This was important because he thought writing about fascists as 'cartoon Nazis. He said, 'I was very pleased with the characterizations in 'V For Vendetta.' There's quite a variety of characters in there and they've all got very distinctive characteristics.' That was true of even the most despicable characters, which was important to Moore because they felt 'emotionally credible' to him - he didn't hate any of them. In discussing writing 'V For Vendetta,' Alan Moore specifically talked about fleshing out every character, even the villains. Feeding the Bishop a cyanide-laced wafer, it is still cyanide when it reaches his stomach. V then asks about communion and the concept of transubstantiation, wherein the communion wafer is transformed into the body of Christ. When Lilliman recognizes V, he shouts, 'Who are you really?' V replies, 'I am the devil, and I come to do the devil's work.' A similar line was reportedly spoken by Charles Denton 'Tex' Watson Jr., a Manson family associate, on the night of the Sharon Tate murders. V doffs his hat, revealing two devil horns sprouting from under his wig. I am a man of wealth and taste.' That's the famous first line from the Rolling Stones song ' Sympathy For The Devil,' wherein Lucifer recounts history from his perspective. After Evey scratches the Bishop to avoid his advances, V pops up and says, 'Please allow me to introduce myself. V uses this as an excuse for a series of riffs on god and the devil, positioning himself as the latter. When Evey volunteers to help V, he uses her as bait for the Bishop. V is in touch with his own morality enough to understand that he's lost his soul. In the first chapter, titled 'The Villain,' V quotes 'Macbeth,' only he positions himself as the rebel and the villain as he murders several Fingermen. Worst of all, he manipulates Evey several times in the guise of 'freeing' her from her own prisons. He pushes Conrad to murder the man who had been sleeping with his wife. He pushes Rose Almond to murder the Leader. With the knowledge he gained from Fate and its vast surveillance network, he uses his own intuitive psychological skills to manipulate people to do what he wants. Part of this was to erase his identity, but he takes special pleasure in poisoning the Bishop and driving Lewis Prothero insane, just as V had been driven by the drugs he was forced to take as part of an experiment. He murders dozens of people who worked at the concentration camp at which he was imprisoned and tortured. First and foremost, V is an unrepentant killer.

V. by Thomas Pynchon