Headscratchers / The Batman (2022)

Riddler's Goal In Final Act

• Riddlers goal was to show the corruption at the heart of Gotham that hurts the poor. Why would he then blow up the levees such that many innocent poor would be killed? You could claim he was insane, but all his acts up to that point harm the rich and powerful exclusively.
  • It's implied that the Riddler may have been Secretly Selfish. After all, the lesson he learned from Batman was bringing terror to Gotham's underworld is the way to go, and the Riddler was rewarded with being noticed by both the press and social media (where he finds like-minded individuals). It's also clear that he doesn't see any difference between individuals who genuinely want change for the better (like the mayor-elect Bella Reál) and individuals who feigned desire for change. And that kind of mindset leads to a childish solution: kill everyone and start anew.
  • It also ties into his Rat motif and belief that Gotham is hopelessly corrupt to the core. One of the most common method with dealing with large numbers of Rats is to simply flood their holes and drown them, and Riddler would see the flooding of Gotham as a means of 'washing away the filth' to start anew... or maybe he simply didn't care about anybody building anything good from the ashes and just wanted to enjoy the sight of Gotham chocking and drowning in its own filth. It's made quite clear that as intelligent as he is, he's also completely nuts and thinks nothing about amassing a large bodycount to satisfy his anger towards how the world treated him growing up.
  • It seemed like he expected Batman to thwart this part of the plan. He would be arrested, Batman would figure out the bombs ahead of time, the city would still be put in lockdown as the police tries to defuse the bombs/searches for more bombs, and then the extra Riddlers would make their attack on the mayor while they gather in the obvious shelter spot. He seemed genuinely surprised when Batman came to talk with him without having figured out the bombs. He was always working with the assumption that Batman would follow his script, and at that moment, he failed to do so.
    • He didn't expect Batman to thwart his plan. He expected Batman to approve of the plan. Up until they meet each other in Arkham, Riddler was under the impression that he and Batman were allies. He thought they had the same mindset about Gotham being unsalvageable.
  • If we look at The French Revolution and The Russian Revolution, among others, violent revolutions often end up brutalizing the very people they were supposed to benefit. A Million Is a Statistic was a working principle for real-life revolutionaries, and the Riddler would be no different. As the Joker said in the first Burton movie, you can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs.
  • The Riddler's stated goal is to expose the corruption at the heart of Gotham, but his real goal is simply to lash out and punish the world that, in his mind, neglected and abused him as a child only to then cast him aside and completely forget about him. Deep down he's not really the crusader for the 99% that he presents himself as and believes himself to be, and is in fact a lot more self-centred. His initial targets are indeed rich and powerful, but they are also just emblematic of the system which was supposed to protect him but didn't; he frames it as striking a blow against a corrupt system, and in part it is, but it's ultimately more about revenge for what happened to him. It's less implicitly Secretly Selfish, as another commenter suggests, and more outright Secretly Selfish. Really, he nihilistically believes that pretty much everyone deserves to suffer because he suffered. Like Catwoman, when it comes to the crunch he doesn't really believe that Gotham is either salvageable or worth salvaging, and basically thinks that pretty much everyone except himself, his followers and (initially) Batman deserve to be washed away for what happened to him. It's all about him, ultimately. This is essentially the fundamental difference between him and Batman — Batman initially lashes out at the criminal world because he wants vengeance for what happened to him, but ultimately comes to realise that this is a futile and limited goal and comes to embrace helping and protecting others, while Riddler presents himself as a champion of the oppressed and downtrodden but is ultimately self-centred and just wants vengeance for wrongs against him. They've essentially switched places by the end.

