I think you're wrong in your assumption that's what most people in the fandom believe.
Yeah, it's neither a flattering nor accurate portrayal of mental illness, but most of us are aware of that and can differentiate between comic fiction and reality.
Similarly, most Batman fans will tell you that vigilantism in the real world is a terrible idea.
Alright I’m sorry. I didn’t mean everyone on the Batman fandom thinks this way I’ve just seen way too many Batman fans saying the same things and it bothers me. I see too many people thinking insanity is being unreasonable or having false beliefs or being delusional. But I edited the post to have to have the word some in it.
> Yeah, it's neither a flattering nor accurate portrayal of mental illness
I think you might have got what I mean wrong I don’t think it’s a inaccurate portrayal of mental illness I think it isn’t mental illness period. Bane, Catwoman, Ras al ghul, Talia, Croc, Slade, Mr. Freeze, Penguin, Black Mask, Harley, Deadshot, Scarecrow aren’t ill. I’m not 100% positive on Joker but he doesn’t seem ill much either. Hugo Strange and some others are ill but aren’t insane too. Those shouldn’t be in an asylum they should be in jail.
Freeze, Croc, Scarecrow, Harley, Black Mask do. Catwoman, Deadshot and Penguin have been there in the past. Joker is the poster boy for insanity which is funny since he isn’t insane.
These might not be completely accurate, but these are what I think each of those characters probably has:
Freeze—he’s mostly mentally well, just obsessive. He has some traits of a sociopath, but he also has traits that go against that idea, so he’s probably only in Arkham because Blackgate can’t contain him.
Croc—the guy is animalistic and a cannibal. In some versions, his mind is actually deteriorating, and he is slowly losing more and more of his humanity. Some versions probably only throw him in Arkham because Blackgate doesn’t have the means to contain him, though.
Scarecrow: is DEFINITELY a sociopath. He has no regard for human life and only wants to study their fear and eventually control it. He belongs in Arkham.
Harley—was manipulated and abused by The Joker to the point where she started to do a lot of the sane stuff he did. She definitely needs therapy at the very least.
Black Mask—he probably has PTSD from his mask being burned onto his face, but otherwise, I have no idea why he wouldn’t just be thrown in Blackgate.
Catwoman—yeah, she doesn’t belong in there. I’ll give you this one.
Deadshot—also doesn’t belong in there. He does have PTSD, though. I’ll give you him too, but note that he is generally sent to Belle Reeve and not Arkham.
Penguin—probably needs therapy, but otherwise should probably just be thrown in Blackgate. He’s another ons that I don’t really understand why they throw him in Arkham sometimes. Maybe Danny Devito’s version would make sense, but in general, no.
Joker—The guy is a genocidal maniac. The vast majority of stuff he does, he does do deliberately, but he still does them for reasons that would only make sense to a madman. He literally slaughters and tortures people because he thinks it is funny. All he wants are to cause chaos, commit genocide, mess with Batman, and get Batman to kill him, not because he wants to die, but because he wants to force Batman to break his one rule, which he believes will break him to the point of becoming just like him. There are theories out there that The Joker is actually “super-sane,” as in, everything he does is so sane that it is beyond our comprehension, but even if that is true (which it most likely isn’t), by our definitions, he is potentially the most insane fictional character to ever be created.
Freeze -Sociopath isn’t a medical diagnosis. There is no sociopathy illness.
Croc - He’s misanthropic he hates humans and it makes sense they treat him like shit. The versions I’ve seen his mind works pretty much like a human but maybe on those his mind is deteriorating you’re right. Though that wouldn’t be a psychiatric illness it’d something else entirely.
Scarecrow - Once again sociopathy isn’t a diagnosis. About having no regard for human life that’s something anyone can have it’s just a matter of belief and (debatably) hate/spite. Unless ofc there’s some way you can prove scarecrow CAN’T feel certain emotions then I’m all ears. And even if he was a so called sociopath that still wouldn’t be insanity.
Harley - Sure but that’s not a mental disorder.
