See, my take is had he not died and had there not been this much hype, people would not literally be killing themselves to watch this movie.
It's a good movie but it is not THAT great. Some viewer rankings have it as the number 1 movie of all time which is a load of rubbish.
Also, as good as Heath Ledger was, Bale and Eckhart were equally as excellent and yet they are getting little credit.
RIP to Heath but let's be realistic here.
Also, regarding his character, remember Nicholson's Joker? Remember what people said back then?
Nothing is set in stone. This year we have a guy with a painted face vying with a small cgi robot for the best cinematic performance thus far. Go figure.