Batman: Arkham Asylum/Fridge

Fridge Brilliance

• During a playthrough, I realized that the Detective Mode could easily have been named "Knight Vision" instead. I wondered why the game didn't go this route and realized that, in-universe, Batman named this function, meaning that the pun name would've been out of character for him.
• After talking to the people you meet during the Black Mesa Commute, you learn that Killer Croc is pumped full of tranquilizers before he's moved. That means Croc was sedated when you go into his lair, explaining his performance as a boss.
• Riddler's last interview tape reveals he knew about Joker's plan. That means that Riddler had partnered with Joker. What was Riddler's role in this venture? Why to slow Batman down with the Fetch Quest of course!
  • A follow-up to the above one is that Riddler gloated about his involvement to Dr. Young. In fact the last two Joker tapes reveal she figured out Joker funded her research, and Joker warned her that he was coming back. She never reported this to the police, Warden Sharpe, or even Batman in the Medical building because she knew she'd either be arrested for working with a psycho (and experimenting on Bane has to break a few laws) or even committed to Arkham herself.
• Another Riddler one: At one point he'll accuse you of cheating and using the Internet. So basically, if you used an internet guide to solve the Fetch Quest, the Riddler has beaten you, and he's actually gloating to the player about it.
  • Counter-Fridge Brilliance: Is it not in Batman's style to use every resource he has when he needs it to defeat his enemies, pragmatist that he is?
    • As he put it when he used not-so-straightforward methods to beat Prometheus in hand-to-hand combat: "Not cheating. Winning."
• A truly wonderful piece of this is realized when if you go back to the transfer areas of Intensive Treatment, you will see posters bearing Quincy Sharp's image with the text "Quincy Sharpe's Arkham." This is supposed to show possession, but that can also be taken to mean "Quincy Sharpe IS Arkham." Which he turns out to be, in spirit anyway.
  • The posters that describe Sharpe as the Voice Of Arkham fit with this as well.
• After fighting skeletons in Scarecrow's nightmare world, you might realise that thanks to detective mode, you've seen just everybody you've fought so far as a skeleton.
  • The skeletons are also noticeably more aggressive than the regular enemies, but also go down much more quickly. Joker's thugs wouldn't be so frightened to engage a drugged, hallucinating Batman. And the reason they get KO'd so quickly? Batman is less concerned about avoiding lethal force when fighting skeletons, so he's not holding back.
    • However, this also means, since they fall apart and shatter, Batman may have accidentally killed them.
      • Not necessarily; the ones you can check after the toxin wears off are still breathing.
      • True. But still, the fact that Batman could so easily have killed them without even knowing what he was doing is Fridge Horror in and of itself. The near-lethal force he uses when under Scarecrow's influence proves just how much he does hold back against your average criminal... and just how utterly terrifying he would be if he didn't. ...Well. More terrifying than usual, anyway.
• This troper was wondering, Why the hell did Joker let Batman win so easily? Then it hit him. this whole game was a charade to make Batman as insane as Joker!
  • Joker hints at this when he tries to poison Gordon and before the final fight.
  • It explains how the Batmobile got through the doors to take out Bane. He was probably expecting Bats to use it to get Gordon out, then Bane popped up and messed things up.
• This troper was bothered by the fact that sometimes Batman KOs enemies with a shot to the groin. Yes, it hurts; yes, it will end the fight; no, it won't stop the guy from walking away. Then this troper learned about a self-defense technique that involves striking the pelvis. The pelvis is a ring that, at the front, is held together by a cartilaginous joint. A strong blow to the pubic arch (the bony spot just above the male junk) can break that cartilage. This makes it painful simply to stand and almost impossible to walk. The Batman isn't just going for the obvious target we all know about; he's a master of combat and is, in fact, truly disabling the bad guys.
• The whole Killer Croc section. A lot of people complained it was very boring, but when you realize something it becomes a lot more scarier, or at least more interesting. The entire game, in the stealth sections, Batman has picked off mooks one by one by pouncing on them from the shadows, from up above the gargoyles where it's hard to get at him. The mook's only hope is to shoot at Batman until he's down, but that doesn't stop him for long before he pops back up like nothing happened. It's basically Batman's playing field, because there is a TON of ways to pop out and take those Mooks out. In Killer Croc's lair, there is nothing you can do but walk slowly down a linear, pre-determined path. Killer Croc can pounce on you using a large variety of tricks involving the playing field while you're pretty much helpless. Croc retreats back to the water after you hit him with a batarang, but will always come back up again. And you can't see him once he's back in the water, and can do nothing except hit him again when he tries the stunt again. Basically, the whole section puts you into the perspective of the average mook.