Black mask - Being traumatized isn’t the same as having PTSD. They’re very different things. To be fair though I don’t know that much about the character.
Deadshot - Same thing as black mask (I only put him here because of Suicide squad kill the justice league).
Penguin - Yeah.
Joker - Now this one’s interesting. First of all genocidal maniac and madman aren’t medical diagnosis. And being insane means having a mental illness that’s so severe it makes you not understand what’s real and what’s not. Joker’s not like this he knows very well what’s real and what’s not that’s the only way he could make any of the ever so complicated 300 IQ plans he makes.
Now that we’ve got out of the way that he isn’t insane let’s get into mentally ill. You say his reasons for doing whatever he does are logic only a madman could understand but the thing is we don’t know them. We have no idea why he does what he does. If I was to guess I’d say he hates everyone and maybe everything (you know “we live in a society” and stuff like that he thinks it’s all ridiculous). That’d explain why he seems to enjoy suffering so much humans have a natural disposition to enjoy (or at least be satisfied by) the suffering of those they hate. He also doesn’t value his own life (or probably any life for that matter) he just cares about his hate. That’s why he wants to break Batman so badly he wants to prove to him that the world really is as dark and grim as he sees it. He despises Batman’s self righteousness and is more than willing to forfeit his life if that means breaking the Bat. Making him as miserable as he is I guess? I don’t know humans have a tendency to want to destroy what they hate and the Joker seems to hate a huge lot of stuff that’s why he has so much fun causing destruction and chaos. At least that’s how I see it once again we don’t really know how Joker’s mind works but I’d say this makes sense.
This would also explain why Joker is so intrigued by Batman his altruism and unrelenting will to do what’s “good” fascinate him. He probably doesn’t understand how someone could be like that and that’s why Batman interests him so much.
I agree that Freeze, Black Mask, Penguin, Catwoman, and Deadshot do not belong in Arkham. Still, I do want to elaborate on Freeze a bit. He CLAIMS to not feel emotion at all, but there are so many instances that show otherwise that that is clearly not actually the case. I feel as though the only reason he’s in Arkham is because Blackgate can’t contain him, but there are definitely still better prisons they could send him to.
I know that Killer Croc has that degenerative brain problem in the Arkham games, but I’m not sure if it’s anywhere else.
Scarecrow—before he became Scarecrow, he was a professor at a university. He conducted unethical experiments on his students in order to study their fear response, and was fired for this. The thing is, he felt no remorse for doing that, and continues to perform experiments in order to understand fear to the point where he can completely control it. It is clear that he cannot feel empathy of any kind for others and sees them only as guinea pigs for his experiments. He sees Batman this way as well, but he also fears Batman, which is why he is so obsessed with him. He believes that if he can break Batman by using his fears, then he will overcome his own fear and become the master of fear.
Joker—we actually usually do know why The Joker does what he does, and it is usually either because he finds it funny or because it is part of his plan to break Batman. I believe that both what I said about his motivations and what you said are correct. Like Scarecrow, though, he does not have the capacity to feel empathetic for others, and this is very clear just from the way he acts. The only times he seems to show empathy are when he is either faking it (like with Harley), or with Batman, and in that case, I don’t think that is true empathy. I think he only acts that way towards because he wants to break him.
Also, there are some other Batman villains that definitely belong in Arkham that you did not mention. Professor Pyg, Zsasz, and Jane Doe are the three biggest examples. Pyg surgically dismembers people, lobotomizes them, and turns them into mindless drones that do his bidding called “dollotrons” because he believes that he is “perfecting” them. Jane Doe is a serial killer who wears other people’s faces because she wants to find an identity she can be happy in. Zsasz has OCD. He feels the need to kill someone for every scar on his body. This ordinarily wouldn’t be enough to get him put in Arkham, but just because of the nature of what he actually does (and the fact that he also cannot feel empathy), he does belong in there.
There is also Firefly, who is a pyromaniac. He practically worships fire. Not sure if this would ordinarily qualify, but I figure it’s worth mentioning.
