In the Poetics, Aristotle defines “character” as that which “makes us ascribe certain moral qualities to the agents,” and further, as an ethical disposition understood in terms of vice or virtue, “good men or bad.” Under this definition, despite not being “preeminently virtuous,” Oedipus, as tragic hero, is good. Therefore, he must possess “practical wisdom” and “moral virtue,” as defined in the Ethics. Only voluntary actions can portray character; the single voluntary action of Oedipus, committed with full knowledge of his circumstances, brought upon him by is own agency, and executed with a correspondence between end and intentions, is the final pathos of his self-blinding. It is, in this respect, the only ethical action he carries out, and consequently, the only one which is praiseworthy or blameworthy. Once “moral virtue” and “practical wisdom” are understood in relation to choice, and if Oedipus possesses them, then it follows that an emotional response of the kind exhibited, i.e., self-mutilation, will be irrational and ignoble if the hero’s ruin is the result of involuntary actions. Such is not the case; the pathos of Oedipus arouses pity and fear and ultimately, pleasure. Hence, his suffering must be both moral and reasoned. Enter “thought,” the missing variable from Rhetoric, “the power of saying whatever can be said, or what is appropriate to the occasion.” The “thought” of Oedipus, grounded in language, comes through his spoken promises to Thebes and in the end, binds his good “character” to a voluntary action of virtuous pathos.