Characters / The Dark Knight Trilogy: The Mob and Other Criminals

Main Character Index | Wayne Enterprises | League of Shadows | Other Costumed Characters | Gotham City Administration | The Mob and Other Criminals | Other Characters

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The Dark Knight Trilogy features plenty of criminal characters. This page is about those from the mob and those that don't fit on the other pages.

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The Mob

Falcone Crime Family

Carmine Falcone

Carmine Falcone

"People from your world...have so much to lose."

Played by: Tom Wilkinson

Dubbed by: Philippe Catoire (European French)

Appears in: Batman Begins | Why So Serious?

The head Italian mafia and lord of Gotham City. Carmine Falcone all but controlled Gotham City, flooding it with drugs and crime. He is above the law, with most of Gotham's politicians and police on his payroll.

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• Adaptational Jerkass: Most of his more altruistic and even dignified attributes from the comics are gone in favor of a Smug Snake personality which sees him confidently arrogant when things are going his way and downright terrified when things are going to hell.
• Adapted Out: His cordial relationship to Thomas Wayne, who saved his life in the comics. Falcone genuinely respected Thomas Wayne and attended his funeral.
• Asshole Victim: He falls victim into one of Crane's fear-inducing "experiments", causing Falcone to completely loose his mind experiencing his worst nightmares. But considering he was a smug and jerkassy mobster it's hard to feel sorry for him.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: He wants Crane to have him declared mentally unfit for trial. Crane obliges.
• Blackmail: He attempts it on Crane, who responds by exposing him to fear gas.
• Big Bad Wannabe: While he is the biggest criminal in Gotham, he's soon outmatched by Ra's and Crane.
• Bullying a Dragon: Even given his criminal influence in Gotham, trying to blackmail the Number Two of Ra's was never going to end well.
• Composite Character: While he has Carmine Falcone's name and role, his personality and appearance have more in common with Batman: The Animated Series's take on Rupert Thorne and the comics version of Sal Maroni.
• Crazy-Prepared: He tries admirably to be this, digging up Ra's and Crane's dirty laundry and making sure they hire his goons as an attempt to protect himself. Except considering how how out of his league he turns out to be and how he never expected to be involved with criminals on this scope it doesn't do any good in the end.
• Deadpan Snarker: Falcone has a dry, sardonic sense of humour.
  "Yeah, Doctor Crane, "I can't take it anymore. It's all too much. The walls are closing in." Blah, blah, blah. Couple more days of this food, it'll be true!"
• Disc-One Final Boss: Initially he seems like the root of Gotham's problems and that bringing him down will solve the problem. As it turns out, he's simply a patsy for the League of Shadows, through the Scarecrow. He's captured and driven insane while his bosses continue their true plans.
• The Don: He's the leader of the Italian Mob.
• The Dreaded: He's the most feared man in all of Gotham for some time, and he's well aware of it.
  Bruce: I came here to show you that not everyone in Gotham's afraid of you.
  Falcone: Only those who know me, kid.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Even he, who believes himself the tip-top of Gotham's underworld, is absolutely intimidated by the men he's doing business with in the Narrows, involving stuffed rabbits, and he implies as much to Flass.
  Falcone: Ignorance is bliss, my friend. Don't burden yourself with the secrets of scary people.
  Flass: Scarier than you?
  Falcone: Considerably scarier than me.
  • He is also unnerved by Crane's "presentation" of his Scarecrow mask (and that's before the nut who took over the nuthouse gives him a "demonstration").
• Fat Bastard: He's noticeably overweight and a ruthless and at times sadistic mafiosi.
• Faux Affably Evil: Anyone watching his conversation with Bruce and not hearing the words spoken would think it was a cordial dinner (outside of the gun-waving) and not a Reason You Suck Speech.
• Go Among Mad People: He is ready to go through this and slits his wrists to get sent to Arkham so he can blackmail Crane into helping him. Crane promptly fear-gases him, and the insanity stops being an act.
• Hate Sink: Ra's al Ghul and Scarecrow are too cool and/or noble to hate. The same can't be said for Falcone. Not only is he the reason that Gotham is so messed up at the start of the movie, but he's also an arrogant Smug Snake who thinks he's completely untouchable. If that didn't make him unlikable enough, he also taunts Bruce about how his father "begged like a dog". It's hard to feel bad for him when Crane drugs him out of his mind.
• He Knows Too Much: Crane exposes Falcone to his fear gas to avoid being blackmailed.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: In his first scene, he gives a young Bruce Wayne a "The Reason You Suck" Speech about how he'll never understand Gotham's underworld. This leads Bruce to go soul-searching and world traveling, culminating in his becoming Batman and taking Falcone down. Underestimating Crane was also very unwise.
• Horrifying the Horror: Despite being a ruthless and murderous mob boss, Falcone is shaken when Crane subtly threatens him with Ra's al Ghul's retribution when the latter reaches Gotham.
  Jonathan Crane: I am aware you are not intimidated by me, Mr. Falcone, but you know who I work for, and when he gets here-
  Falcone: [shocked] Wait, he's coming to Gotham?
  Crane: Yes he is, and when he gets here, he is not going to want to hear that you have endangered our operation just to get your thugs out of a little jail time.
• In Name Only: An odd example. While his name and role as the head of Gotham's underworld prior to Batman are true to the comics, he lacks the most of the comic character's distinct attributes and personality traits.
• I Own This Town: And he's absolutely right. Unfortunately for him, Arkham is Crane's asylum, and Ra's isn't impressed.
  Falcone: Look around you. You'll see two councilmen, a union official, a couple of off-duty cops and a judge. Now, I wouldn't have a second's hesitation blowing your head off right here, right now, in front of them. That's power you can't buy.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Falcone is a Smug Snake who mocks Bruce about his parents' death. However, he's right to point out in his "The Reason You Suck" Speech that merely witnessing his parents being killed doesn't make Bruce an expert of the ugly sides of life. After being kicked out of the restaurant, Bruce starts traveling the world in order to learn what the criminal world is like.
• Kick the Dog: Just before he has Bruce Wayne kicked out of the restaurant, he sneers about Bruce's father supposedly having "begged liked a dog" for mercy, which he only thinks is what happened. Just in case he was starting to look glamorous.
• Laser-Guided Karma: He is first taken out by the young man he taunted and taught "the power of fear". To stay out of jail, he feigns insanity. He is driven completely insane by the same poison he funneled into Gotham.
• Mind Rape: Crane subjects him to this, successfully rendering him insane and unable to spill Ra's Al Ghul's secrets.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: While the death of Bruce's parents is Bruce's general motivation to become Batman, it's Falcone's little speech to him that puts Bruce on the path to gaining the fighting skills and knowledge he needs to become Gotham's protector. For an extra kick in the teeth, Falcone becomes Bruce's first target after he comes back from his training and don the moniker of Batman. Leading to him being swiftly arrested with no chance of bail (since he was at the scene of the crime when the police arrived) despite all his earlier posturing of being untouchable.
• Oh, Crap!: His reaction to coming face to face with Batman.
  Falcone: What the hell are you?! [gets dragged from his car]
  Batman: I'm Batman.
• Present Absence: He's absent in Why So Serious? due to having been driven insane, but the chaotic mob war resulting from his absence heavily drives the plot.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: He unleashes a devastatingly accurate one on the young Bruce Wayne. Bruce takes this heart and it eventually ends with him becoming Batman.
  Bruce: I'm not afraid of you.
  Falcone: Because you think you got nothing to lose. But you haven't thought it through. You haven't thought about your lady-friend down at the D.A.'s office. You haven't thought about your old butler. Bang! People from your world have so much to lose. Now, you think because your mommy and your daddy got shot, you know about the ugly side of life, but you don't. You've never tasted desperate! You're, uh, you're Bruce Wayne, the Prince of Gotham; you'd have to go a thousand miles to meet someone who didn't know your name. So, don't-don't come down here with your anger, trying to prove something to yourself. This is a world you'll never understand. And you always fear what you don't understand.
• Smug Snake: Believes himself to be the untouchable master of Gotham so the shock when Batman pulls the rug out from under him is extreme.
• Starter Villain: Falcone is the first truly powerful villain that Batman encounters.
• Tempting Fate: When Crane bluntly admits that Ra's would order Falcone killed for trying to blackmail them for a bigger piece of their operation, Falcone's reply is that "Not even he can get me here, not in my town." He's proven wrong literally seconds later even if it's a Mind Rape rather than a hit.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: He knew that something was hidden in the drugs he'd been smuggling into Gotham on behalf of Ra's but didn't know what. He painfully discovers that he's been smuggling in the fear gas that was going to be used to destroy Gotham.
• Villainous Breakdown: When Batman disrupts his smuggling operation, he becomes progressively more disheveled and fearful as Batman takes his goons down. Later, when Crane confronts him in Arkham, Falcone is initially his usual self...sarcastic, confident...but he grows just a little uncertain when Crane starts talking about his mask. He plays it off with some humor, and then out comes the mask...
• Villain Has a Point: His absolutely brutal "The Reason You Suck" Speech makes Bruce realize how out of his element and league he is. Ironically he ends up providing Bruce with his core philosophies as Batman.
• Villain Respect: Downplayed. Falcone is willing to admit Bruce has spirit, but promptly mocks Thomas Wayne afterwards.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Played with. Everyone knows he's a ruthless mobster, but Gotham is so corrupt and Falcone is so feared that very few people even dare to try and bring him down. Batman is the only person to successfully defeat Falcone.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Falcone seems to think he's the Big Bad of a mafia movie. This leads to him overestimating his own authority and looking down on "nutjobs" like Crane and Ra's. Unfortunately, this is a superhero film so he finds himself outmatched by said crazies and used as a disposable pawn.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: By the time Batman captures Falcone it's clear that Ra's and Crane treated Falcone as an expendable goon in their operation, given that Falcone has to attempt extortion to get Crane's attention (and it doesn't go well). They were likely planning on abandoning him anyway; Batman just beat them to the punch.

Salvatore Maroni

Salvatore 'Sal' Maroni

"You sure you wanna embarrass me in front of my friends, Lieutenant?"

Played by: Eric Roberts

Voiced by: Rob Paulsen

Appears in: Batman: Gotham Knight | Why So Serious? | The Dark Knight

The new head of the Italian Mafia in Gotham, and following the turf wars with his fellow mobsters, entered into an alliance with them against Batman. Though he lets the Chechen hire the Joker, he only does so as a last resort to keep the mob afloat; it's implied he actually hates the Joker, but is too afraid of him to do anything about it. That is, until the district attorney is disfigured and his assistant is killed...

