Sandbox / Gotham - Jeremiah Valeska

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Jeremiah Valeska/The Joker

"My brother once said, All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy."

^{Click here to see Jeremiah pre-transformation}

^{Click here to see Jeremiah after falling into the vat of chemicals}

Played By: Cameron Monaghan

"Why don't you understand? You need me! I'm the answer to your life's question! Without me, you're just a joke... without a punchline!"

The reclusive genius identical twin brother of Jerome Valeska. He seems to be a stable, serious young man until he opens a jack-in-the-box left posthumously by his maniacal sibling. From then on he serves as the show's take on The Joker, albeit without use of the name (Word of God indicates that Warner Brothers reserves the name for film incarnations of the Clown Prince of Crime), with a growing obsession with Bruce.

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Tropes A-I

• Actually Pretty Funny: A warped variant, both times:
  • He can't stop giggling in "Pena Dura" when Alfred threatens to bite his face off if he hurts Bruce, having to visibly compose himself into seriousness before he resumes explaining his plans to the butler.
  • His response to getting a Batarang through the hand in the finale is to laugh hysterically until another one knocks him out. He even points at Batman while laughing as to say "good one!".
• Adaptational Dye-Job: Initially: he retains his natural red hair even after getting the pale skin and reddish lips from Jerome's gas. It's gone the traditional green (albeit so dark it appears black in most lighting) by the end of season 4.
• Adaptational Personality Change: He's noticeably more calm and reserved than other versions of the Joker. At first anyway. He's considerably more unhinged in season 5.
• Adaptational Ugliness: His final Joker form may very well be one of the scariest, most grotesque looking versions of the Clown Prince in any live action adaptation. His face is riddled with permanent chemical burns, and his hair's been reduced to long, stringy patches on his head. This is a deconstructed take on the Joker's typical origin; falling into a vat of chemicals will take a heavy toll on your skin and physical appearance.
• Adaptation Expansion: His full transformation into the Joker has essentially been split into two separate events in this continuity.
  • First, he gets his bleached skin and Sanity Slippage from a special laughing gas given to him by Jerome, turning him into the series' pre-eminent threat in the last few episodes of season 4.
  • A season later, he falls into the Ace Chemicals vat just like in the comics, and not only emerges physically deformed and closer to the traditional Joker look (specifically with the large pointed chin that's commonly associated with the character), but with what's left of his Jeremiah identity permanently shattered, ready to become something entirely new.
• Ambiguously Evil: A retroactive example: it's left up to anyone's guess whether his exposure to the Joker Gas turned him evil, or if he was always this way and the gas just changed his appearance.
• Arch-Enemy: He's this by default to Bruce after crippling Selina and blowing up half the city, but Jeremiah actively seeks this relationship with Bruce in season 5. He's realised he and Bruce will never be the "best friends" he wants them to be, so he settles for getting Bruce's attention another way - bonding them as this via recreating the deaths of Bruce's parents with Jim and Leslie.
• Arc Villain:
  • After Jerome dies but ensures that Jeremiah will unleash his inner craziness, Jeremiah becomes the final villain of season 4, trying to destroy the city both solo and as part of a Big Bad Duumvirate with Ra's al Ghul.
  • He's this again for Bruce's arc in season 5, launching a concerted attempt to recreate the Wayne murders in hopes of bonding Bruce to him as an eternal enemy.
• Attention Whore: Unlike his brother, he's this to Bruce and Bruce only. His entire reasoning behind recreating the Wayne murders - with him as the killer this time - is that he can't stand the thought of some random gunman having a bigger impact on Bruce's life than him.
  Jeremiah: I wanna be the star of the show!
• Ax-Crazy: Beneath his cool demeanor, he's just as insane as his brother was.
• Backup Twin: A particularly dark variation of this. Jerome ends up dead and never actually becomes the Joker, but fortunately for him, he has an identical twin brother who could do the job for him whether he wants to or not!
• Bad Boss: Not surprisingly given who he's based on - turn on him (his brother's cult), question him (his series 5 tunnelling foreman) or just stop being useful (Ecco) and he'll kill you without a second thought.
