Trickster

[bloodyrosemccoy]

Buck Moon
Birthday - Hunter Thompson (writer)
Birthday - Nelson Mandela (statesman - S. Africa)
Constitution Day (Uruguay)

 

I think the Joker is a god.

 

No, really. I think he occupies a part of our psyche reserved for archetypes. Just because the medium has changed—now we have pop culture instead of fancy classic culture, because we all know that fancy classic culture was never pop culture—doesn’t mean we all don’t still have all these stories that float around and change with the retelling.

 

Sure, Bats is in the pantheon, too—he’s popular because there’s something about him we need in our narratives—but I’ve been thinking of the Joker more lately because I'm a shameless Joker fangirl and because of a certain event that brought him to the foreground in this movie. He’s the trickster and the force of chaos, in the same sense that Loki or Eris or Coyote or Anansi are (although he’s definitely on the dark end of the spectrum). Only he, as the modern version, actually resonates with us. I say this because—well, because people are saying he killed Heath Ledger.

 

I’ve heard a few stories about this—Heath is a method actor, and he got too into the role and looked into the abyss and couldn’t take it and killed himself; or maybe it was an accident, but by god he wouldn’t have been taking those sleeping pills if he hadn’t been so shaken by his role as the Joker. Now I myself think that you’d have to have some other problems first to let that get to you—if the role did anything, it was to exacerbate something that was already there that made him need those pills.

 

But see, that doesn’t matter.

 

The fact that we are willing to say the Joker did it—that this fictional pop culture character, a character originally made up for a one-shot run who seemed to hit a nerve and stayed—means that we think he’s got some power. People are willing to believe he reached through the fourth wall and actually did something physical, and that he is dark enough to scare someone that much. And since his kind of power is over our minds, thinking he’s got the power gives him power. It’s like profanity, or economics, or any superstition or religion or other form of magic people really believe—it’s not real, but we behave as if it has some bearing on us. And our reaction to Heath’s unfortunate death, among other things, proves that crazy clown has definitely got that power.

 

He's in our heads, and our belief creates and sustains him, and even gives him some tangible strength. 

That, my friends, is how gods are born.

 

 

The movie’s pretty good, for the record. The attempt to make Bats sound like Kevin Conroy* In Stereo was sorta silly, but c'mon! It’s made entirely of climaxes, and some people may recognize that one character arc is all about the DC idea of One Bad Day.  What more could you ask for?

(Possibly my favorite moment is the Disappearing Pencil, because it was so perfectly a summation of the Joker: every member of the audience in my theater curled up into a horrified ball and burst out laughing when he made it disappear. I don't think I've ever seen that reaction to anything that strongly before.)

 
*The only true voice of Batman.

Comments

[gondolinchick01.livejournal.com]

Someday, I will be as articulate as you and post these half-formed ideas on my blog. Honest to God, I kept thinking the exact same thing through the movie ("He's like some sort of trickster figure from myth or something") but never could've phrased it so well. Well done, and I'm glad you liked the movie.

[ellixis.livejournal.com]

I like the idea (and have played with it in my writing now and then) that the force of collective belief is what makes a god.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I do/have, too! And then I read Terry Pratchett's Small Gods and got all excited about the way he does it with the idea of actual belief versus purported belief. It's a fascinating idea.

[tsita.livejournal.com]

The Joker is much more like Loki.

Loki was pushed to the limit and he broke it.

Bats...He's what Joseph Campbell would have love to delve into.

Bats is what we hope we could be if pushed to that limit.

The ferry scene. That is what Bats is, I think. Bats is the epitome of that ferry scene.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

In this one he's also definitely got an Eris element to him in his tendency to be a CATALYST for disaster. I kept thinking of Eris's most famous story (the one where she started the Trojan War without being present by tossing a golden apple into the middle of an Olympian party with a note saying "To the fairest," which made the goddesses all fight over the apple; Paris was assigned to be the judge and awarded it to Aphrodite, who rewarded him with Helen, and the rest is history--or mythology) when the Joker was trying to rile up Ordinary Citizens. He does it a lot--with what he was trying to do for the ferry scene, the attempt to get someone to kill that weenie, even his attempt to corrupt the White Knight.