• After seeing Scarecrow threaten to dump his fear toxin into the Arkham Reservoir to drug all of Gotham, I realized just why Batman was so nonchalant towards Crane, even walking up to him. He knew that Croc had his scent when they met at the start of the game, would rush up to attack him, and could knock him back with a Batarang to the collar. This does go right to Fridge Horror though, as it suggests Batman planned to let Croc possibly kill and eat Crane to stop him. He didn't bother to rescue or look for Crane.
  • • "I won't kill you, but I don't have to save you." Also, in all fairness, Batman does try to save Crane... after it's clearly shown that the bag have been dropped. That might have been what he was going for all along, and if Crane ended up dead, well... Occupational hazard. Batman might not deliberately kill people, but if criminals meet an untimely, grisly death due to attempting to flood the home of a vicious monster with toxic chemicals, he's not going to get choked up about it. Besides, what was Batman going to do, dive into the water after Crane and Croc? If the player does dive/fall into the water at any point, Batman promptly becomes Croc's next meal.
    • Batman doesn't have to look for Crane. By the time the spores are collected and he's made it back to his Unspoken Plan Guarantee, he's pretty much wandered through every part of the sewer that Croc would have visited since Crane was dragged into the water. No sign of Crane. Granted, depending on the ending, Crane might just be okay. Which begs the question of whether or not Croc dragged Crane back to his lair to play checkers and have tea until Batman found the first spore, since Croc doesn't try to kill Batman until about then.
    • Fridge Brilliance connected to this: by the logic above, Croc has been drawn to Crane believing he has Batman's scent. As soon as he realizes it's not Batman, he throws him away in disappointment (perhaps not logical, but Croc's been obsessed with getting Batman). Crane promptly scurries away thanking every single deity for his momentary good fortune. In fact, remember the door that connects Croc's lair to the old sewer, the one that's locked until you escape said lair? Scarecrow unlocked the door and ran away while you were looking for spores.
  • This ties in with something I had noticed before. The inmates, no matter how you took them down, never die. Even if you tie them upside down for a few minutes, allowing all their blood to go to their brain, and then drop them down on their necks/heads 10 feet, they don't die! Then it hit me, Batman has gone beyond Genre Savvy, he KNOWS he's in a T game and that he can't kill, so he DOESN'T CARE! He knows that he's not allowed to kill, so he can do whatever he wants to take them down!
    • Better Fridge Brilliance, as I saw it, was that Batman already shut down the sewer to prevent Joker from dumping Titan down it. The only affected one would have been Croc!
• Why does Arkham Asylum oblige the Batman by having such big air ducts? Because Bruce Wayne is on the board of directors and is a major financial contributor to the asylum.
  • Though it helps that it's a very old building and their ventilation systems tend to be unnecessarily large by modern standards, sometimes even big enough to actually allow people to crawl through.
• The Joker in this game combines features from every previous version of the character -- which is hilariously appropriate for Joker, who is not a man with a past but more a force of nature with a mercurial past and many names, none of which are truly his.
  • A fun fridge horror game to play. Go attack some goons with Suicide Collars on, taking careful note of the mechanical laughing noise the collar alarms make. Now go watch the Batman: The Animated Series episode "The Joker's Wild" and listen to the mechanical laughter the giant Joker sign on the casino makes. Remember, Mark Hamill voices The Joker in both Arkham Asylum AND Batman: The Animated Series. Congratulations, you are now seeing the Animated Series' Joker doing everything that the Joker does in Arkham Asylum, which is way creepier than anything the Scarecrow Nightmare segments could cook up.
• The combat system is set up in such a way that the fights actually get easier when he is up against massive odds, as opposed to a small pack. Which is Fridge Brilliance since this is how things are in most incarnations of Batman. He'll spend just as much time with a horde of mooks as with one or two mooks (a few panels, a few scenes, whatever).
• If Riddler can hack into Batman's communications system, why hasn't he done this before and figured out where/who Batman is, etc? Simply, Batman and Oracle allowed Riddler to hack in so they could find him after stalling him by finding his trophies and such.
  • In fact, according to the "Hush" story arc from the comic, The Riddler has already deduced Batman's secret identity, but he don't want to reveal it because because "a riddle which everyone knows the answer to would be worthless".
