The Wayne Household | Gotham City Criminals (The Riddler) | Gotham City Government And Law Enforcement | Gotham City Citizens | Arkham State Hospital
Edward Nashton / The Riddler
"I've been trying to reach you..."
Click here to see him unmasked.
Portrayed by: Paul Dano, Joseph Walker (young)
Dubbed by: Akira Ishida (Japanese), Anton Eldarov (Russian)
Appears In: The Riddler: Year One | The Batman (2022)
"Me? I'm nobody. I'm just an instrument, here to unmask the truth about this cesspool we call a city."
A masked terrorist and serial killer who claims he wants to purge Gotham City of its deep-seated corruption. He targets Gotham's elite, leaving behind cryptic riddles and clues for the Batman to interpret.
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A-F
- Adaptational Backstory Change: While Riddler's backstory varies from adaptation to adaptation, he's usually depicted as growing up with a dad that doesn't like riddles, which contributed to the Riddler's obsession with being the smartest person on Earth. Here, the Riddler grew up as an orphan, and in the Wayne orphanage program no less. His fondness for puzzles were due to them being "a retreat from the horrors of our world"; given how abysmal the orphanage he lived in was, it was probably one of the few good things he had.
- Adaptational Jerkass: While the original version is defined by his obsession with riddles and proving his superiority to Batman, this Riddler takes cues from the Zodiac Killer and is re-envisioned as a Mad Bomber and a feral lunatic who leaves clues by brutally killing others.
- Adaptational Job Change: While other continuities had him working for the GCPD, here, he's a forensics accountant for an unrelated company.
- Adaptation Personality Change: While no version of the Riddler is the picture of mental health, usually the character manages to dress up his neurosis in a faux suave demeanor and condescending manner. This version, while still maintaining some of that, is much more likely to demonstrate unsettling behavior similar to traditional crazy terrorists in Hollywood thrillers with odd breathing patterns, weird facial tics, and a general inability to regulate his volume or cadence with talking.
- Adaptational Nice Guy: Slightly. He's far from a saint, but this iteration of the Riddler isn't simply an Attention Whore criminal as he's usually portrayed, so much as someone who sees himself as using vigilantism to doing the right thing by any means necessary. It also doesn't hurt that most of his targets appear to be Asshole Victims. Riddler's interactions with Batman are typically dripping with contempt as Riddler obsessively attempts to assert his superior intellect but here, it's revealed he has a twisted belief of Batman as a friend and kindred spirit. Ultimately averted by the end, where it turns out that despite his initial motivations to expose corruption, he takes a hard turn toward being a terrorist out of wanting revenge for being abandoned. He even goes so far as to hope aloud that he becomes famous for his crimes.
- Adaptational Seriousness: The Riddler in the comic is usually depicted as one of Batman's more colourful and out-going antagonists, being pretty much a self-serving Attention Whore and Large Ham who loves his bizarre riddles. He also almost always dresses in a flamboyant green suit. This Riddler however is portrayed as a far more serious Well-Intentioned Extremist and terrorist who not only lacks his trademark costume but also most of his more bizarre personality.
- Adaptational Sympathy: In the comics, his path to becoming the Riddler is a petty one, being a compulsive desire to prove himself as the smartest being on the planet stemming from a father that doesn't understand his son's love for riddles and knowledge, and he always tries to come up with riddles that Batman can't solve. In this film, he's an orphan who grew up miserable and alone in an uncaring society, and his riddles are meant to expose the corruption within Gotham. Nashton's riddles are also not meant to be Unwinnable by Design, but rather to complement Batman's detective skills, and because he sees the Dark Knight as an ally to his crusade.
- Adaptational Ugliness: Downplayed. The Riddler doesn't look ugly per se, but he does appear to be a lot more rugged and unkempt than he usually is, wearing a baggy trench coat instead of a flashy, dapper suit and looking like an average guy on the street rather than a conventionally attractive man.
- Adapted Out: Most versions of Riddler have it that he was abused by his father, and on the rare occasion she's mentioned, his mother isn't much better. Being that this version of Riddler is an orphan, and one implied to have lost his parents very early in life, that part of his past is dropped.
- Adaptation Name Change: Subverted. His given name in this continuity is Edward Nashton. While The Riddler is commonly known as Edward Nygma — or E. Nygma — there are several iterations of the character where Nashton is his family name before he turns to supervillainy and legally changes it.
- Advance Notice Crime: Riddler posts a secure video for his followers, instructing them to massacre refugees from the seawall falling but also giving a way for Batman and the Gotham police to figure out in advance what's going to happen by hiding the password to unlock the video underneath his carpet. Pointedly, the only reason he does this is because he sincerely believed Batman was his ally in the same crusade against the injustices of the city, suffering a Villainous Breakdown when the caped crusader rejects him to his face, before recovering after realising he'd missed the final puzzle piece and hadn't joined him in Arkham because of it, leaving his plan free to (mostly) succeed.
- All Crimes Are Equal: He sees Martha Arkham Wayne being traumatized to the point of spending years in and out of institutions as a young woman after her parents died in a gruesome murder-suicide as just as much a sign of degeneracy and dishonesty as the actual corruption of Gotham's law enforcement and political classes.
- All for Nothing: The Riddler’s side goal, as a narcissist, is to be seen by everyone due to being denied attention in his youth. In the end, thanks to Batman's heroism, the news starts focusing on him instead. Riddler doesn't take this well.
- Animal Motifs: Rats - he associates himself with them because of the condition of the orphanage he grew up in, hiding in shadows and operates in a dark, ramshackle building the way a rat would. His second victim had his head trapped in a makeshift torture device with rats gnawing his face and his second riddle includes rats as part of the passage, "You Are El Rata Alada". The final stage of his plan involves flooding Gotham—effectively, drowning its population like rats. And rats can have lots of offspring, like the Riddler having lots of followers to carry out said plan. And to top it all off, rat is one changed letter from bat, with the latter often being compared to the former as a winged version of it - the Riddler ultimately wants to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the Batman but is instead doomed to be seen beneath him as the villain to Batman's hero.
- Anti-Villain: Zig-Zagged. Riddler presents himself as a Well-Intentioned Extremist, but ultimately proves to be selfishly lashing out even at innocent people. That said, he had a horrific childhood that left him traumatized and disturbed, and Riddler: Year One shows he started out as having genuinely heroic intentions before the knowledge of how corrupt Gotham's government was broke him.
- Attention Whore: While this isn't his sole motivation, Riddler clearly enjoys the fame that accompanies his actions, even gloating to Batman that everyone will know who he is, even though he's been captured. In a darker sense, he has no problems flooding the city and ordering his followers to gun down civilians because he considers Gotham's apathy towards his suffering to be an actual crime.
- Ax-Crazy: He's not exactly right in the head. To boot, he likes to be theatrical in a maniacal fashion, especially when broadcasting his riddles and who he is about to kill, and his method of killing people himself is to viciously lunge at someone and bash their skull in with animalistic ferocity. His psychotic outlook doesn't falter one bit when he meets with Batman face-to-face, and, if anything, it highlights just how immature and childish he really is.
- Badass Boast: Delivers a good one mixed with his usual love for riddles."What's black and blue and dead all over? You... if you think you can stop what's coming."
- Badass Bureaucrat: His civilian occupation is a forensic accountant, and going through the books is what got him on the trail of the criminal conspiracy he spends the movie exposing to the public.
- The Bad Guy Wins: In a manner of speaking. While he was definitely captured and put into Arkham Asylum, not to mention his delusional "partnership" with Batman dissolving into nothing before it ever started, he actually managed to complete his Final Solution and destroyed Gotham Bay, flooding most of the city and changing Gotham possibly forever. However, in the end Riddler is still left distraught that Batman was able foil his masterstroke: which would've been the mass murder of all the people - including and especially Gotham's optimistic new mayor - fleeing his terrorist attack, and he's convinced by the guy in the next cell over that he needs a "comeback story" to truly feel like a success.
