Why do people like the Joker?

[Ramza00]

Good question. I've never really understood the love for the Joker either, or the dichotomy they say exists between him and Batman.

Okay this is easy and hard to explain. Both of them are critiques of the system and society. Batman is a byronic hero, just a reminder some of the traits of a byronic hero.

1) Highly Intelligent and Perceptive
2) Often sosphistictated and highly educated, "knowing" more than the average median person
3) arrogant, cunning, and adaptive
4) mysterious, magnetic, seductive
5) conflicting emotions or unstable moods switching from depression, melancholy, to high on life (sometimes to the point of mania)
6) cynical, has a distaste for traditional social norms and insitutions
7) not a traditional hero, dark, sometimes anti-hero
8) some sort of troubled past
9) self destructive, self critical, itnrospective
10) loner, rejected from society, exiled

And through the byronic hero as a comic book the Batman comics are talking about the limits of society but also the goodness and greatness of society and the people that make up it via using a byronic hero as an outside perspective and critique of society. Batman is a comic book series about a man and the relationship with his city, and how a city can be corrupt but also worth saving two things that seem opposite but life is messy and they can both simultaneously be true.

---

Joker is also a critique on society and such. He is the wild card, who things do not always go according to plan, how there can be good people but also *******s and joker pokes at the absurdity of it all. Furthermore evil is not just people who choose evil, but is also the thoughtlessness of the system, how unintended things just happen for we did not for see all the possible elements, much like how a joker in a deck of cards throws off all the math and probabilities if you did not know the joker is in the deck of cards.

---

So the The Animated Series in one of the episodes called The Laughing Fish (which in turn adapted a 1978 comic) well it had a great line that encapsulates the joker. First some back story / setup before I give you the line.



So I am about to post a 2nd video link which includes the upcoming quote and some more setup between the quote and the above clip. But the point is already made Francis can't change the system, he is just "hostage to it all" and is trying to make his way in the world today. He can'tg give the Joker what he wants yet he will be punished for it all the same.

So Francis who is now a hostage guarded by the police and Batman ask Batman like a man would ask an angel or god, why? Why me?

Francis: Uh, Batman? Why is this happening to me? I've never done anything to this Joker. I'm just a paper-pusher. I can't change the laws. I'm harmless.

Batman: And in his sick mind, that's the joke, Mr. Francis.

Here is the 2nd video link which I have to do as a URL due to giantitp forum rules and syntax but it includes that line I just quoted plus other scenes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOtZ8_PSQ3Y

---------------------

So Batman and the Joker are natural opposites for they both represent the "unseen forces" which can shape a city, society, and people's lives. Batman represents the shadows, a dark knight, a guardian angel, but also a man who affects others yet we do not know the reason why, why he wears a mask and thus his own personal motivations, we only know batman based on what he does on the outside.

And the Joker is also an outside force, represent the unseen forces that represent death, absurdity, chance, malice, irony and so on.

[Rynjin]

Stepping back from the deeper character study, the Joker is just interesting because at his core he's a showman above all else.

It gives writers hella leeway for just leaning on SPECTACLE in his capers, without being weighed down by logic or motivations.

That he can flip from entertaining to truly chilling at the drop of a hat in some incarnations is just icing on the cake.

[Sapphire Guard]

Mark Hamill's voice is a big factor.

Otherwise, Joker's a bit like Xykon, in that he's a rare character that can be very funny and entertaining without being sympathetic.

I think being overexposed or having him as the one big enemy ultimately hurts his depiction though, he works better as one villain among many than the 'you complete me' stuff.

Spoiler: all Arkham games

Show

It annoyed me when every game circled back around to Joker as the main villain. You have a huge rogues gallery, use it.

[Kyberwulf]

It's easy to answer. It's cuase he it's edgy to like him. Also, we are told that he is Batman's greatest villain. It'a not hard to see why though. Look at all his other villain's. They all have some lame shtick. What.. one tell's riddles. Another has a penguin motif? A girl in a catsuit? I know joke is suppose to be a "Clown" but he is more then that.

