“Truth is a hard deer to hunt. If you eat too much truth, you may die of the truth.” - By the Waters of Babylon. In the story “By the Waters of Babylon,” the characters are John, John’s father, The Priest, and humans that are portrayed as Gods in the story. The main character in the story is John, he is defiant and ignorant and he develops throughout the story. John is defiant because he disobeyed his father’s order and went east. He is also ignorant because John is not aware about the so called dangers in the east. He develops throughout the story because he’s gaining knowledge about the east and what people lived there and what happened in the east. John goes back home wise and aware of what happened in the east. The story takes place after humans are no longer alive and we are now considered gods, the characters in the story can go north south and west, but they cannot travel east for it is forbidden, laws were made for a reason. John is traveling east to learn the truth of what happened and who really lived there even though the priest told him not to. John knows the risk of going east, and he did so, he finds out that men have lived east and not the gods, he finds what is called extraordinary objects in his time and gains knowledge of what happened. John goes back home and gets purified, he’s the only one that knows what happened at the east side. By the Waters of Babylon has an interesting setting, the story takes place when humans are considered Gods. The