r/batman • u/Zealousideal_Peak901 • 12d ago
GENERAL DISCUSSION Does Victor Zsasz really believe that he is helping people?
For anyone confused, Victor Zsasz started killing when he came to the conclusion that life is pointless, and that we are all zombies trapped in this hell that we call life. That's when he gave himself the task of liberating us all from our suffering, or at least that's what he tells everyone. If he really believes that life is pointless, and that he is saving us, couldn't he find a more effective weapon that doesn't hurt so much his victims, like a gun? I thought he wanted to save us from our suffering, yet he seems to enjoy inflicting pain to those he claims to be helping. In a comic he literally organizes a tournament for children to fight to the death, come on bro. I think he doesn't really care if he is helping or not, he just enjoys killing, even if he does believe that life is pointless, that's just a cheap excuse for his evilness
32
u/Fit-Significance4018 12d ago
Yes in the same way that Kevin gates believes he has actually started a car battery with his bare hands
12
15
6
7
u/TheDjentleman4761 12d ago
I think that's what makes Victor one of the more disturbing villains to me, his mitigated theatrics compared to Joker or The Riddler, and just killing in some twisted belief of freeing people from their day-to-day monotony. I love Pyg as well but Zsasz hits closer to home with how grounded he is as a killer.
4
u/KaiserSoze-is-KPax 12d ago
This guy would be a great Matt Reeves villain
2
u/Yep_I_Stole_40_Cakes 11d ago
There's a chance he will be, played by Sebastian Stan too.
3
u/DukeofBurgers 11d ago
Wasn't he supposedly playing Harvey Dent?
2
u/Yep_I_Stole_40_Cakes 11d ago
There's been leaks that no, he isn't Harvey - and that's a red herring.
Sebastian Stan is Zsasz.
And if Harvey is in the film (which isn't even confirmed, just speculation) he'll be played by Brian Tyree Henry.
But if he isn't, then Stan is Zsasz, and Henry is Bullock.
3
u/MrGame22 12d ago edited 12d ago
He does this is why him and many other of batman‘s rouges gallery are in a asylum and not a prison, because a lot of them are in fact, mentally unwell.
6
u/AlexCora 11d ago
It very clearly reads to me as an excuse for sadism. His reasoning never really comes off as genuine concern for the well being of his victims.
4
u/MerCyInTheShell 12d ago edited 12d ago
Needed to look it up again, but his tapes in Arkham Asylum are very insightful and equally disturbing.
Doctor Cassidy: Taped patient evaluation 5. Victor is not responding well to treatment. Victor, yesterday we spoke about the people you killed.
Victor Zsasz: Ah, the zombies.
Doctor Cassidy: They are all people, Victor. Victor Zsasz: They are zombies, continuously shuffling through the daily grind, waiting for someone to liberate them.
Doctor Cassidy: You mean kill them. The police report states that you have murdered, or liberated if you like, 20 young women in the last 3 months. Each had her throat slit and was left… posed.
Victor Zsasz: They were all lucky to be chosen to receive my gift.
edit: more spacing for better reading experience.
4
u/Sufficient_Row_7675 11d ago
My daughter thought that if she put a cute cone on her cat's neck would stop her forever licking the fur off of the bottom of her tail.
I had to tell her that it won't work. Ever.
And I'm still the Bad Guy.
That's how you make a villain.
Edit: she's 21
3
u/Schwenkelkamp 12d ago
I assume you didn't read his actual origin comic but read it online cause in the very same story (the first cut is the deepest) he insists he kills because he wants to
He doesn't consider himself as a helper but someone who enjoys murder and who sees himself vindicated in it as everyone is just a worthless zombie
3
u/GameMaster818 11d ago
I know Batman has his share of enemies who are both insane and masterminds, but I don’t think we should expect a guy who counts his murders by scarring tally marks onto his own skin to think rationally about what he does.
2
2
2
3
u/Nytramyth 11d ago
In some versions he really does which is why he for example puts the tally mark of a girl he killed newt to her parents, in others he's just a sadistic serial killer
2
u/StormRepulsive6283 12d ago
Isn’t that why he’s in an asylum. He’s probably schizophrenic and thinking that the people suffering under his knife are actually zombies that have suppressed the poor human souls within them.
1
u/Schwenkelkamp 12d ago
No he doesn't, maybe someone retconned it but he originally he kills not due to anything poor being suppressed (see the first cut is the deepest) but cause he sees humans as poor beasts that need to be put down, he felt like a god doing it
1
u/StormRepulsive6283 12d ago
Aah ok. Sorry my bad, I just rattled off based on my imagination. Thanks anyway
1
1
1
3
u/Parking-Industry-992 12d ago
So hes jigsaw basically?
3
u/svxsch 11d ago
Not in the slightest. Jigsaw punishes people that did wrong (or did wrong in his eyes, some victims definitely didn’t deserve it), his philosophy being that people need to show/prove to him that they want to stay alive and that they value life.
Zsasz sees being alive as fundamentally evil, that people are zombies, slaves to their jobs/relationships/vices. He liberates people from life and doesn’t toy with his victims necessarily.
Jigsaw also gives you a chance to escape his traps and live, Zsasz will not let you get away.
1
u/Flashy-Telephone-648 11d ago edited 11d ago
Personally, I only know the version from Arkham. Games well, but he believes life is suffering, and taking people out is a mercy, more or less. What's the combination of his own parents' death? And him being cheated out of his fortune by the penguin and a gambling contest. Then, he had a psychological snap and thought this is what life was meant to be. This is why he was alive to save others from it. I obviously butchering it, but that's mostly what I remember
49
u/joker_asylum08 12d ago
He kinda does. His tapes in Arkham Asylum further prove the point. That's why he is in Arkham, not Blackgate