History WMG / TheDarkKnightTrilogy

Harry was probably friends of someone in the Wayne family (either Bruce s grandfather or one of his uncles) due to Wayne Corps military interests (which have included British special ops or MI5). At some unseen point Harry was named as infant Bruce's godfather. And at some other point Harry took the job as the Wayne butler simply because he was starting to get bored with his retired life.

If the fear toxin affects all living things, the horses the mounted policemen rode at the end of Batman Begins should have been panicking too. Even if the toxin doesn't affect animals, horses are some of the jumpiest animals in the world. Sure, they're well-trained police horses, but everyone is panicking, screaming, and who knows what happened to their riders so the horses would be pretty spooked, and yet Dr. Crane managed to get hold of one and ride it, even getting it to rear for him when he was trying to intimidate Rachel Dawes? Either that was a really blatant case of Did Not Do Research (horses do not act like that for just anyone!) or this is not Dr. Crane's first rodeo.

* After he was "saved" by Bruce Wayne from being killed, Reese decided to back off for awhile until the Joker situation is resolved or contained. Then he come back to stalk Batman/Bruce Wayne. As we see in the film, Reese is interested in making money and is not happy when Bruce disagrees with Lau's proposal. He may or may not be aware that Lau was a criminal. In the second sequel, not only will he try to blackmail Bruce for money or he'll reveal his secret identity, but he'll also figure out what really happened to Harvey Dent. He'll learn that Batman, Gordon and the few cops are hiding the truth that Harvey killed people, thus threatening people's faith and hopes. Reese may also find out that Rachel chose Harvey and emotionally defeat Batman (temporarily). If Harvey DOES come back, then Reese will probably tell Harvey that Bruce is Batman and tricks him into thinking he let Rachel die because if Bruce can't have her no one can.
** The Nolanverse has stayed faithful to the comics as far as names go. Origins, not so much but Riddler wouldn't be the same without the E.Nigma.

[[WMG: The Bank Manager Joker gassed is also on the road to becoming a traditional Batman villain.]]
Has a respect for traditional organized crime... Ventriloquist? Joker gives him a "doesn't kill you makes you stranger" line that sounds a lot like foreshadowing, then possibly disfigures him with some kind of toxin... Black Mask? Taking any suggestions.

[[WMG: If this is JUST gonna be a trilogy, then I'm Elvis, my dad is Bigfoot and my mom is ComicBook/WonderWoman]]
Let's be realist here. Do you REALLY think Warner Bros is gonna kill one of their most lucrative cash cows? That is NOT a smart business decision, at all. Trust me, we are gonna get Dark Knight 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.... (just like the ''Saw'' movies).

* There are several directors that could make a good batman film.
** If I recall back in the 90's Alex Proyas was considered because of his work on The Crow.

** Well, that's a limited literary adaptation, while Batman has over 60 years of comics and tens of villains to draw on. And on a technical note to that claim, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0k3kHtyoqc Observe!]]
* They're making a new movie for him in the new DCCU. Not canon with TDKS though.

Consider his fascination with knives, and the way he's always drawing attention to his scars. It's reasonable to imagine that he did them himself, not to cheer up some phony-baloney wife or anything, but as another part of his theatrical image, another layer of "war paint". Or he did it because he was bored one day - this is The Joker, after all.

While the Joker wreaks havoc indiscriminately thoughout the movie, he seems to have a thing for organized crime. He specifically chooses a mob bank for the opening heist, he walks into a meeting of the different gangs fully armed and prepared to detonate the entire building, and when telling Batman he doesn't want to kill him specifically states that he would have to "go back to robbing mob banks?". Both of his stories involve a woman close to him being harmed, which could be him leading up to telling Batman a story about his "poor beautiful daughter" before Bats catches him by surprise. Going with either the WMG above or the completely not self-inflicted WMG, it would make sense if he had somehow survived getting shot IN THE MOUTH by a mobster for whatever reason, possibly actually losing a woman close to him in the process. The incident makes him undergo a self-Hannibal Lecture that sets him on the path we see in the movie.