Batman's attempt not to cross the line was good. Harvey fell; Batman sort of fell, but channels it into something that is at least less destructive. If you take how Commissioner Gordon reacts in the comic The Killing Joke, you get the full spectrum of possible reactions. And then there's the Joker himself, and who knows where he comes from ...

[circuit-four.livejournal.com]

Have you read any of Grant Morrison's takes on the Joker? Especially Arkham Asylum? He basically advanced the theory that the Joker wasn't insane -- he was far, far, far too sane, and capable of seeing far more of reality than was really good for an organic being.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Ah, so he's knurd. That would mess a person up.

He even seems to already be aware of the fourth wall ...

I am intrigued now.

[ninepointfivemm.livejournal.com]

Oh, Joker is totally aware of the 4th wall. You've got all those covers of Batman looking all dark and everything, and you have Joker, playing right into the audience's hands. Oh, he knows the fourth wall exists. He's an entertainer, and the audience is what the entertainer feeds on.

(I got here via your comment to Cleo's LJ, btw.)

[sternbunny.livejournal.com]

I don't know if this counts for 4th wall breakage but in one of the animated Batman episodes, he whistles his own theme song.

Beth

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Oh, that absolutely counts!

[sternbunny.livejournal.com]

I think it is in the episode "Mad Love" in The New Batman Adventures, Season Two.

Beth

[ursulav.livejournal.com]

This is actually a very interesting post, and I'm sending the boyfriend, crazed Joker lover that he is, over this way...

[alchemist.livejournal.com]

I agree on all points about the Joker.

I would like to add to that that the Batman is popular because he's (a) the anti-hero, and (b) in essence, he's NORMAL. He's not a Superman. He has no special powers. He is an everyman who just trained and tuned and THINKS instead of just pounds his way through the Bad Guys. he is the triumph of Humanity and Human Ingenuity against forces more powerful than himself.

He's the kind of Hero we can get behind, because we know with enough money and time and effort (Did you see the thing where the scientist said 10-12 years of the right training and anyone can do the physical?), a "normal" person can do that. No amount of time/money/effort can make a Superman, a Wonder Woman, a SpiderMan, or a Green Lantern.

And maybe that's why I liked Iron Man so much - aside from the redemption of Tony Stark plotline - under it all, he's man made, he's weak. He's one of us who had a Bad Day and didn't succumb. Like Batman, he had One Bad Day, but he took a different inspiration from it.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Agreed. Most everyone thinks Batman is cooler than any other superhero, and that's exactly why. He's the one who works at it, who clearly cares enough to try it without the powers. The ones with powers give you this sense that they're doing the heroing because they've got these powers and it's their job ("Here, Green Lantern, I now appoint you hero"); Batman acts like he really means it and is determined to fix the world. And there is definitely a feeling that "You, too, can be Batman if you feel strongly enough about something!"

My brother and I love that the new Justice League cartoons reflect this, too--Plan B in most cases is to go whining to Batman to fix it for them. The writers are totally aware of it.

I think the franchise is so strong because it really does have a hero and at least one villain who touch something really basic that we all can respond to. It's not just the "normal" guy thing, but also that dark edge, that he's determined to do it not for some mystical concept of Truth, Justice, and the American Way, but that he feels so strongly because he's pissed off and it's personal. That's something we can relate to pretty well.

Tony is interesting too because he's trying to fix damage he himself has caused. That right there makes for a flawed hero and a great character.

[plastic-logic.livejournal.com]

What I started to think of just then is what might have happened with Peter Parker who didn't get powers. If we ignore that his powers were the catalyst to brushing off uncle Ben, the wrestling match and the robbery Peter was a REALLY intelligent student, with his Uncles message of great power and great respocibility there is a chance Peter may have gotten into super-hero-ing without powers but with gadgets and science only he'd have the setback of not being a millionaire and having to scrape and work off of grants and so on.

