Joker

*"It's not about money, it's about sending a message; everything burns!"*
―The Joker[src]
**The Joker** is a psychopathic anarchist, nihilist, and criminal mastermind (self-professed "agent of chaos") who rose to power in the criminal underworld by thrusting Gotham City into turmoil, and drew Batman ever closer to crossing the line between hero and vigilante.

The Joker was highly proficient in psychological manipulation and strategic planning, able to adapt himself to any situation of varying intensity and difficulty, and turn it to his advantage. His appearance was defined by colorful custom clothing, his face sporting smeared clown makeup over a gruesome Glasgow Smile. With his eccentric fashion statement and menacing visage, The Joker offered a unique blend of style and sick comedy to his crimes and misdeeds.

## Biography

### Origins and Early life

*"You can't rely on anyone these days. You gotta do everything yourself. Don't we? That's okay. I came prepared. It's a funny world that we live in. Speaking of which, you know how I got these scars?"*
―The Joker[src]
No one knew who the Joker really was. Little could be confirmed regarding his early days before he turned to a life of crime. Despite being captured twice, no traces of the Joker's true identity could be found - no matches on fingerprints, dental records, or DNA within the GCPD's Databases. As police commissioner James Gordon himself said; "nothing...no name, no other alias."

The Joker's own testimony, while seeming true when it came to making and carrying out threats, was at times contradictory, as he gave conflicting accounts of past events in his life; in particular how he got the scars of his characteristic Glasgow Smile. One of Joker's anecdotes was of his supposed extremely abusive and alcoholic father, and stated that after his father attacked his mother with a knife, the blade was next turned on the young man, and hence created his mutilated smile. The fact that the Joker later referenced his father and his hatred of him to a party guest when he crashed Harvey Dent's fundraiser, implied there was an element of truth to that account.

Another story that The Joker told was one concerning his gambling wife. She implores him that he shouldn't worry so much, that he "should smile more". That advice went overhead when her face was carved by enforcers of Loan Sharks, and the couple realized they didn't have enough money to pay for surgery. In a desperate effort to assure his wife that he didn't care about the damage to her appearance, Joker took a razor to his cheeks and made his Glasgow Smile match hers. Instead, horrified by this act and new image, his wife leaves him, which further damages his already fragile and disturbed psyche. It wasn't revealed to what degree those stories held the truth if any.

Some psychological profiles of The Joker suggested that he was insane to such an extent that he reinvented both his identity and history on a daily basis. It was therefore possible that, while neither story was true, The Joker genuinely believed them both as he told them. However, these psychological profiles cannot be confirmed, and so cannot truly define the social enigma that was The Joker. He presumably was going to tell Batman the third version of his scar story as he was about to kill him, but ultimately did not get the chance to do so, as Batman stopped the Joker by launching his wrist blades at him, retorting "I know how you got these!"

In a report filed by the GCPD, three theories were presented for the Joker's origin and identity; the first was that the Joker was institutionalized as a patient at Arkham Asylum. He was then released/escaped along with the other Arkham Asylum patients during Ra's al Ghul's and Scarecrow's reign of fear, and at the time in an even worse condition (perhaps due to Scarecrow's terrible methods). This may also explain why most of Joker's Henchmen were identified as some of the Arkham escapees. However, that theory was debunked on the basis that Joker's identity had no match in any records. The second theory was that the Joker worked as a disgruntled employee for the Haley Brothers Circus, which was documented to have connections with the mob, lending credence to the Joker's obsession with clown-related paraphernalia and themes. The third theory that was presented was that the Joker served as a soldier or some form of military operative until he was discharged because he suffered from PTSD, which explained his cool demeanor and familiarity with weapons, as well as his devastating effectiveness in various forms of combat. The third theory is further supported by his cynical anecdote to Harvey Dent about social order and control; if a truckload of soldiers is blown up, nobody seems to care...but a threat made on the mayor's life, it causes an uproar.

### *Batman Begins*

*"Now, take this guy. Armed robbery, double homicide. Got a taste for the theatrical, like you. Leaves a calling card."*
―James Gordon to Batman[src]
Shortly after the death of Ra's al Ghul, Batman discussed with Lieutenant James Gordon the effect that Batman had made on Gotham City since his appearance. Gordon then revealed that a criminal with "a taste for theatrics" had recently committed a double homicide and an armed robbery and left behind a Joker playing card as a "calling card." Gordon also warned that just as escalation occurred in terms of the police force against crime, so might the scale and style of criminality change in reaction to Batman's appearance.

Sometime later, the Joker orchestrated the theft of a large shipment of Ammonium Nitrate from the Gotham Docks. The explosive chemical was then saved for storage at the Gotham General Hospital and on two passenger ferries sometime later.

## Personality

The Joker was the personification of chaos, anarchy, death, destruction, nihilism, and madness. However, the Joker himself claimed to not be insane, but rather "ahead of the curve". This proved to be at least partially true, as the Joker was a competent strategist who could easily get inside people's heads, predict their actions, and plan accordingly. He was able to plan out the events that happened in The Dark Knight (film) and also improvised when he needed to, showing a high level of intellect and knowledge. He had no problems getting underneath people's skin, and could easily manipulate people into corruption. In addition to that, Joker was also skilled at appealing to mentally unstable people (whom he used as free help and for sections of his plans that required expendable assets) and manipulated them with promises that he would make their mental problems go away. For example, when Joker planted a bomb inside the stomach of Kilson, he told him that he would "make the voices go away and replace them with bright lights, like Christmas" ('bright lights' being a metaphor for the bomb Joker buried in Kilson's stomach). That extreme scenario of cruelty, sadism, and precision proved that this Joker was more in the realm of a sociopath than insanity as he was neither delusional nor did he lose his grip on reality. On a related note, Joker also had some irritation when he was referred to as a "freak" or another term that implied that he's deficient, which was best demonstrated twice, both times with members of the Mob: The first time was with Gambol, where, when he called Joker a "freak" in response to his remark about "a guy like me" during his speech, which Joker ended up expressing some irritation before he got to his point quickly, and the second time was with the Chechen, where Joker was angered enough at the Chechen's reference to him as such that he promptly had him ordered cut up and fed to his own dogs in response upon taking over his criminal organization. Despite that, however, Joker had little problem acknowledging that he was crazy upon being defeated by Batman, insofar as his belief in him and Batman not being much different from Gotham itself in terms of sanity (or lack thereof).

