List of Asterix characters
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This is a list of characters in the Asterix comics.
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Asterix, Obelix and Dogmatix are the first characters with short descriptions usually listed at the beginning of each of the Asterix books (after the map of Gaul). They each have separate articles containing more information. Unless otherwise stated, this article uses the names chosen for the English translations of the books.
Asterix is the main character. He is a brave, intelligent and shrewd warrior of somewhat diminutive size, who eagerly volunteers for all perilous missions.
Obelix is Asterix's closest friend and works as a menhir sculptor and delivery man. He is a tall, obese man (he refers to himself as "well-padded" or "man with a slipped chest" and will immediately knock out anyone who calls him "fat") with two notable attributes: his permanently phenomenal strength and his voracious appetite for food, especially wild boar. His strength results from having fallen into Getafix's magic potion cauldron as a baby. As a consequence, Getafix will not let him take additional potions for fear of side effects (for example, turning into stone, as shown in Asterix and Obelix all at Sea), something that Obelix finds immensely unfair. The only exception was in Asterix and Cleopatra when they were trapped in a pyramid and Getafix allows him to have three drops of the magic potion. Obelix's size is often the brunt of many jokes. In Asterix and the Big Fight, the druid Psychoanalytix mistakes Obélix for a patient with an eating disorder. At the end of the book, Obelix decides to go on a diet, but quickly goes back to eating huge quantities of boar.
Dogmatix is Obelix's pet dog. Unlike his immense master, Dogmatix is very tiny, but he can have a nasty temper. Dogmatix loves nature and hates to see trees suffer. (Obelix once mentions that this is because Dogmatix likes to urinate on them.) Dogmatix met Asterix and Obelix in Lutetia (in Asterix and the Banquet) and followed them all the way around Gaul until Obelix finally noticed him when they reached the village and Dogmatix barked behind him. Since then, Obelix has become very affectionate toward Dogmatix. In Asterix and the Chieftain's Shield, Obelix gets angry with hungry people who try to take Dogmatix's bone and insists they will be punished if they try to take advantage of his dog. Dogmatix is relatively intelligent, and is particularly good as a hunting dog. His most noteworthy moments were rescuing Asterix, Obelix and Getafix from entrapment in Cleopatra, finding the captured Asterix in Great Crossing, and locating the much needed desert petroleum in Black Gold.
At the beginning of most of the Asterix books, immediately after the map of Gaul, and before the narrative starts, there is a standard description of the main characters above, as well as Getafix, Cacofonix and Vitalstatistix (regardless of their importance in that particular book).
Getafix is the village druid. In appearance, he is tall with a long white beard, hooked nose, white robe, red cloak. He is usually seen in possession of a small golden sickle. While his age is never stated, in the story of Asterix's birth (in which all but the oldest villagers are seen as small children), he appears unchanged. In Asterix and the Big Fight, the druid Psychoanalytix (who appears quite old) refers to him as his elder and teacher. In Asterix and Obelix's Birthday: The Golden Book, as a gag, Getafix at 50 years older appears to be frail and old, while in the other books, he appeared healthy.
Although known for his strength-enhancing magic potion, he has many other magical and medicinal potions at his disposal, including a potion to make hair grow quickly, a potion to counteract poison, one that neutralizes a drug that would kill in a matter of days, and a potion that restores a person to full health after injury (although this potion also causes the person who takes it to lose their recent memories while also interacting badly with the magic potion). Aside from making the potion, he also acts as the village doctor and occasional teacher. Asterix (and most other villagers) will consult him whenever anything strange occurs. He does not normally engage himself in combat, whereas most of the villagers enjoy a good punch-up (even with each other). One exception is one of the stories explaining Gaulish women, using Mrs. Geriatrix as an example, in which he involves himself in a fight sparked by Impedimenta. The final cut is shown with all the male villagers and two females, Impedimenta and Bacteria included, with Getafix running to stop the fight, with a piece of fish flying towards him. His most notable brawl is when, masquerading as a cook in The Great Divide, he makes and partakes of the magic potion (passing it off as soup) to free the enslaved men from the divided village, captured by the Romans — and doing a test run on the slaves who were present — and then starts distributing slaps with obvious enjoyment.