• Where he heck did he get all of these henchmen from? And how was he able to rig everything to blow up the dams in the first place?
  • Social media recruitment. It's a very real thing for a home-grown terrorist to venture into the dark web and find like-minded individuals as followers. And it's one of the most disturbing aspects of the Riddler because it could happen in real life. And if he has followers, he can direct them to place the vans and bombs everyone since he thanks his followers for giving him tips on setting up detonators and bombs.
  • The Riddler's in-universe following seems to exist on multiple levels — the miscellaneous disgruntled citizens of Gotham who perceive the Riddler as a crusader against corruption and who may see the late mayor of Gotham as sufficiently an Asshole Victim (not only corrupt and hypocritical but a philandering creep who beats women) to deserve what he got, then the 500-odd weirdos and extremists who were already following the Riddler on social media and engaging with his streams and messages, then the core 10-15 hardcore believers whom Nashton has carefully prepared for radicalization. The sympathetic tone of the Riddler's private broadcast to his stream followers echoes real-life recruitment into extremism, where the sense of community and connection are part of the attraction.

Why Does Riddler need Batman For His Plan?

• Riddler tells Batman that he needed him to bring Falcone to the light so he could be shot...but couldn't he just have shot him at any other point? Did he just mean it was the only way to get Falcone out in public and outed as the rat at the same time?
  • Falcone is an elusive man, with Bruce Wayne being even more elusive. It's impossible to know when and where Falcone would be showing his face since he's a very powerful man with a lot of connections to protect himself. Plus, the Riddler's kills have a showman's agenda behind them. He made the death of the commissioner and DA very public just to show Gotham (and his followers) how corrupt they really are. Not to mention he humiliated the late mayor by exposing his scandals just as everyone was giving their praises to him. It's not enough to kill Falcone. He wants Falcone exposed as the rat he is to Gotham just to prove to his followers that he is a righteous crusader against corruption.
  • An additional angle is that Riddler doesn't want to just kill Falcone, he wants to get caught killing Falcone as the metaphorical trigger for his final plan. If he'd shot Falcone at any point beforehand before his role as the Rat was exposed, the mob would have come after him in droves and likely killed him outright. Even if he escaped from them, if he got arrested by corrupt cops on their payroll he's still wind up killed regardless. Riddler needed to expose Falcone as the rat, justifying Batman and Gordon going after him and making a public arrest, just so there'd be cops on the scene who actually cared about seeing justice done and wouldn't simply put a bullet in him when he put Falcone down. Gordon and Batman would have only brought the most trusted cops they could to the scene, and Gordon and Batman's morals wouldn't condone his cold-blooded murder, so they'd have no option but to arrest him like he wanted. To further this, rather than actually escaping from the police, he simply bolts immediately from his apartment, which is located right across the street from the angry mafia goons he's been targeting, and waits for the police at a diner located a short distance away, ensuring no mobster will return the favour he gave Falcone if he'd been arrested so close to them. As he outlines to Batman during his interrogation, he always planned to be thrown into Arkham and meet him there, because its sturdy walls would protect the both of them from the flooding of Gotham that was about to happen.

He was alive when he had his thumb removed?

• According to Batman, the Mayor was alive when Riddler removed his thumb, but he had all fingers intact right as Riddler bludgeoned him to death. It doesn’t add up.
  • It's simple. He wasn't dead yet when the Riddler hit the Mayor in the head. The weapon he used wasn't particularly heavy and he could have hit him a couple of more times later.
  • The Mayor wasn't actually killed by the blunt-force trauma of Riddler smashing his head in, merely knocked unconscious or badly concussed. Instead, he was killed by Riddler suffocating him with Duct-tape wrapped around his head, a slow and agonising death. Riddler removed the thumb both for his 'Thumb-drive' riddle as well to gain copious amounts of blood from the Mayor to paint the walls with his scribbles of 'LIES' and such, which would have been harder to gain from a dead body once his heart had stopped beating.
  • Impossible. Nobody could survive the way Riddler bashed his head in, and if he were alive when Riddler taped his face up, it was so perfectly wrapped that it didn’t look like the still living mayor tried to at least rip or scratch it off.
    • Regarding the latter point, anyone who did survive such a severe bludgeoning to the head would almost certainly be left unconscious and thus unable to struggle to free themselves. The mayor wouldn't need to survive the bludgeoning for very long for Batman's observation regarding blood flow and the forensics of the thumb wound to hold true.
    • No one's saying he wouldn't have almost certainly died from the beating anyway, at least without medical attention — he just hadn't actually reached the point of death at the point his thumb was removed. Suffocating him was just a sadistic little cherry on top of the beating.

