devotedbat

[devotedbat]

Let’s talk about Gotham’s Riddler

I’ve always been fascinated with Riddler in the comics and adaptions. How can you be the smartest man in the world who could hypothetically get away with anything if only you didn’t purposely leave clues to your crime?

In most adaptions he does it for the love of the game, or to simply prove how smart he is.

In Gotham, though, it’s deeper than that.

In the beginning he pesters his coworkers with riddles he knows they don’t know the answer to and smugly showing off his mental prowess over them. He thinks he’s the smartest man in the room, others think he’s a creep.

However, when presenting evidence for the Wayne murders in the form of a riddle, for the first time he has a rival: the newly recruited Jim Gordon who is able to give an answer. This delights Ed but this is already sowing seeds of resentment that won’t bloom until later in the show.

Of course he has a crush on Kirsten Kringle and gives her puzzles as a way of showing affection (the cupcake bullet incident) and everything is pretty good.

Then Doughtery comes along. In their first meeting Doughtery asks Ed a riddle, albeit not a very good one, but promises to stump him next time. For someone like Ed who weaponises riddles as a way of intelligence, this is a threat.

“So he uses riddles to demonstrate how smart he is, so what?” Yes, but now pair it with murder and see what changes: internal conflict.

He WANTS to get away with the crime, but he also wants to show off a little, he wants the attention he’s been lacking despite being a self-proclaimed genius.

After murdering Doughtery he presents Kringle with a letter he wrote from Doughtery, by looking at the start of each line she realises it spells out his name which she later confronts him about.

He the suffers a breakdown, berating himself and between overlapping voices asking himself why he had to leave a clue.

It’s a very valid question, why is he making this more difficult for himself? Edward literally tells Kringle to read between the lines when he first hands the letter to her. Why? (It’s a question we’ll be asking a lot). Does he want to be caught? Once again it’s that internal conflict. He wants to be recognised but at the same time wants to get away with his crime.

In the next episode it’s revealed that this conflict has manifested itself as a second personality, one who doesn’t need glasses for some reason. Ed wants to fly back down, Riddler wants to see how close they can get to the sun before their wax wings melt and they fall to their doom.

Sometimes the lines blur, like Ed telling Kringle that he was the one who murdered Doughtery. Why? He wants her to be impressed, he wants to be recognised. Of course this backfires and she panics, leading to him accidentally killing her whilst trying to convince her that he’s not a psychopath.

A major turning point is the hunt for Kringle’s body. His alter ego is trying to tip him over to the dark side. His mentality is reminiscent of a gambler’s thrill. Gamblers don’t enjoy gambling itself, they enjoy the danger and anticipation that comes before winning, or losing everything.

His alter ego purposely leaves clues for Ed to find around the workplace of detectives and police officers meaning constantly on the tightrope of danger. So when he gets away with it it’s all the more satisfying — he got away DESPITE all the clues he left. He’s tipped over to the dark side now, admitting that murdering and successfully getting away feels “beautiful.” He’s felt this way all along, as he mentions to Jim later, but he’s been repressing it by compartmentalising his feelings in the form of an alter ego now accepted.

After the act things go back to normal, though he’s repeatedly asked by Gordon and Lee about the whereabouts of Kringle and Doughtery. Something I noted about Ed is that he won’t straight-up lie about his crimes, he reveals details through half-truths, more clues: “Kringle left Gotham to be with Doughtery (in the afterlife).” “Doughtery is rotten (literally).” Flaunting.

Skipping ahead to when Ed and Oswald become friends and take in an injured Jim Gordon.

This brings me onto next clear show internal conflict where Lucius, Harvey, Alfred and Barnes talk about Gordon who they believe is missing. Ed giggles prompting them to ask whether he knows Gordon’s whereabouts.

Once again note how easy it would be for Ed to just lie and say “no.” But instead he looks at the crowd: Harvey isn’t the brightest bulb in the warehouse, neither is Barnes, and he hasn’t met Lucius until now (i don’t know his relationship with Alfred so we’ll assume the same for him).

Because he can’t help it he decides to flaunt his mental prowess by revealing Gordon’s location through a riddle he thinks they won’t be able to answer since they’re all stupid. To his surprise Lucius correctly guesses the answer: home, giving away Gordon’s location.

Once again he could just say “no.” And he tries to at first but visibly twitches and is forced to confirm Lucius was correct. Why? Sportsmanship? Strange as it sounds this may be the correct answer. He then asks Lucius who he is, finding himself a new rival.

I’d love to touch on the entire How the Riddler Got His Name episode but alas it’s getting late and I’ll probably discuss it in a different post because it digresses slightly.

Riddler leaves riddles this to prove how smart he is, but he also likes the attention. He likes the thrill. He also likes going head fo head with someone as smart as him, hence him finding a great rival in Batman. It also seems impossible for Riddler not to leave clues to his crimes, subconsciously or not he has to, in Oswalds words:

I know you, Ed. I may be driven by my emotions, but you are driven by something much more predictable: a desperate, compulsive need to complete what you've started in exacting fashion.”

You can’t leave a riddle rhetorical. You can’t leave a body unfound. You can’t just get away with it — Everything needs an answer for someone to find eventually.

Okay so to summarise, Gotham’s Riddler leaves riddles because he:

Likes the attention it gives him due to having his intelligence ignored by at GCPD. If he gets away with it, great! If he gets caught, even better!

Has a compulsive need to, possibly an admission of subconscious guilt, seen with Kringle, Doughtery and (though I haven’t mentioned it) him quizzing Lucius as a distraction from his regret from “killing” Oswald.

Likes the thrill of nearly being caught, seen with most of his crimes in seasons 1 and 2.

Overall, I just like yapping about this man he means everything to me ❤️❤️❤️

(Footnote: I realise I’ve spelt Kringle’s name three different ways, probably other mistakes in here but I’m too tired to go back and edit + her name pisses me off anyway so here are my sincerest belated apologies).