• Harley Quinn is defeated pretty easily. And then, while taunting Batman that he doesn't know the Joker's location, she accidentally lets slip where it is. Or is it accidental? Joker wants Batman to find him.
• The stinger at the end of the credits shows one of three characters (randomly selected) reaching out of the water to grasp a floating crate of Titan serum. Each of the three characters was last seen falling into water.
• It was weird how Joker somehow captured Gordon a second time. However, Warden Sharp is not on the island once you get all the Arkham Chronicles, and Gordon took the only boat on the island. At some point, he called for a ride out(reaching Gordon's boat, which came back), got spotted by henchmen, and fled while Gordon was being captured.
  • Of course, there was that one armed guard on the police boat waiting for Gordon, whose helmet obscured his/her/its face, who said, 'Time to go, sir'. Armed mook? Harley? You decide...
• Two things about the puppet Scarface:
  • One: Joker carved a smile on his face, Heath Ledger style. I was wondering why he would do this to the puppet, until I remembered the puppet's name. SCAR-FACE.
  • Two: One wonders where the Ventriloquist was during this whole ordeal,and why he wouldn't have Scarface with him. Then I remembered something in one of the Spirit Of Arkham Messages saying that Quincy Sharp beat a paranoid schizophrenic man to death. That WAS the Ventriloquist. This would explain how Warden Sharp HAD the puppet in his office in the first place.
    • Actually, in the Black Mesa Commute of the game's start, Sharpe says that Two-Face and Ventriloquist were out and supposedly reformed. But since Two-Face is reported to be robbing a bank at the end that might be true for the above about ventriloquist.
• You know how you can't go into Detective Mode during the Scarecrow sequences? Well when you think about it, Batman DOES. It's just the toxin has him hallucinate so what he's seeing IS UNDER THE MASK. Not that big but it's kinda cool.
• Clayface's cameo. You never see him in his normal form, but when he's imitating others take a look at him with your Detective Vision. See something missing? Something that every other person in the game has, even the ones whose characters models are being reused right now? The Dev Team Thinks of Everything.
• A YouTube commenter pointed out that the first Scarecrow level is Batman's worst fear (Commissioner Gordon dying and being cut off from Oracle), the second Scarecrow level is Bruce Wayne's worst fear (the night his parents got murdered), and the final Scarecrow level is the PLAYER's worst nightmare (the screen freezes and you get a game over). Knock your respect for Rocksteady and Paul Dini up a few more notches.
• I was playing the Titan Joker fight and realized that the health meter we see isn't for Titan Joker it's for the area of the floor he lands on. Since Titan Joker is basically invincible, the only thing related to him that can be given a meter is the floor. The meter only goes down after he falls onto, and yanks himself out, damaging it until it can't take the third impact.
• A more humorous example: When Batman talks to people, he has a tendency to move his head back and forth, side to side, or nod forward. This is a nod to George Clooney's "smile/head bob" acting.
• A somewhat meta example. On this game's Headscratchers page, people wonder about Joker's 'marzipan and kitten' bombs, and others mention that it would be in-character of Joker to have 99 kitten bombs and one real one. And I realized something PROVES that, perhaps deliberately; think of the 'presents' Joker leaves at certain parts. Most of the time, they've got harmless (if annoying) chattering teeth...but some have a knife-wielding psycho.
• If you think about it, The Joker is right: Batman IS as crazy as the inmates incarcerated in Arkham Asylum. How else could hebe so well-prepared to battle the super-criminals of Gotham if he weren't just as crazy as them? And, on a certain level, Batman realizes this. His personal No Kill policy is so strict because he knows he's teetering on the edge. He also fights crime as hard as he does because he doesn't want anyone else to end up on that edge alongside him.
• At the end of the Scarecrow hallucination where Batman gets locked up by Joker, the game gives you a fake Nonstandard Game Over where you're told to "Use the middle stick to dodge the Joker's gunshot." There is no middle stick on either Xbox360 or Play Station 3 controller of course... but isn't the Joker here just sneakily suggesting you should just drop the controller and masturbate?!? ~ Drakkenmensch
  • This wouldn't work for the PC version, in which the player receives the instruction to "tilt the mouse" instead. Although that does sound strangely in-character for the Joker.
• The Stinger at the end of the game shows one of Batman's Rogues Gallery grabbing a crate of Titan. Bane on Titan? Meh. More of the same. But imagine what might happen if Croc gets the drug. Or Scarecrow. ~ Surgoshan
• All of the Titan-infected thugs Batman fights during this game have had their minds totally erased by the drug, so that all they can do is lash out blindly and roar like animals. Not so The Joker. Why? he's already too damn crazy for anything to affect his mind any further.

