The Mattress

Penguin Appreciation Post

Oz made himself infinitely more hatable in the finale, but god it's somehow just satisfying to see him in a more comic accurate attire. (Well as comic accurate as the show would allow)

The way you can empathize with Oz throughout the first part of the series, how they gradually reveal his sociopathy, how this gradually builds with what happens to his brothers—but still leaves a hint of doubt, a reflex to justify him, something that’s completely shattered when you see that his narcissism is capable of letting his mother be harmed just to avoid facing his own mess, and then they fully solidify him as an irredeemable villain with what he does to Vic—it’s brilliant. The Penguin doesn’t try to make you understand Oz or justify him; it doesn’t humanize the character. Instead, it begins with him already humanized, slowly peeling back the layers, the very same layers of deception, lies, and false appearances he uses to manipulate everyone around him. Underneath, there’s nothing but absolute darkness, and by the time he’s at his lowest point, you’re just wishing Batman would actually show up and take him down, punish him ruthlessly. You end up thinking it can’t end like this—he deserves punishment. Not because you believe good should triumph over evil but because you’ve been made to empathize with and care for a character throughout the series, and Oz has destroyed that character in the most cruel and vile way possible.

The script makes you see Vic as a reflection of the city itself: the impoverished side, the vulnerable, the one fighting to survive, the wronged, the hopeful, the one who makes poor choices not from a bad heart but from the need to get by—and you see how Oz takes advantage of that need, giving Vic hope for a future only to betray him and destroy it all. And that’s when you feel, when you shout: this guy has to be stopped. Oz isn’t just a thug, a mob boss, or the ruthless but entertaining scoundrel anymore; he’s a true supervillain. And supervillains have to go down.

It’s absolutely masterful. I tip my hat to it; I’m still in shock, but I hope I’m making sense—what an incredible script, performances, characters, everything. They’re not deconstructing the villain; they’re deconstructing the deconstruction of the villain. It’s pure screenwriting poetry.

Mood of the morning.

Oswald Cobblepot/The Penguin (Gotham) Appreciation Post

Easily one of my top favorite incarnations of this character ever. Robin Lord Taylor, you will always be famous.

By one vote, at the last minute, the Penguin gets the better end!

WINNER - OSWALD COBBLEPOT

LOSER: MR. GOLD

WOW. That is hilarious.

Never underestimate Oswald. He's exceedingly good at bouncing back from misfortune.

I do feel bad for Ed in season three. Not a single part of his being suspected Oswald of killing Isabella because the idea of Oswald hurting him just was that insane to him. Then Ed using dubious phrasing to see if Oswald would confess to loving him or not also hurts except watching it now I feel worse for Ed. He trusted Oswald immensely and cared about him so incredibly deeply that he never would expect Oswald to lie to him or treat him as a possession.

I...…respectfully disagree.

I feel like I should have felt bad for him, since what Oswald did to him in the name of love was awful, but it just didn’t come off in the writing. Not only was the whole Isabella thing so mind-bogglingly stupid and never made me feel anything toward them as a prospective couple (the link to Kristen Kringle didn’t help since I flat-out hated the two of them as a couple since Ed was such a relentless Nice Guy(TM) creep toward her), but all the sympathy I could have for Ed being betrayed and deceived by his best friend evaporated with his response - he’d already gone way beyond the line with what he did to Butch and Tabitha when he thought Butch was responsible, but what he ended up doing to Oswald was just so cruel and vindictive, not to mention disgustingly dishonest and hypocritical. 

Oswald’s a little shit, but he’s always upfront with people about the grudges he bears them, and is also pragmatic enough to still let such people live if going after them would only be to his detriment (ex: Tabitha for the longest time, and she’s the one who killed his mother), or even outright forgiving them for their slights against him if he cares about them and they seem to care about him (ex: Fish Mooney at the start of S3 - giving up revenge on Hugo Strange in the process, Sofia Falcone up until her final irrevocable double-cross, Ed himself - again passing up revenge, this time on Sofia, in the process, and Jim Gordon on multiple occasions up until his final irrevocable “double-cross”). So I can’t help but side with him over Ed, who by contrast psychologically manipulates and tortures him in the cruelest way he can fathom while still pretending that everything’s cool between them, and proceeds with attempting to murder him even after he defied Ed’s expectations by proving he truly did love him and was willing to die for him as penance for being so possessive and selfish.

Also, the fact that Ed does all this and had the reaction of “I don't want to kill him. I want to destroy him. I want to take away everything that he loves. I want to make him despised!” after Oswald confessed his love to him really feels like a vicious case of closeted homophobia / biphobia, as though he found Oswald being romantically in love with him to be as great an offense as murdering Isabella, and that just makes it even more uncomfortable to watch.

I do, however, feel sorry for Ed in Season 4. Losing the very thing he had firmly centered his identity around, having to scrounge around in the Narrows with his only friend being a brainless zombie, and then recovering and falling in love with Lee only to have his evil dual personality resurface and mentally torment him to the point he’s considering committing suicide....that was an arc that made me sympathetic toward the guy. I’m glad he and Oswald reconciled at the end, they were both put through the ringer and deserve to have each other to lean on (often quite literally) for emotional support.

https://youtu.be/Vj8vFXnqLhk

"mom, i do stan villains... "

*the villains i stan*:

“SHE STARTED IT!” - Oswald, probably.

I’m not talking to you Ed! I’m Talking to him!

Ok, so here I’m drawing one of my favourite scene from Gotham S04e14 the reunion of penguin and riddler…

well I not this isn’t exactly what happend, but I wanted give hug to little penguin !

It’s funny and touching that in the S4 premiere, the Riddler (not Ed Nygma - the Riddler) returning was shown to be Oswald’s greatest fear, and yet when it came to this moment the Riddler’s return was a shining beacon of hope for him and led to his and Ed’s reconciliation. 

I appreciated both the interpretations but Robin Lord Taylor... I mean... 🤤❤

Honestly, I have never cared for Danny DeVito’s version of the Penguin.  I certainly appreciate the lengths that both he and the make-up artists went to in order to bring him to life, but the way the character was written just didn’t work - there is a constant attempt to push sympathy toward him and he’s clearly coded as a tragic figure, but that doesn’t jive at all with what an utter monster he is (he is easily the most evil of the pre-Nolan Batman films’ villains). I feel like the Penguin from the Arkham games and the Penguin from Gotham are DeVito’s Penguin split in half and done much better: in the former we get the despicable monster but without any attempt at pathos which makes him fun to hate, and in the latter we get a truly sympathetic and even somewhat likable version who remains so even after doing a lot of horrible, violent things. The fact that they both stay more true to the comics helps too.

Should’ve figured she’d be a fangirl…