guywithaplan (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
guywithaplan) wrote2020-04-16 07:39 pm
guywithaplan) wrote2020-04-16 07:39 pm
Entry tags:
Re-Application
User Name/Nick: Rei
User DW: N/A
E-mail: m0765674 at moreheadstate dot edu
Other Characters: Freeza
Character Name: The Joker
Series: The Dark Knight
Age: 28
From When?: Post-Film, post his brief sojourn on the Barge a little over two years ago.
Inmate/Warden: Inmate. Dude just orchestrated an enormous (and partly failed) campaign to reduce Gotham city to a state of nature that led to the deaths of many and the moral destruction of one of Gotham's up and coming heroes and golden figures. The general obvious gist of his intentions appears to be "just because he could" but it likely goes a good deal deeper. A person who is convinced that people are their better, truer selves without idealism or the trappings of a functioning society and is determined to do whatever he must to make people turn in that direction, whether they wish to or not, already stands for more than randomness and "just for the laughs." The Barge puts the Joker at a disadvantage by taking him out of an environment he knows well enough to manipulate (Gotham). It operates outside of the natural laws he understands and therefore takes much of the bite out of his favorite weapons, and the changing environment and obstacles will present constant and unique challenges that, with guidance, can channel his impulses toward more...constructive purposes. A Warden is necessary to try to keep pace with him and, honestly, to provide a singular focus for him to send his message rather than the whole of the Barge (or the people of some unsuspecting port). He's fashioned himself into an agent, an instrument; what he needs now is to be used correctly, whether by himself or his warden or whomever, to find within himself a position where what he does and what he knows can be used to make things better rather than just terrible for everybody but fair.
The good news: his presence in the movie ends with his hardest line being challenged. Multiple times throughout the film, the Joker sets out traps that are in their own ways, tests. While he can be a meticulous planner, there are so many instances where his success relies on the worst he believes in people being true. One point where he's entirely successful in this is his escape from the police station, which could have been prevented if the police there had listened to an obviously-in-pain, mentally ill prisoner, who had been begging them for medical attention long before it was time for the Joker to explode the bomb sewn into his abdomen. Some of his schemes are left entirely up to whether people act as their ideal selves are believed to act in their societal role, or the way he believes they truly are. When a ship of terrified civilians and a ship of convicts had to decide to explode the other or risk everybody dying, they defied his perception of reality. This is a good starting point, and the Barge may actually be an excellent second step, because he deflected this disappointment with his certainty that he'd destroyed Harvey Dent... Harvey Dent who is a graduate of this setting. What a Warden can do with this will be detailed in the PTR section.
Arrival: The Joker is just going to wake up in his cabin with no idea that any time has passed since he last went to sleep in it. It won't be quite as impactful as his last entrance, sadly, but probably less painful on his part.
Abilities/Powers: The Joker does not have any super powers but he has a number of notable abilities:
-Various weapon proficiencies; the Joker's preferred weapon is a knife, but he knows how to use a number of projectile weapons of various grades, including rifles, revolvers, and bazookas, and it should not be assumed that he can't improvise a weapon with no others available to him.
-Familiarity enough with first aid and field dressing to perform functional amateur surgery.
-Urban guerilla warfare tactics; he and his goons are near-successful at surrounding and destroying a convoy transporting who they believe to be a recently unmasked Batman. This includes the accurate use of heavy military artillery while in a moving vehicle, coordinated offensive maneuvers that force the convoy into a closed space where they will be surrounded, and even anti-aircraft techniques.
-Complex communication and information exchange; every move the Joker makes and every move his henchmen make are extremely precise for a leader considered to be so chaotic. Nobody knows anyone else and everyone has a different way of getting in contact with the boss. Lines never cross, each zigzagging into mandallic mazes too complicated to unravel in a short amount of time. This man has learned how to pass information among many people without betraying anything to a potential enemy.
-Creation and use of improvised electronics and explosives; he turned a cell phone into a detonator for an explosive powerful enough to take out an entire police station. He displays on more than one occasion knowledge of how to acquire necessary supplies to build explosives and weapons from scratch. However, it is implied that the tech he uses and knows his way around might be a touch outdated from his canon point by a few years. Old unbreakable totally-not-a-horcrux Nokia 6030s? Cake. Newer tablets? Might take a while.
