The Joker Was Inspired By A Tragic Hero

The Joker is the most dangerous scary faced villain introduced in the Batman series. The Dark Knight was the first film introducing the Joker as a villain. This film was directed by Christopher Nolan and released in the year 2008. The actor Heath Ledger played the role of an evil Joker in this film. Out of all the villains shown in the Batman series so far, he has the most frightening faces of all. He has a horrible and fearful smile with a permanent grin. However, the first person to wear the face of a Joker was a hero with a tragic back-story.

Although the man who played the role of Joker was a terrifying personality, he was a kind-hearted sympathetic man with a tragic back-story. In the year 1939, the artist Bob Kane and the writer Bill Finger were trying to create a new hero for his depiction in Superman. Kane and Finger now wanted to create a villain for Batman and they were inspired by a silent movie of the year 1928, The Man Who Laughs. The tragic story of this film tells about a young man named Gwynplaine. When the father of Gwynplaine was sentenced to jail by King James II, he was captivated by Dr. Hardquannone who was a sadistic child-buyer and responsible for a permanent grin on the face of the Joker.

The captors of Gwynplaine considered him disloyal and left him in the snow. There, he rescued a blind girl and earned money for them by joining an insane show. He performed as the “Laughing Man” in that show. After several years, he became the star performer of the show and fell into the love of a current adult blind woman, Dea. However, Gwynplaine knew that she does not want to be with a freak like him, so he always tried to make a difference between them.

After a few more days, The Laughing Man became more popular, the owner of his estate, Duchess Josiana, who was a dark seductress, became attracted to the scary appearance of Gwynplaine. He was illegally forced by Queen Anne to marry Josiana. Gwynplaine did not want to marry her as he was in love with Dea, so he renounced his name and escaped from there. However, according to the novel, both Gwynplaine and Dea died, but before dying, they admitted their feelings for each other.

The permanent looks of Gwynplaine were very similar to that of a Joker. He has dark eyes, a wide smile, and an identical hairstyle as that of a Joker. He was the perfect match for the designs created by Bob Kane for the appearance of Joker. However, in comics and the film, The Dark Knight, the reason for the permanent grin on the face of Joker was the result of mutilation. Even though Joker has been an evil character but still, he has played a heroic role in Clown Prince.

Therefore, after revealing the back-story of Joker, we have concluded that he might be an evil character in today’s date, but, he is still a kind-hearted person with a tragic back-story, which has forced him to be an evil character. Moreover, the permanent grin with a terrible smile has made him more fearful and turned him to be wrong despite being a tragic hero.

Source:- Joker A Tragic Hero