- Bad Influencer: A deeply disturbed variation. Not only do his livestreams attract a small but fiercely loyal coterie of followers, but his behavior during the final, private one is eerily calm and friendly; he thanks everyone first for showing up like they're here to watch him play video games, not incite a disaster that will kill hundreds if not thousands, and expresses his gratitude for the tips his fans gave him about remote detonators. It really drives home that this is a thirty-something manchild with little in the way of resources or practical knowledge whose crimes still brought the city to its knees.
- Bait-and-Switch: Seems to call Batman by his real name, but is actually just building up to a Motive Rant about his resentment of Bruce Wayne for still having money to fall back on after his parents were murdered.
- Batman Gambit: Impressively pulled off on Batman himself. Many of the steps in Riddler's plan involve Batman simply doing his job and figuring out all his clues. It's eventually revealed that this is because Riddler was under the impression that he and Batman were on the same side.
- Berserk Button: Fitting with his hatred of deception, he gets really pissed when his victims try to claim innocence or beg for mercy, screaming at Gil Colson when he tries to avoid Riddler's judgement.
- Big Bad Ensemble: While The Riddler's murders of those involved in the Maroni bust are what primarily drive the plot of the first film, Carmine Falcone's role in ratting out Salvatore to seize control of Gotham's underworld and stranglehold over the city make him just as much of a priority during the second act. Riddler ends up proving the greater threat in the end, however, after assassinating Falcone and outclassing the mundane threat he posed by flooding Gotham.
- Big Dam Plot: The climax of Riddler's plan is to blow up the seawalls around downtown Gotham, causing large-scale flooding that will force the survivors to shelter in a stadium above sea level... where his followers will be waiting to pick them off in the rafters.
- Broken Pedestal:
- He's crestfallen when he realizes that Batman, who he thought was on his side and was working toward advancing his goals, sees him as nothing more than a delusional psychopath. Edward's disappointment then grows when he realizes Batman wasn't smart enough to figure out his plan by the time they met.
- Year One reveals he originally admired Thomas Wayne for funding his orphanage, but after discovering he associated with Falcone, Edward became convinced Thomas was corrupt as well and had deliberately let Carmine siphon off the funds meant for charity.
- Burn the Orphanage: In his past he burned down the orphanage he grew up in. However, this is downplayed by the fact that he pulled the fire alarm before doing so and allowed the staff and orphans to escape with their lives.
- Casting Gag: Paul Dano had previously portrayed a bespectacled young adult exhibiting troublesome antisocial behavior and childish tendencies due to a stunted mental growth in addition to a Dark and Troubled Past as an orphan, being subject of a lengthy police investigation. Additionally, Dano's infamous falsettos provide an unsettling effect when the Riddler tauntingly sings "Ave Maria" whilst Batman is angrily demanding to know what the Riddler's endgame is.
- Character Blog: In-Universe, he has his mysterious livestreams. Out-Of-Universe, he has something of a Character Alternate Reality Game in the form of https://www.rataalada.com
. - The Chessmaster: He orchestrates everything in the film and plays multiple people, including Bruce, for pawns as a way to enact his real plan of flooding the city.
- Civvie Spandex: His costume is an off-the-shelf coat with his logo drawn on it, gloves, a cold-weather military surplus mask, cling film wrapped around the head (to avoid leaving forensic evidence) and glasses. Presumably, he picked it out of easy-to-access materials precisely to make it impossible to trace his prior movements and identify him whilst his plan is underway. His followers wear the same, possibly to evoke the Black Bloc riot tactic, where people wear generic black clothes to prevent identification and look organized and numerous.
- Collective Identity: He fully expects to be arrested by the GCPD in the end, and thus encourages his followers to continue his work by flooding Gotham City and killing everyone at an election rally. His followers all don his masked costume as they begin their assault, making it appear that the Riddler is everywhere.
- Complexity Addiction: Not as prominent as previous incarnations, but still present. His plan involves getting Batman to figure out Falcone engineered the Maroni drug bust to take control of the local government via cryptic clues and obtuse bread crumbs, as opposed to just telling Batman and Gotham in general what happened like he does with Mitchell's infidelities and Thomas Wayne using Falcone to intimidate a reporter. In particular, Riddler seems to think just leaving the "rat with wings" clue is enough to finger Falcone as the informant on the Maroni drug bust, despite the clue more obviously pointing to Penguin or even Batman himself, meaning it takes Selina stumbling onto the truth for Batman and Gordon to even figure it out. That said, it's also precisely because he was so roundabout in his communications to Batman that he fails to realise Riddler's final plan is still underway until he accidentally blurts it out to him, meaning that being so complex actually worked as much in his favour as against it.
- Composite Character: He's the Riddler, no doubt; but his characterization draws inspiration from several different comics characters.
- His mask, trench coat, and personal obsession with Bruce Wayne are reminiscent of Hush, especially with how he wraps his first victim's head in tape that invokes Hush's bandaged attire and one of his videos talking about "hush money" having "HUSH?" written onscreen.
- His masked appearance and unassuming scrawny physique out-of-costume can bring Scarecrow to mind.
- His characterization as a Well-Intentioned Extremist activist who goes to extremes to fight against what he believes to be corruption is a trademark of Anarky. He even has a cult of followers like Anarky does in Batman: Arkham Origins. It may also bring back memories of the version of Bane from The Dark Knight Rises, who is also a masked terrorist who plans to destroy Gotham.
- He invokes various versions of the Joker, most notably his twisted sense of humor and love of decorating his victims as part of a sadistic display. Him uploading creepy videos showcasing his threats and promises of terror he plans to sow upon Gotham are reminiscent of the Heath Ledger Joker from The Dark Knight. His extreme hatred of a corrupt Gotham and having a gang of like-minded followers brings to mind the Arthur Fleck incarnation of the Joker. When he meets the Clown Prince himself in Arkham, they even share a laugh and seem to strike up common ground!
- Him being a masked terrorist who has a bone to pick with the Waynes because he blames them for the deplorable living conditions he grew up in, specifically targeting Bruce, and who ironically praises Batman for working to bring down a corrupt system brings to mind Vicki Vale/Lady Arkham from Batman: The Telltale Series. The difference is that Thomas Wayne really was responsible for Vicki's pain, but Edward's pain was an unfortunate consequence of a corrupt system taking advantage of Thomas's murder.
- He takes the role of the murderer of Carmine Falcone from Two-Face and the Holiday Killer.
- As for what other incarnations of the Riddler he takes inspiration from, his Giggling Villain tendencies come from the Frank Gorshin portrayal from the 60s show, his terrorist acts come from his Earth One counterpart, his Saw-like traps are straight from the Arkham games, him being a Loony Fan seems to take inspiration from Jim Carrey's version, and finally his more ruthless and homicidal nature appear to be taken from the Gotham version.
- Cool Mask: Unintentional pun aside, he wears a cold-weather military surplus mask to hide his identity, but not only that it's quite uncanny and quite malevolent-looking furthering his image as an enigmatic figure.
- Cop Hater: The GCPD are among those he views as irredeemably corrupt. During his final video where he lays out his plan to flood Gotham, he refers to them as pigs.
- Dark and Troubled Past:
- Edward Nashton was an orphan in Gotham City who was promised by Thomas Wayne that he and his fellow orphans would be looked after via the "Renewal" foundation. However, after Thomas' murder, the criminals (Falcone in particular) and selfish elite stole, extorted, or hoarded the money for themselves and left Edward and the others in inhumane living conditions with "carers" who either neglected or outright abused them. Edward became fascinated with riddles and puzzles because they were the only form of escapism he had in his miserable childhood, and his mental health clearly went downhill as he grew up, leading to the psychopathic Serial Killer and terrorist we see today.