*** "And my alter ego looked like Brad Pitt and he was insane--he wanted to destroy the world. So I took a gun to my mouth to try to stop him. Instead, I ''became'' him. But I don't look like Brad Pitt--''why'' can't I look like Brad Pitt? If I am him, then I should look like him, right? Then ''why'' do I look like ''this''?"
* Would the logical conclusion be, that Joker is the way older [[WMG/CalvinAndHobbes Calvin]]?
** [[BigNo NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!]] NO! [[ChildrenAreInnocent NONONONONO!]] [[CanonDefilement * whimper* ]]...
*** Considering The Joker's M.O. and {{Calvinball}} this seems quite likely...

* This means that every scene in which the Joker and Batman are together it is within Batmans mind. When he beats the shit out of the Joker in the interrogation it is, in fact the Joker beating himself up. He's the only one that doesn't understand that he has a split personality. Batman never goes to find Rachel in the warehouse, he understands what will happen and imagines it because he is the Joker.

[[WMG: Most of The Dark Knight never happens- it is simply Bruce's fantasy.]]

* A new, unrepentantly evil and extremely dangerous criminal appears, who only Batman can deal with. He tortures and kills the people who impersonate Batman, the people of Gotham (who no longer need Batman) and the legal system that is replacing Batman.
* Lucius, Bruce's only close companion and parent substitute, is close to perfect- competent at everything, very wise and incorruptible.

* Harvey, who stole both Rachel and Batman's reason for existing, loses Rachel, suffers horribly, proves not to have the moral fortitude to deal with her death [[FaceHeelTurn without turning evil]] (unlike Bruce) and is killed by Batman.

The Joker came out of nowhere, has no identity, no past and seems to exist solely to cause chaos. Evil people in real life have at least something else they like to do besides cause trouble and always have some kind of past. It could be that the Joker is a demon or spirit sent to cause chaos and misery on Earth. He could also be sent by God as a test of people's faith and righteousness if I may dip into my inner Christian.
I know it's part of the mystery of the character, but Two-Face and Batman and Scarecrow got histories so why not the Joker? Even he can't get his own history straight with his "Why So Serious?" tales that change every time he tells it. Either he is that much of a psychopath or he doesn't have a history at all.
* For a similar idea, one could say that Randall Flagg of The Stand and Franchise/TheDarkTower series is the Joker - both are surprisingly charismatic for being violently insane, scarily competent with evil, ambiguous in history, and both are servants of chaos and destruction.

* Joker is [[Creator/HPLovecraft one of the Masks of Nyarlathotep]]. He even calls himself an avatar of chaos - not far from that to the Crawling Chaos.

* Except that The Joker went out of his way to prevent the blackmailer from revealing who Batman is because he didn't want the secret spoiled. But that didn't mean he mightn't have ''suspected'' it. Yet as Lois Lane said as regards the Clark Kent/Superman thing when Supes revealed himself to her, "Suspecting something and believing it aren't necessarily the same thing."
* Its not about Batman the person, its about Batman the symbol; if it got out that Bruce was Batman, the police would move in, and he'd be arrested. That would destroy the person, and leave the symbol in tact. Also, it would shift the public's attention off the symbol and onto the person. Joker wanted to destroy the whole concept of batman, not the person. He needed Batman as, for all intents and purposes, a separate entity from Bruce.

** Or even the Joker didn't know what detonator did what.

* The detonators were designed to just blow ''themselves'' up when activated. The batteries were just small batteries inside the cases of larger batteries, the rest of the cases' insides being some sort of blasting material. It would have the benefit of both Classic Joker's lethal pranks (in this case, and upgraded palm buzzer), ''and'' it would have the mark of (fandom's perception of) the TDK Joker by permanently branding those who made the morally wrong choice but letting them survive no matter what choice the other made. This also means it would have been obvious once the boats docked that it was the prison warden or officer or whatever who pressed the button, and not some sort of little uprising among the cuffed and shackled prisoners against the armed man surrounded by guards who got the detonator in the first place.

* Related to above. What reason does the Joker have to lie? The outcome as he's planned it is perfect one way or the other as he sees it. Either a whole bunch of civilians get blown up, in which case the prisoners would be blamed, or the boat staff would be blamed, or the boat full of civilians have just blown up an entire boat of other people, and the social experiment has proven that ordinary people are able to kill people if pushed too far, which is what the Joker already tried to prove with Two-Face and Batman himself. He has absolutely no reason for lying.
** He had no reason to lie about the respective locations of Rachel and Harvey Dent, and he also had no reason to lie about where his scars came from. He's a liar. The reason is because it amuses him. If it did exactly what he said it would do, it would be terrible, but everybody would have known what to expect. But if he was lying, then the thesis statement of the social experiment is still valid, but now, in addition, he has wrought even more chaos.