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• Adaptational Job Change: From The Rival to Falcone to Dragon Ascendant replacement.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: In the comics, Maroni was a ruthless thug with very little in the way of scruples and is often depicted as the most brash and violent of Gotham's mafiosi. While he's no saint here, he comes off as a Noble Demon disgusted at the Joker's pointless sadism and is the most reasonable of the mob's heads.
• Affably Evil: Downplayed. He tries to be charming, but it mostly comes across as smarmy and insincere, yet he's not cruel enough to be Faux Affably Evil. Notably, he seems genuinely apologetic for what happened to Harvey and Rachel, and clearly did not want things to escalate the way they did.
• All There in the Manual: The story of how Maroni became allied with the Chechen and Gambol. Also, how Albert Rossi was related to him. Maroni presided over the wedding ceremony of a policeman. In a Gotham tonight Interview, he notes how he donates to the police charity.
• Armor-Piercing Question: During Batman's interrogation of him, Maroni bluntly tells him the only way to stop the Joker is to reveal his identity and lure him in, and asks him if he's going to let any more people die while he makes up his mind. Ironically, the Joker later goes back on this and declares he doesn't want to know Batman's identity, since that would make fighting him less fun.
• Asshole Victim: Being partially responsible for the death of Rachel and Dent's disfigurement, and thought he had gotten away with it.
• Big Bad: For the ARG. With the Joker off building up his power base, the gang war Maroni's waging and his attempts to prevent Dent from taking office take center stage.
• Big Bad Wannabe: Aspires to replace Falcone as the new master of Gotham but he's no threat compared to the Joker. It seem to come with the territory of being the biggest name in the Gotham underworld. It looks like you are the King but then things get (easily) out of control and you end up as the Joker.
• Break the Haughty: When being interrogated he thinks Batman is bluffing when he threatens to drop him from the roof. He wasn't.
• Butt-Monkey: Nothing goes well for Maroni in the entire film. Already taking power in a very difficult time, he tries to unify the Gotham Mob, and they lose all their laundered money at the hands of Batman, plus going to trial and being close to lose their entire power base. Then, The Chechen hires The Joker, something Maroni does not really want to do, and everything starts going to hell. Batman finds him, and throws him out of a third floor, breaking his legs. And when he finally decides to do the right thing and rat The Joker out, Dent finds him and they end up involved in a car accident, maybe killing him.
• Composite Character: Despite having Sal Maroni's name, he resembles the comics incarnation of Carmine Falcone far more than the trilogy's adaptation of the character: an old-school mafiosi who despises the newfound costumed criminals in Gotham for their comparative lack of standards.
• Deadpan Snarker: "Friends? Have you met this guy?"
• Decomposite Character: A nameless henchman replaces him as the one who tries to attack Harvey Dent in court. His role in Dent's scarring is also done in a roundabout way; he allows the Chechen to hire the Joker when he realizes things are about to go to hell, who sends his men to kidnap Dent and imprison him in a warehouse with a bomb, which explodes just as Batman saves Dent, who has his face accidentally burned in gasoline.
• Disc-One Final Boss: While the Joker is set up at the very beginning, the first third of the film is about Sal, as new head of the Falcone Family and de facto head of Gotham's organized crime, trying to end Batman's influence on the city. Then the Chechen hires the Joker, who takes over and plunges the city into utter chaos.
• The Don: Like Falcone before him.
• The Dragon: The ARG reveals he was Falcone's second-in-command before taking power.
• Dragon Ascendant: To Falcone, though we only meet him after he's assumed power.
• Enemy Mine: In the animated bridge between films, Maroni and the Chechen get both their asses kicked by Batman and end their war. Debatable as to whether or not this is canon.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Maroni does love his wife, despite going to clubs on occasion with other women. The ARG also mentions he has a daughter, who he cynically invokes this trope with for the sake of good PR.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Of all the mobsters in the movies, he is the one with the highest moral standards, and he was quite bothered by the extent to which Joker (whom he was already very uncomfortable with hiring) was willing to go to get to Batman and Dent. He finally finds the courage to rat the Joker to Gordon when Dent is disfigured and Rachel is killed. The interesting thing is he is actually doing it out of genuine decency, and not out of profit (as a matter of fact, he forsakes his money).
  • Played for Laughs. When Batman is interrogating him after throwing him off a fifth floor, Batman says The Joker must have friends, Maroni replies: "Friends? Have you met this guy?" His tone clearly illustrates he doesn't believe that anyone would want to be friends with the Joker and clearly incredulous Batman would think he does.
• Evil Cripple: Played with. After being dropped by Batman, he's next seen moving around on a crutch... and all too ready to rat the Joker to Gordon after Joker raised the stakes significantly, to put it lightly.
• Heel–Face Door-Slam: Almost immediately after Maroni turns on the Joker and offers to help Gordon catch him, Two-Face tracks him down and murders him as revenge for Rachel's death.
• Heel Realization: After the Joker murders Rachel and disfigures Dent all while forcing Batman and the GCPD to make a Sadistic Choice between them, Maroni finally turns on the Joker after seeing just what his hiring of the clown has done.
  Maroni: This craziness... It's too much...
• Horrifying the Horror: He's a ruthless mobster who thinks nothing of having Dent assassinated in a courtroom in front of dozens of witnesses and is easily able to escape any charges. Thus, it says a lot when even he is scared out of his wits by the Joker and is genuinely afraid he could be killed if he turned on him in spite of all his power and protection. He's notably the only one of the three bosses to be wary of the Joker from the start while also seeing the threat he is. The Chechen seems to be under the impression the Joker is mostly theatrics and is only motivated by money like the rest of them and happy to accept his offer, while Gambol like Maroni wants nothing to do with him but also thinks the Joker is just some nobody dressed like a clown who is no threat to him and repeatedly provokes him which ends with the Joker killing his bodyguard and eventually Gambol himself.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: After the Joker issues his ultimatum that Gotham is "[his]" by nightfall, Maroni is next seen hopping into his car and telling his driver not to stop for anything, the obvious implication being that he's getting out of Gotham while he can.
• Laughably Evil: His smarmy personality leads to a few humorous moments. It's most evident during his appearance on the ARG's Gotham Tonight segment, where he spends the entire time badmouthing Loeb in the most petty manner imaginable, even calling him "baldy".
• Misplaced Retribution:
  • Zigzagged, with Dent coming after him. While he was one of the main mob bosses, he did not really hire The Joker; The Chechen did that. And while he had people infiltrated in the police, The Joker was giving the orders by that point. Not to mention that he turns the Joker in after he kills Rachel. Notably, the coin for him comes face. Not for his driver...
  • The ARG reveals Maroni himself was responsible for a case of this. After one of his lieutenants was killed in a car bombing, Maroni - not knowing whether Gambol or the Chechen were responsible - had several of both of their men killed in retaliation.
• Neighborhood-Friendly Gangsters: The ARG shows that Gotham's Italian community views him and his gang as such, though the gang war between him, the Chechen, and Gambol increasingly undermines this image.
• Noble Demon: He's a mob boss, but he has a sense of morals and decency. He wants no part of the Joker's madness from the start, and when he takes things too far Maroni, sells him out to Gordon, forfeiting his share of the mob's funds (which would be many millions) in the process.
• Oh, Crap!: His reaction to Batman using a Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique on him.
  Maroni: From this height, the fall wouldn't kill me.
  Batman: I'm counting on it.
• Pragmatic Villainy: He mainly cares about making profit, and there's absolutely no profit in the Joker's actions. Plus, when he refuses to rat the Joker to Batman, it's implied that it's more out of fear of what the Joker would do. When he finally lets Gordon know where the Joker is he's also eliminating the competition, because the Chechen is attending the meeting as well. By contrast, he is also forsaking his share of the money too (not that he had any reason to trust The Joker by that point, having seen first hand the actions of the guy).
• Redemption Equals Death: Downplayed. He doesn't necessarily reform, but he ultimately decides to ally with Gordon to see the Joker taken down. Shortly after proposing an alliance, he's murdered in cold blood by Two-Face.
• Remember the New Guy?: Maroni is not mentioned in Batman Begins and suddenly appears in The Dark Knight.
• Screams Like a Little Girl: When Batman drops him off the second floor.
• Smug Smiler: His default expression is a smug, self-satisfied smile, particularly whenever he thinks he's winning.
• Smug Snake: Like Falcone before him, he's extremely arrogant and thinks he's the biggest game in town with even less reason, as he never managed to unite the criminal underworld. The Joker and Two-Face prove him very wrong.
• Uncertain Doom: It is unknown what happens to him after Harvey Dent shoots his car's driver, causing it to lose control and crash, but as Harvey was the only one who is shown to have buckled up in the back...
• Viler New Villain: Inverted. He serves as Falcone's replacement as the head of the mob and face for Gotham's relatively normal criminal element. However, where Falcone was totally unscrupulous and fully willing to hitch his ride to Ra's and Crane, Maroni turns on the Joker after seeing just how utterly malevolent he is.
• Villain with Good Publicity: He tries to present himself as an honest businessman, something the ARG goes into great detail about. His status as a mob boss is pretty much an Open Secret, but he's at least able to make himself come off as a Neighborhood Friendly Gangster to the more gullible.
• Virtue Is Weakness: After discussing with his fellow mobsters that Batman doesn't kill the criminals, he sees that as an excuse not be afraid of him. Batman proves how wrong he is by showing how non-lethal but painful a fall can be, but even he knows that's nothing compared to what the Joker's capable of, as he tells Batman in no uncertain terms.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Calls out Batman on letting people die at the hands of the Joker as opposed to unmasking himself.

Al Rossi

Albert "Al" Rossi

Played By: Michael Vieau

Appears In: Why So Serious? | The Dark Knight

A capo working for Sal Maroni.

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• Ascended Extra: He's a minor character in the film itself, but a major supporting player in the ARG.
• Conspicuously Public Assassination: He tries to shoot Harvey Dent in the middle of a courtroom on Maroni's orders. Dent immediately punches Rossi and disarms him.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Implied. The ARG reveals he owns a deli that he inherited from his father and uses as a front for mob activities. Given that one of the menu items is named after his father, it's indicated Rossi has some affection for him.

Other Mobsters

The Joker

The Joker

"I believe whatever doesn't kill you simply makes you... stranger."

Played by: Heath Ledger

Voiced by: José Antonio Macías (Latin-American Spanish), Adriano Giannini (Italian).

Appears in: Why So Serious? | The Dark Knight

"You wanna know how I got these scars? My father was a drinker, and a fiend. And one night, he goes off crazier than usual. Mommy gets the kitchen knife to defend herself. He doesn't like that. Not. One. Bit. So, me watching, he takes the knife to her, laughing while he does it. He turns to me and says, 'Why so serious?' Comes at me with the knife. 'WHY SO SERIOUS?' He sticks the blade in my mouth... 'Let's put a smile on that face.' And... why so serious?"

An unknown, mysterious and eccentric mob boss and terrorist. Violent, unpredictable, psychopathic and Ax-Crazy, he brings Gotham to its knees before being captured by Batman and the police. This particular incarnation of the "Clown Prince of Crime" is notably less cartoony and much more subtle in his methods.

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• Abusive Parents:
  • In the scar story he told Gambol, he was abused by his father, who one night gave him his Glasgow Grin. This is most likely false, however, as he always makes up a different story.
  • His interaction with Senator Patrick Leahy's character, however, implies he does have legitimate anger toward his father.
    Patrick Leahy: We're not intimidated by thugs.
    The Joker: You know, you remind me of my father. [pulls the guy by the back of his head, and puts a knife to his mouth] I HATED MY FATHER!
• Adaptation Personality Change: He has a much dryer sense of humor than usual, and lacks much of his usual over-the-top showmanship and Dirty Coward Smug Snake tendencies. He is less of a criminal and more of a maniacal terrorist, he is more focused and centered in his goals, his demeanor is more serious, and lacks his more overtly childish behavior of his other counterparts. Perhaps most notably, when Gambol sneeringly says he's crazy, his response is a rather subdued "I'm not. No, I'm not."
• Adaptational Badass: In the comics and cartoons, Joker had numerous moments of being an incredibly pathetic Dirty Coward, where he would either beg for mercy or run away whenever he pissed off the wrong person. Not to mention that, in most adaptations, the Joker is more of a schemer than a fighter, as well as a scrawny mobster who would hardly stand a chance against Batman when cornered. This Joker, on the contrary, has an absolutely uncanny ability in planning terrorist tactics and using all sorts of warfare weaponry, and is entirely capable of taking down, knocking out, and overpowering mafia thugs and police officers with very little effort. He also seems to have knowledge in psychological warfare tactics. And we're talking about an individual who doesn't even have any explicitly mentioned military training and/or affiliation with the League of Shadows, unlike Bane.
• Adaptational Intelligence: Noticeable. The Joker is rarely depicted as stupid, but he is usually more about improvization and acting on a whim than any sort of premeditated plan. In contrast, this Joker is terrifyingly organized and intuitive in his plans, an exceptional schemer, and is incredibly articulate and abstract in his plans. With his exceptional ingenuity, the Joker can carry out unexpectedly implausible plans, from swindling heads of criminal organizations to leading the heroes into a safe trap.
• Adaptational Jerkass: Zig-zagged. On one hand, Heath Ledger's Joker is the most openly cruel, violent, and narcissistic version of the character ever filmed. Mark Hamill noted that he was "joyless" without any of his Laughably Evil showmanship. Compared to superhero films in general, he's a villain who takes the garish get-up and motifs of a costumed bad-guy and makes it deadly serious and scary in a way that other films in the genre never quite manage to accomplish. But on the other hand, he lacks some of the pettiest features the Joker possesses in other versions, like his domestic abuse of Harley, which is widely considered a very cruel-hearted part of his character. Granted, most of what the Joker does in most versions is worse than that (although he has tried repeatedly to kill and maim Harley), and it is not like this version is above manipulating someone to destroy his/her life and corrupt him/her into evil (just ask poor Harvey).
• Adaptational Mundanity: The color of his skin, hair, and lips is entirely done through makeup, which he's shown to take off to blend in with a crowd at Commissioner Loeb's funeral, as opposed to being bleached by a fall into a vat of chemicals as in most other versions. The scars around his mouth are real, but we don't know how he got them... he'll never give us a straight answer.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: His novelization counterpart is as a whole a lot more pragmatic and far less of a For the Evulz sadist, showing more signs that he is a Well-Intentioned Extremist rather than just using that as an excuse to spread terror. The most notable instance is his Pet the Dog moment of giving an old lady a hundred dollar bill after sparing her from pushing her in front of a bus, showing his belief about how his Agent of Chaos philosophy is genuine, and not merely something he preaches to justify his atrocities.
• Adaptational Origin Connection: Inverted. Batman plays no role whatsoever in Joker's creation here, unlike in most depictions.
• Adaptational Ugliness: Also downplayed. Joker was never a particularly attractive guy to begin with. However, in contrast to his clean, cartoonish appearance in the comics and in other adaptations, The Dark Knight brings forth a Joker with a dirtier, creepier appearance that gets worse over the course of the film. His hair looks greasy, his teeth are rotten, his Glasgow smile does not benefit him, he looks like he does not care at all about his appearance, and he probably smells as bad as he looks (per word of the person who designed his looks). Ironic, considering Heath Ledger was a handsome guy.
• Advance Notice Crime: He makes multiple announcements of his intentions, mainly to spread fear and panic.
  • The first is a self-made film clip sent to Gotham Central News showing him interrogating Brian, the Batman impersonator he captured and later killed, mocking him for his poor imitation of Batman and his belief that Batman's made Gotham a better place. He then says that Batman must unmask and turn himself in or...
    Joker: Oh, every day he doesn't, people will die...starting tonight. I'm a man of my word. [laughs maniacally as the view spins and Brian screams in the background]
  • His second message is a phone call to GCN while Coleman Reese is being interviewed, intending to expose Bruce Wayne as Batman. He says that he's changed his mind about wanting Batman exposed, and announces that if Reese isn't dead within the next hour, he'll blow up a hospital, which he ends up doing to Gotham General Hospital after freeing (and mentally twisting) Harvey Dent.
  • The third is his announcement of his plan with the two ferries to their crews and passengers, letting them know that each has a detonator for the explosives planted on the other ferry and that he will spare the people who blow up the other ferry, otherwise he'll blow up both of them himself. Ultimately, neither detonator is used, and Batman foils his attempt to blow them both up.
• All There in the Manual: The Dark Knight Rises novelization gives us a bit more insight on where he is.
  "The worst of the worst were sent [to Blackgate], except for the Joker, who, rumor had it, was locked away as Arkham's sole remaining inmate. Or perhaps he escaped. Nobody was really sure."
• Allegorical Character: This Joker is practically the face of Terrorism after the 9/11 attacks. After taking control of organized crime and murdering many of the criminals involved, the Joker turns to large scale terrorism, with all law enforcement agencies taking action. Certainly, the level of State of Emergency during the film's climax is very evocative of the 9/11 attacks. In fact, some commentators and authors have compared the premise of the film to the Global War on Terrorism.
• Animal Motifs:
  • Dogs roughly, as dogs are unpredictable and prone to go after whatever grabs their attention. When talking to a scarred Dent, the Joker likens himself to a "dog chasing cars"; later, Dent refers to him a "mad dog" that the mob unleashed on Gotham. When he escapes Arkham PD, he leans out of the car window like a dog would. He even picks up a cadre of Rottweilers in time for the film's climax while questioning their loyalty. It's also symbolism for how he becomes the "alpha dog" in the criminal underworld of Gotham, practically decimating all the mob heads of the city by himself.
  • Joker's eerie habit of probing his lips and scars with his tongue and smacking his lips can seem almost lizard-like. But it also is reminiscent of a dog licking its chops^note Though, funnily enough, this actually came about because the prosthetics Heath Ledger was wearing had a habit of coming off, resulting in him habitually checking if they were still there by licking. It became something of a Throw It In!.
  • Joker's predatory posture (head bowed, chin out, bared teeth) has been compared to that of hyenas stalking their prey. This also makes him reminiscent of a feral canine, but could be a way of incorporating Joker's pet hyenas from the comics into his character.
  • His scars, red lips, and green hair, plus his posture, his sliminess, his constant tongue gestures, are quite reminiscent of a reptile, particularly snakes and dragons. Which fits very well with the character and his symbolism.
• Arch-Enemy: To Batman, as always, even stating that they were meant to fight each other forever.
• Arsenal Attire: His favoured assortment of knives with special mentions: the retractable blade in the sole of his shoe, the potato peeler being removed from his coat in jail and the grenades he had lining the interior of that very coat during his intrusive meeting with the mob leaders.
• Assimilation Plot: He actually takes control of the gangs in Gotham through psychological manipulations and was able to become a crime lord by assimilating the remaining henchmen from the fallen gangs into his own. They lose their identity but come back as part of a stronger, more successful gang. Joker does give people an offer to join his gang but if they refuse then he'll kill them and take over by force and charisma.
• Ax-Crazy: The epitome of this. The Joker is a horrific Sadist who's very open to the idea of senseless violence, and frequently kills or tries to kill people over petty excuses or just For the Evulz. When he's searched by the police, they find a whole lot of knives.
  The Joker: Guns are too quick. You can't savor all the... little emotions. In... you see, in their last moments, people show you who they really are. So in a way, I know your friends better than you ever did. Would you like to know which of them were cowards?
• The Bad Guy Wins: Two zig-zagged examples:
  • Even after all that Batman and Commissioner Gordon did to stop the Joker's mayhem, The Joker proves that even the noblest of men (namely Harvey) can be twisted and their moral code turned to evil. But, as the movie shows, Harvey was not as pure as incorruptible as everyone thought he was... but Batman was. And, against all the odds, the people in Gotham (both civilians and criminals). So, while he corrupted Harvey, his worldview was proven wrong, and Batman taking the fall for Harvey frustrated his plans.
  • A secondary objective of the Joker was to make Batman break his "one rule". In the end, Batman is forced to break that rule by killing Harvey Dent to save Gordon's family, but it's Zig-Zagged because Batman was trying to save Jim's child and was not aiming to kill Harvey, whereas the Joker wanted Batman to intentionally kill someone.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: Tailored and purple. He's also a master planner who works without rules and is able to bring the city to its knees with just a few well-placed moves and some bullets hitting the right people.
• Badass Normal: Compared to Batman's near-mystical training from the League of Shadows, or Bane's almost superhuman strength, the Joker's physical prowess is considerably more conventional. Despite this, he comes out on top of every physical confrontation except against the Batman, such as easily overpowering Gambol's bodyguard, and subduing Detective Stephens and (an admittedly hospitalized) Harvey Dent on separate occasions. This indicates considerable skills or prior training on the Joker's part. Or strength born of his own Ax-Crazy behavior. The guy does not have the same restraints normal people have.
• Bad Boss: The Joker, as Bozo, makes the clowns kill each other for money in the opening bank robbery and offs the survivor himself. Also his idea of "tryouts" with Gambol's associates to join him, which involves breaking a pool cue into a couple of wooden shivs and leaving them to fight each other to the death over one open slot.
  • Midway through the movie, the mob bosses agree to give Joker half their money to deal with Batman, effectively elevating him to their leadership. He kills two of them for being unworthy of his vision of Gotham, and burns the money they gave him just to Kick the Dog/twist the knife further.
  • He also ruthlessly blows up one of his followers using a cell phone bomb sewn into the man’s stomach by manipulating him into thinking Joker’s helping cure his schizophrenia. Oh, and the cell block he blows up with this device has some of his own men in it as well.
  • Joker also laughs maniacally and spits on his own henchman who was electrocuted trying to remove Batman's cowl
• Batman Gambit:
  • In this series, the Joker is even better at it than the Trope Namer. Most of his plans begin with him issuing a public threat, then planning for what he expects people to do in response and carrying out his attack that way. For instance, take his assassination attempt on the Mayor. The Joker and his men are disguised as the honor guard, and have tied up the real honor guard members in an apartment overlooking the procession, with an egg timer attached to a window blind, which Bruce Wayne discovers by looking up a tip based on a print he found on a bullet from the scene of the Joker's previous victims. At the 21-gun salute, the timer goes off in time with the second volley, causing the blind to be pulled up and revealing Bruce, and the snipers guarding the area turn their attention to the window and fire at Bruce, and do so in time with the volley so they aren't heard by most of the crowd, distracting them for the Joker to open fire on the Mayor. Fortunately, the snipers don't hit Bruce and Gordon has just a split second to spot the Joker and tackles the mayor to the ground in time.
  • He later manages to pull one on Batman himself. Having previously witnessed Batman through himself out a window to save Rachel Dawes, the Joker knew he would go to save her no matter what. So when he secretly kidnaps Harvey Dent and Rachel and keeps them in two separate locations, he lies to Batman and gives him Harvey Dent's location claiming it to be Rachel's. Resulting in Rachel dying and Dent's transformation into Two-Face.
• Berserk Button: Don't call him a freak, unless you want to die. Gambol and the Chechen learned this the hard way.
• Beware the Silly Ones: Played With. Everyone thinks he's just a freak in clown makeup or a low-level nobody, and the Joker is perfectly content with allowing them to believe that. He speaks slowly and deliberately and moves with an odd, jerky posture that hides how physically capable he actually is. That is, until all hell breaks loose and The Joker enacts his real plan.
• Big Bad: Of the second movie. He's the Joker, so would you expect anything less?
• Blatant Lies: "Do I really look like a guy with a plan?" The implied answer is a lie. Gordon furiously admits as much when he's notified of his breakout from the GCPD'S Major Crimes Unit ("The Joker planned to be caught! He wanted me to lock him up in the MCU!").
  • Though it could be an Exact Words twist; his means can be complicated or manipulative but they usually boil down to "Attack Its Weak Point"—steal the Mob's money, kill a man's lover, etc. He doesn't just plan—he can also look at his enemy's plan and turn it on itself.
• Black Comedy: He's the Joker. It's been said that you know you've written him properly when he makes the audience laugh and scream, both at once. His dialogue when he crashes the fundraiser, or when he makes a pencil "disappear", are just the tip of the iceberg.
  • A really subtle example is when being held in lockup, an officer confiscates and lays out all the knives in Joker's coat pockets on a table. The last one is... a potato peeler.
• Blunt "Yes": As he confronts the mob for the first time.

