photo by Warner Bros Pictures
It’s great that Heath Ledger won an Oscar for his role as the Joker. Bravo! In his performance he created one of the great movie villains. When I saw the Dark Knight movie in the theatre, it left me thoughtful. What was the theme of this movie? It really did tackle some significant themes, something uncommon for action movies. I had to ponder this movie for a while.
One of many themes in the Dark Knight film, is both Batman and the Joker are damaged individuals, suffering from severe childhood trauma. Bruce Wayne’s childhood trauma shaped him for the better, or at least in a better direction. This was a reflection of the positive nature of his upbringing by his parents. Wayne channeled his parent’s ethics into a positive direction. The movie suggests the opposite of the Joker. The personal stories he tells his victims suggests a horrific childhood. A child raised in a dysfunctional family will very likely follow in those dysfunctional footsteps. The Joker seems as intellectually brilliant as the Batman, but his intellect is aimed at trying to prove to the world how unfair life is and how morality and civilization are all a joke. The Joker’s rage is actually against his childhood.
The writers of the movie thought this through very well. The Batman character has evolved through the decades. From a child’s comic book, it matured under writers like Frank Miller and Alan Moore. Inspired by these writers, director Tim Burton reinvented Batman along the line of this mature Batman. Yet, it was only a halfway journey into the direction the comic’s writers had already taken Batman. Later directors totally sank the movie franchise by going back to the silly past.
Director Christopher Nolan finally realized the Batman character’s full potential, taking the work realized with the Batman comics and transforming it into his movies. The themes of the movie were already present in the comics. The idea of the Joker as Batman’s dark opposite is not a new concept. That the Joker finds meaning in his life with his duels with the Batman is a common theme in the comics. What Nolan did that was brilliant was to take the very best ideas of the comics and somehow distill them into a truly excellent series of films.
Lets look at the character of the Joker. The Joker is an example of a Jungian archetype, the trickster. The trickster is a mythological character who plays tricks on clueless humanity. They were often malicious, such as the Norse trickster god Loki. Other tricksters were the fairies whose used their “glamour” or illusion to befuddle mortals. Or he could appear as the diabolic Mephistopheles who attempts to trick men into selling their souls in a doomed Faustian bargain. In the Batman movie, the Joker is very much like a Mephistopheles, who presents terrible moral choices without any chance at victory.
Also significant is the very name…the Joker. The Joker card is reputed to be based on the Tarot card, the Fool. If so it is the only card of the Tarot’s Major Arcana that appears in our modern playing cards. The Tarot’s Joker, the Fool, is the only unnumbered card. It shows a vagabond wandering with a bag hitched over his shoulder and a dog nipping at his legs.
What is the symbolism behind the Fool card? Slung over the Fool’s shoulder is a bag containing the suits of the Tarot. The four suits of the Tarot cards represent the various conditions of human existence, but they are tied up in the Fool’s bag, unrealized and unused. The Fool is unaware of their potential, and his own.
The next card in the Tarot is the Juggler. The Fool’s bag is now opened and their contents are laid out before the Magician on his working table. The Magician understands his potential and exercises it. The Fool wanders the earth clueless to his potential in his bag, chased by the dog of mundane everyday life. The Fool card symbolizes a state of ignorance and unawareness. The other cards of the Tarot show a steady progress through the various states of human existence on the path to final enlightenment. But at the very beginning is the Fool, completely oblivious to his great potential.
Is the Joker the Fool, and Batman the Magician?
The Fool and the Juggler cards
March 15th, 2009 at 8:44 am
I just watched the Dark Knight on DVD..it was awesome but was made worthwhile because of the twisted genius of the joker… some of his quotes were quite powerful…check out my blog entry dedicated to him at
http://ryu13337.blogspot.com/2009/03/memorable-quotes-joker.html ^^
March 15th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
Sora, Very nice blog entry about the Joker. What a powerful character Ledger created. I think part of the power of the role comes from Ledger playing the Joker as brilliant and droll, not a raving lunatic. I wonder how much of this was Ledger’s idea and how much it was the director’s.
September 30th, 2010 at 8:43 pm
The Joker is not related to the Fool. The Fool is all innocence and folly, raw spirit. The Joker/Trickster is represented by the Magus or Magician. The Magician is the trickster, cunning and intelligent. If I were to compare Batman and the Joker to the Tarot I would have to say that they are both Magicians. Once the Fools tools are laid down on the table, it is up to the magician to use them how he wills, for good or ill, creation or destruction. I would have to say that both the Bataman and the Joker are both unsuccessful at creating a balance between the two, they are the yin and yang of order and disorder. The Joker only seeks disorder, Destruction and Havoc while The Batman seeks order, creation and peace. It is the balanced interaction of these two forces that the real magician seeks. In mythology Loki was seen both a God of good and ill, it is this dualistic nature that is in the seed of every man.
