itsybitsylemonsqueezy:

As we approach yet another new Gotham episode this Monday, with the opening moves of Ed’s plan revealed, I’d like to make a quick observation about the nature of Ed’s revenge here.

Specifically, I’d like to talk about something Ed didn’t do. Because, if you had the choice of tormenting Oswald Cobblepot by haunting him with the ghost of one of his dead parents, which would you pick?

I’m guessing it’s not his dad.

Yeah. Yeah. Think about that for a second for me. If you were REALLY intent on devastating Oswald with the ghost of one of his parents, which would you pick? Be real, it’s not a difficult question. The choice is obvious. And yet… his dad.

Which begs the question, what is Ed really trying to achieve here?

To carry over from @freckledandspectacled‘s excellent meta found here, this is not really about Oswald at all. This is about Ed. This is about Ed working through his anger and feelings of betrayal and realigning how he feels about Oswald and how he sees himself in relation to Oswald. And yes, during this process, there is a compulsion to hurt Oswald. But… what kind of hurt? And how much?

Ed is very fond of SAYING things like destroying Oswald and a thousand deep cuts, etc, etc, but I’m not so sure that’s what he means. For example, he has never QUITE said that he wants to hurt Oswald the way he hurt him. So I think there is a line in the sand for Ed and there is a specific goal in mind for all of this, again, agreeing completely with what frectacled said, and I think it’s reflected in his actions.

So let’s get back to the example I provided, Ed chose DELIBERATELY to torment Oswald with the ghost of his father, not his mother. I think that’s seriously worth considering as a conscious choice because the effects would NOT amount to the same thing. Sure, Oswald was attached to his father, but going by just shared screen time alone, it’s NOTHING compared to his mother. Mr. Cobblepot is there for 3 episodes, Mrs. Cobblepot for 10, three times as much screen time. And Ed, I need to point out, wasn’t there for ANY of the time Oswald spent with his father, but was the FIRST person Oswald talked to about the death of his mother and has been there for basically every feel since his mother died.

We cannot, in this case, chalk it up to Ed’s ineptitude with attachment and emotions and say he picked one parent at random, guessing one was as painful for Oswald to recall as the other. Ed has VERY EXPLICITLY been shown what effects his mother’s death has had on Oswald. It nearly destroyed him. And Ed watched all of that, he HELPED Oswald through most of it. Ed knows, let’s not discredit him here.

We can of course bring up the practicalities of clayface impersonating Elijah vs. Gertrude and one being slightly easier to pull off. And, who knows, there may have been scheduling issues getting Carol Kane vs. Paul Reubens, but I don’t think it ever got that far. I think the writers knew from the start it was going to be dad. Because that makes way more sense for the effect Ed wanted to have.

And this is where I really take issue with Ed’s “destroying” Oswald thing, because I think he’s lying, or at least exaggerating. Ed DEFINITELY needs to work out his feelings, no question, but as frectacled so rightly puts it, Ed also wants to heal. And he even wants to heal their relationship. So he can’t want to devastate Oswald completely. And that’s what bringing back his mother would have done. 

Bringing back dad freaks Oswald out, and that’s what Ed needs. Oswald starts acting erratically, I mean… more that usual, he looks crazy on national TV, he’s really thrown for a loop. Given all of this was, ostensibly, to damage Oswald’s political career, that’s perfect, that’s exactly what Ed wanted. But the psychological damage? Not permanent. Even the political damage come to that, but that’s an argument for after the new episode. But no, this is a weird spell in Oswald’s life and it knocks him out for a couple days, but Ed’s not going to keep this up. Give it a week, Oswald will write it up to cheese before bed or bad wine or even sabotage if Oswald is PARTICULARLY together at the time, which would be nice. But he’ll get over it, he won’t be scarred for life because his dead dad haunted him briefly. ESPECIALLY as the haunting is now resolved in a fairly satisfying way. Although… all the evidence mysteriously “disappeared” and I GUESS that might throw Oswald off for a little while longer, but again, it won’t be significant, he’ll snap out of it. And this alone isn’t the end goal of Ed’s plan, so no worries, this is only stage one. By the time Oswald’s over this, Ed will already have something else to hit him with. This is an exhaustion game, Ed’s just running him ragged until X and at X the game will be over and Ed will get whatever he thinks he wants. I mean… assuming everything goes the way Ed wants it to go which is a VERY grand assumption, but… sure, sure, let’s go with that : |

