History Headscratchers / TheDarkKnightRises

** My guess is that Bane has eyes where the military would likely appear, and he'd in the five months made a threat that any interference or even a sign of interference would trigger the bomb - a threat that the U.S. is probably unwilling to take. Imagine a hostage scenario but the stakes are far, far higher. And besides, who's to say that Bane doesn't have a close eye on the bomb so he could detonate it at a moment's notice during those five months?

* So a major U.S city is taken over by a terrorist group with a nuclear warhead, and the military's only response-is to send literally three guys to break the siege. And in the five months it took Bruce to get back, no one at the Pentagon came up with a Plan B. Ummm, what? Here's a better idea: send some SEALs with SCUBA gear, alongside a NEST team to defuse the nuke, to infiltrate the city, and once the nuke is defused, have the army come in with pontoon bridges and helicopters to mop up Bane's forces. It carries a lot of risk, but the alternative is letting Bane and his troops run amok in a major city, something which would be devastating to the U.S's image, both domestically and internationally.

[[folder: What the fuck is the government doing?]]
* So a major U.S city is taken over by a terrorist group with a nuclear warhead, and the military's only response-is to send literally three guys to break the siege. And in the five months it took Bruce to get back, no one at the Pentagon came up with a Plan B. Ummm, what? Here's a better idea: send some SEALs with SCUBA gear, alongside a NEST team to defuse the nuke, to infiltrate the city, and once the nuke is defused, have the army come in with pontoon bridges and helicopters to mop up Bane's forces. It carries a lot of risk, but the alternative is letting Bane and his troops run amok in a major city, something which would be devastating to the U.S's image, both domestically and internationally.

** Ras was the mercenary in the story. He fell in love with the warlord's daughter, married her, and got her pregnant. For that Ras was dumped in the pit. His wife sacrificed herself to free him, but had to take his place in the pit. That's where Talia was born. Bane was another inmate who took the two women under his wing, but he couldn't stop the other prisoners from killing Talia's mother (BTW this is utterly illogical, they would have to be idiots to kill a VERY pretty woman who is also the only woman available). Realizing that he couldn't protect her forever, Bane helped Talia escape but the other inmates wanted Talia for themselves (for squicky reasons, most likely) and destroyed his face in their anger. Talia found Ras, Ras came back to kill all the inmates in revenge, and rescued Bane. But Ras couldn't stand him because it reminded Ras of his own failure, so he exiled Bane and Talia followed him.

** And possibly for concealment reasons, long hair provides more opportunities. A short-haired woman is very distinctive looking, since LongHairIsFeminine. Selina is going to stick out if she has short hair. It also helps with the WoundedGazelleGambit - since BoyishShortHair and PowerHair prove that short hair on a woman indicates that she is tougher. Or more simply, Selina likes her hair long and she can manage it. It's not exactly RapunzelHair and it's kept out of her eyes by the headband with the goggles she's wearing.

[[folder: Bane and Batman's Armory and Secret Identity]]

[[folder: Passing the Torch]]

[[folder: Talia's Backstory]]

[[folder: Dent's Magic Act]]

[[folder: Bruce's Escape]]

[[folder: Selina's Heels]]

[[folder: A Long-Haired Cat]]

[[folder: Now If He'd Had a Lead-Lined Refrigerator....]]

[[folder: How the hell does Bane eat?]]

[[folder: Getting Rid of a Bomb]]

[[folder: Why did Bane wait for 8 years to attack Gotham?]]

[[folder: Gordon's Pistol]]

[[folder: Bruce's Offscreen Teleportation]]

[[folder: Throw Me a Rope]]

[[folder: Cops vs. Mooks]]

[[folder: Joker's Wild]]

[[folder: Wayne's Will]]

[[folder: The Magic Thumb Drive]]

[[folder: Bane's Mask]]

[[folder: Somebody Set Up Us The Bomb]]

[[folder: A Bridge Over Troubled Waters]]

[[folder: Bane and Talia, Death Seekers]]

[[folder: Tunnel Cops]]

[[folder: Bane's Master Plan]]

[[folder: Bombing the bomb]]

[[folder: Economics Don't Work That Way]]

[[folder: Nuke-Proof Bats]]

[[folder: Bane's Motivation]]

[[folder: Blake's Billions]]

[[folder: Don't Break the Ice]]

[[folder: Bane's Prison]]

[[folder: Bruce's Magic Vision]]

[[folder: Broken Bat]]

[[folder: Bane's Revolution]]

[[folder: More Tunnel Cops]]

[[folder: Talia and Bruce, Sitting in a Tree]]

[[folder: Born in the Dark]]

[[folder: Why John Blake?]]