-Knowledge of police protocol and formation; he was able to successfully impersonate an armed officer at the commissioner's funeral, including during a ceremony when specific, trained, and rehearsed rituals were part of the proceedings, including properly bearing and presenting arms, salutes, marching, etc, and he was able to teach others to do the same thing without anyone noticing anything was amiss until they started shooting people.
-Knowledge of effective interrogation and torture techniques, as well as torture suppressant techniques. He knows how to push buttons. He knows how not to rough somebody up if you want them to hurt really bad, or if you want them clear enough to answer questions. His "my backstory is multiple choice" schtick is part of the reverse of that.
Personality: If you should fear anyone, fear people who are absolutely certain in their convictions. This is the Joker, given name unknown in canon, thought to be a pure anarchist by most who view him, but this is often just a safe assumption to make in order to at least attempt to anticipate his actions, because his motivations are a conundrum to even try to unravel. At the core of his being, the Joker believes he understands something about Gotham, about people: He is surrounded by masks, faces for what he terms the "established order" in his community, who the good guys and bad guys are, what they do and why, and how everyone is expected to get on with their day to day lives, even while surrounded by this. To him, it's a facade. All of it, and it's become especially clear since the introduction of the Batman, whose appearance and whatever influence this had on Gotham and its infrastructure has made the Joker, inspiring him to step out into the light. Much of his focus on the vigilante hero comes from that. He says Batman "completes" him, and as an audience, we are never given especial clarity as to what that means, but "validation" seems like our closest bet.
In action, we see the Joker as somebody who is mostly certain (and titillated when he's not). He's finally figured out how it all works, and if he wanted to, he could tell you, in detail. He could make it simple for you, but simple is not pretty. Reality is not pretty, and why tell you, when he can show you? Then you'll really get it, just like he gets it, but for it to really sink in, it's got to be grotesque. You have to be awakened by the grotesque to be real. The Joker is the dark, gritty reboot of the Flannery O'Connor aesthetic. Nobody reads about all this stuff in books and looks at the world and really sees that knowledge applied. You have to experience it. Here, we have a motivation; just one, maybe even only a small part of his inner mystery, but it exists nonetheless. The Joker asks, with seeming skepticism, if he looks like a guy with a plan. He has one. It's just especially well-masked and is a great, bloated leviathan of a thing, only parts of it ever visible and rarely understandable.
Careful to keep his full intentions close to the chest at all times, the Joker is a hard one to read. He volunteers "explanations" for himself, or rather for the scars on his face, but they change in each telling. To reference (again) another canon version of himself, his life story is multiple choice. He has a trained soldier's skill for protecting information, including about himself, his plans, and all forms of communication. Unafraid of pain, with nothing to lose, he can't be bullied or intimidated into revealing anything he does not wish to, and the information he does let go of willingly can be tricky, or flawed, or deliberately misleading. Ideas and remarks offered out of hand tend to always have a second meaning to them, even a clue to something about to happen, and then it's just your own damn fault for not being smart enough to figure it out. What's more, though, when he's making up things about himself, it tends to come from a kernel of truth. Guy got his face cut up by his dad as a kid? Who cares if it's not him? It's a thing that is absolutely allowed to happen in this world. Bus full of soldiers blown up? That HAPPENS. It's real. He will tell a sort of truth, most times, and whether it's a personal experience of his or not doesn't matter. This is not a person who lacks empathy; this is a person who accepts this horror as the human condition and continues to do horrible things because it is his human condition. The pain of feeling does not stop him. Dishonesty, direct lying, is more likely to come into his arsenal if it will absolutely serve his purposes. He lies to Harvey Dent about his involvement in Rachel's death, absolving himself of everything and painting himself as too random to have any responsibility, conveniently omitting that he deliberately switched their locations so that she would die and not the district attorney. When I say he knows how to push buttons, I mean that. He will absolutely talk about doing horrible things to people you love if he can get the emotional response out of you that he needs. He will gab on about what cowards your friends were when he murdered them (even if he's not the one that killed them!) if it makes you mad enough to try to rough him up, to show your true nature, so that he can then get the upper hand.
In terms of singular quirks, in normal conversation (what counts as that), the Joker banters. He has this odd, easy way of talking, or a way that seems like it's supposed to put you at ease. Maybe it's the makeup or the scars, but there's something almost inauthentic about it. He feels threatening to some people, probably because he evinces unpredictability when he's calm or upbeat. Playful doesn't feel safe with him, but he is playful.
