Allegory of The Joker: When the Hero Breaks

An Absurdist View of Batman, the Joker, and the Collapse of Moral Illusions

Apr 06, 2025

"You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain." - Harvey Dent1

From Cape to Cracks

There was a time I believed in heroes. The heroes that wake up every day with scars, grit their teeth, and choose control over chaos. The kind who believed that if you were disciplined enough, strong enough, you could fix what the world kept breaking. Batman2 made sense to me. He stood in the storm, unbending. He sought justice over vengeance. Saw people as redeemable, even his enemies. Wore pain as armor. Sought isolation by design. Still showed up even though deep down, he knew he couldn’t save Gotham. He wore his heroism as a burden, rather than for glory. That rigidity felt like strength when I was younger, when I still believed order was something you could enforce if you had enough grit, enough training, enough scars. That you could move through a corrupt world and not become part of it. That you could remain clean if your will was strong enough.

And I tried. I signed the dotted line thinking I was stepping into Gotham, into something savable. I went in believing I was the force of will that could outlast the chaos. That if I just held the line long enough, maybe someone else wouldn’t have to.

But the world doesn’t give a damn about your ideals.

No one tells you that the longer you fight for order, the more you become the thing you swore to destroy. Not out of corruption, but because eventually, the system you’re protecting starts to rot. Eventually, you find yourself standing next to people who wear the same uniform but wouldn’t hesitate to throw you under the bus to save themselves. Eventually, you realize that being the “good guy” doesn’t mean shit if you’re surrounded by cowards playing the same game of dress up.

So yeah, Batman was my hero. But then I lived long enough to see myself in the Joker3 too. The duality of two different versions, constantly fighting over control.

Philosopher of Fire

The Joker didn’t become compelling to me because of his violence. I despise violence. Not because I’m unwilling to use it, but because choosing violence first is almost never the right answer. That said, don’t get me wrong, I’ll pick up the axe when it’s time. And I’ll put it down when it’s done. Some of us are born to fight. But knowing that doesn’t excuse anything. It doesn’t give you a moral blank check. You can carry violence without letting it carry you.

The Joker’s violence was just surface level static. What got under my skin, what stayed, was that he stopped pretending. He didn’t want your vote. He didn’t want a pat on the back. He didn’t even want to win. He just wanted to pull the mask off this sick little play we call civilization and make you look at what’s underneath.

He didn’t show up with a manifesto. He showed up with a match. And that match exposed everything.

The politicians who scream about patriotism while pocketing contracts soaked in blood. The citizens who cheered for their warriors, right up until those warriors came home broken, then looked away.

The kind of people who filled the streets with flags, voted for bombs, and hated strangers across an ocean they couldn’t find on a map. Then cross the street to avoid the men and women who paid for that hatred with their minds, their bodies, and their peace.

The Joker was right. Chaos isn’t the enemy, it’s the truth finally getting its hands dirty.

Sure, he was a villain, but he was also a mirror. A philosopher with no filter, no leash, no use for polite fiction. He didn’t just challenge order. He exposed it as the lie we all agreed to live under. And that scared people. I think it still does.

Because when you look close enough, you see the cracks. You see how morality bends for the powerful and breaks the poor. You see how the rules aren’t real, they’re just convenient. They’re flexible. Optional. You see that everyone’s moral compass can be bought, broken, or bent if you apply enough pressure and fear.

The Joker didn’t invent chaos. He just stopped pretending it wasn’t already there.

Chaos as Freedom

Chaos isn't just destruction. It's freedom, the kind that strips away pretense, hierarchy, and excuses. It doesn't care if you're rich or righteous. It doesn't give a damn about your title, your politics, your trauma, or your carefully curated moral code. Chaos is the only thing I’ve seen treat everyone with the equality that so many claim they desire.

You want fairness? Watch what happens when the chaos starts. It doesn’t ask for credentials. It doesn’t pause to consider your intentions. It levels everything. That’s honesty most people can’t stomach. That’s what the Joker understood. Not as a metaphor. As a truth.

He knew people cling to structure like a security blanket because they’re terrified of what they'd do if left to their own devices. They need rules, need labels: hero, villain, patriot, terrorist. Because the alternative is realizing that they’re capable of being all of them or none of them, depending on the day. Depending on the paycheck.

There are some who preach about justice but turn into animals the second their comfort is threatened. There are veterans who wear the mask of honor while dragging their own down just to feel taller.

Some of you reading this have done it. I’ve done it.

You saw someone stand for something real, and instead of rising to meet it, you cut them down. Not because they were wrong, but because they reminded you of everything you stopped being.

There are things I said years ago that I no longer agree with today. There are things I did years ago that I don't do anymore. No, I am not two faced, I am simply growing and changing as I should be.

As we all should be.

The Joker doesn’t need to break the world. The world’s already broken. He just laughs at the silence in the room when someone finally says it out loud.

