The Silence of the Lambs/Characters

Characters from the film/book series by Thomas Harris focused on serial killer Hannibal Lecter. The Film Series have their own character folders, with characters appearing under the film they first appeared in.

Manhunter
Characters from Manhunter, the 1986 film adaptation of the book Red Dragon.

Agent Will Graham
"Played By: William Petersen"


 * Badass Bookworm
 * Berserk Button: Graham doesn't like it when people bring up his past experience with Lecktor.
 * The Danza: William Petersen as William "Will" Graham.
 * FBI Agent
 * Guile Hero
 * Hey, It's That Guy!: This feels at times like an extended audition by William Petersen for his role as Grissom on CSI.
 * The Mentally Disturbed: Peteren's Graham is much more in conflict with his own inner darkness and almost seconds away from snapping than Norton's Graham.
 * One Last Job
 * Perpetual Frowner
 * The Profiler
 * Locked Into Strangeness: Graham's hair has some gray tinges, due to his experience with Lecktor.
 * Shirtless Scene: Petersen gets a few.

Dr. Hannibal Lektor
"Played by: Brian Cox"

"Lecktor: You want the scent? Smell yourself."
 * Evilly Affable
 * It Amused Me
 * Manipulative Bastard
 * Not So Different: Lektor tells this to Graham. And what's scary is that he seems to be right.


 * Serial Killer: Of course.
 * Smug Snake: In contrast to Hopkins' Lecter.
 * Spell My Name With An K: Lecktor?
 * Three Scene Wonder: Lecktor appears in only three scenes, but he casts a pall over the entire film. Cox's take on him is a slimy, reptilian version, with cold, black eyes and a seemingly toothless mouth.

Francis Dolarhyde
"Played by: Tom Noonan"

"You owe me awe."


 * Tragic Monster

Jack Crawford
"Played by: Dennis Farina"


 * Badass Mustache: Sports a big and bushy one.
 * Da Chief

Freddie Lounds
"Played by Stephen Lang"


 * Adaptational Attractiveness: Book Lounds is fat, ugly, and has buck teeth. Here, he’s played by the quite handsome Stephen Lang.
 * Asshole Victim: Deconstructed. Hannibal commends Graham for getting him killed in such a discreet way, and Will is left wondering if he had subconsciously gotten Lounds killed.
 * Jerkass
 * Kill It With Fire
 * Nothing Is Scarier: You never see what Dollarhyde does to Lounds, but, in the words of Michael Mann, “the screams tell the story”.
 * Paparazzi

Dr. Hannibal Lecter
"Played By: Anthony Hopkins "A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.""


