Arkham Knight Endgame Spoilers: About the Joker Infection

Hey folks, as the title says.

I recently beat this game and I'm just looking to tie up loose ends. The Joker infection was biological in nature coming from Joker's blood. This leaves me a little confused as to how Batman was able to fight it and suppress it in the end. I mean, sure there's psychological effects and stuff like that but the root of them is from Batman's biology. If it was purely a psychological/mental health issue then I'd understand how he could just scare Joker into not showing his face ever again, there's a pathos there where Batman works through his issues.

But this is a disease that literally changes the physiology and biology of those with it, it doesn't make sense to me that he can just 'willpower' past the other symptoms. Is there any explanations for this? Something I missed?

Duder, I know we always want answers to everything, but at the same time I want to point out that you're looking to extract logical answers from a comic book video game. It may represent a type of reality we easily can relate to, but it still isn't under obligation to give us the nitty gritty in as realistic a way as possible.

Writer's error I'll wager.

Had a minor stroke thinking this was some weird hybrid of Avengers and Joker movie. I clearly can't read

Joker virus seemed to be almost auto-immune-esque coupled with causing mental illness. My interpretation is that a lot of Batman's hallucinations were his own mental issues regarding the idea of "The Joker is killing Batman by turning him into a gibbering pale invalid" which manifested in Hamil Hamil'ing it up. Also, he got Scarecrow gassed something like twenty times over two hours.

For most people it would just be the physical symptoms (autoimmune disease leading to death coupled with skin getting all Joker'y) without having Joker's ghost trying to "turn him into The Joker".

Batman overcoming his fear of a world without Batman was a large portion of overcoming his Joker-infection. Once he acknowledged that the world could exist without him a lot of the hallucinations went away (and then he blew Alfred up and became a fire demon?).

As for overcoming the physical symptoms: Batman is a ninja and there is lots of real world mythology (and comic book precedent) for ninjas/monks/martial artists controlling their metabolism and bodily functions through clenching the right muscles and rocking their ki and all that stuff.

Without trying to sound dismissive of your question, I think Knight is probably the worst written of the Arkham games. Whenever you have a question about how he (or his enemies) did or knew something that was quite unlike the character, remember the mantra:

I am sure the writing team had it printed on their wall or something.

@hermes: Batman with prep, as Rorie used to joke about Comicvine debates. He can do anything. They just left out the prep talk. The prep talk is never good anyway though so, we got to the same place either way.

That always bugged me too. A little silly that Batman can just Batman his way past the symptoms by sheer force of Batmanning, but then, the entire nature of Titan's effects are silly, so *shrug*. This is a universe where Clayface exists, after all, so real-world biology was out the window from the start.

Maybe the cure he took in Arkham City had something to do with it.

So what you're saying is that the cure was inside him all along.

The actual Joker infection thing made precisely zero sense, so I was on board with whatever the dumb solution would end up being. In the end it was thematically and narratively satisfying which meant a lot more than the mechanics of how the infection worked or how to beat it.

Placebo effect, a condition where the mind believes strongly enough that a cure is working that the body naturally cures or fights the disease itself.

Basically batman's mind > joker toxin.

I just beat it too, and the line between the Joker toxin's effects and the Scarecrow toxin's effects were very confusing. I'd like to believe that the ending implies Batman overcame Scarecrow's toxin, but is still infected with joker toxin and will probably die.

Of course, the game more implies that Batman survives because he's cool and strong, but as long as they don't make any more I'll stuck to my head canon.

they should turn him into the batman who laughs at the end of the next game

but seriously i think the real reason he survives is because the infection had to do with a modified scarecrow gas and they kinda show that he beat his fears

on another note considering the batman vr thing was canon to this didn't he actually went crazy and flatout murdered nightwing in it?