[[folder: Batman Returns]]

[[folder: Mugging a Monster]]

[[folder: Bystander Effect]]

[[folder: Fistfights with Bane]]

[[folder: Rousseau Was Right]]

[[folder: Fire and Ice]]

[[folder: I Am Justice]]

[[folder: Ice at Night]]

[[folder: Police Decryption]]

[[folder: Helpful Pitsmen]]

[[folder: Keystone Army]]

[[folder: Batman's Guns]]

[[folder: Selina's Situation]]

[[folder: South Dakota NFL Franchise]]

[[folder: Gordon's Family]]

[[folder: The Dent Lie]]

[[folder: Bane, Man of the People]]

[[folder: Blood Swap]]

[[folder: No Guards?]]

[[folder: Fusion Weapons]]

[[folder: GCPD's Skeleton Crew]]

[[folder: Bruce the Recluse]]

[[folder: Let Them Eat Blake]]

[[folder: Bruce the Celebrity]]

[[folder: Rocks Fall Talia Dies]]

[[folder: The Man With Two First Names]]

[[folder: How Many Bats?]]

[[folder: Selina's Fingerprints]]

[[folder: Plane Crash]]

[[folder: The Exile Option]]

[[folder: Ra's Immortality]]

[[folder: Bane's Brother]]

[[folder: A Mook's Loyalty]]

[[folder: Blake's Guess]]

[[folder: The Rope]]

[[folder: Improvised Tools]]

[[folder: It's Bigger on the Inside]]

[[folder: Kyle's Escape]]

[[folder: Non-Lethal Bats]]

[[folder: Running Start]]

[[folder: Bruce's Health]]

[[folder: Bane's Age]]

[[folder: Talia's Death Wish]]

[[folder: Bane's Swagger]]

[[folder: No Flares?]]

[[folder: More on the Rope]]

[[folder: Good Vertebrations]]

[[folder: Resignations Not Accepted]]

[[folder: Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?]]

[[folder: Human Pyramid]]

[[folder: What Does He See In Her?]]

[[folder: Faking the Dead]]

[[folder: No Evacuation?]]

[[folder: Bane's Injury]]

[[folder: Blake and Gordon's Drive]]

[[folder: Going By Robin]]

[[folder: Bruce's Wife]]

[[folder: Yet Even More Tunnel Cops Again Some More]]

[[folder: Magic Batarangs]]

[[folder: Bane's Plan Again Some More]]

[[folder: Yet Again More With Bane's Age]]

[[folder: What a Twist!]]

[[folder: Bane the Believable]]

[[folder: Boy's Home]]

[[folder: Trojan Prisoner]]

[[folder: On Thin Ice]]

[[folder: Bane, Football Fan]]

[[folder: Pavel, Bombardier]]

[[folder: Who ya talkin' to, Lucius?]]

[[folder: Wayne Enterprises]]

[[folder: Ironic Echolocation]]

[[folder: Prison TV]]

[[folder: Gordon's Speech]]

[[folder: Hit His Weak Point]]

[[folder: Fox's flood]]

[[folder: Bruce Declared Dead]]

[[folder: Leap of Faith]]

[[folder: Blake's Guess]]

[[folder: Bane's Name]]

[[folder: Blowing the Barricade]]

[[folder: No Killing]]

[[folder: How Many Tumblers?]]

[[folder: Bane's Surprise]]

[[folder: Blakeman]]

[[folder: Contrived Coincidences]]

[[folder: Counting Corpses]]

[[folder: Yet More Thin Ice Again Forever]]

[[folder: Gordon's Memory]]

[[folder: Secret Identities]]

[[folder: Fight Scene Failures]]

[[folder: Bane's Dictatorship]]

[[folder: Bats' Stab Wound]]

[[folder: Why Did Talia Sleep With Bruce Again?]]

[[folder: Why shoot a man?]]

[[folder: Selina's Job Prospects]]

[[folder: Bane's Believability]]

[[folder: Football Shenanigans]]

[[folder: Flaming Bat-signals]]

[[folder: Fighting For Years]]

[[folder: Rat in a Trap]]

[[folder: Fear Makes You Stronger]]

[[folder: Bane's Xanatos Robbery]]

[[folder: Accept No Imitations]]

[[folder: Seriously, Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?]]