• The Bad Guy Wins: One way of looking at "Ace Chemicals": his main goal is to bond Bruce to him forever as a blood rival if he can't be his brother - and the finale indicates he succeeded when Bruce thwarts his plans as Batman.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: Unlike his brother, he's always seen in a variety of sharp suits, both pre- and post-transformation.
• Berserk Button: Implying that he is in any way inferior to Jerome. Questioning his sanity is also a bad move.
• Big Bad: For Season 4's final few episodes following his brother's demise.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: Forms one with Ra's al Ghul in the Season Four finale.
• Big Bad Ensemble: With Nyssa in Season 5 - while she's the bigger threat, he's responsible for the fall of Gotham, holds greater enmity with Bruce, and is the Final Boss in the future Grand Finale.
• Big Bad Friend: He views himself as being this to Bruce - all evidence to the contrary. He forgoes several chances to just kill him and instead tries to first get him to unleash his inner darkness, then attempts to bond them forever as blood enemies by killing his Parental Substitutes Jim and Leslie.
• Big "SHUT UP!": Yells one at his followers when they turn on him, shortly before incinerating them.
• Bullying a Dragon:
  • Oswald, Barbara, Tabitha and Butch - not viewing him as much compared to his late brother - attempt to hijack his plan to destroy the city by extorting it for $50 million by holding one of the crucial henchmen/parts of Jeremiah's plan for ransom. All this does is have him move up his timetable by activating the bombs early, almost getting them and millions of others killed as a result.
  • Is subject to this again in season 5 by Ed Nygma and other Arkham inmates, who physically abuse him while he is pretending to be catatonic, which makes it not so surprising that Jeremiah later targets the Riddler by breaking him out of Arkham, and tricking him into committing a high-profile crime as a distraction for Jeremiah's own plans.
• Cain and Abel: He certainly seems to be the Abel to Jerome's Cain, with his recounting his mother's favouring him and Jerome's subsequent threats and physical abuse. Then again, we learn later he was making at least some of it up, and that the hatred Jerome endured from the rest of his family played a part in his Start of Darkness, so whether any of it was true is up for interpretation.
• Characterisation Marches On: As noted below, Jeremiah started off distinctly different to his more manic brother, carrying himself with an almost bored sense of apathy. As of season 5, as his obsession with Bruce grows, however, he's started to display more manic elements to his personality that seem to be taking him down a path into becoming more like the traditional Joker most are familiar with. And unintentionally on his part, making him more similar to his brother.
• The Chessmaster: In the finale: Bullock, Penguin, Riddler, Gordon - they're all dancing to his tune, and the only reason his plans don't work is ironically the return of the item of his obsession - Bruce, now Batman.
• Cold Ham: Compared to his brother, his way of speaking is much more subdued, though no less dramatic. Getting averted in season 5, where he's beginning to edge into his brother's Large Ham territory.
• Color Motif: Likes purple, the classic Joker color. Notable because his brother, who was a much more obvious candidate for the role of Joker, never really incorporated a lot of purple into his wardrobe.
• Combat Pragmatist: A strong believer in this: he skulks behind Bruce (offering him as a target) when Barbara arrives to confront Ra's at the end of season 4, gets the upper hand on Tabitha by using her own knife in the ensuing fight, and in "Ruin" uses body armor to make Selina think he'd been killed.
• Comic-Book Fantasy Casting: His voice in the finale is heavily reminiscent of Mark Hamill's famed vocal work on the Joker, with some of the softer vocal elements of Heath Ledger's version.
• Comic-Book Movies Don't Use Codenames: He's never referred to as the Joker on the show, not even in the Time Skip finale. Word of God indicates that Warner Bros. wanted to save the character for the live action films, and thus, the show isn't allowed to use the Joker name.
• Composite Character:
  • Jeremiah may be the show's Joker as per the finale, but his character also has elements of The Batman Who Laughs who considered himself "an improvement" over the mindlessly chaotic "original" Joker. Jeremiah likewise combined his intellect and methodological mind with Jerome's moral compass and became much more destructive than his brother ever was.
  • His loud, dandyish fashion sense, spit curl, and obsession with Bruce in Season 5 bring him in line with Frank Miller's interpretation of the character.
  • The two-part Series Finale reveals a new look for Jeremiah... a freakish, scarred visage riddled with chemical burns and wisps of stringy, bright green hair that resemble the sickly Joker of the Arkham series wearing a long purple overcoat that blends elements of the 1989 film and Heath Ledger's take on Mister J.
