Headscratchers / Batman: The Telltale Series

As a Headscratchers subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

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Season One

• Is there a word for that little gadget Catwoman uses to propel herself up walls?
  • I'm pretty sure it's just a grappling gun.
    • The grappling gun she stole from Bruce, in fact!
    • It's not the grappling hook. It's hand-mounted, shaped like a cat's paw, and has purple lights regardless of the player's designated colour. She uses it to ascend an elevator in their first encounter, before she swipes his grapple.
    • (OP) I mean the little motor thingy that attaches to the wall and wheels upward, taking her with
    • We see it in Episode 3. It's called a Cat's Claw. Bruce can steal it.
• So why exactly are people thinking that Bruce is a criminal like his father? Bruce was eight when his parents were killed, and he seems to be mid-twenties here, so he'd be too young to get involved with whatever Falcone and Hill were doing between Crime Alley and the start of the game.
  • I suppose the citizens of Gotham have a Like Father, Like Son mentality. Which is silly, but there you go. P
  • Well that and people love a scandal. Rich idle boy Brucie's money coming from criminal enterprises? It would explain so much about him not having a job...
  • Well, you know, technically, they are right; he is a criminal, just more "outlaw vigilante" than Diabolical Mastermind.
  • You'd be surprised how much people use that kind of quote-unquote "logic", where blood relation automatically makes people assume they're alike. Hell, it's pretty much what kicks off Bane's origin story.
  • They also probably assumed that he knew about his father’s crimes, not realizing that he not only never knew the truth but was horrified when the truth came out.
• In Episode 1 Bruce has no trouble learning about Oswald's criminal record, including things like (presumably illegal) arms dealing, underground fights, and a dishonorable discharge (from... something...). Yet in Episode 3 the Wayne Enterprises Directors don't find any of this when they check his resumé. How'd he hide it? And if he could do that at any time, why didn't he do it before Episode 1- as in, before getting to Gotham?
  • It's implied that he used his connections with the Children of Arkham and Mayor Hill to help himself get a clean record.
• Why do people keep trusting Selina? She very publicly helps Bruce sabotage the Children's plans at the debate, and yet, next time we see her they're still working together. Then Bruce trusts her enough to let her help him despite that.
  • Put simply, people trust Selina much more than they trust anyone else save Alfred. For good reason too, think about it. Selina might play both sides, but at the end of the day she's there for Batman and Batman is there for her. It helps that Selina has never done something truly reprehensible like Penguin or -to a lesser extent- Harvey. Publicly bashing your best friend but still needling him for money? Fuck you Dent. But I digress, for the most part, you know where you stand with Selina. Catwoman is Batman's friend. End of story
    • That only half explains it. Bruce has decent reason to think he can trust her. But why do the Children of Arkham think they can work with her after she openly screws up their plans at the debate for no clear gain? Do they think Batman is paying her to help?
    • Simple, after the debate, the Children of Arkham might have started to see her as great batman-bait. Just in case.
    • Judging by how quickly Lady Arkham uses Catwoman in such a way at the tram station this is undoubtedly the case.
    • This troper found their trust in Selina taking a huge nosedive in Episode 4. After saving her at the theater, after understanding her reasons in not speaking to Harvey in the hospital, after trying to explain to Harvey that there wasn't anything going on between Bruce and Selina (in their playthrough), after all that what does she end up doing? Cut and run, leaving Bruce with just one less ally in his darkest hour. True, it'll likely result in a last-minute return to help Bruce in the finale but it took everything this troper had not to want to cuss her out for being so monumentally self-centered.
    • On the other hand, try to see things from Selina's point of view: a simple job has gone south for her and she's managed to earn the ire of both the Children of Arkham and the newly-elected mayor of Gotham city, a man who appears to have gone insane. Both of them know who she is, and it won't take long for them to find out where she is. Even if Selina stayed she'd be marked for death, and while she's had some close calls she's got enough experience to know her luck will run out eventually. Bruce's (and by extension the player's) offer of protection is genuine, but Selina is only too aware that he's got his own battles to fight right now. Leaving may not be the most emotionally satisfying choice for a player pursuing Selina, but it is the pragmatic one, which is in keeping with her character.
