User blog:BeholderofStuff/Pure Evil Proposal:Marie L'Angelle


 * Original: https://villains.fandom.com/f/p/3179493162221867411/r/3179589320835376941

SO I thought I'd propose a character from...once again a show I haven't seen. Please don't ask why even I don't know but other users have done it, so what the hell. Anyways because I haven't seen it I will just copy and paste her proposal from TV Tropes:

What's the work?
Preacher (2016) is a Live-Action TV adaptation of the comic book of the same name by Garth Ennis. The story revolves around Jesse Custer, a small town preacher with a Dark and Troubled Past whose life is turned around when he is cursed with the "Word of God", the power to compel people to do as he commands. Jesse then finds himself drawn into a universe of madness, joined by his criminal ex-girlfriend, Tulip O'Hare and the Irish vampire, Cassidy.

Who is Marie L'Angelle? What does she do?
We are given detail about Marie through descriptions, flashbacks and her actions in the present day.

Marie is the head of Angelville and the grandmother of series protagonist, Jesse Custer. A long time ago (presumably dating back to around the American Civil War judging by Angelville being a former southern plantation), Marie made a Deal with the Devil himself to make herself virtually immortal by consuming the souls of others, at the cost of her going to Hell when she does die.

As the head of Angelville, she performs favors for clients through voodoo magic, but makes blood pacts with them, and if they don't live up to their end of the bargain, she has their soul extracted, leaving their bodies as barely-functional shells to later be used as fighters in her plantation's designated fighting pit, the Tombs.

Some time before 1990, her daughter, Christina L'Angelle eloped with John Custer and had a son, Jesse Custer. Eventually, she came back to Angelville, but when Marie's enforcer, Jody, caught Christina hiding a photo of her son and got hold of her before she could run away, Christina swallowed the photo in defiance, only for Marie to order Jody to cut her own daughter's stomach open and refusing to have it stitched back together, leaving her to bleed to death. Sometime after that, Marie sent Jody and T.C. after John Custer in Annville, Texas. Jody killed John right in front of Jesse before forcefully taking him in under Marie's care.

Under Marie's care, she was cruel and manipulative towards Jesse. The first thing she did with Jesse is trap him in a coffin and submerge it at the bottom of a swamp until he accepted himself as a L'Angelle and was grateful to God for killing his father. For years, Jesse helped with her family business as a parking valet, a salesman, and the host for the Tombs.

One day, Jesse decided to run away from Angelville to be with Tulip O'Hare, but not without Marie mocking him for daring to have someone else to live for besides her and him attempting to kill her, only to relent because of the fear of going to Hell.

Years later, at the time of Season 3, Jesse returns to Angelville after Tulip was fatally shot with the hope of bringing her Back from the Dead. Marie revives Tulip, but it comes at a price of a blood contract from Jesse. Throughout Season 3, Jesse is once again forced to perform enforcement work alongside Jody, with the additional bargaining chip of Marie binding Tulip's life force to her own as an incentive to not kill her. In addition to that, she feels entitled to having Tulip's gratitude just because she brought her back to life. After trying to hold back from her urges to take her soul (if only because doing so would eliminate a reason for Jesse to turn on her again), her ego gets the better of her and tries to take it, with Jesse only stopping her by planning robbing soul vaults belonging to Marie's rival, Sabina Boyd and the Grail, which requires Tulip's robbery expertise. She makes it clear that while she needs souls to keep living, she wants Tulip's soul out of a sense of vengeance.

Eventually, Marie learns that Jesse has Genesis (the Word of God) and that he's trying to get his soul back to make it work again, removing any advantage she would have over him. As such, she makes another deal with Satan to not only send Tulip to Hell, but to have Jesse's soul damned to Hell if he were to kill her.

With his soul back, Jesse not only kills both Jody and T.C., he uses the Word on Marie to make her end her control over him and Tulip, and makes her destroy the souls he collected for her, ensuring she'll die soon. However, Jesse isn't content with just letting her die naturally and having the memories of Angelville continue to haunt him, decides to ignore the threat of damnation, and have her killed by strapping her into her own soul-sucking machine.

Redeeming Qualities or Freudian Excuse?
None. Every deed she does, even if it's seemingly good, is motivated by her own self-interest. Despite her preachings about the importance of family, she's willing to kill them for slighting her or when she sees no further use for them (she killed a previous lover of hers, whom she got through using a Love Potion on, after she got bored of him), making her a hypocrite. As such, the emphasis on family is clearly a manipulation tactic to keep both Christina and Jesse under her thumb. Even her loyal caretakers, Jody and T.C., are just tools to her, and they know she's so horrible, that even they'll work behind her back sometimes.

Heinous Standard?
Preacher overall runs on Black and Gray Morality and Black Comedy, and most of its villains either have some comedic or sympathetic traits. Odin Quincannon is a nihilistic sociopath, but only after being disillusioned about the existence of any God after the death of his entire family. The Saint of Killers, while played seriously most of the time, has a tragic backstory involving the death of his family and is shown to be appalled with Hell trying to take in people who shouldn't be there in Season 3. Adolf Hitler is well, Adolf Hitler, but after having died and gone to Hell, and despite trying to start a Fourth Reich after getting out of Hell (and eventually becoming its lord following Satan's death), he's treated as a pathetic joke. The Grail is an ancient cult of proto-Christian zealots plotting the apocalypse, but its named members, as heinous as they can be and despite the group being a larger-scale threat than Marie, are either frequently the subject of jokes, are shown to be laughably incompetent, or have some standards. Both of Marie's caretakers, Jody and T.C., are beneficiaries of Adaptational Heroism. Jody, while still willing to be Marie's muscle and being John Custer's killer, is shown to be a little disturbed by Marie's willingness to kill her own daughter, treats Jesse as a son despite his parenting methods being abusive at worst and Jesse's reasonable hatred of him, and even congratulates Jesse for being able to take him down. And T.C., while still having some questionable sexual habits, is an overall Nice Guy, such that he is the only person in Angelville that Jesse doesn't want to kill. The staff of Hell are mostly a bunch of comically bureaucratic Punch Clock Villains at best, and even Satan, being a shameless Card-Carrying Villain, has a sense of humor and is rather annoyed that Marie has stayed alive as long as she has.

Among a cast of protagonists that aren't the most altruistic people in the world and villains that are either comical or have some degree of humanity, Marie L'Angelle stands out among the crowd. Marie L'Angelle is played seriously at almost all times and is not at all portrayed sympathetically.

Conclusion
Marie is a toxic influence and a major source of pain in Jesse's life that he can barely hide his contempt for. He fears her just as much as he loathes her. Witchcraft practices aside, she's a frighteningly realistic depiction of a domestic abuser. She's little more than a cruel, greedy, vengeful and manipulative woman.