History Characters / FargoSeriesNarwhal

* RuthlessForeignGangster: He's Siberian and actually the most cruel and violent of all Varga's henchmen.

->'''Portrayed By:''' N/A

->'''Portrayed By:''' Creator/DavidThewlis

-->''"The problem is not that there is evil in the world, but that there is good. Otherwise, who would care?"''

->'''Portrayed By:''' Goran Bogdan

->'''Portrayed By:''' Andy Yu

[[folder: Golem]]

->'''Portrayed By:''' Creator/DJQualls

** Like Gaer, Yuri is a burly, intimidating Eastern-European man with dead eyes, very little personality, a sadistic streak and impulse control problems, and is one half of a villainous [[BigGuyLittleGuy big guy/little guy]] duo.

** Malvo was an independent figure who worked solely for his own benefit and led a fairly nomadic existence otherwise while Mike was a mid-level enforcer at a large company with aims on a higher position. Varga however is only pretending to be a middle manager when he really is in charge of the organization he leads.

** Malvo, for all his evil, never expressed any bigotry while Mike was a black man in the 70's and expressed some fairly progressive attitudes. Varga expresses a low view of immigrants, the poor, the overweight and has a particularly low view of Jewish people while Mike worked in an organization with Jewish criminals.
** Malvo never showed much aptitude nor interest in technology and neither did Mike. Varga however is terrifyingly skilled with computers, able to hack emails and spy on people and used a program for anyone that searched for him in google that takes a picture before destroying the laptop and sends his men to kill whoever tried to find him.

** Mike and Malvo were both American natives who never went outside the country while Varga is a British immigrant with ties in Europe that allowed him to hide out for five years to escape from Nikki.

** Mike had a love of the finer things and Malvo, while not normally interested, was capable of being dapper when he needed to be. Varga dresses exclusively in cheap, beige clothes that look overworn, both to hide his true nature and due to his cheapness, even with himself.

* NoLoveForTheWicked: Varga shows no sexual, much less romantic, interest in anybody, even though with his wealth and power he'd have easy access to sexual partners. Indeed, he lives a completely ascetic life apart from his bulimic binge-eating.

* SmallNameBigEgo: Not "small" since he is the head of a vast criminal enterprise but Varga carries himself as if he's completely invulnerable and no one he speaks to could ever come close to matching his intellect. He even [[spoiler: ends the series certain that his connections will get him out of jail, not even considering that they might happily take the chance to be rid of him forever.]]

* RidiculouslyAverageGuy: He {{invoke|d}}s this trope, dressing in shabby, drab clothes and living an unglamorous lifestyle so as to be BeneathNotice despite his presumably vast wealth. He's still [[InformedAttribute pretty striking in appearance]], however, if only for how grotesque he is. Interesting to note that his working-class London accent would add to his "forgettable everyman" shtick in the UK, but makes him stand out in America.

* KnifeNut: Seems to prefer a long knife as his go-to weapon.

* VillainousAromanticAsexual: At no point does Varga show any interest in women, sex, or relationships, in spite of the fact that his wealth and power would easily provide them. Indeed, apart from his bulimic gorging, he lives a completely ascetic life.

* ImpersonatingAnOfficer: Does this to sneak inside the police station and [[spoiler:try ti kill Nikki]].

* FromNobodyToNightmare: Claims to be the son of a housemaid who grew up in humble surroundings but, like evrything he says, it's impossible to know how much is true.

** Gurka also gives a... [[{{Understatement}} somewhat distorted]] description of Russian history:
-->''All of Russia, hundreds of years, millions the tsar killed, then it was Lenin, then Stalin. Ten thousand, twenty thousand, but here you have, like, what? Malls … few dead Indians. Twenty million Russian died fighting Hitler. Twenty million. I see from your face that you can’t even imagine that. The pogroms, the starvation, twenty million more. Mothers cooking and eating their babies. That’s why the snow falls white, to hide the blood.''

* ThoseTwoBadGuys: With Meemo.

* ThoseTwoBadGuys: With Yuri.

