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3'''As a Headscratchers subpage, all spoilers are unmarked [[Administrivia/SpoilersOff as per policy.]] Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned.'''
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5[[foldercontrol]]
6
7[[folder: Strange misreading Batman]]
8* Something that has always bugged me about Strange; the man's an idiot. Throughout Protocol 10, he keeps saying to Batman that he's won, even though Batman's not dead (as Strange had planned) and is now coming to stop him. Even the Joker is sane enough to realize that when Batman's foiled your plan, escaped your death trap, beaten up your guards and is standing RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOUR FACE, your options are either [[VillainousBreakdown crying]] or [[NotSoFastBucko pulling out your secret weapon.]] For Joker (in Asylum) it was exposing himself to TITAN. Strange...doesn't have one. Now I know most of this can be shrugged off with "[[SanityHasAdvantages he's insane]]", but there's one specific thing that he says that doesn’t make sense, even for him. When Batman is on the elevator up to Strange's tower to commence Operation F-Up-Evil-Plan, Strange tells Batman that eventually, Batman will kneel before him, and beg for mercy. [[FlatWhat What?]] Strange is a psychologist ''genius''. He used his skill to figure out Batman's identity. Therefore, he should KNOW with clarity that few villains understand that Batman's about as likely to beg him for mercy as he is to give up the evil plan and open a candy store.
9** Have you ever heard of the trope KneelBeforeZod?
10** I don't think you get it. Strange is certainly a CardCarryingVillain but given Strange's prowess as a psychologist, saying something like this is a break in character so big it borders on being a plot hole.
11** You remember the Scarecrow sections in Asylum? They weren't just cool set pieces -- they illustrated just how ''tenuous'' Batman's grip on sanity is. He dresses up in a rubber bat suit to fight crime. Not exactly Mr. Mental Health. The most interesting Batman stories have always portrayed him as a man on the edge, constantly honing his iron will to keep from going as crazy as his nemeses. True to form, it seems like ''everyone'' in this game is conspiring against Batman to get him to snap, and forcing him to kill is treated as the trigger because of his rejection of murder as a solution. It's the ultimate compromise of his morality, and proves he's no better than the people he tries to stop. Ra's and Talia want him to kill so he'll join them in their crusade. Strange wants Batman to kill so Batman will recognize his superior intellect and acknowledge his way is the right way. The Joker wants him to kill to break his psyche so he'll go nuts and join the Joker in insanity. Even the very idea of Gotham turned into a city-sized prison and its destiny as the site of Protocol 10 is a corruption and mockery of everything Batman stands for. But in the end, despite all the stressors of immortal fascists, being poisoned with TITAN and slowly dying, seeing the love of his life held at gunpoint (twice!), Batman manages to reject everyone's designs and machinations for him, and never gives in or sacrifices his commitment to the principles of law and order, even when the legal forces of order (i.e. Hugo Strange, as an appointee of Mayor Sharp) do. ''That's'' what makes Batman right. Not that he can physically beat up Hugo Strange.
12** Even psychologists are vulnerable to VillainousBreakdown. By this point, Strange was so used to thinking he was in control that he was arguably unable to accept the idea that Batman could singlehandedly stop him. Not to mention, he had his ace in the hole, in the form of Ra's al Ghul. The fact that Ra's pulled a YouHaveFailedMe wasn't part of his master plan.
13** ^ Exactly this. Even if Batman had captured Strange, Strange's "powerful friends" would've (or were supposed to have) broken him out and put him back in power within a day.
14** It’s hardly a break in character or anything like that. Firstly, this is supposed to be the first time he has even met Batman, and he constantly underestimates him (and everyone else- remember if Catwoman didn’t save him, Protocol 10 still would have failed; it’s just that the result would have been that Joker and the other maniacs escaped and rampaged all over Gotham). Secondly, Strange has ''never'' truly "got" Batman quite as well as he thinks he does- he can get under his skin, but no version of Strange fully comprehends his psyche, usually due to EvilCannotComprehendGood and LackOfEmpathy. It’s perfectly ''in''-character for him to underestimate him like that, and to be that arrogant. And it is ''far'' from a PlotHole.
15** Plus... Strange is a supervillain. Megalomaniacal overconfidence is practically a job requirement. He's boasting to Batman about how Batman will never stop him even while Batman is very visibly on his way to stop him because he's arrogantly convinced of his own superiority and mastery of the situation.
16** Also also... where is it ever said that Hugo Strange actually ''is'' a psychological genius? Hugo Strange ''thinks'' he's a psychological genius, and he certainly acts the part, but let's face it; a man with as many neuroses, manias and obsessions as he is clearly demonstrated to possess doesn't get to be unironically referred to as a psychological genius without some ''serious'' asterisks and qualifiers involved.
17[[/folder]]
18
19[[folder:Curing Gotham]]
20* So, Batman takes his share of the antidote and debates to himself whether or not he should give it to Joker. Aaand, what about, you know, the citizens of Gotham? He doesn't bother analyzing it or anything, just ponders about the moral implications before Joker makes him drop it. Makes you really question the [[LawfulStupid priorities of the man]].
21** How's he supposed to analyze it? He has no lab with him, and while it's clearly pretty good at isolating substances present at the scene of a crime, identifying the exact elements of a newly-discovered cure for a new, rare disease would probably be beyond even Detective Mode's limits. Plus, the guy's been run-ragged and slowly dying for nearly twelve hours straight and still has the question of how to deal with and whether to save his dying arch-nemesis to address right there right then; we can surely allow him a moment to get his bearings and briefly ponder the implications.
22** Considering he can send almost anything to his lab, AND that he's sent poisons and such in the past, it’s not farfetched to think he could at least take a sample.
23** He does still have the sample that's spilled on the floor, though; it might not be enough to cure the Joker but it's surely enough to extrapolate more from. He's also got another sample circulating in his system at that very moment.
24** He also has Mr. Freeze on his side now. All Batman has to do is get Freeze the proper ingredients and he can whip up a new batch on the spot.
25** Don't they mention in the game that Lucius Fox had managed to create enough to give to the hospitals? I'm sure of it.
26** Not necessarily. Remember that Freeze already identified the compound required to cure Batman, but he couldn't synthesize it himself despite all his technology. Batman recognizes the chemical structure of the hormone as the Lazarus compound and then sets out to get a sample of it. If all the samples are gone, that also presumably removes Freeze's ability to make the cure.
27** Freeze needed Ra's Al Ghul's blood to make the cure (since Ra's had been exposed to Lazarus for centuries). At the end it should be easy to get plenty of that blood.
28** Or not, seeing as his body disappears and the sword is stabbed into the ground. He's likely on a flight to the farthest Lazarus Pit possible.
29** Wasn't the mention of Lucius Fox having produced a cure a hypnotic suggestion planted by the Mad Hatter? Or am I missing something?
30** It's established in the game that Mr. Freeze or Batman's computers can easily create the antidote from blood that's already been exposed to it, which Batman's has been at the end of the game. During Catwoman's last side mission following the credits, Batman is probably back at his lab having the antidote created from his blood, then returns to Arkham City just after Catwoman's dealt with Two-Face to take care of any unfinished business (i.e. optional quests).
31** And also... as mentioned above, the man's been run ragged for almost twelve hours straight, and slowly dying on top of it. We, on the other hand, got to sit in a nice comfy chair and control him throughout, with the possibility of a nice refreshing break to reflect on events at any time we chose. If anyone here thinks they can do better than Batman did under the same circumstances and continue to display razor-sharp insight about exactly what to do, by all means give it a shot yourselves; otherwise, stop harping on and let the man have a minute to clear his head and reflect on whether or not to cure the dying psychotic serial killer.
32[[/folder]]
33
34[[folder:Wayne's arrest]]
35* How the hell does Dr. Strange get away with publicly assaulting and incarcerating Bruce Wayne in the most brutal and deadly prison ever invented with no trial and no charges? I know Gotham is a rough place, but that seem to be really stretching it. Has he been [[WebAnimation/ZeroPunctuation crowned king of humanity]] all of a sudden?
36** He doesn't. Listen in on the GCPD feed after Bruce gets taken in, Gordon is flipping out because he thinks Bruce Wayne's lawyers are gonna be knocking down his door to figure out what's going on. GCPD however isn't allowed inside of Arkham City so they're trying to do what they can to get him out.
37** Strange doesn't have to get away with incarcerating Bruce Wayne for long. He only has to keep the police at bay for ten hours before his masterstroke is complete. If the plan had succeeded, Wayne and every other political prisoner that could implicate Strange on his wrong-doings would be dead and he'd be free to make up whatever line of BS he felt would pacify his political opponents. He'd take some massive political heat, but without concrete evidence, there'd be little anyone could do that his contacts couldn't overwrite.
38** It still wouldn't work. His TYGER teams are private companies. They might have been authorized to guard Arkham City, but they can't get away with bypassing the police and arresting and throwing them into detention without any oversight from judges, not even with the mayor in your pocket (never mind that he got away with arresting the mayor that way too). True, he might have been able to delay the government's response long enough for him to enact Protocol 10, but the government won't have forgotten what he did no matter how happy some people might be about the deaths of the inmates. In fact, it will give them all the more reason to look into the suspicious timing of Strange arresting people illegally right before a prison riot killed everyone.
39** As is mentioned below, the game is criticizing privatization. The GCPD has already had massive lay-offs (as it says in the Arkham City stories) and it doesn't matter how much the government dislikes something, if they've privatized everything, they can do jack shit about it.
40** You seem to underestimate just how truly and endemically corrupt Gotham City is. Also, this is not the real world- it is the DC universe. The laws might be different, and have been abused far worse than this before. Not to mention just how dangerous the supervillains Strange is trying to kill really are, and how much more dangerous the villains of the rest of the world can be. There would be plenty of people who would agree with what Strange was doing, and would look the other way when it came to throwing a rich jerk or obnoxious mayor in with the rest of them.
41** According to tie-in comics, Gotham City is already under a state of martial law due to a prior terrorist attack on city hall. Martial law means the GCPD - and other sanctioned force given powers of arrest by the City Council - has the right to detain residents without trial in the interests of maintaining order. Technically, the private contractor (in this case, TYGER) must remain subservient to police, but with emergency powers and enough friends in the GCPD willing to look the other way the mayor can ignore it if he pleases. ''Arkham Unhinged'' has Gordon complaining about gross partisanship in the force (and the fact that he's been demoted to a desk job) which would explain it. As for private military firms deploying into American cities with arbitrary powers, it's been done before: one example being New Orleans after Katrina, and Ferguson after the riots. They get written consent from the Department of Homeland Security and are usually deputized by local law enforcement.
42* Even moreso than Bruce's allies in Gotham proper, you have to wonder why Strange never saw blowback from this little group Batman is part of known as '''''the Justice League'''''. If no one else, Superman would not be happy about his best friend getting kidnapped, and a group of TYGER mooks attempting to arrest Clark Kent for poking his nose into Arkham City would be the peak of BlackComedy.
43[[/folder]]
44
45[[folder:Breach of human rights]]
46* How the hell has Dr. Strange's prison not got every human rights group in the universe on his ass 24/7? Groups like that got hyper pissed off at the US for water-boarding and Guantanamo Bay, so tell me, how is what he was doing not a hundred billion times worse? Why isn't the government of the United States moving against this obvious lunatic? Why is he allowed to build a hell on earth and randomly throw innocents into it with no trial without consequences?
47** It might seem like a cop-out answer, but... well, it's Gotham. Crime has been out of control there for years, so it might seem like a case of extreme measures for extreme situations. But there clearly ''are'' voices speaking out against Arkham City regardless; Bruce Wayne set up a campaign to get it shut down, Vicki Vale's constantly on the radio talking about how things are really bad down there, and both make the very obvious point that walling off an entire region of a city and dumping prisoners in it is ''pretty fucking nuts''. But by any objective standards a good majority of the people inside Arkham City legitimately ''do'' belong inside a prison, so even if they think Arkham City is a mad idea no one's going to be losing any sleep about the Joker or the Penguin or any of their thugs being locked up. The ones who don't deserve to be there have probably been swept up quietly or thrown in on trumped-up charges, with Strange's powerful connections and the already pretty corrupt nature of Gotham helping to grease the wheels a bit. It only seems to have been Bruce Wayne who's been publicly rounded up and thrown in, and by that point Strange is only a few hours away from activating his master plan, so he probably doesn't give two shits about a bunch of do-gooders getting irate at the clear violation of civil liberties when he's going to be machine-gunning the lot of them soon anyway. It's also probable that the political prisoners are most likely going to include people who publicly protest this kind of thing anyway; they can protest all they want in Arkham, but no one's going to hear them.
48** In fact, for any Batman story where someone legally does something wildly illegal, it's because It's Gotham City. It's basically the Batman counterpart to AWizardDidIt.
49** There's also the fact that Ra's al Gul is supporting Strange's little project as a test for both the bad doctor and Batman. If Ra's wants something badly enough, his League can make his happen.
50** My rule with Batman is, if it's not stated explicitly in a given continuity that Gotham City is somewhere in the US, I assume it's not. Gotham is an independent country (like Santa Prisca and all the other made-up countries in the DCU), and Gotham City and Bludhaven are its two largest cities. Gotham's constitution doesn't explicitly protect the same human rights as the US constitution; there is no Gotham Civil Liberties Union to get in Strange's way; the government's right of eminent domain is more absolute and harder for property owners to challenge than in the US; there's no National Guard or sizable military to call when the Joker's army overpowers the local police; and there are no federal supermax prisons or Guantanamo Bays to send terrorists like Joker and Poison Ivy to make sure they don't escape.
51** The obvious problem with that is that Gotham City ''is'' a city in the United States. In every continuity it is. In fact, in the comics they even establish it's in New Jersey. They had to pay taxes to US President Lex Luthor like everyone else.
52** It's also canonical in the Arkham series that Gotham is in America. In the Royal Hotel Predator encounter with Bane's mercenaries (the one where they mine the gargoyles), one bit of EnemyChatter has one stating that after they finish off Batman, the goon will have an American hot dog, perhaps two - in the same way that anyone visiting a country would talk about sampling the local cuisine.
53** The events of Arkham City are not as unbelievable as one may think. For example, Maricopa County in Arizona famously runs a jail that's a tent city, so it's not such a stretch to suggest turning a run down portion of a city into a jail (not to say that such a plan would be approved, but it's not a far stretch). Eminent domain laws do work in the way the game suggests and so large parts of the city could be forcibly bought from private citizens to accomplish public goal. As for the human rights issues, the comparison to Guantanamo Bay is appropriate. The average American citizen doesn't know who's there or why. There have been people who were picked up on less than credible information who stayed in the prison for years until they were let out by the system due to lack of evidence. When anything operates in a way where public scrutiny is difficult, all sorts of abuses to human and civil rights can occur for long periods of time before the truth gets out. Remember that in the game, Vicki Vale's reporting was the only news report showing what was going on live in Arkham City. Most citizens had no idea there were political prisoners (that's the whole point of putting them in there), nor about the gangs with guns, the experimentation by Strange, and so on. So long as TYGER operatives kept people from knowing what was going on, much of Arkham City is within the realm of plausibility. Perhaps not the scale of the operation (in Arkham Origins, it becomes clear that they apparently turned half of the city into a prison) or that a plan that gave the authority for armed helicopters to "pacify" a potential breakout strains credulity a little.
54** Well, not half the city. Even in Arkham Origins, you don't get to see all of Gotham, just part of it. Gotham is a full sized city, and so far (at least until Arkham Knight is out) we've only seen a few districts in the western most part of the city. Arkham City is big, but not half of Gotham big. Even for its size I think within the setting it's small enough to be plausible.
55** Gotham's under martial law, so Sharp is given additional executive powers which supersede those of his normal office. Martial law means the right to detain without trial, so he can arrest anybody he wants and get away with it. As for TYGER, they've been given powers of arrest by the city council. Again something that wouldn't normally happen in the US, but plausible with consent from Homeland Security and the GCPD.
56[[/folder]]
57
58[[folder:The cure]]
59* A couple of questions about the cure - why didn't Clayface give it to Joker after Harley got hold of it, and after Joker drops it, why is the whole matter of all of the civilians who need it forgotten about? Granted, more can always be made with Ra's conveniently impaled on a gate.
60** Talia intercepted Harley before she got back to Joker with it.
61** Also, The cure still exists: inside Batman's blood. So all he has to do is return to the Batcave, have some of his blood taken out, examine the cure and then mass-produce it for the civilians.
62** What I don't get is why the Joker didn't take some of the cure after Clayface captured Talia and brought her to the theatre. He would've had plenty of time to grab it from her and take some before Batman got there, so why not? Then, after Batman beats Clayface, the Joker pounces on him, and stabs him in the arm that's ''holding the vial'', causing him to drop it. The Joker then acts surprised, and tries to drink it off the floor before convulsing and dying. I mean, there's more than a good chance that this is just another one of the Joker's bait-and-switches that will possibly be covered in a third game (here's hoping), but if not, what, did the sickness just finally eat through his brain?
63** Clayface didn't know where the cure was anymore. Harley was supposed to deliver the vial, but Talia got to her first without anybody knowing. Probably before she went along with "Joker". As far as either Joker or Clayface knew, Batman himself had taken it from Harley after she disappeared. Talia only revealed it after Batman arrived and she thought that Joker was dead. Clayface had the cure after that, but he still had to deal with a very tired, very ''angry'' Batman. That explains why the cure got juggled around so much.
64** Why does Joker care about the cure by then anyway? He has access to a Lazarus Pit. As for Clayface, how do we know he intends to give Joker the cure anyway? He might be planning to kill Batman, then finish off Joker and take his place permanently.
65** The Pit is clearly destroyed in the fight with Basil.
66[[/folder]]
67
68[[folder:Freeze's breath]]
69* Anyone think it was odd that, er, you could see ''Mr. Freeze's'' breath? Like maybe despite his suit and everything, it still wasn't cold enough for him?
70** This makes sense to me. HIS breath is colder than the air around him. It would work like the exact opposite of what we see. Instead of how we breathe warm air into cold air, he breathes cold air into warmer air.
71[[/folder]]
72
73[[folder:Bruce's arrest part II]]
74* On what charges was Bruce Wayne arrested by TYGER? It seemed they just took him and threw him into Arkham City without giving any explanation or actual reasons for arrest. Than on the other hand, Strange had little trouble arresting the freakin mayor..
75** If you tune in to Gotham FM, it is revealed that there is no public reason, effectively making it kidnapping.
76** It's pretty clear Wayne was going to be another of those "political prisoners" Strange had tried to shove under a rock where they wouldn't bother him.
77** He was arrested on the charge of TYGER works for Strange and does what he tells them to. In the extra story bits in the menu, it explains that the GCPD's facing cutbacks and doesn't have as much authority as it used to. Plus, look at how the Arkham logo is slapped on billboards in Arkham City; it's practically a brand. Rocksteady is obviously making some subtle social commentary on the privatization of the justice system.
78[[/folder]]
79
80[[folder:Bane being locked up]]
81* How in the world does Bane stay locked up? Couldn't he easily break loose from where Batman left him?
82** Metal gates like that are stronger than they look. Venom only makes Bane super-strong, it doesn't turn him into Superman. Human flesh and bone, even jacked up, has its limits.
83** Batman states that he knows Bane can escape. It'll just take some time.
84[[/folder]]
85
86[[folder:Why doesn't Talia attack immediately?]]
87* So, Batman is on the floor with the Joker holding a knife to his throat. Talia appears, offering Joker immortality if only he'll spare Batman. So, when the Joker stands up, why doesn't Talia just kick his ass and help Batman up?
88** Probably because Batman lied to her earlier about wanting to join the League of Assassins. This happened just a few hours later, she's probably still a little bitter with him.
89** It was also a clever ploy; by offering immortality to Joker she's forcing Batman to come after her, and maybe even break his one rule in order to stop him for good. She saves his life and places him in a position where his morals are tested again.
90** Talia was never under any real danger with the Joker, or at least that is what she figured. She was one of the greatest assassins in the world, and only was tied up and held at gunpoint by the Joker because she allowed him to do so. You can see this from how easily she just gets up and stabs him. She believed that by emotionally pushing Batman over the edge, thinking she was in danger, he would kill for her.
91[[/folder]]
92
93[[folder:The blimp]]
94* What's that blimp doing over Arkham City? It never gets mentioned in game, it has no identifying marks on it, and it doesn't seem to have a part in the story.
95** Blimps are a symbol of sorts in Gotham City. Ever since the Animated Series. It's just a shout out to that.
96** It's probably there for aerial observation of Arkham City. Blimps are often used for similar purposes since they're quiet, slow-moving, easy to pause or circle over a particular area and run through fuel slower than a helicopter.
97** Possible FridgeBrilliance: the blimps are GCPD. They're not allowed inside the walls of the prison, but Gordon almost certainly wants to have some idea of what's going on there outside of what Strange and TYGER tell everyone, and even Strange would have a hard time denying the local police force access to the airspace over it.
98[[/folder]]
99
100[[folder:Azrael]]
101* Why doesn't Batman react when he hears Azrael's name? I know it's not the same guy who filled in for him after Knightfall, but shouldn't he recognize the name?
102** Similar to Hugo Strange, Batman has not met Azrael yet.
103** But ''Knightfall'' has already taken place in the Arkhamverse, so who filled in for Batman if not Azrael?
104** ''Knightfall'' might have taken place, but it clearly didn't take place in exactly the same way as it did in the mainstream continuity, so probably Robin or Nightwing filled in.
105** Or it happened something like in ''Film/TheDarkKnightRises'', and Bruce managed to get up by himself before too much damage went down. Hopefully not too much like it, though, or Gothamites will get pretty damn jaded with the city being held hostage.
106[[/folder]]
107
108[[folder:Dying from TITAN]]
109* It took the TITAN a whole year to kill Joker, but only a few hours to nearly kill Batman, who was able to resist it in Arkham Asylum.
110** Joker didn't inject Batman with Titan, he injected him with his own poisoned blood. Toxins have been slowly building up in the Joker's blood over the past year, until now having it in your system is downright fatal. It's similar to the plot of Iron Man 2; using a palladium powered pacemaker isn't killing Tony by itself, but it's slowly rendering his blood toxic and ''that's'' what's killing him.
111** An alternate explanation. Joker uses himself as the first test subject to almost all the chemicals he makes and has a near superhuman immune system. The fact that his Titan blood is killing him at all, much less making him sick, is amazing in my eyes. It only stands to reason it'd affect others far more quickly.
112** In several spots in comics and animated episodes, it is explained that Joker is immune to a large variety of poisons. He walks through clouds of his laughing gas unaffected, wearing a gas mask only in the most toxic varieties. Of course he would be significantly more resistant than Bruce, much less normal people.
113** Joker, apparently, has been sitting in a medical chair on oxygen for much of the time between the games. Batman, on top of the reasons listed earlier, has been running around, exercising, fighting, getting injured, healing, etc, basically keeping his metabolism high.
114** Not just that, Batman received Joker's blood, and therefore, the toxin ''at the stage where it was killing Joker.'' He got the more "developed" version of the toxin, and thus, he nearly dies only a few hours after getting it.
115[[/folder]]
116
117[[folder:Henchmen and TITAN]]
118
119* So, if both Joker and Batman were injected with TITAN by the end of the last game, and whatever antidote Joker had to shrink him down didn't cure him completely, why aren't the henchmen he also injected (or even Batman himself) on their deathbeds?
120** It could be a reaction with the chemicals Jack Napier fell into all those years ago, not with regular human blood...
121** Batman took the antidote after a few seconds and never physically mutated, the TITAN may not have had time to affect him. As for the other henchmen, who says they're not dead or dying? A few expendable thugs could die off without anyone caring.
122** Some of the thugs mention in a conversation that Joker took a much larger dose of TITAN than any of his men did at the Asylum. That may have contributed to why Joker was poisoned by Titan and nobody else was seen to be.
123** Wait, why are we assuming that any of the other Titan subjects are still alive at all?
124** They probably aren't, but since it would spoil the plot if the other test subjects were mentioned too soon, they were just left out of the plot.
125** Joker somehow overdosed on Titan, which is why he was so gargantuan compared to Batman and the thugs/security guards who were injected with it. According to the Arkham City Stories that you unlock from completing riddles, Poison Ivy was also dying from a Titan overdose before she managed to cure herself - [[FridgeBrilliance and she’s the only person that Joker explicitly said he gave a second dose to (i.e., an overdose)]].
126[[/folder]]
127
128[[folder:Catwoman time discrepancy]]
129* So, Catwoman's second mission takes place at roughly the same time that Batman first enters the Steel Mill. At a conservative estimate, that's about six hours before Protocol 10 is enacted, but her third mission picks up right where the second left off, and Protocol 10 is enacted way less than an hour after her mission begins. Riddle me this: How on Earth is that possible?
130** She and Poison Ivy were talking for a LONG time.
131** Talking. With all those tentacles around? [[LesYay Riiiiiight.]]
132** It's never specified how long it takes you, the player, to cross Arkham City as Catwoman. Conceivably, you could've been faffing about for six hours hunting Riddler trophies or just beating {{Mooks}} up, then get to Ivy's place right before Protocol 10.
133** They needed to plan the heist and Ivy needed to grow the tentacle things to burrow into the vault.
134[[/folder]]
135
136[[folder:Strange's plans post-Protocol 10]]
137* I don't understand how Strange thought he would come out of Protocol 10 a hero. The city council was very disappointed in him for letting it get this far (never mind that he was making it happen) he kills hundreds of people, and it should be obvious to anyone who looks at the wall that it wouldn't matter how much manpower or firepower they had, it's just impossible for a mass breakout to occur, especially considering how hard it has been for even one person to break out. Also, how do Strange and Ra's expect to conquer the world using this? You'd think that after he did it in more than two cities, people would start to smell a rat.
138** Not just in two random cities, either. Metropolis and Keystone. Not only are they a shining example of human achievement and a blue-collar traditional city respectively (and therefore nowhere close to having the mindset of Gotham), they are the homes of Franchise/{{Superman}} and Franchise/TheFlash. In other words, they want to have an Arkham City in the towns of two of the world's most powerful and idealistic superheroes, and they don't see this going badly for them.
