Batman: Arkham Origins Extortion Files EXPLAINED

I think the “Lancelot Syndrome” thing is a reference to Batman: Year One. In Year one Gordon ends up having an affair with another detective named Sarah Essen, while still with his first wife Barbara. Loeb actually uses this infidelity against Gordon to get him on his side. (And if you didn’t know, Lancelot had an affair with queen Guinevere, wife of King Arthur in a lot of popular interpretations of the Myth)

If you read the visual guide Harvey Bullock opposed Batman and was a formerly corrupt cop but after Gordon took over he saw a hero in him and became his loyal partner and cleaned up his act completely. He also became a reluctant ally of Batman and played a pretty big role in getting Howard Branden fired from the PD.

I've always assumed that there was still a huge chunk of what WB Montreal wanted to do with Bane still left on the table after Origins. Talk to Alfred after the events of the end game about Bane, and it sounds like they were dangling the loose thread in front of players. Don't remember the exact conversation, but it amounted to, "What could you have possibly done to make him hate you this much?" and Batman replying, "I don't know, but I'm going to find out." Between that, Enigma's presumed transformation into Riddler, and Shiva being followed up at all, I've been hoping for a direct follow up to this game for years now. And I'll be honest with you: I'd rather have Origins 2 than either Gotham Knights or Suicide Squad.

Judge Harkness is actually the focus of Calendar Man’s Christmas monologue in City. He describes how Harkness had him deemed sane to send him to the gas chamber. He also describes how when he was set lose he killed a street Santa for his costume, used it to sneak into Harkness’s Christmas Eve party, and strangled him with Christmas lights. He then left Harkness in the Santa slay display on his own roof.

To explain Judge Harkness, Calendar Man has special dialogue on Christmas in Arkham City and he says after he broke out of prison he went to Harkness’s manor and hanged him from his roof with his Christmas lights as revenge for giving him the death penalty.

@ClownPuncher About the Bane stuff- This is probably the biggest misconception in the series. Bane in Origins loses his MEMORY from the TN-1 and the engagement he had with Batman. He did not lose his COGNITION permanently. In Asylum, he loses his intelligence because of TITAN, and in City, he still doesn’t have full cognition and thinking thanks to him still being on TITAN. In Knight, he weens off of it, and is able to conquer Santa Prisca and it’s area. We know that Bane is normally highly intelligent thanks to the Bio’s in both AA and AC, and from what we can glean in AK’s story, Bane is that way there too. We can also look at how TITAN affects its users to get some understanding of what it does to them, and from that, we can ascertain that it severely lowers intelligence and mental capacity of its user, or at the very least, will bring out more animalistic tendencies to supersede their more rational thinking. (Note, none of what I said is based on any of the comics, solely just what we see in game). Whether that makes or doesn’t make Origins’ Multiplayer canon or not, I do not know. It really doesn’t conflict or support what I said in the first place, because we don’t know if it’s canon or not.

One of the structural things I enjoyed about Origins was that Riddler (and to a large extent, Joker, Anarky and others) weren't motivated by cartoonist evils, but their own skewed view of how to improve Gotham. In later entries, Riddler is full of crazy contesting batman, and this is the origin of it, his "genius" plan to expose corruption through blackmail efforts. It was a really nice touch

The thing about bane being his normal self after origins in online is i guess just to even the teams out since a big hulking bane wouldn't be fair.

I think the reason that less important characters like Alberto and Shiva have more tapes than Bane and Gordon is simply to give the smaller characters more backstory, since they barely get any in the main game.

19:58 There is a DC character called Facade (regarding Brandon's Tapes) that was created by Paul Dini. His name is Erik Hanson and he is a Batman villain in the comics. From what I could find, the character seems to be a weapons expert and a thief who steals from the wealthy elite of Gotham.

22:27 Well I don't know if you know this, but according to one of the stories in Arkham City, it shows why the two became bitter rivals. Starting with Joker going to the Iceberg lounge, but sprayed acid on a waitress who dropped water on him. Then another day, Penguin added a "No Clowns" policy, banning Joker. Some time later, probably when Arkham City was finished, Joker goes back to possibly heal the relationship, with Penguin still calling out the "No Clown" policy, and so, the rivalry started. Now it's been a while since I've read the full story, but it's what I remember. The Story is called "Holding Grudges"

I love all the analysis you do on the big and small aspects of the series. My favorite in origins is probably the one with Shiva and sharp. Even though we don't see Shiva in the plot of asylum and city, she helped set it in motion. In reference to the bullock/Loeb file, I'm guessing it is them trying to hurt Gordon's principles and his private life by influencing him to have an affair, which is most likely with who becomes his second wife. And lastly, I find it cool that the judge mentions his holiday watch party for calander man's execution and in city, we hear calander man mention he went on to kill the judge at that party when he got out.

8:20 Despite being both individually two of batman's greatest foes, there is actually a very limited connection between Ra's and Bane. Basically, in the comics, Bane was on the short list of potential successors for ra's, even going as far as to nearly have talias hand in marriage. But, eventually, he was dismissed and thrown out after a few encounters with the bat. Bane tried getting his revenge by destroying lazarus pits around the world, and thats about it honestly.

Love this guy, love this game. Great to play on Christmas.

Just heard the bit on Bane and I have an idea. Maybe it does degrade over time, however not fully, and then when Arkham Asylum comes along, it's what Joker injects into Bane that causes him to go monster mode again, because until Joker cuts him loose and pumps him full of what I'm thinking is either TN-1, Titan or a mix of both, don't remember if he specifies, haven't played Asylum in a while, Bane doesn't interested in fighting Batman, and instead kinda asks for his help to be cut down.

City had the best tapes imo. Strange knows all the Villains Motivations... Two Faces Coin, Mad Hatters Fascination with Alice, Mr.Freezes Love For Nora etc. Knight had awesome tapes too. I love all the games tapes, those 2 are my favorites

This is my theory about the whole Bane in multiplayer situation. I believe the multiplayer itself is non-canon, however some elements of it could play into the main timeline. For example I could buy the idea that been would still have a gang for a few more years and he would war against the Joker’s gang. However, since The drug had taken been from a strategic genius to a man of average intelligence, The Joker’s crazy yet incredibly thought out strategies would eventually bring the end of Bane’s gang. This would also explain why joker still has a gang during the events of Asylum while pain seems to be running solo now of days. I also think sometime during this gang war, Dick Grayson would become Robin. So at least in my interpretation, elements of the multiplayer are canon but they didn’t quite play out the same as they did in that mode.

I never knew that AO online was considered canon to timelines, seems weird that something like that is canon

I really wish they made a sequel to this game. Perhaps one where Batman meets and takes on a young Dick Grayson

To answer your question about bane being connected to the league of shadows, yes, he has always been connected, as in most of the comics, he was their top student, barely beating out Shiva, since he was physically stronger, and won a one on one, Talia was trained by all three top members of the league, bane and Ras taught her as official trainers, but Shiva grew up with her