| “ | I thought I told the bad jokes. | „ |
| ~ Joker revealing himself to the Mobsters. |
| “ | Wanna know how I got these scars? My father was a drinker and a fiend. He'd beat mommy right in front of me. One night he goes crazier than usual, mommy gets the kitchen knife to defend herself. He doesn't like that. Not. One. Bit. So, me watching, he takes the knife to her, laughing while he does it. Turns to me, and says, 'Why so serious?' Comes at me with the knife - 'Why so serious?' Sticks the blade in my mouth. 'Let's put a smile on that face' and... Why so serious? | „ |
| ~ The Joker telling his supposed backstory before murdering Gambol. |
The Joker is the main antagonist of novelization of the 2008 superhero film The Dark Knight.
Based on his film counterpart, he is a psychotic and nihilistic criminal mastermind, anarchist, and terrorist, who is the self-described agent of chaos, who rose to power in the Gotham criminal underworld by unleashing a reign of terror and anarchy while becoming responsible for the corruption of district attorney Harvey Dent, leading to the rise of Two-Face.
The Joker is also the archenemy and the mortal antithesis of Batman, the Dark Knight, in which the former's goal of thrusting all of Gotham into a state of chaos led them to get into conflict with each other, during which the Joker drove Batman nearly close to crossing the line between true heroism and vigilantism.
Personality[]
The Joker's personality in the novel adaption is the same as his film counterpart; a living embodiment of anarchy, insanity, and nihilism, who sees himself as an "agent of chaos". He makes it his life's goal to destroy social order throughout all of Gotham City and to prove to everyone his theory that 'everyone is just as evil as he is'. He also takes pride in looking down on people with strong morale as naive, foolish, and selfish. Much like other Joker incarnations, he doesn't possess any greed, as he wasn't interested in money nor companionship, as evident by his order to his own men to betray and kill each other.
Moreover, the fact that made Joker all the eviller is that he is fully aware of his actions, and does not do them out of mental infirmity, but because he is simply a schizoid psychopath.
Overall, the Joker was really hard to place, as he knew what he was doing was evil by modern standards but, at the same time, he hoped that his behavior would become acceptable once everyone realized that anarchy was the only way to live. However, once the people of Gotham proved him wrong, outside of a brief moment of anger, he didn't really care. This implies that he was doing this all for fun. Interestingly, the only times in which he's ever shown anger are when people call him a freak, as seen when he became visibly annoyed by the other mobsters calling him a freak and decided to feed the Chechen to his same dogs when he called the Joker a freak in anger. The Joker was also shown to be abnormally manipulative, treacherous and above all sadistic. He took immense joy in others being physically or psychologically wounded and even made dead-pan jokes on occasion. The Joker was also utterly fearless and masochistic, which robbed Batman of his pain-inflicting and fear-inducing tactics on his enemies. Those traits also make 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 done.
Similarly to Two-Face, the Joker left prominent examples of chaos 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. Instead, he let the people of Gotham choose the outcome and also left no option in which everyone was safe and made it perfectly plain that people were going to die regardless of what option was chosen thereby further evaluating his treacherous and duplicitous characteristics.
Despite his true ambitions, the Joker showed a bi-polar and possibly schizophrenic side. He usually spoke in a calm and almost creepy cadence and was very rarely ever seen shouting, but everything that he said had an underlying menace. Additionally, though he never became extremely angry during the movie, he often became frustrated and added angered hisses between his words. Moreover, the Joker was exceedingly cunning - being very manipulative through the use of fear, completely oblivious to his insanity and depravity, as well as being flawlessly thorough in his plans. He also had a habit of developing extremely overelaborate plans just to prove very simple points since his reason for mobbing and extorting the mob (which took up a very large part of the movie) was to make the point that "everything burns." It soon became clear that the Joker's only real setback was his blind ambition that deep down, everyone was as cruel as he was on the surface.
One of the strangest things about the Joker was that he often left it to fate whether he would be killed at multiple points in the film. He allowed himself to be held at gunpoint by Grumpy near the start of the film where he was only saved by the well-timed arrival of the getaway driver, wired himself up with dozens of explosives to threaten the mob which he could activate just by pulling his finger, he goaded Batman into running him over and he allowed Harvey to play Russian Roulette with him in the hospital room where he had a one in six chance of being shot dead.
Although the Joker doesn't appear nor is mentioned in The Dark Knight Rises, his prediction of the citizens of Gotham was proven correct as Gotham shunned Batman in the wake of Harvey's death. Moreover, his prediction about civilized people's code being a "bad joke" was also proven true, as Gotham fell into chaos in the wake of Bane's 'liberation', and the citizens "eat each other" as he had predicted, by way of homes being looted and Scarecrow's kangaroo court.
Joker's fate[]
| “ | Now that the Dent Act had made it all but impossible to cop an insanity plea, it had replaced Arkham Asylum as the preferred location for imprisoning both convicted and suspected felons. The worst of the worst were sent here, except for the Joker, who, rumor had it, was locked away as Arkham's sole remaining inmate. Or perhaps he had escaped. Nobody was really sure. Not even Selina. | „ |
| ~ The Dark Knight Rises novelization referencing the Joker. |
Following the unexpected passing of Heath Ledger, who portrayed the Nolanverse Joker, director Christopher Nolan decided that Ledger's character should not be mentioned entirely in The Dark Knight Rises out of respect to Ledger's memory, leaving the Joker's fate unknown. Despite this, the film featured a small tribute to Ledger in the unveiling of the Batman statue scene, where it featured the Joker's signature smile. The character was referenced in Greg Cox's novelization of The Dark Knight Rises; Following the establishing of the Dent Act, it is no longer possible for criminals to file an insanity plea while the worst criminals were transferred to Blackgate Penitentiary with the Joker being the sole exception, and it was rumored that he remained at Arkham Asylum as the only remaining inmate or perhaps he may have escaped, though no one knows.