The enemies of XIII.
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The Conspiracy of the XX
SPOILER WARNING: unfold the folders at your own peril
In General
- Government Conspiracy: Their numbers include high-ranking military personal, members of Congress, staffers in the White House, and the President.
- A Nazi by Any Other Name: The ideological motivations of some of them are pretty clearly fascistic in essence.
- Nebulous Evil Organisation: While they want to take over the country, it's not as clear what they intend to do once they've accomplished that. Sergeant Dennis Quinn might have given a clue when saying he wants to rid America of "niggers, fags and Jews".
I
Wally Sheridan (I)
- Allohistorical Allusion: The assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. He doesn't die of it though.
- Batman Gambit: The whole operations leading to his election to the presidency.
- Big Bad: Number I of the Conspiracy.
- The Chessmaster: He manipulates just about everyone over the course of the series' first story arc.
- Disc-One Final Boss: His death closes the book on the XX conspiracy, but powerful figures in the American government and other evil doers (most notably the leader of the NSA, as well as the Mongoose's successor) continue to plague XIII long afterwards.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: He asks XIII why he saved "that worthless black woman" instead of Kim who know much about the conspiracy. XIII replies that an asshole like him can't understand.
- Faux Affably Evil: He acts like a nice guy when pretending to help Amos and XIII investigate SSH2.
- The Idealist: Seems to share his brother's political ideas. It's all a lie.
- Mole in Charge: He winds up leading the conspiracy to take over America while also serving as the president.
- No Historical Figures Were Harmed: Wally Sheridan is the brother of an assassinated American president and he is a presidential candidate with a progressive and pacifist platform. During his campaign, he is the target of an assassination attempt. The Mafia supports his family's political agenda. He is based off Robert F. Kennedy, but unlike his real-life model, he's incredibly evil and survives the assassination attempt.
- President Evil: He's the president of America, and he's evil to the bone.
- Villain with Good Publicity: The public loves him on account of his charisma and the sympathy he garnered after the death of his brother.
II
Calvin Wax (II)
- Allegiance Affirmation: He undoes his shirt to flaunt his shoulder tattoo, smugly revealing that he is merely the number II in the conspiracy (when it was assumed that he was number I), and bites down on a Cyanide Pill.
- Better to Die than Be Killed: He kills himself with a cyanide capsule (or shooting himself, in the video game) as he is about to be arrested and probably be executed for treason.
- Dragon-in-Chief: Number I is the leader of the Conspiracy, but leads from the shadows, with Wax managing the operation of the Total Red plan.
- Evil Chancellor: Calvin Wax is a counselor of President Galbrain, then he becomes Secretary of Defense. He is also an evil conspirator.
- Four Eyes, Zero Soul: He wears glasses, and he's willing to kill huge quantities of people to get what he wants.
- Non-Action Big Bad: In the video game he's the only member of the conspiracy that you encounter face-to-face who isn't fought in a boss fight.
- Number Two: He serves as this in the conspiracy.
- Taking You with Me: In the video game, he activates the base's nuclear self-destruct before shooting himself, hoping to take XIII with him. In his excitement he apparently forgot Number I was in the base as well, who's very upset at the prospect of being blown up.
- You Can't Thwart Stage One: In the video game you're given multiple opportunities to simply blow him away prior to the end of the game. Doing so always results in an instant game over, as you're supposed to avoid being detected in those sections.
III
William S. Standwell (III)
- Adaptational Wimp: He's a lot easier to kill in the remake compared to the original, where he was
That One Boss. His BFG does significantly less damage (about 2 units of health compared to around 9 in the original on Normal difficulty), his aim isn't as good, and he can be stunned by headshots just like all the other bosses in the remake. Recent patches have attempted to make him more difficult by increasing his health and aggressiveness and also making him into a Flunky Boss. - The Butcher: His nickname during the war in Asia.
- The Dragon: To Calvin Wax.
- General Ripper: Standwell is said to have killed many civilians in a past conflict. He is also ready to start World War III right after the establishment of a dictatorship in the US.
- Eye Patch Of Power: He has an eyepatch and he is one of the strongest bosses in the game.
