The Riddler Speaks - Casefile #0147 (Patreon)

EDWARD: Green-genius-purple-puzzler asks: If you had the opportunity to permanently alter one aspect of your physical appearance, what would you change, if anything?

Hm. Are you implying that I am in some way - inadequate? Less than perfect, perhaps? Lacking in some tiny yet significant way? My colossal ego and I are insulted. Here I suppose I could segue into an intimacy; wax pathetic about having my mother’s weak ankles, too many effeminate freckles or wishing I could be strong like the big boys - but that would be a bald-faced lie, for I desire to change none of those aspects of myself. I inherited my father’s russet hair, but I have yet to dye it, shave it or change it beyond styling it. Call me crazy - ah ha ha - but I don’t allow genetics to hold emotional control over me. As for my looks - am I good looking? Such things are terribly subjective, and I can honestly state that it has yet to seem so important to me as to put a great deal of thought into it. Was my father jealous of my looks as well as my brilliance? It all ended in the same beating, so who cares? Good looks or no, since birth I have possessed a certain quality. Hm. There is no word to describe it in English, but it exists in German. It is backpfeifengesicht - a face that cries out for a fist. To paraphrase Vonnegut, I would love to know what is written on my face, and why it was put there.

Back to the topic at hand. An ongoing criminal career has taken its toll on my face, my body, and my very bones - but it is a toll I was always willing to pay. Do I wish my jaw moved more smoothly? Sometimes. But then I remember it was my prize for finally getting a peek behind the mask of the Bat, and then it doesn’t feel so bad.

When my knees get stiff in cold weather, I remember the torture I received at the hands of the Joker for days - weeks - and that I survived to remember it. What I am - what you see - it is the Riddler, for better or worse. I changed who I was to become what I am today. I could have remained doughy little Eddie the software engineer, getting a programmer’s tan in his cubicle; but that wasn’t enough for me. I broke my leg once ripping off the Second Bank of Gotham - it was because of a bad tumble off a rooftop during my escape. Crane rather sadistically reset my leg without anaesthetic so I punched him in the face. Then he laughed at me, if I recall correctly, possibly because I was already laughing, since I had got away with about two million dollars. So I’ll take it, all of it - the ugliness, the disfigurement - because being the Riddler is glorious.