Is There a Lore Reason?

About

Is There a Lore Reason? is a phrasal template started on the /r/BatmanArkham subreddit where users ironically ask if there is a lore reason for a given Batman character's name, personality trait, outfit, etc. that does not necessarily need further explanation, later expanding into other fandoms as well. The trend was started as a form of shitposting in October 2022 and largely inspired by the lack of new games in the "Batman Arkham" series to discuss and the barring of talk about the recently released game Gotham Knights.

Origin

On October 15th, 2022, /r/BatmanArkham^[1] moderator IncompleteQuality pinned a statement about a consistent increase in shitpost memes on the subreddit. In the post, the mod says that shitposts are welcome, writing:

We have been getting a lot of flack lately for allowing so many shitposts on the sub and I’d like to elaborate on my thoughts regarding it, at the end of the day most of these shitposts are literally just shitposts, completely harmless and if you have a problem with them, I’m sorry but feel free to go to another subreddit. At the end of the day, this sub hasn’t had a game in 7 fucking years, what do you want it to do? Recycle the same content over and over again or the community to make in sub jokes and overall have a laugh with each other.

He goes on to mention how the sub can't discuss the new Batman game Gotham Knights as it's not technically a game in the "Batman Arkham" series, with /r/GothamKnights being opened for discussions about the game. He ends the post, "At the end of the day, as long as the jokes are harmless, I’m not gonna take em down and I actually have a laugh everytime I scroll through the sub & whilst I understand some people aren’t a fan at the current state, there’s nothing I can do until we actually have some new Arkham Content" (full post shown below).

On October 22nd, Redditor ricioly posted an image of the Arkham Knight to /r/BatmanArkham,^[2] titled, "Is there a lore reason why he’s called the Arkham Knight?" adding the description, "Because as far as I know, he has no relation to anything Arkham, besides the game franchise he’s in 🤷‍♂️," seemingly a dig at barring discussions about Gotham Knights, garnering over 1,100 upvotes in four days (shown below). That same day, Redditor Remyrubbish posted an image of Killer Croc to /r/BatmanArkham,^[3] writing, "Is there a lore reason why he’s called killer croc?" garnering over 400 upvotes in the same span of time, starting the trend.

Spread

The trend spread not only on the /r/BatmanArkham subreddit, but other subreddits and Twitter as well in the following days. On October 22nd, 2022, Redditor barrymk100 posted a version of the meme to /r/BatmanArkham^[4] asking, "Is there a lore reason why her zipper is half down?" about Cat Woman's costume, garnering over 2,100 upvotes in four days. On October 23rd, Redditor ZrO2548 posted a meme to /r/yakuzagames^[5] titled, "Is there a lore reason why these two have never fucked?" over an image of two characters from Yakuza, garnering over 2,400 upvotes in three days (shown below). The meme was reposted by Twitter^[6] user @majimakos that day, garnering over 6,300 likes in the same span of time.

On the same day, Twitter^[7] user @MinecraftMeme16 posted an image of the dirt block from Minecraft, writing, "is there a lore reason why dirt is named dirt?" garnering over 1,400 likes in three days. That day, Redditor xWarmYetix posted a version of the meme to /r/PrequelMemes^[8] that was posted to Twitter^[9] by @rPrequelMemes that day, garnering over 900 upvotes on the former and 2,400 likes on the latter in the same span of time. On October 25th, Redditor throwcway837373 posted a version of the meme to /r/metalgearsolid,^[10] garnering over 1,200 upvotes in a day (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

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External References