Miss Kringle's fate: A Useless Essay on the Masks of Abuse and Respecting Equilibriums
I am watching season 2 of Gotham and I finally came to the death of Miss Kringle. I'll have to make a premise: I knew she was going to die already (I spoiled myself quite a lot of the show) and Edward was going to kill her. I had thought, knowing nothing more than these two pieces of information, I would hated Edward for this death. I thought he was going to make a 180 degrees turn, become all of a sudden a horrible man who kills the woman who maybe wanted to break up with him, the epitomy of the violent misogynist. I was wrong, and I am pleased about it. I still think Edward is misogynist, just not in the way I think he would have been, in a way I find more sophisticated.
First of all, to analyse Miss Kringle's death, we have to understand why she was killed. I am usually hesitant to automatically define the killing of every woman as a feminicide, I prefer to use that term only when the motive behind the killing of a woman is directly connected to her gender. What I mean is, if there's a bank robbery and they kill a woman because she was the banker and the thugs needed her dead to steal the money, I personally prefer to simply use the word homicide. If a woman is killed by her partner because she wanted to leave them, especially if that partner is a man, I call that feminicide. That's probably just me, but I say that because I thought, before watching the scene, Edward was going to kill Miss Kringle just because she wanted to leave him. It has to be acknowledged he had another reason for his actions, maybe even more important than the fail of their relationship, which is that she was threatening to tell the police he had killed Tom Dougherty. Ed's reaction does not only depend on his broken heart, but on a very practical reason: he doesn't want to go to jail. As much as he seems to only ask for Kristen not to insult him, there are other reasonings in action behind he keeping her mouth shut and stopping her from leaving the apartment. He doesn't just kill her because "woman weak, man strong, man needs to teach woman lesson". He isn't showing he is the strongest in the relationship, he is trying to protect himself. Does that mean he is not guilt of misogyny? Hell no. But I love how the show treats that.
You see, I was worried Edward was going to turn into Dougherty n. 2, especially with the Riddler saying things like Miss Kringle owed them her love and that women likes their guys a little violent. You have become the very thing you swore to destroy, blah blah blah. But that's not wbat the show does, it's not the Riddler to kill Miss Kringle, it's Edward, and he does it staying true to himself.
Let's get a clear vision of the situation: Edward fucked up by telling Miss Kringle he killed Officer Dougherty. It may surprise you what I am going tp tell you, but I understand Edward. First of all, he was genuinely trying to reassure Miss Kringle. The poor girl was worried she was going to get killed for having another boyfriend, Edward was trying to bring her out of her paranoia. Second: there are moments you feel so connected and so in love with someone, you think you could tell them anything. Spoiler: you can't. Most of the time, you fuck up by being too blunt or revealing them something bad about you, this very romantic idea that your person will love forever and ever the entirety of you is not very realistic. I blame lots of romance books, movies and shows for planting this idea into our head, and especially movies for making us believe that real life is just like a film, that there are scenes too romantic and perfect to be spoiled by a single wrong comment. Usually, when you fuck up a moment like that in real life, you are not confessing a murder to your loved one. Edward was, bad luck. I mentioned romance books and movies and tv shows because I genuinely believe Edward mainly relies, on the subject of romance, on those rather than real life experience. I think Edward thought for a moment he was in a movie and he was the hero, now that he got the girl the story simply ended with a "and they lived happily ever after", nothing could ever change that.
Now Miss Kringle's reaction is completely understandable, she gets scared and she starts insulting Edward. Was that the best strategy to go out of that situation? No, of course not, but can you blame her? She just found out her boyfriend is murderer, and quite proud of it.
Anyway, that's when the fun starts. As I said before, Edward DOES NOT switch to the Riddler, he stays himself the entire time. We have to analyse his words and his actions separately.
Let's start with his words. He is pleading. He is embarrassed, he is ashamed, he is clearly losing the verbal debate. Miss Kringle is the aggressive one, Edward is helpless, almost at loss for words, he just prays not to be insulted. He tries to keep repeating his reasons behind his action, but that just makes things worse (Kristen calls him a stalker). This guy is fragile. His ego was already shattered and Kristen is basically beating a dead horse. Miss Kringle is winning, Edward is losing, badly. He is the scared, he is making up excuses, she is insulting him and threatening him. He keeps showing devotion and love to her hoping this will calme her down. He doesn't suddenly turn Tom Dougherty, he doesn't go "You stupid bitch, I saved you, you owe me!", consciously he is aware he is wrong. His words are the part of himself he can control, and with that part he begs for forgiveness and pity. If we were to only hear their dialogue, I'd imagine she is throwing stuff at him while he is curled in fetal position on the floor. Even her more cutting insults don't make him consciously retaliate against her, threating her to kill her like he did with her ex boyfriend, Edward is acting like the weak one.
