Many people may see me as an athlete, on the account that I swim 10-12 hours a week. But really, I'm a nerd, learn to deal with it. Considering I'm me, I think you can do it since your you. So when my English teacher walks into the room and asks us to compare the character we've been reading about to ANYONE IMAGINABLE, my interest perked up. I mean, my brain is described through this picture. (And yes, I made it myself)
https://docs.google.com/a/bhmschools.org/drawings/d/1uJTu5JoYq1OKpFJ9HpAFqSpkpfuYxoIgN8ON0OxlHGU/edit
Marvel and DC references activate! Mearsault is the main character of the book, "The Stranger", is described by me as a heartless, cruel, and apathetic man who can't express emotion to save his life, literally! He dies at the end of the book through execution, which wouldn't have happened if he had shown emotion to two things, his mothers death, and to religion/god. Since this book is pretty old, its been debated numerous times that he is a Nihilist. I've seen some pretty heated debates in my class about whether or not he is one, but my opinion stands as is. I believe that Mearsault isn't a Nihilist, but is some of both. He doesn't seem to believe in religion at all, but instead seems like he would be okay if religion turned out to be real. But getting to the point, I can pull as many Marvel and DC references out of gigantic brain. So sit back and hold tight as I pull out a ton of random villains from the comic book, gaming, and book universe.
Bane
With this reference, I'm going to prove/almost prove why Bane is like Mearsault in how he sees the world. In "The Dark Knight Rises", the final parts of the movie are coming into play. All the police have escaped form the sewers and are now running at the huge gang of Bane's evil groupies. Batman is heading to fight Bane. Chief Gordon is trying to move the bomb back to the machine in order to save the city from mass destruction. But the thing I noticed was that as things boiled down, Bane seemed to be in the city 15 minutes from the mass explosion of Gotham. This means that any means of escape or movement on Banes part would be to slow or futile, or he would have been able to get out of the city, only to be shot down by the army. And since Bane is pretty smart, I believe that this shows/proves that Bane is either crazy or does not believe in the afterlife. This is because Bane is shown as very smart, so he either has to be crazy enough to kill a ton of people and be sent to hell, or he doesn't believe in the afterlife.
So I'm going to quote Alfred on this one because he sums it up pretty well.
"Some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn." ~ Alfred Pennyworth
Ronan the Accuser
I actually just saw this movie in the past couple of days, and I absolutely loved guardians of the galaxy and the many references from the 80's. Now Ronan is an interesting character because of his sudden appearance out of no where in the marvel universe. But one thing is for certain, he wants to see everything burn! Not only does he risk his own life before thinking about touching the infinity stone, but he doesn't care about destroying an entire planet with it! Comparing him to Mearsault, he never shows any emotion other then giddy happiness over the destruction of his enemies, and confusion at what the heck a dance battle is. But the thing that I take out of this is, he really needs a hobby. Like Mearsault, the only thing he does is work until something new pops up in his life that actually interests him.
Wilhelm Strasse
Wilhelm is the villain in the video game "Wolfenstein The New Order." His main focus in the entire game is to defeat anyone who gets in his way, or by his way, his empires way. He has taken over the world and no one has been able to stop him, so really his only focus up to the rebellion is that he needs to leave the world having expanded his empire to an immense size. This is like Mearsault because of his "living in the now." Even with Mearsault knowing that his execution is taking place in a few days, he still only cares about what he talks about or does in prison up until the last second.
Taking into account all of the villains I have mentioned, I'm sure that I could state at least another ten, but right now it 9:42 on a Saturday and I kinda want my Sunday to be homework free, so goodnight, I'm closing the book on this one!
