Mason Verger

Mason Verger as portrayed by Gary Oldman

Mason Verger is a character in the novel Hannibal. He is played by Gary Oldman in the 2001 film adaptation.

Mason Verger is the son of a wealthy meat packer. While claiming to have accepted Jesus into his life, this is clearly self-serving, as he uses his faith to gain access to a Christian summer camp so that he could molest children. He has a younger sister named Margot, whom he regularly abused when they were children and brutally raped when they were teenagers, dislocating her arm and biting a chunk out of her buttock in the process. Margot went into therapy with Dr. Hannibal Lecter, who advised her not to fall into self-loathing, and that it would be cathartic to kill her brother. Years later, she works as Verger's bodyguard and tries to get into his good graces so he would donate his sperm to her lesbian partner, in order to take advantage of a stipulation in their father's will that denies her any inheritance but left in a provision stating that his estate would go to any children that Mason might have.

Lecter is introduced to Mason in the 1970s when a court recommends therapy after he was found guilty of child molestation. During his sessions with Lecter, Verger claims to have worked with several of the world's worst war criminals, including Pol Pot and Idi Amin. At one point, he was a participant on Easter of a re-enactment of the crucifixion. Verger and Lecter seem to get on well until Verger invites Lecter to his pied a terre. After Verger shows him the noose he uses to perform autoerotic asphyxiation, Lecter asks him to demonstrate the procedure; while Verger is dangling from the noose and masturbating, Lecter feeds him Angel Dust and several other mind altering drugs, and convinces Verger to tear his face off with a shard of mirror and feed it to his pet dogs. Verger does so, and also gouges out one of his eyes and eats his own nose. Lecter finishes him off by manipulating the noose to break his neck. Amazingly, Verger survives this, but is left a hideously disfigured quadriplegic dependent on a life support machine.

According to the police, Verger is one of three victims to survive Lecter's attacks. When Lecter is captured, Verger never issues a statement in Lecter's trial.

In 1989, Lecter escapes from prison. Verger, furious that he didn't have him killed, contacts a group of Sardinians to breed several large, man eating boars to eat Lecter.

In 1996, the boars are ready. Verger uses Clarice Starling as bait by discrediting her. A crooked Justice Department employee, Paul Krendler, also helps in the frame up. A tip off from a detective called Pazzi locates Lecter in Florence, Italy, under the name "Dr. Fell." Pazzi tries to kidnap Lecter but ends up murdered along with a Sardinian and a pickpocket. Lecter then flees to the United States.

Lecter's murder of a deer hunter alerts the FBI to his return to the US. Lecter is eventually kidnapped by Verger's men and is about to be eaten by the boars when Starling rescues him. She is wounded and Lecter takes her to safety. Verger is murdered by his sister, who forced his pet moray eel down his throat after stimulating him with the Sardinians' cattle prod, causing him to ejaculate, providing Margot with the needed sperm. Lecter claims responsibility for Mason's death.

In the film adaptation of Hannibal, in which the character of Margot doesn't appear, Verger dies at the hands of his long-suffering personal physician, Cordell Doemling (played by Zeljko Ivanek), who throws him to the boars.