The Dark Knight ends with Batman taking the fall for crimes he did not commit, preserving Gotham’s fragile peace after the chaos caused by the Joker and Two-Face. In the final scenes, Harvey Dent, now twisted into Two-Face after the Joker burns half his face and corrupts his sense of justice, holds Commissioner Gordon’s family at gunpoint on a gritty warehouse ledge.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEHRt8LGAso Dent flips his scarred coin to decide their fate, believing Gordon must pay for his scars. Batman arrives and talks him down, but when Dent aims at Gordon’s young son, Batman tackles him off the edge, killing Dent to save the boy.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEHRt8LGAso
Batman and Gordon choose to hide the truth. They let the public believe Batman murdered Dent, the hero whose clean image locked up hundreds of mobsters. Gordon burns Dent’s forged ledger listing 549 arrested criminals, turning it into a symbol of hope. At Dent’s funeral, Gordon gives a speech praising Harvey as Gotham’s White Knight, the man who beat the mob without a mask. He praises Batman too, but calls him a necessary myth who must now vanish as a fugitive.https://www.changinglanesnewsletter.com/p/the-dark-knight-rises-is-a-broken
As police chase him, Batman speeds away on his Batpod, damaged from earlier fights. Gordon’s voiceover plays over the montage, quoting Rachel Dawes’ letter about enduring pain to protect innocence. His son asks why Batman runs, and Gordon explains he is taking blame for something good, like Dent’s legacy. Batman escapes into the shadows, his back scorched, symbolizing his endless sacrifice.https://www.changinglanesnewsletter.com/p/the-dark-knight-rises-is-a-broken
This lie keeps Gotham stable. The Joker, caught earlier after his failed social experiment with two ferries rigged to blow, sits in jail laughing. He wanted to prove everyone is one bad day from chaos, but Batman refuses to kill him or break his code. Fans debate if Dent truly died, pointing to his coin landing on the clean heads side, which meant life in Two-Face’s rules.https://comicbookmovie.com/batman/harvey-dent-did-not-die-in-the-dark-knight-a9557 The film leaves it open, but the story treats it as his end.
The ending shows Batman’s victory through loss. He becomes the villain to let heroes like Dent shine, setting up the lie that crumbles in the next film. The Joker’s chaos tests if symbols can save a city, and Batman proves they can by becoming the scapegoat.
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman:_The_Dark_Knight_Returns_(film)
https://www.changinglanesnewsletter.com/p/the-dark-knight-rises-is-a-broken
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEHRt8LGAso
https://comicbookmovie.com/batman/harvey-dent-did-not-die-in-the-dark-knight-a9557
https://nofilmschool.com/joker-its-not-about-the-money-dark-knight
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/18AQOJybyiQ