 * Affably Evil: Lecter is usually unfailingly polite...providing the company is polite in return.
 * Aristocrats Are Evil: Hannibal was retconned into being aristocracy.
 * Belated Backstory
 * Berserk Button: Just try to insult or harm Clarice Starling, and see how long you last. Remember what happened to Miggs, Chilton, and Krendler? Yeah, that's right.
 * Big Bad Friend: Acts like this in the opening for the Red Dragon movie, where he seems
 * Boxed Crook
 * Bunny Ears Lawyer: Dr. Lecter is incarcerated, but still writes highly respected articles for psychiatric journals.
 * The Chessmaster
 * Combat Pragmatist: Lecter, Lecter, Lecter. In his deranged Crowning Moment of Awesome he  Then listens to a piece of classical music that makes the cell kind of like a high-end restaurant.
 * It was Johann Sebastian Bach's The Goldberg Variations, recorded by Glenn Gould in 1955.
 * He usually shies away from uses guns, but when they are the only weapons he has at his disposal, he will use them.
 * Cultured Badass
 * Creepy Monotone
 * Dead Little Sister: One of the main problems people have with the latter two books. Giving Hannibal one of these causes instant Villain Decay.
 * Trying to turn another woman into his Dead Little Sister and then have sex with her compounds this. On the other hand, a few others did a Slasher Smile.
 * Diabolical Mastermind
 * Dissonant Serenity
 * Enemy Rising Behind: Hannibal does this.
 * Even Evil Has Standards: Lecter is genuinely disgusted with Mason, Chilton and Krendler.
 * Faux Affably Evil: Lecter. He gets away with being both this and Affably Evil; Faux Affably Evil is for the people he's messing with. Or plans to eat, or serve. Or is eating or serving.
 * Freudian Excuse: Thanks to retconning. The most hilariously, unintentionally ridiculous Freudian Excuse ever:  As executed, it made everything else about Lecter mention by others (like Doemling) mesh better (and completed the Failure Knight analogy hinted at since the previous book), but the extension of it into a full story pretty much throws out Lecter's initial characterisation as a Complete Monster.
 * Believe it or not, this Freudian excuse could be based on a Truth in Television. The infamous Ukrainian cannibal Andrei Chikatilo was told growing up that his brother was cannibalized by neighbors during the Holodomor (massive famines caused by Soviet agricultural policy).
 * Hannibal Lecture: Trope Namer.
 * Ironically, his most famous one was skillfully parried by Clarice Starling, to the point Lecter had no choice but to concede her retort had some merit in the book, even though she also conceded he made some legitimate points himself.
 * I'm a Humanitarian
 * Insufferable Genius: As Jack Crawford puts it to Starling, "He's very likely right, and he could have told you why, but he wanted to tease you with it. It's the only weakness I ever saw in him — he has to look smart, smarter than everybody. He's been doing it for years."
 * Karma Houdini - Lecter is this in spades, though Thomas Harris admitted he had grown to like his character so much this trope became inevitable.
 * At the end of the Hannibal novel Lecter even.
 * Downplayed in the film version of Hannibal, where he escapes justice but loses his hand in the process.
 * * Kubrick Stare: This is Lecter's default expression when revving up the creepy.
 * Manipulative Bastard
 * Morally-Ambiguous Doctorate
 * One-Scene Wonder: Anthony Hopkins won a Best Leading Actor for only 24 minutes of screen time.
 * Red Eyes, Take Warning: In the books, Lecter is described as having maroon (brownish-red) eyes.
 * Lecter appears with bright red eyes in some posters for Hannibal and Hannibal Rising.
 * Red Right Hand
 * Serial Killer
 * Shipped in Shackles: Lecter, with his iconic mask, is the Trope Codifier. Many franchises have imitated the image as shorthand to indicate Lecter-inspired characters.
 * Small Role, Big Impact: Was a minor character in the book and has limited screen time in the movie, but he is a major force in moving the story forward.
 * Sociopathic Hero: Some of his kills were done against legitimately horrible people, which he intended as a form of public service.
 * The Sociopath
 * Stalker with a Crush: Lecter definitely counts in relation to Starling.
 * Throw It In: Ft-ft-ft-ft-ft-ft.
 * Timeshifted Actor
 * Villain Protagonist: Lector in Silence.
 * Wicked Cultured: His pathology is centered around this trope, as he eats (and serves) his victims as exquisite meals, apparently to prove how much better he is than them; or, in Starling's words, "show his disdain for those who exacerbate him" (or, sometimes, to perform a "public service"). Apart from this, and a more general love of fine dining and drink, he enjoys classical music, is a highly talented artist, and has sufficient knowledge of Dante, the Renaissance and Renaissance literature to get a temp job as a library curator at a Florentine museum, and impress the board enough to nearly make it permanent.

Agent Clarice Starling
"Played By: Jodie Foster & Julianne Moore"


 * Action Girl: So much.
 * Adaptational Heroism: In the film adaptation of Hannibal Clarice does not run off with Hannibal, and remains in the FBI.
 * Alone with the Psycho
 * Badass
 * Failure Knight: With Dead Little Lambs forming the center of the story's central analogy.
 * Fair Cop: Whether played by Jodie Foster or Julianne Moore.
 * FBI Agent
 * Knight in Sour Armor
 * Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Julianne Moore sometimes has Clarice's accent and sometimes does not. To be fair, it was established in The Silence of the Lambs that was she was trying to lose her accent.
 * Pride: Her driving motivation.
 * Worthy Opponent: Lector considers her to be this.

Jack Crawford
"Played By: Scott Glenn & Harvey Keitel "Believe me, you don't want Hannibal Lecter inside your head.""


 * Badass Bookworm
 * FBI Agent
 * Manipulative Bastard
 * The Mentor
 * Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: Deleted scenes in Hannibal mention he had died of cancer before the film.

Jame Gumb AKA Buffalo Bill
"Played By: Ted Levine "It rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again.""


 * Animal Motifs: Moths. Lecter notes he feels his going through a series of molts, like moths do from their pupa state.
 * The Collector of the Strange: Death's Head Moths and the skin of women.
 * Dramatic Gun Cock: Deconstructed. He most likely would have killed Starling after he turned off the lights in his basement, but his gun cock gives him away and Starling quickly shoots him.
 * Effeminate Misogynistic Guy
 * Empty Shell: Those who were friends with him noted he had a lack of any actual uniqueness to him, which he tried to compensate for by trying to adopt other interests and character traits.
 * Freudian Excuse: He has a very unhealthy obsession with his Missing Mom, which is core to his creepy end goals:.
 * Genuine Human Hide
 * Hidden Depths: As Dr. Pilcher notes, the moths Gumb likes don't usually mate in captivity and are hard to breed in general, but Gumb still manages to get them to do this anyway to some extent.
 * Lack of Empathy: He tries to have this trait. It's undermined by genuine love for his dog, which causes him to start showing genuine distress when he fears for his dog's safety, and this indirectly saves the life of one of his victims. He also has to dehumanize his victims in order to kill them.
 * Psychopathic Manchild: More so in the movie than the book. In the book, it's shown while he is mentally deranged and psychologically regressed, he still has some very mature conceptions of right and wrong, and he tries to sublimate them by indulging his own deranged nature.
 * Villainous Crossdresser
 * Serial Killer
 * Sissy Villain: He's trying to be a Transsexual, but as Lecter astutely notes, he really not one, he just thinks he is.
 * Troubled Abuser
 * Weapon of Choice: Prefers a stainless steel, six inch barreled Colt Python chambered for .38 specials.
 * Wounded Gazelle Gambit: He likes to fool his victims into lowering their guard by wearing a fake cast to make them not suspect he's capable of anything serious.

