Elizabeth Boyd

Lou Terlikowski

English 101

17 November 2019

Raymond Reddington

In a world of good and evil, we must choose in ourselves whether we are going to do the

right thing or the wrong thing. In Raymond Reddington’s case he has chosen to do both. He daily

must choose if he is going to return to being one of the FBI’s number one most wanted fugitives,

or if he is going to continue to help the FBI catch those that are just like him. Many people on the

taskforce oppose the idea of working with a former KGB agent and the FBI’s number one

fugitive in the world. The reason they are opposed to this is because one of the FBI agents on the

taskforce spent his entire career trying to put Reddington behind bars, and when Reddington

turns himself in he agrees to help the FBI find these groups of terrorist, mobsters, and spies

known as Black-listers for immunity.

So instead of the taskforce putting Reddington behind bars they team up with him to

catch these black-listers. Unfortunately, this arrangement is illegal, and can potentially shut

down the FBI if anyone outside of the taskforce finds out about them siding with a former

fugitive. These black-listers are other criminals that are on the FBI’s most wanted list. When

Reddington gives the taskforce information about a new black-lister, he always has an ulterior

motive as to why he is giving that Black-lister to the FBI to find. Usually before the FBI can

arrest them, Reddington has already received the information that he needs to expand his empire.
 The reason behind Reddington getting this information is because he not only wants to

expand his own empire, but he also wants to be one of the most powerful men in the world to

where if anyone needs anything or does anything, they must come to him for permission. He

sometimes helps the Black-listers get away once he has received the information that he needs

from them so they will be forever indebted to him, other times he lets the FBI arrest them, or he

takes matters into his own hands and kills them himself, after he receives the information that he

requires, so the FBI cannot get any information out of them.

Anyone who knows Reddington knows that he always carries a gun, and he is never seen

without his bodyguard Dembe. Things that are very important to Reddington are trust, respect,

and people fearing him. When he trusts someone, he trusts them with his life and with his

secrets. Trust is crucial to him because of the work he does with the taskforce, and because of his

previous work as a former KGB agent. When that trust is broken, there are deadly consequences.

Reddington’s ability to understand people’s mannerisms and character is uncanny. He

can tell if someone is lying to him and if someone has betrayed him. He is extremely paranoid.

This is because he was on the most wanted list for most of his life, and he has made numerous

enemies all over the world. He must constantly keep an eye out for possible threats on his life,

and the lives of the people that he cares about which are few.

Reddington is a self-centered person and he will only do something if it is going to

benefit him and if it is the way that he says that it should be. He is very manipulative and wants

only his way to be done in any situation. Instead of looking at something from the lens of right

and wrong he looks at the motive behind someone and wants to look at it from the criminal

perspective of the situation. Doing this he corrupts his own moral status and the status of the

team, and this causes the team to look at the Black-listers from his perspective instead of looking
at it from a lens of right and wrong. This causes them to become blind to things that they

normally would see wrong and now they see them as being okay in the sense of right and wrong

because their moral compass has been altered. Reddington is very good at making people

embrace their inner evil and darkness and cause them to bring that to the forefront of their minds

and make them use this instead of looking at it from a sense of right and wrong.

Reddington of course does not see anything wrong with this because his moral compass

has been altered for so long, he has just become used to doing wrong that he wants people

around him to see his way of thinking. When he joins the taskforce, his moral compass kind of

starts to have some good in it but it is a small hint of good because of him being a criminal for so

long. He also does not believe that bending the rules is that bad of a thing if the result is in favor

of the taskforce and for himself.