“… Let’s put a smile on that face!”

He is that useless card in the deck. The one that doesn't make any sense. The one that doesn't fit with the rest of the pack which is restricted by rules no matter what game you are playing, 2-10, Jack, Queen, King and Ace all have relationships to one another. The Joker, he's the most free of them all.

Everyone loves a good villain, me especially. I decided to dedicate this piece to my favourite villain of all time, The Joker. Firstly, I would like to outline why we are so attracted to villains and evil-doers.

In this modern era of superhero movies becoming blockbuster hits why are we still drawn to the darkness portrayed by the bad guy? Carl Jung goes some way to explaining this with a concept he calls the “Shadow”. The Shadow is the part of a person’s psyche that they refuse to acknowledge or at the very least try to supress. It’s the part inside of you that wishes you could beat up that person who did you wrong and then steal their wallet. It’s the part of you that wishes you could rob a bank and never have to work again. In my opinion it is the essence of humanity when you take a morally influenced civilisation out of the picture. It’s the part of you that wishes to abandon all rules, just like the Joker did.

I would say that of all the mainstream villains I have had the pleasure to watch, the Joker is the most free from rules. He fully embraces the mentality of chaos and anarchy to the point that he is almost self-destructive. People are naturally drawn to his actions, if chaos, destruction and death are the core of the Shadow then he will resonate with the darkest place inside a human being.

Psychopathic is the immediate word that springs to mind when asked to describe the joker, and rightfully so. To the normal person he is sporadic and spontaneous in his actions and they seem to have no purpose but to disrupt and destroy, like he gains pleasure from the chaos he causes. I believe the latter to be true, but for a different reason that most people do. People would like to tell you that the Joker is a lunatic who in his own words is just a “Dog chasing cars” but I disagree. The Joker is not random or impulsive, he is in complete control of his actions. His performances would have taken careful planning and great designs to conduct so perfectly; a bomb in hospital, poisoning Gotham’s water supply and taking control of Arkham Asylum. No, the Joker is not a psychopath, he is a philosopher. Everything the Joker does is a representation of his philosophy. He is a genius.

When we remove the smog of chaos and destruction that shrouds the Joker, it reveals a much darker, scarier and very real person.

Following this point, because of his actions people would label him a Nihilist. Nihilism is the belief that all values are meaningless, in the grand scheme of things our lives are meaningless, and subsequently the belief is associated with extreme pessimism that condemns our existence to be nothing but an empty joke. The Joker being a Nihilist would make sense, he would believe in nothing, have no loyalties or ties and no purpose. His love of chaos is him trying to conjure a meaning or find entertainment in life. His clown persona doesn’t mean he is here to entertain, quite the opposite, we are his entertainment.

However, I believe that the joker to be a representation of Friedrich Nietzsche’s Ubermensch. An Ubermensch is someone so radically free that he invents his own value system completely from scratch and solely for himself. A character who is a Nihilist would be Two-Face from The Dark Knight. His flipping of the coin to determine who lives and who dies shows how he doesn’t value life. To him, in the end, all is meaningless. Also, the most important thing in his life at that time (Rachel Dawes) has been killed by the joker, even more reason to see the meaningless in life.

The Joker to Batman:

“Their morals, their code; it's a bad joke. Dropped at the first sign of trouble. They're only as good as the world allows them to be. You'll see- I'll show you. When the chips are down these, uh, civilized people? They'll eat each other. See I'm not a monster, I'm just ahead of the curve.”

This quote gives a rare insight into the inner Joker and shines a light on how he sees himself as not a monster but ahead of the rest, as every Ubermensch must be. Joker being an Ubermensch would go some way to explaining his random and sporadic actions, it’s all part of the plan but nobody else would understand that. He is following his own set of rules, others can only see that he is a value system and go no further. To them there is no meaning to what he does because they are unaware of his own beliefs, to them he is a psychopath.

An Ubermensch cannot fail in the ordinary sense of the word. The plans he has laid may come to fail but we can never know if he himself has failed for we don’t see the world through the same lens. A plan may be thwarted by the Batman yet the Joker will laugh in the face of his defeat … Why? Because all along he was testing his own values and beliefs. Laughter in the face of defeat is a common theme with the Joker. I will use a popular example to illustrate my point. The scene at the end of The Dark Knight shows Batman confronting Joker after he ‘won’ and saved the lives of the civilians on the boats, yet the Joker whilst face to face with Batman is in hysteria. It isn’t possible to beat the Joker without knowing his values or killing him for he is an Ubermensch, the only judge he looks to is himself. The only way to win the game is to kill him – Joker knows Batman won’t, he sees the funny side.

“You won't kill me out of some misplaced sense of self-righteousness, and I won't kill you because you're just too much fun. I think you and I are destined to do this forever.”

Personally, I love the Joker. I appreciate how he makes his methodical and meticulous planning seem like a random improvisation, I appreciate how no matter the situation he is always in control and most of all I appreciate the sheer simplicity on the outside that masks the genius inside. He is Batman’s arch-nemesis, of all the villains he has faced the Joker is the one who has caused him the most harm. However, I can’t help but feel that people have the

wrong perception when they mention Batman and Joker on opposite sides. People herald The Dark Knight as Gotham’s saviour, a resolute man incapable of killing, an upholder of morality. No, you couldn’t be more wrong. Batman, the ‘hero’ fighting for the people is the same as the joker, the only difference is that each Ubermensch has forged different ideals for themselves. They are two sides to the same coin.

“No. No. No! No you- you complete me.”