Headscratchers / Batman: Arkham Knight

Batman and Joker's Relationship

Can anyone clarify what exactly is the deal between these two? What does Batman see in the Joker? It's almost like in the Showtime series "Dexter" where Dexter himself has Harry looking out for him... in a way. What and why is this?

• They strangely respect each other. This question is hard to answer, which is why it depicts their relationship perfectly. They're both arguably nuts and only they could understand each other perfectly, twisted as it may sound. No one, not even Harley, understands Joker as much as Batman does, and the fact that Joker can't comprehend why Batman won't just kill him right away makes things even more interesting for Mistah J. The Killing Joke is a good example that shows why they just respect each other, in their twisted way.
• I don't know, I think Batman doesn't have that much in common with the Joker.
• The whole "one bad day" bit with Joker is pretty much their biggest similarity, but what they did afterward is where the similarities end. As I said, "The Killing Joke" pretty much sums it up in the last few pages where Batman offers to help rehabilitate Joker, but the latter refuses and instead tells a joke that reduces Bats to laughter. They're both nuts, just in their special ways.
  • Depends on how you look at how they came out of their "one bad day". There is the school of thought that Bruce Wayne also died that night and became Batman. So, both of them lost themselves to an alter ego obsessed with how that night made them feel. Joker felt like nothing mattered anymore and that life was one big joke. Bruce wanted to regain control of everything and make it so that no one else ever had to go through it. And we come back to Chaos and Order.
• But Batman has more in common with Prometheus or Wraith, or even Black Mask and Two-Face.
• Like I said, hard to answer. Someone out there might be able to better structure the answer to this question. Have a look here, might find the answer you're looking for. Also, it's a great story and I'd highly recommend it.
• This is not a question that has an easy answer, but the obsession between Batman and Joker likely has less to do with their similarities and more to do with their differences. While it's true that both are insane in their ways, Batman and Joker are opposites of one another. The saying "opposites attract" is in play here, and that is why they are so obsessed with one another; they find the other fascinating since they don't conform to their respective viewpoints of the world. Honestly, this is a question that has many answers and it's the reason that the dynamic between the two is so interesting.
• While the dynamic between Joker and Batman is indeed interesting and one of the best parts of the game, I still find it hard to believe that Batman related to him more than he did Nightwing, Robin, Oracle, Alfred, or one of his other longstanding allies. He spent far more personal time with all of them, and occasionally (if rarely) shared his thoughts and feelings with them. Although it's not unusual to form a connection with a rival, it's unlikely that Joker was the only relationship for Batman to have fallen back on.
• Both Batman: Arkham Origins and this have possible solutions. In the former, Batman equated Joker to the guy who killed his parents- some random nobody that shows up just to kill people and go away for no real reason. In this game, Batman finally discovers what Joker is afraid of- being forgotten. It may not be mourning per se, but rather Joker died before Batman could ever understand him.
• The Joker is a goofy, chaotic, murderous clown. He's obsessed with breaking the grim, stoic, brooding defender of Gotham City because it entertains and satisfies him. As the Vision stated in Age of Ultron, 'strength invites challenge'. The Joker sees breaking the Batman as the ultimate ordeal, and he's determined to do it.
• They're each other's greatest foe. Joker was the criminal that Batman could never fully understand (and therefore defeat), and Batman was the one person Joker could never manage to break. In their quests to beat the other, they came to know each other far better than any other person. Batman may not have fully understood the Joker, but he understood him better than anyone else could have. Similarly, Joker saw Batman more clearly than any other enemy orally. And each of them recognized the level of understanding that the other had for them.
• Batman and the Joker are opposites; in order for two things to be opposites, there must be some defining similarity that connects them. Just as happiness and anger are opposites because they're different emotions or funny and serious are opposites because they're different attitudes, Batman and the Joker are opposites because they have that very defining similarity of both being men who were faced with tragedy and have chosen to deal with that in completely different ways. They are, to each other, the road not traveled, and the fact that they recognize that is part of what makes their relationship interesting.

Scarecrow's new voice in Arkham Knight

He's the only one who sounds different, while everyone else kept their original voiceovers. Did Scarecrow's voice change due to the actor, or due to his... condition?

• Likely a mix of both. Realistically though, it's probably due to the developers wanting Scarecrow to sound threatening consistently - something that John Noble has no problem with! The actor in Asylum was certainly talented, but a shrieking, cackling Scarecrow likely wasn't what Rocksteady wanted for Arkham Knight.
• In Asylum, Scarecrow was never seen outside of his mask. And the mask changed his voice quite a bit. By the time of Knight, he has been through a lot of trauma, is missing the full head mask, and has been plotting revenge the whole time. That's the in-universe reason. The out-of-universe reason - different voice actor.
• You can hear his voice in Asylum without the mask in the interview tapes. He sounds the same, just without the distortion from the fear gas. I think Croc ripped him up so bad he had to reassemble his vocal cords as well as his face.
• Much of a voice's uniqueness comes from the configuration of the person's sinuses and their oral and nasal cavities. Whatever reconstruction was done on Crane's face after his Croc encounter would've altered his vocal quality, even if his larynx was undamaged.

Is James Gordon's hair regressing?

His hair was nearly white-gray in Arkham Asylum, it was simply gray in Arkham City, it's dark-grey brownish in Arkham Knight... and at a certain part where you play as James himself after Phantom Joker's first appearance, his hair is brown. What the heck is up with this? Poison Ivy too looks so dull and NOT bright green or colorful as before.

• New-gen redesigns are what's up with this. A lot of Origins players complained that it was unrealistic for Gordon's hair to go from brown to snow white in just a few years so maybe they took the opportunity to fix that by giving him some brown patches in his hair, though it's unlikely since his character model was probably done while Origins was still in development. It may not be entirely true in Ivy's case since some have hinted that her duller skin color is due to her dying plants leeching the life from her.
• I seem to recall Joker saying something to Gordon in Asylum about dying his hair. Maybe he took it to heart.
  • It was Harley.

Why did Scarecrow want Ivy?

He specifically gets Harley to free Ivy from Bludhaven yet he only keeps her in a cage and tries to have her killed when Batman shows up. Given that Ivy is instrumental in stopping him later on it's a big oversight.

• Poison Ivy is immensely misanthropic and would be instrumental in taking over Gotham. The only flaw in his plan is that Ivy didn't want anything to do with him, and since she's not with him, she's against him thus he kidnaps her and tried to kill her. It's mentioned in the game.
• He may also have been hoping he could force her to join the Rogues' conspiracy using his fear toxin plus psychological coercion, only to discover that his toxins don't work on her physiology and her mindset is too inhuman to brainwash. In which case, her resistance would've posed an intellectual challenge for Crane, who confined her for future experiments, then ordered her death when Batman arrived lest she passes on any information she might've overheard.

Time traveling Joker?

• How is Joker able to turn back time so you can lock Tim away?
  • It's all taking place in Batman's mind in the split second he's making his decision. Joker just keeps altering his perception till he makes the choice he wants,
  • Cher must be jealous.
  • Same way he did it when Catwoman chose not to save Batman in Arkham City, I guess.

Scarecrow's new appearance

• Why does Scarecrow's mask still have the air tanks of a gas mask if you can see that his mouth is uncovered?
  • Maybe his air intake has been surgically modified so that he is incapable of breathing in through his mouth, only through the gas mask that has been surgically grafted onto his jaw?
    • (shudder) Sorry I asked.
  • Or he just has a respirator component that he doesn't wear all the time.
  • Maybe it's some kind of voice filter. Scarecrow sounds very different than he did in Asylum.
  • Are we even sure that he's still alive at this point? He looks like a corpse, that spent some time underwater but hadn't bloated yet.
    • He's alive enough to succumb to his fear-toxin when Batman injects him.
• How in the hell can Scarecrow form consonants when he has no lips?
  • Probably the same way Joker could talk after having his tongue bitten off.

Gassing Ivy?

• Why did Scarecrow's men have Ivy in, of all things, a gas chamber!?
  • They're dumb? Or they don't know that Ivy is immune to poisons?
  • According to the stories unlocked in City Ivy nearly died from TITAN, so it's established her immunity has limits. Maybe Scarecrow wanted to learn how to bypass her immunity as well.
  • The Chamber was originally meant for someone else and was simply being used to hold her somewhere where she couldn't use her pheromones to control the men.
  • Plus, it's later established that she isn't immune to fear toxin, it just has a different effect on her than the TITAN did when used on humans. Instead of giving her hallucinations, it's slowly killing her and Crane is aware of this, so he already bypassed her immunity.

Catwoman against Riddler

• Why would Catwoman want to go after Riddler? It's shown in Arkham City that the two don't care for each other. So why all of a sudden is it that Catwoman is trying to smash all of Riddler's robots?
  • Riddler kidnapped her and placed an explosive collar around her neck to lure Batman in.
  • She knew that Riddler and Scarecrow and all the others meant business. T=She was trying to find out what Riddler's up to protect the man she loves.
  • She says herself in-game that Riddler lured her there with the promise of a job stealing something. As she points out to Batman, not everybody has a mission—she was just out for money until she ended up being bait.
  • Riddler contacted Catwoman with the request to steal something. (nimbus power cells from Stagg's ship) When she dropped by for the details, he had his robots unexpectedly grab her and placed that collar on her. Catwoman initially refused to work for Riddler, telling him she had plenty of clients who weren't ego-centric manchildren, but she changed her mind due to Riddler having inside information on Scarecrow's plot against Batman. Hence the reason she tells Batman that the whole mess with the bomb collar is his fault.
    • Is all that confirmed, or is it just a guess? I had the impression the situation was "Batman's fault" only in the sense that Riddler wants to match wits with "The World's Greatest Detective", and he's decided to make Catwoman a hostage so Bruce will cooperate. So if Batman didn't exist in the first place, Catwoman wouldn't have been captured.
    • It's confirmed, as part of Riddler's audio tapes in-game.

Why not exploit Batman's one rule?

• If the Arkham Knight really knows how Batman operates, why does he practically cater to Batman's one rule and bring in an army of unmanned drone tanks?
  • Probably because he doesn't have enough drivers since most who would wanna drive them are hired by Scarecrow? But then again, I'm not sure if Batman still cares about that rule by now, perhaps? After all, even in one of the trailers, his Batmobile explicitly fires homing rockets that blow up opposing cars in a car chase... I sincerely doubt that the car is unmanned...
    • The "rockets" you refer to are called "immobilizers" in the game. They can flip cars over without ever killing the occupants. (This is the same sort of narrative magic that was at play during the big car chase in Batman Begins. Alfred even lampshaded it: "It's a miracle no one was killed.) So no, Batman has not abandoned his one rule. (And if he did abandon it, that would be a really weird change compared to Arkham City, where he explicitly refuses to kill Ra's, even though Ra's is asking for it, and even though you could immediately resurrect him anyway.)
  • He rants about this in your first scripted encounter with him. He doesn't want to see Batman holding back so deliberately planned for unmanned vehicles.
  • Keep in mind that the Arkham Knight is also fully aware of the plan to flood at the very least the city, if not the entire East Coast, with fear gas. Many of his militiamen talk about having plans and posts ahead of time that do NOT leave them in the zones where the gas will be—either very high up or deep below ground. With this in mind, they probably also planned so they can still maintain a military presence while not having live people susceptible to fear gas on the ground. Thus, remote-operated drones.

Batman's guilt over *SPOILERS*

• Batman gets a lot of flack from his allies (and feels great personal guilt himself) over how Oracle was placed in danger because of him. The thing is... IT WAS NEVER HIS FAULT. Barbara volunteered for the role, and it was her choice to not leave the city with the other evacuees. Unless Batman was willing to drag a resisting, crippled girl through a crowded evac zone, he had no real control over where she was or what she was doing. It's especially egregious when villains like the Scarecrow ( who masterminded her capture), the Knight ( who kidnapped her), and the Joker (who put her in the wheelchair) go on and on about all the ways Batman has "harmed" her.
  • Joker can be excused for just being Bruce's hallucination, meaning his accusations are nothing more than a manifestation of his feelings of guilt. After all, it would seem rather unlike Joker to let anyone take credit for his handiwork.
  • And why didn't anyone seem to care that Batman would have been unable to save the eastern seaboard without her? If she hadn't analyzed Scarecrow's fear toxin, Batman wouldn't have been able to disarm the bomb at Ace Chemicals. Apart from the loss of several million people, she would have been in even greater danger had she left!
    • To be fair, Oracle could've probably functioned just as well if she'd brought her software to some Wayne Industries tech facility outside the city. But the Clock Tower seemed safe enough when it was just Scarecrow's gas threats they thought they'd be dealing with; it was the Knight's inside knowledge of its location and security systems that made Barbara easy prey.
  • Mainly because he allowed her to stay without informing her father, Commissioner Gordon about it. And one of Batman's fears is the inability to protect everyone he cares about from harm. Barbara Gordon he feels should have been better protected, and should not risk her life in such a dangerous field. There's a reason why Batman feels guilty about Jason Todd's "death" even though both knew this would be a dangerous and life-threatening career. Just because it's technically not his fault doesn't mean that Batman is somehow immune to criticisms of handling these situations.
    • Original poster: It might be easier to understand if it were clear how informing Gordon would have changed the outcome. Both he and Batman (depending on the player) can respond as fast as humanly possible when they learn of her danger, and it still isn't enough to prevent her capture. Telling Gordon about Barbra's whereabouts would have been more of a courtesy than a practical precaution. EDIT: Upon reflection, wasn't it Barbra's call on whether or not to inform her father? Batman may have advised her to keep Gordon in the dark, but it was a personal family matter and therefore her decision to make; it's not like Batman could have prevented her if she wanted to.
    • Informing Gordon about Barbara's decision to stay in the city would at least ensure the Commissioner that there are no secrets that Batman is keeping from him. A form of trust and transparency that keeps their relationship healthy. If Gordon was informed, he wouldn't have been caught surprised by the news that his daughter has been kidnapped after assuming she's safe out of the city. He might be angry at Barbara for putting her life at risk, but at least he would know where she may be. Heck, he may even give extra security around her or transfer her somewhere safe from Scarecrow's wrath. Might not work, but at least it's an honest try. And while Barbara may choose not to tell her father of her secret, Batman has no obligations to do the same. He's a Control Freak and in the very game itself, he deliberately locks up Robin against his will and cuts off his communications as a means to keep him safe from the Scarecrow (and prevent him from interfering with his mission). That is ultimately a poor decision as it makes Robin unable to do more important duties (such as protecting Barbara Gordon) and leaves him defenseless when Scarecrow comes to take him hostage during the climax. It all stems from Batman's inconsistent decisions.
    • Oracle's actions in the GCPD is solid proof that keeping Gordon in the loop would have worked out perfectly; she could have accessed the data and equipment within the Clocktower remotely and aided Batman from a place of safety, while under the protection of several hundred trained cops. It took an entire column of tanks and several platoons of soldiers to break into the GCPD while the Clocktower was breached with relative ease. Granted, this happens much further in the game after her capture, and it isn't explicitly spelled out to the player, so it's more a case of Fridge Logic.
    • However, that comes at quite a cost. While it isn't played for drama or mentioned, Oracle's secret identity had to be compromised for her to operate within GCPD. Every officer and most of the villains now knows that Gordon's girl worked for the Bat. While no one uses her codename in public, there are only so many redheads working for the Bat that look good in black and yellow. While it's far better than being dead or captured, that is a heavy price to pay if you think it's avoidable.
  • Batman is in charge. He makes decisions for his team, telling them where to go and how to protect themselves. He probably helped design the Clocktower's security system, so he feels responsible for that too. The fact of the matter is that he ordered (or allowed) Oracle to stay in the clock tower during the crisis, and the security system failed to protect her. It's easy to understand why he feels guilty. Of course, the villains exaggerate his guilt, but they do that on purpose.
    • Batman had nine months to prepare for something to happen, but he neither built alternate bases for Oracle's use nor upgraded the security it seems. Jason's been out of Gotham for about three years, and he still knows how to break into the clocktower.

