The Dark Knight Rises It was right under our nose... How could we not have noticed?

Uh...nah!

 

I think you've actually got something here.
We're not allowed to believe in coincidences. after all

 

That little chalk bat is clearly a bat, but you are right about John Blake's fate being telegraphed, because Nolan drops a lot of subtle clues that point to Blake succeeding Bruce as Batman, and even some not-so-subtle clues as well.

 

The young boy is drawing the chalk logos as well, not just Blake.

 

It's clearly meant to be a childish stylized drawing of a bat, but it's also easy to look on it as being a clue to Blake's fate.

 

It was also in No mans land that they drew bats around the city to keep hope alive in batmans absense

 

Forgot where I read it, but someone said if you turn the chalk symbol upside down it looks like a bird, which it does. It looks more like a bird than it does a bat. It even has a little beak. xD

 

I'll give you that, but John Blake's fate was still telegraphed rather specifically, particularly in the two conversations between Blake and Gordon where Gordon says that he and Gotham already know who their savior is. The reprise of this conversation is particularly important in terms of the film's final scene, especially in relation to Gordon being given a new Batsignal.

 

I can't seem to find the article anywhere right now, but Mark Hughes showed the same similarities between the chalk bat and Nightwing's symbol in an article where he was arguing that John Blake could be robin. He also showed how the chalk bat upside down kind of looks like a robin.

 

http://www.theyoungfolks.com/film/top-ten-things-you-may-have-missed-in-the-dark-knight-rises/9392

See #1...you are not the only one

 

Even though there's room to interpret or see the chalk bat drawings as being similar to the Nightwing logo, the film's actual content hints pretty specifically at Blake taking up the mantle of Batman rather than creating his own costumed identity, so, at best, the chalk bat drawing was stylized the way that it was in order to pay homage to the Nightwing logo rather than actually being indicative of Blake taking on that specific identity.

 

in the old days before the internet people used to graffiti subversive messages instead of posting crap on 9gag

stuff like Frodo Lives! or the anarchy sign

the chalk is just a reference to that. it shows that regardless of what the police think or the rich and famous chat about in their parties, Batman is still a hero to the smallest and poorest in Gotham

if it's the nightwing symbol, why is the little mexican kid drawing it? he doesn't even know about Nightwing.

it's batman.

there's a resemblance because

1) it's a chalk drawing

2) the nighwing symbol itself (and even the icon of nightwing) is ITSELF A REFERENCE TO BATMAN to begin with

so of course there are similarities between batman and nightwing