Penguin's Psychology Explored

Is the Penguin a fish or a bird?

Is Penguin (aka Oz, short for Oswald) a ruthless mobster who wants to dominate Gotham? Or is he mamma's boy? I was left pondering these questions at the end of the Penguin TV series.

In opening scene reveals Oz's aspirations to be hailed as a community organizer, a guardian of the poor, similar to the likes of the outlaw folk hero Robin Hood. His new mob boss mocks his aspirations shared in a moment of vulnerability. Oz responds to the insult by shooting the mob's new boss. I wondered if Oz was like infamous mobster Tony Montana from Scarface, impulsive and insane. But the very next scene subverted this expectation.

Fearful of the mob's vengeance, Oz attempts to escape the city, so unlike Scarface. So far in the TV series, Oz seems a disappointment. Typical protagonists in mobster movies, like Scarface, God Father are decisive, even if impulsive, but they always fight the opposition. In comparison, Oz shirking away from a fight, is let down.

Then we see Oz transform. As Oz plans his escape, he wants to take his aged mom with him to safety. Oz's mom pulls him up by his collars and admonishes that she did not raise him up to slink away from a fight. This gives Oz a new lease on strength. He returns to the city to face his enemies.

Is Oz a ruthless mobster who wants to dominate Gotham? Or is he momma's boy? TV show is aptly named Penguin: is Penguin a bird or a fish?

At times, we see Oz as a momma's boy. Other times we see him as an impulsive killer at other times we see him as a ruthless mastermind. As a ruthless schemer Oz would betray anyone and everyone.

Why this schizoid behavior? What really drives Oz? The second half of the TV show pulls back the curtain to give some answers. Spoiler ahead!

The root of Oz's impulse to kill comes from his first murder: a double fratricide. Oz kills two of his brothers in a moment of rage. Fratricide is replete in the stories which shape civilizations from Cain and Abel to Romulus and Remus, in the founding of Rome, to Michael Corleone and Fredo Corleone in the God Father. What makes Oz's fratricide interesting is that it has to do with his motivations. Oz does not kill his brothers in order to gain power or material wealth, but rather to gain his mother's love.

Oz wanted to possess all of his mom's love for himself. He did not want to share his mother's love with his siblings. For Oz love was about possession. Love was not about shared experiences. Oz's desire for love is good, but his wanting to possess it for himself twists the good desire. Why is he so possessive of his mother's love?

The poet W.H.Auden says that often we see ourselves through the eyes of the other person. We construct our identity largely through the validation and recognition we receive from those around us. This is why human beings are social beings. However, this natural need for external affirmation can become problematic when focused too intensely on a single person. Such dependency places unreasonable burden on that individual.

This dynamic is illustrated in the Great Gatsby. Jay Gatsby's entire existence is focused on pleasing Daisy and getting her attention and affirmation. Even though Daisy is initially seduced by his devotion, his overwhelming need for approval and possessiveness becomes suffocating. His story is a cautionary tale about the dangers of attempting to find one's entire sense of self worth through a single person's validation.

Everything Oz does as a kid is to please his mom. Tough superficially this may seem like an act of love, it is really an act of desperation. This desperate clamouring for attention, affection and affirmation has unintended consequences. As a kid he eliminates his brothers because he does not want to share his mom's love. Even at the end of the TV, after he has arrived at the top of the hierarchy of Gotham's mob world, he still wants his mother's affirmation - but this time he forces his girlfriend to act like his mom.

A part of healthy development is to find this affirmation from a broad community of family and friends instead of trying to find this affirmation from a singular finite person. This is why the Bible says love God and love your neighbor too. In Trinity we see the model of love as a shared experience, of the Father, Son and Spirit sharing the experience of love. Not one person of Trinity attempts to possess the other. There is mutual respect, deference and love. Sharing the love does not reduce the capacity for love, rather it turns exponential. Oz had a very limited view of love in which sharing his mother's love with his brothers was something he saw as limiting.

The philosopher Emmanuel Levinas says that all ethic originates from the face of the other. It is in the shared experiences with the other that we learn what true love is. In as much as we do not learn that the essence of love is the shared experiences, our love is likely to be schizoid as Penguin, stuck between the fish and the bird.