History Characters / GothamTheValeskaTwins

* RedHerring: Though his character was pretty heavily based on the Joker, it turns out he wasn't "Joker before he was Joker" in keeping with the general theme of the series, rather someone who will later inspire the Joker in-universe. Hilariously for a red herring, [[IncrediblyLamePun he has red hair.]] A possibly SubvertedTrope, once [[JokerImmunity he got resurrected.]] [[ComicBook/New52 Losing his face]] and [[ComicBook/DeathOfTheFamily trying to stick it back on]] further solidifies the possibility.

* KickTheSonOfABitch: He kills Robert Greenwood for [[DisproportionateRetribution stepping on his line]]. Considering that Greenwood was a cannibal who had murdered dozens of women, it's hard to feel any sympathy for him. Also ends up killing his abusive uncle in season 4.

* KickTheSonOfABitch: He kills the foreman of the workers trying to tunnel out of Gotham for complaining it's hopelessly unrealistic of him to expect it done in such a short time. Said foreman had been established in a prior episode as an unrepentant child slaver.

* GutturalGrowler: His voice is noticeably deeper and harsher after his resurrection (reminiscent of Heath Ledger's portrayal of the Joker), due to Theo Galavan stabbing him in the throat during his first death.

* SplitPersonality: In both "One Bad Day" and "Ruin" this is hinted at, as he's seen talking to himself in Jerome's [[GutturalGrowler harsh, gravelly tones]] and answering in his own CreepyMonotone.

** His respone to getting a Batarang ''through the hand'' in the finale is to laugh hysterically until another one kcoks him out. He even points at [[spoiler:Batman]] as to say "good one!".

* ActuallyPrettyFunny: A warped variant: he can't stop giggling in "Pena Dura" when Alfred threatens to bite his face off if he hurts Bruce, having to visibly compose himself into seriousness before he resumes explaining his plans to the butler.

* FromNobodyToNightmare: While this is true of Penguin and most of the villains on this page, nobody embodies this trope harder than Jeremiah Valeska. Nobody even knew of his existence at the start of season 4 (including the fans)-- by its end, he's far surpassed his brother in almost destroying the city and plunging it into total anarchy, becomes Bruce's ArchEnemy after gunning down Selina, and becomes the Gotham version of the Joker, THE Batman villain. Not bad for someone who only appeared in 5 episodes of season 4...

'''Jeremiah:''' Um, uh... I don't know. Call me... [[Film/Batman1989 Jack]]. No, no that's not right. Joseph, [[VideoGame/BatmanTheTelltaleSeries John]], Jay... I don't know. I just... I feel something new crawling from the primordial ooze that would be something... ''Beautiful.''

* CainAndAbel: Jerome wants to [[spoiler: kill his brother, though not before driving him insane. While the former never comes to pass, the latter does, leaving Jeremiah as a worse threat to the city than his brother ever was. Given the pre-planned circumstances of unleashing Jeremiah's insanity, with recording and everything, it's also possible Jerome never actually wanted to kill Jeremiah. ]]

* DiscOneFinalBoss: [[spoiler: Of the second half of Season 4. He breaks out of Arkham Asylum and plans to drive Gotham insane with laughing gas, but once this plan fails, he willingly falls to his death and posthumously gives Jeremiah, his brother, special laughing gas that transforms him into something far, far worse than he ever was.]]

* EvilTwin: Played with to an extent. [[spoiler: Jerome is certainly evil, but if Jeremiah's post-transformation belief that he was always as dangerous and murderous as he proves in the last few episodes of season 4 is true, and it seems true as he deliberately made a plan to hurt his brother as a child by telling lies, along with the show's theme of "you can't bring out something that's not already there", it's likely there have never been a good twin in this relationship.]]

