Law as a Game of Chance: Rabelais’ Bridlegoose and DC’s Two-Face

Abstract

The Batman villain Two-Face and Rabelais’ Bridlegoose in The Third Book of Pantagruel ([1546]1894) are identified with the law – or at least, the law distorted, exaggerated, caricatured. Two-Face decides matters based on the tossing of a double-faced coin, one side of which is defaced; in some respects, he is the successor to Rabelais’ Judge Bridlegoose, who decides the judicial cases before him by a throw of the dice. They both surrender their decision-making to the aleatory, in a manner that prompts us to gaze upon (or askance at) the [im]possible moment of decision. This article takes a comparative approach to draw out how these two characters illuminate broader questions of law and justice, through considerations of parody, satire, deconstruction, and play, having significance for the philosophy of law.