Now switch it up, and let's analyse their actions: Miss Kringle is running away, logically, Edward is chasing her. I think their movements represent what they're truly feeling in the moment. They have control over their words but their movements reveal their intentions: Miss Kringle may appear aggressive with the insults, but she is scared and she knows she is the one in danger, she wants to get out of the apartment. Obviously Edward is chasing her to regain, at least physically, some closeness, but then, when she tries to run away completely from the apartment he doesn't simply follow her in the stairs or even the streets, he keeps her in the apartment with physical strength. He is asking for forgiveness on the outside, on the inside he knows he also needs to worry about not ending up in prison, and that's what will happen if he let Kristen go. She hits him multiple times, he is hurt, physically and emotionally, but he has a frenzy in his movements, he doesn't take the time to check his wounds, bring a hand to his face, he is immediately on her. Because he knows he is in danger. Because he knows that Kristen's forgiveness is very important, but that he does not end up in jail is even more important, it doesn't matter if he deserves it or not. He doesn't threaten her with words, he is not ready to acknowledge that, but his actions speak clear.
The scene when Edward holds Miss Kringle tp the door saying he would never hurt her, that he is a good man, while he is choking her and putting a hand on her mouth shows greatly this dissonance between words and actions, in his conscious side and unconscious side. Even then, he is not threatening her consciously. He truly believes himself a hero, he is not lying when he says he doesn't want to hurt her.
And that is the reason I like so much how Gotham treats abuse in relationships.
Edward doesn't need to become Dougherty in order to become an abuser. There's a not a magical revelation in which oh, look at that, Edward is actually exactly like Tom, and he starts acting like him and that's who he truly was all along. Edward and Tom are different people, not all abuse look the same and not all abusers act the same, because abuse has different faces, both Tom's and Edward's.
And it's especially great that we see Edward's abuse because it goes to show that just because someone doesn't believe himself an abuser it doesn't mean he is not one. Edward stood up against Tom's abuse but he couldn't see his own. Edward genuinely thought he was acting good in Miss Kringle's regards and him holding her down towards the door, well, it was just a minor thing to keep himself out of jail, it's not like he wanted to hurt her.
Abusers aren't always villains with an evil plan to lure you in a relationship just to hurt you, they may not even realise they're doing wrong (which certainly does NOT excuse them) and I love Gotham for showing this. In the same way Edward did not realise hebwas hurting, to the point of killing, Miss Kringle, even Tom Dougherty didn't think he was abusing her, he just thought "that's how you treat women". Edward may become a supervillain later on the show, but at this point he is just man convinced he is doing no harm to this woman. Because he doesn't want to harm her he is convinced he is not harming her. Because the reason he is choking her and shutting her up is simply because he doesn't want to go to jail and not purposefully hurting her he is convinced he is not harming her. By my definition of a feminicide I gave before, Edward would say it's not what happened, he didn't want to kill her, he didn't want to hurt, he loved her so he can't be guilty of feminicide, but he is. He just doesn't realise it.
Edward is not Tom, he doesn't think he is the strong man who can take down a fragile woman, his ego doesn't get a boost how that he's proved himself to be stronger than a fragile girl, he knows murder is wrong. He never shows to think less of a woman because she is a woman, he is the first to notice and denounce an abuse, he is lean and lanky, he doesn't look like a gorilla who would attack you, more like a shaking leaf you could easily push around. Still, monsters come in more shapes than one.
I want to be extra fair in this analysis so I'll add even something more about Edward's actions. I have seen a few video essays on Gotham and what they all say is that the city is the true main character, the city shapes his characters and leads them into impossible situations that force them to change and act in ways they would have never dreamed of. I think this becomes incredibly evident in Edward's actions towards Tom Dougherty and Miss Kringle.
I'll start by saying this: I justify Edward's murder of Tom Dougherty. And not because Tom is an abuser (although this obviously makes me sympathise with Edward more than with Tom), but because it was the only way out. Listen to me.
Gotham (the show) spends so much time telling us police is corrupted to the bone and cops often cover eachothers' backs, even when the backs they're covering are guilty of serious crimes. This means that denouncing the abuse Miss Kringle was receiving from Dougherty was not only probably useless, but even dangerous. At best, it would have brought to nothing, Dougherty's colleagues would have said Miss Kringle or Edward were lying (and, especially with Edward, they would have tried to say that he was the creep that was making shit up because of his jealousy); at worst, not only that, but Edward would have got retaliation (probably physical, they would have seriously beaten him up) and the abuse on Miss Kringle would have worsened, as a way to intimidate her from ever trying to come forward again.
