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| “ | It's not who you're underneath, but it's what you do that defines you. | „ |
| ~ Rachel's motto |
| “ | Dear Bruce, I need to be honest and clear. I'm going to marry Harvey Dent. I love him, and I want to spend the rest of my life with him. When I told you that if Gotham no longer needed Batman we could be together, I meant it. But now I'm sure the day won't come when you no longer need Batman. I hope it does and if it does I will be there, but as your friend. I'm sorry to let you down. If you lose your faith in me, please keep your faith in people. Love, now and always, Rachel | „ |
| ~ Rachel Dawes' letter to Bruce which Alfred burned following Rachel's death to spare Bruce the pain of reading it. |
Rachel Dawes is a major protagonist in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Trilogy, serving as one of the two tritagonists (alongside James Gordon) of Batman Begins, a major protagonist of The Dark Knight, and the overarching protagonist of The Dark Knight Rises. She is the former love interest and childhood friend of Bruce Wayne/Batman, and the girlfriend of Harvey Dent.
She was played by Katie Holmes in Batman Begins (as a child by Emma Lockhart) and by Maggie Gyllenhaal in The Dark Knight.
History[]
Batman Begins[]
Rachel is a childhood friend to Bruce Wayne. Rachel's mother worked for Bruce's parents, and the two would often play together on the grounds of Wayne Manor. After Bruce's parents are murdered by Joe Chill, Rachel's mother seeks other employment and leaves Wayne Manor with Rachel. She and Bruce remain close friends, however, and harbor romantic feelings for each other that neither of them act upon.
Rachel enrolls in law school and gets an internship at the Gotham City District Attorney's office during her first year. After Chill is murdered for testifying against mob boss Carmine Falcone (Nolanverse)|Carmine Falcone, Bruce reveals to Rachel that he intended to kill Chill himself. Rachel, horrified, slaps him in the face, and tells him that his late parents would be ashamed of him.
Soon afterward, Bruce leaves the United States and Rachel graduates from law school. She becomes an Assistant District Attorney full-time and has a brief relationship with her boss, District Attorney Carl Finch. Later, Rachel dedicates her career to eliminating crime in Gotham City, which makes her enemies of Falcone and Dr. Jonathan Crane, Arkham Asylum's chief psychiatrist, who is in Falcone's pocket.
Falcone eventually sends two thugs to kill her. Anticipating that Falcone would attempt to kill her, she carried a taser on her which she threatened to use on one of the thugs she faces upon leaving a train. The thug flees because he witnesses Batman beating up his partner. Batman supplies her with incriminating photographs of a judge on Falcone's payroll to ensure she would have leverage over him. Around the same time, Bruce runs into Rachel in a hotel, and is disappointed to see that he has apparently become a selfish playboy; she is unaware that Bruce and Batman are one and the same, and that his playboy veneer is an act to allay suspicion. She tells Bruce that he may be a good person, but it is his actions, not who he is underneath, that define him.
Later, Rachel meets with Crane at Arkham while she is evaluating Falcone, who has suffered a psychotic breakdown - unaware that Crane himself drugged Falcone with fear toxin to keep him from betraying their boss, Ra's al Ghul. Crane gives her a concentrated dose of the toxin, but Batman rescues her again by administering an antidote and tells her that Crane is working with Ra's terrorist organization, the League of Shadows. He gives her instructions for a plan to save the city from the League's attack. Rachel delivers the samples of an anti-toxin to Batman's ally, Gotham City Police Department detective James Gordon.
The League starts a riot in one of Gotham's slums and Rachel is trapped. Crane, who has now assumed the criminal alter ego of "The Scarecrow", attacks her again. She defends herself and a boy caught in the riot by firing a taser at the insane doctor. Soon, the city is overrun by Arkham's inmates, whom the League has released, and Rachel and the boy are surrounded by lunatics led by Falcone's henchman, Victor Zsasz. Batman saves them at the last minute and gives Rachel a hint as to his secret identity. As Rachel realizes that her masked savior is Bruce, he leaves to save the remaining innocent bystanders.
One morning after the riot was over, Rachel goes to the ruins of Wayne Manor which had been burned down by the League and reconciles with Bruce. Despite their mutual attraction, Rachel decides that they can't be together if he's determined to lead a double life. She kisses him goodbye and leaves him to fulfill his destiny, hoping that he will come back to her when Batman is no longer needed in Gotham.
The Dark Knight[]
Rachel had become the assistant DA to Harvey Dent, an idealist dedicated to destroying the mob in Gotham. The two began dating, creating a love triangle between herself, Dent and Bruce.
