"Introduce a little anarchy. Upset the established order and everything becomes... chaos." ~Joker
There are moments within Evangeline Winter's lifetime, where she has had to deliberate if that moment was the most frightened she has ever felt. She has had to reminisce old, daunting memories and compare the level of fear between them and the current moment to determine whether or not she has ever quite felt as scared as she did in that moment.
However, the moment she locked her eyes on the Joker, there was no hesitation in believing that this is most certainly the most terrifying moment of her entire life yet.
As Shakespeare once said, "Better to be a witty fool than a foolish wit," something that whether the universally acclaimed writer appreciates it or not, is embodied by the Clown Prince of Crime himself. The Joker plays a fool – in case you couldn't tell by iconic clown moniker – but it doesn't take the World's Greatest Detective to realise how much of a pure genius the Joker is. Unpredictability, schemes that the greatest minds in the GCPD fail to comprehend, twisted universal ideas and vulnerabilities of mankind and our nature found in each one of his crimes and 'statements'. The people of this city merely think of him as crazy, and whilst he certainly acts the part of an insane individual, Eve feels as if his supposed insanity is a large smoke screen to distract people from his subliminal messages of chaos and the particular 'freedoms' this anarchy entails.
Order is forged amidst harmful chaos, and chaos defects as a rebellion against suppressive order. From one another, they are born. A more perfect example of that outside the Dark Knight and the Joker could not be found.
The Joker truly does embody his moniker to its fullest extent. He takes symbolism and meaning of the fool, the clown, the jester, and the joker from every aspect of every belief and faith. Even in tarot cards, the 'Fool' is believed to be a very powerful card, representing a new beginning – and, consequently, an end to something in your old life. The Joker brings the end of order, starting a new life of chaos. He also, quite literally, brings life to an end, and depending on whether you're religious or not, a vast number of people believe that to be the beginning of your afterlife.
Never has there been a person so intricate and unpredictable in character and motives and beliefs as the Joker. Never has there been a person who not only defies the laws of the legal system in such a darkly eccentric manner, but also the laws of human nature and the human mind as the Joker does. Never has there been a person who shows all the signs of so many different classifications of insanity, yet when the time calls for it, can be as sane as any common man that you walk past on the streets.
Never has there been a person that not only terrifies Evangeline Winter to her very core, but remains an entire enigma to the astute detective.
She understands Batman's play. She understands Riddler's play. She understands Two Face's play. She understands Scarecrow's play. She understands the play of all the leading Don's, as well as Jim Gordon and most cops in the GCPD precinct. She understands how these people think, how their minds individually operate, the very values and materialism they hold dear. All of this, she understands through the common grounding of human nature.
And yet, the Joker is the only one who she cannot understand, because his absence of human nature defines him as something unhuman. Not a human, but also, as so many have called him, not a monster.
He is simply the Joker.
Watching him with a near religious fervour, Eve notes every breath, every step, every muscle movement, and every twitch of his lips almost unblinkingly. The way in which he indifferently and comically parades around the place, careless of everything yet caring for his own ideals at a clearly obsessive level. Most criminals care for understandable material goods or ambitions; power, money, revenge, enlightenment, and everything in between. Things that Eve can understand and play to her own advantage. Things that have structure. The Joker's obsession with chaos may come as a form of enlightenment, but is entirely unstructured in a turmoil of anarchy.
YOU ARE READING
One Winter Knight | Arkhamverse
FanfictionCorruption. Brutality. Deception. Injustice. Four words that describe Gotham city in a nutshell. Sure, they may have their Dark Knight, but he's not the sign of hope the people need. He's a product of what the debauched city is capable of creating i...
