Edward Nygma, also known as The Riddler, is one of the two main antagonists (alongside Oswald Cobblepot) of the TV series Wayne, serving as one of the two main antagonists (alongside Ra's Al Ghul) of the first season and one of the deuteragonists (alongside Silver St. Cloud) of the second season. He is one of Gotham's notorious and ruthless criminals who is bent on solving puzzles and making up riddles. He is also Bruce Wayne's former friend and nemesis. However, he and Bruce do work together at times to face a bigger threat.
He is portrayed by Guy Pearce.
History[]
Season 1[]
Edward Nygma was once a forensic scientist at the GCPD who was willing to face criminals and discover the culprit of each and every crime in Gotham. However, he grew jealous of Bruce's relationship with Selina Kyle. Edward then went to impress Selina, as she read him one of the riddles, much to his amusement. He has asked Selina out during the night, but she angrily reminded him that Bruce Wayne is her boyfriend, before she left. However, without noticing, Selina has dropped her book of riddles and someone picked it up. The citizen then asked Nygma is he knows the owner of the book. Nygma however reads her riddles and he then shoots the citizen and prepares himself to betray Bruce. He then aims a gun at Bruce near the docks of Gotham. However, he was threatened by Maroni, who almost killed him along with Bruce and Selina. Edward however shoots down his bodyguard, and yells at him whilist Bruce and Selina escape the battleground. Before Maroni could kill him, Grundy attacks Maroni and Oswald Cobblepot reveals himself as the culprit, just before killing him.
The Riddler became unhappy when The Penguin ruled Gotham City, as he wanted to become the king like figure himself. Nygma was then confronted by Bruce and Selina, who asked him where Oswald is about. Nygma replied that he is probably in the narrows, and that he has a mercenary called Victor Zsasz.
Zsasz however saw Edward as a traitor to Penguin and he threatened to kill him if he dares to act against their boss.
Nygma later discovers that Bruce is falling in love with Alice Walker, and he quickly goes to Selena and tells her to go ask Bruce if he really cares for her. Selena eventually catches Bruce with Alice and she becomes Nygma's girlfriend after that.
Nygma later plots with Selena Kyle to kill Oswald Cobblepot. However, as they sabotage one of The Joker's henchmen, Edward Nygma starts with Barbara Gordon, since her husband is long gone. Selena takes it personally and comes back to being Wayne's girlfriend.
After that, Edward goes to kill The Penguin. He goes to a pub and finds Roman Sionis, aka The Black Mask. He kills Sionis and goes to find Oswald in the alley, as Zsasz comes to him from behind. He then turns around and notices Zsasz, who threatens to throw a knife at Nygma. Batman however comes to save The Riddler, and the two plan to kill Zsasz somehow. Nygma asks Bruce to meet him near the docks. Batman and Selina Kyle then come to the docks where they meet Nygma and his pact. Nygma orders The Mad Hatter to give Zsasz a riddle which would lead him to the docks of Gotham. The plan works, and Zsasz brutally kills Jervis Tetch as he then goes to the docks in order to kill the latter. Nygma and the others prepare for battle, and during the fight itself, Zsasz is attacked by Grundy, who injures him but gets killed. It is also revealed that Zsasz is immune to pain and injury. Zsasz then tries to shoot everyone, but Bruce takes all the bullets and survives since he has armor. Bruce and Zsasz fight each other, and eventually Bruce turns around to hear from Selina that Nygma left them for dead with plans to destroy Penguin. However, as they talk, Zsasz backstabs The Batman. Selina then slices Zsasz' throat, just before she takes Bruce to hospital. Bruce the recovers from his injuries and goes to find Nygma and stop him from killing Oswald. Edward Nygma finds Oswald and shoots him in the eye. Just before he kills Oswald with one last bullet, Bruce arrives and asks Nygma to stop the attack. He protects Oswald, but with a signal from The Penguin, Scarecrow enters the scene and injects Batman, as Oswald and The Scarecrow take Batman to Ra's al Ghul. Nygma swears his vengeance on The Penguin.
Edward Nygma later confronts his old nemesis The Penguin in order to take over Gotham from him. Oswald however protects himself by implying that he is the rightful ruler of the city, since he usurped the throne from the tyrannical Maroni whom he used as a pawn all the time. Nygma asks him what a bird is without it's feathers, and as he reveals the answer is a penguin, he slices Oswald's throat and cuts it open. Nygma then becomes the new king of Gotham City, and he has big plans for developing it's criminal underworld.
