| “ | It's all part of the plan. | „ |
| ~ Joker on his plot to save Gotham |
| “ | Why so serious? | „ |
| ~ Joker's most famous quote |
| “ | It's not about the money, it's about sending a message, everything burns. | „ |
| ~ Joker on destroying the corrupted power the crime lords held in Gotham. |
The Joker is the main antagonist of the 2008 action film and its novelization The Dark Knight, the second installment of Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Trilogy, however despite being a highly dangerous Nihilistic Anarchist in going his way to bring Gotham into further ruin, there's a popular theory known to as The Joker is the Real Hero in The Dark Knight, shortly named as The Dark Knight's Real Hero provides evidence that many of his actions in the story were on the intent of not destroying Gotham, but to save it, where Joker undergoes a persona to only come across as a mayhem thrill-seeker with his true ulterior motives were to eliminate the worst of the city from within, even if it means he would go against the heroes to settle the matter that is done on an incredibly brilliant plan in which completely shifts the audience's initial interpretation on the character.
He was played by the late Heath Ledger in the film.
His Good Ranking[]
What Makes Him Admirable?[]
In General[]
- Unlike his more commonly interpretated film version whose philosophy is rhetoric to his nihilistic intent or the book's minor redeeming quality and extremist factor this story takes the Joker to be for the greater good at the extent of getting his hands dirty as a necessary means in greatly improving Gotham, being willing to make the biggest sacrifices for the best outcome.
- Deep in his psychology, while Joker does have multiple evil personalities, his true self makes sure that they don't fully take control of himself, even if it doesn't seem like it.
- The reason why Joker chose the anarchist persona was to work his plan through outside of the corrupt lawful system and get closer to the criminals as he would easily be seen as such.
- In the novelization when he was about to give into his violent murderous tendencies on an elderly lady, he stops himself from doing so and gives her a 100-dollar bill, showing some generosity.
Criminal Approach[]
- He is responsible for the crime lord's demise and destroyed their money to get rid of any funding or ties they would make to fuel their corruption, with the examples in how he pulled this off are listed below.
- The Bank Robbery at the beginning of the film was meant for him to kill off the goons one by one and robbing a bank that run by the mafia as a means to lure Lau out of hiding.
- The Bank Manager was in conspiring with the mob crime lords, that ensures their finances were for their illegal activity, Joker taking him down, gets rid of operations within the mobs system.
- As he did this, Lau showed himself to the other crime lords, and Joker took this to his advantage, in which of who Batman captures for Lau to get closer to him.
- By killing Gambol, he discontinued Carmine Falcone's opportunities of having a successor.
- Ended Lau by burning him and the billions of dollars he was investing in with the corrupt crime lords.
- Finished the Chechen by using his own dogs to kill him.
- His corruption on Harvey caused Salvatore Maroni's death in which finished off Maroni family legacy.
- The rest of the majority if not all of Gotham's crime lords and employers under them were brought behind bars with Joker invading their whereabouts and the aftermath of Harvey's corruption to the Dent Act, not only that but because of Joker owning Chechen's goons, a large majority was exposed and taken out by Batman and Swat team, resulting in a large clean on the criminals in the streets of Gotham.
Law Enforcement and Society Approach[]
- The lawful officials stemmed from corruption to some having business with the criminals being Arnold Flass, a GCPD detective moonlighting as a thieving drug addict that assaults thugs for sadistic pleasure, leaders like Gillian who were cowardly, and political figures needed a more firm leader on the law, all of this gave Joker more reason to clean up their act with examples last below.
- Killing Gillian had to be done because, Joker knew that the Gotham needed to get rid of a terrible commissioner who failed to make his law department incorruptible.
- Judge Janet's death was meant to cut off ties with Harvey Dent with reason written below and saw her job in handling Gotham's crime lord to drag too long, and not be able to fully stop them on their tracks, as they would find a way to wiggle out of their justice with their powerful welfare as their disposal.
- As his intent was previously given, his clapping for Gordon's promotion was likely genuine, as he saw Gordon as an incorruptible policeman within the authority, especially given the fact that Gordon is Pure Good, hence why he pointed out how alone Gordon was in the role he was in, as Gotham's police force was corrupt.
- It's implied that the killings he did to the policemen were meant to take out some of the corrupt officials within the department, such as him killing 6 policemen with a knife, and heavily giving the idea that they were a cowardly lot in the field for their benefit, which he said to a policeman that gave into to his impulses with him telling him that, which doesn't help the role model favor for the policeman with Joker making his point on that.
- The threatening of the bombings on the Gotham Hospital showed more to what Joker was referring about some of the Police not being fit for their jobs, with the example of Coleman Reese's life nearly getting shot by a policeman who wanted to save his wife from being killed during the explosion. This also was a service to Joker's society experiment to see of far they would go in fear of his terrorism, before arriving to their final moral test.
- The boats where he had the bombs for the people to choose on who lives or dies was meant to be a moral test to see if Gotham is worth saving, that there is hope for people to be ready to believe in good.
