/tan/ - Board-tans

The entirety of /bane/ centers around the opening scenes of the movie The Dark Knight Rises, by Christopher Nolan, which /bane/ jokingly hails as an absolute masterpiece and from which it derives continuous jokes and OC. Seeing as the only relevant bit (to the board) is the first five minutes, they have dubbed these “The Plane Scene” whereas everything after is referred to as “the post credit scenes”. Nolan himself is only referred to as Bravo Nolan. Batman is described as “a mysterious man in a silly bat costume” and not considered all that important to the Plane Scene mythos. /bane/ is not a very serious board, but it is rather convoluted in the framework it’s built up around the joke that became Baneposting. At the center of this stand two characters: Bane and CIA.

Bane is a big guy (for you) with a bald head and no notable facial features apart from the large voice-distorting mouth mask he wears at all times. He wears a padded vest, some cargo pants and heavy boots. At times he’s also seen wearing a long brown coat over it.

/bane/ describes Bane as a mercenary born in The Darkness, a devoted follower to the Master Plan (from CIA’s phrase “what’s the next step in your master plan?”) capable of hatching complex plans with the end goal of making “the fire rise”. Despite him being the villain in the context of both the movie and The Plane Scene, Bane enjoys lots of admiration from Baneposters, some of whom reframe him as the hero depending on their deconstructive interpretation of The Plane Scene.

Opposite Bane stands Bill Wilson, better known as CIA. Since this character only appeared in the first five minutes of the movie, /bane/ has derived his entire personality and backstory from it. Because he wears a navy blue jacket, light blue shirt, and cargo pants, these have become his stock outfit that he’s said to always wear. Because he introduces himself as CIA, he is characterized as a courageous agent devoted to his work, who inspired his colleagues to the point where they gave him the nickname CIA, as they consider him an embodiment of what the entire agency should be. He is said to be very intelligent and charismatic, and his memetic POWER STANCE is supposed to help him stay (or at least feel) in charge.

For all that /bane/s mythos has built him up, however, he canonically loses to Bane in “The Plane Scene”, so some theorise him to have underlying insecurities (possibly an inferiority complex). That would explain why, ultimately, CIA remains a small guy who sticks to the Flight Plan (derived from CIA telling the hostages he just filed a flight plan with the agency). Some even take it a step further and consider him not just a little guy, but a hothead (a description assigned to John Blake later in the movie, which Baneposters also use to denote haters). In that interpretation, CIA moves from tragic character/antagonist to full-blown villain.

CIA is accompanied by five soldiers. None of them are named in the movie proper, but /bane/ has given them names based on deliberate mishearings of CIA’s line “The flight plan I just filed with the agency lists me, my men, doctor Pavel here, but only one of you!”.

Smee is said to often pull a duckface and smoke tobacco. Because some Baneposters claim to see him untie Bane’s henchmen when the scene turns chaotic, one theory states he, along with some of CIA’s other men, may be a mole for the League of Shadows. Deep Expanded Universe theorists (who claim not only the rest of the movie, but other movies as well may be connected to the Plane Scene mythos) also claim he survived the crash and established his own empire in Uzbekistan as either Immortan Joe or his father (based on the now memetic Mad Max phrase “witness me!” (“witness Smee”)).

Maimen is subject to the greatest number of theories of all henchmen. He is claimed to not only be a mole, but the head mole commandeering the others. He is seen looking down out the window when he warns CIA, despite the enemy plane approaching from above (others joke he just wanted to warn CIA that the bullet he shot earlier in the scene hit something), he helps untangle Bane’s men, he briefly points his gun at CIA and remains calmer than anyone else throughout the hijacking. With all these points, the mole theory is most popular for this character. His rough handling of doctor Pavel when escorting him into the plane also suggests an anti-intellectual attitude.

Furthermore, Expanded Universe theorists (who take the rest of the entire movie into account) consider him to have survived the crash, as “evidenced” by the line “I’m not risking my men for your money” (“I’m not risking Maimen for Yormoni” – who Yormoni is, is not addressed).

Finally, Deep Expanded Universe theorists like to joke he switched the briefcase given at the beginning of the movie with another one, because he can be seen sitting on an identical one later in the plane. Said suitcase looks exactly like the one containing the PASIV Dream Machine in Inception, which would mean the CIA had it in custody before Maimen the mole handed it over to the League of Shadows.

Heer is the soldier sporting a military cap, and the final soldier suspected to be a mole. His case is the most hotly debated however. He is seen both untying and punching the hostages, and even takes a shot at Bane before going down in the crash. Interpretations range from a mole with a change of heart to a guy getting confused in the heat of the moment.

“Button” Lee is the only black man on CIA’s detail. Nothing is known about him, though he is said to be quick for some reason.

Hugh is the last soldier, guarding the rear side. His great accomplishments include peeing his pants and dying first. However, Expanded Universe theorists joke that Bane telling doctor Pavel “only ‘Hugh’” can disable the bomb he intends to set off at Gotham Stadion means Hugh must have survived the crash. A resulting running joke is that Hugh likely went through some serious self-improvement and became the “mysterious man in a silly bat costume”.

Some allies of CIA are never seen, only mentioned. When he takes the extra prisoners on board, CIA declares he’ll “call Ittin”, according to /bane/. There is no consensus on who or what Ittin is supposed to be. Some believe him to be a man and CIA’s superior. Others point out it could be a slight mispronunciation of Ettin, an Old English word referring to the Nordic ice giants. Under this interpretation it’s theorised Ettin could be a subdivision of the CIA specialised in handling Big Guy-related crimes. Yet another theory combines these two and acknowledges the division’s existence while its leader bears the same name as its embodiment, similar to CIA’s situation. Expanded Universe theorists believe he may or may not be seen during the raid on Gotham Stadium.

