One thing we never got in Gotham after Oswald’s eye injury were the details on how he would cope with such a devastating disability before some reason he was incarcerated six months after the fact by Jim “Lets Leave Oz and Ed Abandoned by the Demolished Taco Bell in a Warzone” Gordon on whatever he did. So now we are at the point where not only is Jim Gordon a general menace and nemesis of Penguin but now Magic Eye posters as well.
Because I am such an inquisitive person out of curiosity, I set out what Penguin might go through in those moments during the six months from up until that fateful day him and Riddler were separated.
First off and what inspired the whole post, his corrective eyewear to hide and help the injury. It’s a pair of glasses fitted with a specialized eyeglass patch probably given and crafted by Riddler no doubt.
Apparently this brought me to why he would need to wear this in the first place, and it isn’t JUST to hide and protect the unsightly injury along with a pressure patch - its also to re-correct his vision and spacial depth.
In an medical site provided for people to cope with living only one eye, that time out that Penguin and Riddler had before they were arrested is basically the right about of time Oswald would need to re-cooperate and adjust to his visual disability before setting their plot in motion:
“Traditionally, we assume a six- to nine-month adjustment period is normal to help someone adjust to having vision in only one eye,” Dr. Whitaker said. “The intervention expedites this recovery and can help patients avoid losing work time. It also lessens their anxiety about the functional challenges they are experiencing.”
In fact over the course of the next six months, there’s a great chance Riddler rehabilitated Penguin and behaved as the de facto caretaker. Much like rehabilitating Penguin from his wounds in season 2, it’s that situation all over again plus more hand on involvement with therapy:
“Both the speed and accuracy of the grasp is negatively affected by loss of binocular vision,” Dr. Whitaker said. “For example, they will grab for something and not get it on the first try, or they will be pouring coffee or tea and miss the cup.
“Rice learned to remedy this by wrapping one hand around the cup while she pours with the other hand. Adding the nonvisual signal (from the sense of touch) helps the brain judge the distance and location more accurately, Dr. Whitaker said.
Adults who lose vision in one eye also have more collisions when walking, especially on the side where they lost the vision. That’s where sessions with an orientation and mobility specialist can help.“The emphasis is on helping people to judge distances by using monocular clues, such as something called motion parallax. If you’ve ever seen a cat moving its head or eyes side to side before it jumps, that’s motion parallax,” Dr. Whitaker said.“You can train a person to do this by using more side-to-side head movements.”
Rice said that, to avoid bumping into people in crowded stores, for example, she’s learning to stop and check her right side before she moves.The final part of the intervention is learning new techniques for driving safely with vision in only one eye. “The loss of depth perception means that people have a hard time judging their vehicle’s distance from another car, or whether their car can fit into a parking space,” Dr. Whitaker said.“We can train people to turn their head more toward the non-seeing eye, and some driving instructors may recommend special interior or exterior mirrors that can help improve field of vision as well.”
So basically in those 6 months, Riddler probably:
Behaved as Penguin’s spacial depth therapist (helped him adjust to menial tasks like grabbing, grasping objects, daily means like dressing him in outfits, ect. )
Was Penguin’s literal crutch for visual awareness (not that the leg already didn’t dampen this, but having one eye now adds onto that problem. We see Riddler instinctively grab and stabilize Penguin after getting out of the limo and the back of the paddywagon, so this could be habitual from those 10 years back.)
Penguin would be looking at things from the side of his head more which gives him EVEN A GREATER COMPARISON TO BEHAVING AND LOOKING LIKE A BIRD.
Cold logician my ass.
Riddler probably also helped Penguin pick out and design his prosthetic eye, which one very important thing to mention about it - the color and size of the pupil carries weighty meaning behind it - blue to reflect Fish’s own prosthetic eye, but also probably a reference to the iris color popular with some versions of Penguin in the comics. The pupil blown wide is however trickier and more significant to pinpoint because people who do get prosthesis always try to create an illusion that the eye is real, not different. Penguin being the eternal romantic sap probably created that way to let people know he lost an eye for Riddler and behind that meaning, self sacrifice from his love that it is a thing of power, not a weakness and nothing to be trifled with.
Oh, and also, arousal. Whenever Riddler looks into that eye he must be reminded of what Penguin did to achieve it and well, full blown pupils signify attraction and arousal to another. Think of it as Riddler’s personal eye.
The eye of love.
Another thing to note - The prosthetic eye is probably pegged meaning that the muscles and blood vessels are attached to the inner side, giving Oswald range to move the prosthesis. Considering that Cobblepot comes from a background of wealth and after the events of No Man’s Land and the deleted scene where we find out that he recovered a lot of his treasure from the submarine wreckage, Penguin could probably afford the best of the best when it comes to a fake eye.
So people who love to write angsty fanfics, rejoice. You have another reason to suspect that Riddler was inseparable from Penguin before they were incarcerated.
