/lit/ - Literature

>>19767456
I see him more as a tragic hero whose character flaw led him towards helping evil rather than being evil himself. His first characterization is similar to that of Rand's heroes: 6' tall, handsome, genius. You're meant to assume that he's part of the good guys but there's also something off about him. His flaw is that he believes no one other than geniuses can be reasoned with or use rationality. So he just says 'fuck it, everyone is an idiot, give me government money so that I can work on my experiments without thinking about other people,' but you can't ignore the social context in which you're living. When Dagny talks to him, he constantly blanks out that he has no choice like a villain, but when he talks about Galt's machine, he talks like a hero would which seemingly confuses Dagny. He's a dark mirror if Roark just kept working on his art with integrity. Part of The Fountainhead is that it's strictly about morality without any links to politics so you might reach the conclusion that you can ignore politics, but Atlas Shrugged emphasizes that you can't blank out anything, especially not the political context. Throughout the novel, you can see that Stadler accepts every step to get funding until by the end, evil literally controls what he says, which is tragic because he needed to say no from the start but he couldn't because he already accepted an incorrect premise. He failed to realize that if you normal people can't be reasoned, your only choice is to force people through force. It's pretty genius because it's the opposite lesson of the villains that you can't force people to think. His life is also in contrast to Galt who worked at a company that became communists where no one chose to work, and unlike Stalder, he just said no and left, which destroyed everything because everyone depended on those who think and work rather than do nothing.
Readen learns a similar lesson. Readen is an extension of Roark by having integrity in his creative passion and having accepted a slave morality culture and that he shouldn't say no to people. Stadler represents what happens if you continually compromise and ignore that your philosophy must be understood by every the average man (why Ayn Rand always strived to write in simple language, which is a key to her popularity that everyone resents) and to understand the political context that one lives in snd say no and live for yourself rather than others. I see Dr. Stadler the same way as I do with Gail Wynand: an objectivist type person whose flaws broke him, but different from The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand provides heroes like Dagny and Readen who do overcome their flaws.