I must admit that your politics amuse me, Mr. Nygma.
It is not every day you come across a madman advocating for a lack of corruption in a system that rewards their negative behavior.
Should I be so bold as to wonder if therapy has been a monumental success? Or are you merely so bored that you would rather challenge an operating government than be handed your right to villainy on a whim?
— Doctor Arkham.
Doctor, you appear to have confused an objection to corruption with an objection to criminality. They are not synonymous.
Corruption is intellectually graceless. It is not rebellion, innovation, or even particularly impressive villainy. It is cheating performed by unimaginative people who have inherited enough institutional protection to mistake their own impunity for competence. A bribe passed beneath a table is not a masterstroke. Nepotism is not strategy. Redirecting public funds into one’s own pocket does not make a person a criminal genius; it makes them an accountant with poor impulse control.
I do not require Gotham’s government to be virtuous. I would settle for it being interesting.
A functional administration might recognize a pattern before the body count reaches double digits. It might employ investigators capable of distinguishing a cipher from decorative typography. It might even force someone such as myself to devise a plan more sophisticated than allowing the city’s own structural incompetence to complete half the work for me.
But Gotham does not reward excellence, Doctor. It rewards familiarity, obedience, and the ability to commit one’s improprieties quietly enough that the electorate can pretend to be shocked when they are eventually discovered.
That is not a functioning system granting me my “right to villainy.” It is a malfunctioning system continually lowering the entrance requirements. And yes, that is boring.
As for therapy, I would hesitate to call it a monumental success. It has, however, furnished me with an expanded vocabulary for identifying precisely which logical fallacy is being used whenever a psychiatrist attempts to classify an inconvenient observation as a symptom.
Speaking of which: “Madman,” Doctor? From a medical professional? How diagnostically imprecise of you.