  • He bears several similarities to one of the more obscure versions of the Joker: John Doe from Telltale's Batman games. They were both friends with Bruce before transforming into the Joker (and are thus two of the only versions to explicitly know that Bruce is Batman), are motivated largely by a desire to be noticed and appreciated by Bruce, and instigate a raid on Wayne Enterprises. They also share the same giggly, breathy laugh that gradually becomes more manic, and receive a batarang through the hand in the Ace Chemicals plant where they were reborn. Notably, one of the new names Jeremiah considers upon his awakening is John.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: Jerome was manic and unhinged, a pure force of chaos that was random and capricious even when following his plans. Jeremiah is cold and reserved, methodical and precise - a No-Nonsense Nemesis with a destructive vision way beyond his brother's. Even their attires as villains are polar opposites: Jerome's season 4 outfit is a bright white suit, while Jeremiah's evil look is a dark purple ensemble in the mold of his notorious inspiration.
  Don't compare me to that short-sighted psychopath. He just wanted to destroy things. Me? I'm a builder.
• Crazy-Prepared: More showcased in his earlier appearances than in the later ones, when he becomes increasingly unhinged. A notable example includes adding an extra part to his bombs that looks exactly like the one that will disarm them, except for this one will make them detonate. This is despite the fact that he destroyed all his notes, so he didn't think anyone could possibly find his explosives in order to disarm them.
• Creepy Monotone: Post-transformation, he speaks in an icy, calculating voice that contrasts his brother's crazier, wilder growl.
• Curse That Cures: A very mild example given the extent of his transformation into a psychopathic monster - but after his exposure to Jerome's toxin he's never seen using his glasses, implying it somehow fixed his eyesight.
• Deadpan Snarker: After his transformation, he develops a rather dry sense of humor.
  I hope you didn't catch a cold in my brother's grave. I know those things aren't exactly designed for the living.
• Dead Person Impersonation: He might despise everything to do with his brother, but he's capable of pulling off a stunningly accurate impersonation of Jerome after Jerome dies and he gets a face full of Joker gas in order to both manipulate his brother's old followers into doing his dirty work and lure Gordon into position to get killed.
• Decomposite Character: As the show isn't allowed to use the Joker name, this is how the show handled the Clown Prince.
  • Jerome is the one who first establishes the Evil Laugh, the sick sense of humor, the theatricality and need for an audience, cheating death, the permanent smile, and the laughing gas.
  • When Jeremiah gets his brother's Joker gas in the face, he brings in the rest of the major traits: the bleached skin and green hair (thought the latter is very downplayed), purple suit, the Evil Genius tendencies, master planner abilities, obsession with Bruce as his opposite, and the relationship with Ecco doubling for Harley.
• Disc-One Final Boss: In season 5. The show's advertising had him incredibly prominent in the trailers for season 5, with the end of the movie-style trailer even teasing his transformation into the Joker. In the season itself, he's in it for only a few episodes, with the real Big Bad Duumvirate being Bane and Nyssa al Ghul.
• Dissonant Serenity: One of the creepiest things about the character. Unlike his brother, many times he's incredibly calm while killing people.
• The Dreaded: Everybody's terrified of him in the finale, despite his pretending to be catatonic for the past ten years. The Riddler even calls him "a legend," and the GCPD won't even say his name.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He sounded genuinely upset when he mentioned that Jerome killed their mother and he really, really cares about Bruce - albeit in a very warped way - variously referring to him as his best friend and the brother he never had. In the finale, he directly compares Bruce leaving Gotham to losing the only thing he ever loved.
  Jeremiah: This is all for you, Bruce.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Subverted. Any trace of humanity he shows is usually a prelude to something worse.
  • In season 4, he gives the GCPD some time to evacuate Gotham before he plans to demolish it, stating that the people living in Gotham don't have to die for his plan to work, but he clearly knows that six hours isn't nearly enough time to evacuate a major city. Also, after Penguin interrupts his plan, he decides to go back on the already-too-scarce six hours and detonate the bombs as soon as he gets to a safe place.
