Should The Joker Have Not Been in Arkham Knight

[Winter]

I LOVE the Joker and Mark Hamill's performance of the Clown Prince of Crime is my all time favorite take on the character. But there is such a thing of to much of a good thing and Arkham Knight is, to date, the only time I actually grew tired of seeing the damn clown.

My problem with Joker's involvement in Arkham Knight is he honestly feels like Rocksteady had zero faith in their game if the Joker wasn't somehow involved which resulted in them over compensating. I get the idea of having the Joker appear as a result of Scarecrow's fear toxin, that makes sense and the idea of Batman's greatest fear becoming his worst enemy is an interesting one to explore.

What doesn't make sense, and why I dislike the approach of this idea, is that after getting hit by the Fear Toxin once Batman starts seeing the Joker all the fucking time. This is to the story's determent IMO because outside of the Season of Infamy DLC pack there is literally no villain the base game who doesn't share screen time with Joker unless you wait to do all their side quests until AFTER the main story.

It gives the impression that the developers think that Batman has only one true adversary and the rest are just side dressing which backup by the fact that most of the Rogues Gallery is regulated to side quests with them only appearing in the main story for one mission or worse one scene.

And then it gets worse, because of the retcon to Joker's blood.

So in Arkham Asylum Joker injected himself with Titan which turned him into a horrible final boss fight but a consequence of this is that he had a bad reaction to the Toxin which started to kill him over the course of a year which it eventually did. During the events of Arkham City Joker managed to inject his blood into Batman and said that he's been shipping his blood out the Gotham so he's literally poisoned Gotham in a "If I'm going down I'm taking you all with me." move. It's revealed that Joker's blood could be in 2000 people and that fatalities are expected soon enough. At the end of the game Batman is able to cure himself and apparently managed to find a cure for the rest of Gotham (how they got this cure when Joker destroyed the only remaining vile of it when stabbing Batman is never explained).

So naturally after spending a whole game explaining what Titan and how it was killing the Joker Arkham Knight then reveals, that Joker's blood is dangerous because it turned you into Joker... wait what?

Yeah, turns out having someone's blood in you gives you their personality, skin color, and obsessions. And Batman is likewise turning into the Joker cause remember he was infect with Joker's blood too... except he was CURED after only having it in him for 9 hours when everyone else was infected for months.

The fact that Joker was dying as a result of a toxin in his system is never brought up, like at all which makes me wonder, did the writers of this game play or even watch the original game? The lead writer for the first two games was Paul Dini who left the series after Arkham City and as far as I know he had no involvement in AK. That's not to say that the series needs Dini to be great Arkham Origins has what many fans consider to be one of the best stories in the series and Dini wasn't involved in that game either and while it has it's own continuity errors for the most part it does feel like the writers of that game played the first two games, they just wanted to put their own spin on it.

But in Arkham Knight it's just bizarre, Joker's blood was dangerous because of the Titan formula he injected himself with only for AK to go "No it's because Joker's blood is magic." like seriously what they do with this concept strains suspension of disbelief to the point of breaking it. Not only does the Joker's blood give you the Joker's personality and obsession with Batman but it also gives you his memories, what?!

Yeah, at the halfway point of the game Batman starts having flashbacks to the time when Joker kidnapped and tortured Jason Todd and we know these are flashbacks and not Batman's interpretation because the scene with Jason later in the game reveals that this is what happened. Somehow Batman getting Joker's blood somehow allows him to recall these events which he does here for no apparent reason.

Which leads me to another problem HOW DOES THIS ALL WORK! Some have assumed that this isn't actually Joker but just a fear toxin hallucination but it's firmly established in Arkham Knight that the effects of Fear Toxin only last a short while and if it doesn't that means you're trapped in your mind.

But that doesn't make any sense because the game flat out states that this isn't what's happening, it's literally in the text "They're becoming Joker."

And before anyone says it no I don't care about theories that could explain this. Yes I've seen several of them and some of them are really interesting but here's the problem THEIR JUST THEORIES!!! This isn't something that was put in the game, this was made by fans who have no involvement in the series so it doesn't matter. A theory by a fan is not canon and the game never bothers to explain this and the answer is simply, Rocksteady had no faith in their own game unless Joker was somehow involved so came up with this idea that having the Joker's blood turns you into Joker and gives you an imaginary fiend that follows you around.

This wouldn't be so bad if the Joker's dialogue wasn't so repetitive, Mark Hamill is giving this performance his all but his dialogue pretty much boils down to "I'm going to take control of you and kill everyone you love." "I killed your girlfriend and crippled Barbara" and finally "Everyone who's related to you sucks and every villain who isn't me also sucks." Just the same three tunes for 14 FUCKING HOURS!!!

