Gordon Post #3

Good-Bad Power Rankings

(Note: This book has many characters that show good or bad tendencies to rank ALL of them would be a very long process so I took the ones I consider to be the most influential to the story. List is done in best to worst order)

Men: 

1. Adam Stanton: Adam stays true to his values.  He doesn't want money, power, or woman, and as jack points out he could easily have all three.  He lives in a run down apartment complex, and doesn't charge half as much as he could for his services.  "He just wants to do good" is the way Jack puts it on page 332.  The true representation of this is when he goes finally does agree to run Willie's hospital.  For most of the book Adam has strongly disagreed with the way Willie runs things and Jacks involvement.  However, he brushes this aside because he knows that it will alone him to help as many people as possible running the hospital, which is to him all that really matters.  
2. Judge Irwin: The Judge is interesting because he obviously did at one point do something very underhanded to get himself out of a financial hole.  This never would have been discovered however, without the meticulous digging of the student of history Jack Burden.  As Jack list out on page 271 Judge has no need for "ambition, love, or fear" three of the four things that make man sin.  Since his pay off the Judge has lived an exemplary life, hating no one and never bending to the corrupt politicians that try and sway his court.     
3. Willie Talos:  Despite the scheming, bribing, and cut-throat legislature that he runs Willie isn't a bad guy.  He was brought up in poverty and actually tries to help the "hick population" of Louisiana.  He empathizes with them, and because of this builds roads and gives back to the people that put him where he is.  The best example of this is the hospital that Willie is spending 6 million dollars on so "anybody, no matter he hasn't got a dime can go there." 
4. Jack Burden: Jack is actually a very neutral character. He doesn't really partake in the general scramble for money and power that most men in the book do, but he is not necessarily opposed to it either.  Jack is a rebel without a cause, he seems lost, and for some reason decides Willie is the answer, but in terms of "good and bad" the student of history is just that, he is indifferent only presenting and sticking by the facts that he finds himself.
5. Tiny Duffy:  Tiny is the epitome of the corrupt, slim-ball politician that we know and love.  His affection for money and power is only overshadowed by his sizable mid-section.  He blatantly asks Willie to give his hospital contract to a "Gummy Larson" even though Willie knows he is trying to get a cut.  This is the man that Willie keeps around because he is dishonest, keep up the good work Tiny.                

Women:

1. Lucy Talos:  Lucy is almost a relic in Willies life, left over from the time before he was "the boss." She doesn't let this intimidate her however.  She does everything she can to keep her family together where most women would have walked out the door.  This is best shown when she challenges Willie about the way he lets Tom do whatever he wants saying "I would rather see him dead at my feet than what your vanity will make him." She calls out the man that no one in their right mind would call out because she refuses to let her family die.  
2. Jack's Mother:  Though she seems evil I think she is confused more than anything. She is trying to find love but cant seem to find someone that really satisfies her.  She lives in her own little world going from the "Scholarly Attorney" to the "Young Executive."  She tries on these men almost playing make believe casting herself as the "countess" in her own little play.  She doesnt know what she wants which doesnt make her bad just indecisive. 
3. Ann Stanton: Ann is one of Jack's closest friends.  It seems at one point that Jack was in love with her, and i guess still is.  She leads him on and uses him to get what she wants taking advantage of someone she has known her entire life.  Eventually she begins an affair with Willie (P.373) which causes Jack to deal with his problems the way we all should.  Drive across the country at high speeds, sit in a hotel room in your underwear for two days, then drive back.  Shes manipulative and out for herself but Jack just cant see her that way and she uses him for it.  
4. Sadie Burke:  Sadie is out for herself.  She was born in a shed with an abusive father and has worked her way up in the world from there.  She is a bully and feels no sympathy for others because no one ever did for her.  The truth hurts and she doesn't care like when she tells Willie he is being used, and Jack that Ann is running around with Willie.  Hurt is the only thing she knows and she takes out her own on others.
5. Annabelle Trice:  I actually don't think that Ms. Trice is really influential to the plot but she is bad to the bone.  She double times her loving and devoted husband with one of his best friends and business associates which leads to his eventual suicide.  Afterwards she cant stand "the look" that one of her slaves keeps giving her so she sells her to cannibals in Lexington.  In a book where people are totally out for their own pleasures Ms. Trice might take the hate-cake.