'Edmond is clearly a villain, but he is also by far the most attractive character we meet.' Discuss.

Out of all the villains in King Lear, Edmond is by far the most complex. Edmond’s illegitimacy, immediately revealed to the audience when Gloucester states that Edmond “came saucily to this world” denotes that he half belongs to the 17th century world where children born out of wedlock were stigmatised and alienated from society hence why Gloucester “blushed” to acknowledge him. This ambiguous status of Edmond of neither belonging to his society nor completely alienated from it either gives Edmond the ability to do as he wishes, and it is indeed his Machiavellian actions which entice the audience. Edmond is presented as a cold and calculating character that is eager to seize any opportunity and willing to do anything to achieve his goals. Yet Shakespeare distinguishes Edmond from other characters by providing introspective about what led Edmond to become a cold-hearted villain, which both makes the audience sympathise with his outcast status but also resent his deceitful actions which leads to the blinding of his father and the death of Cordelia.