Two Bat-lovers, one of them a bonafide puzzle-learn, plowed by way of The Riddler’s cryptogram hours soon after it was initial shown in The Batman’s trailer premiere on Saturday. Spoiler inform: The Riddler has weak riddle sport — unless of course … we were being meant to fix it speedily. In which circumstance It’s possible THE RIDDLE’S ON US. Or a little something.

In any case, in The Batman, Riddler (Paul Dano) is built out to be some variety of Zodiac-type menace packing his individual alphabet. He leaves a greeting card on a murder sufferer, whose question is “What does a liar do when he’s dead?,” and the response is a set of 11 symbols.

Andrew Lane and Mike Selinker arrived at their options by different suggests. Lane obtained his in 1st, on Saturday night time. Lane started out by assuming the very first word was “Batman,” and tried to do the job out the alphabet from there. “I was incorrect, simply because the other symbols that are also in the next phrase produced gibberish,” he mentioned.

So Lane went again to basics, which was to switch the matching symbols in the very first phrase with E, the most usually utilized letter in the English language. He guessed the matching double letters in the last term had been L, an additional prevalent pairing.

That is sort of how Selinker received began. Selinker, a sport designer (credits include the board video game Axis & Allies, the Harry Potter Buying and selling Card Game, and the third edition of Dungeons & Dragons) started out by assigning each individual image a numerical worth, and keyed on the double letter at the close of the reply, far too. “It’s probable one of these: E, L, or S. It is not nuts to think about it as D, F, N, or T,” Selinker wrote. [But] unless of course Gorilla Grodd’s in this movie, I think we can dispense with these possibilities.”

Selinker showed a lot more of his system of elimination, but both of those he and Lane finished up pulling out the response: “He lies even now.” Which, of program, will make this a pun in addition to a riddle. But “The Punner” does not have fairly the exact same ring. Furthermore, no one goes to a Batman movie wanting to groan and facepalm.

“I see folk expressing I need to be smarter than them for this,” Selinker added. “Don’t believe that! You are lots clever. Also, yesterday I broke a shower curtain rod and stood there staring at it till my spouse came residence to put it again jointly.”

Supporters on the DC Cinematic Universe subreddit also pieced it with each other on Sunday, so, if director Matt Reeves employed an real cryptographer to do this, he should question for his income back again. Zodiac, at the very least, experienced feeling sufficient to encrypt his messages immediately after putting them in his built-up alphabet. Only 1 of them has been solved.

The Batman is scheduled for an Oct. 21, 2021 premiere. Robert Pattinson stars as Bruce Wayne, with Zoë Kravitz as Selina Kyle/Catowman, Colin Farrell as The Penguin, Jeffrey Wright as Jim Gordon, and Andy Serkis as Alfred Pennyworth.