Batman's two primary love interests are villains/ amoral characters. What does that say about the character?

[TheDarkNut]

He likes dangerous chicks?

A normal girl would be too boring for him anyway.

[shades of eternity]

both are still healthier then his timverse relationship <shudder>.

[JBatmanFan05]

Batman's two primary love interests are villains/ amoral characters. What does that say about the character?

It says that Batman is a very pulp noir-rooted character.

[PowerPlay25]

I think it's a demonstration of Masochism. I am not well versed in the Bat/Cat dynamic but I've always liked his dynamic with Talia. I think Tomasi put best when he said Talia is "in love and in hate" with Batman. She loves what he could be, in her view, a world conquerer. I think Bruce/Batman has always been drawn to the "lost cause" aspect of Talia. She's her father's daughter, raised to be a "bad hat" as it were but she's shown signs of being capable of helping the angels, the only catch-22 being, it's always been when something of her own concern hangs in the balance. Love for Fellow-Man, Compassion of the less fortunate or just pure-driven heroism has never played a role in her motivation.

I was shocked when we saw he had a tombstone for Talia even after everything she did. But even before Morrison, helping her father release a plague on Gotham, all the people killed during the "Tower of Babel" and her joining up with Lex Luthor. On an emotional level Talia chains him to a wall and whips him overtime they interact.

[Cipher]

He's got a kink.

It makes sense that he'd be bored by other women, though. He's in love with chase and challenge and superheroing. Who better a partner, as a way of keeping him interested, than an equally clever supervillain? It's his pitfall.

Writers aren't very interested in Bruce's personal life. They just want to write about Batman. So Catwoman or Talia are more Batman love interests and part of that world than love interests for Bruce.

To be fair, Batman has consistently been portrayed as the "real" ego, rather than Bruce Wayne, for decades. This isn't Superman where his time as a normal person is something he greatly values. Being Bruce Wayne bores him; you get the feeling that if it were possible and weren't such an emotional strain, he'd be Batman twenty-four seven.

(Takes on Superman vary a lot more than do takes of Batman, but speaking broadly, the last few decades have been pretty firm in showing that his time as non-superhuman Clark Kent is more than an act.)

[Godlike13]

Despite one being evil and the other liking to steal things, Talia and Selina are both pretty amazing women. They're also bombshells.

[Nite-Wing]

One is a criminal who justifies the murder and genocide she commits for the greater good
One is a criminal who can't stop and won't stop stealing because she grew up rough

Batman tends to obsess about redeeming people which overlaps with his one rule. Talia and Selina will never change though