What I don't get is... why do so many people hold his and Harly's relationship in such High regard. I am also shocked to see girls act like they are something to aspire.

[Donnadogsoth]

It's easy to answer. It's cuase he it's edgy to like him. Also, we are told that he is Batman's greatest villain. It'a not hard to see why though. Look at all his other villain's. They all have some lame shtick. What.. one tell's riddles. Another has a penguin motif? A girl in a catsuit? I know joke is suppose to be a "Clown" but he is more then that.

What I don't get is... why do so many people hold his and Harly's relationship in such High regard. I am also shocked to see girls act like they are something to aspire.

What would a robust shtick be?

What is wrong with Harley and J's relationship?

[Dr.Samurai]

He's obsessed with breathing, too, is he less free for it? Just because someone has goals doesn't mean they're unfree.

I'm going to ignore your comparison since Joker is never depicted as obsessed with breathing.

You said "who wouldn't envy that?" and I'm saying I wouldn't. I don't consider an obsession with Batman to "embody the Free Man archetype". I think obsession *is actually* a "constraint affecting mere mortals", to use your words.

Perhaps there is some depiction of the Joker that fits what you're saying, but as he is often depicted, you're asking "who wouldn't envy an insane guy obsessed with another person enough to risk his life and spend countless time in prison and/or committed?"

The answer then is "I wouldn't envy that man at all, in any way, shape, or form".

And it's cool if you don't find Joker fun or funny, you know? I wasn't trying to convince you, I was merely trying to propose an explanation why he's so popular: A) He's get a very diverse representation. B) He's typically portrayed with infectious enthusiasm. C) He does everything with panache. It may not float your boat, but there's enough water there buoy an armada.

Oh I know. That's why I put the smiley face in there. I didn't want you to take my very strong disagreement negatively. But I read your comment and I was like "wow, we *strongly* disagree" lol.

And I think you're seriously downplaying his master-minding in the movie .

[Dienekes]

I love the Joker exactly for the reasons you gave. He doesn’t have a tragic backstory really. Nor a particularly good motive. He breaks every rule about character building in the book and he does it with panache.

He’s actually in a lot of ways closer to a horror monster than a true fully fleshed out character. Joker works because no one else is like him and because he acts as a near perfect foil for Batman. Batman has reasons, Bruce (when written well) is a tragic backstory with massive flaws and large motivations that all focus on his view of justice and order. Joker literally has none of that.

What he does have is an incredibly useful personality (for a writer) he can fit pretty much anything from the darkest to the lightest of stories. And does so in a way that makes people laugh and feel deeply disturbed. Occasionally at the same time. A feet I haven’t seen any other character pull off nearly as well.

He also provides a nice reflection on something I think a lot of people forget. There are people in the world that do horrible things for no clear motivation or benefit. Joker is that reality blown up to gargantuan proportions. As befits comics.

The Joker is loved because he’s the Joker. Because of the odd series of decisions that brought about a character that perfectly fits the roll of Batman villain. He shouldn’t work, he is not a fully fleshed out character in the modern sense.

Though I am curious if his existence means we should re-evaluate what really makes a good villain and character. Since usually when greatest literary villains get brought up, things like Big Brother get brought up. And he has even less character than Joker. He is a symbol of oppression, in the way Joker is the personification of chaotic destruction.

What would a robust shtick be?

What is wrong with Harley and J's relationship?

Oh dear god. The Harley/Joker relationship is an exploration of abusive relationships in general. Turning intelligent competent people into subservient objects for their partner. That people somehow don’t get that is disturbing.

[Peelee]

Oh dear god. The Harley/Joker relationship is an exploration of abusive relationships in general. Turning intelligent competent people into subservient objects for their partner. That people somehow don’t get that is disturbing.

Seconded. I loved her as a character (to be fair, I loved all TAS, aa well as BB), but that relationship was messed the hell up.

[Kyberwulf]

You know, I think the wrong question that is being asked here. It shouldn't be "Why do people like the Joker?". It should be, "Why do people Idolize the Joker?"

