Skulduggery Pleasant Wiki
Register
Advertisement
Spoiler Image Baron "You abomination!"
This article does not have all the current information from the latest books. Please help fill in any missing biography.
"He put on his armour to hide his previous self. He choose a new name to kill his former self. Skullduggery Pleasant left the battlefield and Lord Vile entered through the door of my temple."
Auron Tenebrae, Skulduggery Pleasant: Death Bringer
Lord Vile
VileGrimoire
Character Information
Taken Name Lord Vile
Species Human
Gender Male
Birth Unknown
Age Unknown
Magic Necromancy
Faction Three Generals (formerly)
Weapons Lord Vile's armour
Titles Death Bringer
Location Unknown

Lord Vile[1] is an immensely powerful Necromancer and was one of The Three Generals for Mevolent. Lord Vile was also said to be the Death Bringer, the Messiah of the Necromancers, but was stripped of that title after he betrayed the Necromancers to serve under Mevolent. In Death Bringer, it is revealed by Auron Tenebrae that Vile is Skulduggery Pleasant, consumed by anger and grief during the war over the loss of his family and friends. Vile is an evil part of his subconscious, similar to what Darquesse is to Valkyrie Cain.

History

After being brought back to life, thanks to the trick played on Nefarian Serpine by High Priest Auron Tenebrae, Skulduggery Pleasant, consumed by rage and partly influenced by Abyssinia, donned black armour, and started training to become a Necromancer, creating the alias Lord Vile. Skulduggery is "magically ambidextrous", meaning he was able to learn a second discipline of magic. Having shown a natural aptitude for Necromancy before, it took mere months of training until Vile was immensely powerful, thus leading the Necromancers to believe that Lord Vile was their Death Bringer. However, during his training, Vile's deep venturing allowed him to make contact with the Viddu De, a race of dead gods from a death universe who turned him into their herald and gave him the power to see all possible futures. Under the influence of these visions and his new masters's commands, Vile betrayed the Necromancers before he could even learn about The Passage and joined Mevolent's forces, becoming one of The Three Generals. According to Cadaver Cain - a future version of Skulduggery and Vile - this ability to see the future is what led Vile to become the most feared of Mevolent's Three Generals as he was never once defeated. During this period, he killed Ghastly Bespoke's Mother.

According to Skulduggery, he finally came to his senses after murdering millions, and, deep inside a mountain, he took off the armour of Lord Vile. Afterwards, he vowed to redeem himself for his "unspeakably evil" deeds. He also abandoned his family crest until he felt he had earned the right to it again. Cadaver Cain later claimed that leaving Vile's identity and blocking some of his memories alongside his future vision was all part of a centuries-long plan to bring the Viddu De to this universe.

Whatever the truth is, it left Lord Vile trapped in Skulduggery's subconscious. Tenebrae states that because Skulduggery was trapped in a dimension with the Faceless Ones, he became unhinged, which consequently allowed Lord Vile to surface once more. In The Faceless Ones, Ghastly says that he faced Vile in the war, after his mother's death, but Vile didn't kill him. The conversation is interrupted but it can be assumed that this was when Skulduggery came to his senses and Vile "disappeared".

Biography

Playing with Fire

In Playing with Fire, Baron Vengeous is broken out of prison to finish his work to bring back the Faceless Ones, using the Grotesquery. One "ingredient", as China Sorrows puts it, to revive the Grotesquery was to use a Necromancer's powers. Since Vengeous was not a Necromancer, he made to search the caves where Lord Vile was said to have disappeared, and his armour had vanished with it. In order to wear the armour, he has special protective clothing made for him, since touching a Necromancer's Inhibited Object without permission would kill him. Upon finding Vile's armour, he uses it to revive the Grotesquery. He continues to wear it, however, since it makes him immensely powerful. The darkness can soak up bullets, wipe away fireballs and other magic waves, and even broke Mr. Bliss's knuckles later on. However, when Skulduggery later battles Vengeous and rips the chest plate off, Valkyrie ignites the protective clothing underneath and Vengeous is defeated. After defeating Vengeous and the Grotesquery, the armour was hidden by Thurid Guild, who was Grand Mage at the time, "so nobody could use it again". However, Skulduggery is suspicious of Guild and believes he has his own plans for the armour.

