Batman: Arkham City is one of the most acclaimed games of its generation, but one of its biggest twists - revolving around longtime villain Ra's al Ghul - simply made no sense. His ultimate plan for Arkham City is completely at odds with what his stated goals are, both in the comics and in the game itself. Nothing about his plan would seemingly bring him any closer to fulfilling his agenda.
Ra's al Ghul was first introduced in the pages of Batman #232 in June of 1971, created by Julius Schwartz, Dennis O'Neil, and Neal Adams. He leads a society known as the League of Assassins towards the goal of saving the planet by wiping out the human race. Ra's al Ghul appeared in Batman: Arkham Asylum as a corpse that Batman can scan with his detective vision for a collectible, but in Arkham City, he became one of the main antagonists of the game.
Unlike a lot of the other Arkham villains, Ra's transition from comic to game is almost one-to-one, with nearly everything about the lore surrounding him coming into play. That includes, of course, his goals and how he wants to go about them. This makes his master scheme throughout the game downright mind-boggling.
Blowing Up Arkham City Has Nothing To Do With Ra's Al Ghul's Goals
The primary characteristic of Ra's al Ghul is his single-mindedness. He has kept himself alive as long as he has with the sole purpose of saving the world through the culling of humanity. He cares about nothing else. Even his own daughter Talia is, at the end of the day, a means to an end serving that larger goal. It's what sets him apart from other villains in Batman's rogues gallery, like Hush, who also appears in Arkham City.
The big twist in the penultimate story mission of Arkham City is that Ra's is the one behind the construction of Arkham City. He funded the whole venture, eliminated any dissent, and propped up Hugo Strange to act as the face of the whole project. All with the aim of eliminating every criminal in Gotham City in one night of carnage and fire. The problem here is that this doesn't seem to get Ra's anywhere closer to his ultimate goal. Ra's Al Ghul doesn't bother with side projects, so there's no reason he would be so specific as to focus squarely on the criminals of Gotham.
This depiction of Ra's is hardly egregious, at least not to the same extent as its depiction of Catwoman and other female characters in Batman: Arkham games. However, the climax of the game's story hinges on Ra's being a mastermind pulling the strings of the game's story for his own ends, and the problem is that those ends make little if any sense. Batman: Arkham City is a fantastic game in many ways, but its need to always have one extra twist up its sleeve to stay ahead of the player - as demonstrated here - is the largest millstone around the neck of an otherwise epic story.
