Today’s Character Deep Dive is on an antagonist!

We’re looking at Raidon Yamamura from Used Books by the amazingly proliferate Vickie Boutwell!

Used Books is a crime-noir thriller involving the story of Kaida, an ex-assassin from a highly dangerous network of organized crime and the different people surrounding her as she struggles with remembering her past, handling the ramifications of the present, and trying to build a future where she is free of the darkness that defined her before.

Part of that past that still haunts her and affects her is Raidon. A very particular, nuanced character that can be as dangerous as supportive, depending on how he perceives the situation at hand. There’s a lot to look at about Raidon, so let’s get started with the basics!


Basic Character Design

Raidon is a high ranking (but not top rank) boss in an extensive organized crime network that has judges, cops, and politicians in their pocket. They carry out assassinations and other criminal acts for hefty amounts of money. As a result, Raidon is rich, with a rolodex filled with connections, and capacity to pull the strings from the sidelines rather than be a front-line actor when he doesn’t want to be. And of course, he inspires fear in his underlings when he wants to.



However, he is not the top boss. He answers to someone and that someone wields power over Raidon, pretty much the same way he does over his own subordinates:



In terms of looks, he looks Asian to me, and his name supports that assumption. He must be pushing 40 or thereabouts. He has dark hair, wears astoundingly well-balanced pince-nez glasses, and generally is dressed in well tailored but comfortable clothes.

He is also a dog lover. Throughout his appearances, he always has a beloved dog by his side (current-day Raidon has the adorable and potentially terrifying Hecate).



In terms of behavior, Raidon has a veneer of politeness and elegance. He very rarely raises his voice and he usually meets everyone with a smile- friend or foe. He doesn’t show his cards or intentions to most people. When it comes to his criminal activity, he has no problem ordering hits or demanding them from recruits as a test:



On the other hand, he also doesn’t indulge in criminal behavior willy nilly, but rather only as calculated moves that profit him in some manner. In almost all instances, Raidon can be said to be calculating, manipulative, and cold.

Except when it comes to Kaida. Kaida is someone who Raidon has affection for, and an unusual emotional attachment to:



It is unusual because even when he is rejected by her he doesn’t retaliate as he would in any other subordinate’s case. That doesn’t mean he’s harmless to her, however. (More on that in a bit)


Raidon’s Psych Scan

Raidon was a challenge to profile because he’s so well-hidden. He acts in ways that offer minimal insights into his psyche, so to speak, and he moves in circles that aren’t very accessible to psychologists to study. Not that they aren’t trying!

That said, because we’ve been watching him move in the shadows and emerge from them for a while now, there are some things I’m confident enough to list about him and his behaviors.

What is pretty certain about Raidon is that he displays enough symptoms to qualify for Antisocial Personality Disorder. People suffering from APD tend to:

* exploit, manipulate or violate the rights of others

* lack concern, regret or remorse about other people's distress

* behave irresponsibly and show disregard for normal social behaviour

* have difficulty sustaining long-term relationships

* be unable to control their anger

* lack guilt, or not learn from their mistakes

* blame others for problems in their lives

* repeatedly break the law
Source: NHS

From the above, Raidon certainly has:

* Lack of guilt

* Exploits, manipulates, and violates the rights of others

* Has difficulty sustaining long-term relationships (and uses deception to establish them)

* Repeatedly breaks the law


This page sums it all up neatly, except for the relationship part, which we’re getting to

At first I was a little skeptical because Raidon doesn’t seem to have the full package, but even the DSM-5 agrees that he qualifies for the diagnosis, as he has at least three of the required clinical symptoms (lack of guilt, manipulating others for profit/personal gain, disregard for the law) and is above 18 years of age so… here we are.



So with all of this said… let’s talk manipulation and relationships, the elephant in the room: Raidon and his affection/attachment to Kaida.

Before I get into his history and interactions with Kaida, I have to point out that he does seem to have some concern for “his own people” whom he wants to look out for. He also seems to have a standard where hurting family is off the table:



However, I’m not convinced that this is because he cares about them per se; he might be rationalizing it to himself that he does, and this puts him above his boss who clearly has no regard for anyone since he had his own son murdered. But he hasn’t yet been tested on what he would do if a family member (or even Kaida) directly threatened his survival or what he defines as survival.

For now, I’m thinking that we can just as easily posit that he “looks after his own” because it is the clever, profitable thing to do rather than because he has genuine concern for them. After all, people’s loyalty tends to hinge on how safe they feel with a person. The safer they feel, the more loyal they tend to be. Thus it is in Raidon’s interest to look after his own people.


He does try to do something here, but his boss shuts it down.

Is he better than his boss? Absolutely. In any case, he is a lot more intelligent and able to handle administrative tasks successfully without taking overly many risks, unlike his boss that is a far direr case of sociopath.