139** My bigger problem is looking at the difference in raw power between the villains in Gotham vs. Metropolis and Keystone. It's farfetched but understandable that building a wall and surrounding it with armed guards would keep Batman's rogue gallery in check. Though personally I think Ivy's still in Gotham City because she doesn't have anywhere else pressing to be. Between her mind control spores and plant powers it's likely she could walk out the front door if she wanted to and tunnel out making an exit wherever she wanted or in a worst case scenario storm the gates if she really cared. Most Superman villains however are pretty tough and lots don't have allergic reactions to green rocks. Also the villains of Metropolis and Keystone in general seem to get along better than Gotham's bunch (especially the Arkhamverse where aside from the ladies seem to be semi-cordial with each other or at least were in the not too distant past.) and would be more likely to simply charge the gates together than to fight amongst themselves. It just seems like a bad bad plan.
140** More than likely the only superheroes in the Arkham games are Batman and his allies.
141** That was {{Jossed}} in Arkham Knight with some of the mooks outright confirming that Superman and the Flash exist in this universe.
142** But there ''are'' other superheroes in the Arkhamverse. Some of the newspapers in the game and in ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamAsylum'', for example, reference the "Injustice Gang", which would probably not exist without the Franchise/{{Justice League|of America}}. Plus, If this were the case, why mention Metropolis and Keystone? Why not say they were opening Arkham City-style prisons in, say, New York City and Washington, DC?
143** The Arkham games run on {{Shout Out}}s.
144** And anyway, check out Arkham Unhinged. In the Deadshot arc, you see members of the Suicide Squad, including Captain Boomerang I and Captain Cold, who, if memory serves, only took those identities in response to Franchise/TheFlash being around. Also, [[ScaryBlackMan The Wall]] is there, running Belle Reve.
145** Yes, but Strange and Ra's specifically mentioned their intentions to rule the world. You don't take over the planet by becoming a hero to the populace. Becoming a local hero conveys no authority. And even if it did, they only say that they're going to do it in 3 places. No matter how important said places are, 3 places does not equal world domination. Plus, they wouldn't really be able to do something like Arkham city more than a few times. After that if anyone suggested doing it in another population center, they’d be refused because everyone would know about how badly that idea had worked the first 3 times. Also Ra's mentioned "wiping the world Clean" which I assume is referring to his usual goal of killing millions of people in order to save those who are left from Eco-disaster. How does setting yourself up as a hero of the people aid you in a quest that will end in the murder of thousands of said innocents?
146** This is a bit of a cop-out answer, but it works within what the game tells us: they're both INSANE. Usage of the Lazarus Pits has not been kind on Ra's and Strange suffers from schizophrenic periods. Of course their plan only makes sense to them!
147** Perhaps Ra's is attempting to destroy faith in the government, which would diminish their capacity to respond to attacks by the league of assassins? A few high profile failures and the citizenry may not support whatever actions would be needed to defend from them.
148** It's important to note that we only know what Strange announces Phase 2 is. It's possible that there are other Phases after it that eventually lead to something global, or (more likely) Ra's isn't giving Strange the whole story.
149** It isn't quite clear what Ra's thought or whether the writers thought this was viable, but it seems fairly obvious that Strange has convinced himself that the public would openly accept it. In reality he would probably be getting a visit from the F.B.I.
150** Okay, guys, I think I got it. Ra's has, after consistently failing, decided that his best bet is to initiate a backlash against superheroes-- they can't function without public support. The natural place to start is Gotham, since Batman doesn't have any powers (other than being Batman) and the populace is incredibly cynical/stupid. So, Strange executes Protocol 10 and in the aftermath the "investigation" into why things went wrong shows that Batman was the culprit, either running or backing criminal gangs. The reference to other Arkham Cities in Metropolis and Keystone City is simply an attempt to antagonize Batman-- it makes no sense to announce them over a PA, after all. Had the gambit been successful, then other schemes tailored to undermine other heroes would have been undertaken, with the public primed for them by Batman's seeming responsibility for Arkham City. And if it fails, eh, Ra's is a patient man and at least he took out a few hundred lowlifes. Strange may not have been aware of the full plan.
151** If Protocol 10 worked as planned, Strange would have wiped out most of Gotham's criminals and nearly all of Batman's RoguesGallery - after Batman spent over a decade bringing them to Arkham Asylum over and over again. Remember that common people don't know about political prisoners. The crime rate in the rest of Gotham has fallen. Strange might get a lot of heat (the League would save him from the worst) but to common people, he would be the man CuttingTheKnot. And that would have worldwide consequences. Teaching the populace that MurderIsTheBestSolution when it comes to criminals - that's basically a ComicBook/KingdomCome scenario. Strange would not have a literal position of power over the world, but things would be done his way.
152** A central tenet of [[UsefulNotes/FascistItaly fascism]] is that humanity is weak, and needs a strong leader figure to guide them, guard them, and weed out 'undesirable' elements for the good of society. Whether the people ''like'' what the guardian class are doing is irrelevant, because, under [[InsaneTrollLogic fascist thought]], the people will naturally gravitate towards weakness and degeneracy if left unchecked. It's basically TheSpartanWay for society as a whole (Mussolini and Hitler were quite open about this). Hugo Strange is much the same -- he's trying to whip humanity into shape, and he's quite confident that, being sheep, once they see how much better life is under his guiding hand, they'll appreciate what he's done for them. And if you think that's far-fetched, remember: Mussolini held power for ''twenty years''.
153** Strange says it himself: he believes that people will hail him as a hero when Protocol 10 is complete, and assumes that the world will ''ask'' him to carry on rounding up and eliminating criminals; it's ''Batman'' who is a delusional fool for not seeing the majestic beauty of Arkham City burning. While he doesn't say it, it seems consistent that he would believe either that Superman and Flash are more sane and righteous than Batman, and thus will appreciate and support him, or that they are mental deviants and therefore child's play for him to manipulate -- or else that his master can easily best them both (along with that immodest Amazon, the loathsome aquatic half-breed, and the rest of their ridiculous costumed cohorts).
154** Honestly, the thought of Strange trying to set up shop in Metropolis is hilarious. Not just because of Superman, but his most iconic and longest-lasting nemesis: Lex Luthor. This is a man who regular matches wits with and considered a credible threat for pretty much a PhysicalGod. Do you honestly believe he'll let some four-eyed neckbeard with delusions of grandeur waltz into '''''his''''' city and do whatever he wants?
155*** No, but wouldn't a global-stakes chess match between Luthor and Ra's make for a great story?
156** To be honest, this one's a lot more simple than we're making it seem: both Strange and Ra's are ''utter megalomaniacs''. Their entire ''thing'' is basically about being {{Control Freak}}s on a societal or even global scale. Their whole plan is basically set in motion because deep down they want to TAKE OVER THE WORLD(!!!!!) and make sure everything is run the way they want it to run. Of ''course'' they're going to reach for the stars and be a bit over-confident about exactly what they can achieve after they've massacred everyone in Arkham City; the entire basis of the particular neurosis they share is that they find it literally impossible to entertain the notion that they could possibly fail. If they had even a halfway realistic notion about exactly how popular machine-gunning entire sections of the city from the air was going to be or how difficult it would be to persuade Superman and the Flash that Arkham City franchises in their cities are a fantastic idea, ''they wouldn't be who they are''.
157[[/folder]]
158
159[[folder:Identity Thief]]
160* The identity thief is baffling. He was killing people with facial features similar to Bruce Wayne's in order to impersonate him/take his place. Riddle me this: Then why do the fingerprints at the crime scene match Bruce Wayne's, to such an extent that the bat-computer is fooled? Are we to believe that he found enough finger 'donors' to make that possible, somehow used them to change his fingerprints, and then retained enough dexterity to operate on his own face? For that matter, how did he operate on his own body? And how did he plan to get out of Arkham City looking like Bruce Wayne, who was a target of both TYGER and dozens-hundreds of random thugs?
161** More than that, why did all the witnesses say it was Bruce Wayne given that he obviously couldn't have completed the surgery before carrying out the murders?
162** To be fair, the first one says he was torn to bloody hell, and he had found over half of his "donors" before entering Arkham City. Please, though, don't ask me how he knew that the ''exact'' people he needed were in there.
163** And to complete the WTF hat-trick, his entire plan was making himself look exactly like Bruce Wayne, and Batman expresses astonishment that this is, apparently, what he has done. So, is nobody going to mention the ''massive frigging surgical scars all over his new face that he is making no attempt to hide?'' What, was he just going to pretend he cut himself shaving?
164** I guess he ''could'' pass it off as an injury he received while incarcerated in Arkham City.
165** His plan in the original Heart Of Hush storyline was to fake a car accident and blame imperfections on the wreck.
166** As to the fingerprints thing. This is ''Hush'' we're talking about. He may be off his rocker, but he's actually quite patient, taking months or years putting the pieces of a plan together before enacting it. He likely already had the fingerprints thing done long before the ID thief killings--which would by necessity be the final part of the plan. He's not exactly poor, and likely has connections with those with the means--Lex Luthor in particular doesn't exactly like Bruce Wayne. He'd help in a frame up plan in a second so long as he was sure it couldn't be traced back to him. As for the scars thing. Again, he's patient. He'll let the scars heal up before enacting his plan. Finally, the first witness didn't confuse the killer for Bruce Wayne, he confused the victim. Since Hush was making a Bruce Wayne face, it'd only be natural that his victims would bear a certain resemblance.
167** About Hush's escape, I think that actually wouldn't be very hard. See, early on in the game, you can hear Gordon on the GCPD communications channel, talking about the problems that Wayne going in causes, fearing legal backlash for Strange more-or-less kidnapping him. At the end of the game, you see a bunch of cop cars coming into Arkham City, and Gordon standing outside the gates. I believe that, if they saw Wayne, they'd take him out of Arkham City - if for nothing else, then for damage control. So all Hush has to do is let one of the officers see his face, and they'll get him out. As for the TYGER guards, I don't think they'd have tried to kill him, because they don't do anything that isn't on Strange's orders, and it doesn't seem like he gave the order. I mean, they had the perfect chance to kill Wayne at the start of the game. And also, their helicopters are watching Batman throughout all of the main story, yet only shoot when you break their lights, so that would imply to me that he wanted to keep Wayne/Batman alive. He obviously can't give the order now, so yeah, I don't think they'd be hunting Wayne down. And Hush can probably handle the random mooks. So yeah, he's probably got a better chance of getting out than anyone else in Arkham City.
168** At least until Batman slips out of the suit and places himself with some of the other non-criminals in Arkham City - either the political prisoner camp, the church, or with Vicki Vale. Then someone will point out that Bruce Wayne has been rescued twice and wonder what's going on. Getting out of Arkham is easy. Preventing society from noticing that there's a Bruce Wayne impersonator isn't.
169** Hush's escape might also be hindered if Deadshot kills him, mistaking him for Bruce Wayne, since Bruce Wayne was on Deadshot's hit list right before Batman.
170** As for the identity: It is not unheard of for Hush to use makeup (or prosthetics) to touch up his face. So while he was still collecting parts, he might have helped his current appearance enough to fool people from a distance. As for the scars: With a bit of cosmetic surgery, most of those will fade away. And what remains? Bruce Wayne is a billionaire playboy, it is not a stretch to imagine him getting a bit of work done. If I recall correctly, Hush still has the scars in the comics, and he passed as Bruce to the entire world (except the Bat-family and the Justice League) when Batman was "dead".
171[[/folder]]
172
173[[folder:Joker and the Lazarus Pit]]
174* Why is Batman so worried about the Joker using the Lazarus pit? From what I understand, the pit doesn't make you immortal, just young and healthy again. In order to be immortal, you need to control access to the pit, so that you can use it when you grow old and frail again, then repeat ad nauseum. Batman destroyed clayface, so even if Joker succeeded in using the pit, there would be no way for him to hold the pit against the league of assassins by himself. Hell, he couldn't even beat them with his gang's full support. The league is Badass, and the normal assassins can probably take out typical thugs as easily as Batman. (moreso because they would kill them instead of knocking them out.) Having established that the pit would not have made him immortal, just well, why didn't Batman LET Joker use the pit to save him, and then kick him the fuck out of Wonder City?
175** Because the Joker is an evil genius who, given the opportunity, would spend decades wreaking havoc and at random intervals popping back for a revitalization whether he needed one or not. That the Pit would make him more insane would be a bonus and not at all a deterrent from using it when he didn't absolutely have to.
176** That's not what I meant. without someone really badass like Clayface to back him up, Joker wouldn't be able to even get to the pit to regenerate given that he'd have to fight through the entire league of assassins (a group so badass that they would eat his thug followers for breakfast) to get to the pit in order to use it. and despite how evil he is, the joker would definitely need help to take on the league in a fight. remember, Joker is a planner, as his physique suggests I'm pretty sure he's useless in a fight. (unless he's drugged out his mind with titan)
177** Exactly. He wouldn't fight. He'd plan. He'd deceive. He'd manipulate. And he'd be damn good at it, because he's the Joker.
178** And remember, the Joker's ''baseline'' is "nuts". Imagine that, but with Lazarus-induced madness on top. If you imagine Ra's obsession with "purifying" Gotham and the world is a result of that, imagine if the Joker got ''that'' focused on something.
179** Just want to point out that the onetime Joker ''has'' used the Pit in comics canon, it made him ''sane'' (and immediately remorseful) for a few hours.
180** I think the OP point was - Batman was acting as if Joker making it to the pit would practically signal the end of the world, and Joker would obtain "immortality". Whereas what really would happen is that he'd jump in, get cured, go even more bonko than usual for a while (or alternatively sane, as above)...and Batman, who is ''right there'', would whack him in the face. Then drink the vial of blue cure and go ask Catwoman for a date or something.
181** Whether it's lasting immortality or needs to be re-used, and even if Batman stops him that particular time after he's done, letting the Joker know where there's a convenient place right in the city where he lives where he can go to essentially rejuvenate and become immortal if he just takes a swim in it whenever he feels like it is still practically the dictionary definition of 'a very bad idea'. The League of Shadows might be badass assassins, but the Joker is a genius level intellect with an insane brilliance that practically works on its own level -- you can't predict what he's going to do, which gives him an edge even over the League (as witnessed by the fact that he manages to get the drop on Talia al Ghul -- herself no slouch in the 'badass assassin' stakes; Batman even tells her that she's out of her depth with him and completely underestimating him). Letting him have the opportunity to be reinvigorated this time means he's probably going to want to do it again in future, and if the Joker wants something bad enough, he's going to figure out a way to get to it, and in this case letting the Joker have access to the ability to remain youthful and invigorated whenever he wants or needs it means that the Joker's going to be around to cause more chaos, death and misery for as long as he wants. Plus, in this case, the whole point was that Batman was trapped and wouldn't be able to stop him.
182** Sorry, that still doesn't quite make sense to me - at that time, Joker already knew about the Pit and its properties (Talia had told him). Furthermore, Batman admitted he was going to give Joker the cure, so either way we'd be at square 1 - a cured, not-dead Joker with knowledge of the Lazarus Pits. So I don't see the difference between curing him with the blue vial, or by throwing him in the Pit? The actual jumping in the pit ''itself'' wouldn't start the apocalypse or anything, and either way Joker's alive and now curious about that cool bubbly green stuff. So Bats wasn't going to end up happy no matter how it played out, so why act like him jumping in the pit specifically made such a difference to the outcome?
183** To further what the fellow above said, you guys forget that if Joker knows where the pit is, well, so does Batman. With bat-tech. With explosives. Let the Joker take a dip in it, and ''then'' blow it the hell up, why won't you?
184** Because that would probably still kill the Joker.
185** And because he's currently ''buried under rubble''. How's he supposed to blow it up when he can't move? It's only because Catwoman has a fit of conscience that he's able to get out and stop the Joker.
186** The pit is contaminated with Clayface in it, after Batman destroys it. Joker cured is just Joker cured. Still dangerous, but he can't use the pit and get more and more insane.
187** Batman didn't know the pit would be destroyed by Clayface (although, I imagine he expected to destroy it himself). But that is just how Batman operates. He can't let Joker use the pit (a revitalized and youthful Joker is bad) and he has to save Talia. So that sends him in after them, and everything else is a problem for "Batman five minutes from now".
188** One other thing is that the Arkhamverse Batman seems particularly stubborn on doing things himself (even for a Batman), as noted by him refusing Robin's help. And like Lex Luthor said in ''ComicBook/AllStarSuperman'', "When I look in the mirror, I see I'm getting older, but he isn't. Something needs to be done about him." In other words, I think he's afraid of Joker regaining youth and simply outliving him and there being no one else (in his mind) being capable of stopping him.
189** The rejuvinating part of the pit does seem to be Batman's greatest fear. If he is in his early 40s (which seems likely with the third, almost adult Robin around), Joker might easily become 20 years younger than him after a Lazarus bath. By the time Joker is back to is "old" age (assuming he is roughly as old as Batman), Bruce will be too old to do anything about his nemesis. So things are bad enough if he even takes a single bath.
190** Moreover, just because Joker can't ''hold'' the Pit for long doesn't mean he can't ''steal Lazarus water'' by the barrel once he's rejuvenated himself. How fast would the thugs who've been working for Two-Face or Penguin - or TYGER for that matter -switch sides if Joker's got the promise of youth and insta-healing to tempt them with?
191** All of this speculating about the many ways that the Joker getting into a Lazarus Pit isn't such a big deal and how Batman could stop Joker after his Lazarus Pit dip is cute, really it is, but we all seem to be forgetting something very important here. At the point where the Joker first learns about the Lazarus Pit, Batman -- pretty much the only man on the planet with a consistent track record for managing to stop the Joker when he's ''not'' immortal -- is currently mere hours at most away from death from a super-rare and borderline-incurable form blood poisoning, and -- on top of that -- at that exact moment is trapped under a pile of rubble that he can't shift and might literally die under. Is it ''really'' that puzzling, that huge of a mystery, that he might not be super-thrilled that the psychotic mass-murderer with a fondness for creative torture who lives only to make other people suffer is on the verge of gaining access to a possible source of immortality? Are we really questioning ''why'' at that particular point he might be quite passionate, even if hyperbolically so, on the subject of why letting this particular person discover the secret of eternal life is an ''absolutely positively utterly fucking '''terrible''' idea'' under those -- hell, under ''any'' circumstances? Frankly, the real headscratcher here is why people seem to think that Batman of all people should be blase about the prospect of ''the fucking '''JOKER''''' of all people discovering a method by which he can possibly live forever. That is not a good thing.
192[[/folder]]
193
194[[folder:Gotham in trouble?]]
195* After Joker takes Talia and Batman exits the steel mill to see Protocol 10 in action, he wants to go and save Talia, but Alfred blocks him and says Batman must save Gotham city. What? Gotham city is not in any danger at all. Just Arkham city. I know that Batman even values the lives of criminals, and that some of the people in the prison are just political enemies of Strange, but even if Protocol 10 went off without a hitch, it would never had endangered Gotham proper at all.
196** Presumably, the success of Protocol 10 would destroy the cure by killing Freeze, Batman, and Joker, thereby dooming anyone infected to die. Plus, if it succeeded, Strange would be free to move to the next phase of his plan with nobody to stop him, and the apparent endgame is either [[TakeOverTheWorld world domination]] or, considering who else is involved, [[ApocalypseHow a Class 1 or 2]].
197** But if the main danger to Gotham is Joker's blood then He SHOULD have gone after Joker to get the cure! Even if Batman lets Strange complete protocol 10 to do so, he would have the cure and will have saved hundreds of lives, and lived to tell the tale. He can always stop strange and Ra's later. After all he is [[TheDreaded THE GODDAM]] [[InvincibleHero BATMAN!]]
198** If Batman let Strange finish Protocol 10, then thousands of people would have died. The Joker infected enough people to get Batman motivated, sure. But not enough to warrant neglecting the bombing of every prisoner in the City (many of whom were relatively innocent). Alfred was keeping Batman on the right path. The sick people had time. Arkham City had none. And as for being the Goddamn Batman, Batman has limits. He can't just decide to stop Ra's Al Ghul when it's convenient and have it done in a few minutes.
199** Most of the people in Arkham City were criminals most of the people in the hospitals presumably were not criminals. Furthermore the Arkham City isn't a very big place that bombardment likely did all the damage it was going to before Batman could stop it anyway. I understand why everybody made the calls that they did but it's still a bit of a headscratcher.
200** A significantly large chunk of them were just people Strange had thrown in there on contrived reasons. Besides which, just because someone's a criminal doesn't mean they deserve to be machine-gunned from above like some kind of animal.
201** Professor Strange, is that you? The whole point of Batman's moral philosophy is that ''no one'' deserves death. There's no "They're criminals, they have it coming" with him.
202** I think that some of these replies have missed the point; the original headscratcher is that Alfred is telling Batman he needs to go save ''Gotham'' city, not ''Arkham'' city. The op is talking about how Protocol 10 was not putting ''Gotham'' city in danger, and yet Alfred tells Batman to stop the plan as if it is. The explanation that he needed to stop protocol 10 to save the cure also isn't a very good explanation because that endangers only some of the people in Gotham, not the whole city. I guess that from an in-story standpoint, Alfred meant "you need to save Gotham city" as in "you need to think about more people than just Talia" and not that all of Gotham was literally in danger. It's just that for all intents and purposes, Arkham City ''is'' a significant chunk of Gotham.
203** Gotham City ''is'' in danger. It might not be as imminent as that to Arkham City, but it's there. Because if you think Protocol 10 is going to be the end of it, you're unforgivably naive. The lunatics willing if not eager to machine gun defenceless prisoners from the air, no matter how notorious, will eventually find reasons to extend their vision of law-enforcement to the rest of Gotham and beyond if they're not stopped now.
204** Finally, there's "saving" the city from physical destruction, and then there's "saving" the city from the municipal equivalent of a leap off the MoralEventHorizon. However corrupt and degenerate a WretchedHive Gotham is infamous for being, it ''isn't'' an all-out fascist death camp ... at least, so long as Strange's plan is foiled, it isn't. If Strange isn't stopped - and, moreover, ''exposed'' as a renegade genocidal lunatic, rather than someone JustFollowingOrders with official backing and widespread popular approval - then Gotham's already-subbasement moral standards will plummet right into the abyss.
205** Also... ''Arkham City '''is''' Gotham City''. "Arkham City" is, when you get down to it, just rebranding designed to conceal a sadistic death trap that a psychopath has carved out of an entire section of Gotham. Alfred is merely reminding Batman that he has a higher duty to Gotham City than his own personal wishes... and that, for all they are notorious criminals for the most part, for all Strange's efforts to dehumanise and debase them the inhabitants of Arkham City are still human beings who are as much a part of Gotham City as anyone else.
206[[/folder]]
207
208[[folder:Sharp's arrest]]
209* While I'm on a roll, did we ever find out how in the hell Strange got Mayor Sharp arrested and thrown into his own prison?
210** Two possibilities: He did exactly what he did with Wayne, i.e. just grab him with some TYGER goons without any stated reason; or, he had evidence against Sharp (perhaps evidence of his insanity) and released it publicly.
211[[/folder]]
212
213[[folder:Batman's accountability]]
214* At one point Strange is ranting at Batman that the quality of villains in the city is his fault. WTF. How can Batman be held accountable for the existence of supervillains like Joker, when [[MultipleChoicePast EVEN JOKER DOESN'T KNOW WHY HE'S JOKER!]]
215** In one way or another Batman is responsible for Joker's acid bath.
216** What Acid Bath? I'm pretty sure in this continuity he just sort of appeared from nowhere, completely batshit insane, and no one knows where he comes from. It's pretty clear that they know nothing about how, when, or why he became the Joker since Doctor Young in AA didn't know. Besides, Joker was just one supervillain. Like I said before, Strange claims that the existence of superheroes actively creates the existence of super villains. How would Batman be responsible for someone like Solomon Grundy, Killer Croc, or Poison Ivy? Their StartOfDarkness(es) were either accidents or (in KC's case) birth defects! what did Batman have to do with that?
217** The Arkham-verse seems to generally match the broad strokes of the DCAU (up until the founding of the Justice League, at least) and the comics, all of which establish Joker in basically the same fashion: Some criminal (career or first-timer, it varies) dressed up as The Red Hood and got knocked into a vat of chemicals. What is probably confusing you is that nobody knows who he really IS. They know how he got his face messed up, but nobody knows who he was before that (or just how much of that impacted who he became).
218** It's the SuperheroParadox
219** Pretty much this and escalation: As ComicBook/BatmanYearOne and ComicBook/TheLongHalloween demonstrate before Batman came to Gotham the criminal underworld was run primarily by traditional mob families. But once Batman came to town the 'freaks' like ComicBook/TheJoker started popping out of the woodworks. Some gaining power due to the Mob beginning to rely on them to deal with problems.
220** Strange gets a lot of things wrong. This is no different.
221** In the Joker interviews, Strange notes that the one thing all of Joker's origin stories have in common is that Batman is involved somehow. In addition, both Mr. Freeze and the Penguin blame Batman/ Bruce Wayne for their situation in their interviews and the Riddler's whole motivation in both games is to prove that he's more intelligent than Batman. Batman didn't create all the villains, but there are a lot of fairly major villains that are in some way connected to him, plus there is the idea of escalation discussed at the end of ''Batman Begins''.
222** With the Penguin it's a family feud. The Cobblepots were ruined financially because the Waynes made better hotels, basically. Penguin's been carrying that grudge for a while.
223** Strange is also a very manipulative master of psychology who is trying to attack Batman with feelings of guilt, futility and hypocrisy; since Protocol 10 is at least in part 'a monument to (Batman's) failure' he's trying to frame Batman's crusade as pointless and futile because according to this logic Batman is a useless hypocrite who creates his villains and makes things worse for everyone, the exact opposite of what he set out to be and do. Whether it's true or not doesn't matter to Strange as long as he can convince ''Batman'' it's true.
224** In Strange's BreakThemByTalking near the end of the game, he also argues that Batman's actions make villains stronger, like a virus that becomes resistant to immunization, which [[ArtisticLicenseBiology isn't an accurate comparison]], but still.
225** Closer to the way antibiotics means that only antibiotic-resistant bacteria survive.
226[[/folder]]
227
228[[folder:Who was dead Joker?]]
229* So wait. If the sick Joker was actually Joker, and the healthy Joker was Clayface!Joker... who was the dead Joker in the Steel Mill?