Batman's vision of *SPOILERS*

• How exactly did the Arkham Knight and Scarecrow know that Batman witnessed Barbara committing suicide? I guess they don't explicitly say it, but they do blame Batman for what happened in the chamber.
• Took me a while to think of the answer to this but it may just be that Knight knows losing an ally is what Batman fears the most, and thus he assumes that it's what he'd see when affected by the toxin - particularly in a situation where he knows she was in danger already.
• It was a custom toxin, possibly. Honestly? It bothered me too. But, seriously. It would not be outside of Scarecrow's power to make a hallucinogen for 'Batman sees Oracle die'.
  • Batman should have been smart enough to realize that she didn't shoot herself since there was NO BLOOD at least.
  • Batman doesn't know he's in a computer game that's already pushing its rating as far as it can go with that scene. The lack of blood is a meta, rating thing rather than something Batman should know about.
  • Actually, Batman could’ve figured it out instantly, if he, ironically, hadn’t tried to ignore Joker’s hallucination so hard. Since I enjoyed Joker, I noticed it the first thing. Joker nudged the gun at Barbara, which 100% would prove there was no gun. But, understandably, Batman probably tries to never even look at Joker’s hallucination, so as not to give it more influence canonically. But it played a joke(ha) on him in this case.
• Later in the game, it's revealed that the Arkham Knight is hacking Batman's communications. Since after the alleged suicide, he fairly heavily implies to Alfred she's dead, it's not hard for them to figure out what happened.

Barbara's Ship Tease with Tim

• No one else has asked this, but why is the Robin that Barbara gets the Ship Tease with Tim Drake? I mean, ignoring the age gap (which would be even bigger if Arkhamverse Barb is older than Dick as she was in the comics originally, which would make her at least ten years his senior), or the fact it comes out of nowhere compared to the rest of the Bat-books, but given that Dick Grayson is in the game, and he and Barb probably had one of the most famous, and most healthy, relationship from the Bat-books, would it not have made more sense for it to be him who the storyline is done with? Particularly since a throw-away line indicates Dick is kept in the loop about what happened to Barb, even though he's likely to be just as irrational at dealing with Barbara's disappearance and apparent death as Tim is. This isn't even a shipping issue since I don't even ship the two (prefer them as 'snarky exes who are still buds', though I do ship Tim with Steph and that does admittedly factor into this), but it just seems like an odd and pointless change to make, when sticking to the canon wouldn't have caused any problems (hell, at least the Jason/Barb subplot in Batman Eternal had the excuse of Dick being busy being Grayson; here, Dick is present and active in the story).
  • It's there as a form of shorthand. Arkham! Tim has the personality of Comics! Dick Grayson and Robin are much more prominent than Nightwing is in the Arkham franchise. He appeared in CITY in the main campaign and was there in the DLC whereas Nightwing wasn't even voiced in Arkham City. The developers felt that for a general audience (those not familiar with the comics' continuity), Robin has more of an emotional connection than Dick Grayson-As-Nightwing. Likewise in the Arkhamverse Oracle is a more important character than both Robin and Nightwing, she's there in all three games (more than Alfred of the Batfamily), so they wanted her to have a Happy Ending after the whole shock and trauma she goes through in the campaign and they wanted Robin to be more involved in the story. So it's more Pair the Spares since Batman Did Not Get the Girl in the story and they wanted the ending to not be a total downer. After seeing Robin/Drake captured (thanks to Batman's actions) and Arkham Knight being a tortured Robin, having Nightwing who is there in one side-quest be there at the end probably didn't seem right to them. It's not Tim Drake and Barbara so much as Robin and Oracle.
  • But still, there's no reason why they couldn't have made Nightwing more prominent in the main story; it wouldn't have been too hard to do so, then all they needed to do was give him and Barbara the Ship Tease and have him be the one worried about her safety; it would have given Tim less to do, but they could have compensated by giving him his story arc. It's just an odd choice that doesn't make much sense in the grand scope of things.
    • Well the point is Nightwing is an established superhero whereas Arkham! Robin is still not fully trusted by Batman. The story is about Batman failing his allies and that is more meaningful if as a result of his actions to protect Robin, he compromises his safety, and also the third Robin is a nice parallel to Arkham Knight/Second Robin. This means that in the narrative economy, Robin has a potentially bigger role in Knight than Nightwing, it's just a matter of convenience. I am pretty sure that if they had planned the Jason Todd reveal better, they would have retained the Barbara-Grayson romance. As it stands, it's still there with Serial Numbers Filed Off and Tim Drake being Dick Grayson in everything but name.
  • Dick may be dating/married to the Arkhamverse Starfire.
  • Alternatively, Dick in the comics is the male version of every superheroine in comics. He even does the boobs and butt pose a bazillion times. Plus, remember the original Nightwing outfit? That thing was fabulous.
    • Sure Nightwing could've passed as a fourth member of the Bee Gees, but I don't think it was that fabulous.
  • Yeah but why add the romance in the first place? Given that many fans were less than supportive of it all it actually does is make Bruce's actions come off as worse throughout the game, a pairing you don't like being fulfilled does not a happy ending make.

Where does the militia get its funding?

• Where does the Militia get all its toys and funding? Since it was created by the Arkham Knight, it never explains having the military strength of a moderate superpower.
  • Private Military Contractors do make quite a lot of money. Arkham Knight himself is a highly trained One-Man Army, so he would be able to make quite a profit as a solo mercenary and could use that as start-up capital.
  • It's also implied that Stagg has coughed up a significant amount of cash himself for it.
  • Poison Ivy states that was the point of the 'team-up' of super-villains that Scarecrow put together: they all pool their resources to fund Arkham Knight's militia and Scarecrow's development of his fear gas and the Cloudburst. Most of them provided cash, Penguin went into overdrive to provide the militia with really good guns, etc. Hell, one group of militia says that Lex Luthor put down some money for this as well.
  • It is mentioned by some mooks in Ace Chemicals that the pooled funds were approximately 3 billion dollars.

Thou shall kill

• I know the "Batman doesn't kill, he cripples for life" and "Batman doesn't kill you, but you die five minutes after he left" jokes were around since the first game (and probably even before) but this game reach new extremes. How is jamming someone's head into an electrical junction box not lethal? Or does firing homing rockets on a car with people inside it not killing them?
  • I'm just pulling shit out of my ass, but I'm guessing that as far as the junction box goes, Batman's suit can absorb most of the electricity, which lowers the voltage, thus making it non-lethal. As far as the immobilizer rockets go, I haven't got the slightest clue. How does the mine detonator not blow their legs off? It's getting harder for us to suspend our disbelief.
  • Even though the batmobile magically zaps mooks out of the way when you try to run them over, it's easy to rack up a triple-digit "kill count" by knocking mooks unconscious with slam rounds or the old-fashioned beatdown and THEN drive over their knocked-out rumps a couple of times. So yeah, suspension of disbelief.
    • llik ton llahs snopaew s'mantaB or something like that
    • I like to imagine that Batman spent an insane amount of time programming super-smart homing rockets that scan the target car's passengers and alter their trajectory en route in exactly the right way so that nobody dies but the car still flips over. But yeah, it's pretty ridiculous when you think about it.
  • I find it easier to deal with the suspension of disbelief in any superhero work by just assuming that every human being on the planet is superhuman to some degree. Hence, it allows them to survive punishment that, by all logic, should have killed them. If that doesn't work for you, an alternate explanation could be that everyone in the city is still feeling the effects from the Lazarus Pit under Gotham. My theory is that the Pit's fumes have given low-level regenerative powers to everyone in the city (it's been speculated that the fumes may also be the reason that Gotham is filled with a ridiculous amount of insane people), and despite its destruction in Arkham City, the effects may not have worn off yet. Of course, even that Hand Wave is ridiculous.
  • Suspension of disbelief indeed. How can you flip a vehicle with homing rockets during a 70mph chase and still guarantee the safety of the occupants inside? How can you hit someone upside the head with metal pipes, wrenches, and baseball bats while ensuring you won't kill them? Do you know dangerous it is to string someone up and leave them hanging upside down? How can you throw razor-sharp batarangs at people and make sure they don't get stabbed or cut and bleed to death? And give me a break with the electric shock mess. You can't barrel a 2-ton vehicle into someone at full speed and they still live.
    • How is Batman able to knock someone out and then literally shoot a fricking minigun at them and they still are "xx BPM: Unconscious". Also, how is Batman able to hit people with a baseball bat and they will still live??
  • Aside from car chases (I’d write it off as Batcomputer –which can recreate whole crime scenarios accurately based on a stain lol– calculating where to hit the car so the driver would be unharmed. Could explain why the homing is longer than it seems to be necessary). Running over people or firing missiles, or hitting people with metal bats are up to us, no? I only used weapons on armored militia with helmets and rarely did too dangerous environmental takedowns. Up to us to roleplay as Batman. You can also attribute it to the Joker’s influence. As Batman told Penguin, he wasn’t feeling himself that night…

Why doesn't Batman plan ahead when Scarecrow asks him to come alone to reveal his identity?

• He does seem to have some contingency in mind, at least—when Batman is in the truck being taken to Arkham, Alfred notes that someone is tracking Batman's movements through the city and Batman responds "I knew he would," indicating that he knows that Red Hood isn't going to let Scarecrow have his final victory, even if Batman is still willing to sacrifice himself to save Robin and Gordon.
• It could have gone a lot better and probably wouldn't have to involve Batman revealing his identity if maybe Batman were to send Nightwing to scout ahead or watch him closely. Somehow, I'd have thought with Batman usually preparing for anything, he'd at least have some plan to save Robin before going in all solo.
  • Batman knew he couldn't win at this point. All good things must come to an end and he didn't want to endanger his allies any further. He almost got both Jason and Barbara killed after all.
  • If you finish the Riddler sidequest, Batman tells Catwoman that he can't do this anymore. He can't keep up with the threats and Gotham needs something stronger than him to protect it, something that can only be made "from the ashes of the Batman." He was planning for this. Now exactly what he's planning, that I don't know.

Why was Gotham Abandoned by the Government?

• If there was a WMD threat in a major metropolitan area, Bomb squads, Black ops, FBI, and the national guard would be combing the area in a matter of hours. If the bomb alone wasn't sufficient to provoke a response, the invasion of a foreign military force would have certainly gotten the air force and the Navy involved. Yes, we can hear Gordon yelling into a phone, and confirming that they are abandoned after hanging up, but my question is how this strategy was justified. Heck, how was it even possible? The fallout of abandoning such a massive, crucial city would have had a devastating impact on the American public, economy, and government. P.S.; before anyone cites Hurricane Katrina as a precedent for the government abandoning a major city, some aid was sent immediately, but the situation was poorly assessed, and relief efforts were under-equipped, badly disorganized, and sloppily executed. Although a fine example of government incompetence, it wasn't negligence; aid did arrive eventually.
  • It was the same problem in the No Man's Land arc in the comic book. The Government just abandoned Gotham. Maybe they figure that, with all the problems Gotham has, they'll send help. After everything is over.
    • Maybe the Arkham Knight incident is this universe's equivalent to No Man's Land, and the same conditions go- i.e., President Luthor?
  • This is the DC Universe or the Arkham DC Universe. The basic logic in this world is that Gotham is the embarrassment of America and receives very little support from the Federal government. In the Arkham Knight prequel comics, you had a story about Bruce Wayne and Lucius Fox trying their best to attract investors but nobody wants to invest it because of the supervillains in Gotham, they feel it's too much of a liability and is worried about the loss of life and property. And of course, you can be sure snarky politicians will be saying that Gotham's city administration is simply not worth saving since they are so incompetent that they rely on Batman. So when they hear Scarecrow's threat, they are saying okay another freak attack on Gotham, why waste money, maybe this time they can go to hell. Some of them might also think that these supervillains are best contained in Gotham rather than be everyone else's problem. As for historical parallel, I wouldn't invoke Katrina at all, but I would invoke New York in the 70s when many politicians made statements about how bad the city's crime problem was and that it should be wiped away. Likewise today you have Detroit which gets very little aid from the Federal government. Gotham is simply a highly exaggerated take on this.
  • There was also the issue of the Arkham Knight threatening to reduce Gotham to a crater if anyone interfered from the outside.
  • No Man's Land is canon to the Arkhamverse, remember? The area in City was never rebuilt after it. So, it seems that, in general, the government wants nothing to do with Gotham.
  • President Luthor was after No Man's Land, as one of the things that made Luthor's presidency possible as him helping lift the status.
• Even if Gotham is not favored by the federal government, there's no reason why it would ever let any force occupy it, especially at the end of the game when a lesser mercenary is running the show and the WMD threat is gone. It's tremendously embarrassing from a diplomatic standpoint to have a major city be occupied by a hostile completely unopposed by anyone but a billionaire in a costume as it makes the government look militarily weak and unable to maintain control of its sovereign territory.
• There's an even simpler explanation: The whole game takes place throughout a single night. Even if there was no Batman around to keep things under control, it takes a lot of time and planning for a coordinated military strike, especially with WMD risks on site. Logistics are a bitch. Chances are if the occupation had gone on for another day or two, the military would have come in guns-a-blazing.