- The Riddler: Year One comics series explores this further: He was abandoned as a baby at the orphanage, with his mother implied to have killed herself later in Arkham. Edward would hide his ability to speak out of fear for retaliation by others boys, being made to participate in cruel games such as smashing a turtle's shell open with a rock, and it is shown he has some form of hallucinatory psychosis and anxiety as a result of all of this.
- Dark Is Evil: In what can be considered a parallel to Batman, Riddler's costume is a very mottled shade of green, and he's about as psychotic, vindictive, and immature as you could get for a villain.
- Darker and Edgier: While other iterations of the Riddler have killed people, he eschews the character's usual camp nature and comes across as being closer to John Doe or the Zodiac Killer than a clownish archnemesis.
- Deconstructed Character Archetype: This version of the Riddler is given a more realistic and darker take on the character's warped narcissism, which is more exaggerated than prior versions. In particular, the Riddler's traditional narcissism is ramped up by transforming him into a vigilante. Instead of lording over others with his intelligence and making comical schemes, Nashton becomes completely obsessed with his war on crime, to the point of being unable to understand or care about the damage he's causing. The Riddler only ends up losing because his ego causes him to be unable to see the obvious connections between Bruce and the Batman, too convinced of Bruce's supposed arrogance.
- Didn't See That Coming: He plays Batman, the GCPD and every one of the rich, corrupt wealthy in Gotham like a fiddle to cut them down to size and destroy the evil that plagues Gotham. He unfortunately didn't account for Batman disagreeing with his methods.
- Didn't Think This Through: The Riddler's final actions in the film are to rig seven car bombs within Gotham and blow them up so that the waters from the nearby river flood the city. This would result in the corrupt, wealthy citizens all drowning in the aftermath. As The Penguin shows, most of Riddler's bombs were detonated in the poorer areas of Gotham that he could easily park the seven vans in, and his plan killed mostly innocent civilians who had nothing to do with the city's corruption, leaving the rich mostly unharmed. This has the side effect of making the organized crime in Gotham City even worse, while the rest of the city is distracted with trying to repair the damage that Riddler caused. It's symbolic of his Motive Decay in switching from desiring to tear down the corrupt rulers of the city's elite to tearing it all down to force everyone to endure the same suffering he did — rather than use his intellect to punish the guilty few, Riddler instead devises a way to lash out and force everyone to recognize his own pain by proxy.
- Double Meaning: His riddles tend to play out via this trope as a way to make them ironic and karmic from his perspective, make his challenges more intense for Batman and the GCPD, and to portray the two as visceral and violent as a way to inspire others to his cause and instill fear to Gotham's populace.
- The Riddler's first cipher is determined to be a coded message that spells out DRIVE. Batman figures out this means two things: that the next clue is in the car of the Riddler's victim, and that the clue is stored in a disk drive... specifically a "thumb drive", with the victim's thumb included.
- The Riddler's second victim is killed by being injected with arsenic (rat poison) and then having rats eat his face. It's a message symbolizing how corruption is eating Gotham alive, that there's a "rat" in the centre of the conspiracy, and that he wants the rat dead.
- The Riddler's second cipher has a clue about "rata alada", meaning "rat with wings". Gordon and Batman determine it could also mean a pigeon, specifically a stool pigeon, and focusing on the "wings" aspect, initially suspect Penguin, because a penguin has wings. Penguin angrily suggests Batman himself to be the "rat with wings" when they accuse him, because a bat also has wings, and bats are often called flying rats. It turns out the stool pigeon is Falcone — a falcon also has wings.
- The note addressed to Batman alongside the letter bomb intended for Bruce Wayne reading "See You In Hell" turns out to be an unintentional one: Batman entered the situation assuming the Riddler found out his true identity and the letter was intended as a Post-Mortem One-Liner but Edward's greeting when they finally meet ("I told you I'd see you in Hell") and his later breakdown implies it was actually a sincere invitation to Arkham Asylum to protect him from the bombings.
- Dramatic Irony: The Riddler is a Loony Fan for Batman (albeit for deeply misguided reasons), while murderously resenting Bruce Wayne, and is convinced that he doesn't need to know whoever's underneath the mask because he sees Batman as his true self.
- The Dreaded: His murder spree has turned him into one of Gotham's most feared and dangerous criminals.
- Even Evil Has Standards:
- As much of his motivation is tied to lies and conspiracies that keep the disadvantaged downtrodden, it's safe to say he really doesn't condone government conspiracies, especially the types that keep the defenseless down, because he was one himself.
- Riddler despises the likes of Carmine Falcone and the people who were on his payroll for the terrible things he did to the city, and his main motivation is to expose him and kill him personally.
- When Batman interrogates Riddler in Arkham Asylum, he states how hellish the living conditions of the orphanage were, and emphasizes that winter was the worst season, as it was guaranteed the baby orphans would die from the cold. The way he says the latter suggests that it repulsed even him on a personal level.
- Edward was the one responsible for burning the Wayne Manor/Orphanage but he made sure to pull the fire alarm and evacuate the building before doing so.
- Evidence Dungeon: His apartment, when Batman and the cops discover it after he's shot Carmine Falcone, is covered with newspaper clippings of his various targets, his scrawled rantings about Gotham's corruption on the walls, his journal filled with his gibberish thoughts, and some of the leftover gear and supplies he used to construct his Saw-style devices used against his prior victims. All of this is a smokescreen for the real valuable clue hidden in the apartment - a detailed map of Riddler's final plan, and the password needed to unlock his final video located underneath the ordinary carpet in the room.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good:
- He genuinely believes that he and Batman are on the same side and that Batman is willingly helping him to expose corruption in Gotham, and is shocked to hear that Batman considers him a murdering psychopath. That Batman doesn't kill, and definitely wouldn't support Riddler's endgame of flooding Gotham and opening fire on civilians seeking shelter is a complete surprise to Riddler.
- The Riddler has everything he needs to figure out Batman's identity, to the point where Bruce is briefly but genuinely scared that he knows.. until it becomes clear that Riddler cannot connect the rich man who he resents and envies to the vigilante crusader he's decided to emulate, and seems convinced that Batman wanted to kill Wayne with him. Even if he was the figure on the balcony at the funeral, not one of his followers, seeing Bruce tackle Mitchell's son out of the path of a speeding car meant absolutely nothing to him or his twisted perception of the man.
- Evil Counterpart: Like Bruce, he sees himself as a costumed crimefighter, both of them keep a journal of their exploits, both have an Animal Motif (even if Edward's is much more downplayed), and most importantly, both were orphans shaped by childhood trauma.
- Evil Genius: He's Batman's intellectual match, staying one step ahead of him and the GCPD and orchestrating multiple kidnappings and murders of high-profile figures and that's before his real plan of destroying the city as a whole.
- Evil Gloating: He leaves multiple clues and riddles that carry this tone throughout the scene of his murders specifically for Batman. However, this is actually Subverted; Riddler is genuinely trying to communicate with Batman in his twisted way and lead him to the truth about the Rat so they can take down Gotham's biggest criminal element "together". This misperception is furthered by the fact that one of the targets Riddler wants eliminated to erase Gotham's corrupt elite is Bruce Wayne himself, causing him to unintentionally send mixed messages to Batman through his different reactions to both halves of his secret identity. It's only played straight right at the end, when Batman rejects Riddler to his face as a deluded psychopath, sending him into a Villainous Breakdown wherein he blurts out that his final grandest plan is still underway, something he was under the impression Batman already knew about. Upon realising that he's clueless, he tauntingly keeps his mouth shut, only responding to Batman's angry demand for answers by childishly singing Ave Maria as Bruce becomes increasingly frenzied in trying to force the answers out of him.
- Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: He has a fondness for dark puns, such as giving Batman digital photos on a thumbdrive (that is, a fingerprint-encrypted flash drive with Mitchell's severed thumb attached), and telling D.A. Colson (whom he's fitted with an explosive collar) not to "lose [his] head."