* FacialHorror: After one of his followers, Dwight, fails to resurrect him from the dead, he decides to slice his face off and ''wear it like a mask'' to morbidly symbolize Jerome's legacy living on through the maniacs he inspired. When it turns out that the resurrection was a success, Jerome not only gets his face back, he ''staples it back on''[[note]]in reference to the ComicBook/New52 Joker, especially during ''ComicBook/DeathOfTheFamily''[[/note]]. Needless to say, [[http://cdn2.darkhorizons.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/photo-jeromie-is-alive-in-gotha.jpg the results aren't pretty]]. Even less so when Gordon actually ''punches it off''.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: Shortly before he kills a DefiantToTheEnd Commissioner Essen, she tells him he'll be dead soon and that no-one will remember his name. The former comes to pass an episode later at the hands of Theo Galavan (though it doesn't stick), while by the finale the latter also happens by his own design, in favour of a far worse monster - his twin brother Jeremiah,[[spoiler: aka the Joker]].

** Jerome gets his face hacked off and after getting it back he crudely attempts to reattach it while doing all he can to prevent it from falling off entirely, exactly like ''ComicBook/TheNew52'' Joker, especially during ''ComicBook/DeathOfTheFamily''.

** Even his identical twin brother can be an obscure Joker reference: in ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamCity'', [[spoiler: the Joker, who was sick, had Clayface act as his body double. As of Episode 18 of Season 4, Jerome is dead, but Jeremiah might be keeping his legacy alive after all...]]

** [[spoiler: The show just LOVES to play with his fans. He's dead for real this time... Luckily for him, he had a twin brother to inherit his villainous legacy!]]

** In season 2 he also hits on the idea of using Russian Roulette to prove himself worthy of Maniax leadership - something [[spoiler: Jeremiah later uses to see who gets into his cult, meaning Jerome is indirectly responsible for Ecco becoming the warped Harley Quinn figure we see in season 5 after she tries it.]]

* WalkingSpoiler: Jerome's practically taken care of by Galavan after the third episode of the second season, but it is his lasting repercussions AND him being resurrected in mid-season 3 where he becomes this trope. [[spoiler: And there's really no getting round the fact that his death in the fourth season leads to the creation of the real Joker in his brother Jeremiah.]]

* YouCannotKillAnIdea: [[spoiler: Before his second death, he uses his last words to declare this of himself. As for how true this is, see all of the above tropes.]]

* BigBadDuumvirate: Forms one with [[spoiler: Ra's al Ghul]] in the Season Four finale.

** Is subject to this again in season 5 by Ed Nygma and other Arkham inmates, who physically abuse him while he is [[spoiler: pretending to be]] catatonic, which makes it not so surprising that Jeremiah later targets the Riddler by [[spoiler: breaking him out of Arkham, and tricking him into committing a high-profile crime as [[TheChessmaster a distraction for Jeremiah's own plans.]]]]

** The two-part SeriesFinale reveals a new look for Jeremiah... [[spoiler: a freakish, scarred visage riddled with chemical burns and wisps of stringy, bright green hair that resemble the sickly Joker of [[Videogame/BatmanArkhamSeries the Arkham series]] wearing a long purple overcoat that blends elements of the [[Film/Batman1989 1989 film]] and [[Film/TheDarkKnight Heath Ledger's take]] on Mister J.]]

* EvilVersusEvil: At the end of season 4, Oswald, Barbara, Tabitha, and Butch try to threaten him into extorting money from the city using his bombs, and, [[BullyingADragon when that doesn't work]], risk their lives trying to prevent him from carrying out his plan to [[spoiler: kill thousands of people and cut Gotham off from the outside world.]] Especially notable, since these other villains are the only ones, besides Bruce and Alfred, who get there on time to fight him.

** [[spoiler: Jeremiah serves this role once again in the final episode of ''Gotham'', having come out of his faked coma once Bruce returns to Gotham and manipulating the entire cast in order to see his "old friend" once more.]]

* IWasQuiteALooker: Being Jerome's genetic twin, he's initially a very attractive young man, [[spoiler: but after he falls into a vat of chemicals, his face is horribly scarred and most of his hair has been burned off.]]