    • Keep in mind that the same Episode 4 shows how vulnerable even Bruce is when Harvey is in power. Bruce escapes from Arkham only with the help of GCPD and his lawyers, assets which Selina does not have. She is indeed not a hero (in fact this troper thinks most potrayals share this very sane idea of valuing her life more than other people's), so she leaves. This troper in fact at later point in game found himself appreciating her leaving, precisely because otherwise she could have ended up where Alfred ultimately ended up - a hostage of Bruce's enemies.
    • The Children of Arkham were probably planning on eliminating Catwoman anyways once her usefulness was over.
    • Then there's Catwoman's main reason for leaving. She's a compulsive thief and Batman is a crime fighter. There's 3 problems with that: she might not be able to help herself when she sees something she wants, a previous crime may come up that Batman has to lock her up for, and she's still in deep with people like the Riddler who may come for her. Mind you, not the Riddler specifically since he's a friend and presumed dead at this point, but criminals like the Riddler who may be more... problematic for her and Bruce. Plus, she would eventually run out of money and have to rely on Bruce to pay for everything or get married to him. She doesn't have a legitimate job and wouldn't like a 9-5. She may choose to live with Bruce, but it's way too early to ask him for anything like that. Given that Bruce even considers it an option to betray her in Season 2, her concerns are well founded. Season 2 also shows she may be willing to kill while Batman isn't. Sticking around Bruce would limit her options. Finally, there's the fact that she's used to hiding basically everything about her life. Coming out and telling Bruce everything would be a little scary for her.
• Two questions regarding Arkham Asylum. For one, how the hell does the head of psychiatry say that John Doe is a "model" patient when his deranged antics is so visibly obvious? Sounds like a case of Horrible Judge of Character to me. And she says that Bruce Wayne needs help. And the security. The GODDAMN security in that place is so stupid that I have to think that their "surveillance cameras" are turned off or something. What's up with that? Even the others could obviously see that the Joker instigated the breakout.
  • This can mostly be explained as Arkham Asylum being horribly underfunded and mismanaged. A closer inspection reveals that the entire facility is practically falling apart due to disrepair, and the guards are all horribly corrupt or at the very least apathetic to the plight of the patients. As for John Doe, he's very charismatic and probably keeps telling the doctors what they want to hear.
  • More on John Doe: he sort of is a model patient. While his behavior is erratic, he does seem capable of having human interactions and organized conversations. That's leagues ahead of many of the guys we see at Arkham. Of course, in secret he's anything but model, but that's in secret.
  • Also, she describes him as their most improved patient, which could very well be true given his usual proclivities.
  • Season 2 also shows us that John took his doctor's advice to heart and practices it day to day. For the mentally insane, knowing you have a problem and actively working on it is a very good sign. John may have cut Zasz and got someone killed, but that can be chalked up to him being anti-social. What sealed it for the doctor was that John didn't riot like literally every other prisoner.
• Here is one I'm amazed no one has asked yet: How in the hell does "John Doe" know who Batman and Lady Arkham are? And before you say I'm reaching "John" explicitly says "I know what you really are" to Bruce. Then he has this goldmine of information. HOW?!
  • Presumably the Lady Arkham connection is meant to be less of a mystery and more foreshadowing for a later reveal. As for Bruce... it's very ambiguous exactly what John knows. It might just be in reference to that "darkness" in Bruce's soul.
  • One thing that I've learned about fiction is that the smartest people somehow become all-knowing when incarcerated.
  • That or the comment was intended as a Bait-and-Switch, and he may have been coyly referring to some other dark secret Bruce had, blissfully unaware that he had spooked The Goddamn Batman.
  • Of course, Joker tends to be a Fourth-Wall Observer at the best of times, so he just might know what's going on. Keep in mind that nobody knows how or when or why he was admitted to Arkham Asylum — he simply showed up one day — so it's distinctly possible that he has access to information that other characters simply can't reach.
  • The way he said it could come across as "I know what you really are: One of those people who acts all nice and normal, but is just as crazy as the rest of the people in here." This would fit in with other characterizations of the Joker, who tries to form a bond with Batman based on how they're not so different, or in "The Killing Joke," when he tried to drive Jim to madness to show that everyone can be just as bad and crazy as he is. It would also fit in with the Joker claiming that he gets all his info from TV, which presumably has been in an uproar over the rich billionaire playboy who's currently at the center of a scandal about his family being monsters attacking the current head of his own company on live television.
