Something I love about The Penguin that I haven't heard many people talk about is how it's essentially a deconstruction of the "gangster with a heart of gold" trope that you often hear about in mafia movies. In the very first scene, Oz tells a story about Rex Calabrese, a mob boss so beloved by the people of Gotham that they threw a parade for him when he died, and it's clear that this is the kind of man Oz wants to be - except there's nothing honorable about Oz at all. He lies constantly, betrays damn near everybody he meets, and will not hesitate to throw even his most trusted allies under the bus if he can benefit from it, yet he still desperately clings to this fantasy of being the "champion of the people," of being just like his childhood idol, of being someone who could make his mother proud of him. And the core conflict at the heart of the show ends up revolving around that core internal conflict. Oz wants power, and he wants to be loved. But he cannot have both.
The thing is, he doesn't want to be loved. He wants to be admired. For him, love is a kind of treasure. The Penguin doesn't love, he covets. He wants admiration from Vic because it makes him feel powerful. He wants the approval of his mother because it's the treasure he's been chasing since he was a kid, to have her all to himself, singing his praises, without his brothers taking any of her approval for themselves. We think it's the same thing as love because that's what we expect to see between a boy and his mom, a father figure and his mentee, a community leader and his people. Our own empathy creates the illusion that he has empathy too, because we expect it to be there. When we infer from his actions what his feelings must be, we only have our own feelings as a roadmap. But his feelings are completely different. We can't fathom that where we feel love, Oz only feels greed. So we always mistake the real motivations of people like Oz.
@@rottensquidwow, I love that explanation. I think the genius of the show relies on how you view the same scene in retrospect. Like the scene where Oz shows his foot. At first, it felt like a scene to garner sympathy for Oz. But after seeing his obsession with his mother, that foot is also a reference to Oedipus.
@@JohnnyJustice777 Oh right! I can't believe I didn't even pick up on that. But who thinks about Oedipus's lame foot, even when it's right there in his name?
This, fucking this. Essentially they subverted our expectations by having us confuse oz a need for love and appreciation with some sense of criminals honour or code, even though we literally see him lie and betray everyone in the first three episodes. I kinda called it completely though in the first two episodes that oz didn’t really care about vic
That is something the people at Disney do not understand, villains don't need redeemable qualities to be interesting characters, we thought Oz had at least a few, but he is who he's always been, he wants something he will do anything and kill anyone to get it, he's always been bad and that doesn't make him any less interesting or compelling..
yeah but Penguin from the comics is actually basically a gotham royalty.... he is born rich...thats a very big change they did in the series...it makes us sympathize with him more if he starts from the bottom , I started hating Oz only the last 2 episodes , before that I made excuses for him ..."oh his mother is sick , he tries to take care of her" , " oh he was born with nothing so he tries to get out of that hellhole" , " oh but at least he somewhat cares for Vic"( yeah that aged like milk)
I think what was especially impressive about this accomplishment is that it succeeds where countless anti-hero stories fail. People can watch Fight Club endless times, and still come away with the notion that Tyler had the right idea somehow. Or watch A Clockwork Orange, and come away thinking its smug sociopathic protagonist is actually admirable. Or read Watchmen and think Roschach is a heroic martyr, rather than another cog in the machine that makes human misery. Or Travis Bickle. Or Arthur Fleck. The list of "you missed the point" characters goes on and on. But there's no mistaking the point at the end of The Penguin. There's no way to dismiss what he is, or think he maybe has the right idea. There's no embracing him as a secret champion of red pill sigma male success. I feel like the whole show is an overt rebuttal to any of that. It makes clear how hollow and empty his triumph is, how illusory his heroism is, and how he really feels about anyone and everyone who might look up to him. Vic didn't just launder his morality. Vic was the self-insert character for those looking for a father figure in this man. In admiring Oz, Vic became every young man on the internet seeking a strong masculine example, and finding it in the guys out there looking for worshipers. And so Vic's demise was the most poignant part to this kind of character's triumph. It revealed how guys like that really feel about the boys who worship them, and what you actually get out of hitching your wagon to that kind of star.