- Going on why he targeted Harvey Dent to be corrupted, resulting in his effect in ruining the chances in Gotham having a successor hero mayor, had a good reason on why he did this, which was to exploit Harvey's dark side. Before the events of The Dark Knight, Harvey Dent was extremely questionable, as he was described to be a violent person going by the name of Two-Face, resorting to methods that were left in the dark from the public that Gordon avoided mentioning to preserve the hopes for Gotham, because of that, Joker couldn't risk this potential unstable man for mayor to be elected, hence why Joker tested Harvey's morals to see if he wouldn't be like that, and while killing Rachel was Joker's most villainous act, he probably was genuine in not wanting to kill her, but she was Harvey's accomplice.
Vigilante Approach[]
- Joker's setup on Batman was meant to make him retire and uplift the spirit of Gotham, even if that means Batman has to resort to the image in being seen as a villain among Gotham's citizens which worked for 8 years with Gordon making the lie about the truth of Harvey and Batman so that the people's hopes for the city won't be destroyed.
- On the back cover of The Dark Knight's Blu-ray case, it states that Batman's role is destroying Gotham by not going to bring an end to the central roots of Gotham's most criminal activities, where Gordon states that escalation is uprising with their response to Batman coming for them, which goes to Joker's point on why there needs to be a more effective take down of the system than what Batman has been doing, as such, Joker is not against Batman's goal in making Gotham safer, but is opposed to how he strives to achieve it, due to collaborating with the heavily flawed system, instead of dismantling the worst of it from within.
- Joker's killing of Batman's impersonator Bryan in a horrifying graphic scenery for the public to see was because he did not want anyone to follow Batman's cause that work within the vigilante lawful system, as he states that people trying to be like Batman is making them crazy in Gotham, such as the case of the Batman impersonators using Batman's symbol for their lethal operations, thus giving him a reason to stop a bad legacy, especially with Joker's plan setting in motion for no need of a vigilante.
- This further goes to the point of why Joker set up Batman to retire in the first place, and why he tried to get Batman to kill him, in losing his moral identity and later unmask him, all to make sure Batman's symbolic image would never be used again.
- He tries to warn Batman that the GCPD will betray him when the circumstances go downhill, seeing him again as a worthless and destructive madman in doing more harm than good.
- His manipulative decision on Batman in choosing Rachel over Harvey was to see if Batman was willing to choose the love of his life over Gotham's safety, he knew the GCPD's vehicles weren't fast enough to reach to either of them on time, but the Batcycle could, making the choices solely on Batman, and because of him choosing Rachel instead, make it clear that Batman was willing to place his personal matters over his crime-fighting and life-saving job, making him to be more unworthy to take the vigilante burden.
- It doesn't help in Batman's favor when he leans closer towards abusing his powers when using the High Frequency Radar that grants him access to see everyone in Gotham's private lives to stop Joker, giving Joker more reason on why Batman is overstaying his vigilante welcome.
- Joker's multiple attempts in getting Batman to retire was making sure he gave up one of the most important themes to his symbol being his no-kill code, first insisting on Batman to kill him with the Batcycle and then holding a detonator to blow the two boats was a way to almost letting Batman throw him off from a skyscraper was to try to make sure Batman broke his moral code to give up persisting as Batman, as even the writers themselves acknowledged that Batman's motives were tied to his inner demons that he needed to let go of, and ironically this idea can be supported by Alfred who thought that Batman was not necessary for Bruce's life after the events of The Dark Knight, thus ensuring that Joker was getting rid of Batman for Bruce Wayne's own good.
What Makes Him Inconsistent?[]
- His actions are arguably simultaneously both a Goodness Zone and Moral Event Horizon, hence why he is classified with his Pure Evil profile to be as such, and even though his heroic feats did amazingly turn out well in the aftermath, saying he is too morally ambiguous for him to not be severely prevented from being Pure Good would be a massive understatement, as his tests on society to overcome their fears have shown to often lead to chaotic events, making him overall a great achieving hero, but a bad person, to say the least.
- He is not ignored over how insanely psychotic he is, having contradictions to the stories he tells about his past and questionable moral agency over his extreme initiatives, as he does get on the edges of villainy to people like Rachel who he may have consider cutting. A part to mention about Joker having a dissociative morality is the last images of him in The Dark Knight when the swat team was ready to take him, he is shown to flip from sounding or looking as a fearless enduring sadomasochistic he's been throughout the whole plot, to a more scared individual afraid of being locked up. It could be said that it's because he is defeated and has no chance of getting out of his cell, but the glaring problem with that claim is given how Joker was able to plan on so many ways to get away or escape from the law enforcement, wouldn't he have a plan to get out when they take him to a cell? If he had a scared personality that only showed up when his plan was finished, then he would have such a split on with his personality-disorder that he would be suffering from moral agency issues that aren't consistently in sync with a singular morality.
