The Dark Knight Saga/In General/Headscratchers


 * Why is the mayor wearing eye-liner?
 * If you type in the name "Nestor Carbonell" to google, it tries to autofinish it with "eyeliner." Suffice it to say, he doesn't wear eyeliner. It's just what he looks like.
 * Original Trooper here: Wow. Those are some pretty damn awesome eyes then. Unless its something bad that causes that.
 * Why are all three Troperiffic movies crammed onto a single page?
 * It's a Batman Gambit. You'll add more detail in passing to the other two movies if you're intending on commenting on one film.
 * Not really a just bugs me thing, but something I was wondering: how do you think the people of Gotham view Bruce Wayne in universe? On the one hand in Batman Begins you have him jumping into fountains with supermodels and giving his car as a gift to the valet, then apparently insulting and pissing off some of the richest and most influential people in the city before drunkenly burning down his own home. That screams Rich Idiot With No Day Job. But the very next day he pulls off a plot to purchase the majority share in his company while pulling the wool over the eyes of every major business and financial expert around. Does that make him an Obfuscating Stupidity Magnificent Bastard, or maybe a Bunny Ears Lawyer? Considering his behavior in The Dark Knight with stuff like falling asleep in business meetings and randomly taking an entire ballet troupe out on a cruise, do people think that Wayne really is that much of an idiot, and is just a pawn for The Man Behind the Man: Lucius Fox?
 * Perhaps not Lucius Fox specifically, but they probably assume he's a Rich Idiot With No Day Job who just has the best team of business gurus money can buy running the show for him.
 * I imagine they view him they way society currently view Richard Branson. As an eccentric weirdo we all secretly envy.
 * The only smart thing they saw him do is buy up Wayne Enterprises. He did this via phone while the extremely intelligent, disgruntled former employee who had been friends with the Waynes for years was standing in the board room. Oh,... and it just so happens that he is in charge now. The obvious connection would be that he was pulling Bruce's strings. Even in the second movie, Reese comments about Bruce acting in an embarrassing manner despite the fact that he was simply hired from a firm and not an employee. If he's openly critical of Bruce, then everyone in the company probably thinks he's an absolute idiot. The public just sees him as a playboy.
 * Since when is it a trilogy?
 * Since Nolan announced it was a trilogy way back in Begins,
 * In Begins, Gordon is a normal Detective Sergeant. Nothing particularly special about him. Except for the fact that he is one of the few honest cops in Gotham City. Perhaps this is the reason he's still a lowly detective after 20+ years of service. In TDK he is a Lieutenant in charge of the Major Crimes Unit. Then he gets promoted to Commissioner. Okay, two things: 1) Why is a Lieutenant placed in charge a major police unit, while in most departments, a captain would only run a precinct? And why is said Lieutenant promoted straight to Commissioner? Gotham PD is seriously screwed up. You know, besides the corruption and all.
 * The guy captured the freaking joker. I think that deserves a promotion.
 * A police commissioner is usually a political appointment, not a promotion. New York had at least one commissioner who had retired as a captain.
 * It's probably also easier to move up the ranks when the last person was killed. And by Dark Knight, it was implied he was on the fast track, with his predecessor grudgingly acknowledging it.
 * He was promoted back in the first movie too.
 * Gotham City is portrayed as a pretty big city. Lucius Fox says there are "30 million people" in (presumably) the metro area. That would mean that Gotham has around the population of New York City within its borders. NYPD has almost 40,000 cops on its payroll. Let's presume Gotham has a similar amount, probably less (let's say 30,000). How can most of those cops be on the mob's payroll? I can understand paying off certain parts of the force (Narcotics and Vice detectives, beat cops who patrol areas where the mob deals usually take place, etc.) but the majority of the force is portrayed to be corrupt. I doubt the mob can afford to pay all these cops without bankrupting themselves.
 * They don't need to corrupt everyone, just enough to ruin the Gotham PD's efforts at investigation. Claims that the entire PD are corrupt are probably just overblown; the majority of the cops in TDK, for example, seem perfectly upstanding.
 * Also, there's not just one "mob" in Gotham, there's multiple mobs who were competing with each other until Batman showed up. And even in real life, it doesn't take much to corrupt a police department. Generally powerful gangs have a few patrol cops directly on their payroll, a few investigators in divisions like burglary, homicide and narcotics, someone in the evidence room and maybe someone in Records. And then they regularly try to suborn judges and city officials on top of that. Spread that out over multiple precincts and turn it Up to Eleven, and you have Gotham City.
