Thread:LucidPigeons/@comment-2175012-20160323030814/@comment-2175012-20160401030225

To describe Joe, or Ze do Caixo, he hates religion with a passion, viewing himself as stronger than the other characters in the village. He constantly disregards the institutional guidelines of the church; for example, he eats meat on Holy Friday, which is against the guidelines, among other things, but he also has a streak of being an incredibly violent person. For example, he worms himself into a poker game, and he cuts off a man's fingers with a broken wine bottle when teh man wouldn't give him his money. Essentially, he believes that he's stronger, thus better than anyone else.

As I mentioned, one of his main goals is to have a bloodline to continue his legacy. However, his wife was unable to have children, so he murders her by tying her up and then letting a venomous spider bite her. Once this is done, he plays the part as the mourning husband, and tries to make his friend Antonio's fiancee his perfect wife. He bludgeons Antonio, and then drowns him in the bathtub.

As for any mitigating factors, there doesn't seem to be anything too major at this point. During the scene in which he cuts off the man's fingers with the wine bottle, he claims that he would pay off the man's doctor bills, but he says it in a way that suggests that he was joking, and that he was trying to put on the facade of being a good man. Another possible mitigating factor is that he stops a father from hitting his son, saying that he shouldn't because he was his bloodline. To me, it doesn't sound mitigating, because Joe only wants a son so that his legacy could go on. By the way that he talks to that man about his son, he seems to suggest that the only purpose for the son is to continue his father's bloodline. Thus, I don't know if this could be considered mitigating.