The Death of Morality

Morality is a campfire story we tell ourselves so we can sleep through the night. It's fragile, convenient, and utterly dependent on comfort. Take that comfort away, and you’ll find out real quick who actually believes in right and wrong and who was just playing pretend.

The Joker’s brilliance wasn’t in making people suffer. It was in making them choose. That’s what breaks most people. It isn’t the scars, it’s being forced to look in the mirror and admit that your code only worked when the stakes were manageable. The second it got personal, it collapsed. Myself included.

That’s the part most people skip.

They’ll preach morality from a podium, but put them in a situation where someone else has to suffer for them to stay safe and watch how fast their convictions vanish. They’ll quote philosophers, host panels on justice, teach kids how to be “good” but corner them with a hard choice, and those same ideals start to slip through their fingers like smoke.

Relativism4 sounds beautiful until the blood hits your hands.

I’ve watched bureaucrats sign off on lies because the truth was inconvenient. I’ve sat there, listening to suits in clean shirts say, “We’re doing everything we can,” while veterans rot in parking lots. Maybe next time they call on America’s sons and daughters, we’ll answer with the same hollow promises they gave us. Not out of spite, but because we’ve learned the truth: Loyalty means nothing to a system that forgets your name the second you’re no longer useful.

And here’s the worst part, every one of those people thinks they’re moral. Every one of them has a reason.

That’s the horror the Joker reveals. That most people aren't immoral, they're conditionally moral. They behave until the cost of doing so outweighs their personal reward. Then they pivot. Then they blame. Then they look away.

Most people don’t need to act evil, they just need to hesitate when it matters. And that hesitation reveals who they really are.

You want to test a moral code? Don’t argue it. Bleed on it.

Close to the Sun

Look at the leaders of Gotham today. The faces change, but the tone stays the same: hate, division, noise. Nothing changes except the enemy of the week. We're told to think like them, act like them, hate like them. But here's the trick, the pawns don’t know they’re on the board. The kings and queens shake hands behind closed doors while the pawns spill blood thinking it matters.

They convince us that one side is the righteous one. The most moral, the most enlightened, the most persecuted. The most progressive and the most traditional, somehow both at once. We’re told what to care about, what to fear, who to hate. One headline, one post, one meme and suddenly we're all an expert, preaching with the certainty of someone who hasn’t questioned a damn thing.

And as you read this, your brain is already doing that thing, whispering “Yeah, that’s them. That’s the other side.”

That’s the trap. We project instead of reflect. We blame instead of observe. The Dunning-Kruger effect5 isn’t just a flaw anymore. It’s our comfort zone. Our societies drug of choice.

The crazy thing is, I think I’ve seen it all my life. I just wasn’t brave enough to look under the bed for the monsters. Or maybe I was too naive, too eager to believe the propaganda dressed up as purpose. Don’t get it twisted. I’m not saying it’s easy to see through. It’s not. It takes time, pain, and doubt.

Maybe that’s the whole point. Maybe we have to see the world through the eyes of both Batman and the Joker to finally see it at all.

Comfortable Lies

We all want to believe we’re the exception. That we weren’t fooled. That we didn’t fall for it like the rest of them. But we did, I did. Maybe not always with words, but with silence. With convenience. With the times I looked away because truth felt heavier than comfort.

The blame doesn’t sit on one side. It spills across every aisle, every belief system, every flag we’ve ever saluted or burned. If you’re alive right now and still pretending your tribe is clean, you’re not awake, you’re just well medicated by your own bullshit.

I didn’t change sides. I just stopped pretending the side I was on had clean hands. I stopped calling doubt betrayal. Stopped mistaking discomfort for weakness. Growth isn’t switching jerseys. It’s realizing the whole game was rigged and deciding to show up anyway. Not to win, but to be authentic.

Most don’t avoid truth because it’s hidden. They avoid it because it costs them something. Reputation. Community. Identity. Sometimes your whole worldview. That’s the toll booth on the road to clarity. You don’t get to cross without sacrifice.

The real enemy was never the other side. It was the part of ourselves that feeds on outrage, that enjoys being angry, that needs someone to blame so we don’t have to sit in silence with who we’ve become.

There’s a weird pride people get when they “wake up.” Like they cracked the code and now everyone else is just sheep. But waking up doesn’t make you wise. It makes you responsible. For what you say. For what you support. For what you refuse to unlearn. If all your awakening did was make you louder, you’re still asleep.

My Personal Fire

There was a day I stopped believing in the system. I couldn’t tell you the exact moment, it wasn’t one bombshell, it was a slow erosion. A thousand small betrayals stacked like bricks.

