# Why is the Joker so dangerous? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 20, 2010, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-joker-so-dangerous/547307 "2010-07-20T01:35:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2010, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-joker-so-dangerous/547307/41 "2010-07-31T00:35:59Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > He’s not just insane; he is, in some sense, insanity itself. His madness is contagious. Consider, for instance, Harley Quinn, who started out as a perfectly sane, normal, and law-abiding psychiatrist I can’t remember the original TV version of her story to be sure if this is accurate for it or not, but by the time she was brought into the comics, she always had a couple screws loose. Meeting Mr J gave her until then generalized obsession a focus, but she was never really all there. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2010, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-joker-so-dangerous/547307/42 "2010-07-31T00:51:26Z")
In short, he’s dangerous for the reason James Bond is dangerous: he’s willing to cross the lines others won’t. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2010, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-joker-so-dangerous/547307/43 "2010-07-31T03:52:33Z")
[quote=“RickJay, post:40, topic:547307”] > [@Superhal](#): > > 1. If you aren’t familiar with sociopaths in general, you could start there. > > [Snip] > > The Joker isn’t insane; he is not delusional, doesn’t hear voices, stuff like that. (Well, not in most realizations of the character.) His understanding and perception of reality is as good as any ordinary person’s. Kinda. I’m not convinced he can actually put the peices together in any organized fashion. He seems to instinctively understand people, but he can’t actually comprehend them. He’s a psychopath not because he doesn’t care about people,. but because almost everything and everyone is illusory to him. There are some (a fair number of supervillains and even heroes) that he treats with something approaching human-like interaction. He’s definitely insane. It’s just that at no point can he even be consistently insane. His insanity is all meta or something. Actually, strike that, I’m not convinced he’s a psychopath in the normal sense at all. A psychopath has no regard for other people: they don’t exist. The Joker seems to view all of reality like a giant coked-out LSD trip, with almsot no real rules. He’s Batman’s nemesis because that’s the role he chose to play. So he’s an evil villain and does whatever he happens to think especially villainous that day. But he could have been anybody or anything, including a great hero. And at very odd moments, he’ll do just that. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2010, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-joker-so-dangerous/547307/44 "2010-07-31T12:28:07Z")
[quote=“smiling\_bandit, post:43, topic:547307”] > [@RickJay](#): > > > [@Superhal](#): > > > > 1. If you aren’t familiar with sociopaths in general, you could start there. > > > > [Snip] > > > > The Joker isn’t insane; he is not delusional, doesn’t hear voices, stuff like that. (Well, not in most realizations of the character.) His understanding and perception of reality is as good as any ordinary person’s. > > Kinda. I’m not convinced he can actually put the peices together in any organized fashion. He seems to instinctively understand people, but he can’t actually comprehend them. He’s a psychopath not because he doesn’t care about people,. but because almost everything and everyone is illusory to him. There are some (a fair number of supervillains and even heroes) that he treats with something approaching human-like interaction. > > He’s definitely insane. It’s just that at no point can he even be consistently insane. His insanity is all meta or something. > > Actually, strike that, I’m not convinced he’s a psychopath in the normal sense at all. A psychopath has no regard for other people: they don’t exist. The Joker seems to view all of reality like a giant coked-out LSD trip, with almsot no real rules. He’s Batman’s nemesis because that’s the role he chose to play. So he’s an evil villain and does whatever he happens to think especially villainous that day. But he could have been anybody or anything, including a great hero. And at very odd moments, he’ll do just that. Please note– [ol] [li]Joker was exposed to large ammounts of toxins during his origin story. Brain damage? Perhaps.[/li][li]During a recent series, a MRI scan computer readout of the Joker was shown, & notes suggest both brain damage AND metahuman enhancement of some sections of his brain. Enhanced intellect, combined with madness? Oh, my…[/li][li]Joker is often protrayed has being able to us “hysterical strength” at will, making him a superior hand to hand opponent.[/li][/ol] ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2010, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-joker-so-dangerous/547307/45 "2010-07-31T12:40:01Z")
> [@NAF1138](#): > > > [@Fenris](#): > > > > The only thing that makes him dangerous any more: he’s popular and marketable and the writers will warp the plot and make all the characters idiots to make sure that he stays marketable. > > Ok, sure. But that’s sort of a killjoy argument that ignores why he became popular in the first place, and why/how he went from being a goofy bank robber to being something that was, for a time, genuinely scary. He didn’t start as a goofy bank robber. In his first appearance he murdered a cruise ship full of people (IIRC). He didn’t become a goofy bank-robber until the mid-40s through the late '60s. He became scary again under O’Neill and Adams and has been on a long, dull downward slide since. > [@](#): > > In comics everything jumps the shark. They usually go on to beat the shark up, kill it, dance on its dead body then electrically reanimate it and start all over from square one. That doesn’t mean that the good stuff wasn’t ever any good. I didn’t mean to give that impression. But the Joker is _only_ scary when A) He’s up against someone in his weight-class. Joker vs Galactus should leave a joker-shaped smear. B) He’s only scary when he’s used more-or-less from the shadows. Getting into bed to go to sleep and finding that the Joker is hiding under the blankets? Terrifying. The Joker with a wacky scheme involving capturing the Justice League, putting them on a game show and broadcasting the results to Iraq to give America a black eye? Not scary. (also dumb) The problem is that since the Crisis, the vast, VAST majority of Joker stories have been the latter not the former. ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2010, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-joker-so-dangerous/547307/46 "2010-07-31T13:50:42Z")
I’m not so big into comic books; aside from Tim Burton’s first Batman movie, I haven’t really ever read or seen much featuring the Joker or other superheroes or supervillains. But second-hand descriptions, as it were, the Joker sounds awfully scary and dangerous because he’s _plausible_. You’re not likely to encounter Magneto or Dr. Doom in a dark alley, but someone like the Joker who might do unspeakable things to you, or maniupulate you, or otherwise use you as a psychopath would? Oh, yes. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2010, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-joker-so-dangerous/547307/47 "2010-07-31T14:27:16Z")
One thing about comic books is that you have to suspend your disbelief in order to get on with the story. It isn’t particularly realistic that the Joker can break out of imprisonment time and time again without anyone doing anything to permanently stop him. In the last Batman movie how the hell did the Joker rig all those explosives in the hospital? It doesn’t really matter because it’s still a comic book movie. So just accept that it isn’t realistic and go forward from there. ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2010, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-joker-so-dangerous/547307/48 "2010-08-02T04:14:10Z")
To me (and I’m not a Batman fan very much, and not at all a Joker fan) one of the scariest things about him is that you don’t know why he is the way he is. Is he an average guy who had one bad day? Is he a long-time loony who just got fixated on the Batman? What happened? He’s multiple-choice, as he’s said himself, and that’s the worst: the not knowing. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-joker-so-dangerous/547307.md?page=2)