Many are familiar with the tale of Samson, who is seduced by a woman who then betrays him to the Philistine authorities he was fighting against.
Others surely are familiar with the tale of Judith, who seduces and then betrays an Assyrian general. Or perhaps the story of Yael, who seduces and then betrays a general named Sisera.
The concept of a woman seducing and then betraying someone is a common tactic used by Philistines and Jews alike.
And now, to the tragedy of Purim. It is a Greek tragedy, which follows many of the same themes as Oedipus Rex.
In the famed Greek myth, a king receives a prophecy that his son will kill him, and the actions which he takes with the intention of preventing this tragedy ironically bring it about. In the Jewish retelling, a king’s advisor receives a premonition that a group of people in his jurisdiction will commit a massacre, and the actions which he takes with the intention of preventing this tragedy ironically bring it about.
On the holiday of Purim it is recommended that revelers become so drunk that they cannot tell who is the villain and who is the hero, because in the Megillah the part where the Jews celebrate their victory against Haman by indiscriminately slaughtering thousands of their neighbors is kept in. That the good guys in the story are the ones who commit the massacre and the bad guy is the one who tries and fails to prevent it is a clever reversal of the common viewpoints people might generally have on this story. By default, you would assume that the guys committing the massacre are the bad guys and the one who tried and failed to prevent it is not the hero but the tragic protagonist.
As for the mechanism by which this victory is achieved, the story of Delilah/Judith/Yael/Esther is that she succeeds in seducing the king and convincing him that his closest advisor’s efforts to prevent an act of violence should be responded to by executing his closest advisor and permitting the act of violence to take place.
If I could travel back in time to the time in which this story takes place, I would tell the King “bros before hoes this chick is horny for violence”.
Haman did nothing wrong!