List of V for Vendetta characters
The following is a list of characters within V for Vendetta.
Protagonists
V
See main article
Evey Hammond
See main article
Norsefire
Adam James Susan
Adam James Susan is the founder and Leader of The Party. His division within the government is sometimes known as the Head, going along with the theme of naming divisions of the government after body parts. He is named "Adam Sutler" in the film and has the title of High Chancellor. He has a love interest with the Fate supercomputer. He is very cruel and is ready to do anything to keep his government under control. He is an extreme nationalist and a firm adherent of pure fascism. He values order above all else and sees civil liberties as unneeded luxuries which are ultimately threats to a secure society. He states early in the novel that he believes in "the destiny of the Nordic race", and subsequently despises anyone who is not white, Christian, and heterosexual. Despite the latter, he disdains all sexual contact as "brutish coupling", and has subsequently remained a virgin his entire life.
Peter Creedy
Peter Creedy is a fictional character from the Alan Moore and Davis Lloyd's graphic novel V for Vendetta and from the V for Vendetta film. He is the secondary antagonist. In the movie version he is played by Tim Pigott-Smith. It is suggested that he has a closer than discussed relationship with Brian Etheridge, head of the Ear, by using a pet name when informing Adam Susan of Etheridge's death in Chapter Two of "The Land of Do-As-You-Please".
In both interpretations, Creedy is head of the secret police, known as the Finger. He and his men are charged with apprehending "V," a masked vigilante whose high-profile acts of terrorism have undermined Norsefire's control of the country.
Graphic novel
In the graphic novel, Creedy comes to power after the death of Derek Almond. Unlike Susan, who genuinely believes in fascism, Creedy is a cold-blooded opportunist whose only goal is absolute power. A coarse, petty man, he is held in contempt by sophisticates like Helen Heyer and it is strongly suggested that senior officers in the police force have little respect for him. Eric Finch's right-hand man Dominic coolly rebuffs his offer of 'closer co-operation' in spite of his implied threat that anyone who isn't on his side will regret it later.
However, it also becomes clear that Creedy is somewhat incompetent. He and his men let V escape from the NTV broadcasting centre after the 'Guy Fawkes' video is broadcast, and he lets Rose Almond through the police cordon during Susan's last public appearance, not suspecting that she will assassinate him. Nevertheless, he and his forces subsequently take total control of London. However, his term as the "emergency commander" is short-lived, as his chief of staff, a Scottish gangster named Alistair Harper, turns on him after being given a substantial bribe by the manipulative Helen Heyer. Harper and his men grab Creedy and hack him to death with a razor.
Film
In the movie, Creedy serves the ruling Norsefire party as head of The Finger, the security police who carry out the secret kidnapping, detention and mass murder of anyone who criticizes Norsefire or does not fit its racist standards of "purity". His complete ruthlessness is shown in the film, in which he evolved from a petty criminal to the mastermind behind a bio-engineered plague that devastates London after he convinces Sutler to use the weapon on London itself to further their image when they save it, which is later blamed on terrorists and used to terrorize the public into giving Norsefire total control. In a meeting with Inspector Eric Finch, a disguised V suggests that it was Creedy's idea to use the virus not on "an enemy of the country, but rather the country itself." V describes him as "a man seemingly without a conscience, for whom the ends always justify the means."
The Finger's trademark is the black bags they put over the captives' heads. One such instance is when the Chancellor (renamed Sutler in the movie) orders variety show host Gordon Deitrich arrested for mocking Sutler on his show; Creedy personally shows up at Deitrich's home and beats him with a nightstick, splitting open his face. Deitrich is then taken away; after the Fingermen find a copy of the banned Quran in his house, he is executed.
During the second half of the movie, Creedy has fallen out of favor with Sutler because of his failure to stop V's activities and the public actions resulting from them. One night while tending his flowers in his home in suburban London, Creedy is confronted by V, who offers to surrender if Sutler is brought to him. Following a harsh rebuke by Sutler, Creedy reluctantly agrees to the deal. V and Creedy meet in an abandoned tube station, and Creedy personally executes Sutler in front of V. When V refuses to take off his mask, the Fingermen open fire but fail to take him down. A mortally wounded V cuts them all down with his daggers, then kills Creedy by breaking his neck. Though the right-hand of Sutler his influence over the corrupt dictator and his direct involvement in the atrocities committed, and his ultimatle betrayal of Sutler, arguably makes him the true main antagonist of the film.
