Arkham Knight Ending (Spoilers, Obviously)

I'll admit it, I did not actually hunt down every single riddler trophy to get the 'real' ending, I cheated and watched it online. So if you haven't seen the full ending yet and you were planning to 100% complete the game to get that final cut-scene, this might not be for you. But if you're lazy like me and watched it online, or if you already beat the game and got the cut-scene, carry on.

So, Batman is dead right? We watched him go into that house and watched it blow up. But wait, who's that shadowy figure at the end using Scarecrow's fear toxin?

There's a couple of options.

The Arkham Knight, the only problem with that is, he doesn't really seem to be interested in carrying on the mantel.

What about Azreal? There is a possible scenario where he gets locked up at the end of the game, so if you locked him up he probably wouldn't be interested in pretending to be Batman.

Nightwing is getting married, probably not the best time to be pretending to be Batman.

So who is it?

I think it's Bruce Wayne. Think about it.

Okay, what's the last we saw of him? Him and Alfred together right before the building blew up. That means if Bruce Wayne is dead then Alfred is dead. Now, you understand why Bruce Wayne thinks he has to die, once his secret identity is revealed everybody is coming straight for him. All the villains in GCPD flat out tell you they are coming directly for you once they get out, everybody from low life thugs to the Most Wanted Supervillians.

But why does Alfred need to die? We know Bruce Wayne triggered the explosion because he was talking about Knightfall protocol and Alfred seemed to not be too keen on the idea, (but accepting nonetheless). Also, when Batman was talking to Cat-woman that final time, he knew that he (as in Bruce Wayne) was about to die. Plus it's the most logical move for Batman, everyone is headed straight for Wayne Manor including all the villains. So obviously Bruce Wayne triggered the explosion. However, this means that if Bruce Wayne is dead he not only committed suicide, but killed Alfred in the process.

Now Bruce sacrificing himself to save Gotham (at least that's how he would have seen it in his mind) makes sense, that's something Bruce would do. But killing Alfred? Even if you could come up with an argument for why it would be okay for Alfred to die, it's still not something that Bruce would do. He wouldn't even let the Joker die by proxy, he certainly wouldn't have murdered Alfred just because his own secret identity was compromised.

But all the problems that Bruce Wayne's death would have solved would have been equally solved by Bruce Wayne faking his death. And bruce is smart enough to know that. He also knows that no one is afraid of Batman anymore. Now whenever they see Batman they just think of Bruce Wayne.

Now, the ending scene clearly showed fear toxin being used. This means whoever is in that costume at some point had access to fear toxin. Now this does make Arkham Knight a suspect, however Arkham Knight seems more interested in doing his own thing that being Batman. Honestly the only person who would actually want to be Batman is Batman. And Batman certainly had plenty of access to the fear toxin.

The fear toxin is what stops people from suspecting that Bruce Wayne faked his death. All the stories about the new Batman will now involve insanely fantastical and unbelievable elements. So, the fact that it looks anything like Batman is now irrelevant, because that could just be chalked up to a hallucination.

How does he fake his death? That seems to be pretty simple to do. It's Wayne Manor. We see all kinds of moving walls, floors and other types of things like that in stuff like the clock tower or Panessa studios.

It's not that impossible to believe that Wayne Manor has a floor that goes deep enough underground quickly enough that he could be unaffected by any explosions going on.

And remember, this is Knightfall protocol, this is Batman we are talking about. Batman knew that someday his secret identity would be made public. It's obviously inevitable, he also knew that once his secret identity was revealed Bruce Wayne had to die. It would be the only way to keep everyone safe. But just because Bruce Wayne had to die, doesn't necessarily mean Batman has to die.

So TL;DR: The mysterious Batman like figure at the end is actually Bruce Wayne who faked his own death