Antagonist: The Joker, An Agent Of Chaos

The Joker is of flesh and blood, not immortal but the disregard of petty constraint and the insatiable lust for chaos /destruction that makes The Joker scary. In one pivotal scene, The Joker quietly but vehemently urges Batman (Christian Bale) to run him down with the Batpod, a collision that would surely kill The Joker. It is not his own survival that The Joker considers, but the assertion of chaos.

To get Batman to break his one rule – to never resort to killing – would be The Joker’s ultimate victory. To spread the influence of disarray, to transform Gotham into a true “world without rules” (to reference the film’s latest tagline) is The Joker's only goal. Not to survive, not to kill Batman, but to break Batman, to drag him down to The Joker’s level. This ultimate embrace of sheer ruthless nihilism both effectively scares the other conventional villains in the film, as well as the film’s audience. Heath Ledger's deeply unsettling performance as this beacon of cinematic evil will endure in audiences' memory and film history for generations to come.

Opposing both Batman and Dent, the symbol of anarchy and psychopathic senselessness is represented by The Joker. Realizing that the mobs have been nullified by both Batman and Dent, The Joker plans on taking over Gotham’s crime by making them work as one unit under his direction. There are many scenes in which the public, views The Joker’s actions openly. An example is when The Joker says, “You and your kind, all you care about is money. This city deserves a better class of criminal. And I'm gonna give it to them!” To represent the anarchy he symbolizes, there is a scene in which The Joker is burning a mountain of money. With the mob in his control, The Joker successfully unified crime and made them realize his views. Society who has dealt with crime before will have to encounter a different take on criminals because they fight for something else other than money thus this brings fear to the public. Another reason in which The Joker’s symbolism can be fearful is due to his random killings on the public. The Joker has no empathy for anyone and will capture those as he sees fit. In a scene in which the Joker is on television says, “See, this is how crazy Batman's made Gotham! If you want order in Gotham, Batman must take off his mask and turn himself in. Oh, and every day he doesn't, people will die, starting tonight. I'm a man of my word.” A feeling of how insane The Joker can become by killing random person every day. The message of this scene is to make the people of Gotham desperate so that they can turn over their true hero. If Gotham were to turn in Batman, The Joker would be able to apply his anarchist views with no opposition because his symbol of anarchy is so great the people will listen.