 * They don't have to actually keep them all on salary. If the mob knows that most cops will change testimony or destroy evidence for an envelope full of cash, then it has the same effect. And its demoralizing to the remaining cops.
 * It kinda bugs me why Nolan refused to incorporate Robin in the trilogy. I mean, yes, I do understand that the addition of Robin will add some light-heartedness that Nolan is trying to avoid. However, I recall that there are some serious contents that can be done with Robin and they can still make it 'With sidekick, but STILL gritty'. For instance, the first instance of Dick Grayson quitting as Robin (due to injury) can be incorporated. So let's say for the next part, Robin is featured and is eager to be Batman's sidekick, but Batman kept refusing his offers. He lets up, and lets Robin join the climax battle... only for Robin to be gravely wounded (might be in a bizarre way) and in the end of the movie, Batman told him to quit, Robin reluctantly agrees and they go separate ways, Batman resumes being solo again, and now with knowledge that "It's dangerous to take sidekicks". How is that 'light hearted'?
 * Well, for one thing, that will majorly piss off Robin's fans. Introduce him just to have him get a bridge dropped on him to teach Batman a lesson that his job is dangerous? Of course it's too dangerous to have a freaking kid with him. That's why he wears state of the art body armor, and he still takes pretty bad injuries on a nightly basis.

Plus, the scenario you described is a movie all about Robin. A movie all about Robin where he learns that it's too dangerous to be Robin. I dunno about you, but do you want a Batman movie that's not about Batman, that ends up as a Shaggy Dog Story? I'm a big fan of the Boy Wonder (particularly Tim Drake), but I would hate a movie with that scenario. "Nolan: "If you think of Batman Begins and you think of the philosophy of this character trying to reinvent himself as a symbol, we took the position philosophically — that superheroes simply don’t exist. If they did, if Bruce knew of Superman or even of comic books, then that’s a completely different decision that he’s making when he puts on a costume in an attempt to become a symbol. It’s a paradox and a conundrum, but what we did is go back to the very original concept and idea of the character. In his first appearances, he invents himself as a totally original creation.""
 * To be honest though, there was actually only one movie about Batman Begins.
 * And Nolan has a point. Bruce Wayne is still fairly young, Dick Grayson is still in kindergarten somewhere. I don't want Robin to be in any Batman movie just 'cause the audience expects it to be a package deal. If the director thinks Robin would be a meaningful addition to the plot, and they've found the right actor to pull it off, more power to them, but until then stop demanding a character be shoehorned in.
 * Think about this: in the first two movies, almost every incident Bruce has been involved in has ended with him being suffering from at least one serious injury. He's been set on fire, beaten severely, dangled underneath a train, been dosed with fear toxin, mauled by a dog, thrown into a support beam in a parking garage, had his vehicle destroyed, was thrown off the other vehicle he used and was shot. Now, considering how screwed up Gotham is at this point (the Joker may be gone, but most of Arkham's inmates are on the loose), would you really want to introduce a young kid or teenager trying to fight crime into this mix? If anything, any interpretation of Robin should (at the very least) be outfitted in the same body armor Bruce wears.
 * Incidentally, Batman the Brave And The Bold sidestepped the whole thing by revealing that Robin had already split off as an independent hero himself before the series started.
 * As interesting a character as some of the Robins can be, I have always thought them an unnecessary and emotionally/thematically stifling addition to the Batman mythos. Think about it: criminals are a cowardly, superstitious lot. He must become a creature of the night: black, fierce, terrible...with this twelve-year-old, wisecracking, wholesome fellow in brightly-colored circus clothes flipping about nearby!
 * While I respect Nolan for pursuing his own vision of the series and for only including characters he feels he can use well, this argument -- the argument that Robin must always be tonally inconsistant with a darker Batverse -- is a minor pet peeve of mine. I consider it the Straw Robin argument. In a reboot where every element of the mythos is being reinterpreted to create a darker and more "realistic" tone, why assume Robin would have to be a garish little ray of sunshine that spews bad puns and wears pixie boots?