Frederick Chilton
"Played By: Anthony Heald "Oh my, does he hate us. Thinks I'm his nemesis.""


 * Asshole Victim: The book and movie version of The SIlence of the Lambs heavily imply Lecter killed Chilton not long after the plot.
 * Jerkass
 * Jerkass Has a Point: While a douchebag, his love of showing people a picture of when Lecter bit off someone tongue is a useful reminder to NEVER underestimate what Lecter is capable of.
 * Manipulative Bastard
 * Smug Snake
 * Slime Ball
 * Too Dumb to Live: Chilton, while otherwise appropriately cautious in dealing with Lecter on a security level, he's otherwise a middling idiot who resents Lecter for being far more intelligent and regarded despite his incarceration, and in an attempt to make Lecter make him look good, he foolishly provides the means for Lecter to escape, and Lecter even remarks to himself how Chilton played himself.

Barney Matthews
"Played By: Frankie Faison"


 * Black Best Friend: Winds up befriending Lecter, Clarice, and Margot. All for different reasons, but it's genuine to some extent for all three.
 * Nice Guy
 * Morality Pet: for Lecter.
 * Barney notes this trait zigzags. While Lecter genuinely considers Barney a friend and they are amicable to one another, Barney also is well aware Lecter would kill him if the urge ever struck, and thus NEVER lowers his guard despite their friendship. Lecter ironically respects Barney for his caution and this only bolsters their friendship. This later pays off for Barney, as Lecter makes a point of leaving Barney be after his escape, even personally promising him as much, and Barney gets a chance to walk away from recognizing Lecter later without harm, provided Barney takes the hint to keep his mouth shut about it, which he does.
 * Secret Keeper: This is why he lives through the whole franchise:
 * Lecter's secret is his whereabouts after his escape. Barney keeping his silence saves his life.
 * At the end of Hannibal (book), Starling's whereabouts are also kept quiet for the same reasons as Lecter, and the latter lets Barney live in exchange.
 * Margot Verger's secret involves her not so secret plans to off her own brother, and Barney honors her confidence while avoiding having any direct involvement. His caution and discretion save him from joining Mason Verger in death later.

Sgt. Boyle
"Played By: Charles Napier"


 * Cruel and Unusual Death: Boyle is beaten with his own club, and then crucified in Lecter’s cell.
 * Jerkass: Uncooperative and passiver aggressive towards Clarice and threatens to beat Lecter for ordering a second dinner.
 * He's portrayed in a much more neutral light in the book, not that it spares him any pain at Lecter's hands.

Sgt. Pembry
"Played By: Alex Coleman"


 * Cruel and Unusual Death: See Facial Horror below.
 * Dead Person Impersonation: By Lecter in a rather gruesome example.
 * Facial Horror: Lecter slices off his face with a switchblade so he can impersonate Pembry.
 * Nice Guy: He's very polite to Lecter, but contrary to how Lecter usually shows mercy to those who aren't rude, this doesn't save him.
 * Small Role, Big Impact: Pembry gets very little characterization, but he is a key component to Lecter’s escape - or rather, his face is.

Mason Verger
"Played By: Gary Oldman "When the fox hears the rabbit scream he comes a-runnin'... but not to help.""


 * Asshole Victim: He get murdered by people he victimized in both book and movie.
 * Big Bad: of Hannibal.
 * Non-Action Big Bad
 * Depraved Bisexual
 * Devil in Plain Sight: Mason does a horrible job disguising how much of a human shitstain he is, despite a weak front as being a born-again Christian he uses to hide it.
 * Facial Horror
 * Evil Cripple
 * Evil Makes You Ugly
 * Evil Versus Evil: He wants Lecter dead for ruining his face. However, when you consider why Lecter did it, LECTER comes off as less evil, as Lecter crippled and disfigured Mason for his crimes against his sister in the book, while Mason was crippled in the movie just because Mason had a history of being a pedophile (common to the book and movie).