- Eye Scream: Carrington burnt his eye with a cigar.
- More Dakka: He wields an M60 machine gun, which combined with his very high health makes him one of the toughest bosses in the game.
- Pragmatic Villainy: He's outraged that Colonel McCall's SPADS slaughtered the G.I.s guarding Emerald Base rather than capture them, as massacring U.S. soldiers considerably hurts the Conspiracy's legitimacy (which seems to be founded on a law & order platform). With the damage done, he orders McCall to make sure all witnesses are silenced so word can't get out about what happened.
V
Senator Clayton Willard (V)
- Badass Boast: Even when outnumbered and outgunned, he just laughs that the FBI and XIII are vastly underestimating the conspiracy's power.
- Cop Killer: He kills one of the FBI agents sent to arrest him.
VII
Admiral Franklin Edelbright (VII)
- Adaptational Wimp: In the remake he's not smart enough to shoot through the gaps in the missile racks, unlike the original game, making it much easier to avoid his gunfire and take him down.
- General Ripper: A Navy version. He works on behalf of a conspiracy that is planning on killing a huge number of people, including fellow US soldiers.
- Taking You with Me: When confronted by XIII, he mentions that he'd rather blow up the sub and take XIII with him than tell Number I he's failed his mission.
IX
Jasper Winslow (IX)
- Flunky Boss: He's by far the weakest boss in the game in terms of health, but has a couple of uzi-wielding bodyguards backing him up.
- Money Is Not Power: During his boss fight he babbles that he can make XIII rich if XIII lets him go. It doesn't help him.
- Morally Bankrupt Banker: He runs Winslow Bank, and he's also part of the evil conspiracy.
- Revolvers Are Just Better/Shotguns Are Just Better: Switches between a shotgun and a revolver during his boss fight.
- Unnecessary Combat Roll: Instead of running around, he instead combat rolls a lot.
XI
Colonel Seymour D. Mac Call (XI)
- Bad Boss: Several SPADS members mention how capricious and ruthless he is. You meet one SPADS soldier who was sent to Plainrock Mental Institute and driven insane through torture, simply for calling McCall a pinhead behind his back.
- Blood Knight: He ordered his SPADS soldiers to kill the G.I.s guarding Emerald Base rather than detain them, much to the outrage of General Standwell.
- The Dragon: He is this relative to General Standwell.
- Sinister Shades: He always wears sunglasses.
XIII
Steve Rowland (XIII)
- Expy: To Lee Harvey Oswald. He's an elite soldier who murdered a popular president with a sniper rifle and got himself shot not too long after the event. Not to mention the whole fictional event is part of a large conspiracy, while JFK's assassination and Oswald subsequent murder gave birth to countless conspiracy theories in real life.
- Faking the Dead: He faked his own death in a helicopter crash prior to Sheridan's assassination.
- Missing Mom: Steve Rowland's mother died in an accident when she came back from his wedding.
- Posthumous Character: He's already dead when the series start.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: Kim tells his husband has changed a lot during the war and she does not recognize the man she married.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: The conspiracy planned to kill him just after the assassination of William Sheridan.
XVII
Kim Rowland (née Carrington) (XVII)
- All Girls Want Bad Boys: She falls in love with Wally Sheridan, then with Steve Rowland, who are both involved in the conspiracy.
- Double Agent: Kim Rowland has worked for Wally Sheridan all along. He asked her to infiltrate the counter-espionage services. The counter-espionage services used her to infiltrate the conspiracy led by Wally Sheridan.
- He Knows Too Much:
- The conspiracy wants to kill her after the assassination of William Sheridan because of that.
- In Thirteen to One, Wally Sheridan orders to kill her, because she knows that he is Number I.
- I Have Your Wife: She has obeyed Wally Sheridan for years, because he has held her son hostage.
- Missing Mom: Her mother died when she was 8 years old.
- The Mole: Kim Rowland was an infiltrated agent in the conspiracy.
XX
Dr. Edward W. Johansson (XX)
- Adapted Out/Canon Foreigner: In the comics, number XX is the female ambassador to the UN, and plays no real role in the plot. In the video game, XX is Dr. Johansson, the head doctor at Plainrock Mental Institute, and the first major boss the player fights. In the television series, XX is an unnamed female assassin who does low-level dirty work for the conspiracy and basically serves as a villain of the week enemy for XIII.