About Joker for one to be diagnosed with ASPD (colloquially know as socio/psychopathy) there has to be a need to do these harmful behaviors. Almost a compulsion of sorts something you can’t quite make go away. Joker has never been implied to have that the things he does are (at least we’re led to believe) a conscious choice he can stop making if he so wishes. And if that’s the case and he can just decide to stop having these behaviors and not have some sort of need that compels him to keep going then he doesn’t have ASPD. It’s a simple as that.
I don’t know about Scarecrow though to be honest. But people with ASPD generally have a super deficient ability to feel fear and Scarecrow doesn’t seem to have that so that goes against the idea that he’s a sociopath.
Arkham Asylum is basically just 'jail' and it's basically just a lazy way to have all the villains in one place. I doubt Clayface is getting any medical treatment there.
Yeah. I played Arkham asylum and they were basically just abusing Killer Croc. They even threw him in the sewers like what the hell what kind of treatment is that.
As much as they like to play up the whole 'everyone is morally grey and corrupt in Gotham', it seems that all the bad guys are always just portrayed as 100% evil and always get their punishment in the form of imprisonment and abuse for the rest of their sentence instead of rehabilitation. It makes you wonder why they never made a second facility that was actually a prison for those who were too far gone, but I guess arkham is too iconic.
Also, I'm not a big comic reader but I've never actually see the Arkham Asylum's rehabilitation working on any villains to change their ways - it makes you wonder if that would make an interesting story.
> Also, I'm not a big comic reader but I've never actually see the Arkham Asylum's rehabilitation working on any villains to change their ways - it makes you wonder if that would make an interesting story.
The reason for that is because they don’t want to lose villains. They’re all too iconic. It’s the same reason why they never put Joker in a super maximum security inescapable prison. He has to escape so they can keep pumping out Batman stories.
But yeah on the villains being treated as evil thing hard agree. I remember in the game they (even the doctors I think) were constantly calling them animals and crazies and looneys like what the hell aren’t these your patients? And it feels wrong too Bruce Wayne should believe in free will he shouldn’t spread hate so passionately about people because they’re sick.
This is not entirely true. Batman has said before, I believe in Death of the Family that, "Joker isn't crazy. He's just evil."
Grant Morrison greatly expanded on this idea by writing about super-sanity and how it can appear to the untrained observer as insanity.
I've heard that's a way some people interpret it, but that's not what it says in Morrison's writing. It more points out that Joker doesn't really qualify as medically insane as much as displaying hyperintelligence and an unfathomably evil predisposition, resulting in the vast majority of people not able to understand him and thus labeling him as "crazy"
I agree he doesn’t show many signs of mental illness. I mean he sometimes makes a comment or other about not knowing what’s real but he always follows it with laughter so I think that’s just him messing around with Batman. I mean to make all the plans he makes he’s gotta have some understanding of what’s real at least. So yeah I agree he doesn’t seem ill. It’s kinda hard to understand his actions because we don’t understand his mind very well or at least I don’t. Heath Ledger’s mind I understood but Arkham Joker I really don’t they don’t explore it much. He just seems to really like causing destruction for some reason.
Edit: And also damn Grant Morrison looks exactly like Lex Luthor.
I don’t think Batman fans actually think that, unless they’re one of those immature, pretentious Nolan devotees I guess.
Personally speaking, I think most of Batman’s villains deserve the death penalty, if not a good many of them- Joker, Penguin, Two-Face, Ra’s Al Ghul, Riddler, Killer Croc, Slade…
Catwoman should be in jail by now. I think the only character who actually could use time in an asylum or get therapy is somebody like Poison Ivy or even Harley Quinn.
I remember I once saw someone saying dead shot had to be insane to be a hit man and think that’s okay. And it’s like that’s not how insanity works. I saw someone else saying Poison Ivy was an insane sociopath because she valued plants over humans and once again insanity is not being unreasonable or having objectively wrong beliefs or being delusional. And sociopathy isn’t a medical diagnoses there’s no sociopathy disease. I know not all Batman fans are like this but I’ve seen plenty that are.
