Changes: Mason Verger

Revision as of 11:22, 22 August 2017

Mason Verger is the main antagonist in the 1999 novel Hannibal and the 2001 film of the same name, in which he is portrayed by Gary Oldman.

Verger is a surviving victim of Hannibal Lecter. Lecter drugged Verger and then convinced him to simultaneously hang himself and cut off most of his own face with a piece of broken mirror, then feed it to his dogs. His neck broken, Verger is left crippled and horrifically deformed. Prior to his disfigurement by Lecter, Verger was a sexual deviant and a sadistic pedophile who continued to enjoy watching children suffer after his crippling. He also planned to use his vast fortune to capture and murder Lecter in revenge.

Biography

Mason Verger was the only son of Molson Verger and sole heir to the Verger meatpacking dynasty.

Pre-Hannibal

As a young man, Mason was enrolled in a summer camp owned by his father, where he often "took advantage" of the other children - he later described them as "unfortunates, who will do anything for a candy bar." He also physically and sexually abused his younger sister, Margot. As an adult, he traveled to Uganda, where he claimed to have worked with Idi Amin and joined in re-enacting the Crucifixion with a real victim. As well as pedophilia, Verger engaged in other deviant practices, such as auto-erotic asphyxiation, zoosadism, sadomasochism, and as a youth, would masturbate in class.

After being convicted of child abuse, Mason was able to avoid jail time by agreeing to perform community service and undergo therapy. He was assigned to Hannibal Lecter and one evening invited the doctor to his home. Mason answered the door wearing leather S&M gear and showed Lecter a noose that he used to perform autoerotic asphyxiation on himself, as well as a couple of dogs that Mason had abducted from the animal shelter where he was volunteering, which he was deliberately starving.

Mason later recalled he had foolishly believed his antics would frighten Lecter, but instead, Lecter politely asked for a demonstration of Mason's noose and offered him what he claimed was an amyl popper. Mason accepted, believing he was entrapping Lecter into giving him prescription drugs for the rest of his life. The "popper" actually contained an incredibly potent cocktail of psychedelic drugs. Lecter then broke a mirror and suggested Mason cut off his own face with a shard and feed it to the dogs. Mason did so ("It seemed like a good idea at the time"), but ate his nose himself ("Tastes just like chicken!"), though he did not remember doing so until Lecter reminded him years later. Lecter then tightened the noose that Mason was still wearing, breaking his neck and rendering him quadraplegic.

Hannibal

Paralyzed and horribly deformed, Mason's facial wounds were partially repaired by skin grafts from the rest of his body. His legs and most of his body were useless, requiring a respirator to breathe for him, though one of his hands was semi-functional. As his father's sole heir (his father disowned his sister after discovering she was a lesbian), Mason still enjoyed the full use of his family's wealth and power. When Lecter was imprisoned for his murders, Verger attempted to use his wealth to have Lecter executed. He was enraged to find that Lecter was found insane and sent to an asylum instead. Verger also tried to have Lecter assassinated in prison.

When Lecter escaped custody, Verger became obsessed with getting revenge on Lecter. He went on hiring an elite gang of Sardinian kidnappers and using his company's resources to create a special breed of gigantic, vicious wild boars, intending to have Lecter captured and then slowly eaten alive. He also posted a bounty on Lecter: $1 million for Dr. Lecter's head and hands, but $3 million for Lecter alive. A corrupt Italian police inspector, Rinaldo Pazzi, attempted to collect the latter bounty by assisting Verger's men in kidnapping Lecter from Florence, but ended up being killed himself. Lecter then sent Verger a letter, chiding him for his men's clumsiness and promising, "before you die you will see my face."

Realizing that Lecter was fascinated with FBI Agent Clarice Starling, Mason used his contacts in the U.S. government, including Starling's nemesis, Paul Krendler, to have Starling suspended from the Bureau on falsified charges that she had been aiding Lecter in hiding from justice.

Verger succeeded in luring Lecter to the United States long enough for his men to kidnap him. While in the barn, Verger described the plan to Lecter. Margot went to the barn and reminisced over the past, where Lecter told her to kill Mason and that he would take the blame. Before he could be eaten by the boars, Lecter was rescued by Starling, who had gone rogue from the Bureau. Verger retreated to his house, but was killed there by Margot, who removed Verger's pet moray eel from its tank and shoved it between his jaws. The eel bit off Verger's tongue and he drowned in his own blood. Before killing him, Margot used a cattle prod to stimulate Mason's prostate and extract a small measure of his sperm to impregnate her lover since Molson Verger's will left the family fortune to his next-living male relative in the event of Mason's death. Lecter sent a tape to the FBI gloating how he enjoyed killing Verger.

Film Version

In the film, Margot does not appear. Instead, Hannibal convinces Verger's physician, Dr. Cordell Doemling, to turn on his abusive and ungrateful master and push him into the pit of wild boars, saying that Cordell can always put the blame on Lecter. Convinced, Cordell pushes Verger into the pen before leaving, and Verger is last seen being torn apart and eaten by the boars.

Trivia / Canon Conflicts

According to Will Graham, in Red Dragon, at the time of that novel, Hannibal Lecter had killed nine known victims, and attacked two others who didn't die. One of these victims was a permanent resident of a sanitorum, and one was on a respirator in Maryland. Neither of these living victims was named in the novel, but the latter is presumably a reference to Mason. On the back covers of some versions of Hannibal, Mason was Lecter's sixth victim. This seems to be a contradiction, as Red Dragon states that Lecter's sixth victim was the bow hunter, killed in the style of Wound Man. However Verger may have been the sixth person Lecter attacked.

By contrast, in the film version of Hannibal, Clarice Starling describes Mason Verger as Lecter's only surviving victim (the fourth).

@@ Line 17: / Line 17: @@
 ===Pre-Hannibal===
-As a young man, Mason was enrolled in a summer camp owned by his father, where he often "took advantage" of the other children - he later described them as "unfortunates, who will do anything for a candy bar." He also physically and sexually abused his younger sister, [[Margot Verger|Margot]]. As an adult, he traveled to Uganda, where he claimed to have worked with Idi Amin and joined in re-enacting the Crucifixion with a real victim. As well as pedophilia, Verger engaged in other deviant practices, such as auto-erotic asphyxiation, zoosadism, sadomasochism, and as a youth, would masturbate in class.
+As a young man, Mason was enrolled in a summer camp owned by his father, where he often "took advantage" of the other children - he later described them as "unfortunates, who will do anything for a candy bar." He also physically and sexually abused his younger sister, [[Margot Verger (TV)|Margot]]. As an adult, he traveled to Uganda, where he claimed to have worked with Idi Amin and joined in re-enacting the Crucifixion with a real victim. As well as pedophilia, Verger engaged in other deviant practices, such as auto-erotic asphyxiation, zoosadism, sadomasochism, and as a youth, would masturbate in class.
 After being convicted of child abuse, Mason was able to avoid jail time by agreeing to perform community service and undergo therapy. He was assigned to Hannibal Lecter and one evening invited the doctor to his home. Mason answered the door wearing leather S&M gear and showed Lecter a noose that he used to perform autoerotic asphyxiation on himself, as well as a couple of dogs that Mason had abducted from the animal shelter where he was volunteering, which he was deliberately starving.