- Evil Is Hammy: Is actually quite verbose in a few scenes when he's caught in the thrill of his Riddler persona, typically when he's on camera. His Villainous Breakdown also has him screaming at the top of his lungs in a very entertaining way.
- Evil Is Petty: In true Riddler fashion:
- While most of his targets are Asshole Victims which lends him some justification in targeting them, the same can't be said for Bruce Wayne, who he targets primarily by proxy due to his father's actions. When his letter bomb fails to kill Bruce, his usual viral messaging exposing the target's "sins" online — in Bruce's case, those of his father — is addressed to Bruce directly with noticeable spite for his survival, and after he's incarcerated after killing most of his targets, he's still musing over Bruce's survival and making it clear he's still determined to kill him. When he finally gets the chance to speak with Batman directly, Edward reveals that this was also not his sole motivation, and that he targeted Bruce due to his resentment over how his privileged upbringing meant that Bruce never "truly" suffered as an orphan like Edward did.
- Meanwhile, he has absolutely no justification for targeting the new mayor or the ordinary citizens of Gotham by bombing the seawall and flooding the city, beyond simply wanting revenge for his personal suffering and feeling that they're responsible for it because they weren't aware of his terrible living conditions.
- Evil Sounds Deep: When electronically modified, he has an uncannily deep voice to add to his frightening identity as a Serial Killer. Averted with his actual voice, which is eerily high-pitched to reflect his Psychopathic Manchild status.
- Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: A dual one occurs for both him and Batman at the same time. When Edward suffers his Villainous Breakdown during his interrogation, he angrily rants that he'd planned far enough ahead to bring Batman to the interrogation room to keep him safe from what's coming, causing Batman to realise that he's put something in motion that will endanger lives on a grand scale, and Edward to realise that Batman was completely clueless about his final plan until he told him, despite having the clues he'd left him to spell it out.
- Explosive Leash: He has an explosive device installed into District Attorney Colson's neck and forces him to crash into Mayor Mitchell's funeral. He promises to Colson and Batman that he would release the bomb if Colson answers three questions/riddles right in under two minutes. Despite answering two of them with Batman's help, Colson refuses to answer the third riddle (who is the "rat"?), as that would put his family's lives in danger, ultimately getting his head blown up in the process.
- Expy: His full face mask with large Nerd Glasses, along with taunting messages left at the scenes of his murders, and using his own special alphabet, evoke the real-life Zodiac Killer. His penchant for putting his victims into elaborate deathtraps also evokes Jigsaw, which has also influenced other iterations of the Riddler.
- Eviler than Thou: After murdering the thoroughly despicable Carmine Falcone, he one-ups him in villainy by killing thousands in a petty terrorist act.
- The Faceless: His face was obscured in all the promotional materials, with him either wearing a mask or the camera cutting away before his face is revealed. This holds for most of the movie — the one time he shows up unmasked prior to his arrest, it's with his back to a window, leaving him a black silhouette and nothing else.
- Fame Through Infamy: The Riddler admits to Batman that he's okay being sentenced to Arkham forever because he's convinced that everyone will remember him now. Remember him as the nobody who destroyed the corrupt Gotham City.
- Faux Affably Evil: Acts chummy to his targets and cracks inappropriate jokes while he has them in his deathtraps.
- Feeling Oppressed by Their Existence: His core rationale for his final act — it doesn't matter that the new mayor very well may have been honest, or that the average Gotham citizen has nothing to do with the corruption plaguing the city, the whole city is beyond salvation, and everyone who lives in it deserves to die just for being a part of it.
- Final Solution: He believes that Gotham is so corrupt that not even Bella Reál will change it with her agenda. So he plans to make real change by flooding Gotham with the sea, drowning countless people both innocent and guilty in its wake. Then he tells his followers to finish off the survivors.
- Foil: To Batman. Like the Batman, the Riddler was an orphan who grew up wanting to rid Gotham of crime and corruption through vigilante means, but their appearances, personalities, and methods are polar opposites of each other. Their upbringings are also markedly different - while both are orphans, Bruce inherited his parents' fortune and at least had something of a parental figure in Alfred (even though the latter admits he couldn't truly replace Bruce's father). Edward Nashton, meanwhile, grew up with nothing and no one, no doubt playing a role in fostering his vicious hatred towards society as a whole.
- Batman is an athletic, rugged man who non-lethally beats up low-life criminals on the streets. The Riddler is a scrawny, nerdish man who cannot fight, but can efficiently murder corrupt people high up in the city's legal system.
- Bruce Wayne was a rich orphan who lost his parents and with them, nearly all hope. Edward Nashton was a poor orphan who lost all hope because the Waynes' funding for the orphanage he lived in was siphoned away by greedy, corrupt individuals. Incidentally, one of the ARG photos belonging to the Riddler shows young Bruce with his parents, about a foot away from Nashton in the orphanage's choir, with a similar haircut.
- Batman avoids the public limelight, both in his vigilante and civilian persona, and gets bad publicity as a result. The Riddler embraces the public limelight, using social media to spread his message and gain a cult following.
- Both start off as vengeful loners but find a kindred spirit by the end of the film. For Batman, it's Selina Kyle, and for Riddler, it's the Joker.
- Turns out both of them keep journals about their efforts. But Bruce starts the movie wondering if he's actually doing any real good, while Riddler is utterly, unshakably convinced his mass-murdering plot is the right thing to do, even as he loses touch with reality.
- Both of them have engineering projects scattered around their lairs. Batman has his gadgets and the Batmobile, and Riddler has his murder mechanisms.
- Four Eyes, Zero Soul: He wears large translucent Nerd Glasses and is not on the side of good.
- Freudian Excuse: His insanely awful childhood in Gotham's defunded orphanage shaped his eventual turn to violent extremism, as he feels that what he went through is an extension of everything that's wrong with the city, and he wants to make people pay for his own suffering.
- Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: When he tells his tragic backstory to Batman, he expects Batman to sympathize with him, since in his delusional mind they're working together and are on the same side. Batman responds that the Riddler is just a pathetic psychopath, which causes the Riddler to lose his composure. And this is before Batman realizes that Riddler's ultimate plan is flooding the city and assassinating the new mayor and innocent civilians who fled to high ground.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: Started as a random orphan who became a forensic accountant. When he realized how corrupt the city truly was, the Batman inspired him to become the Riddler, who nearly destroys the heart of Gotham. Notably, unlike Bruce, he didn't have any direct connection to the conspiracy that caused his horrible childhood, except indirectly as one of thousands of impoverished children who suffered from poor living conditions thanks to their monopolisation of the Wayne Renewal fund. And yet he was able to find out the truth of how corrupt the city's authority figures were, the identity of the 'Rat with Wings' when it's a death sentence to even speak of it, and isolate, trap, and kill them systematically despite lacking Bruce's physical abilities or funding. Similarly, Riddler's groupies are all, implicitly, random nobodies who likewise suffered from the rampant corruption and crime in Gotham.
G-O
- Giggling Villain: Riddler is especially giddy and snickering in his video execution of the police commissioner. He later shares a few nearly in-unison laughs with none other than the Joker himself.
- Go Mad from the Revelation: While his miserable childhood in the orphanage guaranteed he'd suffer from some degree of mental illness, it was finding a Gotham Renewal Fund ledger that led him spiraling into the conspiracy rabbit hole and taking up arms as the Riddler.
- Grammar Correction Gag: Riddler's second cipher spells out "you are el rata alada", which Alfred and the Penguin independently point out is misspelled, as it should be "la rata". Batman eventually realizes the spelling mistake must be intentional after some mockery from the Penguin, and figures out it phonetically spells out "URL rataalada", which leads to a website Riddler uses to communicate with Batman for his next clue.
