Joe Carpenter
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| Read or Die character | |
 |
|
| Joe "Joker" Carpenter | |
|---|---|
| Gender | Male |
| Age | Unknown |
| Nationality | English |
| Occupation | President and Chief Director of the British Library and its Special Operations Division |
| Seiyū | Hozumi Gôda, Crispin Freeman (OAV), J.B. Blanc (TV) |
Joe Carpenter, also known as "Mr. Joker", is a fictional character in the Japanese novel series Read or Die, the manga and anime spin-offs of the books, and the sequel, R.O.D the TV. Though his real name is unknown, as "Joe Carpenter" may simply be another alias, it is still safe to assume that it may be his real name.
Contents |
[edit] Role in the Story
[edit] Background
Joe Carpenter, or "Mr. Joker" as he is most commonly known as, is the chief director and president of the British Library and its Special Operations Division. He is the boss of Yomiko Readman as well as other agents such as his rather clumsy assistant, Wendy Earhart. He was the former employer of Donnie Nakajima, Yomiko's lover, and is the subordinate to Gentleman, whom is the "all-seeing eye" of the British Library, as well as the world.
Though Joker at most times appears to be a humorous kind of character throughout most of the original series, his true intentions and personality, though still calm and laid back as he usually is, are serious and frightening and could possibly be described as sinister. His methods in doing such things could also be mentioned as such. He is the second character to appear in the manga, the mysterious and eerie Gentleman being the first.
Joker's personality is constantly at ease even in the worse of situations, and his character is often determined by nothing else but his own actions. He is a very elegant type of man, and his traditional English ways often more than show such things. Hideyuki Kurata described him once as "someone whose photo you would expect to see in the entry for 'Englishman' in the Encyclopedia Britannica"); his cool head and skill with words act his primary, as well as highly affective, weapons.
[edit] Gentleman
Joker often seems to be rather humorous character as mentioned before, though his true intentions and history are dark and shrouded in ruthlessness and inhumanity. He is an expert on the methods of torture using books as we see in the first volume of the manga, and his knowledge is so very vast that it is possible that, with certain references, he could change history according to his views. This actually, however, is the goal of he and his own superior, "Gentleman".
Gentleman is a mysterious, eerie old man who's super-being like knowledge only raises more questions than answers. Later we learn that Gentleman is not only a man, but one who has artificially enhanced his life for so long, that his age is not even able to be estimated, thus creating a human with such incredible power and knowledge that he is able to not only know almost everything that is happening upon the planet, but is the keeper of so many historical records that he is able to change history as civilization today knows it. As Joker once states, "when a lie is lied enough, it soon becomes fact." Joker's true intentions with Gentleman are usually in assistance to his goals, but later it is discovered that Joker actually has his own plan of destroying Gentleman and gaining control over the entire British Empire which Gentleman would later appoint to him after his passing.
Joker is truly a man of many personalities, though his plans are later reorganized into 'resurrecting' gentleman when he dies and continuing to control the Earth under him as he plans for Britain to influence all of history. This plan consists of Gentleman killing himself and transforming his form into what is known as the "Seven Books of Gentleman", which all contain his knowledge of mankind, the world, as well as his personality. Transferring the books into data, Gentleman's vast knowledge will be poured into a helpless 'specimen' who is able enough to control Gentleman's frighteningly incredible mind, though this is a problem. As almost no human being on the planet is able to hold such knowledge as Gentleman is, Joker and his subordinates decide to adopt the I-Jin program, which consists of taking the DNA of eight historical genuises and constructing living clones of them as 'hosts' for a new Gentleman. Though the I-Jin later take their own minds and are able to run free. This resulting in great disasters striking all over the world, and these events are covered in the OVA.
[edit] Read or Die OVA & TV
As the I-Jin are all destroyed one-by-one and Joker's plans are refurbished and saved, Joker finds himself a magnificent opportunity in discovery. One of the I-Jin, whom was a clone of the infamous Mata Hari, was a lover of the clone of Ikkyuu Soujun, and gave birth to a child fertilized by two I-Jin, thus creating a being almost as powerful as Gentleman. Stealing the child from the surviving mother's own captivity, Joker plans to raise the child himself and later dump all of the Gentleman Books into the child's mind, thus creating a new Gentleman and rebuilding the world for Great Britain, as well as himself.
These plans, however, are stopped almost right at its peak of success by a group of heroes, Yomiko Readman; the famous "Paper Sisters"; Sumiregawa Nenene; Drake Anderson; and Nancy Makuhari, the mother of the I-Jin-born child, Junior, in the TV series, ROD: The TV. Though not much is understood about what exactly happens to Joker, but what appears to occur is during the data transferring process Junior, whom was literally being slowly carried away into Gentleman's mind, grabbed Joker's head and somehow mentally and physically shocked him, nearly draining him of all life, as well as causing his rather young appearance to turn old and pale, as if the sight of a dying man.
Appearing later living with and under the care of his faithful assistant, Wendy, Joker mysteriously disappears at the end of the final episode at a sight of a lone wolf in the bushes before him. Though Wendy's reactions to his vanishing seem as if it was a normal occurrence. Though, nothing is known at this time.
Over the course of the series, Joker appears and acts much like the character Nicolae Carpathia from the Left Behind series of novels. Like Carpathia is blonde and blue-eyed and speaks with great eloquence, though Carpathia does not need a walking aid. Both seek to transform an already influential world organization into something with all-encompassing power, with the intent of resurrecting an evil force for himself. Finally, Joker's marginalization of the President of the United States echoes Carpathia's marginalization of President Gerald Fitzhugh as he transforms the United Nations into the Global Community, though world war does not follow in Joker's case as he effectively renders the President helpless as well as powerless.
