Explaining a villain's origins isn't the same thing as justifying his actions. The horrifying punchline of The Killing Joke is that anyone, even the best of us, could be driven to utter, psycopathic madness if pushed hard enough. The idea that there's a decent human being somewhere inside the Joker is far more frightning to me than having him just be irretrevably evil.
Of course, the book also counters that. Gordon survives his torture, and even tells Batman to bring Joker in 'by the book,' to "show him that our way works" (or words to that effect), so the story contains its own antithesis, as well. That there are some people who just won't go that far, by nature (Gordon) implies that there are also some who were inherently unstable to begin with, Joker and Batman (they are the two inmates at the asylum in Joker's joke at the end, after all).
It's a complex tale. Perhaps ideologically incosistent, but I think every character represents, performs, exactly what he really is, at the core.
That's the kind of Joker I'd like to see in the next Nolan/Bale Batman film. Someone who was normal, but was pushed so far that the only way that life makes sense anymore is to inflict the same pain he feels onto other people, his elaborate planning and theatricality implying that the universe really is out to get you. It's organised. It's conscious. All the atrocities happen on purpose. Joker has to believe that what happened to him, whatever it was, happens to everyone. It's a way of avoiding the personal outrage, the million-to-one odds, to place himself in universe in which others aren't so cosmically lucky as to have avoided his own fate.
Posted by orion at October 24, 2005 3:29 PM