  • As for him knowing about Vikki's history, she may have been in Arkham for a while before faking sanity to get out. If they could wipe Cobblepot's record clean, they could do the same with Vikki. She has explored the place enough to find the god damn Court of Owls meeting place. Based on how astute John is and how harmless he is, Vikki could have confided her story to him on the basis no one would believe him. Maybe season 3 was meant to explain this.
• In Episode 4, when Bruce is making himself an antidote for the Hate Plague Lady Arkham drugged him with, it's noted that the drug does something to one's genetic structure and has long-term, maybe permanent effects, and that if they wanted to make enough of the antidote for everyone in Gotham, they would need to get DNA samples from literally every single person in the city. But wait a minute. Who else do we know that was drugged with this stuff? That's right. Harvey. So why did it never occur to Bruce to try and cure him?
  • Harvey's problems go far deeper than a drug. He's a schizophrenic with an absolute ton of baggage to work through - while pushing the drug out of his system entirely might ease some of the symptoms, it won't do anything for the root cause.
  • While it would help to put more restraint upon Harvey, the drug brought out traumas in him that didn't occur to Renee or Bruce: Neither of them went insane like he did. Plus, Bruce more than likely didn't have a sample from Harvey; and probably concluded that Harvey wouldn't trust Bruce to use it. Plus, there was Lady Arkham to deal with.
• I'm sorry, but I don't buy for one second Mayor Harvey Dent getting away with his over-the-top Saturday morning cartoon villainy. Replacing the city police force with mercenaries? Detonating a bomb in downtown Gotham? Burning Wayne Manor down? Seizing Jack Ryder for summary execution on live television? Why on earth didn't the state governor or city council or the DOJ or somebody remove this maniac well beforehand?
  • A lot of the things he did took place over a very short period of time; people just didn't have time to go through the proper channels. He's taken down the same night the bombing occurs if you make him a priority, or the morning afterwards if not.
• Does it feel like Batman was deliberately trying to kill Vicki? He knows that her staff could throw a grown man across the room at range, and he blasted her in the chest with it when it was right against her.
  • He's fighting for his life and early in his career. While he probably wasn't thinking "gonna commit some murder", there's no doubt Vicki's safety as an afterthought in that situation.
• Just how does Vicki Vale fight Batman to a standstill? And where does she get her equipment from?
  • Batman's not the only one with training and money on his side.
  • But where did it come from? Bruce has a multi billion dollar corporation and advanced R&D department. Even if Vicki had access to money from Arkham Asylum, and even if it were enough to build this stuff, who would make it?
    • Crime is lucrative and Wayne industries doesn't have a monopoly on engineers, especially in a world with super villains.
    • Yes, but most writers since the silver age have felt an obligation to explain a characters fighting skills and advanced tech. Seems like they didn't really think her character through, but who knows. Maybe there was going be be some dialogue or a reveal in future seasons about how Vicki was ex-special forces, and that Lexcorp was supplying the Children of Arkham to destabilize Gotham and give Luthor opportunities (similar to his actions in "No Man's Land".
  • The other explanation is that maybe she wasn't working alone. Presumably, a 3rd season was planned, but was never followed through on given Telltale tanking. It's probable that she was funded by the Court of Owls. For many observant comic fans, they noticed several members of the court popping up in the first season. The ending fight scene in the church basement in Arkham IS the meeting place of the court in the comics. Many of the aristocrats of Gotham are in the court which, persumably, included the Arkhams themselves. This would explain why the court was in their mental health facility's basement and why Vicky knew it was there. A third season might have seen Batman fight this organization's assassins like he did in the comics.
• In episode 4 we choose whether to go to Wayne Enterprises or Wayne Manor. If we go to Wayne Manor, we get to encounter Harvey, who states that his goal is to make Wayne Manor vanish. Indeed, if we choose to go to Wayne Enterprises instead, we see Harvey basically burning/exploding the place. However, in episode 5 Alfred is kidnapped by Lady Arkham from that very manor and somehow there's no damage seen at all.