*** This troper disagrees, the boat experiment really was about the people on the boat, not Batman. If he was successful, an entire boatful of people would have killed another boatful of people. That would have been a wonderful validation of the Joker's beliefs and ethos, and showed to a boatload of people how monstrous they really were. That's his philosophy as presented in the movie, to show how people really -are- when they're pressed. Allowing one boat to kill the other will show that sticking by "nobility" will get you killed by those who are more "honest." But having a boat's passengers blow themselves up would allow the surviving boat's crew to appear noble, uncorrupted, and rewarded for taking the high moral ground, just what the Joker despises. He lets those who have been corrupted and become raw and pure in his eyes to go, while killing those who resist baser instincts.

Ok, here goes: The Joker is the ONLY outlier in the three movies where the antagonist wasn’t clearly stated to be a member of the League of Shadows. For some reason, he sets up shop in the only city to both have a strong mobster presence, and the world’s (Nolanverse) only vigilante with military grade hardware.

As pointed out on multiple occaisions, he really couldn't care less about money, and he does EXACTLY what Ras Al Ghul did before, and what Bane / Talia would do later: try to destabilize Gotham.

Now, Ras Al Ghul’s death doesn’t mean that much as far as the League of Shadows as an institution is concerned, but the destruction of their headquarters means a lot. That put the guy who would become the Joker without any governing body to report to. The infighting starts, and the proto-Joker stays loyal to Ras Al Ghul’s faction, and as a result, gets captured by a splinter cell and tortured.

The movie even implies that the reason why someone like the Joker could come to power is because Batman messed with the status quo. And again, with Talia / Bane, their motivations are directly tied to Ras’ death. Ras wouldn’t even allow Bane to stay in the League while he was alive.

* In the first and third movies, the only people who come out and say it are Ras, Talia, and Bane. Their underlings won’t admit to it, even under interrogation.

[[WMG:If Creator/HeathLedger survived ComicBook/TheJoker would have been the [[HangingJudge judge]].]]

Gambol, the Chechen, and Maroni all survived. Joker threatened to feed the Chechen to dogs but we never see him do it and he is captured by the police shortly afterwards. Odds are, his men, who probably have Mafia loyalty, release him afterwards. Maroni's fate lands heads up yet he did get in a car crash. But Two-Face wouldn't want to kill someone that his coin told him not to. So the crash just incapacitated Maroni for a while so Two Face could escape the car. Gambol had his cheek slashed open and that's it. It, as many fans pointed out, shouldn't be fatal. The Joker left the building and told his henchmen to supervise the "tryouts." If I was Gambol, I'd use the distraction and then get the hell out of the building, get to a hospital, and then get as far away from Gotham as he could.

[[WMG: The Prison in 'Rises was the Lazarus Pit.]]
* In the comics, the Lazarus Pit is synonymous with the League of Shadows. It's only fitting that Nolan and co. would rework it for the movies, which he did. In ''Film/TheDarkKnightRises'', the pit prison, located somewhere in, er, Morocco? Somewhere. In the second act, Bruce goes into the pit broken and after his months-long physical and spiritual recovery, emerges restored, just like the mystical pool from the DC universe, minus the mysticism. There are references to Ra's al Ghul's metaphorical resurrection from the pit as well, in the form of [[spoiler: Talia and Bane carrying on his legacy after climbing to freedom and Bruce's hallucinogenic meeting with Ra's himself.]]

[[WMG: The Prison in 'Rises REALLY WAS the Lazarus Pit.]]
I mean in the mystical sense. Entering AND escaping the pit has the same super natural effects as the liquid dip in the comics. Only the effects of the pit are more subtle. That's how Batman was able to get to Gotham (from another country) fast enough before the bomb exploded as well as surviving the explosion in the first place. Ra's actually appeared before Bruce as well, he was exposed to the Pit to the point that he developed an astral form.

