So I just finished watching “Kick-Ass” and starting thinking about revenge fantasies.

The ones that come easiest to mind are the movies: Kill Bill. Payback. Gladiator. Man on Fire. Taken. (And a ton more, many of which I’ve never watched.)

Of course, there’s Batman. And the Count of Monte Cristo.

But my archetype for the protagonist of a revenge fantasy is Iñigo Montoya from “The Princess Bride”.

My name is Iñigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.

Before I ever learned the back story of Bruce Wayne, before I ever read about Edmond Dantès, I watched this brilliant movie, and found myself intrigued by this rather amicable Spaniard who works as a mercenary to pay the bills while trying to avenge his murdered father for 20 years.

(“The Princess Bride” being a fairy tale, or at least a satiric take on a fairy tale, I took his boasts about being an excellent swordsman at face value. Now I know that this is dubious, given the fact that he is handily beaten by a guy who, five years hence, had been nothing but a mere farm boy—although the whole farm boy thing does seem to work out for Rand al’Thor, too—and who had just, prior to the fight, climbed a sheer cliff, most of the way with his bare hands. But I’ve always figured Westley’s status as the main protagonist trumped everything, particularly since it manages to trump certain death multiple times in the movie. Plus, Westley was fighting for True Love™, while Iñigo was only fighting Westley because he needed the money.)

But because of this movie, my baseline assumptions about the revenge business is that it need not be a dire and humorless exercise, and that it doesn’t need to turn you into a single-minded venom-filled person whose every waking thought is about bloody-spattered ultraviolent vengeance, unable to appreciate the levity of rhymes, the absurdities provoked by the misuse of words, and the aesthetic brilliance of a fellow artisan.

That Vizzini, he can fuss

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

You are wonderful!— I admit it, you are better than I am.

The other thing I really liked about Iñigo’s quest is the absolute simplicity of how he imagines he would exact his vengeance. None of these byzantine plots, destroying people’s lives in surprising ways with circuitous strategies. No borderline, obsessive-compulsive, psychotic tendencies while pursuing an all-encompassing life-long crusade dedicated to fighting crime. No trying to overthrow the government and blowing up Parliament. All he plans to do is stick the pointy end of his sword in the dude who murdered his father.

But the thing that endears Iñigo to me the most is his insight into how a monomaniacal pursuit of vengeance can really leave a gaping void in your life.

I have been in the revenge business so long, now that it’s over, I don’t know what to do with the rest of my life.

And it just occurs to me that if Iñigo did take up Westley on his offer to take over as the Dread Pirate Roberts, then his ship would already have been aptly named.