History Characters / TheHandmaidsTaleTVShowMainCharacters

* VillainsWantMercy: [[spoiler:In the end, when he realizes that June and the other former Handmaidens are going to kill him, he desperatedly begs the former to spare his life. Just to hammer home just how little he is deserving of any mercy, he keeps referring to June as "Offred".]]

* DubNameChange: Called "Defred" in France and Spain, "Difred" in Italy, "Frevoda" in Russia, "Freda" in Poland and "Desfred" in Germany to reflect the grammatical pattern of genitive/possessive case.

* EvilIsSexy: he is played by Joseph Fiennes.

* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: Like Serena Joy, there are a hints that Aunt Lydia has some disillusionment with Gilead's design. For example, [[spoiler: June's brief glance at Lydia's bewildered expression at the dinner party suggest that [[EvenEvilHasStandards she's appalled by the notion of Handmaids being trafficked]]]].

** In the third season, after Janine begs to be the Putnams' Handmaid again, Aunt Lydia punishes her (read: takes out all her anger on her) by beating her unconcious with her cattle prod. Once she gets a hold of herself, she dismisses herself to go into the other room and immediately breaks down sobbing.

* ItsAllAboutMe: Not uncommon in the Wives. She values her comfort in Gilead at the expense of her handmaids.

* AdaptationalExpansion: Her character is DrivenToSuicide early in the book, while, in the series, she manages to survive knocking down one of the guards, goes to the Colonies, and eventually escapes from Gilead to Canada.

* NecessaryEvil: He may be a part of Gilead's top government, but he doesn't seem to think too highly of them. [[spoiler:He also shows June that he has to pick-and-choose who survives and who dies in Gilead.]]

* GoodGirlsAvoidAbortion: Subverted. She got an abortion after she got pregnant a second time, right before the rise of Gilead, since she was a StrugglingSingleMother with a irresponsible boyfriend. Sadly, since the new government is ultra-conservative, this could have been the, “crime” that got her demoted to a BreedingSlave.

* CripplingCastration: [[spoiler: A rare female example. After it's discovered that she was married to a woman in the Before Era and being caught having an affair with a Martha, Emily is spared from death, but punished for her 'gender treachery' with a clitoridectomy.]] [[spoiler: Subverted later, when she makes it to a hospital in Canada which can build her a new one.]]

* PlotArmor: Maybe even thicker than June's. Emily has killed a few guards, and suffered what's later revealed to be a reversible mutilation. She's sent off to the colonies, only for sheer luck to bring her back to the Handmaids before the pollution killed her. She's able to get away with maybe poisoning a few commanders. Then she [[spoiler: shanks the head aunt, and drops her down a staircase. The aunt survives, and Emily is whisked off to Canada before Gilead can gut her.]]

* ArcVillain: He turns out to be this for Seasons [[spoiler:1 - 4, as he's killed int eh Season 4 finale and the story continues without him.]]

* DidntThinkThisThrough: It is not completely clear if she planned for the “women’s place is in the home” policies to apply to her, or if she didn’t realize she was campaigning against her right to campaign. Either way, she gets punished severely, on multiple occasions, for assuming she’s above retribution for violating the rules of her own society.

* VillainsWantMercy: [[spoiler:In the end, when he realizes that June and the other former Handmaidens are going to kill him, he desperatedly begs the former to spare his life. Just to hammer home just how little he is deserving of any mercy, he keeps refers to June as "Offred" as he so.]]

* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: Deconstructed. He does genuinely care for Serena, but it's not going to stop him from torturing her under his "beliefs", as shown when he bargains in Season 3 to save her life after she lets Nichole go with Emily...after he cut off her finger and beat her.

* AssholeVictim: Gets captured by the American Government in Exile in Season 3, and [[spoiler:is executed by June and a bunch of former handmaids at the end of Season 4.]]

* DidntThinkThisThrough: [[spoiler: High Commander Winslow]] makes it clear he's interested in Fred sexually. We next see Fred benefiting politically. The scary part is now Fred ‘knows too much,’ and his admirer has every reason to kill Fred if the arrangement turns sour.

* ObliviouslyEvil: He seems completely aloof to the fact he’s given every woman around him more than enough reason to kill him, and still tries to play up some weird, childish “Ladies Man” persona.

* PleaseDontLeaveMe: After the fallout of Serena helping smuggle Nichole to Canada, Fred gives a heartwrenching speech about how he loves Serena so much, always has, and always will. [[spoiler: Subverted. He's practicing the speech with a Jezebel.]]
* RewardedAsATraitorDeserves: [[spoiler: Gilead agrees to execute Fred after he spilled state secrets to the Americans and Canadians, although it is June who is the actual executioner.]]

* DidNotThinkThisThrough: A key flaw for June. Most of the time, she tends to act on impulse without properly planning things out. This applies to both her escape attempts in Season 2, her attempt to retrieve Hannah in Season 3, and her insistence on engaging the Gilead guards in Season 4 with a member of the resistance saying explicitly that it was a bad idea to ambush Gilead soldiers while outgunned and outnumbered.

* GreenEyedMonster: Because she desperately wants a child to fill her empty life with, she is jealous of Naomi Putnam, whose handmaiden Janine gives birth to a daughter. She believes that Naomi is not grateful enough and feels that she would be a better mother - unfortunately, this only adds to her frustration towards Offred.

* HeelFaceRevolvingDoor: One step forward, two steps back. [[spoiler:Serena starts Season 3 by burning down her and Fred's home and leaving Fred, accept's that Nichole has a better future in Canada, and conspires with June to gain more power and make changes to Gilead's government. Then she has one "goodbye" visit with Nichole and all of a sudden she's all-in on Gilead again, wishing she'd had June's mouth wired shut like the other D.C. Handmaids when she first joined the household.]] It’s ultimately revealed that [[spoiler:all her supposed heel turns were really a prolonged facade to get Fred to trust her enough to walk into a trap on Canadian soil, where he’s promptly arrested.]]