@@mannythegrandfather2291 Exactly. But it pretended to be an anti-hero story up till the very end. The difference absolutely hinged on Vic. Everything else could have been forgiven up till that point. We weren't quite sure what to think of Oz, whether he was redeemable or not. He was Schrodinger's villain. Until we got a real look inside his head, he could have been either. But killing Vic was definitive. It opened the black box of his soul, and gave us a clear look inside. It collapsed the wave form.
I have noticed that technique used with Vick in other stories. I like to call it (and I’m pretty sure I’ve heard of other people calling it) the Morality Pet. As often as this technique is used to redeem a character, The Penguin shows how it can be used to illustrate their corruption!
Yeah, that's a pretty common trope - if you want people to root for a villain, make somebody who they're nice to. It can be a family member, or a friend, a trusted henchman, or even a dog; the Morality Pet is there to make a bad guy seem less bad, because there's someone they legitimately care about and would never hurt no matter what evil actions they might do otherwise. Unless that care is only superficial. Unless the villain is only nice to this one person up right up until they stop being useful, and the villain decides that morality is a weakness. And when that happens, the audience is left feeling betrayed and disgusted for ever having rooted for them in the first place.
!!!!SPOILERS BELOW!!!! You (Netflix series) also uses this trope in the first two seasons, along with a tragic backstory. And it absolutely works as fans became completely attached to the monster that is Joe Goldberg. It especially works when they use seasons 3 and 4 to completely pull the rug from under us by the time season 4 ends. This is where they finally present Joe as who he has always been, despite those heroic actions and backstory: the absolute fucking villain.
It's really cool how the show makes it clear how evil Oz is by the end: Vic wants to live and become rich - Oz kills hims and takes everything he has His mother wants to die with dignity - Oz forces her to stay alive as a vegetable Sophia wants to be free - Oz sends her right back to Arkham
The first scene also shows one central point in Oz' character: He wants to be viewed as a generous great guy, throwing parties and improving the neighborhood... When this fantasy he's striving to achieve is ridiculed by the mafia son, he shoots him. That's foreshadowing for his character to later ignore his mother being tortured as long as he gets to keep up his own story how his brothers "had this little accident". Total commitment until the end. Reality-distortion field, you could say. One important main point.
I was honestly so torn by the end between who to "root" for -- Sophia was much more sympathetic by the end, but you want Penguin to "win" against the other baddies out of spite and because you want Vic and his mom to be okay as well. The writer's really knew what they were doing and it was masterful.
To be fair, not only did Victor launder Oz's morality, but Oz also laundered Sofia's morality for us as well. Because him being extremely monstrous, many people already forgot that Sofia killed a boy around Victor's age for no discernible reason except just to prove a point against Oz. Some even consider her to be an antihero or a straight up hero of the story.
Not to mention Sofia had absolutely no problems with blowing up an entire city block just to try and kill Oz lol. She does get more sympathetic the more we learn about her for sure, but she’s still pretty definitively not a good person in spite of what little morals she does possess. In a way, that makes her a pretty interesting foil to Oz as an antagonist
I think it's also interesting that between these two evil people, you get to see the innocents squeezed between them in the form of Vic and Gia. Vic's already discussed, and Gia has her whole family killed and she gets put into an orphanage. Side note, I loved the repeating motif of Arkham's halls in the orphanage and the hospital. Very clever.
I think in a twisted way The Penguin DID care about Vic, which in his mind was a weakness that someone could take advantage of, because that's exactly what Oz would do, attack someone's weakness to gain an advantage. So instead of risking either that or a betrayal by Vic similar to what he did to Sophia, he just eliminated the problem altogether, which i think is actually more fucked up than if he just didn't care about Vic from the start.
your analysis here is-by far-the most thorough and insightful I've seen/heard. seriously, i couldn't at all understand why i felt so betrayed by oz's final act or why i'd celebrated, admired, and (yes) even *loved* oz…but what you've done here in less than 15 mins is basically sum up an entire bookshelf of philosophy/psychology and screenwriting techniques to shed light on the unique genuis of this show! bravo, sir! (as an aside, it's not at all unusual for the audience to root for the antihero-ie, "silence of the lambs" or "breaking bad," but you impress here by showing how this show's emotional manipulation was not only different but nearly imperceptible in its execution, affect, and effect. wow; just WOW!) thank you!