Batman's telepathic abilities?

• How did Catwoman know which key is the right one without Batman telling her?
  • The same way Batman hears information from the Riddler's thugs. It happens "off-screen".
    • So, there's no good reason for this puzzle to have been figured out the way it has.
    • It's a perfectly good reason though? It's easy to assume the information is passed along without Batman explicitly needing to mumble "Left a bit, left a bit, no wait, the one on the far right, now forward a bit more...".

Joker's blood

• Arkham City established that Joker's tainted blood was highly poisonous and would kill in less than 24 hours. How exactly did those four people in the movie studio not die long before this game? Given what ingredients Batman had to get to make the original cure, it's like the new writer never researched the earlier games.
  • I'm guessing that whatever made them susceptible to Jokerization also slowed their reaction to the Titan poisoning. Remember, it took Joker almost a year to be killed by the stuff, whereas Batman succumbed in about six hours. The notes say they were still dying; just more slowly. Also, from the look of things, Joker gave Batman a massive dose of his blood; most other people probably didn't receive quite that much.
  • Also keep in mind that Joker's tainted blood in Arkham City was dangerous because of the TITAN residue and its effects—not because it was Joker's blood, specifically. The cure you spend most of Arkham City making is for the TITAN taint. I don't think anybody anticipated the JOKER part of it being quite this dangerous, and the Joker-infected people have notably very different symptoms than those we see with TITAN poisoning.
• Here's another question: Shouldn't Joker's blood have worn off before the game when the blood cells died? It's not like he was immortal.
  • Oh no? Joker Immunity got its name for a reason.
  • The toxin's in the plasma, not the cells. Likewise, whatever contagion causes Jokerization.

Batman's Identity—how does it stay secret?

• Obviously, the conclusion of the game reveals Batman's identity anyway, but how on earth does NOBODY guess Batman's identity throughout this entire game? He uses holographic screens to communicate with his supporters, which is a neat visual effect, except it blatantly shows major public figures like Barbara, Lucius, and Alfred communicating with Batman and helping him. Tim, at least, is wearing his Robin uniform, but there's no way anyone else is disguised, and Batman doesn't exactly take pains to talk to these people away from others—at one point he barely even takes a few steps away from Commissioner Gordon before bringing up Barbara to talk with! He's also pretty lax with his radio communication too, using names rather than code names—Alfred, Lucius, Barbara, Dick, and Tim are all mentioned by name more than once, and they've all used 'Bruce' or 'Mr. Wayne' with Batman in turn—even when Batman is escorting criminals around in the Batmobile. Seriously, how has NOBODY in Gotham noticed this?
  • The audio can be explained as Batman hearing them on his radio like in past games. People have also noticed that Batman's cowl visor covers his eyes during these conversations so chances are only Batman, and the player for convenience, sees and anyone nearby just sees him talking to his glove.
  • While Alfred and Lucius are probably not common names, Barbara, Dick, and Tim are, so he could have been talking to anyone as far as others are concerned. Most people probably don't even know Alfred by name (he's usually referred to as "the butler" or "Jeeves" by others) and he usually speaks to Lucius and Alfred out of earshot. I would assume that the back of the Batmobile is sound-proofed and when Bats is talking to his passengers, he's doing it via a speaker/listening device so they only hear what he wants them to hear. Remember, all it takes for Superman to disguise himself is a pair of fucking glasses and a business suit.
  • Batman has contact lenses that glow faintly when he is using his holographic communicator, to indicate that the image is only visible to him.
  • Gordon figured it out a long time ago, and if Batman doesn't realize that, he's an idiot.
  • I will agree that Gordon most likely knew all along, but that doesn't explain why he didn't arrest Bruce, especially during the Origins days before he earned Gotham's respect.
  • Gordon DID try to arrest him in Origins. Arresting Batman is not an easy thing to do. And he didn't know who he was at that point. By the time Gordon figured it out, he had long since gained his trust.
  • How about him taking his mask off when Harley Quinn is in the cell opposite his? With glass walls. Hallucination or not, pretty dumb Mister Wayne.
    • It was a hallucination. Even if it were real and she did see who he has, it's not like she would be in a position to tell anyone, and no one would believe her if she did. Considering what happens later in the game, I don't think Bruce gives a shit anymore.
  • If you fly around Gotham enough, you eventually hear one of the rioters guess who Batman is and Bruce Wayne is one of the guesses. However, in the comics, it's explained that guessing Bruce Wayne is Batman is easy, Batman made it impossible to prove it. More to the point, Bruce Wayne in-universe is seen as a trust-fund playboy who most people don't take seriously, it's like Kim Kardashian being revealed as Batman it would just be ridiculous to most people in-universe.

Confusion regarding the Knightfall Protocol and Hush

• The end of the game sees Batman/Bruce faking his death with a controlled explosion at Wayne Manor however doesn't Batman have Hush in lockup? A man who suspiciously looks exactly like Bruce? It's not like Scarecrow wasn't working with other villains anyway so it isn't that far of a stretch to get people to believe that Hush was part of the plan too. In addition, all of the people in the room during the broadcast would probably assist with the ruse (yes even Scarecrow in his now terrified state), and it's not like there's even a time issue given that the whole game takes place in one night. With all this, wouldn't it have made more sense to frame Hush?
  • Since Hush is a sidequest character, there's no guarantee that he'd be captured by the ending unless the player was ambitious. This is probably why Hush had such a poor showing despite the build-up from City; RS wouldn't have to explain why Hush wasn't used as a decoy. Also, if Hush is captured before the ending, it's explained that he's too big a security risk to take to GCPD.
  • Except out of all the sidequests in the game, Hush's one is the least likely to be left 'Unsolved' before the ending given its location, its one-shot nature, and how you need to head there for the electro tool (if you hadn't found it before you need it). The fact that Hush hasn't been taken to GCPD makes it even easier to frame as nobody other than Lucius and Bruce (oh and the Receptionist) knows that he's even in Gotham.
  • And how exactly would framing Hush help dispel the idea that Bruce Wayne is Batman? If anything, that would only draw more attention to it. You said it yourself, no one knows he's in Gotham, much less that he's someone with Bruce Wayne's face. And there is also the fact that even if they somehow sell that deception, authorities, and supervillains would likely still look at Bruce Wayne, and maybe one of them would figure it out anyway. Besides, Hush himself would likely deny it and he even saw Bruce as Batman, so no matter how you put it, framing him won't solve the problem.
  • Two choices. Either give him amnesia so he thinks he's Bruce Wayne or just kill him. After all, Batman doesn't kill, but he's no longer Batman.
  • ... And how would either of those options draw attention away from the fact that Bruce Wayne is Batman?! Ignoring how they could possibly give Hush amnesia and make him think he's Bruce Wayne (in less than one night, I might add), there are so many things that could go wrong with that plan. As for killing him; you said it yourself, Bruce Wayne is no longer Batman, so what would killing Hush accomplish?
  • The end of the game reveals that Bruce doesn't want to be Batman anymore. So what point is there in making everyone think it was Hush? He gives in to Scarecrow and lets everyone know it was him, fakes his death, and lets everyone, including himself, move on. There's no need to try and throw up a smokescreen at that point.

Riddler in denial (spoilers)

• So, by the end of the game, the Riddler doesn't believe that Bruce Wayne is Batman. But, as seen in Origins (which, is, according to Rocksteady, a viable prequel), he suspected that either Bruce Wayne or Harvey Dent was Batman. So why is he still in denial? And how could he not conclude that Bruce Wayne was Batman after Harvey's accident?
  • My guess for Origins is that Nigma couldn't find any conclusive evidence to support his theory and thus eliminated Bruce Wayne as a suspect. As for why he doesn't believe it now: Someone else unmasked Batman before and he can't handle it. Denial is the first stage of grief and the man is insane, you know. There are a few other people in the game who are refusing to believe it as well.
    • I think more to the point, as you said, Nygma long ago ruled Bruce Wayne out as a suspect, developing new theories instead. Then he turned out to be wrong, which he cannot accept.
  • But why does he deny instead of shouting "called it!" ?
  • Remember back in Asylum where he said that he believes Batman gets his money by stealing it from supervillains? Bruce Wayne doesn't need to do that, and so if Riddler admits it's Wayne, then he has to admit he was wrong.
  • In Origins, Riddler was far saner than he has been portrayed in the rest of the series. But that was ten years before Knight, leaving lots of room for his sanity to degrade after a decade's worth of failing to beat Batman. At the beginning of the game, and several times throughout his side-mission, Batman even comments on his worsening mental state; things like megalomania, narcissism, and obsessive-compulsive disorder that have somehow gotten worse. Nygma is in denial because, by this point in the series, he honestly believes himself to be above everyone else in the field of intellect. So when Batman, the guy who's solved every single one of his riddles (sometimes upwards of 200 a night) for the past ten years is revealed to be Bruce Wayne, that spoiled rich guy who mooches off his parent's fortune, his psyche can't take it and he goes into denial.
    • TLDR: Riddler doesn't think Bruce Wayne is smart enough to be Batman.

How was he never rescued? (SPOILERS!)

• In his final confrontation with the Arkham Knight, Bruce says, "Joker sent me the film...I saw him kill you!" and this is presumably the reason he stops looking for Jason. But...according to the flashbacks we see, Bruce replaced Jason with Tim as Robin six months into Jason's capture, while Jason is still alive. Jason says he was left with Joker for 'over a year,' and we know he wasn't shot until quite some time into his capture, because Joker shoots him AFTER he's been branded and he doesn't have the J at the 6-month mark. So why DID Bruce replace Robin so quickly, when he didn't even have a confirmed death? For that matter, why would he trust Joker's footage, or not at least try to recover Jason's body to treat it to a proper burial or something? Bruce is nothing if not thorough, especially with his guilt trips—it's hard to imagine him just giving up, even after seeing that footage.
  • One of the riddles you unlock explains that Jason turned off his tracker and comms before chasing Joker, so that's why Batman had trouble finding him. Also, the games show that Bruce can be outsmarted, for example, he never even thought that Clayface would be in Arkham City until Joker's ruse was revealed.
  • Six months is a long time to go whilst down an ally. It's not unreasonable he'd recruit someone to fill in whilst still looking for Jason, just to keep his side fortified. That'd create an awkward situation with two Robins if he was found, sure, but y'know, priorities.
  • Plus, if I remember correctly, Tim used his self-taught detective skills to figure out Batman's identity, so Bruce may have decided to bring him on as a temporary Robin to find Jason, only for it to become permanent after Joker sent the video footage (which is not to say that Batman would have thrown Tim aside if they did find Jason, but likely they would have made a new identity for him).
  • Come to think of it, do we have any proof that Bruce replaced Jason as Robin before his "supposed" death, that didn't come from the Joker? The man is a pathological liar, it seems more likely that Joker lied to Jason, and the hallucination is just playing on Batman's guilt over what happened to him. Batman's little slip-up by accidentally saying Jason's name over Tim's is not evidence, neither is Tim's mention that he hadn't done that in a while. If you're used to talking with someone else, and they leave for a long time and someone else ends up replacing them for whatever reason, odds are that you will slip up and say the wrong name since you're so used to the other person being there. When Jason confronts Batman over being replaced, Bruce tells him "That's not what happened", so the only real evidence of Batman replacing Jason before his "death" is coming from a lying psychopath or the hallucination of said lying psychopath.
  • Here's my theory. When Jason was first captured, Joker created a fake film of him killing Jason and sent it to Batman. Batman assumes Jason is dead. In AK, through hallucinations, Batman gets to see *what happened* (Jason being kept alive and tortured). Jason's "death" that Batman witnesses via a hallucination is Batman's memory of the fake film, while the other scenes are Joker's memory of what happened. Joker DID say he lied to Batman about Jason's death, after all. And the whole thing is a surreal hallucination.
  • Batman might be the world's greatest detective, but he doesn't have a lot of common sense.

The reason for the final confrontation (SPOILERS!)

• When Batman goes to confront Scarecrow, he knows that the supervillain is going to expose his identity. However, at that point, he considers that it is the lesser of two evils, because he is losing the battle against Joker for control of his body, and he knows that whatever Scarecrow does, it will be nothing compared to what the Prince of Crime could do with the Dark Knight's body and resources. He knows Scarecrow's toxin will free Joker, just as he knows Scarecrow won't be able to tolerate Joker's fearless attitude and re-inject him with the toxin. From the moment he enters the truck after abandoning his gadgets, all that happens is part of one final Batman Gambit of epic proportion, where he manipulates both Scarecrow and the Joker into doing exactly what he wants (when he says to Crane "This isn't going to end as you think", he is goading him so that Scarecrow won't accept any other ending that Batman's destruction AS HE ENVISIONS IT). At any point during the time when Scarecrow drags him across Arkham, he could have freed himself (as shown when, after the Arkham Knight shoots ONE restraint, he can break the other without needing to use his freehand). He didn't do it because he needed to be injected with the toxin to purge himself of Joker, who at that point was even more of a threat than Scarecrow.
  • Very interesting. But how could he know in advance that a re-injection would allow him to purge Joker? Every other time he's been exposed to fear chemicals, Joker has only gotten stronger. But once he passes a certain point, then the tables are turned and an extra injection makes Joker weaker? Sounds pretty hard to figure out. Then again, he is Batman...
    • Because Joker's own body is immune to all that stuff because The Joker made himself. He doses himself with all the poisons and drugs around so that he builds up massive resistance. His blood, even before TITAN, was poison. Batman's body, on the other hand, isn't.
    • By this point, Batman has probably heard Stagg's notes about the Fear Toxin's potential as a pharmaceutical cure. He also knows that creating the fear toxin causes a radiation spike, and the batch Crane used was made at Ace a few hours ago. Maybe the plan was to take enough that it'd "cook" the Joker blood, like a form of chemotherapy.
    • When the second injection hit, the fear toxin didn't bring Bruce Wayne's deepest fears to life, it brought out the Joker's because he was firmly in control of Wayne's body by that point. The fear toxin was what allowed Batman, who was now the buried personality, to retake control of his mind from the Joker.

