COMMANDER OF THE FAITHFUL FREDERICK T. WATERFORD (Robert Duvall, Joseph Fiennes), in The Handmaid's Tale, helped guide the Sons of Jacob and took part in their earliest plans. The Sons of Jacob, of course, took over the former United States of America in the bloody coup d'etat known as the President's Day Massacre. They then formed the Republic of Gilead, a name they borrowed from the Bible. That Republic governed as a theocratic state, ostensibly Christian, but that left out key parts. Of course, the Gileadites forbade people, especially women, to read, so that didn't present a problem. Or so they thought.Fred Waterford first worked in market research. He it was who designed the costumes and uniforms of the Republic: the black uniforms for Commanders of the Faithful and the Angels (a combination army and internal-security force), the green of the Guardians, and the various colors for the women: blue for the favored Wives, red for Handmaids (surrogate mothers), green for Marthas (household drudges), and brown for the Aunts who controlled and trained Handmaids and wayward women. Fred Waterford also coined the term salvaging for public execution (by hanging), and particicution for the particularly violent form of execution of male political criminals: turning them over to women to tear limb from limb after falsely accusing them of rape or something equally vile.Fred Waterford, according to the surviving account of the second (and last) of his Handmaids, married a woman she identifies as Serena Joy. That might be a pseudonym or a stolen identity, said identity theft being a delusion on the part of his Wife that she had an identity and a standing equal to his. Historians, researching the incident 150 years later, find nothing to substantiate Fred Waterford marrying Serena Joy.He actually has two Offreds associated with him. (All Handmaids take a name by appending the preposition Of to the name of the particular man, usually a Commander, to whom the Aunts assign them.) The first hanged herself in her quarters. The second is, of course, the title character of the remarkable document by which future generations have the best glimpse of the early history of Gilead.If the second Offred is credible (her account is undoubtedly authentic but some historians have doubted her veracity and motives), then Fred Waterford seems to have suffered an attack of doubt about the rectitude and effectiveness of the Sons of Jacob coup. That would lead to his downfall. First, he seduced the second Offred, by inviting her to his office for illicit cards and games, offering her contraband reading matter, and finally smuggling her into the brothel called Jezebel's where normally totally wayward women went, who were still attractive and would rather not go to the Colonies (chiefly toxic and/or radioactive waste cleanup crews but which also included some outlying farms). In the process he revealed the ills of immediate pre-Gilead America, in an effort to justify--or excuse--the coup. By her own account, he failed to impress the second Offred.As to how he met his end, accounts differ. One version of the Handmaid's Tale says the second Offred assassinated him. More likely the Eyes of God (a secret state police unit) accused him of harboring a subversive--either the second Offred herself or his chauffeur, Nick, who we know also seduced the second Offred and then put her on a Mayday Underground van disguised as an Eye wagon. By this latter account, Fred Waterford fell victim to the very monstrous regime he helped create--a fate he shared with many architects of tyranny in history. Show less «