- Greater-Scope Villain: Of The Penguin. He by no means has any active involvement in the central plot, but his flooding of Gotham and assassination of Carmine Falcone are what set the stage for Victor Aguilar's fall into villainy as well as the power struggle between Oz, the Falcone Crime Family, the Maronis, and Sofia's own rise to power.
- Green and Mean: He dresses in a green jacket, though it is neither really part of a "costumed persona" nor garish unlike most previous incarnations of the Riddler, as per the grounded and gritty tone of the film.
- Green-Eyed Monster: He loathes Bruce Wayne for being an orphan born into money while he was an orphan left destitute and forgotten by Gotham's corruption.
- Hated by All: By the time of The Penguin, Edward Nashton's actions have made him utterly reviled by the entirety of Gotham, with law enforcement, criminals, and ordinary citizens speaking about him with disgust for what he did to the city and how many people he murdered in his mad quest for vengeance.
- Hates My Secret Identity: He's a Loony Fan of Batman, but despises Bruce Wayne, who he envies and resents because of his own miserable childhood in an Orphanage of Fear. He also admits to having no interest in learning the truth because he views Batman as the real identity.
- Hates Rich People: He despises the wealthy elite for helping to screw orphans like himself out of the help they need to survive. Part of this stems from, Thomas Wayne setting up a public fund to help out the unfortunate of Gotham, only for Carmine Falcone and other corrupt officials to swipe the money for themselves. Even more ironically, he hates Bruce Wayne and tries to have him killed (seeing him as a Hypocrite who's an orphan who lives comfortably while regular orphans like him suffer), but he thinks Batman is his ally.
- He Was Right There All Along: Riddler's evil lair that he broadcasts several of his videos and recorded viral messages to the public from is revealed to be an apartment across the road from the Iceberg Lounge, home of the Gotham Mafia and Riddler's primary target Carmine Falcone, and a location that Bruce visits several times both as Batman and Bruce Wayne. This reveal is actually Foreshadowed by the photos and pictures Riddler sent of the Mayor and various other corrupt city leaders entering the Iceberg Lounge -— all of them are taken from the same angle and location, Riddler's apartment window, but because of his cryptic clues and mind-games, everybody ended up overlooking where he'd had them taken. Justified, as Riddler wanted to be in a prime location to strike Falcone down when Batman exposed him without drawing attention to himself by creating a sniper's nest on the roof of the building, and absolutely nobody thought he'd have the brass cojones to set up shop so close to the dangerous criminals he was antagonising.
- He Who Fights Monsters: At best, he thinks he's this, since he seems at least nominally aware of the gravity of his actions, but is completely convinced that they're ultimately necessary for the greater good of the city. Eventually subverted, as it becomes clear that it's all about his own selfish need to avenge his past suffering, and he is willing to turn innocents into collateral damage to achieve that end.
- Hidden in Plain Sight: His costume is made out of ordinary items you can buy at any army surplus store (the painted-on Riddler logo is his only addition). His followers even exploit this later in the film. Without his costume, he just looks like some nebbish, unsuspecting kid you wouldn't think twice about, except for the slightly unusual transparent frames for his glasses. When he murders the mayor in the cold open of the film, the mayor doesn't even notice Riddler standing right behind him until it's too late. After he assassinates Falcone, the police discover his sniper's nest was an apartment he was renting right across the street from the Iceberg Lounge, which is how he got all his recon on the public figures who did business there.
- Hidden Villain: The film goes through great efforts to obscure Riddler's unmasked face for the bulk of the film's runtime up until his arrest, which makes the reveal that there's nothing special about his appearance and he just looks like an average guy more unsettling. This is shortly followed by the reveal that his groupie copycats are also just random people.
- Horrible Judge of Character: He honestly thought Batman would actually approve of his murder and crime spree, while convincing himself that Bruce Wayne is just as corrupt as his other victims.
- Horror Doesn't Settle for Simple Tuesday: The Riddler's first murder, in an obvious nod to The Long Halloween, takes place on Halloween night, which presumably helped him with approaching the mayor's residence unsuspiciously.
- Hypocrite:
- While he presents himself as someone looking to rid Gotham of corruption and its wealth inequality, his endgame involves killing Bella Reál, someone who not only isn't a part of Gotham's corruption but is looking to solve the very problems Riddler is citing as his motivation for his plans. His only justification for it is brushing off the system as beyond hope of repair.
- He tries to smear Martha Wayne by revealing her stay at an insane asylum. But as the rest of this page suggests, the Riddler is far from sane himself. It's also pretty rich of him to posit himself as a voice of the oppressed and impoverished given that mentally ill people who can't get treatment make up a good portion of said groups.
- He's motivated by his own horrific experience as an orphan. So naturally, his endgame is to flood Gotham, which is not only guaranteed to orphan dozens to hundreds of Gotham's children but worsen or end the lives of any children living on the street.
- Riddler presents himself as an Eat the Rich vigilante, but as we learn in The Penguin, the bombs he used to flood the city were detonated in some of the poorest parts of Gotham, killing dozens of some of Gotham's worst off in the blast followed by hundreds more in the resulting flood. So, the majority of the vigilante who wanted to tear down Gotham's upper class's body count are the poor and struggling people he was supposedly trying to help.
- I Reject Your Reality: Despite being clever enough to figure it out and having all the clues he needs, he hasn't figured out that Batman is really Bruce Wayne. Batman is even genuinely shocked he doesn't know. The reason is that Riddler grew up hating Bruce Wayne for his wealth and status while he grew up in squalor. He can't even comprehend that the person he hates the most and the hero he admires are one and the same.
- It Is Beyond Saving: One of the main reasons for Riddler's attacks and acts of terrorism is that he's surely convinced himself that Gotham City is corrupt to its core and really cannot be saved, and he wants to assert this point by targeting some of the city's most wealthy and powerful citizens, socially and politically.
- It's All About Me: He turns out to be fixated on his own misery to a very self-centered extent. Rather than try to fix Gotham through his actions, he intends to spread misery and destruction just because he can't stand the thought of anyone being happy when he's miserable.
- Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: His first few murders target corrupt government officials that have betrayed their offices and supported criminals they are supposed to be stopping in order to line their own pockets. He then targets Bruce Wayne for extremely petty reasons. He jumped off the slope before the movie even began, as the murder weapon in the first murder is the clue to uncovering his final plan to flood the city and kill the new mayor and other survivors taking shelter in Gotham Square Garden.
- Jump Scare: After sneaking into Mayor Mitchell's room and watching him silently, the Riddler announces himself with a sudden, loud screech before bludgeoning Mitchell to death.
- Just Toying with Them: It's implied that giving Gil Colson a chance to escape his trap is just for show, and that he always planned to kill him. For starters, "DOA" is written all over the van used to break into the funeral service, which indicates that he wasn't going to walk out alive. Then he presents him with a riddle that would place a target on himself and his loved ones if he answered. With this in mind, it's likely that the Riddler just wanted a confession for his crimes before presenting him with a riddle he would refuse to answer.
- Lack of Empathy:
- He believes that Bruce Wayne, who saw his parents gunned down, hasn't suffered for being an orphan, simply because Bruce has money. As far as he's concerned, Bruce deserves to die for his father's sins simply for existing.
- Despite his goals of exposing the corruption of Gotham City, Riddler doesn't actually care about the people there, as shown by his endgame of flooding the city, then having his followers gun down the new mayor (who really does intend to help the city) and the innocent people who seek shelter from the flood.
- Large Ham: It might be a scarier take on the Riddler, but he's still a full of himself, over-the-top guy. In his videos, he often mugs the camera, with the impression that he is constantly gurning underneath his mask, and he frequently lets his excitement get the better of him, leading his speeches and motive rants to become increasingly high-pitched and increase in volume and pace the longer he goes on. It possibly gets even more pronounced after he's arrested — his interrogation has Edward over-enunciating everything ("Bruuuce Waaaayneee") and eventually singing "Ave Maria".
