- Hammy and ocasionally sissy personalities. - Unable to be fully controled by their employers. - Egomaniacs who can't stand anyone outshine them. - Secret geniuses with scientific capabilities and manipulative tendencies - Constantly avoiding death admittedly in contrived ways because the writers cannont immediatly kill someone so famous. - Shrill and high voices. - Often hated by all the characters in fiction yet somehow still silver-tonguing their way out of problem. - Ocasionally prone to omnicidal rampages when left unchecked. - Recogniceable smirks and a constant aggresive wit.
Am I talking about The Joker? Or Starscream?
I've been looking over the traits listed on the main page...is there a way to set up a minimum number of traits a character should have to count?
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The dog with the hat.
Does Melon from Beastars counts? He is always laughing, self declared pure evil,psychotic,obsession with mentally breaking the protagonist, kills when he feels like it (Totally unpredictable), mad intelligent, "extremely charismatic", likes causing chaos en masse, fans dub him as an unreliable narrator (Despite this could be addressed as simply bad story telling), one of the panels even mimics the bloody smile scene in Joker(2019). He is also compared with Goro Majima who is already in the list.
Joker mirror scene: https://preview.redd.it/xlmn8wctda341.png?auto=webp&s=0c23a0933276b039f51b82ad215361ef4f5c6739
Would Ramsay Bolton from Game of Thrones count? He himself said that he based his performance off of Heath Ledger's Joker. https://www.hindustantimes.com/tv/game-of-thrones-iwan-rheon-took-inspiration-from-heath-ledger-s-joker/story-mTWfpeM1l0soQP2vcpqVdL.html
Should this be a YMMV trope? A lot of these examples just seem to be a character that reminds a particular troper of the Joker. I feel that at the very least that this trope should be limited to clear Expy or Captain Ersatz characters (for example, characters that are part of a superhero parody/homage/deconstruction that features other characters that are clearly based on other superheroes/supervillains), or characters that were confirmed by Word of God to be based on the Joker, otherwise how is just page not just The Same, but More Specific as Monster Clown?
Edited by upupandaway42 "Men are still good. We fight, we kill, we betray one another, but we can rebuild. We can do better. We will. We have to." - Bruce Wayne Hide / Show Replies
Could be we need to do some cleanup, but I think enough examples are unambiguous that it's not really YMMV. If it's a superhero genre work or a pastiche of one, I think that's generally clear-cut, but maybe for other media the requirements should be more stringent.
Yeah, that sounds fair. Although not all the examples from the superhero genre are so clear-cut. In particular, the two examples that made me question this trope in the first place - Lex Luthor from the DCEU and Prometheus from Arrow. In the first place, neither are Monster Clowns, or even have a jester/clown/comedy motif, which I feel should be the basic requirement for a Practically Joker character. Being Ax-Crazy, Laughably Evil and/or Faux Affably Evil shouldn't be enough by itself to qualify, and I feel for a lot of these examples that's all they are. A character who "feels like" or "seems like" or "has been compared to" the Joker isn't necessarily a Joker Expy and I feel that including these characters is a case of Square Peg Round Trope.
"Men are still good. We fight, we kill, we betray one another, but we can rebuild. We can do better. We will. We have to." - Bruce Wayne
Wasn't originally intending to make this such a long post, sorry.
I think some kind of clown/comedy/circus-related motif should probably be a prerequisite, short of Word of God, yeah. And maybe having the weird codependent relationwhip with hero that the Joker has with Batman?
Alternatively, some of the bullet points in the description might be combined (#2-4?), and while a Mysterious Past is a big part of the Joker himself, I don't know that it really pushes a villain any closer to being a Joker expy. For that matter, not all of the examples are Ax-Crazy or all that evil. I might suggest something more along the lines of:
- A clown/comedy/circus/playing card motif, especially for a comic book-style supervillain.
- Laughing Mad or constantly grinning, often a permanent rictus they can't change no matter how they're really feeling — which may be a Slasher Smile, Glasgow Grin, unnaturally wide Cheshire Cat Grin, or only Technically a Smile — with a morbid, sadistic, or generally bizarre sense of humor.
- An unpredictable Cloudcuckoolander, frequently disturbing even to his own minions or allies, who may or may not be Ax-Crazy (committing crimes purely For the Evulz) or even particularly evil, but typically relies on a combination of Confusion Fu, themed "gag" gadgets, tricks and (death-) traps rather than fighting directly or using more conventional weapons (even if they do have other powers).
- A weird codependent relationship with the hero who is often a Batman expy — usually wanting to corrupt them, humble them, drive them mad, convince them of their Straw Nihilist philosophy, or otherwise "show them how to have fun/be less serious".
- A physical resemblance to the Joker even without the clown motif, such as being rail-thin with pointed features or wearing similar clothes (tailored but old-fashioned or in odd colors, no leotard or Powered Armor like a more typical supervillain).
I think combining some of the similar/related concepts might help discourage people who aren't as familiar with the original Joker from cherrypicking certain traits? Like I can see how the DCEU Lex Luthor seems more like the Joker than the Lex we've seen elsewhere, similar to how I can see the Tim Burton Penguin and Schumacher Two-Face biting on the Joker's style (nihilism and circuses), but I do think there could be a line drawn between acting more like the Joker and being a full-on Joker expy.
Edited by Unsung
Yeah, that sounds a lot better. Having the clown/circus/comedy motif (or the Word of God) as a prerequisite makes it much less vague what counts, preventing cases of Square Peg Round Trope. Sounds good to me!
"Men are still good. We fight, we kill, we betray one another, but we can rebuild. We can do better. We will. We have to." - Bruce Wayne
Should probably take this to the Expy cleanup thread... because yeah. Honestly, I hate these Fountain of Expies tropes because they always seem to wind up being comically broad and misused. King Koopa Copy, for example, is just "video game bosses" or "strong turtles."
Edited by Larkmarn Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.
Would Norman Osborn count as a partial example? He strikes me as something of a fusion between Lex Luther and the Joker.
Harley Quinn has a lot of expy's these days, should they be here or should they have their own page.