Is Joker Insane Or Not?

[Jackalb]

He's crazier than a bag of cats on steroids.

 

[Arqus_Zed]

Well, if you follow the logic of The Killing Joke, I'd say he's batshit crazy.

And all because of one bad day...

 

[satanslawer123]

I find the idea of a perfectly sane guy who chooses to act like that for unfathomable reasons to be cooler, scarier and more interesting than a guy who just acts like that because he's crackers.

Although the argument could be made that having unfathomable motives is the same as being insane.

so do i
not matter how insane he acts he will always have a sane man's mind that is what makes him so unpredictable and scary. it makes it hard to work out what he's thinking on the outside he may look like he's making up everything on the spot and going on manic impulses where as underneath he could be thinking about so many different things

 

[smithy_2045]

He's completely and utterly insane. Brilliantly intelligent, but completely bonkers nonetheless.

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

Personally I go via the Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth theory. The Joker has 'super-sanity'

ie. In response to the speed of modern life, and the chaos and insanity present in the world, he reinvents himself every day as a reflection of the society. He can be both murdering psychopath and giggling prankster.

"The Joker is the kind of guy who will come up with a plan to kidnap a scientist and have them create a super-pheromone that will attract little old ladies to a warehouse so Joker can feed them into a woodchipper and use the resulting paste to make counterfeit money so he can buy fuel for his ice rocket that will freeze the entire city which will cause everyone to flock to his beverage vendors who will sell them hot chocolate laced with a mutagen designed to drive everyone insane."

That's a great quote for him. He's the sort of guy who will enact a ridiculously complicated plot to poison a water supply in Florida so a migrating bird will drink the poison and bring it back to Gotham, but then the next day he'll steal a kid's report card.

He's not exactly sane or insane. He is motivated entirely by the joke, and if something isn't funny, he won't do it, whereas if it is, he will.

 

[Saltyk]

This is what I love about the Joker. There's no right answer. I doubt even he knows for sure.

I recall an episode of the Justice League where he had a girl that could drive people insane. He claimed it didn't work on him, because he already was. So, why did he have a fail-safe to protect himself jut in case she turned her powers on him?

Is the Joker insane? That could depend on your definition. Even if he was perfectly sane, acting like he does could be argued insanity. However, his actions make it hard to argue that he is sane at all.
Is the Joker a genius? In many ways, yes. He shows constantly elaborate and sophisticated, if insane, plots. So, he is very smart even if he crazy.

 

[WanderingFool]

Joker is Insane, Im not even calling it a matter of opinion. But as Zhukov said:

I find the idea of a perfectly sane guy who chooses to act like that for unfathomable reasons to be cooler, scarier and more interesting than a guy who just acts like that because he's crackers.

Although the argument could be made that having unfathomable motives is the same as being insane.

The question is: What kind of insane is he and just how insane is he? Ive seen pleanty of batman shows with the Joker, and he seems to shift from one degree to another, sometimes even several times per show.

 

[gunny1993]

He's certainly Batshit crazy .....

 

[JimB]

There was a debate that he isn't? He dresses up like a clown and kills people, fighting a guy dressed up as a bat (sort of, I never saw the resemblance). I'd say they're all nutty as squirrel shit, except Commissioner Gordon.

It depends on what you mean by "insanity." As someone else pointed out, that's not a medical term; it's a legal one. It describes someone who suffers from a mental disease or defect that renders him incapable of appreciating the consequences of his actions and therefore unable to form the intent to commit a criminal act. Like Hannibal Lecter, I just don't think the Joker fits the bill. He's able to make far-reaching, complicated, and effective plans, which tends to rule out most mental diseases or defects, and he uses these plans to avoid capture, which is a dead giveaway of consciousness of guilt.

He knows what he does is wrong. He just doesn't care. From a legal standpoint, he is not insane. He is responsible for his own actions.

 

[Timberwolf0924]

I heard a quote on tv the other day

"It takes an extremely brilliant person to act as insane as he does"

wasn't talking about the Joker, but it seems to fit. I think he's just a brilliant guy who acts the part because it's what he knows will make him last.

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

Sure he is. But the thing about him is, that he could probably act totally normal if he wanted to... he just doesn't see the fun in it.

 

[spartan231490]

I find the idea of a perfectly sane guy who chooses to act like that for unfathomable reasons to be cooler, scarier and more interesting than a guy who just acts like that because he's crackers.

Although the argument could be made that having unfathomable motives is the same as being insane.

One could also say that the very act of choosing to act that way makes a better case for him being insane than almost any other argument could. It's a question of who's crazier: The man locked up in an asylum, or the man who breaks in and pretends to be an inmate?

^This
A choice does not happen in a vacuum. It's not A or B and then you see what the result is. In order to make those choices, you have to be insane.

Also, as insane isn't a clinical definition, and it is defined as just having a state of mind which prevents normal perception, it's virtually impossible to determine if someone is insane. I mean, how do you determine what the normal state of mind is? How do you determine what a person's state of mind is? How do you determine how abnormal they are?

 

[LordLundar]

The best definition I've hear about The Joker is that he's Batman's mirror opposite. As brilliant and as capable as the dark knight himself, but driven by chaos and anarchy as opposed to Batman's drive for justice and order.

 

[Rayne870]

he's freaking nuts, and most likely a sociopath. Sociopaths can be very intelligent people and often are, they just don't really give a rats as about killing people or causing chaos and destruction.

 

[RatRace123]

I'd say he bounces in between insanity and lucidity, and it's impossible to tell which state he's currently in at the moment.

 

[TwiZtah]

He's insane, I can't stand insane people, therefore I very much enjoyed the ending of Arkham City.

I hate the whole high horse that heroes have, they know that villain x will escape from wherever and WILL kill more people. Yet they just won't kill the villain because...??? I therefore think most heroes are more evil than their villain counterparts.

 

[The Unworthy Gentleman]

I think he's a sociopath more than a psychopath. A psychopath kills for pleasure for the fun of it. The joker seems more controlled than that. He wants to create chaos, panic, and drag people down to his level. That requires intelligent reasoning, which is something a psychopath wouldn't be able to hold on to. They would become overpowered by their impulses.

Spoiler: Psychopath and sociopath overviews lay within

Psychopathy is a personality disorder that has been variously described as characterized by shallow emotions (in particular reduced fear), stress tolerance, lacking empathy, coldheartedness, lacking guilt, egocentricity, superficial charm, manipulativeness, irresponsibility, nonplanfulness, impulsivity, and antisocial behaviors such as parasitic lifestyle and criminality

It is characterized by at least 3 of the following:
Callous unconcern for the feelings of others.
Gross and persistent attitude of irresponsibility and disregard for social norms, rules, and obligations.
Incapacity to maintain enduring relationships, though having no difficulty in establishing them.
Very low tolerance to frustration and a low threshold for discharge of aggression, including violence.
Incapacity to experience guilt or to profit from experience, particularly punishment.
Markedly prone to blame others or to offer plausible rationalizations for the behavior that has brought the person into conflict with society.

Obviously neither is as simple as that but the Joker is definitely a psychopath. That's all I think he his in terms of sane or insane. It's not as if he isn't in complete control of his actions or has some impulse that he has to satiate, he just does it because any other lifestyle would be a dull existence to him due to the way he's wired.

 

[Relish in Chaos]

It depends on your definition of "insane", but I?d say both Batman and the Joker are psychologically warped. It?s understandable considering Batman?s background, but the Joker doesn?t seem to have a universal origin story.