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Effort Post - The Butler of the Kou family

What is the work?

Journey to the West (1986) is a Chinese TV show that was adapted from the novel with the same name. The story tells the journey to India of Xuanzang, Sun Wukong, Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing to receive the sutras from the Buddha.

Who is he?

The Butler of the Kou family is, like his name suggests, a trusted butler of an aristocratic family near India, where Xuanzang's party arrived to. In secret, the butler is a member of a gang of robbers who attack, kill and kidnap people, as well as rob their stuffs. And for anyone who is familiar with Journey to the West, don't even bother to read the novel if you want to find this character. He's not in the novel: The butler is an original character for the series, to give the arc a villain.

What does he do?

The butler is actually a murderous psychopath under his charismatic facade. When he and his gangs rob Mr. Kou's money, Mr. Kou go out and tried to stop them, only for the traitorous butler to kill him after the old man discovered his real face. Later on, he even frame Xuanzang's party, who are all innocent monks, about the murder and said that they're the robbers. This led to the monks getting imprisoned, tortured, beaten. It appears that he fully knew this punishment, but regardless, he caused the innocent monks to be horribly beaten for his crimes.

Later on, when Wukong revives Mr. Kou, the butler quickly fleed to avoid punishment. When Mr. Kou's son told him to be back, unknown that he's a robber, the butler even tried to kill him in secret, though Wukong managed to stop him. When Mr. Kou exposes him to be the murderer in front of everyone, he begs for forgiving only to be punished and imprisoned anyway.

Heinous standards?

While most of the Journey to the West villains are demons, whose culture requires kidnapping and eating humans (not to mention many demons were later redeemed, mostly if they're steeds or servants of the deities), the butler himself is just a normal human, fully capable of human moral agency, yet he committed heinous acts out of sadism and greed, even betrayed Mr. Kou, who had never abuse him (and even treated him very well for years). Not to mention his incrimination towards the good monks (who he apparently knew that they're carrying a great mission to receive the sutras) that never did anything to him, and manipulate the entire Kou family into believing him, just so he wouldn't have to suffer any punishment.

Redeeming qualities/Freudian Excuse?

Yeah, no. Despite being a long time butler of the Kou family, he's clearly not care about them at all, otherwise he wouldn't try to rob their stuffs and even attempt to kill Mr. Kou's son. In the last minutes, he begs Mr. Kou to forgive him, but that's clearly a fake apology to save his own skin rather than any actual remorse.

Conclusion?

The butler is clearly a nasty dick. Sound like an easy "Yes" to me.