* MasterOfDisguise: Apparently skilled enough at applying make-up that he is able to hide his bleached skin entirely from Bruce for weeks until {{the reveal}}. Also uses his ability to disguise himself to successfully impersonate [[spoiler: Jerome, so that he can fake posthumous messages from his brother, which he then uses to manipulate Jerome's followers and Jim Gordon.]] This talent is possibly a holdover from his time at the circus.

* TheScottishTrope: In the finale, hearing Jim say Jeremiah's name [[spoiler: immediately lets Ecco know through a wired accomplice that their cover is blown. They then move onto the next part of Jeremiah's plan, which is escaping Arkham and kidnapping Barbara Lee (presumably to get Bruce's attention). Throughout the entire first part of the episode, Harvey is so afraid of saying Jeremiah's name that he is willing to confess to a murder Jeremiah set him up to take the fall for, presumably because Jeremiah threatened to kill Barbara if he didn't.]]
* TheSociopath: It's left ambiguous as to whether or not he was one before being sprayed with Jerome's insanity toxin, but after his transformation, he starts displaying a grandiose sense of self-worth, believing himself to be utterly superior to his brother and willing to do anything to prove it. He is also unable to form emotional attachments, which is best shown when [[spoiler: his long-time partner in crime Ecco is mortally wounded in the finale, and he simply guns her down and casually remarks how there are more fish in the sea,]] this is actually more of a common psycopathy traits rather than sociopathy.

* TookALevelInBadass: Several, over the course of the series. He is first introduced as a seemingly harmless intellectual, and when Jerome hands him a knife and gives him an opportunity to attack him, he is [[CurbStompBattle disarmed almost immediately by his brother.]] By the time he reveals to Bruce that he's been sprayed with Jerome's insanity gas, which happened after a day or few, he's good enough with a gun to shoot very close to Bruce's feet without hitting him, and in the season 4 finale, is skilled enough in combat that he able to hold his own against [[DarkActionGirl Tabitha]]. By season five, he is a match for Bruce in hand-to-hand combat, despite the fact that Bruce was already a better fighter than Jerome by season three, and [[spoiler: in the series finale, he easily defeats Barbara when they fight, even though she was trained personally by Ra's al Ghul.]]

* VisionaryVillain: He claims in the season 4 finale that his previous plans "lacked vision" and that Ra's al Ghul opened his eyes to a greater purpose; namely, turning Bruce into the Dark Knight and preparing the city for his arrival. Which involves [[spoiler: shooting Selina Kyle and then blowing the bridges to the mainland and turning Gotham into a lawless hellhole]].

* WouldHitAGirl: At the end of "One Bad Day", [[spoiler: he shoots Selina in the stomach, only failing in crippling her for life thanks to Ivy's potion the following season. Also briefly throttles Ecco when she brings him too few people for his building project.]]

* EvilAllAlong: Ambiguously. Jerome belives he is, and he himself claims to have been like this all along, although whether he's correct or that's just what the toxin makes him believe is unknown.

* EvilGenius: One of the show's smartest character. A master engineer and technician, with some aptitude for complex planning. His plans all had to do with his engineering and acting skills, and blowing things up, though, so he doesn't display as wide range of intelligence as Riddler or Lucius do. Things also very often went south for him.