Police Protection?

• When Batman and Gordon find the Riddler's message in the orphanage, both automatically realize that Bruce Wayne is the next target. Why wasn't Bruce or Alfred immediately notified by the GCPD and immediately assigned protection?
  • Simply put, they were too late. Batman left the room immediately upon realising Riddler was gunning for him at the Manor, and Gordon was already trying to call in protection for Bruce when the scene ended, but despite racing back to the manor quicker than the police, by the time Batman comes into sight of it the bomb had already gone off an hour ago. Alfred discovered the bomb, probably parcelled to Bruce the instant Batman accessed the URL website and got the riddle leading to the orphanage, when both men were still en-route to the building, and it had already blown up before they knew Bruce Wayne was a target.

Arrest of Batman

• Shortly after Colson's murder and Batman's escape from the precinct, the GCPD puts an arrest for him through a APB. However, Batman returns to working closely with the rest of the cops in time with Falcone's capture. What changed?
  • It's heavily implied that the cops helping to arrest Falcone are the ones Gordon trusts the most besides Batman, and after the reveal about Falcone's criminal history all his mob 'friends' will be turning on him with lethal intent, plus the fact that Gordon technically leaked that evidence illegally, so the new commissioner and those police loyal to him won't be authorising an arrest of Falcone without 'legal' proof despite the urgency, so basically, they've excluding those loyal to the commissioner and himself from that part of the investigation and keeping a healthy distance between him and Batman until the Riddler crisis is resolved. Notably, said commissioner doesn't turn up again after that point precisely because he'd have caused unnecessary conflict at a time neither Gordon or Batman could afford to deal with it, so they did their best to avoid him wholesale.
  • Not to mention that the Dirty Cops are almost certainly going to do their best to look as squeaky clean as possible when it's clear that Falcone's goose is cooked. Their loyalty to him would only have extended as long as his ability to pay their kickbacks.

Falcone's Scheme

• The Riddler's plot begins when members of Falcone's payroll in the GCPD/Government are getting leaked and murdered - yet he does not seem worried or concerned about the impending chaos and potential shift in power. Why hasn't he tried to loop his people in to stop the Riddler as it continued to escalate?
  • He's a Smug Snake who is so used to getting his way that he figures the Riddler isn't that much of a threat. Heck, even when publicly exposed, he confidently told Gordon that he'll back on the streets in no time and mocks Oz for thinking he could take over his empire. While he does murder people to keep his role as the "rat" a secret, it seems to be more for the inconvenience of dealing with an angry criminal underworld who hates snitches. Falcone believes that at very worst, there'll be a violent gang war between him and everyone else, but he'll come on top in the end just like he always would. He didn't count on the fact the Riddler was waiting for him with a sniper aimed right at his head.
  • There's also the fact he probably didn't even connect the dots that the Riddler was targeting people connected to his conspiracy. Colson, Savage, Mitchell, they're not just connected by the fact they helped Falcone rise to the top, but also by the fact they're corrupt assholes who are knee-deep in a lot of shit that doesn't even necessarily involve Falcone. Meanwhile, Riddler also targets Bruce Wayne, who had nothing to do with Falcone's conspiracy, which likely further misdirected the apparent target of his crusade.

Why don't the police look under the mask?

• After Colson gets blown up, and Batman gets knocked out, not one cop bothered to unmask Batman during his transfer to the police precinct before he regained consciousness?
  • It's likely that Gordon accompanied him all along the way, and he's the one who vocally insists that the mask stays where it is. Gordon was presumably there in order to make sure that no one looked under the mask.
  • Maybe he has a gadget in his suit to prevent this, like Christian Bale did with the taser?