As the only individual able to produce the "magic potion" upon which the villagers rely for their strength, he is the focus of many stories, ranging from the Romans attempting to put him out of commission in some manner to requesting that Asterix and Obelix help him find some missing ingredient, and the conscience of the village. On a few occasions, he has refused to make the potion when the villagers become too selfish, including in Asterix and Caesar's Gift, where he refused to provide the potion for anyone while the village was divided by an upcoming vote for a new chief, only to provide them with it once again when Vitalstatistix asked Getafix to provide the potion for Orthopedix, the man he had been running against for chief. He has also occasionally been taken prisoner by hostile forces to get access to the potion, only to be freed again thanks to Asterix and Obelix. The full recipe of the magic potion itself has never been revealed, but known ingredients are mistletoe (which must be cut with a golden sickle [Asterix and the Golden Sickle]), a whole lobster (an optional ingredient that improves the flavour), fresh fish, salt, and petroleum (called rock oil in the book), which is later replaced by beetroot juice. Replenishing the stores of ingredients for the magic potion has led to some adventures for Asterix and Obelix, including Asterix and the Great Crossing and Asterix and the Black Gold.
Getafix is very similar to many wise old men who act as mentors and father-figures to the heroes, such as Merlin or Gandalf. In the earlier books however, Getafix came across more as just a friend of the protagonists rather than a wise old counselor. He was also, from the very beginning, shown as a figure of fun and had a wonderful sense of humour: in Asterix the Gaul, he keeps cutting his finger while using his sickle and roars with uncontrollable laughter at Asterix's teasing of the Roman Centurion; in Asterix and the Big Fight, he was shown as going literally crazy; and he's not above making the occasional bad pun (such as in Asterix and the Great Divide, when one of the village's frequent "stale fish" fights prompts him to observe that the villagers may soon discover nuclear "fish-ion").
Chief Vitalstatistix is the chief of the Gaulish village. He is a middle-aged, bigbellied man with red hair, pigtails and a huge moustache. He is generally reasonable, well-informed, fearless, (comparatively) even-tempered and unambitious — the last much to the chagrin of his wife Impedimenta. His major failings are his love of good food and drink (it is unlikely to be a coincidence that his wife is the best cook in the village) — which has led to health problems — and his pride. As a Gaulish chief, he prefers to travel on a shield, carried by two shield-bearers. A recurring joke throughout the series is him falling off the shield in many varied ways. The names of the shield-bearers are never mentioned.
Before becoming chief of the village, Vitalstatistix fought at the battle of Alesia, where Caesar almost completed his conquest of Gaul. In Asterix and the Chieftain's Shield, it was revealed that the shield on which he is carried originally belonged to the legendary Gaulish warrior chief Vercingetorix.[1] His father was the village chief before him. He has a brother in Lutetia, Doublehelix, who has a young daughter and a son, Justforkix.
The introduction to each story states that Vitalstatistix has only one fear, "that the sky may fall on his head tomorrow"; however, he rarely alludes to this in an actual story, and then only as a rallying cry: "We have nothing to fear but ...". This characteristic is based on a real historical account where Gallic chieftains were asked by Alexander the Great what they were most afraid of in all the world, and replied that their worst fear was that the sky might fall on their heads.[2]
Although the chief of the village, his role in most plots is usually minor, commonly featuring him granting Asterix and Obelix permission to go on their latest missions, although he has shown a greater involvement in stories such as Asterix and the Big Fight when he had to battle a rival chieftain, Asterix and the Chieftain's Shield when he traveled to a health spa on Getafix's orders to cure a liver complaint and to lose weight, Asterix in Belgium, where he traveled to Belgium to defend his honor when Caesar apparently proclaimed that the Belgians were the bravest of all the Gaulish peoples, or Asterix and Caesar's Gift, where he ran against a new arrival in the village for the position of chief.
From Asterix and Caesar's Gift onwards, Vitalstatistix has had the same (unnamed) shield-bearers carry (and drop) him; prior to that, he had different bearers in each album. In Asterix in Switzerland, he fires both his shield-bearers after he tells them that it is a lovely day, and they look up, tipping the shield back and dropping the chief in the process. He then goes and hires new shield-bearers including Asterix, Geriatrix, Fulliautomatix and Obelix (in these cases the shield is horribly tilted, so he is forced to stand on a slant, and Obelix carried him with one hand like a waiter). The introduction page varies between showing the bearers straining under Vitalstatistix' not inconsiderable bulk as he looks into the distance in some of the books, while in others he looks at them in good humour as they look up to him in respect.