  Gambol: You think you can steal from us and just walk away?

  The Joker: Yeah.

• Breakout Character: Heath Ledger's portrayal on the character became not just one of the most iconic takes on the Joker, but one of the most iconic movie villains of all time. After the bar set by this Joker, many subsequent Jokers end up taking inspiration from this one.
• Bright Is Not Good: He has a pale white clown face, a purple waistcoat and suit (with bright orange lining) and green hair, in contrast to Batman's black outfit. In addition, many of the Joker's crimes are done in broad daylight, while Batman was specifically created to be most frightening to criminals during the night.
• Bomb-Throwing Anarchists: The man loves his bombs and anarchy.
• Calling Card: Joker playing cards.
• Card-Carrying Villain: He uses Joker playing cards as his "signature", a Mythology Gag. Apart from that, he styles himself an "agent of chaos" and even refers to himself as a criminal with pride. He is definitely one of the most mature and serious examples of this type of character in fiction.
• Chaos Is Evil: He's a definite Card-Carrying Villain, and calls himself an "agent of chaos". This philosophy is also exactly what sends Harvey over the edge and officially finishes his rebirth as Two-Face.
  Joker: Introduce a little anarchy, upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos! ...I'm an agent of chaos. [snickers] Oh, you wanna know the thing about chaos? ... It's fair.
• Character Catchphrase: While he gets several memorable lines throughout the movie, the one that would best fit this trope is the question, "You wanna know how I got these scars?"
• Character Tic: He licks his lips if he talks a lot. Given his Glasgow Grin scars, it's not a surprising behavioral trait. Word of God states that this was a result of Heath Ledger being annoyed by the feeling of the scar prosthetics, and unconsciously licking at them because of it. After seeing him do it a few times with the full make-up and finding it seriously creepy, Nolan and his team decided to Throw It In!.
• Charm Person: The Joker is repeatedly shown to have a weird, almost preternatural charisma, though it largely seems to apply to either (other) people with severe mental problems like his original crop of henchmen or to bloodthirsty animals, bending them easily to his will. In the case of the attack dogs he appropriates from the Chechen, they flip from listening to him to listening to the Joker over the course of a single scene.
• Cheap Costume: Averted. The Joker used some of the money he'd been stealing from mob banks to get custom-made clothing, since after he makes a pencil disappear, he says, "Oh, and by the way, the suit? It wasn't cheap. You oughta know! You bought it!"
  • Played straight with his clown makeup. The longer he spends onscreen, the more it wears off. Most noticeable when he is in custody.
• The Chessmaster: As much as he insists that he hates plans and has none himself, he is extremely good at chess scheming.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: He manipulates the clowns to kill each other after their part in the opening bank robbery in this order:
  • Dopey and Happy zipline onto the roof. After Dopey shuts off the silent alarm, Happy shoots him in the back.
  • Happy grabs Dopey's bag, runs down to the vault, and starts drilling into it. Once he gets it open, Grumpy shoots him in the back.
  • Grumpy enters the vault, stuffs cash into duffel bags, and carries them to the lobby. Once he and Bozo (actually the Joker) get the money into position, Grumpy pulls a gun on Bozo, figuring that the Joker has told him to kill Grumpy. Bozo says instead that he's supposed to kill the bus driver. As Grumpy tries to figure out what this means, a school bus crashes backwards through the side wall of the bank and kills him.
  • Chuckles was supposed to kill Grumpy after the latter dispatched Happy and brought the money down, but the bank manager took him out first.
  • The bus driver helps Bozo load the money into the bus, then dies in a burst of fire from Bozo's full-auto pistol.
  • Even the mob bank manager is horrified at the Joker's MO, leading to this exchange:
    Bank Manager: Oh, criminals in this town used to believe in things. Honor. Respect. Look at you! What do you believe in, huh? What do you believe in?!
    [The Joker leans down and stuffs a gas grenade in the manager's mouth]
    The Joker: I believe whatever doesn't kill you simply makes you... [removes his mask, revealing his make-up and scars] stranger.
  • If you watch the entire film closely, you will notice that this is at the core of the Joker's Modus Operandi. Most of his plans rely on deception and treachery to some degree and in some form while betting that people will give in to their worst instincts if given the chance.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: He disappears from the film series after the SWAT team captures him. Invoked as a result of respect for Heath Ledger's death. The novelization of The Dark Knight Rises does possess an ambiguous reference to him:
  Now that the Dent Act had made it all but impossible to cop an insanity plea, it had replaced Arkham Asylum as the preferred location for imprisoning both convicted and suspected felons. The worst of the worst were sent here, except for the Joker, who, rumor had it, was locked away as Arkham's sole remaining inmate. Or perhaps he had escaped. Nobody was really sure.
• Collector of the Strange: He has a never-acknowledged but noticeable tendency to hang on to particularly nice weapons (or dogs) that he comes across. His knife collection alone could stock a roadside museum. The shotgun the bank manager uses is a good example.
• Combat Pragmatist: He seems self-taught, and definitely can't take the highly-trained and skilled Batman in a fair fight. So, in the climax of The Dark Knight, he doesn't fight fair. He attacks Batman when he's blinded and unleashes dogs while furiously smacking him with a crowbar.
• Combat Sadomasochist: He obviously enjoys hurting and killing others, but also deeply enjoys watching Batman's Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique even while Batman is beating him within an inch of his life. In fact, he's disappointed when, even after everything he's done, Batman still won't kill him.
• Composite Character: He has elements from several incarnations of the Joker from other sources of media; he has the mob connections of Tim Burton's version and the nihilism of the The Killing Joke's incarnation. His Darker and Edgier presentation mimics the incarnation from the Joker graphic novel, and both his use of a bomb-filled warehouse to kill one of Batman's loved ones and his later use of a crowbar for the climax are nods to A Death in the Family.
• Con Man: A master of this. He cons everyone both directly and indirectly: the mob (his supposed allies), white-collar criminals, the police, Batman himself... in order to get what he wants.
• Consummate Liar: The Joker is an expert at this. You want to know how good he is? He's so good that one "incorrect" claim of his made many members of the audience believe that bad writing was responsible, even when he was clearly lying. Specifically, when he tells Dent he acts randomly, without a plan, yet he repeatedly demonstrates the use of plans (the bank robbery and the clowns shooting each other; the Joker and his men impersonating the honor guard in an attempt to assassinate the mayor; his actions during the car chase on Wacker Drive), and a gift for improvising. In fact, it was one of those plans that allowed him to break into Dent's hospital room in the first place. Many people thought that he was telling the truth, and the writers had screwed up.
  • His skill with lies is in the grafting of incredibly painful truth with very subtle but important fallacies. For example:
    The Joker: Don't worry! I'm gonna tell you where they are - both of 'em. And that's the point: you'll have to choose. He's at 250/52nd Street, aaaaand she's, uh, on Avenue Ex, at Cicero.
  • They are at these locations, but each at the other: Batman believes the Joker and attempts to rescue the girl.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: To Ra's al Ghul/Henri Ducard, the Big Bad of the first film. They both want to destroy Gotham, but while Ra's al Ghul wants a world free from evil and corruption, the Joker is a sadistic corrupter who wants to destroy the innocence and goodness of the people. Whereas Ra's al Ghul was a Knight Templar, Joker is a Card-Carrying Villain. Whereas Ra's al Ghul had loved ones, was a Tragic Villain and Affably Evil, Joker is Ax-Crazy, unpredictable, and a psychopath who is completely devoid of any redeeming qualities. In many ways, Joker presents everything Ra's al Ghul hates about people and society in general.
  • Their plans are diametrically opposed. Ra's was a purger, trying to commit a mass scale genocide to purge the world of the cancer of Gotham. The Joker is a cancer in itself, corrupting everything and everyone he touches. Ra's planned all from the shadows, only stepping in to finish the plan. The Joker is on it from beginning to the end, constantly shifting according to the changes. Ra's plan was massive, the Joker's plan is small scaled, but in a way, morally worse. Ra's has a gigantic, millennial organization, while the Joker has a criminal organization to carry out his actions. And so on.
  • Their relationship with Batman is interesting too. Ra's was like a second father to Batman, only for him to become disappointed. The Joker is the worst of Gotham, and everything Batman fights against and hates.
• Cop Killer: He kills multiple law enforcement officers throughout the film, including poisoning Police Commissioner Loeb, and uses the responsive anger within the police force to his advantage.
• The Corrupter: His gift isn't simply in causing chaos, pain and grief. It's bringing out the capacity and drive to cause those things in others; ensuring his actions have an immense ripple effect, and that even if you kill him, he's won in principle.
  The Joker: It wasn't hard. You see madness, as you know, is like gravity. All it takes is a little push! [laughs hysterically]
• Crazy-Prepared: Even more so than Batman. What's most impressive is that the Joker can be this without Batman's functionally limitless cash (which likely would have gone up in smoke).
  The Joker: Look what I did to this city with just a few drums of gas and a couple of bullets.
• Creepy High-Pitched Voice: His pitch fluctuates throughout the movie, but whenever he's joking or mocking someone, he puts on a very nasally voice to do it, only succeeding in making him look more unstable and dangerous.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Maybe. Maybe not. But there's certainly a story behind those scars, and it couldn't have been pretty.
• Deadpan Snarker: He makes his entrance throwing out some dry snappy lines to mobsters. Like, "Ah hah hah hah... and I thought my jokes were bad."
• Death Seeker: Subtly. He really doesn't seem to care if he lives or dies, but seems to want Batman to break his one rule because of and upon him. If it advances his cause, he is willing to die, and is welcoming of death. If it doesn't, he keeps self preservation.
• Deconstruction: Of the Joker himself, after all the anti-heroic and idealized traits he'd acquired by fans. His previous versions in movies and TV shows, while still depraved, were particularly cartoonish, laughable, over-the-top, and bombastic. Contrasting this, Ledger's Joker is much darker, macabre, possesses real weapons rather than laughing gas, and his general character is grittier and more mundane.
  • He still has a sense of humor, but he loses most of the tools and behavior that made him the audience's collective image of the Joker. Take away the fantastical laughing gas, acid posies, or the general fourth-wall eccentricities that people know him for, and you are left with his psychopathic nature that will use more mundane and unpleasant methods to achieve results. Like making pencils disappear and giving people Glasgow grins. This even applies to his Monster Clown appearance, itself a means for fear: instead of bleached-white skin and a Frozen Face, he applies "war paint"-like makeup over his own Glasgow Grin scars.
  • In fact, this Joker is very similar to how he was in his original appearance in Batman #1: darker humor, a terrorist by announcing his moves in advance, crimes that made little sense at all except that he liked committing them, etc. The Joker has come full circle.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: He is a more realistic version of The Joker than almost all the others. He is a psychopath who wants to break and corrupt everything and everyone around himself, and is willing to do anything to succeed on it.
  • His peak of terror, while brutal, lasts very shortly. Logically, given he does not have the manpower to pull it for far longer. Being the most wanted man in the city, with his acts having gone from organized crime to terrorism, would not have allowed him to remain hidden for so long (he only achieved it up until then because he was completely anonymous). Not that he cares, it fits with his plans.
  • Given the more realistic setting, a guy pulling the stuff the Joker does would not be able to remain free for a very long time, nor become a mob boss. In the real world, most of what the Joker does would have granted him the death penalty over a thousand times. We never see what happens to him anyway.
• Devious Daggers: He is a cunning schemer and master of mind games. He frequently carries a knife and even has one hidden in his shoe.
• Diabolical Mastermind: Midway through the film he's effectively wrested control of the Gotham mob and begun using their manpower and resources to commit what is essentially a string of domestic terrorist attacks.
• Diabolus ex Nihilo: He has no Start of Darkness and no confirmed backstory. He just shows up and wrecks shop.
• Die Laughing: He bursts into maniacal laughter when Batman throws him off the building they're fighting on, because even in his defeat he achieved victory over Batman by finally getting him to violate his "no kill" rule. When Batman saves him at the last second, he's honestly disappointed.
• Disc-One Final Boss: Downplayed and combined with Final Boss. Technically, he is defeated before Batman deals with Harvey, but Harvey is a Post-Final Boss and was only corrupted because of the Joker.
• Disproportionate Retribution: He has the Chechen cut apart and fed to his own dogs for calling him a freak after Joker burnt the mob’s money.
• Do Wrong, Right: A rare instance of this tropes not being played for laughs. The Joker looks down the Mob as an inferior class of criminal for their focus on crime for the sake of money, as opposed to For the Evulz.
• Doesn't Like Guns: A Downplayed Trope. He claims they kill people too quickly and he'll happily pick one up if he needs to; he just prefers knives.
• The Don: An unusually Ax-Crazy version of this trope. He runs a criminal organization that somehow serves as his main resource to carry out his monstrous plans. He also usurped the Chechen's organization. That said, his actions go far beyond your typical organized crime when it is revealed that his intentions are much, much worse. In fact, after taking the organized crime of Gotham, the Joker turn to full-scale terrorism.
  The Joker: [to The Chechen] Tell your men they work for me now. This is my city.
• Dramatic Unmask: "I believe whatever doesn't kill you simply makes you... stranger."
  • Is quite put out when his attempt to do this to Batman gets interrupted.
• The Dreaded: The Joker goes from a "nobody" to the most feared criminal in Gotham in a span of a few nights. He is feared by everyone (mob bosses, civilians, cops), and for very good reasons. Even when Maroni thought the Joker was still technically working for him and the mob, he was still too scared of the guy to give up any information about him to Batman.
• Equal-Opportunity Evil: He'll let anyone join his criminal enterprise, no matter what ethnic criminal gang you come from or whether you're a mental patient.
• Establishing Character Moment: A toss-up between the Bank Robbery and the Mob Meeting scene, but the latter really hammers The Joker as Refuge in Audacity incarnate. Inviting yourself to a meeting of mob bosses you just robbed and performing a magic trick on one of their goons? That piqued their interest. Constantly treating the Gotham mob as a joke and strapping yourself full of explosives? That got him out of the lion's den scot-free.
  • All this shows his intelligence and planning skills, his ability to hide in plain sight, his quick thinking, his sense of humour, his absolute contempt and lack of care for human life, his complete lack of fear of anything or anyone, and his willingness to put his life on the line if necessary. The bank robbery in particular also succinctly showcases his Chronic Backstabbing Disorder tendencies and Batman Gambit skills, both of which are the main elements of his modus operandi for the entirety of the movie.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Inverted. He believes the Mob to be an inferior class of criminal, because they actually care for things beyond committing crimes just for the sake of committing crimes (like money).
