Making the best decision with the data available

Even smart people do stupid things from time to time. There's no way around it; we all mess up. Most folks, however, don't do stupid things most of the time.

So why is it that fictional villains of all sorts ignore the information available to them and make dumb choices all the time?

The answer is simple: because it's easier for the creators of those villains if the characters behave that way.

I've always hated it when otherwise intelligent bad guys behaved that way, so I vowed that if I ever wrote books, I wouldn't resort to that practice. I'd do my best to make sure that each of my characters made the best choice possible given the data available to him or her and his or her personality.

Note that last bit: our personal traits do, of course, shape us. I promise you, for example, that if a woman who looks like Alissa Lim walks in front of me while I'm talking to you, you will lose my attention for at least a moment, rude though that behavior is. (If you don't know who Alissa Lim is, you need to buy and read One Jump Ahead!)

I mention all this because it's at the heart of the plot point I'm working to resolve in Overthrowing Heaven. Jon has a problem to solve, a problem that is the result of something a very bad and very smart man has done, and I want both Jon and the bad guy to have given their best. I feel readers deserve that from me, so I'm going to keep working on this part of the plot until this part of it, like the rest, respects both characters.

Speaking of which, back to it.