Vindex is a Latin word meaning “defender,” “protector,” or “avenger.” When typed into Google Translate, the word is translated to mean “champion.” A vindex can thus be any person or non-human figure that serves to defend, protect, champion, or avenge. R. B. Appleton argued in “Deus Ex Machina in Euripides” that the “Horatian vindex” is “a projection…to which faith or hope alone is emboldened.” The vindex can be a “deus…a messenger from some region beyond the scope of our explored experience” as Appleton offered, or another human or earthly being. To many democrats in America, Barack Obama serves as a vindex, in that he is defending/protecting/championing their political beliefs or desires, such as healthcare reform. A vindex can be within the public sphere, such as Barack Obama for a Democrat, or in the personal sphere, such as a seeing-eye dog for a blind man. A vindex can be a defender in the less traditional sense as well, such as a person who stands by and speaks up for a friend who is bullied for being homosexual, disabled, foreign, or any other factor that labels them as an “other.”



Here is an image of Hercules  (a divine hero who defended man from monsters and other evils).

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