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Newtype exclusive interview:Suicide Squad ISEKAI Director Eri Osada × Producer Sho Ohtani

Talks about the Joker obsessively every single episode when he's not even around and gets all her good ideas by remembering stuff he said to her = independent woman standing on her own two feet, apparently. The only reason she did stuff without him was because she was forcibly separated from him, it wasn't by choice.

Rewriting the relationship not the be abusive much like the first movie, despite the fact it's always been from the beginning, also means a significant part of her character and pathos is gone. The character didn't really read as Harley as a result, but she was still fun to watch.

Nev999 wrote:

Talks about the Joker obsessively every single episode when he's not even around and gets all her good ideas by remembering stuff he said to her = independent woman standing on her own two feet, apparently. The only reason she did stuff without him was because she was forcibly separated from him, it wasn't by choice. Rewriting the relationship not the be abusive much like the first movie, despite the fact it's always been from the beginning, also means a significant part of her character and pathos is gone. The character didn't really read as Harley as a result, but she was still fun to watch.

I mean, he was still relevant to her character but it did show she's capable of doing things without him and she wasn't mentioning him practically all the time, so I think it still works.

They didn't overtly depict their relationship as bad or abusive (though there were subtle implications of him brainwashing her), though the way Harley sees Joker is pretty true to her classic incarnation. So personality-wise I think she was on-point in that respect.

No, she talked about him pretty constantly. It lessened in the last few eps but I wouldn't be surprised if calculations found 2/3 of her dialogue was about him in some way before then. And again, every time she came up with an idea, it had to be flashing back to something he said, which is too bad, even the original BTAS incarnation didn't have to think about his advice to come up with plans. Batman even noted she came closer to killing him than the Joker ever did, and would have succeeded in her plan to kill him if he hadn't convinced her to get the Joker because he knew he would ruin the plan. The direct opposite of how he was portrayed in this show.

But all that wouldn't be a big deal if they didn't try to sell her as "empowered and independent" at the same time. Like according to this series, the Joker genuinely emancipated her and helped her live her truth, whereas the original cartoon and the comics that followed it made it clear that no, her building her entire identity around a shitty guy isn't a cool good time and makes her a tragic character.

It's not something I'm super mad about, like I said, she's still a fun chaotic character to watch, she just doesn't have the depth of the original and I think trying to sell her as empowered is silly. That's all I have to say about that.