The Joker also has a notable connection with the mentally ill. In fact, he deliberately exploits former patients at Arkham (who are obviously not working their program, if it wasn't defunded after Batman blew its ass out from under it in the first film). This has to be read as deliberate because the Joker's actions in the movie are never anything close to random. (He does occasionally leave his fate to chance, based on his assumptions about people and his faith in being right about them, but that's not the same thing.) As meaninglessly as he treats the Arkham patients' lives, he also wants them to be seen. Gordon remarks that these particular people are drawn to him (though they're not sure why). The Joker gives them deliberate roles that will put them into contact with the people trying to thwart him (regardless of whether it endangers these associates); the first notable one is disguised as a cop and wearing a badge that names one of his next targets (Rachel) and is too unstable for Harvey Dent to get any information from, even through use of pain and intimidation, and another has a bomb sewn into him; this one is only a danger and eventual detriment to the police department because they blatantly ignore his first repeated pleas for help. While it's hard to suggest that he himself may not have some problems of his own (it's a part he plays more than once in the movie, when he tells people about his scars), one of the few moments where you see him tighten up, like something just got to him, is when one of the mob bosses asserts that he is crazy. He doesn't like the implication because he knows he's right, but he also won't let anyone use it to suggest what he has to say shouldn't be heard. That patient in the jail cell probably should have been listened to, too.
"Agent of chaos" can be a misleading phrase to use with this iteration of the Joker (and one he deliberately uses in order to mislead). While seeming very wild and random, he tends to make very specific and deliberate decisions, and much of what he managed to do is only possible through careful coordination and planning, regardless of what else he says. The important thing, however, is the mask he puts over top of it, what he allows people to see. "You know the thing about chaos?" he asks Harvey Dent. "It's fair.." That word is going to get thrown around a lot. He wants the people around him to be in chaos, because that's the natural, truest, fairest state of the world to him. He wants you to think he's being fair, himself, because he will almost always provide a choice. It's often a crap choice and the joke is it's going to hurt either way, though. This is the thing he believes he understands that other people do not. He asks if he looks like a guy with a plan; he doesn't look it, but he has one. The important thing is how it appears, because the way everyone else reacts is what creates the chaos. "Some people want to watch the world burn," Alfred Pennyworth suggests at one point. That's a safe bet to make with someone like the Joker, who struggles to stick with just one twist in each of his plans, and it might even be true! But there's still a reason why, and one must remember that everything burns, and it takes an extraordinary strength of will (that the Joker does not credit humanity as a whole) to put up a facade and hold onto your ideals even as you are actively going up in flames.
Barge Reactions: As I mentioned before, the Barge first and foremost affects him because it is so far removed from a system and society that he knows intimately. He still doesn't fully nderstand the hierarchy, and the Bargeyard created even more questions. Existing in a space where concepts of reality (like staying dead when someone kills you) no longer really apply, and this provides an interesting framework for him to continue to adjust to. The death toll may prevent him from toying with himself too much, but even without the promise of coming back, he is not afraid of death, so that may be something to watch out for. The concept of fictional people existing is an interesting philosophical quandry for him to tackle, which he hasn't done much of yet, but it will also in its own way be very amusing to him. Floods and breaches are potentially fascinating because it's one thing for him to soliloquize about a specific mindset or a backstory he's just made up but it's another to actually be another person who does not think like he does, even if it's just another version of him. It will remind him what it feels like to NOT be what he's become and give him a base point for deciding what he wants to be in the future.
Path to Redemption: The Joker cannot be handled by someone who isn't capable of restraining or overpowering him, not when he is one to resort to violence just to test the waters around him and see how the machine works. It doesn't matter how idealistic they are, what kind of degrees in psychology they have; bad things happen to nonviolent people all the time. He will be more than happy to illustrate that for you, and it won't even be personal.
As I said in the Inmate section above, there is a potential for redemption in the Joker, and part of that potential comes from challenging his worldview, this idea of making a fairer world, a world existing in a state of nature, with no society, no established order, dog eat dog is the best thing to do. A Warden who wants to challenge that needs to be capable of A) showing they can and do rise above their base instincts, even at their lowest and most desperate, B) showing that it's possible to bring that out in others, and C) showing that bringing that out of a person, or having it yourself, is in itself rewarding and fulfilling.