 * Some Alternative Character Interpretations claim that Robin's real purpose is just to be a distraction. Canonically, he needs a lighter influence to balance his own darkness. Which makes Damien hilarious when you realize that he's even more GRIMDARK than Bruce or Dick ever were.
 * This was also back in the day when everyone and their mother was getting a kid sidekick. Seriously. DC was crazy-bad with that. Even Aquaman, the joke of DC, got a sidekick. (Though this troper's favorite, just in concept, was Green Arrow's sidekick Speedy who wore red and, much later in the comic, developed a heroin habit. Almost as nutty as that was the Flash's sidekick, who just happened to be involved in nearly the exact same accident hoopla.) The Robin concept's just basically the only one that actually made a permanent mark.
 * I've never bought into the concept of Robin either, although I can tolerate him (in varying degrees depending on who the Robin and writer are). None of the excuses I've heard for his existence come within a thousand miles of holding water. Batman has plenty of ways of distracting criminals. He's the goddamn Batman. Hello? He needs no one's outside help in that regard, and if he did, he wouldn't be the same. If he needs anyone to team up with, there's always the Justice League or any of the other crime fighters who live in the Gotham area, or they could just make up a new guy. As for needing someone to confide in and be close to so that he won't have to suffer alone (would it be so bad if he did? May I remind you who we're talking about here?), he has Alfred. And whatever rationalizations people may come up with for the concept, the fact remains that a menacing bat-like shape speaking from the shadows in an infernal voice loses some of its effect when it's accompanied by an unfunny, brightly colored thirteen-year-old wisecracker.
 * On the other hand: incomprehensible is scary. If there's no reason for Robin that the average mook can discern, than he's probably making Batman seem more intimidating, not less. See also: dressing up like a bat.
 * Or just don't have him be Robin yet. Have Bruce adopt Dick after he's orphaned. Of Course Dick finds out Bruce is Batman. Bruce tries to dissuade him from becoming a vigilante, but of course it doesn't work. So Bruce begins training him. But only training him at this point. It'll take years before Bruce is going to consider Dick trained enougth to join him on the streets. So you can set up for Robin, but not have Batman performing child endangerment.
 * I always liked the explanation for Robin from New Frontier - that Batman had him help with situations where there were kids in peril/involved, because having Robin around made him seem more approachable and kept the children from running away in terror, when he only wanted the criminals to. Another thing that always helped me deal with the idea of Robin was the very, very crucial concept that Robin does not go along for every mission. With regards to his effect on Batman's own dark and formidable image, that's easily explained by the differences in mentalities between kids and adults. Kids see Batman hanging around with another kid and find him less scary, since, obviously, he doesn't mind kids. Adults see Batman assigning a child to fight crime and assume that he is too cold to care what happens to him. Also, the brightly colored thing - well, by the time Robin turns up in Gotham, I think most Gothamites (honest or otherwise) would find bright and cheerful colors much more terrifying than simple black. Still don't think he should be in Nolan's movies, though. Robin is (usually) a sign that whatever he's in is kid-friendly.
 * I think Batman took a Robin not because he needed him for something but essentially to give Dick a chance at having his own revenge. He saw this kid who had his parents killed by criminals in front of him, only without Bruce's resourses, and decided that, like him, the boy deserves a payback. Besides, Batman probably realises that he isn't an immortal and doesn't want his accomplishments to die with him, so he raises himself a replacement who needs to 'practice'.
 * In Gotham Knight, Neko Inc can't help but observe that Batman looks a teeensy bit too much like, of all people, Yagami Light. And it wigs him out... Maybe he's just seeing things, though.
 * It bugs me that Christopher Nolan has arbitrarily ruled out a Justice League of America crossover movie even though he's now working on both Batman and Superman franchises.
 * Because, canon or not, some people are bugged by rational characters like Jim Gordon and the other Gotham cops living in the same universe as Superman and Wonderwoman. The "realism" Nolan is trying to establish conflicts with anything with super-powered characters. Granted the Nolanverse is still really darn unrealistic, but compared to previous incarnations of Batman and anything with superpowered heroes ... you can finish this for me right? Metropolis is a great world, and the Justice League comics are fantastic, but it doesn't bug me that we have at least a few incarnations of Batman that are separate from the rest of the DC universe.
 * Superman can't exist in the same universe as a cop?
 * Sure he can, and does, but reasons for Nolan not wanting to do a crossover (realism and whatnot) were already extensively discussed.
