The Dark Knight, Beowulf v Grendel and Stretched Metaphors!

The Dark Knight, Beowulf v Grendel and Stretched Metaphors!
February 13, 2019 Anthony Stanley

 

By TTT Subscriber Anthony Stanley.

When trying to answer some perplexing questions in my own mind, I feverishly lashed this out during my break:

The young lad, now seven, asked to watch The Dark Knight last weekend.

He sat there on a Saturday with his treat (crisps and coke) and the ubiquitous Liverpool kit on, gobbling up Christopher Nolan’s classic and I doubt I’ve ever been prouder as a parent. But near the end of the film, as my mind and stomach refused to concentrate fully on the drama and constantly lurched in a Red direction (repeat ad nauseam: ice on the pitch, ice on the pitch, why that tackle Robbo?, West Ham coming up – a constant fucking loop) something that had been growing in my mind sprouted and fully germinated.

Heath Ledger, in the middle of his iconic performance as Batman’s nemesis The Joker, delivered this soliloquy:

‘…You know what, you know what I noticed? Nobody panics when things go according to plan. Even if the plan is horrifying. If tomorrow I tell the press that like a gang banger, will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics, because it’s all, part of the plan. But when I say that one, little old mayor will die, well then everyone loses their minds!’

Now, I’m sure all of us obsessed with the Reds can draw parallels with Liverpool and even the most tenuous of links, but, you may be thinking, what has the Joker’s philosophically narcissistic diatribe got to do with Klopp’s charges? Allow me to explain.

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