8 Theories About The Origins Of Heath Ledger’s Joker

6. Haley Brothers Circus

The third possible origin raised by the GCPD is that Joker is a former employee at Haley Brothers Circus. Only seen on film in Batman Forever, the circus is best known as a central part of Robin's origin story - it's where the Flying Graysons made a name for themselves - but could easily be repurposed as something from the Joker's past in Nolan's Gotham.

Although the only initial connection seems to be that he has clown make-up, the information presented actually makes a convincing argument. The circus has always had some vague connection to the criminal underbelly of Gotham - it's a crime-related altercation that led to the death of Dick Grayson's parents - and the implication here is that the links to the mob are even more prominent in this universe.

It doesn't really provide much explanation for why Joker is like he is, really only filling in how the more general things - a life of crime, the clown make-up - came about. In fact, it's worth noting is that there's enough vagueness in each of the three ideas presented thus far that some mixture of them could have happened. For our money, picking from the GCPD options, the soldier one is the most believable.