#iruvage

I love Iruvage as a villain because he just leans into it so hard. Out of the khai we see in the book, Ssrin is rebelling against the Exordia and Maessari seems like she's coldly carrying out her orders - like threatening a planet with nuclear annihilation is a normal Tuesday afternoon. But Iruvage knows explicitly that he is an objectively bad person, that his actions are evil, and that he is going to literal, actual capital-H Hell when he dies, and he decides to ham it up. He plays fucked up cat and mouse with the Chinese special forces team. He taunts Davoud and Clayton relentlessly even though they're nominally on his side, and then toys with the fighter pilots, and the Spetsnaz guys, and even Ssrin when he thinks he can get away with it.