Characters / Riget

Doctors and nurses

Stig Helmer

• Anti-Hero: Crossing into an outright Villain Protagonist. Helmer is a competent doctor, but his Jerkass qualities make him unlikeable to his colleagues and patients' allies. His inability to own up to his mistakes ultimately forces him into doing increasingly immoral things.
• Boomerang Bigot: As revealed in Exodus, Helmer was, in fact, born Danish.
• Deadpan Snarker: Nears Krogen's levels of snark at times.
• Despair Event Horizon: Due to his troubles before the series starts, Helmer's life is hurt by a scandal back in Sweden, and he's forced to work in Denmark, in spite of his dislike of the country. Things go From Bad to Worse quickly, and virtually every episode end with Helmer in a worse situation than at the start. As revealed in Exodus, Helmer died a couple of days after Krogen, poisoned by Helmer, indirectly caused deaths of 21 people.
• Dr. Jerk: The very personification of one.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Halmer always reminisces of his beloved father, and some of the memories do suggest that Helmer was an attentive and loving father.
• Fatal Flaw: His ego. His inability to own up to mistakes and let others share successes with him is the thing that forces him out of Sweden in the first place, as he took credit for a team effort on a research, which made all Swedish hospitals unwilling to hire him. Afterwards, his inability to own up to another error on Mona's surgery leads him to do increasingly desperate acts, only causing more problems to himself. As Exodus reveals, the effort was entirely unnecessary on Helmer's part, as Rigmor was the one who made the mistake. If Helmer had allowed himself to be investigated at the start, he could have had a calm, problem-free career.
• The Peter Principle: Helmer is a capable surgeon, if a Jerkass, but after temporarily receiving "promotion" by taking over Einar's duties for a while, he does very poorly at the job. As it turns out, being a good neurosurgeon has little to do with being a good head of neurosurgery department.

Einar Moesgaard

• Benevolent Boss: Einar might be a coward, but he's a Lovable Coward, generally respected by his colleagues, and his bad qualities are much less prominent than in Helmer or his Exodus successor, Pontopidan.
• Broken Ace: Goes from a competent doctor and respected head of neurosurgery at the start into a nervous wreck as the series goes on. He ultimately "temporarily" hands over the responsibility for the department to Helmer.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Einar is very cowardly and clearly believes that the department runs the best when it runs itself, but unlike virtually every other developed character on the show, he's both good at medicine and administration, and as shown under later department heads, he does his job surprisingly well.
• Pointy-Haired Boss: Surprisingly an Averted Trope. Einar generally knows his way with doing and getting things, and when everything is calm, the department runs smoothly. However, his Head-in-the-Sand Management tendencies when things go south can cause him to cross into this territory.

Jørgen 'Krogen' Krogshøj

• Almighty Janitor: Krogen might be a doctor of the lowest rank, but by keeping tabs on others' errors and his dealings with surplus equipment, he holds a large sway with the entire hospital.
• Big Good: Starts off as this, in spite of his illegal activities, before Helmer zombifies him. He returns to this in Exodus after Karen cures him.
• Broken Ace: By Exodus, when he's cured from his state. Learning that Judith has died and the extent of his actions clearly breaks him, although he composes himself fairly quickly to aid in the Exodus.
• Deadpan Snarker: One of the biggest example of the show filled with them.
• Nietzsche Wannabe: What he turns into after his zombification.

Judith Petersen

• Anyone Can Die: She's the first major character in the series to die for story reasons, not due to the actor's death, and as such, reveals this to the viewer.
• Big Good: Possibly the most unambiguously good character on the show. Unlike basically anyone else, she is a nice, competent doctor without any bad qualities in a show where virtually everyone tends to be either evil, jerkass or incompetent.

Rigmor Mortensen

• Apologetic Attacker: When she's about to shoot Helmer, she's clearly problems with it. Once she actually shoots him, she immediately turns into this.
• Embarrassing Nickname: "Rigmor Mortis", due to her rather questionably medical competencies.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Unpopular among her colleagues, not helped by her relationship with the about as unpopular Helmer, as she lacks his prestige and alleged competency. Taken to extreme in Exodus, where Pontopidan outright climbs into his office via window to avoid meeting and talking to her. Even Halmer leaves her once she tells him where Helmer's grave is.

