DC Comics
The Joker is not insane. This theory is already raising eyebrows but there is a lot to support the argument that the Joker is not insane but is in fact “super-sane”. Firstly, the Joker has far too much empathy and understanding of human emotion to be psychopathic. Whilst his countless murders may suggest otherwise his ability to play with people’s emotions in order to manipulate them demonstrates high levels of empathy. Empathy that he used to turn Harleen Quinzel into his murderous sidekick Harley Quinn. A top of this, Joker’s powers of persuasion and understanding of people’s emotions have allowed him to manipulate even the most brilliant of minds such as Lex Luthor, who he has persuaded into doing his bidding by playing to his hatred of Superman and lust for power. The Joker cannot be psychotic if he doesn’t suffer psychosis which he doesn’t. He is not known to have auditory or visual hallucinations and shows little to no signs of being delusional.
So, the Joker is not a psychopath but is he insane? Insanity is a legal term and when an insanity plea is entered into court ultimately it comes down to a jury to decide whether or not the accused is insane or not. In real life, an insanity plea is used in fewer than one percent of cases and is successful only a fifth of the time which makes it particularly strange that the Joker has been found insane after many of his crimes despite showing no actual signs of genuine insanity.
One Arkham physician described the Joker’s actions as meticulously calculated and not the workings of a mad man but someone who is perfectly sane and that the Joker should be sent to prison and executed not sent to Arkham asylum. However, since the physician transpired to be Harleen Quinzel whom later became Harley Quinn all of this information was dismissed.
Classed as a special case Arkham psychologists unofficially diagnosed the Joker as “super-sane”. The Joker has also referred to himself as being “differently Sane” and ahead of the curve
In its simplest form the term “super-sane” just means that someone can break the 4th wall, much like Marvel’s Deadpool.
Joker knows he is a comic book character which explains him winking directly at the camera when in animated form and grabbing speech bubbles, talking about his audience despite being alone and even once asking the artist to stop drawing Batman when on the pages of a comic. Such things have previously been passed off as clever jokes but this theory suggests that there is more to it than just some wit on the creators’ part.
Believing he has killed Batman the Joker leaves behind crime to become a normal functioning member of society, in the comic “Going Sane”. This depicts Joker reassessing his belief that he is a comic book character as a comic would not kill of the main character. However, Joker stops second guessing himself and takes up the mantle as the clown prince of crime once more when he realises Batman is not actually dead.
Also, after using the Lazarus pit which causes temporary insanity to its user the Joker ended up being temporarily normal, relaxed, rational, and sorry for his actions. Continuing under the assumption that the Joker is super-sane we can see that the Lazarus turning Joker sane was actually the Lazarus pit taking him one level of sanity below what he is, the same thing it does when turning sane people insane.
The inconstancies in the Joker’s back story only aid this theory after all it doesn’t need to make sense if he is a comic book character simply fulfilling his role as the main villain. In addition to this, the Joker’s 4th wall breaking abilities would explain why he was able to identify Spider-man in a Marvel / DC crossover comic from a previous crossover comic despite it not being canon.
Through his many years on the pages of comics Joker has been laughing and trying to tell people about life’s biggest joke – what if the joke is how much people care for the countless people he has killed because they don’t see that they are not real people but mere comic book characters as the Joker does.
These quotes from a conversation within a comic all but confirm this theory as fact. Whilst locked in an isolation tank Joker was chatting away and when asked what he was doing he replied, “I was entertaining my fans”, continuing to say “I make people laugh, not everyone is here to see the Batman ya know”. When told that he was not a clown entertaining his audience but a murderer he retorted “it just so happens that I have a very demanding public, I’m constantly striving to meet their expectations, do you have any idea how much pressure I’m under”. The doctor in the conversation asked Joker whether he had considered that his “fans” were figments of his imagination but the Joker just replied “has it ever occurred to you doc that we’re just figments of theirs?” That last sentence is the final nail in the coffin of this theory and makes it seem almost certain, it is also cool really if you say it in Mark Hamill’s Joker voice.
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