  • He mocks this when he mentions how Batman didn't stop Harvey Dent from being arrested after claiming to be the Batman, even saying: "even to a guy like me, that's cold". He's obviously trolling.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Zigzagged. His "social experiment" failed, because regular Gothamites were too decent to make the choice he expected them to make, which Batman assumes is proof that the Joker doesn't really understand normal people. Lending to this is the fact he looks truly angered and confused when the plan fails. On the other hand, while he might not get how good people truly are (love and empathy are something beyond him, and when faced with the abyss, not everyone becomes a monster. Hell, he misunderstood his own fellow people, the criminals, who show that deep down, they are decent people) he does understand how they think and work, the weaknesses and the darkness in them, and knows how to manipulate and use this to manipulate and corrupt them. Hence why he is always three steps ahead of everyone. Corrupting Harvey is perhaps the best example of this (he uses everything Harvey values and loves and twists it, so Harvey gets twisted with it and becomes a murderous vigilant). He does not really need to transform him into a monster like him...just to bring him down a bit. Like he says: "I am only burning my half".
  • He also thinks Batman's morality is just a misplaced sense of self righteousness. Although in this case, he seems happy of this. Nor did he expect Batman to take the fall for Harvey (although this can be argued as Batman outwitting The Joker than the Joker not necessarily being able to think about that. Everything happens very fast, and the Joker might not have thought they could keep the information closed. On the other hand, he might have not been paying attention when Batman was willing to sacrifice himself to stop him from killing people, so overlooking that might mean he stills does not get Batman).
• Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: The Joker emits fake laughter with a deadpan tone when he crashes the mob meeting, and ends by saying, "And I thought my jokes were bad...". Immediately after that, he makes a pencil disappear, which is bad for the poor victim of the trick but humorous for him, and also for us. "TADA! It's, ah—bah, it's gone."
• Evil Is Hammy: Between laughing, gesturing, and grand speeches; his presence is exceptionally over-the-top and grandiloquent, at least by the standards of your ordinary Nolan antagonist.
• Evil Is Petty: As much as he tries to come as a superior kind of criminal and one with loftier goals, The Joker is incredibly petty.
• Evil Genius: A resourceful, creative and clever Chessmaster with a plan for everything. He is also an expert in psychological manipulation and strategy.
• Evil Laugh: He's the freaking Joker. He also performs a very odd false laugh when he gatecrashes the mob's meeting.
• Evil Sounds Deep: Inverted. He speaks with a rather high nasal voice, nothing like Ledger's natural baritone voice. However, when angry, it can switch to a nightmarish gravely tone as seen in the news report tape of him torturing the fake Batman.
• Eviler than Thou: To the Chechen. And arguably, to everyone else.
  The Joker: This town deserves a better class of criminal. And I'm gonna give it to 'em.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: The mob attempted to use the Joker to advance their own interests, but had no idea just how destructive he really was, or that the Joker was using them more for his interests. When Rachel bites it, Sal Maroni even admits that he should never have let the Chechen hire the Joker in the first place.
• Evil Is Petty: While it's not as evident as it is in most incarnations of the character, the Joker is just as willing to settle for tormenting people by being an annoying Troll as he is murdering them. It's particularly evident in the ARG, where he has his followers harass and rob various Girl Scouts of their cookies and later poisons cakes from numerous bakeries just for the sake of it.
• Evil Plan: He's such a liar that it's hard to tell what The Plan is exactly, but corrupting people - whether it's the city itself or just one man - is at the center of it.
• Exact Words: A key method of his lying is that he rarely does; he'll tell half-truths, metaphorical truths, or make insinuations instead. And if he goes back on his word or does something that other characters didn't see coming, he often points to Loophole Abuse in the wording he gave them.
  • Since he couldn't kill Harvey Dent, he kills two policeman in his place, one called Richard Dent...and the other Patrick Harvey. Harvey Dent.
  • Corrupting Harvey. Most, if not all the things he tells Harvey are "true". He did not really rig the chargers, the mob and the cops do have plans and try to control everything, it is because of his own schemes that Harvey ended up where he is (and Rachel died), it is true that people do not get altered until things stop going according the plan, the hypocrisy of things, how the order of the world is unfair, and chaos might be fairer...All of these things, combined with a Harvey at the limit are enough to push him to take justice by his own hands.
  • His policy in regards to threats.
    The Joker: You see, this is how crazy Batman has made Gotham! If you want order in Gotham, Batman must take off his mask and turn himself in. Oh, and every day he doesn't, people will die. Starting tonight. I'm a man of my word! [hysterical maniacal laughter]
  • Also, during the interrogation scene, he never says that the person Batman chooses would be the one he ''saves''. Batman chooses Rachel, and Rachel dies.
    Joker: Killing is making a choice. Choose between one life or the other: your friend the district attorney, or his blushing bride to be!
  • When he sets fire to the mob's pile of money, the Chechen protests "you said you're a man of your word!" The Joker replies he is — he's only burning his half. The fact that the other half of the pile is going to catch fire too isn't his problem.
• Expy:
  • Much of his character is loosely based on Malcolm McDowell's performance as Alex DeLarge in A Clockwork Orange. After all, both are eccentric, sadistic, Ax-Crazy sociopaths with a penchant for chaos.
  • According to Nicola Pecorini, Ledger had talked with him about Johnny Depp's portrayal of Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl in relation to The Dark Knight, aiming to make a performance that would be "so far out he'd be fired".
• Eye Scream:
  The Joker: [completely deadpan] Ah ha ha ha ha, hahaha, ha, ha, ha, oh, a-hee-hee, ha ha, oh, hee ha, ahaha. And I thought my jokes were bad!
  Gambol: Give me one reason why I shouldn't have my boy here pull your head off.
  The Joker: How about a magic trick? I'm gonna make this pencil disappear.
  [Gambol's crony walks over to the Joker. The Joker slams the man's head down on the pencil, forcing the entire pencil through his eye socket]
  The Joker: TA-DA! It's, ah...bah, it's gone. Oh, and by the way, the suit? It wasn't cheap. You oughta know, you bought it!
• Facial Horror: While this is one of the few times the Joker's clown-like appearance is the result of make-up, he does sport a Glasgow Grin.
• Fatal Flaw: His inability to get why good people are good dooms his plan. That, and some good arrogant gloating. Had he kept his damn mouth shut, Batman might had not been able to stop Harvey from killing Gordon's son, and he would have won. But he had to indulge himself in gloating to Batman he had broken Harvey, which gives Batman enough time to stop him and think of a counter measure.
• Faux Affably Evil: The Joker maintains a jovial demeanor in any given situation. Despite this, he has no conscience nor empathy, caring nothing for anyone else and will kill and maim if it serves his purpose, objectively or entertainingly.
• For the Evulz: He's the trope picture and the subject of the trope quote. The quote in question was from Alfred when he was talking about a Burmese bandit who stole not because he wanted what he stole, but because he thought it was fun, when giving a comparison in regards to the Joker.
  Alfred: Some men just want to watch the world burn.
• Foil:
  • A version of the Joker to meet this version of Batman. Aside from the usual similarities, this versions of them have their own particular connections:
    • Similar to Batman, he is willing to use people's fears to turn fear on to those who prey on the fearful (Batman targets the Mob, Joker targets Batman), plans ahead and seems prepared for whatever could happen. Unlike Batman, he doesn't have fancy gadgets or a tight network of friends; his methods for causing destruction are very utilitarian by comparison (petrol bombs, scavenged/black market guns and good old fashioned knives), even describing his taste in explosives as "cheap."
    • They both keep their identities hidden, but where Batman uses it to protect his loved ones, Joker uses it as part of his "horrifying image". Batman became a dark urban legend, while Joker became a sheer force of terror. As a fact, The Joker is just the Joker. While Batman is still Bruce, The Joker has no life outside being The Joker.
    • If one pays attention to the Joker stories, they reveal unsettling parallels to Bruce's. Bruce had a loving father and mother who were taken from him. The Joker had a horribly abusive father who killed his mother and might have scared him. His second story is about how he lost his loved one (he scarred himself because he wanted to show her he did not care about the scars she had received from mobsters, and because he wanted to see her smile again, just like she used to say he did not smile enough and worried too much...and she left him for doing that...leaving only The Joker. Sort of like Bruce becoming Batman partially because Rachel shamed him...only for Rachel to reject him when he becomes Batman), which sort of parallels and foreshadows Rachel's fate.
    • The way both take stage in Gotham is completely different. Batman came flying (literally and metaphorically), from outside when Gotham was at it's worst, and helped pave the way for the slow recovery. His first act was a massive act, getting Carmine Falcone arrested, and a bit later, saving the city from destruction. The Joker, on the other hand, like a beast crawled from hell (moreso if you believe he came from Arkham, which is in the narrows, the darkest part of Gotham), starts slowly, climbing his way up the ladder , hiding himself as a small thief...and when Gotham seems to finally start getting good, and the mob is about to fall (in a legal way), The Joker makes his move, revealing himself as a diabolical mastermind, plunging the city into hell, and almost ruining everything Batman worked so hard to achieve (a very funny example is the party in Wayne's Penthouse. Bruce, the host and organizer, comes in his helicopter, surrounded by women, playing up his playboy facade, to give Harvey the support he needs from the rich and the powerful, so Gotham can have a true protector. The Joker appears to the party by surprise and uninvited, using the elevator, holding a police hostage, terrorising the rich and the powerful, with the explicit intention to kill Dent, bring Batman to the open and unsmask him, to plunge the entire city into hell).
    • Their M.O.'s are fairly similar. Both of them attack the keystones that hold their enemies (Batman attacking Falcone, bringing Lau and their money to the open; The Joker attacking key figures and key places in society), both use fear, theatricalities and deception, have a lot of tools, both sneak away from the law and structures (Batman using his massive fortune and resources, The Joker sneaking through the underbelly of Gotham undetected). Both of them are constantly improvising and adapting their plans to the circumstances, given their goals allow them certain versatility.
    • Both of them live for their causes. The key differences being: The Joker has nothing besides being The Joker. Batman stills has, and he wants to have a different, normal life. Both of them are willing to give everything for their causes, including their lifes (in Batman's case, his reputation too).
    • Both of them are the best and the worst of Gotham. Batman is the best Gotham could have dreamed of, a saviour in their direst moment. The Joker is Gotham's worst nightmare, and the biggest threat to the city's spirit and cohesion.
    • The way they inspire and relate to people. Batman started being distrusted, but he became a paragon and the most trusted asset from the forces of good and order, inspiring people to become better. The Joker forced himself into the mob, took their resources, and them betrayed them to bring about his own plans. He gathered a gang of fanatics and madmen around him to bring Gotham to it's knees.
    • If one believes the theory of him being an ex soldier who fought in an external conflict, it makes the parallels even more striking.
• Freudian Excuse: Openly mocked by him, with his Multiple-Choice Past. However, the line he gives when unmasking himself to the bank manager, "I believe whatever doesn't kill you, simply makes you...stranger", suggests that something happened that made him this way. We never learn what exactly it is, but we do know that the scars on his face are implied to be real, and he got them in a definitively traumatic incident.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Considered a small time hood by Batman and Maroni at the start of the movie. The remaining acts see him rise. Both Batman and the Mob at first saw him as a nobody, but they clearly underestimated him as he became Gotham's greatest threat in a matter of days.
  • Bonus points for the interrogation scene, where Batman simply starts plummeling him for answers; in response, the Joker cackles that Batman has zero leverage on him because of this.
• The Gadfly: In true Joker fashion. When meeting the Mob it takes him less than a minute to start mocking them. He always doubles down on the people whose skin he gets under the most, including Gambol and Stephens.
• Gambit Roulette: Zigzagged. While some of his plans might push it a bit, and one might wonder how the hell could he be so prepared, one has to remember The Joker had months and months to plan and prepare for his operations, plus the bank robbery, and obtaining the recourses from the Gotham Mob, which allowed him to expand his scope considerably. Aside that, plans like the hospital bombing and the ferries' social experiment were clearly planned beforehand, and he used the circumstances on his favour (Dent being in the hospital). Him being anonymous, and not showing how he plans things helps to create the mysticism and keep his plans well hidden, so he still remains a good case of a villain who can pull his seemingly complicated plans off without them coming as impossible or too contrived. Now, on the other hand, many of the specifics depend of particular events happening in a determined/specific way, with many of these things being out of his control. But, he is still pretty good at improvising, so many of his actions could too be improvisation.
• Glasgow Grin: The Joker features very noticeable scarring from such wounds and tells two conflicting stories of how he got them (and is interrupted from giving a third). He also loves to put the same type of "smile" on some of his victims.
• Greater-Scope Villain: In the ARG. He's still causing plenty of havoc, but the Joker spends most of it gradually building up his power base and setting up his Evil Plan while the city is distracted by the ongoing mob war.
• Green and Mean: He dyed his hair green and he immediately strikes fear into the hearts of his enemies.
• Hero Killer: This seems like a recurring M.O. for this version of the Joker, depending how you view this one. He outright murders former GCPD officer Brian Douglass (one of the vigilantes of Citizen For Batman), kills several known Gotham City cops and other law enforcement including Commissioner Loeb and Rachel Dawes, and finally causes Dent to slide off the slope of sanity, leading to several more deaths, including Dent's own.
• Humans Are Bastards: Joker seems to believe in this; as one of his plans is foiled by the citizens and prisoners of Gotham choosing to not kill each other to save their own lives. This not only causes a minor Villainous Breakdown, where he is quiet for once, but it allows Batman to beat him due to his distraction...and projectile scallops. Unfortunately, Joker had a backup plan in the form of Harvey Dent.
• The Hyena: All that evil laughing at his evil deeds; it has more impact by how sparingly he uses it.
• Hypocrite:
  • He claims to be proving the futility of imposing plans and order on the world - except virtually everything he does is meticulously planned, complete with backups. A good example is when he gives Dent the chance to shoot him. Eagle-eyed viewers will notice that, despite his claims of giving Dent a choice, he's holding back the hammer of the gun (to keep it from firing).
  • He tells Batman that Gotham will cast him out the moment they no longer need him, because to them, he's just another 'freak.' While this does happen at the end of the movie, the only reason it happens is because Batman takes the fall for murders committed by or orchestrated by the Joker in the first place. It also ends up being subverted at the end of Dark Knight Rises where Batman is celebrated as a hero once and for all.
  • His insistence that he's just being true to himself and that deep down everyone is as insane as he is. Much like the above example, his mental breaking of Harvey Dent had to be heavily orchestrated and planned in order to drive him fully over the edge. It also gets a brutal reality check when neither of the ferries opts to blow the other up and tries to finish the job himself. Batman lampshades it and for once the Joker has zero rebuttal.
    "What were you trying to prove? That deep down, everyone is as ugly as you? You're alone!"
• Immediate Self-Contradiction: After killing Gambol, the Joker mentions that his currently-small operation has "a lot of potential for aggressive expansion." He then offers Gambol's three remaining men a role, but claims that "there's only one spot open right now" and makes them fight to the death for it.