Conditions at the orphanage

• Was life at the orphanage always terrible? Or was it meant to be implied it only became that way after Thomas Wayne's death, due to lack of oversight?
  • The prequel novel revealed that the Thomas Wayne turned Wayne Manor into the orphanage and the Waynes moved to the penthouse in Wayne tower. The orphanage most likely became terrible after the death of Thomas Wayne.
  • It seems likely that the orphanage was always underfunded and pretty grim and gothic if it was a state-run institution in enough need to warrant the Waynes' philanthropy, or possibly a church-affiliated one if the Riddler's leitmotif means anything in that direction. (Riddler's backstory is a little retro in a way consistent with the Batman franchise's flirtations with Genre Throwback art style and themes, since if both Edward Nashton and Bruce Wayne are in their thirties in the 2010s a parentless kid Riddler would be more likely to end up in regular old foster care or a group home than an old-school orphanage. So its possible child welfare agencies and the attention paid to the needs of children in state care were equally rudimentary and rocky.) Moving into a new facility didn't help the funding problems if in the long run the Waynes didn't live long enough to make sure the orphanage got to keep any of that funding after Falcone & co's embezzlement.

No, no, he's got a point.

• When Batman grills Penguin for the identity of the woman the mayor was seeing on the side, Oz recommends he ask the Mayor's wife. The movie frames it as a tasteless joke, but that's actually not a bad idea. It's unfortunately fairly common for people being cheated on to know their spouse is having an affair (especially those who are married to political figures). While the mayor's wife obviously wouldn't know too much, she might have at least known the woman's name (again, unfortunately common) or something else that could help in the investigation.
  • Because Batman has another, more reliable lead. Selina's reaction to the woman in the picture told him that she personally knows her. And thus, she would be more reliable than the mayor's wife, who may not even be aware of the affair (as unlikely as that is).
  • To be fair, no one actually says it's not a plausible thing to do. Batman just glares at Penguin because (a) it's still a rather tasteless suggestion/joke regardless of how practical it is and (b) Penguin's a little shit and Batman doesn't like him much.

How did the Riddler know Batman's identity?

• How did the Riddler figure out that it was Bruce Wayne under the cowl? Did he perform a Bat Deduction of some kind?
  • He doesn't. The movie frames Riddler as knowing who Batman is (and perhaps did too good a job at doing so) but in actuality, Batman just drastically misread Riddler's actions. In fact, Riddler views Batman's secret identity as irrelevant, with the cape and cowl being "the real" him.
  • He doesn't. Case in point: He intends to kill Bruce Wayne and leave clues in a fireproof package for Batman to find.
  • How did the Riddler get ahold of the Waynes' family secrets in the first place?
  • The same way they were discovered in the first place. A lot of work being spent digging, looking for something and finding it. Riddler already had a significant hatred towards Bruce Wayne so it's not much of a jump to think that he spent an exorbitant amount of time digging into the Wayne history. As long as something exists, chances are it can be found with enough time, resources, effort and dedication. He was obsessed so he had the dedication, other than a middling job he had nothing else to his life so he had the time, it was his sole focus hence the effort, and said middling job's pay was likely saved up over time and put solely towards both his investigation and his master plan.
  • He's also a forensic accountant in his day job. Such deep dives into people's lives and histories are basically how he puts bread on the table, and he has the resources to enable him to do so at his fingertips.
  • The real question is, how did Edward Elliott get ahold of the Waynes' family secrets? (Answer: journalism.) Everything the Riddler said about the Waynes seemed to come from Elliott's notes, so he must have gotten ahold of them somehow. While the police are searching his apartment, they only mention accounting ledgers, but the notebooks Batman looks at on his shelf are different sizes and shapes, so Elliott's notes are probably in there somewhere too.

Catwoman's Relationship with Falcone in the Iceberg Lounge

• Falcone is friendly towards Selina Kyle when Wayne is watching through the contact lens. Batman is confused and asks why they know each other and Kyle evades. Later she admits he's her father. However, she later confront Falcone and reveals who her mother was, which is clearly a surprise to him. So why were they familiar earlier? Did he know she was his daughter but not know by whom? Was he flirting with her not knowing she was related (not how it came off)?
  • He probably recognized her as an employee of the Lounge, but didn't know much else about her. Falcone might have a lot of flings with much younger women, but he never learns much about them. To him, they're all just replaceable sex toys.
  • There also seem to be a few hints that he takes a particular interest in her because subconsciously she reminds him of her mother. Beyond this, though, as stated above he just finds her an attractive doll, basically.
  • She also says that she used to spend time at the Iceberg when her mother was working there. It's possible that he recognizes her as the little kid he used to see running around without ever knowing who her mother was, and is either just genuinely happy to see her grown up, or worse, is smitten with the attractive woman she grew up to be.

