The new Suicide Squad movie is out and I can’t wait to see it. I’m a huge nerd and I LOVE comics. I’ve always been a fan of Harley Quinn, probably because I can identify with her sometimes. What really gets me though is everywhere you turn people idolize the relationship between Harley and Joker. It’s sick and it’s sad.
Harley and Joker’s relationship is toxic on so many levels. Joker is an abusive asshole, not just a crazy psychopath. He isn’t just emotionally abusive either. HE.HITS.HER.REPEATEDLY. He takes great joy in it too. He loves to humiliate her. He takes pride in cutting her down every chance he gets. He manipulates her and he even goes as far as torturing her.
Joker can’t love. He’s a psychopath. Psychopaths lack empathy which is a key element in love.
Harley is often seen as the dumb bimbo. Here’s the thing though, she’s the only one in her family to graduate college. And at the top of her class to boot. She has a Master’s Degree FFS. She has a shitty childhood and had to push herself to do these things. Because of that she craves chaos, it’s what she knows. She creates the Harley Quinn persona. It’s a form of disassociation. She obsesses with things and people to give herself a sense of self.
I see so much of myself in Harley that it scares me. It’s this type of personality that makes one easy to abuse.That’s why the Joker took to her. Not because he loved her. Not because he cared about her. Not because he thought she looked hot and he figured he’d give her a go. No. Because he knew she would be easy to manipulate. He knew she’d latch on to him like a leech. He saw that weak girl inside of her and he pulled her out.
Harley endures Joker’s abuse because she WANTS him to love her. She wants him to change. She believes he will. She thinks that if she just does this one thing everything would be better. But it’s never enough. She ALWAYS has to do that one thing, and it’s always a different thing.
I did this constantly with A2. If I just changed X then everything would work out. So I’d change X, but it didn’t help. If we moved into a different house, life would be better so our relationship would be too, right? Wrong.
The kicker? A2 thought The Joker and Harley relationship was the best thing ever. He idolized it. It was his perfect love story. When we broke up he posted on his alternate Facebook account about how his Harley broke up with him. Imagine that, an abuser idolizing an abusive relationship.
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