▸ Column · Modern Gotham, domestic suburbs
THE RIDDLER replies.
Replied to by The Riddler, with a rebuttal from The Penguin.
The letter
Every December, my mother-in-law Victoria orders eleven matching pajama sets — reindeer print, don't ask — for every adult, every kid, and now the dog, Pepper. We all have to wear them for a forty-five-minute photo session she runs with some photographer she found on the internet. My husband Liam and I are both past forty (I'm thirty-eight, he's forty-one) and I spent last December standing on a frozen porch in flannel that said "Santa's Favorite" while our nephew Leo cried and Victoria barked "CHINS UP" through the eighth take.
The photo becomes the Christmas card. And the wall calendar. And a throw blanket she gives back to us, so I literally cannot escape my own face all year.
I tried skipping it last year. Said I had the flu. She rescheduled the whole shoot to the third week of January, without blinking. How do I get out of the pajama photo without becoming the daughter-in-law who ruined Christmas?
— Santa's Favorite in the East End
The Riddler replies
Riddle me this: you've already tried the flu. You've already stood on that porch eight takes deep, in flannel, in January. And you wrote to me asking how to escape the photograph.
Aha. Wrong question.
Listen to what you've actually said — "how do I get out without becoming the villain?" You've accepted Victoria's board, her rules, her photographer, her freezing porch. The lazy riddle is escape. The sharp riddle is: who authorized her to run the game?
I'll tell you something. Batman is the only mind in Gotham I've ever had to genuinely design around. Not because he's stronger — he isn't — but because he understands the puzzle is already in play the moment we're in the same room. Your Victoria is not Batman. She is running a very simple game, and you're playing it by her rules because no one stopped to ask who said the board couldn't be flipped.
Here is your clue, since you've earned it: the flu was reactive. You tried to remove a piece from a board she still controls. That is not escape. That is a move.
Now. What's the difference between a game you play and a game you design?
— The Riddler
The Penguin weighs in
Waugh-waugh! Nygma has you hunting for a clever pivot when the answer is standing right next to you in matching flannel.
Victoria is not the problem, my dear. She is running her operation exactly as any competent operator would — and no one stops her. Ask yourself why.
That would be Liam.
Your husband stood on that frozen porch in January, in his reindeer pajamas, and apparently never once said "Mother, enough." That is your governance failure, not some philosophical puzzle about who designs the board. You don't neutralize a rival kingpin by redesigning her tradition. You have someone with standing simply tell her no. A gentleman manages his own household.
Riddle me that, Nygma.
— The Penguin
▸ Read next