Daniel vs Mandus

[Alardem]

I'll be slated for saying this, I'm sure but I have to go with Daniel. Mandus feels... almost cartoonish in his villainy. He's the archetypal "well-intentioned extremist" who damns humanity to save it from itself. I couldn't connect with him because everything he does is so much larger than life, like a Dickensian villain who's been turned up to hyperbolic proportions.

Daniel, for me, is the classic tragic hero who dooms himself in his attempts to save himself. He starts out looking for something to take back to the British Museum, maybe motivated by personal glory as well but still a noble pursuit. His pursuit by the shadow, his slow slipping into evil--contrast his initial reluctance to do wrong with the flashback at the alter near the choir where he chides Alexander for interrupting him in cutting a man and later expresses concern that another will be killed 'too quickly'--realisation of what he's become and his attempts to undo his evil.

I suppose Mandus has that in common with him but as I've said, it's hampered somewhat by how ludicrous it all is. I never got a sense that Mandus wrestled with his conscience, he just snaps and throws himself off the deep end. Daniel just feels more personal; he's pushed by desperation into doing what he does. His evils are much more personal as the pain and fear he inflicts isn't simply lost in numbers. He isn't jovial in his insanity (cf. the note about Selwyn (I forget his title)), he's clinical interspersed with bouts of guilt.

I'll happily discuss all of that, I'd be interested to hear differing opinions on it.

That's a pretty good summation - Mandus does get rather grandiose at his worse. I still prefer PLAYING as him, simply because Daniel's phobias became distracting.