#characther analyses

[just-an-enby-lemon]

For me the reason Lyle Bolton gets soo much hate compared to villans like Scarecrow, Joker or Deathstroke who in almost all cannon versions did worst crimes is because Lyle Bolton represents a real problem. Is hard to suspend your disbelief to enjoy this awfull person when they are spilling real life hatefull rethoric.

We will never see an evil terrorist mass murdering clown or an imortal assassin or an evil psychologist who fear gas people (I'm a future psychologist so maybe this one is plausible and I'm just trying to hide our trade secrets). And I say that as someone who really despises one of them (it's Slade, there 1 version of Slade that I enjoy).

We can suspend our disbelief because they aren't a real problem. I mean they can be used to talk about real problems but in the end they are gimmick supervillans from a comic book.

A jailler who spills right wing rethoric and abuses the inmates? That's real. Everything about Lyle Bolton is a caricature of a real problem. I mean bar him using a costume and calling himself Lock-Up and ofc he being fired for his crimes he isn't even really unrealistic. Joker is a characther. Lyle is a guy you meet at least once, who listens to Tucker Carlson (Jovem Pan), voted on Trump (Bolsonaro), spreds fake news and alt-right conspiracies on social media and thinks criminal aren't people. He defends punitive measure over rehabilitation, has extreme ableist ideas, thinks the "leftist media" is censoring him even though Fox News still has a huge audience. Lyle is the guard who is happy to beat up the inmates for no reason because his violence is santioned by the state. He represents at least one side of police brutality. People hate Lyle Bolton (and to a minor degree Arnold Flass) more than Scarecrow and Joker and most other rogues because Lyle is closer to reality, because Lyle is the evil we know while Scarecrow is the evil on our comic books.

[catoptro-pho-bia]

i do see plenty of people complaining at tryst six venom (p. douglas) being homophobic and fetishizing lesbians, that the women seem "written by a man" and how it is an overall disgusting book, and after reading and analysing it a couple times (because i did enjoy it for... various reasons) i want to have my take on it:

• from what i know, penelope is popular for her bullying romance/s, which (exception tsv) are pretty much heterosexual. i don't say it is a healthy manner to approach romance, i say it is a pattern of her writing that didn't show up when she published a wlw book

• regarding homophobia (because Clay used slurs), i want to ask a question before my argument: how do you see homophobic people act? or talk about queer people? Clay, as a characther, for 70% percent of the book, she's fighting with self homophobia, which i am sorry is this a new word for you? how many queer people fight with this on a daily basis? there are plenty issues with the book, if i like it doesn't mean i can't approach the actual issues, but homophobia because there are slurs in the book? CLAY IS HOMOPHOBIC? RAISED IN A HOMOPHOBIC SOCIETY? how do you expect her to think/talk? don't get me started with the enviroment that allowed/pushed her to grow this way in her teenagehood. they were pretty much explained if you actually TAKE YOUR TIME and read through the lines :D

• another thing is fetishising wlw which i do have some words to add. in olivia's pov, the way she process some events/ interactions, tell the story how she feels being fetishised, realising people can take advantage of your sexuality, besides the bullying, and how pretty much it reflects the real world. you think it's disgusting? it happens daily to queer people. is it toxic for a straight (i dont think she is too straight based on how she wrote some scenes but lets not assume peoples sexuality😭) woman to write about it? yes, IF the character would be made to normalise it. liv didn't. 60% of her development is based on her fighting it, being tired of it, running from it, teasing with it, etc. all the stages, call it what you want. it happens daily. it happens irl.

• the "women that seem written by men" argument pissed me off the most, because in media, from which i've seen, often the lesbian couples are made from one girly/femme girl and the other is kinda masculine/butch or stem which feeds more into the stereotype of "who is the man in relationship?" and that a wlw couple has to contain one feminine and one masculine side. i don't have any issues with these couples. but the fact that both were pretty feminine as style and personality, doesn't mean they were made for the male gaze/ by a male gaze. femmes can fall for other femmes too, you know.

• i think penelope showed through clay how it is to battle inner homophobia (especially as a queer person) and the fear of rejection from the loved ones, and how this can turn into hate and make you do disgusting things. make it make sense how it's homophobic 😭😭😭

there are, as well, lots of problematic parts: from the marker scene (that made me give an instant -1 without discussion, unnecessary scene), from liv accepting a bit TOO MUCH in the name of love -but it's a common thing in these kind of books-, livs brothers that piSSED ME OFF they are annoying, to the almost r*pe scene, i mean i got the idea of it but she could send the message a bit more.. differently, aaaand etc.

are liv and clay one my confort characthers? yes. is the book problematic to some extent? yes. is the book homophobic/fetishising wlw? i'm sorry but it doesn't make sense to me HOW.

you don't like a book, that's cool, but from that to shitting on an author (which i somehow get bc she isn't my favourite as well but you do you) for the opposite she tried to show in a book? :)))) cmon

[e-vasong]

im going to be quite honest you are one of my favorite writers and your characther analyses are always on POINT and I LOVE IT

thank you so much!!! asdfghjkl. im so glad you like them. my brains empty except for thoughts about fictional characters.