"I believe he will hide it away until he has a use for it." Skulduggery Pleasant

Mortal Coil

When Tesseract flees from Skulduggery after he successfully assassinated the Torment, Vile's armour appears and strikes down Tesseract with relative ease. Skulduggery then also attempts to fight the armour but he too is then defeated. The armour appears to speak to Skulduggery, though the dying Tesseract can only hear Skulduggery's voice. Skulduggery begins to utter in disbelief; "You're dead. You're not real. You're dead." The armour then disappears with a burst of shadows, leaving Tesseract and Skulduggery stunned.

Tesseract, mortally wounded, then has a conversation with Skulduggery where Skulduggery reveals that the man announced himself as Lord Vile and that he has come back to kill the Death Bringer and all Necromancers. Tesseract then questions Skulduggery, asking why Lord Vile would tell Skulduggery about his plans. When Skulduggery doesn't answer, Tesseract goes on and explains how he makes files on anyone he is likely to go up against, implying he has made one on Skulduggery. He says that there is no known account of Skulduggery ever facing Lord Vile, in fact when Lord Vile came into the War Skulduggery left. Tesseract also said Skulduggery was scared of Lord Vile and he implied that Lord Vile had something to do with the resurrection of Skulduggery.

Death Bringer

Lord Vile New After being captured in the necromancer temple, Auron Tenebrae reveals to Skulduggery that it was by his doing that Skulduggery had survived Serpine's red right-hand, and much to Valkyrie's horror, Tenebrae tells her about Lord Vile really being Skulduggery. Later on, they confront the Necromancer Melancholia St Clair who is the supposed Death Bringer in the caves under Gordon Edgley's house. To defeat her, Skulduggery calls upon Lord Vile but after wounding her, he is consumed by his old persona. Valkyrie and Melancholia escape the caves but are swiftly pursued. Valkyrie calls upon Darquesse, and an epic battle ensues in which they both sustain massive injuries before resuming their true personalities.

Kingdom of the Wicked

In the alternate dimension, it is revealed that Skulduggery is still in his angered state and is still Lord Vile. When the resistance tries to break Valkyrie out, Lord Vile attacks, however, they escape. Vile then sends a full-on attack and he captures all the escaping prisoners. Later, back in our dimension, Skulduggery turns into Vile to fight Doran, Kitana and Sean, despite them being stronger, he is more skilful and manages to kill them with Darquesse's help. Vile is able to turn Darquesse back into Valkyrie by tapping a tune he had driven into his subconscious, so as to remember it as Vile, triggering a series of flashes that knock Darquesse out. He then pulls himself out of Vile's state of mind and being.

Last Stand of Dead Men

Lord Vile is mentioned multiple times during Last Stand of Dead Men. Notably, when the Dead Men tell Valkyrie the story of their battle with Vile and an army of Undead, Skulduggery does not wish the story to be told, though the other members of the Dead Men think this is because Skulduggery isn't in it - although he is, in a form. Lord Vile only makes one brief appearance, when Skulduggery's arm is ripped off by the Black Cleaver, Vile briefly takes over (without donning the armour) and blasts the Black Cleaver, with enough force to break every bone in his body.

The Dying of the Light

Lord Vile fights Darquesse alongside Melancholia St Clair. Skulduggery takes charge again after an explosion took place in Roarhaven.

In the alternate dimension, Lord Vile goes face to face with Skulduggery, and flings him away after Skulduggery claims to be a better man than Vile. Vile later aids in the attack against Darquesse when she visits Mevolent's dimension, severely injuring her. Vile tries to retrieve Mevolent's gun that can briefly drain a user of their magic, but the gun is destroyed and Vile leaves, injured.

Seasons of War

In the alternate dimension, Lord Vile, who is now The Death Bringer, started an infection that caused Draugar to overwhelm sorcerers. After Mevolent opened the portals to Roarhaven from Tahil na Kurge, Lord Vile betrayed and killed Mevolent with relative ease. He is later killed himself when Valkyrie Cain uses The Sceptre of the Ancients, turning him to dust.

