< The Silence of the Lambs

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

Dr. Hannibal Lektor

Played by: Brian Cox

Lecktor: You want the scent? Smell yourself.

Francis Dolarhyde

Played by: Tom Noonan

You owe me awe.

Jack Crawford

Played by: Dennis Farina

Freddie Lounds

Played by Stephen Lang

The Silence of the Lambs

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.
    • If he considers you "rude", he will make a point of ending your life in a very painful way.
  • Big Bad Friend: Acts like this in the opening for the Red Dragon movie, where he seems legitimately sad about attacking Graham, whom he honestly seemed to like. Apparently, he's a really sore loser, because when he and Graham meet again, it's pretty clear that he now hates the guy.
  • Boxed Crook: In the first two books and movies, though thanks to Chilton's meddling, this gets screwed up and helps Lecter escape.
  • 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 bites a guard on the face, then pepper sprays him, then bludgeons the guard's friend to death with a truncheon -- friend who is unarmed, and has his hands handcuffed to the cage bars. 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. [1]
    • 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.
  • Devil in Plain Sight: Discussed. Lecter notes surprise people are blind to this concerning himself most of the time, and most who knew him before his murders came to light found it hard to believe he was so evil.
  • Diabolical Mastermind
  • Dissonant Serenity: His pulse was noted to never go above one hundred even during his most brutal attacks.
  • 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: His sister was fed to him by Nazi Cannibals when he was a child. As executed, it made everything else about Lecter mentioned 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 characterization 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: And a rather picky eater, too. He passed up a liver from one of his kills due to it being cirrhotic once and is particularly fond of the thymus and pancreas of his victims.
  • 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 finally settles down with Starling following the events of the novel.
    • Downplayed in the film version of Hannibal, where he escapes justice but loses his hand in the process.
  • Knife Nut: His signature form of attack involves blades, usually those made by Spyderco.
  • Kubrick Stare: This is Lecter's default expression when revving up the creepy.
  • Manipulative Bastard: Combined with his psychiatric training, this makes him a master of molding the emotional state of people. He even convinces a man to kill himself with little more than mere words.
  • Morally-Ambiguous Doctorate: He had a full doctorate in psychiatry from Johns Hopkins University, and while it's entirely legitimate, the people he actually helped versus those he messed up further is up for heavy debate in the books and movies.
  • One-Scene Wonder: Anthony Hopkins won a Best Leading Actor for only 24 minutes of screen time.
  • Psycho Psychologist: Zigzagged. He's not insane in the typical sense, he's well aware of what he is doing and is clear on that to anyone who asks, but he is mentally disturbed in the sense he's a sociopath who sees his psychiatric training as a means to his ends and sees people as one of three things. If he likes you, he'll leave you alone. If he considers you "rude", he will make a point of ending your life, and if he's hungry, you are dinner.
  • 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: Has six fingers on his right hand in TSOTL's book version. He gets the extra digit removed by the next book, but the scar left behind is quite noticeable for awhile.
    • He does, however, weaponize his six fingered hand in his escape plan in the second book, using it to distract from the handcuff key hidden in his other hand before he unlocks the cuffs.
  • Serial Killer: And it's implied he may have been one under more than one name by the third book.
  • 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.
  • Stalker with a Crush: Lecter definitely counts in relation to Starling.
  • Throw It In: Ft-ft-ft-ft-ft-ft.
  • Timeshifted Actor
  • Villain Protagonist: Lecter ever since the second book and all subsequent adaptations.
  • Weapon of Choice: A knife is his favorite weapon, though he also is fond of crossbows.
  • 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.
  • Worthy Opponent: Discussed.
    • Will Graham and Lecter initially were this, but Lecter grew to hate the man. Graham came to the same conclusion.
    • Lecter will admit, grudgingly, that Jack Crawford is brilliant, but Crawford has nothing but contempt for Lecter.
    • Clarice Starling and Lecter have a healthy respect for one another, though more from his side than hers.

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: By Hannibal, she earned a lot of jealous enemies who all want to see her fall for their own reasons, a fact she becomes increasingly aware of,and she find it quite depressing, though she still tries to do her job regardless.
  • 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. Generally channeled in a positive direction, but Lecter manages to find a way to manipulate her via that same drive.
  • Worthy Opponent: Lector considers her to be this. She feels the same way, though does resent the fact a lot of his commentary hits way too close to home.

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 entirety of the first twenty chapters of the second book was all his design to get Lecter to show off what he knew because he immediately realized Lecter did know things integral to the Bufflalo Bill case, and Starling is both impressed and somewhat annoyed he manipulated her to pull it off. Even Lecter realizes how well Crawford played him later and grudgingly concedes Jack was quite sharp.
  • The Mentor
  • Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: Deleted scenes in Hannibal mention he had died of cancer before the film.
  • Worthy Opponent: Utterly subverted concerning Lecter. While Lecter will grudgingly give Jack credit for his clever moments, Crawford refuses to return the favor.

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: Gumb's sexuality is incredibly confused. While trying to become a lady, he's violent to gay men despite otherwise adopting many mannerism of a stereotypical one.
  • 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:to BECOME her by making a suit out of real flesh from actual women.
  • Genuine Human Hide: He wants to make a girl suit out of real girls.
  • 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.
    • While disturbing, he shows an incredible amount of foresight in the preparation of hides and their use in tailoring, with the only disturbing note being he intends to use human flesh as the hides in question.
  • 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.
  • Pet the Dog: Literally. His love for his dog Precious is one of his few humanizing qualities.
  • 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's 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 well 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.
  • The Rival: He considers himself this to Lecter,who considers Chilton not even worth thinking about in the same way.

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

Hannibal

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.
  • As the Good Book Says...: As part of his weak cover for his Complete Monster tendencies he lapses into a lot of this.
  • Big Bad: of Hannibal.
  • Brother-Sister Incest: Raped his sister, and it's heavily implied their father may have known about it but didn't care since Margot was The Unfavorite.
  • The Corrupter: It's mentioned he did this to children he molested when he was younger, and he plays on Krendler's Greed to make Krendler his willing tool. He mentions, with sardonic Irony to Starling, he tried to be this to LECTER, of all people, and in hindsight, it's blackly comical he thought he could.
  • 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).
  • Hidden Depths: While his religious faith is just an act, he is a very keen Bible scholar.
  • Hypocrite: He embodies this to an absurd degree.
  • Pay Evil Unto Evil: He passes off what he wants to do to Lecter as this, but it's just straight up revenge and he doesn't really try to pretend otherwise.
  • Revenge: His entire goal against Lecter.
  • Screw the Rules, I Have Money: His primary means of getting his way.

Paul Krendler

Played By: Ray Liotta, Ron 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 cook and eat parts of Krendler's brain while he is still alive. Even worse, Krendler get fed some of his own brain as he's dying. 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
    • Jerkass Has a Point: When they first met, Krendler told Starling her biggest problem was pissing off the wrong people. Granted, he turns out to be one of them, but he was astute in noting what would cost her later.
  • 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 sure 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 Margot Verger 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 lets 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 down.
  • Punch Clock Villain

Red Dragon

Agent Will Graham

Played By: Edward Norton

Francis Dolarhyde

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

Reba McClane

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

Molly Graham

Played By: Mary-Louise Parker

Freddy Lounds

Played By: Phillip Seymour Hoffman

Ralph Mandy

Played By: Frank Whaley

Back to The Silence of the Lambs
  1. ↑ It is quite good.
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