  • Presumably from the dynamics of the fire, it's possible the room Alfred was kidnapped from was simply spared from the inferno. Someone likely extinguished the flames if Harvey felt safe enough to hold people hostage there.
• So, does Gotham just not have any real health care at all? I mean Harvey Dent gets half of his face seared off, depending on player choice and yet there isn't a single suggestion concerning reconstructive surgery, or facial transplants, or even just basic effing bandaging so the massive festering wound isn't constantly dripping blood and pus everywhere? I mean, yeah, you have to have the classic Two-face look, but the idea that anyone, let alone the mayor of a large American city, would be permitted to just wander around outside with that kind of injury exposed to the elements is just absurd. Partial face transplants have been around since 2005 for god's sake. Heck, a few skin grafts could probably have done the job until a donor could be found. It just makes no sense for a wealthy, well-connected version of Harvey Dent to obtain the injuries he did and not do something about them! He does go completely crazy after a while but he still spends a significant amount of time after the injury with some degree of lucidity. And since the game's story will still turn Dent into Two-face regardless of whether or not he gets burned, I just don't see the point of including it as a possibility at all.
  • As I recall, Harvey left the hospital prematurely, not really caring about the treatment at the time. In The Dark Knight, it was said Harvey refused any kind of surgery despite the injuries. It's likely that this Harvey is doing the same thing, as detrimental to himself as it is.
  • Dark Knight Harvey was refusing treatment because he was insane with rage and grief at having just lost the love of his life, Telltale Harvey was complaining about his new appearance in one scene and by all rights should have had some kind of surgery to start covering it up. imo it's an actual plot hole why he couldn't take a couple hours and a couple thousand dollars to do something about the massive horrific wound on his face. Although, he does wear a (poorly fitting) mask for it, so that's something.
  • He’s probably too desperate to take on the Children of Arkham to want to bother with surgery. Plastic surgery might take only a couple of hours but given the extent of the damage to his face, he’d probably have to stay in the hospital for at least a day, and with the Children of Arkham running loose in Gotham, that’s probably time he believes he doesn’t have.
• After Bruce is drugged by Vicki Vale at the press conference and convinces him to attack Cobblepot, he is sent to Arkham indefinitely thanks to Harvey's influence. However Bruce never seems to defend himself to the doctors by saying he was poisoned, despite the puncture wound still being on his hand and the drugs still being in his system. It is even stranger as Renee Montoya was drugged in a similar fashion and a drug test could prove that he was not in control of himself, similar to her.
  • They'd probably not believe him, and/or be suspicious of how he knows it.
  • Still though, Jim Gordon was there when Bruce pointed out the poisoning of Renee, knows that the Children of Arkham use drugs on their victims (as publicly shown in the debate), and knows what victims look like. It would seem prudent of him to at least check when someone goes inexplicably crazy for the basic signs of said poisoning, particularly when Bruce was connected to both previous victims.
  • Gordon might not have had the chance to check. Dent probably threw Bruce in Arkham right away and stonewalled any effort by Gordon to convince Dent that Bruce might have been drugged.
• Why exactly did nobody think to do a blood test on Bruce, considering the VERY OBVIOUS VEINS ON HIS ARM AND LIPS EXACTLY LIKE THE ONES HILL AND DENT GOT AT THE DEBATE? Not to mention the bleeding injection site on his hand?
  • IIRC, nobody really noticed the veins after Harvey and Hill were injected, and even if they did see the veins, there'd be nothing much to link it to the injection. Even if Bruce told them about the veins, 1. They probably wouldn't believe it, and 2. They would've suspicious as to why Bruce knows this.
• So how exactly does this version of Penguin get the nickname "Penguin"? He doesn't physically resemble one. He doesn't wear evening garb at any point (even when in costume he's wearing more of a business suit). Sure, he acquires a limp in the final fight, but clearly already had the nickname well before that. Is there a reason he'd be call that besides Grandfather Clause?
  • He likes penguins?
  • Another possibility is that he got the nickname as a prepubescent, and puberty was kind to him in the looks department.
• Harvey becoming Mayor immediately after Hill's death, despite them still being in the debate phase. Why on earth wouldn't Hill's party just be allowed to appoint a new candidate?
