Last part I promise!
Okay, I’m finally getting back to Owlman and his bomb the QED.
So Owlman had never intended to use the bomb to threaten the earth, but he actually wishes to kill everyone. And I do mean everyone. He tells Batman “everyone who ever lived, who ever will live.” His logic is that with every choice we make we literally create a world where we have made the opposite choice. (I don’t know how he knows this but we’ll have to take his word for it.) So, in short, the only real choice he could make would be to end it all. One might ask him why he thinks he has the right to do that. He didn’t make the universe, why should he get to end it. But someone evil enough to want to destroy everything will not care about rights. In his words “Does it really matter? No, nothing matters.”
In the final showdown between Batman and Owlman, his evil twin, Batman gives a puzzling explanation to t he difference between them. “We both looked into the abyss, but when it looked back at us, you blinked.” I honestly had very little idea what that meant of if it meant anything until I stumbled across this other quote:
Just remember, a man looks into the abyss, there’s nothing staring back at him. At that moment a man finds his character. And that is what keeps him out of the abyss–Lou Mannheim to Bud Fox
I think Batman is tweaking this quote to say that Owlman blinked and missed his character and so he fell. Even after this point Owlman is unmoved and still concludes “It doesn’t matter.”
Gosh, I’ve wondered myself why certain things matter, why anything does. That is because my world can shrink so small when it is focused only on me. I have wondered why I matter. It is not enough to know why we failed, and how we failed, or if we failed, we want to know why it matters. Who cares except us and why should we care ourselves?
The truth is, no one does matter unless they are loved. Think about it, what besides love can give anything its meaning? Can you buy the worth of a thing? Can you sell it? How can you sell something no one wants?
This is why so many people who feel unwanted also feel worthless. In Owlman’s warped mind, everyone is worthless because no one is constant, there is always a split, an opposite way they could go, and do, if you go to the right alternate world. But just because someone could go bad, or will go bad even, does that mean their choices don’t matter?
Owlman never stopped to think that maybe good and evil stand apart from mere circumstance. Maybe no matter who is good or who is evil, good and evil remain what they are. Maybe what really doesn’t matter is what we think about it, we don’t get to create our own brand of morality. Owlman could not allow for God.
I understand that this is a DC movie and religion is not welcome. But with such high stakes, it ought to be at least given a mention. Because depend upon it, if ever the whole universe was in jeopardy, people would turn to God for answers, there would literally be no one else. It’s funny that men can be do delusional about how much power they have. Does Owlman really think his one choice can altar all time. That he can blow up everyone who ever lived? I say this because it is important for us to know our powers are so limited. Yet we are of so much worth.
If we are not loved, then why are we here? People who hate good also end up hating love. Because otherwise why would they want to disbelieve in God? Why would they want to, not whether they should believe in him or not.
Why would someone like Owlman want to destroy everything if he could? Because he does not care. He does not care because he does not even care if he survives or not. Why should he, he figures, if he is as replaceable as simply going to the universe next door? Batman is not even able to tell him otherwise, because Batman believes it too.
Even if that was the case, I figure everything has to exist for a reason, even in this bizarre fictional story.
There is one thing that goes against Owlman’s theory and it is just this: Johnny. He is the evil Flash if you’ll remember. When Owlman disappears to the prime earth that will destroy all reality when it is destroyed, the League’s only hope is to piggyback on his transmitter device. (What takes him from one world to the next.) But Batman tells Flash he is not fast enough to vibrate at the speed necessary to catch him. Johnny says he is. When Flash protests Johnny says “He’s talking about blowing up my world too, and I’m not letting that happen.” Well he successfully catches up to Owlman. And keeps going the whole time Batman is fighting him. When Johnny finally stops, he is worn out and looks old and withered. He tells Batman “You knew this would happen.” Batman does not deny it. But Johnny shrugs and says “Good one mate.” Then he dies. (Sorry.) But I would like to point out that Johnny ceased to be a villain and became a hero, he had one shred of nobility left in him. Now I’d like to find an alternate version of this. Let’s see, was there a version of this in which the universe was destroyed and no one stopped it? That makes no sense.
Okay, so it doesn’t take much to find the hole in this theory, but that’s just it, Owlman was wrong. There is another real choice. A good real choice. Batman tells Owlman (who is his opposite but with some similarities you’ll remember,) “If we’re really alike than you know this is wrong.” “Does it really matter?” Owlman replies coldly. Um, yes. If it’s wrong then it must matter.
To sum up, the most hard choices, the ones that least profit ourselves, are the ones that will matter, and they matter no matter how much someone tries to gloss over it.
Until next post–Natasha.