Harleen Frances Quinzel, primarily known as Harley Quinn, is the titular anti-heroic main protagonist of the T.V. series, Harley Quinn. The character is voiced by Kaley Cuoco.
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Appearance
Harley Quinn has long blonde hair, which is dyed at the bottom in blue and pink shades. She has pale skin, and blue eyes. She is often seen wearing a short red and black crop top, and she previously wore her original classic outfit from the Batman Animated TV series.
Biography
Background
- ❝ I'm not great at having people who are actually good to me in my life. ❞
- — Harley Quinn
Harleen Quinzel was raised in a dysfunctional family, her mother Sharon Quinzel is alcoholic, her father Nick Quinzel is a criminal and gambling addict. Harleen herself was normal, albeit mentally unstable. Her mental instabilities first manifested as an obsession with a boy called Frankie Muniz, who she wanted to kidnap and have a child with via lying about being on birth control. Eventually his family placed a restraining order on her, which she ignored, so she was sent to juvie.
Later, she was named Valedictorian at her high school, but angrily denounced her entire school administration for not helping her and for ogling her. She then went off to college to become a psychiatrist, and her dream was to win the Olympic championship of gymnastics. She nearly succeeded, but her father insisted that she "take a dive" so that he would win a long-shot bet to clear his gambling debts. Harleen eventually relented, and failed on purpose, but snapped when her father joked that there would never be a woman president (her dream), so Harleen viciously assaulted her father in front of everyone. The acrobatics skills she gained as a gymnast served her later in a life of crime.
After graduating from university, she became a psychiatrist. During her service in the Arkham Asylum, she helped Poison Ivy deal with her mental problems, so Ivy became her friend. Harleen later fell in love with the Joker while assisting him in Arkham, and became mentally unstable herself. She willingly jumped into the Ace Chemical pool, bleaching her skin pale white, and took on the mantle of Harley Quinn to act as Joker's sidekick and girlfriend.
Season 1
"Til Death Do Us Part"
- Main article: Til Death Do Us Part
Robbing the yachters
Harley Quinn attempted to rob a group of wealthy yachters, but they were entirely unconcerned until the Joker arrived to terrify them. Together they fought off the yachters while Harley argued with the Joker to add her to the Legion of Doom and allow her to become his full partner, not his sidekick. The Joker dodges and deflects until Batman himself arrives to occupy their full attention, at which point the Joker flees into a single-man submarine and abandons Harley to distract Batman. The Joker assures her that he will break her out of the Arkham Asylum "before breakfast", then submerges into the harbor while Batman takes Harley into custody.
In custody Harley refused to reveal anything about the "psychotic clown who treats you like garbage", as Batman referred to him. However, Harley insisted that they had real love, and that the Joker apparently proposed to her with a diamond ring not long ago. In response Commissioner Gordon sentenced her to life in prison, which Harley laughed at, believing that she would not spend even a single night in prison. Six months later she was still in prison, with Poison Ivy insisting that the Joker would not come for her. Three months after that, Harley justified that at least the Joker was exciting and a "challenge", that the vat of chemicals he pushed her in was more like a vat of "freedom sauce", and that the Joker made her who she was.
Harley talking to Doctor Quinzel, a hallucination of her sane self
Three months after that, literally the entire prison insisted that the Joker was not coming for her, but Harley insisted that he would even until Poison Ivy hatched an escape plan and got Harley out of prison against her will. Afterward Harley tried to return to the Joker immediately, but Ivy insisted that Harley diagnose herself - a hallucination of Doctor Quinzel asked Harley what should be done about a patient who was "fixated on a murderous psychopath and won't end their relationship no matter how terribly he treats her". Harley then immediately diagnosed the patient as a "classic abusive co-dependency" before realizing that she was diagnosing herself, and that she needed to end her relationship with the Joker.
When Harley declared their break out, the Joker justified leaving her in Arkham as an attempt to protect her from increasing police scrutiny, and that he would have broken up with her anyway, "unless our love is so powerful, even the threat of death can't keep us apart". This immediately enticed Harley back to the Joker, disgusting Poison Ivy. Later, the Joker gets fixated on the Riddler, so Harley goes to kill him, only to end up captured alongside Batman. The Riddler then have the Joker an ultimatum: choose one to live, and one to be dropped in a pool of acid to die. To Harley's shock, the Joker chose to free Batman to deny Riddler the pleasure of killing him, allowing Harley to be dropped in acid.