So, I have sort of already argued that what Ed got out of bringing back dad was in fact what he wanted the whole time. Unbalance Oswald just long enough to make him look crazy and keep him from thinking about what’s really going on here. Because Oswald is so caught in the emotional razor wires of this, he isn’t together enough to stand back and analyze this and realize he’s being played. And, to Ed’s credit, that’s masterful understanding and manipulation of who Oswald is, so… good job, Ed.

But now let’s look at what bringing back mom would have done AND why Ed did not want that. First of all, Oswald wouldn’t have wanted to do anything. At all. He would have dissolved to tears in a matter of seconds and continued to be nonfunctional for literal days. That is how deep his pain and unpacked guilt over his mother goes. Remember he shot a guy for insulting the importance of the breaking of his mother’s statue. This is not emotional dynamite one just breaks out for any old occasion. You have to truly want to incapacitate him. So, if Ed had done this, Oswald would not have gone after the body, he would not have done the interview, he just would have stayed in his house and cried and prayed to see his mother again. He would have had no motivation to do anything at all and PROBABLY would have in fact NEEDED Ed to resurface to help him out of this AGAIN. Like, let’s all remember the fact that they imprinted on each other when Ed faced down a knife to his throat from Oswald Cobblepot, the motherfucking Penguin, and told him he was weak for loving his mother and free now that she was gone. Let’s ALL remember that THAT’S what it took to bring Oswald back from the brink the FIRST time.

So, if political sabotage is Ed’s aim, this absolutely does not work, because while Oswald is completely nonfunctional and ineffectual now, it’s all private and can easily be covered up. Like, let’s be real 99% of politicians are ineffectual, that’s hardly news or even a criticism really. But psychologically. Psychologically, if Ed’s true aim is DESTROYING Oswald? Then job well done, mission accomplished, because without SERIOUS therapeutic help and, again, Ed HIMSELF turning up to help him, Oswald might never recover. He might have quit politics and crime to go be depressed about his mother for fucking ever. I am not even exaggerating, we know what Oswald’s attachment to his mother is, we’ve seen what he does to himself and others in the name of it. So, if you really wanted to destroy him? On a permanent basis? You know what you’d pick.

And that’s my whole point. That’s not what Ed wants. Ed HAD that option, he EASILY understands the extent of the damage he could have done to Oswald if he had brought his mother back instead, and he doesn’t. And I very strongly feel that is very intentional, Ed does not at all want to destroy Oswald. Not in that way, not in a permanent setting.

And I think that’s relevant, I think it’s important to understand that whatever pain Ed gives him now is not intended to be permanent. It’s intended to be something Oswald can survive. Ed’s looking to the future and in his future he DOES see a continued relationship with Oswald, in whatever capacity. And what he does now is engineered toward that aim. Because otherwise he could have ended it right here and now. Ed has the power, he has the means to REALLY do harm to Oswald if he so chose. But he doesn’t.

And I just wanted to say that before the next episode could air, for context, so we all have a little more understanding of what Ed’s parameters and goals are. I think it’s fascinating to see he has clear limits on the kind of pain he wants to deliver. So do consider this when you’re weighing up what Ed does to him.

I won’t pretend to know what Ed’s end goal is, I have a few rough ideas and theories, but I can’t say for sure at this stage. But I know he has one and it isn’t going to be a future without Oswald in it, that I’m sure of.

This post is obviously old, but holy cow did it leave me shook and really does make u think. Ed really could have destroyed Oswald beyond repair, but didn’t. And despite shooting Oswald in the end, we did get to see just how much of an impact Oswald’s ‘death’ had on Ed. Had he really destroyed Oswald psychologically by using Gertrud, I somehow doubt Ed would have forgiven himself.