"Well, that hurts. If you truly look, Batgirl… you’ll see I’m the only man in the world capable of..."

“Well, that hurts. If you truly look, Batgirl… you’ll see I’m the only man in the world capable of showing love.”

-

Joker (via dclayer)

This is a quote from my Joker issues of Batgirl. It’s something I have had in mind for a long, long time.

There’s a canard in fiction that even the bad guys consider themselves the heroes of their own stories, and I think that’s pure bullshit. Some people LIKE being the bad guy, they WANT to do what they are told is wrong, they don’t think it’s heroic at all. They like it BECAUSE it’s bad and cruel.

I don’t think those people see themselves as heroes. 

For the same reason, it hit me once that everything I know about the Joker leads up to him not being motivated by fear, but by twisted versions of the emotions we all crave. Even in Killing Joke, it’s not fear that makes him, it’s heartbreak. 

And no one’s heart is more broken than the Joker.

So he doesn’t think he’s a hero, he knows he’s the bad apple. But I believe his origin is about love, in the same way that Batman’s is, at the core. Bruce loved his parents and lost them before he was even old enough to understand fully what that meant. His love was shrapnel in his heart, and to this day, it’s a tough muscle that doesn’t let everyone in easily.

I also have a second odd theory, I think the Joker genuinely likes people, I think he even prefers to kill people he has a bit of fondness for.

I could talk about this for a long time. But the Joker thinks he is capable of love that the rest of the world isn’t ready for.

That’s my theory.