Cool essay, agree for the most part. I'm not sure that Oz is completely detached from Victor though. Its hard to see a clear incentive for him to spare Victor at the start of the show, but then kill him at the end. Keeping victor around is more risky at the start, Victor is unproven and is a witness to Alfredo's murder. Oz could have no idea how crucial Victor would be to his success. Conversely killing Victor at the end makes the least amount of sense. Victor is proven as a loyal and capable lieutenant to Oz. So why kill him? Because Oz was nearly destroyed when his mother was held hostage against him. Sophia was able to deeply wound Oz's ego through her. I think that's why Oz kills victor. He knew he was becoming attached to Victor, and he was scared of another rival using Victor to shame and humiliate him. Perversely Oz genuinely cares for victor, just not enough to let Victor live.
I think it's too much to let him live, rather than not enough. He even explains as he's killing Victor that families are a strength but also a weakness. The whle killing is spurred on by Victor saying Oz is his family.
This show was amazing, breathtaking even. Every part of it is so well-made that it surprises me. I'm glad DC can still do shows as good as The Penguin Really cool video!
You are 100% correct. I could not for the life of me explain why I loved this show so much to my fiancé, but now all I have to do is send him. Thank you so much this is amazing.
I'm glad you referenced Star Wars in this video... and an example of why the Prequels don't work... they never get you on board with Anakin Skywalker, so his enviable fall didn't fell rewarding. Compared to the Penguin, you know the whole time he's a monster, but he still gets us on his side despite always reminding us "He's a monster!"
Oz does act like a person, he’s just a terrible one. All of his actions are rooted in his own deep-seated insecurities and his need for validation, and he will go to any lengths to receive that validation
We already have those. They are called “sympathetic villains” and I’m pretty sure that the majority of the audience are already sick of them. Sometimes (many times) people are just evil.
@nont18411 We all have the capacity for what we call evil and we all have the capacity for what we call good. We all 'come out' of nature which has no concepts, and has within it the selfless love of a mother aswell as the 'sadistic' toying of a curious predator. Even the sweetest person has the capacity to kill innocents - through great stress or by being manipulated - and even the person who decided in their own mind to go find an innocent to cruelly kill can move away from whatever it was that led them to that decision.
I think that this show & the batman series could be the best buildup to any villain ever. Especially if they nail the execution in the Batman trilogy. Might seem like an over exaggeration. But from a writing standpoint alone, this show is a masterpiece. A legendary example of how to build 2 very strong antagonists in such great detail. And this video essay easily stands out as it deals in great depth about this very thing. The ending is truly an example of a perfect execution to the end of any character. Oswald felt immensely conflicted in the beginning like Travis bickle or Arthur fleck. But unlike the grey ambiguity in the prior and the moral nose dive in the second. It was more of a realisation that Oswald was always a terrible guy who was sick and demented. It was the audience who couldn't interpret something. And constantly tried to see him as the moral pillar or at least a protagonist to trust into. This isolation that we feel in the last 2 episodes builds up the perfect villain. That's extremely capable and even more despicable. Perfectly someone that we would wanna see Batman beat the shit out of. This is what I love about this Batman universe. It's a lot more unconventionally dark. But also ambiguous. Batman is this terrifying figure that most people (even the audience) don't know a lot about. While the villains are very well known and fleshed out properly. I'm genuinely very eager for this new entry! And i might even come back to this comment after watching it.
I don't think I have been let down by an Abercrombie character. They are all set up so well that they never feel like they make the wrong choice, just that they couldn't capitalise on the choices they made or the choices they had available to them were all bad options. Ozkilling Vic felt like he genuinly made a choice that, while I get why, he shouldn't have done. He has a choice between $1000 and $1,000,000 and chose $1000 because the 1mil might get stolen.
It's kind of like breaking bad. But instead of progressively turning the protagonist into a villain of sorts. It only spoon feeds you about who he is to trick you into thinking he's a hero.
I'm not sure that Oz killing Alberto puts him so far down the villain list. Let's face it, Alberto was a bullying douche. The audience shouldn't see murder as a normal acceptable reaction, but they surely sympathize with Oz's anger when Alberto rips apart his little dream. If the killing was just a straight up betrayal/power grab it's seen in a much worse light. IIRC when Oz killed Vic he pretty much admits he's killing the last bit of humanity in him - embracing the socio-path. The flip side of that is that Oz admits that Vic is somewhat of a moral tether.
