User blog:DeltaHorizon020/PE Proposal Drafts: Thaddeus Valentine

Been a while since I made a blogpost. This time, I'm disabling the comments and give a spoiler-tag because this EP is actually for the future discussion dates and this is just a mere draft so yeah...

What's The Work
Mortal Engines is a 2018 sci-fi film loosely adapted from a book of the same name. So the story is that the world had reach its post-apocalyptic state thanks to the Great Offscreen War known as the Sixty Minutes War that happened around thousand years ago. The survivor of said war build something known as the "Predator Cities" which is a mobile city that is used to devour some small settlements in a land known as "Great Hunting Ground" that consists of all Great Britain and the Continent of Europe itself.

Thanks to the Predator Cities, humanity develops a "Social Darwinism" philosophy that strong settlements devour the weak and small settlements in order to gain more resources and then there's the stuff regarding Modern Technology from thousand years ago that is perceived as "Old-Tech".

However, the story focuses on a female assassin known as Hester Shaw whose city, Salzhakens, was devoured by a bigger city known as London. Needless to say, after Salzhakens is devoured, it was revealed that Hester? Has a vengeance towards a certain someone who made her life becoming on what she is today. And the person in question? Meet Thaddeus Valentine.

Who is He/What Has He Done
Okee Dokee, so Thaddeus Valentine is the Head of Guild of Historians and basically the Mayor of London, Magnus Chrome's, second in command. His establishing character moment is that he observes the aforementioned Salzhaken that got devoured by London itself. After Salzhaken is devoured, Valentine acts as a kindly figure by trying to give them shelter. However, one Salzhaken citizen, Hester, has a huge vengeance with Valentie which resulted on her stabbing him.

The apprentice historian, Tom Nasworthy, tries to stop Hester's actions and pursues Hester to a waste chute. When Tom got informed that thanks to Valentine's actions, her mother was murdered and her face was scarred, Valentine pushes Tom down to the chute after Tom informed him that.

And regarding the murder? It happened in the flashbacks and the reason why Valentine murdered Hester's mother, is because she possessed a unique "Old-Technology" that is required to achieve his sinister plans. Because Hester was in the way of his own plans, Valentine then releases a violent cyborg who Hester knew in the past known as Shrieke in order to get rid of Hester.

It was revealed that he lies to his daughter, Katherine, about Tom's fate (Considered he and Katherine are both best friends/lovers in the story) and orders his men to vandalize a place known as Cat's Cradle in order to cover up the information regarding his plans which resulted on Katherine getting suspicious of his father's doings.

Oh! And the Sinister Plan that I mentioned earlier? It was revealed that he wanted to activate an Old-Technology known as Medusa in a Cathedral known as St. Paul's Cathedral which is revealed to be a Super Weapon that can destroy the city in an instant and he plans to destroy the "Shield Wall" that protects a static settlement known as Shan Guo in order to make it a new hunting ground for him under the pretense that London is dying.

When Magnus found out about Valentine's actions about him trying to tear the wall and calls him out about it, Valentine executes the Mayor of London and sneers that he is merely an old fossil and he is a god with his new weapon. And during the war between Anti-Tract agents from Shan Guo and London, Valentine confronts one of the Anti-Tract agents who tries to infiltrate the cathedral and tries to stop Valentine's plans, he engages her in a sword-fight and mortally wounds her while Hester was busy stopping the super-weapon.

After the super-weapon is stopped, he tries to get away from London along with his daughter, Katherine in which the latter declined and calls out on Valentine's actions regarding him trying to destroy the wall. Initially he was swayed by Katherine's word at first but simply dismissed it and continues his plan to destroy the wall by massacring the city's control crew via his henchmen and tries to ram London into the wall which would cause innocent people's deaths including his daughter.

When Valentine attempts to flee, he was encountered by Hester in an airship and during the battle, Valentine taunts her that he is her father while callously tries to murders her. Fortunately, Tom manages to save Hester and shoot Valentine's airship. Killing the madman once and for all.

Freudian Excuse/Mitigating Factors
Alright, let's start with the big ones shall we. The reasons why he did these things is because he claims that London is dying and needs more resources and he seemingly has a bit of a cordial relationship with his daughter in the beginning. But the issue is, his daughter finally saw all of Valentine's bullshit actions and excuses and calls him out that he wants more power and when his daughter scolds him regarding it, initially he was swayed by her words but simply dismissed it and continues to destroy the wall by ramming London through it which truly destroys Valentine's WIE goals because not only this action could kill all of the innocents that live in there but also could destroy London which Valentine doesn't give two shits about so yeah... In the end of the day, Valentine's goals are truly bullshit and he's simply obsessed with power.

Heinous Standard
I'm not going to sugarcoat the standard. Besides Valentine, there's also a slave trade in this movie and then there's Anna who causes a ruckus in the Slave Trading event when she tries to rescue Hester and Tom and then there's Shrike who, during his pursue on Hester, destroyed the Airhaven, an Anti-Tract airborne city. But I think Valentine makes it in the heinousness department as he is responsible of releasing Shrike from his imprisonment and he is also responsible for Hester's life as an assassin due to the personal deeds that he has on her. Not only that, Valentine's plans of making Shan Guo his new hunting ground and ramming London into the wall would netted him an enormous bodycount so yeah...

Final Verdict
I would say he's a keeper and at the end of the day, he subverts any of his redeeming qualities. Until then, thoughts?