| NOTE: This page is only about the original version of Haman from The Book of Esther as not all of his many incarnations have been voted as Pure Evil, and therefore, only information about Haman's original version should be listed on this page. |
| “ | There is a certain people scattered and separated among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom; their laws are different from those of every other people, and they do not keep the king's laws, so that it is not appropriate for the king to tolerate them. If it pleases the king, let a decree be issued for their destruction, and I will pay ten thousand talents of silver into the hands of those who have charge of the king's business, so that they may put it into the king's treasuries. | „ |
| ~ Haman planning to kill all Jews. |
Haman the Agagite is the main antagonist of the Book of Esther. He is the husband of Zeresh as well as late second-in-command of King Xerxes and Grand Vizier of Persia who unbeknownst to the king was deeply anti-Semitic. He is the archenemy of Esther and Mordecai.
What Makes Him Pure Evil?[]
- He is extremely unfit to be the grand vizier of the Persian Empire, as he has a reputation for forcing people to bow to him just to gloat about his power. He's even introduced in the book doing this, so it's made clear that he's a monster at the very beginning.
- When Mordecai rejected his chance to bow to him, Haman went to King Xerxes and told him about a prophecy regarding a certain ethnicity who had no loyalty to the king and deserves extermination on a select day and month. This is rather unholy, since pleading anyone (much less a member of royalty) to have an entire group of people killed is nothing short of immoral.
- It's also completely unprovoked as the other Jews in Persia had actually bowed to him.
- Whilst some later retellings make Haman, the vengeful descendant of Agag, an Amalekite King whom was killed by the Israelites, the original text specifies no such relation and research indicates Agagite refers to a region known as "Agazi" or "Agazzi", which was part of the Persian Empire. This means the original incarnation of Haman had no higher goal other than spiting Mordecai.
- He made an attempt to eradicate the Jewish people simply to spite Mordecai and teach him what happens if people don't bow to him.
- One of the people he tried to kill was Esther (a Jewish girl and the King's wife), yet Haman wasn't aware of her religion. Despite this, it's not like he would have cared given his lust for power and pettiness.
- He attempts to have Mordecai executed in public before his plan is stopped due to the latter being scheduled to perform for a group of people.
- He shows immense anger at Xerxes blessing Mordecai and ran home crying to his wife rather than congratulating Mordecai for being blessed by the king.
- By extension, him crying to his wife is not played sympathetically and just shows how much of an emotionally unstable manchild he is.
- In his last moments, he begs Esther for mercy before Xerxes enters the room and mistakes it for him trying to grope his wife, leading to Haman's well-earned death.
- Whilst Haman tries to beg for mercy, there's no indication he did this out of genuine remorse as opposed to simply trying to save himself.
- While he is married to Zeresh and doesn't abuse her, their relationship isn't shown in too much detail so it's too vague on whether or not he cares about her.
- Despite the Bible's insanely high heinous standard, he stands out for being the only villain to attempt genocide for a petty reason while all the heroic figures who do the same thing do it under God's direct orders.
- All in all, Haman is merely a narcissistic sociopath who will have any race wiped out should one person not bow to him.
Trivia[]
- Some alternative Midrashim add a scene in which Haman mourns his daughter after she commits suicide, due to the shame of mistakenly dumping trash on her father under the belief that he was Mordecai. As such that version of Haman does not count as Pure Evil. However these Midrashim were made many years later and do not affect the original version of the character.
- Similarly some adaptations of Haman, like the version from One Night with the King, are shown to be motivated by a desire to avenge his people, the Amalekites, and thus do not count as pure evil. Just like with the above, this doesn't affect the original version of Haman whom seems to be of ordinary descent.
External Links[]
- Haman the Agagite on the Villains Wiki
- Haman the Agagite on the Wikipedia
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