I don't get that. It's like, why do people cheer or feel sympathy when they talk about Darth Vader being "Saved" by Luke? I really don't get it. Well, I should say, I get it to some degree. Yet, all the things he did before we found out what happen in the sequels....

I just don't get the Idolization thing.

[Ramza00]

I love the Joker exactly for the reasons you gave. He doesn’t have a tragic backstory really. Nor a particularly good motive. He breaks every rule about character building in the book and he does it with panache.

And that is why the Joker works, he is not a human character. He is a horror monster, a monster in the flesh of a human. Literally an avatar of chaos, but while that line from the Dark Knight Movies ("agent of chaos") is famous a better description of what type of "avatar" the joker is...is not chaos but instead the concept of horror.

Much like the first terminator movies are really horror movies and not sci fi movies, and you are running away from "inevitability" for death is inevitable and he is personified with a machine, the Joker is an "avatar of horror" and by making the avatar into a human fleshy body you are actually escalating the horror for there is a sense of otherness with the joker. He is so much alike everyone else but also so different. He is like how other human beings can treat one another on our worse days but turned up to x11, yet the best Joker stories still have some "reality" with the Joker where the story is believable.

Combined that "horror" / "otherness" of the Joker with what Rynjin calls a showman and you have an interesting character.

Stepping back from the deeper character study, the Joker is just interesting because at his core he's a showman above all else.

He has Panache, he is ironic, he is interesting, and he needs to be all of these or the character falls apart and is boring and uninteresting. But by uniting these different threads into a unified whole the character works, it is the intersection of all these things that makes the Joker an interesting chracter study in how to do a villain but get the ingredients just a little bit off and the character just falls apart, or is boring, or is non threatening, or is non believable, and so on.

The Joker is a good antagonist but he is not a good representation of a "human villain." For he isn't human, he is a horror monster whose goal when used by the author "is to frighten, scare, disgust, or startle its readers or viewers by inducing feelings of horror and terror."

Oh dear god. The Harley/Joker relationship is an exploration of abusive relationships in general. Turning intelligent competent people into subservient objects for their partner. That people somehow don’t get that is disturbing.

Nods. It is disturbing, you are not supposed to like it. While Harley is an awesome character I do not understand how you can like / approve of her and the Joker's relationship. Poison Ivy (Harley's best friend and possible "more than friend) has Mr. J exactly right with Harley and J's relationship.



Note while Harley Quinn was a character created in the Batman The Animated Series and then brought to the comics, the actual storyline from that video clip occurred first in the comics and then was adapted as a single Batman and Robin episode (the sequel to BTAS) 5 years later. The comic is The Batman Adventures: Mad Love (1994) and is a one shot stand alone story. Mad Love was written by Paul Dini (who was also a writter for BTAS and Batman Beyond) and Bruce Timm (one of the two creators of BTAS). The later episode that was adapted was once again written by Paul Dini and directed by Butch Lukic. I loved how they kept most of the content of the comic book when they adapted the comic to cartoon.

[Bohandas]

The thing I like about the Joker is that the "I am an agent of chaos" monologue in The Dark Knight actually does have some valid philosophical points

[Donnadogsoth]

I'm going to ignore your comparison since Joker is never depicted as obsessed with breathing.

You said "who wouldn't envy that?" and I'm saying I wouldn't. I don't consider an obsession with Batman to "embody the Free Man archetype". I think obsession *is actually* a "constraint affecting mere mortals", to use your words.

Perhaps there is some depiction of the Joker that fits what you're saying, but as he is often depicted, you're asking "who wouldn't envy an insane guy obsessed with another person enough to risk his life and spend countless time in prison and/or committed?"

The Joker's desires are irrelevant. You're excluding free men from having desires, which is absurd. The Joker's freedom is what makes him enviable. If you were free, you would be able to pursue your own desires.

[Bohandas]

I love the Joker exactly for the reasons you gave. He doesn’t have a tragic backstory really.

