Analysis - The Joker’s cards for Bruce and what they suggest:
We shouldn’t take Handwriting psychology literally as it’s very subjective but it’s definitely fascinating what we can learn or pull from a characters penmanship.
1. The Card from the Church
Between the two cards, this one is my favourite because it has the most personality in it.
This card shows up after the events at Wayne Tower where Joker and Harley unleash the Virus (Gas Bomb) and during Batman, Iman, and Tiffany’s search for the next Bomb.
Right off the bat, the penmanship on this card is messy. The letters are jagged, some misaligned, and some have varying degrees of pressure to them.
Writing with a lot of pressure can be a sign of attention seeking behaviour and Joker is trying to get Batman’s attention, obviously, but more notably the pressure on the letters mimic Johns/Jokers speech. John has a habit of subverting and exaggerating certain words in his speech. For instance when talking about Harley potentially setting off the bombs on the bridge (if you choose to trust John), John describes that hypothetical as ‘exciting’. It’s no surprise that writing can reflect our speech but as I mention below it’s a sign of being unfiltered.
It’s evident that Joker isn’t dwelling on presentation here, much like his fashion sense, there’s a disheveled appearance to his writing.
The scribble in the bottom left corner where you can see Joker was checking to see if the pen was still working is kind of endearing since this letter was intended for Batman and the scribble indicated a lack of filter, as is observed through Villain Jokers personality. V Joker is arguably the least filtered out of all 3 in my opinion and naturally that would reflect in every facet of him down to his writing. I mean even his attempt to scribble out the joke at the end seems half hearted, because we can still see it clearly.
In addition we’ve got the doodles of a heart and a mystery doodle which Batman has his thumb covering (I wonder what it is 0_o). Doodles display playfulness and of course that childish is pretty consistent to Johns character regardless if he goes down the Vigilante or Villain route.
Jokers handwriting here is relatively ‘bad’ but without going into detail (I want to wrap this one up) we can see that theres a struggle for consistency in his lettering and strokes, which mirrors his personality in way. John was/and Joker is very muddled at times because his motives are all over place and it’s hard to determine what he wants. Now sometimes I think people see inconsistency in characters as ‘bad writing’ but I see it as making them more believable/complex. So yes, ‘unstable’ writing comes as no surprise.
2. The Card from Joker’s Funhouse
Now this one’s shorter but it’s much more presentable. The lettering is mostly level and although there’s the mix between capital and lower case letters within the same word it’s overall more thought out. Even the doodles of the diamonds (?) on top of the ‘i’ are consistent. There’s a bluntness to this that otherwise isn’t seen in the first letter, the sentence are short and concise almost as if Joker has more control here. And he does, Bruce sees this letter after being shocked unconscious by Joker. He’s not in his Batsuit and he’s being led towards the games that Joker is going to force him to play before ‘dinner’.
I know this is written with a different pen, clearly a marker and that can effect penmanship, I know I write better with a certain type of pen (thicker ball points) but I like to think there’s more certainty in Joker at this point in the story about what he’s doing, since before this, John was a part of other peoples plans.
Also this one reads more intimately than the other for obvious reasons like with the use of the term ‘our secret’ and the domestic connotations of ‘dinner’ but that of course goes into the bigger scheme of this being presented as a dinner party. What I think is most important in this letter is how the heart ❤️ has no arrow in it. Unlike the first card which did;
According to Google:
A heart symbol pierced with an arrow, symbolizing romantic love (being lovestruck, or the pain of lovesickness) A typical depiction of the Sacred Heart (often shown with other attributes, e.g. surmounted by a cross, pierced by nails or swords, etc.)
Okay maybe the first one was more intimate?
But from what I could find about a plain heart and what it could potentially mean, the closest I could really find was ‘unromantic but sincere love’. And with what we know about Joker’s determination and certainty that he is the ‘villain’ of Batmans/Bruces dreams (a term could definitely be a stand in for other things) I think that certainty comes off here too. Bruce never questions or entertains the thought that Joker would have taken his suit off in front of others or had his henchmen do it, it’s clearly implied with how committed Joker is to not exposing Batmans identity that it was HIM who removed the batsuit off Bruce’s unconscious body. Point is, there’s this mutual/unspoken assuredness between them that this is in fact THEIR secret.
End!
Phew! Idk if this made sense or even coherent but I just found the letters really cool and wanted to talk about them. Let me know if I should go into more detail or pls add to this in the notes I’d love to hear your ideas!