• Inexplicably Awesome: Perhaps one of the most scariest aspects of The Joker is how incredibly good he is at carrying out his plans with resources that remain a mystery. He has a criminal organization, yes, but his vast resources seem to suggest that he is not just any mob boss or criminal. It's safe to say that no one has any idea how a complete stranger became one of the most dangerous criminals of Gotham, with abilities of intellect worthy of rivaling that of Batman.
• Interim Villain: Unlike the other Big Bads before and after this film, there is no evidence that connects him to the League of Shadows in any shape or form, the latter of which is arguably the Greater-Scope Villain of the entire trilogy. Yet he is undoubtedly the most damaging example of the trope, notably leading Batman to take the blame for Dent's murders and go missing for years, until the events of Rises take place.
  • Nolan originally planned on bringing Joker in the third part, but Ledger's death made him change his plans, and it's likely he would have played a much bigger role if things had been different.
• Jerkass: On a top of being a psychopathic, sadistic monster, he's also an utter jerk towards everyone. He casually makes fun of people with his dry, sadistic sense of humor.
• Karma Houdini: Zig-zagged. As revealed in the novelization of The Dark Knight Rises, he's not only a prisoner at Arkham, he has the place to himself. Or not, assuming he broke out somehow. We don't really know, and we probably never will.
• Kansas City Shuffle: Almost any time that he warns the authorities about what he's going to do next, or any times he does anything, it's because their attempt to stop him will give him an opening to do something else (or be the trigger of his real plan). All his plans have plans inside, they always have a hidden objective, and he always has an ace in the hole.
• Kick the Dog:
  • Taken both figuratively and literally - although not explicitly shown for obvious reasons, when he sics Chechen's attack dogs on Batman in the final act leading up to the ferry incident, he quickly loses his patience and begins savagely beating both Batman and the dogs indiscriminately.
  • He has his men switch clothes with the hostages and put tape on their hands while holding guns, so that the police would be forced to shoot them, and decide to go to a building with a lot of large windows so that the snipers could hit them easily. This whole part was unnecessary for the Joker's plan; he did this just to make the entire police force feel guilt for killing innocents without realizing it.
  • Exploited while in GCPD custody, he starts to screw with Detective Stephens by asking Stephens how many of his friends he has killed. Even going to so far as to call some of them cowards to get under Stephens' skin. This was all in an effort to take Stephens hostage so he can break out of custody with Lau.
  • It could be argued he knew Batman would have learned his lesson from Joker switching Rachel and Harvey's locations and would figure out the ruse, forcing him to deal with the situation and giving Joker more time to let the ferries destroy one another. Also... Joker probably found the hostage situation being flipped to be funny. Although the true point of this plan was to show the selfishness of Gotham's citizens.
• Knight of Cerebus: Black Comedy aside, the Joker is the darkest villain of the entire trilogy. The man is completely evil, and things get worse and worse the longer he is in the picture. His psychopathic behaviour is played realistically, his plans are sinister and close to reality, and the murder of Rachel and the breaking of Harvey are probably the lowest points in the entire saga. Not to mention he is the villain who came the closest to breaking Batman and Gotham, and, in a way, he won.
• Lack of Empathy: Ledger himself openly declared him a "psychopathic, mass murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy."
• Laughably Evil: His threat level is played dead seriously, however (being the Joker), he still provides some of the funniest moments in the film, even by the standards of a Nolan film... although obviously without hindering the serious narrative of the film. For example, it's impossible not to find hilarious when he disguises himself as a female nurse.
• Laughing Mad: Right when Batman foiled him and threw him off the roof to certain death before saving him, he started breaking into laughter. It was his victory, you see: in throwing him off a building, The Batman had broken his no-killing rule. He's really let down when, seconds later, Batman saves him.
• Lip Losses: Behind-the-scenes images of Heath Ledger's facial prosthetics for the Joker show that his lower lip also has some extensive scarring, although in the film his makeup means these scars aren't very obvious.
• Lost in a Crowd:
  • To escape from the bank, the Joker slips his school bus into an opening in a long line of identical buses driving past the bank as the police arrive.
  • For the Joker and his men to escape the funeral after attempting to shoot the mayor, notice how all the assembled officers break formation and run every which way after Gordon goes down intercepting the Joker's bullet. The Joker and his men use the chaos and confusion to escape, and all of them do get away, except for Thomas Schiff, who is tagged in the left leg.
• Loves the Sound of Screaming: His "why I use a knife" dialogue to Stephens strongly implies that he likes knifing people so he can bask in their agony, but given how good he is at manipulation, it's very possible that he was simply saying this to goad Stephens into attacking him, since Stephens had already said that he knew that the Joker would enjoy getting beaten up.
• Mad Bomber: He loves blowing things up. Cars, ferries, hospitals, judges, Rachel and Harvey—it's all fair game. He even carries a bundle of grenades under his coat to the mob meeting, just in case they get...unfriendly.
  "I'm a man of simple tastes. I enjoy... dynamite, and gunpowder, and gasoline. And you know the thing they have in common? . . . They're cheap."
• Manipulative Bastard: He screws with people's heads for shits and giggles. Even his own men. He knows how to get inside people's heads, he knows what they are going to do and react, and he knows how to twist them.
• Mugged for Disguise: To get to the mayor during Commissioner Loeb's funeral, the Joker and his men abduct the honor guard, tie them up and gag them in an apartment overlooking the parade, then steal their rifles and uniforms.
• Mugging the Monster: Subverted In-Universe. The Gotham mob bosses initially think Joker's theft is this, with the man at the bank declaring that the Joker is "dead." They eventually realize that the monster mugged them.
• Mind Rape: Does this to an already very-stressed Harvey Dent, and it breaks him.
• Monster Clown: Looks like a clown, and is far more terrifying than mobsters.
• Mouthing the Profanity: After Batman fails to mow him down on the street, he mouths "fuck".
• Movie Superheroes Wear Black: Subverted. He transitions from a dark indigo suit to a more traditional purple suit and green waistcoat.
• Multiple-Choice Past: As is the case, he has several stories about how he got the scars on his face, this being a reference to The Killing Joke, the Trope Namer. However, the line he gives when unmasking himself to the bank manager, "I believe whatever doesn't kill you, simply makes you...stranger", suggests that something happened that made him this way.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The use of play cards as his calling cards, but also done on a meta level when Batman dismisses Joker as a clown and not a real threat. This signals to the audience that Batman's made a fatal error.
  • He mercilessly bludgeons Batman with a crowbar during their Final Battle, as he did to Jason Todd in A Death in the Family.
• N-Word Privileges: He calls himself and Batman "freaks" a few times, as a sign of them being superior to the rest. If anyone else tries to call him a "freak", the results aren't going to be pretty.
• Nerves of Steel: A subverted case, not because he faces his fears, but because he simply lacks fear and does not care about living or dying.
• Near-Villain Victory: If Batman hadn't pulled his Zero-Approval Gambit at the end of the movie, the Joker would have definitely won. In Rises, when Bane publicizes Harvey Dent's murderous actions as Two-Face, Gotham is quickly plunged into anarchy and chaos, just as the Joker had originally intended.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Downplayed. Being one of the trilogy's most depraved villains, some of his actions ended up having more positive rather than destructive repercussions. While he was still indirectly responsible for Bane's revolution in the sequel, a pretty large chunk of his actions end up directly or indirectly aiding Batman in his crusade against crime: he pulls off daring robberies against Mob-controlled banks, he swindles the Mob out of millions of dollars, he assassinates the Gotham Police Department's incompetent Commissioner (allowing the idealistic and ruthlessly efficient Jim Gordon to take the job), and he personally murders Lau, Gambol and the Chechen—three of the city’s most powerful criminals. Even one of his most heinous acts—turning Harvey Dent into the villainous Two-Face—just results in Dent going on a murderous rampage against corrupt police officers. Furthermore, Dent's death allowed cops to clean up the city of organized crime, resulting in a much cleaner and safer city than it had been before. In short, the Joker did indirectly far more damage to Gotham's criminal underworld than Batman ever did, which is cruelly ironic considering his plan was to destroy society, not clean it up... although Bane almost succeeded.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: His mannerisms and "chaotic" look seem to be at least partly based in countercultural pop culture artists such as Iggy Pop, Johnny Rotten, and Sid Vicious. Some rumors even suggest that Ledger may have been based on Tom Waits to shape his mannerisms and voice.
• No Name Given: "No name. No other alias..." He is only the Joker. Makes you wonder if he was born homeless or just had managed to easily avoid doing anything that would give him prints or a name that might go on a database. More impressive by not needing a "clean slate" to go incognito, like the one Selina Kyle would try to obtain eight years later.
• Noodle Implements: His collection of knives as the evidence handler arranges them. Knife, knife, knife, potato peeler. Even the handler has a Double Take.
• Not Afraid to Die: He's completely unfazed by the prospect of death, especially if it means tarnishing the Batman. When he thinks he's falling to his death, he laughs. He's disappointed when Batman doesn't kill him.
• Nothing Personal: He tells Harvey Rachel's death was nothing personal. How honest he is being, is ambiguous.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain:
  • He is at first regarded as a nuisance to the mob and a low-level bank robber. Then his Evil Plan starts...
  • Going further, everything about The Joker's appearance is meant to both disturb, yet mask his lethal nature. His hired goons liken his make-up to "war paint", he buys an expensive (custom-made!) overcoat that he proceeds to pack with knives and grenades, and even his physicality is informed by this - he usually walks with a hunched, loping gait that hides just how quick he can actually be.
• Nothing Is Scarier: One of the things that makes him so horrifying is we really don't know anything about him. He gives a Multiple-Choice Past and it's hard to tell which one, if any of them is the truth. He has no origin or reason or explanation. He just is.
• Not Wearing Tights: Downplayed Trope. His character-defining theatrics, while still present, go nowhere near the levels seen in other media. He wears a custom suit, paints his face, uses a two-tone automatic Glock, and once in a while he does something crazy like hanging a fake Batman from a noose, but things that go into the realm of silliness like the "Bang" pistol he is seen using a few times in other medias are not present. He's more of a "practical Joker".
• Obfuscating Insanity: As he put it, "Do I really look like a guy with a plan?" Key word being looks. No, he does not look like a guy with a plan...But he has more plan than all the other characters put together.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: When it suits his needs he's capable of convincing the likes of Harvey Dent that he's just a "mad dog" out to kill people. While there is truth on it, he is omitting the fact practically ALL of what happened was his plan.
• The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: The Joker's motivation for putting a hit out on Coleman Reese was not wanting Batman's identity to be revealed and thus lose his Worthy Opponent. His killing off of Gambol and The Chechen can be seen as this too.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: The Joker has no known name or alias.
• Order Versus Chaos: Represents chaos to Batman's order and calls himself an 'agent' of it. Although they fit better to the idea of a good order vs an evil chaos, or simply of good vs evil.
• Outside-Context Problem: No one saw The Joker coming. Not the police, not the Mob, and certainly not the Batman. Gordon drops a bit of foreshadowing at the end of Batman Begins, when he worries about escalation within the criminal underground (back when The Joker was merely a thief with a flair for theatrics) but until the clown knocks off a Mafia-run Bank at the beginning of The Dark Knight, no one takes him seriously.
• Pragmatic Adaptation: In order to keep up with the film's realistic approach, this version of the Joker doesn't have permanently bleached skin and green hair. Instead, he achieves his Monster Clown appearance through makeup and hair dye.
  Happy: So why do they call him the Joker?
  Dopey: I heard he wears makeup.
  Happy: Makeup?
  Dopey: Yeah, to scare people. Y'know, war paint.
  • Nolan's Joker also does away with all of the novelty gag weapons like the Electric Joybuzzer and acid posy, and even the Joker Venom is nowhere to be seen (though at least three of his victims have painted faces as a nod to Jokerized victims dying with a smile). Instead, this Joker mainly uses his malignant intellect to plan out major terror attacks, troll Batman and corrupt Harvey Dent, and fights with unstylized weapons like a bazooka and his infamous crowbar.
• Precision F-Strike: After the Batman fails to mow him down on the street with the Batpod. Considering the MOS nature of the IMAX cameras (and that Grumpy had sputtered "What the fuck?!" when the mob bank manager tagged him) that were used to film that scene, it's possible that Heath Ledger swore audibly on camera, but the word wasn't dubbed back in during ADR.
  The Joker: Come on, hit me! Hit me!
  [The Batpod misses him]
  The Joker: [mouths] Fuck!
• Psycho for Hire: He acts like this to the mob (with the whole psycho part in full display), but he is actually just using them for his own ends.
• Psycho Knife Nut: Befitting an Ax-Crazy lunatic, the Joker has a fondness for knives, citing his preference of them over guns due to them killing more slowly and painfully.
• "Psycho" Strings: The Joker's theme motif is the sound of plucking violin strings with a razor blade.
• Purple Is Powerful: His standard outfit is a tailored purple suit and he quickly rises in becoming Gotham's most dangerous criminal.
• Put on a Prison Bus: At the end of the movie, Batman has the opportunity to let the Joker fall to his death, but following his Character Development, he instead catches the Joker with his grappling hook, letting him dangle upside down for the police to take him away. He was made absent in The Dark Knight Rises due to Heath Ledger passing away, but the novelization confirms he's still in Arkham. Or so it's hoped.
• Put the "Laughter" in "Slaughter": Lampshaded. The circus semi truck the Joker and his men drive in during the car chase has had the side wording - "Laughter is the Best Medicine" - altered by way of a spray-painted red "S" right before "Laughter" to make it read "(S)LAUGHTER IS THE BEST MEDICINE".
• Real Men Wear Pink: He wears makeup, lipstick, has green hair and wears a tailored purple suit and makes every mob boss and cop in Gotham tremble in fear. He also disguises himself as a female nurse in one scene, complete with curly blonde wig, heels, a knee-high skirt and pink hemming.
• Realistic Diction Is Unrealistic: To convey the character's disorganized yet quick-moving mind, Heath Ledger does things like trail off, back up and repeat himself, interrupt his own verbal train of thought, etc. This has the eerie effect of making the biggest psychopath in the trilogy also the one who sounds most like an actual person.
• Reckless Gun Usage: The Joker doesn't seem to be all that big on proper gun safety. He constantly waves guns around with his finger on the trigger, twice shoots behind him without looking, and when he gets out of the truck carrying a machine gun, it goes off and randomly sprays bullets when he slips. Then again, he's the Joker. It's likely he doesn't care.
• Red Herring Shirt: In the opening scene, a mob-employed bank manager tries to take down the clowns with a sawed off shotgun, killing Chuckles and hitting Grumpy in the shoulder, then is shot down by Bozo. Unfortunately for him, Bozo is secretly the Joker.
• Refuge in Audacity: The Joker robs a mob bank, then calmly walks into a meeting of the gangsters he stole from and proposes they give him half their earnings if he kills Batman.
  • "Oh, by the way: The suit, it wasn't cheap. I mean, you oughta know, you bought it!"
  • Practically all his operations are like this. Hiding as the ceremonial guards, leading the convoy to kill Dent, getting himself captured and blowing the station up, dressing as a nurse, etc.
