the Judge

"This is my claim, he said. And yet everywhere upon it are pockets of autonomous life. Autonomous. In order for it to be mine nothing must be permitted to occur upon it save by my dispensation."
this is the judge or judge holden from Cormac Mcarthy's blood meridian. a difficult but beautiful book in all its awe of nature and the easy violence dispensed in America. 
the character the judge is a villain of most astounding excellence and a character i'm still vaguely obsessing over. he fits easily into the slot of being Mephistopheles, but sometimes i still think he is the earthly embodiment of the American god. a cultured, educated, charming, passionate and evil man.