[libcaro]

Some thoughts after analysing characthers

[just-an-enby-lemon]

I'm having sad thoughts about Jacques again. About how he only seems like someone who has things figured out and is put together because we are seing him by very biased lens.

We are seing him by Lemony's eyes. The eyes of a man who idolized his older brother, who wanted to be like him. The eyes of someone who tends to either be extremely judgy or see everyone as better than himself and idealize them (often both at the same time).

We are in a different level seing him by the eyes of the Baudelraies. But they know little of Jacques and what they know is mostly that this is a man their parents knew, that promises answers and more important an adult that for the first time looks at Olaf in disguize and sees Olaf. Their view is biased at best.

We are also seing him by Quingleys eyes. But for Quingley Jacques was the man who found him lost in a tunnel alone and confused, griving and in danger and gave him something. That gave him some answers and food and a place to stay even if it was the abandoned house of one of his dead friends.

And even by everyone else Jacques is a Snicket, the Snickets are very competent and mostly loyal but also a bit weird. And Jacques is all that. But in comparrison to his sibblings? He has his life put together.

That's to say that Jacques is likely tired, overworked, traumatized and failing apart. But he can keep himself suave, well-read, well-dressed and calculating. He isn't taking obvious risky behavior like Kit. And he certainly isn't just a blurried bunch of trauma in a fedora like Lemony. So he appears to be someone that is fine. And that we shoudn't worry about.

[just-an-enby-lemon]

DnD Night at Arkham

[They started it on Arkham as a form of group therapy and kept it after they scaped but on a special room on the Iceberg Lounge. Catwoman and Penguin entered later (via Harley and Riddler insidtence respectivaly) and Joker was banned because he kept geting Nat 20s in all his rolls]

.

Riddler: You rescue the hostage. He is a simple human lumberjack. He offers you wood as a payment.

Poison Ivvy: Is the wood ethically sourced?

Riddler: He is a human lumberjack in a medieval scenario I don't think he even knows what ethically sourced wood is.

Poison Ivvy: I cast poison spray on his face. How dare he hurt the trees!

Riddler: Let me roll... You know what, no, he is a normal middle aged lumberjack. He just dies.

Penguin: NO! I wanted that wood! I could have sold it!!

Catwoman: Didn't he had some important information? Pam?!

Poison Ivvy: Well he should had ethically sourced his wood!

Penguin: Edward bring him back right now!

Riddler: I can't just bring him back! Pamela killed him. You should have tried to stop her. Do not blame me, I'm just the DM. By the way your next encounter are his wife and kids.

-

Scarecrow: I cast fear!

Riddler: *rolls dice multiple times* The soldiers fail their test. They are terrifield.

Scarecrow: Good. What are they seeing? What is their fear reaction? How is their heart rate?

Riddler: That's it! Every single time you cast fear you force me to do a ridiculously long description of their reactions no one else cares about. *the other Rogues agree* Please stop.

Scarecrow: People react to fear differently and afraid of different things, Edward, and is my mission to study it.

Riddler: They all see a monster and run.

Scarecrow: That's unrealistic. Not a single one paralyzes? No one screams? They all have the same monster as their biggest fears? Did they had a similar traumatic experience? But even so it wouldn't explain they all having the same reaction. Honestly, that's truly not how real people act.

Riddler: They aren't REAL, Crane. They are FAKE PEOPLE I just MADE UP. They act in any way I want.

Scarecrow: Oh so they are a reflection of your fear of losing control!

Riddler: You keep that and you're out.

Scarecrow: So if I just described their fears and reactions would it make you anxious because you lost control over your "fake people".

Riddler: Anyway is Two-Face's turn. Also Crane you characther is poisoned. He acidentaly steped in a poisonous plant while trying to analyse the soldiers fears.

Scarecrow: That's not fair.

Riddler: Two-Face?

.

Harley: Can I cast a illusion spell to pretend to be his dead wife?

Riddler: I'm interresed. Make your roll.

Mr. Freeze: Don't do that. It's too cruel, this poor man deserves better.

Two-Face: He separated our group in different torment chambers and he is trying to kill us!

Mr. Freeze: But his dead wife! He clearly loves her still and loves her soo much.

Catwoman: I think that's the point...

Riddler: It's up to Harley.

Harley: Does he has a dead daughter?

Riddler: Does he?

Harley: *rolls* NAT 20!

Riddler: He does. He loved her even more than his wife.

Harley: I pretend to be his dead daugther.

Mr. Freeze: See way less cruel.

