4. Miranda Tate is Talia Al Ghul
Bane wasn't the child who escaped the Pit prison: that child, the progeny of Ra's Al Ghul and his doomed love was in fact female, born, of course, Talia Al Ghul and aided in her escape by her protector Bane. We discover in fairly shocking fashion - in terms of the development on-screen, as opposed to the revelation itself, since it was an early assumption - that Marian Cottilard's Miranda Tate is in fact Talia Al Ghul. When she interrupts Batman's finale battle with Bane, with a well placed dagger between Batman's ribs she reveals her true colours, and her own plan to continue her father's work and destroy Gotham. During that revelation it turns out that Bane was in love with Talia, despite Ra's rejection of him as a monster and willingly worked as the vehicle for her plan for Gotham's demise as a result. He had supposedly helped her escape the pit because of his desire to preserve the only innocence in that living Hell - suggesting rather touchingly that Bane became the monster after he emerged from the pit. That still leaves the question of his reason for being there though. As I said, the revelation that Cotillard wasn't particularly left-field, since she had been suggested for the part ever since her name was announced, but thanks to the intelligent presentation of the character, and indeed the way the plot developed, Nolan pulled off an almighty double-bluff. We went into the film expecting to see her as Talia Al Ghul, and the film pulled the wool over our eyes, suggesting those assumptions were wrong through misdirection, and the impact of that revelation was subsequently even greater for the way it developed. If twists are measured in the audible response of the audience, then it was certainly a success in my screening. For her part, Cotillard's switch from engaging love interest to stone-cold villainess is completely authentic, and she is as genuinely dislikable after the revellation as she was enchanting to Bruce Wayne and Batman before it.