<\/div>But here at the end of the story, Batman scoops up the dead Joker and somberly carries him out of Arkham City, leaving his possibly dead girlfriend on the floor of the theater without even bothering to check to see if she somehow pulled through<\/b>. <\/p>\n
So now he cares more about Joker than about Talia, and more about Talia than about Gotham. At this point the Bat-Morality Compass is exactly backwards.<\/p>\n
We get a shot of Batman carrying the Joker in his arms. This creates a callback to the opening shot of the game, a painting of Cain & Abel:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Cain and Abel<\/h3>\n
<\/div>In terms of symbolism, this is about as wrong and backwards as you can get. This is the writer trying very hard to say something profound and instead spewing out absurd gibberish. I know they probably felt the need to imbue the death of Joker with some capital-M Meaning, but this just doesn’t work. Batman’s never really been big on Biblical symbolism and I’m not sure it fits with the tone of his world. (Greek Mythology seems a better fit.) But there’s nothing inherently wrong with going with an unusual source if you’ve got a really good image. The problem is that this contrast makes absolutely no sense.<\/p>\n
For the record: The Biblical story of Cain and Abel is that Cain killed his brother Abel and became the first murderer. This painting shows evil Cain carrying righteous Abel’s body.<\/p>\n
In what way can this possibly be a meaningful reference? Joker is a mass-murdering psychopath, so he can’t work as a mirror of righteous Abel. Batman’s defining rule is that he won’t kill people, so he can’t work as a mirror for Cain. <\/p>\n
“But Shamus, maybe it’s reversed? Maybe Batman is supposed to be Righteous Abel carrying the murderer Cain. Like, an inversion of the story?”<\/p>\n
The metaphor still falls apart because Batman didn’t kill Joker. Joker effectively killed himself in his attempt to torment Batman and gain immortality for himself. I don’t care how you flip the original story, this doesn’t connect to it in any way. The only thing connecting these two images is that they both show someone carrying a dead body.<\/p>\n
If this was just some gag, hidden reference, or nod to the fans then that would be one thing. But this is the death of the Joker. You don’t need<\/b> to draw from ancient works to give the moment heft and Meaning, but if you do you can’t half-ass it. Anything you say here needs to click into place. Otherwise it’s best to just let the events speak for themselves.<\/p>\n
This wouldn’t be a big deal if everything else in the story was right. But after a night of Batman being clueless, incompetent, and out of character, this feels like one more wrong note in a symphony of wrongness. It’s one more thing the writer doesn’t seem to get.<\/p>\n
The Death of Joker<\/h3>\n
<\/div>Batman exits Arkham City and gingerly lays Joker on the hood of a police car.<\/p>\n
Commissioner Gordon is there, along with numerous police. When they see Joker dead they don’t cheer. Or smile. Or even express some slight bit of relief. Instead they look shocked and saddened. Countless non-supervillains are dead in the rubble inside Arkham City, along with many wrongfully incarcerated political prisoners, several dead police officers, and a handful of kidnapped medical professionals. But the police are going to pause for a moment of quiet over Joker’s dead body? <\/p>\n
Gordon asks Batman what happened, but Batman walks away without saying a word. Is he going to go cry? He doesn’t seem interested in guiding any rescue efforts for the prisoners who were just literally bombed. He doesn’t think to ask about how things turned out for all those poor poisoned people in Gotham’s hospitals. He doesn’t even seem motivated to go and check on Talia, and he’s the only one who knows where she is right now. <\/p>\n
“But Shamus, she could use the Lazarus pit…”<\/p>\n
You mean the Lazarus pit Batman just blew up?<\/p>\n
“Well, in the comics that actually isn’t the only Laz-“<\/p>\n
No, we can’t rely on extra-textual plot elements to justify such visually absurd behavior. Particularly not at the finale when everything should be coming together. Particularly not after his feelings for her were part of his supposed turning point. <\/p>\n
Besides, if he’s unconcerned for her because of the Lazarus pit, then why was he concerned before? He really did seem to think that having her get shot would be A Bad Thing. At the bare minimum, he ought to still think that<\/b>. Even if he assumes she’ll be alive later, does it really make sense to leave the theater without at least looking at her<\/b>?<\/p>\n
<\/div>Heck, Joker’s floor-demolishing explosion went off just a few feet from where she fell. Can we at least get a shot to show she wasn’t turned into oatmeal?<\/p>\n
