History Headscratchers / TheDarkKnight

** Right,I guess, but along with "where she was going", it's also clearly meant to literally show that the bomb was up somewhere near (underneath, perhaps?) the sun shield.

* There are two boats, civilians and prisoners. The civilians immediately assume that the violent criminals on the prisoner boat will decide to blow up their boat. But... they're prisoners. Prisoners are not typically burdened with an abundance of decision making. Did the civilians think it was just a big free for all on the boat full of convicted felons with no guards?

[[folder: Ridiculously sensitive carbomb trigger]]

*** This was actually played with in Mike Mignola's "The Doom that came to Gotham", where the Waynes are killed by knife, and Batman freely uses guns.

* Ok, you're an average crook who's set to rob a bank with four other heisters that you likely haven't worked with before. Then, the boss who set this whole score up pulls you aside and tells you to kill one of the others for a bigger share of the loot. I admit that I'm no bank robber, but wouldn't this be the red flag to end all red flags? Apparently, only 'one' guy realized "Hey, this Joker guy told ALL of us to kill each other", and he only figured it out after another dumbass casually revealed that he killed a partner per Joker's order. You'd think at least one guy would've tapped out before the heist started (especially since Joker's still small time at this point in the film.)

** Iy seems that he set the pencil on the eraser side and drove the guy's face down onto the pointy end.

** Also, who's to say we're supposed to see Batman's refusal to kill as a good thing? In the comics Batman constantly wrestles with the moral implications of leaving his enemies alive and his come close to the edge so many times it's almost a cliche. Looking at Batman's no-kill code as one of the character's faults is... well interesting if nothing else.

** It was that Ra's put himself in that situation with no escape, where Batman pushed the Joker off the building. Therefore it would of been on his hands and it wouldn't fall into not saving him.

[[folder: Why not break the Joker's limbs?]]
* It's established in this film via Maroni that while Batman won't kill he doesn't have a problem with snapping a guy's leg purely for intimidation. So why not just, you know, do that to the Joker? I don't care how scary he seems or how good a schemer he may be, he's going nowhere and getting nothing done with, say, the bones in his arms and legs or hands and feet reduced to the consistency of powdered milk. It's not lethal and a permanent cripple who can't walk or even feed himself isn't going to walk out of the police station much less keep control of any kind of gang for very long.
** Because this is the whole conflict of the movie; is Batman essentially going to lower himself to the Joker's level and prove that he's ultimately just a vicious monster out to satiate his own bloodlust and take the easy route, or is he going to stand for a higher principle no matter how difficult it proves? Besides which, in order to administer this beating he has to ''catch'' the Joker first, and there's surprisingly few occasions when Batman and the Joker are face to face. And most of those end with Batman having to save people from dying horribly, meaning he doesn't really have a chance to offer a brutal beatdown, much as he may at times want to.
** It’s established that Batman’s code is against ‘’killing’’, he has no moral problems with breaking a guy’s leg. And also he literally does beat the Joker in an attempt to interrogate him and that doesn’t seem to cause him much distress either. So there’s no reason to suppose the idea of inflicting permanently debilitating injuries is somehow beyond the pale for Batman.
** He breaks a guy’s leg and roughs the Joker up, sure, but there are still a few stages of brutality between that and reducing a guy’s skeletal structure to “the consistency of powdered milk” and ensuring that he is “a permanent cripple who can't walk or even feed himself”, as was suggested. Batman is clearly not above getting physical with his enemies, the Joker included, but the question then becomes whether or not he is above the kind of vicious sadistic bloodlust that would allow him to almost beat a man to death with his bare hands, as the OP all but outright suggests.
** It's likely if he had felt a bit more desperation against the Joker he would have gone ahead with this; that's the level of desperation which led him to drop Maroni off the building to try and track the Joker down in the first place. But he slammed his fist down on the Joker's hand HARD in the interrogation scene; if he had wanted to put that hand out of action, he could have dialled it up a few notches and actually snapped the bones in his hand/wrist. He didn't feel the need.
[[/folder]]

** Presumably, there were at least a few people on that boat who were willing to take extreme measures to keep the children alive. But there was a chance that hitting the button would blow up your own boat, in which case you'd actually be ''killing'' the children rather than saving them. And even putting that aside, I think everyone was hoping for a Third Option to show up...which is exactly what happened, in the end.

*** It’s established that Batman’s code is against ‘’killing’’, he has no moral problems with breaking a guy’s leg. And also he literally does beat the Joker in an attempt to interrogate him and that doesn’t seem to cause him much distress either. So there’s no reason to suppose the idea of inflicting permanently debilitating injuries is somehow beyond the pale for Batman.
*** He breaks a guy’s leg and roughs the Joker up, sure, but there are still a few stages of brutality between that and reducing a guy’s skeletal structure to “the consistency of powdered milk” and ensuring that he is “a permanent cripple who can't walk or even feed himself”, as was suggested. Batman is clearly not above getting physical with his enemies, the Joker included, but the question then becomes whether or not he is above the kind of vicious sadistic bloodlust that would allow him to almost beat a man to death with his bare hands, as the OP all but outright suggests.

** Maybe there are two batpods, one for each seat. But they only deploy when needed. We only saw one batpod because there was only one passenger at the time.

*** He breaks a guy’s leg, sure, but there are still a few stages of brutality between that and reducing a guy’s entire skeletal structure to “the consistency of powdered milk” and ensuring that he is “a permanent cripple who can't walk or even feed himself”, as was suggested. Batman is clearly not above getting physical with his enemies, the Joker included, but the question then becomes whether or not he is above the kind of vicious sadistic bloodlust that would require him to almost beat a man to death with his bare hands, as the OP all but outright suggests.

** Bruce Wayne is footing the bill for the entire Russian ballet troupe to spend several very pleasant and relaxing days on a big boat in beautiful surroundings, doubtlessly with lots of partying and fun along with it. You really think after all that any of them is going to object too strongly or feel compelled to shout it from the rooftops if he tells them "Oh, by the way, I have to slip away briefly in this sea-boat for reasons you don't have to worry about, so just sit back, keep sunbathing and if anyone asks, I was here the the whole time"? They probably forgot all about it by the next cocktail.

*** It might make a huge difference, in the book of rules. Fair enough. But supposing you ''know'' someone is about to be killed--possess the means to stop it from happening--and deliberately choose to do nothing. [[NotSoDifferent In ethical terms, are you better]] than the person who does the actual killing?

* In context, Alfred is discussing with Bruce how his decision to become Batman has led the mob to turn to something they didn't quite understand. He's talking about the serial escalation that led to the mob hiring the Joker. The fact that Alfred burned the forest down is a cautionary tale about the potential consequences of this serial escalation - regret. He's trying to get Bruce to be realistic about where his path as Batman might lead, which is consistent with the choices Alfred makes in TheDarkKnightRises.

** My theory is that he isn't wearing makeup, but his face is tattooed.
** See JustBugsMe/TheDarkKnight page for a reasonable answer.