* FreudianExcuse: He had a heavily abusive childhood, being frequently beaten by his mother and her various lovers as well as his uncle, who once shoved Jerome's hand in a deep fat fryer - and that was before [[spoiler:Jeremiah managed to turn the rest of his family against him, as Jeremiah was only sent away when the twins were ten, and Jerome reminisces about their mother and her lovers beating him on his ninth birthday. Though, it has to be noted that the age Jeremiah gave is either another lie or a writing mistake, as it contradicts with their ages (season 2 establishes there's at least 5 year gap between them and Bruce, who just turns 18 at the end of season 4, making Jeremiah around 23, and Jerome says he waited 15 years for their reunion) and what Jerome said in their confrontation about how their mother gave up on him only AFTER she hid Jeremiah away. If this is not a continuety mistake, then given Jeremiah's tendency to lie, he was probably sent away before their ninth birthday]]. The series plays with but does not make it clear whether he was always off his rocker or not: in fact, it becomes a mystery once comes the [[spoiler:last-minute deceptive twin brother]]. Before that, Jerome just had an abusive alcoholic mother and a bad father who sparked his nihilistic attitude with "the world doesn't care about you or anyone else" line. According to Jerome in his conversation with Cicero, that was the turning point. He also angrily remarks how it's "too late" for Cicero to be a good father, perhaps acknowledging that things could've been different. Simply put, nothing really suggested he was always crazy. Season 4 Jerome heavily implies [[spoiler:Jeremiah lying and turning everyone Jerome has ever loved against him]] was his "one bad day". And even during the [[spoiler:twin plot]], we still get a story about [[spoiler:the brothers seemingly being normal kids, playing and daring each other to steal sweets from uncle, and Jerome describing his childhood as helpless. Any evil details we hear come from Jeremiah, who is hinted to not be a fully reliable source. In contrast, Jerome's side of the story is usually either confirmed by other characters (Cicero, Jeremiah) or at least not denied (uncle Zack). Admittedly, there isn't anyone left to confirm or deny Jeremiah's words, except Jerome, but even in his own story their mother didn't believe him at first when he tried to convince her that Jerome has issues]].

* EvilAllAlong: Ambiguously. He claims to have been like this all along, although whether he's correct or that's just what the toxin makes him believe is unknown.

* EvilGenius: Probably the show's smartest character. A master engineer and technician, with tremendous aptitude for complex planning. Even the Riddler can't compare.

* AxCrazy: The show's outstanding example - none of the other villains display such a lack of scruples or brutal penchant for killing on a whim[[note]]Which, in this show, is saying a '''lot'''.[[/note]]. He even used one during the murder of his mother.

* BitchInSheepsClothing: When we first meet him, he seems like an innocent young boy mourning the recent death of his mother. However, once it's revealed that he killed his mother and that Paul Cicero is his father, he reveals his true nature as a psychopathic, maniacal monster.

* TheBully: When he and Oswald are both locked in Arkham, Jerome uses his control over the guards and other inmates to torment Oswald ceaselessly. He also may have been this to Jeremiah when they were children, but Jeremiah's paranoia as a child makes it uncertain.
* CainAndAbel: Jerome wants to [[spoiler: kill his brother, though not before driving him insane. While the former never comes to pass, the latter does, leaving Jeremiah as a worse threat to the city than his brother ever was.]]

** When Bruce saves Jerome from torture and probable death by his Uncle Zack, how does Jerome repay him? By sitting back and laughing while Zack's henchman attacks Bruce. He even says that letting Bruce die would be funnier than saving him.

* ComicBookFantasyCasting: Creator/CameronMonaghan seems to be channeling Creator/MarkHamill for all his portrayals of Jerome, with the voice of Creator/HeathLedger for his season 3-4 appearances.

* TheCorrupter: During both of his lives, he influenced many people into evil and madness, most notably [[spoiler:his brother Jeremiah, who gets a face full of Joker gas that alters him into a bleach-skinned maniac who eventually ends up becoming The Joker.]]

* CrocodileTears: He can turn on the waterworks at the drop of a hat. He's very convincing too.

* DarkMessiah: Downplayed. According to his father's last vision, he will influence Gotham with evil and madness, eventually creating the worst curse upon Gotham. Played straight in ''Mad City''. He even goes so far as referring to himself as one to his followers. He finally unleashes said worse curse... [[spoiler:by turning his brother Jeremiah into a SuperiorSuccessor - a bleach-skinned maniac with all of Jerome's insanity and considerably more intelligence and potential for destruction.]]