CIA files his flight plan with “the Agent C”. Nothing is known about him, even Expanded Universe theorists can at best claim to have maybe seen him from the back. Some speculate he might be in league with the League of Shadows and have provided them with CIA’s flight plan. However, as Bane and his men already knew where to find him before he took off, this is unlikely even as a joke.

CIA is said by some to have a wife, Anna, who works as an analyst for Ittin. It is unclear where this speculation comes from, since the character dubbed Anna by /bane/ gives no indication at all of even having known CIA.

Just like CIA has a net of allies, neither does Bane stand alone. He enters the plane in disguise with two of his “brothers”.

The first of these /bane/ has dubbed Juan O’Vous. They joke CIA, in a bout of clairvoyance, has listed “Juan O’Vous” on the flight plan he just filed with “the Agent C” (how this is possible without writing out Hugh is not explained). Subsequently, Bane tells Juan to stay behind in the plane, as they’ll be expecting to find him in the wreckage. Note that either he or Bane mispronounce Juan’s last name. CIA says it with a French drawl (“ovyu”) while Bane opts for an Anglicanised pronunciation (O’Vous as in “grievous”).

Juan’s most prominent trait during his short appearance is his loyalty to Bane. Some Expanded Universe theorists joke he must have survived the crash and have altered his appearance and voice, because later in the movie, a man named Phillip Stryver insists before the Scarecrow’s kangaroo court that he’s “Juan O’Vous!”(using CIA’s pronunciation of the name).

Bane’s other “brother” on the plane is dubbed Ahyred Gunn. He has no lines and appears only very briefly. All /bane/ has to say on him is that he has a lotta loyalty for Bane.

Bane and his “brothers” are delivered to CIA by a man /bane/ has named the Masketta Man. It’s derived from him telling CIA that the extra hostages “work for the mercenary. The “Masketta Man””. Along with him answering “Aye” (“I”) when CIA asks if he’s referring to Bane, some Baneposters joke he’s actually Bane’s superior, and they all work for him. Others forego the “I” interpretation and consider him another underling of Bane, which fits better in the context of the movie, especially as he can later in the movie be seen working as a lieutenant for Bane.

Because Masketta Man appears to be driving without touching the wheel in the opening scene (a simple error), Baneposters have run with it and declared him a metahuman with telekinetic powers. His persuading CIA to bring the extra hostages on board is also considered “proof” of persuasive mind control powers. Others drive the joke even further and declare that his cohorts “Escortta Man” and “Beanie Bagetta Man” are also metahumans with the power to respectively escort someone anywhere on earth with or without consent, and the dubious power to perfectly bag a man’s head (whether the victim can remove the bag by themself is up for debate). In this scenario, all three are said to be part of the Mosquito Men, the League of Shadows’ metahuman division. Masketta Man may or may not lead it and wear his name as an embodiment similar to CIA and Ittin.

Because Bane tells Juan that “they expect [Juan O’Vous] in the wreckage, brother!”, /bane/ has decided that CIA’s plane is formally named the Wreckage Brother. Likewise, the plane that hijacks the Wreckage Brother with four unnamed paratroopers is known as the Noshur Viverse, with whose help Bane declares his intent to “crash this plane” to CIA.

Doctor Leonid Pavel is a nuclear physicist wanted by both Bane and CIA, and the main source of tension between both parties in The Plane Scene. Bane wants him to build a bomb for him, CIA wants to prevent this and possibly learn from him what he knows of the League of Shadows’ organization. At the end doctor Pavel is forcibly extracted by Bane as CIA’s plane goes down. His repeated insistence that Bane let him go (in the form of screams of protest) leads some Baneposters to joke that he was suicidal, and Expanded Universe theorists build on this to reframe Bane snapping doctor Pavel’s neck at Gotham Stadium as an act of mercy.

Despite never appearing in The Plane Scene itself, the character of John Blake is relevant to Baneposting lore in the context of him being identified as the archetypical “hothead”. Hotheads are said to be pathetic creatures that should be evicted from any and all locations post haste, recognizable by their short stature, high cranial temperature, and impulsive behaviour/hairtrigger temper as a result of their hotheadedness. In Baneposting lore, they are the primary antagonists of the Master Plan, as making the Fire Rise would cause their already elevated head temperature to become even worse, possibly lethally so. Outside of it, Baneposters will be quick to accuse anyone opposing Baneposting for whatever reason of being a hothead.

Two concepts that often return in Baneposting, already alluded to above, are the Flight Plan and the Master Plan. It’s not fully clear what either entails or how they relate to each other, as differing interpretations exist. Do they represent Order versus Chaos? Subservience versus Independence? Authoritarianism versus Libertarianism? Whatever the interpretation, the Master Plan seems to be the more individualistic of the two. It’s also more commonly considered the true path to follow, despite Bane being the villain of the movie.

Some believe the Flight Plan to be an alternate but flawed reading of the Master Plan, through which one cannot truly attain Big Guy status. Some view it as embedded within the Master Plan, a test that one must learn to see through and overcome to rise above and understand the Master Plan. Most commonly, however, the Flight Plan is considered the Master Plan’s opposite. Under this reading, some Baneposters go as far as to claim CIA was actually a hothead all along.

Baneposters have managed to extract a ton of lore and theories from a short scene that attained memetic cult status through their sheer autism. To this day, people keep having fun with all the crazy OC they can cook up from the seemingly limited material.

>>70

Restoring a lost image.

>>203

>>72

Some more restoring.

>>74

And more still.

Restoring some lost images.

2/2.