Introduction [excerpt] When I was a teenager, I was an avid reader even though I found most plots predicatably boring and frequently found the characters in them to be one-dimensional stereotypes who were no reflection of the world I lived in. I wanted an escape or just the ability to relate to a character, so I felt like I wasn't alone. A children's librarian directed me to The Lives of Christopher Chant by Diana Wynne Jones. This book featured a hero who was flawed, frequently...

Introduction [excerpts] In the case of [John] Milton's [character] Satan and [William] Shakespeare's [character] Cassius, [Professor Blakey] Vermeule's ToM [Theory of Mind] scholarship exposes how similarly Satan and Cassius use their mind reading capabilities on their victims (Eve and Brutus). Cassius and Satan both use mind-reading "imitation" to degrade a ruling system and build the victim up to make their minds [sic] act towards rebellion. We see that Satan degrades...