The Dark Knight | analysis by therapist (The Joker and Batman explained)

Comments · 653

• MY

  @mylittlethoughttree · 5 years ago (edited) · pinned

  Something I like, in amongst the many lies characters tell in this film is Two-Face repeatedly stressing how he had to lie to Rachel that &quot;it would all be ok&quot; to reassure her. Where, in reality, it&apos;s Rachel that comforts Harvey in the final moments, where he is instead screaming. It doesn&apos;t mean much, and he does offer some reassurance earlier on, to be fair, but with the amount he forces Gordon to &quot;lie to your son that it&apos;s going to be ok, like I lied&quot; it&apos;s just an interesting extra.<br>Patreon link - <a href="http://www.patreon.com/mylittlethoughttree">www.patreon.com/mylittlethoughttree</a>

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• SU

  @sunnu777 · 5 years ago

  Joker HAD to be an ex-agent of military intelligence gone rogue, or a burn-out from at least one of the covert agencies. His tactical skills in planning and execution reeked of a Skunk-works operator...

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• BJ

  @BJenno · 5 years ago

  Nothing’s more dangerous than a psychopath who is extremely calm. That’s why Heath’s Joker is very dangerous. I love all the jokers, but Heath’s, to me, in my honest opinion, is very interesting. When things don’t go to his plan, he just improvises, and that’s who Joker is. Joker is basically Professor Moriarty to Batman’s Sherlock Holmes. They are the Ying and Yang, one can’t live without the other.

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• NY

  @nyomiberriman4331 · 5 years ago (edited)

  I would watch an edit cut of this film with just The Joker scenes. Heath Ledger just captivates. Every time I watch this movie it&apos;s purely for him.

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• IN

  @invisible2925 · 5 years ago

  I’ve already seen essays on this but I still can’t stop seeking them out.This movie is a masterpiece.

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• ZA

  @Zappy1210 · 3 years ago

  Christian Bale&apos;s Batman was very good, his Bruce Wayne was perfection but Heath Ledgers Joker will forever be the best Joker we will have ever seen.

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• SH

  @shreknet · 5 years ago (edited)

  This film was the epitome of &quot;It ain&apos;t gonna get done unless you do it yourself.&quot; This trilogy of Batman wasn&apos;t the honed warrior psychopath the many versions of the comic character was. It was a guilt ridden man who did everything to alleviate himself of the guilt and was desperate for a successor.<br>This version of Batman doesn&apos;t have Robins and Batwomen. He is constantly alone. Won&apos;t train students and wants the system to take over his legacy. <br>He inevitably fails heavily but scrapes a win in the end.<br>The Nolan Trilogy was special and a noble effort and definitely a spectacle but even Christian Bale himself said that after seeing Heath Ledger&apos;s performance he wish he did better.<br>The Joker in this film is a hypocrite. He isn&apos;t insane or a chaotic entity, he is a calculating sociopath who received heavy trauma and seeks power through action.<br>He is a troll who sees Batman as a profile to ruin and &quot;Wreck&quot;.<br>I respect this version of the Joker because of his intent and creativity but he is 100% sane. But the fact that this Batman couldn&apos;t interrogate or trace any gang member into finding the Joker&apos;s locale was odd but beneficial to the narative.

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• JA

  @jackiedan2450 · 5 years ago

  If you re-listen to Alfred&apos;s monologue, it&apos;s revealed that Alfred and his buddies were the villians in that story.

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• TJ

  @tjkong4381 · 3 years ago

  I always felt the Joker began as a normal guy, but joined the military, probably a post 9/11 patriotic enlistment. Got PTSD, returned from war and his PTSD made him a social outcast. Add in the Glasgow smile pushed him over the edge. The Jokers motivation was to show that people will break, just like he did, given the circumstances, which he is trying to place into them. The ultimate revenge on society.

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• JA

  @jakejensen9108 · 3 years ago

  The Joker started out as kid in an abusive household, joined the military to do something good, &nbsp;as well as get away from his abusive father. He was so good at his job, he was recruited for Black Ops, The government erased his identity in order to cover themselves in case he and/or his squadron got caught. He ended up getting captured, tortured, and saw all his friends die, who where the only people who ever cared about him. It was a mission that was set up to fail, but out of good faith he did it anyway to serve his country. At the end, they didn’t even come to save him or his buddies. They didn’t even try. After he escaped, scarred and suffering from severe PTSD from seeing everyone he ever cared for butchered,, he wanted payback.after everything he sacrificed for them, they just left him to the wolves. He was a guy who had nothing to lose. His motivation was strictly payback.<br><br>That’s my theory…..

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• LE

  @lemmonsinmyeyes · 5 years ago (edited)

  Never noticed the dog symbolisim before, regardless of how direct it is. Also: I&apos;m glad you picked up on the whole &apos;I dont make plans&apos; thing, when he very clearly does. Everyone seems to think hes just chaotic incarnate but that isnt true. He understands people very well and knows just how to break them. He dosent see people, he sees play things to break and destory. He puts on the face paint and theatrics because, thats how the public will resonate with his &apos;chaos&apos;. &apos;the joker&apos; is just a mask, a tool. Its not something he&apos;s all that speficically invested in emotionally and whatnot.<br><br>Edit: also, the whole &apos;cant let the public know about harvey&apos; is because if he, being district DA, who put all those people in jail, if he we&apos;re to be found incompetant to stand office (insane) all his actions as DA would immediatly be overruled. And as established earlier, no-one was going to stand up to the criminals. Especially not if they got the one guy who wouldn&apos;t break. So they perpetuated the lie to keep the gangs and such in prison. It was peace through lies. A &apos;the ends justifiy the means&apos; question.

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• NO

  @noone.3532 · 5 years ago

  As with the &quot;I&apos;m not wearing hockey pads&quot; crack when the joker says &quot;you&apos;re not one of them&quot;. There&apos;s a divergence where Batman and the Joker believe they&apos;re both right and engage in behaviour where they judge and intervene in the lives of others. Both believe the system has massive flaws that essentially then frees both to do as they please to those around them. In this way the Joker was more self aware than Batman. I think if you call him afreak you&apos;ve walked into his trap, proved him correct about you so he can attack you. Batman believes he&apos;s allowed make viligante attacks but not other. The Joker starts out robbing the mafia, he actually dismantled at least one gang making them fight to the death. It&apos;s similar to viligante violence and lying to the population to preserve the image of Harvey Dent. They&apos;re doing what they want to cause society to behave how they want it to based on different goals, one to uphold the rules of a broken system by breaking the rules if that system and the other to show the population the system is broken by breaking the rules of that system.

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