He does, but the details are inconsistent from writer to writer. His backstory may involve either 1.) a really really bad day in which he lost everything he had and also fell into a vat of caustic chemicals and/or 2.) A childhood spent living with an alcoholic father who beat him and his mother

[Dienekes]

He does, but the details are inconsistent from writer to writer. His backstory may involve either 1.) a really really bad day in which he lost everything he had and also fell into a vat of caustic chemicals and/or 2.) A childhood spent living with an alcoholic father who beat him and his mother

3) He was always a mobster and just got induced with crazy upon hitting chemicals

4) He is a psychotic chaos entity eternally resurrected by the curse of Gotham

5) He's actually 3 people on a mission to mess with Bruce through the multiverse.

He really doesn't have a backstory. Killing Joke tried to create the concept of a true sad backstory, but even in it the Joker says he doesn't actually remember and sometimes it's one way, sometimes it's a different way. Some he was good, and some he was always bad.

It's the Joker, only consistent thing about him is he's inconsistent.

[Kyberwulf]

This is what I don't get about people that Idolize Joker. They always say.. He is this .. and this.. and this.. and he is perfect because he is CHAOS!! MAWAWHAHAHAWHWHAWHW

Yeah... no. That's what makes him lame. As a character, he has no real motivations. No driving force. Other then ... He does stuff to mess with Batman. He has no plans.. but yet, all this shinanigians obviously require a vast amount of Planning. I would say luck. Yet, that isn't true either. He probably has contingency plans, inside of contingency plans... beside contingency plans...and contingency plans for those ones. Every minute of his life must be planned out more then batmans.

He isn't anything more then some lame attempt by an author to force Batman into some moral conundrum.
"Don't you think it would be cool if Batman had to do this... Or this" "Yeah, but how can we get him into that spot?" Joker did it.
or
"Aw man, we made some pretty outlandish plot here.. How do we fix it so we don't waste the time we put into this?" Joker did it.

[Donnadogsoth]

This is what I don't get about people that Idolize Joker. They always say.. He is this .. and this.. and this.. and he is perfect because he is CHAOS!! MAWAWHAHAHAWHWHAWHW

Yeah... no. That's what makes him lame. As a character, he has no real motivations. No driving force. Other then ... He does stuff to mess with Batman. He has no plans.. but yet, all this shinanigians obviously require a vast amount of Planning. I would say luck. Yet, that isn't true either. He probably has contingency plans, inside of contingency plans... beside contingency plans...and contingency plans for those ones. Every minute of his life must be planned out more then batmans.

He isn't anything more then some lame attempt by an author to force Batman into some moral conundrum.
"Don't you think it would be cool if Batman had to do this... Or this" "Yeah, but how can we get him into that spot?" Joker did it.
or
"Aw man, we made some pretty outlandish plot here.. How do we fix it so we don't waste the time we put into this?" Joker did it.

What would be a hale attempt by an author to force Batman into some moral conundrum?

[Dr.Samurai]

The Joker's desires are irrelevant. You're excluding free men from having desires, which is absurd.

So you've conflated "obsession" with autonomous functions of the human body, and now you're conflating "obsession" with simple desire. So I bet things do seem absurd from your frame of reference.

The Joker's freedom is what makes him enviable.

I know what you're saying. I'm contesting that notion, saying that his obsession and his insanity make him less free than other people. Likewise, the considerable amount of time he spends in an asylum literally makes him less free than other people. I don't see him to be anymore an embodiment of a free man than any other character that does what they want.

If you were free, you would be able to pursue your own desires.

How am I not free? Why do you think I do not or cannot pursue my own desires? Why do you think the Joker, a mad man obsessed over another person and routinely brutally beat by that person and incarcerated, is more free than I am?

I think what you're saying is "the Joker doesn't have morality, and therefore is more free than other people". In which case, your question would be "who wouldn't envy a psychopath?". Right? The answer is "I wouldn't envy a psychopath".

