AnnieHurst

parker, with the old nate painting: hi i’m old nate and i live here too

eliot, cutting through the wall with a chainsaw: quiet maniacal laugh

hardison, setting up the monitors: i bought the building

It’s not because the writing is flawless because, let’s face it, Mull is wonderful at many things but he has no voice or style.

BUT

EVERY. WRITER. CAN. LEARN. FROM. HIS. VILLAINS.

Name one perfect villain. Voldemort? His weakness was arrogance and also breakable items. Galbatorix? Boring. The Ring of Sauron? Is that even a thing? Idk but it’s boring as well. Darth Vader?? Wasn’t he actually a good guy gone wrong? Idk guys I don’t watch these movies sorry.

BUT THE SPHINX

Fucking flawless villain.

He plotted and schemed for millenia. Literally. He was patient and cunning and always about fifty steps ahead of his enemies. He had no weaknesses.

Best of all, his ultimate plan was not to rule the world or achieve immortality or whatever. It was just to make the world a better place, and honestly, it might have worked. He had a whole system set up in advance, he had everything prepared to control the demons. The scariest part? He was so NOT power hungry that he was 100% willing to put his plan down and walk away if the demons were not willing to cooperate. After /thousands/ of years of preparation, he was totally fine with doing that. Because he wasn’t crazy. He was totally logical, totally reasonable. It’s almost terrifying how cunning and intelligent he was.

And he didn’t even hold anything against his enemies. He respected them, he never underestimated them. He played to their strengths and weaknesses perfectly so he could get exactly what he needed from them. They didn’t even realize that they had. (*cough*the dragon betrayal*cough*) and he promised amnesty to them should his plan ever come to fruition. He wanted them on his side and he totally understood that they never would be.

In fact, the only thing that caused his downfall was something he would not have had an iota of control over. I don’t want to give too many spoilers because ~read the books~ but if it weren’t for a betrayal that he never could have seen coming because it was literally in the makings for longer than he’d been alive, his plan would have totally succeeded. He had ALL the cards and he didn’t let his guard down even then. And once the betrayal happened, he joined forces with his enemies to bring down the demons.

The good guys NEVER would have succeeded without the Sphinx.