I've been Spending too much time on the A:tLA page. Anyway, Koh is basically a troll anyhow and he did tell Aang that they would meet again (disregard the online game thingy). So! Going with the theory that the Spirit World is Just another dimension, Koh got bored with the avatarverse and peeked into the nolanverse. He spotted a man with an interesting face 'Jack Napier' after he had a be abused by his father, mutilated and self mutilated. I think even Napier would have some kind of reaction to Koh. Koh would then steal his face, put on some make up and seek out the nolanverse equivalent of the Avatar who is... Harvey Dent! Koh, still in his joker body/face also 'stole' Dent's face. or at least half. Harvey Dent is the Avatar.

The reason he wears makeup is because he wants to mimic his REAL face on the face of the man he stole.

* This was either is real name, and he saw that [[IncrediblyLamePun it resembled "Joker"]], or he decided to change his original name to it (like how Eddie Nashton -> Edward Nigma -> E.Nigma -> The Riddler). If he were caught, having a fake "real name" could cover for his ''actual'' name! Also, the J could stand for Jack, in reference to the last set films.

When the title of the third film was revealed, a pretty good number of people complained that it sounded awkward, and that they should have chosen a catchier title. Understandably, a few people wondered why he didn't bother to include the hero's name in the title. Could it be that he wanted to make the title sound similar to ''The Dark Knight Returns'' so that the name could be used for a fourth movie? ''Film/TheDarkKnightRises'' being followed by ''Comicbook/BatmanTheDarkKnightReturns''--it definitely ''sounds'' fitting. Sure, Nolan has said that he wants ''Rises'' to definitively end the series, but that doesn't preclude the possibility of making a DistantFinale at some indeterminate point in the future. Theoretically, a ''Returns'' movie could function more as an epilogue to the series than as a sequel, and it would give him a chance to examine Batman's legacy and the effect that his crusade has on Gotham in the long run. He could even make a ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond'' movie, and it would serve the same purpose.

The eight-year gap between ''The Dark Knight'' and ''The Dark Knight Rises'' seems a little odd, especially since only four years have passed between those two movies in the real world. So why the time-skip? Could it be that they wanted to end the series at a point when Commissioner Gordon's son would be old enough to take up crime-fighting? The first trailer for ''Rises'' seems to imply that there's a distinct possibility that Gordon won't live through the third movie--this could give Gordon Jr. the [[YouKilledMyFather motivation]] to become a vigilante, and it would give him a good origin story that mirrors Bruce's. Also, the fact that Bane is the villain of the series' final movie means that there's a distinct possibility that Bruce will [[ComicBook/{{Knightfall}} wind up paralyzed]] by the end--if this ''does'' happen, he'll need someone to act as his successor.

* [[spoiler: Jossed. We briefly learn that Gordon's wife left him and [[PutOnABus moved to Cleveland with their children]] after the events of ''The Dark Knight''. Beyond this, Jimmy and the other Gordon children are never mentioned. It's implied that Robin "John" Blake will become Batman's successor]].

The big revelation about Henri Ducard being Ra's Al-Ghul still leaves an important question unanswered. As anyone who's read the comics knows, the name "Ra's Al-Ghul" means "The Demon's Head" in Arabic--why the hell would a clan of ninjas based in the mountains of East Asia take their marching orders from someone with an Arabic code-name? This is particularly surprising since, as Ducard indicates, the name has been passed down by the League's leaders for thousands of years. The answer? The League of Shadows that Bruce fought in the first movie was just a cell of a much larger organization whose leadership is based in the Middle East. By foiling their first attempt to destroy Gotham, Bruce merely got the attention of the ''really'' powerful men in the League's inner circle. By the time ''Rises'' comes around, they'll have had around ten years to plan their revenge against him. Maybe they're the ones holding Bane's leash...
* Though most of this remains to be seen, the part about the League of Shadows having leaders based in the Middle East is starting to seem very likely. Remember that OminousLatinChanting in the trailers that caught everyone's attention? That's not Latin--it's Moroccan Arabic.

The Joker explicitly states to Harvey Dent, "I'm an agent of KAOS." KAOS recruited the Joker to devastate Gotham City, much like The League of Shadows, except for political or financial purposes. CONTROL hesitated to intervene because of the wild card that is Batman. However, now that Batman is temporarily out of the picture, CONTROL will send in Agent 99, aka Selina Kyle under the guise of Catwoman to disrupt KAOS' operations. Thus, Creator/AnneHathaway is actually reprising her role from the Get Smart film in The Dark Knight Rises.

