Iago is a man who has been shaped by his experiences. Shakespearean characters traditionally act simply as stock characters; they play a necessary role in the story and are simply characters created in the void of that play. The action of the play and the circumstances surrounding the story determine how the characters act and respond to events. Interestingly for Othello, each character is driven by their own experiences outside of the play. What happened to them before the show began guides how they behave within the show. This is especially true of Iago, who was guided by his experiences outside the context of the story itself. The insecurities that plague him, the machinations he uses to manipulate other characters, the drive for control, have all been caused by his experiences outside of the game. And indeed, these experiences have created his supergoal: to prove his worth in the world by regaining control of the circumstances he feels are working against him. The first thing to understand about Iago is that he is not an evil person. If anything, Iago is the most genuinely sensitive and good character in the play. He is a highly introverted and self-contained researcher who does not know how to assert himself in the world. He understands his independence, and in fact emphasizes it early in the play, saying, “I follow him to serve him my turn. / We cannot all be teachers, nor all masters / We cannot be truly followed…” (I. i. 41-43). He knows he is not a follower, but at the same time he does not have the ability that Othello has to inspire others to follow him. He has something he sincerely wants to say, regardless of the established social order of the time. This causes him significant insecurities... mid-card... when successful. Iago does the most talking throughout the play, and has had the most to do, the most manipulation and influence on his world, and yet, after he finishes, he states it definitively. “Don't ask me anything. What you know, you know / From now on I will never say a word” (V. ii. 303-304). He's done, his plan is complete, and he leaves the show on that note; with no answers, no sense of conclusion, just a declarative statement of the completion of his purpose. And he makes little attempt to justify what he did, when given the chance to reveal how hurt he was by the severity of the circumstances. “I told him what I thought, and said no more / Than he found fit and true” (V. ii. 187-188). And this is, in a way, what makes Iago the most compelling character in the play. He fights the law and, in a way, he won.