You know which character in this book I hate the most?? Spoilers.
 

Go on, guess.

...No, not him.

Or him.

Or her.

Or...look, you want me to tell you?

Dr. Menace? Hardly! She's far too badass to ever be dislikeable. The courtroom bit, that wasn't exactly playing fair, but it was amusing enough to forget her misdeeds.

No, it isn't Nihel! I mean, sure, he killed half the Earth and blasted the other half with satellites. That's okay. I can deal with that. He was just a little angry is all. I mean, yeah, he condemned Norman to an eternity of unliving pain and slew Rachel and Angus - OH GOD, WHY'D THE IRON SCOTSMAN HAVE TO DIE? HE WAS MY FAVORITE CHARACTER! YEAAA - ahem. But I can forgive even such sins as these.

Fine, I'll just say it. Geez, thick as a brick.

Dr. Genius.

Of ALL the characters who got the short end of the stick in this book, Dr. Genius had to go and get away scot-free. Hell, she's ruling the world at the end of the book! The character I like the least is in the best position! What cruelty of fate is this?

You wanna know WHY I don't like her? Because she...she's worse than Nihel, really. Nihel desperately WISHES for humans and mortals to be beneath his notice, but he spends all his time obsessing about them. To Dr. Genius, humans and mortals really ARE beneath her notice. She literally could not care less who lives or dies or undergoes hideous agony, as long as she gets her treasured KI data. She nearly killed Nuklear Man in the heating chamber when she was testing him. She expressed utter indifference to the possible vaporization of the city - twice - and her only concern there was that she would never finish her work. She did the most horrible thing I can imagine to Yuriko...poor girl... The line that I think shows her true colors best is the following: "As horrible as this device may be, there are ways around anyone ever finding out about it." She doesn't care that this device in question will obliterate the very souls of those it targets (even Dr. Menace is rattled by that fact!), all she cares about is that people won't find out about it.

What I wouldn't give to see Superion tear off her body parts until she doesn't have any more. Or watch as Nihel sends every one of her bones in a different direction at once. A powerful rage wells up inside me at the mere mention of her name.

...Brian, this is one of the best damned books I've ever read. No other literary character inspires such emotion in me. ;)

That's called "dramtic irony." It was also probably the point. I detest that character in the end as well, but I really prefer to hate Nihel. You think Genius is bad? Concider this. She was willing to sacrfice a city of millions in an accident to get her needed information to help humanity. Nihel wants to destroy 100's of billions, intentionally for his own selfish ass. Compair and contrast.

It's not a matter of scale of deaths. Nihel kills people because he wants to prove (to himself?) that he doesn't care about them. But doing things arbitrarily like that doesn't make a person particularly bad. I mean, sure, hell, boiling an entire world in its own atmosphere is a pretty bad thing to do, but like Yuriko says, "Intent." Intent is what's important. Nihel kills people in a struggle against Fate.

...If you think about it, Nihel isn't evil at all, because theoretically he isn't even in control of his own actions. Being that his every move is fated to happen before it does, he's really just doing what Odin prescribed him to do in the beginning. He doesn't have a choice - is that really evil?

But Genius isn't evil. No, she's uncaring. Nihel kills people because they're beneath him, because they're like vermin to him. Would you cheerfully kill a colony of a hundred thousand termites to stop YOUR house from being eaten away at? Sure you would! Because termites are insignificant pests to you. But isn't this the same as Nihel killing worlds to "unfate" himself? Slaughtering huge numbers of creatures that - to you - are tiny and worthless? Genius does this to her own people. The only person she even remotely cares about is Mighty Metallic Magno Man. She was perfectly ready to kill Nuklear Man - scratch that, perfectly ready to completely obliterate him from the universe in all respects, and did she shed a single tear? Did she even stop to think about what she was doing to a man who had likely saved her life and the world a hundred times over? Nope - just thinking about the media impact.

Think about it. Does she really want data for helping mankind? Or does she want it for the sake of knowing it?

First off, can you trust Nihel about fate? It seems just a likely to me that he performed some wicked acts in the past which made him a hunted creature. That hunt has been going on for an incomprehensible about of time, due to being immortal, and he has lied to himself saying to must be fate that he is hunted. Over the course of the years that lie became truth to him, and his obsession.
Dr Genius wants the information to use to control KI and improve the world with her briliance. I don't think helping mankind was her ultimate goal, nor do I believe she was collecting it just to collect it. She wants the power that data would bring. And she didn't shed a tear because she didn't see Nuke as a man who had saved the world hundreds of times. She did it because Arel, not Nuke, was a threat to all existance. Specifically her own. But yes, she is apathetic to the point of being down right vile.

So...you're postulating that Odin and Loki and such either don't exist or didn't play any part in Nihel and Arel's saga? That the whole "destiny versus power" thing is just something Nihel made up and started believing himself? Seems a pretty outlandish theory, really.

Also: Who in blue blazes could hunt NIHEL?! The guy has god-like powers. Who could even do him harm, but for Arel in a fit of wrath?

One more thing. You say Genius tried to stop Arel because he was a threat to all that existed, including herself. Say that Genius had found some shelter from Arel's wrath and her safety and research and such was guaranteed no matter what Arel did, somehow. Do you think she would have lifted a finger to help the people of Earth?

Odin, Loki, et all exist. I present the alternate hypothisis that Nihel is completely fucked up in the head and made up fate, not the other gods. As for who could hunt him, if Odin etc. exist how much do you wanna bet there are not-evil gods out there who like the galatic alliance thingy?

If Genius found a way to protect herself and her research I think she would have used Nihel's destruction of Earth to gauge the level KI manipulation he was doing so she could design sensor that could actually read it (they noted repeatedly that his stuff was off their scale their instruments could record) and gain massive amounts of data by following him around the galaxy. Provided she could find a way to perform FTL travel, but she is a genius after all.

Exactly. I think she would have done the same thing, which explains my burning hatred of her. She would toss away Earth for her precious data.

I think its a kick in the balls to Nihel that he still played right in to fate's hands. Score!

As for the one you hate, she's just horrible selfish, in that she wants as much knowledge as she can have. Nihel just wants to destroy things. They're both evil in their own right.

Yeah, Nithel's old "Evil by right" style while Genius is "Evil by motives", IMO.

Don't know about that... Is the search for knowledge necessarily that selfish? Knowledge is, after all, the only real thing that all mankind can use with no restrictions. Dr. Genius says something to that effect near the end of the book, that Dr. Menace was so centered on the rights of the individual as oposed those of the coletive. Aswering Gary's question, that is kind of besides the point. You don't judge people for what you guess they would do, but for what they actually do. Genius and Menace helped the heroes save earth. Their reasons for it matter little in the course of events.