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Saw the Dark Knight Rises again recently and one scene bothered me (perhaps this was asked/discussed here somewhere but I couldn't find the post):

When Bruce escaped a prison known as The Pit, he dropped down a long rope to allow the inmates to escape.

Why? Did he know for sure that all the prisoners were innocent and not child molesters, rapists and/or murderers?

I was munching on popcorn and slurping cola so I could have missed hearing something important...

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  • This was a prison filled with the enemies of the League of Shadows. It's likely that many of them simply annoyed the wrong person. – Valorum May 10 '15 at 1:27
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    Not true; Bane was unknown to the League of Shadows at the point he was imprisoned there. – Gaius May 10 '15 at 14:30
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    Possibilities: 1. They are far enough from Gotham that he won't have to worry about them ever again. 2. His experience with Arkham Asylum has convinced him that prisons are supposed to be easy to escape from. 3. Related to #2 - he knows that if every criminal stayed in prison forever, he'd be out of a job. Prisoners escaping = job security for vigilantes. – Wad Cheber stands with Monica Jun 20 '16 at 5:48
  • @WadCheber - Ha! That's one way of looking at it :) – user35594 Jun 20 '16 at 20:20
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  • Batman is a crusader for justice. Regardless of their crimes, leaving criminals to die (note the lack of guards now that Bane and his followers are in Gotham) simply isn't his style.

  • On top of that, several of the inmates actually made an effort to make him feel welcome including providing him with food, encouraging his escape with wise words, manning the safety rope and in the case of the Doctor, tending him back to health. It would have been thoroughly discourteous not to at least give them some opportunity to escape after he made it out.

  • Out of universe, obviously it's to highlight the difference between him and Bane, who escaped but then didn't help his fellow prisoners to follow suit.

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    Cheers for your answer. I can agree with the last 2 points; my immediate response to your first point is that he let Ra's al Ghul die in Batman Begins when we could have easily saved him. Killing Talia I can understand since all of Gotham would have perished. But I'll accept this, thanks! – user35594 May 15 '15 at 12:15
  • Just an addition to point 2, the doctor was paid by Bane/LoS to nurse Bruce back to health, as noted when the doctor said "they pay me more, to keep you alive". – Jared Nov 30 '15 at 3:42
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I disagree with these answers. Around 20 years before The Dark Knight Rises takes place, The Pit was the savage den of aspiring child rapists who swarmed once they caught the scent of shaved-head, pre-pubescent Miranda. If I remember correctly, the entire prison wanted to rape her, except for her single protector: the kind and gentle-hearted Bane. Bane? If HE was the most empathetic man in that prison, then the rest of them were far from saints. I assume at least SOME of these men must have still been there, unless the League just murdered ALL of them—and I wouldn't blindly assume only innocent men were dumped into the pit from that point on. I mean, it's in the middle of some middle-eastern city. Obviously that city still had use of the pit, and I'm sure they wouldn't just stop dumping criminals in there. And, why would we assume that Bane and his followers were guards there? He was rescued by the League, and then eventually excommunicated. Did he decide he wanted to go become a prison guard? There were no guards. Supplies were lowered down by the rope. Regardless, Batman definitely freed a few rapists/murderers, and probably contributed to some more rape/murder.

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    Okay, but I don't see where this says why he helped them escape. – Null♦ Mar 25 '16 at 3:38

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