  • In season 5, he cheerfully tells Bruce to get his butler as he sets Wayne Manor to blow, which seems an unusual act of mercy for him— except he'd already had Alfred hypnotised by Jervis Tetch, leaving him totally incapable of recognizing the danger he was in. If Bruce hadn't been able to appeal to Alfred's most basic Papa Wolf instinct, he might have died anyway.
• Evil Costume Switch: After revealing his true nature, he ditches his red coat for a black and purple one.
• Evil All Along: Ambiguously. Jerome believes he is, and he himself claims to have been like this all along, although whether he's correct or that's just what the toxin makes him believe is unknown.
• Eviler than Thou: He resents being compared to Jerome, considering his dead brother an unstable and shortsighted lunatic with none of his intellect or vision.
• Evil Genius: One of the show's smartest character. A master engineer and technician, with some aptitude for complex planning. His plans all had to do with his engineering and acting skills, and blowing things up, though, so he doesn't display as wide range of intelligence as Riddler or Lucius do. He also almost always needed someone's assistance, and things very often went awry for him.
• Evil Redhead: Like his brother. Even after being exposed to Jerome's Joker gas, he still retains his natural red hair (most notably in the scene where he and Ecco raid Wayne Enterprises)— but by season's end has either started dyeing it green or the toxin is altering it more.
• Evil Versus Evil: At the end of season 4, Oswald, Barbara, Tabitha, and Butch try to threaten him into extorting money from the city using his bombs, and, when that doesn't work, risk their lives trying to prevent him from carrying out his plan to kill thousands of people and cut Gotham off from the outside world. Especially notable, since these other villains are the only ones, besides Bruce and Alfred, who get there on time to fight him.
• Facial Horror: Played with. One dose of the laughing gas toxin, and Jeremiah's mouth stretches into a bloody rictus as his skin bleaches and he laughs uncontrollably. But thereafter, aside from the skin pigmentation changes, he actually looks more normal than Jerome's scarred visage. Neither Gordon or Bruce realize anything is wrong until he wipes the makeup off during The Reveal. This gets worse after he falls into a vat of chemicals, gaining chemical burns all over his face and costing him much of his hair.
• Faking the Dead: He's perfectly happy to let everyone think Selina stabbed him to death so he can advance his plans without interference.
• Faux Affably Evil: Talks to Bruce like a close friend, all the while torturing and trying to kill his loved ones. When he gets Bruce together with a hypnotized Alfred and the people he has imitating Thomas and Martha Wayne, he acts like a genial best friend attending his first dinner with his friend's family, even gently needling Bruce over his childhood favorite food in a voice that sounds almost normal for once.
• Feel No Pain: While faking catatonia, he can take Riddler stabbing him in the leg with a sharpened paintbrush without any visible reaction. Later dialogue from Ed and other prisoners implies this sort of thing happens a lot.
• Final Boss:
  • Fittingly enough, given who he's based on, Jeremiah is the last and most dangerous enemy that Bruce and the GCPD have to face in Season 4, surpassing even his brother's acts of destruction and insanity by a wide margin.
  • Jeremiah serves this role once again in the final episode of Gotham, having come out of his faked coma once Bruce returns to Gotham and manipulating the entire cast in order to see his "old friend" once more.
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: After being sprayed by Jerome, he keeps his glasses while pretending to still be sane.
• Friendly Enemy: A one-sided example. Even after his transformation, he still considers Bruce Wayne his best friend. Given that he almost kills Selina and comes close to destroying the city at the end of season 4, Bruce disagrees rather violently.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: While this is true of Penguin and most of the villains on this show, nobody embodies this trope harder than Jeremiah Valeska. Nobody even knew of his existence at the start of season 4 (including the fans)— by its end, he's far surpassed his brother in almost destroying the city and plunging it into total anarchy, becomes Bruce's Arch-Enemy after gunning down Selina, and becomes the Gotham version of the Joker, THE Batman villain. Not bad for someone who only appeared in 5 episodes of season 4...
• Giggling Villain: In Season 5, he's prone to bouts of giggles.
• A God Am I: Has organized a Religion of Evil centered around himself in Season 5 where "pilgrims" play Russian roulette with each other if they wish to join. In practice it's not quite as egomaniacal as it sounds, with "Ruin" showing it's to acquire willing(ish) workers to tunnel under the Gotham River to Wayne Manor.
