He Knows Which Side To Play
Throughout the years, we’ve seen the Riddler go from being a cash-grabbing villain, to assisting the GCPD, to going back to his life of puzzle-loaded crime. In a world where snitches get stitches and end up in ditches, he’s unafraid of playing for whichever side suits him best and then changing teams at halftime. Say what you want about his methods, but he ensures he’s much more valuable as an ally than as a nemesis.
While the switch flipping doesn’t say much for his integrity and morals (or lack thereof), it tells us that he’s a survivor and knows how to stay in the game. And like a cockroach, his hide will be always protected when the world around him is blow to smithereens. In Gotham, everything burns, except for Nigma seemingly.
Oddly enough, despite his nature to switch sides when the going gets tough, people still tend to trust him. It’s mostly because he’s like an informant, using knowledge and information to leverage and broker deals that benefit him. Now, imagine more villains thought like that.
He Doesn’t Hide His True Identity
No one knows who the Joker is. Heck, we’re not even sure he knows, either. Whenever he recalls an origin of sorts, he prefers it to be multiple choice, preventing anyone from piecing together his bamboozling history. It leaves us with a lot of questions about who he is or what he could be protecting.
The Riddler, on the other hand, is driven by wanting the world to know who he is and has no shame in admitting it. He wants everyone to know it’s he alone who devised the brilliant puzzles for the Bat to solve. Everyone knows his real name and quite often his costume is merely a green hat, modest green suit, and a question mark-shaped cane. For someone who deals in mysteries, his true identity is far from it.
Much like when Tony Stark told the world where he stays, challenging his adversaries to come and find him, the same can be said about Nigma’s approach. Quite frankly, it shows a lot of guts to not hide behind a mask and let everyone know who you are – even if you’re a big time villain in the cesspool known as Gotham City.
