User blog:G-Monster/Pure Evil Proposal: Lord Henry Blackwood

Okay so there's this one guy that I've been thinking about from the 2009 movie Sherlock so lets talk about the movie.

What's the movie?

The movie stars Robert Downey Junior and Jude Law as the famed detective Sherlock Holmes and his stalwart companion Dr. Watson respectively. At the film's opening, Holmes busts a dark occult ritual led by Lord Henry Blackwood, where he is attempting to sacrifice a young woman for occult power as he has done to others before her. Defeated, Blackwood is taken in to custody, tried for murder and hanged by the neck until dead...but then? His tomb is broken from without, Blackwood is seen prowling London and mysterious murders begin...Holmes races to solve the case and perhaps save London itself, while unraveling the mystery...now, then...

Who is Lord Henry Blackwood?

A member of an occultist sect known as the Temple of the Four Orders feared for dark powers, Blackwood was conceived by its leader Thomas Rotheram with a woman not his wife in a ritual. Blackwood's mother did not survive the birth and Blackwood was raised elsewhere, becoming a lord in his own right...however? Blackwood became a serial killer, murdering women in occult rituals to increase his own power, or so it seemed.

In truth, Blackwood has no magic powers and instead relies on the fear of it to conduct his business. After butchering four innocent girls, Holmes catches him about to do the same to a fifth, where 'the devil is owed a soul.' Blackwood uses a combination of drugs and a rigged rope to fake his death, and has his followers rig things do it appears he returns from the dead and rises from the grave. Emerging, Blackwood has another order member named Reordan murdered and buried in his own coffin. Desiring to take over the British Empire, Blackwood opts to clean house in the Temple of the Four Orders. First? He targets his own father in a seemingly black magic attack...in truth, he finds a substance that activates when water touches copper, cooking his father alive in his own bathtub, arriving to remove his father's ring to seize control of the house. Intending on purging the rest who are disloyal, he has his father's closest supporter, US Ambassador Standish, doused in a flammable liquid disguised as rain...when Standish attempts to shoot Blackwood at the Temple, the substance ignites, agonizingly burning Standish to death, appearing for all the world like magic.

Blackwood has his loyalist followers in Parliament given an antidote...intending on gassing the entire chambers. The entire world will see the Houses of Commons and Lords agonizingly drop dead while Blackwood's followers are unharmed, Blackwood using fear to rule the British empire...and then? He'll just start a war to reclaim America and any other lost holding. Holmes, however, on the case? Rushes to deal with Blackwood, foiling his scheme and battling him on top of the Tower Bridge. Holmes tells Blackwood he'd best hope the rituals were nothing more than superstition because the devil is owed a soul if they aren't...Holmes declares he will expose Blackwood as the fraud he is and see him hanged properly...Blackwood? Attempts one final attack, falling off the bridge into a mass of chains below. One wraps around his neck and as he falls? The chain pulls tight....hanging him from the bridge at last.

Heinous standard?

While Moriarty is more grand scale in that he kills numerous people, tries to start WW 1 for profit and tortures Holmes quite brutally, I believe Blackwood is also heinous and unique enough to stadn out on his own. Blackwood's kills are more hands on and more brutal. Moriarty will have you shot from a distance. Blackwood, to increase the fear of his name, burns a man to death, has another throttled, and cooks his father alive in a bathtub. Also? He murders 4 young women in occult rituals, which Moriarty never does...and it's revealed he killed 'many more' who aren't public knowledge/....while he plans to start a war, while it isn't WW 1, it's still brutal enough and trying to kill all of Parliament with cyanide gas is just horrific. SO yeah, honestly? Blackwood is, for the start of the films, perfectly fine and isn't overshadowed by Moriarty to the degrees needed to be disqualified from this trope. His actions are heinous as hell and treated as such.

Mitigating Q Ualitie?

None. Blackwood is devoid of human feeling or compassion. No abuse, no excuse...he's illegitimate, but his father's never shown to mistreat him. In fact, his father, Lord Thomas, is terrified of him and Blackwood's only interaction with him is murdering him and relieving him of his family ring. And also, not even religion justifies Blackwood with the reveal he's a power hungry fraud, and nothing more.

Conclusion?

I'm very comfortable giving him a yes.

https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/Lord_Henry_Blackwood