Recently saw a video thumbnail titled something like "something good in evil villains" and it included Judge Holden and I thought Welp I read the book, lets see what this video's about-
And the video was basically trying to find something "good" in those villains and it started with the Judge and the good thing they listed was "he saved the Idiot from drowning" which had me like NOOOO-
The idiot (called so by the text) is a disabled person called James Robert Bell who was imprisoned by his brother in a wooden cage and used as an attraction to make money.
At some point women see him like this and judge the shit out of his brother, take him out of the cage which they burn down, clean him up and give him clothes.
After that he walks towards the large river and would have drowned had Judge Holden not gotten hold of him.
And I'm thinking NO, do not even think about seeing this as an act of kindness because Judge Holden KEEPS THE GUY AS A PET!
The video did continue by saying that this act is still iffy because "he prolly just did it because the idiot is easy to manipulate" and I'm thinking NOOOOO-
The Judge is manipulating everyone else! He manipulates the gang, he manipulates the authorities, the manipulates the Apache, he manipulates anyone who is not the main character Kid (who refuses to engage with him like the smart boi he is)
What he does to James Robert is NOT manipulation, its stripping him of all humanity because he liked the idea of a human pet.
I remember watching Wendigoon's video on the book and while I like the fella I found his interpretation of the Judge taking James Robert in to be off, saying "He seems to have a soft spot for him" NO, a soft spot is what the Janitor from Scrubs feels for Elliot, Judge Holden was just trying out a human pet fetish with an unwilling participant.
I honestly consider the fact that James Robert is a disabled person to be reason these ideas even exist, that what the Judge does to him isn't the horror it actually is because it doesn't happen to an abled person of solid mind. When it's pretty much even MORE horrifying to happen to an disabled person because he couldn't defend himself, and neither can actually disabled people who are treated like objects and/or pets by their caretakers or support workers.
Honestly, James Robert's part of the story was one of the more harder things for me personally to stomach because I got to know a lot of heavily-disabled people who would be defenseless against such horrible treatment. The amount of joy I felt when the women in the book finally commented on how horrible this treatment is was indescribable.
To come back to the original topic, No, Judge Holden does not carry a good quality in him, and saving James Robert from drowning isn't even the only instant of him saving people from certain death. He just doesn't do it for any good reason, he just does it to cause more harm to the world as a whole
