re: There will be blood

Eli is the truly evil character. He is a liar, a manipulator, a crook in every sense of the word. Eli is fake. He puts on a front of holiness so he can extort wealth from Daniel to satisfy his own greed.

Which character do you relate with? The man who works hard, has shrewder business sense, but does truly care for certain people in his life? Or the man who lies and extorts in all walks of life, but puts on a false narrative of holiness even though he not once shows true compassion for anyone in the film as plain view does on numerous occasions.

The idea is that maybe the people that you believe to be righteous in this world are not. And maybe the ones you believe to be evil are simply flawed. Eli deserved what he got.