Why go through all that trouble to kill Batman? (Major Spoilers)

It's revealed that the Arkham Knight is Jason Todd, a former Robin. This means he has intimate knowledge of Batman. So, why build an entire army to take him out? Why not just set a trap or something and torture Wayne the same way Joker tortured him? Or just kill him in a surprise attack? NEITHER of those would have been easy, but he has info on Batman that most of Wayne's foes don't. Killing the Bat wouldn't be impossible. The Knight didn't want to destroy the whole legend of Batman or something dramatic. He just wanted him dead. He didn't need to partner with anyone. Even if he needed help, he could have done it way more low-key than "make a militia with drones". His knowledge of Batman would have been prized no matter what villain he teamed up with.

• The simple answer is that Jason Todd didn't want to kill Batman. He just wanted to taunt and humiliate him for how he felt he had been abandoned. He keeps saying he wants to kill him and that it's like he's trying to talk himself into doing it. He wanted Bruce to know who he was so he kept giving hints all the time to him.
• Also don't forget, Jason is also more than a little brainwashed by Joker's torture at this point. We see in the film sequence that he'd been at the very least trained to claim he hated Batman, and later on in your boss fight with him one of his taunts if you're alone with him/his militia guys are down is, "Joker made me hate you, but you let him do it!" implying that Joker worked him over to try and make him his sidekick. Even Batman picks up on this—his final attack in the boss fight includes him yelling, "You're NOT what he made you!" More likely than not he was told he wanted to kill Batman so often he started believing it—after all, wouldn't that be a great joke on Joker's part, to have Batman's sidekick murder him? Jason is understandably furious and deeply traumatized, and he doesn't seem entirely certain of what he wants other than SOME form of confrontation with the person he believes betrayed him.
• Indeed, the fact that it was Joker who brainwashed Jason might, in itself, account in part for why the Knight wouldn't just keep it simple and murder Bruce in his sleep or whatever. How often has the Joker opted not to Just Shoot Him when dealing with Batman, when he can launch an over-the-top master plan involving mooks and trickery and weirdo accomplices, instead...?
• Keep in mind that several times during the game we hear Knight openly show his respect for Batman and how damned hard it is to kill him - he never expects anyone other than him to be able to beat him, he just wants them to soften him up. Factor this in with the name of the ending, and we can probably safely assume some Knightfall parallels were intended here. Ultimately, the plan of Knight and Scarecrow is similar to Bane's in that story - give Batman everything he can handle, make him fight an army, including all of his old enemies (this is where the "band all the villains together" part comes in) until finally he's worn down enough to where the very strongest and most dangerous of them all can finish him off. It may be the only way to beat the guy, and it wouldn't be surprising if that's how Knight thought as well.
• It could also be that Jason knows how much Gotham means to Batman, given his family history there and all the years he's spent trying to keep it safe. So what better way to enact vengeance on him than to take away the city he cares so much for and sends him to his death knowing that it was all for nothing? Jason openly disdains Batman's ideology and methods, so not only killing him but destroying any hope of Batman's mission succeeding would be an act of spectacular revenge.

Ending Location (Spoilers)

At the end of the game, Batman is taken back to Arkham Asylum by Scarecrow, and taken to a hallway-looking area. The question is, is that an actual location that you could go to during the original Arkham Asylum game, or is it not?

• Luckily, I've played Asylum so much I've memorized all the locations, so I instantly recognized the ending location to be the main hall/first room of the Arkham Mansion.

Did Selina know all along? (Big Time Spoilers)

I've already asked this on the WB Games forum and got a mixed bag of answers so I thought I'd try it here. Since Catwoman calls Batman "Bruce" during their final meeting regardless of whether you finish the Riddler sidequest before or after his unmasking (though it's only possible to finish it before the unmasking on New Game+ since certain Riddles don't appear until after key points in the story) does this mean that Selina knew Batman's identity before he was exposed? She doesn't seem the least bit shocked or surprised at his identity and that little quip about breaking into Wayne Manor seemed like a jab at Bats, so what's going on there?

• Either the devs didn't think things through, or Selina figured it out somewhere between City and Knight. One of Strange's recordings in City mentions that Batman knows everything about Selina, but she doesn't know a thing about him. Knight takes place nine months later, so presumably, she eventually caught on. Her joke about Wayne manor certainly implies this, and she doesn't seem particularly startled by The Reveal. Not to mention that Selina's pretty smart, and excluding Talia, she's the closest thing Bruce has to an official girlfriend. If anything, I'd call it woman's intuition.
• Best answer I've received yet, though it still feels like an oversight by Rocksteady. Maybe we'll get official confirmation soon.
• Also, it is possible to beat the Riddler outside of New Game Plus before the reveal, as the "break your staff" riddle can be solved by scanning Robin well before the Scarecrow's break-in and the one about Ivy's death can be scanned after dealing with Jason in the mall hideout.

Under My Skin

• For the funeral of the Joker, wouldn't Green Day's "Ha Ha You're Dead" be more appropriate? Or is that what the GCPD played at the wake?
  • It wasn't a funeral, it was a cremation, and Gordon and Batman were the only ones in attendance. Neither of them is likely to listen to Green Day, and even if they did listen to them, they are not the kind to gloat over anyone's death.
  • And Rock n' Roll is the one thing Batman hates more than The Joker.
• Dollars to donuts, the music is also non-diegetic, meaning that it isn't being played over Joker's cremation, it's just a lovely piece of foreshadowing for Joker's role in the story.

Don't They Already Have A Cure?

• Batman was able to synthesize a cure for Joker's blood poisoning after the events of Arkham City and used it to cure the thousands already given the tainted blood. Why doesn't he just whip up another batch for the four others he caught?
  • The cure in City wasn't for Joker blood poisoning; it was for TITAN blood poisoning. Batman and the Joker Infected were cured of the TITAN in their bloodstreams from the transfusions, but they still had Joker's blood inside them. Nobody at the time knew that Joker's blood was dangerous all by itself, and as a result, the Infected were released back into the general population. It wasn't until later that the effects of Jokerization began to set in, and Batman harbored them in hopes of finding a cure.
    • Not to mention the cure also contained Lazarus Pit water. For all we know, that's what caused Jokeritis.
    • As this shows, some of the random hallucination! Joker dialogue outright says the cure didn't work.

Calendar Man

• How is he still alive? He was sentenced to death by gas chamber ten years ago. He might have been broken out on the night of his scheduled execution, but wouldn't that just mean that the police would promptly put him back in the chamber the moment they recapture him?
  • It's mentioned in his Origins bio that his sentencing came as a surprise since he was insane. Origins also establish that Arkham Asylum was brought back shortly after the events of that game. Likely by the time he was arrested again, it was decided he should be one of the Asylum's first inmates instead.
  • A stroke of genius here: the psychiatrist who ruled him sane enough for execution was none other than Harleen Quinzel. I'm going to assume that, for whatever reason, her diagnosis was considered invalid.
  • Inmates on death row can spend years, even decades, using up all their opportunities to appeal their sentences before being executed. Presumably, one of Calendar Man's appeals succeeded and his sentence was commuted to prison and/or commitment, from which he subsequently escaped.

Why Even Bother with the Cloudburst?

• By the time Scarecrow gets his hands on Cloudburst, the only people left in Gotham are his mooks and, at most, a couple of hundred cops. A terrorist attack of that magnitude probably isn't going to be as threatening if the only people affected are either the kind of people who put their lives on the line as part of their job or people the public feel deserved it anyway. If he had tried transporting it to the portion of the city on the mainland (which is still visibly active with cars driving by), maybe then he would have proven his point about fear more effectively.
  • Chemical gas travels by air remember, when the Cloudburst releases it covers a wide portion of the city but left unattended it could have spread to a wider radius. Scarecrow released it simply because he didn't want to chance Batman stopping him again. He likely assumed that Batman would have no way of stopping and curing the toxin. Batman still found a way regardless.
  • Also remember that the Cloudburst was something of a contingency plan for Gotham when/if Batman stopped the Ace Chemicals attack. Scarecrow originally intended that initial explosion to cover the entire seaboard - mooks also talk about how he planned to take the Cloudburst "on tour", which presumably means he'd start dumping these toxins all over for whatever reason.
  • Also, he's made it clear that he doesn't give a damn who his gas infects specifically. Thugs, criminals, fellow Rogues, everyone's a test subject to him. His introduction scene in Arkham Asylum proves that.

Protective Gear

• Why wasn't there a gas mask included in Batman's gear? He knew he'd be spending the night going after a criminal whose weapon of choice was aerosolized hallucinogens. Yes, Scarecrow's latest batch of gas was capable of penetrating gas masks, but at the start of the night, Batman didn't know that.
  • How do we know he didn't have one? Batman has a few extra tools in his belt that the players can't use (a syringe for taking blood is one example). And as you said, it wouldn't have worked anyway, so what was the point?
  • I think a similar headscratcher was raised on the page for Batman: Arkham Asylum and I'll give a similar answer for what was given there: Gas masks do not work that way. The filters for gas masks are custom-tailored for specific aerosols, and they only work for 15 minutes at most. Creating and injecting himself with the antidote is a far more logical solution. And that's also assuming that Batman didn't know the Fear toxin would penetrate clothing: He got a sample to Oracle pretty early in the game, and they would have been able to tell that gas masks would be ineffective.

Robin's Job

• Exactly when did Robin learn enough about medicine to make putting him in charge of finding a cure for an exotic disease a plan that was likely to work?
  • To be fair, we never saw much of him in the Arkhamverse before this game. He could've always had that side to him.

Elliot's Plan

• So Elliot is trying to embezzle the Wayne fortune. He uses the copy of Bruce's face he spent most of Arkham City making to get access to his office. He uses what appears to be Bruce's login on the computer (No explanation on how he got that). Then he fails the retina test but gets in anyway by forcibly using Lucius' eyes. Wouldn't the computer realize something was wrong with someone trying to log in using Bruce Wayne's ID and Lucius Fox's retinal scan? After all, that's not the eye connected with that account. And why would Lucius have unrestricted access to Wayne's accounts? Access to the slush fund that is the budget for Batgizmo R&D, sure, but the personal accounts?
  • Bruce would undoubtedly have multiple bank accounts, several personal accounts, and many business accounts, it's both smart and logical. The one which Elliot is trying to access could merely be one connected to the office. And Lucius Fox would get all access to that, after all, you never know when you'll need to move cash and spare parts to build Batmobile upgrades at a moment's notice. Wayne Tech provides after all.
  • Lucius probably has access to most of Bruce's financial accounts, even ones that nobody else at Wayne Enterprises knows to exist. If Batman ever got killed on the streets, it would've been up to Lucius to drain Mr. Wayne's bank accounts into whatever secret funds Batman would want Robin, Oracle, and Nightwing to be able to draw upon as they continued his crusade against crime.
  • Not to mention, this is only what we saw him doing. He could have had a much larger, more complex plan already laid out, which was postponed due to the events of the game's storyline (the villains uniting, the city being evacuated, etc). In the end, he could do only part of what he intended originally. Either that, or he had more to do after he had stolen Wayne's fortune, and Batman simply stopped him before he got to it.

Nimbus Cells

• According to Stagg, nothing not powered by a Nimbus cell can function inside the effective range of the Cloudburst. So why was the Batmobile the only thing that broke? The drones and the Arkham Knight's tank can be excused by saying that the Militia knew this and inserted Nimbus cells into their gear before setting off the Cloudburst, but the street lights? The signs? The gate and bridge that Batman explicitly had Alfred remotely control? Why were they working?
  • Stagg explicitly says "Any vehicle not using a Nimbus cell will be fried."
  • So how do the cars in Gotham still work afterward?
  • Presumably, because the effect was only limited to whenever the Cloudburst was active.

Riddler bombs

• This refers to an optional objective, but why does Batman feel he has to save the criminals into which Nygma implanted his bombs? Didn't Batman explicitly say to Ra's in Batman Begins: "I won't kill you, but I don't have to save you"?
  • Different continuity and the Arkham Batman is much more experienced and has a much stronger code. Putting aside the plausibility of surviving car crashes, etc, he causes with Batmobile this version of Bruce will not allow someone to die if he's in a position to prevent it.
  • Also, just listen to Riddler throughout the game. The man's lost it and Batman knows it. Every little Riddler test Batman completes in this game sends him further into rage Batman will be able to exploit against him. By doing this, Batman's not only proving Nygma wrong about him, as he believes Batman would just let them rot, but he's also appearing as the superior man for being able to solve his challenges in ways he didn't predict.
  • Who's to say Riddler isn't lying about them being vicious criminals? Maybe they're just petty thieves and thugs who don't necessarily deserve to die. It wouldn't be above Riddler to lie to trick Batman into making a mistake. Besides, should someone like the Riddler be allowed to decide who lives and dies? Batman would never let him have that kind of authority.
  • That scene from Batman Begins was criticized on these very grounds, specifically that it was a very un-Batman thing to do.

Might as well expect people to forget Al Capone or Jack the Ripper

• I realize it's vital to Batman finally defeating Joker once and for all and all that, but does this game seriously expect me to believe that the legacy of someone like Joker could ever be forgotten? The man blew up half the city so many times, it's downright impossible. Even if you haven't watched Batman Beyond and know full well that Joker's legacy will live on through followers long after he's dead.
  • Remember, what we're seeing is Joker's deepest fear, not what's going to happen.
  • Al Capone and Jack The Ripper are kind of forgotten (not completely though). We don't fear their return or that there might be a new one.
    • Those are two completely different things
  • It happened in the Nolanverse.

The Clock Tower (contains spoilers)

• This is probably a dumb question, but it's been bugging me. How is Oracle able to live in a Clock Tower? I could understand if it was a secret base of operations, but it's pretty much obvious that it's her home since Gordon never asks "Why is my daughter in a clock tower?" when he finds out she'd been kidnapped. Shouldn't the Clock Tower be city property? Maybe Barb does work for the city to some extent and they allow her to use it as her home. I'm confused.
  • In No Man's Land the clock tower is stated to be a Wayne Enterprises property, to explain why it was earthquake-proofed when so many other buildings weren't. I guess in the Arkhamverse the same thing is true.