Sophia is not a “Hero” are you kidding me? Yes, she’s not a villain and yes, she was treated badly but my dude she did some heinous shit. She literally b*mbed a city block just to hurt oz and was willing to cut his mother’s finger off just to get information. Not to mention literally gassing her entire family and having a child threatened to be killed. None of these things are heroic. She’s literally just as bad of a villain as Oz
Your handsomeness is a great contrast for how absolutely hideous Oz is. I loved the show. As much as I enjoy a good anti or sympathetic villain, it's good to follow an unrepentant ugly bastard for a change. They didn't even push that hard to make you 'justify' Sophia's actions. Yeah, she's a victim, but she's just as much a monster as the rest of 'em. She just had to get pushed into it first.
Something I love about The Penguin that I haven't heard many people talk about is how it's essentially a deconstruction of the "gangster with a heart of gold" trope that you often hear about in mafia movies. In the very first scene, Oz tells a story about Rex Calabrese, a mob boss so beloved by the people of Gotham that they threw a parade for him when he died, and it's clear that this is the kind of man Oz wants to be - except there's nothing honorable about Oz at all. He lies constantly, betrays damn near everybody he meets, and will not hesitate to throw even his most trusted allies under the bus if he can benefit from it, yet he still desperately clings to this fantasy of being the "champion of the people," of being just like his childhood idol, of being someone who could make his mother proud of him. And the core conflict at the heart of the show ends up revolving around that core internal conflict.
Oz wants power, and he wants to be loved. But he cannot have both.
The thing is, he doesn't want to be loved. He wants to be admired. For him, love is a kind of treasure.
The Penguin doesn't love, he covets. He wants admiration from Vic because it makes him feel powerful. He wants the approval of his mother because it's the treasure he's been chasing since he was a kid, to have her all to himself, singing his praises, without his brothers taking any of her approval for themselves. We think it's the same thing as love because that's what we expect to see between a boy and his mom, a father figure and his mentee, a community leader and his people. Our own empathy creates the illusion that he has empathy too, because we expect it to be there. When we infer from his actions what his feelings must be, we only have our own feelings as a roadmap. But his feelings are completely different. We can't fathom that where we feel love, Oz only feels greed.
So we always mistake the real motivations of people like Oz.
@@rottensquid Well said - this is an excellent analysis of Oz’s character!
@@rottensquidwow, I love that explanation. I think the genius of the show relies on how you view the same scene in retrospect. Like the scene where Oz shows his foot. At first, it felt like a scene to garner sympathy for Oz. But after seeing his obsession with his mother, that foot is also a reference to Oedipus.
@@JohnnyJustice777 Oh right! I can't believe I didn't even pick up on that. But who thinks about Oedipus's lame foot, even when it's right there in his name?
This, fucking this.
Essentially they subverted our expectations by having us confuse oz a need for love and appreciation with some sense of criminals honour or code, even though we literally see him lie and betray everyone in the first three episodes.
I kinda called it completely though in the first two episodes that oz didn’t really care about vic
"Victor is effectively laundering Oz's morality for us"
Your honor the way this bar opened my third eye and permanently altered my brain chemistry
That is something the people at Disney do not understand, villains don't need redeemable qualities to be interesting characters, we thought Oz had at least a few, but he is who he's always been, he wants something he will do anything and kill anyone to get it, he's always been bad and that doesn't make him any less interesting or compelling..
Penguin is such a good villain. Him and Freeze are, imo, the best Batman villains when they're done right for drastically opposite reasons.
yeah but Penguin from the comics is actually basically a gotham royalty.... he is born rich...thats a very big change they did in the series...it makes us sympathize with him more if he starts from the bottom , I started hating Oz only the last 2 episodes , before that I made excuses for him ..."oh his mother is sick , he tries to take care of her" , " oh he was born with nothing so he tries to get out of that hellhole" , " oh but at least he somewhat cares for Vic"( yeah that aged like milk)
I love Arnold!
