Podestà (Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio)

The Podestà is one of the two main antagonists (along with Count Volpe) of the 2022 stop-motion animated musical fantasy film Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio, which is based on Gris Grimly's designs from his 2002 edition of the late Carlo Collodi's 1883 Italian novel The Adventures of Pinocchio.

He is a Fascist Italian officer who works for Benito Mussolini as a podestà in a town during the Fascist Italy of the 1930s, living with his wife and his son Candlewick. Upon discovering Pinocchio, the Podestà decides to recruit him into the Italian army so he can be the perfect soldier. He narratively replaces the Coachman, a character from the original novel.

He is portrayed by Ron Perlman.

Why He (Intentionally?) Deserves To Be A Filthy Coward

 * 1) He doesn't prove to be a good father to Candlewick. Despite caring a lot about his son in many situations, he constantly does mean things to his son, and is shown to be quite abusive towards him.
 * 2) * A good example of this is the infamous scene where the Podestà tells Candlewick to shoot Pinocchio and prove your dad that he can reclaim your glory and Candlewick tells his father that he has never been good enough for him and now realizes that he will never be, hoping for his father to realize his flaws like Pinocchio told him that sometimes fathers do. And what do you think happened afterwards? Does the Podestà finally understand that his own son was never good enough for him and forgive him? NO! Instead of this, he furiously yells at Candlewick and disowns him for being weak, and ELSE: he threw him into one of the paintball battleground's trenchs, at a height that could have easily killed him. What an idiot of him.
 * 3) ** In fact, he was so mean to Candlewick as to say he wasn't his son. OH. MY. GOD.
 * 4) * And, of course, even training several children and even his son for war, and leaving them at a huge risk after the Fascist youth training camp gets attacked by Allied planes.
 * 5) * There's even a scene at the Pinocchio's performance in Catania where Pinocchio ridicules Mussolini and mocks Fascism, making all the kids laugh, including Candlewick, leading the Podestà to slap him in the back of the head. YES. SERIOUS.
 * 6) Early on in the film, he doesn't seem to care that much about Geppetto and his son Carlo's death, making him mean to start with.
 * 7) Idiotic move: When the Fascist youth training camp is invaded by the Allied planes, instead of Podestà running away as quickly as possible along with Candlewick and Pinocchio, he simply doesn't care about the danger that everyone - including HE - is going through, and keeps ordering Candlewick to shoot Pinocchio!!! AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!
 * 8) His relationship with his wife is not much explored, but it is possible that he treats her in the same way as his son. And if that were true, it could very well be considered abuse against women.
 * 9) He has some ironies committed throughout the film. Here are some examples:
 * 10) * When Geppetto and Count Volpe fight over the puppet and Geppetto throws it in the street, this causes his wife to accidentally run over Pinocchio. He could very well have warned her that the puppet was on the street or for her to have braked first.
 * 11) * After he gets hit in the face by Candlewick and his paintball gun, he gets tangled up in one of the rope ladders. He could very well untangle himself from that rope ladder easily without having to try so hard.
 * 12) He constantly trained children for war, which is child abuse and a big risk for them.
 * 13) Similar to Jimmy Crystal, he doesn't care too much about the other children besides Candlewick.

Some Respectful Qualities

 * 1) Although he is quite cruel to his son Candlewick, he cares for him a lot in many ways.
 * 2) Your design is pretty perfect and fabulous to see it.
 * 3) Ron Perlman did a spetacular job portraying the Podestà.
 * 4) * His Brazilian voice actor, Marco Antonio Abreu, also did a great job portraying him.
 * 5) He can be likable in some situations, like when he separated Count Volpe and Geppetto from a fight over the puppet, or when he saved Pinocchio from the hands of Count Volpe, preventing him from being burned along with the theater.
 * 6) He had a very satisfying and well deserved death for him. After he is hit by Candlewick with a paintball gun, he gets tangled up in a rope ladder. Which causes an Allied plane to drop a bomb on him, causing him to be unable to leave in time and he ends up charred to death.
 * 7) He was right to tell Pinocchio to follow his orders, learn to obey, and become the "perfect soldier".

Trivia

 * 1) The Podestà is an original invention of Guillermo del Toro for his Pinocchio film. He didn't appear in Carlo Collodi's original Pinocchio novel nor in previous adaptations. Overall, the Podestà serves as a stand-in for the Coachman from the original novel, who was omitted from the film adaptation due to Guillermo del Toro's desire to not include any magical creatures other than Pinocchio, the Wood Sprite and Sebastian J. Crickett, which is also why he also didn't adapt Mangiafuoco or The Fox & the Cat. In this version, the Podestà is also Candlewick's father, whereas Candlewick's father wasn't featured in the source material.
 * 2) He serves as a dark parallel to Gepetto.
 * 3) * Both of them are fathers. But the difference between them is that while Gepetto started out rockily with Pinocchio as he was still grieving the loss of his son Carlo, he still warmed up to him, whereas the Podestà always treated Candlewick harshly, eventually disowning him when he doesn't meet his standards. If Gepetto hadn't moved on from Carlo's death nor warmed up to Pinocchio, he would've possible ended up like the Podestà.