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"Mature Content!" |
| “ | Sometimes dreams have to be tempered by reality. | „ |
| ~ The Widow |
Minerva, better known as The Widow, is one of the two deuteragonists (alongside M.K.) of the AMC series Into the Badlands.
She is the Baron of the Butterfly Territory, and the only Baron of the Badlands to not participate in the Cog slave trade. Due to her past of being abused as a Cog, she wishes to put an end to the horrific practice and take down the other Barons, although she is willing to go to extreme lengths to achieve this goal, and even compromise her ideal by betraying people close to her.
She was portrayed by Emily Beecham.
Her Good Ranking[]
What Makes Her Admirable?[]
- She is the only Baron to not only care about the people within her own territory, but also wants to change the Badlands for the better by ending the Cog slave trade. She also does not force those who enter her territory to stay and fight for her cause, wanting everyone in the world to be free to pursue their own path.
- She murdered her husband due to him repeatedly raping her adoptive daughter Tilda, and apologizes to Tilda for not killing him sooner. She then takes over her husband's position as Baron so she can help the Badlands. While this event did lead to her being sexist towards men for a time, she eventually overcomes this bias and enters into a relationship with Gaius Chau in season three.
- After Tilda is captured by Baron Quinn's forces, the Widow personally sneaks into the Armadillo Territory to save her rather than sending her Clippers.
- Although her methods are extreme and questionable, her killing the other Barons is undeniably positive as it ends their oppressive rule over their territories. Once the other Barons are dead, the Widow starts a war with Baron Chau, the main profiteer from the Cog slave trade, knowing that if she defeats Chau then the slave trade will end once and for all.
- She generally treats those who work for her very well, such as when Nathaniel Moon becomes her new Regent and she has a new prosthetic hand created for him after he lost his in battle.
- When Chau sends her Regent Otto to abduct war refugees, the Widow stops everything she's doing to go and stop Chau's forces.
- After Chau kidnaps Tilda and Gaius, the Widow comes to save them and kills Chau in battle, finally ending the Cog slave trade and bringing peace to the Badlands.
- By the end of the series she finally redeems herself, making amends with those she has hurt such as Tilda and Bajie. She apologizes to Sunny for trading Veil to Quinn, and while he still feels resentment towards her, the two eventually becomes allies against Pilgrim. She even is willing to give up her power by the end of the series after she becomes pregnant by Gaius, saying that once Pilgrim is dead she plans to give her position to Lydia since she genuinely believes that will be better for the Badlands.
- She leads the war against Pilgrim, a dangerous false messiah who wants to conquer the world in the name of Azra. Due to her once being a Dark One who lost her Gift, she always searched for a way to get it back, but when M.K. offers to give her the Gift back using Pilgrim's power, she refuses, not realizing that the Gift brings only death and destruction.
- After M.K. fatally stabs Tilda in the stomach during the final battle for the Badlands, the Widow proceeds to kill him out of vengeance, although she takes no joy in the act. Afterwards she apologizes to M.K. for having mistreated him so much in the past, and tells him that she hopes he finds peace in the afterlife.
What Makes Her Inconsistent?[]
- While almost all protagonist characters in the Badlands have moral ambiguity to their actions, the Widow has two unambiguously evil acts:
- She kidnaps and tortures M.K. to try and control his Gift and turn him into a weapon to take down the other Barons, which ultimately leads to him becomes a villainous character that joins forces with Pilgrim.
- She sells Veil and Henry out to Quinn in order to get him to work with her in taking down the other Barons, which leads to Tilda abandoning her due to this being a complete compromise of her promise to always protect the innocent.
- She goes to extreme lengths in order to achieve her goals, killing those who oppose her without any remorse. She is also a huge jerk a lot of the time, which often comes into conflict with her goal of convincing people she wants to help the Badlands.
- She will often use the fact that she is against rape and slavery as a crutch for why she is a good person, despite that being the absolute bare minimum of being a good person, and whenever people question her she will default to claiming that she is better than the other Barons even though that doesn't justify her villainous actions.
- She is so full of herself that she will often stake her success on defeating warriors such as Quinn or Sunny in battle, even though they have both defeated her previously.
- She works with Quinn, who was once one of the most oppressive Barons in the Badlands, simply because they both want to kill the other Barons. Even after he murders the innocent wives and daughters of Baron Broadmore, the Widow still continues to work with him.
- After M.K., Bajie, and Tilda turn against her for her hypocrisy, she imprisons them and plans to force them to help her in the war against Chau.
- She tries to have Nathaniel Moon kill "The Iron Rabbit" vigilante and only stops once she learns that it is actually Tilda.
- She insults Tilda's relationship with Odessa and calls it a fling, giving the impression she may be homophobic.
Trivia[]
- The Widow is the only Into the Badlands character to be both Inconsistently Admirable and Inconsistently Heinous.
- She is also the only Inconsistently Admirable character to not also be a Villainous Benchmark.
External Links[]
- The Widow on the Heroes Wiki
- The Widow on the Villains Wiki
- The Widow on the Into the Badlands Wiki
- The Widow on the Inconsistently Heinous Wiki
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 Inconsistently Admirable
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Armadillo Territory Butterfly Territory | ||