Impedimenta is the matriarchal wife of chief Vitalstatistix, leader of the village wives and the best cook in the village. She is often disappointed with the other villagers (calling them barbarians) and wishes Vitalstatistix was more ambitious. Consequently, she zealously defends and flaunts every privilege due to her as first lady of the village, such as skipping the queue at the fishmonger's. She frequently says she wants to go back to Lutetia and live with her successful merchant brother, Homeopathix — the one member of the family her husband openly dislikes.
She nicknamed Vitalstatistix "Piggywiggy" when they were courting, and starts doing this again in Asterix and the Soothsayer as a plan to make Asterix and Obelix erupt in hysterical laughter when she calls him by that name in front of them, thus irritating him and making him punish them by forcing them to stay in the village, away from the soothsayer.[4]
On occasion she has an antagonistic rivalry with Mrs. Geriatrix that has erupted into violence. One such occasion was in Asterix and the Magic Carpet where the two beat each other with fish from Unhygenix's store over the fakir Watziznehm's carpet.
While usually presented in the books as a nag to her embarrassed husband, she has on occasion fought the Romans side by side with the men, typically using her rolling pin as a weapon. In emergencies, she's famous for remaining in control, as in Asterix and Son where during a Roman attack she fearlessly led the women and children out of the burning village.
Her name appears to derive either from the Latin military term impedimenta, meaning "baggage", or from the English word impediment, meaning obstruction or hindrance.
Cacofonix is the village bard. He is usually only a supporting character, but has a major part in the plots of some albums (see Asterix and the Normans, Asterix the Gladiator, Asterix and the Magic Carpet, The Mansions of the Gods, and Asterix and the Secret Weapon). He loves singing and playing his lyre, and jumps at every opportunity to do so. He also plays the bagpipes, drum and a Celtic trumpet resembling a boar called a carnyx. While he can accompany traditional dances, and conducts a village band, his singing is atrocious. In Asterix and the Normans it is so unbearable that it teaches the ferocious Normans the meaning of fear. In later albums his music is so spectacularly horrible that it actually starts thunderstorms (even indoors), because of an old French saying that bad singing causes rain.
For his part, Cacofonix considers himself a genius and a superb singer, and he is angrily offended when people criticize his singing, to the point of dismissing them as barbarians. He is slightly effeminate, often seen smoothing back his hair and holding his head up high.
Some villagers go to extreme lengths to avoid hearing Cacofonix's music. Most notably, Fulliautomatix, the village smith, strikes him on the head at the merest hint of breaking into a song, and has destroyed his lyre on a number of occasions, at one point being called the "ancestor of music critics". As a running gag, Cacofonix is generally tied up and gagged during the banquet at the end of most albums to allow the other villagers to have a good time without having to keep him from singing. He is nonetheless well-liked when not singing.
In contrast to the villagers, some of the younger generations whom Cacofonix has met do appreciate his "talent": Justforkix (in Asterix and the Normans) actually encouraged Cacofonix to think seriously about moving to Lutetia where he claimed the bard's way with music would be enjoyed; Pepe (in Asterix in Spain) liked it because it reminded him of home (the goats bleating in his village); and Princess Orinjade (in Asterix and the Magic Carpet) expressed similar enthusiasm, though it was perhaps in gratitude for his music having saved her from being sacrificed. Similarly, the village youths express a liking for his unconventional music in Asterix and the Chieftain's Daughter.
Unlike the other villagers, whose huts are on the ground, Cacofonix's hut is perched up in a tree. Ostensibly this is so that he can act as a lookout to warn the other villagers of imminent invasion, but the real reason is to let him practise his music as far from everyone as possible. It has been felled several times, often by Obelix, but has been replanted, or restored by Getafix's magic acorns (in The Mansions of the Gods).
In the English and American animated film adaptations of the series, he speaks in an effeminate voice.
