Usurper Ahasuerus and pimply Vashti

PURIM IS COMING: Ahasuerus and Vashti: The Story Megillat Esther Does Not Tell You (Dr. Malka Z. Simkovich, Dr. Rabbi Zev Farber, Rabbi David Steinberg, TheTorah.com).

How the rabbis came to imagine Ahasuerus as a usurper who halted the rebuilding of the Temple and his wife Vashti as a wicked and grotesque Babylonian princess, who lived as a libertine and persecuted Jews.