 * Another reason is the concept of Batman in the Nolanverse.

And really,even if Batman's armor could stop armor-piercing rounds,why wouldn't Wayne Industries patent and sell that type of anti-ballistic armor and make even more money than they have?
 * The new Batsuit is composed of 110 individual pieces. How does Bruce get into it so fast? It took him like 3 minutes after the Joker appeared at the part. Does he have a bunch of robot helpers like Stark?
 * 110 individual pieces doesn't mean they're all separate all the time. He was probably referring to 110 different panels of armor in the suit.
 * Bruce Wayne's hair. He's got this thick, slicked-back business hairdo, but that's gotta be annoying under his helmet/mask. Why doesn't he have something more practical? I'm not asking for an army-issue buzzcut, just something that would work in both Bruce-mode and Bat-mode.
 * Hair is pretty flexible. I've seen people with thicker heads of hair wearing just as--if not more--restrictive headware (football helmets, hockey helmets) without problems.
 * This has always bugged me about Batman in any media (but at least the recent films have corrected it): Batman would need to wear body armor rather than just "dodge bullets." Why haven't the crooks in Gotham have figured that out and started using armor-piercing rounds? Also why doesn't Batman suffer most of his injuries from the kinetic impacts from the bullets that hit him?
 * Batman does take the kinetic impact of being shot; watch the end of The Dark Knight, where he falls to the ground and is visibly injured after it. And the armor is a failsafe; Batman does depend on not being shot, and while he might not dodge bullets, he does everything in his power to avoid his enemies getting good aim on him (sticking to the shadows, taking them by surprise, in close, and scaring the shit out of them). The armor is just in case one of them happens to get in a lucky shot.
 * And really,even if Batman's armor could stop armor-piercing rounds,why wouldn't Wayne Industries patent and sell that type of anti-ballistic armor and make even more money than they have? Who said they haven't?
 * Also, the batsuit is stupidly expensive.
 * Yeah, Fox points this out directly when they introduce the bat-armor. It was too expensive for the US Army, so Batman's got the only prototype. Lucius rattles off the figure at around $300,000 per suit. Whether that's the prototype cost or production unit cost...
 * That's actually a pretty common problem for the US military. They keep having companies develop or bid on replacements for their stuff, but can't come up with the money to pay to equip every soldier with new gear. One can assume this sort of thing is where a lot of WE's Rn D stuff comes from.
 * It was established that the Tumbler (Batmobile) was fully functional. It's just that it was designed as a river-jumping vehicle, and that the bridge it was supposed to be able to deploy didn't work.
 * Here's what bugs me: Why is Wayne Industries publicly traded company? AN accountant is shown discovering Batman's identity by looking closely at the books. Wouldn't the dozens (if not hundreds) of people working in finance at a publicly-traded company have discovered the same irregularities? Or their auditors? Or the government? This wouldn't be as big an issue if Batman's identity was already public knowledge. It seems to be one considering that it is not. Why not say it's a privately-held company and move on from there?
 * It was privately held. Part of the first movie is how the board decides to make it publicly traded. The one accountant figured it out because Lucius essentially made him go over it again as busywork; the first film goes over how Bruce would get the equipment through dummy companies to avoid that thing. What really tipped Reese off was things like the Tumbler, which isn't disguised in the least aside from being painted black, being used by Batman, not necessarily irregularities in the bookkeeping.
 * He might well have been looking for something completely different to blackmail them with. Like embezzling.
 * Not to mention the only reason Reese could find any irregularities was because Bruce have little time to plan the whole Radar thing while hiding it from Fox.
 * This might be solved in the upcoming third movie but I have trouble believing the League of Shadows has been wiped out. If Ra's claims that they secretly run governments is true then they should still be in heavy operation. If not, they still proved to be an omnious, international terrorist group. It was obviously designed to continue functioning after its leader died so Ra's death should not be a problem. They should still be out there and they should be pretty interested in visiting Gotham again.
 * From what has been released, Bane is likely working for or possibly running the League now.A "young" Ra's Al Ghul has been cast for "flashbacks" also.
 * All right folks, this is maybe just me, but I have yet to see someone aims for Batman's mouth. You see, that part of him isn't armored.
 * Hitting a target that small is nowhere near as easy as most people think. Especially if you're in the middle of fighting someone.
