8 Popular Fan Theories That Completely Ignore The Movie They're About

7. Bruce Wayne Survives In The Dark Knight Rises Because, Well, We See Him

In the lead up to The Dark Knight Rises the big question was whether Bruce Wayne would die. It was billed as the epic culmination of the whole Nolan Batman enterprise, with some proper resolution teased, so what better way to end it than to kill off the character. That obviously wasn't how things turned out, but some fans loved the idea of Batman giving his life to save Gotham so much that they created a way for it to have happened anyway.

The theory is rather simple really - when Alfred sees Bruce in that cafe in Florence at the end, it's all in his imagination. Bruce blew up in the nuclear explosion saving Gotham, but his butler couldn't cope with letting another Wayne die and worked a happy ending from his mind.

Logical motivation, yes, but completely out of step with everything else in the film. Nothing in The Dark Knight Rises suggest it isn't an entirely naturalistic endeavour, meaning that final scene is intended to be exactly as it's shown. Heck, the only cases of the fantastical or surreal in the entire trilogy are induced by Scarecrow's fear gas, and those come with very clear visual signifiers.