[arkady.livejournal.com]

(Hi, here via naamah_darling.) That's why I always liked the Huntress - again, just an ordinary woman (and what's more, a fairly plain-looking, slightly flat-chested one at that instead of a supermodel-in-Spandex) with no powers - just very well trained physically. She and Batman are the kind of heroes that ordinary people could aspire to be.

[cjtremlett.livejournal.com]

Oh, definitely. Remember, the classical myths weren't classical when they were created! They were part belief and part pop culture for the time. And parts other things, too, of course.

The DC heroes seem more epic to me than the Marvel heroes. Batman. Superman. Wonder Woman. And the Joker has his own place. He is definitely a trickster god.

What makes a god a god? Neil Gaiman, among others, has explored that idea. If old gods fade as belief in them wanes, new gods are born of new beliefs. There's also the notion of thought-forms, tulpas, and the power of collective belief. The more thought and energy that gets put into ideas of the Joker, the more real and powerful he becomes. The fourth wall is an iffy place already these days, especially for those of us who spend a lot of time online.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

People always seem to forget that about myths. I always think it's weird that we talk about "pop culture" now and think there was no such thing in the past, just because it's turned capitalist. (As versus in the past, with the storytellers you'd pay to recite the tale ... oh wait.)

Neil Gaiman's idea of godhood is definitely what I see ... they get their power from us. It gets a little Jungian, but we do all have similar enough psychologies that some archetypes have a lot of power. There seems to be something inside us that goes for that.

The Joker has always seemed a little more aware of the fourth wall than other characters in his universe. And now we're willing to believe he actually can get THROUGH it. I can't think of a lot of characters we'll give that much power to.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

I was actually thinking something similar by the end of the movie--well, and the way Christopher Nolan kept talking in interviews about how their Joker was supposed to be "pure chaos" and that's why they didn't want him to have an origin. But to me, it was cemented when the last we saw of the Joker was that he was >>hanging upside down. It was like a literal image of the Twelfth Night Lord of Misrule, when everything is reversed. (You even see specific reversals, like the clowns being the "hostages" at the end and so on.) It was also the image of the Hanged Man in the tarot deck, although that has a different meaning--usually sacrifice or submission? I don't know how much you can read into that. I guess you could argue that the Joker wants you to give in to chaos, to the temptation to stop fighting for what's right (the way he thought the people on the two ferries would give in to their worst instincts). But I don't know how well the Hanged Man aspect can be argued, when the trickster/Lord of Misrule is so much more present.

But more importantly to what you're saying, nothing happened to the Joker--I mean, we're left to surmise that law and order and/or the asylum took care of him, but there's no point in Nolan showing that because he just... is. He's a force, not a person. He's literally above the law. <<

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

He always gets off on the insanity plea in the comics, too, which says something, I think--that people both in-universe and out can't really blame him for his actions, because that's what he's FOR. He doesn't really have any say in it, because he's a force or an archetype.

It's a little like explaining something about Pan's Labyrinth to people: I was more horrified when humans would do awful things to each other than I was at the Pale Man's tendency to eat children and fairies, because that's what the Pale Man was created to do. The humans can choose what to do to each other, but the Pale Man was just doing what he was supposed to; being angry with him is like blaming a volcano for the human suffering it may cause. It's pointless. I think we sort of put the Joker in there, too.

And the really creepy thing is in the stories he seems to know people think like that, and is using that to his advantage. He is written as being a lot more aware that he's in a story than the other characters, and even seems to know what part he has in the story--and he uses that knowledge in-story to manipulate others. It gives us the illusion that he knows we're out here watching him--and that he may in fact be able to come out among us if he chooses. And so when Heath Ledger died we started to wonder if maybe it was him ...

I'd have to look deeper into the Hanged Man, but the Joker is definitely in our mental deck--and he knows that, too.

