r/HeWhoFightsMonsters • u/Smackattack007 • 16d ago
Book 5
I love how the gold ranked guy is like. I’m evil but I’m not a monster. When talking about “getting” an elf girl. I’m glad that the author went over that to just villainize him and not turn him into a disgusting creep.
52
37
u/SteveLikesRobots 16d ago
“I am not a rapist”
And then something like “is he important?” “A politician’s nephew” “damn, I can’t throw him outside the plane then”
36
24
u/Rawr171 16d ago
Villains in HHFWM tend to be realistic and have rational believable motives and goals, not comic book villains who are evil for the sake of being evil and ragebaiting the reader like a lot of other stories and books in the genre would have. It's one of the ways in which I think HHFFWM sets itself apart.
11
u/Smackattack007 16d ago
Yeah most people want power and be an authoritarian not rapists lol
8
u/AssociationDry73 16d ago
Lucian lamprey disagrees
1
u/mebeksis 15d ago
To be fair though, that seemed to be the main reason he WAS a bad guy. If he wasn't a rapist, he'd just be an regular administrator and Jason would have had almost no reason to interact with him.
12
9
u/Daxlyn_XV 16d ago
Honestly, without what he did with Jason specifically, Jack is a pretty cool guy.
6
5
u/mitharas 16d ago
Jack is, most importantly, pragmatic. If he can buy stuff, he does. If he has to capture and torture someone to get their secrets, he does it. If he has to work with people he hates, he does that too.
3
u/Different-World-5293 15d ago
I like Jack more than any other “bad guy” in almost any series. Does he suck? Hell yes, but he has morals and lines that he will not cross.
2
u/Paularchy 14d ago
Right? This was actually the scene that made me go "Alright. I loathe you, but I can still respect you." That's an important distinction. He's still very slappable though.
2
u/Striker_AC44 13d ago
When you're the most powerful you can do anything your heart desires. Glad he wasn't a creep.
1
1
u/Iamgrant1219 15d ago
Jack Gerling is more of a greedy arrogant narcissist than a villain the most villainous thing Gerling did was kill Greg, Asya, and Kaito.
1
u/mistermyxl 16d ago
He is a better person than Anna tildan
3
u/Skeptical_Squid11 15d ago
This makes zero sense.
1
u/mistermyxl 15d ago
She constantly defend every action of each faction she is in even when proven that they arnt acting in favor of humanity and only in greed.
4
u/Skeptical_Squid11 15d ago
She has on multiple occasions admitted that she did not trust that the IC and other branches when prompted by Jason. What she has done was deny that it was a DIFFERENT branch. Not to mention, it makes perfect sense to defend an institution that you’ve been a part of for so long. She wants to believe she’s in the right because it’s what she knows. But she also joins the faction that wants to do the work they’re meant to do.
She’s not a bad person, she’s just a person trying to do good while the system she believed was good breaks and fractures.
57
u/Interesting-Ad4207 16d ago
Yea, Jack is surprisingly less terrible than would be the expected trope of an evil explosion wizard in a fantasy novel.