As a child we paint the world in colors and rainbow though the reality varies quiet afar from that. In our youth we know of only basic traits of happy and sad, then we grow and experience the world and evolve to have greed, maliciousness, and jealousy, that is what this world makes us. And no matter how hard we try to conceal the unlikable, a peek of it will always show it self through your personality.
As someone who keep his evil covered till death there is a clear case made by saying that Carlos Ventresca from the book Angels & Demons embodies the most diabolical villain because he is remorseless towards his own father and has a love for violence. The book focuses on the the conflict between science and religion or the Vatican and the Illuminati. The book begins when a Leonard Vetra, a scientist, finds an ani matter that represents God and proved that Genesis was physically possible . Going against all protocols he starts to discuss this with the Pope who shows interest.
After multiple meetings the Pope tells him to go public but suddenly both of them are mysteriously killed and the blame is placed on the Iluminati. Since a new Pope needs to be chosen a conclave is organized and all the cardinals are called into the Vatican. The the four preferiti, people who have the best chance at becoming the pope, are kidnapped and being killed one by one. Everybody in the book perceives that this is the work of the Illuminati but once a video of the confession is released we know for sure that the Pope’s camerlengo, Carlos Ventresca, was behind all of the confusion.
Not only was Carlos behind the killing of Leonardo Vetra but also the death of the Pope. The reactions to the antimatter were mixed and were the cause of the main conflict. Leonardo Vetra and the Pope thought that the antimatter explained the existence of God and that it would bridge the gap between the Christian and the scientific communities. Carlos is the closest to the Pope so he hears about the findings and keeps track of the updates form the lab. The Pope and Dr. Vetra wanted to get this into the public but their work was cut short when suddenly both of them are killed by the Hassasin.
Carlos hires the Hassisn to be his puppet and kill the pope and Leonard Vetra. Apart form the killing of Dr. vetra, we can see how remorseless the Camberlengo was when he kills the Pope. The Pope was like a father to him and took Carlos under his wing when he was just about 8 years old. Carlos’ justification was that this was God’s will and the that he was being tested. He forgets the Pope’s aid and guidance when he takes killing him so easily. When Carlos poisoned the Pope that night he knew that God’s first test had been less horrible than the [he] imagined.
Sneaking into the Papal bed chambers … filling his syringe … covering the deceiver’s mouth as his body spasmed into death. In the moonlight, the camerlegno could see in the Pope’s wild eyes there was something he wanted to say. (Brown,454) He watched as the life left the Pope’s body even though he know that it was morally wrong he felt that he had done right. Without guilt he kills years of time and love that this man had invested in him. Carlos was very close to the pope and yet had little to no feelings to watch him die and to be the one to execute the actions..
Not only does he kill the Pope but he also tortured, branded, and kill the four innocent Cardinals that he kidnapped. To the Illuminati the four basic elements are important symbols and the four preferiti are being killed using each of the symbols. As established before, the Illuminati aren’t causing the killings, the Camerlengo is. Carlos Ventresca hires an Hassasin to kidnap and kill the four cardinals. Everything that is done to these preferiti is carried out under the supervision of the Camberlengo. The innocent cardinals are killed in gruesome ways and kept alive as they slowly die in agony.
The plans of the crimes are set in such a precise way and the last Perferiti is killed using fire “High above the chapel floor, Cardinal Guidera endured his last torturous moments of consciousness. As he looked down the length of his naked body, he saw the skin on his legs begin to blister and peel away. I am in hell, he decided. God, why hast thou forsaken me? He knew this must be hell because he was looking at the brand on his chest upside down … and yet, as if by the devil’s magic, the word made perfect sense. ” In a way we can see just by the way that these crimes are staged that Carlos enjoys the violence and crude killings.
It might seem odd for someone so high in status of the religious community to carry out such heinous acts but that is what makes Carlos a villain. The innocence we harbor when we are younger slowly decays as we age and start to learn our rights from wrongs. What goes on in the minds we may never know but to them killing may be the right thing to do. After all, they still are humans and we all still stand and act on what we believe. Even if those actions change the world the better or for the worst. This world if filled with cruel people and even though Carlos might be fictional he embodies them all in a single character.