Question about the mayors death

• When they're examining his dead body, mention about his thumb getting cut off, Batman says ecchymosis, what does that mean?
  • Ecchymosis is "a discoloration of the skin resulting from bleeding underneath, typically caused by bruising."
  • And the reason it's relevant is because it doesn't happen with a wound that occurs after death. It's very strong evidence that the thumb was cut off while he was alive. Though there's some wiggle room if it happened right after death, as all biological functions don't immediately cease with brain death.

Blackmail photos

• The first time the cops and Batman find the blackmail photos that Riddler took of the mayor, it's from a specific angle. So why didn't Batman investigate the area where the photos were taken from, or at least search in that general area?
  • Well, he'd have to spend ages trying to find the specific angle for one; there's hundreds of windows, ledges and fire escapes nearby that could be potential candidates, potentially thousands depending on the type of lens being used and how powerful a zoom it had. And the only way he can be truly sure it's the angle in question, it turns out, is if he breaks into the apartment in question and checks the view from the windows, so presumably he felt that breaking into every apartment building in the area to check the windows on the vague hope that he might end up in literally the killer's apartment would be a waste of time that could be more productively spent. It's also only those photos that are taken from that location (the police commissioner's corruption is captured elsewhere), so there's no pattern that would suggest to Batman that searching for where the Riddler took the photos of the mayor from would be worthwhile; as far as he's aware, the Riddler just picked that spot at random. He would also likely make the not-unreasonable presumption that the Riddler, wanting to distance himself from his crimes as much as possible for as long as possible, wouldn't take his incriminating pictures from literally his apartment window and had merely stalked his victims and camped out on a fire escape or something. He'd be wrong to make that assumption, granted, but you can hardly blame him for making it, since almost anyone would; even the OP presumably did right up until the point where the movie outright showed him or her that it was a mistaken assumption. The whole point is that everyone gets so caught up in the twistiness of the Riddler's scheme that they neglect to check under their own noses.
  • To add, on looking back there's clearly some kind of ledge or platform outside the Riddler's window that seems to loop around the building. It's not huge, but it looks sturdy and wide enough for someone with a camera to perch on and snap some quick blackmail shots. Even if Batman did figure out the angle and lens being used, he'd almost certainly come to the conclusion that Riddler simply perched on the ledge, having accessed it from inside the building somehow.

Thumb Drive Malware

• So Batman didn't consider the possibility that the thumb drive might have malware on it and just let Gordon plug it into his personal laptop?
  • This is more Gordon's fault than Batman's to be wholly fair; it's Gordon's laptop, Gordon's the one who plugs it in, Gordon's the police officer with the responsibility to manage the evidence, and Batman's not his dad; Gordon should have probably given this a moment's thought before plugging it in as well. This one ain't really on Batman.
  • Plus, this one's kind of a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation — given the nature of the malware (activating pretty much as soon as it's plugged in to a computer connected to the internet), there would have been little way to prevent it from happening short of not actually plugging it into a computer, they need to plug it into a computer to see what's on it, and it almost certainly was specially written to be undetected by most antivirus software and firewalls. They can't win, essentially.
    • That's what air gapping is for.
    • Okay, but presumably Jim Gordon either doesn't have access to or, given the sheer scale of corruption in the GPD, is loathe to take the drive to a location where an air-gapped network is an option. There's a reason he's doing all of this with a bat-themed vigilante and a laptop in a carpark in the first place; he doesn't trust his co-workers. Which brings us back to a "damned if you do or don't" scenario — the more people he brings the evidence to and the longer he takes to discover it, the more chance someone who is on the payroll of someone else might want that evidence tampered with for whatever reason will have a chance to tamper with it.
  • Also, Jim Gordon is a street cop, and presumably doesn't work much with computers beyond knowing the basics. He's probably just someone who is about as well-versed in IT procedure or advances in malware as your average layperson (i.e. not very), and so simply doesn't realise that this is a possible risk he should consider before it's too late. Like most malware infections, it's just made possible through exploiting ignorance.

