Hello, Readers! Clevenger here.

Graham is recovering, so we are all happy. I’m glad he got his posts up before the stay, but look forward to him getting back to healthy.

So, now we dive into the Literary. Graham went with two favorites, Long John Silver and Dolores Umbridge. And while I never read Treasure Island as a kid, nor did I go back and investigate it as an adult, I do know Umbridge.

I agree with Graham, Umbridge was a FAR more interesting villain than the Dark Lord counterpart. A sadistic, cruel, but VERY real evil. An evil that we’ve all known in some way in our lives. The boss, the co-worker. etc. Where the Dark Lord was an evil akin to an evil dictator you see on the news, Umbridge was the evil you might run into the next day. She was wicked.

I agree that this type of villain fascinates me as well, and for that reason, I always latched on to Moghedien from the “Wheel of Time” series. Something that I loved about this series was that there were SO many good villains to choose from. The 13 Forsaken were all very different, and each gave a particular character trait to latch onto. Lanfear and Moghedien embodied the “envy” that made these two villains shine for me. While several (in fact all of of them) were more powerful than Moghedien, none fascinated me more than she did.

You see… Moghedien, the Spider, was someone that I could understand. I had empathy for her. She was kind of… me.

It was the “second best” mentality that she had that I could understand the most. By EVERY standard of her original age, and the age where the story was told, she was far above others. But when the chips were on the table, she always came in second. Second to the hero (Lews Therin), second to any of the Forsaken, and even second to some of the “new” heroes. She was always “good, but not good enough.” And I felt that.

I loved to draw as a young man, comic book art and cartoons were fun, but I became friends with an artist that was MUCH more talented than I was. I got into music and began hanging out with friends who could SHRED on the guitar. When I began playing strategy games, well, I talked about that before… You see, “second best” was something that I fully understood. Moghedien helped make me understand that sometimes it’s not about being the “greatest” in one thing, it’s about knowing all the pieces of many things.

What she became good at was manipulating those around her. Lending into their egos, using their strengths as her strengths, and weaving plots. She wasn’t concerned about being on the top, just being the last to be toppled. Moghedien hid in the shadows, and let everyone take their moment, content to stand in the dark behind them and bask in the pride of what she had contributed. She forsook the credit and focused on the rewards she reaped. Unfortunately, that jealousy still lingered inside, and it was eventually her undoing (although she was the only one who truly survived until the end).

Moghedien wasn’t the “mysterious” dark lord, all powerful, maniacal, and overtly terrifying. She was just a jealous and complex woman who was sick of being overlooked. For that reason, I could understand why she was doing evil things. However, her actions were certainly beyond the reason of “good” people, and landed her solidly into the camp of “villain.” (Thousands of civilian deaths will do that). While her resume of evil acts were more towards the “nightly news” villain, all dialogue and scenes with her in it crafted her as extremely relatable. An evil that not only you could understand, but one that made you wonder “If I had that power, would I be the same as her?”

Well, that should be good enough for now. Stand by until next time!

Be Kind,

-Clevenger