What Were Richard Thompson=?UTF-8?B?4oCZ?=s Intentions For Lincon Rhyme Toward The End Of The Bone Collector?

Did he intend to actually kill him or merely destroy his quality of
life by essentially putting him into a vegetative state? After killing
Rhyme’s nurse and the chief of police Thompson goes into a spiel
about how Rhyme’s testimony put him in prison where he was
basically used as a “human toilet.” Classic case of an ex or
escaped convict coming back for “revenge” on someone they
hold responsible for putting them away, even though they were careless
enough to have gotten caught and knew the risk when committing their
crimes. Thompson then asks Rhyme “what vegetable he would like to
be.” and proceeds to shock his brain. It’s here that you get
the intention that he plans on allowing Rhyme to live but in a reduced
quality of life but it’s sort of dicey as Rhyme would technically
be dead in a mental sense anyway and only his family would suffer,
they’d eventually pull the plug and he’d die anyway assuming
Thompson was successful in doing this. But when Rhyme manages to free
himself Thompson’s intentions to kill Rhyme in a last ditch,
desperate attempt become rather clear. So basically was Thompson
always planning on killing Rhyme or did he actually intend on forcing
him to suffer by destroying his incredible mind and forcing him to
live out the rest of his days as a “Zucchini” Thompson
obviously was not successful and the film had a happy, Hollywood style
ending with Thompson being shot in the back just prior to stabbing
Rhyme in the heart.