Coolest version of Satan ever. Change my mind.
| “ | Red: How do you think he escaped? Minion: With a jackhammer, sir. Red: Do you think he found it, lying around the drones' lounge? Pathetic morons! I gave it to him. Or rather I left it where he had to find it, and then I put the idea in his tiny little mind to pick it up. Because I wanted an audience with Mister Alec Hayes. |
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This is a proposal I've been meaning to get around to for a while now. Although it's from a fairly obscure work I just had to see this character proposed as he's easily my favourite version of the Devil that I have ever seen in fiction. He's also kinda similar to the next character I'm planning to propose, who is also a demonic deal maker with a red colour scheme, so I thought now was the ideal time to finally get Red Leader off my to-do list.
What's the work?[]
Tales from the Darkside is a horror anthology series created by George A. Romero. It ran on American TV between 1983 and 1987, and a film entitled Tales from the Darkside: The Movie was released in 1990. Each episode was around 20 minutes long and showed a self-contained story, often with a twist ending. Although technically a horror series, many episodes drew heavily from other genres such as fantasy and sci-fi, and although some episodes tried to be scary others were more comedic and light-hearted. The episode being discussed today (which you can watch here) is one of the funny ones.
Who is the candidate?[]
Red Leader appears in the season three episode of the same name. He is the Devil, taking on the form of a construction union boss in order to strike a deal with corrupt construction mogul Alex Hayes. See, in this universe's version of Hell, Red is assisted by certain sinners known as "minions". Minions are people who were "big time bad" when they were alive and/or were intelligent and efficient enough for Red to promote them. They help Red to rule over the rest of the damned, known as "drones" because they are basically enslaved by Red and the minions, and can leave Hell whenever they like in order to help increase Red's influence on Earth and lure others into damnation.
Red is looking for a few good men to help him run Hell and wants to make Alex Hayes a minion, but he can't do that while Alex is still alive. His first plan is to arrange an accident involving a faulty girder at one of Alex's building sites, but the trap ends up killing Alex's equally corrupt business partner Jake Caine instead. After this failure, Red decides to get an audience with Alex and try to convince him to accept Red's deal. Once Jake arrives in Hell Red makes him a drone and forces him to go to work constructing Red's new palace. He then leaves a jackhammer out where Jake can find it and uses his mental manipulation powers to "persuade" Jake to pick it up. As Red predicted, Jake uses the jackhammer to tunnel up to Alex's office and look for some files that will show how evil he was in life in the hope of being promoted to minion.
As Alex and Jake argue over Jake's files, Red uses the tunnel from Hell that Jake created to appear in Alex's office and has Jake taken back down to Hell. He then explains to Alex that he wants him to become a minion, complaining that he doesn't get the same quality of sinner as he used to. He offers Alex all kinds of benefits if he takes the deal, casually revealing in the process that he secretly controls the world's financial system, but even as he's talking he starts to prepare a backup plan, as Alex's gun disappears from the table.
Alex refuses Red's offer to become a minion as he's hoping to somehow get into Heaven, even as Red offers to arrange a quick and painless death for him. Red isn't at all upset that Alex refused him, returning to Hell while promising that they'll see each other again. Less than a minute later, Alex is confronted by Jake's widow Amanda, who he had earlier screwed out of inheriting Jake's assets. Red has used his mental powers again to give Amanda the idea of killing Alex, and placed the gun that disappeared earlier in her pocket. Amanda shoots Alex dead and his body topples into the Hell tunnel, where he finds Red waiting for him. Red confirms that his offer of a deal still stands and this time Alex accepts as the episode ends.
What makes him magnificent?[]
Not only is Red charismatic and affable, but like most versions of the Devil he's also intelligent and manipulative. After his initial plan to kill Alex and make a deal with him afterwards fails, he subtly influences Jake into escaping from Hell and helping him to get an audience. He later does the same to get Amanda to kill Alex so Alex won't be able to reform and he can close their deal. Despite being the Devil, he's actually the most honest character in the episode, as unlike other versions of Satan his deal isn't a trap and both his offer and his respect for Alex are completely genuine. This suggests that he's also honourable despite being the literal embodiment of evil.
What makes him a baddie?[]
He's the Devil, so it goes with the territory really. He rules over Hell and enslaves all the damned souls who aren't lucky enough to become minions, forcing them to build his palace and torturing them when they aren't working. He also uses his minions of Earth to lure more people into sin so they'll be damned as well. While he never lies to Alex about the deal he's making, he does force him to accept it by having him murdered before he can get himself into Heaven.
He's not too much of a baddie because none of his crimes are too heinous. His torture of the damned is totally offscreen and only vaguely implied once or twice, and even then it's not presented as anything too awful. Most of his other crimes (other than offing Alex and Jake) are also offscreen and only conveyed to us by Jake, so it's very hard to see him as too evil to qualify.
Final verdict[]
I'd go with a pretty confident yes.