The Joker Simply Wants Batman to Kill Him

With Suicide Squad hitting theaters next week, I’ve been thinking a lot about Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy. After re-watching all three films and trying to zero in on each one’s respective themes — which I believe are fear, chaos, and redemption — I began to wonder about what truly motivates the Joker.

Clearly in The Dark Knight the Joker wants to create chaos by pushing the people of Gotham City over the edge, which he is able to do with the “white knight” (Harvey Dent), but not the “dark knight” (Batman). He sets up a series of elaborate schemes which force people to make impossible life-or-death decisions, such as calling for the public death of Coleman Reese, the Wayne Enterprises employee that knows Batman’s secret identity (“If Coleman Reese isn’t dead in sixty minutes, then I blow up a hospital”) or handing detonators to the passengers of two ferry boats — one with citizens, the other with prisoners — to see which boat will hit the red button first. Of course it is never revealed, but the Joker likely gave each boat its own detonator, just as he gave Batman opposite addresses for Harvey Dent and Rachel Dawes.

“You see, in their last moments, people show you who they really are,” he laments.

But creating chaos is only one part of the equation. Why does he do it? To get Batman’s attention, of course. In nearly all iterations of the Joker that we’ve seen, they share an unhealthy obsession with Batman — almost an addiction to him — because the Joker knows that Batman is incorruptible. This is why the stakes get raised virtually every time.

In the comic book, he’s continually trying to outdo himself, from killing Robin to cutting his own face off and stapling it back on. In a 2014 story by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo called Endgame, Joker hatched a convoluted plan to fool the world’s greatest detective into thinking he was immortal. I believe he did so hoping that Batman would accidentally give him his greatest wish: death. If Joker couldn’t get Batman to willingly kill him, by creating the illusion of being invincible, Joker could trick him into taking his life.

And that is sort of what happened, as the two fought to the death in a crumbling cave and were both ultimately “killed” in its collapse. Sure, it’s comics — they came back — but Joker ultimately got what he truly desired, even if only temporarily.

Death by the hand of caped crusader is the one constant that every version of the Joker wants, which is why he keeps egging him on by escalating his crimes. It’s why we see Jack Nicholson’s Joker welcome the cannon-firing Batwing with open arms in Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman film, just as we see Heath Ledger’s Joker do the same to the Batpod in The Dark Knight in two eerily similar scenes. In both, Joker welcomes death by saying “come on,” begging the Dark Knight to mow him down.

This is again mirrored at the end of the 2011 video game Batman: Arkham City. As Mark Hamill’s Joker clings to life, he taunts Batman by delivering a laundry list of reasons as to why he should simply just finish him. In that reality, Joker still doesn’t quite get his wish, dying accidentally.

“Quick, the cure! What are you waiting for? Come on! I killed your girlfriend, poisoned Gotham, and hell, it’s not even breakfast. But so what? We all know you’ll save me.”

However since Batman is incorruptible, The Joker knows that Batman will never intentionally kill him, allowing him to indefinitely continue his reign of terror. It’s a vicious cycle that will go on forever, and in either case, Joker gets what he wants. If he can’t get Batman to kill him, he can just have a grand ol’ time literally painting the town red.

Christopher Nolan’s Joker suggests in The Dark Knight:

“This is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. You are truly incorruptible, aren’t you? Huh? You won’t kill me out of some misplaced sense of self-righteousness. And I won’t kill you because you’re just too much fun. I think you and I are destined to do this forever.”

And they are, because of Batman’s moral code against killing. Joker later confesses, “I don’t want to kill you! What would I do without you? Go back to ripping off mob dealers? No, no, NO! No. You… you… complete me,” in a darkly hilarious nod to Jerry Maguire.

This dynamic of Batman and Joker’s relationship was expertly explored in Alan Moore’s 1988 graphic novel, The Killing Joke, which ambiguously suggests that Batman may have killed the Joker off panel. Whether he did or not is debatable.

In those final pages of The Killing Joke, as Batman chokes Joker to “death” or near death — whichever your interpretation—Joker laughs hysterically because he is finally getting what he wants. In the last few panels of the book, the laughter suddenly stops and the light goes out.

A similar scenario takes place in Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, as Batman stops a Joker killing spree by breaking his neck, before Joker uses his last bit of strength to twist his head and finish the deed.

“It’s finally here, isn’t it? The moment we’ve both dreamed about,” Joker jeers in the animated film adaptation of The Dark Knight Returns. “Make me! Come on! Finish me!… Ah, doesn’t matter. I win. I made you lose control. (laughs) and they’ll kill you for it. (laughs) See you in hell!”

In any of these scenarios, Joker more-or-less succeeds in turning Batman into a killer. But this begs the question, why exactly does Joker want this? Jealousy and envy, of course. Besides the fact that Joker wants to be put out of his misery in a glorious death, he doesn’t believe that anyone can be “incorruptible.” Rather, he believes that all men are inherently evil and is frustrated by Batman’s nobility. By pushing Batman over the edge, the Joker can ultimately prove to the world that they are one and the same… and that is certainly more fulfilling than simply just watching the world burn.

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