Season 2[]
The Riddler then goes to his turf and enters the nightclub of The Sirens. There, he orders his henchmen Marco Flintwood to put on him the green hat. The Riddler then goes to start with Selina Kyle, attempting to force her into a relationship with him. However, she disagrees and that encourages Nygma to send his assassin Sebastian with the order to kill Bruce Wayne / The Batman so he could once again win The Catwoman's heart.
However, things get worse for him when the manager of staff at the Arkham Asylum called Amadeus Sterling comes to make a bargain with him. Sterling offers Nygma to gain more power only if he allows the Arkham staff to reanimate him. Nygma realizes that he is being used and that they won't give him more power if he joins them, so he decides to decline the offer. Amadeus then calls Azrael / Salvatore Maroni into the room. Edward Nygma runs off and Azrael thinks of running after him but before he could leave Sterling orders him to wait and let Jeff St. Cloud kill Edward along with Bruce and his allies.
He later joins Bruce Wayne, Selina Kyle and their good friend Doctor Pamela "Pam" Ashley as the four of them fight against Jeff. Jeff decides to retreat from the spot so that Nygma wouldn't shoot him while he does not have a gun in his hand. Jeff St. Cloud leaves the area, while the latter go on their next journey and invade The Arkham Asylum without getting caught by Sterling and his staff. However, after they reach the hallway of the asylum, Nygma and Pam split up with Bruce and Selina. While Pam and Nygma go to get rid of Jeremiah Arkham so they could steal his documents, Bruce and Selina stay behind as they intend to find Talia al Ghul so they could defeat her and all of her enforcers including Sterling and the staff of Arkham. Eventually, Nygma shoots Doctor Arkham and he manages to steal the documents. While this happens, however, Sterling and Azrael locate Bruce and Selina and manage to capture them. Sterling and Talia then extract from Bruce his secret information and his thoughts about stopping them. Nygma and Selina also find out that The Joker has invaded The Arkham Asylum for one last ingredient to manafacture massive gas bombs and plant them all around the city. Nygma and Selina warn The Joker that they will get rid of him after they finish with The Arkham Asylum staff, just before they both leave him behind. The Joker manages to steal his things, and reveals to Bruce Wayne, Nygma and the latter that he has already planted some bombs for the test. One of the first places to explode were the Cloud family's mansion.
Nygma leaves with Bruce and the two girls, as they manage to escape the Arkham Asylum without getting hospitalized.
Later on, during the apocalypse of Gotham city, which Judah Voleski has caused, Nygma goes to the park to relax his mind. All of a sudden, his father Leonard Nashton came and after realizing who Nygma is, he revealed to Nygma things about his past, and the two reunited along with Nygma's brother Roman Nashton.
Nygma also realized that his mother is sick and he showed how much he cares for her and his father by mentioning that nothing is as powerful as parental love.
However, things got worse again when Roman killed Leonard and attempted to get Edward Nygma framed for his own actions. The cops came to take care of Edward, but he then decided to make a vengeful comeback as The Riddler, and so he killed the two guards and then he confronted his ruthless brother, just before tying him to an electric chair and torturing him to death.
Nygma declares his new lair but quickly finds out that Oswald is alive and that he's also in possession of the hideout. The two however once again form an alliance in order to build their empire and use an army built of Gotham's criminals and populace to get rid of Sterling's monster military forces which took over the entire city.
The city is now split into two sides; Sterling's side and Edward Nygma's faction of The Force of Gotham. Nygma has also hired Oswald as his second in command leader and chief lieutenant, as the two of them become the best friends forever in the process.
Without Edward or Bruce Wayne knowing this, Penguin also falls in love with Selina, and the two begin an affair. When Bruce comes back to Gotham, he is attacked by two monster goons, which Bullock gets rid of them. Bullock explains what has changed in Gotham ever since Bruce left, and then under Bruce's requests, Dent takes Bruce and his new girlfriend Silver St. Cloud to see The Riddler.
The Riddler and Bruce talk about matters and the fight they shall have against Sterling and Azrael. Bruce tells Nygma to let his people go, since they both know it is out of control and that The Riddler is doing this for power and authority over them once the fight is finished. Nygma however refuses to do as Bruce requests.
Oswald then asks in The Riddler's name for Bruce and Silver to lead their forces as high ranked commanders and tell the other soliders and supervillainous criminals what to do. Bruce and Silver accept but remain suspicious of The Riddler's activity.
