In Volume II of Kill Bill, Bill’s bro asks Elle:

“Do you feel regret? Or relief?”

There were a lot of great villains in that movie, but I think of all the villains, the obvious one – Beatrice – has to be my favorite because she harbors my two favorite other “R” qualities for not-quite-villains I like to root for: ruthlessness and revenge. I dig a character with a vendetta – one who will stop at nothing to issue a chilly dish of comeuppance. Mostly because, ya know, I’m attempting to be good these days – so I gotta take my vengeance vicariously.

As with most things, when it comes to this obsession, I blame high school.

Particularly, Count of Monte Cristo. Granted, I don’t recall Mister Cristo plucking out pupils from his foes’ heads. However, in a way, the psychological torture he issues as he rises up from his imprisonment and Shawshank’s his way out before rising to the upper echelons of society, was almost worse (better) than a gory bloodbath of payback. While I forget a great deal of the book and the movie (after not having read or seen it in a very long time), I do seem to recall an ostentatious air balloon and a whole lotta my internal hype man saying things like, “Ooooh, he too-ooold you!” when he’d deliver punishment in creative ways.

Similarly, Beatrice practiced cerebral revenge – but dealt it with bloody ruthlessness too. When Elle admitted she’d killed their mutual master Pai Mei for plucking out her eye, she plucks out her other one. Then she kills one of the characters with her daughter there. And the best (obv.) is how she kills Bill. She breaks his heart three times: first by making him believe she’s dead, then by letting him watch her (almost) marry some townie, then literally – with the five finger death punch that explodes it inside his chest.

Sweet, ruthless revenge.

I think that I enjoy these dramatic films and novels so much because they speak to part of me that feeds off that. Back here in reality, I have to try to avoid anything that has to do with actually having to deliver violence (“try” being the operative word); but a part of me is always ready to follow a car home and snatch out the driver’s optical organ if they do something really, truly awful.

Like cutting me off or going too slowly in traffic.

Something like that.

You know, same way any of us’d react.

Still, I still feel slight “regret” when I exact my two R’s together – revenge, ruthlessly.

So it’s a “relief” I’ve got Kiddo and Cristo characters to do it for me.