Azrael

• Why is Azrael's style of fighting identical to Batman's? Shouldn't he be more violent since he wears (and use) a sword?
  • Azrael has been studying Batman's style to the point of obsession, and Batman has been getting more violent. In the side stories, Azrael makes a point of acknowledging how Batman has been hitting harder and striking more violently to end fights quicker than he did in the past.
• Also, if he makes the "kill batman choice", how is Batman able to defeat him this easily?
  • Because Batman was anticipating the strike.
  • But considering he can defeat a large group of Mooks without being hit once, shouldn't Batman have a harder time defeating Azrael than this?
  • Batman lulled him into a false sense of security, turning his back to him and pretending to use the computer. Azrael dropped his guard, assuming that it'd be an easy kill due to him earning Batman's trust. In his defense, it could be inferred he was going through quite the moral struggle in his mind at the same time as this attack, and that may have distracted him, making him easier pickings.
• Why were all of Batman's tests for Azrael about combat? There's a lot more to being the Bat than just beating in the faces of random thugs. Shouldn't he have also tested Azrael as a detective?
  • It's implied Batman is stringing Azrael along. Notice he doesn't seem at all surprised when Alfred mentions the abnormal neurological activity - Batman was likely anticipating a trick or ambush and drew things out while he could figure out what was going on.
  • For the same reason Bruce in Batman Beyond decided to retire when he had to use a gun to win a fight. Azrael is used to wielding a sword and killing his enemies, which he cannot do as Batman. By passing Batman's tests, he shows that he can defeat his opponents non-lethally and without being hit, reassuring Batman that Azrael will not feel compelled to resort to lethal force because he's not capable of winning any other way.
    As for why Batman doesn't test other aspects of Azrael's preparedness? Thou Shalt Not Kill is perhaps the main trait of the Batman character that is carried across all adaptations. Different movies, games, and shows have emphasized his detective skills and his crazy-preparedness to different degrees, but not his refusal to kill. Just within the Nolan trilogy, Bruce's "I won't kill you, but I don't have to save you" line from Batman Begins has generated far more controversy than the lack of detective action in The Dark Knight Rises. Ben Affleck's Batman blatantly killing was met with a ton of criticism, despite the fact BvS highlighted his preparations and his sleuthing. Because, at the end of the day, Batman's detective skills are simply a means to find whoever is responsible for a crime, and stop them without killing them.
  • Also Note the neural activity. He's not testing Azrael's ACTUAL fighting skills...he's testing Azrael's mind DURING the fighting skills. If Azrael proves that he's not going to go stark raving? THEN Batman can train the other skills. Or, help Azrael learn to rely on Oracle and such. But first? Make sure he's not going to stab Batman the second his back is turned.
• The data on Azrael's chip says that the Order of Saint Dumas "has safeguarded Gotham for over 500 years". How is that possible? Columbus discovered the continent of America in 1492, and the first permanent European settlement did not come about until over fifty years later. Even the first bunch of cabins that eventually became the city of Gotham can't be older than that.
  • According to Arkham Origins, Henry Cobblepot supposedly died in an automobile accident in 1855. The first automobiles didn't come into existence until 1886 and weren't readily available until the early 1900s. So the Arkham Universe is different than ours.
  • He may just be grandstanding. "For over five hundred years" sounds a lot more impressive than "just a little under five hundred years", after all.
    • Alternatively, "For over four hundred years" would still sound damn impressive and have the added benefit of not clashing with third-grade knowledge of history.
    • Thankfully, Batman is not a troper who has to be spoken to like a child to understand gravitas.
  • For all we know, some of the Miagani tribes of Native Americans were converted to the Order when their culture was absorbed by that of the European settlers. They'd have merged their traditions of protecting their ancestral homeland with the Knight Templar creed of St. Dumas. Heck, they might even have had a hand in passing on the "prophecy" Azrael cites, if their belief in the "man of bats" became mixed into the Order's prophetic lore.

Jokerization

• So, Batman explicitly tells Gordon that the Jokerification of the infected happened because they did not get the cure and the disease mutated. If that's the case, how come Batman, the very first person to get the cure, is infected? Or do we have to worry about 1995 more Joker wannabes?
  • The Joker Infected did get the cure for the TITAN in Joker's blood, but not for Joker's blood itself. Batman tells Gordon at Panessa Studios that they managed to round up a lot of Joker's blood, but they missed a few patients due to operational errors on the hospitals' parts. If they didn't get the cure from City, the Infected would have been long dead before the events of the game. It's just that nobody at the time figured that having Joker's blood inside them would manifest in the way that it did, and thus didn't exactly plan for it until it was too late.
  • So the patients were given the cure but were not rid of Joker's blood?
    • Joker's blood didn't make them sick. The various toxic chemicals living in his bloodstream since his accident is what made them sick and there is no cure for that. It's like someone getting AIDS from a blood transfusion.
    • Joker's blood, plus remember the cure is Lazarus Pit juice, which is known to cause insanity.
    • So we're back to the second question, do we have to worry about 1996 more Jokerized people?
    • I'm assuming that either most of the Joker's blood was taken before transfusions were given or most people who were injected with Joker's blood died before they could be cured of the TITAN virus (since the original cure was destroyed, I don't know how long it took for them to make more). Maybe both happened.
  • Another possibility, according to the game's fridge page, is that Joker had given so much blood that he eventually passed the Titan that made him sick, but his body was giving out and still dying regardless. Going from this, it's safe to say that the Titan had destroyed the blood samples given to the bulk of the victims, with Batman getting a sample that was mostly Titan and some blood, and the other four getting "clean" samples.
  • Hallucination! Joker says it's probably because he gave Batman way more of his blood than anyone else.
    • As this shows, Hallucination!Joker also at one point outright says the cure didn't work.
• Another thing: how does Henry Adams somehow repress the visual effects of the Jokerization until The Reveal?
  • Similar to how Batman was able to resist, using his mind to suppress the effects until the right time. Henry is a college professor after all and would likely have a mind and will similar to that of Bats.
  • If you read the Gotham City files, it's explained the infected all have different aspects of the Joker's personality. By all accounts, Adams got the calm, collected cunning.
  • Don't we see him wipe a streak of makeup off his face during The Reveal, and see that he's deathly pale underneath? He probably guilt-tripped Tim into at least letting him stretch his legs inside the old studio once in a while, then "borrowed" some cosmetics from a dressing room and masked the changes.
    • I think the scene you're thinking of is when he wipes his bloodied hand across his mouth to create a Joker smile. But it's still possible he's been disguising his facial transformation with stolen cosmetics. He was certainly sharp enough to manage that.

The Batmobile

• Why does the Batmobile have two seats in its trunk? Batman only takes in a single prisoner or passenger at all times.
  • In case he needs to transport a second person?
  • There is a point in the game where there could be two passengers. When you are rescuing the works from Ace Chemicals, you can save one, then save the second without delivering the first worker to Gorden.
    • Interesting. I think I'll try that out on my next play-through.
  • Balance.
• "And please be careful with the car, Mister Wayne. She's one of kind" Later "Don't worry, Lucius made a spare." Unless Lucius had The Flash make a spare throughout the game, why would he say that the car was one of a kind when he had a spare?
  • He's being playfully sarcastic. Lucius and Bruce trust and understand one another.
• Why, if there was a second Batmobile the whole time does Batman need to replace the Nimbus power cell in the middle of the toxic gas cloud? Seems like it would have been safer just to put the device in the second Batmobile and have it flown in so he wouldn't have been exposed to more toxin.
  • How would he have gotten to the second Batmobile without also exposing himself to the toxin?
  • I assumed the second Batmobile was safe in the Batcave (They say at one point that anywhere underground was safe) before it was flown in with the Batwing.
    • How would he have gotten to that, though? Remember, electronics were being shut down - if not fried - due to the Cloudburst at the time. Batman still have would have to travel to it somehow.
  • To fly it in, the Batwing would have needed to have a Nimbus power cell. To get to the Batcave in any reasonable amount of time (if it's at all possible on foot without going through the gas cloud) you would have needed either the Batmobile or the Batwing - so it's a circular problem.
    • Except that it's... not? Put the Nimbus Cell into the Batwing and have it remotely pick up the spare Batmobile. Drop it off on a roof, pull the Nimbus Cell out of the Batwing and put it into the Batmobile, then drive off the roof. Better yet, just have the Batwing with a Nimbus Cell pick up the primary Batmobile, put it on a roof, and swap the cell. And I don't see how time would be a huge concern for the spare anyways, since Fox was able to get it to Batman extremely fast when Batman needed it.

Neutralizing Agent (Contains unmarked spoilers)

• How convenient was it that Scarecrow happened to have a chemical agent that could neutralize the effects of his fear toxin? What kind of villain are you when you purposefully create something that can stop your plan, AND put it in the same room expecting someone like Batman to not find it? Not even guys like Riddler or Cluemaster are that dumb. The only possible explanations I can think of are:

1. The Ace Chemicals employees created it behind Crane's back (which doesn't seem likely, since Crane would find out about it easily. It's accessed from his computer for crying out loud!) in anticipation that Batman showed up.
2. Scarecrow created it in case the explosion got out of hand (again unlikely since his plan was to gas the entire East Coast and more.)
3. Scarecrow created it because he wanted Batman to stop him. (seems the most likely since he still had the Cloudburst. and the entire purpose was to destroy the myth of Batman and rob the world of hope. But even this explanation raises more questions than it answers).
   • I think the implication is that Batman was cobbling together a counter-agent using the system and its machines while he still had time, rather than the counter-agent being already prepared. Don't forget he interrupts the preparation before the full strength of the mixture can be thrown together (the Knight's men are still in the process of filling up whatever machines are needed with chemicals by the time Batman arrives). It's also not a huge stretch to think that a chemical processing facility would have the means to develop counter-measures for whatever it was doing at the time.
   • Scarecrow didn't create the neutralizing agent. Batman did. Remember, he already had a pure sample of fear toxin (he got it from the first mook in the car). He had had Oracle analyzing it for some time before he went to Ace. Oracle probably had the computer develop a counter-agent, which Batman was able to access via the computers in his cowl, to tell him what to do once he got to the plant. This wouldn't even need to be communicated verbally, since Batman gets information from the Batcomputer all the time.

• Scarecrow thinks of himself as a scientist more than a supervillain. He probably kept the necessary chemicals to produce all kinds of permutations of his fear toxin so that he could experiment with it, and likewise would have at least some of the necessary chemicals to negate the toxins' effects, so he could study how intense yet brief (because neutralized) exposure would affect people.
• Also, the Arkham Knight's militia would've probably started deserting if they knew that even they didn't have access to an antidote against the fear toxin. They may trust the Knight, but they aren't even close to trusting Scarecrow not to "accidentally" gas some of their guys just to observe the effects.
• Furthermore, if the containers are so unstable that they'll explode if handled too roughly, why didn't the fourth one, which was dropped when Joker 'shot' Batman, go off like a bomb? You can see it lying on the floor in the chamber after the Gordon flashback concludes.

Soldiers Without Guns

• The Arkham Knight militia costs billions of dollars and has been extensively trained. It is the result of a grand design of a revenge-obsessed military expert and a brilliant, if deranged, super-villain. Every bad guy in Gotham worked together to take this one last shot at Batman. So why are there large groups of soldiers, including ones guarding watchtowers and outposts, who aren't armed? Considering how much money was spent on these guys, you'd think ensuring every one of them has a gun would be a relatively simple proposition.
  • If I remember correctly, there are weapons crates in almost every area where you fight Mooks. Maybe they put their weapons into them and figured they would have enough to grab them when Batman would come.
  • The militia don't know it, but they're only supposed to exhaust Batman, not kill him. Scarecrow wants Batman exposed and despairing, not dead, and the Arkham Knight is obsessed with killing him personally. The guns in the ammo crates are probably intended to keep up the militia members' morale, letting them think they're less expendable than they are to both commanders, and to fight back if (when?) the other villains turn on them.

Heroic Willpower but...

• So, Jokerization is said by Batman to be a mutation of Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (so they should have all died even before the game starts, that stuff is fatal). So how can he cure himself of it by simple willpower?
  • Batman was given Joker's blood back in Arkham City, and he did almost die of it, but the effects of the Lazarus pit cured him of said effects. Will power is simply what shut down the effects of the fear toxin.
    • Another way to look at it is that Batman cured himself of the Titan poisoning, and the remaining blood was put into remission as well. It wasn't until he was exposed to fear toxin that it became active again. Except the toxin changed how the infection worked, instead of mutating Batman directly, it somehow created a Joker personality subconsciously influenced by Batman's fear of being crazy and memories. Theories for how he overpowered the infection vary, from taking enough toxin to burn out the blood, to reconciling his guilt for Joker's death by remembering the monster he used to be. The real question though is how the blood inside Batman lived so long, as according to this red blood cells only live for 4 months, so shouldn't Batman have been clean by the game's events?
  • I'm also getting a bad Unfortunate Implications from this because, as one video put it, "guess all those people who died of Creutzfeldt–Jakob just didn't will it enough".
    • Batman quite clearly says it's a mutation, something the original question points out. You may as well say it implies that any injury or illness sustained in a computer game is shrugged off by the character.
  • This is Heroic Willpower we're talking about. That stuff is so nonsensically powerful it could probably cure cancer.
• The bigger implication of the Joker disease is that Joker himself had the non-mutated disease before his chemical bath. And if Joker did have CJS, his chemical bath may have caused the mutation, which would explain how he lived so long. However, his playing around with Titan might have brought the disease back in force; since it was responsible for his blood infection, the chemicals might have caused a reaction in his organism in the intervening period between Asylum and City, which lasted about a year.

Arkham Knight's sniper skills

• Is it me or is he worse with his sniper than the standard Mooks with theirs? And why?
  • Gameplay reason is that he has a lot more going on in his encounter than standard snipers, who are fairly easy to sneak up on, so has less damage/accuracy for balancing reasons. In-universe put it down to the fact he's in the middle of an incredible mental breakdown and not focused on what he's doing.

How did Scarecrow Know what his Gas would Make People See?