Derek Almond
Derek Almond is a fictional character from Alan Moore and Davis Lloyd's graphic novel V for Vendetta. In the novel, Almond is head of the secret police, known as the Finger. He and his men are charged with apprehending "V," a masked vigilante whose high-profile acts of terrorism have undermined Norsefire's control of the country. Almond is married to Rosemary and is abusive towards her. He does not seem to get along with Roger Dascombe.
Graphic novel
In the graphic novel, Almond is placed in charge of tracking and apprehending V by Adam Susan. Almond delegated authority to Eric Finch so he could investigate to help stop V. Finch and his partner, Dominic Stone, determined that V's next target was the Nose's forensic pathologist, Delia Surridge. Finch and Dominic contacted Almond and told him this. Almond left his house and headed to Delia's apartment, hoping that he had arrived before V did. By the time he arrived at Delia's apartment and reached the floor her room was on, V had already killed her and was leaving her room. Almond pointed his gun at V and attempted to shoot him, but his gun wasn't loaded. V then lunged at Almond with a knife and stabbed him, ultimately killing him. Almond was given a funeral service after his death. Almond left behind his wife, Rosemary, after he died and his position as head of the Finger was passed down to Peter Creedy.
Film
Almond does not make an appearance in the film adaptation, though he was included in an early draft.[1]
Conrad Heyer
Conrad Heyer is a fictional character from Alan Moore's graphic novel, V for Vendetta. In the novel, he is the head of The Eye, the visual-surveillance department of Norsefire, a fascist dictatorship ruling post-apocalyptic England.
Graphic novel
In the graphic novel, he and his wife, Helen, play relatively minor roles, but their actions — particularly Helen's — are key in advancing the plot in later chapters. From the beginning Helen hints at The Party's plot to take advantage of the chaos left in the wake of a nuclear war; Helen apparently planned to install Conrad as the ruler of the country, while she secretly pulled his strings. She persuades Scottish gangster Alistair Harper to feed her information on movements by his boss, Peter Creedy, and the Finger, the political police arm of the Norsefire state. She promises him control of the Finger when Conrad comes to power.
Later on, Helen starts an affair with Harper, and their lovemaking is caught in a closed-circuit bedroom camera that she knows is installed in the bedrooms of every member of the Norsefire Party but she believes is inoperative. Conrad eventually watches the video in a monitoring room to his complete shock. He lures Harper into a room in his house where the same video is playing. While Harper is entertained, Conrad ambushes him and beats him to death with a wrench, but not before being mortally wounded by Harper's razor. Helen then discovers the two in the secret room, and seeing that her plans are ruined, berates him one last time before wiring up a camera to the TV set so Conrad can watch himself die.
Helen later tries to flee the city, but loses her car and ends up among a gathering of hobos who begin harassing her. In the final pages of the graphic novel, Chief Inspector Eric Finch stumbles upon the group and Helen desperately tries to persuade him to help organize a militia to try to take back the city. Finch refuses and leaves her for the hobos.
Film
In the film, he is played by Guy Henry.
His role in the film is significantly reduced, appearing only twice in the whole film. The second time that he appears, he informs Chancellor Adam Sutler of a report stating that "V", a masked terrorist targeting Norsefire officials, would likely destroy Parliament with an airborne attack. He also states that Finch has filed a report suggesting use of an Underground train, though the subway tunnels around Parliament have long been sealed. Finch is later proven to have been right and Parliament is destroyed by V's funeral train.
Brian Etheridge
Brian Etheridge is a fictional character from the comics series V for Vendetta. In the film adaptation, he is played by Eddie Marsan.
Etheridge is the head of The Ear, the Norsefire government audio-surveillance division. The group is responsible for random audio surveillance. For unknown reasons he is known among other senior government officials by the nickname 'Bunny' Etheridge. He has a prominent stutter.
