why we fight in pandaria and gotham

This past week i saw the new Mists of Pandaria cinematic and the Dark Knight Rises. I was thinking about MoP while i watched DKR. Let me just say...i'm not really a Batman fan. I like the new films a lot more than the old ones, but i don't love them by any stretch. They are dark compared to the Marvel comic films and Batman is too whiny for me. This one in particular is violent (per usual) but what i think really got to me was Bane's voice more than anything. He makes Darth Vader look like a kitten! Most of the time i had absolutely no idea what he was talking about, though. I must say that i was pretty happy about who he ended up with in the end.
One thing about Nolan films...i never thought i would become a Joseph Gordon Levitt fan. I remember thinking he was kind of gross in 3rd Rock from the Sun. It kind of annoys me that Nolan keeps using the same actors over and over and yet...i felt inexplicably happy to see Cillan Murphy show up. I wasn't expecting to see him, it was amusing and left me feeling all warm and fuzzy inside. Which is totally insane, i know. But back to MoP (and what it has to do with DKR).

"To ask why we fight is to ask why the leaves fall. It is in their nature. Perhaps there is a better question...Why do we fight? To protect home and family. To preserve balance and bring harmony. For my kind, the true question is: what is worth fight for?" ~ Chen Stormstout

I like this cinematic because of the voiceover (quoted above). In a post-DKR shooting there's a lot of people calling for less violence, gun control, etc. At my theater they are even searching purses now and banning backpacks, which i think is really more about making sure that people aren't sneaking snacks in rather than a security issue, but i digress. I am not a member of the group of people that thinks guns are at fault, or video games, etc. I think that fighting is pretty normal for a human being and that our modern whiny "but i don't want to go without for the greater good" mentality is pretty stupid and selfish.  I think a lot of the behavioral problems that people have and the extreme sports that are so popular stem from the fact that until about the time i was born or a couple of decades before everyone dealt with danger (real or imagined) all the time.  The government wasn't there to protect us when we were moving west.  There was no one to protect the explorers of the New World before that.  And so on.  Of course i don't know for a fact that people who lived in the Roman Empire always felt completely safe but i'm pretty sure they had no concept of a government bail out.

I guess DKR was dealing mostly with the rich and corrupt city government...but i'm still not quite sure, particularly as Bane used that to come to power.  But supposedly in Mists it's going to be about the violence within ourselves, at least that was what i read.  That isn't what i'm getting from the trailer.  But to sum up i think that it is normal for people to be angry and violent to an extent and we need to learn how to channel that to constructive ends rather than destructive ones.

I don't know, i'm not feeling very zen at the moment, but that's what i'm taking away.  I'm starting to feel like watching some Firefly or some John Wayne.



ETA: Just read this over at WoWInsider about the cinematic:

Clockwork at Out of Beta presents a thoughtful look at the meaning behind the cinematic.

Then the human hands his oar-spear over to the Orc. Think about this...a new enemy has shown up that is clearly more powerful than Horde and Alliance (as stated previously, the two characters are basically perfect stereotypes of their factions) and they have to work together to face it. For a brief moment the two realize that their fighting each other was futile and useless...and the Panda has taught them that.

I think the one thing everyone can agree on is that the new cinematic is a definitive, direct departure from the cinematics that came before. No longer do we have a giant enemy boasting about the end of the world and that we aren't prepared to bring about their demise. Instead, we have a break in the game, a pause, a moment to reflect and wonder. Perhaps that cinematic really does have a villain of sorts. It's not Illidan, the Lich King or Deathwing -- it's the threat that we bring to the world all by ourselves.

Oh, okay, i guess i can see that. I did think it was kind of odd (if Horde and Alliance are at each other's throats more than ever) that the Orc and Human teamed up and wondered what that had to do with what Chen was saying. I guess this makes more sense now.  But i'm not sure that i agree that there is nothing in Pandaria to fight other than what these two factions bring with them.  I'm certainly not an expert on the expansion but i'm pretty sure there are enemies that the Pandaren have had to keep at bay even before we arrived.