I think what was especially impressive about this accomplishment is that it succeeds where countless anti-hero stories fail. People can watch Fight Club endless times, and still come away with the notion that Tyler had the right idea somehow. Or watch A Clockwork Orange, and come away thinking its smug sociopathic protagonist is actually admirable. Or read Watchmen and think Roschach is a heroic martyr, rather than another cog in the machine that makes human misery. Or Travis Bickle. Or Arthur Fleck. The list of "you missed the point" characters goes on and on.
But there's no mistaking the point at the end of The Penguin. There's no way to dismiss what he is, or think he maybe has the right idea. There's no embracing him as a secret champion of red pill sigma male success. I feel like the whole show is an overt rebuttal to any of that. It makes clear how hollow and empty his triumph is, how illusory his heroism is, and how he really feels about anyone and everyone who might look up to him. Vic didn't just launder his morality. Vic was the self-insert character for those looking for a father figure in this man. In admiring Oz, Vic became every young man on the internet seeking a strong masculine example, and finding it in the guys out there looking for worshipers. And so Vic's demise was the most poignant part to this kind of character's triumph. It revealed how guys like that really feel about the boys who worship them, and what you actually get out of hitching your wagon to that kind of star.
I think that's because, fundamentally, it's not an anti-hero story. It's a villain origin story.
@@mannythegrandfather2291 Exactly. But it pretended to be an anti-hero story up till the very end. The difference absolutely hinged on Vic. Everything else could have been forgiven up till that point. We weren't quite sure what to think of Oz, whether he was redeemable or not. He was Schrodinger's villain. Until we got a real look inside his head, he could have been either. But killing Vic was definitive. It opened the black box of his soul, and gave us a clear look inside. It collapsed the wave form.
He even has his girlfriend dress up like his mother and tell him everything he wants to hear. I mean, talk about Freudian.
Which is why I believe the end of Fight Club should have been Narrator choosing between killing Martha or Tyler and he kills Martha.
@@kredonystus7768 That's the saddest story I ever heard. 😢
I have noticed that technique used with Vick in other stories. I like to call it (and I’m pretty sure I’ve heard of other people calling it) the Morality Pet. As often as this technique is used to redeem a character, The Penguin shows how it can be used to illustrate their corruption!
Yeah, that's a pretty common trope - if you want people to root for a villain, make somebody who they're nice to. It can be a family member, or a friend, a trusted henchman, or even a dog; the Morality Pet is there to make a bad guy seem less bad, because there's someone they legitimately care about and would never hurt no matter what evil actions they might do otherwise.
Unless that care is only superficial. Unless the villain is only nice to this one person up right up until they stop being useful, and the villain decides that morality is a weakness. And when that happens, the audience is left feeling betrayed and disgusted for ever having rooted for them in the first place.
!!!!SPOILERS BELOW!!!!
You (Netflix series) also uses this trope in the first two seasons, along with a tragic backstory. And it absolutely works as fans became completely attached to the monster that is Joe Goldberg. It especially works when they use seasons 3 and 4 to completely pull the rug from under us by the time season 4 ends. This is where they finally present Joe as who he has always been, despite those heroic actions and backstory: the absolute fucking villain.
Victor got to be one of the best original characters added to a comic story adaptation in a show
It's really cool how the show makes it clear how evil Oz is by the end:
Vic wants to live and become rich - Oz kills hims and takes everything he has
His mother wants to die with dignity - Oz forces her to stay alive as a vegetable
Sophia wants to be free - Oz sends her right back to Arkham
The first scene also shows one central point in Oz' character: He wants to be viewed as a generous great guy, throwing parties and improving the neighborhood... When this fantasy he's striving to achieve is ridiculed by the mafia son, he shoots him. That's foreshadowing for his character to later ignore his mother being tortured as long as he gets to keep up his own story how his brothers "had this little accident". Total commitment until the end. Reality-distortion field, you could say. One important main point.
I was honestly so torn by the end between who to "root" for -- Sophia was much more sympathetic by the end, but you want Penguin to "win" against the other baddies out of spite and because you want Vic and his mom to be okay as well. The writer's really knew what they were doing and it was masterful.
To be fair, not only did Victor launder Oz's morality, but Oz also laundered Sofia's morality for us as well.
