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“ | Why so serious? | „ |
~ The Joker's most famous line |
“ | Introduce a little anarchy. Upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I'm an agent of chaos. Oh, and you know the thing about chaos? It's fair! | „ |
~ The Joker to Harvey Dent/"Two-Face" |
The Joker is the secondary antagonist of Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight trilogy, appearing as a mentioned antagonist of Batman Begins and the main antagonist of The Dark Knight.
He is a psychopathic anarchist and terrorist who seeks to test Batman and the city of Gotham, in an effort to prove a point about how people at their core are just as evil as he. He is Batman's arch-nemesis and moral opposite
This version is often considered the darkest version of the comic book villain since his early beginnings in DC Comics (prior to a softening of character), at least in regards to live action films. Perhaps due to the popularity of The Dark Knight, the mainstream Joker's extreme sociopathic tendencies have begun to be more emphasized.
He was portrayed by the late Heath Ledger.
Biography[]
The origins of the man who would become the Joker are as nonexistent as the character's care for human life. During the duration of the film, the Joker gives two origin stories to the Glasgow smile on his face. First, during his torture of Gambol, he claims that his alcoholic father carved the smile into his face during one of his drunken rants. Later, while tormenting Rachel, he claims that his wife was a gambling addict who got in with loan sharks, who mutilated her face. To show his care, he himself carved the smile, to his wife's horror. He attempts to tell a third story to Batman before he is ultimately defeated. What is known is that the Joker grew to have a nihilistic view on society, and sought to send the city of Gotham into crime and despair.
The character's existence is hinted at in the end of Batman Begins, where Lieutenant James Gordon tells Batman of a bank robber who leaves Joker playing cards at crime scenes.
At the beginning of The Dark Knight, the Joker and his men rob a bank owned by the Gotham Mafia. It is revealed later that prior to the heist, he engineered his henchmen's deaths so that they would subsequently betray and kill one another for a bigger cut. The Joker then shoots and kills the last henchman himself, and escapes alone with the money.
A few days later he interrupts a meeting between Gotham City's crime bosses as they are speaking with their accountant Lau, who is on his way to Hong Kong. Lau had assured his clients that their money is safe with him, far from the jurisdiction of Gotham's lawmakers and police. The Joker mocks Lau's loyalty to the Mob, and warns them of Batman, who has no jurisdiction, implying that the Batman will most likely find Lau and bring him back to Gotham. The Joker calls out Lau's potential treachery, claiming "I know the squealers when I see them." knowing full well that Batman, along with Gotham's new district attorney Harvey Dent and Gordon, would make Lau testify against the Mob in exchange for some form of immunity or protection. The Joker then offers the mob an alternative; kill the Batman, and for his services, half of the Mob's funds.
After killing mob boss Gambol, who distrusted him and set a bounty on his head, The Joker issues a city-wide ultimatum for Batman to turn himself in, threatening to kill people each day until Batman does so, and begins by murdering a batman-copycat. The Joker and his men then carry out a series of killings of Gotham's lawmakers starting with Judge Surillo - who was presiding over the mob trials - and on the same night kill Police Commissioner Gillian B. Loeb. The Joker then makes a failed assassination attempt on Mayor Anthony Garcia during the memorial for Commissioner Loeb, by posing himself and his henchmen as the Honor Guard.
Dent falsely reveals himself as Batman at a press conference as part of a plan to lure the Joker out of hiding. Dent is taken into protective custody, and later that night brought aboard a Gotham Police convoy. En route to their destination, the convoy is diverted and attacked by the Joker and his men. After a long high-speed chase involving Dent, Batman, and the Gotham Police, the Joker and his henchmen are finally captured.
Gordon, now promoted to rank of Commissioner of the Gotham Police, confronts The Joker about the sudden disappearance of Dent following the Joker's capture. The Joker feigns ignorance on the whereabouts of Dent, and asks Gordon if he himself left Dent with the right people, implying that there are cops in Gordon's unit who were still on the mob's payroll. This disturbs Gordon, and after asking The Joker a second time where he was keeping Dent, The Joker tells him "depending on the time, he may be in one spot or several", prompting Gordon to leave the room, claiming; "If we're gonna play games, I'm gonna need a cup of coffee."
