Chapter I: The Villain's Genesis (Zimbabwe, 1994-2012)

In the beginning, there was the Green Ranger.

Liam Vries was born in 1994 in Zimbabwe, but his true awakening occurred in episode 19 of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. While other children dreamed of being primary-colored heroes, young Liam found himself drawn to Tommy Oliver—the Green Ranger with the haunting flute melody, the mysterious past, the complex narrative that made him infinitely more interesting than his heroic counterparts.

Strategic Decision #1: Embrace the villain archetype—not as antagonist, but as the one who disrupts systems to serve a higher purpose.

There was something magnetic about being the wildcard, the one who could shift allegiances, who held power that others feared and respected. This wasn't mere childhood preference—it was early recognition that the most compelling narratives belonged to those who challenged existing orders.

Zimbabwe in the 1990s provided the perfect training ground for understanding power dynamics. Witnessing racial inequality that created "an apartheid-like regime," young Liam learned to read landscapes beyond their surface beauty. In geography classes, while others saw boring contour lines, he discovered the secret language of terrain—how elevation revealed power, how boundaries determined access, how maps encoded the politics of place.

Strategic Decision #2: Geographic literacy as cultural intelligence. Those topographic signatures that would become his artistic DNA weren't decorative—they were systematic branding, ensuring every future work connected to a unified conceptual universe.