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This Article Contains Spoilers -
WARNING: This article contains major spoilers. If you do not wish to know vital information on plot / character elements in a story, you may not wish to read beyond this warning: We hold no responsibility for any negative effects these facts may have on your enjoyment of said media should you continue. |
| “ | NO! NO, NO, NO, NO, NO! NOO! AHHHHH…..THIS IS NOT HOW THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO GO! I…..HAD IT ALL PLANNED OUT! We were gonna be safe here. We could have watched the whole thing together...Everything! | „ |
| ~ Riddler when he realises Batman wasn't on his side. |
| “ | If you are justice, please do not lie. What is the price for your blind eye? | „ |
| ~ The Riddler's second riddle to DA Gil Colson, and his most famous quote. |
Edward Nashton, better known as The Riddler, is the main antagonist of the 2022 film The Batman, the titular main protagonist of its tie-in 2022-2023 prequel comic book miniseries The Riddler: Year One, and one of the two overarching antagonists (alongside Carmine Falcone) of its 2024 spin-off miniseries The Penguin.
He is an abused orphan turned serial killer who targets those in Gotham who he deems to be corrupt. His killing spree was inspired by Batman, with him leaving riddles for Batman in hopes they can team up. It is unclear as to whether Edward knows that Batman is Bruce Wayne.
He was portrayed by Paul Dano.
His Evil Ranking[]
What Makes Him Heinous?[]
Background[]
- He burns down his orphanage, leaving behind all of his unhappy memories of the place.
The Batman[]
- He assassinates the mayor Don Mitchell Jr. by bashing him over the head and beating him to death with a carpet tucker, then severing his thumb and attaching a USB to it. His dead corpse would also be discovered by his son, which likely traumatized him.
- He strapped two pipes and a rat cage to Commissioner Peter Savage so two starving rats would gnaw his face until he died and poisoned Savage's face with arsenic so the rats would die as well.
- He records the aforementioned act too, showing his clear sadistic nature in this act, as he is reveling in this and mocks Pete during the video.
- This is also made even more despicable by the fact he specifically chose for Pete to have a slow and painful death.
- He kidnaps Gil Colson and attaches a bomb to his neck.
- He orders Colson to crash into the Mayors Memorial, endangering the lives of all the innocents who were gathered there.
- When Colson refuses to answer Edward's last riddle, he sets the bomb off with absolutely no remorse. Edward also knew that Batman was there too, who at that point he thought was on his side - so he endangers the life of someone he considers an ally.
- Sends a bomb to the Wayne House, intending for Bruce Wayne to pick it up, however it is actually Alfred who picks it up, which leads to him being hospitalized after barely surviving the explosion. This also shows the Riddler's lack of care because of the fact he took no measures to make sure Bruce Wayne was the one who got the bomb, so his carelessness led to an innocent person (in his eyes) almost being killed.
- He exposes Thomas Wayne with false information, leaking evidence that proved that Thomas Wayne requested Carmine Falcone during his mayoral campaign to silence a journalist (though Thomas didn't know Falcone was going to kill the man and merely wanted to scare him into backing off) who tried to expose that Thomas' wife Martha spent five years at the Arkham State Hospital because of the trauma she suffered upon witnessing her mother killing her father and then committing suicide. This would ruin Thomas' image and he can't defend himself due to being dead.
- He shot Carmine Falcone dead just as the Gotham City Police Department arrested him. Though to be fair, Falcone certainly deserved it for indirectly ruining his childhood and shaping Gotham into the corrupt city it was for 20 years.
- He inspired a cult of online followers who later came to the streets and proceed with his plans to assassinate mayor-elect Bella Real (who, as far as we see, wasn't corrupt), detonate some car bombs he stationed near Gotham City's breakwaters to create a distraction and then shoot at her and the crowd.
- Plants bombs in several vans around the city in order to blow up Gotham's seawalls and cause a flood to destroy the city, resulting in thousands of deaths, including Victor Aguilar's parents in The Penguin.
- While the flood is happening, Riddler starts cheering and is clearly reveling in the flood, while thousands of innocents die.