230** The quick cutscene showing Batman figuring it out explains this. If you pay attention, Batman gets jumped from behind by a healthy-looking Joker, or rather, Clayface in the mill while investigating the dead, sickly-looking Joker. The scene then shows that that one is the real one; he was playing dead with a rigged heart monitor.
231** But he shows up as deceased in Detective Mode, too.
232** It could be just some random victim made-up to look like Joker. It's not like you get the chance to perform a DNA analysis or anything.
233** No it couldn't. In the quick shot of him figuring it out, the "dead" Joker MOVES. Watch carefully, you'll see his arms shift a bit.
234** Simple. Joker uses makeup to appear healthy. The one that knocked Bats out was the real Joker, while the other one was Clayface.
235** That idea doesn't work, because as shown later in the game, when you see Clayface Joker in combat, he appears without any bones. So unless he can form bones inside of his shape-shifted body, the best idea here so far is that dying Joker was just waiting there with a rigged heartbeat monitor. Maybe Batman's Detective mode only picks up heartbeat levels between a certain value? That way the Joker could have used either chemicals or relaxation/meditation techniques to keep his heartbeat level low enough. Then again, ''that'' doesn't explain how Bats' Detective Mode can pick up unconscious mooks' heartbeats and [[Film/AustinPowers oh no I've]] [[MemeticMutation gone cross-eyed.]]
236*** Clayface could've wrapped himself around a real skeleton, same as he engulfs the vial containing the cure. He'd probably faced off against Batman enough in the past to realize that his lack of bones is a giveaway, even if he's otherwise unclear on just what "detective mode" Batman can perceive.
237** From the "reveal"/flashback cutscene where we see Clayface-Joker standing before Real! Joker in the chair hooked up to the equipment, is the one the troper mentioned above where the real Joker moved. So I take it we're just meant to understand Joker faked death or rigged the machine somehow to fool Batman - how isn't that important I suppose?
238** Maybe Joker wore some kind of special vest that obscured the "sound" of his heartbeat (0r whatever it is that the Detective Mode picks up when senses a heartbeat).
239* It’s the real Joker attached to the monitor and “dead”, according to the flashbacks during the fake Joker reveal. As for HOW the Joker managed to fool even Detective Mode, it’s already established that mutative accidents in the Arkhamverse can dramatically alter a person’s physiology and biochemistry (Mr.Freeze and Poison Ivy being perfect examples of this). The Joker in particular has odd physiology in that his very blood can induce mutations in other people, as shown with the Joker infected in Arkham Knight (who all take on Joker-esque traits, including green hair and pale skin). It’s entirely possible that this already weird physiology, combined with the after effects of Joker’s dramatic mutation from TITAN, has made it where Joker’s “normal” vitals (and the biological processes that would produce said vitals), are so out of the norm for even mutated individuals like himself, that Detective Mode can’t register them for the few seconds that Batman is able to even look at the “corpse”. Especially since that is the only time Batman can even USE Detective Mode on the real Joker, as EVERY OTHER TIME the Joker is encountered and scannable, it’s Clayface masquerading as him.
240[[/folder]]
241
242[[folder:What happened in Knightfall?]]
243* This is the first time Bats has encountered any Azrael. Just what the hell happened in the Arkhamverse's equivalent of Knightfall?
244** Maybe this time logic prevailed and Dick was allowed to become Batman for a spell?
245** I'm not positive, but as of the ComicBook/{{New 52}}, isn't that now what happened in the comics?
246** He was in the original comics, after JPV was fired, though not many people remember. I'm not sure Knightfall happened in this continuity, aside from a one-off reference that could just be a ShoutOut. Incidentally, I like the idea of the Order of St. Dumas as "good" (I assume) counterparts to the League of Shadows.
247** The answer's kind of simple. There's more than one Azrael in the DCU. Jean-Paul Valley was the Azrael that substituted for Batman against Bane, but the one you meet in Arkham City is one Michael Lane. Hence the confusion.
248** Er, no. The fact that Batman doesn't react at ''all'' to hearing the name Azrael makes it clear this is the first time in this 'verse he's met anyone with that name. He doesn't mention Bane or Valley or say "I know someone else called that." That's where the confusion comes from-
249[[/folder]]
250
251[[folder:Harley tied up]]
252* How did Harley end up tied to a pole and gagged in the Steel Mill? Did I miss a cut-scene?
253** Talia stole the cure from her.
254** And then Joker probably left her there on purpose, as punishment for losing the cure.
255[[/folder]]
256
257[[folder:Freeze's honorific]]
258* This isn't an Arkham City question per se, but: Is there a reason he's "MISTER Freeze" and not "DOCTOR Freeze"? You can't be a brilliant cryogenicist without a doctorate in something, and, granted, once he fired up his freeze gun, I'm sure the Gotham City AMA yanked his license to practice, but still, considering the fact that his whole MO is trying to heal the most important patient in his life, you'd think he'd keep his title. Maybe there's a Dr. Freeze in the Marvel Universe and DC didn't want to get sued?
259** Mr. Freeze [[RuleOfCool makes for a better villain name.]] In-universe, if I'm not mistaken he took that name for himself once he built his suit and turned to a life of crime, as his actual last name isn't spelled that way. You'll note that in his Bio, the "Real Name" section does in fact say "Dr. Victor Fries."
260** Haha. RuleOfCool. Mr. Freeze. I get it.
261** Whenever Freeze has to go out and do crimes to get the money to pay for his research, he doesn't consider himself to be acting like a man of science should. Thus, he can no longer bring himself to refer to himself as a doctor - hence Mister.
262** Mister Freeze was merely the media's title for him and he doesn't care nearly enough to correct them.
263** In Britain and some other places, a surgeon is addressed as mister; this is an old tradition that goes back to when anyone could be a doctor if they just read a few books, but a surgeon was expected to be a cut above; a gentleman of learning and good standing. A 'mister'. The tradition remains today, so it's either a reference to that or a happy accident.
264[[/folder]]
265
266[[folder:Catwoman in Arkham]]
267* Maybe it’s because my Batman lore is pretty rusty, but the fact that Catwoman was originally an inmate in Arkham Asylum rather than Blackgate strikes me as odd. I mean, yeah she's a high class thief, but she's not ''insane''...unless Sharp counts her affinity towards cats as insanity, which, knowing him, admittedly wouldn't be that much of a stretch.
268** She considered to be a kleptomaniac, which could be a pretty valid reason to have her incarcerated for a time.
269** It's a problem that crops up in many Batman stories when writers get a bit lazy. Catwoman simply should not be in Arkham Asylum. Neither should the Penguin, and probably not Mr. Freeze. But sometimes writers forget that Arkham Asylum is, y'know, an ''asylum'' and not just a prison for super-criminals.
270** In this timeline, while Penguin not be as obviously mad as the other Batman super-villains, he's clearly not a very psychologically well-adjusted human being. He's often described in savage, animalistic terms, and appears to have very pronounced sadistic and megalomaniacal tendencies in this universe. It's possible it was thought that a stay at the Asylum was appropriate by the authorities at one point.
271** Arkham Asylum is also often described as a facility for "special needs" prisoners - i.e. people who might not strictly be sane but can only be housed by facilities in Arkham that more routine prisons don't necessarily have. Hence why Mr. Freeze, despite technically not being insane, tends to end up there a lot. This could apply to Penguin and (at a stretch) Catwoman as well.
272** At least in the video game continuity, it should be remembered that Quincy Sharp was eventually revealed to be insane himself and with a vengeance streak a mile wide. He could have easily arranged for super villains to be declared insane and moved to his facility.
273** All this is ignoring that Arkham City is not Arkham Asylum. It's stated in intro that all the inmates from both Arkham Asylum AND Black Gate (the regular prison) are there. This easily explains Catwoman, as well as all the regular mooks running about. As for Penguin, in this continuity, it's not clear whether he's ever been arrested for anything - his interview tapes reveal that he was a crime boss operating out of the Iceberg Lounge in freedom, until the neighborhood was slated to become Arkham City, at which point they offered him a chance to leave. Of course, Cobblepot is far too proud and possessive to take that offer.
274** In the game, the following explanations are given: The Penguin owned the museum and the Iceberg Lounge and refused to leave when the land that would become Arkham City was purchased under eminent domain laws (i.e. he was legally required to sell). So in essence, he became an inmate by choice. Presumably, the same thing happened to Catwoman, since her apartment is also part of that area. Additionally, Hugo Strange had leverage on everyone. He blackmailed Mr. Freeze into staying by using his wife as bait, gave the Penguin information he could use in the gang wars, and threatened Holly to coerce Catwoman's cooperation during the interviews. Finally, there's nothing in the game that suggests that all of the inmates were insane. It stands to reason that the population of Black Gate was also relocated to Arkham City. Remember, some Black Gate prisoners were on already on Arkham Island during the first game due to some technical issue with the prison.
275** On top of all that, Arkham Asylum would appear to have never been "just" a facility for the criminally insane- at least, not since Sharp reopened it. It's been a place to corral all the big villains in the city, all for Sharp or Strange or Ra's, take your pick to exact "justice" upon them.
276[[/folder]]
277
278[[folder:Ra's pronunciation]]
279* Is Ra's really pronounced as ''Raysh''? I always thought you said it like ''Razz'' or ''Roz''
280** The cartoon and movie pronounce it the same as in the game.
281** Only ''Film/BatmanBegins'' has it pronounced as "Rass", The animated series and ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond'' have it pronounced as "Raysh"
282** In the animated series, it was pronounced "Raysh" to avoid linking him with any particular nation. Also, that's the version Creator/KevinConroy is most familiar with.
283** [[http://www.comicscommunity.com/boards/dennyoneil/?frames=n;read=1079&expand=1 According to Dennis O'Neil(One of the creators of said character)'s wife]], the pronunciation is "Raysh".
284** The official pronunciation is Raysh, even though it should be Rah-iss, since his name is Arabic.
285[[/folder]]
286
287[[folder:Catwoman's feet are unbound]]
288* When Catwoman escapes from Two-Face, she frees her hands, but her feet have somehow gotten untied before she even flips away.
289** She had already gotten them loose, and was somehow faking them being tied to produce a false sense of security?
290** Catwoman breaks her wrist bonds, yes, but what she does is she flips up to cut the feet ropes using her claws.
291[[/folder]]
292
293[[folder:Two-Face's tied hands]]
294* When Batman captures Two-Face when exactly did Batman tie Two-Face's hands?
295[[/folder]]
296
297[[folder:Batman carrying Joker]]
298* As much as I was moved by Batman carrying the dead Joker in his arms at the end of the game, shouldn't he have done that with Talia instead? It seems like a case for hoes before bros if you don't mind my expression.
299** Talia can wait. Joker was Batman's lifelong nemesis and the most elusive villain in Gotham City; Batman had to carry his body out to the police in any case. Might as well do it with a great deal of symbolic parade. I mean, really, what's Talia al Ghul compared to friggin' Joker?
300** Plus, how many girls has Batman dated? Catwoman, Talia, Vicki Vale, Batgirl (and those are only the ones who appear in the video game)? He loved Talia, but she probably wasn't the only love of his life. There were other girls. There was no one else like Joker for Batman.
301** Is there even a body to bring out in Talia's case? The majority of the theater blew up between the time she was shot and the Joker dying.
302** Besides, Talia is part of the whole Lazarus Pit thing. And there are more than one. I don't remember if she's ever been dipped in it before, but it's certainly something her Elite Guard would have done in the event of her death. Joker, however, has no such connection. For him death is death.
303** Look at the concept art for that scene. Now look at the very first picture one sees with the Catwoman episodes installed. It's mirror to Cain and Abel with Cain carrying Abel's dead body to their parents. The final scene is to raise the question if Batman crossed the line or if it's a reversed situation with Abel surviving and Cain dying.
304** Also, Batman can't really risk that Harley decides her beloved "Mister J" needs a dip in the Lazarus Pit. Granted, she shouldn't even know about the existence of the pit, but what would then happen? Talia's elite guard is described as every single one is capable of taking down 100 men, but it doesn't say how many women.
305** I'm pretty sure a couple of her Elite Guard are capable of taking down one lunatic like Harley. Even assuming that, as a Rogue, she can handle over a hundred men, the ninja attack 3 at a time. Besides which, this isn't a "no man of woman born" situation--100 men means "100 combatants at once", not "they have no clue how to fight other women."
306** Remember Batman and the others fell down that hole into the area with the Lazarus pit. By the time Bats climbed back up to where Talia was she had probably already been carried off by members of the League.
307** I interpreted that as the point of Arkham City, that Batman and The Joker are actually [[FriendlyRivalry Friendly Rivals]]. Batman says he still would've saved him and Joker makes a valid point that he's the only person who really understands Batman and vice-versa. Thinking back to Arkham Asylum, when the fake kitten bombs are announced Batman instantly knows it's a lie. Because he knows The Joker. AwLookTheyReallyDoLoveEachOther.
308** Joker's entire army is waiting outside. The only way Batman's getting through them is to shock them all with the knowledge that their boss is dead. Some dead woman they don't know isn't going to have the same effect.
309** Didn't you look around during the fight with Clayface? Even before Joker blew up the floor, her body had disappeared.
310** He admitted that he would have saved Joker despite everything he's done, then carries him out...I'm honestly starting to think the answer is that their obsession wasn't entirely one-sided after all.
311** In regards to the disappearance of Talia's body, I had assumed that Clayface had stepped on it and absorbed her into his body, which means...Talia's probably not gonna be back.
312** Batman presumably wants to make sure that the Joker's body makes it way directly to the authorities, both so that they can confirm his death but also so that his various goons and any person or persons who might be a little overly fixated on him (read: Harley) don't find it and take it away for their own purposes, sinister or otherwise (such as, say, finding another Lazarus Pit).
313[[/folder]]
314
315[[folder: Disappearing hostages]]
316* We see that after taking Riddler down, Aaron Cash and the other doctors stay at Riddler's hideout. Zsasz's two hostages also stay in Zsasz's hideout. The rest of Riddler's hostages (Eddie Burlow, William North, Anne Bishop, Adam Hamasaki, a male doctor and a female doctor) eventually end up in the church, alongside Jack Ryder, Vicki Vale and Quincy Sharp. But then there are Stacey Baker and Fiona Wilson. After saving them, Batman encounters them again later on, safe and sound, when he has to return to the areas he left them in, but upon returning to those areas again, they are nowhere to be found anymore. What in the world could have happened to them? Did they escape to somewhere else? Were they discovered by the bad guys? Questions, questions...
317** Their fates are never elaborated upon, but given that Batman already beat down every enemy in the area and that TYGER withdraws after Strange is gone, they likely escaped to relative safety.
318** To strengthen the above, the game locks you into completing the main story pretty much after you re-enter the Steel Mill / Wonder City, so you're not likely to return to these areas a third time until the game's completed -- by which point the GCPD appear to be entering Arkham City ''en force'' and claiming the TYGER facilities. It's possible that the police located them. Furthermore, IIRC Batman makes a comment to both of them that they seem to be really good at hiding; it's possible they've tucked themselves away into somewhere he can't find them until things really quiet down.
319** Since both predator rooms are still active after the main story, it's possible that they were found and killed.
320*** Though that's possibly just GameplayAndStorySegregation; the predator rooms continually reactivate in order to give the player something fun to do there and make going back to find all the Riddler trophies / whatever more of an interesting challenge.
321[[/folder]]
322
323[[folder:Freeze looking like Joker]]
324* So, why does Freeze's face turn into Joker's for a split second while Batman beats him down? I assumed it was because the Mad Hatter was stalking him, but it's never really explained.
325** I thought it was a delayed effect of the Dragon's blood you drink in Wonder City.
326** Joker mentions hallucinations as a side effect of the TITAN poisoning, it was likely that.
327** I think it's intended as a "moment of clarity" for Batman. At the point the face thing happens Batman's been beating the snot out of Mr. Freeze, who's had his suit disabled and therefore no longer a physical threat to Batman; he's basically laying a beatdown on a defenseless man. The implication is that Batman's lost, or on the verge of, losing control. It's also there because Batman realizes the Joker's manipulating both Freeze ''and'' Batman: Freeze's mania is chiefly due to the fact his wife's missing (taken by Joker), while Batman's mania is because he's dying (because of Joker's blood). By both of them fighting, the Joker is "laughing" ... in that he profits while they fight. That moment is just a metaphorical "dash of water to the face" for Batman.
328** I assumed that it was foreshadowing for the Joker Hallucination from Arkham Knight, particularly given that that exactly repeats during the beatdown after the Tank Battle.
329[[/folder]]
330
331[[folder:Why do thugs target Batman?]]
332* Why do all the thugs on the street attack Batman? They are already in jail, their bosses can't watch them all, and several of them personally know what Batman can do to them.
333** Well, it wouldn't be a very fun game if all but the most dedicated and insane mooks fled you on sight. As for justification, bear in mind they are all in an anarchic prison environment. Showing fear is dangerous; it does them no good to avoid a beating from Batman if another group of in-mates decides to shank them later.
334** [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential Admit it, you would still go after them if they fled]].
335** I wouldn't. Those punks are more annoying than entertaining now that I'm mostly hunting down Riddler Trophies and other side quests and by the way all of their bosses are either captured, dead or in hiding. I think the only major ones left at large are Riddler and Two-Face. Besides they don't have to flee, they could politely pretend they didn't see me, the same way I was politely pretending I didn't notice them until they started trying to cut me.
336** If you pay attention you'll notice that some thugs DO flee and cower from Batman. You can't beat them up though, they just run for the nearest bit of cover and curl into a ball.
337** They all hate Batman too, and they usually outnumber him a dozen to one or more.
338** They're probably told they'll be killed if caught running from Batman (or anyone else). Given how many thugs he beats unconscious over the course of the game, word probably got around that Batman is unlikely to kill.
339** From what a lot of the prisoners say before joining in the battles, a lot of them like joining in fights purely for the sake of being in a fight. Possibly because there's nothing else to do in Arkham City.
340** If they were better at controlling their violent impulses, they probably wouldn't be in jail in the first place.
341** Who, exactly, do you think is most likely to be responsible for most of them ''being'' in Arkham City to begin with? Yeah. They target him because they have a score to settle.
342[[/folder]]
343
344[[folder:Deadshot targets both Bruce and Batman]]
345* Deadshot's list includes both Bruce Wayne and Batman. His employer is Hugo Strange who knows the redundancy here. What was this, some sort of elaborate trick to avoid paying him full price?
346** Strange might know the redundancy here, but he doesn't want anyone else to know until such a time that it suits him; his knowledge of Batman's secret is really his only leverage against Batman, and it's lost if he lets the secret slip. Plus, he doesn't know whether Deadshot once in Arkham City will encounter Bruce Wayne out of costume or whether he'll be Batman by that point; by listing both he ensures that Deadshot targets and gets at least one of them.
347** And also, makes sure he wastes time hunting for the ''other'' one, should Deadshot not be able to confirm the kill or find evidence that Bruce Wayne is also Batman.
348** There's also Hush. Who has made himself LOOK like Bruce Wayne. Strange doesn't know him, but imagine what could have happened if Batman hadn't found out about Deadshot until too late. As Batman was listed AFTER Bruce.
349** I figured Strange wanted Batman to take him out, another way to cover his tracks. He'd go after Batman, Batman would take him out, Strange gets out of paying Deadshot, doesn't have to worry about Deadshot spilling the beans and he takes out most of his list.
350** It could just be Strange's method of screwing with Deadshot's obsessive ethics; if he somehow miraculously took down Batman, then it would likely be revealed he is Bruce Wayne, and Deadshot probably wouldn't sit well with getting a "two-for-one". If he kills Wayne and then comes after Strange as Batman, then he has to deal with having killed his client if he wins. And/or it could really just be an intentionally self-terminating list, Strange knowing Batman/Bruce Wayne would probably win and so intentionally leaving him for last with the main objective complete.
351** Alternatively, maybe he wants Deadshot to waste his time looking for Batman after he killed Bruce Wayne, so that he'd be in the city when Protocol 10 starts? [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness He may not want anyone hiring Deadshot to come after him...]]
352[[/folder]]
353
354[[folder:Who's the Creeper?]]
355* Character bio-> Quincy Sharp -> Tape 2 -> The Creeper does exist in this continuity, but if it's not Jack Ryder, then who?
356** Actually he does, according to Jack Ryder's character Bio in Asylum. But like you have pointed out, his character Bio in City does not include Creeper. I have been wondering about this myself
357** At certain points in his life Jack Ryder and Creeper haven't known that they were the same person.
358[[/folder]]
359
360[[folder:Relocated citizens?]]
361* Did anyone live in the slums before they were walled off to create Arkham City? Was it explained in the backstory where they were relocated to?
362** There are eviction notices on many of the buildings, but everyone was relocated and building owners were compensated.
363** It says in the pause menu text screens that Mayor Sharp bought out the slums via Eminent Domain.
364[[/folder]]
365
366[[folder:Joker chemical bath]]
367* I'm not that familiar with Batman canon and this is a different continuity, but wasn't that company, Ace Chemicals, where Joker fell into the acid bath?
368** Yes.
369** Possibly. No one knows the Joker's real origin story, not even the Joker himself. In the interviews with Strange though, it is in fact the Ace Chemicals building.
370** This is more justified as of ''Arkham Knight'': the Ace Chemicals building in the area of Arkham City is distinct from the Ace Chemicals ''plant'', which is an important location during the events of ''Arkham Knight''. Presumably the Ace Chemicals building here is (or rather was) offices and administration while the off-site chemical plant is where the actual chemicals are handled and where work is conducted.
371[[/folder]]
372
373[[folder:TYGER acronym]]
374* What the hell does that acronym, TYGER, stand for? GCPD stands for Gotham City Police Department or something like that, I think.
375** Trashable Young Generic Enemy Rogues?
376** It is their company name, there is no acronym.
377** It could be a ShoutOut to William Blake's poem ''The Tyger'' -- [[WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries not the first time a Batman story affiliated with Paul Dini has done so]].
378** That could be right; in one of the prequel comics, we see Strange brainwashing a new TYGER recruit, and at one point he quotes the poem: "Tyger, tyger, burning bright..."
379[[/folder]]
380
381[[folder:Freeze holding cure hostage]]
382* I don't get Freeze's logic in bargaining the cure for Batman to save Nora? Wouldn't it make more sense to cure Batman so he would be at full health to save his wife without the risk of his dying from the blood poisoning?
383** Freeze has no guarantee that Batman would go look for Nora immediately after gaining the cure considering how many other, bigger problems there are in Arkham City. By withholding the cure, Freeze keeps a bargaining chip that forces Bats to retrieve Nora before Joker's thugs can do anything that might harm her. Of course ''we'' know that Batman would do it anyway, but Freeze is far too worried about his wife to think in more rational terms.
384** And what we know about the Batman's keeping his word, Freeze doesn't; because EvilCannotComprehendGood. In Batman's position, Freeze would just take the cure and run. Villains never trust heroes to keep their word, although they should be smart enough by now to know that Batman ''always'' keeps his word.
385** It was poor logic at best. Batman looked like he was ready to keel over and would likely have died had Ra's not given him the blood of the demon. So Freeze might not have trusted Batman to keep his word but a dead Batman wasn't going to bring him anything including his wife. As for EvilCannotComprehendGood. Freeze isn't really evil, he's a well-intentioned extremist desperate to save his life. He didn't trust Batman and Batman in the Arkhamverse seems to have a habit of making things harder on himself by not trying his words first and violence later. This mirrors his interaction with Poison Ivy in the first game.
386** Batman didn't look like he was about to keel over. And he had plenty of time to rescue Nora. Remember that Harley steals the cure after Batman beats Freeze, and Batman doesn't actually get it back until after he's fought his way through the steel mill, stopped Protocol 10, and defeated Clayface. It wasn't poor logic at all. Besides--Batman never told Victor anything about the illness. Every time it's referred to, he calls it "Joker's cure". Now, we can assume that Victor deduced Batman needed it for himself because he's a genius and there were signs to pick up on, but he has no idea the specific nature of how Batman's afflicted with it except what he knows of Joker's illness--Joker, who's survived it for a year and has a different physiology than Batman. He may not have known how much time Batman had exactly, and assumed there was more than enough to go rescue Nora and come back.
387** I interpreted it as a case of PoorCommunicationKills, Freeze wanted Batman to promise to save Nora before giving him the cure, Bruce interpreted that as Freeze refusing to cure him before he saved Nora, which given his condition may not be possible, and got aggressive, only for Freeze to interpret ''that' as Batman refusing to save Nora point blank. If Batman had just said, "I'll save your wife but I need the cure first or I may die before I can save her.", the fight probably wouldn't have happened and he'd have been cured there and then.
388[[/folder]]
389
390[[folder:Easy Protocol 10 deactivation]]
391* How does Batman deactivate Protocol 10? All he did was push one button. That shouldn't stop hundreds of helicopters and gunman from shooting criminals.
392** The TYGER guards are all brainwashed to follow Strange's orders. Once the ceasefire was sent out, they followed the command.
393** Also he got Oracle able to access to the system so I assume she turned off automatic weapons, computer guidance, and a host of other stuff.
394[[/folder]]
395
396[[folder:Access to weapons]]
397* If all of Arkham City is sealed off from the rest of Gotham, how do weapons get in? They wouldn't have the resources to manufacture their own, and any pipeline to bring materials or whole guns in would be better used by would-be escapees.
398** I have one serious response, one slightly less so - a) as you kind of indicated, the same way drugs get into modern prisons: Black Market. Dumping a load of weapons into the compound in the hopes they kill each other may even be an unwritten rule, who knows? It seems they're very invested in keeping crooks in, but after that? Meh. b) It's ''Gotham''.
399** On that note, and this a pretty non-serious response, but it does go with the weapons drop idea, perhaps Sharp not only ''hopes'' they'll kill each other, but wants them to. Maybe he's trying to turn Arkham City into some sort of bizarre battle royal-style experiment, hell, he wanted to burn Poison Ivy alive and lobotomize Harley Quinn, is this really a stretch?
400** Since Sharpie is the mayor, it's possible that he's the one supplying the weapons in hopes that the thugs will kill each other, and maybe even get Batman.
