“For the crown you’ve placed upon my head / feels so heavy now / and I don’t know what to say to you / but I smile anyhow // and all the time I’m thinking … i want to be a hunter again”
Dido sang that, and it was running through my head all night as we stared alternately into the distance and into each other’s blank eyes.
Rom, I took the HBDI test as part of some leadership training where i work. It’s very interesting because it will reveal what your thinking preference is, both under normal circumstances and under stress. I was about to say in my previous response that if you get the chance, do take the test. I doubt it would be free but i think it’s worth it if only for self-knowledge.
Hi J!
chuck! you have got to tell us more about HBDI. SOunds fun. And we get a free training course besides! LOL! Oh, and say hi to J. 
Thanks, Rom.
Rom, i happen to have been thinking about it since at the time i watched the movie, i just completed a training course where we discussed the Hermmann Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDI) thinking preferences. The HBDI features 4 quadrants representing a person’s prefered thinking style i.e. Analytical (blue), Sequential (green), Interpersonal (red) and Imaginative (yellow).
I figure Batman tended towards the ‘analytical’ and the Joker (as i posted) was more of the ‘interpersonal’ (red) tpe. And as the movie showed, ‘interpersonal’ beats ‘analytical’. As Batman himself kept saying in the movie, ‘The Joker won’. Since then, The Joker has been my new benchmark as far as empathy is concerned.
Lurve the beach!!!
Welcome, J!
hehe. i never thought of it that way, chuck!
With all due respect to the late Heath Ledger, who in my opinion gave the definitive portrayal of The Joker (in the The Dark Knight) , i have to disagree when he said “He [The Joker] has zero empathy”.
Empathy is “the capacity to recognize or understand another’s state of mind or emotion”. It is precisely in this quality that The Joker has exhibited mastery throughout the movie. Without such an ability to understand the other person’s state of mind and emotion, he would not have been able to:
An insight into the other party’s motivations is a prerequisite to being able to use it to one’s advantage.
So why did Heath Ledger say that his character had ‘zero empathy’? I can only speculate that he meant to say ‘zero sympathy‘. These two qualities, empathy and sympathy, usually go together, but not in the case of The Joker.