The trademark of The Ear is the large armored surveillance vehicles. These vans spout aerial dishes, directional microphones, surveillance devices, infrared and visual CCTV (though Earmen rarely watch the camera feed) and sometimes machine guns. To aid Norsefire, the vans constantly roam the streets of London and report their audio findings to Etheridge. He is also in charge of the "Blacklist", which is a list of all music that has been banned by the government.
In the graphic novel, he is killed when V destroys The Ear, as he was working overnight. In the film, his fate is unknown. Etheridge is last seen during the final cabinet meeting on November 4.
Eric Finch
Eric Finch is the head of The Nose, the police division.
Roger Dascombe
Roger Dascombe is a fictional character from the graphic novel and film V for Vendetta. In the film, he is played by Ben Miles.
Graphic novel
In the graphic novel, Dascombe is Chancellor Adam Susan's chief of propaganda. He is portrayed as a somewhat self-loving character who dislikes Mr Almond (head of the finger at the beginning of the novel). When Almond is killed by V, Dascombe initiates a relationship with his widow, Rosemary Almond, who is somewhat reluctant about the whole thing but for economic reasons has no choice. When V attacks Jordan Tower, Dascombe is set up as a dummy and is killed when the police retake the facility.
In the film, he is not killed by the police (he is not present when V takes over), though they still wound a BTN executive during the raid.
Film
In the film, Dascombe is the head of the Norsefire Propaganda Division, nicknamed "the Mouth", and is chief executive of the British Television Network. He also helps write news reports and puts the spin on stories.
Dascombe tells High Chancellor Sutler that he is calling the destruction of the Old Bailey, which was perpetrated by a masked terrorist calling himself "V," an "emergency demolition", with the help of spin coverage on the BTN and the InterLink. Later that same day, V attacks the Mouth's headquarters, Jordan Tower, and broadcasts a message urging London's citizens to rise up against the government. When Chief Inspector Finch raids the control booth with a police team, Dascombe records the raid with cameras and later use the footage in a news segment. A vest of dynamite is found in the control booth, which Dascombe defuses.
Dascombe tries to help cover up the death of Lewis Prothero (host of The Voice of London) by saying he died "of heart failure while working late at night in his office" when in fact V killed him (at first he considers a stroke, but decides that it is "too horrific"). Dascombe also attacks the public with false reports of water shortages, avian influenza vaccine hoarders, and evidence linking V to past biological terrorist attacks, which were in fact carried out by Norsefire itself. However, it is shown that the public begins to disbelieve the news broadcasts over the course of the film.
In the film, Dascombe's fate is unknown. He is last seen in the final cabinet meeting (which takes place on November 4), where he is extremely nervous when he asks what the Chancellor's contingency plan is should V succeed in destroying Parliament. Sutler replies that if he does, "the only thing that will change, the only difference that it will make, is that tomorrow morning, instead of a newspaper, I will be reading Mr. Creedy's resignation!" Dascombe, Finch, Etheridge, and Heyer are thrown into silence while Creedy looks on.
Lewis Prothero
The former Commander of Larkhill, the concentration camp that once held V. He later becomes The Voice of Fate, the government radio broadcaster who daily transmits "information" to the public. V stops a train carrying Prothero and kidnaps him. He is driven insane by a combination of an overdose of Batch 5 drugs and the shock of seeing his prized doll collection burned in a mock recreation of Camp Larkhill in V's headquarters. He remains incapacitated for the rest of the story. In the film version, Prothero is played by Roger Allam and is known as the Voice of London, a television show host. He is killed by V in his shower when V uses Evey's British Television Network ID to get into his quarters.
Bishop Anthony Lilliman
Bishop Anthony Lilliman is the voice of the Norsefire Party in the Church of England. However, it is later revealed he was once an ordinary cleric who worked at the Larkhill concentration camp where V was held, allegedly giving "spiritual support" to the prisoners before Adam Susan promoted Father Lilliman to Bishop of Westminster, and therefore V targets him for revenge. Lilliman is a corrupt bishop who molests juvenile girls every Sunday during what he calls "Children's Hour". It is strongly implied that Lilliman employs the services of a secret sex agency which recruits these young girls for him to abuse.
