The Finisher Character Analysis

The Finisher by David Baldacci, an award-winning author, is an excellent and thrilling novel. The main character, Vega Jane, is an ambitious and daring girl with more than one trick up her sleeve. She participates in the Duelem, a semiannual event in Wormwood, that has noticeable similarities to the Roman gladiatorial games. She is not unlike the gladiators forced to participate in the games but she is definitely not identical. The Roman gladiatorial games were regularly organized fights, with many people and animals forced to participate, taking place throughout the day.

Vega Jane, a 15-session old Wug, has always been told that no one can ever leave Wormwood because the Quag that surrounds it is filled with danger and death. And she always

believed it-until one night when a fellow Wug is chased into the darkness. The Wug, Quentin, left behind a series of clues that Vega must uncover to know the truth about their mysterious home. She, her friend Delph, and her dog, Harry Two, must go on an epic and harrowing quest to reveal the true story of Wormwood. But the Council, especially Morrigone, will not let that happen easily. The Council has convinced everyone in Wormwood that Outliers, who can control their minds, live in the Quag. When Vega’s parents die, she is all alone with her brother, the brilliant creator of the Wall built to protect Wormwood. Only to make her life harder is the fact that she must participate in the Duelem, the semiannual competition in which all eligible Wugs brawl until one cannot get up. But despite all of this, Vega Jane never walks away from a fight.
Though the Duelem is fictional, the Roman gladiatorial games, which took place from 264 BCE to 404 CE, have striking similarities. The Roman games were fought by more than 30 types of gladiators, all with different weapons and fighting styles, and took place at least once a month when they were most popular. The games were vicious and unmerciful, as were the participants, usually slaves or prisoners of war. The games brought the violence of war into the heart of the Roman Empire in times of peace and prosperity.
The Roman gladiatorial games were a regular occurrence in the Roman Empire. Though at the time they were nothing but a monthly occasion, now it is almost unimaginable that people could watch these gruesome events and not blink an eye. According to Keith Hopkins (1983) the Roman games basically boil down to this, “Romans regularly organized fights to the death between hundreds of gladiators, the mass execution of unarmed criminals, and the indiscriminate slaughter of domestic and wild animals.” The games originated from known origins but the Romans put their own unique, and deadly, twist on it. The Independence Hall Association (2014) states that, “The Etruscans of northern Italy originally held public games, which featured such events as gladiator battles and chariot races, as a sacrifice to the gods.” In the beginning, even the Romans considered the games a tribute to the dead but after hundreds of years they turned into bloodshed for public entertainment. Gladiator contests originated as funeral games to honor the dead but gradually lost that connection and became a public spectacle staged by wealthy men, McManus (2011) emphasizes. How the Romans could have come up with this barbarous and merciless version of these mostly innocent games is a mystery to many. Only by living in the powerful age of the Empire could someone know the feeling of pleasure and fun at the games.
The gladiatorial games were not always participated in by choice, in fact most contestants were being forced to fight against one another.

Many gladiators were prisoners of war and/or criminals being brought to justice through the games but, on the very slim chance that they survived, they would be free. Cartwright (2012) explains that, “a gladiator was a professional fighter who specialized with particular weapons and fought before in large purpose-built arenas throughout the Roman Empire…” The games did not only have gladiators fight but also other people being punished by death. Hopkins (1983) adds that those who participated in the games were professional gladiators, prisoners of war, and criminals condemned to death. There were many kinds of gladiators, all specializing with different weapons and techniques. There were more than 30 kinds of gladiators, from beast fighters and horseback riders to spear fighters and mounted bowmen, indicates Alchin (2015). Men were not the only ones who could be gladiators. Andrews (2014) reveals that there were women gladiators, though rarely, and that the Roman emperors sometimes engaged in fights that took place with blunt weapons. The contestants of the games were not always men or slaves and many played in the games by

choice.
The Roman games were not just a one or two hour event, they took at least a full day maybe two. When the games were the most popular, they took place at least monthly. The night before their public appearance, the gladiators were treated to a banquet reports Mirza and Tsang (2014). It seems only fit that the gladiators about to perish get a last, delicious and filling, meal. The savage part of the games did not last the entire day. According to Alchin (2015), the games usually started with parades and processions in the morning and then proceeded to the violence in the afternoon. The games followed a specific schedule throughout the day and ended with the most important event, the gladiator fights. The beast hunts and fights came first, followed by the criminals fighting blindly, then the variety of criminal executions, and finally the gladiator battles informs Alchin (2015). The gladiatorial games were a common phenomenon in the Roman Empire.