What are some parallels that can be drawn between the super-villains in McCarthy's novels: Judge Holden, Perez, and Chigurh?

Judge Holden, Emilio Pérez and Chigurh share the same innate depravity, to the extent that we can consider them as symbolic representatives of Satan. The three of them also share a similar totalitarian project in which they act as supreme dictators, deciding who is allowed to exist and who is condemned to perish. Holden ambitions to be a "suzerain of the earth" (p. 195) and exert absolute control over the world, to the extent that, as he states, "the freedom of birds is an insult" to him and he would "have them all in zoos" (p. 196). Likewise, Pérez exerts complete control over the inmates in the prison and demands complete obedience from them: "If you dont show faith to me I cannot help you" (p. 188). Like Holden, Pérez decides who lives and who dies, as does also Chigurgh, a "true and living prophet of destruction" (p. 4), as Sheriff Bell describes this implacable murderer from whom there is no escape. To this list of "super-villains," as you call them, we can add the character of the pimp Eduardo in Cities of the Plain who exerts a similar dictatorial rule over the whorehouses and the prostitutes who work in them. Rather than allowing Magdalena to find happiness with John Grady, he prefers to have her murdered, in order to prove his omnipotent power over life and death.

The nature of evil is one of the central themes of Cormac McCarthy's fiction and in these and other characters who as readers are mystified by the complete depravity of the human soul that they seem to possess. In a world where goodness seems to be mostly absent, the presence of evil is indeed pervasive, as if God had make some mistake when he created the human race.