The Dark Knight's Hidden Link: Mind-Blowing Theory Connects Joker and Scarecrow
One of the testaments to Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy impact, popularity and depth is the number of theories, allowing us to see its events in a different light, which the fandom came up with.
We have covered some before (for example). And one of such fan theories establishes a connection between the Joker ( Heath Ledger) and Jonathan Crane/Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy ).
On the surface, the only villains of different movies who are connected with each other in any way are Ra's al Ghul (Liam Neeson) and Talia al Ghul (Marion Cotillard).
While Scarecrow gets small appearances in the second and third movies of the trilogy, the only villain to do so, he doesn't do anything important in them. In Batman Begins, however, Scarecrow's role is quite important.
He is a corrupt psychiatrist at Arkham Asylum, who experiments on inmates, culminating in development of the Fear Toxin, which Ra's intends to spread throughout Gotham. What the Fear Toxin does?
Those exposed are afflicted by their deepest anxieties and fears. A state of panic first results, presumably followed by full-blown, permanent insanity.
And a theory on Reddit asks: what if the Joker was one of the Fear Toxin's victims, most likely a Gotham citizen who lived in The Narrows and wasn't cured in time?
Given the Joker's proficiency with firearms, explosives and unarmed fighting, he likely was a war veteran, perhaps even some sort of a black ops guy, whose traumatic memories and inability to re-adapt to normal life were fanned into a full blown-insanity by the Fear Toxin's influence.
So he sought to turn Gotham into a battlefield, and his fear that at their core all humans are monstrous was turned into powerful conviction by the toxin's influence.
The scars on his face – which story the Joker changes every time he tells it – could be simply a result of self-mutilation, caused by toxin-induced hallucinations
Of course, there is no direct evidence for this theory, and there are things, contradicting it. Primarily, James Gordon (Gary Oldman ) gives one of the Joker's card to Batman at the end of Batman Begins.
While the Fear Toxin works very rapidly, and the onset of insanity could take mere hours, the Joker still needed time to prepare his plans.