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The last scene of the Dark Knight includes a dialogue between James Gordon and Batman about pinning onto Batman the implied murders committed by Harvey Dent.

No one has this knowledge other than Gordon and Batman. Still these deaths needed to be accounted for. They weren't going to pin it on Harvey because of what he represented and how damaging it would be if the truth was out.

But why Batman? Chronologically, it could have been the Joker. And it wouldn't be out of character for the Joker.

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    I think it would be very out of character for Gordon and Batman to pin crimes onto someone else. Its noble for Batman to accept blame for crimes he didn't commit and it makes for a good story, while blaming crimes on the Joker would come across as unethical and very un-Batman-like.
    – sanpaco
    Sep 10, 2016 at 7:16
  • Related questions (and possibly duplicates) here and here.
    – Walt
    Sep 10, 2016 at 7:55
  • Related (if not even duplicate): Why blame Batman for the crimes commited by Harvey Dent?
    – Napoleon Wilson ♦
    Sep 10, 2016 at 19:50

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The Joker could talk. The whole vision of Joker in TDK and all of Batman series is to see Batman break his principles. TDK added the touch of love for chaos to its version of Joker. So Joker wants to break the "Ethical" nature of Batman (which I guess only he, Gordon and Alfred are the only ones aware of).

So even if he was sent to Arkham Asylum, if Joker found out that Batman had done such an unethical task in pinning false allegations on Joker, wouldn't it be a victory for Joker? Batman understood this. It would also enable Joker to tell that to the world, even if no one believed him. The sense of personal victory would be obtained by the Joker.

Hence Batman took the blame on himself so that even if the city blamed him, Joker would never win, nor would Harvey's image be smeared.

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