In the animated Asterix and the Big Fight, Cacofonix is seen playing a rock song, trying to restore Getafix's memory, one occasion where Fulliautomatix and Unhygienix are not annoyed or angry with him.
He and Getafix are the village's teachers, as only bards and druids are allowed to teach in school. He is rarely seen fighting the Romans or joining fist-fights, except when his personal honour is impugned, and he appears to be more pacifist than the rest of the villagers. His voice apparently does not mix well with the magic potion, although in Asterix and the Magic Carpet it actually restores him to full voice. The fact that he is incredibly arrogant may also be partly to blame, as in at least one volume (Asterix and the Roman Agent) he is shown to have not even noticed the other villagers are fighting the Romans and is actually shown asking Getafix what's going on (however, he had been suffering from a lost voice earlier in this volume and may have simply been staying in his hut while waiting to recover). In Asterix and the Missing Scroll it is revealed that he is the second stage of the village's 'emergency measure' if they are attacked while Getafix is absent; the first stage involves a secret supply of potion in the chief's hut, while the second stage involves Cacofonix blowing on a very loud horn to set up a signal to alert Getafix to danger, Vitalstatistix noting that this is the main reason the village still puts up with Cacofonix.
Geriatrix is the oldest inhabitant of Asterix's village: he is mentioned as 93 years old in Asterix at the Olympic Games (while drunk, he says he feels ten years younger, to which Asterix replies, "Well, that makes you 83, and it's time you were in bed"). Some translations make him no more than 80.
As an elder, Geriatrix demands respect (generally more than he is given). Nonetheless he dislikes being treated as old and will attack anyone who comments to that effect. In particular he often beats up the village blacksmith Fulliautomatix for refusing to fight back due to his age, and actually cries out to be attacked (in Asterix and the Roman Agent). Geriatrix is seen to sit on the village council at times, on the face of it an entitlement deriving from being the oldest in the community. An example is on p. 11 of Asterix and the Cauldron where he sits with Vitalstatistix, Cacofonix and Getafix, in deciding on Asterix's punishment for having violated their honor code. In Asterix and the Roman Agent he acquires a club which he later uses to knock down The Mansions of the Gods.
Geriatrix is against foreigners who are not from his village. He is a veteran of the Battle of Gergovia and the Battle of Alesia, and refers to them when excited ("It'll be just like Gergovia all over!") or distraught ("It's just like Alesia all over again!"). He has an eye for the young ladies and has a very young and beautiful wife (who appears to be in her twenties) of whom he is very possessive — particularly when Obelix is around.
In prequels such as How Obelix Fell into the Magic Potion When he was a Little Boy, in which most of the characters are children and Vitalstatistix is a slim young man, Geriatrix, along with Getafix, is unchanged.
Mrs. Geriatrix enjoys her husband's devotion and also her status as wife of the village's most senior inhabitant, which makes her one of the inner circle of village wives. Her youthful appearance suggests that she is less than half her husband's age; she is also a lot taller. Although as ambitious and gossip-prone as the other wives, she has also shown herself to be very quick-witted. She is an excellent seamstress but has Geriatrix do most of the housework. She rules her home and marriage, and regularly tells her husband what to do even in direct contradiction of his own stated opinions. She does seem to be happily married, however, and the only serious conflict in her marriage is her occasional apparent interest in Obelix which makes her husband insanely jealous. On one occasion, she is offered the magic potion. She does not appear to be interested and says that it's very fattening, while staring at Obelix. She appears to be in favour of women's rights, as shown in Asterix and the Secret Weapon. She eagerly accepted the radical changes in the village that occurred in this story. She and Impedimenta cause a gigantic fight in "Mini Midi Maxi".
Unhygienix is the village fishmonger, as was his father Unhealthix before him (as seen in Asterix and the Class Act). His fish do not come from the sea near the village even though he has a fishing boat; instead they are transported all the way from Lutetia (and from Massilia in the German translations) as he believes they are of finer quality. He does not notice their smell, but most of the other villagers do and a lot of fights, which often escalate to involve most of the village, are caused by his stale fish, as when the blacksmith Fulliautomatix says: "Anyway, it [the fight] wouldn't have happened if they [the fish] were fresh!" and then Unhygenix slaps him with his fish. This rivalry is a family tradition — their fathers also fought, and their children are continuing it. Despite this, his catch phrase is a scream to his wife, "Bacteria! Get the fish inside!" or "Save the sales!", in fights on the village he doesn't want to enter (i.e. fights that are not about his fish), when villagers buy or steal his fish to fight with.
