#other than the people who seek to destroy it being jelous

[blurred-cat]

i want my patient care team to come in with chants and ceremonial cloth and shit for this is a scared transformation ritual. i want my anesthesiologist to guide me through a chanted incantation as i go under. i wish to awaken to the sound of the village gathered around me in joy.

[fan-enby-anonymous]

Hi @mentosmorii, so fun story, I was going to reblog your post about why Opal was a reoccurring villain in the Artemis Fowl series again with some of my thoughts, but then some of my thoughts became ALL of my thoughts, and I didn't want to do my homework. So, I'm sorry in advance but here are all of my thoughts on all of the Artemis Fowl villains. I'm sorry.

I think forcing the LEP to be involved is probably the main factor in having Opal be the archvillain, but i also think the other Artemis Fowl villains are meant to be different kinds of foils than Opal is.

Cudgen started as Opal's partner in crime, so he could have been an archvillain, but he was a foil to Root, not Artemis, so he fizzled out narrativly speaking shortly before Root did. They both served their purpose to the story.

Spiro is a foil to Artemis, but he isn't so much a representation of what Artemis's own ambitions gone unchecked could turn him into as much as he is a representation of what his Father's ambitions gone unchecked could become.

While our Artemis definitely mirrors a lot of his father's values, and who could blame him, he's just a kid, they're not exactly the same. Artemis II values knowledge and willingly details his own plans in order to learn about/from the people on numerous occasions. (Dismantling Holly's traker so he can see how it works rather than just destroying it, agreeing to help take down the goblin revolution, etc.) And he's also loyal to his family above all else. (I don't think I need to explain that one, go read book 1.)

Artemis I however, he doesn't seem to care about anything but the family business, at least in book 1. He pays no mind to how his abuses and reckless business deals effect his wife and child, he makes promises he never intends to keep, and he gets many people killed trying to get ahead. He doesn't have his son's loyalty or any of his remaining innocence and curiosity. In book 1, Artemis I is Spiro.

Then, Artemis I is rescued and somewhat changed his ways, but, book 3 still opens with Artemis II feeling conflicted about his father's recent changes and their relationship. Some part of Artemis still longs for his past relationship with his father, because he knew his role back then and their relationship was strained and dissatisfying, but it was simple to navigate and allowed Artemis freedom.

Spiro is there to tell Artemis to stop wishing for the past. Maybe his relationship with his father was "easier" when his father was still a terrible person, but returning to those ways will only get Artemis another villain in his life, and it's better to sort through the messy emotions than let that happen.

Minerva is another can of worms altogether. She does function as a foil for Artemis in the story, but from the way that Colfer talks about her, I don't think that was his intention when writing her. By Colfer's own admission, Artemis and Minerva were supposed to be the same person, that's why he dropped her character so quickly, he didn't think he could do many interesting things with two people who were functionally one character, so he wrote her out.

The problem there is that the fandom didn't see it that way at all. I and many others thought that Minerva was actually a very different character from Artemis. Minerva's motivation for kidnapping a demon is to win a Noble Prize and be revered by the academic community; Artemis's motivation for kidnapping a fairy was to save his father's life. Minerva's relationship with her remaining parent is strained due to his ineptitude at handling her personality and her own defensiveness; Artemis's relationship with his remaining parent is strained due to Angeline's worsening delusions and the long periods of time Artemis spends away from her. Minerva is used to her role as an older sibling and treats her brother's health and safety in a casual and caring manner that most siblings are probably used to; Artemis is completely unprepared to become an older sibling at the end of book 5 and we later see him interact with his brothers clumsily, acting more like a teacher or a parent than a brother. And that's just scratching the surface.

They're very different, and more could have been done with them, but their differences aren't intentional, so nothing was done with their relationship. (And even if Minerva did show up again, I doubt it would be as a villain. She's learned too much to become an antagonist to the people again.)

And the other book 6 villain, Leon Abbott or N'zall, while a very interesting villain who could be argued to be a metaphor for many things (including government corruption, fascism, and just plain capitalism) was a very niche villain. He wouldn't pack the same punch in any environment other than Hybras, so he wouldn't have been a very good archvillain. And, the poetic justice of someone who only ever desired power through threats, manipation, and violence straight up getting turned into a hampster is just too good to pass up.

And Kronski, he's a strange case. He is meant to be a monument to Artemis's insecurities and failures, but he's modeled off of 10yo Artemis.

10yo Artemis, while narratively interesting and definitely fun to read about, never felt like our Artemis to me. He seems more like an alternate universe version of Artemis than a younger version of him that naturally progressed to become the person we met on book 1. I know that they explained this by mind wiping young Artemis but... that didn't really work for me. I guess a revenge seeking, time traveling Damon Kronski could have been a recurring villain in the series, but I'm glad he wasn't. I was very glad when Opal overshadowed him in that story, she felt like the first familiar thing in a story that had become something other than the Artemis Fowl I knew.

And finally, there's Turnball. He falls into the same trap of being a foil to Root and not Artemis, but I think he's better written, so I'm going to talk about him more. Turnball is narratively interesting because he's a representation of the greatest failures of fairy society. Namely government and police corruption, racism, sexisim, and a blindness to these very flaws. He was a corrupt politician and police officer, one of the most powerful out there for a while, used this power in order to stoke racial tensions in Haven to ensure he'd stay on top, and goes on sexist tirades against both Holly and Opal on multiple occasions. And, for all the damage he did, no one noticed for a hell of a long time and even after they did, it didn't take much time for people to forget him or for him to convince the prison staff that he was ultimately harmless.

So, why wasn't Turnball the archvillain. Well, aside from being a little late to the game, I think the main reason he wasn't the archvillain was that he'd take way too much attention away from Artemis.

Artemis already isn't the only main character of the books, he's very much sharing that title with Holly. And Turnball is the perfect foil for Holly as well as for Root, he's a perfect blend of what she hates about her society and the negative traits she has to grapple with in herself. Making Turnball the archvillain would take the focus away from Artemis and Butler and put it on Holly and Root. They just wouldn't fit in a story about confronting police corruption. And, while I'd love a more Holly centric storyline with more time to explore Root's character and more career given to Haven's problems, that wasn't the story Colfer signed up to tell.

So that leaves Opal. And, just because none of the other villains don't work as archvillains, it doesn't mean she does. But, I think she actually fits the role really well. Just like Turnball is a perfect foil for Root and Holly and Spiro is a perfect foil for Artemis I, i think Opal is the perfect foil for Artemis II.

Opal is the most cut and dry representation of Artemis's insecurities that we get throughout the entire series. Artemis feels very insecure about his relationship with his father. He's put under undue pressure from a young age to conform to what his father wants him to be and when their ideals don't line up Artemis finds it nearly impossible to communicate this dissonance in a healthy way. Opal felt exactly the same way as a child, albeit for different reasons, and destroyed her father because of it. Artemis has to deal with his selfishness throughout the series. The more he comes to terms with the fact that he has to think about other's needs, not just his own or his father's, the more he improves. And, as time goes on, Opal ends up becoming even more selfish and falling further and further into her delusions or grandeur, making her the perfect person for Artemis to project onto as the worse Opal gets, the worse Artemis's opinion of his past self becomes. Artemis is petty and jelous around his schoolmates, so is Opal, and she slowly lets it consume her life to the point where she wants to murder Foaly... because? he won? a science fair?

Anyway, this very much got away from me, but Artemis and Opal mirror each other in unique ways which is why I think Colfer chose her specifically as Artemis's nemesis.