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| “ | Well look who's too late to save the day. How's it going Bat-brain? It's been a while. | „ |
| ~ Harley Quinn to Batman. |
Dr. Harleen Frances Quinzel, better known as Harley Quinn, is a major antagonist in the Batman: Arkham video game series.
She is the Joker's on & off girlfriend and his most prominent accomplice. Falling madly in love with the Joker back when she treated him at Arkham Asylum, Quinzel abandoned her career to join Gotham City's criminal underworld as Harley Quinn, assisting him in all his schemes to defeat Batman, Gotham's Dark Knight. Following the Joker's death, however, Harley loses whatever sanity she still had and does whatever she can to have her "boyfriend" back.
In the first game, she was voiced by the late Arleen Sorkin. From the second game onwards, she was voiced by Tara Strong, who also voiced Overlord Glee in The Fairly OddParents.
Her Evil Ranking
What Makes Her Heinous?
- Helped the Joker start a riot at Blackgate Prison after Batman had apprehended him for the first time.
- The tie-in comics revealed she played a role in Jason Todd's torture, which would eventually result in him becoming the Arkham Knight.
- During Batgirl: A Matter of Family, Harley becomes the psychiatrist to wealthy oil baron, Edward Burke. After Burke's daughter becomes fatally ill, Harley manipulated him into using his wealth to build a theme park for her. Unbeknownst to Burke, the Joker switched out his daughter's medicine, leading to her dying on one of the rides. When Burke couldn't cope with his daughter's death, Harley convinced him the pain would never go away, driving Burke to suicide.
- Frequently abuses the Joker's henchmen for their failures.
- After Batman transferred Joker to Arkham Asylum after the latter had started a fire at Blackgate, Harley arranged for him to escape confinement and take over the asylum.
- Bit off the ear of a woman from a rehabilitation center she was currently in just because she took away her phone for seeing The Looney Tunes Show when all the women present had to talk about their problems.
- Massacred most of Arkham Asylum's staff. Hundreds of bodies are shown around the asylum as a result.
- Dropped an elevator on Batman and a security guard, nearly killing both of them.
- Freed Poison Ivy from her cell, making her indirectly responsible for her plants taking over the island and massacring hundreds of people.
- Mocked Dr. Young after she was killed by one of Joker's bombs.
- Put two security guards in gas chambers, forcing Batman to save them.
- Kidnapped several doctors and security guards, brought them into Arkham City, and forced them to operate on the Joker in order to cure his condition. When they couldn't save the Joker, Harley either had them tortured or even possibly raped them.
- Knocked out Batman after The Joker got the drop on him, allowing Joker to inject him with his poisoned blood.
- At Joker's orders, Harley killed his henchmen after they failed to stop Batman from reaching Mr. Freeze in the GCPD building.
- Stole the cure while Batman was fighting Mr. Freeze, leaving him to die.
- Even after Joker's death, Harley continued committing crimes in his name. Showing that she's evil in her own right and not just following orders.
- Kidnapped several GCPD officers and held them captive in the Sionis Steel Mill, when Batman came to their rescue, she successfully captured him too.
- Placed Batman in a shrine she made for the Joker and slowly had oxygen removed from it so that he would slowly suffocate to death.
- After Tim Drake saved Batman, Harley set the steel mill to blow up in an attempt to take Batman down with her.
- Attempted to stab Batman when his back was turned, only to be stopped by Robin.
- Just beforehand she mocked Batman when it seems Robin perished in the explosion, outright comparing his loss to the Joker's by saying "now you know how it feels", which is very hypocritical; Batman genuinely loves and respects his sidekicks, whereas the Joker made it blatantly obvious that he never felt that way towards Harley.
- Released several people who were infected with Joker's blood and slowly turning into him, just so she could have the Joker back, not caring about the chaos they would have caused to Gotham and the whole world.
- She, alongside the other members of Taskforce-X, were given orders the eliminate the Justice League once they learn they've been brainwashed by Brainiac. Granted they had no other choice since bombs were planted in their heads, this doesn’t qualify as a Freudian excuse since they still took enjoyment out of killing the heroes since each of them have a petty vendetta against a certain member. Not to mention they (save King Shark) were incredibly disrespectful towards them after killing them.
- They also cared very little for actually saving lives, something that even Wonder Woman calls them out on.
- While she did have has moral agency issues at first due to her insanity, with her grasp on reality being noticeably more questionable than the Joker's, by the time of Kill the Justice League she's regained a good amount of her sanity to the point of being able to tell right from wrong, yet still causes mayhem for the sake of her own enjoyment, making this prevention null and void.
What Makes Her Inconsistent?
- There are people she genuinely cares for:
- She loves the Joker, in spite of how he treats her, and remains loyal to him. Unlike other portrayals, she never turns against him and refuses to work for anyone else after his death. That being said, she no longer cares about him five years following his death, now regarding him as "a phase".
- She's genuinely polite to Poison Ivy, and even lets her free despite not being on the Joker's list. She's noticeably saddened by her sacrifice as well, even mourning her years later.
- She cares about other members of the Taskforce-X, most notably Deadshot and King Shark.
- She cared about her pet mouse Mr. Squeakums, being extremely fond of it and later murdering Officer Krupps out of revenge for killing it, with her mentioning that as much as she loved smashing people with her hammer, she loved Mr. Squeakums more.
- In spite of being more heinous than most portrayals, Harley is still sympathetic to a degree; She still has Stockholm syndrome from Joker's abuse, her love for the Joker is painfully one-sided, and his death took a major toll on her mental health. After Joker's death, Harley spends the rest of the night crying alone in their chamber.
- She seems to have developed standards against harming children, being against putting a bomb inside a young Ivy's head when Waller ordered them to. On that note, she, King Shark and Deadshot were disgusted by Captain Boomerang when learning he had already done so. However, this is mostly hypocritical given how she’s put the lives of kids at risk while she was with the Joker (even murdering an infant at one point) and helped torture Jason Todd while he was still a teenager. Furthermore, she and the other Squad members were content with doing this to the Toyman simply because he annoyed them, so this comes across as being incredibly minor.
- Although she constantly fights heroes due to them being on opposing sides, there are some who she seems to genuinely respect:
- Despite being the one who killed Batman, Harley shows some slight sadness when shooting him with her gun, indicating she had some amount of respect towards him. Earlier on, she also tells Captain Boomerang not to insult a certain part of Bruce's hologram leaving a message, insisting that they were "having a moment".
- She seemed to respect and seemingly had a crush on Wonder Woman, often praising her whenever she was around and was saddened by her death. That being said, it isn't anything major since Harley was apathetic over her friends being brainwashed into villainy and even callously asked if she wanted to work together right after learning the only way to stop them was to kill them. She also threatened her to stay out of their way while she was grieving over Green Lantern's death, which by itself was brought on by their own hands.
External Links
- Harley Quinn on the Villains Wiki
- Harley Quinn on the Arkham Wiki
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