• Gone Horribly Right: He manipulates virtually everyone, almost blows up Wayne Tower, and holds Barbara Lee hostage in an effort to attract Bruce's attention when he returns, and he gets it— but as Batman, who swiftly defeats him.
• Hijacked by Ganon: In the end it always was going to come down to Joker vs. Bruce.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: He's obsessed with Bruce being his best friend, and makes a point of not killing him when revealing what's happened to him at Jerome's graveside because of it. Takes an even darker turn in season 5, when he rationalises that if they can't be best friends, they'll just have to be bonded for life as enemies instead.
• I Was Quite a Looker: Being Jerome's genetic twin, he's initially a very attractive young man, but after he falls into a vat of chemicals, his face is horribly scarred and most of his hair has been burned off.
• Iconic Outfit: Initially he would wear the same suits that he wore pre-transformation, though with a notable lean towards purple. At the start of season 5 he gets halfway there with a long purple trenchcoat over a dark red shirt with purple gloves— and the Time Skip finale has his final outfit almost directly modeled on Jack Nicholson's costume in the 1989 movie.
• If I Can't Have You…: Given a pretty unique take, in that he's not interested in killing Bruce: he really, really wants him to be his best friend and brother, but by "Ace Chemicals" he's come to the conclusion that if he can't have Bruce as this (and he says the trope word for word when they talk in the alley), they'll just have to be forever bonded as enemies instead.

Tropes K-Y

• Large Ham: Graduates to this from his former Cold Ham self in season 5, taking Jerome's theatricality and parading around as Zorro when giving Bruce a Motive Rant - in an actual theater no less.
• Legacy Character: To Jerome as the show's Joker figure. Particularly significant in that Jerome chose him to be his successor, declaring to Jim that he couldn't be killed because he was an idea.
• Master Actor: Much like his brother, he is very good at hiding his true nature underneath a veneer of innocence. In Jeremiah's case, this means successfully hiding a truly spectacular slide into insanity from his best friend in the world, who will one day be considered the world's greatest detective.
• Master of Disguise: Apparently skilled enough at applying make-up that he is able to hide his bleached skin entirely from Bruce for weeks until The Reveal. Also uses his ability to disguise himself to successfully impersonate Jerome, so that he can fake posthumous messages from his brother, which he then uses to manipulate Jerome's followers and Jim Gordon. This talent is possibly a holdover from his time at the circus.
• Meaningful Name: Like his twin brother.
  • His surname, Valeska, is a couple letters off from Valestra.
  • "Valeska" is Slavic for "Glorious Ruler". Fitting, isn't it?
• Might as Well Not Be in Prison at All: He's able to arrange and pull off his entire plan in the finale without any problems despite faking catatonia in Arkham the entire time.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The final shot of Jeremiah's transformation is a recreation of the famous panel from The Killing Joke.
  • Post-transformation, he also takes to wearing a fedora hat, similar to the one Joker most famously wore when in The Killing Joke, as well as both Nicholson's Joker and the Animated Joker in Batman: Mask of the Phantasm.
  • Much like another incarnation of the Joker, calling him insane (or implying he is) is a very bad move...
  • His having to wear skin-toned makeup to hide his now-bleached pale face is reminiscent of Jack Nicholson's Joker doing the same in Batman (1989).
  • Several shots from the final confrontation of season 4, with Jeremiah in his black suit◊, bear a striking resemblance to artist Alex Ross' take on the Joker◊. Fan takes show there is quite the likeness.
  • Gets probably the definitive one in "Ace Chemicals", where he takes a tumble into a vat of chemicals in the titular chemical plant, just as with the Joker's classic comics origin.
  • Following his accident, Jeremiah spends a decade faking being in a motionless, catatonic stupor until the return of Bruce brings him back, a likely reference to how the return of Batman brings him out of genuine catatonia in The Dark Knight Returns.
  • Jeremiah's final appearance — hunched-over and elderly-looking, with just a few strands of hair remaining — seems to be heavily inspired by the "degenerate old man" version of the Earth-2 Joker.
  • When trying to come up with a new name for himself, he first considers "Jack", which was the Joker's true name in Batman (1989).
