Every Ratboy fan, it seems, is plagued with a burning desire to excuse, or at least rationalize his behavior. He didn't really shoot Bill Mulder and Melissa Scully, they say -- and if he did? He must have been forced by some higher purpose, or unchallengable authority that tied his hands. What, I ask, is wrong with good, old-fashioned evil?
Some things are just good when they're bad. Chocolate cake, for example: smooth, rich sin on a fork. You know you shouldn't -- but you always do. Reveling in those few short moments of bliss before the pleasure is gone and the regrets begin. Krycek lives a life of chocolate cake. He kills and lies in the name of survival, never lingering long enough for the doubts to catch up.
Fox Mulder,on the other hand (if you will bear with my silly analogies for a moment), is like a Fat Free Strawberry Newton: the same sweetness, but none of the rich satisfaction -- pretending after an existence it/he is afraid to realize.
Alex displays many of the characteristics we are afraid to admit that we admire. He is cunning, landing on his feet no matter what crisis he must face. He is brave, swinging at every pitch life sends his way. He is self-sufficient, owing no alliegances, and expecting no favors.
So what if he's evil. It is a fun kind of evil -- the sort attributable more to a superiority of mind than an ignorant choice to follow an easier path.
So what if he killed Bill Mulder and Melissa Scully? So he stole a computer disk, sold government secrets, and beat up A.D. Skinner. Krycek seems to embrace an existential philosophy of action: If you aren't beholden to anyone, why should you follow any rules but your own?
He is a little lost boy -- the sort of man we would try to reform, but secretly hope that we couldn't... If he suddenly had a crisis of conscience would we like him any better? If he were suddenly filled with remorse and vowed to right his wrongs would it make us happy? If we suddenly learned that there was a second gunman in the shower, knew for sure that he didn't shoot Melissa, learned that minutes before the stairwell scene that Skinner had beat up Krycek's crippled Grandma, would it give us any satisfaction?
I think its safe to assume that most of us would answer, "no." A kinder, gentler Krycek is no Krycek at all. Alex kicks ass, indiscriminately and unapologetically -- and that's why we love him.