I want to say that finding a way to get him to forge relationships and connections with people is a good idea, but it is not a guarantee that he won't hurt them or avoid sticking his neck out for them... even if he loves them. It has to be monitored, and his action and inaction has to be seen, understood, and called out when necessary. Positive connections need to be established as being worth getting off his regular bullshit for. Wronging them cannot be disregarded as "that's how it is sometimes" and he will absolutely try to frame it that way. Do not let him sell himself as not knowing any better.
The Joker calls himself an agent of chaos and sees himself as a tool that will awaken you, and everyone, and make the world what it should be. He believes there is a utility in his existence, work still to be done, or he wouldn't occasionally break away from "fairness" in order to stay around at least long enough for his plans to come to full fruition. This view of himself will be very difficult to break down, so a Warden may find more success if they just find a way to use the tool more constructively; that there are ways to attack the mendacity he sees all around him without just blowing the whole thing to smithereens. Sometimes there will be no way to do this without simply seeing what he does and trying to stay one step ahead of him when he's making trouble.
When he gets to storytime, try to be aware that he does this sometimes when he's either stalling or deflecting, but he is often addressing something he's thinking about and putting out something he wants you to think about. It might not actually hurt to engage him, but you can't let him control the conversation, either.
History: Link to Film Summary
Sample Journal Entry: His new TDM
Sample RP: When he woke in the infirmary, he wasn't surprised. A little disoriented? Maybe. Possibly doped? He couldn't tell. Funny thing about your brain is how it shuts certain things off when you're hit just right, or when it doesn't think you'd be able to handle new pain. So there was this haze of numb heat where he knew pain probably should be, especially centered on his left eye, which didn't feel like opening. That entire side of his face was covered in that feeling, really. If his scars were younger than they were, by even a year, the gash might have reopened in that fight. He did taste a little dried blood in his mouth, but that's probably because he bit himself.
He almost sounded excited when he asked if he died. He kind of was. Another list of observations to make. Another test to put the workings of this place into alignment in his head.
How his chest deflated with a disappointed puff when the attendant said that he hadn't deathtolled, but he did have a concussion. Given that the last thing he remembered was the Inmate he'd broken a chair on playing basketball with his head? He figured he would have at least that much.
His lips didn't quick smack like they usually did; they felt crooked when they touched each other.
"Maybe next time," he mused.
When pain doesn't really scare you, the only thing left for you to look back on your own misfortunes, however earned they are, is with humor.
b>Special Notes: None!
User DW: N/A
E-mail: m0765674 at moreheadstate dot edu
Other Characters: Freeza
Character Name: The Joker
Series: The Dark Knight
Age: 28
From When?: Post-Film, post his brief sojourn on the Barge a little over two years ago.
Inmate/Warden: Inmate. Dude just orchestrated an enormous (and partly failed) campaign to reduce Gotham city to a state of nature that led to the deaths of many and the moral destruction of one of Gotham's up and coming heroes and golden figures. The general obvious gist of his intentions appears to be "just because he could" but it likely goes a good deal deeper. A person who is convinced that people are their better, truer selves without idealism or the trappings of a functioning society and is determined to do whatever he must to make people turn in that direction, whether they wish to or not, already stands for more than randomness and "just for the laughs." The Barge puts the Joker at a disadvantage by taking him out of an environment he knows well enough to manipulate (Gotham). It operates outside of the natural laws he understands and therefore takes much of the bite out of his favorite weapons, and the changing environment and obstacles will present constant and unique challenges that, with guidance, can channel his impulses toward more...constructive purposes. A Warden is necessary to try to keep pace with him and, honestly, to provide a singular focus for him to send his message rather than the whole of the Barge (or the people of some unsuspecting port). He's fashioned himself into an agent, an instrument; what he needs now is to be used correctly, whether by himself or his warden or whomever, to find within himself a position where what he does and what he knows can be used to make things better rather than just terrible for everybody but fair.
The good news: his presence in the movie ends with his hardest line being challenged. Multiple times throughout the film, the Joker sets out traps that are in their own ways, tests. While he can be a meticulous planner, there are so many instances where his success relies on the worst he believes in people being true. One point where he's entirely successful in this is his escape from the police station, which could have been prevented if the police there had listened to an obviously-in-pain, mentally ill prisoner, who had been begging them for medical attention long before it was time for the Joker to explode the bomb sewn into his abdomen. Some of his schemes are left entirely up to whether people act as their ideal selves are believed to act in their societal role, or the way he believes they truly are. When a ship of terrified civilians and a ship of convicts had to decide to explode the other or risk everybody dying, they defied his perception of reality. This is a good starting point, and the Barge may actually be an excellent second step, because he deflected this disappointment with his certainty that he'd destroyed Harvey Dent... Harvey Dent who is a graduate of this setting. What a Warden can do with this will be detailed in the PTR section.