It was already heavily implied in ''Literature/AmericanPsycho'' that Patrick Bateman's murders & general [[AxeCrazy Axe Craziness]] was in fact all part of a delusion; he broke down even further, reimagining himself as he'd like to be (a good person, basically; note the similarity between the names Bateman and Batman) and reimagining New York as a highly stylised Gotham City. The Joker is a manifestation of all of Bateman's dark urges, the same urges that were manifesting themselves as fantasies of murder, mutilation & mayhem in ''American Psycho''. & who knows? Perhaps Harvey Dent is based on a real-life DA candidate that Bateman doesn't trust, & perhaps Dr. Jonathan Crane was a psychiatrist Bateman saw (that's assuming someone finally noticed that he needs one) with whom he wasn't comfortable, &c., &c.. The lack of major female rôles is a consequence of Bateman's sexist tendencies. OR, even better, all of ''American Psycho'' was a delusion suffered by Bale's character in ''The Machinist'', in an ''Inception''-like maze of dreams within dreams.

* His appearance in Part 3 would be a great way to bookend the series, and would probably occur just prior to the endgame, likely with something like, "How many times do I have to tell you that Ra's al-Ghul is immortal?" and TheReveal that he's been manipulating things from behind the scenes throughout "The Dark Knight" and afterward, including the entire plot of the third movie which would come with its own false [[TheReveal reveal]].

* This Troper is a geek, her sister refuses to read comics but will see the odd comic film. Coming out of the film, Troper and Troper's Sister were discussing Joker's makeup. Troper's Sister responded "He hasn't perfected putting it on yet." Then it hit me. There was no chemical spill, no tragic backstory...or we'd have seen one. This Joker is just a guy who decided to put on makeup and be a dick to Batman because he found it amusing.

Remember the scene where Batman holds a mafia guy over a ledge to scare him and he retorts that "a fall from this height wouldn't kill me" to which Batman says "I know. I'm counting on it" and drops him anyway? That's exactly what he'd hope would happen to Harvey when he tackled him!

** Then you should get used to Rule of Nolan's Movies Are Set On Their Own Free Continuity With Beginning Middle And End - Which Is TDKR.

He's not the type to plead "not guilty" or enter an insanity plea which would keep him out of Arkham. He would gleefully and proudly take responsibility for all the destruction, death, and mayhem he caused. All that admitted premeditated murder only warrents one punishment. Plus it's a nice explaination to get rid of the Joker after Ledger's death and could impact the story when mysterious Joker-style crimes start popping up again.
* You have never read of comic book in your entire life, have you? The Joker ALWAYS pleads Insanity, and he ALWAYS gets it. Also, he did in-fact plead Not Guilty once, because he honestly didn't kill the person they said he did. This is how Batman knew he was telling the truth, and he begrudgingly set out to find who was trying to frame the Joker.
** I have read more comic books than it took to push the Flaming Carrot over the edge and this is not about comics, this is about the realism the movies are trying to establish and there is simply no way the Joker is making it to a third movie alive, he will either be exceuted or killed in prison. He's pissed off ''way'' too many people in that city to realistically be allowed to live.

*** The thing is though is that the Joker wouldn't do that because he honestly doesn't think he's insane, he'd either plead guilty (because he's ''proud'' he did it) or not guilty (just for the fun of screwing with people during the proceedings).

Its quite clear that during his HannibalLecture, the Joker figured out that Batman was in love with Rachel, and he's already ruled out Harvey Dent being Batman. From there, it wouldn't be hard to run down the list of men who've been involved with Rachel, romantically or otherwise. From there, it wouldn't be hard to figure out which ones would have the resources and capabilities to do what Batman does. Who sits at the top of that list? Bruce Wayne. Now, why doesn't the Joker act on this? Because he ''doesn't care.''

Ok, here it goes: The Joker is the ONLY outlier in the three movies where the antagonist wasn’t clearly stated to be a member of the League of Shadows. For some reason, he sets up shop in the only city to both have a strong mobster presence, and the world’s (nolanverse) only vigilante with military grade hardware.

As pointed out on multiple occaisions he really couldnt care less about money, and he does EXACTLY what Ras Al Ghoul did before, and what Bane / Talia would do later: try to destabilize Gotham.