Bacteria is the wife of Unhygienix. She is one of the inner circle of village wives. She is quiet and easy-going, but doesn't hesitate to say exactly what she thinks. She helps her husband run his shop, selling fish of dubious quality, and is unperturbed by the bizarre uses to which they are sometimes put. They have two sons (one of whose names have not been mentioned) — Blinix in Asterix in Corsica, and the other with red hair in Asterix and the Secret Weapon. In Asterix and Obelix's Birthday: The Golden Book Blinix is seen having taken over the shop but rather than to import the fish from Lutetia, he gets the fish he sells from the nearby sea. This displeases his father who fears that the "good name of the shop will go to waste" that way.
First appearance: Asterix in Corsica
Blinix is Bacteria's and Unhygienix's son. In Asterix and the Chieftain's Daughter, he helps Adrenaline run away.
Fulliautomatix is the village smith. His father, Semiautomatix, was the village smith before him. He is tall and robust, and very strong — he is one of the strongest characters, perhaps second only to Obelix, and a bit of a ruffian, especially to Cacofonix. Fulliautomatix's first appearance was in the first volume, Asterix the Gaul, where the Roman spy was amazed that he used his fists to forge iron. However, he is subsequently shown using a normal hammer and is now rarely seen without one. A very different looking Fulliautomatix appeared in Asterix and the Banquet in which he and Obelix argue as to who should be entitled to punch the Roman that they are both engaged in hitting anyway.
Fulliautomatix often interacts with Unhygienix, the fishmonger, with whom he has a friendly rivalry. Fulliautomatix claims the fish he sells are stale, and this often results in Unhygienix throwing a fish at his face, causing a fight (sometimes the other villagers join in just for fun).[7] Fulliautomatix also takes great pleasure in abusing, breaking the lyre of Cacofonix the bard, threatening him and hitting him on the head at the merest hint of breaking into a song (the songs are so bad that the other villagers do not object) — this happens so frequently that Cacofonix only protests about it if he hadn't intended to sing in the first place (such as in Asterix and Cleopatra, where it turned out Cacofonix just wanted to tell Fulliautomatix that he was standing on Cacofonix's toes, which Fulliautomatix was unaware of due to the current snow covering their feet). It has been stated that he is perhaps the ancestor of all music critics. On the other hand, he is occasionally beaten up with a cane by Geriatrix when he is provoked by some comment the smith makes. When this happens he will often take out his frustration on the nearest convenient bystander (Cacofonix for preference) on the grounds that he does not feel he can fight back against someone so old, which only helps to further incense the old man.
Fulliautomatix also has two unnamed children who have appeared in separate comics — a son with blond hair in Asterix in Corsica, and a daughter with blonde hair in Asterix and the Secret Weapon. In Asterix and the Great Divide he is shown as having an apprentice, though it is not specified if he's a relative; some speculate that he is the young son grown to teenage years, while in Asterix and the Chieftain's Daughter a young man resembling him is introduced as his eldest son, Selfipix. In Asterix and Obelix's Birthday: The Golden Book Fulliautomatix is seen as an elderly man with his now adult son having taken over business; the scene begins with his son making steel dentures for Fulliautomatix, who has gone toothless over the years.
Mrs. Fulliautomatix is one of the inner circle of village wives. One of the shortest women in the village, and possessing of a steep and pointy nose, she takes no nonsense and dominates her much larger husband as well as getting into a brawl with the wife of Chief Vitalstatistix in Asterix and the Class Act. Although she appears often, she has never been named in the stories. She has been known to beat up Cacofonix on occasion as well, in Asterix and the Secret Weapon. She has a brother, as mentioned by her husband in Asterix and the Black Gold.