[r-a-black.livejournal.com]

I haven't heard much about people blaming the Joker for Heath's death, but I don't really believe that's true. It might have been the straw that broke the camel's back, but I very much prefer it when I hear stories of how much Heath loved being the Joker. On how much he studied this character and all the acting methods he used to get him just right. I think I'd just like to know he died being happy, however much exhausted by trying to be a force of chaos, which is what the Joker is. The fact that he got it on the spot says a lot as well; it was so subtle, yet so out there. It's amazing to me that of all the villains that I have ever known, the Joker is the one that people both absolutely fear and love at the same time. I read a comment on here where you mention something about him being aware that he's a character in a story, and I think for me the best part that supports that is when he's telling Batman that they both need each other and therefore will never actually kill each other. As for him being a general force of chaos, well that's supported throughout the film, my favorite one being "Some men just want to watch the world burn" which I think describes him perfectly.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Nah, I never thought the role killed Heath at all--it was either an accident or he had some much deeper problems that led him to overdose on purpose. But I have heard a few different stories that say it was the Joker; it's becoming part of the legends that always spring up around deaths like that with no closure. People are willing to believe it.

And you're right--our fear and love is precisely what make him such a force.

[ninepointfivemm.livejournal.com]

You have some really good points. And I mean really good points.

My one point is that I decided Joker was Hamlet. Ledger's Joker was just so calculating. He may be calculating and people may think he's insane, but did they possibly think that maybe he's playing with them? Like, the bit with, "I'm like a dog chasing a car! I don't know what I'd do with it if I caught it!" but yet his plans prove that clearly, he does. And clearly, he has a plan.

He's Hamlet and the Player King at the same exact time. He knows the Fourth Wall exists, and he's going to play with it.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

*tips hat* Thanks for stopping by!

There are a lot of different versions of him, and all sorts of theories as to how (in)sane he actually is--some say he's SUPER sane, some show him as actually crazy, a few say he's just really good at faking it. So you're right--it's a lot like Hamlet.

I loved that line, too, because it's such a lie for at least what he was talking about right then.

[ninepointfivemm.livejournal.com]

I think Joker is one of those types of characters that sort of knows he's a little cuckoo, knows he's not all-together, but yet, doesn't really care, because it's fun for him to be that way. So while I don't think he's 100% sane, I don't think he's as insane as some people think. You don't come up with elaborate plans and the correct way to execute them without having some sort of sanity.

I almost went as far as to say that Rachel was Polonius, but then I thought it was too much. XD (Uh, gee, can you tell I've written about 2 or 3 analytical papers for my theater classes on Hamlet and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead?) I do think Joker as Hamlet works, even if none of the other characters work out.

[pixel39.livejournal.com]

Oh, I disagree. The Joker is insane because "sanity" is a legal definition. "Sane" is equivalent with "normal", and they're both relative terms. If someone says "you're insane", what they really mean is that "You are significantly different than I in one or more ways, and That Isn't Ok because it's Bad."

The Joker is insane because to us, the "normal" people (and one's frames of reference for "normal" and "sane" are what society has agreed on), he makes no sense. He is different in a dark, frightening way--he does things that no "normal" human would contemplate, let alone actually DO--and the only way we can explain it (and human psychology is desperate for explanations) is that since he is different, and thus not "normal", then it follows logically that he must be "insane".

He isn't, of course--he is terribly, coldly, impossibly rational relative to his own self. But he has to be insane because the alternative is too horrifying to contemplate.

[andrewshead.livejournal.com]

(Came over from d2leddy's link
Many things (I'd say most) think that the Joker stated in the movie were lies. He planned out almost everything. The boats, the cops, the bank job, the joker is a HYPER planner. Almost like Xanatos in Gargoyles. He has a plan and a backup plan for every situation.


And I'll disagree with many of the people here about Joker is playing to the 4th wall but it's a side effect of what he's trying to do. I really do think that almost everything he did was to show the "heroes" of Gotham exactly what kind of people they were defending, it was all a show just one for Harvey and Bruce not the not the movie audience.

[stokerbramwell.livejournal.com]

Another follower from cleolinda's journal here.

