Now that everyone's had a chance to see the film, it's time to talk about what it all built to and how it all paid off.

既然現在大家都看過這部電影了，是時候來談談整部片營造的結局和效果了。

Spoilers ahead for the entire film!

爆雷警告！影片會提到整部電影！

The whole of Joker is about the transformation of Arthur Fleck from downtrodden, beat-up loser to hero in his own mind, sometimes literally in his own mind.

《小丑》就是在描述 Arthur Fleck 從飽受欺壓的輸家變成自己想像中的英雄或想像自己成為英雄的過程。

The last time we see Arthur he's walking out of an interview room in Arkham State Hospital, fresh off the triumph of the night he shot Murray Franklin and became the figurehead of an entire riotous movement.

最終幕中，Arthur 在成功槍殺主持人 Murray Franklin 並成為整個暴動的象徵人物後，他從阿卡姆州立醫院的訪談間中走出來。

We see Arthur leave bloody footprints as he dances down the halls.

我們看見 Arthur 舞動著走下長廊時留下鮮血腳印。

And then, we see an orderly chasing him down the corridors, suggesting a violent escape might be in order for the newly minted Clown Prince of Crime.

然後一名醫院護工在走廊間追趕著他，這暗示暴力脫逃可能是犯罪之王小丑嶄新的開端。

The film makes it clear several times that Arthur Fleck is a man who has no trouble losing himself in elaborate fantasies, but the question of what's fact or fantasy doesn't actually change the outcome for Arthur Fleck.

電影中清楚表現出 Arthur Fleck 非常容易迷失在微妙的幻想中，但其實無論是實是虛都不會改變他的後果。

By the end of Joker, whether he's escaping to a new life of crime or caught in a delusion, it's clear that he's long since passed the point of no return.

結局中，無論他是要逃向一個新生活還是困在幻想之中，無庸置疑的是他早已沒有回頭路。

One of the most important structural aspects of Joker is just how small Arthur's inner circle is.

《小丑》最重要的結構面向之一就是 Arthur 非常少數的親友。

He has his mother, of course, and he seemingly has friends at the clown company until they begin to turn on him.

其中當然包含他的母親，而他似乎在小丑公司中原本有些朋友，直到他們背棄他。

But apart from them, the only major presence left is Sophie, his neighbor who we actually know less about than some parts of the film would have us believe.

除此之外，唯一剩下的主要角色就是他的鄰居 Sophie 了，我們對 Sophie 的實際了解比在電影中許多部份展現出的還要少很多。

In Arthur's mind, Sophie is his girlfriend, at least until she isn't.

在 Arthur 的腦中，Sophie 是他的女友，至少在他發現她不是之前，他都是這麼認為的。

In Sophie's mind, Arthur is just the slightly strange neighbor she and her daughter ride the elevator with sometimes.

而在 Sophie 眼中， Arthur 只是個有時和自己及女兒一起搭乘電梯有點奇怪的鄰居。

When he walks into her apartment uninvited and we discover his fantasy life with her, she is clearly scared but also eager to defuse the situation.

當 Arthur 不請自來地走進 Sophie 的公寓，我們也發現他與她共度的生活只是個幻想，Sophie 很明顯地相當害怕，卻也渴望能緩解情勢。

So, what becomes of Sophie?

所以，Sophie 接下來如何？

It's hard to say, but what's clear is that the police will soon be finding a brutally murdered body in Arthur's apartment, so they'll probably be knocking on her door to ask questions, at which point she'll discover just how lucky she was.

這很難說，但肯定的是，警方很快就會在 Arthur 的公寓中發現一具遭謀殺慘死的屍體，並找上門偵訊，這時 Sophie 就會發現自己多幸運。

Throughout the film, as Arthur goes through his own deeply personal descent into violent, vengeful madness, a massive groundswell of support for him is building right under his nose.

整部電影之中，正當 Arthur 自身墮落進暴力復仇的瘋狂深淵時，大量高漲的支持則在他眼前成形。

Near the end of the film, Arthur promises Murray Franklin that he's apolitical.