Batman, who was waiting in the shadows of the cell behind the Joker the whole time, proceeds to interrogate him further about Dent's whereabouts and his involvement with the mob, but does so with a little added aggression. During the whole process the Joker deflects and mocks Batman's attempts to intimidate and break him, going so far as to say that he no longer wants to kill Batman, saying that he "completes" him. He then relentlessly mocks and questions Batman's motives, morals and loyalty to his city. The Batman again demands The Joker tells him the location of Dent, but instead, The Joker reveals to Batman that he has a second hostage, Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal) who is the assistant district attorney and the love interest of both Bruce Wayne (Batman) and Harvey Dent.
This infuriates Batman, who proceeds to throw the Joker about the room and beat him, something that even Gordon tries to stop but is prevented after Batman barricades the door to the cell. The Joker simply brushes off and laughs at the pain that Batman inflicts on him, and only when Batman is finally at the end of his emotional tether does The Joker finally reveal out loud to him and Gordon the location of Rachel and Harvey. But little do Batman and Gordon know that The Joker intentionally mixed up the addresses in his confession.
Batman goes to rescue Rachel while Gordon and his men go to rescue Harvey, leaving the Joker at the jail. There, The Joker convinces the police to let him have his one phone call, which turns out to be a phone-bomb surgically implanted in the stomach of a psychotic henchman in one of the other cells. The blast does a number on the building, killing some of the police and distracting the others, while leaving the Joker unharmed.
Meanwhile, Batman arrives at Harvey's location, expecting to find Rachel. It is too late when he realizes the Joker tricked him and Gordon, and Batman is forced to save Harvey, both of whom narrowly escape the timed explosion of the building, but the ensuing flames significantly burn half of Harvey's face. At the same moment, in another part of the city, Gordon is nearly knocked off his feet as the building holding Rachel explodes right in front of him. She dies in the explosion.
It is soon revealed that The Joker planned his own capture to retrieve the Mob's accountant Lau - who was being held in the same jail at the time - and as part of an even larger intricate plan to disrupt the plans of the Mob, and further demoralize Batman, Dent, Gordon and the citizens of Gotham City. The Joker then takes Lau to an undisclosed location, and kills him by burning him alive on top of a large pile of money, which was the cut that the Mob payed The Joker for promising to end Batman. He then tells the crime boss 'The Chechen' (Ritchie Coster) that the Chechen's men will work for The Joker now, that the city belongs to him, right before he has the Chechen killed by his own men and guard dogs.
The Joker then proceeds with his plan to undermine the police and take control of the city. He announces himself via a call-in at the Gotham News Network, where he interrupts an interview currently taking place with Coleman Reese, who is Bruce Wayne's accountant. Reese was willing to come forward with the true identity of the Batman if it meant an end to the terror in Gotham, but The Joker tells the public that he has had a change of heart and is abandoning his plan to rid the city of Batman. He then issues a warning, saying that if Reese isn't dead within the next hour, that he would blow up a hospital. This prompts Gordon to order immediate evacuation of all hospitals in Gotham, as he and his men go to find and protect Reese.
The Joker then disguises himself as a hospital nurse and pays a visit to the now severely disfigured and traumatized Harvey Dent. There, he manages to convince Harvey to seek revenge on the ones who were truly responsible for Rachel's death, for Harvey's misfortune, and for all the corruption and moral rot in Gotham. Meanwhile, a couple of attempts are made on Coleman Reese's life by a now fearful, desperate and angry public, but all are thwarted thanks to the combined efforts of Gordon and Bruce Wayne, who the latter at this time was unwilling to don his Batman suit in the middle of the day. The Joker then makes good on his promise; Coleman Reese wasn't disposed of, and so the Joker detonates a now fully evacuated Gotham Central Hospital, fleeing the scene in a hijacked bus filled with several hospital patients, whom he takes as his new hostages.
Later that day, he releases another statement to the public, informing them that come sundown, Gotham will be his, and everyone will have to follow by his "rules". Anyone who didn't want to stay were told to leave the city immediately.
Now at the climax of the film, The Joker calls aboard on the intercom of two evacuation ships, one containing inmates of Gotham's penitentiary, - whom Gordon had placed aboard after fearing the Joker may want to use them in his next attack on Gotham, - and the other containing ordinary citizens. The Joker tells the passengers of each ship that they are now subject to a little social experiment; he had rigged large explosives in the boiler rooms of both boats, and left with them a small package containing a handheld detonator that triggered the bomb on the opposite boat. He threatens to destroy them both come midnight. However, if before midnight one boat blows the other up, he will let that boat live. He also holds the hostages from the hospital (disguised as his own henchmen) at a tower where he is observing the ships.