Regarding Joker as an agent of chaos, if Joker were truly the agent of chaos that people say he is, he wouldn't be in Gotham. He'd be in other places, spreading chaos with his ingenious plots all around the world where Batman isn't around to stop him. But he's not an agent of chaos. He's a guy obsessed with Batman. So everything he tries to accomplish he does in Gotham just so he can interact with Batman. And he gets beat up and locked away. And he escapes to do it again. Because he's insane.

[AvatarVecna]

Joker is the perfect villain for Batman because the comic is based on an inherently flawed concept: that the only thing necessary to solve crime - and mental disorder, for that matter - is to punch criminals/crazies in the face until they stop committing crimes/crazy actions. The parallels the series draw between mental disorder and criminal tendencies is kinda disgusting if you stop to think about it; hell, Gotham's version of the classic 'revolving door prison' isn't even a prison, it's an asylum. The reason for this is clear: it's what's needed for Batman to be justified. If crime could be stopped by figuring out what societal/financial problems, Batman putting criminals in the hospital would make things worse. Bruce Wayne could do more for a real-life Gotham than Batman ever could by essentially becoming a "gang leader" like Penguin or Two-Face, hiring people for higher pay, and then renting them out as security forces in Gotham; it would probably need to be a tad bit more complicated than that, but providing jobs for would-be criminals in financial straits gets those people off the streets, and hiring them out as security makes people safer from the would-be criminals that didn't sign up with Wayne.

But we can't have that. Systemic issues like crime can't be solved by punching, and issues that can't be solved by punching make for boring comics. So whenever you see minions and mooks in a Batman whatever (movie, comic, game), they're not just people in a bad financial situation that had to make a hard choice between eating this week and being a law-abiding citizen, they're *******s who get off on theft, assault, battery, rape, and murder. There's no reasoning with these people, there's no negotiating with them, or trying to solve the societal problems that lead them to where they are. They're just *******s who chose to be *******s, and that's nobody's fault but theirs, so we need a Batman to punch them in the face, to strike fear into the hearts of these heartless criminals, or else they'll keep criminaling.

And Joker is the ultimate expression of that "ideal perpetrator" concept. The supervillains of Batman's Rogue Gallery, by definition, have to be individuals with their own story, and this makes it a whole lot easier for some people to sympathize with them, even if they're more or less objectively monstrous in their actions and decisions. Killer Croc was born disfigured and put on display in a freak show, of course he ended up crazy! Al Ghul has been driven insane by overuse of the Lazarus Pit, he's not in his right mind! Harley Quinn was a weak-willed girl seduced by the Joker, Poison Ivy's crimes are born from her love of plants, Mr Freeze was disfigured by an uncaring corporate suit while he was just trying to cure his wife, Two Face came about from a good man's bitterness towards a corrupt justice system, Riddler was abused as a child, and on and on and on. Most of Batman's RG is, on some level, sympathetic, a victim of somebody else's actions, and hopefully the doctors can help them...but if not, Batman will be there to punch them should they try to crime it up. Every once in a while, you'll get a comic or an episode of "what if this villain went legit?" You'll get an episode of the Penguin finding a lady and trying to be better for the sake of the relationship, you'll get a comic where Bruce Wayne acts as Killer Croc's psychiatrist long enough to actually help him, you'll have two separate episodes of a TV show that sees Harley Quinn try to go legit.

You don't have that problem with Joker. The mythos can't afford to have that happen with Joker. In most every version, movie or otherwise, his background is either never stated or is deliberately multiple choice, with the Joker himself always claiming that it doesn't matter where he came from or how he became the man is he today. The end result is a twisted psychotic who gets off on hurting others, who wants to watch society crumble, who can't be predicted or countered by normal law enforcement despite possessing no powers, and who can't be cured. The Joker is written in a way such that Batman is the only solution to him. If Joker got a background, or some reason for why he is the way he is, he'd be sympathetic, even just mildly so. Hell, Harley Quinn's mental issues begin and end with "she thinks the Joker is sympathetic"; having sympathy for the Joker, according to the Batman Mythos, is literally insane.

