Batman: Arkham Knight has been a poorly received game, to put it lightly. From some poor design choices vis-a-vis the number of tanks to an abortion of a PC release, Rocksteady’s magnum opus has fallen far below expectations. Perhaps the most maligned mistake (besides the aforementioned abortion) is the character of the Arkham Knight. The eponymous villain was a highly touted aspect of the game’s story, being marketed as a new and original character whose true identity was a mystery for the player to solve alongside Batman. This was proven to be entirely false when the Knight is revealed to be Jason Todd, AKA Red Hood. This upset fans of the series greatly as they felt that they had been cheated, many of them declared the character of the Arkham Knight to be terrible but those people are wrong, at least partially. I believe that Rocksteady’s biggest mistake with the Arkham Knight was labelling him a new character, what they could’ve done instead was say that he was a reimagining of an existing character. The Arkham Knight is a terrible original character but is a fantastic reimagining of Red Hood and I’ll tell you why.

The Arkham Knight is everything that the Joker wants, he is an out of control, morally bankrupt Batman, a corruption of the incorruptible; The existence of the Arkham Knight is the Joker’s greatest victory. The Arkham franchise has always focused on the relationship between Batman and Joker and the conclusion to the series is no different, the Arkham Knight is one last joke on Batman; Batman turned Jason into Robin and Joker turned Robin into the Arkham Knight just to show that he could. But in the end it was Jason who turned the Arkham Knight into Red Hood. After Jason was defeated by Batman he easily could have simply fled the city or even shot Batman dead as he had a gun pointed at the caped crusader but he didn’t. He chose to not only stay but to help Batman in his moment of need. The Arkham Knight was Joker’s masterstroke but the moment Jason decided to help Batman, the moment he painted that red insignia on his chest, was the moment that Joker completely and utterly failed and this failure was brought about by Jason himself, the one who should have been the instrument of Joker’s triumphant and that is a joke on the clown prince himself.