The RIddler then talks to himself inside an empty hall at night and it is shown that he loves Oswald romantically. His desire is to win Oswald's heart at all costs. However, he gets jealous as he learns that despite Oswald's loyalty to him as a friend, Oswald has an affair with Selina, who used to love him as well. Out of jealousy, he quickly thinks of how to separate the two and move on to an affair with Oswald, while abandoning Kyle. He tells Oswald that tomorrow they shall have another discussion. Out of half genuine and half obsessive love towards The Penguin and lust for an affair with him, Edward calls Selina Kyle for a toast for their common interest towards Oswald. He tells her that he is genuinely proud of them, which he partially is, and he gives her a drink with poison. Selina then feels dizzy and dies from the poison which she drank. Edward seizes this opportunity to win Oswald's heart.
The Riddler later lies to Oswald that Lazlo Valentine has assassinated Selina for a purpose of betraying him and Nygma for power. However, as Oswald goes to kill Lazlo and he shoots Sterling to demonstrate his anger, Dent comes in and opens Oswald up to the fact that Edward Nygma has poisoned Selina himself.
The raged Oswald then plots with Dent to overthrow Nygma in a vengeful, painful way, with Lazlo aiding them.
After Gotham came back to what it was before it became a warzone, Nygma got drunk inside his bar and while he was unaware of his surroundings, The Scarecrow sprayed on him some fear gas. In his illusions caused by the gas, Nygma saw his father's ghost begging his son to kill him, and a guy who demanded him to resign his job as the bar manager.
Nygma then woke up and saw that Oswald helped his mother find and reach him. After a short family reunion which Oswald has organized, Oswald shoots his mother infront of him as part of his revenge. Nygma is at first surprised. Oswald reveals that he had told The Scarecrow to put him into the illusions and that he knew that Edward killed Selina.
Nygma tried to convince Oswald to spare him, genuinely telling him that he loves him. Oswald sees the love as the source of the problem and that he only cares for himself. As part of Oswald's plan, Dent walks into the scene and asks Oswald not to kill Edward, since he does love him. Oswald pretends to listen only so they could both hear Edward claiming that he loves Oswald.
Oswald then takes him to a yard where he burns a pile of wood, and Nygma sadly begs for his life with open arms, but before he could finish the sentence "I love you", Cobblepot shoots Nygma. Nygma tries to finish his sentence, but it's unknown wether he dies or finishes his sentence during the following episode.
After lots of uncertainty about The Riddler's fate in Gotham, The Riddler woke up exactly where he was mutilated by The Penguin, and he sees from Bruce Wayne's house window from outside that Judah kidnapped Silver St. Cloud, who is Batman's new lover. The Riddler warns Bruce as soon as he comes back home, setting things so he could later retake Gotham and stop The Penguin from rising to full power and wiping out The Riddler's influence.
Links to the episodes[]
Season 1[]
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1b7PN1OXC_swRqCVSyofBFpAlq_5K96X_5efOfEEc4Ew/edit#slide=id.p (episode 1)
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1SE0SzKqbVg33VdnIgxj_VElCJDpt_iLXWSI9cJ3LqDI/edit#slide=id.p (episode 3)
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/11j-t8jUyyW0Jldaf3MFvrd77S-lvB2zK-VnMFT2stEU/edit?usp=sharing (episode 5)
Season 2[]
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1fgdZ7vb7sbzAz2eYaLk7jWsojMsEy9QoRlLY512zTPQ/edit?usp=sharing (episode 1)
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1B34gVatVjuBBudeJozQbHeU1BpVPFPE14bKdHUWO_eA/edit?usp=sharing (episode 2)
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/17wKwEG1e-ovz-QkY--srgX1H9CKgwIV05bbg3hRZXe4/edit?usp=sharing (episode 3)
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1SeEUFeE4u3X-uhZ-EbyLRZ126nIFQ4EyxFGaQwZAtEE/edit?usp=sharing (episode 4)
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/11IA8v0QdS87LIQLVnaLmbiWlNXzD9pAtvdi10mS9GnI/edit?usp=sharing (episode 5)
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1c1HYeSfisyldWgtvh83IfNSKdRxZGqbuB8VQzlUIuPs/edit?usp=sharing (episode 6)
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1XLpoof50m-VfX4VLqKnDjnT6887IpHp75lercA6sAqE/edit?usp=sharing (episode 7)