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Overanalyzing Anime
Blog Owner & Lead Writer
The Dark Knight has his slew of rogues, each with their own ability to challenge him in ways the others cannot; the Scarecrow forced him to face his fears, Ra’s Al Ghoul confronted him with his past; Bane presented a physical challenge unlike any he had faced before; but the only enemy who was ever able to break his spirit, his hope, was the Joker, and that’s why I find him so, interesting.
This nefarious villain made a fool of the iconic hero through his trickery, causing him to sacrifice the woman he loved, and traumatize the man he had hoped would save the city of Gotham; this dastardly fiend tormented the denizens of Gotham, and forced them to show how truly animalistic they all were; and why, you ask? Because he could.
If you were to ask him how he became the man he was, you would get a different answer every time; perhaps he’d tell you the scars on his face were given to him by his abusive father, or that he did it to himself in order to make his disfigured wife feel better about herself. See, that’s the beauty of the Joker, no one knows who he is; it’s that anonymity that makes him such a dangerous individual, because, just like The Dark Knight, he is not just a man, but a symbol, one of chaos. The entirety of the film he is provoking the citizens of Gotham, The Dark Knight especially, to drop their facades of being “civilized” and act as the selfish, self-centered, animals he knows them to be; however, his main foe, Batman, continues to fight him at every turn, continually trying to show him that people aren’t as animalistic as he believes them to be.
The Joker, on several occasions, proves his case to be valid as he gets Batman to make the selfish decision to save the woman over saving a hero of Gotham, and on another occasion where he was able to get the city of Gotham to attempt to murder a man to save the people in a hospital, and again when he turned the city’s “White Knight” into an emissary of darkness. I feel the aim of this film was to show a more realistic idea of what it means to be a costumed vigilante; this depiction of Batman is nothing like the cartoon-y, playful iteration that fans were used to; instead this brought an element of gritty truth, it showed the audience that The Dark Knight is a flawed man, and that even he makes mistakes, that even he loses people he loves.
My first time watching the film I felt excited, watching and waiting to see what would happen next, but when I watched the film again at an older age, I felt sadness and pity for Batman; I watched as the Joker broke this hero’s spirit and though The Dark Knight managed to RISE again, there’s no denying The Joker left more than a lasting impression on the hero.
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