[j. d. worthington]

The thing is, Linoge has always struck me as neither truly evil nor good; after all, his "purpose" does seem to be somewhat of a "cleansing" one... to force people to confront their own darker side and learn from it, or to continue hide it from themselves and others, and let it fester (and eventually destroy) lives. He's an ambivalent character... ugly (in his true form) because the truth is often ugly, but wears a pleasant face -- we can seldom look at ourselves unflinchingly; there's virtually no human being that hasn't got something in their past they've locked away in a little room and refuse to look at, and with Linoge that simply isn't possible. He is, in a sense, a conscience given personified form... which is what makes the whole thing so fascinating; even the child he trains is, it seems to me, symbolic of tihs process, as we all train (consciously or not) our children in both the good and the bad aspects of being human, and to wear a pleasant mask over whatever may be seething inside....

Linoge, I would say, has something of the air of the stern prophet, and seems to be a force that dates as far back as the race, at least... our common inheritance which we so often prefer to reject, but can never truly escape; and, as the man says (though my quote may be slightly off): "It's a cash and carry world; sometimes you pay a little; more often you pay a lot. Sometimes you pay all you have...."