Dead or Alive

Lord Vile doesn't appear though he is mentioned during the time Valkyrie and Skulduggery meet Cadaver Cain, a future version of Skulduggery who opposes the Faceless Ones after they returned to their world 72 years previously.

Hell Breaks Loose

Lord Vile first appears in this book because Valkyrie travelling back in time caused Lord Vile to emerge much earlier than he was meant to in the timeline. When Skulduggery is taunted by Serpine he is filled with so much hate Lord Vile begins to emerge in the form of shadowy tendrils slipping out from behind his ribcage. These tendrils proceed to become sharp and lacerate Serpine into what is described as "Ribbons". Later in the book, he emerges fully, but, he does something quite different to what we've seen before, he takes over Skulduggery's body but instead of donning shadow armour, he just uses Skulduggery's base form, which is destroyed by Abhor Strickent (turned into dust) supposedly being killed, but later reforming as a skeleton made of pure shadow wielding a pure shadow sword, in this state no physical attacks seemed to harm him, rather scatter the shadow which simply reformed.

Personality

Lord Vile is cold and cruel, and has an obsession with murder and destruction. He apparently has no sense of remorse, as he "killed whole battlefields" without a second thought. Skulduggery says in The Death Bringer that Lord Vile doesn't care who his enemy is, as long as he has one.

Magic

When Skulduggery is inside Vile's armour, he is an extremely powerful Necromancer (on the same level as someone who has utilised their True Name, as demonstrated by his fights with Darquesse), possessing the ability to manipulate darkness and shadows to his will, almost unconsciously. Without Skulduggery inside, the armour acts as though alive and sentient, and has incredible power, easily besting both Skulduggery and Tesseract, but not Melancholia, as shown when she easily beats the armour in the sixth book.

With Skulduggery inside, Melancholia had no choice but to flee. Lord Vile was undoubtedly the most powerful of Mevolent's three generals. A testament to his strength is how easily he is able to beat even the most powerful of mages, including Tesseract, Ghastly's mother and thousands more. When Vengeous was wearing the armour, he easily took down Tanith, Bliss and a contingent of Cleavers. Skulduggery also stated that when he was Lord Vile, he somewhat hoped the Faceless Ones would break through so he would have a chance to kill an entire race of gods after he'd finished with sorcerers.

In Death Bringer - with Skulduggery in Vile's armour - Vile is able to fight and almost kill Darquesse in battle (though it was stated that he would not be able to again, as Darquesse gets stronger the longer she is out). Argeddion states that Lord Vile may have been able to kill him, due to his ferocity and "natural[ly] given darkness". Vile also managed to take on Kitana and her friends with Darquesse's help despite them having powers from Argeddion himself. Although it was said that Kitana alone was more powerful than Vile, his superior skill allowed him to fight the three at once.

In Kingdom of the Wicked, when Darquesse mentions the top three most powerful sorcerers (Argeddion, Darquesse, and Mevolent), she does not include Vile, meaning that Darquesse believed that she had surpassed him. It is worth mentioning, however, that Darquesse always had the tendency to overestimate herself, as seen in the ninth book when she believed she could take on all of the faceless ones by herself.

Dead or Alive reveals that Lord Vile was in contact with the Viddu De who tasked him with making the world habitable for them, as they come from a realm of death. They gave him the power to see all possible futures which explains how Lord Vile was such an unstoppable force during the War. When Skulduggery took off the armour, these memories and the ability to see all futures were lost, though Cadaver regained them some time between the Faceless One's return and the future that Valkyrie travelled to, created when Damocles Creed succeeded in his plan to find and Activate the Child of the Faceless Ones.

Trivia

Appearances

SPMentioned
PWFMentioned
TFOMentioned
DDMentioned
MortalCoil
Death Bringer
Kingdom of the Wicked Front Cover
Last Stand of Dead Men Cover
AOHMentioned
The Dying of the Light Cover
ResurrectionMentioned
MidnightMentioned
Bedlamcover
Skul-13-final-cover


References

Advertisement