No protection for the DA

• Two of his co-conspirators have just been killed, and despite this the DA doesn't get a gun or hire any armed guards?
  • We see Colson being kidnapped from his car just outside a mob club. He almost certainly wouldn't be allowed to take a gun inside the premises, wouldn't be dumb enough or allowed to take a police security detail with him into the club (since even in a town as crooked as Gotham even they would have to do something about all the, well, crimes going on around them while they were on duty), it takes time to arrange private security, and it's only with the last day or so that people connected to Colson have been targeted. Not everyone seems to believe that he's under threat as well; several of the people he's with brush off his worries. And furthermore, he's clearly established to be a drug addict, not a state of being that typically lends itself to wise decision making or enhanced instincts of self-preservation.

Not recognizing Batman

• If Batman has been operating for two years, why don't the gang of thugs at the subway station recognize him?
  • "It's a big city. I can't be everywhere." They haven't encountered Batman yet, and photos of him are likely in short supply.
  • Alternatively: they recognise him, but are either genuinely unimpressed (or are at least attempting to put on an appearance of being unimpressed) at actually seeing him in person, having perhaps expected something more impressive than what's basically a guy in a costume.
  • It's worth noting that it's Halloween. They probably thought he was some guy in a costume instead of the real thing.
  • Keep in mind that in Batman: Arkham Origins which operates on a similar timescale to the film (about 2 years into his career), Batman is still an urban legends with even characters like Gordon doubting he exists, his existence is only confirmed in the Gotham Royal mission, when he is seen on Vikki Vale's news broadcast, likely for the exact same reason; until Riddler, Batman has mostly stuck to regular criminal deals, which don't tend to have many cameras around, aside from the cops, who likely are not publiscising the fact that they are working with a vigilante, the only information about him was rumours and whispers, no one believes the bat exists... until he comes for them.

Working elevator

• How does the elevator still work after Batman cut the power to the building?
  • Since it's a private elevator and appears to be pretty much the only entrance to Falcone's personal apartments, it might be connected to a different generator.

Thomas didn't see that coming?

• Alfred tells Bruce that Thomas Wayne just wanted Falcone to scare the journalist off, and he was so horrified at the murder he was going to the police. Thomas, Falcone is a mob boss. What did you think would happen if you asked a murderer to deal with somebody? Even if you didn't ask for him to be killed it wasn't hard to predict that Falcone would resort to murder if the journalist wasn’t being scared off. Was he actually so naive that he thought his crime lord friend would stop at some threatening words?
  • Good Cannot Comprehend Evil. It's pretty much that simple, even if he did have mob connections Thomas Wayne was a good man, he never considered the idea that Falcone would show initiative. Plus at the time the woman he loved was on the verge of having her traumatic past revealed to the world (which would almost certainly lead to another breakdown) it is likely that he wasn't thinking clearly at the time.
  • Falcone was one of the most dangerous men in the city, even then; it's not wholly unlikely that Thomas might well have thought that a few threatening words from a powerful mob figure might indeed have sufficiently scared the living piss out of the reporter enough to get him to back off a bit. That said, even though he's a mob boss, Falcone didn't have to kill him. He could just have had the guy roughed up, which (assuming Alfred's honesty) Thomas may have requested and was likely willing to swallow his qualms over for the sake of his family. Falcone for whatever reason took things further than Thomas expected. While definitely naive, it's not wholly unreasonably so.
  • It's also very possible Falcone deliberately killed the journalist to have the Waynes under his thumb. (In fact, Alfred explicitly says this, although that's just Alfred's interpretation.)
  • Presumably Falcone also had a lot of control over the news outlets - Wayne might just have asked him to kill the story, bribe or threaten the editors to make sure it doesn't go to print.

Why did Batman ram the Penguin in the Batmobile?

