Special:Badtitle/NS90:User talk:DocColress/The Great Big Examples Suggestion Topic 3: Snake Eater/reply (8)

Alright, I've got one last candidate I want to suggest for now, and it's one I actually remember sticking out in my mind as a particularly loathsome example even as a kid. I went back and read the book he was in, and I feel confident about my hunch, but as per usual I want to see what you feel about him. His name is Cal Roberts, a rather nasty outlaw from the third book in the otherwise relatively light-hearted The Great Brain series, a pretty fun series I enjoyed in my childhood.

'''Who is Cal Roberts? What has he done?''': Cal Roberts is a cattle rustler (This series takes place in 1890's Utah) who is feared far and wide as a rather evil man. He and his posse are known for murdering anyone who could act as a potential witness to their crimes, and thus had a rather high body count until he screwed up and accidentally left a night watchman that he shot alive, and was captured along with his posse and sent to court. After hearing his sentence, he vows that he'll escape and murder the judge, DA, and foreman of the jury who just so happened to be our nine year old protagonist John's father. As you'd guess, Roberts eventually escaped prison with a small number of his men after murdering two guards and made good on his threat: throwing the town of Adenville into a panic as he and his outlaws descended on it. He attempted to murder the judge by hanging him from a tree, but botched the job when the town's marshal (John's uncle) came to save the judge and killed Cal's assistant, causing Cal to get sloppy and accidentally leave the judge alive when he shot him and fled. Wounded and cornered, Cal knew he wouldn't be able to murder his targets and leave the town alive, so he settled for taking John's adopted four year old brother Frankie hostage, forcing John's family to cater to his every whim or else Frankie would die. While Cal promised John's father and uncle he would allow Frankie to live and would dump him in some town he'd pass by after making his escape, he had no such intention and confessed after being captured (By John, no less, thanks to some quick thinking, rope, and his family's horse) that he was going to murder Frankie after making sure he didn't have a posse on his tail.

Is he heinous by the standards of the story?: Indeed he is! He's treated about as seriously as any other famous criminal like him would be, he has the entire town of Adenville put under heavy watch when he goes to murder his targets, and is willing to murder the innocent son of the Jury's foreman purely because he knew it would heavily devastate him as well as his other targets as they would want to die in his place. The only other villains in any of the books are usually local bullies, strict adults who turn out to have softer sides, one con man who I think tried to trick some local Native Americans into giving up their sacred land, and the titular Great Brain himself (John's older brother), and they are all outclassed in heinousness by Cal. By this series' standards, he's a hell of a Knight Of Cerberus.

Any Freudian Excuse or redeeming qualities?: Nope, he's simply a repulsive skunk of a man who not only has no qualms with casually murdering innocent people, but also has a hell of an ego about him, as he was planning on parading around town in broad daylight holding Frankie at gunpoint so he could show the town that he pulled a fast one on the local marshall. He's also not shown to be a Bad boss per se, but he doesn't care about his posse either, reacting to the news of them all being killed in gunfights with a shrug and what's more or less "Ah well, I can just round up more guys for a new gang".

Verdict?: I really feel like he'd meet the qualifications. He's sufficiently heinous, treated seriously enough, and has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. I think the biggest problem he'd have is that since the story is narrated by the protagonist, we don't see him until Cal has Frankie hostage. However, John's father and uncle describe the events about what Cal does with a lot of detail, basically showing us his actions through their perspective. So what do you think? Is he a keeper, or not?