• Named by the Adaptation: Usually it's a mystery (or occasionally Jack Napier) but here his birth name is Jeremiah Valeska.
• Narcissist: Arguably a bigger one than his brother. He sees himself as superior to pretty much everyone except Bruce, turns Jerome's cultists into solders who chant his name, and later creates his own following and names it after himself, "Church of Jeremiah", with posters and everything.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: Contrasting Jerome, Jeremiah is very pragmatic with his approach. Jerome had set up a Cruel and Unusual Death for Bruce, while Jeremiah states that if he wished for Bruce to die then he would simply shoot him in the head.
• Not So Similar: He tells Bruce that the reason he considers him his best friend is because he's at war with his true nature, just like he was before getting gassed by Jerome. Bruce counters this, saying that while they both have a darkness inside them, the key difference is that Bruce knows how to control his. By "Ace Chemicals" even he's beginning to realise this, stating that without him Bruce is little more than a joke without a punchline.
• Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Has shades of this. Despite being introduced as a structural engineer, he seems to be an expert in multiple types of engineering, physics (considering his generators), and chemistry (if he made the chemical weapons he used in season five without Scarecrow's help). May be at least partially justified, because he graduated college by the age of seventeen at the latest, since he was that age when he finished building his underground bunker. Someone who finished college that early in that field is probably a math prodigy, which would make it easier to get degrees in other math-heavy fields, even if it was never mentioned on the show whether he had other degrees.
• Painful Transformation: As in all depictions of the Joker’s creation, his transformation wasn’t pleasant, and he was painfully aware all the while as the gas warped his body and mind.
• Practically Joker: Averted, all the more uniquely given the circumstances surrounding his creation; at first, the series treated him as another possible Joker figure without confirming anything concrete, and Word of God remained ambiguous as to whether he would become the Joker, or be another Red Herring serving as inspiration for the future Clown Prince. Then the Grand Finale rolled around, and while he's never actually called The Joker, the outfit and remarkably Mark Hamill-esque performance from Monaghan made it clear that this was unquestionably the show's final take on Batman's Arch-Enemy.
• Polar Opposite Twins: Jeremiah is straight-laced, academic, serious, and reserved, while Jerome is a psychopathic Large Ham. Even more noticeable as villains - see the Contrasting Sequel Antagonist entry.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The Blue Oni to Jerome's Red.
• Rule of Symbolism: There's a bit of significance in the scene where the fake Jerome removes his makeup to reveal that he's Jeremiah. It's as if the role of the Joker is physically transitioning from Jerome to his brother.
• Sanity Slippage: A huge amount over the course of the series. After his initial transformation, he insists he's the face of true sanity, and is very much cold and pragmatic even when carrying out acts of destruction far eclipsing Jerome. Then season 5 rolls around and he's far more Laughing Mad than previously, while also showing signs of a Split Personality. By the finale (after a dunk in a tank full of acidic chemicals) he flatly admits to Barbara he's gone mad.
• Secondary Color Nemesis: After he leaves Bruce in Jerome's grave he's already wearing the telltale Joker colors, sporting a green shirt with a purple tie. Goes into this in full in season 5, sporting a purple longcoat and gloves in addition to a dark red shirt, making him resemble the Joker more than ever before. The finale has him adopt the classic Joker outfit in full.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Occasionally. Tells Ecco "verisimilitude trumps precaution" when referring to how he let Selina stab him once while taking the other shots on body armor (to convince her she'd killed him), and looks quite annoyed when Ecco doesn't seem to get it.
• The Scottish Trope: In the finale, hearing Jim say Jeremiah's name immediately lets Ecco know through a wired accomplice that their cover is blown. They then move onto the next part of Jeremiah's plan, which is escaping Arkham and kidnapping Barbara Lee (presumably to get Bruce's attention). Throughout the entire first part of the episode, Harvey is so afraid of saying Jeremiah's name that he is willing to confess to a murder Jeremiah set him up to take the fall for, presumably because Jeremiah threatened to kill Barbara if he didn't.
• The Sociopath: It's left ambiguous as to whether or not he was one before being sprayed with Jerome's insanity toxin, but after his transformation, he starts displaying a grandiose sense of self-worth, believing himself to be utterly superior to his brother and willing to do anything to prove it. He is also unable to form emotional attachments, which is best shown when his long-time partner in crime Ecco is mortally wounded in the finale, and he simply guns her down and casually remarks how there are more fish in the sea, this is actually more of a common psycopathy traits rather than sociopathy.
