History Characters / GothamRoguesGallery

* TheConsigliere: To both Maroni and Falcone. Falcone tells Maroni in [[http://transcripts.foreverdreaming.org/viewtopic.php?f=180&t=16465 Season 1 Episode 15]] that Penguin is "clever enough to know that a freakish little man like him is never going to be the boss." He's dead wrong. Later, after his ascent to power, Butch, Gabe and Ed all act as this to him.

* FacialHorror: Played with. One dose of the laughing gas toxin, and Jeremiah's mouth stretches into a bloody rictus as his skin bleaches and he laughs uncontrollably. But thereafter, aside from the skin pigmentation changes he actually looks more normal than Jerome's scarred visage. Neither Gordon or Bruce realize anything is wrong until he wipes the makeup off during TheReveal.

* EvilVsEvil: Interrupts Mooney's attempted revenge on Penguin and sends her and Butch running.

* RealWomenDontWearDresses: She hates dressing girly, but does so for an undercover mission with Bruce. She's seen doing so several more times so she can pickpocket fancy galas.

* AgeLift: A minor one, but ''ComicBook/BatmanYearOne'' has Bruce at 25 when the two unwittingly meet, while later works featuring Selina in this timeframe establish she's 18. Here, their onscreen ages are revised to relect the actor's ages (Camren Bicondova is roughly a year older than David Mazouz) so that Selina is a year older than Bruce.

* AgeLift: A minor one, but ''ComicBook/BatmanYearOne'' has Bruce at 25 when the two unwittingly meet, while later works featuring Selina in this timeframe establish she's 18. here, their onscreen ages are revised to relect the actor's ages (Camren Bicondova is roughly a year older than David Mazouz) so that Selina is a year older than Bruce.

* LoveRedeems: Played Straight but ends tragically. While Ed is in a relationship with Miss Kringle he gradually becomes more stable. As admitted by the Riddler persona after Ed accidently killed Kringle The Riddler would've vanished completely before long had that not happened.

* BrainwashedAndCrazy: [[spoiler:Ivy makes him go after Gordon with her powers in "The Trial of Jim Gordon"]]
* CavalryBetrayal: Zsasz betrays Penguin in "Queen Takes Knight" by [[spoiler: claiming Penguin killed Martin and not revealing he escorted the boy out of the city.]]
* CoDragons: With Butch for the new King of Gotham, Cobblepot come Season 2. Whereas Gabe seems to serve as a bodyguard and assistant, Zsasz is the one that goes out with the boss to take care of business.

* CoveredWithScars: Not to the extent of his comic book counterpart, but he already has ''28'' self-inflicted marks on his body of all the people he has killed.

* TheDreaded: It only takes a simple request with an added "please" from him to have the entire GCPD precinct abandon Gordon on the spot than face him.

** When Gordon and Penguin accuse him of [[spoiler:the Haven bombing and the deaths of so many refugees]], he immediately retorts that he'd never take credit for someone else's work - if he'd done it, he'd happily own up to it.
* EvilHasABadSenseOfHumor: When he and Penguin are threatening Loeb he shows the Commissioner what happened to his security by revealing the man's decapitated head and manipulating his mouth like a puppet. He also routinely fails to take situations as seriously as either Falcone or Penguin.

* OddFriendship: With Falcone most of the time, but especially with Oswald. Both of them are equally psychotic and crazy, though Oswald can be disturbed by Victor - which is saying a lot.

** When he appears in "Ghosts", he's more subdued than he normally is, and for good reason: his boss is ''furious'' with Gordon for icing Mario. He also doesn't take much pleasure in the knowledge that he'll eventually have to put one in Gordon's head, and his AxCrazy side only shows itself, also in a subdued fashion, towards the end of the meeting, when he congratulates Gordon for doing to Mario what he had himself, it's implied, thought of doing more than once.

** Has deep, immense respect for Jim Gordon, to the point that in "Ghosts", when Don Falcone and Lee Thompkins put a hit out on Gordon, Zsasz approaches Gordon hours before the hunt starts to warn him. In a deleted scene from the same episode, Zsasz describes the high-caliber sniper bullet he plans to use to kill Gordon, stating that he doesn't want Gordon to suffer and that he deserves "Nothing but the best."

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Is nowhere to be seen when Falcone was put into the hospital during the season 1 finale. You'd think Zsasz would be at Falcone's bedside considering how their relationship was in previous appearances. However he would have been a StoryBreakerPower for Falcone. Subverted in season 5 - he returns in person, and the first episode shows he controls a substantial territory on his own.

** Trades wry smiles of professional regard with Alfred in "Pax Penguina", when Bruce's butler-cum-bodyguard and he simultaneously draw on each other at the Iceberg Lounge in the middle of trouncing Scarecrow's followers.