[[folder: Stock Exchange Security]]

[[folder: Barrier Ramps]]

[[folder: That's Batitude For Ya]]

[[folder: Chubby Bats]]

[[folder: Mighty Batpod]]

[[folder: The Worf Effect]]

[[folder: Wherefore Despair?]]

[[folder: Bruce' Retirement]]

[[folder: Leaving Alfred Hanging]]

[[folder: More Worfin']]

[[folder: Character Shilling Bane]]

[[folder: Bane traps the police and... feeds them?]]

[[folder: Alfred is an expert on criminals?]]

[[folder: Mushroom Cloud]]

[[folder: Motorcycle question]]

[[folder: Alfred leaving Bruce]]

[[folder: What would Bruce live on?]]

[[folder: Bruce visiting Gordon]]

[[folder: You Fail Economics Forever]]

[[folder: Economics Don't Work That Way]]
* Everyone except for our heroes seems to automatically buy and act on the story that Bruce Wayne wiped out his own fortune as if it was unquestionable; shouldn't someone have considered the ''huge and very public armed assault on the stock exchange by a terrorist in broad daylight literally the day before'' as maybe having something to do with it instead? it's understandable how things might get out of control because things get set into motion automatically and he'd lose everything anyway, but this was hardly a subtle operation or anything. You'd think someone might suspect that there might be a bit of dodginess surrounding the whole thing.
** The people that Bruce lost money to would certainly have wanted that money in their possession. His lawyers might feel certain that they could prove the fraud, but nothing is certain until it gets ruled on and could be tied up in litigation for years. The thumb-print backed trades passed most peoples' common sense threshold of evidence, and the action (fraud or otherwise) did wipe out the Wayne fortune, so the end result was "Wayne loses entire fortune betting on the futures market."
*** Even if he still loses his fortune, you'd think that someone would acknowledge the possibility that it might have something to do with it. The 'common sense threshold' about the fingerprints is all very well, but it's equally commonsense to suggest that 'armed attack, robbery and kidnapping on the stock-exchange' + 'billionaire suddenly loses his entire fortune apparently personally playing on the stock exchange the very next day despite having shown no interest whatsoever in playing stocks for the previous eight years' = 'there might be a possible link here'. It's not like how Bane and his men ended up fiddling the stock markets required any kind of subterfuge or anything outside of acquiring Bruce's fingerprints; they basically went in there guns blazing, openly messed around with some stuff in front of everyone in the room, and then led the police on a chase until the Batman showed up. You don't exactly have to be the Batman to see that there's a possible connection.
*** When millions/billions of dollars are at stake, you don't just shrug your shoulders and say "something is obviously up; let's just give him the money back." There'd be, at the least, a long, drawn-out investigation.
*** As Bruce is leaving the board meeting where he turns over power to Miranda, Fox points out they should be able to prove it was fraud in the long run, but in the short term Bruce is screwed.
** Well, in RealLife, yes the attack on the stock market would probably have overruled Bruce losing everything, so ultimately it is just CriticalResearchFailure / RuleOfDrama, and not the first in this series either.
*** They didn't attack the stock market, they attacked a stock exchange. From the looks of it, they didn't actually do any major financial damage to anyone but Bruce Wayne. Fraud could be proven by showing the time coinciding with the moment the first bullets are fired inside the exchange, and that the options were input by the application recovered from the laptop--but like real life identity theft (which is what this boils down to) it takes time and one generally isn't immediately given the benefit of the doubt by the institutions that have to cover/recover the defrauded funds.
*** A stock exchange is ''part'' of the stock market. You really think if, say, someone attacks the New York Stock Exchange, the other stock exchanges in the country and around the world are just gonna keep going on as normal? They're all interconnected.
** Imagine you're with the Securities Exchange Commission, and a man who just ruined himself through thumbprint-verified risky futures transactions comes into your office. He explains that the transactions were fraudulent, and he explain how his thumbprint got on there. You see, a high-class thief posed as his maid and stole his fingerprints (in a burglary he didn't report to authorities) in order to give them to the masked terrorist who attacked the stock exchange specifically to make these transactions. They were hired by a business rival, one of the city's richest and most connected citizens, in order to make the man in front of you poor. The man in front of you is Bruce Wayne, who dropped out of college and disappeared so completely for seven years that he was declared dead. Upon his return, he showed highly erratic behavior: Buying a hotel just because he could, drunkenly chasing the Gotham elite from his home before burning it down, taking the entire Russian ballet out on his private yacht, crashing his fancy sports car into a police convoy, etc. Most recently, he funneled almost all of his company's R&D budget into a save-the-world vanity project in alternative energy and turned into a total recluse for two years when it failed. In short - it looks like a man with a record of reckless and highly costly behavior is spinning an unbelievable, highly paranoid story directly relating to a tragic terrorist attack in order to get out of paying money that his thumbprint (far more unshakable than a signature) says he owes. You'd either toss him out on his ass or call the men in white coats.