Because him being extremely monstrous, many people already forgot that Sofia killed a boy around Victor's age for no discernible reason except just to prove a point against Oz. Some even consider her to be an antihero or a straight up hero of the story.
Not to mention Sofia had absolutely no problems with blowing up an entire city block just to try and kill Oz lol. She does get more sympathetic the more we learn about her for sure, but she’s still pretty definitively not a good person in spite of what little morals she does possess. In a way, that makes her a pretty interesting foil to Oz as an antagonist
I think it's also interesting that between these two evil people, you get to see the innocents squeezed between them in the form of Vic and Gia. Vic's already discussed, and Gia has her whole family killed and she gets put into an orphanage.
Side note, I loved the repeating motif of Arkham's halls in the orphanage and the hospital. Very clever.
I had no idea about the timeline, and watched Star Wars episode 1,2,3 first
It blew my mind when Anakins became Darth Vader
I think in a twisted way The Penguin DID care about Vic, which in his mind was a weakness that someone could take advantage of, because that's exactly what Oz would do, attack someone's weakness to gain an advantage. So instead of risking either that or a betrayal by Vic similar to what he did to Sophia, he just eliminated the problem altogether, which i think is actually more fucked up than if he just didn't care about Vic from the start.
Sofia is not a hero by any means. She just happens to be less evil than Oz.
They are equally evil, just in different ways.
Minthara mentioned
Guess it’s time to start a new playthrough
Listening to this guy I half expected him to stop, say buy old spice, also I’m on a horse.
your analysis here is-by far-the most thorough and insightful I've seen/heard. seriously, i couldn't at all understand why i felt so betrayed by oz's final act or why i'd celebrated, admired, and (yes) even *loved* oz…but what you've done here in less than 15 mins is basically sum up an entire bookshelf of philosophy/psychology and screenwriting techniques to shed light on the unique genuis of this show! bravo, sir! (as an aside, it's not at all unusual for the audience to root for the antihero-ie, "silence of the lambs" or "breaking bad," but you impress here by showing how this show's emotional manipulation was not only different but nearly imperceptible in its execution, affect, and effect. wow; just WOW!) thank you!
Cool essay, agree for the most part.
I'm not sure that Oz is completely detached from Victor though. Its hard to see a clear incentive for him to spare Victor at the start of the show, but then kill him at the end.
Keeping victor around is more risky at the start, Victor is unproven and is a witness to Alfredo's murder. Oz could have no idea how crucial Victor would be to his success.
Conversely killing Victor at the end makes the least amount of sense. Victor is proven as a loyal and capable lieutenant to Oz. So why kill him?
Because Oz was nearly destroyed when his mother was held hostage against him. Sophia was able to deeply wound Oz's ego through her.
I think that's why Oz kills victor. He knew he was becoming attached to Victor, and he was scared of another rival using Victor to shame and humiliate him.
Perversely Oz genuinely cares for victor, just not enough to let Victor live.
I think it's too much to let him live, rather than not enough. He even explains as he's killing Victor that families are a strength but also a weakness. The whle killing is spurred on by Victor saying Oz is his family.
This show was amazing, breathtaking even. Every part of it is so well-made that it surprises me. I'm glad DC can still do shows as good as The Penguin
Really cool video!
i would truly love to see, how a write does set this all up. there needs to be a master plan for it, a blueprint...can you show one?
It's always a good day whenever Savage makes a video.
You are 100% correct. I could not for the life of me explain why I loved this show so much to my fiancé, but now all I have to do is send him. Thank you so much this is amazing.
15:30 Patreon jumpscare
I'm glad you referenced Star Wars in this video... and an example of why the Prequels don't work... they never get you on board with Anakin Skywalker, so his enviable fall didn't fell rewarding. Compared to the Penguin, you know the whole time he's a monster, but he still gets us on his side despite always reminding us "He's a monster!"
Imagine having a villain who feels and acts just like a person rather then just pure evil... i guess its impossible
You can do both depending on the character. It all matters what fits according.
Oz does act like a person, he’s just a terrible one. All of his actions are rooted in his own deep-seated insecurities and his need for validation, and he will go to any lengths to receive that validation
We already have those. They are called “sympathetic villains” and I’m pretty sure that the majority of the audience are already sick of them. Sometimes (many times) people are just evil.
