LogFAQs > #929013102

Yeah, I was mostly curious about the comparison between the two, because obviously people love other Joker incarnations, too.

I think what gets me is the menace. I'm not really terrified of Phoenix's Joker. People point towards the realism but the main problem is that he really more or less stumbled into his successes. He doesn't come off as particularly crafty or clever, just a sick human being who eventually has enough of the world.

Ledger's Joker is terrifying because he's someone who comes off as intelligent, quick-witted, and generally more in control. Even if he considers himself an agent of chaos, everything he does is very thought-out and planned. And it's much scarier when a dude who seems so smart thinks in such nihilistic terms, instead of a dude who's had life shit on him so badly he decides to "fight back" so to speak. Basically with Phoenix I go "of course he ended up the way he did, look at what happened to him" and even though Ledger's Joker didn't have an origin story, obviously, I still can't imagine any scenario that would explain his thought process.
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TheRock ~ I had a name, my father called me Blues.