401** Also, let's not forget that we've seen promotional footage of buildings marked "Sionis Industries," hinting that the Black Mask could have a hand in all this. As 'Mask is one of Gotham's most notorious crime-bosses, it makes sense that he'd still have ties to whatever buildings bear his name. Plus, some of his own men were locked up in Blackgate before Sharpe closed it and Arkham, so they probably know where a lot of his hidden weapons caches were in that part of Gotham from working with him.
402** Related to above, Arkham City is essentially an entire region of Gotham which has been sealed off; chances are ''all'' of the villains had weapons stashed away in various hidden locations around the city, and some of those locations would have fallen within Arkham City's borders.
403** Turns out there's a canon explanation. Strange shipped them in to create a crisis, which he could use to get the City to activate Emergency Protocol 10, which gives him ''even more power'' over Arkham City. He and Tyger can then kill anyone in it at will.
404** Penguin was also sealed IN Arkham City. Explaining how his crew got the best stuff.
405** I'm pretty sure the game all but flat-out shouts at you that Strange had been supplying guns to Penguin.
406** And to Joker. Joker mentions it in a voicemail to Batman (which he later asks Batman to delete) and it's revealed in one of Penguin's interview tapes. Might also be in one of the Arkham City Stories.
407[[/folder]]
408
409[[folder:Quincy being mayor]]
410* How is Quincy Sharp mayor? Isn't there a buttload of evidence proving that he's insane?
411** The only person who ever saw the evidence of Sharp's insanity was Batman, and Bats isn't the type of person to share that kind of information.
412** Plus, it's ''Gotham.'' The number of people who'd believe Batman if he revealed what he knows is small, and the number of people who'd act on that knowledge is smaller. Not to mention the fact that it's all circumstantial evidence based on a bunch of rocks with writing on them, placed in areas where hardly anyone can find them.
413** There's audio accompanying them, though, isn't there? And there's a lot of evidence in a room that Sharp was locked in. As for the "not many people would believe Batman", well, he didn't exactly take the evidence with him when he left Arkham, and Gordon and the rest of the GCPD would kind of ''have'' to find it. As for "Batman's not the type to share that kind of information", well, that really depends. I think he would once Sharp began running for mayor, as Sharp's clearly completely insane and could do anything with the city (and has, evidenced by Arkham City's existence). I'm sure that there'll be an explanation given, but until then, I can't not consider it fridge logic.
414** I always thought the 'audio' was just the game's way of representing Batman's translation of the engravings on the rocks and the resulting deductions he makes based on it; as in, there wasn't any ''actual'' audio (since, let's face it, Sharp's crazy but he's probably not ''that'' stupid to leave around tape recordings of all his insane plotting) but it's just representing what is being translated. Even if there was, though, since there's only one bit which is recognizably Warden Sharp speaking, he could easily cry fake. Furthermore, Sharp is the Warden of an insane asylum full of criminally insane psychotics, many of whom have genius-level intellects and among other things make a specialty of weird labyrinthine mind-gamey plots; it wouldn't be incredibly hard for him to pass off any evidence found by the cops (who, let's be fair, probably wouldn't do as well at finding or interpreting it as Batman) or Batman as fakes designed and planted by one of the inmates as a way of trying to discredit him. I mean hell, the ''Riddler'' left a whole load of trophies and riddles and scrawlings on the walls tucked away in all sorts of places in the asylum; who's to say (and more importantly, who ''wouldn't believe'') that ''he'' didn't do it?
415** Batman is absolutely the type of person to share that kind of information; since when has he ever let psychotic lunatics off the hook just because they are a VillainWithGoodPublicity ? He'd expose him the first chance he got. It’s simply lack of evidence that stops him, though one wonders why he couldn't leak the little he has. The main problem with this premise is that there are multiple witnesses to the fact that ''Batman'' was the one who saved the day- including the Police Commissioner and several Arkham guards-; and, the fact that the breakout happened on Sharpe's watch should kind of affect the idea that he is supposed to have put an end to it, since one would think people would wonder if his negligence was part of the problem in the first place (though, to be fair, Gotham might have realized by then that no amount of security is good enough for ComicBook/TheJoker).
416** Witnesses? Batman saved the day ''live'' on the ten o'clock news.
417** Although to be fair, Commissioner Gordon spent most of the crisis either held hostage or experiencing brief moments of not being held hostage, so it's not like he's really in a position to challenge Sharpe's effectiveness much. As for other witnesses, it's been speculated that Sharpe probably took the "I coordinated the retaking of the asylum and Batman was following my lead" approach -- and since most of the surviving witnesses spent most of the crisis holed up in various places in the asylum with only Batman going backwards and forwards between them, there's no one really to challenge that. Alternatively, this is Gotham we're talking about, and he's got Hugo Strange of all people pulling his strings; a hefty dose of bribery, voter fraud and / or mind control isn't entirely off the cards. For what it's worth, though, one of the ''Arkham City'' tie-in comics has Vicki Vale call Sharp on precisely this issue during an interview.
418** The game reveals the truth: Hugo Strange had connections that would ensure Sharp won. Strange's connections turned out to be Ra's al Ghul and the League of Assassins.
419** Great. Now I can't shake the mental image of the entire league going downtown to ''just vote'' for Sharpie. Instead of blackmail or something.
420** The DC universe literally elected Lex Luthor as president. They're not exactly very smart when it comes to politics.
421[[/folder]]
422
423[[folder:Strange torturing his own henchman]]
424* In the cinematic trailer, why does Hugo Strange feel he has to torture his own henchmen to death to get info out of him? I'm pretty sure he'd be forthcoming about the big-scary-man-in-a-cape who beat the crap out of him if his employer had just asked. It doesn't look like a case of YouHaveFailedMe either, as Strange clearly expected the attack on Batman to fail ("This was just one more twist of the knife... to test him.")
425** Strange seems to be using some kind of truth serum on the henchman; he probably wants to get as completely accurate a rendition of events as possible while ensuring that said henchman doesn't feel like embellishing the account, downplaying it to sooth his pride (since one guy beating the crap out of him and his entire unit has to smart a bit) or otherwise playing with the truth. He just happens to use more than the henchman can take without killing him, but then, he's Hugo Strange, and it's doubtful he really gives a shit. YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness probably plays a part as well.
426** Also, IIRC, the TYGER henchmen are former Arkham inmates. Strange used the Mad Hatter's studies to brainwash some of them - the successful ones became TYGER guards and the unsuccessful ones were lobotomized, let loose by Joker during Arkham Asylum, and later given to Penguin as target practice. So if the TYGER guards are just successfully brainwashed inmates, Strange might still have murderous hatred for them and see them as even more disposable tools.
427** Also, the simple reason that Strange is, when you get down to it, a sadist. He could probably come up with some justification for it, but ultimately deep down the real answer is because he enjoys torturing people and exerting control over them.
428[[/folder]]
429
430[[folder:Joker donating blood]]
431* So the Joker donated a bunch of his now-toxic blood to hospitals across Gotham to make Batman find a cure. Did they not ''test'' it?
432** The idea is he secretly had healthy blood that the hospitals already had swapped with his own.
433** On top of this, his plan to ship his toxic blood to hospitals in Gotham is no kind of grand, supervillainous plan. First off, his blood would be marked by the blood type it is, and thus would only be given to patients matching that blood type. Otherwise, incompatibility between blood types would kill the patient before the toxins did. Secondly, blood transfusion patients are checked up on after the fact. Batman began to show the effects of the bad blood within an hour, and that was after just being drip-fed the blood. After a full ''transfusion?'' It wouldn't be hard to pinpoint the cause, and the hospital's blood reserves would be analyzed and destroyed. I guess we can chalk this up to mad, dying desperation, though. We have to cut Joker a break for that.
434** Remember that the Joker works by sowing the seeds of chaos. If he has tainted blood sent to hospitals (and it can be safely assumed that he had it send to a number of different hospitals well-disguised in order to make identifying it difficult, and had key people bribed or blackmailed for their participation as mentioned below), then even if people figure out what's going on before too long then that still means that the blood donation and transfusion network is effectively shut down until they can isolate and destroy the tainted packs. So even if it's only people of a certain blood group who are affected (which is unlikely; they'll probably have to analyze and / or destroy the entire supply just to be on the safe side, just in case the Joker thought it would be funny to taint other packs as well), that still means that there's now a huge supply of blood which has to be tested and / or destroyed just in case. And then that blood needs to be replaced from clean, uncontaminated sources. This takes time. This means that a huge and essential part of the medical system is essentially shut down. That means that there's still a lot of people who may urgently need blood transfusions ''who are now unable to get them.'' It means that people who may die without an immediate transfusion are probably ''going to die'' where they wouldn't have had the Joker not interfered. And, of course, it means that the people who were given the tainted blood before the problem was identified are still dying unless Batman finds the cure. And then there's the natural panic that sets in once word spreads that the Joker's contaminated the blood donation system. Even if only a few people are exposed to the tainted blood, the ripples spread out and engulf Gotham's entire medical system. It's actually quite a clever supervillain plan.
435** Joker does it the same way he gets people to do things he wants like assistance like breaking out of Arkham: he bribes & blackmails. Think about it: Joker probably has goons on the outside who haven't been caught. He has them threaten the doctors with harm to them or their families and/or pays them off to "let things slide" and tell the people that they're fine after the transfusion. Not that hard of a stretch to believe.
436** ^ What he said. And even if someone does realize something's wrong, that's one person who's guaranteed to die unless Bats finds the cure. One person is enough.
437** Blood transfusions are usually performed after a cross-match test, so if his blood was ''really'' toxic, the contamination would've shown up on a test slide before the contents of the tainted bags were dispensed to patients. More likely he had a little of his blood injected into bags of healthy blood, diluting it enough so that it took some time for the tiny amount of toxin to have a discernible effect.
438** In an episode of ''Series/{{Scorpion}}'' a CorruptCorporateExecutive hacks the blood banks to change the bar codes, it's possible Joker did something similar.
439[[/folder]]
440
441[[folder:Oracle missing]]
442* Why was Oracle missing? I don't remember anything explaining her absence.
443** Apparently she was just occupied with other things, but what those were aren't mentioned.
444** In the DCU she's not only the primary source of info for the entire Bat-Family, but leads the Birds of Prey & is the prime information centre for all the superheroes in the world. We know that at least Superman, Robin and Nightwing exist in Arkhamverse, so at the very least she could also be helping them, along with investigating and compiling information for dozens of others things.
445*** Alternately doesn't she have a day job? She may have still been at work, or even held up in traffic or on public transport.
446[[/folder]]
447
448[[folder:Mad Hatter not removing mask]]
449* Why didn't the Mad Hatter remove Batman's mask? He has an obsession with hats alongside his obsession with ''Literature/AliceInWonderland''. One of his main motivations for going against Batman is to collect his cowl. He had Batman unconscious for enough time to drag him back to his lair - so why wouldn't he take off the mask during that time?
450** He says outright that he wants Batman to fight for him. Think about it; he's just one weak minor villain in Arkham City with no following of his own, and to that end he's been hypnotizing henchmen from Joker, Two-Face and Penguin to use as his own. In the cut-throat world that is Arkham City, the opportunity to have ''the Goddamned Batman'' (and all the fear his complete costume instills in criminals everywhere) fighting for you is way too much to pass up on.
451** Yeah, but why not take the mask off and replace it with the mind-control cowl?
452** I guess his reasoning goes that if he takes the mask off, it might just look like he's dressed someone up as Batman using an incomplete costume he's found somewhere, which diminishes the effect somewhat, whereas if he keeps the costume intact and puts the mask on over it, it looks more like he's actually captured Batman, which strengthens the overall 'holy-shit-Hatter's-got-Batman-working-for-him' effect he's going for.
453** Maybe Batman still have countermeasure on his mask like in ''ComicBook/BatmanHush'' (except for ladies, of course)?
454** If you look at the map after you leave from that mind trip, you'll see Hatter's hideout is relatively close to where you took the bait for his trap. It could be that Batman woke up from the drug only a few moments from arriving at the mad tea party so he didn't get the chance to take off the cowl.
455** One thing that a lot of people forget in Super Hero situations is that not everybody recognizes everybody on the planet. Bruce Wayne is the exception in that he's shown as being somewhat famous. It's never really clear if he's supposed to be A-List famous (Think major celebrity, people who literally can't just stroll down the street without being recognized) or B-List Famous (think of all the famous people who you've heard the name but if they sat down beside you at in a park it would take you a second to figure out who they were). It's possible that the Hatter just assumed that removing the mask wouldn't gain him anything other than knowing Batman's hair color.
456** Except that, as the OP already stated, the Mad Hatter wouldn't have been removing the cowl just to find out who Batman is, necessarily. He'd have been removing the cowl because he ''wanted the cowl'' in and of itself. He collects hats, and Batman's cowl is the ''crème de la crème'' of hats as far as Jervis Tetch is concerned.
457** Perhaps it's in one of the tapes I didn't find but do we have any reason to believe that this particular Mad Hatter is after Batman's Cowl at all? The Arkhamverse seems to be built largely on top of the old Diniverse and that iteration of Jervis wasn't much interested in Batman at all and would happily have avoided him (even tried more often than not) to do just that. Arkham City is a sufficiently dangerous place that the idea that his sole motivation was gathering enough thugs for him to hold out until he came up with a better plan isn't impossible or even unlikely.
458*** It's mentioned in his character profile in [[VideoGame/BatmanArkhamAsylum Arkham Asylum]].
459** Interview tapes make it abundantly obvious Jervis has legitimate mental issues. It likely just didn't occur to him to take the cowl off.
460** This is what I was going to suggest. Considering that Jervis is so delusional he thinks he lives in Wonderland, it's possible he doesn't even realize and/or care that Batman has a secret identity.
461[[/folder]]
462
463[[folder:Disappearing shark]]
464* Where does the shark in the museum go? Okay, you deliver an awesome beat-down, but it should still be in there somewhere, yet whenever you fall in the water afterwards you can get right back out without getting bitten in half.
465** It knows better than to try and mess with Batman, and its poor-eye sight can't tell the difference between him and Catwoman.
466** Shark Repellant.
467** Considering the shark was swimming around in the sub-zero water with ice on it, it could be assumed it's some sort of Arctic Megalodon (though how it got cloned would probably be [[HandWave hand waved]]), so it could easily be that it just died when the water began to warm up.
468** Well, the water below the ice was almost certainly warmer than 0 degrees Celsius. Water has its greatest density at 4 degrees Celsius, so that's presumably the temperature at the bottom of that pool.
469** Sometimes the simplest explanation is the best. Considering the fact that the average shark can be driven off by an average person punching it in the eye, I have no problem believing that Batman beat Tiny to death. Maybe Catwoman will steal the corpse and make herself a sharkskin catsuit to rob Penguin in the sequel.
470** The room for the Grundy Boss fight is flooded when you go back to the Iceberg Lounge. The pool may have flooded into it, with the shark getting swept into it as well.
471[[/folder]]
472
473[[folder:Batman's skepticism]]
474* A minor one, but it still confuses me. When you complete the sidequest with Azrael, he gives Batman a prophecy about his victory in Arkham City and how this will lead to some sort of crisis in the future, saying that Bats will "be the warrior to close the gates of hell." Batman's response? "I don't believe in fairy tales." .....uh, [[ArbitrarySkepticism why not?]]
475** Why should he believe it? Yeah, the mysterious disappearing ninja guy is probably worth looking in to, but there's no reason to believe everything he says without any evidence.
476** Also, Batman is usually shown in modern depictions as being very suspicious and at times derivative of magic. That could extend to a disbelief in fairy tales in this universe.
477** We're talking about Batman here. Parents dead when he was a child, spends his nights beating the shit out of criminals. He's seen the worst of humanity on a daily basis. I wouldn't believe in "the hero gets the girl" or "true love" or "happily ever after" either if I went through what he did.
478** Still, "I don't believe in fairy tales" sounds pretty funny coming from a guy who fought a giant zombie a few hours ago.
479** The Arkham video game universe is a little less fantastic than the usual DC universes. Note that the most supernatural thing from the first game, the "spirit" of Arkham, was explained away as Sharp being crazy and manipulated. The weirder things from the second game, like the Lazarus Pits and Grundy, are depicted as being more weird science than magic.
480** Not really sure what is being asked, but if you're insinuating that Batman's an atheist, I doubt that's the case since he told Jones to "hold off on thanking Him (God)." And there's probably plenty of "supernatural" things occurring in that universe that we don't know about. Batman's been through a lot and probably doesn't know if Azrael's telling the truth or if he's just a deluded bastard talking out of his ass. Saying "I don't believe in fairy tales." was probably Batman's way of saying "Fuck off, I don't care. I've got more important shit to deal with." He also knows that even if his statement is true, he'll probably survive it.
481** Why ''wouldn't'' Batman be skeptical? He's one of the most suspicious and paranoid characters in the DC universe, he's more or less rationalist in his thought processes, he's never really been that credulous when it comes to supernatural matters, and how many of us would instantly treat the rantings of some weirdo who cornered us while we were in the middle of something and started banging on about some mystical nonsense about prophecies with instant respect and seriousness? It would be far more unusual if he ''did'' treat Azrael's warnings seriously.
482** To be fair, Azrael does come off as kind of a delusional zealot in his interactions with Batman. Just because Gotham is home to all kinds of bizarre supernatural people and events doesn't mean some guy going on about vague apocalyptic prophecies isn't just talking out of his ass. Plus, Arkham is home to some seriously mentally ill people, after all.
483[[/folder]]
484
485[[folder:Cheating in Zsasz's origin]]
486* When listening to Zsasz's life story during the side quest, he mentions that he lost what was left of his money in a card game with Penguin. Victor had four 6's, and Oswald had a strait flush 4-7. But if he had a six in that hand when Zsasz had them prior, he obviously cheated. Why didn't Victor call him out on it and take his money back? I mean honestly. There were other people there to testify the fault.
487** IIRC this is happening in the Penguin's ''own club'' -- i.e. he sets the rules about what happens there (most likely in his favour) and most of the people there who can 'testify the fault' are either the Penguin's goons or people who are affiliated with the Penguin in some way, so they're unlikely to be taking Victor's side here. Hell, the whole point was probably to set him up to fleece him in the first place. Victor protests it, likely result is he gets the crap kicked out of him (which, again IIRC, is exactly what happened anyway). In any case, the Penguin is a major crime lord and, in Arkham City, a sociopath -- who in their right mind is going to risk pissing ''him'' off (and in all likelihood getting fed to his ''shark'') in a gambling dispute by taking the side of some nobody (at that point at least) who's just had his cash wiped out over a stupid bet?
488** I don't remember, were they playing Draw? Because if it was Hold 'Em, a Straight Flush beating 4 sixes could legally occur although would be extremely unlikely.
489** There weren't any mentions of normal hold'em terms(flop, turn, river, etc.), so I assume they were playing either Draw or Stud.
490** What seems stranger is that Penguin would casually cheat a rich young man out of all his money. Penguin's continued existence relies on the social elites not taking offense to his club's shady nature and fleecing one of them is not a good way to keep that goodwill. There's a reason why organized crime doesn't cause too much trouble for the rich, it gets the police (even the corrupt ones) sent after them.
491** One thing to remember: Arkhamverse =/ DC Universe. In the DCU, Penguin puts up a gentleman façade, hobnobbing with the beautiful people, but in the AU he's clearly more of a vicious, street-thug asshole who could sub-let a shit about his good PR or lack thereof. Thus, the DCU Pengy probably wouldn't fleece Zsasz unless Victor pissed him off somehow, whereas the AU Pengy would do it ForTheEvulz.
492** It's explicitly stated in Zsasz's story that, at this point, he wasn't rich. He had just come to the Iceberg Lounge with the intent of regaining the money he had lost. It actually ends up being a pretty brilliant scheme on Penguin's part. Think about it: some guy, fresh off the streets, probably having scraped together barely enough cash to buy into his first game experiences a near ''miraculous'' streak of luck, winning big over and over again until he earns the right to sit at the owner's table. Then, his streak continues and he manages to beat out all the other competitors, save for the Penguin himself. In their final hand, he gets Zsasz to go all-in with everything he's won that night and then steals it out from under him. If you think about it, it's pretty clear that Victor's run of luck up to that point had all been engineered by the Penguin, who used Zsasz to fleece his customers before taking the money for himself. Penguin gets a huge payday ''and'' the fun of knocking who he probably thinks is an uppity piece of street trash down a few pegs and none of the rich people he's hobnobbing with probably even noticed.
493** You know in some casinos they do use multiple decks.
494** While the most mundane solution, this may actually be part of it. It is possible that the below theory of Penguin engineering Zsasz's run of luck overlaps with using multiple decks-the idea is introduced to Zsasz at the start as an 'anti-cheat method' (heh) and then Penguin miraculously manages to use that to his advantage.
495** It's also likely that Victor just did not notice.
496** I believe it's stated somewhere in supplementary material that his IQ score is 78 or something similarly below average, so that's not much of a stretch.
497** He did notice. In one of his calls he mentioned he "thought he (Penguin) would play fair". That indicates that he learned how wrong he was. Probably he couldn't say anything for the above reason - he was in the Penguin's casino, surrounded by the Penguin's men, and he hadn't become a sociopathic killer yet. Nothing he could do but accept he had just been cheated out of everything by a more powerful man and accept that there was nothing he could do about it.
498[[/folder]]
499
500[[folder:Did Batman kill Ra's?]]
501* So Batman destroyed the Lazarus Pit. Batman also watched Ra's al Ghul stick himself with his sword. Doesn't this sort of mean Batman killed someone?
502** The Demon's Head stuck HIMSELF with his sword. Plus, there are other pits around the world. Batman's hands are clean of Ra's blood.
503** Why exactly did Ra's impale himself with his own sword again?
504** Most assume he was trying to kill both himself and Batman. There are other theories on the main page, but I'll just go with the most straightforward. Really, there's not much reason not to - I mean it's not like Ra's has any reason to fear death.
505** He didn't kill him. [[Film/BatmanBegins He just didn't save him.]]
506[[/folder]]
507
508[[folder:Riddler testing Catwoman]]
509* So, the Riddler forces Batman to solve his riddles and find the trophies he's hidden in Arkham City to prove that he is smarter than the Dark Knight. Okay. But what about the trophies he placed for Catwoman? Does he want to prove that he's smarter than Catwoman too? She's not exactly known for being a genius. And it's not a case where the trophies are intended for Batman but only Catwoman can access them; if you try to grab one as Batman, Riddler explicitly tells you that it's not for you.
510** There are a couple possible explanations: 1) He knows she's a sometimes ally of Batman, and wants to test her skills so he'll know what he's up against if she ever decides to try and take him down. 2) He's bitter that she's considered a better thief than him, and is trying to humiliate her by showing that she's incapable of "stealing" all the trophies.
511** My personal off-the-wall theory was that Eddie put out those trophies for Catwoman because he ''liked'' her and wanted to impress her with how clever he was. Also, notice, while Batman gets zapped if he tries to take a Catwoman trophy, Catwoman can pick up Batman trophies just fine.
512** Arkham Knight has Riddler using Catwoman to lure Batman into his puzzles. He may just have some personal reason for using her in his fun.
513** He's a compulsive competitor with an InferioritySuperiorityComplex. Winning a game against a great thief would be almost as satisfying as winning a game against the World's Greatest Detective. Hell, according to Catwoman's dialogue, it's likely they've faced off before, as she remarks about "not having time for his silly games" in what can only be described as fond-ish exasperation.
514[[/folder]]
515
516[[folder:Blocking shields]]
517* Why can't Batman block shield attacks? I'm pretty sure he has the physical strength necessary to put out his hands and just stop the shielded guy's attempted thrusts. We're talking about a man who ''bench presses a thousand pounds''.
518** The shields the thugs are using are a new kind of riot shield. Push a button on the handle and the entire shield turns into a tazer. (Note that when you get hit with a shield, the screen does the same "static" effect it does when a thug with a stun stick hits you.) Just grabbing the shield would get Bats nothing but zapped.
519** For starters, I'm fairly certain it is physically impossible for anyone to bench press a thousand pounds. As for why he can't stop the thrusts, it would hurt Batman more to try and block it, since all the force of the blow would be concentrated on his arms and the shield doesn't have a good spot for him to get a grip while it's heading towards him.
520** [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Rychlak It is not in fact physically impossible to bench a thousand pounds]], depending on your views of equipped lifts.
521
522[[/folder]]
523
524[[folder:Blade-wielders]]
525
526* Why do Batman and Catwoman let blade-wielders have multiple swings before taking them down? Batman in particular has armguards that can deflect even the katanas of Talia's guards, so why are these highly-trained martial artists giving their attackers more than one chance to attack?
527** They're waiting for them to overcommit themselves to an attack, trying to knock them out sooner would have resulted in getting slashed. Before that point if they tried to go for a KO the attacker was in a position to bring the blade back along to stab Batman/Catwoman in the side, '''AND''' the blade hand is a full arm's length away. For example, the normal blade fiends slice horizontally, and can simply bring the blade back easily to stab Batman, but in the last hit, they're going down vertically, which is when Batman grabs their wrist because it's right in front of him instead of a full arm's length away.
528
529[[/folder]]
530
531[[folder:Armor and punches]]
532
533* How the fudge does wearing improvised armor protect you from punches thrown by a human being who has trained himself to physical perfection? Armor helps against piercing and cutting attacks, but the concussive force of a blunt attack will still carry through -- unless I failed physics somewhere.
534** Probably because Batman isn't punching them as hard as he can, since that would be needlessly exhaustive. When he does ground take-downs or dive kicks he puts more force into it to take them down.
535** The armor is padded, helping to absorb the shock of the punches. This is most likely due to the henchmen knowing that Batman never, if at all, uses weapons (gadgets, yes, but not guns or knives or whatnot) when in combat.
536** Given that the cape-stun beatdown, i.e. [[SpamAttack a whole lot of punches]], is the preferred method of taking out armor-wearing thugs (if you don't count the instant takedown special or something like that), I'd say that the armor's protection against punches is marginal at best.
537** Marginal against about ten to fifteen heavy and concentrated punches delivered in quick succession. Against a single haymaker or two, it's more effective.
538[[/folder]]
539
540[[folder: Police and murdered officer]]
541* Regarding the total lack of concern the police had for the officer murdered by Penguin:
542** The nine remaining officers travel from the entry foyer to the iceberg lounge, stopping to gather weapons and construct a barricade. Yet despite passing within feet of the body, none of them bother to retrieve their fellow officer’s remains (it is still where it originally fell).
