Captain Vidal vs Colonel Tavington
Long ago, I rewatched Pan's Labyrinth (2006) with the intention of comparing its villain with from The Patriot's. Then and also in last week's rewatch, I was surprised to find even more similarities than I expected. In no particular order, some things these two men have in common: rooting out rebel forces, child-killing, torturing, speech-making, and shaving. So, why is it that Vidal is the most terrifying movie villain I've encountered in my adult life while Tavington is my babygirl? There are three reasons.
Vidal is crueler to his enemies than Tavington.
Captain Vidal (Sergi Lopez) sees the rebels as vermin to be exterminated. Within about ten minutes of his first appearance he brutally and unexpectedly murders a young man with a wine bottle in front of his father for having Communist propaganda, and then murders the father. He seems to relish torturing rebels and attempts to do so on two occasions. In the first scene, Vidal addresses the man in a conversational tone while showing him the implements of torture he plans to use to get him to talk and explaining the effects he believe they will have. He taunts the man, who suffers from a speech impediment, that he will let him go if he can count to three without stuttering. He also makes a speech to Mercedes, but it is interrupted when she attacks him with the knife we saw her sew into her apron earlier. Although Vidal views the rebel man with contempt, he faces him during his speech. Mercedes is only able to escape because Vidal is so little concerned about her as a threat that he makes the whole speech with his back to her. Like Tavington, running his mouth gets him into trouble.
Colonel Tavington (Jason Isaacs), in spite of claiming to find "real pleasure" in his victim's suffering, is prepared to ride away from his first encounter with the Martin family without killing anyone. He metes out Martin's punishment for having aided rebel soldiers, threatens him and his children with his pistol, and seems content until Thomas ignores the warning and rushes to free his brother. After one rebel dies under torture, Tavington offers his companion a chance at more riches to add to his stolen ones if he gives up the information. I think Tavington is lying here and would kill this man even if he had accepted the offer, but that he is trying to get out of torturing him too provides a sharp contrast to Vidal, who is clearly mixing business with pleasure.
2. Vidal is crueler to those close to him than Tavington.
Vidal's men are as rattled by his murder of the farmer and his son as the audience, and yet he lays the blame for his actions at their door: "Let this teach you to search these fools before you come bothering me." He berates them similarly throughout other scenes. Tavington is clearly annoyed that the lieutenant he replaces as the highest ranking officer at the Martin farm does not know who carried the dispatches handed directly to Tavington in spite of having arrived two whole minutes before him, but he does not reprimand him. Tavington's second in command shows signs of being afraid of him both during his interview with the wounded soldier and after the first tortured militaman dies, but Tavington never behaves towards Bordon in ways that justify that fear. After Tavington's men follow him into Martin's trap, he does make some attempt to stop the charge and mitigate the damage he caused.
The sharpest contrast, though, lies in Vidal, unlike Tavington, having members of his own family on hand to mistreat. Initially, he seems to show some concern for Carmen, his wife and Ofelia's mother, but it quickly becomes clear that this is only a facade. When Dr. Ferreiro tells him that Carmen should not have traveled so near her due date, Vidal responds, "a son should be born where his father is," and when she falls dangerously ill, he tells the doctor to save his son, even at the expense of his mother. Vidal is indirectly responsible for Carmen's death, and, of course, very directly responsible for Ofelia's, but one particular incident of cruelty really resonated with me on this last rewatch. At the dinner party Vidal hosts, one of the officers' wives asks Carmen how she and Vidal met, and she explains that her late husband had made his uniforms. Vidal apologizes for her and says, "My wife is uneducated, and she believes these kinds of silly stories are interesting to people." If he is embarrassed at having married is deceased tailor's wife, perhaps he should not have married his deceased tailor's wife? Embarrassed or not, he saw a polite exchange between two women and said, "What in the fuck is that? I hate it!" Carmen is not a wife to him but a broodmare, and Ofelia is simply a nuisance. The only person he really cares for is his son, though even that care is questionable.
3. Vidal's evil actions are backed by evil principles
While Guillermo del Toro's heroes in this film are communists, the film is so much presenting communism in a favorable light as it is absolutely skewering fascism and the kind of masculinity that goes with it. Tavington and Vidal's attention to personal grooming initially appears to be a similarity, but closer inspection reveals the differences. The scene where Tavington shaves in the creek sets him apart from his own men, who are socializing with each other, but also the more rugged militiamen who cannot be bothered with such superficial concerns (and yet remain barefaced nonetheless . . . somehow). Vidal, though, is shown shaving on several occasions. And shining his boots. And cleaning his watch. As any second wave feminist can tell you, it's not about the final effect but the work it takes to produce it. Vidal is reproducing a rigid, militaristic masculinity like it's his job, which in some respects it certainly is. It is also a family legacy.
Both films provide stories about the villain's fathers, but while Tavington's is told by him in a scene of surprising emotional honesty given his usual propensity for lying his ass off, Vidal's is told by an unnamed man at the aforementioned dinner party. When he describes General Vidal breaking his watch in battle so his son would know at what time he died, Vidal replies, "That's ridiculous. My father never owned a watch." If you want to dispel a rumor, telling an even more ridiculous lie is not the way to do it. It is not a rumor, though, and Vidal confirms that when he hands his son to Mercedes at the end of the film and holds up his watch, saying, "Tell my son when his father died." In his eyes, this child is less a child than a replica.
Vidal's masculinity is one rooted in violent domination of both women and men that he sees as less than himself. He wants to pass these traits on to his son. As he explains to Ferreiro, "That boy will carry my name and my father's." Tavington also seeks to subjugate the local population, but like his shaving, this does not set him apart from the film's heroes in the ways the filmmakers intended. Vidal is evil because he's a patriarchal fascist in a feminist fantasy/drama. Tavington is evil because he's British in an American nationalist propaganda piece. I would argue that Vidal "works" better as a villain simply because Pan's Labyrinth is a better-written, smarter story than The Patriot. Of all the insights comparing these films has brought me, my favorite has to do with fatherhood. While Roland Emmerich sets it up as a virtue in and of itself. del Toro reminds the audience that being a father does not necessarily have to do with being selfless and caring. On the contrary, it can be narcissistic. Caring for one's own children carries little weight if it does not also entail caring for other people's children, as Mercedes does when she takes Vidal's son from his arms and when she tries to protect Ofelia from him. She breaks the patriarchal cycle when she responds to Vidal's final demand with, "No. [Your son] won't even know your name."
Indeed, it has been a real struggle to write this post without digressing onto the topic of how well-written and amazing the heroes of Pan's Labyrinth are in comparison to The Patriot's, but that's another post!