* VillainProtagonist: How he's portrayed - Gotham's been as much about his rise to prominence as much as Gordon or Bruce, and many of the show's major storylines follow him, even diving into his love life at points. As routinely appalling as he is, he always retains some trace of being sympathetic.

* AdaptationalNiceGuy: A very borderline example. This incarnation of Zsasz is more of an AffablyEvil mercenary who's only crazy and sadistic when working on the clock. Otherwise, he doesn't display as much the deep insanity and extreme bloodlust as most of his counterparts, who're usually so AxCrazy that he can't do anything but think about killing.

* AmbiguousSituation: In season 5 - [[spoiler:he's blacking out and waking up randomly all over the now-derelict city. He assumes it's the Ed personality, but doesn't seem to be aware that he's been in the care of Hugo Strange - who actually put a mind-control chip in his head, rendering him BrainwashedAndCrazy whenever Eduardo needed a killer inside Gotham.]]

* ArchEnemy: He's variously had this relationship with Fish Mooney, Salvatore Maroni, Theo Galavan, and Edward Nygma ([[spoiler:though the latter cools off by mid season 4]]).

* IfICantHaveYou: Given a pretty unique take, in that he's not interested in killing Bruce: he really, really wants him to be his best friend and brother, but by "Ace Chemicals" he's come to the conclusion that if he can't have Bruce as this (and he says the trope word for word when they talk in the alley) they'll just have to be forever bonded as enemies instead.

** 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 him 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.]]]]

* BadassInANiceSuit: Unlike his brother, he's always seen in a variety of sharp suits, both pre- and post-transformation.

* AmbiguouslyEvil: A retroactive example: it's left ambiguous 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.]]

* AGodAmI: Has organized a ReligionOfEvil centered around himself in Season 5 where "pilgrims" play Russian roulette with each other if they wish to join. In practice it's not quite as egomaniacal as it sounds, with "Ruin" showing it's to acquire willing(ish) workers to tunnel under the Gotham River to [[spoiler:Wayne Manor]].

* AdaptationalDyeJob: Initially: he retains his natural red hair even after getting the pale skin and green eyes from Jerome's gas. It's gone the traditional green (albeit so dark it appears black in most lighting) by the end of season 4.

The reclusive genius identical twin brother of Jerome Valeska. He seems to be a stable, serious young man until he opens a jack-in-the-box left posthumously by his maniacal brother. From then on he serves as the show's take on ComicBook/TheJoker, albeit without use of the name (WordOfGod indicates that Warner Brothers reserve the name for film incarnations of the Clown Prince of Crime), with a growing obsession with Bruce.

* ShoutOut: Pyg's plot to [[spoiler:bake his murder victims into [[ImAHumanitarian human meat pies]]]] is directly inspired by ''Theatre/SweeneyToddTheDemonBarberOfFleetStreet''. This was a deliberate reference, since Michael Cerveris actually played Sweeney Todd on Broadway.

* AnimalMotifs: He models himself after pigs, and places a pig mask on every cop that he kills. Not only that but he leaves figurines of pigs on his crime scenes, sent pig heads to the police HQ as a calling card and left live pigs with two of his victims corpses, one of which was eaten by said pigs.

they squealed and they squealed until they went to sleep.''\\
And sleep well, for tomorrow, the axe shall fall...

** He usually wears a smug smile on his face and speaks with glee when committing crimes and killing people. If he ever drops this, someone's going to die.

* TheImmune: He is immune to Alice's virus, and his blood is necessary to create a cure.

* AnIcePerson: On the giving and receiving ends: his freeze gun lets him freeze people solid. Later, his suicide attempt alters his physiology so that he can only survive in cold temperatures.

* {{Foil}}: Appropriately enough, to Mr. Freeze. Both are villains themed after elements, both wear bodily-concealing suits and goggles, and both use guns that fire ammunition deriving from said elements. However, while Freeze is trying to rescue the one he loves and ''not'' cause massive collateral damage, Bridgit sets her abusive family ablaze (though it wasn't [[ButtMonkey without reason]]) and goes on a subsequent rampage. They both end up at Indian Hill and don't see each other until Hugo Strange attempts to activate a bomb to level Arkham. While Freeze stays loyal to the professor, Bridgit (now truly Firefly) immediately dejects Strange's imploring to kill Selina. The two end up in ElementalRockPaperScissors and are evenly matched, only stopping when Strange gets in the crossfire.

* AGodAmI: Due to Strange creating a new persona for her to adapt to, Firefly now believes she is a "Goddess of Fire." By the time Oswald and Ivy find her again in Season 3, the "Goddess of Fire" alter ego went away.