- His psychotic shifts and simultaneous merging with his multiple personalities, such as his eviler selves have been more prominent in having Joker's heroic personality to be on the verge of being brushed aside, due to his inner self not being able to even keep those selves at bay in the remote slightest.
- Is very violent, lethal and sadistic, with examples of how he kills Gambol, Lau and Chechen, or how he murdered Bryan painfully while cackling, murders civilians on the road to provoke Batman to shoot, crash or run him over with the Batcycle, not to mention how even when he has shown his morals (In the novelization), he's on the very tip of edge in giving into his murderous cravings.
- Has some jerkish remarks, such as when Gambol was getting on him for taking his money and walking with it, with Joker's response being 'Yeah', spitting on injured, throwing money a Lau's face or how he was a pull down to Gordon about his morals in staying true as a policeman, while most didn't.
Trivia[]
- Joker's dissociative multi-personality disorder shows good connections to the dot that the chaotic nihilistic anarchist character was a manifestation of who his father is, abusive, murderous and sadistic to actions of causing mutilation on his son's face, the second personality is the nihilism in seeing hope to be meaningless in morality with the third that is the deepest hidden layer of Joker's psychology being his child self-driven to end evil. How this comes into The Joker's backstory is from the three stories that he tells on how he got his scars, the Gambol encounter was about his true self witnessing the horrific life he was living with his family, the second to Rachel was about him not only embracing his father but being him and the third was left to be unknown but what can be assumed in the possibility of him having some sort of lawful official employment, or a war veteran that faced the unspeakable horrors of battles.
- There are strong clues that Joker makes simultaneous combinations with these three personalities and derails from them on some occasions. The morality scaling for these personalities can go the first the deepest layer of Joker is his Inconsistently Admirable profile, striving to take away all of Gotham's corruption, the second layer is his Near Pure Evil depiction from the novelization, is quite in between the morality of his first and third layer, being about the nihilistic views on what it means to have morality and the internal question on why should it matter to him, suggesting heavy conflicts and lastly the Pure Evil personality embodying his totally awful father, embracing the absolute worst of humanity, but at the end of the analysis of Joker's multiple personalities, he deep down in his torn mental and physical disfigurement is just like everyone else scared of being helpless in any potential bad that could happen to them, as that was shown in the very last clip of him in The Dark Knight.
- Joker having three main personalities shares a relation case with the Three Joker's in Post-Flashpoint who have different characteristics to each other.
- It is unknown on as to why Joker did the armed robbery at the end of Batman Begins, or why two homicides he tried to do during that time, as no information of Joker in between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight has been given, making this action too vague for support on his heroic feats or preventions on this profile.
- An interesting comparison between Joker, Batman and Commissioner Gordon is Joker manipulates the public into thinking he's a dangerous threat to the people in Gotham to go along with his plan to make them in a safer environment in which something similar can be said for what Batman and Gordon did at the end of The Dark Knight by lying to Gotham's citizens that about Batman being as a lethal criminal like the Joker.
- While there's a good amount of theories being film villains to turn out to be the hero of the story like Agent Smith from The Matrix rigging the system to where Zion had to team up with Neo to settle matters peacefully, the difference between Smith and Joker is Smith clearly never intended to save humanity from the machines, other comparisons that were closer examples are Gollum from The Lord of the Rings and the City Predator from Predator 2, where Gollum leading Frodo and Sam to Mount Doom and ruining Sauron's plan to use a possessed Frodo for him to get his ring back and the City Predator killed the city's worst criminals, lower its huge crime rate, however Gollum is not quite a mastermind like the Joker, and it's unlikely if Sméagol was planning out that far in getting rid of the ring, as he was a pawn to his Gollum personality, and the City Predator who despite having a more clear moral agency and honorable morals was doing it's task for a traditional sportsman mentality, making Gollum, the City Predator, and Agent Smith unintentional heroes, placing them to be disqualified for the Inconsistently Admirable Criteria, as it would like saying Voldemort is Inconsistently Admirable because he indirectly served as an example of what wizards should not be to muggles, that defeats the purpose of IA being a heroic criteria, while the heroic theory on Joker had credentials on the certain points he was going after to accomplish, with his tactics on manipulating other's to suit his goal showing that his statement on his chaotic initiative being improvised was a huge joke on his behalf, when the truth of it was him planning very meticulously step by step to construct his goal to operate accordingly, making the theory of him having a heroic intent more possible, but has no official source confirming this.
External Links[]
Wiki Profiles[]
- Joker on the Villains Wiki
- Joker's movie perspective profile on the Pure Evil Wiki
- Joker's novel perspective profile on the Near Pure Evil Wiki
- Joker on the DC Database Wiki
- Joker on the Batman Wiki
- Joker on the Christopher Nolan Wiki
- Joker on the Vs Battles Wiki
- Joker on Wikipedia
Other Internet profiles[]
Popular Theory studies[]
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 Inconsistently Admirable
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