• Sole Survivor: Of his family, as by the end of season 4 Jerome had killed their mother, father and uncle.
• Son of a Whore: Safe to say. Their mother was confirmed to be promiscuous by Jerome, and Cicero sitting next to him never disagreed.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: Tends to keep a very calm and icy demeanor even when he's brutally murdering people. This is a noticeable contrast from his brother, a maniacal Large Ham.
• Split Personality: In both "One Bad Day" and "Ruin" this is hinted at, as he's seen talking to himself in Jerome's harsh, gravelly tones and answering in his own Creepy Monotone.
• Stalker without a Crush: In contrast to Jerome, Jeremiah establishes the love-hate relationship he has with Bruce Wayne, much like Batman and Joker in the comics. He doesn't want to kill Bruce as he feels Bruce completes him. In the finale he seems to be edging closer to the Miller/Snyder Stalker with a Crush version of the Joker, telling Gordon that Bruce leaving Gotham felt like having the only thing he loved ripped away from him.
• Start of Darkness: In "That's Entertainment" - in the space of a day, Jeremiah has to face his brother Jerome or many people will die. He's psychologically tormented then beaten down when he tries to fight back. Jerome is then killed, and his expression when surveying his brother's body makes clear it's still a bitter blow. Then, as he drowns his sorrows, he gets one last gift from Jerome - a box full of Laughing Mad gas, which abruptly transforms Jeremiah into a monster that almost destroys the city.
• Superior Successor:
  • He believes he's this to Jerome — with his genius-level intelligence, skill at manipulation and warped vision of rendering Gotham his artists' canvas he manages to render the city a No Man's Land by the end of season 4, something Jerome never achieved. Indeed, by the time of the finale Jerome is all but forgotten, while Jeremiah is considered a legend and a figure so terrifying that his name is taboo among members of the GCPD.
  • Interestingly, he also appears to view Bruce as this in regards to Jerome, pointedly declaring him the brother Jerome could never be. This forms a large part of his obsession with Bruce.
• Technician vs. Performer: An engineer, compared to his brother who spent his whole life in the circus. This reflects in their approach to their crimes.
• That Man Is Dead: When Jim calls him by name in the finale, he feigns confusion and tells him there's no Jeremiah any more, and that he's still trying to figure out what to call the thing emerging from the ashes of what he used to be (and even includes a Mythology Gag or two).
  Gordon: What do you want, Jeremiah?
  Jeremiah: [looks around] Is there a Jeremiah here?
  Gordon: So what do I call you?
  Jeremiah: Um, uh... I don't know. Call me... Jack. No, no that's not right. Joseph, John, Jay... I don't know. I just... I feel something new crawling from the primordial ooze that was me. Something... Beautiful.
• Took a Level in Badass: Several, over the course of the series. He is first introduced as a seemingly harmless intellectual, and when Jerome hands him a knife and gives him an opportunity to attack him, he is disarmed almost immediately by his brother. By the time he reveals to Bruce that he's been sprayed with Jerome's insanity gas, which happened after a day or few, he's good enough with a gun to shoot very close to Bruce's feet without hitting him, and in the season 4 finale, is skilled enough in combat that he able to hold his own against Tabitha. By season five, he is a match for Bruce in hand-to-hand combat, despite the fact that Bruce was already a better fighter than Jerome by season three, and in the series finale, he easily defeats Barbara when they fight, even though she was trained personally by Ra's al Ghul.
• Took a Level in Cheerfulness: Compared to his stoic demeanor in Season 4, he's noticeably livelier and more upbeat in Season 5. Unlike most examples of this trope, this isn't played as a good thing. At all.
• Tragic Villain: Questionable, with him being unreliable narrator and an expert at deceiving. He seems like a good man despite Jerome's belief in his being as insane as him, and forms a one-day friendship with Bruce that sees Jerome's plan to gas the city thwarted. Then he opens a box rigged with laughing gas toxin and unwillingly undergoes his transformation into a Joker-esque nightmare. However Jeremiah himself claims that the toxin changed his appearance and nothing else, so whether the toxin just made him believe that or if he was genuinely Evil All Along remains a mystery. It also should be noted that before the toxin Jeremiah was very eager to stab Jerome with the knife he gave him, and his initial plan of keeping Jerome in a trap room (seemingly equipped with fire mechanism) also raises eyebrows.
