Bane or the Joker?

[BatLobsterRises]

Originally Posted by The Joker

How the Joker came to be the way he is has nothing to do with the fact that he DOES want to do something specific. The Joker has a specific goal and agenda. He has beliefs and ideals, and he spells them out in great length in the movie.

People reference his line to Harvey about him not being a schemer and just doing things, and completely miss the point that Joker was conning Harvey to break his mind and corrupt him in this scene. He was trying to claim that just because he was locked up in Gordon's cell at the time of what happened to Rachel and Harvey that meant he wasn't to blame for it. He wanted Harvey to go and kill the others, "the schemers" like Gordon, his Cops, the mob. The ones trying to control their little worlds. And it works. Harvey tells Maroni Joker is just a mad dog, and he wants the ones who let Joker off the leash.

How he came into the frame of mind that Gotham's morals and codes are all "a bad joke" and must be torn down is the mystery element of the character. You're right, it's awesome. That was Nolan's intention. Joker was to be an absolute. But he has a motive and an agenda. We just don't know how he came to have these crazy ideals.

Right, I mean I think we're 100% on the same page about the character. I'd say this is just a matter of how you want to define the word "motive". A more abstract motive I think can be distinguished from concrete, tangible ones that follow basic human impulses like revenge, money, etc. The movie itself makes a point of this when Bruce says "we just have to figure out what he's after" and Alfred proceeds to get all tangerine-y on him.

Naturally, I agree that he has a very specific goal and agenda, and everything he does in the film is in utter devotion to causing chaos and putting people into impossible moral conundrums to prove a twisted point about humanity. But you have to take into account that he still was going to blow up both of those ferries when his social experiment didn't pan out. He's a man of his word but he's still a bit of a nutjob at the end of the day, heh.

Originally Posted by The Joker

But just listening to his two possible back stories, it's not hard to imagine how he got such a warped view of the world.

Agreed. To me this is exactly the same as why it's not hard to imagine why Bane would develop his worldview on western civilization based on what we're shown about his past and upbringing in TDKR. You can get an overall sense of a character without the film spelling it all out. Though I'd still say The Joker is far more mysterious, and once again- this is a good thing. In general, I always prefer a Joker who is written as more of a mystery. When I first heard that Heath's Joker wasn't going to have an origin story I knew Nolan was on the right track.