by Adon » September 1st, 2012, 7:36 pm
Definite character building here. And as promised, Carol, or Carrie, is showing a lot more depth than she has up to now. It doesn't negate what she's been doing, but that's rather the point, isn't it? People can do both good and bad things, for good and bad reasons both, and Carrie's not exceptional there. I do like her insight into Virginia's mindset, that submitting to Rudy = happiness and so why shouldn't she spread that gift? It's also good to know that Carrie and Ginny aren't completely like minded on the hows and why's, and that Ginny has her own issues that could become destructive if she manages to coax Rudy into doing as she wants. While Rudy has power over her, she has a lot of power over him -- he loves and trusts her implicitly, at I don't think he's even contemplated as yet that she hasn't been telling him the truth. Combined with his natural desire to please her she has the ability to make a lot of things happen. My big concern is how Rudy will react when he finally finds out... while it's no guarantee, Ginny can't be perfect in covering her tracks and Rudy isn't stupid by any stretch.
It's also interesting to see Lorenzo showing his petty side. Not to say that he hasn't consistently been a complete asshole -- he has -- but how different his tune is when he loses his composure. It does sort of fit... he's become used to having everything go his way and really doesn't like it when a spanner gets in the works. He also is very sloppy when he's angry. Not just about the vaguely worded command he gave as somebody mentioned earlier, but at any point he could easily have used his abilities to confirm the story. He didn't because he wanted to make the agent suffer, and it didn't seem to occur to him. It also gives me the impression that he fancies himself a lot smarter than he thinks he is. Not to say he isn't smart, but when everything routinely goes your way because you have a supreme ace up your sleeve, it's easy to get overconfident. That's good -- the villain (or at least one of the villains) is shown to be very dangerous, but not invincible. It's well and good for characters to have flaws, but it's important that those flaws actually have an impact on their actions. Rudy is trigger-shy and trusting of those close to him. Ginny sees no problem with increasing Rudy's circle of control as much as she can. Both Ginny and Carrie have no problem working behind Rudy's back for what they see as his best interests. Lorenzo is a misogynist control freak who throws a temper tantrum when denied. Dennings, from what I've seen, is smart, but arrogant and dismissive. All faults that do come into play.
Good stuff.