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"Mature Content Warning!" |
| “ | All of the true things that I am about to tell you are shameless lies. | „ |
| ~ Bokonon's paradox. |
| “ | If I were a younger man, I would write a history of human stupidity; and I would climb to the top of Mount McCabe and lie down on my back with my history for a pillow; and I would take from the ground some of the blue-white poison that makes statues of men; and I would make a statue of myself, lying on my back, grinning horribly, and thumbing my nose at You Know Who. | „ |
| ~ Bokonon's final line. |
Bokonon (born Lionel Boyd Johnson) is the main antagonist of Kurt Vonnegut's 1963 novel Cat's Cradle and its calypso musical adaptation.
He is a former soldier who, along with Marine deserter Earl McCabe, washes up on the coast of San Lorenzo, a Caribbean island the two men decide to turn into a paradise. Unable to improve the place using actual societal reforms, Bokonon opts to instead invent a religion of comforting lies, Bokononism.
In the 2022 production of the musical, he's played by Horace V. Rogers.
What Makes Him Pure Evil?
- Though his goals with Bokononism had originally been noble (he wanted to convince the people of San Lorenzo that their lives held cosmic meaning, so they could just knock themselves out), his methods of proliferating it were quite immoral.
- He had McCabe take over San Lorenzo and play the part of an evil dictator out to curb the religion. Outlawing Bokononism and waging a fictional war on it generated buzz.
- Bokonon suggested an execution device known as the Hook, whereupon the condemned were to be impaled and left to slowly bleed to death. While this was only a scare tactic at first, McCabe ended up having to actually execute a Bokononist every two years to keep up appearances.
- Despite McCabe blowing his own brains out, likely out of remorse, Bokonon kept developing his religion.
- When a substance known as ice-nine (invented by the late Dr. Fenix Hoenikker) was dropped into the ocean and froze the Earth's seas over, the thousands upon thousands of followers of Bokononism demanded that Bokonon tell them what God's intentions were and what they should all do. Bokonon simply told them that God was probably through with them and they should all die.
- In this manner, Bokonon caused a massive suicide ritual, wherein thousands of men, women and children consumed ice-nine and froze to death. Furthermore, their corpses were all arranged in Bokononists attitudes in a giant circle, with all of their dead eyes locked on Bokonon who stood in the middle, meaning that he observed all of their thousands of deaths.
- When Mona, the adopted daughter of "Papa" Monzano, McCabe's successor, saw her people's frozen mass grave, she killed herself too, bringing some ice-nine to her lips with amused resignment.
- In the end, Bokonon felt no remorse for his deed. When the protagonist encountered him, Bokonon simply commented on the stupidity of humanity, and said that if he were younger, he'd write a book on it, commit suicide by consuming ice-nine too and be frozen into a statue perpetually thumping his nose at God.
Trivia
- Bokonon is the only Pure Evil written by Kurt Vonnegut.
External Links
- Bokonon on the Villains Wiki