The Dark Knight "You've changed things... Forever"

[MrWayne]

I personally don't think any of the scar stories are true - Joker just reads people so well that he makes them up to maximally creep out each individual victim.

Gambol gets angrily defensive when Joker mentions his grandma, so it's a fairly logical conclusion that his biological mother and father didn't have the rosiest fate...

Not sure how Joker read Rachel, but his scar story for her reflects her own abandonment of Bruce when he became Batman. He implies that both he and Batman were inspired to become freaks by the women who they loved, and who eventually left them because of it.

If Joker had the chance to finish his scar story for Batman hehe: ), I imagine it would entail him trying to do the right thing, but being punished for it by having his face carved up. Or maybe that would have been Harvey's scar story, but Bruce and Harvey are pretty much the same in that regard.

hmmmm yunno... i wonder if Joker knows how gifted he his... he could easily give up a life of crime and go into becoming psychiatrist... (at Arkham) hehehe

 

[agentzelda]

I believe he tells the scar stories to mess with people's heads before he messes them up physically. The very question "Wanna know how I got these scars?" implies to his victims that he was once normal, like everyone else, and that the scars turned him into the freak he is now, and in short order, aforementioned victims will be just as freakish as he is.

Except that he probably never was normal like everyone else even before the scars, but the stories do two things: they scare people on a very visceral, survival level, and they also always suggest that you cannot trust people, even those closest to you. He's not Norman Bates; he doesn't seem driven by the consequences of very specific relationships, and almost treats people whimsically: if they amuse him, fine, if they're useful, fine, if they're expendable, also fine, if they call him a freak, well, not so fine there. This is why I think if the scars are self-inflicted it certainly wasn't out of any self-sacrificing desire to identify with some afflicted loved one. The scar stories aren't told in a way to invite pity, which is interesting in itself: they seem entirely designed to shock and frighten and repel.

And even though he doesn't say how old he was in the father story, if he got the scars as a kid, they wouldn't have grown across his face as he grew. And if he was a teenager, well, obviously he didn't make any attempt to defend his mother.

All lies.

There is of course the possibility he might actually not know how he got the scars; depending how long ago it was, he might have blocked it.

 

[Anita18]

Except that he probably never was normal like everyone else even before the scars, but the stories do two things: they scare people on a very visceral, survival level

Exactly. I don't think he was ever normal to begin with either, but telling people the scar stories, it's a reminder to them that he is a human being, and if pushed far enough (as he definitely tries to in the film), they can end up just like him.

 

[The ?]

I think the interesting thing of the Joker played by Ledger is how he evolves in the film.

Watch it again or take a look at pics and you can see it. When we first really see him, in front of the mob, take a real good look at his eyes, especially when holding up his grenades, he's scared, his eyes dart back and forth. His plan is at a crucial stage and he needs the mob to trust him, and it might screw up. Then gambol tells him off, threatens to kill him and the Joker realizes he has to wait, oh and kill gambol.

Next when he's caught and being interrogated by batman, at first he's pretty calm. But when batman is beating the hell outta him, what does the joker do? He raises his hands up, talks his way out of the beating, he's scared again that things might not go right Batman might go to far, because the joker doesn't know him yet. Not fully.

Then when he escapes and had the money and lau. Look how he reacts to the mob now, he owns them, he has this look of utter disdain on his face for the chechyan. And then he kills him... badly. And sets lau on fire.

And finally when he beats the hell outta Batman, I mean, man, a lead pipe, and dogs. He's getting back at Batman for earlier and he's not scared, because he has what he wants, his plan is done, Harvey's brain is monkey f@#$ed and split in two and no matter what, the Joker wins.

It took me awhile to see this, but I tell you, watch the film again and check out ledger's eyes and face, its all in sync.

,

?

 

[MrWayne]

but whats the point of scaring them with scar stories if he just gonna kill you? lol i kno i kno... he's The JOKER!!!

 

[Visceral]

Kevin Smith gives his take on the concept of Batman and his villians in the "History of Batman" documentary:

Something tragic happens to each and everyone of these men and women that psychologically spins them off into the direction of their costumed personalities.

