“ | When the fox hears the rabbit scream, he comes a'runnin'... but not to help. | „ |
~ Verger's most famous line |
Mason Verger is the main antagonist of the 1999 novel Hannibal and its 2001 film adaptation. He is a wealthy sexual sadist whom Hannibal Lecter disfigured and paralyzed during a court-ordered therapy session, and who spends years afterward trying to torture and kill Lecter.
In the 2001 film adaptation, he is portrayed by Gary Oldman, who also portrayed Dreyfus in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and Egor Korshunov in Air Force One.
Early life[]
Verger is the scion and heir of the wealthy Verger family, and CEO of a meat packing company founded by his late father, Molson. He is a sadistic pedophile who derives sexual pleasure from torturing and raping children, as well as torturing animals and performing autoerotic asphyxiation. As a teenager, he raped his twin sister Margot, dislocating her arm and biting a chunk out of her buttocks in the process. He also flavors his martinis with children's tears, and once re-enacted the crucifixion of Christ by nailing a migrant worker to a wooden cross.
His family's wealth protects him from going to prison for his crimes, but he is eventually arrested and sentenced to court-ordered therapy for "taking advantage" of children at a Christian camp his family founded. Lecter is his therapist, and holds a session at Verger's pied a tierre, where he gets Verger high on angel dust and "influences" him to mutilate his own face and feed the pieces to his dogs. He then asks Verger to demonstrate autoerotic asphyxiation, and tightens the noose until it breaks his neck. Verger survives, but is left a horribly disfigured quadriplegic.
When Lecter is arrested for committing a series of cannibalistic murders, Verger bribes several politicians to make sure Lecter gets the death penalty; Lecter is instead found insane and institutionalized. When Lecter escapes, Verger is enraged, and begins planning to have him fed to wild boars specially bred for the purpose.
He otherwise lives like a recluse at his estate, Muskrat Farms, with only his caretaker (and fellow sex offender) Cordell Doemling and Margot, who works as his bodyguard, for company. Margot despises her brother, but works for him in hopes that he will donate his sperm to her partner, Judy, so they can have a baby. Verger also controls her income, as their father had disinherited her when she came out as a lesbian and left his estate to any future heir his son might have.
In Hannibal[]
Ten years after Lecter's escape, Verger pays Lecter's former guard, Barney Matthews, for an X-ray of Lecter's arm and his infamous mouth guard mask. He then bribes corrupt Justice Department official Paul Krendler to blame FBI agent Clarice Starling - Lecter's nemesis - for a botched drug raid in order to get Lecter's attention. Sure enough, Lecter, now living in Florence, Italy under a fake identity, writes Starling a letter expressing sympathy for her ordeal, which triggers a manhunt for the fugitive serial killer.
Verger bribes corrupt Italian detective Rinaldo Pazzi to capture Lecter, but Lecter kills him and escapes to the U.S. Verger then has his men kidnap Lecter and Starling and bring them to Muskrat Farms, where he prepares to watch his long-prepared revenge. Lecter escapes his bonds, however, and persuades Margot, whom he once treated after Verger raped her, to kill her brother, promising to take the blame. Margot sodomizes Mason with a cattle prod, causing him to ejaculate and thus provide the sperm she needs to conceive a child, and then kills him by shoving his pet Moray Eel down his throat, suffocating him.