• When Scarecrow uses his fear gas to make Batman think Barbara killed herself, how did he predict that was exactly what Batman would see?
  • As I said above, I figure the Knight told him. They couldn't know, but they could guess, and Knight would know Batman's greatest fear is failing to save his allies. And I mean given the place and situation, him coming into the area where he believes Oracle to be held, what else would he have seen but her death in some way? Perhaps notable is that they never actually mention HOW she died, at least to my memory. They never say she killed herself, only imply that she'd died.
  • Another theory? It was a 'dead Barbara' strain of fear gas.
  • The Arkham Knight knows the thing that Batman fears the most: death. More specifically the deaths of others. Batman won't allow someone to die if he can prevent it and when he fails to save someone, he blames himself for their deaths, starting with his parents. Knight tells Crane this and they formulate a plan to kidnap Barbara before gassing Batman knowing that Batman's ultimate fear is that he won't be able to find her in time which he tries to drive home by taunting Batman about it on Stagg's Airships before it happens. When Batman gets gassed, Crane knows exactly what he will see in that room, and since he likely has his safehouse wired somehow, he probably heard Batman screaming her name and telling Alfred that she's dead. Which confirmed that their plan worked.
  • Did Crane ever directly reference the Hallucinations when outside the Hallucinations? For that matter even outside the main Hallucinations Bruce was seeing things for most of the game (various billboards become Jokerized if you look at them, not to mention that the Joker flashbacks with Barbra and Jason all occurred without Bruce being gassed) the simplest solution is anytime Crane taunted Bruce about what he saw when he was gassed, it was just another part of the hallucination.
• In some continuities, Scarecrow has variations of his gas that allow him to 'suggest' what people will see, i.e. he talks about dogs and people see rabid hounds trying to tear them apart. It's possible something similar was at play here.

Last time gassed *MASSIVE SPOILERS*

• So, after getting rid of the Joker in his head, Batman gets injected with Scarecrow's toxin and... isn't afraid anymore? What the fuck !? Okay, maybe becoming crazy/ like the Joker was Batman's biggest fear, but how did he magically cure himself of ALL his fears? Shouldn't he have more vision of his allies dying, of him (maybe accidentally) breaking his No-kill rule, or something else?
  • The idea is that he let Joker take over his mind right before the last injection. So it just straight up didn't go to him, it went to Joker, and the second hallucination segment is Joker's nightmare, as opposed to the first which was Batman's.
  • I mean the last one just before he says "I'm not afraid, Crane." after he locked the Joker away.
  • In the first game, Batman's three fears were not saving Gordon, his parents' murder, and that he'd become crazy if he killed. Further simplified, it's failing his loved ones and becoming crazy if he killed. He spent the whole game beating the first fear for most of the game and faced the second one when he snapped Joker's neck in the penultimate hallucination, staying sane after "killing" Joker means he's sane. He conquered his fears.
  • Absolutely all of them? I don't believe that.
  • Or a much simpler answer: constant exposure to the toxin has allowed Batman to develop some resistance, Heroic Willpower allows him to power through the worst effects, and he's telling Crane that he's not afraid to piss off the fear obsessed supervillain.
  • Batman's greatest fear, at the beginning of the night, is that the Joker personality will eventually consume his own and take over, permanently. He knows it's likely, based on how the other infectees at Panessa Studios have changed. And when Scarecrow injected him with the toxin in the Asylum, that's exactly what happened. Had Crane just left it at that, Joker would have remained in charge of Bruce's body, and probably rained death and destruction down upon Gotham.
    But Joker wasn't afraid of Crane or what his toxin could do, which showed in Bruce's eyes after Joker took over, which in turn prompted Scarecrow to inject another dose into Joker! Bruce. This caused Joker to imagine his worst fear (being forgotten entirely), which weakened the personality to the point that Bruce Wayne could resurface, and metaphorically lock Joker away for good. Now back in control, Bruce is not afraid of anything - his worst fears have either been nullified or proven unfounded - so the toxin does not affect him.

The timeline for A Matter of Family

• So, how does the timeline for A Matter of Family work exactly? In the audiotapes revealing the backstory it's implied that Burke's daughter was killed as a result of the TITAN formula, yet Barbara was Oracle in Arkham Asylum and I got the impression that Barbara was Oracle for a while before the events of that game and the TITAN projects was something was going on relatively recently. Furthermore, Joker says the reason he's doing this is that he feels that Batman's been distracted lately, implying the sidekicks are new, but Tim is Robin during the events of the story and we've seen in the other games and even this one that Dick and Jason were Robin before him. Lastly, if the final hallucination in Panessa Studios is accurate, at the end of the tape, Joker says after shooting Jason, "You've seen what happens when you bring your friends into this crazy game of ours," implying that like in the comics, he crippled Barbara before going after Jason.
  • Jason says that Batman left him in Arkham with Joker for over a year. Chances are timeline goes: Jason gets caught, Tim becomes Robin with Barbara as Batgirl, Batman gets distracted (possibly searching/grieving for Jason) A Matter of Family, Barbara gets crippled, and Batman learns Jason's fate. As for Dr. Young, we don't know for sure how long she was developing Titan, just that she figured it out once she got access to Bane/Venom. If it was indeed Titan, it would've been a pre-Bane prototype.
    • It's at least connected to it, given Joker used his "Jack White" alias while dealing with Burke, which is the same one he used in dealing with Young and Burke's records stated that the "medicine" he was advised to give his daughter came from Dr. Young.
    • But then how does Jason know that Barbra is Oracle, she was still Batgirl when he was taken.

Barbara tied to the wheelchair

• So, near the end of the game, Barbara's held hostage, tied to a wheelchair by some ropes. However, when Scarecrow pushes her off the top of a building, she falls out of the chair during the fall. Did I miss something, or did the ropes just disappear?
  • I was under the impression that the ropes slipped off as she was falling. Whoever tied them did a shitty job.
  • Or she'd already worked herself loose from the ropes and was just waiting for the chance to turn the tables on her captors, only to find she couldn't act because they had her Dad at gunpoint, too. Wheelchair or no wheelchair, Barbara's still Batgirl from the waist up: getting out of ropes is kindergarten stuff for her.
  • Or maybe the animators didn't think this through

The fact that Penguin's even here

• So at the end of City Two-Face has taken over Penguin's operations, base, and henchmen, with Penguin locked up, completely at his mercy. Why is Penguin still alive?
  • If you talk to Penguin after that happens in Arkham City, he'll tell you he hid behind the cut-out in the booth, and that Two-Face and his men didn't see him. By the time he's back out, Two-Face and his gang were effectively taken care of by Catwoman.
  • As an alternative to the above, you could assume that Two-Face DID find Penguin... But Penguin won the coin toss.

Who's the new guy

At the end of the Knightfall cinematic, a pair of Two-Face goons are accosted by a new vigilante. Who is it? Azrael? Dick? Someone new altogether? And how does he or she affect the special effects?

• Speculation says that Bruce faked his death and now uses fear toxin to scare thugs.
  • Or he's just in a Batman Beyond type suit that can fly and the rest of it was side effects from the Thugs being exposed to Toxin during the cloudburst sequence, I'm only even saying flying suit because he rises before he strikes, he could just be doing a glide kick, we know from Owens, thug talk and J that the Toxin has lasting effects, couldn't it be that it's that, as opposed to Batman/ GCPD crossing the Moral Event Horizon?
• Personally, my theory is that it's Jason Todd. He's assumed the role of Batman and has no qualms about murdering criminals, hence his use of fear toxin, something which can cause death in folk, especially those who are 'cowardly and superstitious'...
  • Problem with that is we know Jason becomes Red Hood, why would he Juggle two identities?

Voice Synthesizer

When Batman uses it to send more vague commands like "go look over there", how do the mooks know where "there" is? It's not like they can see anyone pointing them which way to go.

• Same with finding Riddler trophy details from mooks - it's a quick abstraction to keep the game flow moving, rather than having dialogue be incredibly specific and clumsy in the middle of gameplay.

Getting Killer Croc to the Batwing

At the end of the "Beneath the Surface" DLC mission, Batman and Nightwing have to use the Batwing to carry Croc to the GCPD HQ. But how do they get him to the Batwing in the first place? Neither of them has Super-Strength, so do they find a forklift somewhere or something?

• May have "just" used equipment in the room to load him into a cage and out to an external loading area. He got into the airship some way, after all.

"I'll do it myself!"

I found myself laughing when Gordon said that. I mean, he's a good cop and all, but how can anyone take the idea of the old man who's constantly playing the Damsel in Distress seriously?

• We weren't supposed to take him seriously. Batman knew Gordon would get kidnapped if we went after the captors (hence why he told Cash to "lock him up" if he came back to the precinct), but his priority at the time was saving Barbara. It would take a while for Gordon to find Crane on his own so Gordon wasn't in any immediate danger (well, except maybe from the gas). Once Batman hears his broadcast in GCPD, he knows that Gordon is in danger, hence why he doesn't hesitate to go after him. Gordon is a good cop and as evidenced by Origins is a pretty decent fighter, but he stands no chance against a villain who was trained by Batman.

Victor's downgraded suit

How come Freeze's new suit doesn't hide his skeleton from Detective Mode as it did in City? If it's upgraded from ice cannon to gauntlet-mounted freeze ray, then Victor not having the resources to improve it is out of the question. And it's not like Batman is the only person who would lack DM-tech (hell, Jason has it in his DLC) so Victor and Batman being friends now probably isn't it.

• Probably no reason to. Victor has gone legitimately straight (or at least as close to straight as he can probably get) and handed over his previous equipment to the GCPD. While his current suit is no doubt combat-ready (he did a number on the militia after all), anything fancier than "keep me alive/protect Nora" would probably be seen as a waste of development.
• Victor's suit — in the Arkhamverse, at least — is, essentially, a super-advanced environment suit, more akin to a spacesuit or arctic survival power armor. He has armored combat versions, like his suit in City, and also non-combat less armored versions, like his original bubblehead suit in Origins which is more like a refrigerated bodysuit with light armor. By the time of Knight he is no longer acting as a criminal he's just hanging out offshore on a ship — self-isolated for protection both himself others — and has changed into a more advanced version of the Origins-style soft suit because he requires the environment it creates for him but removed the armor because all he is actively doing aboard that ship is researching a cure to Nora's disease. Also, all of that said, just because it doesn't look as heavily armored doesn't mean it isn't improved. Like, say, having a built-in arm freeze gun that thusly can't be stolen period, or having a more efficient cooling system. And that fails to mention this suit combining the softer Origins suit with the protection of armored City-style helmet in case he, y'know, trips and bangs the helmet of his survival-critical equipment against the corner of a table in the lab.
  • -TL;DR- Nora is and always has been his singular motivation in all things and in this game he appears to finally have all the funds and equipment he needs to do his work, thus no need for criminal acts which was what necessitated armor in the first place because it needs to be extremely hard to damage beyond function or repair in the environment he expects to use it in. The Knight suit is perfect for where he intended to use it. The City suit would require him to kneel just to be in his lab and would make computer use excessively difficult. It's even possible that the knight suit is, aside from the arm cannon, the same suit he had in City with the outer armor taken off for mobility purposes.

Batman's height real serious mistakes

Okay, Arkham Bruce Wayne is 6'2", officially. Like, the man is 6'2", no shoes, boots, and cowls attached. Think of it that way: Bruce Wayne in business attire (meaning, like, with 1-inch-heel shoes) would be 6'3", as Batman (accounting boots, sized in-line with military boots and cowl) would be 6'4". That is what his GCPD profile states in Origins. Makes sense. Then people went and made a foam replica of Batman 6'2" tall. [1] Um... had they thought that would make Bruce like... 6'0"? Apparently, not.

• Of course they didn't. Why bother?
• Alternatively, if Arkham Bruce is 6'5" (which is suggested by his height in Origins looks the same as Deathstroke's), that would make Bruce in shoes as 6'6" and as Batman - around 6'7". Just think of it, 6'7" Batman!

The Arkham Knight Militia

• As mentioned on the main page under "Equal Opportunity Evil", the Militia does not discriminate against gay members. However, why is no one in the Militia female? All the Enemy Chatter has male voices. And Batman normally doesn't have a problem using physical force against women like members of the League of Assassins.
  • If his interactions with Oracle are anything to go by, Jason seems to be a bit protective of women and probably did not want to risk female soldiers getting exposed to the fear toxin, beaten, killed or raped by the other men in the Militia (an all too common occurrence with women in the military). Ultimately it's probably the same reason why there are no female enemies elsewhere, save for the League of Assassins or people like Harley, Ivy, Talia, Copperhead, Shiva, etc.
  • Watsonian explanation? The soldiers seem to be almost exclusively American, and can probably be assumed to all be ex-military. The USA only removed the ban on women serving in combat roles in 2013 (even if the games are in an outright Alternate Universe, I think we're supposed to assume that societal trends are the same unless noted), meaning that there probably weren't any women sufficiently experienced to enlist in the Knight's Militia. The Doylist answer is that it was easier to create models and record voice clips for exclusively male militia members.

