Antagonist

Character Role Analysis

KGB Spies

There are a slew of options for the "bad guys" in this book, (anyone on the Axis of Evil would qualify), but we think saying "Hitler is the antagonist" would be too easy. He's always the antagonist.

No, in the case of Bomb, the bad guys are anyone who works against the Americans in their quest to develop the world's first atomic weapon. In particular, anyone who spies on behalf of the KGB—and in turn, betrays their country—are the ones that Oppenheimer and his team of brainiacs need to defeat.

However, it's worth noting that not one of the spies is totally without merit. Gold seems like he's a less-than-willing participant (at least at first), and at one point he refuses to accept money for his acts of espionage, so he definitely has a sense of morality (albeit one that most of us wouldn't agree with). Ted Hall seeks out the Soviets due to an over-developed sense of what is fair and right: he doesn't want the U.S. to have uncontestable superiority over the rest of the world, so he seeks to balance things out a bit on his own. Fuchs turns over information to the Soviets because he thinks they're doing a great job standing up to Hitler. Anyone who's against Hitler seems like they're on the right team, right?

So although the KGB spies are the antagonists because they work against our protagonist, they aren't necessarily "bad guys." They're guys who work for the wrong team for the right reasons.