Palle Bondo

• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Bondo is, to put it mildly, eccentric. He has odd views and is willing to go to incredible lengths for science or, as sometimes shown, dubiously prestigious achievements. He's also presented as a good professor and very capable surgeon.

Camilla

• Affably Evil: In the original series, she's a jovial, kind nurse, who does her best to help the patients feel as best as they could. She also happens to be a Satanist. Inverted in the 3rd series - even after 25 years, she's still visibly shaken by her experience, and is clearly ashamed and horrified of her past, but is also now much colder and uncaring to the patients.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Her state in Exodus is quite pitiful, and she appears remorseful for her actions. When she's confroted with Grand Duc himself, she's terrified, runs away and gets turned into a mouse, which is then implied to be killed by a mousetrap, probably just to ensure she won't talk, all while Grand Duc only occupies himself with Karen and shows no interest in his former, or even possibly present worshiper.
• Mrs. Robinson: Downplayed, but she's this to Mogge once she reciprocates his feelings. It's unclear what the age gap is supposed to be between them - she scolds him for not choosing girls "his own age", and she is a nurse while he's still a medical student, but she doesn't much older than him. Might be a case of Younger Than They Look; Solbjørg Højfeldt is 16 years older than Peter Mygind, but her youthful looks made them seem at best 10 years apart.
• Religion of Evil: Turns out to be a Satanist.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Goes from trying to gently refuse Mogge in series and, until seemingly falling in love with him, to forcing him to have sex with her so often he has troubles getting enough sleep to even attempt to study. Given what's revealed about her in the final episode, she was probably only hiding her actual personality.

'Pigernes' Ole

• Psycho Psychologist: A non-lethal example, but his methods are still viewed as weird even by Riget standards.

Stig Gustav 'Halmer' Helmer Jr.

• Embarrassing Nickname: Halmer, which would roughly translate to "Half-Helmer" or "Little Helmer".
• Face Death with Dignity: Once he discovers Anna in his car is actually Death itself, he realises his situation is hopeless and he will not be able to survive. Rather than rising his panic levels into overdrive, Halmer decides to finally give in to his desires and finally kisses and embraces Anna, leaving his car to crash.
• Foil: To his own father. Helmer had everything, yet acted like such a Jerkass that no one was willing to cooperate with him, was responsible for his problems (and then for larger problems rising from his attempts to hide the previous problems) and brought everything onto himself. Halmer just tries to figure out what happened to his dad, gets rejected in spite of trying to fit in into the collective, and apart from one administrative error never actually does anything wrong. Naturally, the circumstances slowly turn Halmer into being as spiteful as his father.
• I Just Shot Marvin in the Face: Accidentally shoots and kills Naver after mistaking a real gun for a water one.
• Like Father, Unlike Son: While still a major case of Dr. Jerk, Halmer is basically a good counterpart to his father. He lacks his father's overwhelming pride and ego, tries to make genuine (if patronising) attempts to fit into Riget, and his quirks, which copy his father, are generally driven by outside factors (such as him parking in an ambulance spot because no one can get him his promised parking spot in a half-empty garage). And naturally, the circumstances are so unkind to him, like getting punished for being attacked, slowly turn him insane.
• Politically Correct Villain: He's a feminist and criticises the department for lack of ethnic diversity. After being told that a black man, who's actually a cleaner, is a doctor to make the department seem more diverse, he respectfully calls him "Dr. Andersen" even as he sees him sweeping the halls.

