Steve! Good to see your name – it’s been too long! This write-up was maybe too quick – I’d like to see a reappraisal (or maybe a series of reappraisals?) by those more qualified than me. Another analogue comes to mind of how the popular understanding of the “ugly American” differs from the authorial intention: as noted by Susan Faludi in Stiffed, the way the character of Rambo in David Morrell’s novel First Blood went from being tragically damaged by his experiences in Vietnam to the way the same character in the films singlehandedly proceeds to avenge America’s loss. (That’s probably with Morrell’s connivance, as he wrote novelizations of some of the later movies.)