* EvilCounterpart: To Bruce Wayne. Both were orphaned late into their lives, both were associated with shady organizations, and both are on opposing sides of the law. While Bruce's parents were gunned down by a hired thug, traumatizing him, Jerome [[SelfMadeOrphan happily murdered his parents with no ill effect on him]]. Contrasting Bruce's great working relationship with Gordon, Jerome has tried to kill him on several occasions. Taken to larger levels after Jerome's resurrection, and their eventual confrontation. While Jerome has a vast cult at his beck and call, Bruce only has Alfred and Gordon at that point to rely on. In the funhouse of mirrors, Jerome uses a gun and some underhanded tactics such as a BladeBelowTheShoulder while Bruce uses GoodOldFisticuffs. Before said confrontation, Jerome had given Bruce a rough "[[SadClown sad clown]]" design on his face, while Jerome's face remained ever-grinning due to the way his face was, reflecting their ideologies of order (Bruce) and anarchy (Jerome). After the whole ordeal, Bruce began to adopt his iconic ThouShaltNotKill way of thinking while Jerome remains a murderous psychopath.

* EvilIsHammy: He's possibly both the most malevolent and the hammiest villain in the series, which in both cases is saying '''a lot.'''

* EvilTwin: Played with. [[spoiler: Jerome is certainly evil to the core, but if Jeremiah's post-transformation belief that he was always as dangerous and murderous as he proves in the last few episodes of season 4 is true, there may never have been a good twin in this relationship.]]

* FauxAffablyEvil: He can act quite chummy sometimes, as with his "chat" with Essen in series 2 - but it's clear the murderous AxCrazy psychopath is never far from the surface.

* FreudianExcuse: He had a fairly abusive childhood, being frequently beaten by his mother and her various lovers as well as his uncle, who once shoved Jerome's hand in a deep fat fryer - and that was before [[spoiler:Jeremiah managed to turn the rest of his family against him, as Jeremiah was only sent away when the twins were ten, and Jerome reminisces about their mother and her lovers beating him on his ninth birthday]]. However, the series made perfectly clear that he was always off his rocker.

* TheMadHatter: Say that he's crazy, and he'll cheerfully agree. Even more so than the character ''actually inspired'' by the Mad Hatter.

* PetTheDog: Played with. When Bruce saves him from being killed by his uncle, he actually looks set to save Bruce's life in turn by shooting his uncle's strongman henchman as he throttles Bruce. But then he decides it'd be funnier if the guy Bruce saved ''him'' from ends up killing Bruce. Jerome then just sits back and gleefully watches as Bruce struggles for his life.
* PolarOppositeTwins: [[spoiler:His identical brother Jeremiah is a soft-spoken, reclusive architectural genius, Jerome is a LargeHam psycho. Even as villains Jerome is random and chaotic even when following his plans, with a penchant for theatricality. Jeremiah is a NoNonsenseNemesis - methodical and precise even when destroying half the city.]]

* SiblingRivalry: While the details are unclear, it's obvious that Jerome and Jeremiah had a troubled relationship as children.

* TheSociopath: He shows shades of being one, including no empathy and being a good liar that can emotionally manipulate others.

* StrawNihilist: His general philosophy is that it doesn't matter who you hurt or kill, so you should go ahead and do all the hurting and killing you want.

** After Bruce saves his life from Lunkhead the strongman, Jerome proceeds to let him struggle for his life with the thug regardless - because letting the man who saved his life get killed by the guy who would have killed him otherwise is pretty funny.
* UnreliableNarrator: A very subtle example, but we really have no indication other than his word that his mother was as bad as he claimed.

* VisionaryVillain: By the end of season 4 he's grasped it doesn't matter whether he lives on or dies. What he represents - the chaos, anarchy and disregard for life's rules - will live on in the shadows and discontent of Gotham. [[spoiler:Particularly if he has a much more brilliant twin brother he can corrupt into helping things along...]]

* AmbiguouslyEvil: A retroactive example: it's left up to anyone's guess whether [[spoiler:his exposure to the Joker Gas turned him evil, or if, as he claims, he was always this way and the gas just changed his appearance.]]