  • It was...a last minute debate shortly before the election, and Hill's public problems rather made Harvey the obvious winner?
  • With Hill’s death, Harvey was running unopposed. And since you’ve got a supervillain assassinating mayoral candidates, no one else had the guts to step up, so Harvey won by default.
• If you go after Harvey in episode 4, the police will ask Batman whether he should be sent to Arkham or Blackgate, and apparently accept his advice. Did I miss the bit where Batman suddenly became a judge?
  • Judges sentence you to serve time in jail, but before a trial, criminals are held in holding cells. Judges don't determine where the criminal is sent for holding. Police do. Batman is just giving advice. Now mind, this is ONLY true for involuntary commitment of the mentally ill which does NOT require criminal prosecution. Basically, the police have the option to just throw Harvey into Arkham without involving lawyers or judges (like they did with Bruce), or just wait it out for the judge to throw him in Blackgate to await his trial. And unlike Bruce, Harvey had a genuine mental illness.
• It's established that the Cobblepots have been living in Gotham for centuries, so why does Oswald have a rather distinct Cockney accent? Yes, he's obviously travelled a lot since he and Bruce were kids, but nobody so much as comments on his accent.

Season Two

• Why is it such a big deal that Regina caught Bruce with Harley and John? From her perspective, it clearly looks like Bruce was being held hostage by a pair of criminals, which isn't even all that far from the truth.
  • After what happened in episode one, the last thing people would expect Bruce to be doing is hanging out with people of questionable repute.
  • And since Regina saw it, that means she'll expect followup of some kind (going to the police perhaps) rather than quietly taking out the key with no one the wiser as Bruce was hoping for.
  • This headscratcher gets answered in episode 3: the reason it's such a big deal that Regina caught Bruce with Harley and John is that it's one of several things that makes Jim Gordon suspicious of Bruce Wayne (though not of Batman); Gordon concludes that Bruce must be "dirty" and working with criminals.
• During the climax of episode 3 of season 2, we are stuck between telling Harley that either Bruce or Catwoman stole her laptop. The last time we saw Selina, she was safe and sound in the batcave. When we then drop Selina in it, suddenly she's bound and gagged and placed in a potentially lethal trap by the Pact. Is there a scene missing were she's captured or something?
  • Selina leaves the batcave before you do; she mentions that she's going to snoop on Harley some more. Presumably she got caught in the midst of that.
  • That still doesn't really make sense. Earlier in the same season you are able to warn her that Gordon is going to try and arrest her. Why are you not able to warn her that the Pact thinks she's the traitor? It could just be that Bruce can't just send a text message right away without someone noticing, but he doesn't need to pull out his phone to send a message. He could just use his communicator to tell Alfred to warn her. After all, in the scene prior to that, he had his contacts in and was scoping out the black site before Bane came around and knocked him out. The only explanation is that they already captured Catwoman or she was just chilling in the base, neither of which is shown or stated to be the case. At the very least, it's a plot tumor since they basically skip a scene showing us when and how she was captured. At worst, it's a contrivance.
• I'm confused about the whole "steal the laptop" thing in Episode 3. I went to that underground Riddler place with Selina, and we found a decrypter that only works in conjunction with the retinal scan goggles. Selina stole the decrypter because...uh...she wants to "finish things on her own terms", or something? I guess the implication is that the data will allow her to find these Lotus people and assassinate them, and Bruce is opposed to that because of his One Rule. So anyway, she gets away and now John and I are faced with the problem of what to do about it, since no one wants to tell Harley that we screwed up. John agrees to steal Harley's laptop, because...why? What are we planning to do with this laptop? We can't get to the files without the decrypter. Maybe the idea is to just prevent Selina from getting her hands on the files? But ok, obviously Harley's going to notice that the laptop is gone. So then what? Maybe the plan all along was to frame catwoman for the theft, but I don't remember them discussing that while they were making the plan. But anyway, John talks to Bruce and agrees to steal the laptop, and later he steals the laptop and shows Bruce that he stole it, and the next thing we see is him offering the laptop to Batman. Was this part of the plan? Did John tell Bruce that he was going to make a deal with Batman? Because I don't remember him talking about that. And what is this deal with Batman, anyway? John gives Batman the laptop, and in return Batman promises not to hurt Harlen when the Pact gets taken down? Is John outright betraying the Pact here? And if he is, why doesn't he just tell Batman everything? Why offer just this one laptop? And what the hell is Batman supposed to do with the laptop if he presumably possesses neither the decrypter nor the retinal scan goggles? Is John trying to scam him or something, by offering up a laptop that he can't actually access? But if that's the case, then why give him a genuine laptop with genuine files on it when he could just give him some other laptop? I have no idea what's going on.
