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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/46960
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/46960
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I think this is an opinion piece, but IMO the protagonist is a hero, and the scientist is a villain, and the ending is a mixed bag.

For starters, anybody trying to coerce _everybody_ against their will is evil, a slaver, no matter what their motivations. Just because he happens to be right or happens to help people does not mitigate that evil, he forced people against their will. And BTW, if he's so smart, why couldn't he find a way to prove his approach is better? Why can't he convince any other scientist anywhere that he is right, and try to build his credibility by scientific consensus? (I am a full time scientist, and I don't understand why he is a lone wolf here, if his science is actually demonstrably valid.)

Why couldn't he find a single volunteer to test his idea upon? A paid volunteer, anywhere in any country.

Why couldn't he hire an ad agency to promote this? No matter what you're selling, there are effective ad agencies and lobbyists that will promote it if you pay them.

And the fact that he had to TEST his invention, and not on **himself,** is proof enough he wasn't **certain** it would work and thus proof enough he was **willing** to kill somebody else to prove his idea.

Also, testing on **one** person is never enough, there is a whole spectrum of sensitivities and responses (including fatal responses, and long term responses like cancer or other diseases) to the majority of human trials. There is no such thing as a one-and-done human trial. So deploying his invention to all of humanity, after testing on a single person, is quite likely harm and kill people, particularly the elderly, already ill, and those compromised by diseases like cancer or AIDS or treatments like chemotherapy. He's willing to harm them, too.

So the fact that the scientist succeeds in his quest is as much a matter of luck as brilliance, he could easily have murdered half the population of the world.

Second, the protagonist is trying to protect the world from being coerced and experimented upon by a sociopathic or psychopathic scientist. The fact that the hero failed doesn't mean he was ever wrong to oppose this. It only means Right failed to prevail over Might.

Nor is the hero an "anti-hero" for killing minions of an evil scientist; in general, in fiction, those who knowingly protect or do the bidding of an evil person are themselves evil. (An anti-hero is a person that is rude, steals, perhaps gets drunk and stupid and otherwise behaves badly but is at heart, when the chips are down, an altruistic hero. An anti-villain is the opposite, a person that always seems to be kind and concerned and doing good, but is at heart, when the chips are down, going to serve their own selfish interests at any cost, which is essentially what villains do).

Which is why I call the ending "mixed;" the villain prevailed and the hero failed, but the ending was, luckily, not a complete disaster. Nevertheless, the population was forced to participate in an experiment without their permission and against their will, they were raped.

If a woman is raped, and bears a child as a result of that rape, and loves that child because she knows the child is innocent of any wrong-doing and had no control or choice in their own conception (just like herself), that does not excuse the rapist or make the rape any less of a crime.

Original score: 2