Thread:B1bl1kal/@comment-29644557-20161226154510/@comment-366087-20161227010540

Pardon moi.

Nerd, there simply is not enough shown to us about them to infer or even imply their exact motivations. Anything which suggests it beyond what we see in the Canon is straying into Original Research and Fanon. What exactly was their reputation and social standing that they feared for it? Untold. Unknown.

We don't even know their intention was to drown the baby. They could have intended to happen exactly what did happen: for the carriage to float away so the baby might be found and become someone else's problem. Like Baby Moses sent floating downriver.

Had the Cobblepots been wicked, evil, and malicious, why leave the fate of the baby up to fate? They could have just killed him outright. And why take a chance by throwing him in the river when they could have drowned him in the bathtub or pool? Why throw the entire carriage in the water when tossing him in without it would have been a surer death?

In addition, had they wanted the baby dead they woulda/coulda/shoulda gone after it to finish the job once they saw that it did not sink.

See? Not enough from the story to determine their actual motivations one way or another. So we must stick to Canon. At most, we are shown people who had no idea exactly how to deal with it and at their wits' ends.