The problem with the military theory, is even for personnel is top secret positions, their civilian identity doesn’t usually get scrubbed. Instead, its their *relationship* with the branch of the military that’s kept secret. With this in mind, the Joker’s civilian identity would still come up in identity checks.

The only way to truly stay outside the system, is to never be part of it in the first place. Taking into account the Joker’s skill set, overall education, etc., the more effective explanation for all of his character attributes is he was born outside the US within the League of Shadows.

They gave him the training for what he does in the Dark Knight.

Now, Ras Al Ghoul’s death doesn’t mean that much as far as the League of Shadows as an institution is concerned, but the destruction of their headquarters means a lot. That put the guy who would become the Joker without any governing body to report to. The infighting starts, and the proto-Joker stays loyal to Ras Al Ghoul’s faction, and as a result, gets capture by a splinter cell and tortured.

The torture Joker endured, led to his injuries, and combined with his life of destabilizing countries, eventually he took this perspective to its extremes because its all he knew. After he escaped, or the infighting allowed him to go free, he travels to Gotham. Becoming progressively more unhinged, on some level he planned on picking up where Ras left off.

For an explanation as to why the Joker doesn’t say he was a league member:

* Since the Joker operates much like a lone wolf, only he would seriously know the answer to that question, so unless he opts so say it, all we have to go on are his tactics and goals.

It’s important to note: this movie is also the only installment to feature attack dogs. Specifically, “dogs off their leash,” which is an apt metaphore for what the Joker is quickly becoming. Losing his sense of self, and bearing, he develops an obsession with “The Batman” who sparked all the experiences that led the Joker to this new identity. He even goes so far as to explicitly say: “I’m a dog chasing cars.” ...which is usually what dogs do when their owner isn’t present.

He figures out that Batman is Bruce Wayne as early as the fund raiser, because its a Wayne-owned building without a Wayne present. However, upon realizing this, and seeing Batman’s reaction to Rachel falling out the window, he’s confronted with an idealist who doesn’t fit his world view. This causes a villainous BSOD, and causes him to leave the fund raiser immediately. Between this and realizing Batman is Bruce Wayne, he learned everything he needs to know. Disturbed by Bruce Wayne’s idealism, the Joker stops trying to kill him, and instead goes about trying to torture him into becoming another Joker-like killer.

An allusion to this is made by Bane in the subsequent movie where he tells Wayne something along the lines of “only after you are utterly broken, will you have my permission to die.”

When the Harvey prisoner transfer takes place, the Joker knows its a trap, so he goes about using terror tactics, because that’s all he knows. His tactics though, like taking down the helicopter... insurgents don’t usually have access helicopters. The same thing goes for his rocket launcher. That type is a Warsaw pact weapon. Again, something insurgents would use.

How the ‘Glasgow Smile’ actually became a thing in the real world, the victim usually has their face ‘cut enough,’ but not all the way through, so they can actually tear their own flesh by simply opening their mouth far enough (I bet you thought this theory would be lame). The victim is then tortured until they do a wide-mouth scream, causing the *actual* ‘smile.’

Fast forward to the ‘soldier’ lecture with Harvey: the Joker isn’t talking about feeling abandoned getting ‘blown up.’ He’s talking about blowing up soldiers and realizing after the fact that its a weak terror tactic. This matches the “Dont start with the head” advice he gives to Batman, and the “Knives show a person’s true personality” lecture to the cop.

By the time of the third movie, the reason we don’t hear mention of him in the third movie is Bane and Talia quietly take him out, becuase he would be too unreliable to include in their plans, and too dangerous to leave alive.

[[WMG: The Joker is an AU version of [[VideoGame/EarthBound Giygas.]]]]

-->-- '''Franchise/{{Batman}}''', ''Film/TheDarkKnight''

[[WMG: If this is JUST gonna be a trilogy, then I'm Elvis, my dad is Bigfoot and my mom is Franchise/WonderWoman]]

[[WMG: Franchise/{{Batman}} or Film/IronMan: one of them will break the aforementioned curse]]

** ''Franchise/CaptainAmerica'' ended up being the one to break the curse.

The Franchise/{{Justice League|of America}} asks him to join them.

[[WMG: Lucius Fox is actually [[Series/PimpMyRide Xzibit]].]]