- Bald of Evil: He's bald and highly depraved.
- Fashionable Asymmetry: In the remake of the video game, he wears a single black lab glove, decades before Michael Jackson brought that sort of thing into fashion.
- Improbable Weapon User: Instead of using a firearm, he runs around the operating theater using whatever tools he can get his hands on against you. This includes throwing scalpels at you, tossing explosive chemical beakers at you, and running up to you and trying to inject you with drugs.
- Made of Iron: He's the first boss-level enemy fought in the game, and takes a good 18 or so headshots from the .357 magnum (which kills regular enemies in one headshot) to put down.
- Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: He's a demented neurosurgeon who gleefully conducts horrible experiments on prisoners, and even goes after his own staff when they displease him.
- Uncertain Doom: Strangely, in the remake, the dossiers of all of the other XX conspirators simply indicate they were killed by XIII, but Johansson's dossier simply says he was "overpowered and left to die" by XIII.
Other Major Antagonists
The Mongoose
The Mongoose (born Schreiner)
A famous, scarily competent and very elusive hitman. The Conspiracy of the XX hires him to get rid of XIII.
Tropes in XIII:
- Assassin Outclassin': Never succeeds to kill XIII despite trying his very best.
- Bald of Evil: He's bald, and one of XIII's fiercest enemies.
- Cold Sniper: He's a very proficient marksman with sniper rifles.
- Determinator: Never gives up on trying to eliminate XIII.
- Evil Old Folks: He's always drawn with wrinkles.
- He Knows Too Much: Number I kills him in "The Trial" when he's about to reveal crucial informations about him and the Conspiracy of the XX.
- Heel–Face Turn: In "The Trial", after Number I shoots him, he makes crucial revelations on TV, notably the bank where he left compromising documents for what's left of the Conspiracy of the XX.
- Lean and Mean: He has a lanky build, which contributes to making him unsettling.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: His nickname is evocative of his personality.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: He is known by his nickname, "The Mongoose".
- Passing the Torch: Irina Svetlanova took over his professional killing business after his death.
- Professional Killer: He is a hitman hired to kill XIII and various other characters.
- Scarily Competent Tracker: He always manages to find his preys.
- Villains Out Shopping: When XIII finds him again to capture him and bring him to the televised trial in "The Trial", the fearsome Mongoose is relaxing at his villa on a remote island wearing a bathrobe and slippers, surrounded by armed bodyguards.
- Wicked Weasel: A rare example where mongooses are associated with an evil character: he is a merciless profesional killer and his nickname is the Mongoose.
Tropes in XIII Mystery:
- Dark and Troubled Past: He was born with the name "Schreiner", and was a woodworker apprentice in the ruins of post-World War II Berlin. He became a Professional Killer to bribe Communist authorities of East Germany into freeing his master woodworker and Parental Substitute. It was All for Nothing when said woodworker committed suicide after realizing what Schreiner had become.
- Who Shot JFK?: He tried assassinating President William Sheridan, but it turned out he was Lured into a Trap by the Conspiracy, as Steve Rowland killed Sheridan instead and the blame was put on the Mongoose and his mentor hitman. That didn't prevent the Conspiracy and the Mongoose to settle things with the former hiring the latter to track and kill XIII.
Irina
Irina Svetlanova
- The Baroness: She is a cruel and sexy Professional Killer.
- Battleaxe Nurse: Her disguise the first time she confronts XIII.
- Diabolical Mastermind: She becomes the chief of her own SPECTRE-like organisation of hitmen and professional assassins, Executor, after the death of the Mongoose.
- Disney Villain Death: Jessica Martin throws a knife into her belly and she falls from the building she was supposed to kill Giordino from.
- Eye Scream: She lost an eye during her first encounter with XIII.
- Legacy Character: To the Mongoose after "The Trial".
- Professional Killer: She is the assistant of the Mongoose and she has to kill XIII.
- Psycho Lesbian: She lures men into Honey Traps (or at least used to), but otherwise her affection and pleasures of the flesh are same sex-oriented. And she's crazy and diabolical.