*** Which is all very well and good, except that there's still the matter of what exactly the terrorists were doing to explain away. Even a stopped clock can be right twice a day, after all.
*** Which is why they could probably prove fraud--eventually. After an investigation into what exactly the terrorists were doing. In the meantime, Bruce Wayne stays broke, because there is no benefit of the doubt for this sort of thing.
*** He wouldn't be broke. Bruce doesn't solely get money from his shares at Wayne Enterprises. He probably has a few other revenue streams on hand that would make him a garden-type millionaire within a couple months of the stock exchange attack.
** 'Eventually'? It seems like any officer of the SEC who refuses to consider the possibility that the two events are linked even in light of the above will probably not be keeping hold of his or her job for very long, and will probably face an entire barrage of lawsuits and investigations into his / her own conduct on top of it.
** Even if everyone refused to give Bruce Wayne the benefit of the doubt that the massive terrorist attack didn't have anything to do with him losing his fortune, wouldn't Bruce's own lawyers be immediately filing some kind of legal injunction or block that would prevent anyone from taking a goddamn thing until they'd gotten everything sorted out? It's not like they don't have a particularly compelling case, after all.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: No Viewpoint Character]]
* Why is there no normal person viewpoint character? In ''The Dark Knight'', we had Rachel Dawes, who more or less represented the normal good person of Gotham, but she was killed. Now, every single character in this film is either rich, a cop, or a criminal. So, in the end, while the film's makers say they aren't trying to make an Anti-Occupy film, they are by the fact that every person in the film who supposed to be considered good is rich, or helping the rich enforcing order as a cop, or is against them, and is therefore a criminal. Selina Kyle seems to be this character, but she's a thief and is always on the edge of evil. Alfred could have been this character, but he left in Act 1 and doesn't reappear until the coda. Blake is trying to be this character, but he's a cop, following orders and investigating what's going on, not showing us the common person's plight. Malcolm Fox is one of the rich, so he can't be this character. Miranda Tate seems to be this character, but she is rich and also Talia Al Ghul and a terrorist criminal out to destroy Gotham. So, it seems as if the common person's viewpoint is lost. The closest we seem to come is the Orphans and the priest watching out after them, but they're in the film for all of five minutes, so it's hard to see their point of view.
** Em, Rachel Dawes wasn't just a civilian. She had a job in law enforcement, being an assistant district attorney. The story about Batman in general has ''always'' been about a very rich man. That's kinda the premise. The ''Film/IronMan'' movies have no "ordinary person" viewpoint and they don't suffer from it.
*** Not only that, but she appeared to be the DA's lead trial counsel. If anything, John Blake is much closer to an "ordinary person" than she was, even with his shield.
** It's also worth mentioning that Bruce Wayne is not rich for a good chunk of this film. He's BroughtDownToBadass by Bane's stock exchange robbery fairly early on.
** There isn't really a major character representing the "ordinary man" because there is no need for a major character representing the "ordinary man". The film is about Batman, not Bobby Stevenson or what have you.
** Because the "normal person" arc was resolved in ''Film/TheDarkKnight''. Rachel is an example of an ordinary person who gets caught up in the games of the extraordinary and suffers for it. The ordinary people of Gotham are shown to be good in spite of the extraordinary events happening around them, such as the Joker's machinations. ''Film/TheDarkKnightRises'' uses these themes as its premises instead of its conclusions; Bane and Miranda are admittedly and unambiguously evil and profess that they are not trying to prove anything about ordinary people, so there's no reason to have an ordinary character. One of the main themes of the film is that there is no place for normalcy in Bruce Wayne's life so long as he clings to the Batman mantle.
*** Alternatively, Alfred is the "normal viewpoint" character, and his departure is symbolic of the above.
[[/folder]]

*** Exactly. If the corpse is so vaporized that they can't even get DNA traces off of it, then they durn sure aren't getting intact fingerprints or dental work either. It's a win-win scenario for Bane.