Killing Joker means, in some sense, Batman had to agree that Joker’s ethics—killing your enemy to advance your ends—work.
At least in The Dark Knight, the Joker was an outright nihilist. His primary goal was simply to prove that everyone is as crazy as him underneath.
Mind, the whole supposed Moral Dilemma about Society on the Brink of Collapse should anyone ever See Through the Noble Lie and realize that the Joker Was Right and there really is just Nothing… well, it kinda goes away once you confront the abyss yourself and realize that, given a blank canvas, you’d prefer to paint a pretty picture than burn the building down.
(Or in other words, the Joker presumed to prove that people must be Nihilists like him underneath, without considering whether the result might not be a heavily-armed batch of Existentialists.)
At least in The Dark Knight, the Joker was an outright nihilist. His primary goal was simply to prove that everyone is as crazy as him underneath.
Mind, the whole supposed Moral Dilemma about Society on the Brink of Collapse should anyone ever See Through the Noble Lie and realize that the Joker Was Right and there really is just Nothing… well, it kinda goes away once you confront the abyss yourself and realize that, given a blank canvas, you’d prefer to paint a pretty picture than burn the building down.
(Or in other words, the Joker presumed to prove that people must be Nihilists like him underneath, without considering whether the result might not be a heavily-armed batch of Existentialists.)