 * Yeah, you might as well ask why criminals don't do that now. Even a SWAT cop in full body armor has no armor over his face, yet you never hear about SWAT teams routinely getting their faces blown off in busts.
 * SWAT teams typically wear helmets with visors that are more than likely bullet resistant, so they're still protected there.
 * Not all the time they don't. And those visors are really only good for protection against ricochets and shrapnel from explosions. A direct hit from a bullet will rip right through them.
 * Its a small target that is difficult to hit at any range past point-blank, and that's if the target is perfectly still. Batman doesn't stand perfectly still,a nd is constantly moving. He rarely gives his opponents time or a target to even shoot, let alone enough time to draw a bead on his mouth.
 * First off, hitting is in reality much harder than movies present. This is why bodyshots are more common than headshots. Add to that that mouth area is much more smaller.
 * Why doesn't anyone shoot him in the chest until he falls over, and THEN shoot him in the face?
 * You don't think they're trying to already? Batman only works because he avoids situations where his enemies have a clear shot at him. The armor's for the off chance that his stealthing and close-quarters training fails and he ends up getting shot.
 * More Dakka, then. Doesn't matter how badass he is, nobody can stand against 10 guys with FN Minimis.
 * Like the above troper said, Batman is careful to avoid that kind of situation.
 * I find the different versions of Gotham in Begins and Dark Knight very jarring. In Begins Gotham was grimy, cramped and dirty looking. In Dark Knight it was modern day Chicago. I can understand how Batman and Dent helped clean up the place, but the geography seems entirly different.
 * Gotham is a very large city and is comprised of districts varying in economic growth, etc. Begins focused on the poverty stricken slum areas and Dark Knight seems to keep us in richer company (the banking, wealthy mobster districts). Many cities in the world have sections that seem incredibly different from each other in their architecture and such, which will be what's happening here. Hopefully Dark Knight Rises will somewhat link these two styles together in some way, to help the audience feel a continuity in Gotham locations across the trilogy.
 * You also have to consider the type of person he was fighting in either film. In "Begins," he is fighting a mobster who preys on the poorest and most desperate people in Gotham. The scenery reflects that. In "Dark Knight," the Joker is going up against the Gotham elite, so the scenery reflects this as well.
 * Why would Coleman Reese be the only person who figured out that Bruce Wayne or someone affiliated with Wayne Industries is Batman? Considering the fact that most of Batman's tech was contracted by the military, shouldn't some general see the Tumbler on the news and say "Hey, isn't that the tank we contracted Wayne Enterprises to build for us?"
 * Knowing the Batmobile is the Tumbler wasn't the same as knowing Bruce Wayne is Batman. If you look closer at the exchange between Reese and Fox, you'll see that at first Reese didn't know Bruce Wayne was in fact Batman, only that Wayne Enterprises might have connections with the vigilante (that was why he confronted Fox, not Bruce). It was actually Fox who cue him in.
 * The Microwave Emitter was Wayne Tech as well, Wayne Enterprises must be on League of Shadows payroll!
 * Does it bug anyone else that people claim this movie is realistic? I mean I know Nolan claims to be striving for realism, but this seems less realistic than Die Hard 4.
 * Honestly I don't think the movie is realistic at all. If it was it wouldn't be a superhero movie. I think it's MORE realistic than any other superhero movie on the other hand. A lot of the things in the movie exist in real life, insane people, terrorism, and the mafia. You know what isn't realistic though? Batman. Or believing that The Joker is really that prepared. But, although YMMV, I found it pretty easy to suspend disbelief.
 * Compare this movie to the ones where particle accelerators turn you into sand, radioactive spiders give you powers (Spider-Man), and gamma radiation gives you super strength (The Hulk). Plotwise, it still makes much more sense.
 * Or compare this Joker to the Joker in the comics. What's more realistic: a man having his skin bleached white, his hair green, and his lips red, or a man who puts on makeup to resemble a disfigured clown? I'm going for the latter.
 * Well, I don't think the choice of makeup for the Joker was one made in lieu of realism. In fact, if all of the concept art and whatnot is anything to go by, it was a choice made relatively late in the film's production - and, if Nolan is to be believed, one made in tandem with Heath Ledger and his understanding of the character. Personally, I could go either way. I like the possibilities presented by both, although there's a real alien-like quality that comes with the character having bleached skin - especially if he were to do it himself.