But is he better in a sense of morality, in that he’d display altruism for the sake of people he considers ‘his’? The jury is out on this one, but I’m skeptical. And the reason I’m skeptical is that he is extremely good at rationalizing even the most horrible of acts, like murdering for profit:



Just as he has no problem considering people that are overtly opposing him as viable pawns he can manipulate into helping him or doing his dirty work for him:


Like in this case, where he’s considering arrangements so he can potentially use Fudo, an ex-assassin, who despises him

So, let’s get to his manipulation when it comes to the object of his affection, Kaida.

Raidon is clear that he loves her, cares for her, and generally wants to protect her and see her be happy. However, at the same time he’s had no problem taking advantage of her memory loss to make her think she’s in love with him when in reality she’s in love with someone else:



When he’s rejected by her, he generally persists by being where she is and making his presence known in different contexts in efforts to ingratiate himself with her, to the point Kaida accuses him of stalking:



If someone doesn’t want you around, don’t offer them coffee. Just leave.

Sticking around when he admits he’s aware he’s not wanted is a red flag. He’s not respecting Kaida’s wishes, but instead is trying to bend her will to his, so he can get back in her good graces and/or win her affections. This type of thing rarely works to win affection, but it can on occasion work to subjugate someone, and I’m not sure Raidon can tell the difference or cares to.

And let’s not forget that he exploited her vulnerability to make her into an assassin. He gave her a lifeline after cornering her in an impossible situation, effectively taking away her freedom of choice not to join him as a recruit. That is peak manipulation and control on his part. Granted, at the time he had just met her and it is the way that he tends to recruit ‘his people’, but that doesn’t make the modus operandi any less egregious:




here he’s doing the same recruiting gig, which is to offer a lifeline to desperate people


That said, it is abundantly clear that he doesn’t want to see her hurt in any way, even when she constantly rejects him. He doesn’t appear to be vindictive to her in any way either. Once his manipulation fails, he withdraws. Perhaps until he finds an opportunity to try again, but never to turn on her with intention to physically harm her, her loved ones or her friends:







People with APD can form genuine attachments, feel love, and act accordingly. It’s just very rare. It seems like Raidon does harbor love for Kaida, in the sense that he does want to see her happy. The problem is only that he may not be able to fully comprehend what happiness means- but what he can discern, he wants for her and that is what is important for this assessment. Compared to his boss who has no issue harming anyone that gets in the way of his power or profit, even loved ones, and no issue with wanton murder, Raidon certainly has redeeming qualities.



And when I say redeeming, I mean that he could benefit from therapy, to manage the symptoms of his APD and build and maintain healthy attachments and relationships despite it. It would take work, but it’s possible in that I can see him finding motivation to do that in the right circumstances. Not so for a lot of his subordinates, colleagues, and boss in the syndicate/network.

Alas, we know nothing about his childhood and how he became a syndicate boss to be able to form a hypothesis on how his APD developed and whether there are other issues at hand as well, but from what we see, all in all I’d say Raidon is a delightfully complex, extremely dangerous person. Not just to targets of the syndicate and his enemies but also his boss and other associates.


2D vs 3D
Raidon is a great antagonist. He’s complex, he’s nuanced, and he serves his role perfectly on the 2D level, as a grey, dangerous, always slightly unpredictable wrench that is thrown in the heroes’ path. He can be a dangerous ally as well as a dangerous enemy, he has his own plans and goals, and it’s hard to tell what he’s really thinking.

On the 3D level, he is remarkably well-designed and realistically portrayed as not only a person with APD but a person with APD that is in organized crime. The way his morals are shifted and serious criminal behavior like murder and torture are considered parts of his business rather than moral conundrums, with extreme dissociation among professionals is spot on. At the same time, recognition of emotion is limited, except for a heightened sense of detecting fear, which is a lever of discipline for the ranks. Beyond that, everything works just like it would in any corporate setting. This ideological shift is actually a phenomenon documented by research and I was really happy to see it in Raidon’s interactions as a whole.

All in all, Raidon is a very well written ‘bad guy’ flirting with the flair of the antihero!


Environmental cues

This is a tough one. It’s hard to tell how much the environment contributed to how Raidon has become who he is. However, we can potentially argue that what he is developing into- a criminal that is putting down boundaries and draws lines to his own criminal behavior and that of others- is a result of his interactions with his environment. Namely, Kaida and her circle of very therapeutic friends.

Raidon must be a result of his upbringing at least to a degree but until we learn about it, we can’t really make any speculations. What we can say is that he is someone with definite agency who does impact his environment in very significant ways, and in return the feedback he gets from that impact shapes him further. Into what, we will only need to read on to see!

Congratulations Vickie for such a well designed character!
Go read Used Books and be immersed in all the action, machinations, and mysteries to be resolved!

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