  • As of Episode 4 it seems to be the final nail in the coffin John needs to prove that Bruce is Batman. "You kind of gave yourself away with the laptop."
  • To answer your questions in order: yes, Selina's plan is to finish it on her own terms in a way Bruce disagrees with. John agrees to steal Harley's laptop so Selina can't get to it, and Bruce wants it presumably for that reason and because at least that way he may be able to figure out a way into it without the decrypter. They seemed to genuinely not consider that Harley would notice the laptop was missing or thought they could get what they needed and put it back in time. John giving the laptop to Batman was meant to tip off the players that he's not about double-crossing Bruce; no, he never told Bruce he was doing that (alternatively, maybe John figured all Bruce wanted was for Selina to not get the laptop rather than actually wanting the laptop himself, so giving it to Batman would accomplish that). Yes, the deal is "give me the laptop and I won't hurt the girl you love". John was not betraying the pact; he was, in his own way, thinking he was protecting Harley while also keeping Selina away from the virus. John probably doesn't know/care what Batman plans to do with the laptop, and like I said before, Batman/Bruce wants it to keep it away from Selina and possibly to try and get into on his own time; John isn't scamming him so much as going "here's what you want, dunno what you're gonna do with it but okay" and trying to genuinely help.
• So at the funeral, you have to decide between telling Tiffany the truth that you thought it was safe, or lying and saying that you didn't knowingly put Lucius in danger. Umm, aren't those pretty much the same thing?
  • Telling the truth is owning up to the fact that Bruce put Lucius into harm's way by giving him the Riddler device, lying is acting as if Bruce had no idea what happened.
• So in the end it turns out that Tiffany was the one that killed the Riddler out of revenge for her father. Except how did she know he was involved at all? The cause of Lucius' death is covered up and even if you tell her the truth she doesn't get a bunch of information out of you. Somehow she not only knows how Lucius died but where his killer was in time to stage an ambush? How'd she pull all that off?
  • It's quite possible that Tiffany tracked down the drone Batman was using and that led her to Riddler. If you told her the truth at the Funeral she has the motivation to track you down and she has the tool to do so, and even if you lied to her, She would get suspicious about the sudden activity of the drone.
  • Riddler's symbol was on the disc, along with a riddle on the outside. She suspects that the disc was related to Lucius' death, and confronts Bruce about it at the funeral. If Bruce tells the truth or says nothing, then she knows that the disc had a hand in his death and can pretty easily put two and two together. If Bruce lies, she mentions not knowing who to blame, implying she's still searching. Perhaps she used the drone, as the previous troper suggested, or perhaps she simply realized that Bruce wasn't being completely honest with her and returned to her previous hypothesis.
• So Alfred decides to leave because he feels that Batman creates the evil he destroys with Two-Face, Cobblepot, Lady Arkham and the Joker as notable examples. How does Alfred come to this conclusion? He knows Lady Arkham and Cobblepot were evil years before even meeting Batman and there reasons for turning out the way they did had nothing to do with him.
  • It’s not that so much as Alfred’s starting to have his own doubts about Bruce’s seeming obsession with being Batman. He’s afraid that it’s ultimately going to end up the same way for Bruce as it did for his father: gunned down in an alley. His threatening to leave is ultimately his way of forcing Bruce to make a choice.
• Since Harley started as a villain before Joker in this continuity where did she get the idea to have a clown theme?
  • She likes clowns?
  • If you were named Harleen Quinzel, and had to become a supervillain...why WOULDN'T you pick clowns? Its kinda an obvious leap for Batman logic.
  • Maybe John somehow left an impression on Harley during her brief time as his therapist?