But I remember the silence. The kind that fills the room after a doctor reads your record, makes eye contact, and still says your case is "too complex”, that there's a staffing shortage, so maybe you should just handle it yourself. I hear from others I served with, sitting on hold with the VA for hours, only to be told their appointments were lost in the shuffle. Again. I remember writing a letter to a senator, offering real solutions and asking for nothing in return. And instead of support, I got pulled into a quiet little batch of reprisals.

And I’ve seen too much since then to pretend any of it’s isolated.

I’ve seen teachers work two jobs to keep the lights on while OnlyFans models rake in thousands. Not because the models are wrong, they’re just filling a void society decided was more valuable, but because we live in a culture that rewards spectacle over substance.

I’ve watched friends sell their souls to the machine, good people, smart people, admitting it’s all bullshit but chasing the paycheck anyway, telling themselves they’ll make it right later.

I’ve seen it in the eyes of others that have walked through chaos too, that hollow stare when you ask them if they’re okay, and they answer too quickly, like they’ve rehearsed it.

I’ve seen people choose silence over truth, comfort over courage, profit over purpose. And the worst part? They know it. We all do.

But we keep pretending that survival is the same thing as living.

Batman’s code doesn’t survive in that kind of world.

I used to think discipline was the answer. Structure. Suffering for something greater. But what happens when the “greater” turns out to be a mirage? When you give your best years, your body, your sanity and the machine you fed turns around and says, “We’re sorry, the line is disconnected”?

That’s when the Joker started making sense.

Not because I wanted chaos. But because I was done pretending that order had ever been real. Done pretending that justice was blind, when I’d seen it flinch a thousand times. Done pretending that morality was anything more than a jacket people wear when it fits the weather.

People hear that and think I’m bitter. Maybe. But bitterness is just what happens when truth ferments too long in silence.

I didn’t become the Joker. But I stopped trying to be Batman. I stopped running from the chaos. I let it teach me something. Something most people spend their whole lives avoiding. What you learn, eventually, is that nothing, not medals, not rank, not a resume, and not even your own trauma, earns you peace. You have to build that yourself. Out of rubble. Out of ash.

And no one’s going to hand you the blueprint. No one is coming.

Soapbox Critic

You might be wondering, “Hey Josh, this doesn’t sound like philosophy. Get off your soapbox.”

I’d kindly reply, “I didn’t force you to read this. You did, out of curiosity.”

And that is philosophy.

It’s about asking the hard questions, looking for real world echoes, and daring to form your own perspective. Sometimes those echoes come from fiction: from books, from movies, from characters who say what we’re afraid to admit. And sometimes they come from real life, when the pain is too loud to ignore.

Sometimes that means thinking like the hero.

Sometimes it means thinking like the villain.

Either way, you’re thinking. And that’s the whole point.

But since I’m already on my soapbox, let me say something directly to those who guard the ivory towers of academia. The ones that sell someone else’s product, making money off other’s suffering without pause:

I’m not anti-intellectual. I’m not anti-academia.

What I am against is pretending you’re the gatekeepers of wisdom. When all you’ve done is read the pain you preach about, and offer solutions you’d never take yourself.

You can keep quoting the Stoics. Keep studying the ancients. Hell, gather a crowd around you and impress them with your ability to drop the perfect quote for every situation. But if you haven’t lived it, really lived it, then all those words are just ornaments. Philosophy without skin in the game is cosplay.

And no, I’m not here to compare pain. I’m not saying mine’s deeper, harder, or more valid than yours. What I’m challenging is the belief that your pain is untouchable. That it’s immune from reflection just because it hurts. That it can’t be questioned, or shaped, or held to a higher standard.

Because if your pain becomes your identity, you’ll defend it more than you heal it. “Sticks and stones” used to mean something. Now you scream and shatter over every offense. Maybe the words were meant to hurt. But the fact that they did? That’s not very Stoic of you.

That’s when I might show up. Not with a lecture. Not with a podium. Not with a certificate from a thousand dollar seminar on how to master the Stoic mindset. Maybe I’ll just walk into your echo chamber like Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting, drop the truth on the table, the kind that was carved out of silence, not spotlight and ask: “How do you like them apples?”

Because you can quote Seneca all day but if you’ve never had to rebuild meaning from rubble, if you’ve never chosen to keep going when nothing made sense, then maybe it’s time to admit: you’re not practicing philosophy. You’re just repeating it.

Philosophy isn’t about sounding clever. It’s about standing in the wreckage and telling the truth, especially when it costs you something. It’s what you fall back on when everything else is ash and you’re still breathing, still bleeding, and no one’s coming to save you.

So if your answer to other’s pain is to intellectualize it, monetize it, or weaponize it, if you use suffering as branding instead of a mirror, don’t call yourself wise. Call it what it is: a performance.

You’re not enlightened. You’re just afraid to be seen without your mask. And if that stings a little? Good. That means there’s still something real under all those quotes.