Harley realizing the Joker never loved her
Harley falls in, and Doctor Quinzel helps Harley have an epiphany about the Joker - he did not really propose, but rather the "diamond ring" was a grenade ring that the Joker gave to Harley so that Batman would stop to take the grenade out of her hands and save her. He never really proposed, and only said "til death do us part" because he assumed Harley would end up dead. Harley then realizes that the Joker only loves Batman, not her, and she wakes up as Poison Ivy is pulling Harley out of the pool of "acid". Ivy reveals that the acid was actually just margarita mix and that she had the Riddler set up his scheme to "prove" to Harley that the Joker didn't actually love Harley.
In response, Harley amends to finally break things off with the Joker and even do her own crimes, such as kidnapping the mayor and threatening to kill him unless he named a highway after her. She then redid her outfit and went to the Joker's lair, defeated all his guards, and destroyed it. With the Joker trapped beneath the rubble, Harley suddenly spared him "to see the look on your face when I'm running this town".
"A High Bar"
- Main article: A High Bar
While watching Howie Mandel's TV show, Harley witnessed the Joker take over the show and declare that it was he who dumped her, and that he would respect her wishes to "drift into the darkness of total anonymity". Harley then became enraged when the Joker activated a bomb strapped to Howie's chest, so she angrily smashed the flat screen TV with a bat and eventually declared that she would go to the Gotham Mint to show up Joker and his Legion of Doom compatriots.
Harley Quinn enters the bar mitzvah in the Gotham Mint
At the "party", Harley was shocked to discover that it was actually just a bar mitzvah for Joshua Cobblepot, the Penguin's nephew, but Harley insisted on staying to impress Bane, Scarecrow, and Two-Face, who were all present. She initially got on well with them with some banter, and tried to entice them to join a plan her, until the Joker himself arrived and drove her off. Angry, Harley planned to rob the Gotham Mint itself in order to impress the Legion of Doom, which was a facility so secure and confident that they willingly rented out their own atrium to the Legion of Doom for the bar mitzvah.
Ignoring Poison Ivy's advice, Harley tried to rob it anyway, successfully taking down several guards throughout the atrium where the bar mitzvah was taking place. Unfortunately, it turned out the guards were actually "Gotham Chucklehut's finest improvisers", an improv troupe who Harley just brutally beat into submission. Joshua was meant to "fight" through them to enter a vault full of "Joshua bucks" for his bar mitzvah, only to find Harley there with an open vault. The Joker laughed hysterically at the scene as the Penguin tranquilized Harley and had her tied up.
The Penguin gave his umbrella to his nephew Joshua to shoot Harley, but when Joshua asked for her last words, Harley easily eroded the 13 year old boy's confidence by questioning whether he could actually hit her rather than miss and embarrass himself. She continued a running commentary about how his hand was trembling, how he probably never drunk a beer before, or even "finger blasted a girl". Overwhelmed by shame, Joshua eventually broke, dropped the umbrella, and went to his mom. The Penguin himself made to shoot Harley, but Poison Ivy arrived with Kite Man and Harley broke out of her chained chair, prepared to fight. The Joker offered to allow her to live if she admitted she was nothing without him, and when she refused, battle commenced.
The Penguin, Scarecrow, and Two-Face surround Harley and Ivy
Poison Ivy held off Two-Face while Harley attacked Scarecrow, and Kite Man reluctantly went up against Bane. Kite Man was quickly dispatched, and although Harley and Poison Ivy briefly held their own, they were eventually cornered by Penguin, Two-Face, and Scarecrow. When the Joker demanded that Bane "stop dicking around" with Kite Man and called Bane a "dumb, freakish monster" for not focusing on Harley, Harley took the opportunity to sow doubt among their ranks, questioning why they took the orders from a powerless villain who simply bullied them into submission. Now bereft of help, the Joker made to kill Harley herself, but Ivy quickly surrounded him in plants. He was nearly defeated until his contractor called, so he took the opportunity to simply leave. Harley then amended to join the Legion of Doom in order to prove her worth that way.
"So You Need a Crew?"
- Main article: So You Need a Crew?
Harley later tried to steal a Russian nuke, but was thwarted by the Joker and his goons. This prompts her to seek out a crew for herself, again ignoring Ivy's advice to the contrary, and sought out underlings from Underworld Talent Inc. However, they rejected her as she no longer had access to Legion of Doom resources through the Joker, so she sought help in a random bar. Everyone fled from her, one even jumping into a "hell portal" to avoid working for her. Doctor Psycho also rejected her, but when Kite Man arrived asking for help, the entire bar eagerly went to help on his heist.