• One of the news reports before Lucius' funeral refers to him as a "father of three." However, only Tiffany and Luke are named in either game. There is a third member of the Fox family at the funeral, but she's likely his wife. Old photographs only show a girl and a boy. Where's the third kid? It's unlikely the news would getting something that obvious wrong, and even more unlikely that it would be selected by the game to play over the funeral. Outside of being a one-off comic reference, what's the explanation?
  • A year had passed between the end of the first season and the beginning of the second. More than enough time for the Fox family to have a third child.
• "You thought Riddler was bad? Penguin? Lady Arkham? None of them knew you... like I DO! I know just how to press those buttons!" ... Really? Penguin and Lady Arkham subjected Bruce to an epic Broken Pedestal, stole control of his family company, and turned his closest friend against him. Said close friend did serious damage to his ancestral home and threatened his father figure, and represents his shattered dream for justice and peace in Gotham. Riddler killed Lucius Fox. Is it me or did all of them succeed at hitting Bruce close-to-home in a much bigger way than John?
  • Consider who’s talking. It’s John. This isn’t a statement by the game—it’s a statement from a specific character with delusions of grandeur which carry through most of Episode 5 (at least in the Villain Route). John sees their battles as a game, with the sole objective of pushing Bruce/Batman’s buttons. He sees himself as the best villain Batman can have. John is the only one of those villains to know Bruce is Batman and know him personally in both identities. Penguin didn’t know, Lady Arkham had a full on Villainous Breakdown if Bruce revealed his identity to her, and Riddler only killed Lucius (hurting Bruce) by accident. John knows how to push Bruce’s buttons both as Batman and Bruce, knows that that button pushing carries over between the two identities, and is arrogant enough to brag about how he’ll do it better than any of Bruce’s other foes.
• What exactly was Avesta getting at when she was claiming criminals like Two-Face, Lady Arkham and Penguin seem to be attracted to Bruce and how he's at the center of Gotham's most notorious? Also, how was she able to guess his identity based on that reasoning? It is very much established that everything last season could be traced back to Thomas Wayne and Bruce was nothing more than a scapegoat for everyone to take their hatred out on because he was the only living Wayne.
  • Bruce Wayne is at the center of the insanity by virtue of who he is. His father was a man who drove people insane in order to get them locked up and Penguin and Vikki attacked him for it. If Bruce hadn't developed the bat technology then Vikki and Cobblepot wouldn't have targeted his company for his tech. They could still have killed him out of a misguided sense of revenge, but the beginning of Season 1 implied that Cobblepot was okay with Bruce staying alive if he joined him and Lady Arkham as a super villain breaking the system. No matter how mad Bruce got, he was never going to be a super villain, hence why he is inevitably targeted by Cobblepot. On top of that, Bruce's best friend goes insane and he becomes friends with the equally insane John Doe while in Arkham. Bruce deals with insane people a lot, but to answer your question, it's not about Bruce being targeted by the insane. Avesta also realizes that Batman also has to deal with the insane. What's suspicious about it is that both Batman AND Bruce Wayne had a personal relationship/grudge with all the same psychopaths. Batman save Wayne Corp from Cobblepot, and Bruce had to deal with Vikki while Batman dealt with her as Lady Arkham. Batman fights the Riddler and takes the puzzle box and the next thing that happens is that Lucius Fox is killed at Wayne tech? Riddler was the only one who could pull that off, so why would WAYNE be the one hit? At first Avesta was suspicious of how coincidently Bruce and Batman shared the exact same enemies and she's also some kind of psychologist who can compare and contrast Bruce's and Batman's connections with the same question. Regardless what answers you pick to the question in either scenario, the result is basically the same thing: they both deflect ("what do you mean", "I'm rich and I have enemies", "I lock away criminals and some happen to be insane", "I don't like your attitude" etc). It's not the whole puzzle, but just one little piece for Avesta to use to conclude that Wayne is Batman even if she doesn't have all the other pieces yet. Also worth noting, Avesta is an investigator and it's clear she is sizing both Batman and Bruce up. Literally in fact. She stands the same distance from both of them and stares in their faces as she mentions they both attract insane people. She can probably easily tell that Bruce and Batman are the same height or close enough to it that it can be explained away by the thick soles of Batman's boots making him look taller.

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