Captain Vidal

Captain Vidal is the main antagonist of the 2006 hit Spanish dark fantasy film Pan's Labyrinth and its 2019 novelization.

He was portrayed by Sergi López.

His Qualities[]

Thanks to Sergi Lopez's amazing acting, he looks quite charismatic and epic.
His backstory is somewhat tragic given that the loss of his father deeply affected him and left a hole in his life as he felt he could never live up to him.
He is an incredibly brave man who is not afraid of anything and was even willing to sacrifice his own life to achieve his goal.
He is a very skilled commander who managed to track down and defeat many partisans.
His speech in the dinner scene was written to show some complexity to his character, as despite being a sociopath he believes his actions are for the good of the community.
He is very strong mentally, because even after a severe injury he was not discouraged, and even sewed up his wound himself, enduring the pain.
Although the moment of his death did not cause much sympathy, he still looked very dignified in it, because he saved his child, and then voluntarily accepted death at the hands of a partisan.

He is incredibly cruel and sadistic, because he killed and tortured to death so many partisans and innocent people without showing the slightest remorse.
When his wife's condition began to deteriorate, he ordered Dr. Ferreiro that if he had to choose, he would save Vidal's unborn child, not the mother. This led to the death of his wife in childbirth.
He captures a rebel named Tarta and psychologically tortures him, saying that he will be released if he can count to three without stuttering, correctly predicting that he will fail the test. He then tortures him to the point that Tarta wishes for death.
He brutally kills Ophelia for trying to escape with her brother.

He was originally considered a Hate Sink and was even a headline in Hate Sink Wiki, but was removed after it was decided that he was not just meant to be hated because the film's director Guillermo del Toro, in a commentary on the film on the DVD, confirmed he was written as a three-dimensional and humanizing character.