Pontopidan

• Butt-Monkey: He gets pushed around by virtually everyone, even though he's technically the one in charge of the department. Admittedly, he brings this onto himself.
• Despair Event Horizon: After his long-prepared, admittedly very dumb L-speech is poorly received, he seemingly realises how pathetic he is, and crawls into a freezer, where he previously hid from others, to commit suicide.
• Dirty Coward: His main trait. He makes Einar looks like a heroic character by comparison.
• The Peter Principle: Implied. Pontopidan had to be a skilled brain surgeon to be promoted into leading the clinic, and he never seems to lack knowledge in the medical area. However, him being a complete pushover who hides in his office from his own underlings does make him an extremely poor head of department.

Anna

• Ambiguous Situation: Since the 3rd series introduces doppelgängers, it's not clear whether Anna that leaves Riget with Halmer is supposed to be the same Anna that appeared in the show so far. She behaves differently somewhat, but also keeps staring and following Halmer, just like the real Anna. This makes it unclear whether Anna was always Death itself.
• Playing Both Sides: She's sympathetic to Halmer as a fellow Swede, but is about as sympathetic towards money threatening him with lawsuits brings her.

Filip Naver

• Catchphrase: "Ugh!", whenever met with idiocy. Which, in Riget, is very often. He even lets it out after getting shot between his eyes by Halmer.
• Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon: His threats, of which there are many, are generally presented as giving his target an option - either something very pleasant, like Naver buying him an expensive chocolate, or something very unpleasant, like Naver punching him repeatedly. He does act on the unpleasant option only once in the whole series though.
• Eye Scream: When he's *extremely* upset, he pops his own eye out of the socket... with a spoon.
• Glory Hound: What Pontopidan says Naver is... although never to his face. Naver does propose unorthodox surgeries that would make him famous, but he's never displayed as doing it for publicity.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Everyone is terrified of him, especially Pontopidan. Weirdly, Naver doesn't actually get angry that easily, with most of his outburts being purely verbal and given to people who utterly deserve them, something the Surrounded by Idiots environment would likely do to anybody.
• I Just Shot Marvin in the Face: Victim of this, courtesy of Halmer mistaking a water gun for a real one.
• Perpetual Frowner: Comes with being played by Nikolaj Lie Kaas.

Hospital Staff

Director Bob

• Dumbass Has a Point: While his competency and methods are questionable, his complaints about the Lodge being a nepostistic cult-like organisation, not to mention harmful to Riget, are entirely correct. In addition to this, a good portion of his seemingly idiotic decisions are led on by the Lodge.
• He Who Fights Monsters: In the original series, Bob was somewhat dimwitted and rude director, who opposed the Lodge for being a nepotistic organisation, covering for each other and causing Riget to stagnate. In Exodus, the Lodge is nowhere to be seen, implying Bob has won in the power struggle, but has since turned into an inattentive boss primarily concerned with playing Solitaire in his office, letting Riget stagnate for 25 more years. To really drive the point home, one scene has Bob ordering orderlies to load up a corpse of an old professor to an ambulance and say he died on his way to a home of the elderly, in order to keep the death statistics lower. He's suddenly as willing to mess around with medical records to improve appearances as the Lodge was.
• Pointy-Haired Boss: Zigzagged. Bob knows very little about medicine (although the series makes it clear that being a good doctor doesn't necessarily translate to being a good hospital department head, given the amount of competent doctors completely in over their head in administration) and is portrayed as somewhat dimwitted and incompetent, but he does sometimes make a good call/observation showing he's not a complete moron. Taken to extremes in Exodus, where he's not doing anything, or doing outright idiotic things. However, hid speech to Kalle shows he's probably still much more aware of his surroundings than he lets on. His truly moronic moments only start appearing once he's convinced he's dying.

Ghosts and Demons

Aage Krüger

• Was Once a Man: Used to be a normal human doctor, or, well, at least a human doctor. It says a lot that his transformation into a demon didn't make him any more villainous.
• Would Hurt a Child: He poisoned Mary, his own daughter, under the pretense of curing her tuberculosis. That was before he was turned into a demon. He also clearly has plans to take over Little Brother's body, and shows no concern that that would almost certainly mean a death of his son.

Little Brother

• Big Good: Comes with him being the Anti Anti Christ.

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