Ever notice that every blockbuster movie has the same fundamental pieces? A hero, a journey, some conflicts to muck it all up, a reward, and the hero returning home and everybody applauding his or her swag? Yeah, scholar Joseph Campbell noticed first—in 1949. He wrote The Hero with a Thousand Faces, in which he outlined the 17 stages of a mythological hero's journey.

About half a century later, Christopher Vogler condensed those stages down to 12 in an attempt to show Hollywood how every story ever written should—and, uh, does—follow Campbell's pattern. We're working with those 12 stages, so take a look. (P.S. Want more? We have an entire Online Course devoted to the hero's journey.)

Applying the structure of the Hero's Journey is a little funky for this film, since The Dark Knight is the second film in a trilogy that essentially tells one big story. We get Act II without Acts I or III, which leaves a lot of middle steps without any of the first or last ones in the story. Luckily for us, Christopher Nolan is a pretty awesome filmmaker, and he can tell a complete Hero's Journey in The Dark Knight while still linking it to the bigger story told over all three movies.

Ordinary World

The Ordinary World is actually fairly extraordinary here. There's Batman! And he's bringing the pain to Gotham's bad guys! He's kicking so much butt in fact, that criminals are scared to do anything illegal, and with Harvey Dent making a splash, there may soon come a time when Gotham City doesn't need a winged vigilante anymore. That sounds pretty calm and placid to us… the perfect place to throw a crazy clown into the equation.

Call to Adventure

Said clown is already on the scene when we begin, but no one's too worried about him. He's just a bank robber with a flair for the dramatic, and sooner or later, Batman will get him. That's before the Joker offers to kill Batman for the mob, and unleash chaos the likes of which Gotham has never seen. Better fire up that Bat Signal boys. This one is going to get ugly…

Refusal of the Call

Like way too many heroes, Batman isn't especially interested in answering the call. He's actually ready to hang up the cowl and let Harvey Dent fight the good fight. He should have known better. The very night he tells Rachel that Harvey's the guy for the job, the Joker crashes his party and throws Rachel out the nearest window. Healing Gotham's soul is going to take a lot more than a good speech about the DA, Bruce. And stopping a problem like the Joker means you don't get to take off your utility belt for a while.

Meeting The Mentor

There's a number of mentor figures from The Dark Knight, but none of them quite do the job of preparing Batman for his ordeals the way Joseph Campbell says they should. We could go with Alfred Pennyworth or Lucius Fox for the mentor, but Batman's known them for a long while and they don't have a whole lot new to teach him at this point. In this case, the "mentor" is probably more of a partner, or in this case, partners. Jim Gordon has been working with Batman to stop the mob, and when Harvey Dent enters the picture, he feels like he has just the tools he needs to put Gotham right for good. They're the closest representatives we have in this spot.

Crossing The Threshold

The Threshold comes fairly late in the game, with the various mobsters in jail at Harvey Dent's behest and the good guys just getting ready to relax. That's when the Joker kills Commissioner Loeb and a crusading judge, then tries to kill Harvey himself at Bruce Wayne's penthouse shindig. Suddenly, just when they're getting ready to take the ball in for the big win, they're forced to cough it up on the goal line by the guy in purple and green. The only way out is through, and they're off on the road to adventure good and proper.

Tests, Allies, Enemies

The road of challenges is particularly daunting here. Batman loses his best friend in Rachel, sees Gotham's hope for Harvey Dent go up like a Roman candle, and watches the citizens of Gotham turn into panicking animals before the Joker's acts of terror. He's got plenty of enemies too: besides the Joker himself, there's Sal Maroni and his cronies, along with the Scarecrow and Harvey's alter-ego Two-Face towards the end of the game.

His allies are stalwart as always—led by Alfred and Lucius but counting Harvey and Rachel among their ranks for a time—but the challenges they face are pretty huge, and like all heroes, Batman eventually has to face his biggest challenges alone.

Approach to The Inmost Cave

The innermost cave—the battle for Gotham's soul as the Joker puts it—comes at almost the very end of the movie. The Joker has rigged two ferries to blow, counting on the cowardice and self-preservation of the passengers to show Batman what the city's soul really looks like. Batman's betting the other way—that neither ferry will condemn the other to death—while he's waiting to find out he has to stop Gotham's SWAT team from killing a bunch of innocent hostages.

Ordeal

Bruce dives into that building under construction, where the Joker has holed himself up and, in a move of pure evil genius, dressed the hostages up like his minions so that the police will butcher them like hogs. Batman comes through 'cause he's Batman, of course. He nabs the Joker, saves the hostages, and even makes his point about Gothamites being "ready to believe in good" when the ferries don't blow each other up. Like the rest of the road, it's an ugly win, but a win nonetheless. The Joker is caught and Gotham's soul is left intact. Tell him what he's won, Johnny!

Reward (Seizing The Sword)

The sword in this case, is Gotham's belief in a brighter tomorrow. The gangsters that Harvey prosecuted will stay in jail, Gotham City hasn't sacrificed its principles in order to buy perceived safety and Commissioner Gordon didn't accidentally kill anyone the way he might have if Batman hadn't brought his A-game. That's cause for celebration… or it would be if this were any other giant comic book blockbuster.

The Road Back

Unfortunately, the road back may be even more dangerous than the ordeal itself, thanks to the Joker's nasty little trick with Two-Face. "You need an ace in the hole," he giggles at the Caped Crusader while hanging upside down. "Mine's Harvey." And while the clown may be getting fitted for a rubber room, Two-Face is still out there preparing to bring all of the former DA's good work crashing around them. So off Batman goes, one more time, ready to protect the victory he's just earn at any cost.

Resurrection

And what a cost it is. In order to erase all the evidence of Harvey's crimes, thus keeping all of their accomplishments intact, Batman has to be reborn as something else. He takes on the sins of his fallen comrade, and stops being Gotham's protector. Instead, he becomes a repository for all that heinous despair that the Joker was trying to drown them with. He becomes the amoral murderer in the eyes of the public: the guy who kills without reason and isn't any different than the criminals he puts away.

It's not true, of course, but as Batman says, "I'm whatever Gotham needs me to be," and by reshaping himself as the villain, by being reborn in the public's eye as a monster, he believes he can keep them safe from all the real monsters he's been fighting for the whole movie.

Return With The Elixir

But can he? When The Dark Knight comes to an end, he seems to. His sacrifice has bought Gotham that hard-earned peace and he can vanish into the night knowing that the mob is safely behind bars. That's good enough for the moment, though it leaves an awfully big loose end that might come back to bite him. (It actually does in The Dark Knight Rises, and it's so nasty that it takes a whole additional movie for him to finally dig himself out of it.) Victory, yes, but at what price? It's a pretty bleak "win" for Batman, even if it appears to be sticking when the credits roll.