** Finally, [[spoiler: after June delivers a ReasonYouSuckSpeech to her after finding out Serena is pregnant,]] she rushes into a Heel, and Fred's arms, once more.

* UnwantedSpouse: Once a happy wife in an equal marriage, she slowly becomes this to Commander Waterford, because of Gilead's toxic influence on their relationship. They now have a sexless marriage because they cannot procreate (sex is officially only accepted for the purpose of procreation in Gilead) and Gilead's view of women contaminates her husband's opinion of her over time. He resents her usurping his authority and going behind his back, even though it was for noble reasons, and ends up [[spoiler: beating and humiliating her, as well as allowing her to be maimed for reading the bible]]. He also [[spoiler: cheats on her with (unwilling) handmaidens and visits a brothel]]. In season two, he [[spoiler: creepily suggests to June that he could somehow remove Serena from the house and keep her instead]].

* MundaneMadeAwesome: Janine’s scene with her baby in the 2nd half of season 2. Its just “a mom playing with her baby.” In the context of the universe, its a massive crack in the foundation of Gilead’s society. If the legal mothers can't provide the attention the babies need, the babies self destruct. Of all the scenes involving proactive resistance on the Team Modern’s part, this scene is probably the most damning to Gilead’s future prospects.

* SanitySlippage: Starts off as normal and defiant, but a combination of [[EyeScream ripping out her eye]] and and group slut-shaming her for being an underage rape victim, results in this. Its implied even more types of psychological torture happened to her off-screen, but not elaborated on.

* FreudianExcuse: Played with, but hardly sympathetic. Its implied she was lonely, but also with people trying to connect with her. How she deals with her own perceived moment of weakness? Doing what she always does, systematically make others miserable.

* InterrogatedForNothing: [[spoiler: In the beginning of season 4, Lydia is captured by The Eyes after June moves dozens of Gilead children to Canada, being suspected in taking part. After 19 days of imprisonment and physical punishment, The Commanders deem her to be innocent of taking part in the plot but not fully exonerated.]]
* KickTheDog: Time and time again--her job is not just to train the Handmaids, but to punish them and keep them in line. She'll burn their hands, electrocute them, torture them...Of special note is in season three, when Janine--the only Handmaid who shows her kindness, by virtue of StockholmSyndrome--asks to be the Putnams' Handmaid again, resulting in Lydia beating her into unconciousness. It's pretty obvious in this case especially that it's not always about "punishment," and she treats Handmaids as her own personal punching bag.

* [[spoiler: IChooseToStay: He could flee to the comfort of Canada and barter for immunity but he decides to honor Eleanor by staying in Gilead and "clean up my mess."]]

* SadisticChoice: When June chastises him for not doing all he can to help the women condemned by the government, he takes her to a huge pen of women bound for the Colonies and gives June herself the responsibility of picking just five of them to save and put in the available spots on his staff, implying that he’s had to make such an agonizing choice numerous times before.

-->"You're so transactional... Were [the Waterfords] ''really'' [[WhatAnIdiot that easy to manipulate?"]]
* ViewersAreGeniuses: There’s little question that Lawrence's scenes have layers upon layers of subtlety that will give viewers difficulty figuring out his true intent. The internet pieced together a lot about him from one of the most important scenes in Episode 3, when he gives June an order to fetch him a book in front of the other Commanders- to humiliate her and demonstrate her subservience to him, right? The image of the bookcase lasts seconds, but the books on his shelves each carry a hidden meaning- and all their spines are bent, showing they've been read by Lawrence. Probably the most important is the book he has June fetch, “The Descent of Man” by Charles Darwin. The book was a collaborative effort- both Darwin’s wife and daughter served the editors. It's right below “The End of Alchemy” which is an analysis on the ‘08 Financial Crises- its conclusion blames bad ideas for the economic disaster, which is a subtle nod to Lawrence’s opinion of Gilead. The book Lawrence wrote, “Problematic Populism” seems to be a nod to how the fertility crises led to populist ideas (Gilead) gaining more traction than they should have.

* HeWhoFightsMonsters: [[spoiler:In the Colonies, she meets a Wife who was caught having an affair after her husband had long been ignoring her in favor of their Handmaid. For a while it looks like she's formed an OddFriendship with this woman who's been newly introduced to the receiving end of the terrors she endorsed and the rejection of the rest of the prisoners, but she's actually setting her up for a slow, painful death by poison, and then sets up the body as if crucified.]]

** Later in the series, she becomes a tragic example. She lives, but in a “too good for this cruel world” sort of way. She never seems to drop the positivity after her failed suicide, while the other female characters definitely harden from their experiences. This keeps her ultra sympathetic... and if anyone is gonna get beaten within an inch of her life in a scene, it's her.

* TerseTalker: He's not chatty at all. It annoys even June and is taken UpToEleven when he's married to Eden and she has to force every word out of him.

->'''Played By''': O-T Fagbenle

* PetTheDog: Deconstructed, as her moments of empathy and kindness offer no long-term solace for June's station. [[spoiler:Until she let's June's baby escape Gilead.]] [[FaceHeelRevolvingDoor Which she tries to undo later.]]

* NotHelpingYourCase: [[spoiler: When Mark Tuello arrests her for forcing Nick and June to conceive a child for her, Serena tries to defend her actions, inadvertantly calling June [[ItIsDehumanizing Offred]]. A disgusted Tuello (who'd made a point to refer to June by her name beforehand) disgustedly retorts her actions still constitute rape and has Serena tossed in a cell]].