543** The place ''is'' swarming with criminals, both inside and outside; it's sad that their colleague is dead, but he ''is'' dead, and they have to put the men who are still alive first and get them to a position of safety before they can start wringing their hands over their dead colleague. Carrying around a body is both heavy and time-consuming; at the very least, it's at least two guys who are now able to carry less stuff which could be used to defend themselves and are now in a weaker position to defend themselves should they be attacked by anyone, which could lead to ''them'' getting killed.
544** One of the officers is seen playing with Penguin's umbrella gun that was used to murder the officer, even accidentally firing a shot. This weapon was used to murder a police officer, and the culprit has not yet faced trial. You would assume they would set it aside (they have plenty of other weapons), or that The World's Greatest Detective would suggest to stop contaminating evidence.
545** The Penguin is already in prison, and has committed so many crimes and left so much proof (all the trophy cases pretty much contain admissions of guilt) that it honestly wouldn't make a difference. Of course, since it's Gotham, he'll probably get off lightly.
546** And the cop's not playing with it; he's ''arming himself with it''. They're the only nine-or-however many police officers in an entire city-region swarming with criminals; they need all the weapons they can get their hands on, and the umbrella gun appears to be a pretty formidable one, so they'd be fools ''not'' to use it if it gave them an advantage. It's a pretty desperate situation and the chain of evidence can probably take a backseat to staying alive at that point; not much point preserving it if you're going to be dead. Not to mention that fingerprints aside, an umbrella gun is still a pretty rare, unique and distinctive choice of weapon; it shouldn't be too hard to link it back to the Penguin..
547** Might be a spare. In some incarnations Oswald has several different umbrella weapons kept together. Why not keep an extra rifle handy?
548[[/folder]]
549
550[[folder:Strange REC door]]
551* OK, Batman fans, there is this one place in Arkham City that is right between Park Row and Amusement Mile. There is an REC door but when you open it all there is behind it is a brick wall, one that looks similar to the fake brink wall to the Riddler's Death Traps. However nothing opens it, not even three Explosive Gel. Does anyone know why it’s there?
552** Not sure about the location, but if I'm correct, that's part of the solution to a Riddler riddle. Turn on detective mode when you look at it.
553[[/folder]]
554
555[[folder:Penguin speakers]]
556* Why does Penguin have speakers in his throat?
557** Well Penguin is a smoker...
558** It's a combination speaker/microphone, and he uses it to relay orders over the Puffin Zero radio frequency.
559[[/folder]]
560
561[[folder:The Arkhamverse Lazarus Pit]]
562* Just to check, in the ArkhamVerse, is the Lazarus Pit under Gotham the only pit, or is it like the regular DC with multiple ones around the globe? I ask because Ra's was making a pretty big deal about that one pit (building Wonder City around it, coming back decades later and ordering his men to dig down to it). You'd think that if there was more than one he'd have easier access to another (I may well have missed mention of other Lazarus Pits...).
563** You forget that He's behind Hugo Strange, so he does have an interest in keeping his Pit underneath Arkham City secure. As for building Wonder City around it, he was using it as an experiment and Gotham was the perfect place to put it in.
564** Bit of a WMG, but I think the game had some re-writes around the Pit and they just didn't get it consistent. The WMG is that the first draft are the lines that treat it like it's not unique should be familiar to Batman and the player (likely Bat-veteran Paul Dini), and the rewrites are the ones that treat the Pit as unique and new to Batman (possibly someone who didn't realize Ra's would have already been 600 when he "discovered" the Pit in the 1900's). My guess: at the 11th hour they became afraid casual fans (like ones who only know Ra's from ''Batman Begins'') would have a "WTH" reaction to not only having a mystical pit o' panacea seem to come out of nowhere in a "gritty and realistic" story but to have it be treated like everyone knows what it is.
565** I second this. It's supported by the fact that when Batman is talking to Freeze he mentions that he knows a man who's been exposed to this enzyme for centuries, he's clearly aware that Ra's can rise from the dead as well. Then he's suddenly confused about the Pit afterward. In fact that brief bit of confusion may have just been a clumsily written explanation for people who aren't familiar with Ra's and the Lazarus Pit.
566** Batman only tells Freeze that he ''believes'' Ra's' claim to be over 600 years old. He doesn't learn exactly how Ra's does it until he sees the pit in action later.
567** Except he must have a pretty detailed idea of how it functions. First he may or may not KNOW vs believe that Ra's is over six hundred years old but he specifically uses the term 'wake him up' in reference to Ra's after mentioning that he's dead. He's also familiar enough with the Lazarus Pit that when Mr. Freeze shows him the 'theoretical chemical' he needs Batman instantly recognizes it and tells him he knows a man who's been exposed to this chemical for centuries. He might not know if you drink it, bathe in it, inhale the fumes or inject it directly into your veins but he knows it works and recognizes it on sight.
568[[/folder]]
569
570[[folder:Gang transportation]]
571* How do the various gangs move about Arkham city? The roads are all broken, blocked, etc... And that's not even counting the places that are, errr, vertically unreachable without flight, a grapple gun, or wall-clinging powers. Heck, the Industrial district has no land linking it to the rest of Arkham City, so how does the Joker send his people places? How does Harley Quinn even manage to go to the GCPD?
572** The henchman getting to roofs and such can be fanwanked by saying they can actually enter the buildings and you can't. No explanation for the stuff that is cut off by water though.
573** Perhaps they... swim?
574** In the middle of winter and with no protective clothing? Not a very good idea.
575** Some of them got trapped when Joker's crew took out the bridges. Other might be using rafts.
576** There's subway tunnels under Arkham City, and presumably other kinds of underground networks as well; could be that some of them haven't yet been flooded in those areas and so can still be used to get from place to place by the inmates. Batman doesn't find or use them because he doesn't need to, having his glider cape and grapple guns and such.
577** You can see Joker's {{Mooks}} all over the Subway tunnels, which lead directly into Penguin's territory.
578[[/folder]]
579
580[[folder:Ryder not becoming Creeper]]
581* Maybe I'm not all that clear on how the Creeper's powers work, but why didn't Jack Ryder just transform when those guys were beating him down?
582** Refer to the post further above the page. In short, either Jack Ryder isn't the Creeper in this continuity, or he isn't aware that he is.
583** I think we have to go with "Ryder isn't the Creeper". If he was, getting his ass handed to him would've been the perfect impetus to say, "Much as I hate it, change time". (Assuming, for the sake of the argument, Jack's Creeper powers in the Arkhamverse work the same as in the DCverse.)
584** According to his Asylum profile he is the Creeper, so either they retconned that out in City, or for an unnamed reason, he declined to become Creeper.
585** This is a tad weak, but the game's prequel comics note a rivalry between him and Vicki Vale and even after being beaten down by thugs and nearly being killed by Deadshot, he's still determined to be the one that breaks the story to the public, not wanting to let "that Vale bitch" take it from him, as well as get back at Strange by telling everyone what he had done. It's possible that he kept himself from turning into the Creeper because he was just that determined to do this, perhaps thinking that transforming would hinder him. This seems a bit silly to me, but I can't really think of any other explanation. I would note that perhaps he simply hasn't become it yet, as there seems to be some StoryAndGameplaySegregation with the profiles sometimes talking about things that haven't happened yet in-universe - for example I believe the Lazarus Pits are mentioned in Ra's' profile in Arkham Asylum, yet in Arkham City Batman's learning about it for the first time - if it weren't for the fact that Vale mentions the Creeper in an interview with Sharp, meaning he canonically exists already, and I kinda doubt it's someone other than Ryder...
586** This inconsistency between Jack Ryder's bio in ''Asylum'' and ''City'' is part of ''Asylum'' EarlyInstallmentWeirdness, which has been retconned in later games. In ''Asylum'', the bios are little more than bonus content provided to the fans of the ''Batman'' franchise, which is why they contain plenty of entries about characters who aren't in the game, and are also about the ''Batman'' franchise in general (not about the characters' specific Arkhamverse portrayal). From ''City'' onward, the only bios provided are people who ''are'' in the game, and their bios' descriptions are supposed to be consistent with their Arkhamverse version in the games. ''Asylum'' mentioning Ryder is the Creeper while the Creeper doesn't appear in ''City'' at all despite Ryder being present isn't the only inconsistency between ''Asylum'' bios and ''City'' actual content: ''Asylum'' bios also mention Hush already met Batman and Hugo Strange has been "trained to physical perfection", two things that are factually not true according to ''City'' events.
587[[/folder]]
588
589[[folder: Strange working with Hatter]]
590* Way back before Arkham City got all controversial, Hugo Strange was by all accounts a VillainWithGoodPublicity. And chances are he wanted to ''keep'' it that way in order to get the whole thing off the ground. Why then, when he was making a deal with Mad Hatter, a [[MadScientist deranged]], [[AxCrazy schizophrenic]] and ''[[AlternateCharacterInterpretation possibly]]'' [[Squick pedophelic]] madman with [[MindControlDevice mind-control technology]], in which he hires him to kidnap and brainwash the mayor in order to get everything he needs, even going so far as to bribe him with some unseen kidnapped woman [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation (or girl)]], did he decide to '''''TAPE THE WHOLE CONVERSATION??''''' Mad Hatter would have been easy enough to throw in Arkham City, but imagine if somebody besides Batman found those tapes? What if they had been found before he had gotten all the power he did?? You'd think a MagnificentBastard such as Hugo would be a little smarter than that!
591** It's either just GameplayAndStorySegregation, to let the player get a look into the background workings of Strange's plan, or that, as a psychologist, he just kept the habit of taping things. He's insanely smart, had both an army of brainwashed soldiers and the League of Assassins at his back, so he probably felt pretty secure.
592** Mention Strange is full of himself and like Riddler leaving riddles or Two Face's duality recording his "therapy" sessions is just his thing.
593[[/folder]]
594
595[[folder: Infinite Freeze grenades]]
596* StoryAndGameplaySegregation, I know, I know, but still. Freeze gives ONE freeze grenade to Batman. ''ONE''. How come Bats has all those marvelous infinite grenades by the time he faces Clayface? Where is he getting those things? They're not WayneTech. They're not around the map. Freeze never said he would give him more. I know the designers just wanted to use the cool new toy at the boss battle, but damn. Not even a little explanation?
597** Same place he keeps his infinite Batarangs, infinite explosive gel, infinite...
598* Maybe the tech Freeze gave him wasn't the grenade itself, but some kind of miniature freeze grenade produced?
599[[/folder]]
600
601[[folder: Missing assassins]]
602* So... where are Talia's elite assassins by the time she's killed? Wouldn't that be a good moment to flip the hell out and help Batman in a fight?
603** Ra's probably restrained them on his tower after he tried to kill her. You know, she could get mad and try to kill him herself and take all his organization, and the last thing he wants is a woman running the League of Assassins. Alternatively, they were drinking soda with Robin.
604** Or, more probably, they had to carry Ra's body to safety. Also, by the time you're done with Clayface and Joker, Talia's body is missing too.
605[[/folder]]
606
607[[folder: Why do it alone?]]
608* At the very least Robin is confirmed for this universe. Nightwing is only DLC and not shown or to my knowledge mentioned in the story. Barbara is Oracle by this point so there may or may not be a Batgirl at this point. Still between being sick and Protocol 10 (which Batman has no reason to suspect is murder everybody and given the difference in power between the Gotham Rogues and the Metropolis Thugs is even MORE reason to do what I'm proposing) why didn't Batman immediately call in all guns?
609** Because there is other crap going on? Joker tainting the blood supply will cause riots (having a cape helping the cops is a smart move, so let's say Robin). Gotham DOES have more villains (the various crime families in addition to countless other super-villains like Firefly, so let's say Nightwing or the Birds of Prey). I think, at this point, Batman also suspected Ra's was involved in Protocol 10 and he knew Joker would probably kill Talia if he saw anyone but Batman. So let's ignore making sure Gotham as a whole is safe, and focus on Protocol 10. Nightwing and Robin can focus on helping people to safety while Batman goes after Strange (and Ra's). And Joker and Talia are left for the endgame because they are, sadly, less of an immediate threat. Remember, Batman trained the entire Batfamily, he doesn't need to hold their hands. They generally know where they can best be deployed (except for poor Tim).
610** Original Poster here. I mean before that. As soon as Joker poisoned him the first time at the Steel Mill if not earlier. Arkham City is pretty big, there are at least five (Joker, Two-Face, Penguin, Riddler, and Ivy) Super Criminals on the loose with several other problems (Croc, Scarecrow, Black Mask, Freeze) loose in Arkham City to say nothing of the countless regular villains. If Arkham City doesn't rate all hands on deck at the beginning, and it still doesn't after Bats is so sick he's hallucinating what exactly does qualify to call in help? I guess my larger problem is I don't understand why Nightwing or Robin even exist in this continuity if Batman is so adamant about not needing help that things can get as bad as they get in Arkham City and he not only doesn't ask for help, he actively turns it down.
611** The Batman in this universe is shown to be both incredibly stubborn and unwilling to accept help from others (did you forget that Robin's sole appearance in the game is him essentially being ''blown off'' by Batman, despite the latter being close to death from poisoning?). It's totally in-character for him to refuse to ask for assistance from the rest of the Bat Family.
612** As for Nightwing, he is mentioned in a Vicki Vale interview along with Huntress.
613** Batman's initial plan was simply to figure out what Protocol 10 was. Calling in all his buddies to beat the crap out of every inmate in Arkham City would not be the best way to conduct that investigation -- if anything, it could have made Strange play his hand sooner. Before Batman was poisoned, he had no reason to think there was anything really dangerous going on in Arkham City other than his own suspicions. After he was poisoned, the solution still looked relatively simple: go to Freeze, kick Freeze's ass until he makes a cure, and fix everything. Things got worse after that, and his buddies were needed in Gotham to keep things under control. Besides, he managed to save the day again anyway without them.
614[[/folder]]
615
616[[folder: Joker's blood type]]
617* How does The Joker know his blood type is the same as Batman's? It seems to me that there's a huge possibility that they're both different blood types and so when he gave Batman his blood via the drip Batman would keel over and die quickly from his body rejecting it.
618** Wasn't Joker O negative?
619** And, hey, what's the worst thing that can happen? Batman refuses to help him and he's... exactly where he started. By which I mean, dead. Might as well try.
620* Because both of them dying because of a failed blood transfusion is HILARIOUS.
621[[/folder]]
622
623[[folder: How did Riddler set everything up?]]
624* How did Riddler set up some of his riddles? The trophies, cameras, camera control consoles, and most of the riddles and breakables could have been set up months before Batman arrived, but some of the breakables and two of the riddles are not present at the time when Batman first passes through the areas they appear in. The riddle concerning Mr. Freeze and his wife can be considered plausible, as Riddler could have known where Nora was and guess that Freeze would either find her or be told of her location eventually, but what about the one concerning the Abrovomici brothers? He had no way of knowing that the two would reconcile when he posited that riddle to Batman, much less ''the exact room the reunion would take place in''.
625** For some of the riddles, we can perhaps assume that he's only referring to the subject of the riddle, not necessarily the specific surroundings or circumstances in which Batman deduces it (the map, in this case, works as a tool for the ''player'', not necessarily a tool for Batman). While naturally he can't predict precisely if or where the Abrovomici brothers would reconcile, he does know that the subject is something that's in the prison and that Batman could conceivably come across at some point. In this case, Batman happens to come across it at that specific location, makes the link there, and solves the riddle; in-universe he could conceivably solve it somewhere else, but that's just where he happens to make the mental link required to solve it.
626[[/folder]]
627
628[[folder: Lack of blood]]
629* When Strange was run through by Ra's, he bled. This is expected. When Joker was run through by Talia, he didn't bleed. This makes sense since the person being impaled was Clayface acting as Joker's BodyDouble. But when Ra's ran himself through, there was no blood. Why?
630** 'cause he's so old his blood is dust? Like [[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons Mr. Burns]]?
631** Maybe we just couldn't see the blood through the breastplate he was wearing. Although that does raise the question of why he was wearing armor that could be so easily pierced.
632** Easily pierced by his cool sword, after already enduring repeated blows from Batman.
633** This game is already bordering on an M rating as it is. The little blood in the game is probably as much as they could have without losing that T rating.
634[[/folder]]
635
636[[folder: Why didn't Catwoman take the briefcases?]]
637* Why didn't Catwoman just take the briefcases with her when she went to save Bats? Seems like it would kill two birds with one stone.
638** They are heavy and she wouldn't be able to climb around or fight with both hands full. Though, after her boss fight with Two-Face, Catwoman does go and collect all that stuff by beating up his lieutenants.
639** Okay, I accept that they were too heavy to carry and jump around with, I've seen enough of her fighting style that I'm certain that while it would look like the most absurd Jackie Chan fight scene ever she is quite capable of hand to hand with two briefcases. That doesn't explain however why she didn't take a whopping ten seconds to stash them better. There were overhead vents she'd climbed through, she could probably have thrown them in a trash can pretty much anything but what she did. Also aside from a little fetish fuel for us why was Catwoman casually strolling away from Batman not sprinting the way you would be if you'd left two briefcases worth of one assuming gold and the like? (It glowed when she opened it and the common thugs like it enough to keep it. The average mook wouldn't know how to fence a Jade Tiger certainly not inside Arkham City so it wasn't likely too deep into her theme. It probably wasn't cash which is probably equally worthless but perhaps not.)
640** Slowing down at all would've wasted the time possibly needed to save Bats.
641** It's a character beat. It shows that for all her cynicism and criminal activity, ultimately Catwoman has a [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold heart of gold]] and is willing to make a sacrifice, even if reluctantly, for the man she loves and the greater good.
642[[/folder]]
643
644[[folder: How is Ra's 600 years old?]]
645* A recent edit on the main page brings up a good point - the Arkham City Stories mention that Ra's discovered the Lazarus Pits in this adaption by seeing them bring Solomon Grundy back to life. The same stories also cite Grundy as originally coming back in the 19th century, and Ra's as being around six hundred years old, as is in most adaptations. So how exactly did he live long enough without Lazarus to discover this? Is the Arkham-verse secretly set in the 2400s?
646** He discovered the Gotham Lazarus Pit in the 19th century, but that doesn't mean he didn't already know about others. Granted, the same story claims that he believed Lazarus could be used to "defeat... death itself" which suggests he didn't already have that ability at the time, but it could be interpreted as meaning that up to that point he used the rejuvenating powers of Lazarus to extend his life and only worked out how to outright raise the dead in the 19th century.
647[[/folder]]
648
649[[folder: Joker's kid]]
650* Why does everyone seem to believe Joker's child will be a son? All we know is that Harley is pregnant. She could very well give birth to a daughter.
651** It may be because everyone's expecting the kid to grow up to be just like their father and associating that with the LikeFatherLikeSon trope.
652** She has a son in the Batman Beyond canon if I'm not mistaken.
653** Harley has two twin granddaughters in Batman Beyond, but it's never mentioned if they related to Harley through their mother or father. You're probably thinking of when Tim Drake is abducted by the Joker and Harley and turned into "Joker Jr."
654** Male pronouns are as close as the English language gets to generic. Also, because it doesn't even slightly matter what the gender of a fetus is for any reason except buying the right color of generic Baby stuff to present as a gift, and Batman is very unlikely to attend Harley's baby shower as a guest, so ''who the Hell cares''?
655** [[ComicallySerious "I brought him a]] [[{{Hyperaffixation}} Bat-]]mobile."
656[[/folder]]
657
658[[folder: The raving mooks]]
659* Whatever happened to the criminally insane mooks like the Lunatics or the High-Security Henchmen from the first game? Arkham City is meant to be a prison for both regular inmates and the psychotic patients from Arkham Asylum, but all the mooks themselves are just typical Blackgate thugs who are cruel and dangerous but not particularly insane.
660** It was mentioned somewhere that the lunatics were used as target practice by Penguin, and the High-Security Inmates probably joined up with one of the gangs.
661[[/folder]]
662
663[[folder: Where are female prisoners?]]
664* Where are the female prisoners? There has to have been a section of Blackgate for the female convict, if not just a section then a whole prison made for them. Where are they?
665** They're invisible! ...But seriously, I think that's just something the devs didn't want to deal with. A possible in-game explanation: from the comments the thugs make, both to each other and to Catwoman, it's pretty clear what would happen if they mixed the genders. I'm assuming that the women are housed in an area that Batman never goes to (maybe inside the facility itself, rather than the city?) because there's no threat there for him to deal with. All the villains are male save for Poison Ivy (who is not currently an active threat and is best left the hell alone regardless) and Harley Quinn (just leave her with her puddin', and [[BlatantLies no one gets hurt]]). There's also Catwoman, who has her own apartment. All of them are perfectly capable of defending themselves, and Catwoman and Ivy wouldn't find breaking out very difficult. Might as well let them roam.
666** Maybe they're hiding in the buildings we can't enter. There WERE a lot of houses and apartments in Arkham City, no one ever said they were empty.
667** That would make sense. The whole game takes place in one night, they could simply be indoors.
668** It wouldn't explain all those thugs talking about how they never see any women (except Harley, Catwoman, and Nora Fries' frozen silhouette), though.
669** Arkham City's been open for several weeks. Given the way, most of the thugs act, how many non-superpowered women would have survived past the first day?
670** It's possible Blackgate doesn't have a female wing at all and the few female prisoners we see are either from Arkham Asylum (Harley and Ivy were both in Asylum) or possibly broke in (Catwoman, Talia, and her ninjas). Considering nothing in the story indicates that Arkham City is THAT secure (Robin flies in, does his bit, and flies out. Batman's costume gets in within minutes of being summoned. Clayface isn't supposed to be in Arkham at all. The men are all complaining about the lack of women. It seems to me that Blackgate either didn't have women at all or they just stayed at Blackgate.
671** According to most research I've seen, when it comes to violent crimes -- i.e. the type of people who would be most likely to be locked up in Arkham City -- in the United States male offenders outnumber female offenders by about 9 to 1. By that logic, most of the people you'd expect to encounter in Arkham City would be male anyway.
672** It's entirely possible that Gotham doesn't have a women's prison and female prisoners just get shipped out of town somewhere. If so, it would mean that they dodged a bullet by missing out on Arkham City.
673** If the prisoners are somehow segregated, then how do you explain Catwoman and Ivy?
674*** Assuming the theory about a separate women's prison is true, Catwoman and Ivy are high-profile supervillains that Strange would naturally take an interest in. It's possible he pulled strings to get them shipped into Arkham City so that he could wipe them out at one stroke, but was less interested in other female convicts (or didn't have enough space to throw in all the inmates of Arkham, Blackgate ''and'' Hypothetical Ladies Prison).
675[[/folder]]
676
677[[folder: Crossed out Riddler names]]
678* I have just finished the Riddler Rooms and there’s something odd. In the final room, there’s a list of people in the room where the riddler is typing on the computer and thinking of riddles. Some of the people on the list have their names crossed out in red, perhaps meaning they are dead. But if you turn around and count the number of people in the room there are too many people even if you assume the crossed-out ones are still alive. What’s going on?
679** Maybe they're the names of people he considered putting in his deathtraps? The crossed-out ones could be people he rejected for whatever reasons.
680** According to whoever wrote up the InferredHolocaust entry on the main page, one of the guards from the church is unaccounted for at the end of the game. Don't know if that's true or about the other name, but still...
681[[/folder]]
682
683[[folder: Why the Clayface conspiracy?]]
684* Maybe I'm the only one who doesn't get it, but, I'm not entirely sure what the point of Joker using Clayface to trick Batman into thinking he had taken the cure was. Oh, I understand the point of using Clayface to double for him, keeping up appearances is an extremely valid concern among his gang and his rivals. But using it to mislead Batman the way he did doesn't make sense. It seems counterintuitive. To simplify, after Harley steals the cure, Joker, or rather, Clayface Joker, basically taunts Batman, saying, "Ha, I got the cure and you don't, if you want any chance of living, you better come get me!" Then a very long sequence of Batman fighting through the steel mill, through snipers, then Clayface, to finally come face to face with real Joker, who says to Batman, basically, "No seriously, give me the cure." "But you got the cure!" of course Batman would say that! that's what "Joker" said. But if Joker still needed the cure, what was the purpose of luring Batman in, when Joker should know Batman doesn't have the cure? He knows Batman doesn't have the cure because he uses the cure to lure Batman in the first place! Joker should know that Harley stole the cure, but then someone stole it from Harley. (he may not necessarily know Talia did it.) Joker still needs the cure. He should be trying to reign Batman back in to go get the cure for him, but he doesn't. He lies, wastes everyone's time, (including his own,) and for no discernible purpose. It was only a coincidence that Talia stole it and showed up with it. Joker couldn't have known she had it. The game trumps this all up, like Clayface imitating joker is this huge shocking game-changing twist, but as far as getting the cure for himself, I don't see the point.
685** Remember that Harley hadn't checked in with the cure because Talia stole it, so he thought Batman either had it or needed it because someone had stolen it. Joker being Joker, he probably thought that Bats would hunt down anyone who had the cure with them, and if he thought Joker already had some of the cure, he would be even more hell-bent on the search because now he was dying AND Joker was healthy. Or maybe he just felt like it and made shit up as he went.
686** As Joker points out, Arkham City's the last place you want people to think you're sick and dying. It could also have served as a morale boost to his men for the assault on Gotham (which you see in the NonStandardGameOver if Catwoman runs off with the loot.)
687** Still doesn't make sense. We don't know exactly how long Arkham Asylum was open or how quickly the disease set in but it was common knowledge that Joker was dying. By pretending to be well he lowered his chances of getting a cure since Bats would either take it or ship it out of Arkham to deal with the infected civilians. It makes sense to have a backup plan mind you but even for Joker, this was irrational. As of the NonStandardGameOver, it's unlikely that was the plan and not just dumb luck. He didn't know about Protocol 10 (assuming he's not lying) and it's in its chaos (presuming that he escapes) given the body count we hear about. I don't think that was hours after he escaped, that was at least days. Unless the long-term plan at that point was for Clayface to become Joker full-time, which may have been Clayface’s plan. He certainly doesn't seem to have told Joker about the immortality bath that's not too far away and it's not guarded by anything capable of stopping Clayface and Mr. Hammer.