- Renegade Russian: She was a KGB agent. Her employer decided to eliminate her during Glasnost. The Mongoose, a free-lance professional killer, saved and hired her.
Frank Giordino
Frank Giordino
- Big Bad: He is the main antagonist to XIII from "The Trial" to "The Last Round".
- Cigar Chomper: Rarely seen without a cigar in his mouth.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Killed his own sister Carla Giordino (XIII's mother) by mistake.
- Evil Mentor: He mentored Jessica Martin, and made her his Sex Slave for a time.
- Evil Uncle: It turns out he is the uncle of XIII.
- The Mafia: He's the son of an Italian-American crime boss, and still asks his family for help when wanting to get rid of someone.
- Smug Snake: He's not as smart as he thinks he is.
Felicity
Felicity Rowland (née Brown)
- The Baroness: In Operation Montecristo, unlike in her previous appearances, she has good aiming skills with firearms (she kills five people in this episode, and most of them are soldiers and CIA agents), and she's able to save her own skin without assistance.
- Black Widow: Felicity plans the murder of her husband, then kills her lover Matt.
- Florence Nightingale Effect: She was the nurse who took care of Jeremie Rowland, then she married him. Jeremie's love was probably sincere, but she was clearly faking her feelings for Jeremie.
- Gold Digger: Felicity is a young attractive woman who will marry or be the mistress of any man as long as he's rich, and as long as she will be able to dispose of him and inherit in the marriage case.
- High-Class Call Girl: She was one when she lived in Las Vegas, as showed in The XIII Mystery: The Investigation.
- Karma Houdini: In Where the Indian Walks, Felicity is not punished for the murders of Jeremie and Matt Rowland. In the end of Full Red, we hear that she had to disappear from the Rowlands' estate, but still she gets no real punishment for her crimes. Averted in the end of El Cascador, when she spends some time in prison for the crimes she committed in Costa Verde.
- Lady Macbeth: She encourages Matt Rowland to kill his brother, whom she married out.
- May–December Romance: She is the young wife of the old Jeremie Rowland. Jeremie's love was probably sincere, but Felicity was clearly faking her feelings for Jeremie, as a prime example of Gold Digger.
- The Mistress: To a number of villains (Matt Rowland, Ortiz, Peralta), but she's always self-serving.
- Token Evil Teammate: She briefly teams up with XIII and his friends at the end of Operation Montecristo.
- Took a Level in Badass: In her first appearances, Felicity was an evil woman, but she only used her charms as weapons. In Operation Montecristo, she still uses her charms, but, if necessary, she resorts to assault rifles too. In total, she kills five people in this episode, and most of them are soldiers and CIA agents.
- Trophy Wife: A number of rich men want to marry her, solely because she's gorgeous. Unfortunately for them, she's cunning, manipulative and a Gold Digger.
- The Vamp: A dangerous seductress, in a nutshell.
- Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: The old and handicapped Jeremie Rowland and the young and attractive Felicity.
- Wicked Stepmother: Wanted to frame Steve Rowland for the murders of Jeremie and Matt Rowland.
Dwight Rigby
Dwight Rigby
The richest and most powerful man in Greenfalls.
- Arc Villain: The main antagonist for the Greenfalls story arc.
- Dirty Old Man: He raped Judith Warner in her youth. Then he paid for her studies and drugstore.
- Good Ol' Boy: Doesn't have much tolerance for anything he considers anti-American.
- I Own This Town: So rich that he managed to acquire every major business in Greenfalls.
- The Klan: He was (or still is) a Klansman. An unrepentant one in any case.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: As befitting for a Klansman, he hates Catholics, Jews, non-whites, left-leaning ideas and so on and so forth.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: His wealth allows him to control the local police in Greenfalls.
- Smalltown Tyrant: He controls everything in the Deep South town of Greenfalls, including the police.
- Villain with Good Publicity: He's Greenfalls' main benefactor, as well as a Klansman who had a journalist murdered.
- Witch Hunt: Participated in a witch hunt at the time of the Red Scare. Jonathan Mac Lane/Fly ended up a victim of it.