After Evey Hammond offers to repay V's kindness to her, he takes advantage and dresses her up as a young girl, then sends her to the Bishop. Lilliman arrives and attempts to rape Evey, however she fends him off by hitting him over the head with a lamp. V then arrives and forces Lilliman to undergo a bizarre and sadistic form of communion, and then force-feeds the paedophile bishop a holy wafer laced with cyanide. Despite the vile nature of the bishop, Evey cannot help but feel partly responsible for his murder. In the film version, Bishop Lilliman is played by John Standing, and is described as the Bishop of England, covering the "Metropolitical Authority of Dioceses in Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex and Surrey".
Delia Surridge
Larkhill camp doctor whom V kills by lethal injection of an unspecified drug. Surridge is the only one of V's former tormentors who feels remorse for her actions, hence the clean and painless death he gives her. Surridge apologises to V in her final moments of life. Finch also mentions that he has feelings for her, and he feels maddened at her death and determined to end V's life.
Other Characters Associated with Norsefire
The following characters may be members or employees of Norsefire with less political power, influence, or are relatively smaller characters in the novel. They may also be characters that have ties or associations with Norsefire, but do not necessarily support them or consider themselves members of Norsefire. Some characters may also be fictitious within the world of V for Vendetta, for example, Storm Saxon.
- Dominic Stone: Inspector Finch's partner and protegé. Dominic is the one who figures out the connection between V and the former Larkhill camp staff and V's hacking into the Fate computer system. Very much like Finch, he only works as an officer in the Nose due to a sense of dedication to his country and not due to any political affiliation to the Norsefire Party. At the end, Evey rescues Dominic from a mob and takes him to the Shadow Gallery where it is implied she will train him as her successor after she has taken over the role and persona of V, but as the role of a creator rather than a destroyer. Dominic makes an appearance in the film adaptation. He is played by Rupert Graves and retains his role as Eric Finch's partner and protegé. Throughout the film, he works with Finch to investigate V and Evey, and eventually the St. Mary's Virus when he and Finch discover information about it.
- Rosemary "Rose" Almond: The abused wife of Derek Almond. When her husband is murdered, Rose becomes depressed and must turn to Roger Dascombe (whom she strongly dislikes) for company and support. After Dascombe is also killed (also at the hands of V), she is forced to become a showgirl as a means of supporting herself. After V shuts down the surveillance systems, she uses the opportunity to buy a gun and assassinate Adam Susan. She is last shown in an interrogation conducted by the Finger and her fate is unknown. She is the only supporting character who at one point in the story drives the narrative through an inner monologue, which besides her is only done by V, Evey, Adam Susan and Finch. Rosemary does not make an appearance in the film adaptation.
- Alistair "Ally" Harper: The Scottish organised crime boss who kills Evey's lover Gordon. Initially Creedy hires him and his men to temporarily bolster the police force after V destroys the government's surveillance equipment, but Helen Heyer recruits him to her side to ensure Creedy's downfall by offering to place him in charge of the Finger after Conrad comes to power. He temporarily becomes Helen's lover. After Creedy's takeover, Ally fulfills his end of the bargain with Helen and kills Creedy with a lethal slash from his straight razor. Conrad beats Harper to death with a wrench as Ally fatally slices his neck. Alistair does not make an appearance in the film adaptation.
- Helen Heyer: The ruthless, scheming wife of Conrad Heyer. She uses sex and her superior intellect to keep her husband (for whom she feels nothing but contempt) in line, and to further her own goal of controlling the country after he becomes Leader. At the same time, she sleeps with Harper and turns him against Creedy. Her master plan collapses and she is last seen offering her body in exchange for protection and food to a semi-drunken gang after being rejected by Finch (who she hoped would join her in taking over what was left of the Party after her husband, Peter Creedy and Alistair Harper are all killed) and after anarchy has spilled into London. Helen does not make an appearance in the film adaptation.
- Storm Saxon: A fictional character in the Alan Moore and David Lloyd comic book (later graphic novel) V for Vendetta. In the graphic novel, he is the idealized Aryan hero of a science fiction television show that forms an occasional backdrop to the story.
Storm's love interest is the blue-eyed blonde Heidi, and his opponents are "black cannibal filth" burdened with lines like "Leroy! Look out! De white debil got him a Laser-Luger!!" The show takes the implicit or explicit racism and lurid sexual fantasies endemic in early to mid 20th century science fiction to extremes. Storm Saxon's name is a reference to the Saxons, a Germanic tribe that populated Great Britain before the Norman conquest of England in 1066.