接近電影的尾聲，Arthur 向 Murray Franklin 保證自己跟政治沒有任何關聯。

He says that he has nothing to do with the protestors who've adopted clown masks in solidarity with the then-anonymous subway shooter, but he's clearly pleased by the idea that people have begun to idolize him in some way.

他聲稱自己和穿戴與當時匿名的地鐵槍殺兇手一致小丑面具的抗爭者毫無關聯，但他顯然很高興人們開始把他視為某種偶像。

By the end of the film, Arthur has fully embraced the people who have become his followers, standing up among them as a leader for one triumphant moment before the film cuts to him in Arkham.

在電影跳到阿卡姆州立醫院並結束以前，Arthur 欣然接納成為他的支持者的人們，並以領導者之姿站在群眾中慶祝勝利時刻。

So whether Arthur stays in Arkham State Hospital or not, the Joker Gang will simply not calm down and go home.

無論 Arthur 是否留在醫院中，小丑幫都不會只是冷靜下來然後回家。

They might dissipate, or relax their protests a bit and eventually fade out, but that doesn't just go away because the Joker is in jail.

他們可能會慢慢消散或鬆懈、抗議聲漸漸減弱，但不會因小丑入獄而馬上消失。

He was simply the face they adopted for their own social unrest.

他僅僅是他們為自己的社會動盪選出來的門面。

The gang is still out there, and they might still be causing vast amounts of chaos.

那幫人還在外頭，可能還在造成大量的混亂。

Arthur's explorations of his mother's true motives as she obsessively writes letters to Thomas Wayne take him on an emotional rollercoaster.

Arthur 在探索母親執著於探索寫信給 Thomas Wayne 的動機時經歷了巨大的情緒起伏。

He initially only sees Wayne as his mother's former employer, then Penny confesses that Wayne is his father.

他一開始只認為 Wayne 是母親的前雇主，後來 Penny 坦誠說 Wayne 是他的父親。

Thomas Wayne and his butler Alfred deny this, and Arthur later seemingly confirms their denials after stealing his mother's records from Arkham and confirming that he was adopted.

Thomas Wayne 和管家皆強力否認，而 Arthur 後來似乎從阿卡姆醫院偷走母親病例後證實了他們的否認說詞且確認自己是被收養的。

But is that the whole truth?

不過那是完整的事實嗎？

After he kills his mother, Arthur finds an old photo of her with an inscription on the back signed by "T.W."

在 Arthur 殺了母親之後，他發現了一張母親的舊照背後有文字署名著「T.W.」。

So perhaps Thomas Wayne is not Arthur's father, but had an affair with Arthur's adoptive mother?

可能 Thomas Wayne 不是 Arthur 的父親，但曾是他養母的情夫？

Or did it go down like Penny insisted?

或者一切都像母親 Penny 所堅信的一樣？

The whole adoption story was a coverup for what really happened?

整個收養的故事都是為了要掩蓋事實？

We can't say for sure, but that little inscription suggests that there's more to the story than those Arkham files had to offer.

我們無法確定，但那一小段文字暗示事實一定超出了病例內容。

Joker spends much of its runtime dodging potential comic book connections.

《小丑》整部片都想躲開和漫畫潛在的關聯性。

When those connections do kick in, though, they lead down a dark path, a chain reaction started by Arthur that ends in the murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne.

不過和漫畫真的相關的內容引出黑暗的局面，始於 Arthur 並結束於 Thomas Wayne 和 Martha 之死的連鎖反應。

One of the final images of the film is Bruce Wayne standing alone in that same alley, the bodies of his parents on either side of him.

電影的最終幾幕之一就是 Bruce Wayne 站在相同的巷子中，而父母的屍體在自己兩側。

It's an image that Arthur laughs at, and the film suggests that he'll hold onto that image going forward as Bruce Wayne grows up.

那是個讓 Arthur 大笑的景象，電影也暗示隨著 Bruce Wayne 的成長，這個影像將牢記在他心中。

The big question that the film doesn't answer, though, is how seeing a clown shoot his parents will end up changing Bruce.

電影沒有解答的大問題是，看見小丑射殺他的雙親最終將如何改變 Bruce。

Batman is usually depicted as a guy who fights criminals in general, but this version of Bruce might end up having a very specific agenda on his hands when he's all grown up, one that would fundamentally alter the Dark Knight as we know him.

