Felipe Gonzalo

## **OFFICIAL BIO**

The deuteragonist of Swan Song, **Felipe Horlador Gonzalo**, or commonly known as **Detective Gonzalo**, is the son of the late Detective Philip and Engineer Sofía. He was diagnosed with progeria at 15 and had Dr. Dupain and Serio Dominguez look after him when he woke up from cryopreservation. Detective Gonzalo is the youngest known detective in Madrid and becomes Swan Swagmire's legal guardian after he took care of her when she was orphaned. He was a striker of his school's *fútbol* team, serving as its team captain.

## **BACKGROUND**

Gonzalo was born to **Philip** and **Sofía Gonzalo** in October 1983. Felipe was put into suspended animation by Dr. Daryll Dupain, the university professor and mentor of his mother, to help slow down his aging after being diagnosed with progeria 15 years earlier. When Felipe recovers 19 years later, his childhood friend Serio Dominguez is now his doctor. Felipe, who recently discovered that his parents were murdered by the mafia under the leadership of Sotto Voce, is determined to become a detective and put an end to their exploits.

Felipe is given a case regarding the murder of **Dorothy** and **Siegfried Quagmire** by the same organization who killed his parents at some point after becoming a detective. Felipe then takes it upon himself to adopt the victims' daughter, Odette Quagmire.

## **PERSONALITY**

As Serio points out, Gonzalo has a reputation for being too uptight and overly responsible, particularly when it comes to Swan's health and well-being, which is reflected in the regulations he established that Swan must follow on a daily basis. He is protective of Swan, like any father would be, and would even risk his life to save her. Although he isn't very emotional or open about his feelings, he does show his love for the people he cares about in his own way, even if it's not easy to discern.

Gonzalo quickly developed the ability to disregard criticisms and accusations about him and his illness and became a detective to disprove the falsehoods. He is quite serious about his work.

## **SKILLS AND ABILITIES**

Gonzalo can be considered a jack of all trades: he is extremely physically and mentally skilled, able to adapt to nearly any situation, and is only ever surpassed combat-wise by people significantly larger than he is.

* **Athletic Prowess:** Having the body of a 15-year-old, Gonzalo is shown to be very fast and agile.
	+ **Excellent Soccer Player:** Gonzalo, the captain of his school's soccer team, scores the game-winning goal in the championship game that his team won.
	+ **Durability and Stamina:** Even if this feat caused him significant pain and discomfort and put him in a bad mood, Gonzalo can move well enough to go somewhere else like a hospital after taking bullet wounds to his body.
	+ **Trained Combatant:** Gonzalo is a skilled in hand-to-hand combat, though he is self-taught and without any professional training. When not using his pistols, he normally relies mostly on punches.
* **Genius-level Intellect:** Gonzalo's intelligence, which most definitions would classify as genius, is his most valuable weapon. He regularly demonstrates ingenuity in combat. He is quick on his feet, capable of changing tactics as necessary.
	+ **Expert Detective:** Gonzalo is a gifted sleuth and investigator with excellent observational and deduction skills. He is skilled at both soft and hard interrogation, disarming witnesses, finding clues, and establishing a large network of experts to call upon in times of need.
* **Frigid Temperature Tolerance:** Gonzalo possesses a remarkable level of endurance in severe winter conditions as a result of his almost two decades of exposure to cryonics; he is never mentioned to have any discomfort from the cold. Gonzalo only has one and expected weakness: he has to keep his average core body temperature at 31.5°C to survive.

## **PHYSICAL APPEARANCE**

Gonzalo has neatly combed dark brown hair that is often slicked back, especially when working, and he has light brown eyes. Despite looking 15, Gonzalo wears a lot of smart casual and semi-formal outfits consisting of waistcoats, dress shirts, and neckties. He's recorded to be 5'5" in height.

Wearing a dress shirt without a waistcoat is considered to be casual wear for him, and isn't normally seen wearing more comfortable-looking clothes like that. For his detective work in the precinct, he adds a waistcoat and necktie to his outfit with black slacks, sometimes jeans, a shoulder holster for a gun and leather shoes, topping his outfit with a black coat or blazer.

## **TRIVIAS**

* "Detective Gonzalo" only started as a joke when **Parker Trinh** and **Belle Bello** were talking, imagining **Stefan Sanchez** as an "old man" even if he's only 15 years old at the time.
	+ It was Parker who thought of the name while Stefan himself completed the name with "Felipe" as the first and "Horlador" as the middle initial. Like Rin Aguinaldo having no reason why she had named Swan the way she did, Stefan also has no proper reason why he picked the name "Felipe" for Detective Gonzalo.

* Gonzalo and Swan often interchange with which character is the protagonist of the story since sometimes, Gonzalo is put at the top of any character list, something that is normally reserved for the protagonist role.
	+ Rin had cleared this issue up by saying Swan is the protagonist of the story and she only puts Gonzalo before Swan at times as a sign of "respect" because Gonzalo is Swan's mentor.
* Gonzalo hates wearing bowties as it would make him look like a "fancy restaurant waiter", and that he couldn't tie a bowtie.
* Rin's initial plan for Gonzalo is to not give him any love interest because she thinks he would only want to focus on his career and that he would also think that it's too late for him to take up on dating. In one of the earlier drafts, however, she *did* give him an ex-girlfriend when they were in high school, named **Ava Everett**.
	+ Ava Everett would later be the mother to Miles during Gonzalo's cryopreservation, helping her brother-in-law Marston Meyer with his plans as the leader of the mafia. This was later scrapped as Rin thinks it's better if Ava doesn't exist altogether.
	+ Gonzalo's current love interest Serio Dominguez is only supposed to be a background character as Gonzalo's doctor when he wakes up from cryosleep. Making Serio his love interest was a last minute decision.
* Even though Swan teases him as a personification of a white crayon because he's "classy and boring", his favorite color *is* close to white, silver, or ivory.
* Gonzalo was originally based on Miguel O'Hara from the post-credits scene in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse when Rin started writing in 2018. Rin omitted Miguel O'Hara as an inspiration since this version of Miguel isn't exactly uptight and serious like Rin intended Gonzalo to be. She added Miguel back to Gonzalo's list of inspirations since, coincidentally, in 2023, Miguel from Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse had his personality become more antagonistic than his counterpart from Into the Spider-Verse.