You're the next contestant on...

And now it's time for a little game I like to call "Rate the Villian." I've often heard actors say how fun it is to play the bad guy, and for me the same can be said for writing the sleazier characters. In some cases I suppose it's because they say and do things we secretly want to do but never would. I'm listing my 1-10 ranking for the bad guys of Earthen Vessels. See if you agree.

Marc is what happens when spoiled little boys grow older, but never grow up. His life never rises above fulfilling his immediate primal needs. Still, he rates only about a 3. He is a villain only in that he is selfish – just too damned lazy to care about others.

Quote: “Sorry I made a pass at you before...I'm not apologizing, I just mean I regret wasting my time on someone so uptight.” [page 21]

Inez – I'd give her a 4. It's often said the idle hands are the devil's workshop, and Inez is living proof. She sleeps around with anyone, mostly just because she finds her own life so excruciatingly dull.

Inez, so bored, wondered now, as she often did, if she was asleep or awake. She could hardly tell and it hardly mattered anymore. [pg. 273]
 

Instead of enjoying the many pleasures of the flesh with her, he’d left her lying there, exposed and vulnerable and humiliated. She had half a mind to not try it again. [pg. 273]

 Raul – He's nasty on a lot of levels- rate him about an 8. Like a lot of people who do rotten things, he sees himself as just trying to get by in a world that's been so unfair to him. If he has to earn his living through drug deals or child prostitution, that's certainly not his fault.

For Raul, greed always came before lust. After all, he figured, there were always plenty of women, and never enough money. [pg. 35]

Jorge – rates at least a 9. He tops the villain list in this work. He could make a living any number of ways. He simply prefers doing it by wringing the life out of innocents. He is cold as ice, caring more about soiling his clothes than destroying people.

"This was the first time he'd been ordered to kill someone personally. He found it distasteful and beneath his station... He was good at his work and he liked it... He liked the money especially, and would do what he had to to keep it coming. [page 509]