Edward Nygma in television appreciation post

Hello welcome to my ted talk on how I relate so much to the riddler and his backstory and adore him even if he's a murderer sometimes and lowkey an awful person. 

Ill start with my earliest introduction to him I suppose, in the 1966 tv show, (which btw is underrated as HELL that show is and always will be one of my favorites) I haven't seen said show in a while because its difficult to acquire online and i haven't resorted to sailing the seas for it yet, but i think this is one of the most fun and accurate depictions of the Riddler from the early comics, just a guy who really likes the attention, I believe his introduction is the very first episode? where he gives batman a lawsuit? i cant even describe how silly this show is. I also cant go very into depth for that exact reason, its not meant to be a serious show and it focuses more on the absurdity of the idea of batman itself, and i mean hell what do you expect from a 60s cartoon, these guys JUST got color. 

Another personal favorite and the riddler i did actually grow up watching is the Batman the Animated Series Riddler, he does not have to many episodes but even as a kid i think his were always my favorites, i enjoy the puzzle aspect of his character a lot and pausing to try and solve them myself was always fun. Main part of this character that i love and also the basis of my first claim is how they show his backstory in this show, he puts all this care into designing this game, designing the main riddle of it, and he gets no credit and fired when he fights for that recognition, drives him mad, and the first thing he does as Riddler is go after the man that took that from him, and even though he gets caught in the end and doesn't get what he wants, he succeeds in messing with his old boss big time, which is better than nothing i suppose. One of his other episodes that i remember most clearly is the one where he gets let out of Arkham and he opens a toy puzzle company, a perfect gig for such a man, (but obviously ill intentioned all in all) but its another attention grabber, I LOVE the way this scheme goes because to anyone but batman it really does just seem like the Riddler is just speaking normally, the riddles man difficulty is that you're not even sure if there IS a riddle to begin with, it covers his tracks and puts batman in a bad light to outsiders because it just looks like he's some over thinker when in reality its not, now in comparing myself to Mr Edward Nygma, i am NOT by any means calling myself a manipulator, but LORD is this some awesome use of manipulation, i always love how detailed and extra his schemes are, you can just feel the care and passion in the 90s show and it is something that will always stick with me for that reason. 

After that was of course Jim Carrey's riddler, with a similar-ish background as the animated series except he is made more off-putting and oddball which gets me to the part about the riddler that i love (and will expand on later in this long ass thing when i go into a general thing lol) the scene where he goes mad and kills his boss, its an even more twisted spin on the origin in the 90s cartoon and i wonder if that was intentional in anyway, most likely not. Jim Carrey's Riddler is another silly take similar to the 60s Riddler except much more outwardly maniacal and i do really love that, i see it as a sort of high for him, in the way that he is enjoying the short lived glory of all the attention and success just for the short moment. He is fixated with his invention to escape the world around him and idolizes bruce wayne as an idea despite the fact that wayne himself isn't even what he believes, all Edward wants is that attention and this movie plays into that so subtly but so well. Batman forever underrated as hell idc i love that movie (heres a video essay that agrees with me -Linkk)

I feel like i should say something about Paul Dano's Riddler from The Batman movie from a few years back, but to be honest i have not seen that movie since it came out and his riddler was VERY serious and i dont really enjoy when Batman and his universe are put into this uber realistic serious type story because i think the whole point is that they're not real. I do like Dano's Riddler because (from memory) it demonstrated the reliance on Batman to an unhealthy extent, which i did find really interesting, still keeping him as some dude that is basically a nobody (for lack of better term) doing a whole scheme as an act of rebellion and also just for attention. i might add more here later if i rewatch that movie like i plan too. 

Last Riddler character i want to talk about screen-wise (and the one freshest on my mind) is Cory Micheal Smith's Riddler And Edward Nygma from the Gotham show. That show has SO many flaws but he made watching it all the way through totally worth it, because it is a show Ed is given so much more time to slowly go insane rather than a one time event that breaks him, it makes the first kill sooo satisfying and much more impactful. The autistic characteristics of his character also just makes his story so much more understandable to me as an autistic individual myself, his struggle of trying so hard to get along with his coworkers and just being given nothing despite his attempts to make friends with them, Miss Kringle being the only one that is kind to him becoming the one person he hurts after it all, making him struggle even MORE with relationships, its written very well to me. His whole split personality thing he has going on is something else i find very interesting, being an alter ego in which he is everything he wished he could be, the physical manifestation of all of his repressed emotion finally showing itself in cheesy villain fashion. His back and forth struggle with himself throughout the show is just so so awesome and actually pretty relatable if im super honest. My only gripe that i have with this Riddler is that while he had all the well thought out schemes and what not, i feel like an aspect of him is lost without the batman to bounce riddles off him, during the Lucious scene he was right yk, he just wasnt a good enough enemy, and hes affected by having one of the few people to get his riddles is his gay situationship. Ive gone about him for to long tho lol, he might be my favorite Riddler on television, which is upsetting bc Gotham as a show was not that entertaining to me without him or Oswald lol. 

Okay so, i just said random shit about a bunch of tv Riddlers to absolutely no one, so now what? I have no clue, I believe that the Riddler is a fun character to explore because his backstory is such a simple one that is easily understood, a man that is shunned, ignored and overlooked by people around him, searching for some form of recognition from people around him by creating complicated thought out schemes and riddles just to gain some attention from a guy dressed like a bat. I also prefer to see Ed as a necessity killer i suppose, the Gotham Riddler does kill multiple people, but most were victims of circumstance or were people that in his eyes did deserve it, I feel that a man like him would not be a mindless killer unless it served a purpose, which if i remember correctly The Batman Riddler did kill for some twisted sort of good reason? I also love seeing him as a man with perhaps some form of rejection sensitivity, especially since Gotham did nothing but characterize him as an autistic man in my eyes, absolutely attention whore that cant stand a loss, being left to go insane in gotham until he devises another crazy scheme that he thinks couldn't possibly fail again, and the cycle continues..

(he just likes the attention) 

to anyone that read this crazy post i apologize for its sloppiness, i've been writing this on and off all day so ive sort of lost the plot here. But all and all i just wanted to yap about how important he is to me because i dont really have anyone that i want to bother with it otherwise so its just gonna go here.