
Geez, you only did this because you wanted to take the entire land back after your grandpa's death!? How ridiculous he is!
Another interesting PE candidate I've always wanted to propose. After i've seen the 2003 film Cold Mountain, I find it interesting for me to learn more about the villain. So yeah, let's discuss about the greedy and ruthless leader of Home Guard, Captain Teague.
What's the work?[]
Cold Mountain is a 1997 American historical novel written by Chales Frazier, with its 2003 film adaptation directed by Anthony Minghella and is theatrically released on Christmas 2003. It follows the story of a war deserter W.P. Inman who traveled away from the American Civil War to get back home to Cold Mountain in order to reunite with his love interest Ada Monroe. However, Captain Teague is a greedy and ruthless leader of Home Guard who relentlessly pursued the deserters for his selfishness.
Who is he?[]
Captain Teague is a main antagonist of Cold Mountain. After his grandfather losing his ownership to the entire Cold Mountain after his death, Teague went to formed a notorious organization Home Guard who were originally thought to be protectors of their homes but it's revealed that they're nothing but tyrannical and corrupt marauders who hunts down the deserters for their amusement. Teague would do anything to reclaimed the ownership of Cold Mountain back.
What he has done?[]
According to Esco, Teague's grandfather used to owned most of the Cold Mountain until he died, which caused Teague to became greedy and power hungry as he formed his corrupt organization Home Guard in order to reclaimed the entire land all by himself. When Reverend Monroe and his daughter Ada are having a party with their guests, Teague is one of the guests and spitefully keeping an eye on the Reverend. The next morning, every men in the Cold Mountain are excited for the war against Northern America and Teague arrived to "wish them luck" for them to win it. He and his men were later seen smugly watching Inman and the others are leaving for the war.
After Reverend Monroe is killed, Ada went to chapel and prayed for Inman's survival, but Teague comes in and "comforted" her by telling her that he won't come back. At September 1984, Teague relentlessly sending his men to hunt down deserters of the war by adding a law in the name of the governor of North Carolina, thus leading the hunting of deserters has begun. According to Mrs. Castlereagh, Teague and his men made everyone in the Cold Mountain miserable, made them worse than the Yankees. After Ada finished talking with Mrs. Castlereagh, Teague asked her if everything's alright before she left. Teague went to visit Ada and threatens her to give up her ownership of the Black Cove before she fearfully went back inside.
His own atrocity has begun when Teague and his men went to Swangers' farm in search of their sons who has deserted from the war. But when Esco refused, he had his men attacked him before stabbing him to death. After forcefully taking an ownership to their farm, he has Sally tortured by getting tied on the fence, luring both two deserter sons out to save her before they were killed in cold blood. Sadly, it was too late as Sally died from her wounds when Ada and her friend Ruby arrived to save her.
That night, Teague and his men went to visit Ruby's father Strobod and Pangle at the woods and joins them in their campfire. While asking to play a fiddle for them, he asked for where the deserters are, but only for Pangle to accidentally revealed themselves to be one by revealing there's a cave near Bearpen Branch. After Strobod and Pangle are playing their fiddle, he shots Pangle to death while Bosie shots Strobod but he survives.
The next morning, Teague and his men ambushed both Ada and Ruby in front of them, taunting Ada for her father's death and revealing they have held Georgia hostage and threatened him for their whereabouts. Ada argued that there will be reckoning once the war is over, but Teague didn't care and attempt to kill both girls until Inman arrived to save them from him and his men. After Ada brutally beats up Teague with a shotgun, Inman arrived to shoot him but only for him to run out of ammo before he quickly takes Teague's own gun and shoots him to death. With Teague and his men are gone, everything goes back to normal once Ada and the others continued with their normal lives.
Heinous standards[]
The film has an epic and dramatic tone nature, but can be heartbreaking whenever it comes to losses of many innocents, especially some of them died at the hands of Captain Teague and his men. For the heinous standards, we have Reverend Veasey who tried to drown a female slave after impregnated her (plus he's not genuinely evil, he's just a normal coward), Junior who sold out both Veasey and Inman to Home Guard for money, and a Union officer who tried to rape Sarah before he was killed by Inman. Another one who came close to surpass Teague's heinousness? Yeah, it's one of the Home Guards, Bosie, who attempt to kill Inman at the climax of the movie despite Inman makes it clear that he'll spare him if he let him go peacefully and indirectly responsible for Inman's death later on.
Now how about Captain Teague? Yeah, dude's a leader of Home Guard who would do anything to reclaim back the ownership of the entire Cold Mountain and relentlessly pursuing for the war deserters for his own amusement. The extension of his crimes could be looked back with the other members of Home Guard, by watching the scenes of Inman's journey on his way home, this includes the genocide of Africans, murder of woman who owns the ferry and the extermination of all deserters (though Inman would later died at the end of the movie). What about his onscreen crimes? Yeah, what we see is the implication of murdering Reverend Monroe (as it was shown when he mocked Ada for her father's death), ruling over the entire Cold Mountain with an iron fist, the extermination of the Swangers, attempt to kill remaining deserters and both girls Ada and Ruby for helping them. This proves that Captain Teague has dozens of kill counts (both directly and indirectly).
Mitigating factors[]
Captain Teague has a legitimate Freudian Excuse since his grandfather used to owned most of the Cold Mountain before his family loses the ownership after his death. Though he would do anything to reclaim back the ownership of the Cold Mountain, but that doesn't mean he would honored his grandfather's wishes, meaning it doesn't justify his actions of hunting down the deserters and killing the innocents. As result, his excuse and motive is nothing but out of sheer pettiness, greed and selfishness. While it's possible he may have idolized his grandfather at all, there was an implication that he only did this out of fanaticism, but I'm not clearly sure as I am being skeptical of it. Nothing states he does cared for his grandfather.
While Strobod and Pangle are performing their fiddle in front of the Home Guards, Teague seems to enjoying it and secretly singing behind their back. While you may have thought it was a redeeming quality, it wasn't since it was shown to be a brief period of time as he would later killed Pangle (despite him being harmless and mentally handicapped) and attempts to do the same to Strobod. He only wanted to kill Pangle because of how much he hates him when he smiles, which is nothing but a petty and ridiculous reason to do so.
His "love" and "affection" towards Ada Monroe is nothing but out of sheer toxic and lustful obsession, which makes sense why Ada became disgusted and uncomfortable towards his presence. However, he later subverted it as he turned his obsession to rage towards her whenever she fearfully rejects him and he has no problem of attempting to kill both her and Ruby at the climax of the movie.
Final verdict[]
Special thanks to Ray Winston for playing the amazing General Dreykov (a fellow PE) of Marvel Cinematic Universe before, I'd say we should choose a weak yes to Captain Teague for leading the hunt on war deserters and killing many innocents. I'd say he's a decent keep, but it's worth it.