On the flip side, Joker wants to force people to see the world the way he does: inherently broken and evil and wrong. Proving that everybody is as bad as he is, itself, is the point...and Batman would be the masterpiece. The unbreakable, unflappable dark knight, the (apparently?) pinnacle of morality. If Joker can be so evil, so abhorrent, so utterly despicable and disgusting that Batman actually tries to kill him? He's succeeded. At the same time, if Batman wasn't there, Joker almost inevitably would've been shot by the police at some point; sure, that death might end up setting off some booby trap that levels half of Gotham, but then Gotham could recover without the Joker around. Joker needs Batman around to continue playing his games without getting shot, and Batman needs Joker around to continue feeling justified in solving a societal problem like crime with face-punching.

[Dienekes]

Joker is the perfect villain for Batman because the comic is based on an inherently flawed concept: that the only thing necessary to solve crime - and mental disorder, for that matter - is to punch criminals/crazies in the face until they stop committing crimes/crazy actions. The parallels the series draw between mental disorder and criminal tendencies is kinda disgusting if you stop to think about it; hell, Gotham's version of the classic 'revolving door prison' isn't even a prison, it's an asylum. The reason for this is clear: it's what's needed for Batman to be justified. If crime could be stopped by figuring out what societal/financial problems, Batman putting criminals in the hospital would make things worse. Bruce Wayne could do more for a real-life Gotham than Batman ever could by essentially becoming a "gang leader" like Penguin or Two-Face, hiring people for higher pay, and then renting them out as security forces in Gotham; it would probably need to be a tad bit more complicated than that, but providing jobs for would-be criminals in financial straits gets those people off the streets, and hiring them out as security makes people safer from the would-be criminals that didn't sign up with Wayne.

But we can't have that. Systemic issues like crime can't be solved by punching, and issues that can't be solved by punching make for boring comics.

You don't read many Batman comics do you?

Because Bruce literally does offer job opportunities for the poor, and has funded various rehabilitiation non-profits. Several of Wayne Corps security is expressly noted as being former inmates of Blackgate that are trying to get their lives back together.

[Bohandas]

Regarding the criticism of the "agent of chaos" description, yeah, technically he's an agent of chaotic-evil

[AvatarVecna]

You don't read many Batman comics do you?

Because Bruce literally does offer job opportunities for the poor, and has funded various rehabilitiation non-profits. Several of Wayne Corps security is expressly noted as being former inmates of Blackgate that are trying to get their lives back together.

Haven't read too many comics, but have seen the movies, played the games, and watched the shows. Was this part of the character's mythos just too mindane to make it to things outside the comics much, or was it a minor enough part of the mythos that it wasn't as important to bring up? Like, there'd be a difference on lore clarifications between "Catwoman donates money to chariry sometimes, she's vetter than you give her credit for" and "Thor was a girl at one point" or "batman was a penniless hero in one of his incarnations" or "superman's been a dark antihero before".

I assume lots more stuff happens in the comics than makes it into other media, by virtue of being the main part of the franchise. I know of Batman stories that start with him being really poor, or ramp up his obsession for a more grey/grey morality. I know the villains sometimes go legit. Hell, I looked up the croc example in my previous post 'cause I assumed he'd had one at some point...and he did! And Wayne was the one fo help him, even!

Does that just happen a whole hell of a lot more in the comics? Why don't those parts of the mythos make it over to otger media?

[Mikemical]

You might need to read Batman Death of the Family and Endgame to understand why the Joker has become such an interesting and appealing character. Initially, his whole shtick was that he was a psychotic clown who did robberies using pranks and toys as his MO. By those comics I've mentioned, he's dropped all the gags and turned into something akin to the anti-Batman anti-Christ. The character has evolved throughout the decades and manages to reinvent himself when one formula starts to turn stale.