• Relative Ridicule: The Joker mocks Gambol by insinuating that if he does nothing to stop Batman, he won't be able to support his grandmother.
• Riddle for the Ages: He openly defies his Freudian Excuse with his Multiple-Choice Past, but the line he gives when unmasking himself to the bank manager implies something drove him to nihilism. It's unknown what exactly happened, but it's known the Glasgow Grin is implied to be real, and he got them somehow - that the experience that gave him them was traumatic is unbelievable. Despite his capture, virtually nothing about his origins can be picked up from the GCPD criminal database.
• Right-Hand Attack Dog: He uses a few dogs to aid him when he personally assaults Batman.
• Rugged Scar: Rather than the Joker's traditional Frozen Face, this one has a Glasgow Grin, indicating the series' Darker and Edgier tone while still establishing the character as someone who isn't going to die easily.
• Sadist: He is amused by the pain of everyone, including his own.
• Sadistic Choice: Enjoys giving others these; like making Batman choose between saving Harvey Dent or Rachel Dawes. To make that Sadistic Choice worse he switched the addresses, apparently in hopes of invoking Failure Is the Only Option... and this leads to Harvey going on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge after Rachel is blown up.
• Satanic Archetype: The Devil to Batman's messianic figure. He has incredibly Satanic elements surrounding his character: he is a misanthropic nihilist, a corrupter, knows perfectly well how to get into the psychology of those who corrupts or murders, enjoys the physical pain of everyone (including his own), is an exceptional manipulator, a Con Man and, to add an even more disturbing element, is a complete stranger out of nowhere who finally disappears from the narrative of the story, without leaving any trace. There is also the brutal, enigmatic and unpredictable nature of his crimes, complete with the Nothing Is Scarier trope enhancing his Satanic qualities. It's safe to say that no one is safe from him.
• Scars Are Ugly: His Glasgow Grin is his most noticeable feature, though whether it was self-inflicted or was forced upon him changes depending on who he tells the story too. Notably, the scars show signs of infection as the film goes on.
• Secret Identity Apathy: He actually doesn't start off as this, initially working with the mob to expose Batman's identity to the public. Eventually he has a change of heart that brings him in line with most continuities where he stops caring about Batman's Secret Identity because he decides that Batman is the true face anyway...and because he has so much fun with Batman that he'd hate to have the surprise spoiled. This is what motivates him to go after Coleman Reese.
• Self-Deprecation: Oh, yes, Joker is a Consummate Liar, he refers to himself as an agent of chaos, and he is wholly a violent and unrepentant murderer...and he's so shameless about it that he isn't even above making jabs at himself. His first line to the mob is "And I thought my jokes were bad", and his meeting with Harvey features this gem;
  Harvey: Your men, your plan.
  Joker: [disguised as a nurse] Do I really look like a guy with a plan?
• Sequel Adaptation Iconic Villain: While Batman Begins focused on less famous members of Batman's rogues gallery, The Joker, his iconic Arch-Enemy, made his grand debut in The Dark Knight.
• Sinister Switchblade: With the exception of his shoe knife and his potato peeler, all of his blades are out-the-front automatic knives.
• Skin-Tone Disguise: Inverted; the Joker is an infamous criminal who doesn't hide his face when doing crimes, but manages to blend in to a parade by removing his signature makeup.
• Slasher Smile: Carved into his face in a similar fashion to a Glasgow smile.
  "Now I see the funny side. Now I'm always smiling."
• The Social Expert: He has a clear understanding of how society is supposed to work and that's why he's so good at breaking it up.
• The Sociopath: Just like most versions of the Joker, he is a man whose only goal is to watch everything crumble around him for his own amusement. He has no empathy for the people he hurts and kills — not even his own men are exempt. He shows little regard for the safety of himself or others. Despite his violent nature, he is a natural smooth-talker and able to convince others to ally with him. However, he is also a pathological liar (despite his claims of being a man of his word) who will say anything to either misdirect others or get under their skin. He does this to satiate a sense of boredom as he implicitly admits to Batman. He states that Batman is "too much fun" and is willing to endanger people's lives when Reese decides to expose him which threatens to take his game away — and this is after he threatened for Batman to unmask himself, but changed his mind because the idea was boring. And throughout the entire movie, he never once shows a shred of remorse for what he does.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: He has a very quiet, unassuming voice. That's until he raises his voice...
• Sore Loser: His angry muttering when both ferries refuse to blow each other up has shades of this, before he tries to blow them both up.
  "You can't rely on anyone these days. You gotta do everything yourself. Don't we?"
• Spanner in the Works: The Joker is a self-proclaimed "Agent of Chaos"; he really doesn't plan (or so he claims to Dent), he just looks at his enemies' plans and attacks the weak point that causes the most chaos - though the means he uses are often complicated, the goals is usually just "Attack Its Weak Point". He's not a planner, he's an anti-planner.
  Do I really look like a guy with a plan? You know what I am? I'm like a dog chasing cars. I wouldn't know what to do with one if I caught it. You know, I just... do things. The mob has plans, the cops have plans, Gordon's got plans. You know, they're schemers. Schemers trying to control their little worlds. I'm not a schemer. I try to show the schemers how pathetic their attempts to control things really are. When I say that you and your girlfriend was nothing personal, you know that I'm telling the truth. It's the schemers that put you where you are. You were a schemer, you had plans, and look where that got you. I just did what I do best. I took your little plan and I turned it on itself. Look what I did to this city with a few drums of gas and a couple of bullets.
• The Spook: Like Gordon said, the Gotham PD has nothing on him: "No name, no other alias. Nothing on prints, DNA, dental. Clothing is custom; no labels. Nothing in his pockets but knives and lint." This is especially scary when you consider that in the next movie, Selina Kyle is trying to erase her criminal records and is boxed in by all of the information on her already, but the Joker is a big blank.
• Status Quo Is God: In keeping with his "agent of chaos" philosophy, he gives a Motive Rant to Harvey mocking how this is overrated.
  "If I tell people that tomorrow, a drug dealer is gonna get shot, or a truck full of soldiers is gonna get blown up somewhere overseas, nobody panics. Because it's all..part...of the plan. But when I say that one little mayor is gonna die...well, then everyone just loses their minds!"
• The Stinger: In Batman Begins, he leaves a joker card for the police to find.
• Straw Nihilist: He believes that morality is meaningless and "the only sensible way to live in this world is without rules". Plus, the main objective behind his "social experiment" is to prove people are bad at heart. For example: he has his men switch clothes with the hostages and put tape on their hands while holding guns, so that the police would be forced to shoot them, unaware they just killed innocents without them even realizing it. While this was unnecessary for the Joker's plan, he did this just to make the entire police force feel remorse for it, as part of his scheme to prove everyone is just like him and that people are cruel beneath their goody-goody exteriors.
• Strike Me Down with All of Your Hatred!: How he convinces Harvey to give into madness, and how he hopes to corrupt Batman too.
  Joker: Come on...! Do it! I want you to do it! Hit me! HIT MEEEEE!
• Stuff Blowing Up: He really likes explosions:
  Joker: See, I'm a man of simple tastes. I like dynamite... and gunpowder... and gasoline! And you know the thing they have in common? They're cheap!
• Suddenly Shouting: He can go from something slightly higher than a whisper to snarling threats in a second.
• Superhero Movie Villains Die: This time, averted. Out of the central villains in the trilogy, he's the single one who's only incarcerated rather than killed off. His final fate is never really explored in Rises, with the closest it ever got being him becoming an urban legend in the novelization, but it's made fairly obvious that he never died in this series. Unfortunately, he was still omitted from Rises due to Heath Ledger's passing, and in order to pay respects Joker is never mentioned.
• Taking You with Me: Implied when Gambol attempts to have him killed before settling on a bounty. He reveals that he has wired himself with explosives and had a string on his finger. Just in case the guys blew things outta proportion.
• Terrorists Without a Cause: Lampshaded.
  Joker: You know what I am? I'm a dog chasing cars. I WOULDN'T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH ONE IF I CAUGHT IT! You know I just do things.
• Too Kinky to Torture: He enjoys pain. When Batman tries the Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique on him, he shrugs off the first attempt ("Never start with the head!"), and actually looks disappointed when Batman's blow to his head keeps him from feeling the next punch. As Batman gets more violent with him on finding out he has Rachel captive, he just laughs:
  Joker: You have nothing! Nothing to threaten me with! Nothing to do with all your strength!
• Tranquil Fury: One very memorable moment despite not normally being prone to this. When the people on the two ferries refuse to blow one another up his facial expression and the subtle twitch of his mouth indicate how absolutely livid he is.
• The Unfettered: There is nothing he won't do; he has no limits of any kind.
• Troll: He loves pushing people's buttons like Gambol and Batman. The terrifying thing is that he uses it as another weapon in his arsenal: he alternates from doing it just because he can, to manipulating people by using their own anger against them. All while sprinkling half-truths and full lies to make it all the more confusing as well as infuriating. By the time you figure out whether he is just taking the piss or if he is telling the true, you've most likely already fell right into his trap.
• Unreliable Narrator: Naturally. He tells two completely different stories about how he got his cheek scars (abusive father story to Gambol, and the loan shark one to Rachel).
• Unstoppable Force Meets Immovable Object: He espouses a moral version of this in regards to himself and Batman, describing it using this very metaphor. While Batman will never be corrupted by the Joker into breaking his Rule #1 (incorruptible spirit), the Joker will never be stopped by anything less (endless mayhem). Thus, stalemate. "I think you and I are destined to do this forever."
• Verbal Tic: He tends to stutter, draw out his words and insert "uh" into pretty much every other sentence.
• Villain Has a Point: When he tells Batman that Gotham will cast him out the moment they no longer need him, because to them, he's just another 'freak' like The Joker. They did that when he became a liability,...and they do it again, but for different reasons.
  • Most of the things he tells Harvey are extremely accurate. How easy it was to unsettle the standing order, the hypocrisy of people, the schemes of everyone.
• Villainous Breakdown: A rather subtle one, but quite noticeable. When both ferries refuse to use the detonators — proving his philosophy of all humans being bastards deep down wrong — the Joker gets visibly irritated and mumbles about how people just aren't reliable before attempting to blow them both up. Interestingly, he says this in a rather calm tone, making this moment something of a reverse breakdown... guess that's what happens when your normal demeanor is over-the-top insane.
  The Joker: Can't rely on anyone these days, you gotta do everything yourself...don't we?! That's okay, I came prepared...
  • Also, when the police come to arrest him while he's hanging upside down from the building, his laughter slowly starts to shade into something like sobbing right before the camera cuts away.
• Villainous Crossdresser: Briefly dresses up as a female nurse, complete with wig, to get into Gotham General Hospital—and to a mentally-fragile Dent. It's shown when he shoots a guard who finds "her" while looking for another guard who failed to check in through radio (doubtless also the Joker's work).
• Villainous Ethics Decay: The Joker makes clear in his very first scene that he cares not and follows not the standards (however few they may be) of the criminal element of Gotham. The rest of the film then has him bringing Gotham to its knees thanks to said decay making him unpredictable.
• Villainous Legacy: Even after he's taken out and incapacitated, his reign of terror and corruption of Harvey Dent leaves a mark on Gotham that persists into The Dark Knight Rises.
• Villainous Rescue: In a way. Joker's intervention is what prevents Coleman Reese from exposing Batman's identity. Not that Batman wanted the help since it involved a hospital being blown up.
• Villain Respect: To Batman.
  • A smaller case with the Bank manager. He seems quite amused by his bravery, and just makes him a joke with a gas grenade.
  • When Gordon captures him and is promoted to Commissioner, he grudgingly claps along with the rest of the crowd.
• Villainous Underdog: Batman is a billionaire McNinja, against whom Joker uses his personality and his intelligence. He gloats about how cheaply and quickly he brought the city down to its knees.
• Vocal Dissonance: The Joker mostly speaks in a high voice, but when he gets angry, his voice becomes monstrously deep, almost a snarl. The best example is when he has the Bat-wannabe tied up on camera and he yells at him: "LOOK AT ME!"
  • It is more subtle, but when he speaks with Batman, he adopts a more serious and direct tone than usual, dropping the condescending mockery he uses with everyone else, and treating him like if he was speaking with an equal of his.
• Waistcoat of Style: That suit he wears is stylish, custom made and very expensive.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Due to the death of Heath Ledger, the Joker is not mentioned in The Dark Knight Rises and the last we see of him in The Dark Knight is him hanging upside down and about to be arrested by SWAT team members. However, he is mentioned in the novelization, where he's stated to be Arkham's sole remaining inmate after the Dent Act - or not.
• Wicked Cultured: Some of his conversations and mind games seem to suggest that he has very advanced knowledge of psychology and philosophy. He almost gives you the impression that he has studied Thomas Hobbes and Friedrich Nietzsche.
• Worthy Opponent: He considers Batman one. He sees him as the only one at his level.
  The Joker: [to Batman] I don't wanna kill you. What would I do without you? Go back to ripping off mob dealers? No, no. No, you... You. Complete. Me.
• Would Hurt a Child: With his absolute cruelty and ruthlessness, he definitely doesn't care about the age of any of his victims, as shown when he tries to blow up a ship filled with men, women, and children.
• Xanatos Gambit:
  • Batman doesn't kill him? He can continue reaping destruction. Batman kills him? It forces him to cross his one moral boundary and proves he's no better.
  • More generally, because his only apparent goal is to create chaos, he 'wins' even when he loses as long as he's managed to make the world seem less orderly and predictable.
• Xanatos Speed Chess: Like Batman, he is very good at altering and changing his plans. When your role is to fuck up everything, you got an advantage on versatility.
  • A good example of this is his corruption of Harvey. Now, he had no way of ensuring Harvey would be wounded in the explosion, and even if wounded, it was not a guarantee he would go to Gotham´s general. Hell, he had no way to ensure Harvey would even survive the explosion. But, given all of that happened, why not take the chance to corrupt Gotham´s White Knight?
  • Another example would be when Maroni doesn't come for the money along with the Chechen. The Joker correctly deduces that Maroni has sold him out to the police and that they are going to come for him with all they have so he takes advantage of Coleman Reese's interview to make a general threat to blow up a hospital in an hour if the man is not dead, derailing Gordon's effort to catch him and forcing him to evacuate all hospitals.
• You Remind Me of X: "You remind me of my father. I hated my father."
• Your Little Dismissive Diminutive: It might not be obvious until you count them all, but he dismisses so many things as "little" that it's practically another catchphrase.
• You're Insane!: Claimed by others, but he denies it. As a matter of fact, he is not. Psychopaths are not considered crazy in the normal psychological sense of craziness. Despite lacking an essential feature of human nature (empathy and love), The Joker is very smart, very aware of what he is doing, and very much in control. Defending this is the fact everything he tells the mobsters is true. To be considered "crazy" psychologically one must be a psychotic, which means they don't perceive reality correctly and may not even realize what they're doing is wrong.

