On the discussion of Harley Quinn’s main points of her personality, I’ll start with what I feel is the largest and most important aspect of it which is her obsession. Obsession is what drove young Harleen Quinzel to study hard, work her butt off and graduate top of her class from Gotham University (Also the fact that she’s very intelligent). Obsession is what led her to creating the criminal persona Harley Quinn so that she could better understand the Joker and eventually fall in love with him. Her obsessive love for the Joker led to her committing countless acts of violence towards others and even now that she’s broken away from her down wards spiral of self destruction she still falls into obsessions.
She is a woman searching for an identity and purpose in her life that much is true. When she wanted to try and better understand the criminals of Arkham Asylum she created a criminal persona and tried to mingle with them. When she fell in love with the Joker she played the part of his air headed accomplice. During her time with the suicide squad she was the ruthless criminal psychopath that the team wanted her to be, and after she escaped all that and the Joker tried to kill her one too many times it became time for her to construct a new persona for herself.
This new Harley Quinn is more thoughtful and compassionate then her previous personas. The kind of person who goes out of her way to rescue animals from abuse and the kind of person who runs directly into a burning building to rescue the people on the top floor when no one else can. She even tries to help fix others who have let their obsessions get the better of them by trying to get them the psychological help she needed such as a stalker who kidnapped her and wanted to make her fall in love with him. Instead of pummeling him she talked him through his problems and got him to agree to seek professional help and turn himself in for the crimes he’d committed.
And when it comes to people she loves and cares about like Poison Ivy, she will go to any length to protect them. Such as the time she catapulted herself from New York to Gotham City and broke into Arkham Asylum to rescue Ivy after she had been captured. Harley was willing to return to her least favorite place in the world, risk incarceration, risk running into the Joker and worse all to try and win Ivy her freedom.
She does still have that dark side to her however, but these days she usually only reserves her excessively violent tendencies for other criminals. From creatively dispatching various hired guns who tried to kill her for a bounty, to killing and maiming some local street thugs who were stealing trash cans when Harley lets her destructive side take hold she is shockingly dangerous to anyone in her path.
But she has made progress on teaching herself to temper that wild and impulsive attitude, surprising even her closest friend Poison Ivy when it looked as though Harley was about to murder some people in the theater who were telling her to shut up during a movie. Instead Harley apologized for being so rude and politely escorted herself out. She is a woman in conflict, and a woman searching for purpose and identity. Inspired by the heroics of other great women like Wonder Woman or even Poison Ivy she wants to be a better person and make a difference in the lives of those around her. One attempt at this was when she discovered an amnesiac Power Girl, Harley crafted a new Superheroic persona for herself and told Power Girl they were best friends and a crime fighting duo. This idea was impulsive and thought up in a very short space of time but Harley threw her all into it and actually managed to make it work until Power Girl’s memory returned.
And this is what leads to her wish to become a hero. Harley feels good when she’s helping people and to that end established a gang of hard working and slightly unstable volunteers willing to fight crime and clean up the streets for a fee. And when people can’t pay her in money she’s even been shown to accept live stock and food as payment because at the end of the day it’s about doing what’s right, not about the paycheck.
Re: Revised Personality 2
She is a woman searching for an identity and purpose in her life that much is true. When she wanted to try and better understand the criminals of Arkham Asylum she created a criminal persona and tried to mingle with them. When she fell in love with the Joker she played the part of his air headed accomplice. During her time with the suicide squad she was the ruthless criminal psychopath that the team wanted her to be, and after she escaped all that and the Joker tried to kill her one too many times it became time for her to construct a new persona for herself.
This new Harley Quinn is more thoughtful and compassionate then her previous personas. The kind of person who goes out of her way to rescue animals from abuse and the kind of person who runs directly into a burning building to rescue the people on the top floor when no one else can. She even tries to help fix others who have let their obsessions get the better of them by trying to get them the psychological help she needed such as a stalker who kidnapped her and wanted to make her fall in love with him. Instead of pummeling him she talked him through his problems and got him to agree to seek professional help and turn himself in for the crimes he’d committed.
And when it comes to people she loves and cares about like Poison Ivy, she will go to any length to protect them. Such as the time she catapulted herself from New York to Gotham City and broke into Arkham Asylum to rescue Ivy after she had been captured. Harley was willing to return to her least favorite place in the world, risk incarceration, risk running into the Joker and worse all to try and win Ivy her freedom.
She does still have that dark side to her however, but these days she usually only reserves her excessively violent tendencies for other criminals. From creatively dispatching various hired guns who tried to kill her for a bounty, to killing and maiming some local street thugs who were stealing trash cans when Harley lets her destructive side take hold she is shockingly dangerous to anyone in her path.
But she has made progress on teaching herself to temper that wild and impulsive attitude, surprising even her closest friend Poison Ivy when it looked as though Harley was about to murder some people in the theater who were telling her to shut up during a movie. Instead Harley apologized for being so rude and politely escorted herself out.
She is a woman in conflict, and a woman searching for purpose and identity. Inspired by the heroics of other great women like Wonder Woman or even Poison Ivy she wants to be a better person and make a difference in the lives of those around her. One attempt at this was when she discovered an amnesiac Power Girl, Harley crafted a new Superheroic persona for herself and told Power Girl they were best friends and a crime fighting duo. This idea was impulsive and thought up in a very short space of time but Harley threw her all into it and actually managed to make it work until Power Girl’s memory returned.
And this is what leads to her wish to become a hero. Harley feels good when she’s helping people and to that end established a gang of hard working and slightly unstable volunteers willing to fight crime and clean up the streets for a fee. And when people can’t pay her in money she’s even been shown to accept live stock and food as payment because at the end of the day it’s about doing what’s right, not about the paycheck.