The super villain that saves lives or the superhero that takes them?

          V for Vendetta sets the stage for a great question within the first chapter of the book: Can a villain ever be good? The book starts off with showing the readers the world that the characters live in. It's a strict dictatorship with leaders monitoring every moment. The police--or fingermen-- have total control and can punish criminals however they please. In the midst of punishment by a fingerman V shows up and it seems like a typical superhero story until you listen to him talk a little bit more. V identifies as a villain, not a hero.
          Once V introduces himself (note: we don't actually know if he's a man at this point, but the mask he wears is a man's face, so for the sake of simplicity I'm going to call him a him) as a villain I couldn't help, but notice everything he does lines up with what stereotypical villains do. He kidnapped a state official, blew up a building, killed guards and did many more things. Yet he was doing all of this to fight an oppressive government, so wasn't it justified?
          He also did help people, for example the prostitute he saved from the fingerman, and believed that he was indirectly helping many by taking down the government. But even with all these reasons I couldn't get past how many people he was killing in order to just prove his point and push his agenda.
          The other part of this that was bugging me was that we don't even know if the government was truly as bad as V claims they are. We know that they aren't great people, as the run concentration camps, but V could also be looked at as equally terrible, so what gives him the justification to kill people to support his idea when the government is being judged for doing the exact same thing.
          I think that so far in the book V for Vendetta brings up a great point that maybe there isn't truly a hero ever. There are only villains of different levels and motivations and it's up to the people to decide which one they will label as their hero.

Craphound

          My dad is super into garage sale hunting, goodwill shopping, buying beat down houses and all that so it was really amusing to me to read what was happening inside somebody's head that was also like this because it seemed so accurate. I can definitely picture my dad being Scott, a local businessman who is secretly a craphound, and thinking in this futuristic-old western way. It almost seemed as if this story really could take place in modern day with a normal person who was just really into their hobby and had an overly active imagination.
          One thing I really liked about Craphound was how subtle it was that Craphound wasn't human. Obviously they mentioned a few things abut him that were super non-human, like his height and teeth, but it wasn't overwhelming. I didn't find myself constantly confused about what he looked like or distracted trying to picture him, but instead I was able to focus on the actual story and what was happening with craphound emotionally. It wasn't until we started talking in class that I really started to wonder what he would look like--prior to that I had just been picturing him as a slightly odd human, not like this:

          I also loved the ending and how surprising it was. For me it was really cool how the author had you getting all riled up with Craphound because he wasn't being a good friend and was taking over the craphounding (Is that what it would even be called...maybe hunting?) and then he had us super mad at craphound for getting the glasses, but then suddenly switched it and made Craphound a really good person (or I guess alien) and made us love him as a character. I really enjoy when authors add a twist at the end and I do have to admit that I definitely did not see this one coming at all.