel Dawes has discovered that Bruce is indeed Batman, and his childhood friend, his true love, points out to him that the boy she knew, who left on a journey of self discovery never came back.
“This is your mask." she says, referring to the civilized face of a wealthy playboy he shows to the normal world.
It is painful for Bruce to hear, but, inside his heart, he knows it is true
He went on a journey to find purpose and meaning in his parent's death, and he found it, and that purpose has become who he is.
The strength of it penetrates the entirety of his being. Batman is Bruce Wayne's purpose, who Bruce Wayne truly is, and will be until the day humanity matures beyond a society which creates such terrible desperation in people that they turn to criminality and the power of fear it holds, to control others, and to control one's own.
I admire Bruce Wayne. I understand his journey, and his decision, but I would tell him this, the way to stop criminals, to create a world where an 8 year old boys parents aren't murdered for a wallet and a necklace, is not through violently punishing the poor, desperate, lost souls who become criminals, it is through the path Bruce himself followed to master his own dark emotions.
If everyone had the benefit of going on their own personal Journey of Self Discovery, their own Coming of Age, they would have matured beyond being controlled by their powerful emotions and instead have learned to channel them into powerful purpose which fulfills a person in a way unmatched by simple, blind, adherence to the norms of “everyday” society.
I would tell Bruce that if people weren't put in a desperate situation, where they were hungry, cold, abused, they would never become enveloped in feelings of anger and fear, and compelled into performing acts which if they had simply had a normal, happy life, as he once had, they would have never considered doing.
I would tell Bruce he had the foundation of nobility and kindness afforded by a happy early childhood, and he had indeed been lost, but he found an unlikely catalyst to pursue a purpose for his life in the form of a criminal : Falcone.
He journeyed, he sought purpose, and he found it, never abandoning the base of kindness and compassion planted by his parents.
If everyone else followed such a path of self-discovery, there would be no criminals. This I believe.
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