The trickster archetype

Two famous characters which seem to share certain parallels are Joker and the Cheshire Cat. It's not just because they both wear unnatural, unsettling grins on their faces. It's because they both represent order vs. chaos, but in different ways.

The Cheshire Cat acts as a guide among chaos, providing advice and order at times--although he's capricious and only helps when he feels like it. Rather than good or bad, he seems neutral and mainly motivated by his own whims for amusement.

In the Batman universe, Joker is also motivated by his own amusement and says perplexing things. But he wants to upend order and create chaos, which is somewhat the opposite of Cheshire Cat. The latter tries to provide balance between the two, whereas Joker just wants to destroy.

Also, both follow a motif of what they, in their own words, call "madness." They're products of their environments and arguably both well-adjusted to their surroundings, even if others would see them as nonsensical or erratic. It reminds me of the aphorism that it's no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a sick society. The Joker has found a definite means of survival, living purely at the expense of others. He's sustained himself, but not in a way that could ever be seen as healthy. The Cheshire Cat seems better adapted because he accepts the inevitable disorder but tempers it with organization, and he's far less malevolent.

Our Creations, Ourselves

What we create is often an extension of ourselves, so destroying a person's work could be seen almost as an act of violence against them. This raises some odd questions, like does it count as a form of symbolic cannibalism to eat a meal that somebody else cooked? (Not that this should ever stop someone from eating. It's just food for thought.) This isn't meant to say that property is on par with life, or that nothing that's been built should ever be dismantled. But where do we end and our creations begin? I think this is worth examining. Some people take the concept too far in viewing their children, the people they've formed, as a part of themselves to a point where they don't want their kids to have free will. Others define their own value completely by what they've made, which can lead them to feel worthless if they're unhappy with a project. There has to be a middle ground in which we value our creations but are able to separate ourselves from them to a certain degree and say, "This may be an extension of me, but it doesn't encompass me." And in turn, we apply the same standards to others.