How and Why Lesser Men Destroy The Greater

"Dantès, it is clear, was a better man in every possible way than those who caused his downfall. He is loved by the men whom he leads, intelligent, ambitious, and yet humble about himself and his position. He attributes his success to good fortune, as all such fortunate men should do, even when their merits have played a deciding factor. The men who attack him are jealous and petty. Danglars is disliked by the ship’s crew. Caderousse is the archetypal ne’er-do-well. And Fernand is driven purely by his jealousy. Villefort is shrewd, calculating, and politically ambitious, and acts simply for the preservation of those ambitions."

"We see, then, this profound truth expressed in fiction: that given a provocation, however unintentional, lesser men can destroy greater men. Particularly, greater men who are blind to the darker motives of hateful men are blind to the plots that churn under the crust of their joyful and effectual lives. Power, Nietzsche wrote in Twilight of the Idols, “makes stupid.” Just as in times of health and vigor we have little time for imagining illness, when things are going right in our lives we can hardly conceive of the possibility of their going wrong.