Absurdism and the Path Forward

I don’t offer comfort. I offer the chance for clarity. The kind of clarity that only comes after the fall. I look out at the absurdity of life: the randomness, the suffering, the silence of the universe and I don’t flinch. I don’t reach for a god, a flag, or a moral high ground. I just say over and over: It is what it is. Now what am I going to do about it?

That’s what saved me.

Not therapy, not pills, not anyone’s checklist for resilience. Just that simple, brutal honesty. That life has no inherent meaning, and yet I am still responsible for how I respond. That I can scream into the void all I want, but it won’t echo back.

And that’s not a tragedy. That’s liberation.

Because if the universe doesn’t give me purpose, then no one can take it from me. I build it. I own it. Even when it hurts. Especially when it hurts.

That’s why I don’t pretend to wear a cape anymore. I don’t carry a badge of honor or cling to some righteous code carved out by dead men in cleaner times. I walk with the scars, the ghosts, and the knowledge that nothing about this life is fair but I’m still here. Still choosing.

And that choice? That’s everything.

Not the illusion of control. Not the fantasy of order. But the defiance of continuing to act in the face of absurdity. Of creating meaning not because it’s true, but because it’s mine.

You want to know who you are? Don’t look at your uniform. Don’t look at your job title, your college degree, or your DD-214. Look at what you do when no one is watching. Look at the promises you keep when there’s nothing left to gain. Look at the secrets you still hold onto for those that spread lies behind your back. Look at how you treat people who can do nothing for you.

That’s your reflection. And if you don’t like what you see? Good, that means you're not too far gone. That means you can still rebuild from the ashes.

What makes you think you're not enough? Who told you that what you went through needs to be justified, explained away to people who’ve never once stepped outside their own comfort just to grow? Who never risked anything for someone they didn’t know.

You gave time. You gave energy. You gave days, maybe even years, to something bigger than you. And no, it doesn’t have to be some world saving mission with a cape and a badass soundtrack.

Maybe you’re a teacher who actually gives a shit about the kids. Maybe you run the local car wash and it makes you happy. Maybe you said, “Fuck it,” and became a farmer because something in the dirt felt more honest than anything you saw in a cubicle.

That’s what humans do. That’s what got us this far : not society, not systems, not slogans.

Us.

That’s not politics. That’s not economics. That’s humanity. Raw, flawed, persistent. And that means maybe, just maybe, you’re already more than enough. You just forgot.

A Stranger’s Grace

You’ve heard the noise. You’ve seen behind the curtain. Maybe now you’re starting to understand, not agree, not submit, but understand that the world isn’t broken because it failed to meet your expectations. It’s broken because it was never whole to begin with.

And maybe that’s the point. Maybe you weren’t supposed to save it. Maybe you were just supposed to survive it long enough to see clearly. To stop chasing the hero’s ending. To stop flinching from the mirror. Because here’s the truth no one wants to say out loud:

You’re not a hero.

You’re not a villain.

You’re not your past.

You’re not your pain.

You’re just a person, standing in the wreckage, trying to remember who you were before the world told you who to be. That’s where it starts. Not with answers, but with ownership. Not with peace, but with presence. The kind that doesn’t beg for meaning but builds it. One breath, one scar, and one stubborn choice at a time.

I’m saying burn the ships. Burn the idea that there’s still somewhere safe to retreat to. Burn the illusion that if it gets too real, too raw, too close, you can just fall back on your identity, your tribe, your talking points.

That’s not commitment. That’s theater. Because once the ships are gone, once the bridges are ash, you’ll finally have to face who you really are.

Not who you were told to be. Not who your echo chamber rewards. You.

So let me ask you:

What lies have you dressed up as values?

What masks have you worn so long they feel like skin?

And if everything you were told was sacred crumbled tomorrow, who would you be without it?

Don’t rush to answer. Just sit with it. The chaos won’t stop. The system won’t fix itself. But neither of those things own you anymore.

You are what you choose next.

Even if the road ahead is ash and shadow.

Especially if it is.

“The absurd man, when he contemplates his torment, silences all the idols.

In the universe suddenly restored to its silence, the myriad wondering little voices of the Earth rise up.

Unconscious, secret calls, invitations from all the faces, they are the necessary reverse and price of victory.

There is no sun without shadow and it is essential to know the night.

The absurd man says yes and his efforts will henceforth be unceasing.

If there is a personal fate, there is no higher destiny, or at least there is but one which he concludes is inevitable and despicable.

For the rest, he knows himself to be the master of his days.

At the subtle moment when man glances backward over his life, Sisyphus returning toward his rock, in that slight pivoting he contemplates the series of unrelated actions which becomes his fate, created by him, combined under his memory’s eye and soon sealed by his death.

Thus, convinced of the wholly human origin of all that is human, a blind man eager to see who knows that the night has no end, he is still on the go. The rock is still rolling.” - Albert Camus6