[[ILied Contrary to what he says]] in his BreakThemByTalking sessions he's very good at [[ThePlan planning]]. No one knows his true name or past. And the Joker says he "hated his father." Wammy's seems to be full of [[WellDoneSonGuy Well Done Son Guys]]
and [[LightNovel/AnotherNote Beyond Birthday]] seems to think [[ParentalNeglect L was neglectful]] towards his orphans. The Joker probably went by the code letter J [[VillainousFriendship and was best buds with Beyond Birthday]] and like Beyond, Mr. J decided he had no use for L's plans and decided to drop out to cause murder and mayhem instead.

* Rachel [[DeathBySex dies for choosing a relationship with another man over waiting for him]].

* On a Meta level, this has turned into either a HarsherInHindsight or FunnyAneurysmMoment after what happened in Aurora.

[[WMG:The "scar story" that Joker was going to tell Batman was the real one]]
Given how much Joker respects Batman as his equal, it's not entirely unreasonable to believe that he would have been honest with Batman about that information.

[[NamesTheSame RAMIREZ!]] [[MemeticMutation Bring down the mob, stop Joker and his plans, save Rachel and Harvey]] [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and buy me a burger!]]

At the start of the film, Harvey has mostly cleaned up the city. Without the outrageous levels of crime, Batman is no longer wanted or needed by the city, who now want [[LawfulGood white knight lawkeepers]] rather than [[ChaoticGood uncontrollable vigilantes]]. But Bruce Wayne still needs Batman. He needs to escape the monotony and loneliness of a life with one (busy) friend and no challenges or responsibilities. He needs to be respected and feared for something other than the wealth his parents' deaths brought him. Most of all, he still needs further revenge on criminals for his parents' deaths. ''Film/TheDarkKnight'' is his guilty fantasy, where his deepest desires play out:

Admittedly, this isn't strictly related to these films, but I didn't know where else to put it. Heath Ledger has left some incredibly big shoes to fill, due to the majesty of his performance and the DeadArtistsAreBetter trope. In light of this, Warner Bros. will basically put the Joker into retirement for any future Batman live-action films, until enough time has passed that the pressure isn't quite as enormous and they're confident that they have an actor who who can deliver a strong enough performance to stand on his own.

*** Considering [[ChaoticEvil The Joker's M.O.]] and {{Calvinball}} this seems quite likely...

* He's not just a demon, but Satan. Think about it: traditionally, Christians consider Satan to be a force of pure ChaoticEvil, and the Joker is all about chaos. Much of what Satan does seems less "[[RageAgainstTheHeavens Screw you YHWH!]]" and more [[ForTheEvulz being evil for its own sake.]] Satan is often considered to be a CardCarryingVillain, much like the Joker. Being God's former's prosecutor, Satan believes we'll abandon our morals when hardship hits-the logic behind the "social experiment" of the Joker.

Just doing some pointless ArcWelding. Don't mind me.

The equation: Some [[HesJustHiding inconsistencies]] in her [[StuffedIntoTheFridge death scene]] + It's been announced that the actress who played Rachel may (with a big maybe) play Catwoman in the next sequel = Rachel survived and is to become Selina Kyle/the Catwoman!

Over the course of two movies there has only been one major female character (Rachel) and she is killed off two-thirds of the way through ''Film/TheDarkKnight''. Nolan has somewhat of a notorious history of [[StuffedIntoTheFridge killing off female characters just to give his male characters something to angst over,]] of which Rachel is one example. (Others include [[Film/{{Memento}} Leonard's wife]], [[Film/ThePrestige Borden AND Angiers' wives]] and [[Film/{{Inception}} Mal]]). Now it's his final Batman movie and suddenly there are not only two major female characters (Catwoman and Miranda Tate, and that's not even buying into the theory that Miranda is Talia) but also at least one other supporting female character (a "streetwise Gotham girl", most likely Holly Robinson) Nolan has already admitted to being aware of his tendency to treat female characters this way, so perhaps this is his way of making up for it - by adding a host of female characters to the cast. Whether he knows what he's doing is, of course, something we'll have to wait and see.

and [[LightNovel/AnotherNote Beyond Birthday]] seems to think [[ParentalNeglect L was neglectful]] towards his orphans. The Joker probably went by the code letter J [[ThoseTwoBadGuys and was best buds with Beyond Birthday]] and like Beyond, Mr. J decided he had no use for L's plans and decided to drop out to cause murder and mayhem instead.