688** Clayface ''did'' tell Joker about the Lazarus Pit because Joker tells Batman that he's "late for his spa treatment". Why would a control freak like him not listen in to every single thing that Clayface was saying and doing while playing the part, anyway?
689** Perhaps because he couldn't. The Lazarus pit doesn't grant immortality, it cures everything up to and including old age but assuming nobody takes you to a pit anything that would kill a normal person will kill you and old age will come back for you. It's stated by Ra that it has limited abilities to cure old age, that's why he wants to get a successor, after five hundred or so years he's getting too old and it also drives you insane. Not a problem for Joker (in fact in some tellings he took a dip and came out sane.) but that's why Bruce doesn't use it.
690[[/folder]]
691
692[[folder: Catwoman going to the Steel Mill]]
693* How did Catwoman get to the steel mill in time? The sewer exit she took was far from the steel mill and was in the bowery. How did she cross town quick enough to break in and save him?
694** The girl's in love with Batman, as her interview tapes made clear. She probably booked it real well.
695[[/folder]]
696
697[[folder: Iceberg Lounge floor]]
698* The floor in the Iceberg Lounge. Penguin blows it up to knock you into Grundy's chamber, but when you go back to get the Mine Disruptor from the cops, it's completely intact.
699** The cops must have fixed it somehow. Crappy excuse, but it's the only reasonable explanation.
700[[/folder]]
701
702[[folder: Freeze bombs and Clayface]]
703* Shouldn't freeze bombs had a similar effect on Clayface Joker during his boss fight as they didn't during the final battle?
704[[/folder]]
705
706[[folder:Talia's plan]]
707* What was Talia's plan with the Joker? She says she's willing to give him immortality because Batman refused but a) She can't be stupid enough to think that the Joker is going to kill only criminals like she wanted Batman to do and b) She activates a tracking device for Batman to follow. So she's almost certainly trying to trick the Joker. But then, why doesn't she run him through the second he took the knife from Batman's throat?
708** Probably to give Batman one last chance to decide whether he was going to break his one rule.
709** She was very, very lucky that Catwoman saved Batman. If Catwoman hadn't, Talia would have been leaving her "beloved" to die.
710[[/folder]]
711
712[[folder: Political prisoners]]
713* Why did Strange's 'political prisoners' include the people who helped build the wall and tower? Near as I can tell, there was nothing special about them. It was just a wall and a fancy guardhouse, with seemingly nothing to implicate that it was all designed to kill off the inmates, so it can't even qualify as a RevealingCoverup, since there was nothing to cover up. Did we just need a KickTheDog moment for Strange, since the EnemyChatter and cutscenes (added to the [[VideoGame/BatmanArkhamAsylum the previous game's demonstration]] that [[CardboardPrison imprisonment]] nor therapy work on Gotham's criminals) do [[RootingForTheEmpire a bit too good a job]] of justifying Strange's solution otherwise?
714** The people who constructed the walls and tower would know about any structural weaknesses or oversights that could be abused by the inmates, so Strange tossed them in with the rest. It's no real justification though, Strange is still a terrible person for doing it.
715** So Strange took all of the people who might know how to break out of the prison, and put them ''in the prison'' where they have an incentive to use that knowledge or can have it tortured out of them? It doesn't make any sense unless Strange was just on a power trip. If he had left them alone they would have had no reason to share that knowledge, and probably wouldn't have been able to do anything useful from the outside even if they wanted to.
716** "Unless Strange was just on a power trip" -- you've just described Hugo Strange. The man's whole ''thing'' is being on one never-ending power trip.
717[[/folder]]
718
719[[folder: Why not Batarang Hush?]]
720* During the scene where Hush is revealing his new identity, why doesn't Bats just throw a Batarang or three through one of the many large gaps in the door? Even if they weren't enough to knock him unconscious like they do with regular enemies they'd still probably knock him out long enough to open up the door. Secondly, even if Hush does manage to escape before Batman opens the door anyway how does he get away so easily? You're telling me Batman can track/chase Teleporting Elite Ninja Assassins all over the city but he can't keep track of one man with no powers or training whatsoever and who currently resembles one of the most wanted/hated people in the entire city?
721** Cutscene Incompetence + Hush being that good of a villain. The point of that last part is that he outsmarted Batman. And really, Batman is not one to "I can't catch him, but I can make him hurt!" and just throw a Batarang for kicks.
722** Assuming he discovered Hush before/during the entire Protocol 10 debacle, tracking him down simply wasn't a huge priority next to all the people dying.
723[[/folder]]
724
725[[folder: How did he give enough blood?]]
726* How did Joker get enough blood distributed to poison 2,000 people? The general rule of thumb for blood donations is 1 unit per eight weeks. Given how long it's been since Joker first injected himself with Titan, he's had enough time to produce 10 units of blood for transfusions, tops. One of them he used on Batman. Where'd the other 1,991 blood bags come from?
727** Poisoning people with his Titan-infected blood probably didn't require an entire bag -- a small dose would probably have worked just fine, meaning he only needed about 10 bags of his stuff. Note that he says ''"samples'' of my blood", not ''"bags'' of my blood". He probably had people in place to transfer small amounts of the poisoned blood into the hospital stores.
728[[/folder]]
729
730[[folder: Why give rocket launchers?]]
731* Protocol 10 involved using the TYGER helicopters to kill the prisoners of Arkham City. Given that, why did Strange give Penguin rocket launchers? You know, weapons that can be used to ''shoot down helicopters''. The last thing he'd want is one of the gangs capable of fighting him off.
732** There isn't any mention that Penguin's rocket launchers were given to him by Strange. Penguin is a black market racketeer and an arms salesman, so he probably had the rocket launchers somewhere inside the Iceberg Lounge long before Arkham City was built around him.
733** I think this is a case of reading between the lines. It's clarified in the game that Strange is deliberately allowing a pipeline of ''some'' illegal weapons into Arkham City to allow the gang-war to escalate, thus ensuring he can proceed with Protocol 10 which, as a reminder, basically means 'if Arkham City is going to hell, just destroy it all so it doesn't get any worse'. He may not know that rocket launchers are getting into the city, or he does and he doesn't care because he knows it'll bring Protocol 10 all the faster. Either way Strange is still letting it happen, and it'll serve his end goal regardless.
734[[/folder]]
735
736[[folder: Where did the phone come from?]]
737* Where did the phone that was taped to Batman's chest when he pulled himself out of the wreckage of the wheelchair come from? It wasn't there when Joker kicked him out of the window.
738** It is there, most of it is hidden behind the ropes around his chest but you can see the tape and a part of the phone sticking out above it.
739[[/folder]]
740
741[[folder:Disruptor effects on guns]]
742* How does the Disruptor work on the thugs' firearms? With the TYGER gun turrets, I can imagine they have some sort of electronic parts that the Disruptor can affect, but isn't a handheld rifle entirely mechanical? So how can the Disruptor jam it from a distance?
743** These are cutting-edge military-grade firearms, so I can imagine them having ''some'' electronic pieces, but the real reason is Batman in any medium is all about magic disguised as technology.
744** It's a stretch, but don't forget most of the guns in Arkham City (except for whatever Penguin had on him beforehand) were provided and possibly built by TYGER. If I were Hugo Strange, with the ultimate end goal of killing everyone in the city, a way to remotely turn the inmates' guns off'd be a really handy thing to have.
745[[/folder]]
746
747[[folder: Jack Ryder's arrest]]
748* I've not read all of the prequel comics yet, but the first 5-issue miniseries made Jack Ryder into a total cheerleader for Mayor Sharp and the Arkham City project. Why was he thrown in there, then? One guess of mine was that Strange knew he was the Creeper, another was that he was only acting to get close to Sharp to get the real story.
749** If you wander around before entering the courthouse to save Catwoman from Two-Face (and possibly later; I haven't checked this), you can find a group of thugs beating up Ryder and save him. If you talk to him, he mentions that he was doing a story on Strange - he heard rumors that Strange was brainwashing Arkham inmates, (though he didn't believe them) and was suspicious about the reason why Strange left the country. Either one of these would probably be viewed as Ryder [[HeKnowsTooMuch knowing too much]] or getting too close to the truth for Strange's liking.
750** I thought the conversation in the transit tunnel at the start of the game covered it nicely. Ryder was there covering Wayne's press conference, he got caught up in the [=TYGER=] sweep, and they threw him in the holding pens.
751[[/folder]]
752
753[[folder: The Demon Trials]]
754* So...how much of the Demon trails/fight with Ra's is happening? The demon trials I can understand as being a sort of obstacle course Bruce is just flying through in reality but Ra's being able to converse with him is somewhat harder to believe. As for the fight when Bruce is fighting the sand ninjas how much of it is him punching and kicking around at empty air, as there are no League members in the room after he wins?
755** I took it to be largely in his mind. The obstacle course didn't happen, but it represented him accepting the Blood of the Demon into his body to heal him (as Talia said, people don't tend to survive that process). The League wasn't testing him on his gliding abilities, but on his ability to survive the drink. As for the fight with Ra's, the only bits I took as literally happening were when he actually hit Ra's (hence the flashing back to the Lazarus room when you do so). The sand ninjas were just his inner demons.
756[[/folder]]
757
758[[folder: Riddler setting things up part II]]
759* Where did the Riddler get the manpower to set up the majority of his traps, as even with months of free time he couldn't have put it together all by himself?
760** "As you look upon my works, your primitive brain must be struggling to comprehend how I managed all of this. It was easy." My primitive brain doesn't get it either, but this is still one of his best lines in the game.
761** The thing that gets me isn't the big elaborate deathtraps that he had months to set up, it's replacing the cross on the church steeple with a question mark--he did that in the hour or two Batman was in the steel mill for the first time.
762** The guys you are hunting all across town interrogating who are working with riddler? It turns out they are working with riddler. They were the ones sneaking into their respective territories and preparing the traps for him.
763[[/folder]]
764
765[[folder: Why didn't Batman figure it out?]]
766* Why can't the World's Greatest Detective figure out that that "Joker" he's fighting, the one with no bones, is Clayface? ''I'' figured that out, and I'm not as smart as Batman.
767** SOMEWHAT plausible: he's at the end of his physical and mental rope. He's exhausted, close to death from toxins that are running rampant in his systems and may be causing him to hallucinate to some extent, and acting somewhat outside his normal mental state (being willing to let Strange continue to destroy Arkham City just to rescue Talia? Not seeming to care one way or the other that Ra's just died? ''Actually considering'' letting the Joker die without the cure?) Add that to the fact that Clayface can make himself feel very flesh-and-bone when he wants to, and yes, he could be fooled... Unless he turned on his detective vision, but [[GameplayAndStorySegregation there's a trope for that.]]
768** Arkham Origins does make that seem all the odder since Batman should know the Joker's not above Playing Identity Switcheroo.
769** Well, for one, he ''had'' just hallucinated Joker's face in Mr. Freeze's helmet. He probably just thought the Titan was getting to him again.
770** At this moment, Batman is fighting against a dozen of enemies at once, in a not-so-large room, with no place to hide. He didn't use his detective vision during the fight because he had no reason to, and it would make him waste time he couldn't afford to waste at the moment.
771[[/folder]]
772
773[[folder: Smashing cop hand]]
774* Just before Batman takes Penguin down, Penguin narrates as he freezes a cop's hand and smashes it with a hammer. Later, this cop gets attacked by the fleeing assassin. When you see him then, why does he have both hands? This Penguin doesn't seem the type to bluff something like that.
775** We probably have to chalk this one down to GameplayAndStorySegregation, since it would have probably been a bit too costly and time-consuming to generate a special character model for a guy that was almost entirely like all the other guys in the game except that he was missing a hand.
776*** Aaron Cash was already in the game; maybe they didn't want two one-handed minor characters?
777** It's possible that crushing the hand didn't destroy it. Ice makes some things brittle, yes, but it's probably a bit more nuanced than "hand suddenly turns into ice and shatters for being frozen". Granted, even if he still had his hand, it would at best be a bloody, mangled mess. As I understand it the freezing was likely just to make it more painful.
778** It's also possible that it's just a gaffe that wasn't fixed in time. The subtitles named the cop Denning, but Penguin never did. It may have been another cop that didn't survive.
779** As a side-note, I know someone who's looked for actual accident reports involving freezing, and he said he found a few severe freezing incidents. One involved a man who stepped into a bucket of liquid nitrogen wearing only his socks, possibly in an attempt at self-mutilation. His foot and lower leg were frozen solid and eventually required amputation, but they didn't shatter, remaining intact after thawing. In another case, a university student filling liquid nitrogen flasks collapsed and was found frozen to the floor but again, no shattering. The Mythbusters tested the Jason X "head smash" using pig's heads and liquid nitrogen; the "quick freeze" (even if the head was held in the nitrogen for a full minute) failed to produce results. Even when the pig's head was kept submerged for several minutes, they were able to break off chunks of flesh, but the bone beneath did not shatter. TL;DR: It would've been painful as hell, but since it occurred off-camera, for all we know the Penguin broke a chunk of ice while doing something else to make the cop scream, to try to fool Batman.
780[[/folder]]
781
782[[folder: Political prisoner coats]]
783* Where do the political prisoners get those warm coats? And how do they keep them, with all the violent sociopaths around, constantly complaining about the cold?
784** WMG: Strange gave them the coats because he hated them. He knew that all the violent freezing inmates would beat the crap out of these guys to take their coats. This explains why ''every'' political prisoner gets harassed by an inmate.
785[[/folder]]
786
787[[folder: Harley's miscarriage?]]
788* So... Did [[WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds Harley]] miscarry, or was it a false positive?
789** ''Harley Quinn's Revenge'' has Harley with more pregnancy tests, with the box warning that chances of false positive are there. Long story short, option 2.
790** They probably left it ambiguous for the fans to decide. Harley got beaten up during the main game, and the negative tests didn't show up until after the main game, so a miscarriage is not ruled out.
791** A miscarriage wouldn't even be ruled out if nobody laid a finger on her, for that matter. They happen. Plus, just because Harley's resistant to toxins doesn't mean her ''offspring'' would be, and that steel mill wasn't exactly a healthy work environment even ''before'' it got sealed away as part of the prison and Joker took it over.
792** Not to mention the stress and grief of losing the Joker.
793** If you look at the pregnancy test, it says negative.
794[[/folder]]
795
796[[folder: Riddler's messages]]
797* Why do Riddler's messages have that [[ElectronicSpeechImpediment strange skipping effect?]] Are they supposed to be prerecorded? If so, does that mean that he recorded his [[VillainousBreakdown angry freakouts]] in advance on the off-chance that he lost?
798** I doubt that Riddler would prerecord "lose" messages since he is so sure of himself that he didn't even give his last hostage a code. He probably uses some voice alteration to get the effect on purpose, because he thinks it sounds cool. Or maybe his speakers are just junk.
799** I assumed that it was just a sort of weird static-radio distortion that comes from operating what's no doubt a jury-rigged radio communication device in an area that's practically buzzing with all kinds of radio transmissions.
800[[/folder]]
801
802[[folder:Arkham naming]]
803* Why is it called Arkham City? If it's a general population prison city, wouldn't Blackgate City make more sense? Arkham was a home for the mentally ill. Most of the thugs you fight in the city don't seem to be head cases.
804** Arkham City got its name from its proximity to Arkham Asylum. The island the asylum is on became the base for the omnipresent helicopters in Arkham City.
805** Arkham Asylum is a lot more famous and iconic than Blackgate Prison.
806[[/folder]]
807
808[[folder: Harley's pregnancy]]
809* I don't get the whole deal with Harley's pregnancy. I know about all the negative tests in Harley's Revenge after the positive one is seen in the original adventure. Doesn't make a lot of sense what people are speculating, though; IRL, a pregnancy test producing a false negative (saying you're not pregnant when you are) is quite common, but a false positive (a test saying you're pregnant when you're not) is ''extremely'' rare. Pretty much the only thing that could produce a false positive would be if you were taking certain fertility drugs (which I highly doubt Harley was). The whole thing isn't very clear at all, and the devs seem to have said nothing to enlighten us, but I think the best guess is that she ''was'' pregnant, but subsequently miscarried. Or possibly she's still preggo, but the other tests just can't pick up on it... it does happen, but who knows...
810** Extremely rare? Absolutely. Impossible? By no means. It doesn't happen often, but neither does a psychiatrist falling in love with her deformed, insane patient, becoming a super-criminal, and owning pet hyenas. Plus, it's quite possible she was taking fertility drugs, likely behind Joker's back. From what we see in the DLC, she was quite excited to have Joker's child and was hurt when the test was a false positive. Besides, the box warns of false positives, so it appears Fruitful Endeavor isn't the best pregnancy test money can buy.
811** Which means it could probably turn out a lot of false negatives just as easily. Ya never know.
812** Statistically speaking, though, a pile full of negatives is probably more accurate in this case than ''one'' positive. And, even though it's more common in animals than people, there are cases of women sometimes exhibiting symptoms of pregnancy without actually being pregnant, for reasons such as gland malfunction or psychological problems.
813** Considering that the negative tests appeared AFTER the main game, it doesn't rule out the possibility of either thing: a miscarriage or a false positive. Considering the way Harley got roughed up throughout the game, a miscarriage is very likely as well. They probably left it up for fans to decide.
814* Let's do the Doylist reason first. They decided, either because it wasn't fair to beat up on her after learning this, or because they wanted to do a different plot, that Harley wasn't pregnant. So...they needed a reason why that arc didn't go anywhere. Explanation? False positive. So, Harley's thing has a 'risk of false positives'...and she was just using a VERY crappy test. (Early-term miscarriage is also possible, too.)
815
816[[/folder]]
817
818[[folder: Robin calm about fighting Black Mask]]
819* Why was Robin acting so mellow during the Black Mask campaign? Am I the only one who remembers that Black Mask KILLED HIS GIRLFRIEND?!?
820** This is an AlternateContinuity. That may well have never happened here. Heck, given DC's current attitude towards Stephanie Brown, she may well not exist in the Arkhamverse.
821** That's arguably even worse.
822[[/folder]]
823
824[[folder:Strange's note]]
825* Strange left Batman a note in Crime Alley saying that "It will end where it began". How could he possibly have known Joker would take Talia to the Monarch Theater? Not only was it impossible to predict, but he was dying while he took her there.
826** The deeper explanation is that both Talia and Strange are working for Ra's. Remember that Joker didn't take Talia to the Monarch, Talia took the Joker there because the Lazarus Pit was underneath. Ra's may very well have anticipated baiting Batman into a showdown there and Strange left the tape. Of course, Strange would have assumed the "end" would be Batman's death while Ra's meant it as "Batman is forced to kill and join the League." The simpler and more likely explanation is that Strange just meant it will end in the same neighborhood.
827** No she didn't. It's likely, based on the evidence, that Talia made it just out of sight before being captured. Remember she wasn't with Joker, she was with Clayface had Joker been aware of the Pit at all he'd probably be on his way there it's not as if he doesn't have access to Clayface who'd make rather short work of the League of Assassins. Since Joker who at best was in no condition to travel quickly IS at the Monarch it only makes sense that he chose the location, not the other way around.
828** Watch [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nv_Y8LJihwE the cutscene]]. Batman gets pinned by the rubble, and Talia comes in to offer Joker immortality. She is the one who leads them out of the scene, not him, so it makes sense that she led them to the Monarch. She wasn't going to offer them the pit, so they tie her up and use her as a hostage.
829** So she leads him/them directly over the last place on Earth she would want him to be? That makes NO sense. Remember Talia didn't lead Joker ANYWHERE, the most we can hope for is that he beat her and she for some completely ignorant reason lead him directly to the thing he'd want the most. Talia is far too smart for that when she could just as easily lead him to any of a dozen sites in the city.
830** It could be that he had it set up, assuming that the beginning and ending would be Wonder Tower, where he had Bruce Wayne in the game's beginning, and only wanted to intimidate Batman first, while it just happened to be Monarch Theater that Batman returned to. Given the many coincidences that pop up, I wouldn't be surprised if another one happened to occur.
831** A bit of a Wild Mass Guess, but it's possible that Strange was ''planning'' to use Crime Alley and the Monarch Theater for some kind of final little bit of smug gloating after his final triumph over Batman -- for example, displaying his body along with the chalk outline of his parents to mock how Batman's quest has, after everything, ended in humiliating failure. He seems like the kind of nasty little prick who'd do something like that.
832** Also -- Strange presumably knows about the Lazarus Pit under the theater as well. He's no doubt anticipating his triumphant first bath as the new boss of the League of Assassins, which will be made sweeter by the knowledge that he can rub it in over Batman by having it at the exact point where Batman's quest began, only to end in failure. He just doesn't anticipate being beaten and killed and the Joker deciding to take a dip there instead.
833[[/folder]]
834
835[[folder: Jervis carrying Batman]]
836* Okay, how the hell did Jervis Tetch, who is about 4'11'' and has very little muscle tone, manage to drag Batman, who is 6'2'' and almost twice his weight, off a roof, down the street, over a fence, down some steps, and through a door? Moreover, how did he manage that without being jumped by thugs who would have seen Mad Hatter with a trippin' Batman, and all the more easy to take out right then and there? Hatter isn't exactly on the higher tier for the Rogues Gallery, and I'm sure he could have been easily overwhelmed by all the mooks hanging around the general area, as it seems to be a hot spot.
837** Then again, perhaps the sight of a crazy little man with a fancy hat, joyously dragging Batman through the streets by the foot, possibly with a skip in his step, likely quoting Lewis Carroll, possibly singing about how he finally got the Bat, and that they are going to have a tea party, might have caused everyone to back the hell away from THAT guy. Either way, I'm sure the visual idea was probably amusing...
838** Easy. The Mad Hatter has his mooks who carried Batman. Remember at the end of the scene how you're surrounded by all the people you've just beat? I'd be willing to bet that pound-for-pound Hatter probably has the strongest gang in Arkham. His gangsters feel no pain and thus can push much harder than the normal man. Now he doesn't have enough to be a threat to anybody, knows well enough to keep his head down but your average guys probably want no part of him, and with good reason.
839** Unless one of the gangs decides to sic a Titan on them, but presumably they'd just figure he's not worth it.
840** Also, Jervis Tetch might not exactly be the Joker, but he's still ''a crazed supervillain''. He's not only a creepy lunatic, he's a notorious criminal in Gotham City who frequently goes up against Batman toe-to-toe and gives him a hard time. He is unpredictable and capable of controlling people's minds and turning them into his brainwashed slaves. He's one of Arkham's regular customers. For all that he looks like a shrimpy little guy with a hat-fixation, he is not someone to be messed with lightly, and especially not by some anonymous goon. I imagine that anyone who isn't one of Tetch's mind-controlled goons decides that Jervis Tetch's arrival is best met by turning around and moving as quickly in the opposite direction as possible. Look at it this way: Jeffrey Dahmer is known to have murdered fewer people than John Wayne Gacy, but that does not mean that Jeffrey Dahmer was not still an incredibly dangerous person or that it wouldn't be a bad idea to try something with him.
841** Don't forget that Jervis' entire gimmick is mind control. As soon as he slipped the rabbit mask onto Batman, he could just tell him to go to the apartment and he'd probably just walk there by himself.
842[[/folder]]
843
844[[folder: Only Joker dying from overdose]]
845* How come Joker's the only one to die from TITAN? Was the overdose THAT severe?
846** Why are you assuming he's the only one to die? Every one of his mooks from the first game could already be dead by this point.
847** The Arkham City Stories also reveal that Poison Ivy also nearly died from TITAN exposure, so it's not just him. She only got a cure by her bloodstream synthesizing it, using her [[PlantPerson biology]] and some handy pollen.
848** At least one IS dead; the very first Titan thug you fight in Arkham Asylum keels over in the middle of the fight (well, the end, obviously, but whatever), and a scan reveals him to be deceased.
849** IIRC, in Arkham Asylum, didn't it say that Joker took a larger dose than everyone else? If not, then it is odd, because Joker's been building up an immunity to chemicals for a long time, with his own Joker Venom and "one bad day" at the Ace Chemical Plant.
850** "Immunity to chemicals" is a pretty broad claim -- there are ''lots'' of chemicals out there. Presumably, even the Joker's system can't cope with whatever's in Titan (or, perhaps more likely, the fact that the Joker's exposed himself to so many different toxins over the years means that his system just completely given up and crashed).
851** I thought that somewhere they said that it was specifically the interaction of TITAN to Joker and Ivy's nonstandard DNA that made it lethal to them.
852[[/folder]]
853
854[[folder: Unwilling to kill Ra's]]
855* Why was Batman unwilling to kill Ra's al Ghul? The man is the ultimate case of DeathIsCheap, so killing him wouldn't have any more lasting consequences than knocking out a normal mook.
856** Presumably Ra's left instructions that he not be helped under those circumstances. In the comics, the Pit does have limitations and Ra's is reaching them. That's the entire reason he's so focused on Batman and trying to get him to take up the mantle.
857** The Pit has limitations here too. Ra's mentions that each time he uses the Pit, he comes out a bit different. It probably won't be long before further Lazarus-ing becomes untenable. Even so, I imagine Bats wants to avoid not only killing Ra's, but taking on the leadership of a secret organization that is meant to murder its way to world "peace".
858** In addition to that, it's implied that the Pit in this universe couldn't bring people to life until recently when Ra's started experimenting on it--only extend their lifespan. It's an unstable rejuvenation tactic at best, and Batman's too principled to break his one rule on what MIGHT be a technicality.
859** Furthermore, Batman has always been very wary of making any exception to ThouShaltNotKill, out of a fear that his mental state is fragile enough that once he crosses that line for 'any' reason, he won't be able to stop.
860** Given that when Superman broke that rule, he [[VideoGame/InjusticeGodsAmongUs quickly degenerated]] into a murderous tyrant, it may just ''be what happens'' when a modern superhero breaks that cardinal rule. I'd say Batman is just ProperlyParanoid about the dangers of [[ArtisticLicensePsychology Comic Book Psychology]].
861[[/folder]]
862
863[[folder: Talia sparing Harley]]
864* Why did Talia tie up Harley instead of killing her? Especially after berating Batman about how short-sighted his refusal to kill was.
865** Harley probably isn't dangerous enough to rate it. She's an assassin with a cause, not a cold-blooded murderer.