October 3rd, 2010 at 3:43 am
Hi Loki,
I agree with you, that Batman and the Joker are yin and yang. That is the power of their archetypes. Batman is order; the Joker is chaos. However, I disagree that in the Tarot the Joker and Fool are not the same thing. The fool is a pre-juggler/magician. The tarot describes a path of human evolution, as I understand it. The Fool becomes the Magician/Juggler. If the movie Joker were born into a rich family, he might have evolved into the Batman/Magician instead, being as intelligent as Bruce Wayne. But fate cast him a different path. That is the connection between the Batman mythology and the Tarot.
Dave
October 4th, 2010 at 10:25 pm
Lol… no I’m still right. I have much study and practice in the occult under my belt. The Joker is no Fool. If anything one might see him as a more advanced hero than Batman, The Joker seeks to destroy the old, create chaos and manifest change, Batman tries to preserve what is there. However, the joker always wins and destroys the order therefore letting Batman rebuild a better empire. In this aspect of the Joker he can be seen as the Tower or Death. In aspects of the Tarot you can really see each character in multiple cards. Nothing is so defined not even in the archetypes of the mythos. Moreover, I don’t really think batman has anything to do with the tarot, this thread is just trying to make associations where they don’t need to be made. I participated because I myself am a ritual magician and I was researching some articles on Loki to put together a ritual. Loki being a great trickster I associated him to the Joker and was curious to see if the archetype was being utilized in pop-culture and what similarities could be drawn.
December 21st, 2010 at 7:31 am
[...] OCCULT VIEW » Blog Archive » Occult origins of the Joker 26 Feb 2009. joker-card The writers of the movie thought this through very well. The Batman character has evolved through the decades. OCCULT VIEW » Blog Archive » Occult origins of the Joker [...]
January 5th, 2012 at 9:11 am
The author of this article is missing out on one very important character trait of the Joker in the film Batman. He is written as a psychopath according to the psychological profiling of the last ten years. Not one of his childhood trauma stories is consistent with the other. He tells three different versions of how he got his face cut. The joker is feigning empathy because in reality the character is an empty vessel with the inability to feel for the suffering of others. A very smart aspect of the script writing is that the writer was able to portray a psychopath and con the contemporary viewing audience that expects some sort of real psychoanalysis of film characters these days (hell Rob Zombie psychoanalyzed Michael Meyers in his Holloween remake). But, if the audience pays attention, Batman is smarter, because the audience is sympathizing with a cold blooded killer who lacks the ability to give anything back in return. One other thing, is it just my imagination or was Heath Ledger abusing Benzedrine during the making of this film. I’ve never seen an actor grind their teeth so much during a performance. There is no better drug for playing a sociopath or psychopath.
January 5th, 2012 at 2:03 pm
Hi Chipps,
Your view is perceptive. Yes, the Joker is a psychopath. However, the Joker still rationalizes his actions; he actually has a philosophy behind his madness. Listen to the speech he gives to Harvey Dent while on the hospital bed. There are crazy people in the world who imagine they are promoting a cause (consider Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber). Villains with a cause make more interesting (& dangerous) villains then one those who are mindlessly crazy.
Dave
January 17th, 2012 at 10:27 pm
Love the Batman film for all its depth, richness and many of the the other reasons identified here. If you love it you must also see the new Girl With A Dragon Tattoo – absolute masterpiece from David Fincher.
Re. the Fool in the Tarot though, before you malign him too much remember that as well as appearing at the beginning of the spiritual journey, he also appears in identical guise at the end. Perhaps Batman and Joker ARE the same, just viewed from opposite ends of an abstract moral spectrum that is simply a construct of man. The Joker after all IS undeniably creative in his seeking of destruction. Finally, it’s only through the Joker that Batman can fulfill his ‘spiritual’ and ideological potential by taking responsibility for the crimes of Harvey Dent. Without Joker, Batman would be in retirement and there’d just be Bruce Wayne.
January 17th, 2012 at 10:46 pm
Hi Jimbo,
In a way the Batman is nearly as crazy as the Joker. Imagine running around in a bat costume engaging in fisticuffs with malcontents. You’d have to be crazy! However, Batman has a strict moral center balancing his own mental issues. The Joker seems to have none. Then again, maybe the Joker character has a demented morality only he understands. In the movie the Joker burns a mountain of cash. The Joker said it’s not about the money, but the message. What is his message? That life is a joke?
I saw both the Fincher “Girl with a Dragon Tattoo” and the foreign version. Both are very good.
Dave