Sometimes I have this overwhelming feeling that I am a solid chrome cylinder slotted inside my skull. When I try to envision my body I see the cylinder and only the cylinder. I'm a highly specific cylinder with very precise proportions, so you couldn't substitute a can of soup or paint for me, but I'm still a cylinder within the void of a skull and nothing else.

The only way I can imagine translating this into an Arthurism is for him to feel like the pole impaling a carousel horse. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that it's not the same at all. As a cylinder I merely sit there, but the carousel pole has a purpose. It's overlooked, unappreciated, and is entirely beholden to the whims of a mechanism beyond its control, but it's undeniably important. An unimpaled horse would topple pathetically to the ground. It must be impaled to function and to put forth the illusion that it's beautiful and daring and dangerous.

Arthur is the pole and Joker is the horse... And I am still a very useless but highly specific cylinder.