I agree for the most part.
Iago is a monster of a human as are the others you mentioned. I agree that Lovett definitely treats Toby as a pet and the song is hauntingly creepy for the very reasons you mentioned. Yet i believe you are oversimplifying Lovett just a tad.
She is a pragmatist to the Nth degree, yes, but the echoes of human kindness are still a memory within her. She would not mind having actual feelings of that nature, if she could afford them, but she cannot.
Having had some very close relationships with a few sociopaths, i know that they sometimes want to understand the kinder emotions, from time to time... when it suites them.
When Lovett saves the boy after his master's death, i believe we are meant to see that there is the glimmer of maternal instinct still in her- though it is not even much of an afterthought.
When the boy threatens to ruin her plans, she knows he much go. However, i believe the fact that she showed regret was fitting. She was losing a favored pet and the thought of killing a young boy seemed to get her gorge to rising. This added to her betrayal, making it all the worse. It worked for me.
Sometimes i love the monster that is a force of nature, an out-of-control machine of death that cares nothing for what or whom it destroys. These characters, on their own, are hardly interesting, but are made much more so by the events they set into motion - e.g., Dracula.
But i also appreciate the subtleties of more complex villains. They are much more interesting.
I believe Lovett was meant to be a touch more interesting than Dracula or similar villains, but not overly so. It was a difficult line to walk. Helena may have overplayed the sympathy a bit, but not too much for my liking.
Oh! And i do not believe Lovett creates The Demon Barber; she simply sets him well on a path to which he was already headed. She sped the process along a bit, perhaps and perhaps not by much. I may be wrong. Perhaps being reunited with his wife would have changed things, but i doubt by much.
Just my 2 cents.
Bookmarks