Aside from that, the concepts are fairly common place...

the ones about how Batman's presence in Gotham attracts the attention for criminals, seeing taking Batman down as a challenge...Gordon calling him on the threat of escalation and how no matter how hard Batman pushes, the criminal element will push back...the idea of mobsters vs. freaks...And the newest one, which is the concept of common criminals being ironically inspired by Batman into becoming a symbol of their very own.

It all fits...take your pick

CFE

I would argue that TDK pulls all of those ideas into a cohesive whole, escalation(mob vs. freaks) happens because Batman's presence forces them to become a symbol of their very own. And everything is psychological, even batman was created because of his psychological fear of bats combined with his fear of the unknown criminal mind forced him to overcome that through Batman. The circumstances of the world around them affect their psychology.

Batman is very similar to the villians he brings in. He responded different but he is still one of the freaks.

 

[agentzelda]

Exactly. I don't think he was ever normal to begin with either, but telling people the scar stories, it's a reminder to them that he is a human being, and if pushed far enough (as he definitely tries to in the film), they can end up just like him.

And this is his whole ethos: that people are only as good as the world lets them be. He's incapable, as someone wrote somewhere else, of assuming people can act cooperatively or collectively, or if he can assume that, it's only because the stakes aren't high enough. Rather like the inquisitors in Orwell's Ministry of Truth, he knows everyone has their Room 101, and there they will betray whatever rules they have.

Batman, on the other hand, fundamentally believes people can overcome that fear, keep that room locked, and act for others rather than just for the self, though even by the end of TDK I don't think he's been tested sufficiently in that regard: it's still personal.

 

[MrWayne]

I think the interesting thing of the Joker played by Ledger is how he evolves in the film.

Watch it again or take a look at pics and you can see it. When we first really see him, in front of the mob, take a real good look at his eyes, especially when holding up his grenades, he's scared, his eyes dart back and forth. His plan is at a crucial stage and he needs the mob to trust him, and it might screw up. Then gambol tells him off, threatens to kill him and the Joker realizes he has to wait, oh and kill gambol.

Next when he's caught and being interrogated by batman, at first he's pretty calm. But when batman is beating the hell outta him, what does the joker do? He raises his hands up, talks his way out of the beating, he's scared again that things might not go right Batman might go to far, because the joker doesn't know him yet. Not fully.

Then when he escapes and had the money and lau. Look how he reacts to the mob now, he owns them, he has this look of utter disdain on his face for the chechyan. And then he kills him... badly. And sets lau on fire.

And finally when he beats the hell outta Batman, I mean, man, a lead pipe, and dogs. He's getting back at Batman for earlier and he's not scared, because he has what he wants, his plan is done, Harvey's brain is monkey f@#$ed and split in two and no matter what, the Joker wins.

It took me awhile to see this, but I tell you, watch the film again and check out ledger's eyes and face, its all in sync.

,

?

^^^ all very good points and observations... honestly i think hes been screwed up for years (obviously) as well the make up could be a theme he just started to use within the year or so idk..but i dont think he was ever afraid... he walks into a mob meeting alone laced with grenades.. kills a goon with a pencil... didnt look too scared to me.. he takes a whipping from Batman and laughs it off in a sadist kinda of way.. looks like he was enjoying it honestly... "look at you go!" even when the cop he egs on to hit him while in the cell just when hes about to get hit he cracks his neck in preperation for the blows... na sorry.. the Joker is one mean mother F'kr... i mean he laughed the whole way down to his near death when Bats threw him over.. look like he was having a good ole time imo.. i see your observation... ill try to see if i see any fear in him my next go around... i just personally think he was in control the whole time... all part of the plan?

 

[agentzelda]

Like most people who are profoundly masochistic, the Joker really understands the power he has over the person inflicting the pain: I have driven you to this extreme. He really wants Batman to lose it, as much as he wants Stephens to beat him up and create his chance of escape, and wants Dent to shoot him if the coin ends up on the unlucky side. He loves that he can bring out the very worst in people.