[[folder:SPOILER CHARACTER]]
!![[spoiler:Ruby Goldfarb]]
See [[Characters/FargoSeriesOtherCharacters Other Characters]]
[[/folder]]

* ForeignCultureFetish: Varga [[WickedCultured displays knowledge of many foreign cultures]], but seems to have a special interest in Russia — particularly with regards to authoritarianism and [[WrittenByTheWinners manipulating public opinion]]. He fondly quotes Lenin, has a picture of Josef Stalin next to his desk, and praises Vladimir Putin's government.

* SmugSnake: He regards the vast majority of people he encounters as being like insects barely worthy of his contempt.

* {{Greed}}: Varga [[StrawNihilist believes human life has no inherent value]], and people are only worth the money they own. Hence his goals focus purely on "the accumulation of wealth" — not ''using'' it for anything, [[TheScrooge just accumulating it]].

* ShoutOut: Varga named him after Mike Ehrmantraut of ''Series/BreakingBad'' & ''Series/BetterCallSaul''; a highly competent hitman often exasperated by amateur criminals.

* KarmaHoudini: Played with. [[spoiler:During their final confrontation, Gloria bets that Varga will be sent to Rikers and face his crimes. Varga bets that his connections will come through and allow him to walk scot-free. [[[TheUnreveal We're never shown who is proven right]].]]

* MouthOfSauron: Varga speaks for his bosses, the mysterious investors of 'Narwhal'. [[spoiler:Then he admits to Nikki that he is the boss, when she says he only claims to believe he's middle-management so people won't dig deeper into him.]]

* PoliticallyIncorrectVillain: Rambles about Mexicans coming to rape "our women", amongst other immigrant/refugee groups, during a monologue to Emmit Stussy in which he makes it quite clear that he views the poor as "peasants." He's also a rather open anti-semite, referring to Jews as "half animal." Oddly, he also hates fat people, considering them inherently hedonistic and therefore untrustworthy and impulsive. In the closing interrogation scene of season 3, he speaks very lowly of the poor.

* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: [[spoiler: Once his men are gunned down by Wrench and he discovers the IRS have the incriminating information on Stussy Lots, he gets the hell out of dodge and leaves Minnesota for good.]]

* TheSociopath: Almost on pair with Lorne Malvo. His only interest is expanding his reign of crime while in the meantime killing anyone who tries to expose him or for simply pettiness.
* TheSpook: When he first shows up, no one knows who he really is, where he's from or who he works for. It's never stated what the V.M. in his name stands for, googling him only provides one result which is a trap that bricks the investigator's computer, and he dodges the question of where he's from by saying he's "a citizen of the world." [[spoiler:After the five year TimeSkip in the season three finale, he's going under the name "Rand" and has fabricated an entirely new identity. About the only concrete fact learned about him is that he's really the boss of Narwhal and lying about being a middle-manager.]]
* TheyLookJustLikeEveryoneElse: He has a rather innocuous appearance. In fact, he doesn't look like much more than a put-upon businessman, but then he opens his mouth and turns out to be a confident, cunning criminal. He very deliberately cultivates this appearance, wearing working class suits, flying coach, even making sure his teeth are ''just'' rotten enough to make him the right kind of inconspicuous.

* WouldHurtAChild: When an [=IRS=] agent meets with Emmit, Varga's first question to Emmit is if the man has a wedding ring. Since threatening someone's wife and children is the easiest way to intimidate someone.

* RecurringElement: Yuri and Meemo are the quirky yet threatening pair of minions of Season 3. Their precursors are Mr. Wrench and Mr. Numbers and the Kitchen Brothers. [[spoiler:He seems to be the half of the duo who doesn't make it out of the season... until Meemo kicks the bucket.]]

* ImpersonatingAnOfficer: Does this to sneak inside the police station and [[spoiler:try and kill Nikki]].

* ShoutOut: He's pretty clearly named for Mike Ehrmantraut of ''Series/BreakingBad'' & ''Series/BetterCallSaul''; a highly competent hitman often exasperated by amateur criminals.