In the pictures above are two men. One is the Dark Knight, Batman, who wants to protect Gotham, and the other is the Joker, the one who wants to watch Gotham burn. Many would say that these two are polar opposites, and in some instances, they are. However, both represent something inside of all of us that is dark, and in that sense, they are alike.
Most of us know the story of Batman; his parents were killed when he was a boy and he grew up and began to fight crime. In doing this, he had to dawn a mask and a costume, use a fake identity, and make up alibis. He effectively had to create an entirely separate personality. In one personality he was the billionaire reclusive man named Bruce Wayne. In the other, he was Batman, the dark hero of Gotham. While he is a superhero in his second life, he does have a secret second life like so many people do today. Normal, everyday people, people you may think you know well, think you know everything about, could very easily have a second life. They could secretly be drug addicts, sex addicts, in a gang, in debt to the mob, depressed, or a number of other things. While these people that have this level of bad stuff going on in their life may be few and far between, they are out there. People always have something to hide, something that people need not know about, something that they don't want to come to light. Everyone, even Batman, has demons in their closet.
The Joker, probably one of the most interesting characters of the Batman series (I know for myself he is the most interesting). Not much can be told about his past from the movies, not even how he got his scars. But one thing is known for certain, and Alfred put it exactly how it is, "some people just want to watch the world burn". People like this take pleasure from watching other in pain or someone else struggle and fail. So the question is, have you ever felt this way? Most of you will say no to this, and that is a good thing because hopefully there aren't a lot of people out there that take pleasure in watching others suffer, but noticed how I said some and not all. There are people out there with twisted minds that enjoy watching others suffer and enjoy others failing. Since people are not born with a mind like this, it must have developed into this. There must have been something from his past to cause this. Was it his father? Was it the way his wife was depressed? Both of these come from stories that he told in the movie, saying that he got the scars on his face from them. However, he says that each specific event caused the scars, but I want to propose the idea that they both caused them, if they are true that is. All of the mistreatment, neglect, and feelings of loneliness culminated in those scars. In real life, people may not cut a smile onto their face, but experiences shape people to be who they are. If a kid is raised by neglectful parents and is abused in his home, he is much more likely to become aggressive. So the Joker represents how people can become so twisted from past experiences, and part of the reason people are so infatuated with him is because they do not know how he became this way, only that he is now this way.
So the real question is this: why are people so interested with dark characters like this? The answer is a simple one: These characters represent the darker parts of the human psyche that exist in all of us. They may not exist to the extent that they do in these characters, but they are there nonetheless. The characters allow us to make connections to their lives and experiences, and get a glimpse into the darker parts of ourselves that may never (hopefully) become as pronounced as they don in these characters.
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