Batman discovers the Joker's location at the tower and relays the info to Gordon, who assembles his SWAT team on the building opposite. Gordon plans to take out the henchman whom the Joker placed in full view of the police snipers, but Batman, knowing the Joker's intellect and potential plan, takes matters into his own hands, and breaks into the building. There he subdues the Joker's henchmen (disguised as medical personnel) and prevents the SWAT from harming the supposed-henchmen hostages. Batman then moves into the upper levels of the building and comes face to face with The Joker himself, where both engage in physical confrontation. The Joker makes several attempts to distract and disorient Batman; he sics the Chechen's dogs on him, hits him with a metal bar, traps him under a net, stabs him, and eventually knocks Batman down and pins him beneath a collapsed scaffolding.
It is then the stroke of midnight, and the Joker waits for the boats to make their decision. A minute past midnight, and both ships have still refused to destroy each other. The Joker then pulls out his own detonator with the intent to blow up both ferries but Batman stops him in time by shooting off one of his eject-able blades on his gauntlets, which knocks the detonator out of the Joker's hand. He then throws the Joker off the ledge but immediately saves his life by snaring his leg with a grappling hook. Batman pulls him back up to his level, where The Joker reflects on Batman's moral code to reject taking his life, following it up with his own - saying that he can't kill Batman because he's "just too much fun". He then predicts gleefully that they are destined to fight each other forever. Batman assures him he will put away in a cell forever, and that Gotham had successfully showed The Joker that not everyone is like him deep down, that the city is full of people ready to believe in good. Just before being taken into custody, the Joker gloats that he has won "the battle for Gotham's soul": the people of Gotham will lose hope once they learn of Harvey's fall from grace and honor, his descent into madness and homicidal rampage. Hearing this, Batman goes to find and stop Harvey. The Joker laughs maniacally as the SWAT team hauls him back in and arrests him.
The film ends with Batman stopping Harvey from killing Gordon's family and Gordon himself, resulting in Harvey's death. Batman then takes the blame for Harvey's crimes so that people will remember Harvey as a hero.
The Joker is not mentioned in the third (and final) film The Dark Knight Rises out of respect for Heath Ledger, who died shortly after filming The Dark Knight. However, the character is briefly mentioned in the film's novelization as being "locked away as Arkham’s sole remaining inmate. Or perhaps he had escaped. Nobody was really sure."
Personality[]
The Joker is a personification of terror, insanity, nihilism, and anarchy. He viewed himself as not bad, good, or neutral, but rather a level higher than everyone else when it came to life and existence. The Joker believed that chaos, disorder and a complete lack of morality was basic human nature and the only true way of human existence, and tried to make everyone else agree with that philosophy. He was extremely vainglorious in this, and would be more than willing to mock, manipulate and brutalize others who resisted or fought his opinion. The Joker took pride in having reached his grand conclusion before everyone else and viewed morally strong people as naive and foolish. The Joker's psychopathy, nihilism and anarchism also heavily influenced his outlook on money and companionship, and was willing to swiftly disregard both if he felt like they had no value to him or his plans.
The Joker knew that what he was doing was considered evil by modern standards, but hoped that his behavior would become acceptable once everyone realized that chaos and disorder was the only sensible way to live. Temperamental, treacherous, impatient, and above all sadistic, he took immense joy in physically or psychologically wounding others and even made dead-pan jokes on such occasions. The Joker was also utterly fearless and masochistic, essentially stripping Batman of his pain-inflicting and fear-inducing tactics; when Batman interrogates the Joker by physically assaulting him, he simply laughs maniacally and coldly mocks his attempts of intimidation. The Joker's fearlessness and nihilism even reached so far as to him inviting the chance of death or something worse. He seemed to enjoy the idea of potential annihilation in the act of carrying out his grand plans - as demonstrated by him goading Batman into running him over with the Batpod, and then laughing maniacally when Batman threw him off the top of the tower in the climax of the film. This also makes the Joker a good hand-to-hand opponent for the Caped Crusader - despite him seemingly having no martial arts training - as he frantically charged at Batman and ruthlessly wailed on him, something an opponent with a fear of getting hurt would never have attempted.