866** Fan speculation is that Harley revealed her pregnancy.
867[[/folder]]
868
869[[folder: Robin and Nightwing playability]]
870* Why aren't Robin and Nightwing playable in WideOpenSandbox mode? They could have just as many conversations with the inmates as Catwoman.
871** Because that's not the basis on which those decisions are made. They're not playable in that mode because they weren't part of the regular game.
872** Robin actually ''was'' part of the story. Briefly, yes, but he was still there.
873** Yes, but he wasn't playable in the game. Robin and Nightwing were only playable in alternate story DLC and challenge maps, whereas Catwoman was playable in the main storyline.
874[[/folder]]
875
876[[folder:Bane's size]]
877* So, Bane's profile says he weighs 140 pounds and measures at 5'6" when not juiced up on Venom. This means, when not 'roided up, he weighs the same as Harley and is an inch shorter than her. I thought Bane trained himself to peak physical condition with Venom just augmenting that, rather than Venom being the only reason for his strength. Or is it different in the Arkhamverse?
878** FWIW, 5'6 140 lbs is the size and weight of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Bradley Timothy Bradley]], the undefeated Welterweight champion of the WBO. So it's not necessarily indicative of weakness.
879** Bane was pumped full of TITAN in the last game: the stuff that's outright killing the Joker here. Maybe the price he pays for not only surviving it but using more in this game's a dependency on it.
880** It could be like the Lazarus Pit, it's sucking his life dry the more he takes it. Arkham Origins shows him at a far more healthy, realistic size years before, so he probably USED to be in prime physical condition before years of taking Venom.
881** Dr. Young had been sucking the Venom out of his blood. That's also why he looked like a skeleton in the previous game.
882[[/folder]]
883
884[[folder: Bruce's eyes]]
885* Why do Bruce Wayne's eyes have LensFlare?
886[[/folder]]
887
888[[folder: Questioning Sharp]]
889* When Batman interrogates Quincy Sharp for information on Strange, why doesn't he bother asking him about Protocol 10? He's still trying to figure out exactly what Protocol 10 is at this point, and surely there's a good chance the Mayor, of all people, would know.
890** Hugo more than likely considers Sharp a pawn in his game, someone to be manipulated and not trusted with important info. Batman being Batman knows this, thus he doesn't bother asking. Considering what Sharp did in the last game, I wouldn't trust the man as far as I could throw Humpty Dumpty.
891[[/folder]]
892
893[[folder: Guards afraid of death?]]
894* Okay in the original game it made sense why the prisoners were starting to freak out during the challenge quests. Joker was going to kill them if they screwed up. In Arkham City, though Riddler makes no threats at all towards their lives, the closest he comes is implying that the prisoners/TYGER Guards are going to die down there but it seems implied that they think whichever hero you're playing as will kill them. Three out of four have incredibly strict no-kill rules and the fourth is as strict as you can be without it being carved in stone.
895** Either Riddler ''will'' kill them (and just says so off-screen), the guards don't know about the no-kill policies, or they're simply afraid of being beaten to a pulp.
896** Being abducted by a maniac is scary even if he's not a ''homicidal'' maniac.
897[[/folder]]
898
899[[folder: Joker attacking Batman when he's holding the cure]]
900* Seriously? Attacking a person holding a glass test tube and expecting him to keep it in his hand? What a moron. Why not guilt-trip Batman into handing over the cure, take it, get healed, and ''then'' attack Batman?
901** Joker is desperate and not thinking straight at that point. He's like a starving man presented with a turkey sandwich. He's not going to ''ask'' for it, he's going to grab for it.
902** It's Joker. He thinks that making things more difficult for Batman is some type of joke.
903[[/folder]]
904
905[[folder: Creating Arkham City]]
906* This is more in light of the release of Arkham Origins, but how did Quincy Sharp convince ''anyone'' to approve of Arkham City's plan? As we see in ''Origins'', Arkham City is made up for a full ''half'' of Gotham's land mass. How did he convince anyone that a prison break in Arkham (Let alone one that was contained to the island unlike the Blackgate breakouts of ''Origins'') was worth surrendering ''half'' the city to house criminals? Not even counting that it was worth sacrificing Gotham's industrial district AND Gotham harbor to this plan, therefore assassinating Gotham's economy. Hell, how did Gotham even ''afford'' to pay imminent domain reparations to the owners of ''half the city'' and still have enough cash to afford to pay Tyger and set up the walls?
907** Except, Arkham City isn't half of the city; it's not even a third, from the looks of things. In Arkham Origins, you don't get access to all of Gotham, as one could see from looking out to the skybox. The game world's just two small islands in the bay of Gotham. It'd be like wandering around Manhattan relative to New York City. Plus, TYGER is a private institution.
908[[/folder]]
909
910[[folder: Arkham Museum]]
911* So no one felt anything in Arkham museum was worth relocating? None of the priceless artifacts or exhibits were worth the effort. It's not like the Museum had to be vacated in a hurry either. Why was everything left there for the criminals to have their ways with?
912** I'm not playing the game right now but what priceless artifacts are in the Arkham Museum? In real museums, the fossils are usually replicas of the real fossils in back rooms or often off-site entirely. Penguin seemed to have replaced the majority of the displays but I don't see any evidence that he didn't find them empty and put what he wanted in them. The Mammoth like most of what's lying around the museum is probably just a large fairly expensive stuffed animal, worth moving. Probably not when you remember that Arkham City was a rush job and shutting down the Steel Mill and making it inoperable should have been a fairly high priority when they started locking not just criminals but with Mr. Freeze, in there they have at least one genius level individual that they knowingly locked in.
913** It's the Penguin's museum he ended up in Arkham city because they built it on top of his territory and he refused to give it up, so he had no reason to send the exhibits out if he was staying
914[[/folder]]
915
916[[folder: Batman's first meeting with the Joker]]
917* During the end of the first act, we see the dead Joker, and Batman's Detective Vision marks him quite clearly as 'deceased'. The last act reveals that this Joker was the REAL one all along, and the healthy Joker that showed up now and again was Clayface. This raises the question: how did the Joker make himself look so dead that Batman's super-advanced technology couldn't tell he was faking it?
918** I think he couldn't... But he's crazy enough to kill himself with some poison or an electric shock, being dead for a few minutes, and to have himself reanimated by Harley when Batman is K.O.
919** Simple, he killed someone, dressed them up like him, and propped him up in the chair. The technology already exists to mask life signs as well.
920** Nope, it was the real Joker. In the cutscene when Batman figures it out, he moves to get up.
921** Aren't there poisons in the real world that can temporarily make someone appear dead?
922** Problem solved, turned into Fridge Brilliance: In ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamOrigins'', it is revealed in the Cyrus Pinkney case file that Amadeus Arkham can make a potion that can temporarily make someone appear dead. That can explain why the Joker appears to be dead to Batman: he stole the formula of the "magic potion" from the asylum and drank it as the battle with Mr. Hammer was coming to a close.
923[[/folder]]
924
925[[folder: Ra's, Batman, and Strange]]
926* Ra's al Ghul planned on getting Batman to kill him and take his place, thus becoming the new master of the League of Assassins. Considering that Hugo Strange was initiating Protocol 10 to get in the good graces of the League of Assassins' master, wouldn't that end up being counterproductive?
927** Ra's was using Strange all along--he never thought of him as a worthy successor, at least not in the stead of Batman, and he even says as much when Strange is killed. Ra's might have backed Hugo's scheme, but that doesn't mean they coordinated on everything.
928[[/folder]]
929
930[[folder:Ricochet]]
931* If he uses a special rifle that can pierce sheet metal, how could Deadshot kill by ricocheting a bullet off a garage door? And on the same topic, why did Strange request that he kill Bruce Wayne AND Batman when Strange is one of the few to know his dual identity?
932** 1. He's just that good. 2. Redundancy. He wants him dead. If he tells Deadshot to kill just one, and Deadshot happens to see the other, then he misses a perfectly good chance to kill him. Strange doesn't want anyone to know Wayne is Batman.
933** I can't recall that shot perfectly, but is that the one that goes through the water tank and then off the garage? Well, it's possible that the bullet velocity was reduced by just the right amount by the water, or that he's using a 'sabot' kind of round where the water piercing outside is stripped away in the process, leaving a bullet capable of bouncing off thin sheet metal. FanWank, for sure, but this wouldn't be the first instance of a comic book character using outrageous ammunition. If the shots were two separate instances, then it's simple. Changing the type of cartridge, or more likely, using a different model of rifle, since you find his backup during the hunt for him.
934** Simple about the second one: Deadshot is a known criminal and the kind of man that Strange definitely would want dead. If he killed Bruce/Batman in Bruce form, he'd have to search for Batman (until dying in Protocol 10). If he killed Batman, he'd have to stay in Arkham, searching for Bruce.
935[[/folder]]
936
937[[folder: Arming the inmates]]
938* If Ra's wanted to convince Batman that his way was best, why not distract Batman, let his ninja army loose on the inmates when he's not looking, then use Protocol 10 to cover it up without having to arm the inmates themselves?
939** Because it wasn't Ra's who set up Arkham City or devised Protocol 10, it was Strange. Ra's just gave him the resources to carry out his plan. How Strange went about it was entirely up to him. As far as arming the inmates, Strange intended to slaughter them en masse, so he introduced the guns to reduce the inmate population to a manageable size, as well as give the main bosses (Two-Face, Penguin, Joker) the clout to forcibly recruit members for their gangs. By ensuring that nearly every inmate was either a) in a gang, or b) dead, Strange could be sure that the surviving inmates would be in large groups, making them that much easier to kill with a few well-aimed missiles. Besides, Strange enjoys having power over the inmates and would take a great deal of pleasure in arming them and watching them kill each other, to "poke the beehive with a stick", as it were. It's not like they would have been a match for the more heavily armed and military-trained Tyger Guards, so there was no threat to Strange's operation.
940** Whoops, not quite. This touches on another question...
941** It's not just convincing Batman, it's about convincing the Gotham City council as well. Strange needed those guns inside the prison as 'evidence' that Arkham City must be purged via Protocol 10. Otherwise, the council would be asking questions as to why all the prisoners are suddenly dead. They had to choose for themselves, even if they were being manipulated by Strange.
942[[/folder]]
943
944[[folder:Bad Ending]]
945* Okay, so in the non-standard Game Over, Wayne Manor is under attack from the Joker's forces. How did Joker survive Protocol 10 without Batman's intervention?
946** Compromised, not under attack. IOW, the attack's over, Joker's probably using the Batcave as a base, and is laughing his ass off at the idea of Bruce "prissy little rich boy" Wayne being Batman. To answer your question, remember, Talia had come to Joker and offered him a swim in a Lazarus Pit. Entirely possible the League of Assassins got him out of the city once Protocol 10 kicked in.
947** Why would they do that? The League of Assassins was ''behind'' Protocol 10. Why would they undermine it by smuggling Joker out?
948** I'm not sure how, but presumably, after getting a nice rejuvenating dip in the Lazarus Pit the Joker was sufficiently reinvigorated and not consumed by his impending death to turn Protocol 10 to his advantage somehow; he's kind of an ingenious dick that way. It's possible the Joker had some kind of plan for how to turn Arkham City and the whole situation to his advantage, but we never learned what it was because it hinged on him being cured and that ultimately never happened.
949** Joker survived because he was in the Lazarus Pit, which is directly underneath Wonder Tower. Not much chance Professor Strange is going to blow up the building he is in on the off chance it'll make Wonder City collapse. From there, Joker probably climbed the Tower and took Strange out.
950** As I read the headscratchers page we tropers seem to forget this a lot. Joker wasn't at the Lazarus Pit. He was at either the mill or the theater. We do not indicate that Joker was even aware of the Pit and it is beneath the theater is pure happenstance. Even if he had known he certainly didn't have anything to do with the construction of the city.
951** Except for the fact that last we saw the Joker, he was being led away by Talia who ''specifically said'' she was going to make him the head of her armies, i.e. take him to the Lazarus pit. It was a feint on her part, but her objective was to force Batman to kill the Joker, and what better impetus than taking him to a source of immortality? The only way Talia and the Joker knew Batman was still alive was that he shut down Protocol 10, otherwise the Joker wouldn't have had any reason to take her hostage.
952** Joker was still sick and the Lazarus Pit seems to cure anything. Just a shot of Ra's Lazarus-infused blood was enough to give Batman hours of relief. Joker therefore never made it to the Pit. It's remotely possible he was planning on going there [=AFTERwards=] but that still doesn't explain his surviving Protocol 10 since we know that immediately after escaping Wonder Tower Joker contacted Batman and invited him to the theater. There wasn't enough time between the escape and the Tower for Joker to have set up that plan if it wasn't Plan A and not the backup plan. Also, remember that was Clayface NOT Joker. There is no indication Joker, the real Joker, ever learned anything about the Lazarus Pit at all.
953** Joker tells Batman during the fight with Clayface that he's "making [him] late for [his] spa treatment". So yes, the real Joker did know about the Lazarus Pit, and was planning to use it but didn't get to it in time. Also, Talia isn't stupid and wasn't going to give a maniac like Joker access to immortality. She was likely stalling for time until Batman showed up, like giving him a basic idea of where the pit is but not being helpful on how to get to it.
954
955[[/folder]]
956
957[[folder: Bad Ending and Joker]]
958
959* If you make the [[ButThouMust wrong]] choice in Catwoman's final segment, you get treated to a clip of Oracle calling out that Gotham is overrun... by The Joker. How did that happen? He would have to abandon his usual M.O. in favor of all-out war and defeat Tyger, as well as Ra's Al-Ghul, who would certainly get involved once either Talia died or Joker tried to reach the Lazarus Pit. He has tricks up his sleeve, sure, including a certain tricky FinalBoss, but those odds still seem pretty insurmountable.
960** Considering that he has Clayface, who is the perfect spy/saboteur, those odds look a lot better. It's also implied some time has passed. Ra's only has centuries on his side, an army of ninjas, and immortality. The Joker would have his thugs, Harley, Clayface, immortality, and Talia as a hostage.
961** I think the implication there is Talia does take Joker to the Lazarus pit making him immortal and super strong.
962** I think given the limited time frame between Talia walking away with Joker and Batman's victory that the most likely answer is that there's an important piece of information because only Harley and Joker know the truth.
963** As for Joker starting an all-out war, during Protocol 10, if you go down into the sewers or the subway, you'll find both of those entrances blocked off by Joker's gang, which would explain how Joker would still have an army for an all-out attack on Gotham. Hell, Joker would be able to invade Wonder Tower with Clayface's help and after a dip in the Lazarus Pit, shut down Protocol 10 himself, or even use Strange's authority to make TYGER attack Gotham since all the TYGER forces were brainwashed by Strange. So there were a lot of ways that the Joker could have turned Protocol 10 to his advantage had Batman died.
964** You could also interpret it simply as Catwoman's imagination of what would happen if she were to leave.
965** But she doesn't know [[LateArrivalSpoiler Batman is Bruce Wayne.]]
966[[/folder]]
967
968[[folder: Joker and the Pit]]
969* Going off the above possibility that Joker had reached a Lazarus pit and that he appeared dead at the beginning of the game as already mentioned, as well as Clayface being 'nutty' and very into his acting. Who is to say that Joker had not bathed in the Pit, become immortal or at the very least healed, acted ill, and Killed Talia to hide the fact that he is medically fine, had Clayface taken his role after he emerged unharmed from the Pit, then played dead and got switched between the time that they put him on the Car's hood, and when they cremate him in the tie-in comic series?
970** Problem: Clayface got toasted by the Lazarus pit in the game. Joker is officially KIA. The guy he is supposed to switch with is now electrified goo.
971** Though (and this is shown in the Animated Series as well as the boss battle) Clayface is capable of making more than one body. It's also possible that only part of him was electrocuted in the Lazarus Pit, and another part of him somewhere else was fine.
972[[/folder]]
973
974[[folder: Zsasz and Dr. Cassidy]]
975* During Zsasz's second phone call to Batman, a recent case history shows up, revealing that Batman rescued Dr. Sarah Cassidy (the pretty redhead doctor from the first video game) from Zsasz on April 20. In ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamAsylum'', the infamous interview tape that recorded Dr. Whistler's call to Dr. Cassidy, seconds before Zsasz kidnapped her, happened on December 22. Now, is this a glaring continuity error, or did Zsasz seriously hold Dr. Cassidy captive for almost four months without mutilating her even a scratch?
976** Chances are it was a repeated attack. The pre-game comic that takes place before Arkham Asylum shows that Zsasz was about to kill her not too long after he grabbed her only for Batman to intervene just in time.
977[[/folder]]
978
979[[folder: Protocol 10 Part II]]
980* While Protocol 10 is going on, Strange mentions that Part 2 of Protocol 10 will initiate, with 3 Arkham city-like camps opening in other cities of the DC universe to presumably start anew. How? Who will agree to open new things like this when Arkham City just murdered everyone in it? Why conduct protocol 10 before the other camps are opened?
981** Protocol 10 will, ideally, result in the death of Joker, Penguin, Two-Face, Killer Croc, Scarecrow, The Mad Hatter, Harley Quinn, Black Mask, Poison Ivy, and Mr. Freeze. And that's just the official roster Clayface for example isn't supposed to be there. That's just the high octane, guys. There are hundreds or thousands of run-of-the-mill grunts. With all of them gone Gotham would probably be a much safer place. Whether or not it would work that is Strange's plan. As is mentioned above the better question becomes how did he expect something similar to work? Arkham City works because very few of its inhabitants have super powers. (I'm convinced Poison Ivy is just staying because she's polite, not that she couldn't escape a dozen ways if she chose) By contrast, Arkham City would hold villains like Killer Frost, Livewire, and Parasite for as long as they chose to humor you. The Metropolis bunch also doesn't seem to infight nearly as much as the Gotham villains. Joker, Penguin, and Two-Face working together to escape instead of fighting each other for control would probably yield results.
982** This also raises the question of 'How do they expect Superman to stand for it because he sure as hell won't allow them to redo it in Metropolis. Even if he had some magical Kryptonite generator thing to keep him away, he'd still have to deal with Clark Kent, the Pulitzer-prize-winning journalist. Vicki Vale was already a significant thorn in his side and she doesn't even have superpowers.
983** I don't think Superman would be able to stop them. He is usually hesitant to interfere with official government ideas regardless of his personal opinion. I doubt he'd do anything if Strange managed to get the mayor and council on board. However, Metropolis is generally depicted as much less corrupt than Gotham and overall a safer place as well. The citizens of Gotham are willing to consider very extreme options to get their crime rate under control because they have people like Joker and Scarecrow running around. Metropolis on the other hand doesn't seem like the kind of place that ever gets sufficiently horrible that the locals would consider cordoning off a section of the city for a prison. Nor does it seem like it would be as easy to buy your way there. The same with Keystone City. Honestly, this is the kind of scenario that's only plausible for those reasons and the above about general power levels in a few cities in the DCU. Gotham, Blud Haven, and in some tellings Starling. Nearly every other city is either not corrupt and desperate enough or has villains that would laugh their way past Tiger guards.
984** Yeah, I'm pretty sure that Superman's "hesitancy to interfere in official government ideas" doesn't extend to ideas that revolve around walling off entire borough of the city he lives in, stuffing them full of prisoners, and machine-gunning the prisoners from the air. His hesitancy generally stems from interfering in the democratic process and stifling free-will, not passively tolerating state-sanctioned genocide.
985** The problem is, that Arkham City is a human rights violation. Prisoners are executed en masse without trial and regardless of their sentence, not to mention the fact that they were locked up and (were Strange's plan to work) ''executed billionaire Bruce Wayne''. Imagine the outrage if Bill Gates was locked up and executed without a trial. You're 100% correct about everything you said regarding Metropolis and Keystone City. There would be no future for the Arkham City program and I took Strange ranting about it otherwise as a sign of him undergoing SanitySlippage.
986** As mentioned in another folder on this page, this one's a lot simpler than we're making out. Hugo Strange, among his many psychological issues and neuroses, is a narcissistic megalomanic. Of ''course'' he's going to have a distorted view of exactly how much people will love him for machine-gunning people from the air and will want to keep letting him do it; it's part of his delusions.
987[[/folder]]
988
989[[folder: So Bruce Wayne's kind of a badass]]
990* So more than a few people saw a handcuffed Bruce Wayne knock several men unconscious to save Jack Ryder, with five Penguin thugs beaten unconscious just after he woke up after he got knocked out with a pipe. Does no one mention any of this during the conversations?
991** Why would they mention it? He indeed knocked a few people unconscious to save Ryder, but that didn't really take any special skill and as soon as he grabbed Ryder, he was knocked unconscious. As for Penguin and his thugs, do you think they want other inmates to know that Bruce Wayne kicked their asses? "The pretty boy billionaire kicked the Penguin's ass", that's gotta be insulting to his reputation. Plus after he got away they wanted other thugs to find him and some might be hesitant to do so if they learn that he is much more skilled than they realized.
992** I think the point they're trying to make is when this billionaire pretty boy who people seem to assume has never even been in a fight started doling out moves out of nowhere, those being eerily similar to those used by a certain masked vigilante, how did nobody even START putting the pieces in place to think they were the same?
993** Even if only a select few people ever know or suspect that Bruce Wayne is Batman, pretty much everybody knows that he's a billionaire - hence, a prime kidnapping target - and that his parents were murdered by a gunman. It's not like he's taking a few self-defense classes as a precaution would be out of the question, even for his playboy persona; indeed, it's the least one can expect of a rich man who doesn't bring along a bodyguard in a crime-ridden city. Plus, he's a ''big'' guy.
994** For you.
995[[/folder]]
996
997[[folder: How was Quincy Sharp ever elected?]]
998* Seriously, how terrible were the people running against him ??? "My vision to re-open and run Arkham Asylum culminated in a break out where a single criminal (Harley) aided by a single corrupt guard (Boyle) was capable of taking over the facility's security system in its entirety and unleashing the entire inmate population, resulting in the death of most of my staff, as well as that of several patients of the asylum who were being treated there for whatever reason, and several GCPD officers. My approval of the Titan research project also allowed it to be manufactured in such huge quantities with such low safety standards that it was almost used to poison the entire city. This was the second near total break out of my facility's inmates (Counting the events of ''Assault on Arkham''). As Mayor of Gotham, this is the kind of administration I wish to bring to you, my dear citizens!" Who looked at a dude who failed to run his damn asylum (Which, again, was only opened because he lobbied for it!) and went "That dude is the mayor we need!"
999** Because that wasn't exactly his campaign platform. Do you think most of that would be made public? Sharp's platform was that he was the one responsible for saving the day in Arkham Asylum.
1000** Either Strange had the exact details of the break-out covered up, he ''was'' setting up Arkham City at this point, or the blame was shifted to Dr. Young due to her reckless pursuit of Titan and not saying anything until Batman confronted her; the interview tapes and the emails that Oracle looked through revealed she knew well in advance what Joker was going to do, and she said nothing. She's arguably more responsible for the breakout than Quincy.
1001** It's established that Ra's al Ghul and the League of Shadows were backing Strange, who was, in turn, puppet-mastering Sharpe, so it's incredibly likely that there was ''some'' kind of voter fraud or shady dealings going on in that election. It's Gotham, their local government isn't exactly free from corruption.
1002[[/folder]]
1003[[folder: Why does Strange let Batman live?]]
1004* Right at the beginning, Strange has Batman at his mercy. He knows that Batman is his competition, right? First off, Strange has an evil plan, and Batman is known for disrupting that kind of thing. Second, Batman is Ra's favorite to be his successor, which is the job that Strange wants for himself. He's got Bruce Wayne tied up already. He knows Bruce Wayne is Batman. Why not just shoot him in the head? He implies that he needs Batman alive for his master plan, saying "Now that you're here, Protocol 10 can begin." But the idea of Protocol 10 is to arm all the criminals and get them to fight each other, so Strange can get permission from the City Council to blow up Arkham City and kill all the criminals. Why does he need Batman alive for all that? Just give guns to the baddies and wait till they start killing each other. (Heck, they're ''already'' killing each other before Wayne even enters the City. Two-face is about to execute Catwoman, and Joker has a grudge against Freeze.)
1005** The most obvious answer is Strange was told by Ra's that he could not kill him like that. He's usually shown as having some degree of "honor" if you will or at least respect for Bruce. The other answer is that Batman upsets the balance in Arkham City. Remember it's not that the council cares that the criminals are killing each other but rather it was a loss of control. When we come into the city it seems the three major gangs of Joker, Two-Face and Penguin seem to be at a standstill, with the only one that was even remotely vulnerable to any attack being Two-Face. The other gangs are preparing to attack once Joker dies, but no one knows when that would happen. Throw Batman in, and things start going in a few hours. It's hard to imagine Joker's Gang managing to do much to the museum or Penguin doing much to the Steel Mill. Strange likely told Batman about Protocol 10 just to give him incentive to snoop around (as well as put him in Deadshot's line of fire).
1006** There's also one other factor: Strange can ''say'' that Bruce is Batman, but he needs proof. In the third Catwoman segment, he orders a squad be sent out to pick up Batman's body after Protocol 10 finishes. Shooting Wayne right there just gets Strange a dead guy, but letting him run loose as Batman proves that he's a vigilante that deserved to be thrown in Arkham City.
1007** The Batcave isn't exactly well hidden. If you've solved the riddle of who is Batman finding the Bat Cave should be simple. How long it takes you to break in depends on a lot of things. How cooperative Alfred is feeling, how many of the defenses are fully automated, how long they can last, and how badly you want in. Enough geniuses are floating around DC however that even if it meant giving someone like Riddler a pardon or asking Lex for help the idea that the Batcave would hold out for more than maybe a few weeks against determined people who had an educated guess where it was is absurd.
1008** "The Batcave isn't exactly well hidden". Ummm... what? [[Film/{{Fargo}} I'm not sure I agree with you a hunnerd percent on your logic there, Lou]]. It's a ''cave''; it's ''very'' well hidden, by simple virtue of the fact that it's, well, underground as part of a complex of hidden passageways, chasms and voids in the Earth. And if you think Bruce Wayne hasn't spent a lot of time, money and effort making the entrance(s) to what is in a very real and literal sense his secret lair ''very'' difficult to locate and access and ''very'' well protected, even from within Wayne Manor, then [[ProperlyParanoid you don't know Bruce Wayne]].