Fridge Horror

Fridge Horror: Joker was trying to drive Batman insane. If he did they would most likely have an Ax Crazy Batman loose on the island. Batman is already a One-Man Army in this game. Driven mad and hopped up on Titan, he would rip the mooks apart and hunt down Joker like nothing you've ever seen.

• • Joker: Guards! Guards, save me!
  • Batman: (Slasher Smile) What guards?
  • And he's Batman. No way they're keeping him trapped in a room.
• I was trying to figure out why Maxie Zeus has his cell hidden behind a wall. Then I started to read the Ghost of Arkham's messages and about his treatment of the insane. HE'S LEAVING ZEUS TO STARVE TO DEATH!
  • I noticed that. I found it very unsettling, let me tell you.
  • Alternatively, consider that Maxie Zeus' cell is conveniently located right next to the electro-shock therapy treatment. Could it be that Warden Sharp or others decided to indulge Zeus' delusions with particularly extreme electro-shock therapy, and have tried to conceal any evidence that he was ever there for some nefarious reason?
    • "Even I was shocked when I saw how Maxie Zeus was treated." The Riddler already knows exactly what they're doing to the unfortunate Maxie Zeus. He spells it out for you.
• A mix of horror and brilliance: Poison Ivy said the plants were in pain, only to later realize they were "evolving", actually mutating, due to the Titan. There's no indication Joker caused that plant to grow before using Titan on Ivy, he even says he was expecting a 40 foot killer plant to appear. This means that: Joker knew that plant was there somehow and used Titan on Ivy to activate it, even giving her a second dose to speed things up, and that the plant was already growing from Dr. Young's experiments, suggesting that even if Joker didn't do anything, at some point, the plant would've gone nuts.
• How, you might ask, did Joker take over the Asylum if Frank Boles was the only free man he had inside? Note: The following is all in spoiler tags, because it deals with the Bonus Content you get from www.arkhamcare.com and thus might not be known to people who've played the game. The Riddler helped him, that's how. By duping a person with arkhamcare login information (namely you), Riddler managed to take control of Arkham's entire computer network, thereby enabling Joker to turn the electronic security against the Asylum staff. Joker goes on with his mad scheme, Riddler walks out free and taunts Batman from an apartment back in Gotham proper, and Batman gets to suffer for your stupidity.
• Going through some of the ducts in the asylum, you'll sometimes come across human skulls and filthy bones. They're clearly too old and decomposed to have been done by Joker's men, so how did they get there? Then you remember what Amadeus Arkham did to inmates.
• When I realized this bit of Fridge Brilliance, I immediately thought, that someone had already covered it. But I haven't seen it mentioned in this section, maybe because it's too obvious. Anyway, lets break things down:

1. Arkham Asylum takes place in the titular location, where Joker and all the other occupants have overcome the guards and made it their new base of operations, forcing Batman to take back control.
2. Arkham Asylum takes aspects of the Comics, Different Animated series, and Movies in one big Adaptation Distillation.
3. The people who made Arkham Asylum have probably been fans for years, since they were kids even, and now get the chance to put their own spin on the characters, write said characters themselves.

Now here comes The Stinger, and you'll all be headesking for not realizing this sooner: Both in-story and from an out of story perspective.........THE INMATES ARE RUNNING THE GODDAMN ASYLUM!!!