The Justice League vs Queen of Fables
Angry, Harley went with Ivy to see promotional speaker Maxie Zeus' seminar on recruiting goons, and he advised the crowd to simply never quit even if a recruitment agency or randoms in a seedy bar rejected them. Harley went to see Maxie afterward for more tips, but he was only interested in having sex with her, insisting that no "bad guy" would ever work for a woman, under any circumstances. Harley then sought out Ivy to join her crew, but Ivy insisted there was a "glass ceiling" for female supervillains, and referred Ivy to the Queen of Fables. The Queen of Fables was a sorceress who conjured an entire army, prompting the Justice League to crack down on her directly, who had Zatanna Zatara imprison the Queen of Fables inside a U.S. Tax Code book.
This gave Harley the inspiration to seek out villains who were downtrodden and disrespected, desperate enough to work for her. She seeks out Doctor Psycho, recently banished from the Legion of Doom for using "the C word", and also accepts Clayface's request to join her crew. For her first heist, she dispatched Clayface to distract Maxie Zeus while she and psycho snuck into his mansion to rob his gold medals. On the way out she and Psycho discovered Maxie handily fighting Clayface, so Harley demanded that Maxie proclaim to the world that "Harley's crew ain't nothin' to fuck with". She then had Doctor Psycho beat him with several telekinetically lifted statues, before Harley herself beat him up with her bat. The next day when reporters found him beaten and robbed, he wearily said what Harley demanded he say. Harley Quinn also used Maxie's stolen medals to purchase a nuke, which she used to threaten Gotham City into renaming a highway after her.
"Finding Mr. Right"
- Main article: Finding Mr. Right
Successful heist
Harley Quinn arrived at Ivy's house with bales of cash after a successful bank robbery, but becomes angry when she sees no one on TV covering the heist - angrily destroying a ninth TV in Ivy's apartment. Although Ivy advised her that a lack of notoriety was a good thing, Harley once again ignored her advice and decided to get a "nemesis" to increase her viewership. They had no luck finding one, so Clayface enlisted King Shark, a "social media maven", to help. King Shark manages to get Tommy Tomorrow, but Harley does not want someone inconsequential like Tommy, and so steals the Batmobile in order to agitate Batman into becoming her nemesis.
Unfortunately for Harley, only Robin arrived to stop the theft, but Harley refused to fight him and so abandoned the Batmobile. Not to be outdone, Robin lied to Tawny Young that Harley made him her nemesis, which Lois Lane picked up on, saying it set the "Evil Women's Movement Back Decades". Harley then had an idea to force Lois to retract the article, potentially drawing Superman to defend his girlfriend and make Harley his nemesis. However, Lois Lane was entirely unconcerned by being kidnapped by Harley, as was Superman himself, who simply brought Robin to fight Harley off. Disgusted, Harley simply retreated.
Harley later captured Robin and set King Shark to swimming below Robin in order to frighten him into retracting his claim about being Harley's nemesis. When Robin insisted that he would never, because he had the media wrapped around his finger, Harley revealed that he was on the Tawny Young Show and being recorded the entire time. Harley was then cleared of being his nemesis, but in his shame, Robin had a nose bleed which fell into the water below, enraging King Shark. As King Shark tried to attack Robin, he called out for Batman, who arrived to subdue King Shark and save Robin. He then rounded on Harley Quinn to bring her to the Arkham Asylum, leaving the Joker to rob the Gotham City Bank without opposition.
After getting thrashed by Batman, Harley nearly ended up getting captured until Poison Ivy arrived to help fight off Batman and save Harley. Together they fight Batman until the Joker himself arrived and everyone engaged in a three way brawl, until the Joker noticed Robin still tied up from earlier. He kidnaps him and flees, forcing Batman to once again chase after the Joker as his full time nemesis. Harley also adds King Shark to her crew, because "he does computer good".
Personality
- ❝ You're a bad guy, but you're a good person. ❞
- — Poison Ivy to Harley Quinn
Harley's psychotic personality was ingrained from her childhood and deepened when she met the Joker, forming an unhealthy attachment to him. However, she gradually realizes his abusive behavior towards her, and with coaching and time, begins to understand that she has to be independent to be healthy, manifesting as a desire to join the Legion of Doom to become the Joker's "equal". This eventually causes her to distance herself from her allies until they all abandon her, prompting her to finally sever all emotional ties with the Joker and to rekindle her friendships. All throughout this progression, however, she remains psychotic, only limiting herself from killing random innocents.
Trivia
- Her current outfit is a reference and paying homage of the movie Suicide Squad.
- Her favorite book is Clive Cussler's Sahara.
- Harley Quinn is of Jewish descent.
- She has HPV.
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