The Miranda Tate conspiracy (contains possible spoliers)

Joey King and Marion Cotillard: notice the resemblance?

There has been a lot of speculation about the plot of The Dark Knight Rises, in particular who the villains are. So far we know that Bane (Tom Hardy) will be a villain, while it is unknown what side Catwoman (Anne Hathaway) will be on. But what about another villain, since Christopher Nolan has followed a three-villain format on both of his Batman films to date? It was rumoured a few months ago that Marion Cotillard (who had previously worked with Nolan on Inception) would be playing Talia al Ghul, daughter of Batman Begins' main villain Ra's al Ghul (Liam Neeson).

However, the rumour was apparantely proven false when Marion was announced to play Miranda Tate, "a Wayne Enterprises board member eager to help a still-grieving Bruce Wayne resume his father's philanthropic endeavors for Gotham". But has it been proven false? Ra's concealed his identity from Bruce (Christian Bale), who's to say his daughter couldn't do the same?


Josh Pence will play Ra's al Ghul in The Dark Knight Rises, with Liam Neeson having played him in Batman Begins

Adding fuel to the fire was the casting of The Social Network's Josh Pence as Ra's al Ghul in flashbacks taking place 30 years before the events of the first film. We shall obviously find out about his past, perhaps it will involve his daughter as a child. The fire spread even further with the casting of eleven-year-old actress Joey King, who is generally stated to resemble Marion greatly. There have also been claims of her being seen filming in India. Furthermore, an alleged script draft (seen below) describes a mother and daughter in a perilous situation. Could this be the instance Ra's mentioned in the first film where his wife was taken from him? Ra's stated to Bruce in Batman Begins that Gotham was a city so corrupt that the League of Shadows had infiltrated every level of it's infrastructure. Surely that included Wayne Enterprises? Was Talia working for them even then?



The only thing known about Miranda so far is that she will be helping Bruce overcome his grief over the death of Rachel Dawes (Katie Holmes in Batman Begins, Maggie Gyllenhaal in The Dark Knight), which is generally taken to mean that she will be a love interest for Bruce. While Talia was never mentioned in the first film, Ra's does mention her in it's novelisation, where he says that she lives in Switzerland. It is speculated by fans that if Miranda is Talia, she will lead the League of Shadows in a final assault on Gotham. The League had existed for thousands of years- sacking Rome and burning London to the ground- and despite their defeat by Batman in the first film, it is doubtful that we've seen the last of them.