[Donnadogsoth]

Joker is the perfect villain for Batman because the comic is based on an inherently flawed concept: that the only thing necessary to solve crime - and mental disorder, for that matter - is to punch criminals/crazies in the face until they stop committing crimes/crazy actions. The parallels the series draw between mental disorder and criminal tendencies is kinda disgusting if you stop to think about it; hell, Gotham's version of the classic 'revolving door prison' isn't even a prison, it's an asylum. The reason for this is clear: it's what's needed for Batman to be justified. If crime could be stopped by figuring out what societal/financial problems, Batman putting criminals in the hospital would make things worse. Bruce Wayne could do more for a real-life Gotham than Batman ever could by essentially becoming a "gang leader" like Penguin or Two-Face, hiring people for higher pay, and then renting them out as security forces in Gotham; it would probably need to be a tad bit more complicated than that, but providing jobs for would-be criminals in financial straits gets those people off the streets, and hiring them out as security makes people safer from the would-be criminals that didn't sign up with Wayne.

But we can't have that. Systemic issues like crime can't be solved by punching, and issues that can't be solved by punching make for boring comics. So whenever you see minions and mooks in a Batman whatever (movie, comic, game), they're not just people in a bad financial situation that had to make a hard choice between eating this week and being a law-abiding citizen, they're *******s who get off on theft, assault, battery, rape, and murder. There's no reasoning with these people, there's no negotiating with them, or trying to solve the societal problems that lead them to where they are. They're just *******s who chose to be *******s, and that's nobody's fault but theirs, so we need a Batman to punch them in the face, to strike fear into the hearts of these heartless criminals, or else they'll keep criminaling.

And Joker is the ultimate expression of that "ideal perpetrator" concept. The supervillains of Batman's Rogue Gallery, by definition, have to be individuals with their own story, and this makes it a whole lot easier for some people to sympathize with them, even if they're more or less objectively monstrous in their actions and decisions. Killer Croc was born disfigured and put on display in a freak show, of course he ended up crazy! Al Ghul has been driven insane by overuse of the Lazarus Pit, he's not in his right mind! Harley Quinn was a weak-willed girl seduced by the Joker, Poison Ivy's crimes are born from her love of plants, Mr Freeze was disfigured by an uncaring corporate suit while he was just trying to cure his wife, Two Face came about from a good man's bitterness towards a corrupt justice system, Riddler was abused as a child, and on and on and on. Most of Batman's RG is, on some level, sympathetic, a victim of somebody else's actions, and hopefully the doctors can help them...but if not, Batman will be there to punch them should they try to crime it up. Every once in a while, you'll get a comic or an episode of "what if this villain went legit?" You'll get an episode of the Penguin finding a lady and trying to be better for the sake of the relationship, you'll get a comic where Bruce Wayne acts as Killer Croc's psychiatrist long enough to actually help him, you'll have two separate episodes of a TV show that sees Harley Quinn try to go legit.

You don't have that problem with Joker. The mythos can't afford to have that happen with Joker. In most every version, movie or otherwise, his background is either never stated or is deliberately multiple choice, with the Joker himself always claiming that it doesn't matter where he came from or how he became the man is he today. The end result is a twisted psychotic who gets off on hurting others, who wants to watch society crumble, who can't be predicted or countered by normal law enforcement despite possessing no powers, and who can't be cured. The Joker is written in a way such that Batman is the only solution to him. If Joker got a background, or some reason for why he is the way he is, he'd be sympathetic, even just mildly so. Hell, Harley Quinn's mental issues begin and end with "she thinks the Joker is sympathetic"; having sympathy for the Joker, according to the Batman Mythos, is literally insane.

On the flip side, Joker wants to force people to see the world the way he does: inherently broken and evil and wrong. Proving that everybody is as bad as he is, itself, is the point...and Batman would be the masterpiece. The unbreakable, unflappable dark knight, the (apparently?) pinnacle of morality. If Joker can be so evil, so abhorrent, so utterly despicable and disgusting that Batman actually tries to kill him? He's succeeded. At the same time, if Batman wasn't there, Joker almost inevitably would've been shot by the police at some point; sure, that death might end up setting off some booby trap that levels half of Gotham, but then Gotham could recover without the Joker around. Joker needs Batman around to continue playing his games without getting shot, and Batman needs Joker around to continue feeling justified in solving a societal problem like crime with face-punching.