- Leitmotif: A variation of "Ave Maria", which has been transposed to a minor key, serves as the Riddler's theme. The original piece also comes up a few times in the film; it accompanies the opening scene, is sung by a children's choir during the funeral (signaling the Riddler's presence), a similar choir is heard singing it in Thomas Wayne's campaign announcement (with one photo in the Riddler's lair and his own commentary revealing he and presumably some of the other orphans made up the choir), and is later sung by Edward himself when he taunts Batman.
- Light Is Not Good: He's associated with the light, as he wishes to shine a light on the full extent of Gotham's corruption. But, due to his methods, this light often signals death.
- Likes Clark Kent, Hates Superman: Inverted. He genuinely admires Batman and sees him as a major inspiration for his acts of terrorism, to the point where he doesn't actually care at all about finding out his civilian identity; to him, Batman is the true identity, and however the civilian person behind the mask is simply doesn't matter. By contrast, in a twist of irony, he absolutely despises Bruce Wayne due to his family ties and his position as among Gotham's richest and most influential people.
- Loony Fan: Is essentially this for Batman, admitting that Batman was the inspiration for his crusade, and has deluded himself into thinking they're teaming up to take on the mob. He's in turn earned a similar following.
- Lost Food Grievance: His only complaint when the police arrest him is that they did so before he could get the piece of pie that he ordered.
- Mad Bomber: He has Colson hooked up to an Explosive Leash, and the final part of his plan involves him setting off vans filled with explosives to destroy Gotham's seawalls. When they go off, Riddler can't help but laugh in glee from his cell. However, he needed help setting up the detonators from some of his livestream subscribers.
- Malevolent Masked Men: He wears a dark-green military cold weather full-face mask and they look plenty malevolent and sinister. It serves a practical purpose of concealing his identity and to further his own enigmatic nature. His followers are eventually inspired to take up this costuming style for Riddler's own endgame plan.
- Misaimed Fandom: In-Universe. Late in the movie, it's revealed that the Riddler and his followers were inspired by the Batman's use of fear and violence. The Riddler even assumed the Batman would approve of his actions.
- Misery Poker: The Riddler is completely unsympathetic to Bruce Wayne being orphaned at a young age because he didn't have to grow up in a poorly funded orphanage like he and Gotham's other orphans did.
- Misplaced Retribution:
- The Riddler tries to kill Bruce Wayne because the media constantly covered his sad story of being orphaned at a young age, while ignoring the underprivileged orphans like Riddler who lived at the orphanage in squalor instead of the luxury of a wealthy household.
- The Riddler's final plan of flooding Gotham by destroying the sea wall and having his followers murder Bella Réal and her supporters targets many innocent people who had nothing to do with the corruption that Riddler is trying to fight against, and in Réal's case, would have killed the only major politician actually trying to fix these problems. The Riddler justifies this with the belief that the city is so rotten to the core that it deserves to be completely destroyed. The Penguin confirms that the rich people Riddler despises were ultimately unaffected by the flood, and the ones who suffered most were the poor citizens Riddler claims to represent.
- Moral Sociopathy: He is a sick psychopath with an obsession with riddles, but he does have a sense of right and wrong. He sees Gotham as a cesspool full of criminals and corrupt elites that deserves to be cleansed, and he ensures that every one of his victim has their dirty laundry exposed to prove his point. He even considers himself to be an ally of Batman, leaving clues and riddles for him to uncover the drug conspiracy that the Riddler himself couldn't uproot. This moral code, however, is a very extreme black-and-white view of the world, as he considers Gotham to be so irredeemable that not even a genuine progressive candidate like Bella Reál is safe from his crusade.
- Movie Superheroes Wear Black: He never wears the bright green costumes he had in the comics and most prior adaptations (neither the Golden Age tights or the more recent green suit and bowler hat outfit), opting instead for a very dark-green trench coat that he's crudely painted a question mark on and a military surplus cold-weather mask. This is justified in-universe as him picking a disguise that leaves no evidence to who he actually is.
- Mythology Gag: The glasses he wears are the exact same kind that Jim Carrey wore in Batman Forever.
- Narcissist: He wouldn't be the Riddler if he didn't wholeheartedly believe he, and he alone, has all the answers. Nashton uses riddles to taunt the police with their own ignorance, he plots an elaborate revenge scheme on Gotham for what he suffered as a kid, and hearing his personal idol call him out is such a blow to his overblown ego that he has one hell of a hissy fit. It's even worse that it's clear he still hasn't deduced that Bruce Wayne and Batman are the same person.
- Near-Villain Victory: Most of his ultimate plan goes off without a hitch. He manages to kill all of the city officials he had a vendetta against (except Bruce Wayne), he's exposed the widespread corruption of Gotham's police and politicians, he's amassed a loyal following eager to follow his commands, and he flooded Gotham to cause citywide devastation, but Batman manages to thwart the final step: having his followers assassinate the new mayor-elect and then massacring the people at her swearing-in. At the end, the Riddler is seen having a meltdown in Arkham over the fact he wasn't able to completely succeed, but a fellow inmate comforts him by saying he still did very well.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain!: Downplayed. During Edward's breakdown after Batman rejects him and calls him a psychopath, he ends up letting slip that his plans are still in motion and will cause massive chaos and destruction, leading Batman to unearth his final plan to flood Gotham and assassinate its next mayor Bella Reál to let the city tear itself apart in the chaos without a unifying figure to rally around. By the time he discovers this, it's too late to stop the flooding, but he is able to save Bella and many other citizens from Riddler's followers, meaning that Riddler's plans only fell apart at the end because of his own slip-up. This is very Justified though, as Edward honestly thought Batman and he were working towards a common goal, and that he'd already figured out his plan from all the clues he's left behind, being a little dumbstruck when he realises Batman's still ignorant of his final masterstroke.
- No Historical Figures Were Harmed: Is very blatantly patterned after the Zodiac Killer, what with the glasses, the face-obscuring hood, the sigil on the clothing, and the enigmatic ciphers.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: His sudden attack on Mayor Mitchell can be summed up like this, with Riddler assaulting him without warning and constantly bashing him with a metal utensil despite having knocked him out.
- Non-Action Big Bad: As he himself admits, he isn't a fighter — although he's more than capable of stalking, kidnapping, and murdering people, or putting them into death traps, he doesn't have it in him to fight dozens of people to get to his targets, so he manipulates others when he can't deal with certain targets on his own. While he overpowers and personally kills many people throughout the movie, he relies heavily on stealth and surprise to do so.
- Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: Being a vigilante that seeks to expose corruption and take out those causing it? Understandable, even if he's going way too far to accomplish those ends. But trying to kill Bruce Wayne over a petty vendetta, flooding the city, and inspiring his followers to gun down hundreds of people? Not so much.
- "Not So Different" Remark: Riddler correctly assumes that Batman is motivated by vengeance against a city that wronged him, not so different from his own motive. But Riddler also sneers at the supposed pain of Bruce Wayne, because he thinks being a rich orphan barely "counts" as being one at all, especially compared to the neglected orphanage Riddler grew up in.
- Nothing Is Scarier: The film goes through great efforts to obscure Riddler's unmasked face for a bulk of the film's runtime up until his arrest... which makes the reveal that he looks completely unremarkable more unsettling. The reveal that his groupie copycats are also just random people has equally disturbing implications.
- Not Wearing Tights: Gone are the traditional question-mark-clad tights or suit with a matching bowler hat, instead wearing a simpler, more utilitarian getup that completely obscures him.
- Obliviously Evil: He sees what he's doing as no different than what Batman does, and is stunned when Batman disapproves of his methods and calls him a psychopath to his face. This is before it gets revealed that the last step of his plan involves killing thousands of innocent people by causing a flood and having his goons gun down the survivors.
- His delusion about what he's doing makes him believe he is an ally to Batman, sending him cryptic clues to push Batman to the truth. Batman disabuses him of that idea towards the end by pointing out he's just a psychopathic murderer taunting Batman with obtuse messages.