Julius Caesar (Jules César) is the Roman dictator and conqueror of Gaul. Many of the stories involve his schemes to finally conquer this last Gaulish village holding out against his legions. At other times, the village has (indirectly) come to his aid, but more often it is a major embarrassment to him in the Roman senate — in at least one book, the entire senate is laughing at him after a failed plan. Despite this, Caesar is also shown to be a man of honour, since whenever Asterix and Obelix somehow end up helping Caesar, Caesar always grants them any favour they ask. He goes so far as to rebuild the entire Gaulish village when it was destroyed by Brutus who was trying to kidnap Caesar's son, whom Asterix returned safely to his family (Asterix and Son). The appearance of Caesar is based on portraits found on ancient Roman coins.
In the course of their travels, Asterix and Obelix regularly cross paths with — and beat up — a group of pirates. The Gauls then proceed to sink their ship, causing the pirates severe financial difficulties. The pirates make their first appearance in the fourth album (Asterix the Gladiator), and feature in almost every subsequent album.
The main pirates are based on the Belgian comic series Barbe Rouge (1959 and continuing). The adventures of Barbe Rouge (Redbeard) and his son Eric were published in Pilote magazine, where Asterix's adventures were also published prior to appearing in book form.
Although Barbe Rouge is a popular character in his own right in continental Europe, the popularity of Asterix's pirates is one of the few occasions when parody figures have overshadowed their originals.
On one occasion (in Asterix the Legionary) after the wreck the pirates were depicted in a scene similar to Théodore Géricault's Raft of the Medusa. In the English version of this scene, the captain also refers to an ancient Gaulish artist called "Jericho", an alternative spelling of the name Géricault.
Such is the fear that the pirates have for the Gauls that, having unknowingly taken them aboard—Asterix and his companions boarded the ship in the night when it was too dark for either side to see the other properly, with the pirates only learning the truth when they sneaked into their guests' cabin to rob them—they fled their own ship in the middle of the night while the subjects of their fear were sound asleep (Asterix in Corsica). At other times, it is Asterix and Obelix who have boarded the pirates' vessel and captured booty, thus reversing their roles of hunter and prey. This has happened mainly in the quest for food in an empty ocean (Asterix in Spain). On another occasion, Asterix and Obelix take all the food on the ship, leaving the pirates with a single sausage for the Captain's birthday; the pirates decide to look on the bright side and note that their ship didn't sink (Asterix and the Great Crossing). It happened again (in Asterix and the Magic Carpet) with Asterix leaving a single coin for payment after Obelix threw all of their recently recovered treasure overboard while searching for food; the Captain told his depressed crew that it was better than nothing and that at least they still had the ship, but then their lookout proudly announced that he had upheld their honour and scuttled the ship himself. The other pirates were not impressed.
This "honorable suicide-sinking" has actually happened in earlier Asterix adventures, such as in Asterix and Cleopatra when the captain himself sank the ship after learning that the Gauls were on a nearby Egyptian vessel, reasoning that that would be the eventual outcome and doing it themselves would spare them a punch-up. Curiously enough, at the end of the same adventure, he and his crew were having to work as rowers aboard the very galley taking the Gauls back home and he announced with unusual determination that he will hunt them down and get his revenge. On another occasion, the pirates destroyed their ship simply at the sight of Asterix and all his fellow villagers in another vessel taking them to the Olympic Games. In this event, though, the villagers did not attack since the captain of their ship announced that attacking the pirates would cost them extra. At the end of Asterix in Britain, the captain, in a panic, orders his men to row as fast as they can in order to get away from Asterix and Obelix, only for them to run aground on a beach. But the captain states that this is better than being sunk again.
On two occasions, Asterix also forced the Captain to spend all his hard-won loot on the merchandise of Ekonomikrisis the Phoenician merchant (Asterix and the Black Gold). On one occasion (The Mansions of the Gods) the Pirates appear on land, as part of the group of slaves (later freed) in the story. However, in one story so far—Asterix and the Cauldron—they end up happy for a change when a cauldron full of money that Asterix has been chasing throughout the story is tipped over a cliff and lands in their laps.
The main pirates are:
In addition a number of members of the pirate crew are sight gags, some of whom have appeared on more than one occasion such as Frankenstein's monster and a Mongol warrior.
It should also be noted that in the films where the pirates are seen, Erix replaces Pegleg on the jetsam with Redbeard.
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