Fresh FIction Box Not To Miss
Aden Polydoros | On Writing Anti-Heroes
Author Guest / August 14, 2017

“The rifle was comfortable in his hands. Familiar. Less like a complex weapon than like an extension of his arms and eye, a part of him. It made him feel complete, filling the emptiness that lived inside of him.” Hades is one of the four main characters in my YA thriller, Project Pandora. Unlike the other brainwashed teenagers in the Project, Hades is conscious during his kills. He doesn’t hesitate to pull the trigger, because that is exactly what he has spent his entire life being trained to do. When I first began writing about Hades, I didn’t intend for him to be a sympathetic character. He was supposed to be a villain with no redeeming qualities, who would eventually get exactly what was coming to him. However, as I delved into his viewpoint, I realized that in his own way, Hades is not a villain, at least not in the traditional sense. His situation is even more tragic than the rest of the characters’ situations. He did not begin life as a monster—he was reshaped into one. And even as he tries to convince himself that he is the one in control, he has close to no control over…