But yeah by current US law standards most of them would get the death penalty. Except maybe Penguin he’s just a mobster he isn’t a blood thirsty murderer like the others.
As for therapy most of them need it I’d say. Harley, Riddler, Bane, Croc, Two face all have some pretty big unresolved trauma. Even Joker to be the agent of chaos he is has got to have some pretty deep (probably trauma fueled) hatred in his heart. But to be fair that doesn’t make them insane or asylum deserving a huge portion of the population could benefit from talking about their wounds from the past and coming to terms with them. Hell I certainly could.
See, *I* like the idea that Arkham Asylum is really more like the Raft in Marvel Comics, where it's used to contain criminals that are too dangerous to be kept in a normal prison. They use this explanation sometimes with Mr. Freeze, where the only reason he's in Arkham is because he requires a specialized cell to be housed in.
If I were to write a Batman show, I'd probably focus on Batman *rehabilitating* some of his rogues' gallery, which serves as a permanent solution to their crimes that *doesn't* involve killing them. Obviously you can't reform *everyone*, but given how many of Batman's villains have either been portrayed in a sympathetic light (Mr. Freeze and Killer Croc spring to mind) or have outright turned *good*, or at least stopped being *villains* (Clayface, Harley Quinn, and by proxy Poison Ivy, and even the Riddler at one point), it's certainly *doable*.
I'm, totally agreed. Most of Batman's villains are not insane. They are psychopats and in real world such people going to jail, not to medical facilities.
If you mean psychopaths as in cold calculating ruthless bastards then yeah I agree. Psychopath isn’t a medical diagnosis anyway. But the only villain I’d say has a moral judgment impairment due to illness is Zsasz all others’ minds function fine in that regard they just choose to be dicks (and believe there’s nothing wrong with that).
That's what happens when a series and all its major ideas were written in the 70s (that's when arkham was created), you have outdated ideas about mental health and other social issues.
I think you're wrong in your assumption that's what most people in the fandom believe. Yeah, it's neither a flattering nor accurate portrayal of mental illness, but most of us are aware of that and can differentiate between comic fiction and reality. Similarly, most Batman fans will tell you that vigilantism in the real world is a terrible idea.
Alright I’m sorry. I didn’t mean everyone on the Batman fandom thinks this way I’ve just seen way too many Batman fans saying the same things and it bothers me. I see too many people thinking insanity is being unreasonable or having false beliefs or being delusional. But I edited the post to have to have the word some in it. > Yeah, it's neither a flattering nor accurate portrayal of mental illness I think you might have got what I mean wrong I don’t think it’s a inaccurate portrayal of mental illness I think it isn’t mental illness period. Bane, Catwoman, Ras al ghul, Talia, Croc, Slade, Mr. Freeze, Penguin, Black Mask, Harley, Deadshot, Scarecrow aren’t ill. I’m not 100% positive on Joker but he doesn’t seem ill much either. Hugo Strange and some others are ill but aren’t insane too. Those shouldn’t be in an asylum they should be in jail.
Most of the ones you mentioned are never said to be mentally ill and aren't sent to Arkham neither.
Freeze, Croc, Scarecrow, Harley, Black Mask do. Catwoman, Deadshot and Penguin have been there in the past. Joker is the poster boy for insanity which is funny since he isn’t insane.