In addition, the Joker was cunning and brilliant in his manipulation of other people and with his use of fear and terror, flawlessly thorough in his plans even when they seemed random and unpredictable. As for his mental state, he was either oblivious to or simply uncaring about his lunacy and depravity. The Joker's only real setback was his blind ambition that everyone was as cruel deep down as he was on the surface, which caused his final plan to backfire on him.
Similar to Two-Face, the Joker left scenarios of chaos and disorder up to chance, such as blowing up a hospital or the two ferries. However, unlike Two-Face, the Joker never left it up to something that he could not control, like a coin toss. Instead, he let the people of Gotham choose the outcome. He also left no option in which everyone was safe, and made it perfectly plain that people were going to suffer or die regardless of what option was chosen, making his craving for violence and mayhem - his sociopathy - more apparent.
The Joker also shared characteristics with the other primary antagonists of the Batman trilogy. Like Ra's al Ghul and Bane, the Joker was a terrorist who despised the current state of affairs in Gotham, and wanted to end it all; he believed that his means justified the ends. He used fear, chaos and pain as his method of winning, and thought himself and his philosophy higher than most people, or in his words - "just ahead of the curve".
The only difference was that the Joker was not a martial artist, nor a member of the League of Shadows, and he never found out Batman's true identity. The Joker stood more or less in between the other main antagonists as he was a self-professed nihilist and an anarchist, while Ra's al Ghul was more of an extremist spiritual zealot, and Bane followed in Ghul's footsteps as an admittedly: "Necessary Evil." The Joker was also a complete social enigma; no records on file anywhere of his history could be found, nothing that could be traced, no verifiable identity or alias, so this made his presence and influence in Gotham even more mysterious and terrifying.
It seems to be implied throughout the film and in fan theories that the Joker had former military experience, including possible training in enhanced interrogation techniques. This would explain his proficiency in firearms and explosives, his brilliant terror-tactics, his ability to understand his enemies' motives, a basic comprehension of human frailty and a willingness to exploit that frailty in the midst of war-like scenarios.
Quotes[]
- "I believe whatever doesn't kill you simply makes you...stranger."
- "You see I'm not a monster. I'm just ahead of the curve."
- "And I thought my jokes were bad."
- "How about a magic trick."
- "Ya see, to them, you're just a freak...like me!"
- "If you're good at something, never do it for free."
- "Ya see this is how crazy Batman's made Gotham!"
- "You have all these rules, and you think they'll save you - the only sensible way to live in this world is without rules."
- "Very poor choice of words."
- "Ya know what I am? I'm a dog chasing cars; and I wouldn't know what to do with one if I caught it. You know I just...do...things."
- "Madness, as you know, is like gravity. All it takes is a little push."
- "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. We are tonight's entertainment!"
- "You wanna know...why I use a knife?"
- "And here we...GO."
- "You won't kill me out of some misplaced sense of self-righteousness. And I won't kill you, because you're just too much fun. I think you and I are destined to do this forever."
- "C'mon I want ya to do it, I want ya to do it. C'mon hit me. C'mon hit me! ... HIT ME!"
- "I like this job, I like it!"
- "I don't wanna kill you! What would I do without you? Go back to rippin' off mob dealers? No, no. No! You know you...you complete me."
- "I'm not a schemer. I try to show the schemers how pathetic their attempts to control things really are."
- "I'm a guy of simple taste: I enjoy Dynamite, Gunpowder, and Gasoline!...and you know the thing they have in common? They're cheap."
- "I just did what I do best; I took your little plan, and I turned it on itself. Look what I did to this city, with a few drums of gas and a couple of bullets."
- "This town deserves a better class of criminal, and I'm gonna give it to 'em."
- "I had a vision, of a world without Batman. The Mob tried to ground a little profit and the police tried to shut them down, one block at a time, and it was so...boring."
- "Look what I did to this city, with just a few drums of gas and a couple of bullets, hm?
- "Tonight, you're all gonna be part of a lil social experiment."
- "Ya can't rely on anyone these days, ya gotta do everything yourself."
- "It's a funny world we live in."
- "I just want my phone call."
- "I'm a man of my word."
Trivia[]
- This variation of the Joker is widely considered the darkest and most malicious version of the character.
Gallery[]
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External Links[]
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Comics Theatrical Movies Direct-to-video Movies Television 1970s Filmation series Batman: The Animated Series and The New Batman Adventures The Batman (2004) Batman: The Brave and The Bold Beware the Batman Harley Quinn Video Games Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham Injustice See Also |
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