* OmnidisciplinaryScientist: Has shades of this. Despite being introduced as a structural engineer, he seems to be an expert in multiple types of engineering, physics (considering his generators), and chemistry (if he made the chemical weapons he used in season five without Scarecrow's help). May be at least partially justified, because he graduated college by the age of fifteen at the latest, since he was that age when he finished building his underground bunker. Someone who finished college that early in that field is probably a math prodigy, which would make it easier to get degrees in other math-heavy fields, even if it was never mentioned on the show whether he had other degrees.

* TheSociopath: It's left ambiguous as to whether or not he was one before being sprayed with Jerome's insanity toxin, but after his transformation, he starts displaying a grandiose sense of self-worth, believing himself to be utterly superior to his brother and willing to do anything to prove it. He is also unable to form emotional attachments, which is best shown when [[spoiler: his long-time partner in crime Ecco is mortally wounded in the finale, and he simply guns her down and casually remarks how there are more fish in the sea.]]

* SonOfAWhore: Is this, if Jerome's tales of their mother's promiscuity are to be believed.

* TookALevelInBadass: Several, over the course of the series. He is first introduced as a seemingly harmless intellectual, and when Jerome hands him a knife and gives him an opportunity to attack him, he is [[CurbStompBattle disarmed almost immediately by his brother.]] By the time he reveals to Bruce that he's been sprayed with Jerome's insanity gas, he's good enough with a gun to shoot very close to Bruce's feet without hitting him, and in the season 4 finale, is skilled enough in combat that he able to hold his own against [[DarkActionGirl Tabitha]]. By season five, he is a match for Bruce in hand-to-hand combat, despite the fact that Bruce was already a better fighter than Jerome by season three, and [[spoiler: in the series finale, he easily defeats Barbara when they fight, even though she was trained personally by Ra's al Ghul.]]
* TookALevelInCheerfulness: Compared to his stoic demeanor in Season 4, he's noticeably a lot livelier and more upbeat in Season 5. Unlike most examples of this trope, this isn't played as a good thing. At all.
* TragicVillain: Ambiguously. He seems a good man despite Jerome's belief in his being as insane as him, and forms a friendship with Bruce that sees Jerome's plan to gas the city thwarted. Then he opens a box rigged with laughing gas toxin and unwillingly undergoes his transformation into a Joker-esque nightmare. However Jeremiah himself claims that the toxin changed his appearance and nothing else, so whether the toxin just made him believe that or if he was genuinely EvilAllAlong remains a mystery.

* UnreliableNarrator: When he meets Jim and Harvey he spins a sob story of Jerome repeatedly physically tormenting him when they were kids (and his expression shows he may even have come to believe it). Unfortunately, when he meets up with his psychotic twin, Jerome's able to get him to admit at least some of it was a fabrication.

* {{Yandere}}: He definitely has shades of being one towards Bruce. Shooting Selina right after she and Bruce have their BigDamnKiss has shades of MurderTheHypotenuse and the entire finale is both Jeremiah's fury at Bruce abruptly leaving Gotham and an attempt to recapture his attention, coming off as a spurned lover more than anything else.

* Determinator: When Jerome wants to do something, he will do it no matter how much he has to physically endure. Beat him within an inch of his life? He'll just laugh. Torture him? He'll grab the first opportunity to turn the tables. Cut off his face? ''He'll just staple it right back up and move on.''

* ToCreateAPlaygroundForEvil: Post-resurrection, whatever he's currently doing, his ultimate goal is to completely demolish Gotham's society and reduce everyone in it to murderous animals.

* DarkerAndEdgier: He was already an unrepentant mass murderer ''before'' dying, but after comign back to life he somehow becomes even darker. His pretty boy looks have been marred by BodyHorror, his destruction is now city-wide, his admired mentor (Theo Galavan) is dead after betrayal, he has become a full DarkMessiah to a cult, and he embraces a nihilistic philosophy that goes deeper than the mere twisted sense of fun that motivated him before.

** He believes he's this to Jerome -- with his genius-level intelligence, skill at manipulation and warped vision of rendering Gotham his artists' canvas he manages to [[spoiler:render the city a No Man's Land by the end of season 4]], something Jerome never achieved.