Just as the initials of Norsefire match those of the National Front, Storm Saxon's are "SS", matching those of the Schutzstaffel, which used lightning runes as its symbols.
Storm Saxon's television programme is seen during V's terrorist hijacking of Norsefire's television station. It is also mentioned by V himself when he causes all visual and audio surveillance of England's citizenry to shut down. Even though the nation's televisions don't work, V has a collection of sets tuned into the frequencies of cameras surveying the homes of high Norsefire officials; V is so subsequently bored that he admits to sometimes missing the Storm Saxon programme because "the dialogue was better."
In the 2006 film adaptation, The Storm Saxon Show can be seen being played at the BTN television station. In the film version, Storm Saxon is played by Chad Stahelski and there is reference to a new character named "Laser Lass" (Antje Rau). Despite the changes, the imagery the show conveys is the same, as Laser Lass is portrayed as a blond-haired blue-eyed Aryan girl, while the villains are black or Middle Eastern.
Other Characters
These characters do not fall under any of the other character categorizations within this page or may fall under a character categorization in only one adaptation of V for Vendetta, but not in the other. An example of the latter would be Gordon, since in the film version he works for Norsefire's television network and does not support them, but in the graphic novel he is a bootlegger that is not associated with Norsefire. This would make his film character fall under the "Other Characters Associated with Norsefire" category, but not his graphic novel counterpart. Because of this, Gordon will fall under the "Other Characters" category for simplification.
- Valerie Page: Appears in a series of flashbacks when protagonist Evey Hammond finds a letter the former wrote, detailing her life story.
In the letter, Valerie says she is from Nottingham. While at a single-sex grammar school, she meets her first girlfriend, Sara. The couple are told by their teacher that homosexuality is "an adolescent phase that people outgrow". Valerie does not, however, and while dating a girl named Christina comes out to her parents, who disown her. A week later she moves to London to study drama.
As a young woman, Valerie stars in her first film, The Salt Flats. While filming, she meets a woman named Ruth, and the two become lovers. However, over the three years of their relationship, the situation between the United States and the Soviet Union spirals out of control and—after the resulting war—chaos erupts in Britain, eventually creating a nationwide power vacuum that the fascist Norsefire party exploits to seize power. Once in control, the new government criminalizes homosexuality and sends homosexuals to "resettlement camps".
Ruth is apprehended by Norsefire's secret police, the Finger, while buying food. Shortly afterwards, Valerie is arrested and sent to the Larkhill concentration camp. Valerie writes that she learned that Ruth betrayed her to the authorities under torture and later committed suicide in her cell out of guilt. At Larkhill, Valerie is one of the number that Dr. Delia Surridge and Commander Lewis Prothero use as test subjects. As the experiments progress, Valerie writes her autobiography using a small pencil she smuggled into the camp ("inside myself, because I am a woman") and a roll of toilet paper. Just before she dies, she passes it to the occupant in the cell next to hers, Room V. The autobiography is the catalyst that psychologically transforms the occupant of Room V into the masked "V". He then destroys the camp and escapes.
V engineers an elaborate charade in which Evey is led to believe she is imprisoned in one of Norsefire's concentration camps. V then anonymously slips Valerie's letter into Evey's cell, hoping to trigger in her the same psychological transformation he had at Larkhill. It is successful: Evey is willing to die for what she believes in, and is thus ready to become V's successor.
In the 2005 film adaptation of the novel, Valerie is played by Natasha Wightman as an adult, and by Imogen Poots as a child.
- Gordon Deitrich: A petty criminal specialising in bootlegging. After V abandons Evey during Book 2, Gordon takes her in as an act of kindness after he catches her stealing from his home and the two eventually become lovers. He is murdered by Alistair Harper, a ruthless gangster who is trying to expand Scotland's organised crime syndicate into London. In the film version, he is played by Stephen Fry and is a talk show/comedy show host on the British Television Network, Norsefire's TV station. He is a well-mannered colleague of Evey's, and is later revealed to be gay. He is arrested by Fingermen for broadcasting a political parody on his TV program but is later executed when a Quran is found in his possession.
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