- Outside-Context Problem: The Penguin shows just how much went into making Carmine Falcone's empire, with both it and the movie making it clear how much of the city is in his pocket and how much power he wielded. Suffice to say, it had no way to prepare for one very obsessive Serial Killer to systematically expose all their biggest secrets to the public and murder several of their crucial associates, eventually including Falcone himself. While there's still enough of the family left that the organization doesn't completely collapse overnight, Carmine's death also allows for the release of his falsely imprisoned daughter Sofia from Arkham, and she finishes the rest of the job.
P-Y
- Pay Evil unto Evil: This is his motive. Every murder he's committed is done in a cruel yet ironic fashion that reflects the sins the victims have committed. Eventually, it gets subverted after killing Falcone, as the Riddler then turns his murderous sight on the whole city of Gotham, and declares it guilty of abandoning him for years.
- Pet the Dog:
- He gives sincere thanks to his followers in his last message to them.
- Edward's initially quite respectful and friendly to Batman, before their conversation starts failing to live up to his expectations.
- In the Year One miniseries, he provides train tickets for the daughter of a drug dealer who he indirectly caused the death of (due to finding evidence of money laundering into the Renewal fund that led his bosses to discover the dealer had been skimming from them), and who had helped him anonymously get info and other tasks, so she and her baby could leave the city before his plan to flood the city happens.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Subtle, but he uses the Arkham family's history of mental illness to smear Bruce's mother Martha, who spent several years in a mental hospital from seeing her parents die in a murder-suicide. Potentially a Justified Trope, in the sense that his own callous scorn of Martha's breakdowns helps demonstrate the general stigma/taboo around mental health in Gotham that would explain why Thomas wanted the story covered up so badly in the wake of his election campaign.
- Psychological Projection: Riddler assumes he and Batman share the same motives and end goals. Two of his riddles demand pedestrian knowledge to solve, showing he does not believe Batman could have a privileged background. This would explain why a textbook narcissist such as he looks up to another person: In Batman, Nashton sees a cooler version of himself.
- Psychopathic Manchild: The barely legible scribbling he writes his notes in project this image, coupled with his bizarre, raving speech patterns. His backstory as an abused orphan abandoned by the city of Gotham reveals he never got the chance to actually grow up. His tendency to throw infantile tantrums when things don't go his way furthers it.
- Pungeon Master: His riddles and clues are awash in punny double meanings, as is typical for the character across his many incarnations.
- Pyrrhic Victory: Most of his agenda is achieved successfully, with nearly all of Gotham's corrupt officials and mobsters that were part of the drug busting conspiracy killed, and Gotham being under water. However, it comes at the price of the Riddler being sent to Arkham State Hospital as an insane inmate, suffering a mental breakdown after Batman rejects him, and watching his final step of his grand plan fall apart as the Batman saves the people he tried to kill at the rally, with the news press lauding Batman as a hero of Gotham while Riddler is barely mentioned at all.
- Red Herring: The film sets up Riddler knowing Bruce Wayne is the Batman, with multiple personal attacks on Bruce Wayne and the implication that he knows more about his family and his own history than Bruce himself. This comes to a head in one of the last scenes, when Batman confronts Nashton at his Arkham cell, with Nashton chillingly enunciating "Bruce Wayne" through the glass... and then telling Batman that it was too bad they weren't able to kill him, making it clear he could have made the connection between Bruce and Batman had he wanted to, but couldn't reconcile the image of the crusader that inspired him (Batman) with his object of hatred (Bruce).
- The Resenter: Having grown up in an orphanage that was left to rot, Edward has zero sympathy for fellow orphan Bruce Wayne, even saying that Bruce's wealth means that he never suffered as a result of being an orphan, unlike him.
- Revenge Is Not Justice: Riddler has a legitimate grievance against Gotham for allowing him and the other orphans to suffer the horrible conditions of an abusive orphanage despite Thomas Wayne's promise to rebuild it. The corruption of the city stole the funding and caused untold misery to Riddler all of his life. However, Batman points out that none of these things give him the right to kill people, especially since the likes of Bruce Wayne had no knowledge of Edward's suffering. While Riddler refuses to learn this lesson, Bruce realizes that Batman should become a symbol of hope, and he needs to do more than just beat up thugs and criminals.
- Riddle for the Ages: How he did learn about how Thomas Wayne turned to Carmine Falcone for help to stop a reporter from revealing Martha's past, or how Falcone set up the drug bust to get rid of Salvatore Maroni?
- Riddle Me This: Would he really be the Riddler without them? At each of his crime scenes, he leaves a greeting card specifically addressed "To the Batman" with a riddle inside. For example: the question "What does a liar do when he's dead?", and a custom alphabet cipher beside it that can be decoded to "He lies still." Interestingly, the time the actual phrase is uttered in the film, its not coming from Eddie, but directed at him by the Joker.
- Secret Identity Apathy: Unlike his comic book counterpart, the Riddler has no desire to unmask the Batman or figure out his secret identity. To him, Batman is the true face, and this is why he never realizes that his vigilante idol is in fact the very same rich orphan that he despises.
- Secret-Identity Identity: Though his civilian identity is Edward Nashton, he sees the Riddler to be his true self. As he explains to Batman, he feels free to fully express himself when donning the mask, stating that it's his real face just like Batman's mask is.
- Secretly Selfish: His agenda on paper is selfless, if somewhat extreme, but his actions imply that he enjoys the fame that comes with it, and thinks his own suffering is more important than everyone else's.
- Selective Obliviousness: Typical of the Riddler, Nashton has all the clues pointing to Bruce Wayne and the Batman being one and the same, but fails to connect them because it doesn't fit with what he assumes of both men.
- Serial Killer: He's shown killing two separate men, while also including messages "To the Batman" duct-taped to their bodies. By the end of the film, he has killed four men, and that's not counting the civilian casualties caused by Gotham's flooding and his followers gunning down people.
- Shadow Archetype: Like Batman, he's a vigilante who seeks to save the city from crime and corruption. But his methods employ murder, mind games, and terror on every level of Gotham. When he tells Batman that the whole Riddler persona was inspired by Batman's vigilantism, Batman is visibly horrified, as he sees a lot of himself in the Riddler (including a selfish desire for vengeance). By the end of the film, he resolves to be Gotham's symbol of hope instead of fear, to avoid the dark path that the Riddler took.
- Sigil Spam: His signature question mark-crosshair is scrawled onto all his crime scenes and clues.
- Sleazy Streamer: The Riddler gets the eyes he wants on his terrorist attacks by streaming them live, which is effective enough to convince several of his most dedicated fans to commit copycat crimes and participate in his more involved schemes. When Batman finally finds him in his apartment, his behavior is eerily similar to a regular streamer's, casually chatting with his audience about the remote detonators they helped him plant around the city.
- Social Media Before Reason: Riddler's fond of sharing clues and messages via livestream, even though it's of no benefit to himself to do so.
- The Sociopath: The Riddler turns out to be a low-functioning example despite his exceptional intelligence. He has poor emotional maturity, and while his plans are calculated, he's personally very immature and impulsive in committing his acts of violence and destruction and feels no remorse and shame over his actions. He has a very black-and-white perspective on whose justified or not, and he's incredibly self-assured about his actions being beneficial and that only his perspective matters at the end of it all.
- Sore Loser: He actually cries when Batman manages to thwart the final step of Edward's grand plan, and save many people as he can at the rally. It takes the Joker telling him how "brilliant" his plan was to calm him down.
- Straw Hypocrite: For all his bluster about trying to weed out the elite that hurt Gotham, it becomes increasingly obvious that his violence against those in the city makes no distinction between those who guilty and those who are not. By the end of the movie, he's plotting to assassinate the mayor-elect who represents the best chance Gotham has had in better itself in decades and murder all her supporters via flooding the city, meaning he's basically sabotaging any chance to make things better against the corruption he claims to be fighting against. He tries to justify this to his online fanbase by claiming the city is beyond saving and basically has to be destroyed.
