When it comes to DC’s female villains, Harley Quinn is one of the most popular ones. Even though she’s still fairly young and only first appeared in 1992 in the TV show Batman: The Animated Series with Kevin Conroy as Batman.
Harley can certainly hold her ground and face even more established heroes and villains with grace and wit (and a perfectly appropriate amount of violence). She became even more popular when Margot Robbie played her in 2016’s Suicide Squad, so it was only a matter of time before Harley appeared in another film. Birds of Prey is now here and Margot Robbie once again nailed various aspects of Harley’s character. Here are the mannerisms and traits she portrayed perfectly.
Her Former Love For Joker
Harley Quinn and Joker are an iconic couple many fans can’t get enough of. But their relationship is far from perfect and a lot of people consider it to be toxic and bad for Harley. So when she finally severed her ties to Joker in this film, it came as a relief, to be honest.
Margot perfectly captured Harley’s inner grief at losing Joker and at the same time, the exhilaration to be finally free and her own woman who doesn’t need to answer to anyone, least of all her former controlling and abusive boyfriend. Plus, she provided the viewers with an excellent way to announce your breakup to the world (but you shouldn’t try it at home).
She’s An Intelligent Lady
While some of her adversaries may not be aware of this fact and underestimate Harley because they consider her just another pretty face, Harley is actually very intelligent. She did manage to get her doctorate at a fairly young age which couldn’t have been an easy feat.
In the past, Harley used her intellectual skills to better help her patients at the Arkham Asylum. Nowadays, her brain is a great help to her when it comes to planning her crimes and avoiding the many people who might try to kill her or arrest her. Harley is simply no dummy, and she can do many seemingly impossible things (like break out somebody out of a police station without killing everybody in it).
She’s A Capable Athlete
Harley’s big enemy Batman is probably better known for his physical skills, but even though Harley might not know as many fighting styles as he does, she certainly isn’t helpless in a fight, as she demonstrated in this film over and over again.
She’s very agile and good at hand to hand combat, but she often prefers using other means of fighting as well (mostly her beloved baseball bat). In the comics, Harley was actually so good at athletics that it helped her get the scholarship she needed to study at the university. So you definitely wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of her.
She’s A Wild Force
One thing that separates Harley from the majority of the DC villains is that you have no idea what she’s going to do next. Maybe because Harley herself usually has no idea. She lives an unpredictable and highly amusing life filled with excitement and adventures, although often potentially deadly adventures.
She can also get distracted by people around her or her own thoughts, as Margot Robbie demonstrated in the film when she started planning to have a girl party while she and the Birds of Prey were about to fight a group of goons and the Black Mask himself.
Her Attraction To Bruce Wayne
Even though Harley was attached to the Joker for a long time, she can certainly still appreciate beautiful people, both men, and women. She had multiple crushes in the comics, including Poison Ivy, Wonder Woman, and Batman, to name just a few. However, she was also interested in Bruce Wayne and found him handsome and intriguing.
It would be interesting to see these two interact in the films, but that will happen in the future, if at all. For now, the viewers got to see Harley talking to her hyena Bruce, whom she named after the handsome guy Bruce Wayne, as Harley herself said.
Her Love For Animals
Harley may be a villain and one of the best ones, but that doesn’t mean she’s completely heartless. She has a soft spot for her friends, such as Poison Ivy, and also for her animals. She often saves strays in the comics, offers them a new home and takes good care of them.
In Birds of Prey, she’s very close to her hyena Bruce and she’s devastated when she thinks that Bruce died during the attack at her apartment. She’s also overjoyed later when she finds out he survived and reunites with him. And, of course, there’s also her beaver, another important part of Harley’s menagerie.
She’s A Master At Manipulating People
During her university studies and her later work as a psychiatrist at the Arkham Asylum, Harley has learned how to read people well. This ability and her talent to manipulate them to her advantage are one of the biggest strengths she has, right alongside her intelligence and physical agility.
Harley uses both her words and actions to manipulate people in the comics and she also does it in the Birds of Prey. She, for example, persuades Roman Sionis aka the Black Mask to let her go and find the missing diamond for him even though he was planning to kill her beforehand.
She’s Living In Her Own World
To say that Harley is not quite mentally stable, would be an understatement of the century. She simply sees the world around her in a different way than most people do. She has a very vivid imagination and sometimes has trouble recognizing the difference between what’s real, what’s happening right now and what’s only in her head.
This confusion also happens in Birds of Prey when Harley becomes the star of a singing show in which she rocks the song ‘Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend’. Even though Roman Sionis is hurting her at the same time, Harley manages to escape the harsh reality this way.
Her Sense Of Humor
Harley lives in a strange world filled with a lot of dangers. After all, Gotham is no paradise on Earth. However, that doesn’t stop Harley from having fun, even in the most nerve-wracking situations. She manages to find it in herself to laugh even when she’s facing her enemies. And you shouldn’t forget the funny quips and biting remarks Harley throws at anyone who crosses her way.
Margot Robbie nails this part of Harley’s personality and just like with all of the things mentioned above, she does it effortlessly. Harley watching TV with Cassandra Cain and having fun was one of the best moments in Birds of Prey.
She Has A Respect For Human Lives
It might not be obvious at first, especially since Harley usually does her best to hide it, but she does have respect for human lives. That’s not a common thing amongst villains, and Harley’s association with Joker makes it even more difficult to believe, but she’s not the type of person who enjoys killing the innocents… at least when she’s on her own and not under Joker’s harmful influence.
Harley also has a softer side, as she shows in Birds of Prey when she decides at first to help Cassandra get the diamond out of her body in a non-lethal way and she doesn’t surrender the girl to Roman Sionis.