The Chechen

The Chechen

"We have to fix real problems: Batman."

Played by: Ritchie Coster

Appears in: Why So Serious? | The Dark Knight

The head of the Russian Mafiya in Gotham, once a weak outfit that took advantage of the power vacuum left by Falcone. He's entered into an alliance with his fellow mobsters. When the Joker offers to kill Batman, it's the Chechen who puts the word out to hire him.

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• Beard of Evil: As is typical of the Mafiya.
• Beneath the Mask: Is the only mob boss to take the Joker seriously from the get-go, but when the Joker burns a huge fortune and declares he's taking over the Chechen's gang, he loses his temper and calls the Joker a "freak". Unfortunately it's the Joker's Berserk Button.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Being dismembered alive and fed to your pet dogs is an expected humiliation dealt by Roman dictators, or Shakespeare, but the Joker doesn't mind.
• Deal with the Devil: His willingness to hire the clearly mentally unstable Joker definitely qualifies. Needless to say it ends very badly for him.
• Death by Irony: After Lau betrays all of his clients and the media broadcasts it as a bulletin, the mob leaders watch on the TV set in one of Maroni's diners - except Chechen, who is happily dicing a piece of steak, eating each piece as it's cut. See Cruel and Unusual Death above for reference.
• Didn't Think This Through: He's the one most eager to hire the Joker so he can kill off Batman. Lending his mob to the Joker as well, however, turned out to be a bad idea.
• Eaten Alive: Implied. There's no reason to suggest otherwise after the Joker simply tosses one of his mooks a simple switchblade. See Cruel and Unusual Death above for specifics.
• Enemy Mine:
  • In the animated bridge between films, Maroni and the Chechen get both their asses kicked by Batman and end their war.
  • He's willing to listen to the Joker's proposition while Maroni is still smirking in contempt and Gambol is fuming at the mere sight of him. After Batman captures Lau, the Chechen calls in the Joker without bothering to clear it with Maroni first.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": "The Chechen" is the only name we're given for him.
• Faux Affably Evil: He's jovial and cheerful at almost all times, but he's the most vicious and bloodthirsty of the mob leaders. It's telling he's still willing to hire the Joker immediately after he brutally murders one of Gambol's men.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:Implied to have been fed to his own dogs.
• Killed Offscreen: Justified considering Batman's history as a comic, and thus the targeted demographic, being eaten alive isn't a pleasant sight, ever.
• Large Ham: "My dogs! Are! HOON-GRAY!!"
• Laser-Guided Karma: He's done in by the same psychopath he had no qualms about hiring earlier.
• The Mafiya: Heads the Russian branch of the mob.
• No Communities Were Harmed: His gang originates from the Little Grozny area in Haysville.
• Only in It for the Money: This is why he's so angry when the Joker burns it all.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Is pissed when Crane gives him fear toxins to sell as recreational drugs that ruined the sanity of one of his customers and angrily confronted him. Not because he has a problem with the fear toxins or with broken minds, but because his business relies on repeat customers not people who are going to be scared off drugs.
• Ruthless Foreign Gangsters: A cop connected to Maroni states in a memo "These guys are brutal, and more than willing to open fire on officers. For the near future, everyone wear your vest. If you think there's trouble, call for back-up." He reminisced about the good old days of the Maroni and Falcone family control. "You have these guys, ex-Red Army, Chechens, Georgians, the scum of Russia. They run out of vodka and they think they can come here and move in on honest, hard-working Americans," a Maroni associate said.
• Token Evil Teammate: While none of the mob heads are saints, the Chechen comes off as the most violent. Whereas Gambol and Maroni have standards and Lau is mostly disconnected from the action, the Chechen's only really held back by Pragmatic Villainy and he's the only one of the bosses who finds the Joker's brutal and pointless violence appealing.
• Too Dumb to Live: He was the only member of Gotham's mob who was willing to hire the Joker. It backfires on him at the end when Joker betrays him and has him fed to his dogs.
• What the Hell Is That Accent?: Resembles an odd Al Pacino impression. Even the Joker mocks it near the end!

Gambol

Gambol

"Give me one reason I shouldn't have my boy here pull your head off."

Played by: Michael Jai White

Appears in: Why So Serious? | The Dark Knight

A short-tempered mob leader in Gotham, now part of an alliance with his fellow mobsters. Unlike the Chechen, he absolutely despises the Joker. He is quickly killed by the Joker, and his remaining gang is absorbed into the clown's ranks.

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• Asshole Victim: Being a mob leader, yes.
• Bad Guys Play Pool: His main hangout is a pool hall.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: He puts out a bounty to have the Joker delivered to him dead or alive. The Joker's own thugs oblige.
• Beard of Evil: A violent mobster with a dark beard.
• Benevolent Boss: For as temperamental as he is, Gambol is pretty good to his men. Part of his vendetta against the Joker is motivated by him murdering one of Gambol's bodyguards in front of him, and he's willing to pay the money he promised to the men who supposedly claimed his bounty on the Joker.
• Black Dude Dies First: Funnily enough an example among murderers instead of civilians as he gets to be the first of the three mob bosses to be killed off in The Dark Knight.
• Bullying a Dragon: While he's the only mobster opposed to allying with the Joker (if for the wrong reasons), the Joker gets under his skin enough that Gambol antagonizes him, openly puts a bounty on his head and goes as far as pressing his Berserk Button by calling him a freak. He doesn't last long before the Clown Prince personally kills him.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: When Joker disses Gambol and his grandma, that's when Gambol snaps and wants Joker dead.
• Evil Sounds Deep: He's a mob boss with Michael Jai White's commanding voice.
• Evil Virtues: He does seem to believe in honoring his word as he was ready to pay the money promised to the guys who brought in Joker supposedly dead.
• Expy: Of Jefferson Skeevers.
• Genre Savvy: While he dangerously underestimates the Joker, he's clearly the only one to realize the violent madman who shows no fear of the mob and has no issue killing their men is going to be a problem in the long run.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Exhibits this trait throughout the mob meeting, but then again it may stem from being in the same room as The Joker.
• I Want Them Alive!: Somewhat. He puts out a $500,000 contract on the Joker's life, but offers to pay double if anyone brings him in alive so Gambol can teach him a lesson.
• I Gave My Word: When a group of men seemingly turn in Joker's corpse, Gambol is perfectly happy to pay them the full amount he promised.
  Gambol: So, for dead, that's five hundred...
  The Joker: [leaps up and puts a knife to Gambol's throat] How about alive?
• Large and in Charge He's a tall and heavily built mob leader.
• Nerves of Steel: During their first meeting, when the Joker pushes his buttons too much and he bolts up out of his chair to attack, Joker opens his coat to reveal several grenades. Everyone else in the room immediately backs away from the Joker...except Gambol. He does stop advancing on the Joker...but he doesn't back up an inch.
• Nothing Is Scarier: His death. The Joker does something (he possibly gave him a grin like Joker's or worse) to him after giving his "Why So Serious" monologue. Whatever the case, one of Gambol's henchmen clearly sees something horrible happen.
• Only Sane Man: Played with. He is the only mobster seen to consistently oppose allying with the Joker. As the latter's actions would prove, he was absolutely right. Of course he is Right for the Wrong Reasons as he despises the Joker primarily because of his defiant and cheeky behavior (and because one of his henchmen was killed by his "magic trick") and doesn't turn out to be ready to directly go to war with him.
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: He's a muscular and imposing guy and was quite ready to take on Joker in a fight. He's also played by famed martial artist Michael Jai White.
• Revenge Before Reason: Even though the Joker pointed out Batman is the reason the mob lost their stranglehold over Gotham, Gambol placed a bounty on the Joker for his constant insults.
  Gambol: I'm putting the word out. Five hundred grand for this clown dead. A million alive, so I can teach him some manners first!
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: He clearly knows that the Joker is unreliable and probably leading the mob heads on, but he views him as more of a minor annoyance in the grand scheme of things than a real threat. It doesn't end well for him.
• Scary Black Man: Given his mob power and anger, yes he is. It's a pity the Joker's way scarier.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: His business affords him some very nice suits.
• Uncertain Doom: Believe it or not, he was supposed to survive his mouth being cut by the Joker before Heath Ledger unfortunately carked it, and so his fate remains ambiguous, but it's generally assumed by the moviegoing public that he's dead given that he doesn't appear again after being slashed.
• Underestimating Badassery: He doesn't seem to get that the kind of guy who's willing to steal from you, directly confront you and joke about it, and then effortlessly kill one of your enforcers with a "magic" trick just might be a pretty dangerous character. By the time Gambol realizes his mistake, The Joker's already got a blade in his mouth.

Lau

Lau

"Rest assured, your money is safe."

Played by: Chin Han

Appears in: The Dark Knight

The Hong Kong 'accountant' for the Gotham Mob.

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• Asshole Victim: As a corrupt accountant and Dirty Coward, his death from being burned alive by the Joker along with the rest of the money, is considered this.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: He wanted all the mob's money, and the Joker gave it to him — as kindling to burn him alive.
• Bound and Gagged: By Joker. This obviously does not end well for him.
• The Chessmaster: He brags about being this. While he is a massive Smug Snake, he knows enough about the mob's operations to put them all in prison and leave their money free for him to grab.
  "I'm good with calculation."
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: His assurance of safety is worthless because he's only concerned about his own.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: He's the CEO of an investment firm that's one huge money-laundering operation.
• Crazy-Prepared: He has enough foresight to withdraw the mob's money from five banks all at once, move it to a secure location, and flee the jurisdiction of the Gotham Police. It works perfectly except he never accounted for Batman's jurisdiction--or lack thereof.
• Death by Irony: He refuses to tell Rache where he hid the mob's money, saying, "The money is the only reason I'm still alive." The Joker forces him to turn it all over, then burns him alive on top of it.
• Dirty Coward: Noted to be a "squealer" by Joker and indeed, is not above selling out others to save his own skin. He abruptly ended his video conference with the mob after the accusation.
• The Evil Genius: Uses his calculating skills for evil.
• Exact Words "Rest assured, your money is safe."
• Faux Affably Evil: He's polite, but it's entirely surface level and quickly gives way to passive aggressiveness once he's angered.
• Hypocrite: Lau is doing exactly what Joker is doing, but obviously for different reasons. It's unclear if that was Lau's plan all along as a man of his intellect could see the mob losing long before they did.
• Kill It with Fire: The Joker makes a pile of the mob's money and uses it to burn Lau alive.
• Morally Bankrupt Banker: Mobs turn to him to hide their dirty money, so he qualifies.
• Mythology Gag: Constant mentions of being good with calculations implies he could be lesser known Batman villain turned mob accountant The Calculator.
• No Honor Among Thieves: Sells out his clients very quickly when caught. Just as the Joker predicted.
• Out-Gambitted: By both Batman and the Joker.
• Smug Snake: He looks so confident when he says the "money is safe"...
• The Stool Pigeon: Once he's captured, he's ready to cut a deal and sell out the Gotham mobsters, both to stay out of prison and so he can take thei money for himself.

Bank Manager

The Manager of Gotham National Bank

"Do you have any idea who you're stealing from? You and your friends are dead!"

Played by: William Fichtner

Appears in: The Dark Knight

The manager of a mob-controlled bank in Gotham City that the Joker and his gang rob in the opening scene.