- Suddenly Shouting: He has a penchant to start raising his voice, yelling, and droning when he's upset, passionate, or angry.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Oddly enough, to Arthur Fleck from Joker, being a man who develops a bitter grudge against Gotham's elite — in this case, towards the city's "corrupt politics" and anyone who he perceives as associated with them, no matter how remote their association may be.
- Tautological Templar: Ultimately proves to be this: as far as he is concerned, the city is hopelessly and irreparably corrupt, and every action he takes is just because he is working to cleanse it, up to flooding the city and having his followers shoot up a political convention to kill hundreds, if not thousands. In his mind, this is justified for the same reason — the city is beyond salvation, everyone living in it is a beneficiary of the corruption that taints it, and so their deaths are necessary and justified to cleanse it.
- They Look Just Like Everyone Else!: Without his mask, he looks like a quiet, unassuming man who wouldn't have it in him to kill anyone, much less go on a murder spree. This is Truth in Television for most serial killers in real life.
- Too Clever by Half: The Riddler designed all of his clues so that they could be solved, in order to ensure the Batman would follow along with him. However a lot of his clues are actually rather obtuse, and require either knowing a specific bit of trivia or think exactly like the Riddler. The Batman only keeps pace with the Riddler due to luck and following other avenues of inquiry, something the Riddler doesn't realize for a long while.
- Tragic Villain: The Riddler is a vile, deranged serial killer... but he only became that way because of his awful upbringing as an impoverished, mistreated orphan, neglected and abandoned by society thanks to Gotham's corrupt officials. He developed his obsession with riddles as a coping mechanism for his emotional trauma. He's clearly unstable, and his tragic past continues to haunt him and drive his actions. He even appears to be on the verge of crying when he tells his backstory to Batman.
- The Unfought: Batman never gets to confront the Riddler in person until after he's already been captured. In this case, it's justified, as Riddler freely admits that he's no fighter, he wouldn't stand a chance against Batman in a direct confrontation, and the crux of his plan was to ensure he came out of it alive and unharmed to witness himself become famous.
- Unintentional Encryption: He wants Batman to solve his riddles to discover the corruption in Gotham's government. They are a mish mash of actual riddles, Literal Metaphors, childish wordplay, and random trivia. Batman has a more difficult time cracking his clues than expected and figures out Riddler's endgame too late to stop it.
- Vader Breath: When donning the Riddler identity, Edward speaks in a low-pitched, gravelly tone.
- Villain Has a Point:
- He isn't wrong about Gotham's corruption, and his murderous game of riddles did expose a city conspiracy where Mayor Mitchell, Commissioner Savage, and District Attorney Colson did a fake drug busting operation under the order of Falcone to monopolize the drug market and give the illusion of change in Gotham. Unfortunately, it's because he has a legit point about Gotham that the Riddler gains followers to do his bidding, including flooding Gotham's streets and massacring hundreds of innocents attending an election rally to "cleanse" the city of corruption.
- His grievance against the public for only supporting Bruce through his childhood instead of the orphans is legitimate. Both Bruce and Edward were orphans but to Edward, Bruce didn't need help as badly as Edward did because Bruce still had a capable guardian and a safe place to call home. Whereas Edward's living conditions often resulted in the deaths of the other orphans (who either froze to death, lost their toes to rats, or were neglected by their carers). To Edward, the public only pitied Bruce because he was a billionaire, not because he lost his parents. This point was so salient to Bruce that when he came to save everyone in the stadium, he saves the son of the mayor Don Mitchell Jr. first and not Bella Reál. However, Riddler's argument falls flat for 2 reasons; Bruce was still an orphan and still suffered from the loss of his parents. Secondly, Bruce had no knowledge of Edward's suffering nor did he know about the plans to save the orphanage.
- Villain Killer: All of his victims are corrupt officials or criminals, and this is intentional on his part. He believes himself to be following in the footsteps of Batman, helping him ridding Gotham of crime and corruption, albeit in a more permanent fashion. He winds up Jumping Off the Slippery Slope when he decides that all of Gotham deserves to be categorized as villainous, just because of the government's apathy towards his suffering.
- Villainous Breakdown: The Riddler completely loses his mind after Batman calls him out on his insanity, complete with a Rapid-Fire "No!" followed with a Big "NO!". This turns Batman into a Broken Pedestal for the Riddler, with Nashton also giving a Wham Line with "We were gonna be safe here!" to Batman. This clues Batman in that Riddler's master plan is still ongoing, and that something else is about to happen.Riddler: No, no, no, nooooo! NOOOOOO! This is not how this was supposed to go! (screams) I had it all planned out! We were gonna be safe here!
- Villainous Underdog: As part of being a Foil to Batman. Riddler doesn't have peak physical shape, superb hand to hand combat skills, a massive underground lair, or millions of dollars to spend on gadgets. All he has to challenge Gotham City's elite and eventually the Caped Crusader himself is his brain, a small group of disgruntled followers, and a whole lot of hate. Turns out that's enough.
- We Are Everywhere: He employs his nobody status efficiently,
making everyone paranoid of where and when the Riddler will strike. It also helps that there are many people in Gotham who sympathize with the Riddler's grievances, and the Riddler exploits their grievances by turning them into his followers. Thus, when Edward Nashton is finally arrested by the GCPD, his followers begin donning his costume, effectively creating an army of Riddlers to terrorize Gotham. - We Can Rule Together: He really thinks that Batman was on his side the whole time, solving his riddles and using brawn to bring out Falcone into the light just so that the Riddler can permanently end him. He even invites Batman to Arkham so he can properly offer Batman his partnership and a safe place to hole up from the devastation of his bombing. His delusions are shattered when Batman coldly rejects him and calls him a psychopath.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: He presents himself as one crusading against the corruption and lies that define Gotham. His presented motivations start holding less water when he starts committing blatant acts of terrorism against Gotham's general populace, and Batman eventually calls him out on his delusions of righteousness.
- What the Hell, Hero?: One of his messages admonishes those who claim to represent justice for lying and turning a blind eye.
- Western Terrorists: He's a violent, destructive, anarchic terrorist who plans to societally dismantle Gotham City and kill off the city's most influential citizens to further his goals. The ones who follow Riddler are a group of modern social media users radicalized online, who cause a disaster to get a better chance at shooting the newly elected young mayor Réal, refusing to believe she'd make any change to Gotham.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: He believes himself to be an ally and Mysterious Informant for Batman, when in actuality he's just an antagonistic serial killer sending confusing messages to the Batman that only vaguely gesture towards what he wants Batman to know. He doesn't take Batman pointing this out well.
- You Are Too Late: He successfully floods the streets of Gotham by blowing up the city's seawalls. By the time that Batman uncovers what his true plans are, he's too late to stop the bombs from going off. He is not too late, however, to thwart the final stage of Riddler's plan, and he's able to save many of the people inside the shelter.
- You Can't Thwart Stage One: Batman is unable to stop any major step of the Riddler's grand plan (the murders of the corrupt officials, the radicalization of Gotham's impoverished, and the flooding of downtown) except for the crucial final step: the massacre of Gotham's elites and the new mayor-elect by his followers. Batman arrives just in time to subdue them before they can kill anyone.
- You Got Murder: He attempts to kill Bruce Wayne with a package bomb delivered to Wayne Tower. Bruce wasn't home, so Alfred opened the package instead. Thankfully, Alfred's quick reflexes mean that the blast only hospitalizes, not kills him.
- You Wouldn't Believe Me If I Told You: A lot of the Complexity Addiction involved in the Riddler's plans was motivated by the need to use a figure like Batman to expose the crime bosses and corrupt politicians involved in the conspiracy in a way that a lowly forensic accountant could never hope to achieve.
