Eudio: Application

[maliceaforethought]

CHARACTER INFORMATION

NAME: Oswald Cobblepot, aka The Penguin
CANON: Gotham
AGE: 26
CANON POINT: episode 2.07; just after escaping from Jim Gordon and Theo Galavan

BACKGROUND: Oswald at the Gotham Wiki; this entry covers through episode 2.04. There is very brief information on 2.05-2.07 in Oswald's entry on Wikipedia; see the last paragraph, starting with "In Season 2," under the Gotham heading.

INCENTIVE: Oswald Cobblepot is a broken man who has lost everything.

When the show started he was a nobody, a weak underling who was only good for carrying an underboss' umbrella and rubbing her feet. Over the course of a year he vanquished all his competition, stepped over or removed anyone who was in his way, and made it all the way to the top of Gotham's underworld. He was the mob boss everyone feared and obeyed. He was well off, powerful, influential.

When the Galavans began their quest to dominate Gotham they forced Oswald into being their instrument. They kidnapped his mother as leverage and forced him to assassinate the city's other contenders for the mayor's office, which made the Penguin Public Enemy Number One with the GCPD. The police began hitting his businesses and holdings. Everyone turned on him. He lost his place as the most powerful person in Gotham and saw everything he had fought so hard to win lost again.

All of this might have been enough of an incentive to get him to consider coming to Eudio, if a bit self-serving. But Oswald hasn't just lost his money, his place, his influence. Oswald's own safety is in immediate peril, as he was shot while trying to avenge his mother's death at the Galavans' hands. But it is, above all, losing his mother that would motivate him to cut a deal. She was the only person in the world who ever loved and supported him without question, who ever showed him any tenderness, who ever believed in him. He genuinely loved her, and her loss is unbearable. No price would be too small to pay for the chance to have her back.

In return for his stay in Eudio, he would ask that his mother be brought back to life and kept safe upon his return to Gotham so that he can set about fighting to get what's his back. He feels he can do anything with her returned, but without her presence in his life none of his other losses matter.

He would also be willing to agree to any conditions the city administration would place on him while he is a guest in the city--for example, regular check-ins with his case manager/a mental health professional/other designated party, or a ban on owning weapons, or the like--if it would make inviting a criminal known to be ruthless and violent into the city.

FIT: An unrepentant gangster with a propensity for solving challenges or expressing his anger through violence probably seems like the wrong kind of person for Eudio. The Penguin isn't your standard mob boss, and some of his history, personality, and values, when combined with his recent situation, would make him capable of fitting in.

Mobsters have a strict sense of honor and certain codes of conduct. As ruthless and scheming as he is, doing business, it's just that--business. Eliminating a mob rival or shaking a business down for cash is vastly different from asking someone on a date or or building a friendship. If he's not a mob boss in Eudio, if he's stepped away from that life, a lot of his reasons for being violent or taking advantage of people and situations is removed.

Oswald also sees himself as a gentleman, a man of decorum and dignity. His mother raised him with impeccable manners and drilled the sense of being proper and chivalrous into him. It would be unseemly to force his desires onto someone he was interested in or to disrespect their wishes or boundaries. That's not how a gentleman behaves.

He is also capable of genuine affection and loyalty to people he likes or cares about. He was utterly devoted to his mother, he doted on her and indulged her whims to the best of his ability. Until recently he considered Jim Gordon a true friend, and he went out of his way on a number of occasions to help Gordon, to try to build a social relationship with him, and to protect or advise him. If he really likes and respects someone, he will bend over backwards to make them happy and comfortable.

Oswald was bullied most of his life, so he knows what it's like to have people try to take away your dignity or make you feel like your needs or being weren't important. He wouldn't want to do that to someone he wanted to be friends with. Rejection has also been a pretty frequent occurrence in his life; he doesn't like it but he's learned to manage it, especially in interpersonal, non-business relationships.

He's a shrewd judge of character and motivations. He can read people and situations with ease, and when coupled with his sense of honor and being a gentleman, if he were to sense that someone was not open to advances or attention, he would stop. That sharp mind would also serve him in being mindful of the city's guidelines: he knows if he doesn't respect other people's consent, privacy, boundaries, and wishes, he's out and he won't get the one thing he most wants.

That one thing he most wants is the most powerful motivation to fit in. He is absolutely devastated at losing his mother. He is adrift, unsure of how to carry on, in fear that he will never again feel any support or tenderness. Nothing means more to him than having his mother back; he would set aside anything else and do whatever was required of him to have that happen.

Being able to feel some tenderness and affection from others, given the chance to get to know each other, might also soothe his grief and be a welcome experience, since it's not something he's had a lot of in his life.

He is a little reserved about sex, stemming from both his old-school upbringing and his own keen awareness that he is not exactly your standard fantasy material in the looks department. But he has had sex with men and women, isn't averse to the idea, and has no particular hangups about it. He'd be likely to want to court a person a bit before getting physically intimate. Emotional intimacy and friendships are easier for him and he would be an eager, indulgent, helpful friend if he felt like his friendship and affections were being returned.

SAMPLES: A text conversation; another text conversation; a log; and, as all those threads are 7-8 months old, his thread on the most recent Eudio tdm. `

ANYTHING ELSE?A visual guide to Oswald's stay in Eudio:

Back home in Gotham he was like:


But as part of being allowed into this fine city he has agreed to be like:


And perhaps, perhaps, given time and the opportunity to get to know people and to learn to relax a little and for people to maybe get comfortable with him? He might someday be like:

ASSUMING OF COURSE THAT THOSE IN HIS IMMEDIATE VICINITY ARE OKAY WITH AND FULLY CONSENT TO HIS PANTSLESSNESS