Prison Cells in Batman's Mind

In the final location in Bruce's mind, if you look carefully, you notice there are several dozens of boxed prison cells lifted in the air by large chains. They give a very scary, lonely, powerful, inescapable, and pretty damn cool vibe. Who's/What's inside? The theory… there are all fears, addictions and weaknesses so common for us humans. For example, primal fear of scary stuff, fear to act, state of anxiety/powerlessness, fear to express/accept the truth; love not to act/sloth/laziness, failing to act/acedia/apathy/despair, procrastination/escapism, lust and so on… These are all the so-called "inner demons" that can only be tamed by finding a compromise, by "feeding" them. (Note: google what psychologists and eastern philosophies practitioners say on that matter, they recommend "giving in" as the only way to handle such things). And Bruce is like "No. Never." He took his every fear, every possible addiction, every weakness and LOCKED. IT. IN. HIS. MIND. FOR. GOOD! Thus showing extreme determination/willpower/persistence/resolve or however synonym you like. That man devoted the entirety of his time and effort to one goal, put his mind, heart, and soul into it, so there was no room for any distractions. Ever. "The hero does not cower to death… for that would belittle life. The hero knows he cannot defeat danger… but for a moment he can free others from fear. Let those who knew him well speak of his fierce loyalty, unwavering convictions and, when the time came, his ultimate willingness to give all." (Gordon about Batman) "Always do the right thing! This is all that matters!" (Batman to Alfred)

• Makes a lot of sense if you think of it… And the Joker, as the ultimate enemy in Batman's mind – got locked the best – up to being closed in the "Intensive Treatment" patient therapy section.
• Kinda a very wild guess, but the cry "Mercy!" inaptly named song by Muse, used in the promotional material for the Arkham Knight – that is not innocents calling for help or Batman's enemies calling for sparing them. It is those "inner demons" calling from inside his mind, 'cause Bruce not only did willingly choose to suppress them once. He makes this choice all the freaking time. Which is more understandable with the Joker's reaction: "No! Please! Nooo! No, Bruce! Don't leave me! Please… I need you…"
• May be up to debate, but Bruce's pride is also locked there. Him putting everyone away may be dictated more by the sheer belief that he can handle everything life-threatening the best way only by himself and others will just get in the way/endanger themselves.
• Even more. Batman is the best, he's unbreakable, incorruptible. Batman is defined by his trauma/tragedy and before that, one would assume, he is vulnerable. But as mainstream continuity comics have shown us (thank you, Scott Snyder!) even without the tragedy/trauma, Bruce is determined, focused, self-sacrificing, willing to do what it takes to make the lives of those around him better. A good, great man, the role model. So, while not as extreme, he still would suppress his weaknesses.
• On the sad side, a lot of the other things he's suppressed are probably locked away in those cells too. Like the desire for a normal life, the yearning to be honest with people, and the wish for genuine inner peace: all things he had to forfeit that weren't flaws or failings, but that he simply couldn't afford to permit himself to feel if Bruce Wayne was to remain the facade and Batman, the reality.
• Justification. In Bruce's mind, there is only room for Batman. So, he had to sacrifice himself to bring what he should be to life. He would however never take a life intentionally, even in his mind. Justified, although, as he killed the Joker hallucination, he couldn't defeat it that way. People can't just kill their weaknesses or fears or addictions. They have to choose to suppress them every goddamn time. That choice made right is what matters.

So in the League of Assassin's civil war

Neither side has opted to use guns or other kinds of weapons? I understand that they're ninjas, but stuff like grenades or guns is going to provide an advantage. A pair of sentry guns could've protected Ra's from attackers, and a sniper rifle could've taken him out from a safe distance. Even with the division following Arkham City, they can't be that strapped for resources, could they?

• It's less a matter of getting the equipment and more a matter of proficiency in using it. The League has been training extensively in swords and daggers and throwing knives and the like, but no training with guns, explosives, and heavy weapons. The two sides are evenly matched, one side trying to use weapons they aren't trained in would weaken them enough to grant the other the advantage.
• The League's assassins are trained to go after targets who are protected with firearms. Both sides' fighters know so many methods of taking out a gunman or evading snipers and sentry guns, they probably have low regard for such weapons' effectiveness overall.

Ra's Al Ghul pronunciation

• The characters in the Arkham series pronounce Ra's name the same way it is said in the Animated series, but Ra's sword is in the evidence room at the GCPD and his name is written in Arabic on his sword. Instead of being pronounced as "raysh" like how everyone has been pronouncing it, the inscription on the sword is pronounced as "rahs". Does this mean that everyone including Ra's has been saying his name wrong or whoever made the sword messed up and Ra's kept it anyway?
  • It's the first one. The "Raysh" pronunciation is Batman canon despite not being a valid real-life pronunciation.
  • This is pretty much correct. They're saying it wrong by Arabic pronunciation rules. But at the same time, it's Batman canon. Most likely, the original writers didn't know how to pronounce it. It's also a title rather than a name, it's Arabic for "head of the demon".
  • I believe this was said by the wife of the writer who made Ra's in the first place (but don't quote me on it), that they pronounce the name incorrectly on purpose to not link Ra's to any particular middle-eastern culture. So, pronouncing it wrong is the point.
  • Ra's is six hundred years old. Really, who can say for sure how the word "Ra's" was pronounced back then, in the specific dialect he spoke when he assumed that title? Only Ra's himself, probably.

Ultimate Fighter

• So in the Arkham series, Batman has a combined build an Olympic bodybuilder and a world-class gymnast, spent much of his adult life mastering a plethora of martial arts, acquires more real-life hand-to-hand combat experience in a night than anyone can be reasonably expected to in a lifetime, is equipped with state-of-the-art body armor and possibly the gauntlet equivalent of brass knuckles, has defeated biologically enhanced super-soldiers like Deathstroke while still relatively green, and yet is completely outclassed by a...really good boxer?
  • He isn't out-classed. Robin just happens to be headquarters at the time of the break-out, and they're working together to bring the boxer down.
  • I think we're supposed to assume that the boxer's Joker blood infection has powered him up a bit.
  • It seems Rocksteady didn't think his strength through, as his profile indicates his breakdown had him tearing people's arms off, something no human can be strong enough to do unless the above assumption is somehow valid.
  • Most likely he has some Titan residue in his body, either because the doctors botched his antidote dosage or because it underwent some kind of synergy with the steroids he'd been abusing.

Riddler's goons

• How exactly can Batman tell who works for Riddler? I never thought about it in the last game, but in this one, officer Wicker glows green like the Riddler's thugs, cluing Batman in that he's a mole. But how exactly is Batman able to single him out, or any of the other goons for that matter?
  • The previous games have established that Batman performs recognition scans and the like, at least, to determine who has been in contact with Riddler. Given Eddie's ego is out shadowed only by the sloppiness with which he performs, it isn't too much of a stretch that some sort of paper trail links the goons with him - Arkham Knight and Origins both demonstrate he makes electronic payments into their bank accounts, for example.

Why isn't Harley infected?

• Harley and the Joker were having intercourse enough that at one point she at least thought she might be pregnant. So why isn't she turning into the Joker?
  • In the comics and DC Animated Universe, Poison Ivy injects Harley with a serum to make her immune to most chemicals and toxins. The same is likely true in the Arkhamverse. Since the Joker disease was presumably caused by Joker's chemical bath, she's resistant to the toxins that cause Jokerization.
  • Jokerism is said by Batman to be a variant of Creutzfeld-Jakob Disease, which is a prion disease spread by exposure to the brain and spinal tissue. So intercourse wouldn't infect her. On the other hand, blood isn't a CJD vector either, so a better question would be why does the Joker's blood spread the disease?
    • Because DC couldn't shoehorn Joker back into the plot otherwise.

All this took place in one night?

• I know this is a video game but is that even possible?! Sure some gamers will say they played the entire game in one night, but I'm still not convinced that someone could fight criminals, enter races, and find trophies in one night.
  • Yup, each Arkham game takes place across the course of a single - separate - night. It's for thematic purposes more than any crack at realism; we're not expected to look at it too closely.

The overpowered weapon of fear (Unmarked Spoilers)

• Look, I get that taking away the mystery behind the identity would make him a lot less scary. But everyone acts like that suddenly now that Batman is "just" Bruce Wayne, this somehow means he's no longer the One-Man Army against crime that he's always been and still is! Does knowing that he's Bruce Wayne somehow make his strikes any less bone-shattering? No, it doesn't.
  • I know, that annoys me as well, but if Gotham's criminals were smart they'd stop breaking the law. They trashed the emergency room, for crying out loud!
  • A large amount of goon chatter makes this exact point, telling each other to, Bruce or not, stay away from the man in the heavily armored combat suit.
  • Having a Secret Identity helped protect Bruce and his loved ones from reprisal. Take that away and the army's worth of criminals know exactly who to target. Even his employees could become targets.
  • Part of Batman's effectiveness is his ability to instill fear and awe, to appear as a semi-mythic creature of vengeance and the night. Objectively, the average thug knows he's just a man in a suit, but when the Batman swoops down from the rafters, takes down five of your buddies in seconds, then disappears in a cloud of smoke, it's hard not to believe he's more than a man. Even if you're able to avoid ascribing supernatural qualities to him, anonymity still lends a powerful mystique to Batman. Is he a government-trained agent? A super-soldier? Part of some secret order of vigilantes? Finding out he's that billionaire from TV who's always in the news for dating some model or other fully humanizes him, makes him less scary. People would still be scared of getting the piss beaten out of them, but not of The Bat as a figure or concept.

Why not create a new identity and costume, Bruce?

• Okay, everyone now knows Batman is Bruce Wayne. Why not create a new costume and name? Bats are not the only thing that scares people. He could create a demon-like costume, and continue his fight against evil. Also, he seems smart, rich, and powerful enough to create a new civilian identity (with plastic surgery). He is a master of disguise after all.
  • It's heavily implied that Bruce has finally reached his limit and feels he simply cannot continue. A number of the Arkham Stories talk about how increasingly painful and common his injuries are getting, how his body is starting to rebel against the workout regime, and so on. Even assuming he found a way to make the transition into a new identity, faking his death would mean the loss of his company, his assets, his equipment, and so on. It was a final resort that cost him everything but his life.
    • Bruce wasn't just reaching his limits physically, but tactically as well. After their subquests, the villains are more determined than ever to kill Batman, but he can't match them anymore without crossing a line the GCPD won't accept. The new suit and batmobile are great against the militia, but when it's back to street punks and crime lords, would people be happy with Batman driving a tank and wearing borderline Powered Armor? Batman: The Dark Knight Returns says it best: Bruce played it mysterious, but it's a loud kind of mysterious. Even if he did make a new costume, people would eventually realize that it's still Bruce. Faking his death means that he won't be a suspect when a new vigilante shows up, and he's free to use tactics that he couldn't before.
  • On some level, Bruce probably recognizes a grain of truth in the accusations that Batman is starting to lose his effectiveness as a crime-fighting tool. At the beginning of Arkham Asylum, he was in a pretty basic suit and got by with a handful of gadgets, the most technological being the hacking tool, and the main offensive weapon being the Batarang. His car was more of a well-protected hot rod. This was about 10 years into his career, suggesting he'd not had much need to develop beyond this level of tech. He was a formidable fighter, sure, and would hurt you to make sure you stayed down, but he was at least exercising some restraint.
    By the time of the Arkham Knight's assault, he's driving about in a tank, ejecting from it in a hefty suit of powered armor, before proceeding to stretch the definition of 'reasonable force' to breaking point. He's throwing explosives at random thugs in fights and utilizing some extremely advanced technological weapons just to maintain a slight edge over his enemies and their increasingly extreme acts. He's been shot, stabbed, poisoned, and dropped off numerous buildings - his physical limits are fast approaching, and he must realize that there is nowhere really left for him to go as Batman without breaking his one rule.
    Faking his death allows him to start over. With his most dangerous enemies either dead or bankrupt and behind bars, he can return to his roots as a street-level vigilante, armed with a decade's worth of knowledge to help avoid the mistakes that led to this situation. He can use tactics that he couldn't before - like chemical warfare with a form of Scarecrow's toxin, to make enemies think he's a literal demonic Bat. Maybe he'll even feel free to kill if needed. His refusal to kill people like Joker probably led to more harm than good, and his Battle in the Center of the Mind showed him that simply taking one life will not automatically make him a monster. Whatever Bruce does next, Batman has done all he can.

Why doesn't Batman wear a realistic human mask under his cowl?

• I often wonder about this. He is ridiculously prepared but never thought about wearing a fake human mask in case some super villain unmasks him.
  • If a villain has enough control over Batman to unmask him, they'll have enough control to unmask him a second time.
    • Only if they recognize the second mask for what it is. I think the idea is for Bruce to wear one of those ultra-realistic rubber masks so that the villain would believe that's Batman's real face, and wouldn't think to try and tear it off.
  • Bruce regularly beats people up in high-intensity battles, dressed in what's probably a ridiculously hot suit of powered armor. Those masks are delicate, shouldn't be crammed into a cowl, and probably couldn't survive the sweat and heat generated from... well, being Batman.
    • And even if it could, what are the odds a villain wouldn't seize the opportunity to bust a captive Batman in the face a few times, soon as the outer mask's protection is no longer in the way? Unless Fox has refined Latex Perfection to such a degree that it can bruise, the disguise wouldn't fly for more than a few seconds, tops.

Joker's return

• Should it be considered a spoiler? It happens early enough in the game, and who thought the main villain would be someone else, really?
  • it isn't in any of the advertising and the opening goes to lengths to say "He's dead and gone". It's a spoiler.

Firefly recognition

• A few of the Militia will mention recognizing Firefly from the movie that he was once in (as shown in the Story menu). So, just how do they recognize someone who always wears a big flight mask over his face which has been burned to a crisp with the rest of his skin?
  • They could've heard him ranting and recognized his voice.
  • He was arrested during the events of Arkham Origins, chances are his name and face (or what remained of it) were publicly published in every newspaper in Gotham, maybe with a 'before and after' of what he used to look like.

Nightwing, Oracle and Robin's identities staying secret after the ending

• So Batman fakes his death to protect his allies (amongst other reasons) but aren't they kinda boned anyway? I mean, since it's now public knowledge he was Bruce Wayne it'll only take 5 minutes to deduce that his adopted son Dick Grayson is Nightwing (that domino mask is almost as useless as Clark Kent's glasses), Barbara was explicitly outed as Batman's IT support and presumably the former Batgirl (as someone up top said, there aren't that many redheads that fit the profile). Tim is probably the safest since he didn't have any formal ties to Bruce Wayne (I don't think Bats ever adopted him in this continuity) but he married the aforementioned Bat IT support and that alone would make him a huge target. It was mentioned under What Angst on the main page that it was weird that none of them seemed that shaken up over Bruce being gone but I was more surprised that none of them seem worried about their own lives being in danger.
  • They might be concerned, but it's not like they aren't capable of handling it.
  • Think about it: Batman is Bruce Wayne. Half of Gotham probably worked for him, directly or indirectly. There's no reason for his adversaries to assume that his allies are necessarily family; anyone who associated closely with Mr. Wayne in a long-term capacity is just as legitimate a candidate, from bodyguards and personal trainers to the bimbos he was always paired up within the gossip pages. For that matter, any of the millions of people whom the Wayne Foundation has helped over the decades is, too! And given that we didn't already see villains investigating all the people Batman was known to have rescued from harm, and their friends and loved ones who might likewise feel indebted enough to help him, the idea that they're going to turn around and probe the secrets of all Wayne's beneficiaries and associates on top of that is just ridiculous. Batman's gone and there's no longer any need to put pressure on him by taking hostages, so what's the point? As for Oracle, the notion that a police commissioner's daughter was working with Batman is hardly a shocker, considering Gordon's been quietly colluding with the Bat for years: Barbara is no more a target now that she's a possible ex-Batgirl than she was when she was simply the daughter of the only unbought cop in Gotham.
  • Not to mention that those other heroes could just as easily have been any random civilian off the street who was maybe saved by the Bat once, and decided to step up to the plate a la Kick-@$$.
    • Which is precisely how The Shadow, one of the original inspirations for Batman, acquired his cadre of secret supporters and accomplices. So it's hardly a new or radical idea that a sidekick could be anyone.