If you're thinking of some plot of "making Officer Dougherty leave Miss Kringle/falling for someone else", this does NOT solve the situation, it just means a different woman from Miss Kringle would have ended up abused.
The only solution is, sadly, to do justice by oneself, and that involves violence. Now, Edward use the most extreme option, murder, but let's be honest: it's not like he could ever beat Tom up. And even if he could, Tom would have beaten the shit out of him 10 times worse with the help of his friends. It solves nothing. As sad as it is, unless Edward decided to go to Jim Gordon, The Most Honest Man In Gotham, hoping he could something and quickly, murder is the most obvious solution. Edward could not risk Gordon's involvement to make things worse (and also there's this thing that maybe you don't want to advertise that someone is being abused, the abused person has the right not to want the word to spread and Jim isn't exactly subtle). Anyway, Jim Gordon's involvement was not a guarantee of solving the situation, and again, you fail the first time, Dougherty and his pals become more aggressive and dangerous.
Murder is, technically, always a solution for things, I have to add. You don't want to take a test in school because you know you'll fail? You could technically kill your teacher. Emphasis of technically. That would make you not do the test. Of course you don't murder your teacher for a test, it's an absurd and far fetched solution, a test isn't worth a human life and there hundreds of solutions in between murder and accepting to fail the test (copying the test, not showing up, etc.).
The thing with Gotham (the city) is that it's so filthy and corrupted that even something like murder, which is the last solution you should ever turn to, suddenly becomes a very valid option to consider, especially with a situation as serious as abuse. I don't think Edward was crazy to kill Dougherty, I think he was logical. I think he understood way better than Miss Kringle how things work in Gotham.
Again, Edward is a very logical person. He kills Dougherty because it's the only way to get efficiently rid of the problem, he holds Kristen down and doesn't let her leave the apartment because otherwise she would have got him in jail, he holds his hand over her mouth because her screams would have alarmed the other residents of his building. I am sure part of him also subconsciously knew that choking her and simultaneously blocking her respiratory tracts was going to kill her, but it was the same subconscious part that decided Edward being free was more important than Kristen being alive.
Truly, if we take into consideration how Gotham (the city) works, how it's based on an equilibrium of giving and taking, we may as well put the blame of Kristen's death on Kristen herself. When Edward confesses what he had to do to free her for her abuser and he explains his reasons, he has more of a point than he himself realises. He made a sacrifice to the city of Gotham, he took a life, Tom's, to save another one, Kristen's. Kristen is horrified by Edward's actions, which translates directly in being horrified by Gotham's logic.
She tries to do the right thing. The right thing is not compromising, is telling Edward he is a monster and she'll send him to jail. But she dies, because Gotham doesn't work like that, you don't win doing the right thing. She would have got more chances to win if she pretended to think Edward her hero, to think his actions brave, for the moment, and the day after, at work, she would have confessed everything to the police (people hate Edward Nygma, they would have believed her). She could have asked Edward to give her Dougherty's badge as a proof of his love and later present it to the police as proof of the murder. But that, you see, would have involved foul play, that is the way of Gotham Kristen simply abhors. So she uncover all of her cards and she starts screaming insults and she dies for that, because she refused to bend to the rules of the city.
Edward, instead, understands them very well. When he had to choose between Miss Kringle and his moral principles, he chose Miss Kringle. When he had to choose between Miss Kringle and himself, he understood he couldn't have both, and ultimately, even subconsciously, he killed Miss Kringle. He chose himself.
It's not an easy choice, those are true tears he cries over her dead body, but nonetheless he understood he had to choose. And he did, and that's why Gotham granted him to survive another day. The city is alive and controls all of his inhbitants, the ones who thrive are the ones who understands this do ut des, this constant give and take not even Jim Gordon, the epitome of the honest man, can escape, and that's why he bends to asking and doing favours for the Penguin.
Miss Kringle was asked to choose, live a life happily ever after with Edward and a dark secret or denounce Edward when she could, the only two rational options. She chose the third, to get out of the game, to scream and throw the chess board in the air. Refusing to play the game simply means to die in Gotham, and that was the fate she sealed for herself.
The only one who truly always wins is Gotham itself.
I know this is like a lot for somebody who has just started season 2 and it's definitely overthinking and if you're read until this point wow I'm impressed but Gotham burdens me with thoughts