@nont18411 We all have the capacity for what we call evil and we all have the capacity for what we call good. We all 'come out' of nature which has no concepts, and has within it the selfless love of a mother aswell as the 'sadistic' toying of a curious predator. Even the sweetest person has the capacity to kill innocents - through great stress or by being manipulated - and even the person who decided in their own mind to go find an innocent to cruelly kill can move away from whatever it was that led them to that decision.
I think that this show & the batman series could be the best buildup to any villain ever. Especially if they nail the execution in the Batman trilogy. Might seem like an over exaggeration. But from a writing standpoint alone, this show is a masterpiece. A legendary example of how to build 2 very strong antagonists in such great detail. And this video essay easily stands out as it deals in great depth about this very thing. The ending is truly an example of a perfect execution to the end of any character. Oswald felt immensely conflicted in the beginning like Travis bickle or Arthur fleck. But unlike the grey ambiguity in the prior and the moral nose dive in the second. It was more of a realisation that Oswald was always a terrible guy who was sick and demented. It was the audience who couldn't interpret something. And constantly tried to see him as the moral pillar or at least a protagonist to trust into. This isolation that we feel in the last 2 episodes builds up the perfect villain. That's extremely capable and even more despicable. Perfectly someone that we would wanna see Batman beat the shit out of. This is what I love about this Batman universe. It's a lot more unconventionally dark. But also ambiguous. Batman is this terrifying figure that most people (even the audience) don't know a lot about. While the villains are very well known and fleshed out properly. I'm genuinely very eager for this new entry! And i might even come back to this comment after watching it.
Great take man.
This is an awesome explanation
Reminds me of a lot of Abercrombie's characters. It's interesting when a character lets you down, but it's still satisfying and compelling.
I don't think I have been let down by an Abercrombie character. They are all set up so well that they never feel like they make the wrong choice, just that they couldn't capitalise on the choices they made or the choices they had available to them were all bad options. Ozkilling Vic felt like he genuinly made a choice that, while I get why, he shouldn't have done. He has a choice between $1000 and $1,000,000 and chose $1000 because the 1mil might get stolen.
Solid analysis.
loved season 1
Amazing video essay, holy shit
Am I the only who saw that patreon sign flash like an inserted frame à la Fight Club?
Penguins thrive in the Wasteland.
yoo you back
It's kind of like breaking bad. But instead of progressively turning the protagonist into a villain of sorts. It only spoon feeds you about who he is to trick you into thinking he's a hero.
Victor has a psychological impediment while Oz has a physical one. Two outcasts and bullying victims finding each other... until you know.
Are these jotted down as a script or it's off the dome? Because i find it impressive how you express your thoughts on what you're communicating rn
You should do the new suicide squad cartoon and Legacy of Cain you love soul river 1 and 2. Remaster
The penguin amazing show best oz villain
ty
I never loved penguin, I was rooting for Victor and Sofia.
I'm not sure that Oz killing Alberto puts him so far down the villain list. Let's face it, Alberto was a bullying douche. The audience shouldn't see murder as a normal acceptable reaction, but they surely sympathize with Oz's anger when Alberto rips apart his little dream. If the killing was just a straight up betrayal/power grab it's seen in a much worse light.
IIRC when Oz killed Vic he pretty much admits he's killing the last bit of humanity in him - embracing the socio-path. The flip side of that is that Oz admits that Vic is somewhat of a moral tether.
Sophia is not a “Hero” are you kidding me? Yes, she’s not a villain and yes, she was treated badly but my dude she did some heinous shit. She literally b*mbed a city block just to hurt oz and was willing to cut his mother’s finger off just to get information. Not to mention literally gassing her entire family and having a child threatened to be killed. None of these things are heroic. She’s literally just as bad of a villain as Oz
>implying I watched it
Your handsomeness is a great contrast for how absolutely hideous Oz is. I loved the show. As much as I enjoy a good anti or sympathetic villain, it's good to follow an unrepentant ugly bastard for a change. They didn't even push that hard to make you 'justify' Sophia's actions. Yeah, she's a victim, but she's just as much a monster as the rest of 'em. She just had to get pushed into it first.
They wrote him that way soo moneybags can hit him and not look bad.
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