*spoiler warning!* What is it that happened to jokers face?

Question

Caution: Spoilers Ahead!

In The Dark Knight, Joker tells two different ways that his face gets badly scarred.

In one count he says his father took a knife to his mouth saying "Why so serious?" and carved a smile on his face basically.

In another count, his wife got badly scarred, from the mafia or something, and in order to make her feel she wasn't the only freak he carved his own face (which didn't work).

I also heard something from my cousin that the original Joker got hit by a grenade and the fragments left him with a permanent smile on his face.

I did some research on Wikipedia and it's inconclusive. He tells "conflicting stories" on the origin is all they say.

Could it be that no one really knows the true origin behind Joker's scars and that he just makes up his own stories? Has anyone read the comics and know the true story? I've become really interested after just watching this movie.

Answer 1

You're all pretty much correct, except for the grenade-fragment thing your cousin told you.

In The Dark Knight, it is left unanswered as to why the Joker is scarred, which is usually the same for most of the comic books. Occasionally you'll stumble across a comic book or graphic novel that gives you a certain take on the origins of the Joker's appearance, but it's almost always the "falling into a vat of chemicals" scenario seen in Tim Burton's 1989 "Batman" (which I still think is better than The Dark Knight).

Answer 2

What's the story on the Joker's face?

Well, what's the story on where Wolverine came from?  I'll trade you one for the other.

That's sort of the thing about comic books and movies.  They like to tell a nice consistent story riiiiiiiight up until they think of another story to tell.

Leave a franchise around long enough, and you'll start tripping over this cycle:

"Here's the origin of this character."

"Not really.  Here's where your character really came from."

"We were only kidding about that, here's the really real truth."

"Pfft, you believed that?  Get ready for the shocking secret origin of your favorite character!"

"You didn't think we were serious about that, did you?"

Heck, they couldn't make it from Spiderman to the end of Spiderman 3 without saying "no, but here's what REALLY happened to Uncle Ben".

Three movies.  Less than that, really, since you only have one single, solitary movie intervening between the time they told you the first story and then said "we were fibbing".

Where did the Joker's facial scarring come from?

Who knows.  You can pretty much count on the fact the Joker in the The Dark Knight didn't tell you the truth.  He was just making up something to say and taunt his audience.  When it was a man who prided himself on status and power, the Joker told a story about a powerless boy to make his victim feel small.

When it was a beautiful woman who prided herself on her principles, the Joker told a story about how shallow beautiful women really are and how cheap love is to them.

He wasn't telling the stories to explain what happened to him.  He was telling them to make his victims the punchline of his jokes.  That's his stock-in-trade, after all.

Answer 3

now that I read your question, I'm also interested on did Joker got his scar. lol.. :P

My brother had a comics before but I never read it.

Answer 4

the joker is the best willian ever

Answer 5

yep i think you're right. he changes the story every time he tells it to add to his mystique. he is a character surrounded in mystery and pride at being different. he is different and isn't afraid to show it. i'm pretty intrigues too. if you watch the first batman movie with jack nicholsan as the joker that goes into a lot more detail about the jokers past but heath is by far the better joker! =)