Wearing This To A Cosplay Convention Today, I Got Facepaint In My Eye

Wearing this to a cosplay convention today, I got facepaint in my eye

that’s why I love this Riddler

all throughout you see people go up against Batman repeatedly, OBSESSING over Batman, but they always bounce back

but this Riddler SHATTERED

and now he, out of everyone, is irredeemably broken

he’s done, forever

now, more than ever, he can no longer separate Eddie Nygma from the Riddler

The Arkham Games tell a different story for all characthers and for Riddler is about decay.

One thing that is often lost in the middle of the memes is that Arkham Riddler isn't a natural born ratman. He is vain. He is as vain as most Riddlers before him and this is a lot (vanity is a trait that almost all iterations of Edward share). His vanity is in a sense part of his narrative how a man who usually gives a lot of importance to his appareance becames so taken by his declining mental health, trauma and delusion that he stops caring for annything else, someone who used to have an hours long skin care rotine (have you seen his skin in Assault on Arkham? And his hair? He is in jail and is still thriving) stops bottering to the point he isn't even showering annymore, someone who used to pay atention to the minimal details of his suits is using an uggly shirt he never washed ever.

But the thing is this is still the most talked about aspect of his decay.

What people don't talk a lot about is his crimes and how they show how much he is losing it. In Orings his plan while motivated by the selfish reason of he wanting to saciate his boredom is mostly about helping people. He does try to invade the batcave to uncover Batman's true identity but even that is mostly just to saciate his curiosity and prove his genius, he doesn't intend to do annything with it. Besides that his plan is to use blackmail to detter the corruption going on in Gotham.

That being said in all the other games he doesn't have good intentions anymore, he is only motivated by his delusional need to prove himself not only that but his crimes are way more brutal: he goes from blackmailing corrupt people to kiddnaping and murdering a bunch of innocents with death traps and even treatening someone who he appeared to have a previous good relationship with (Selina) with full intention to murder her. And the significant change between this two phases is Arkham. Is impossible to deny that instead of rehabilitation Arkham activaly turned Edward into a worse person. He isn't only less sane than when he entered he is also way more dangerous. Arkham and Batman and the whole system failed Edward in all possible ways in all moments. From his father abuse to the school system neglect to the GCPD corruption to Arkham ineficience. It's not to say he isn't responsable for his actions (though like he isn't at least legally he may object but he is not sane enough for that, he might have been in Origins, but afterwards he was planning on puting lasers on dogs and made a car track that can only have been inspired by the hot wheels toys, he is one of the more insane people there, not only that but he describes having PTSD flashbacks, has at least one dissociative episode, contantly talks to himself, calls Batman dad and the whole not bothering to shower just to list some moments of his mental health being garbage) but that he would never had became The Riddler if the system didn't keept failing him again and again.

If you lock Riddler up before curing the Joker virus the Joker halucianation will ironise: "good one Batman, Eddie doesn't need psychological help, beat him up, lock him up, it's all the medicine he needs" and while a lot of people chug it to Bruce's own guilty complex I think it's both Bruce is feeling guilty because does he even feel anything else at this point but this time his guilt is right. He isn't helping the city in cases like Riddler. He is just doing the crime fighting equivalent of brushing it under the rug.

The Arkham Games are about a lot of things but mostly about how Arkham just doesn't work and it's totally broken and Eddie is the perfect example of it.

Further proof that the riddler is my malewife