There is no variation to this he just keeps saying the same thing slightly differently over and over and over and over and over AND OVER AGAIN!!! I honestly grew sick of it after the first hour! And after the next 9 hours, I wanted to murder him. I honestly yelled at Joker to shut up when he popped up to complain about Batman not killing people because I heard him saying that joke for about 3 hours.

Contrast this with Joker in Asylum where he's in most of the game, he does have a few things to say and he has different moods. He's get existed, angry, frustrated, confused, happy, snarky and threatening. In AK he's smug and he remains smug until the last 15 minutes.

Again I love Mark Hamill's Joker and I'm so sad that he's retiring from the role (I fully understand and support him but it's still kinda sad) but this was the one and only time I found him to be annoying and I know I'm in the minority on this as most said Joker was the best part of AK. But for me the game would have been better if Rocksteady had stuck to their guns and kept their word that Joker wouldn't be in this game.

[Thebestoftherest]

Did Rocksteady have no faith, or did DC exec who has to stamp this game say put Joker in or it not coming.

[Winter]

Did Rocksteady have no faith, or did DC exec who has to stamp this game say put Joker in or it not coming.

From what I understand DC had no real say in how the game was shaped outside of giving permission to use certain characters. Rocksteady had full control over how the story played out and no one was forcing them to use the Joker, as far as I can tell it was Rocksteady's choice to include the Joker and to overuse him.

[Madner Kami]

Did Rocksteady have no faith, or did DC exec who has to stamp this game say put Joker in or it not coming.

Either way, the Joker in Knight was annoying as fuck and unnecessary, despite contributing some of the best scenes. His appearance just makes no sense. If he's a toxin-induced hallucination, then why does it transform the four captives? By consequence, there's a phyiscal component to his appearance, which, even by comic-book standards, is far-fetched and is doubly so, because the Arkham-series is relatively grounded in reality by comic-book-standards. This stuff is just very far out there and it feels like a cancerous-growth.

[Thebestoftherest]

I also feel like they could have use the time with the four jokers to explain who the heck the knight is before before and after Joker kill him, one what was he like as Robin, two how did he get an army to fight for him, heck how is he funding this, why are they loyal to him, all questions that could make for a compelling game but we got the joker plot instead.

[Thebestoftherest]

Did Rocksteady have no faith, or did DC exec who has to stamp this game say put Joker in or it not coming.

Either way, the Joker in Knight was annoying as fuck and unnecessary, despite contributing some of the best scenes. His appearance just makes no sense. If he's a toxin-induced hallucination, then why does it transform the four captives? By consequence, there's a phyiscal component to his appearance, which, even by comic-book standards, is far-fetched and is doubly so, because the Arkham-series is relatively grounded in reality by comic-book-standards. This stuff is just very far out there and it feels like a cancerous-growth.

I only asked because they did it again in both Injustice game, and are going to do it in Kill the Justice League dlc.

[Madner Kami]

Joker always has been that little bit too present when it comes to Batman-media overall. It always feels as if the Joker gets even more attention than he already had, when a truely good depiction of the character comes along. Animated Series, Arkham, Dark Knight; they all made it progressively worse, I feel. Batman-media is just oversaturated with the clown by now.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Alright, honestly if there was any villain I was indifferent with in Knight, it was Scarecrow.

Everything is off with it for me. His evanescent attitude, no actual fight with him, his contrived means of emptying Gotham, fooling Batman with a Gordon death which I was tired of by Asylum. I enjoy his overtures and, yes he's more interesting nearing the end.

Joker on the other hand I enjoy every crack of the game he fills. His entrance has panache, everything he says is wonderfully written and stays just as ahead of the game as all the other writings that improved. The intimacy that the hallucination has with Bruce's mind is gold. Every time I play, I enjoy walking into Harley Quinn occupied movie studios more and more.

The Killing Joke walking cutscene wins Barbara's suicide hands down. Scarecrow just narrates it to Batman who is utterly clueless as to the possibility at this point. At least make him self conscious of it and unable still to reconcile (really it's all it'd need).

[CharlesPhipps]

I honestly was sick of the Joker in the Arkham Universe and felt they could have developed many others much better.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I honestly was sick of the Joker in the Arkham Universe and felt they could have developed many others much better.

Could have is somewhat a loaded sentiment considering that most attempts tend to pale in comparison. Not that I’m disagreeing in theory so sorry for the contraire.

I think the Gotham show in its forefront was great. I also really liked Pennyworth for its efforts.