Why is the Clock Tower's mainframe so poorly secured?

• Just a minor bugbear, but the security of Oracle's data center is atrocious. The actual operations center seems fine - access is pretty restricted, and even from the room, you need to activate a hidden scanner to reveal the workstation, which is presumably locked with a further password. But the servers are visible through windows that can be jumped through and can be damaged as easily as any other computer. Considering the criticality of the data to Batman's operations, as well as the fact that it's Batman's mainframe, it really should be better secured.
  Considering it can be remotely accessed without any apparent loss in performance, why is it not located in the Batcave or a custom-built, top-secret server farm buried beneath the desert? Even the Wayne Enterprises corporate datacentre would be a more secure location. If a business with hundreds of staff can operate using an off-site data center, surely Batman's 5-man operation can manage. A few armored sheaths for his ultra-fast data cables buried hundreds of feet below the ground and set in lead-lined concrete would make the connection safer than most military installations. If they need to be on-site, at the very least put in some bulletproof glass, or hang some curtains over the windows.
  • No one outside of the Arkham Knight knew Barbara worked for Batman, so they may never have thought to safeguard physical access beyond restricting ground-level access. Although, given the construction going on next door, perhaps Batman was trying to improve security before the events of the game.
  • My theory was that the Arkham Knight, being Jason Todd and all, was privy to things like security codes and secret networks that everyone else wouldn't know about. Thus it'd be child's play for him to access their security network and shut it down from the inside out

Were Joker and Harley Married?

If you bring in one of the Most Wanted (Pyg I think) The Joker hallucination calls him sicker than Joker and Harley's honeymoon tapes. But in Asylum (the predator room before the Bane fight) Harley gushed about how she and Joker would be getting married after killing Batman, so did they get married while in Arkham City if so why bring it forward? At a guess I'd say it'd be because Joker was sick, possibly to secure Harley's position as his heir.

• Although "celebratory vacation taken by newlyweds" is the more common meaning of "honeymoon", the term can be used casually to refer to a similar trip taken by couples who've just established a romantic relationship. Same as how a couple might trade "anniversary" gifts when they've been together for a year, despite never having exchanged wedding vows.

Magic Lift?

During the ACE chemicals mission, you have to use the power winch to lower and lift the, well, Lift to save the last worker. However, when you get to the top and exit the Batmobile remote to trigger the gunship fight the Batmobile detaches the winch and drives over to Bruce, who is pulling the worker out of the lift. Why does the lift not fall?

• Presumably the lift had a braking mechanism that was still functional, even if its cables weren't.

Gotham's Recovery

• The ending implies that Gotham has bounced back from its near-ruination during the game, my question is... how exactly? The city was bankrupt to the point of not being able to afford firefighters, was essentially turned into a war zone by a foreign military, and gassed! And... none of the events of the game fixed any of that, other than possibly putting the villains out of business.
  • Basing this on the full game, including "City of Infamy" DLC. The city likely sued Stagg Enterprises in the aftermath for building the Cloudburst and aiding Scarecrow, though the company may have made considerable donations to save face after its founder was revealed to be part of the terrorist attack. Also, there might've been off-screen charity events, and with Joker and Poison Ivy dead, and Mr. Freeze quite likely dead too, Gotham's going to be more inviting to outside investors with fewer nutjobs terrorizing the place.
  • Whatever financial protocols Bruce and Lucius might've arranged to go into effect automatically, in the event of Bruce's exposure or death, dumping a big hunk of his fortune into funding Gotham's disaster-recovery programs was probably part of it.

Batman infected.

• Okay correct me if I'm wrong but Bruce, Christina, Johnny, Albert, and Henry were being mutated by the chemicals in Joker's blood that had been infused into theirs. Now presumably this isn't TITAN, as Bruce does take the cure. Presumably then somehow everyone else who had Joker's blood in them had it filtered out somehow. This raises 2 questions. Firstly if everyone else got their blood filtered, why didn't Batman? Even if he couldn't go to a hospital if he can covertly buy the components to all his bat-tech, he could buy the medical equipment he needs. Secondly, if the other 4 were missed then presumably they'd never get the TITAN cure, so wouldn't they have died almost a year earlier?
  • Batman may not have realized he was still infected until he learned about the infected people. As for why the other four didn't die, that's never explained, presumably, the writer DC brought in for this game didn't research the plot of Arkham City very well.

Barbara in Gotham.

Okay, why was Barbra in Gotham anyway? Her role in the operation is focused entirely on her computer work. She could have evacuated to Wayne Manor or another facility outside of the city, thus being safe yet still having access to the technology to do what she needed to do without lying to Gordon about not being in Gotham. Even though they didn't know about the Arkham Knight and his knowledge of Batman's identity and allies the Clocktower sat inside the area of a citywide riot, it was very possible that someone could try and break in or even torch the building, Tim's still being in the movie studios makes sense, they didn't want to risk moving the infected, but there was no real reason for Barbra to be in the city.

• Barbara still being in Gotham can be handwaved as the Bat Team not having enough time to set up another base of operations following Scarecrow's threat. Although that does raise the question of why they never set up another facility for Barbara.
  • OP. But why would she need another base, I was suggesting she relocate to the Batcave, if I understand right there are 24 hours between officer Owens and the main plot; if there was time for everyone to leave the city in buses then there was time for Alfred to pick Barbra up, either in a car or a Helicopter (or even the Batwing), and get her to Wayne Manor, indeed putting both of them together would only let them work better. Robin and Lucius make some sense, in that they couldn't risk moving the infected and Lucius was providing physical assistance (new gear) as opposed to the digital aid Alfred was providing, but Barbara would have been in as much of a position to help from the cave and it'd have been harder if not impossible for the militia to reach him, particularly if we assume that the most paranoid superhero in existence upgraded his security after Bane broke in 8 years ago.
    • Bit of a stretch here, but maybe Batman wanted an extra lab if he was cut off from the Batcomputer like he was in Arkham City with Penguin's jammers.
    • True, but having the Clocktower as Barbra's normal base and home doesn't prevent her from being relocated to the Batcave during this major crisis.
    • Well at this point all I can think of is that either Batman doesn't want to concentrate his support after what Bane did in Origins or they just never thought anyone would storm the Clocktower. Maybe not many people know Gordon's kid lives there.
    • Even if he didn't think about the clocktower being raided, there's still a bunch of toxic gas that's being used to threaten the city. Batman is willing to tell Robin and Nightwing that he doesn't want to see them hurt, but not the girl in a wheelchair?

Croc is less powerful than in Arkham Asylum?

• In Arkham Asylum, Killer Croc was invulnerable to hand-to-hand combat; Batman only survived by exploiting Croc's shock collar and the environment to his advantage. Yet in Arkham Knight Batman and Nightwing can beat him down in a difficult yet surmountable fight. Croc is supposed to be tougher and stronger than ever before; why is he more vulnerable now?
  • Croc's mutation has warped his body to the point that he looks less like a "crocodile man" and more like a "man crocodile." Perhaps while stronger, he isn't as durable as before. He's certainly slower than before, and given that part of the problem in Asylum was the lack of room to maneuver, maybe Croc just had terrain advantage.
• I don’t think he is invulnerable. It’s just Batman deems attacking him in a watery location as too dangerous (as with real crocodiles). Presumably, if they fought on the ground like in Origins, it would go more similar to Bane fights.

Professor Pyg

• As insane as Pyg is, how is he able to do anything competent from a legal business standpoint, like run the Circus of Strange he runs? He doesn't seem to be able to turn off his crazy to do even simple things like buy property.
  • We only see him when he doesn't have a reason to hold back. He might've been able to dial it back before Gotham.

Dual Team Synchronization

• Why exactly is it that when playing Dual team segments with Selena, Dick, and Tim, there is one health bar for both characters, did the Bat-family suddenly develop some kind of psychic link that only activates when they're nearby or something?
  • it could indicate that one would inevitably be overwhelmed without the other. This is less likely in segments with regular goons like the Penguin missions, but with the Riddler bots and Killer Croc, you NEED both fighters to survive. Taking one out dooms the other.

Who was the Arkham Knight on the rooftop?

After taking out the Cloud Burst tank, Batman grabs the Arkham Knight and grapples up to a rooftop where they can duke it out in safety away from the Fear Toxin flooding the city. Batman lays a brief smackdown on him, only for his infected blood to interfere and cause him to hallucinate the Joker instead of the Arkham Knight. He backs off and Alfred comes on the radio to ask what happened, and Batman just says the Arkham Knight got away somehow... except the figure (currently seen as Joker) is still lying on the rooftop and doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Was it the Arkham Knight, or was it another goon pretending to be him? Or was the tank unmanned and Batman simply thought he was grabbing someone when nobody was there at all? Or was the Arkham Knight supposed to have somehow slipped away while Batman was reeling from the hallucination, despite the figure of the Joker still being there?

• The tank was likely unmanned, Arkham Knight knows how strong the fear gas is, and Batman hallucinated the Arkham Knight climbing out. Otherwise, why wouldn't the Knight shoot Batman when the hallucination struck?
  • It's implied in their final confrontation that Jason was suffering Fear Toxin Exposure at that point, implying he was actually in the tank, it is likely that at, that point, he was in the middle of a major freak out, particularly since Batman was beating him up, so when Bruce is distracted by the Joker Hallucination he fled in a panic, before calming down a bit for their final confrontation, remember when the hallucination takes over things are happening we don't see; on Stagg's airship while Joker tries to overwhelm Batman, Militia Thugs show up and grab Stagg, it can be assumed that the Hallucination meant he didn't see Jason fleeing while still seeing the Joker.

Fire Chief Underhill

• So after rescuing him from the criminals and confronting him with his involvement with Firefly, Batman drives him to the GCPD, and tosses him straight in the Max Security Holding Cell, which by the ending is filled to the brim with highly dangerous and deranged individuals with Underhill stuck in the middle of them. Why not give him his cell or just let him out, as he's not a risk to anyone or likely to run away.
  • He might've requested it out of guilt. Good intentions or not, he put his men in danger and aided a known felon.

Suddenly bold Thugs

• Previously when you hit "interrogate" Batman holds his target up, dangles them off a roof, stomps on their face, etc and then they will surrender any secrets Batman is demanding of them, and yet in this game sometime the Riddler henchmen will fight back, requiring their attempted attack to be countered. We know, from "Origins" that interrogations have been going the old way since before Batman was even publicly known to exist, by Knight he's been around for nearly a decade and Gotham's divided over if he purposefully killed Joker or not... so why are the thugs bolder now? It'd be one thing if it was just the militia but it's not, it happens with normal street thugs as well.
  • The game's trying to stress that Batman isn't as scary as before.
  • Also, Batman has been around for years by this point. No doubt many of these thugs have met Batman in previous games, and survived the encounter with only a few broken bones (probably unaware of his 'no kill' rule). They're probably thinking 'I know all his tricks now, I can get him this time!' One thug even advises another to 'scream real loud and charge at him', insisting it'll work without a shred of sarcasm or humour. They genuinely think they can take Batman down at this point

Why didn't they kill Batman while he was tripping out?

• After you rescue Stagg for the first time, a big Joker hallucination plays out which eventually leave Batman rolling over on the floor. Meanwhile, Stagg is being taken to the other airship by a couple militia. The obvious question being why didn't said militia just kill Batman while he was tripping the fuck out?
  • In-game, it’s because scarecrow’s like “no no don’t kill him, I wanna cause a mental breakdown first” and since he’s the one paying the checks they gotta listen. Outside the game, it’s because Batman dying midway through a fear gas trip would be a hell of an anticlimax.

Lazarus Pit VS Stockholm Syndrome *SPOILER*

• I know that they couldn't do the whole "Superboy Prime punches through reality" explanation (comic books are weird...) for Jason being alive, but what was wrong with the Lazarus Pit explanation? This just creates multiple Adaptation Induced Plotholes, such as Batman not trying to look for Jason and/or Joker, Jason waiting so long between him being broken by Joker and him coming after Batman, and where the hell this supposed "abandoned wing of Arkham" was located.
  • It's changed to make it more horrifying. Jason being alive that whole time means that Batman could have saved him but didn't. Joker faked Jason's death and Batman fell for it which makes everything much worse. Batman feels even more guilt, guilt for failing, guilt for falling for the trick, guilt for replacing him and Jason feels anger over all those things. If Jason had actually died and been brought back then those things would sting far less.
  • The campaign in general downplays the more fantastical parts of the Bat-Mythos for the sake of "gritty realism." In previous games, you'd fight several of the regular villains in the campaign, with more introduced to set up side quests. Along the way you encounter stuff like mutated people, monster plants, and surreal hallucinations of nightmarish worlds. Here, the only villain in the campaign is Scarecrow, Ivy is a reluctant ally, Joker is a hallucination from the blood infection and Fear Toxin inter-mixing, and everyone else is shunted off to the side-quests. Even when the campaign acknowledges the more out there stuff, it doesn't go much further than that (no Titan henchmen, the giant plants are explained as prehistoric, and the hallucinations are toned down). It's all done to make Batman realize that he's been treating his war on crime like a game when it's just that, a war, and Gotham won't get better until he finds a way to improve his MO while keeping to his values.

Oracle trusting Scarecrow?

• I know Batman surrendered to Scarecrow as part of a Batman Gambit to deal with his Joker infection, but if you talk to Oracle after visiting the movie studio, all she'll say is that you need to turn yourself in to save Robin. Since she doesn't know he's infected at all, why is her plan "do what the supervillain says and hope he doesn't pull a sudden but inevitable betrayal after getting what he wants" and not "try and figure out where Scarecrow is, sneak in, and rescue everyone, the way you have every other time something like this has happened"? Scarecrow even goes on the billboards and announces that he's fine with waiting for you to complete everyone else's sidequests before surrendering, so it's not like there's no time to try other things.