.

Riddler: *starts giggling*

Two-Face: ugh.

Harley: oh no.

Penguin: Is another puzzle maze isn't it?

Catwoman: Please don't be another puzzle maze.

Riddler: Is not a puzzle maze!

*everyone celebrates*

Riddler: You guys see yourselfs trapped in a beutifull, amazing, perfectly done... death trap! : )

*everyone boos*

.

MadHatter: Can I kiddnap his kid, Dormouse?

Riddler: You can?????!

Catwoman: Why? Why do you want to kiddnap the royal's guard kid?

MadHatter: She has a Cheshire cat.

Scarecrow: Is not a Cheshire Cat is just a cat called Cheshire.

MadHatter: Same thing, March Hare.

Harley: Kiddnap the cat!

MadHatter: But than she'll be alone. If I take booth of them, they will be together as Alice and the Cheshire Cat. She'll be ny daugther and we will be a Woonderland family.

Poison Ivvy: Her name is Ophelia.

MadHatter: If I succeed in kidnapping her can I change her name, Dormouse?

Riddler: I supose?

Two-Face: Don't fucking encourage him, Nygma!

.

Two-Face: I attack the sphinx with my sword of shadows. *rolls the dice* Dammit Nat 1.

Riddler: Your paladin tries to attack the sphinxs, his sword does no damage. The sphinxs smiles cruely. How dare you try to solve matters of the mind with muscles??? YOU TRULY ARE ALL BRAWL AND NO BRAINS! YOU ARE THROWED AGAINST THE WALL. YOUR HP DROPS TO ONE. NOW YOUR ONLY CHANCE IS TO SOLVE THE IMPOSSIBLE RIDDLE. HOW DARE YOUR MORAL PALADIN OF JUSTICE THINK HE COULD JUST PUNCH ME AWAY? YOU HAVE NO CHANCE DARK NIGHT! NO CHANCE AT ALL AHAHAHA. TODAY IS THE END OF BATMAN AHAHAHAHA *everyone looks at Riddler* *he blushes* i mean ... is harley's turn...

.

Two-Face: I steal his sword. I finally have two swords!

Harley: But both need two hands to use.

Two-Face: Perfection.

[just-an-enby-lemon]

Some Game HC's I have about Riddler:

BTAS Riddler loves playing DnD both as a player (always a caster) and as the DM. He is a game developer in the 90's so you bet your ass he was the fliperama kid. Everyday he went to the local game station (and later started exploring and looking for different ones all across Gotham) with only one coin. He played once against a player in a winning streak beting coins and he always won and would accept bets from challengers. He was abble to play all day with only one coin because he never lost a bet.

Gotham Riddler is another DnD nerd and a gamer. But I think he had more money growing up than BTAS Riddler and actually played games in a gameboy. He got a summer job so he could buy more games than Mario and Pokemon. Also I'm sorry but Gotham Riddler never played DnD, that man was born to be a DM and is likely the one DM that didn't became one because it's harder to find a DM than a party so you DM once and now that's your fate.

Arkham Riddler plays Magic The Gathering. He also plays DnD and he is the insufurable player that goes out of the way to create the most OP characthers completly full of combos and makes everything boring for everyone else because he slays too hard. He is insuferable playing Magic as well but at least he is being insuferable against his adversaries. He lost his original deck after being arrested the first time and somehow it ended on young Barbara Gordon's hands. The small time period were pre teen Barbara was the biggest Magic nerd and forced a confused Jim to play was probably the worst thing Riddler ever did to comissioner Gordon and that includes killing his co-workers and friends. Later Barbara went to play it with Jason and Tim (who she isn't dating cause ew), Bernard joined at some point.

The last DnD player is Unburied Riddler who is the opposite to Arkham: he always plays as a bard and he is the biggest follower of the rule of cool/the wonders of RP ever. He knows the rule book upside down but he never really followed the rules, he just sweet talks the DM and the tabble into letting him role for his insane plans to the point that after he basically forced Barbara and Bruce to play with him (Barbara asked Montoya to DM) no one on the tabble even knew what bardic inspiration actually did until Alfred heard them playing and as a closeted DnD nerd got incrisingly distressed by Eddie's "gameplay style". Since then Montoya joined the tabble as a paladim and Alfred is the DM. Instead of analysing what to pick to upgrade his characther Eddie spends all the time trying to find ways to sweet talk Alfred (the hardest DM to bullshit ever) into letting him do his thing. Right now his best trick is to make Bruce either join or get excited for the result because Alfred has a soft spot for his son Master Bruce.

Zero Year Riddler for all his cool persona is a nerd and not only he colects all different editions of War (yes the boardgame, the ancient Greece one is his favorite) but he plays competitive Pokemon (both online and the card game). While he is a good Pokemon player he did lose to an incredible good 12yo and he cried a whole day before trying to extract revenge. Unfortunaly for Ed the kid was from Metropolis and there was a change, small as it was, that Superman could get involved and Eddie isn't really one to get his ass beat by Superman.