- It also could have been even worse than it ended up being, because Riddler tried to flood the city in its entirety.
- The reasoning for Riddler wanting to kill Bruce is flawed. He believes Bruce is a spoiled and vain adult who was babied and given a free ticket to an easy life despite being an orphan. The Riddler believes that Bruce was 'never really an orphan' because Bruce never went through the struggles as an orphan that Edward did. While a somewhat reasonable resentment, it is an extremely petty justification for murder. Edward just wants to kill Bruce because he doesn't like him, and Bruce isn't even corrupt like the rest of his victims.
The Penguin[]
- Due to his flooding, many of Gotham's citizens were left without homes, were missing, or dead. Victor Aguilar, for example, was orphaned because of the flooding, losing his father, mother, sister, and home which forces him steal to survive and eventually meets Oz Cobb, aka the Penguin, who forces him into a life of crime and later on kills him for deeming him a weakness. Victor also suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and a stutter because of Riddler's actions, making Riddler no better than the people who made him into what he is.
- It is shown time and time again that Riddler's flood only affected poor neighborhoods in the long term, with rich neighborhoods going back to business as usual just a few weeks after the events of The Batman. While this likely was never his intention, it goes to show that Edward didn't fully think his plan through, instead being driven by senseless violence against those who hurt him and choosing to lash out at Gotham as a whole, unknowingly becoming just as bad as the corrupt people who ruined his life by leaving several poor children without families or a home.
What Makes Him Inconsistent?[]
- He is too tragic and sympathetic to be NPE:
- He has an extremely tragic background of being an orphan and having the trust fund taken from him after Thomas Wayne was killed, and the orphan's funding was used by Carmine Falcone to hide his operations in.
- He mentioned that he used to sleep in a single room with dozens of other orphans, (rooms were revealed to be filled with 50 people), and several of them died of hypothermia during winter and Edward would be drugged every-time at night as rats sometimes ate the skin of his fingers as he slept, making him wake up in pain.
- It was also revealed in the tie-in comic that Thomas Wayne came to the orphanage, giving Edward hope - saying that he would put millions into the orphanage and that he'd give orphans proper education and even told Edward himself that he mattered, but when Thomas died, nothing came to fruition and Edward was told that everything Thomas told him was a lie.
- His mother died at a young age, and it was shown to be crushing to him as a kid to the point where he wrote "Mama?' in box numbers.
- He was bullied as a kid and was forced to kill a turtle, which he was horrified at doing and it left him in tears, seemingly being a bit remorseful as this was forced.
- He was even working in a horrible job where he was mistreated horribly by his co-workers enough that he dipped his hand into acid.
- He would later start to slowly find out about the corruption in Gotham.
- He was shown to have been greatly affected by his past and it was played for sympathy as it's frequently shown throughout The Batman how the horrible corruption of Gotham ruined his life and gave him severe mental issues to the point where he seemed nearly on the verge of tears while telling his backstory to Batman.
- He did appear to be genuinely insane, as he genuinely believed Batman was on his side and approved of his actions, being genuinely shocked and furious when proven wrong, and he genuinely saw no wrong in any of his actions to punish Gotham, giving him strong moral agency issues.
- While he did burn down his orphanage, he evacuated the building (the orphans and staff) before he incinerated it, by pulling the fire alarm before he burnt it down, showing he had sympathy for orphans who had suffered like him.
- He still cares for his mother as he thinks fondly of her as an adult and is disgusted about how she would've been treated in Arkham.
- He has a Pet The Dog moment when he meets a young woman who's father was killed by Falcone's men, and he gives her and her child a ticket to leave Gotham before his plan to flood the place, saving them from potential death.
- Although it is partly out of their shared insanity, he quickly develops a genuine friendship with the Joker.
Trivia[]
- He is the only villain from The Batman saga to be Inconsistently Heinous.
- He is only one of two Riddler incarnations to be approved Inconsistently Heinous, the other being Riddler (Burton and Schumacherverse).
External Links[]
[]
 Inconsistently Heinous
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