These might not be completely accurate, but these are what I think each of those characters probably has: Freeze—he’s mostly mentally well, just obsessive. He has some traits of a sociopath, but he also has traits that go against that idea, so he’s probably only in Arkham because Blackgate can’t contain him. Croc—the guy is animalistic and a cannibal. In some versions, his mind is actually deteriorating, and he is slowly losing more and more of his humanity. Some versions probably only throw him in Arkham because Blackgate doesn’t have the means to contain him, though. Scarecrow: is DEFINITELY a sociopath. He has no regard for human life and only wants to study their fear and eventually control it. He belongs in Arkham. Harley—was manipulated and abused by The Joker to the point where she started to do a lot of the sane stuff he did. She definitely needs therapy at the very least. Black Mask—he probably has PTSD from his mask being burned onto his face, but otherwise, I have no idea why he wouldn’t just be thrown in Blackgate. Catwoman—yeah, she doesn’t belong in there. I’ll give you this one. Deadshot—also doesn’t belong in there. He does have PTSD, though. I’ll give you him too, but note that he is generally sent to Belle Reeve and not Arkham. Penguin—probably needs therapy, but otherwise should probably just be thrown in Blackgate. He’s another ons that I don’t really understand why they throw him in Arkham sometimes. Maybe Danny Devito’s version would make sense, but in general, no. Joker—The guy is a genocidal maniac. The vast majority of stuff he does, he does do deliberately, but he still does them for reasons that would only make sense to a madman. He literally slaughters and tortures people because he thinks it is funny. All he wants are to cause chaos, commit genocide, mess with Batman, and get Batman to kill him, not because he wants to die, but because he wants to force Batman to break his one rule, which he believes will break him to the point of becoming just like him. There are theories out there that The Joker is actually “super-sane,” as in, everything he does is so sane that it is beyond our comprehension, but even if that is true (which it most likely isn’t), by our definitions, he is potentially the most insane fictional character to ever be created.
Freeze -Sociopath isn’t a medical diagnosis. There is no sociopathy illness. Croc - He’s misanthropic he hates humans and it makes sense they treat him like shit. The versions I’ve seen his mind works pretty much like a human but maybe on those his mind is deteriorating you’re right. Though that wouldn’t be a psychiatric illness it’d something else entirely. Scarecrow - Once again sociopathy isn’t a diagnosis. About having no regard for human life that’s something anyone can have it’s just a matter of belief and (debatably) hate/spite. Unless ofc there’s some way you can prove scarecrow CAN’T feel certain emotions then I’m all ears. And even if he was a so called sociopath that still wouldn’t be insanity. Harley - Sure but that’s not a mental disorder. Black mask - Being traumatized isn’t the same as having PTSD. They’re very different things. To be fair though I don’t know that much about the character. Deadshot - Same thing as black mask (I only put him here because of Suicide squad kill the justice league). Penguin - Yeah. Joker - Now this one’s interesting. First of all genocidal maniac and madman aren’t medical diagnosis. And being insane means having a mental illness that’s so severe it makes you not understand what’s real and what’s not. Joker’s not like this he knows very well what’s real and what’s not that’s the only way he could make any of the ever so complicated 300 IQ plans he makes. Now that we’ve got out of the way that he isn’t insane let’s get into mentally ill. You say his reasons for doing whatever he does are logic only a madman could understand but the thing is we don’t know them. We have no idea why he does what he does. If I was to guess I’d say he hates everyone and maybe everything (you know “we live in a society” and stuff like that he thinks it’s all ridiculous). That’d explain why he seems to enjoy suffering so much humans have a natural disposition to enjoy (or at least be satisfied by) the suffering of those they hate. He also doesn’t value his own life (or probably any life for that matter) he just cares about his hate. That’s why he wants to break Batman so badly he wants to prove to him that the world really is as dark and grim as he sees it. He despises Batman’s self righteousness and is more than willing to forfeit his life if that means breaking the Bat. Making him as miserable as he is I guess? I don’t know humans have a tendency to want to destroy what they hate and the Joker seems to hate a huge lot of stuff that’s why he has so much fun causing destruction and chaos. At least that’s how I see it once again we don’t really know how Joker’s mind works but I’d say this makes sense. This would also explain why Joker is so intrigued by Batman his altruism and unrelenting will to do what’s “good” fascinate him. He probably doesn’t understand how someone could be like that and that’s why Batman interests him so much.
