Character Profile: Samuel from Salem's Daughter

Character Profile: Samuel from Salem's Daughter Samuel is a piece of work. He's introduced as the worried man whose stepson has gone missing, and he spends a good part of the story telling everyone how much he cares about the town. He founded it. He helped it prosper. He knows what it takes to keep people safe. Then you find out what he's been doing in the woods. He's been feeding people to the Leeds Devil and justifying it as the price of the town's success. When Braden confronts him, Samuel talks about poverty, sacrifice and the things he's done for everyone else. He makes himself sound like the only adult willing to shoulder an ugly responsibility. Meanwhile, he's perfectly comfortable letting other people pay for it with their lives. The part that really gets me is how he handles Lucas. This is his wife's son, and Samuel is publicly playing the grieving father. Privately, he blames the boy for going into the woods after being told to stay away. He talks about the trouble Lucas caused his mother as if the missing child is the one making life difficult for the family. Lucas later tells Anna that Samuel beats both him and his mother. So even before you get to the sacrifices, the caring public image is already a lie. Michael Burrow gives Samuel a convenient way to redirect the investigation. Michael has been abusive, his wife is dead in the house, and he's behaving in a way that makes people suspicious. Samuel produces Lucas's clothing there. Later, Braden accuses him of planting it. Michael is hanged while the people responsible for the disappearances remain free to keep doing what they were doing. That doesn't turn Michael into a good man. It means being guilty of something doesn't make you guilty of whatever else somebody wants to pin on you. Anna is the one who keeps questioning it, even after Braden has accepted the town's conclusion. Samuel benefits from everybody wanting an answer quickly enough that they stop separating those things. He doesn't need a supernatural ability for any of this. He has standing in the town, armed men willing to go along with him and a story that makes his actions sound necessary. When Braden starts asking the right questions, those men knock him down, tie him up and leave him as another offering. The helpful search party was never there to help him find Anna. Braden eventually calls out the pleasure Samuel takes in all of it. I think that's an important part of the confrontation. Samuel wants to keep talking about sacrifice and prosperity because those words give him something respectable to hide behind. Braden is tied to a tree waiting to be eaten, and he's looking at a man who clearly enjoys having him there. By the end, Samuel is trying to fend off the same creature he has been feeding. There's no special exemption for the man who arranged the meals.