Chap­ter 5 of The Choco­late War intro­duces Archie Costel­lo, who stands out as a manip­u­la­tive and con­trol­ling fig­ure with­in Trin­i­ty High School’s under­ground orga­ni­za­tion, The Vig­ils. The nar­ra­tive begins with Archie ques­tion­ing a shy and anx­ious stu­dent, known as The Goober (real name Gou­bert), who is tall but lacks any real assertive­ness. As Archie inter­ro­gates The Goober, it is clear that the stu­dent is intim­i­dat­ed by Archie’s author­i­ta­tive pres­ence. The Goober’s dis­com­fort is pal­pa­ble as he becomes ensnared in Archie’s psy­cho­log­i­cal game, a sit­u­a­tion designed to high­light Archie’s abil­i­ty to con­trol and tor­ment those around him. His mas­tery over The Goober, in this drawn-out inter­ac­tion, reveals Archie’s cru­el enjoy­ment of the pow­er he holds, while also expos­ing his capac­i­ty to manip­u­late the emo­tions of oth­ers for his own sat­is­fac­tion.

As “The Assign­er” in The Vig­ils, Archie is tasked with assign­ing degrad­ing and often cru­el jobs to his peers. He takes great plea­sure in cre­at­ing assign­ments that make oth­ers uncom­fort­able, some­times even break­ing their spir­it in the process. The Goober, caught in the trap of his lat­est task, is left anx­ious­ly wait­ing as Archie toys with his antic­i­pa­tion, slow­ly draw­ing out the moment before reveal­ing what is to come. The scene in the dim­ly lit stor­age room is filled with a pal­pa­ble sense of ten­sion, as the oth­er Vig­ils mem­bers watch close­ly, eager to see how the sit­u­a­tion unfolds. This moment serves to rein­force Archie’s abil­i­ty to con­trol the nar­ra­tive and manip­u­late his peers into sub­mis­sion, as they hang on to his every word, unsure of what will hap­pen next. The psy­cho­log­i­cal manip­u­la­tion Archie employs is not just a casu­al dis­play of pow­er; it’s a reflec­tion of his deep under­stand­ing of how fear, anx­i­ety, and antic­i­pa­tion can be weaponized.

When the assign­ment is final­ly revealed, it’s both bizarre and unset­tling. Archie instructs The Goober to loosen all the screws in Broth­er Eugene’s class­room, a task that seems sim­ple at first but car­ries a deep­er, more sin­is­ter weight. The imagery of screws being loosened—of the class­room being dis­man­tled bit by bit—symbolizes the way The Vig­ils method­i­cal­ly dis­man­tle any sense of nor­mal­cy or safe­ty for their mem­bers. The Goober is told that he will have the school to him­self, forced to per­form the task in a desert­ed, soli­tary envi­ron­ment. This lone­li­ness and iso­la­tion make the task even more har­row­ing, as it becomes a metaphor for the way The Vig­ils iso­late their vic­tims emo­tion­al­ly, push­ing them to the brink of dis­com­fort and con­fu­sion. The ten­sion builds steadi­ly as The Goober is left alone to com­plete the task, know­ing that his actions will deter­mine how he’s viewed by the group.

As the nar­ra­tive unfolds, the ten­sion in the sto­ry height­ens not just around The Goober’s task, but also around the fate of Archie’s con­tin­ued dom­i­nance with­in The Vig­ils. The black box, a cen­tral sym­bol of The Vig­ils’ pow­er struc­ture, deter­mines whether Archie will remain in con­trol of the group or lose his posi­tion. The stakes of the game are made clear, with the mar­ble drawn from the box rep­re­sent­ing a moment of fate and for­tune. Archie’s draw of the white mar­ble sig­ni­fies his unchal­lenged dom­i­nance and ensures that his lead­er­ship will remain intact. Despite his vic­to­ry, the moment is not pure­ly cel­e­bra­to­ry. As Archie looks at The Goober, whose emo­tion­al dis­tress is clear, there is a brief flick­er of empa­thy in Archie’s gaze, a fleet­ing recog­ni­tion of the pain he’s caused. How­ev­er, this moment is brief and quick­ly fades, high­light­ing the com­plex nature of Archie’s char­ac­ter. While he is unde­ni­ably capa­ble of manip­u­la­tion and cru­el­ty, this small, momen­tary glimpse into his human­i­ty sug­gests a char­ac­ter that is more com­pli­cat­ed than sim­ple vil­lainy. The brief appear­ance of empa­thy serves as a reminder that even the most ruth­less indi­vid­u­als are shaped by inter­nal con­flicts, and that pow­er and cru­el­ty are often mask­ing deep­er, unre­solved emo­tions.