 * I think people are misusing the word "realistic" when they call The Dark Knight realistic. It's not realistic. It's just believable, and that's all fiction has to be. Willing Suspension of Disbelief and all that.
 * My point exactly. Here's what makes it believable. 1. Several things from our real world experience have been carried over, for instance, crime is not just fought by superheroes, superhero teams, or secret organizations of superheroes, we have police and a mayor and a district attorney, 2. the unbelievable things are either really cool (Batpod) or done offscreen (The Joker somehow rigging up a whole hospital with explosives with no one noticing), 3. you can't find any miraculous superpowers PRESENTED, sure The Joker is super-sadistic and super-prepared, but that's just part of his character. This is in no way realistic, it's just easier to believe, YMMV.
 * There are multiple ways to consider it realistic. First, rather than fighting a superpowered villain bent on world domination or an alien invasion, Batman is fighting what can best be described as social forces. He's fighting the panic that the Joker has instilled in Gotham through terrorism and he's fighting the madness that Harvey Dent got and he's fighting Gotham's corruption. Another realism here would be the very logical cause to effect of the story structure. Batman fights crooks, crooks begin to escalate, then Batman is forced to escalate which makes him question his newly gray morality. Dent gets burned and loses his wife and so he goes mad and begins to blame the world for his loss rather than take up a personal responsibility.
 * For me, it's a matter of the distinction (perhaps subtle, but nonetheless there) between 'realistic' and 'treats the material seriously and respectfully'. You can go backwards and forwards on the former (yeah, it's more grounded in the real world than most other superhero movies but, at the same time, it's still about a guy dressed as a bat using supertechnology to fight a mad but near-omnipotent evil clown ), but there's no doubt that it does the latter. I suspect that many people use the former term where in fact they may mean the latter.
 * Also the word "possible" has to be considered here. No-one will ever get superpowers at all in all likelihood, but definately not from spider bites or ill-defined cosmic rays. While the things in these films are unlikely and even more so all together, nothing in them is actually impossible.
 * It's realistic mostly in a "physical" sense. As in, it provides physically plausible explanations for concepts that would otherwise seem like cartoony fantasy. (Ie. Explains why Batman can fly through the "memory cloth" explanation used in Batman Begins.) That, and its "realism" is in the "compared to other superhero movies" sense as was explained earlier.
 * It might seem a little cynical, but for me it's the fact that while this movie, like practically any comic book movie, is going to be full of handwaves, it has very, very well written handwaves. As stated earlier it's not so much realistic as taking itself seriously.
 * Simple one, why does the skin around Batman's eyes appear to be black to match the suit? Is there some sort of felt padding or is it makeup? Either way, it's not addressed and when he takes the cowl off his face appear clear. Why do we never see him put it on, or, more tellingly, why when he takes the cowl off is there nothing on his face (see the scene Batman Begins after he gives Rachel the antidote).
 * It's make-up, same as with the Burton/Schumacher Batmen. As I understand it, Batman Begins originally had a bit where Alfred stopped to remind Bruce to take the makeup off before going into his birthday party.
 * Besides, we never see his clean face after he took the cowl off. There was a reason his back was turned to us in that scene.
 * I suppose here is as good a place as any to put this. We all know that Batman will not kill. However, it's addressed in The Dark Knight that the criminals have caught on to this and no longer fear Bats anymore, since they know he just won't go that far. Is there anything about this particular version of Batman that would prevent him from successfully pulling off the trick he does in the comics? The one where he takes care to mention that if he ever DID kill, there wouldn't be any evidence of it?
 * This version of Batman is not real talkative. I doubt there's anyone he could mention it to that would spread it all over the city. Secondly, I did not get the impression that all criminals knew he didn't kill as most of them seemed still very scared of him. The only one who seemed to know for sure was Joker who happened to be very smart and quite probably good at guessing.
 * There's an easy answer. Unless he actually kills someone, the threat is worthless. The criminals have "compared notes" and realized that he isn't killing anybody. Nobody is suddenly going missing because of the Bat. Therefore, they have nothing to fear. Part of the reason for throwing the blame for Two-Face's murders on Batman was to help reinforce fear among criminals. Now, they'll think the Bat is willing to kill.
 * In the comics at least, Batman gets around this by reminding people that if he did kill someone no one would ever know about it because he's just that good.