I agree completely. There really is something about the character that goes beyond your average supervillain. The writers of the comics are aware of this themselves ("When supervillains want to scare each other, they tell Joker stories"). I liked how Ledger's Joker seemed aware of his archetypal status himself ("I sense that we're going to be doing this forever"). There's a power there that no other evil character in pop culture has been able to grasp before or since.

[marsdejahthoris.livejournal.com]

Oh man. I'm so glad I followed the link you had on Ursula's LJ to this post... Trickster has always been my favorite archetype, from the fairly benign Bugs Bunny up to horrors like the Joker.

The comments in here on the Joker knowing about the existence of the fourth wall remind me of Deadpool, Marvel's Trickster mercenary, who's totally insane and is aware he is a character in a comic book. He even interacts with his dialogue balloons, without ever descending into the realm where the story is no longer dramatic.

Chaos Magic, especially as handled in Grant Morrison's stuff, is all about belief being power, much like in Discworld. Even the episode of Real Ghostbuster with Sherlock Holmes touched on the idea that what enough people believe becomes real. And given that the Joker is a distillation of the dark, cruel humor all of us have some connection to...

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you did, too! (And yeah, Bugs is totally a trickster.)

I have been wanting to read more Deadpool. I absolutely love fourth wall play. (I've got characters in my sci-fi stories who have a religion that says they are all characters in a story and god is the author. And a few other references that make me think they're on to me ...)

The guilty pleasure we get at things like the disappearing pencil or his futzing around with the detonator before he explodes a hospital also make him powerful--clearly the dark humor is there, but he's the one who lets us admit it.

Thanks for bringing up Sherlock Holmes, too, since I think he's also in the modern pantheon!

[marsdejahthoris.livejournal.com]

Bugs Bunny has an astonishing amount of correspondences with Native American trickster archetypes such as Coyote. He's a good deal more benevolent in his most recent incarnations. Early Bugs was much more likely to screw with someone for the sake of screwing with them.

The Joker, in some ways, is an externalization of our Id. We can vicariously live out our darker sides through him, while being able to say both "Look, this is fiction" and "Look, this is the BAD guy." A double distance from the part of us that likes watching prisoners thrown to the lions.

That was a GREAT episode. Peter's first reaction to the ghost of Holmes was "But Holmes was FICTIONAL!" And then Egon explains how so many people over the years have BELIEVED in Holmes that their belief made him real. Unfortunately, it did the same to Moriarity...

They have a great fight in the basement, while the containment is sucking them in, with the best exchange...

Moriarty: You'll kill us both!
Holmes: We were never alive!

[pixel39.livejournal.com]

Oh, you MUST read Elizabeth Bear's Promethean Age novels, which include the posit that legends, and belief in them, make truth. So you have Morgan le Fay who has changed over the centuries because of the legends and stories about her.

[andrewshead.livejournal.com]

P.S. Kevin Conroy will be the only voice of Bruce/Batman for me. He did them both and did them amazingly well.


P.P.S. If I ever meet Andrea Romano she drinks the entire night on me. Her voice casting of the entire diniverse was nothing short of spectacular.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

VERY YES Andrea Romano. Except I want to steal her job, which I would if I got her drunk. SOMEHOW THIS WOULD HAPPEN.

As to your other comment, he totally does play to the camera in TAS. Not so much in the movie, but in the comics and animation, it's definitely there.

Thanks for stopping by!

[chairman-wow.livejournal.com]

Okay, I missed this post for some ridiculous reason, but speaking of archetypes and people being aware of the stories they're in, have you ever read my favourite book of all time, Vellum? Because that's what it's about.

>_> Yes, I commented almost entirely to plug my favourite book. But it's completely worth a read if you enjoy those themes (which I do). Just make sure to read the sequel, too, because that has most of the plot in it.

Oh, also, the idea that people might star believing the role had killed Heath Ledger, because of the way perceived power tends to make itself real in our heads, but I hadn't yet heard of anyone actually doing it. Ah, pop culture. :P It's fun to see how little mythical thinking changes.