• Tranquil Fury: When one of his followers declares Jerome victorious, he coldly shoots him in the throat and asks the rest of his followers if they're being serious.
• Ungrateful Bastard: He kills Ecco the moment she ceases being useful, after over a decade of Undying Loyalty, and casually remarks there are always more fish in the sea.
• Unreliable Narrator: When he meets Jim and Harvey he spins a sob story of Jerome repeatedly physically tormenting him when they were kids (and his expression shows he may even have come to believe it, or he is just as good of an actor as Jerome was in season 1, which interestingly would make both twins' first appearance a facade). Unfortunately, when he meets up with his psychotic twin, Jerome's able to get him to admit at least some of it was a fabrication, if not all.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Extreme paranoia as a child led him to invent stories about his brother Jerome trying to kill him, which led to Jeremiah being sent to a private school, and Jerome being ostracized by his friends and family, which eventually led to Jerome's criminal career, the invention of the Joker Gas, and Jeremiah's transformation into the man most responsible for No Man's Land.
• Villainous Breakdown:
  • Has one in front of his followers when Gordon humiliates him on TV by revealing himself to be alive and calling him an inferior shadow of Jerome and further when his bombs fail to go off. Noticeably, during his breakdown he starts acting in a more Joker-esque manner when so far he's been a Cold Ham.
  • After spending a whole episode trying to get him and Bruce connected through hatred, he completely snaps when he tells him that he means nothing to him.
• Villainous Legacy: A rare positive one: after demonstrating his power cores could be turned into bombs, Bruce and Lucius use one to stop the army reaching the heart of Gotham, destroying Wayne Enterprises in the process and eventually leading to Bane's defeat.
• Visionary Villain: He claims in the season 4 finale that his previous plans "lacked vision" and that Ra's al Ghul opened his eyes to a greater purpose; namely, turning Bruce into the Dark Knight and preparing the city for his arrival. Which involves shooting Selina Kyle and then blowing the bridges to the mainland and turning Gotham into a lawless hellhole.
• Walking Spoiler: If you're reading his tropes section, there's no getting around the fact he's Jerome's secret twin brother AND the true identity of the show's take on the Joker.
• Wham Shot:
  • His introduction. At first he's only shown in shadow, but once Jim and Harvey meet him face-to-face, he emerges from the darkness to reveal that he looks exactly like Jerome.
  • His transformation as well. After getting a faceful of gas, he struggles uncontrollably before finally falling to his knees; when he gets back up, he has a sickly white face with dark red lips.
  • And finally - the double reveal of his transformation to Jim and Bruce, with "Jerome's" Video Will finishing with his tearing off Jerome's scars to reveal his bleached white skin to Jim, while Bruce sees it in person at Jerome's grave.
• When He Smiles: Inverted. In contrast to Jerome, he doesn't smile much in season 4 - but his genuine smiles (such as when he sees Gotham's bridges blow◊) are nightmare inducing.
• Wild Card: In season 5: where the rest of the villains are obsessed with power and survival in No Man's Land Gotham (and thus inevitably come into conflict with Gordon), Jeremiah's obsession with Bruce means his plans revolve around him almost exclusively, and as such are a lot less predictable.
• Would Hit a Girl: At the end of "One Bad Day", he shoots Selina in the stomach, only failing in crippling her for life thanks to Ivy's potion the following season. Also briefly throttles Ecco when she brings him too few people for his building project.
• Would Hurt a Child: He comes very close to dropping a ten year old Barbara Gordon in the same acid that created him. The combined efforts of Gordon and Batman are ultimately what save the girl's life.
• Yandere: He definitely has shades of being one towards Bruce, (albeit with another creepy subtext since he sees Bruce as a brother). Shooting Selina right after she and Bruce have their Big Damn Kiss has shades of Murder the Hypotenuse and the entire finale is both Jeremiah's fury at Bruce abruptly leaving Gotham and an attempt to recapture his attention, coming off as a spurned lover more than anything else.

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