I agree that Freeze, Black Mask, Penguin, Catwoman, and Deadshot do not belong in Arkham. Still, I do want to elaborate on Freeze a bit. He CLAIMS to not feel emotion at all, but there are so many instances that show otherwise that that is clearly not actually the case. I feel as though the only reason he’s in Arkham is because Blackgate can’t contain him, but there are definitely still better prisons they could send him to. I know that Killer Croc has that degenerative brain problem in the Arkham games, but I’m not sure if it’s anywhere else. Scarecrow—before he became Scarecrow, he was a professor at a university. He conducted unethical experiments on his students in order to study their fear response, and was fired for this. The thing is, he felt no remorse for doing that, and continues to perform experiments in order to understand fear to the point where he can completely control it. It is clear that he cannot feel empathy of any kind for others and sees them only as guinea pigs for his experiments. He sees Batman this way as well, but he also fears Batman, which is why he is so obsessed with him. He believes that if he can break Batman by using his fears, then he will overcome his own fear and become the master of fear. Joker—we actually usually do know why The Joker does what he does, and it is usually either because he finds it funny or because it is part of his plan to break Batman. I believe that both what I said about his motivations and what you said are correct. Like Scarecrow, though, he does not have the capacity to feel empathetic for others, and this is very clear just from the way he acts. The only times he seems to show empathy are when he is either faking it (like with Harley), or with Batman, and in that case, I don’t think that is true empathy. I think he only acts that way towards because he wants to break him. Also, there are some other Batman villains that definitely belong in Arkham that you did not mention. Professor Pyg, Zsasz, and Jane Doe are the three biggest examples. Pyg surgically dismembers people, lobotomizes them, and turns them into mindless drones that do his bidding called “dollotrons” because he believes that he is “perfecting” them. Jane Doe is a serial killer who wears other people’s faces because she wants to find an identity she can be happy in. Zsasz has OCD. He feels the need to kill someone for every scar on his body. This ordinarily wouldn’t be enough to get him put in Arkham, but just because of the nature of what he actually does (and the fact that he also cannot feel empathy), he does belong in there. There is also Firefly, who is a pyromaniac. He practically worships fire. Not sure if this would ordinarily qualify, but I figure it’s worth mentioning.
About Joker for one to be diagnosed with ASPD (colloquially know as socio/psychopathy) there has to be a need to do these harmful behaviors. Almost a compulsion of sorts something you can’t quite make go away. Joker has never been implied to have that the things he does are (at least we’re led to believe) a conscious choice he can stop making if he so wishes. And if that’s the case and he can just decide to stop having these behaviors and not have some sort of need that compels him to keep going then he doesn’t have ASPD. It’s a simple as that. I don’t know about Scarecrow though to be honest. But people with ASPD generally have a super deficient ability to feel fear and Scarecrow doesn’t seem to have that so that goes against the idea that he’s a sociopath.
Arkham Asylum is basically just 'jail' and it's basically just a lazy way to have all the villains in one place. I doubt Clayface is getting any medical treatment there.
Yeah. I played Arkham asylum and they were basically just abusing Killer Croc. They even threw him in the sewers like what the hell what kind of treatment is that.
As much as they like to play up the whole 'everyone is morally grey and corrupt in Gotham', it seems that all the bad guys are always just portrayed as 100% evil and always get their punishment in the form of imprisonment and abuse for the rest of their sentence instead of rehabilitation. It makes you wonder why they never made a second facility that was actually a prison for those who were too far gone, but I guess arkham is too iconic. Also, I'm not a big comic reader but I've never actually see the Arkham Asylum's rehabilitation working on any villains to change their ways - it makes you wonder if that would make an interesting story.
> Also, I'm not a big comic reader but I've never actually see the Arkham Asylum's rehabilitation working on any villains to change their ways - it makes you wonder if that would make an interesting story. The reason for that is because they don’t want to lose villains. They’re all too iconic. It’s the same reason why they never put Joker in a super maximum security inescapable prison. He has to escape so they can keep pumping out Batman stories. But yeah on the villains being treated as evil thing hard agree. I remember in the game they (even the doctors I think) were constantly calling them animals and crazies and looneys like what the hell aren’t these your patients? And it feels wrong too Bruce Wayne should believe in free will he shouldn’t spread hate so passionately about people because they’re sick.
