User blog:Jester of chaos/Pure Evil Proposal: El Patrón

Original:

All right. Another EP from me. The thing is, the character being discussed doesn't even have a page yet, so I'll add it after this discussion concludes. And no, no picture of the character is available, in case you're wondering. So the picture below is simply the cover image.

What is the work?
The House of the Scorpion is a 2002 dystopian novel by Nancy Farmer. It is about a boy named Matt who lives in a country called Opium. He is a clone of the ruthless drug lord El Patrón, and is treated as an outcast as a result. He is frequently bullied and abused. Fortunately, El Patrón seems to care about him. Or does he?

Who is he?
The main antagonist is El Patrón, the most powerful of the drug lords, and he is the ruler of Opium. He had around seven siblings, but he was the only one who lived to grow up.

What does he do?
In order to gain immortality (or at least a very long lifespan), El Patrón decided to make clones of himself. He would raise them, educate them, care for them... and then betray and murder them when they come of age. Afterwards, he would harvest their organs. To amp up his power, he kidnaps anyone who tries to cross the border in Opium, and he turns them into eejits, and he keeps them as slaves. Eejits are humans with computer chips stuck in their brains, and their thoughts and emotions are completely destroyed. They can only act upon their programming, and because they are regularly abused and treated poorly, they have very short lifespans. When he realizes that he is about to die, El Patrón is unwilling to let any of his descendants inherit his power. Because of that, he arranges for the drinks at his funeral to be poisoned, effectively killing his entire family and all of his servants. He also arranges for the entire Opium to be put on a lockdown.

Heinous standards?
Almost every characters in the book are jerks, bullies, and/or abusers. However, almost no one is even remotely as horrible as El Patrón, and everyone in the story seems to be afraid of him. The only person he competes with is another drug lord named Mr. MacGregor, who also makes clones of himself, kills them, and harvests their organs. However, between the two, I would still say El Patrón is worse. He stands out more through being more personal (and by personal, the main protagonist is literally a clone of him), and also through being more dangerous and manipulative. So yes, El Patrón is the worst.

Redeeming qualities/Freudian Excuse?
El Patrón had around seven siblings who all died when he was a child, and he was the only one who lived to grow up. However, the only reason he even remotely cared was because they were his, and he views everyone around him as his personal objects. Also, he simply used them as an excuse to achieve immortality through immoral methods. He didn't genuinely care about them at all. As for the redeeming quality part, he spends most of the book caring for Matt, and he protects him as much as possible. But in the end, it is revealed that he was only trying to keep him healthy so he can benefit from harvesting his organs later on. So ultimately, no. There's nothing truly mitigating about him.

Conclusion?
El Patrón may be old, but he is one nasty d**k. Please comment.