Paul Krendler
"Played By: Ray Liotta, Paul Vauwter in The Silence of the Lambs"


 * Adaptational Attractiveness: Paul Vauwter's Krendler is a balding middle aged guy, Ray Liotta's doing the role later made Krendler much more attractive in looks, but their personalities are still just as terrible.
 * Asshole Victim: Lecter eventually lobotomizes and then executes Krendler in Hannibal (book and movie). In both cases, Lecter even goes so far as to even . Even worse, . Regardless, he dies without pity.
 * Dirty Cop: He's politically ambitious and desperate enough to fuel this ambition he's willing to take blood money in exchange for helping Mason Verger murder Lecter.
 * Flat Character: Krendler was portrayed as a generic Obstructive Bureaucrat in his first appearance in the books, though he would be fleshed out quite a bit in Hannibal (both book and movie)
 * Jerkass
 * Smug Snake

Chief Inspector Rinaldo Pazzi
"Played By: Giancarlo Giannini"


 * Anti-Villain; At least in the movie. The book version is a far more venal Dirty Cop who made a serious mistake fingering the wrong perp once, compounded it by possibly planting evidence, then later chose to be a totally corrupt cop after his disgrace.
 * Dirty Cop: The book version was initially an honest cop, but ambition to close the Il Mostro case caused him to experiment with playing fast and loose with the law, and the disgrace afterwards only pushed him farther down that path.
 * Named After Somebody Famous: And not in a good way. One of his ancestors murdered a member of the Medici family and tried to kill another and was hanged for it.
 * Humiliation Conga
 * Too Dumb to Live: He didn't really have to make a point of sticking around to make Lecter would get murdered, but he just had to make sure it would happen. Lecter used this against him and it got him killed.
 * Well-Intentioned Extremist: He does believe Lecter needs to be removed from the Earth as a monster, though his means are as corrupt and venal as they come to achieve this end.

Dr Cordell Doemling
"Played By: Zeljko Ivanek "One's eyes adjust to the darkness.""


 * Butt Monkey
 * Composite Character: Of the book version of Cordell and Dr. Doemling, who was a psychiatrist hired to profile Lecter in the book for only a few chapters but otherwise played a minor role. The movie combines the two characters into one person.
 * The Dog Bites Back: In the movie, Cordell gets convinced to off Mason by Lecter. In the book, Cordell is killed by so the latter can do this trope to Mason, with Cordell simply being a human speed bump in the way.
 * Minion with an F In Evil: For different reasons in book and movie.
 * Book Cordell is basically a high paid flunky who is a Dirty Coward and let's others take the heat for any real risks.
 * Movie Cordell is not so much loyal to Mason as he simply wants to stop Lecter, but his disgust for Mason wins out over this towards the end.
 * Morally-Ambiguous Doctorate: In the movie. The book version is specified to have some form of nursing experience in Switzerland, but lost it after some incidents involving apparent child abuse.
 * Only in It For the Money: Especially so in the book, where he tries to offer Lecter a Mercy Kill in exchange for money as opposed to Lecter getting a Cruel and Unusual Death. Lecter turns him dowm.
 * Punch Clock Villain

Agent Will Graham
"Played By: Edward Norton"


 * Badass Bookworm
 * FBI Agent
 * Guile Hero
 * Not So Different
 * One Last Job
 * Perpetual Frowner
 * Photographic Memory
 * The Profiler

Francis Dolarhyde
"Played By: Ralph Fiennes "Before me, you rightly tremble. But, fear is not what you owe me. You owe me awe!""


 * Ax Crazy
 * Big Bad: of Red Dragon.
 * Blind and the Beast: The Beast.
 * Bring My Brown Pants: As a child, when it was perfectly normal. His grandmother viewed it differently, threatening to castrate him. It becomes something of a Berserk Button for him.
 * Even Evil Has Standards: Exploited. When he holds Will’s son hostage and threatens to murder him, Will begins insulting his son in a similar manner to the verbal abuse Dolarhyde suffered. Dolarhyde freaks out and drops the boy to attack Will.
 * Freudian Excuse
 * Genius Bruiser
 * Gollum Made Me Do It
 * Red Right Hand
 * Split Personality
 * The Stoic
 * Not So Stoic
 * Sympathetic Murderer
 * Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds

Reba McClane
"Played By: Emily Watson "If there's anything I hate worse than pity, it's fake pity.""


 * Blind and the Beast: The blind.
 * Disabled Love Interest
 * Disabled Snarker
 * Morality Pet: for Dolarhyde.
 * Twofer Token Minority: She lampshades this.

Molly Graham
"Played By: Mary-Louise Parker"


 * Took a Level In Badass

Freddy Lounds
"Played By: Phillip Seymour Hoffman"


 * Jerkass
 * Paparazzi
 * Paparazzi

Ralph Mandy
"Played By: Frank Whaley"


 * Jerkass
 * Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Ralph's hitting on Reba ultimately causes Dolarhyde's Heel Face Door Slam.


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