I've always had a love for Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and its 1954 Disney adaptation. When I first read it and watched it as a little kid, it sparked every part of my brain that craved for adventure and discovery beyond what the world I knew–and still know–had to offer. I looked up to Captain Nemo. His genius, his bravery, the Nautilus which he built and commanded. I think the only other fictional character whom I admired that much was–don't laugh–Gene Wilder's Willy Wonka.

I wanted to be Nemo when I grew up. To build my own submarine to traverse the depths, to flee from society and its laws, to just roam and see all that could be seen.

Eventually I grew older and began to look back on the story. And I started to see the man that I'd once respected and idolized in an entirely new light.

You see, anybody who's read the book can tell you that Nemo is actually the villain. Well, sort of. My remnant respect for the man forbids me from placing him with megalomaniacs and monsters. He's more of an anti-hero. Having lost his dearly loved wife and son to murder, he took his genius and scientific wonders and turned them into weapons against the "hated nation" that took everything he cared for from him.

It gets even sadder when you find out that Nemo's tragedy has a very heartbreaking real-world context. As revealed in a later novel of Verne's, The Mysterious Island, Nemo was actually an East Indian prince named Dakkar, the son of a Hindu raja. When the Indian Uprising of 1857 came and failed, the occupying British forces killed his wife and son in retaliation. The "hated nation" that goes unnamed in the first book is, in fact, Great Britain. He's shown to be tremendously supportive of revolutionary movements against oppressive regimes, such as when he loans salvaged treasure to a citizen of Crete, most likely to aid in the Cretan Revolt of the 1860's.

I still admire Nemo for his genius and the vessel which he created. But now I look at the man and what he let himself become because of his tragedy with an air of pity and sorrow. He was a man far ahead of his own time, seeing things that only scientists and visionaries could barely dream of. He could have changed the world, but in his anger, however justified, wound up losing his soul. Prince Dakkar died, and only Nemo remained.

Perhaps Nemo himself even realized how far he had fallen. In one scene towards the end, after sinking a British warship, Nemo is seen weeping over a picture of him with his family. Later, as the characters prepare to escape from the Nautilus once and for all, the main character catches one last glimpse of Nemo pounding away at his organ in the ship's salon, crying to the heavens, "Almighty God! Enough! Enough!". Maybe he knew what had happened, but felt like it was too late to turn back at that point.

I recently rewatched the finale of the 1954 Disney adaptation. In that movie, Nemo is fatally shot by occupying forces which have found his secret island base after planting an explosive charge which will destroy the island. He spends his last few moments of life gazing out at the sea that he has made his home before expiring, while his island bursts into an explosion ominously reminiscent of a nuclear mushroom cloud. The film ends with the Nautilus disappear for one last time beneath the waves, as the Captain's last words echo on: "There is hope for the future. And when the world is ready for a new and better life...all this will one day come to pass...in God's good time."

As I watched that scene for the millionth time, I got an actual pang in my chest, and I found myself once more mourning my former hero, watching as his dreams and genius were lost to the end result of his quest for vengeance, and wondering what good he might have done in a better life.