1009** Strange is an egotistical maniac; I seriously doubt he would be willing to give Riddler a pardon or ask Lex Luthor for help. Besides Strange didn't have the legal right to pardon anyone, and the TYGER guards can't just get away with breaking into someone's home without a warrant. Besides, Strange is working at the behest of Ra's al Ghul and the League of Assassins, and he has to prove to him that he is a better heir than Batman, and just working out Batman's secret identity wouldn't cut it.
1010** He doesn't need it. Batman is a vigilante, one the police tolerate but still a lawbreaker. Strange announces and the government does the rest legally with warrants. Even in a normal city, I promise you could put together enough circumstantial evidence to get a warrant and this is Gotham, where Arkham City is built.
1011** True, but we also have to consider Strange's psyche: ''He'' wants to be the one to beat Batman himself, mentally and emotionally. Having the police or another supervillain do the work for him would undermine that, as Strange wouldn't be the one to defeat Batman. The guy's an egotistical psychopath, it makes sense that he would want to be the one to beat Batman.
1012** Also, in order to do anything remotely like what's been suggested here Strange ''still needs some kind of proof that Bruce Wayne is Batman''. Even with Arkham City online, Strange can't just up and say "Hey everyone, Bruce Wayne is Batman!" and expect everyone to instantly kick into gear allowing him to storm his mansion with his troops and throw him into supervillain jail... because Bruce Wayne is richer than God and has spent his whole adult life convincing everyone else in Gotham that he's just A Rich Idiot With No Day Job. Strange can't, say, have his goons storm Wayne Manor and find the Batcave without some kind of proof that he knows Bruce Wayne is Batman, because everyone else thinks Bruce is just a dumb himbo and is going to be understandably wary about sending armed goons to the home of the richest guy in the city, i.e. the guy who as far as they're concerned could sue them all into oblivion just with the change in his pockets. The fact that Strange knows Wayne is Batman is useful for smug gloating and psychological torture points, but without actual proof there's not much else he can do.
1013[[/folder]]
1014[[folder: Revealing Batman's secret]]
1015* At the very beginning, when Bruce has been captured by Strange, Strange threatens to reveal Batman's identity. He says "If you try to stop me, I guarantee that everyone in Gotham will know your secret." But when Batman tries to stop him, Strange makes ''no'' effort to follow through on his threat. How hard would it be to get on the P.A. system and announce that Batman is Bruce Wayne?
1016** Well let's start with the fact that Batman wasn't trying to stop him until it's practically open. He spends most of the game convinced that Joker is behind Protocol 10. When he DOES find out he has to be forced by Oracle and Alfred to even interfere. The fact that he didn't do it out of spite when he found out he was losing might have had something to do with Ra's who respects Bruce. Villains, especially the proud ones like Strange have a habit of not believing that they're losing until they've lost. Strange is gloating until he gets stabbed.
1017** As mentioned above, he also needed proof of Batman's identity.
1018** If you know that Bruce Wayne is Batman the location of the Batcave is child's play to locate. It might take you a while to get past the defenses or you might find the grandfather clock, but without people actively defending it, which Nightwing and Robin may or may not do, there wouldn't be much point against determined law enforcement, it wouldn't last forever.
1019** There's a tie-in comic to the game that details this exact scenario: Strange sends his goons to Wayne Manor to find the Batcave and they get their asses handed to them by Robin and Nightwing. You're also forgetting one very important factor: The TYGER guards are ''not'' law enforcement officers, they're a PMC paid to guard Arkham City. They weren't exactly getting away with tossing Bruce Wayne into Arkham City for no apparent reason, and Alfred calls the cops on the TYGER guards at Wayne Manor after they've all been knocked unconscious, which gives the GCPD even more incentive to get Bruce Wayne out. The only reason Strange got as far as he did was that the GCPD had suffered from budget cuts, and no longer had the same power that they normally did.
1020** While not part of the Arkham Series several comics have alluded that Gordon either knows who Batman is, or the only reason he doesn't know is that he keeps losing his glasses. If law enforcement was aware of who Batman is they would have to look into it and, if you know Bruce Wayne is Batman, the Batcave is quite literally the first place you would look. So the question is how seriously would the police, FBI, and various other LEAs take the claims of Dr. Strange? Is he some crackpot? Has he done profiling for you in the past? Even if his claims weren't taken at face value by any official person, the number of villains who might have an epiphany over why that one time they dropped Bruce out a window, Batman arrived, and law enforcement might just decide to keep an eye on Bruce just in case, still makes this a valid threat.
1021** True, but we're all missing a fairly important factor as to why Strange doesn't kill Batman or reveal his identity: Ra's al Ghul and his League of Assassins. Given that Ra's already knew Batman's secret identity, he could have easily revealed it himself if he wanted to, but he also considered Batman to be a worthy successor to lead the League of Assassins. Even if Batman wouldn't join him, Ra's considers him to be his heir, so when Strange comes along with the knowledge of Batman's secret identity, Ra's decides to allow him to prove himself to be better than Batman. However, Ra's wanted Strange to prove his worth against the Dark Knight, so he probably told Strange not to reveal Batman's identity or kill him. As is shown by the rest of the game, Strange underestimates Batman, and Ra's kills him for it. Besides, even if Strange decided to reveal Batman's identity against Ra's' wishes, the League of Assassins would likely silence anyone who knew about it.
1022** In all honesty, it's not that powerful a threat, in terms of preventing Batman from acting against Strange. Say Strange announced the truth shortly after Batman suits up... what then? Batman is still inside Arkham City, with all his resourcefulness and determination. Knowing it's Bruce Wayne under the cowl doesn't prevent him from stopping Protocol 10. His allies outside Arkham City may be less effective, should law enforcement move against Wayne Manor, but that's about it. There may be consequences to face after that night, but while Batman's in Arkham City, it's a moot point as to who he is.\
1023All this, of course, presupposes that everyone ''believes'' Strange. Some will, but without proof, he's just bandying about outrageous claims - Batman's cover is effective ''because'' his daytime face is so hard to reconcile with the Dark Knight.
1024[[/folder]]
1025
1026[[folder: The Batsuit]]
1027* So Batman's batsuit gets heavily damaged throughout the game. Alright, cool. So when he returns to Arkham City after the game is complete, why didn't he switch into a cleaner, more intact batsuit? With Catwoman and her clothing damaged, it's at least justified that Two-Face blew up her apartment. So what is his excuse?
1028** Maybe he figured he didn't have time. In any case, the damage didn't seem to have significantly affected his ability to kick ass, so no need for the extra effort.
1029** They figured you'd be playing with those nifty new alternate costumes you unlock at the end of the game (assuming you have the DLC)?
1030[[/folder]]
1031
1032[[folder: Batman not a threat?]]
1033* Given the fact that I have just spent the last few hours thoroughly kicking the shit out of both Arkham Inmates and TYGER guards, imagine my surprise and indignation when Strange utterly dismissed my efforts. Uh. Dude. I wouldn't count it as a victory until Batman is lying dead at my feet. Why exactly is the Dark Knight not considered a threat?
1034** As far as Strange could tell at that point, Protocol 10 was still going on and likely to succeed. You could beat him senseless and break every bone in his body - if every inmate in Arkham City died, Strange would still have won. Incidentally, if you turn on Detective Vision at that point, you'll notice Strange's heart rate is slightly elevated; even he can't stand in front of Batman without being a little bit nervous
1035** I'm sorry, but Batman is picking apart his guards like they are your average thug. Bats is pissed at this point and his stubbornness is damn near legendary. Strange has to realize that he is boned once Barman is glaring in his face. Oracle shuts Protocol 10 down in no time flat, and yet he's still ranting about having "won".
1036** Frankly it's just Strange having a VillainousBreakdown because the idea of losing is just inconceivable to him. Besides, even if Batman put an absolute stop to the plan, there was still one contingency in place that Strange thought would bail him out: The support of Ra's al Ghul and the League of Assassins. Note that when Ra's stabs him, he starts breaking down and asking why.
1037** Is this one really a Headscratcher? Strange is a megalomaniacal supervillain with a borderline god complex. Frankly, a certain amount of delusional overconfidence is to be expected.
1038[[/folder]]
1039
1040[[folder: Personal Hygiene and Bathroom Breaks]]
1041* Unless they're in buildings we can't access, there are no showers or toilets in Arkham City. Even if there are, the plumbing probably doesn't work since most buildings have no electricity. How long have these guys gone without showering? Where do they go when nature calls? Do they just drop their trousers and shit on the ground? (a good way to get raped, by the way) Strange is a cruel douche bag, but this is ridiculous. Batman must be one tough bastard to fight several hundred mooks who reek of piss, shit, sweat, and ball-funk.
1042** Strange says it outright, he does not give a single flying fuck about the inmates well being or survival. As far as he is concerned, they are on their own.
1043** Gotham has a waterfront. When nature calls, or when your funk becomes intolerable, you can just grab a buddy and have him stand guard while you take care of business. There's even plenty of paper lying around in the form of posters and newspapers. The Ratcatcher was running a trade in soap, deodorant, toothpaste, and other hygiene items before Penguin had him shut down, so some of that is still probably floating around, not to mention whatever can be scavenged from abandoned apartments and offices. If you don't ''have'' any friends, yeah, you're screwed, but without friends, you won't last long in Arkham City anyway.
1044** If Gotham City is as much like RealLife NYC as its appearance suggests, most plumbing is probably gravity-based, using rooftop storage tanks to generate water pressure. There may not be any hot water or operational pumping systems, but the ''toilets'' would keep flushing until those tanks ran dry in most buildings. And although Arkham City ''seems'' overrun by a preposterous number of thugs, the actual ''population size'' is only a tiny fraction of what it was before the civilian residents and various facilities and businesses got relocated. If the area's restroom facilities could handle the load of every one of those buildings being occupied in full, they can handle a scattered and transient bunch of hoods who keep kicking in apartment doors any time they want to use the can.
1045[[/folder]]
1046
1047[[folder: The Remote Electrical Charge]]
1048* This isn't about how the device works, but the setup for it: Batman sees a piece of electrical equipment in the smelting chamber, opens it up, pops off the electrode like a Lego block, and attaches it to the unfinished REC he already has on him. Why did Batman prepare an unfinished gadget to take into Arkham City? How did he know that the electrode was just what he needed? If he did know it was what he needed, again, why didn't he finish the REC earlier?
1049** It's probably shorthand for him cannibalizing parts from three or four other gadgets he turned out ''not'' to need, plus a few bits and pieces scrounged on-site, to make a working REC device. Batman is a technological genius who can certainly Macgyver together what toys he needs in the field, but it'd slow down the game to pause the mission and watch him futz around with bits of circuitry and a mini-screwdriver.
1050[[/folder]]
1051
1052[[folder: The Cure magically switches in Batman's hands]]
1053* Seriously, it was in his left hand when he drank it, and after the scene with the explosion of the Lazarus Pit, we see him holding it in his right hand. I know he didn't switch it beforehand unless it was very subtle, or I'm blind.
1054** I'm pretty sure it was just a simple animation error. Not even Rocksteady is immune to making mistakes.
1055** That's a pretty big oversight, which gives me the impression that they had two different individuals working on both separate scenes. And even then, didn't they bother to, I don't know... double check? It's kinda hard to miss.
1056** I didn't notice it until other people pointed it out.
1057** No reason he couldn't have switched it when the camera was off of him. Even if he didn't, it's a pretty common continuity error, precisely because it is easy to miss. And unless it affects the story in some significant way, it usually doesn't matter.
1058[[/folder]]
1059[[folder: Catwoman Needs Saving?]]
1060* Okay, seriously WTF does Selina get captured by Two-Face at the beginning of the game? She's a skilled fighter, why not knock the gun out of his hands and vanish?
1061** Being a skilled fighter doesn't make you faster than a bullet.
1062[[/folder]]
1063[[folder: Would hit a woman (but not as hard)]]
1064* Is it just me or are Instant Takedowns on Ra's' ninjas not as violent as on thugs? Why?
1065** Necessity. Or rather, lack thereof. Talia's elite guard is not as bulky and tough as the street heavies in Gotham, being trained for agility and stealth, so it doesn't take as much to bring them down.
1066** Doesn't Penguin's audio says that she's quite tough?
1067*** She may be ''skilled'' and able to take out a bunch of Penguin thugs, but much like Catwoman, or Batman himself, the assassin's ability to take out a large group comes more from not being hit than withstanding damage when it's inflicted.
1068** The game's rating would instantly hit mature if Batman fought women as violently as he does men.
1069[[/folder]]
1070
1071[[folder: Mourning the Joker; Why?]]
1072* Batman doesn't kill. I get that. Batman tries to save every life he can. Also understandable. But why does he have to feel ''bad'' about Joker's death? The supplemental materials note that Batman becomes depressed and brooding (at least far more so than usual) shortly thereafter and removes himself from the public eye, often reminiscing about his arch-nemesis. In Harley Quinn's Revenge, for example, he is noticeably more harsh and bitter, and Robin and Gordon even lampshade this in the final cutscene. The thing is, Joker had done more to undo everything Batman had worked and sacrificed to achieve than any other villain (for shits and giggles no less) and embodied almost everything Batman became a hero to fight in the first place. What, was the psychotic mass murderer somehow more important to Batman than his original reason for donning the cowl? Even more egregious is that there were hundreds, if not thousands of more sympathetic victims to choose from. What about all those security guards in the first Arkham game? What about all the doctors sent into the sawmill to die? How about all those cops who were murdered during the Blackgate riots in ''Arkham Origins''? All of these were the Joker's fault. Were they somehow less worthy than Joker? Why in the world would the man least deserving of remembrance be the one death to finally push Batman into crippling depression?
1073** Well, you don't choose the people you love? Batman has an irrational fixation towards Joker. The other thing is that Batman feels guilty because Joker fell into the vat of acid. There's also the fact that with Joker gone, Batman has to face his guilt about all the people Joker killed. So long as Joker was alive, Batman could focus on containing him and keeping him in line but then Joker dies and crime drops and Batman realizes that it was probably AllForNothing, he could have gotten rid of Joker years ago and that the world would have been better. And if the world can get on without Joker, then the world can get on without Batman, i.e. his approach to crimefighting isn't the main or only thing protecting Gotham.
1074** Both VideoGame/BatmanArkhamOrigins and VideoGame/BatmanArkhamKnight have possible solutions. In the former, Batman equated Joker to the guy who killed his parents- some random nobody that shows just to kill people and go away for no real reason. In the latter, 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.
1075** Batman isn't entirely rational when it comes to the Joker. If we look at Batman: Under the Red Hood and his general behavior, we can piece together a reason. Batman: Under the Red Hood has a conversation that can be summed up as Batman won't kill Joker because he knows that once he's crossed that line he'll find a way to justify killing the rest of the rogues. If we're being honest depending on the setting others deserve it nearly as much as Joker. It doesn't seem like a stretch to think that Batman looks at every single missed punch, every time he didn't put the pieces together properly instantly, and wonders if maybe he didn't slow down because this was what he wanted all along. Of course this is more a theory than backed by the game.
1076** We're making a pretty bold assumption that Batman's bad mood is solely down to the fact that the Joker is dead. We seem to be overlooking the fact that Talia -- i.e. the woman the game makes a point of insisting is pretty much the love of Batman's life -- is ''also'' dead. And was murdered by the Joker. Might this perhaps have something to do with Batman being a bit stroppy post-events of the game?
1077[[/folder]]
1078
1079[[folder: Why can't you see the shark when you turn on Detective Mode?]]
1080* You can see bodies beneath the surface of the water, but not the shark.
1081** Detective Mode picks up bones. Sharks have none, as their skeletons are made of cartilage, the same stuff that's in your ear.
1082** As is stated below it pics up organics, you don't just see the bones you can see the outlines of their bodies, and trails of blood when needed. Detective Mode appears to be some kind of x-ray which would show cartilage anyway but shark teeth and jaws are 'bone' or close enough and should show up even if all you saw was a floating set of jaws.
1083** Organics things, in general, shows up in blue in Detective Mode (some vantage points for example) so the shark should show up too.
1084** Chances are water blocks Detective Mode in large amounts. You couldn't track Croc back in the asylum either.
1085** Sharks are electro-sensitive. Possibly Tiny can sense something odd when Detective Mode is directed at the tank and moves to the rear to get away from the strange electrical signals.
1086[[/folder]]
1087
1088[[folder: Why not interrogate Two-Face?]]
1089* So, after the Joker tries to kill Selina, Batman goes to see what he's doing and if he knows about Protocol 10... Err, Batman, you have Two-Face tied up upside down over a tub of acid not twelve meters away, why don't you ask him first?
1090** Why would he suspect Two-Face knows anything about Protocol 10?
1091** Why would Joker know anything more about Protocol 10 than Two-Face would?
1092** Batman knows or suspects that Joker has some grand plan, and he's heard people talk about Protocol 10. Ergo he assumes that Protocol 10 is the Joker's plan. Two-Face's ambition seemed to be limited to ruling Arkham City as a crime boss, which doesn't fit with a grander scheme like the Joker's probably up to.
1093** But Two-Face is a major player in Arkham city, it wouldn't be too strange that he'd know something. At the very least Batman could have tried (and the plot wouldn't have been derailed by Joker but I digress).
1094** A "major player" is not how I would characterize his role in things. Certainly not from what Batman saw of him.
1095** IIRC at several points the game (and background information) suggests that Two-Face is both (a) a fairly recent inmate of Arkham City, having only been imprisoned there not long before the events of the game, and (b) fairly low-down on the pecking order of crime bosses and struggling to get any kind of foothold between the Joker and the Penguin, who's carved Arkham City up between them. So Batman likely just assumes that between both of those points he probably wouldn't have any useful information, to begin with.
1096** Catwoman told Batman that Joker had been meeting with Strange to plan something for Batman. It was his only lead.
1097[[/folder]]
1098
1099[[folder: Hush's new face]] Hush's face was incomplete and bandaged until the end of his sidequest. Why does everyone say that he looks exactly like Wayne, if he hadn't taken the bandages off yet, or if he had pieces of his face missing?
1100
1101* I thought it was the victims that people claimed looked like Wayne, at least the first one since Hush was actively looking for people with a resemblance to Bruce. Alternatively, he didn't add all the pieces at once, rather he sewed them onto his face as he got them, and had to re-bandage himself up after each surgery
1102[[/folder]]
1103
1104[[folder:Bruce's SkewedPriorities]]
1105* During Protocol 10 Bruce isn't allowed to immediately pursue Joker because Alfred and Barbra wouldn't let him abandon the prisoners to their fates. Trying to justify himself he tells them Joker has kidnapped Talia. Now from that of course Alfred, Barbra, and GCPD wouldn't take "I'm gonna abandon the prisoners, including innocent civilian political prisoners, to die so I can save a major terrorist's life." why didn't he say "I need to stop ''the Joker from becoming immortal.''" If they knew that factor they would likely have sent Robin or even called in Clark or Wally to stop Strange because Immortal Joker would cause more chaos than Protocol 10 ever could. So why didn't he bring ''that'' up?
1106** The game implies that Batman's motives aren't entirely noble, that on some level he's more focused on simply ''fighting'' crime. At the end of the game, Batman realizes that he would've saved Joker's life, despite the futility. He may not have mentioned that because that would've crossed a line he didn't know he had.
1107** Original Poster: Also, until the final mission (I think after the fight) he still hadn't got the cure and, at the time assumed Joker had it. Couldn't he have said, "Uh, guys might it be easier to save these people if there ''wasn't'' a major risk of me keeling over halfway through?" (Not in those words).
1108** The fact that Bruce doesn't point out any of these other issues is simply an illustration of where his priorities are at in this particular moment. Out of all the issues happening in Gotham City, the one thing he considers most important -- more than his arch-nemesis taking an immortality bath, more than thousands of people being machine-gunned from the air by brainwashed fascists, more even than his failing health -- is Talia. He doesn't calmly and rationally bring up these other points, even if doing so would help benefit his goals because at that moment they don't matter to him that much. At this character and game's most desperate hour, we're seeing what he values most -- the safety of a woman he loves. It's not a plot hole, it's a character beat.
1109** Furthermore, it's a character beat that makes perfect, logical sense. When the chips are down, out of all the problems facing him at that moment the one Batman chooses to fixate on above all else is preventing the death of someone he loves. And what was the defining event of Bruce Wayne's life that led him to become Batman again...?
1110[[/folder]]
1111
1112[[folder: Grundy's blood]] So Batman and Freeze need blood from someone who's been exposed to Lazarus Pit chemicals for decades, why didn't they just harvest blood from Grundy rather than involve Ra's?
1113* It wasn't until after meeting Ra's that Batman can learn that Grundy was exposed to the Lazarus chemical. At that point, Grundy's body is supposedly underwater in the Ice Berg Lounge.
1114[[/folder]]
1115
1116[[folder: Poison Ivy’s costume]] During Arkham City (and the rest of the Arkham series) [[MsFanservice: Poison Ivy wears little clothing.]] This makes no sense, even if you believe the “she’s half plant and needs to wear little clothes to absorb sunlight” theory as the Arkham games take place as night. Why doesn’t she have something to wear at night aside from the fact the designers were aiming for Fanservice?
1117* Poison Ivy's Modus Operandi includes using a combination of her pheromones and her [[IHaveBoobsYouMustObey: attractiveness]] to manipulate men to do her bidding. For someone who employs that tactic, they'd want to maximize the chances of men seeing her as attractive. Not to mention, at least in the Arkhamverse, her mental state includes her erotomania, as noted by Arkham doctors.
1118[[/folder]]
1119
1120[[folder: Sharing the cure]] We know Batman would have shared the cure with Joker; he said as much right at the end of the game. But if roles were reversed, would Joker have shared the cure with Batman? He says in the phone messages in his bio after the fight with Freeze that, unlikely as it would be to believe, he couldn't just sit back and watch Batman die. On the other hand, it IS Joker. So would he have done it?
1121* Given it's the Joker, the answer could have yes or no depending on what he found more funny at the time.
1122* My guess is he wouldn't want Batman to die, but he wouldn't just give him the cure with no strings attached either. He'd probably make him jump through all kinds of hoops or force him into a SadisticChoice to get it.
1123[[/folder]]
1124
1125[[folder: Escaping at the harbor]] I'm surprised no one ever asked this, but why aren't any of the inmates trying to escape by boat at the waterfront? Or a makeshift raft for that matter. There's got to be some blind spots around there.
1126* Blind spots, likely, but none big enough to make a major escape attempt. There are likely cameras along the harbor wall, and you'd need a submarine to escape out to sea unnoticed. And that's without taking the patrolling helicopters into account.
1127
1128[[/folder]]
1129
1130[[folder: Identity Thief Part II]]
1131Okay, ignoring the logic of Hush already looking like Bruce Wayne when he was still collecting the pieces of his new face, why did Barbra even entertain the idea that Bruce was responsible for the killings? If memory serves she was working on the idea that Batman had been hallucinating due to Joker's blood, except at the first crime scene Bruce identifies the Identity Thief as having already been operating in Gotham for several weeks, and was known to the press, who gave him that nickname, so why does Barbra at any point even consider the idea?
1132* Covering her bases? Plus it's not like Batman's allies haven't called his sanity into question before this.
1133* It's one thing for a serial killer to appear in Gotham, where Batman already is. That's just Tuesday. It's another thing entirely for that same serial killer to crop up in a maximum security prison-city... where Batman ''also'' is, at the same time. You don't have to be Sherlock to draw the same conclusion as Barbara does
1134
1135[[/folder]]
1136
1137[[folder: Whatever Happened To Solomon Grundy?]]
1138Ever since I first played this game, I've wondered: what exactly does Batman do to Grundy at the end of his boss fight? It looks as if Batman tore out his heart (or some other equally vital organ) since after he's done it, Grundy is no longer a threat. He doesn't even turn up in Arkham Knight, confirming he's dead. So did Batman, the most famous hero on the 'I don't kill people' bandwagon, actually kill Solomon Grundy? Or was it okay to do it since technically he was already dead, and was only kept alive by science-magic?
1139* The whole point of Solomon Grundy is that he's already dead. Batman didn't kill him, he just "deactivated" whatever it was that was animating him. And yes, it appears like he tore out Grundy's heart and destroyed it.
1140* Grundy's power is such that he can always come back to life. He's one of the few villains Batman can kill without feeling bad about it, cause he knows he'll be back eventually. He was also, at that point, completely unstoppable short of killing him outright. He always comes back more powerful than before, but I guess that's a problem for future Batman.
1141* A Gotham City Story from Arkham Knight confirmed he regenerated.
1142
1143[[/folder]]
1144
1145[[folder:Protocol 10 tactics]]
1146* Protocol 10 seems to just entail a bunch of helicopters shooting machine guns and rockets down into Arkham City. However historically this sort of bombardment is pretty ineffective at killing people. Think World War II in Stalingrad where the bombed-out rubble provided plenty of shelter against artillery, or how bomb shelters allowed people to easily survive air raids. TYGER's puny fleet of helicopters have barely a fraction of the ordinance load of a wing of B-29 Superfortresses, so what makes Hugo Strange think he could succeed with his plan?
1147** Hugo Strange is, without being too delicate, two plates short of a picnic. He either doesn't know or, more likely, doesn't care about being efficient. He's trying to prove he's more worthy than Batman of being Ra's successor, and Batman doesn't kill criminals. Any amount of deaths would make him better, in his twisted views.
1148** Ra's says he provided Strange with "limitless resources" but it seems that was primarily money. Also, Strange had to convince the Gotham Council everything was legal. These two points means Hugo couldn't buy napalm or anything that would've been more efficient.
1149[[/folder]]
1150
1151[[folder:Museum's Shark Tank]]
1152* So did the museum ''always'' have a huge fishtank in the middle of it, or did Penguin install that when the walls came up? Because either option is stupid, the former because it would be kinda difficult for guests to get across without a grappling hook (assuming that this is supposed to be a legitimate museum and not Oswald's vanity project), the latter because it would be extremely impractical to make an old building able to hold several thousand gallons of water without leaking.
1153** The game bios reveal that Penguin bought the Museum long before Arkham City was built because it was unprofitable to run; he presumably had it built and reinforced to act as a shark tank for vanity / ego / body disposal reasons.
1154[[/folder]]
1155

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