 

[MrWayne]

he woulda been F'kd if the coin landed on the "you die" side... lol

 

[agentzelda]

Yeah. But it wouldn't have mattered much to him: Dent would have no way out, and would end up a murderer, not to mention tabloid fodder given the situation of the murder. His point would have been made.

 

[dr.strange]

i have no ideal whats next,but these posts are conjuring up so many possibilities.

 

[MrWayne]

Yup agreed.. it sucks we gotta wait years to see how all this pans out.. i really cant wait... last thing that had me lexcited like this was the Matrix Trilogy and all the internet chat that had and still has... its amazing at the possibilities...

 

[redhawk23]

I think he's had the scars for several years of his adult life, but don't think they "drove him mad", that he was more the type of guy who was going to end up in situations like that anyway. He's obviously led a far less sheltered life than young Bruce Wayne, so probably has accumulated loads more experience in the same amount of time. (Falcone was really being quite perceptive when he tells Bruce in BB that just because his parents have been killed doesn't mean he knows everything.)

didn't bruce disapear for years and live on the streets, as a criminal, in prisons for that specific reasons, by the time bats meats the joker, he'd already done that, plus fought crime in gotham for like a year

 

[agentzelda]

Yes, but there's still the issue of necessity over choice. Batman/Bruce still thinks criminals are simple. He admits himself that even though he lived among them, he never became one inside, he never thought of himself *as* a criminal. Through the course of TDK (and what I love about this Batman) he actually has this learning curve where he moves from a simple assumption that the Joker is not worth consideration against the prospect of bringing down the mob, to an assumption that the Joker is motivated by something specific like all criminals (as he tells him in interrogation, "you're garbage who kills for money"), to the realization that motives can be complicated indeed, so that across from the building where the Joker plans to watch the ferries blow up, he tells Gordon and the SWAT team that the visibility of the goons and hostages *is* too simple, that there has to be more to it than that.

Bruce didn't have to do it; he did it to learn something, but he didn't learn it all at once, and he's still learning. And he's up against people who aren't theoretical criminals, who aren't practicing, and who probably had fewer choices, or might even have had several choices.

Of course, one of the most interesting things about Bruce/Batman is that he opts in the Bruce guise to maintain this persona of a pampered playboy who doesn't pay much attention to the world.

 

[the GRIN Reaper]

I like the idea that Joker in this series was enticed by the Batman's spreading legend and empowerment over Gotham City. Batman and Joker represent the eternal battle over the hearts and minds of this citizens of Gotham. Both Joker and Batman know the power of iconography. Bruce Wayne created this visual icon to instill fear in the criminals of Gotham. And using that terrifying image he punished them into submission. In doing so, Batman's image and precense inspired and instilled hope in the legal crime fighters in the city to "dare" to "cross" the criminals of Gotham, when prior to Batman they wouldn't have had the balls to cross the factions that ruled the city with an iron fist. Batman hammers them to the point where they have to join forces and unite, and even then he has them on the run. Joker's radical image of fear using the same philosophy as Batman, is crime's response to this supernatural force of good. Joker is the evolution of crime in Gotham. He's the symbol of hope for the CRIMINALS of Gotham intially that they might be able to follow him back to the top as he's now instilling fear in the good of Gotham, much the way Batman was doing to the criminals of Gotham. Ultimately Joker is whiping out the regular forms of crime and mobs by becoming something radically different then what crime used to be in Gotham. Thus escelation. No more will Batman be forced to battle simple motivated criminals. There is a new breed now, inspired by both Batman and the Joker.

 

[agentzelda]

The struggle is really not so much between good and evil as between hope (possibility) and despair (nihilism), and their icons are both outsiders. But it's a sort of symbiotic relationship: each depends on the other, and each creates the other, so the irony is that the relationship is probably irresolvable.

 

[Arsh]

I was originally convinced that Batman facilitated the rise of the freaks, but Reaper's post has made me reconsider... both Batman and Joker are equally responsible. Batman facilitated the rise of the Joker, and just the Joker's presence and theatricality will inspire the countless other lunatics and psychotics running around in Gotham City.