蝙蝠俠通常整體來說都被描繪成打擊犯罪的人，不過這個版本的 Bruce 長大後可能會有相當明確的計畫，完全改變我們在《黑暗騎士》中所熟知的他。

Very early on in Joker, when Arthur goes home to relax in front of the TV with his mother at the end of the day, we see the first traces of the fantasy life he leads as he imagines himself in the studio audience of Murray Franklin's show.

《小丑》剛開始時，從 Arthur 在晚上回家後和母親一同看電視放鬆時想像自己是攝影棚中 Murray Franklin 的現場觀眾時，我們就能發現他幻想生活的跡象。

Later, the film shows us that this fantasy can go much, much deeper.

電影後來顯現出他的幻想能夠變得更加更加深遠。

This is all important because it emphasizes just how lonely and unstable Arthur is.

這全都很重要因為這強調了 Arthur 有多孤獨且情緒不穩定。

It's also important because it forces us to contend with the possibility that at least some of what Arthur does during the film's climax didn't actually happen.

另一個重要的理由是，這強迫我們思考至少 Arthur 在電影高潮中做出的某些行為可能並沒有實際發生。

Was he really carried out of the cop car by his followers after the crash?

他真的在車禍後被追隨者扛出警車嗎？

Did he really murder his therapist?

他真的殺了他的心理治療師嗎？

Does it go deeper?

是否有更深遠的含意？

Was he really in the asylum the whole time just imagining all of this?

還是其實他一直都在精神病院中想像出這一切？

Is that why the color of his clothes always matches Arkham's decor?

這就是為什麼他衣服的顏色總是和阿卡姆醫院的裝潢相同嗎？

These are questions that encourage repeat viewing of the film, to see just how many details point to the reality or fantasy of each scenario.

這些問題都值得我們重複觀看這部片，來看看有多少細節指出每個情境到底是現實還是幻想。

Joker is, among many other things, the origin story for a villain, even if it's not the same version of the villain we're used to seeing on the comic book page or even on the big screen.

《小丑》的重點之一便是著名反派腳色的背景故事，儘管這和我們在漫畫或其他電影中習慣的版本不同。

By the end of the film, Arthur Fleck is directly asking people to call him Joker, and drawing a big smile on his face in his own blood seems to seal the deal.

電影的尾聲，Arthur Fleck 直接要求大家稱他為「小丑」，而用自己的血在臉上畫出大大的笑容更確立了化身為小丑的轉變。

He's the Joker now.

他現在就是眾所皆知的小丑了。

"When you bring me out, can you introduce me as Joker?"

「 你引我出場時，能不能以『小丑』介紹我？」

But there's also no mystery over the Joker's identity this time around.

這次的小丑也沒有任何身世之謎。

So how can we reconcile him with the comic book version?

那我們如何能把他和漫畫中的版本相融合呢？

Well, the short answer is we don't have to, and the film doesn't really want us to.

簡單來說，並不需要如此，而且這部電影並不想要我們這麼做。

But if you're really interested in digging that deep, there are a couple of possibilities.

但如果你真的很有興趣深入研究，還是有幾個可能。

One is that this is just another version of the many fake origin stories that Joker likes to throw around to confuse people.

一個可能是這只是小丑為了混淆視聽而編造的另一個背景故事。

The other is that Arthur Fleck is not the only "Joker," and that one day, perhaps when Bruce Wayne is all grown up, a mystery man will adopt the moniker with Arthur as the inspiration.

另一個可能就是 Arthur 並不是唯一的「小丑」，可能當 Bruce Wayne 長大後的某一天，某個神秘人以 Arthur 為靈感套用了這個稱號。

Then again, maybe it was all a dream.

或者，這可能全部只是一場夢。

Check out one of our newest videos right here!

來這裡看看我們的最新影片！

Plus, even more Looper videos about your favorite movies are coming soon.

此外，更多關於你最愛的電影的 Looper 影片快要上架了。

Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss a single one.

訂閱我們的 YouTube 頻道並按下鈴鐺以免錯過任何一個影片。