Arrival: The Joker is just going to wake up in his cabin with no idea that any time has passed since he last went to sleep in it. It won't be quite as impactful as his last entrance, sadly, but probably less painful on his part.
Abilities/Powers: The Joker does not have any super powers but he has a number of notable abilities:
-Various weapon proficiencies; the Joker's preferred weapon is a knife, but he knows how to use a number of projectile weapons of various grades, including rifles, revolvers, and bazookas, and it should not be assumed that he can't improvise a weapon with no others available to him.
-Familiarity enough with first aid and field dressing to perform functional amateur surgery.
-Urban guerilla warfare tactics; he and his goons are near-successful at surrounding and destroying a convoy transporting who they believe to be a recently unmasked Batman. This includes the accurate use of heavy military artillery while in a moving vehicle, coordinated offensive maneuvers that force the convoy into a closed space where they will be surrounded, and even anti-aircraft techniques.
-Complex communication and information exchange; every move the Joker makes and every move his henchmen make are extremely precise for a leader considered to be so chaotic. Nobody knows anyone else and everyone has a different way of getting in contact with the boss. Lines never cross, each zigzagging into mandallic mazes too complicated to unravel in a short amount of time. This man has learned how to pass information among many people without betraying anything to a potential enemy.
-Creation and use of improvised electronics and explosives; he turned a cell phone into a detonator for an explosive powerful enough to take out an entire police station. He displays on more than one occasion knowledge of how to acquire necessary supplies to build explosives and weapons from scratch. However, it is implied that the tech he uses and knows his way around might be a touch outdated from his canon point by a few years. Old unbreakable totally-not-a-horcrux Nokia 6030s? Cake. Newer tablets? Might take a while.
-Knowledge of police protocol and formation; he was able to successfully impersonate an armed officer at the commissioner's funeral, including during a ceremony when specific, trained, and rehearsed rituals were part of the proceedings, including properly bearing and presenting arms, salutes, marching, etc, and he was able to teach others to do the same thing without anyone noticing anything was amiss until they started shooting people.
-Knowledge of effective interrogation and torture techniques, as well as torture suppressant techniques. He knows how to push buttons. He knows how not to rough somebody up if you want them to hurt really bad, or if you want them clear enough to answer questions. His "my backstory is multiple choice" schtick is part of the reverse of that.
Personality: If you should fear anyone, fear people who are absolutely certain in their convictions. This is the Joker, given name unknown in canon, thought to be a pure anarchist by most who view him, but this is often just a safe assumption to make in order to at least attempt to anticipate his actions, because his motivations are a conundrum to even try to unravel. At the core of his being, the Joker believes he understands something about Gotham, about people: He is surrounded by masks, faces for what he terms the "established order" in his community, who the good guys and bad guys are, what they do and why, and how everyone is expected to get on with their day to day lives, even while surrounded by this. To him, it's a facade. All of it, and it's become especially clear since the introduction of the Batman, whose appearance and whatever influence this had on Gotham and its infrastructure has made the Joker, inspiring him to step out into the light. Much of his focus on the vigilante hero comes from that. He says Batman "completes" him, and as an audience, we are never given especial clarity as to what that means, but "validation" seems like our closest bet.
In action, we see the Joker as somebody who is mostly certain (and titillated when he's not). He's finally figured out how it all works, and if he wanted to, he could tell you, in detail. He could make it simple for you, but simple is not pretty. Reality is not pretty, and why tell you, when he can show you? Then you'll really get it, just like he gets it, but for it to really sink in, it's got to be grotesque. You have to be awakened by the grotesque to be real. The Joker is the dark, gritty reboot of the Flannery O'Connor aesthetic. Nobody reads about all this stuff in books and looks at the world and really sees that knowledge applied. You have to experience it. Here, we have a motivation; just one, maybe even only a small part of his inner mystery, but it exists nonetheless. The Joker asks, with seeming skepticism, if he looks like a guy with a plan. He has one. It's just especially well-masked and is a great, bloated leviathan of a thing, only parts of it ever visible and rarely understandable.
