So this is a critical analysis of Harley’s mental state. Being such a complex character, you gotta to look further than face value. Harley is so much more complex than the large majority of her fanbase realise.
To most Harley is a fun and lovable clowngirl. And she is, but there is so much about why she is that way that people don’t realise.
Harley’s mindset is that the whole world is a playground. Blowing up Gotham is a joke. Killing the police force is just having fun. And murder is fair game. She’s literally insane. Not in the quirky, lovable, ‘I don’t understand social norms I just wanna have fun, hahaha’ kind of way. She’s literally not capable of processing any crime against humanity as anything more than innocent fun. And it explains why she has no problem being a villain but still keeps an innocent young girl personality. Harley went from a mature sophisticated young woman who only cared about success in her career as a doctor, to an immature supervillain. A supervillain who speaks in a much higher voice, constantly wears her hair in pigtails, and only wants to have fun. It’s clear that part of her mental illness is that she views the world from the perspective of a child. A delusional child. She literally regressed to the mentality of a little girl, which is where her entire personality comes from. What other way is there to explain the drastic change in her personality? Or why she sees nothing wrong with being a villain? However, Harley’s delusion shouldn’t undermine her intuition and intelligence. Those things remained the same, even though her worldview regressed. She understands what she was like before she went insane, she remembers being the straight-cut young doctor. But she believed she evolved out of that state of mind after meeting Joker. He took her out of her boring civilian life and introduced her to a better life. In Paul Dini’s words, ‘Joker let out in her something that was already there,’ which is clearer when you think about how manipulative and cunning she was as a doctor. Joker came into her life as someone who embodied everything she suppressed, which caused it to come to the surface the more time she spend with him. She realized that his way of life was the right way, and how she was before was wrong. Which now results in her thinking the only way to live is to have fun. And her idea of ‘fun’ is being a supervillain, and everyone else, ‘civilians’ just don’t get it. They don’t see the fun in killing people. Or poisoning everyone. Or bombing something. They label her as ‘crazy’, but don’t get the joke. Her and Joker do.
And this is perfectly depicted in the comic ‘My Boyfriends Back.’ In it, Joker, through intense therapy, becomes sane and doesn’t have a single violent or malicious urge in his body, and now just wants to spend his days being the best boyfriend he can possibly be to Harley. And Harley, despite what most people would assume, couldn’t be less interested in him in this new state and takes it into her own hands to change him back. Her plan is simply to put Joker in a life or death situation in hopes that his natural instincts will kick in and he’ll return to his true self. And if not, well then there’s no hope of getting the real Joker back and his death wouldn’t matter to Harley anymore anyway. And this speaks volumes to Harley’s character. It shows that:
A: Harley wants to be evil. It’s not something she does for Joker, or to be with Joker, it’s something that she independently and genuinely wants.
B: As much as Harley fantasizes about it, she doesn’t truly want a ‘normal’ relationship with Joker. She doesn’t want the dream suburbia lifestyle, and she doesn’t want an ideal relationship. She showed very clearly that she’s not interested in a Joker that serves her like a queen and showers her with gifts. Strangely enough she was bored out of her mind with that.
C: Harley does not selflessly love Joker, she’s all in for herself. She showed that if Joker is not the Joker that she wants, she has no problem offing him. I would say that she displayed no loyalty to Joker after his change, planning his murder and all, but honestly, I can’t say that planning to have to other one killed isn’t something they normally wouldn’t do. It also depicts two things about her relationship with Joker: One being that she knows what she wants from her relationship with Joker, and the other is that Joker and Harley’s relationship is based on mutual interest. And both these clearly say the same thing: she’s not a victim to Joker.
Now you could argue that this is just one comic book, and just one writer’s idea. But, this was written in the btas comics universe, which was incredibly faithful to the depiction of the show, and was even created by the same people who made the show, which, as we all know, was where Harley originated. But there’s also that fact that this comic, and all Harley’s behaviour in it completely aligns with her character, and explains so much of the rest of her persona