Joker subscribed to a nihilistic philosophy (he even briefly paraphrased German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche when he stated to the Bank Manager what he "believed" in) and was obsessed with the limits of morality, while he also was described as having "zero empathy;" the two may have came together that reflected the Joker's doubts about the depths of human morality, based on his belief that "When the chips are down; these civilized people, they'll eat each other." He was also masochistic and immune to pain, as demonstrated when Batman threw the Joker around the room, attacked him, and demanded the locations of Rachel and Harvey: Joker took the assault with pleasure as, under multiple occasions, he laughed while he was beaten by Batman. A similar display of his masochistic nature and his immunity to pain was demonstrated when Rachel Dawes, in an attempt to defend herself shortly after Joker gave his second "scar story," gave him a quick knee-jab into his groin, he laughed it off and then admitted that he "liked" the fact that she had a "little fight" in her while he approached her.

Joker did not care for the people who worked for him; when one of his minions got electrocuted in his attempt at removing Batman's Mask, Joker laughed hysterically and then kicked him. Joker then mocked him by making noises similar to that of someone being electrocuted, before he spit on him and resorted to his attempt at removing Batman's mask himself. That, along with the same henchman, who was later revealed to have had a wired bomb that was surgically implanted inside him, showed that Joker had no problems inflicting pain upon people who worked for him. Along with being extremely sadistic through psychological torture, physical pain, and intimidation, the Joker also seemed to have no care for his own safety or survival, such as when he was told Batman to run him over with the Batpod (as well as briefly cursed under his breath when Batman decided to crash the Batpod instead of running him over), and when Batman threw him off the skyscraper to his supposed death and did nothing but laugh (both was due to the Joker believing that he would 'win' by provoking Batman into proving him right by forcing the Dark Knight to commit murder.) Joker seemed genuinely upset when Batman didn't kill him, to the point where he admitted his defeat and referred to Batman as "incorruptible" after their last fight. Similarly, when Gambol attempted to have the Joker killed during a Mob meeting, Joker revealed that he had wired himself with explosives and anticipated the possibility that he'd be gunned down during that meeting. During his interrogation at the hands of Batman, while he taunted him about how the latter had "nothing" at his disposal to break him, Joker strongly implied that Batman's only option for dealing with him was to murder him. That proved that Joker absolutely didn't care about himself and his life at all, only his desire to spread chaos and anarchy and proving that all men could be corrupted if they were pushed hard enough.

The most notable example in his utter lack of self-preservation was when, at the hospital, when Joker gave Harvey a gun, forcibly pointed it at his head, and gambled his life on the chance that Harvey would adopt his philosophy of anarchy. Though, subtly, Joker kept his finger in front of the hammer of the gun, which kept it from firing prematurely. It was most likely that Joker would remove his finger when Harvey would have fired the gun as Joker was shown on multiple occasions that he did not care about himself at all. In addition, when Harvey gave Joker the coin's options and told him that he would die if the coin landed on the bad side, Joker said: "now we're talking!" in a slightly enthusiastic tone.

Joker exhibited various symptoms of an antisocial personality and blatantly disregarded laws and social norms far beyond standard deviant behavior. The Joker also had a low level of inhibition and a relentless drive to disturb the status quo: He was driven by something other than greed, as he complained that the criminals of the Mob were just seeking a profit and that the city deserved "a better class of criminal," namely himself (it was heavily implied, especially with his declaration that he intended to spread the message that "everything burns," that his motivation and idea for a better class of criminal was to cause chaos simply for the sake of chaos itself). While Joker attempted to take control of the city by recruiting Mob henchmen, he appeared to hold his philosophy of chaos higher than himself: he described himself as merely an "agent" of chaos (in his speech to convince Harvey to let go of his beliefs so that he could prove in his ultimate plan that even the noblest of men could sink down to the Joker's level). Despite the fact that Joker never cared about money (as evidenced by his burning of the Mob's money that he earned to recover Lau from the MCU and stated that his actions weren't "about money."), he did see some use of money; he used the money that he had stolen from Gotham National Bank and created his custom suit, acquired his equipment and weaponry, and hired others to form his own gang as the Mob's agents were simply used as a means by Joker to gain control of Gotham's infrastructure and cripple the Mob's power. When Batman interrogated him, Joker casually said that without Batman he'd have to "go back to ripping off mob dealers," which showed how little he actually cared about them.

Joker was also shown to be very literal in his word usage, which allowed him to carry out his crimes and even betrayed his minions while, at the same time, he technically kept his word. The last trait was especially evident when Joker turned on the Mob after he retrieved their money: When the Chechen angrily told him that Joker himself was a man of his word when Joker revealed that he planned to set the cash on fire, Joker confirmed that he indeed was that and made it clear that he only intended to burn the half of the money that he got from retrieving Lau. Joker did it often enough that his trademark was claiming that he was "a man of his word."

Joker has a facial tic where he repeatedly makes chewing motions with his mouth with some licking, presumably caused by his scars.