“When Gotham is ashes, you have my permission to die.” – Bane in The Dark Knight Rises
The cruelty of Bane is never shown more vividly than it is through this quote. It isn’t enough for him to break the Bat, destroy Gotham, and lock Bruce Wayne away in a dungeon. No, he insists that Wayne must watch Gotham tear itself apart before he can die.
Bane is standing over a crippled, broken Bruce Wayne when he says this line. It was one of the first quotes from the first trailer and it stuck with me right up until I saw the film. Bane’s voice oozes horror, the character is sinister and yet so collected in everything he says.
This quote also marks the lowest point for Batman. It doesn’t seem as if things could possibly get any worse as Batman is half a world away from a Gotham that is destroying itself. It’s a steep, steep mountain for our hero to climb, but it’s that climb that leads to such an epic film.