Still on the card games BTAA Riddler plays Yu-Gi-Oh. He somehow understands the rules and is good on it. Miss Tuesday used to make fun of him for it until Autum acidentaly introduced her to Bakugan. If you play Bakugan you can't make fun of other people's card game choices. BTAA Riddler also plays Pokemon Go, he started because he thought it was hip and cool (he isn't even that old, he is like 30 but he just wants to be cool with the teens that badly already) and kept going because he really likes to take random pictures of pokemon on normal day things, he also loves shinny hunting. He does it on the actual game as well. He never actually played the whole Pokemon story, he just shinny hunts a lot and stops playing after he catched enough cool shinnies. He has some of the first one to capture the shinng videos and a shinny hunting secret twitter.

[Not a Riddler one but BTAS Joker also plays Yu-Gi-Oh because one has to be mad to understand all the different invocation rules (I say that as a former Yu-Gi-Oh nerd). Harley also plays Yu-Gi-Oh on BTAS but she downplays her talents to let Joker win when she is actually insanely good at it.]

[just-an-enby-lemon]

I wish I could understand why I can forgive other rogues for pretty shitty things but I find very dificult to ignore Jervis Tetch constant portral as a predator. It's not something ingrained to his characther or at least it shouldn't be. So why is the first thing I think when imagining Jervis? And why it botter me more than Scarecrow whole career?

[I mean Oswald, Jonathan and Eddie all had versions of them that exibited predatorial or sexist behavior so why it doesn't botter me as much when analysing their characther. Why this moments seem more like outlets, singular versions and/or bad writing than Jervis ones?]

[just-an-enby-lemon]

Sometimes I still have nightmares over Batman Prelude to The Wedding: Batgirl vs Riddler.

Almost all my problems with Rebirth Riddler come from that comic (is him my favorite Riddler? Not even close, but besides this specific story Eddie is still fun and I like him) and there were soo many ways to make it a good story. In five minutes I got three different - not necessarialy good - better ideas.

Firstly they could've just made it the start of an Oracle short series, it would solve a lot of problems in characther motivation. Make so Riddler discovered that there is a misterious voice that helps the bats and is actually the one solving his riddles and he grows obcessed over this voice. He sees them as matching intelects and being outcasts and he needs to uncover everything about them and so he lays traps. It becomes a story about Riddler losing it as he starts to question his self value in contrast to Barbara who is rediscovering her self-value as she discovers she can be more than a supporter and actually do hero work on her own even with her disabilities. I won't explain much more because while I think it could be great and could adapt some of the original story ideas it doesn't work as a Prelude to the Wedding story.

Second they could've taken the creepy crush and made it as Edward having a weird missplaced obcesion with family and done an Spoiler story with him creeping on the Browns. This one is mostly because seeing BatCat as part of the dream for a nuclear family is one of the few original angles it wasn't already explored in the Prelude stories.

Thirdly and the one who makes more sense in a Prelude to Wedding story: make it about Joker. And I don't mean changing Riddler to Joker or even featuring Joker in the story. Only that Joker is the motivation. Rebrith Riddler, specially in the whole BatCat wedding saga has a clear admiration for Joker that can even be seing as an unresciprocated crush, he planned his own violent defeat at the hands of Kite Man in WoJaR so Joker could laugh again for god sake.

For some reason this specific phase of Rebirth Riddler would do anything for Joker. And Riddler vs Batgirl even mentions that Joker did kidnapp Edward at some point to rant about Batman getting maried. If I recall corectly it was the explanation for how Ed knew Batman was getting maried. So leen on that. Joker is unhappy. All the Prelude shows that.

So Edward's solution is to try to antagonize other members of the bat-family to show Joker that he can always find a new nemesis. His whole showdown with Batgirl is about showing that they don't need Batman, in this version Ed's ramblings about love show his views of love as equasions and how everyone can be easily replaced. He choose Batgirl because she fitted most boxes on the things normal people would like about someone - just like Bruce, because Edward has no idea why Joker likes him and does what he does when he doesn't known, specially with emotion, he analyses it objectvaly and with data - and he is basically testing her to confirm his theories and turn her and Joker into nemesis. Barbara is of course horrified by all this. She wins and for a second Edward is elated. Because it was never about winning it was about proving that Barbara was good enough for Joker. Until Barbara says that if everyone can be replaced and love is a equation why didn't he let go of Joker yet. And he realises he did all that for nothing. If he didn't gave up Joker than why would Joker be any different and give up Barman? Barbara just like in the original tale ends up learning nothing except weird things about Riddler's psyque and just having a horrible day. But at least no one creeped on her for one day and then the universe forgot about it.