The Joker story forgot all about the people of Gotham. It forgot about Robin. And after lavishing so much screen time on Talia, it managed to forget about her too. Instead it finishes off the story with this completely incongruous respect for the guy who caused all of the trouble in the first place. <\/p>\n
This Joker toxin plot did not work<\/em>. Batman’s motivations and moral compass are a complete mess. The original Joker \/ Clayface scheme had no endgame, and even their second scheme involving Talia lacked a clear punchline. The whole plot revolved around a McGuffin that didn’t make sense, changed hands off-screen in baffling ways, and then wasn’t properly depicted at the finale. The events were often unclear and confusing. It was driven by contrivance and excuses and fell apart right at the most important moment. <\/p>\n During the Joker plot, Batman behaved like any other regular videogame protagonist. He was single-minded and reactionary. His emotions and values were driven by the plot rather than the other way around. He was often reduced to Commander Shepard levels of cutscene incompetence. He never showed any of the skills or made any observations befitting the world’s greatest detective. Sure, he does those things in the side-missions, but the point I’m making here is that the person who wrote the Joker plot managed to whiff on most of the key aspects of this character.<\/p>\n Batman simply isn’t Batman in this game. Sure, they nailed the look of the character. And with Kevin Conroy behind the microphone he certainly sounds like Batman. But he didn’t act<\/em> like Batman, which is why so many scenes in this game don’t work.<\/p>\n I think the Joker plot was both created because of<\/i> and subsequently ruined by<\/i> the intrusion of the real world into Batman’s. <\/p>\n The first problem stems from the fact that Mark Hamill was retiring from the Joker role. Instead of recasting the role or just taking a break from Joker stories, they decided to kill off the character.<\/p>\n Since you can’t kill off Batman’s main adversary in the B-story, they were obliged to make it the focus. However the entire premise of Arkham City as an open-world prison city depends on Hugo Strange, so they couldn’t just cut the Strange plot entirely. Instead they were forced to do both plots at the same time, and the result is a disjointed mess. <\/p>\n The other problem is that too much of the audience’s viewpoint bled into Batman’s behavior. To the audience, the Joker is the beloved main villain of the series and Talia is a minor side-character. Batman was reacting to these characters the way the audience would, not the way Batman himself would. It’s like Batman was sad about Mark Hamill retiring. Maybe that works for some players in the moment, but it does so by reducing pivotal scenes to cheap fanservice. <\/p>\n This is a videogame, which means it isn’t some alternate world or “What If” exploration of the character. This is a world on which they plan to build more sequels, and this world is now one where the supposedly idealistic Batman literally forgot about two thousand dying civilians in order to save his own life, and then left his possibly-dead girlfriend on the pavement and walked past many more dead and injured people so he could give the body of a mass-murdering psychopath a gentle and respectful escort to safety while the police looked on in sadness. You can’t walk that back. You can’t just go around saying “this part doesn’t count” or “this isn’t supposed to be literal”. Especially when that part is the emotional payload of the entire story.<\/p>\n Since Arkham Origins was developed as a one-off prequel by a different studio, let’s set it aside for the moment and focus on the other three games. Let’s call it the “Arkham Trilogy”. <\/p>\n The Arkham Trilogy has something important in common with the Mass Effect trilogy, which is that it gradually migrated to a new staff of writers to the detriment of its story, while at the same time improving on its core gameplay. At the start we have stiff gameplay but solid writing, and at the end we have inconsistent writing and solid gameplayAlthough Arkham Knight also has the Batmobile, which is a huge minus in terms of gameplay for me. But let’s not have that debate<\/a> again.<\/span>. <\/p>\n Arkham Asylum was written by legendary Batman writer Paul Dini<\/a>. Then Arkham City was a transition between new and old, with Dini teaming up with Sefton Hill<\/a> and Paul Crocker. Arkham Knight left Dini behind and was instead written by Sefton Hill, Ian Ball and Martin Lancaster. <\/p>\nSo What Happened?<\/h3>\n
<\/div>Changing Writers<\/h3>\n
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