What is the work?[]
The Book Of Esther is a book in the Bible about how a Jewish woman named Esther gets married to a Persian king and bravely thwarts an attempted genocide scheme.
Who is he?[]
Many know him; Haman was the deeply Anti-Semitic right-hand vizier to King Xerxes who was largely self-absorbed and extremely petty. He tries to have the Persian Jews bow to him and when Mordecai refuses, he decides to manipulate King Xerxes into issuing for the Jews to be killed. When he tries to have Mordecai kneel before him again only to receive the same response, he arranges to have gallows built so that Mordecai could be hanged from them.
Xerxes' wife, Queen Esther, a Jew herself, becomes aware of Haman's plot and orchestrates a banquet where she reveals her nationality thus causing Xerxes to assume that Haman was trying to have his wife killed. While he goes out of the room momentarily, Haman falls down before Esther to ask her for mercy. Unfortunately for him, Xerxes returns and immediately comes to the conclusion that he was trying to assault his wife. Upon learning of the gallows he had constructed for Mordecai, he issues for Haman to be hanged on them. He then allows the Jewish population to defend themselves through state support as he was unable to abolish the decree he made.
Mitigating factors? Freudian Excuse?[]
There's obviously none. He is a psychotic bastard who condemned an entire race to death just because one refused to bow to him. He has a wife, but there are no feelings for her. At most, he does accept the suggestion from her that he should hang Mordecai, but that's it. No loyalty to King Xerxes. Zip. Nada.
Heinous standard[]
Here's my issue: the heinous standard. I won't mention God's actions in the Old Testament because while I feel that they are inexcusable and borderline monstrous in nature...God appears to fall under Blue and Orange Morality what with the whole "his ways are not our ways" and the like. Satan, as I have mentioned, is a varied character: in some tellings, he can only do as much because he would fall squarely under the thumb of God such as when he couldn't take Job's life but God permitted him to take his possessions and his children and bring sickness to his body. Especially in Christianity, he is given more power to where he almost comes across as the polar opposite of God; essentially he rebelled of his own free will and is not as limited. Basically, the issue is that he is a much too varied character who often is interpreted as being made of evil or in the Christian religion, he has free will and is almost an Avengers-level supervillain. There's a pretty interesting video on the evolution of the Satan character on YouTube if any want to see it.
As far as the rest of the Bible goes...talk about values dissonance. Like how Lot is held as being one of the "heroes" of the OT...even though he was willing to sell his own daughters to attempted rapists and later had sex with them when he was intoxicated. Or Moses forcing some Israelites into drinking water mixed with melted down and ground gold before slaughtering them; the Israelites committing genocide; taking virgins for themselves; more slaughters, etc. Basically, the heroes do various "non-heroic" deeds but at the time were acceptable. Other human antagonists were arguably set in place for God basically as forms of punishment for whenever the Israelites disobeyed their god (see Judges for an example of what I'm talking about). Or the other reason they were disqualified was due in part to the high heinous standard. Like Pharaoh having all the Israelite boys slain or King Herod (allegedly) issuing the Massacre of the Innocents; it's bad, but not something extraordinary in the overall Bible where families and entire dynasties are slaughtered for little rhyme nor reason. But you can't have them as candidates because often a tribe is the one that issues out the killings with little individuality.
Initially, Haman was the only approved villain from the Bible because he decided to attempt genocide solely of his own volition instead of being set in place as an opposer of God's people.
Conclusion[]
Overall, personally see Haman as a contentious example. Sure he tried to commit genocide, but when you have others commit genocide either because they believe that they were demanded to by God or not only did commit the act but also took slaves for themselves, especially the virgins after slaughtering their spouses and any male children they had.
This is not meant to be controversial, but I wanted to give my full perspective on Haman's qualifications.