Tangent: Do you agree with, as I seem to recall Socrates said, that evil is always a result of ignorance rather than perverse will? Doesn't the Joker here really say that Free Will is possible, as opposed to the argument that evil is always essentially the result of being dropped on one's head as a child?

[Lacuna Caster]

You don't read many Batman comics do you?

Because Bruce literally does offer job opportunities for the poor, and has funded various rehabilitiation non-profits. Several of Wayne Corps security is expressly noted as being former inmates of Blackgate that are trying to get their lives back together.

Does that just happen a whole hell of a lot more in the comics? Why don't those parts of the mythos make it over to other media?

I think a West-Wing style, Bruce-Wayne-focused story that dealt largely with politics and philanthropy could do quite well in the right hands. (Gotham Central sold respectably, after all.)

War on Crime is one of my favourite Batman stories, just for striking a good balance in that respect.

[Lacuna Caster]

Tangent: Do you agree with, as I seem to recall Socrates said, that evil is always a result of ignorance rather than perverse will? Doesn't the Joker here really say that Free Will is possible, as opposed to the argument that evil is always essentially the result of being dropped on one's head as a child?

I don't know about being dropped on one's head, and I wouldn't say it accounts for the bulk of the world's evils, but 'callous and unemotional' children usually grow up to be psychopaths, and environment seems to have little to do with it.

[Donnadogsoth]

I don't know about being dropped on one's head, and I wouldn't say it accounts for the bulk of the world's evils, but 'callous and unemotional' children usually grow up to be psychopaths, and environment seems to have little to do with it.

Do callous and unemotional children choose to be that way?

[Lacuna Caster]

The end result is a twisted psychotic who gets off on hurting others, who wants to watch society crumble, who can't be predicted or countered by normal law enforcement despite possessing no powers, and who can't be cured. The Joker is written in a way such that Batman is the only solution to him. If Joker got a background, or some reason for why he is the way he is, he'd be sympathetic, even just mildly so. Hell, Harley Quinn's mental issues begin and end with "she thinks the Joker is sympathetic"; having sympathy for the Joker, according to the Batman Mythos, is literally insane.

Harley isn't crazy because she has sympathy for the Joker per se- she's been manipulated into seeing a different version of the man. What's crazy is that she stays in a relationship when he's proven over and over to be abusive, domineering and disloyal, demanding she conform to his desires with no significant concessions in return. He is 100% take, and she is 100% give.

That's what makes Harley compelling. She has this noble, self-sacrificing impulse that's really just disappearing down the black hole of the Joker's ego, never to be seen again. And sadly, it's not unrealistic.

Do callous and unemotional children choose to be that way?

Without getting into a philosophical debate about what 'free will' means... the shortest answer is 'probably not'. There seems to be some fundamental difference in brain wiring where fear and sympathy don't register but violent urges and the reward centres are intact.

There's some evidence that intensive treatment can... well, not so much cure them as train them to channel their self-interest into more benign occupations. You can't actually make them feel empathy, but with the right incentive structure you can bring them to recognise in the abstract that outright murdering people and/or getting jailed would probably reduce their overall life satisfaction.

It can backfire to a certain extent, however, since psychopaths who learn to work within the system can do a great deal of damage in other ways. It's just LE vs. CE, as it were.

[-D-]

Also speaking of Harley, not all version of Harley are in that much of an abusive relationship. IIRC, Suicide Squad Harley and Joker have a very twisted, but loving relationship akin to Bonnie and Clyde.

[Dienekes]

Also speaking of Harley, not all version of Harley are in that much of an abusive relationship. IIRC, Suicide Squad Harley and Joker have a very twisted, but loving relationship akin to Bonnie and Clyde.

Yes. One more mark against that movie.

[S@tanicoaldo]

I didn't use to like the joker because I didn't see any thematic connection of his theme (Clowns) and batman’s theme (bats Duh) So I was like "Why is his arch enemy something that has nothing to do with bats?

But then it struck me, bats are normally associated with fear and evil while clowns with fun and good so they are thematically opposites after all.

That was a very fun day. ^^