Joker in The Dark Knight Was More Sadistic Than We Initially Thought
The Dark Knight is probably one of the greatest superhero movies ever made. This movie is chock full of incredible performances but there is one that stands out from the rest. We are talking about Heath Ledger’s phenomenal performance as The clown prince of crime. Joker in The Dark Knight is the stuff of nightmares. The character does things that we would have never thought possible. He has a habit of playing with the minds of men and heroes in a way that makes our skin crawl.
The villain continuously outwits everyone around him, including the police and his henchman. All Bruce can do throughout the movie is try and catch up to the villain. Batman even admits to Alfred that he cannot figure Joker out and Alfred tells him that some people just want to watch the world burn, that they are not motivated by rational things. Joker is a new breed of supervillain filled with cruelty. He is someone who is fueled by his own sadistic nature. So when we get to see theories like this we cannot help but wonder if they are actually true. Take a look.
Joker In The Dark Knight
Reddit user u/animewhitewolf shared the following theory on r/Fantheories giving a sadistic spin to an already scary scene of The Dark Knight:
“In his final act of public terrorism, he threatens to blow up Gotham and claims to have set traps on the bridges leaving Gotham. In response, officials tries to evacuate the city by ferry, first sending 2 full of passengers; one full of civilians, the other convicted prisoners. Joker then reveals that he put explosives on both and gave each the detonator to the other ferry. If neither boat detonates the other, he’ll blow them both up. In the end, neither boat go through with it and the Joker is stopped before he blows it up.
I started to consider, though, what if there was a twist on this? Joker’s whole deal is messing with people. We saw this when he burned the mafias cash, when he disguised hostages as his clown henchmen and when he switched the addresses of Harvey and Rachel. Compared to those, a prisoner’s dilemma sounds like his MO, but it seems a little too straightforward.
I don’t think that he gave the ferry’s a detonator to the other ship. I think he actually gave them the detonator to their own ship. If either ferry tried to detonate the other ship, they would have killed themselves, and in the process, the other ship would have been blamed for it.”
What the user is suggesting has been hypothesized by many fans over the years. The reason it seems feasible is that the Joker is famous for doing things like this. He enjoys pulling a fast one on the heroes and the cops. When others feel flustered and lost that is when the Joker chooses to laugh. He is a sadist.
The Consequences
The above theory radicalizes that very aspect of the Joker. He had already fooled every one in the movie several times by giving out the wrong information or burning down a pile of money etc. So it is possible that he may also choose to lie to the people on the ferries when he gave them the instructions. Joker wants people to know that they are on the edge of insanity such as his. If they only had one bad day they would give into it. So to make them suffer it is possible that he would lie to the civilians and the prisoners. The most realistic scenario would have been that the civilians chose to blow up the prisoners and push the button on the detonator.
At, which point, according to the theory, they would blow themselves up and everyone would start blaming the prisoners. This would create chaos and push the prisoners closer to the edge of the abyss. Society and media would do the rest while Joker enjoys a laugh in his lair. When the people do the job for you, you know that you are a good villain. Joker’s idea has always been to introduce chaos and make people embrace it.
This theory does a marvelous job of portraying that. Let us know what you think about it down in the comments below and keep watching this space for everything Marvel, DC, and Hollywood. Excelsior!!!
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