Arkham Asylum: Patient Files

The Riddler

FULL NAME
Edward Nashton (aka Edward Nigma)

OCCUPATION
Head of the GCPD Cyber Crime Unit (Formerly)
Professional Criminal

BASE OF OPERATIONS
Gotham City

AFFILIATIONS
Gotham City Police Department (Formerly)
Suicide Squad (Formerly)
The Broker

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION

HAIR
Brown

EYES
Green

HEIGHT
6 ft 1 in

WEIGHT
183 lbs

With an obsessive need for attention and a genius-level intellect, Edward Nigma (formerly Edward Nashton) was determined to be the most outlandish of Gotham City's criminals, and concocted an elaborate series of clues and riddles around his crimes. Batman had proven to be a worthy opponent, capable of deducing the Riddler's plans, but Nigma was dedicated to creating a mystery that the Dark Knight would not be able to solve in time to save the hostages.

Riddler grew increasingly frustrated and delusional over the years, believing Batman was a cheater who couldn't beat his challenges. The desire to prove himself better than Batman had finally consumed him. This eventually drove him to ensure the Dark Knight didn't have a chance of winning, by eliminating any fair play.

Personality

Edward Nigma was defined by his insanity, inferiority complex, violent behaviour and intense narcissism, likened with hubris. However, he was extremely emotionally immature and his nature was that of an overgrown man-child as he was still traumatised by his cruel childhood and his abusive father who undermined him at every turn. Nigma's image of self-awareness is extremely misguided as he deludes himself into believing that he is a flawless and infallible human "colossus" (or in his own words "The World's Greatest Everything"). Another of his delusions is his incapability to understand his own insanity and when Batman calls him out on this, although he gives a detailed definition he says he suffers from none of the sort. Nigma displays anti-social behaviour and his characteristics, even into adult years are similar to that of an adolescent teenager. Amongst these traits of his childishness are competitiveness, recklessness, stubbornness, pride, rash outbursts, fiery temper, aggressive tantrums and sullenness.

Despite being megalomaniacal, psychopathic and egocentric, at his core Nigma is deeply insecure and emotionally scarred. Having never received the recognition he (or at least believed he deserved) it stands to reason that he pathologically has to prove how smart he is, especially to himself and displays what appears to be an inferiority complex in contrast to his overconfident demeanour. He has made it his one and only goal to degrade others, especially Batman, as being stupider than him with with either arrogant insults designed to lower his victims self-esteem or using the unfounded results from his tests (death traps) as evidence of this. In a moment of complete self-righteousness he claims his tests were for the good of society by weeding out those who are intelligent and those who fail, who are by Nigma's definition "stupid" always die. Nigma's magnificently over-fed ego is never damaged, ignoring that he has been defeated, humiliated and imprisoned multiple times, he constantly believes he will come out on top, never thinking history would repeat itself. He is not above cowardice or dropping his arrogant facade by pathetically pleading. An example is when Catwoman, out of revenge for kidnapping her on Halloween began stealing all of his funds and he desperately begs her for mercy.

He often displays hypocritical arrogance. While he assures his hostage, Catwoman that he does not cheat he actually admits during patient logs to Doctor Young that he once did cheat in his school's competition as to impress his father who saw through this and hit him for lying. Later in the game he actually places his adversary, Batman in a "fight he couldn't win" by swarming him with Riddler-Bots that only Catwoman could hit. Nigma defends this while being taken to the GCPD stating that Batman should have been able to hack into the robots mainframe and defeat them all. Undeniably his greatest weakness was that he considered himself undefeatable (ignoring that he has been countless times in the past) and his arrogance makes him grotesquely reckless and overconfident. Examples include when Batman had defeated the final Riddle Room and rescued the hostage, he gave her no code, showing that he had no doubt in his mind that Batman would not be able to defeat his final room. His egomania was so powerful that in captivity at the GCPD while being confronted by Aaron Cash with a taser he still continues to defy his captor which leads to him being electrocuted. Nigma is also careless enough to relay important information to common thugs who break instantly and reveal everything over Batman's intimidation.

As the Arkham Series continues, or more specifically as he continued getting defeated, Nigma becomes more deluded and his mental health state deteriorates even further. While in Arkham Origins he focuses solely on releasing blackmail data to the general public, in later games he obsesses totally over assuring intellectual dominance over Batman, viewing him as a cheater despite Batman constantly winning fairly. In moments of extreme frustration, despite his intelligence, he will use illogical and quite frankly, lame excuses when he is about to be defeated. Nigma's delusions are extensive enough that, during the beginning of Arkham Knight he refers to himself as Batman's "one true enemy", ignoring the Dark Knight's truly dangerous opponents such as (Joker, Scarecrow, Bane etc.). This is further emphasised when Scarecrow reveals Batman as Bruce Wayne to the world and Nigma mocks him over thinking he could hide his true identity from him, indicating that he was the one who uncovered Wayne's identity as Batman while in Arkham City when confronting Strange through the Interview Tapes he has no idea of the Dark Knight's real name something which stayed this way throughout the series. However it is possible that Nigma believed that he always knew Batman was Bruce Wayne because in Arkham Origins he has a chart of two names whom he believed were the Bat; Wayne and Harvey Dent. He does not confirm his own theory, though so it does not count.
Though the full aspects of Nigma's past have not been divulged, it's been hinted he was constantly bullied, by both his father and peers. In these regards it is a second factor of his intense resentment towards the Caped Crusader, not only how Batman constantly undermines his intelligence by defeating, imprisoning and humiliating him but how he has begun to compare the Dark Knight to his childhood bullies, specifically how he constantly uses physical force to arrest him, something that only worsened his obsession in defeating him. He even goes as far to describe Batman as both a "pugilist" and a "thug" and admits that he has a perfect memory of every time the latter hurt him. Nigma possesses a deep-rooted hatred for his father, shown during his final battle with Batman at the orphanage he scream in his direction, "DIE FATHER! I mean Batman!".