The Killing Joke: From One Bad days to Insanity

The Killing Joke written by Alan Moore and Brian Bolland is probably the best story of the Joker ever told as it provides the readers the more sophisticated image of the Joker. 

All it takes is just one bad day to drive a sane person insane. 

After the Joker escapes from Arkham Asylum, he comes to Commissioner Jim Gordon and shoots his daughter Barbara in front of him, making her unable to walk afterward. Then, the Joker takes pictures of Barbara lying on the ground painfully and try to use them to drive Commissioner Gordon mad, to prove the point that “all it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. 

In addition, the Joker also attempts to make Batman believe that he is crazy as himself, which is denied by Batman repeatedly until he accepts the last joke at the end of the story. ​

At one point the Joker debates his own philosophy. In his view, the Joker shows that there is not much different between him and everyone else. in the concept of "one bad day "All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That’s how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day.”

One bad day makes a good man homicidal.

The Joker was once a good husband to his wife and a good father to his unborn child, yet he could not find any job suitable for his comedic talent, preventing him from supporting his family.

As the situation becomes too dire for him to buy food, the man desperately work with the mobsters for the hope some money. On that fateful his wife and the unborn baby die horrifyingly in an accident, and the mobsters betray him when the chemical factory heist goes terribly wrong. At wit's end, he jumps into the poisonous river which changes his appearance forever, drives him crazy and marks the birth of the Man who Laughs. Tragedy is a man who can not weep for his loss. 

This is how the concept of “One bad day” applies to Joker; however,  Joker also uses this concept to challenge Batman’s sanity.

While Batman is considered a very rational detective, the Joker believes that Batman, in fact, is crazy. He tells Batman,

“You had one bad day one, am I right? I know I can tell. You had a bad day and everything changed. Why else would you dress up like a flying rat? You had a bad day, and it drove you as crazy as everybody else... Only you won’t admit it.”

Most people remember Batman’s “one bad day” when he observed both of his parents were killed in front of him at the age of seven. Since that day, our becomes so restless that he dedicates the life of a crime-fighter to ease himself from that trauma.  Batman’s action may be justified, but we can not deny the fact that Batman is obsessed too much, and more than anyone else in Gotham. Batman’s obsession of fighting crime is proof that he suffers from mental illness as much as the Joker does.

​But the question is how much different between Batman and the the Joker.

This is where the ultimate joke, a true piece of art, at the end of the story explains to us. ​

See, There were these two guys in a lunatic asylum and one night they decide they don’t like living in an asylum anymore. They decide they’re going to escape!

So, like, they get up onto the roof and there, just across this narrow gap, they see the rooftops of the town, stretching away in the moonlight... stretching away to freedom.
Now, the first guy, he jumps right across with no problem. But his friend, his friend daren’t make the leap.

​Y’see... Y’see He’s afraid of falling. So the first guy has an idea... he says “Hey! I have my flashlight with me! I’ll shine it across the gap between the buildings. You can walk along the beam and join me!”

B-But the second guy just shakes his head. He suh- says... He says “Wh-what do you think I am? Crazy? You’d turn it off when I was half way across!”

The two lunatics in the story who represent the Joker and Batman. Their escape from asylum illustrates the desire to be treated as normal human beings. But the gap between the buildings, the gateway between sane and insane worlds, prevents them from doing so.

The first lunatic overcomes this gap as the society somehow magically accepts that a man doing detective works in a "flying rat" costume is a pretty normal thing. Ironically, the very same society still treat Joker, a man wearing a clown make-up, as an outcast. The second lunatic is rational enough to recognize it, so he is hesitate to make a jump across the gap.

The first lunatic suggests he could use the power of enlightenment in the form of the flashlight to create a bridge to help his fellow lunatics make a leap of faith across that social gap. This is similar to how Batman offer the Joker help to rehabilitate in society, so that they will never end up killing each other.

The second lunatics again thinks rationally and rejects the leap of faith offer. No rational person will walk on a bridge created by light beam. It is rightly so for the second lunatic to call the first "crazy". Similarly, the  Joker regards Batman's offer as crazy and unsustainable. Batman's "enlightenment" would collapse on Joker just like the first lunatics turn off the flashlight. ​

After listening to this joke, Batman laughs out loud with the Joker. This implies that Batman comes to acceptance that he is also crazy as much as Joker only in different direction.

The Joker believes lunatics acting insane is a rational thing to do while Batman who despite being insane behaves rationally is irrational.

Perhaps, may be sanity and insanity are just the opposite sides of a coin.