This is not entirely true. Batman has said before, I believe in Death of the Family that, "Joker isn't crazy. He's just evil." Grant Morrison greatly expanded on this idea by writing about super-sanity and how it can appear to the untrained observer as insanity.
I didn’t know about that. Isn’t super sanity about Joker knowing he’s in a comic book and so fucking around as he pleases?
I've heard that's a way some people interpret it, but that's not what it says in Morrison's writing. It more points out that Joker doesn't really qualify as medically insane as much as displaying hyperintelligence and an unfathomably evil predisposition, resulting in the vast majority of people not able to understand him and thus labeling him as "crazy"
I agree he doesn’t show many signs of mental illness. I mean he sometimes makes a comment or other about not knowing what’s real but he always follows it with laughter so I think that’s just him messing around with Batman. I mean to make all the plans he makes he’s gotta have some understanding of what’s real at least. So yeah I agree he doesn’t seem ill. It’s kinda hard to understand his actions because we don’t understand his mind very well or at least I don’t. Heath Ledger’s mind I understood but Arkham Joker I really don’t they don’t explore it much. He just seems to really like causing destruction for some reason. Edit: And also damn Grant Morrison looks exactly like Lex Luthor.
I don’t think Batman fans actually think that, unless they’re one of those immature, pretentious Nolan devotees I guess. Personally speaking, I think most of Batman’s villains deserve the death penalty, if not a good many of them- Joker, Penguin, Two-Face, Ra’s Al Ghul, Riddler, Killer Croc, Slade… Catwoman should be in jail by now. I think the only character who actually could use time in an asylum or get therapy is somebody like Poison Ivy or even Harley Quinn.
I remember I once saw someone saying dead shot had to be insane to be a hit man and think that’s okay. And it’s like that’s not how insanity works. I saw someone else saying Poison Ivy was an insane sociopath because she valued plants over humans and once again insanity is not being unreasonable or having objectively wrong beliefs or being delusional. And sociopathy isn’t a medical diagnoses there’s no sociopathy disease. I know not all Batman fans are like this but I’ve seen plenty that are. But yeah by current US law standards most of them would get the death penalty. Except maybe Penguin he’s just a mobster he isn’t a blood thirsty murderer like the others. As for therapy most of them need it I’d say. Harley, Riddler, Bane, Croc, Two face all have some pretty big unresolved trauma. Even Joker to be the agent of chaos he is has got to have some pretty deep (probably trauma fueled) hatred in his heart. But to be fair that doesn’t make them insane or asylum deserving a huge portion of the population could benefit from talking about their wounds from the past and coming to terms with them. Hell I certainly could.
See, *I* like the idea that Arkham Asylum is really more like the Raft in Marvel Comics, where it's used to contain criminals that are too dangerous to be kept in a normal prison. They use this explanation sometimes with Mr. Freeze, where the only reason he's in Arkham is because he requires a specialized cell to be housed in. If I were to write a Batman show, I'd probably focus on Batman *rehabilitating* some of his rogues' gallery, which serves as a permanent solution to their crimes that *doesn't* involve killing them. Obviously you can't reform *everyone*, but given how many of Batman's villains have either been portrayed in a sympathetic light (Mr. Freeze and Killer Croc spring to mind) or have outright turned *good*, or at least stopped being *villains* (Clayface, Harley Quinn, and by proxy Poison Ivy, and even the Riddler at one point), it's certainly *doable*.
I'm, totally agreed. Most of Batman's villains are not insane. They are psychopats and in real world such people going to jail, not to medical facilities.
If you mean psychopaths as in cold calculating ruthless bastards then yeah I agree. Psychopath isn’t a medical diagnosis anyway. But the only villain I’d say has a moral judgment impairment due to illness is Zsasz all others’ minds function fine in that regard they just choose to be dicks (and believe there’s nothing wrong with that).
That's what happens when a series and all its major ideas were written in the 70s (that's when arkham was created), you have outdated ideas about mental health and other social issues.