Careful to keep his full intentions close to the chest at all times, the Joker is a hard one to read. He volunteers "explanations" for himself, or rather for the scars on his face, but they change in each telling. To reference (again) another canon version of himself, his life story is multiple choice. He has a trained soldier's skill for protecting information, including about himself, his plans, and all forms of communication. Unafraid of pain, with nothing to lose, he can't be bullied or intimidated into revealing anything he does not wish to, and the information he does let go of willingly can be tricky, or flawed, or deliberately misleading. Ideas and remarks offered out of hand tend to always have a second meaning to them, even a clue to something about to happen, and then it's just your own damn fault for not being smart enough to figure it out. What's more, though, when he's making up things about himself, it tends to come from a kernel of truth. Guy got his face cut up by his dad as a kid? Who cares if it's not him? It's a thing that is absolutely allowed to happen in this world. Bus full of soldiers blown up? That HAPPENS. It's real. He will tell a sort of truth, most times, and whether it's a personal experience of his or not doesn't matter. This is not a person who lacks empathy; this is a person who accepts this horror as the human condition and continues to do horrible things because it is his human condition. The pain of feeling does not stop him. Dishonesty, direct lying, is more likely to come into his arsenal if it will absolutely serve his purposes. He lies to Harvey Dent about his involvement in Rachel's death, absolving himself of everything and painting himself as too random to have any responsibility, conveniently omitting that he deliberately switched their locations so that she would die and not the district attorney. When I say he knows how to push buttons, I mean that. He will absolutely talk about doing horrible things to people you love if he can get the emotional response out of you that he needs. He will gab on about what cowards your friends were when he murdered them (even if he's not the one that killed them!) if it makes you mad enough to try to rough him up, to show your true nature, so that he can then get the upper hand.
In terms of singular quirks, in normal conversation (what counts as that), the Joker banters. He has this odd, easy way of talking, or a way that seems like it's supposed to put you at ease. Maybe it's the makeup or the scars, but there's something almost inauthentic about it. He feels threatening to some people, probably because he evinces unpredictability when he's calm or upbeat. Playful doesn't feel safe with him, but he is playful.
The Joker also has a notable connection with the mentally ill. In fact, he deliberately exploits former patients at Arkham (who are obviously not working their program, if it wasn't defunded after Batman blew its ass out from under it in the first film). This has to be read as deliberate because the Joker's actions in the movie are never anything close to random. (He does occasionally leave his fate to chance, based on his assumptions about people and his faith in being right about them, but that's not the same thing.) As meaninglessly as he treats the Arkham patients' lives, he also wants them to be seen. Gordon remarks that these particular people are drawn to him (though they're not sure why). The Joker gives them deliberate roles that will put them into contact with the people trying to thwart him (regardless of whether it endangers these associates); the first notable one is disguised as a cop and wearing a badge that names one of his next targets (Rachel) and is too unstable for Harvey Dent to get any information from, even through use of pain and intimidation, and another has a bomb sewn into him; this one is only a danger and eventual detriment to the police department because they blatantly ignore his first repeated pleas for help. While it's hard to suggest that he himself may not have some problems of his own (it's a part he plays more than once in the movie, when he tells people about his scars), one of the few moments where you see him tighten up, like something just got to him, is when one of the mob bosses asserts that he is crazy. He doesn't like the implication because he knows he's right, but he also won't let anyone use it to suggest what he has to say shouldn't be heard. That patient in the jail cell probably should have been listened to, too.
"Agent of chaos" can be a misleading phrase to use with this iteration of the Joker (and one he deliberately uses in order to mislead). While seeming very wild and random, he tends to make very specific and deliberate decisions, and much of what he managed to do is only possible through careful coordination and planning, regardless of what else he says. The important thing, however, is the mask he puts over top of it, what he allows people to see. "You know the thing about chaos?" he asks Harvey Dent. "It's fair.." That word is going to get thrown around a lot. He wants the people around him to be in chaos, because that's the natural, truest, fairest state of the world to him. He wants you to think he's being fair, himself, because he will almost always provide a choice. It's often a crap choice and the joke is it's going to hurt either way, though. This is the thing he believes he understands that other people do not. He asks if he looks like a guy with a plan; he doesn't look it, but he has one. The important thing is how it appears, because the way everyone else reacts is what creates the chaos. "Some people want to watch the world burn," Alfred Pennyworth suggests at one point. That's a safe bet to make with someone like the Joker, who struggles to stick with just one twist in each of his plans, and it might even be true! But there's still a reason why, and one must remember that everything burns, and it takes an extraordinary strength of will (that the Joker does not credit humanity as a whole) to put up a facade and hold onto your ideals even as you are actively going up in flames.