• There was no guarantee that he would've survived the wreck, which would've violated Batman's no-kill code.
  • There's a limited number of ways to stop a fleeing vehicle. Batman, acting alone, can't very well set up a roadblock, and he certainly can't call for police backup. He's pragmatic. During the climactic gunfight, Batman also invokes some Forced Friendly Fire, which very possibly leads to fatalities; but again, he had little choice in the matter. Batman's code seems more along the Old Testament lines of "Thou shalt not commit murder" (in the original Hebrew). He doesn't mean for anyone to die, but in the thick of things, he sometimes has to take actions that endanger people- notably, the bad guys. All the beat-downs he delivers also have a chance of killing or maiming his opponents; but again, it's not willfully killing someone, it's the heat of action.
  • Also, Penguin was the one who started the chase with the guy driving an armoured-up muscle car, took it onto the freeway, deliberately caused a major pile-up, and was overall driving incredibly recklessly. Death was not an impossible outcome at any of these points, and Penguin almost certainly knew it. At some point, Batman ceases to be wholly responsible for the risk that Penguin willingly placed himself in.
  • Alternative Character Interpretation: This might have been one of Batman's weaker moments. In the adrenaline of a chase which was life-or-death for both characters, it might have been hard to calculate all the variables. True, Batman could have backed off, but in the heat of the moment, it's hard to make that calculation over what might be lethal and what might not.
  • Also worth noting that Penguin had already personally caused a massive pileup including an explosion. At that point any police department would also be justified in stopping him by whatever means possible.

Falcone the Rat... so what?

• So... forgive me if I'm ignorant of mob politics, but why would anyone in the mob actually care that Falcone ratted out Salvator Maroni? Maroni was Falcone's competition as a crime boss! Ratting out Maroni's operations so he could take over the criminal underworld is a shrewd move of Falcone. Especially since it was basically a fakeout and didn't even harm Maroni's drug operations much if at all so Falcone could pick up where Maroni left off.
  • I don't know much about mob politics either, but I'd assume that ratting out Maroni to the cops would make Falcone look weak and dishonorable in the eyes of the mob. Sure, it was a smart move, but to the mob, he just ran to the cops and had them do his dirty work because he wasn't good enough to finish it himself. Something like that could deal a huge blow to the reputation of Falcone and his operation.
  • This one's simple; Falcone being exposed as a police informant is damaging because it means that he can't be trusted. Professional criminals tend to be suspicious and paranoid people at the best of times; they kind of have to be, because they live their day-to-day lives in ways which leave them open to arrest, serious criminal charges and the possibility of lengthy periods spent in jail (or even execution). Ergo, they are especially distrustful of the possibility that the other criminals they deal with might expose their criminal acts to the authorities for their own advantage. However, in the world of organised crime they still have to work together to some degree (it's kind of there in the name), so to the extent that "honor among thieves" actually exists, it's pretty simple; it's essentially an agreement that "I won't tell if you won't." It's the whole idea behind omertà; you keep quiet about my crimes, I'll keep quiet about yours. The fact that Falcone informed on Maroni means that basically any chance that any other criminal might have trusted him is dead, because if he informed on Maroni to serve his own purposes, he'd inform on them.
  • Falcone is a dead man at this point regardless. The Mob is ruthless in dealing with even suspected informers. As Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran told his biographer, their policy is, "When in doubt, have no doubt." If Riddler hadn't done it, they soon would have.
  • Many organizations, even perfectly legal ones like sports organizations, have written and unwritten codes of conduct on what people can do and what might cross the Moral Event Horizon. The Geneva Conventions are an attempt to at least try and curtail the horrors of war by establishing certain "rules" that everybody agrees to abide by. Less formal examples are "the code" in Ice Hockey and Kayfabe in Professional Wrestling. For the Mob, one of those rules is "snitches get stitches", in that you don't sell other criminals out to the cops. If you do, you forfeit any rights you might have had under the code and you're set up to be killed. That's why real-life governments have Witness Protection as an incentive for potential informants to talk to them. In Falcone's case, he is a "snitch", so he'd be lucky if all he got were stitches. As said above, if the Riddler hadn't killed him it'd only be a question of which other mobster like Cobblepot would get to him first.

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