 

[agentzelda]

I was originally convinced that Batman facilitated the rise of the freaks, but Reaper's post has made me reconsider... both Batman and Joker are equally responsible. Batman facilitated the rise of the Joker, and just the Joker's presence and theatricality will inspire the countless other lunatics and psychotics running around in Gotham City.

In the Nolan series anyway, Batman seems largely to have inspired the rise of the Joker in terms of this new brand of criminality (while there are copycat Batmen, there don't seem to be any other criminals saying, wow, this Joker dude is really on to something: the fact that his men wear clown masks is probably his own idea). Otherwise the criminal underworld is still pretty much the various factions of the mob, and even Scarecrow, who preceded Batman as far as weirdo criminals go, seems forced to make a living peddling drugs to the mob.

However, even though the Joker has been arrested by the end of TDK, and Batman has made the sacrificial decision not to let Gotham know he corrupted Harvey Dent, some megalomaniac mastermind might (such alliteration!) be watching this unfold on TV and think, hey, if I were the Joker I'd have done things like this instead, and formulating their own reinvention as Gotham's next freak.

So yes, the Joker did need Batman to become who he is (Nolan having dispensed with the acid bath theory), but future freaks will draw inspiration from both.

 

[the GRIN Reaper]

I was originally convinced that Batman facilitated the rise of the freaks, but Reaper's post has made me reconsider... both Batman and Joker are equally responsible. Batman facilitated the rise of the Joker, and just the Joker's presence and theatricality will inspire the countless other lunatics and psychotics running around in Gotham City.

Definetely. Both Batman and Joker are total visionaries. Batman's image created the Joker, and the Joker's image will inspire criminals of Gotham to take a step toward something else. Thats why Joker knew his actions and precense now in Gotham was to give the city a "better class of criminal" ... I don't think he was just referring to himself with that line. He knew he was apart of the equation, but ultimately it would be his actions that would inspire others, much the way Batman's theatricality and originality inspired him, the GPD and citizens to take back their city, the citizens for Batman, etc.

Batman is the ORIGINAL catalyst, but Joker's precense is basically throwing gasoline on a low burning fire that will send things over the edge into a full out explosion of freaks to come in Gotham.

That's at least the way I percieved things.

 

[Victarion]

I think Batman's presence, as well as Joker's, has taken away some inhibitions that the "freaks" might've had about embracing their oddities. So its only natural we start seeing guys like Ventriloquist/Scarface, etc.

 

[the GRIN Reaper]

The struggle is really not so much between good and evil

Ummm, yes it is when it its boiled down to its purest form.

as between hope (possibility) and despair (nihilism)

Same thing as good and evil, LMAO ...

Nihilism is a type of philosophy ...

 

[agentzelda]

Ummm, yes it is when it its boiled down to its purest form.


Same thing as good and evil, LMAO ...

Nihilism is a type of philosophy ...

Yes, and it is more properly the Joker's philosophy than anarchism, though nihilism is a variant of anarchism.

The trouble is, when most people think of good and evil, they just think of just and unjust, or nice and not so nice. Or they might see them relatively: evil is everything they don't agree with, or everything that doesn't support the status quo. As a political philosophy, while anarchism does seek to destroy existing social structures and institutions, it might seek to do so because it perceives them as corrupt or actually evil, and because they must be broken down in order for new structures to be built or at least to give society a chance to remake itself.

Not just because they're not worth keeping and they look good blowing up.

On the flip side (and I am being flippant, I am sorry), hope and despair might be more concrete ways of saying what good and evil (which are very abstract terms) are.

 

[the GRIN Reaper]

Joker doesn't live by a philosophy period. Nihlist or "anarchist" ... he's an agent of chaos. Anarchy and chaos literally for the sake of it.

 

[agentzelda]

I'm going to be stubborn: but that *is* a philosophy. Choosing to live by rules is one. Choosing to live without rules is another (and he says to Batman that the only way to live in this world is without rules, so that's what he believes).

They're incompatible beliefs, of course.