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• Badass Boast: He certainly backed up his promise by killing one of the bank robbers and lightly wounding another before getting gunned down by the Joker. Even then, he still managed to survive multiple gunshot wounds to the chest and remained conscious long enough to spite his attacker.
• Badass Bystander: He's the trope picture for a reason. He looks like one more helpless muggle until he pulls out a shotgun and blows away one of the bank robbers.
• Beneath Suspicion: That middle-aged, bespectacled bank manager you passed without thinking twice? He's also a tough, shotgun-wielding mobster.
• Casting Gag: William Fichtner once more plays a mild-mannered numbers man has to deal with bank robbers, albeit much more directly than Roger Van Zandt ever did and in a film which Nolan has claimed was extensively influenced by Heat.
• Counting Bullets: Played with. The Joker and a henchman are wondering if he had run out of ammo. Joker nods yes, and the henchman jumps up. The banker wasn't out... until he shot the henchman, at which point the Joker comes out and shoots him.

Henchman: Where did you learn to count?!

• Defiant to the End: Even when he's been shot, he refuses to show any fear to the Joker and tells him off further.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Does not have a high opinion of criminals who kill each other for money, as he tells the Joker's bank robbers in no uncertain terms.
• Honor Among Thieves: "Criminals in this town used to believe in things. Honor. Respect".
• No Name Given: This is why his folder states "The Manager of Gotham National Bank".
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: You see that dude with the shotgun? He's in charge of the bank being robbed.
• Sawed-Off Shotgun: He serves as the trope image. He hides one under his desk and uses it to face the Joker's gang.
• Shotguns Are Just Better: Why else would he have one in his desk?
• Uncertain Doom: He is last seen lying on the floor of the bank lobby, with a grenade stuffed in his mouth by the Joker. The pin pops out, the safety lever flies off, and it starts to emit green smoke or fumes instead of exploding. He moans weakly and passes out, and it's never revealed whether the grenade had any effect on him. (The Joker had told him, "Whatever doesn't kill you simply makes you stranger.")^note  Being the Joker, though, he could have just given the manager a plain gas grenade as a sick way to troll him.

Other Criminals

Joe Chill

Joe Chill

"Not a day goes by that I don't wish I could take back what I did."

Played by: Richard Brake

Appears in: Batman Begins

A criminal best known for the murder of Thomas Wayne and Martha Wayne in front of their young son Bruce Wayne.

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• Ambiguous Situation: Before being whacked by Carmine Falcone's assassin, Chill swears that he regrets having gunned down the Waynes. After Chill's death, Bruce is told by Falcone that Chill bragged how Thomas Wayne "begged like a dog" in his last moments, implying that Chill may not have really regretted what he did. However, given that this isn't true and that it's heavily implied Chill robbed the Waynes out of desperation, it can debated whether this is true or if Falcone just wanted to spite Bruce.
• Asshole Victim: How Bruce sees Chill's death.
• Heel–Face Door-Slam: Immediately following his parole hearing, a Falcone assassin disguised as a reporter pops him off after telling him, "Falcone says hi!"
• He Knows Too Much: He shared a prison cell with Carmine Falcone, and was privy to many of his secrets. He was ready to testify against him as part of a deal for parole, but Falcone has him whacked after public court thanks to a corrupt judge.
• I Just Shot Marvin in the Face: Here's a good tip: if you're trying to rob someone at gunpoint and just want to get your hands on whatever it is you want from them (e.g. wallets and jewelry), never put your finger on the trigger. There's a good chance your gun will go off if your finger twitches at the slightest movement. As a matter of fact, even if Martha's death was also an accident just like Thomas's was, it was still a result of this—he wouldn't have had to shoot her in the first place if his trigger finger didn't twitch at the worst possible moment while his gun was trained on Thomas.
• Justified Criminal: He lived during Gotham's depression and had to make do with robbery just to get back.
• Spanner in the Works: The League of Shadows caused Gotham's depression in order to get the city to collapse, creating the circumstances that led to Chill's stickup. But then Chill's murder of the Waynes caused the city to wake up for a moment, realize the hellhole it had let itself become, and was inspired enough by their deaths to pull itself out and limp along until Ra's next scheme. Plus, you know, the whole "creating Batman" thing.
• Sympathetic Murderer: Although it's never explicitly stated how much guilt he may or may not feel about the murder of the Waynes, as Falcone told Bruce that Chill falsely bragged that Thomas Wayne "begged like a dog" in his last moments (and Falcone isn't exactly the most reliable source), it's clear that he was a scared and desperate man looking to rob just about anyone for a couple of measly bucks.
• Token Motivational Nemesis: This is the guy that started Bruce towards becoming Batman.

Victor Zsasz

Victor Zsasz

Played by: Tim Booth

Appears in: Batman Begins | Why So Serious?

Crane: In my opinion, Mr Zsasz is as much a danger to himself as to others and prison is probably not the best environment for his rehabilitation.

A mob hitman with a penchant for carving knife marks into his skin.

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• Adaptation Expansion: His role is much more expanded in the Batman Begins video game.
• Adaptational Job Change: This version is a Professional Killer for Falcone, not a freelance murderer.
• Ax-Crazy: The knife carving thing and his general violence is a good argument for Arkham.
• Bald of Evil: Just look at his picture and see if he has a full head of hair.
• Beard of Evil: A goatee in this version.
• The Cameo: He makes two scenes.
• Covered with Scars: Glimpsed briefly during the Arkham break-out as a little Mythology Gag.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: Evil ones.
• Kill Tally: Like in the comics, he has a literal version, as he's carved tally marks into his body for those he's killed.
• Psycho for Hire: Arkham innmate and mob hitman.
• Serial Killer: An Implied Trope, since there's so many scars on his body and if you know about his comic book origin...
• Smug Smiler: During his trial, he breaks into a big grin when Crane testifies in his favor.
• Spell My Name With An S: It's spelled "Zsasz" in the original comics.
• Uncertain Doom: The ARG reveals he's presumed dead following the chaos in the Narrows but Scarecrow is as well and turns up alive and well, leaving it possible Zsasz is still alive.

Ginty

Ginty

"You don't want to die, but you don't know how to take a life."

Played by: Tommy Lister

Appears in: The Dark Knight

A large, intimidating criminal on the ferryboat. When told about the Joker's social experiment, he convinces the guards to give him the detonator, which he then immediately throws in to the water to prove the Joker wrong.

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• Anti-Villain: He most likely committed a felony of some kind, but that does not necessarily make him irredeemable.
• The Atoner: He's a convict and he's determined to save the people on the other ferry even though it means he'll still have to serve time for whatever crimes he's committed.
• Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work: Discussed and subverted. Ginty is aware that the prison guard holding the detonator for the other boat is too scared to use it. Ginty tells the guard to give him the trigger so Ginty can do "what [he] shoulda did ten minutes ago." It seems like Ginty is going to use the detonator, but instead, he throws it out the window. Despite whatever his past crimes may have been, he is still not depraved enough to blow up a boat of people, even if it means saving his own skin.
• Bald of Authority: When the guards are faced with the moral dilemma, he's the one who takes charge.
• Death Before Dishonor: Tosses Joker's bomb trigger out the window into Gotham Harbor, preferring to die rather than blow up a ship full of innocents.
• Even Evil Has Standards: He clearly committed a crime of some kind, but he still disapproves of the guards even considering using the detonator against the civilians, not only throwing it overboard but giving them a look of complete disgust as he walks away.
• Exact Words: When he confronts the guards, he says that he'll do "what you shoulda did ten minutes ago".This makes it sound like he'll blow up the boat, but instead this turns out to be a What the Hell, Hero? towards the guards and he chucks the detonator overboard.
• Excellent Judge of Character: One interpretation of his actions. Even if it weren’t for his moral code, considering that he has lived among criminals for some time probably made him realize he had no reason to believe the Joker was truthful when he laid out the terms. The Rachel/Harvey switcharoo from earlier strongly implies that the detonators were not switched around like Joker said; and in any case, Joker had another remote detonator with himself which he could trigger at any time, whether or not they complied. Even if Ginty didn’t know all of this, he probably realized the Joker could have done this, and his and everyone else’s lives were at the Joker’s mercy anyway. Ginty simply refused to accept an ultimatum from someone with no credibility.
• Face Death with Dignity: When he throws the detonator out the window, he fully expects to die within minutes and have no chance to escape. As the others react with shock and despair, what does he do? Calmly walks back to his seat, folds his arms as if praying, and waits patiently.
• Face of a Thug: He couldn't look more menacing if he tried and the fact that he's in jail shows that he's definitely done some bad stuff but he ultimately proves himself to be noble when he refuses to kill innocent people to save himself.
• Heroic Bystander: One convict among many who stands up to the Joker and saves two boatloads of people.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Fully expects to be making one when he throws the detonator away.
• Honor Before Reason: He'd rather die than kill others to save himself.
• Large and in Charge: The cop doesn't come up to his shoulders.
• Outside-Context Problem: It's clear that the Joker wasn't expecting one of Harvey Dent's convicts to actually have a moral code, and thus this man is able to singlehandedly ruin the Joker's plan.
• Rousseau Was Right: This convict, who shows that love, kindness and decency can come from the seemingly ugliest and darkest of places, is the strongest case against the Joker's cynical ideology of fundamental human ugliness. It's also plainly on display with the other convicts who back him up when he intimidates the warden into giving him the detonator. None of them bat an eye when he tossed the detonator overboard; in fact, when he sits back down, they close a circle around him like they're either protecting him or praying for him and all share his similar willingness to face their demise calmly. It's clear he either told them what he was going to do and they backed him up, or they're merely supporting his decision after the fact.
• Scary Black Man: Subverted. While he's a tall, broad-shouldered convict with an intense demeanor, he shows that he's a good person by not condemning the people on the other ferry.
• Small Role, Big Impact: He's literally only around for two minutes of a single scene, but in that brief time, he saves two literal boatloads of people and proves the Joker wrong.
• Walking Spoiler: He appears for all of two minutes, but he's crucial to the climax of the film.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Considering he chucked the detonator after saying "Give it to me and I'll do what you shoulda did ten minutes ago," he was condemning the warden for even considering blowing up the other ferry. When he's done, he gives the warden an absolutely scathing look before he walks away.
• What You Are in the Dark: Whatever his moral failings may be, he refuses to kill the other ferry's passengers even though not doing so will result in his death and no one on the other boat will ever know of his sacrifice.

Thomas Schiff

Thomas Schiff

Played by: David Dastmalchian

Appears in: The Dark Knight

A paranoid schizophrenic and former Arkham inmate. One of the Joker's henchmen.

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• Ax-Crazy: A paranoid schizophrenic and former Arkham inmate.
• Giggling Villain: Prone to nervous laughter.
• Impersonating an Officer: He's posing as a policeman doing the 21-Gun Salute for the police commissioner's funeral.
• Mook: One of the Joker's henchmen.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Not mentioned again after Harvey's interrogation.
• You Wouldn't Shoot Me: Initially confident Harvey won't do this. When Harvey pulls a gun and starts flipping a coin, he becomes less certain.
  Thomas Schiff: You wouldn't-
  Harvey Dent: I WOULDN'T?!

Kilson

Kilson

Played by: Aidan Feore

Appears in: The Dark Knight

Another of the Joker's henchmen recruited among the former inmates of Arkham.

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• Ax-Crazy: A villain from the nuthouse.
• Beard of Evil: He most likely doesn't have any concept for personal grooming.
• Cassandra Truth: The cops don't believe him when he tells them his insides hurt.
• Cop Killer: Accused of being one.
  Kilson: I don't feel so good...
  Detective Murphy: You're a cop killer, you're lucky to be feeling anything below the neck!
• Hearing Voices: The Joker promised him he'd make them go away...
• Psychopathic Man Child: His stomach complaints come across as a child that doesn't want to go to school, and he is dangerous.
• Mook: Joker's henchman.
• Why Am I Ticking?: He's not aware that the Joker crudely implanted a bomb inside his stomach.

The Clowns

The Clowns are the gang of unnamed goons who commit the bank heist that opens The Dark Knight. They're under the assumption that the Joker is somewhere else, not knowing that he's amongst them as the "Bozo" clown.

General tropes

• The Driver: Grumpy drives himself, Chuckles, and Bozo to the bank, and the bus driver plows a bus through the side of the bank so the money can be hauled off.
• In the Back: Dopey and Chuckles are both killed by being shot from behind, by Happy and the bank manager respectively.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Dopey and the bus driver were seemingly unaware of the plan for the Clowns to off each other.
• Malevolent Masked Man: They're a group of thugs in clown masks.
• Monster Clown: They adopt the Joker's clown motif, wearing clown masks and using clownlike nicknames.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: The Joker told several of them secretly to off others in the group once they've performed their tasks in the heist. In order:
  • Happy shoots Dopey after he's done hacking the alarm.
  • Grumpy shoots Happy after he's done opening the safe.
  • The bus driver runs over Grumpy after being manipulated into position by Bozo.
  • Bozo shoots the bus driver once the money's loaded onto the bus.
  • Averted by Chuckles, as he's killed by the bank manager before he can shoot anyone.

Grumpy

Played by: Danny Goldring

Grumpy appears to be the leader of the Clowns. He grouses about the Joker not being in on the heist, not realizing that Bozo is the Joker, and manhandles a couple of bank tellers.

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• Bond Villain Stupidity: Decides to hold Bozo at gunpoint instead of just shooting him.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: "Funny, he told me something similar," before shooting Happy.
• Precision F-Strike: He yells "WHAT THE FUCK!?" after being tagged by the mob bank's manager.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: Realizes that he'll be next to be betrayed after executing Happy, but is wrong about who will do it and how.
• Surprise Car Crash: Splattered by a bus inside.

Chuckles

Played by: Matthew O Neill

Chuckles subdues the security guard when he, Grumpy, and Bozo enter the bank.

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• Guns Akimbo: Appears to have carried two guns to the bank robbery, a MAC-10 machine pistol and a revolver. The revolver can be seen when the bank manager shoots him.
• Pistol-Whipping: He whacks the security guard in the back with his MAC-10 shortly before getting killed.

Happy

Played by: William Smillie

Happy goes to the bank roof with Dopey, then cracks the safe once the alarm is shut off.

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• High-Voltage Death: Averted; the vault's door is electrified and shocks him through the drill, but he survives.
• Karmic Death: Shot Dopey in the back, gets shot in the back by Grumpy.
• Oh, Crap!: When he realises Grumpy has orders to shoot him.
  Grumpy: Where's the alarm guy?
  Happy: Boss said when he was done, I should take him out. One less share, right?
  Grumpy: Funny, he told me something similar.
  Happy: He what? No, no-! [gunshot]

Dopey

Played by: Michael Stoyanov

Dopey shuts off the bank's alarm system, and is the first of the Clowns to die.

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• Phone-Trace Race: He hacks into the alarm system and discovers the silent alarm goes to a private number (the mob).

The Bus Driver

He drives a bus into the bank lobby and helps Joker load the bags of money.

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• Affably Evil: Even though he's assisting with a bank robbery, his brief dialogue before his death is surprisingly cheerful and non-malicious.
• Surprise Car Crash: He kills Grumpy by running him over.

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