When the mob hires the Joker to kill Batman, the Joker says he will kill people until Batman reveals his identity. Despite Bruce's initial reluctance to give in to the Joker's demands, he finally decides to turn himself in, not wanting anyone else to die because of him. He asks Dent to assemble a press conference which he'll show his true identity and be arrested. Afterward Rachel tries to convince Bruce not to turn himself in, but he remains firm in his decision. Bruce kisses Rachel one last time, hoping that the two will be together once he reveals his identity. Harvey, realizing how important Batman is, says that he is Batman in order to keep the real Batman free. Rachel confronts Bruce's butler and confidante Alfred Pennyworth about this deception, but Alfred simply suggests that Bruce and Harvey both recognize that Batman represents something more than a man. Referring to this as "unheroic", Rachel realizes Bruce intends to use Harvey as bait to capture the Joker, however, and decides that she cannot be with Bruce. She writes Bruce a letter revealing that she plans to marry Dent, and gives it to Alfred to give to Bruce "when the time is right".
The plan appears to be a success when Batman and now-Commissioner Gordon capture the Joker. During this time, Joker manipulates two cops into bringing Dent and Rachel to different buildings in the city. There, both of them are tied up with bombs and barrels of gasoline surrounding them, along with a radio that allowed the two of them to speak to each other before one of them dies. The Joker reveals the locations to Batman and the police during his interrogation, but deliberately switches them, knowing that Batman will go and save Rachel. Sure enough, Batman sets out to save Rachel, while Gordon goes to rescue Dent, unaware of the falsehood in Joker's words until Batman arrives at the storage to find Dent, not Rachel as he believes, inside.
Batman manages to get Dent out, arriving moments after Rachel had told Harvey that she was going to marry him, having previously requested time to consider his proposal. Her final words are " It's okay, Harvey. It's all right. Listen... some--". The bombs then explode, killing Rachel and hideously scarring half of Dent's face. The Joker later visits Dent in the hospital, and uses his rage over Rachel's death to persuade him to kill the people he blames for her death as the vigilante Two-Face.
Bruce, meanwhile, is devastated by Rachel's death, and tells Alfred that his one solace is that she died believing they could be together. Wishing to spare Bruce's feelings, Alfred burns Rachel's letter.
The Dark Knight Rises[]
After the Joker is arrested and Dent is killed, Bruce goes into seclusion for eight years, believing that his only chance for a normal life died with Rachel. When Bane attacks Gotham City, Bruce decides to once again become Batman, Alfred finally reveals to Bruce that Rachel chose Dent over him and that he burned the letter in order to spare Bruce the pain. This revelation puts a severe strain on Bruce's relationship with Alfred, who leaves Wayne Manor when Bruce decides to continue as Batman.
Throughout the film, Bruce keeps a picture of Rachel. After Bruce and his allies defeat Bane, Talia al Ghul and the rest of the League of Shadows, Bruce retires his role as Batman after fulfilling his vows to turn Gotham into a city of order. Later, he passes his legacy as Gotham's Dark Knight to Detective John Blake and enters a relationship with Selina Kyle, thus finally moving on with his life and proving Rachel wrong.
Personality[]
Rachel is an outspoken idealist who is dedicated to ridding Gotham City of crime. While also wanting to protect Gotham City, she and Bruce disagree on how it should be done, as while Bruce is the violent vigilante Batman, Rachel works inside the law. Sometimes, however, she can come across as uptight. She usually takes her job as District Attorney very seriously and is not easily corrupted. But she does not do much as an assistant D.A. since Bruce is the only one doing something about it.
Trivia[]
- Holmes' performance is often favored by fans, despite a Razzie nomination.
- She was the first major female character to be killed off in the Batman films.
- Fans felt that her overall character arc in The Dark Knight Trilogy was very minor. Because of this, she was unpopular in the trilogy to say the least.
- Despite wanting to save Gotham City, she didn't do much apart from sitting on the sidelines.
- It's unknown if Rachel's mother was alive at the time of Rachel's death seeing as she was never mentioned in the second movie. If she was, she would've blamed Batman, even after the truth about Dent was revealed.
- Gyllenhaal took over the role in The Dark Knight after Holmes had to finish her role in Mad Money.
- In addition, both Holmes and Aaron Eckhart, who played Harvey Dent/Two-Face, have previously starred in Thank You for Smoking, coincidentally released three months after Batman Begins. Thus, had Holmes been able to reprise the role in the sequel, this would've been the great opportunity for her and Eckhart to meet again for which what would've been their second film together.