Barge Reactions: As I mentioned before, the Barge first and foremost affects him because it is so far removed from a system and society that he knows intimately. He still doesn't fully nderstand the hierarchy, and the Bargeyard created even more questions. Existing in a space where concepts of reality (like staying dead when someone kills you) no longer really apply, and this provides an interesting framework for him to continue to adjust to. The death toll may prevent him from toying with himself too much, but even without the promise of coming back, he is not afraid of death, so that may be something to watch out for. The concept of fictional people existing is an interesting philosophical quandry for him to tackle, which he hasn't done much of yet, but it will also in its own way be very amusing to him. Floods and breaches are potentially fascinating because it's one thing for him to soliloquize about a specific mindset or a backstory he's just made up but it's another to actually be another person who does not think like he does, even if it's just another version of him. It will remind him what it feels like to NOT be what he's become and give him a base point for deciding what he wants to be in the future.
Path to Redemption: The Joker cannot be handled by someone who isn't capable of restraining or overpowering him, not when he is one to resort to violence just to test the waters around him and see how the machine works. It doesn't matter how idealistic they are, what kind of degrees in psychology they have; bad things happen to nonviolent people all the time. He will be more than happy to illustrate that for you, and it won't even be personal.
As I said in the Inmate section above, there is a potential for redemption in the Joker, and part of that potential comes from challenging his worldview, this idea of making a fairer world, a world existing in a state of nature, with no society, no established order, dog eat dog is the best thing to do. A Warden who wants to challenge that needs to be capable of A) showing they can and do rise above their base instincts, even at their lowest and most desperate, B) showing that it's possible to bring that out in others, and C) showing that bringing that out of a person, or having it yourself, is in itself rewarding and fulfilling.
I want to say that finding a way to get him to forge relationships and connections with people is a good idea, but it is not a guarantee that he won't hurt them or avoid sticking his neck out for them... even if he loves them. It has to be monitored, and his action and inaction has to be seen, understood, and called out when necessary. Positive connections need to be established as being worth getting off his regular bullshit for. Wronging them cannot be disregarded as "that's how it is sometimes" and he will absolutely try to frame it that way. Do not let him sell himself as not knowing any better.
The Joker calls himself an agent of chaos and sees himself as a tool that will awaken you, and everyone, and make the world what it should be. He believes there is a utility in his existence, work still to be done, or he wouldn't occasionally break away from "fairness" in order to stay around at least long enough for his plans to come to full fruition. This view of himself will be very difficult to break down, so a Warden may find more success if they just find a way to use the tool more constructively; that there are ways to attack the mendacity he sees all around him without just blowing the whole thing to smithereens. Sometimes there will be no way to do this without simply seeing what he does and trying to stay one step ahead of him when he's making trouble.
When he gets to storytime, try to be aware that he does this sometimes when he's either stalling or deflecting, but he is often addressing something he's thinking about and putting out something he wants you to think about. It might not actually hurt to engage him, but you can't let him control the conversation, either.
History: Link to Film Summary
Sample Journal Entry: His new TDM
Sample RP: When he woke in the infirmary, he wasn't surprised. A little disoriented? Maybe. Possibly doped? He couldn't tell. Funny thing about your brain is how it shuts certain things off when you're hit just right, or when it doesn't think you'd be able to handle new pain. So there was this haze of numb heat where he knew pain probably should be, especially centered on his left eye, which didn't feel like opening. That entire side of his face was covered in that feeling, really. If his scars were younger than they were, by even a year, the gash might have reopened in that fight. He did taste a little dried blood in his mouth, but that's probably because he bit himself.
He almost sounded excited when he asked if he died. He kind of was. Another list of observations to make. Another test to put the workings of this place into alignment in his head.
How his chest deflated with a disappointed puff when the attendant said that he hadn't deathtolled, but he did have a concussion. Given that the last thing he remembered was the Inmate he'd broken a chair on playing basketball with his head? He figured he would have at least that much.
His lips didn't quick smack like they usually did; they felt crooked when they touched each other.
"Maybe next time," he mused.
When pain doesn't really scare you, the only thing left for you to look back on your own misfortunes, however earned they are, is with humor.
b>Special Notes: None!