Adam Sutler
The High Chancellor
Corporate-authoritarian dystopia.
Reactionary PinochetistOne of 729 ideologies · enter the Pinochetist hall →- Role
- High Chancellor (fiction)
- From
- V for Vendetta
- Region
- Britain (dystopia)
- Social band
- Reactionary
- Placement
- +90 · +99 · −85
§ Where Adam Sutler stands
3 axesThe film gives Norsefire no planned economy or collectivist programme; its economics is cronyism. Inspector Finch discovers that the cure for the St Mary's virus was supplied by a pharmaceutical company controlled by senior party figures, who grew rich from a catastrophe the party itself had engineered, a fusion of private profit and state power that places the regime on the corporate right.
Sutler's Britain is a total surveillance state. A nightly curfew is enforced by the Fingermen, a secret police under Peter Creedy, listening vans and cameras watch the streets, and the state broadcaster BTN feeds the population lies. Dissidents and so-called undesirables vanish under black hoods, and the film reveals that prisoners at the Larkhill detention centre were used for lethal medical experiments.
The regime is fiercely reactionary. Its slogan, Strength through Unity, Unity through Faith, binds nation to religion, and homosexuals, Muslims, immigrants and political opponents are rounded up; the actress Valerie is imprisoned for loving a woman, and the talk-show host Gordon Deitrich is executed after his satire of Sutler leads to a raid that uncovers a Quran in his home.
How close are you to Adam Sutler?
Three statements, one per axis. Answer them and we’ll drop you on the compass next to them.
§ The story
FictionAdam Sutler is the High Chancellor of Britain in V for Vendetta, the 2006 film directed by James McTeigue from a screenplay by the Wachowskis, adapted from the comic by Alan Moore and David Lloyd first serialised in 1982. Played by John Hurt, he leads the Norsefire party and rules a near-future police state, appearing mostly as a looming face on giant screens as he berates his ministers. In the original comic the equivalent figure is Adam Susan, a reclusive Leader devoted to a surveillance computer called Fate.
Sutler is the film's portrait of fascism arriving through fear: Norsefire wins power after a deadly virus attack that it secretly engineered and blamed on terrorists, then rules through curfews, surveillance and camps. Moore wrote the comic against the backdrop of Thatcher's Britain, while the film was widely read as a commentary on post-9/11 security politics, and Moore disowned it. Hurt's casting echoes his role as Winston Smith in the 1984 film of Nineteen Eighty-Four, and the story's Guy Fawkes mask became an emblem of Anonymous and the Occupy protests.
Notable for
- 01Antagonist of 'V for Vendetta'
- 02Surveillance-state dictator
- 03Corporate-authoritarian archetype
Key works & moments
- 1982Alan Moore and David Lloyd begin V for Vendetta in Warrior; the regime's leader is Adam Susan.
- 1988Introducing DC's colour reissue, Moore sets the story against Margaret Thatcher's third term in office.
- Book ThreeIn the comic, the widow Rose Almond shoots the Leader, Adam Susan, during a public appearance.
- 2006The film adaptation opens in cinemas, with John Hurt as High Chancellor Adam Sutler.
- FilmInspector Finch uncovers that Norsefire engineered the St Mary's virus attacks to win power and enrich insiders.
- Film climaxCreedy executes Sutler in an abandoned Underground station on 5 November; V then kills Creedy.
§ Minds closest to Adam Sutler
All minds →
§ Also in the Pinochetist hall
Enter the hall →§ Common questions
4 answersWhat is Adam Sutler's political ideology?
Adam Sutler leads Norsefire, a fascist party, in V for Vendetta: on the 99ideologies three-axis compass, a Reactionary Pinochetist. His regime sits far toward the market pole economically (+90), because it governs through cronyism and party-linked business rather than collective ownership; at the authoritarian extreme (+99), with curfews, secret police and camps; and deep on the traditional side socially (−85), persecuting homosexuals, Muslims and immigrants in the name of nation and faith.
Is Adam Sutler left-wing or right-wing?
Far right. Sutler's Norsefire combines ethnic nationalism, religious authority, militarism and the persecution of minorities, the classic markers of fascism, and its economics reward party insiders and private profit rather than redistribution. Many viewers read the 2006 film as a critique of post-9/11 security politics in general, but within the story there is no ambiguity: the regime is a right-wing dictatorship that came to power by manufacturing fear and keeps it through terror.
Is Adam Sutler based on a real dictator?
Not on any single one. Sutler is a composite drawn from the iconography of twentieth-century fascism and from Orwell: his face filling giant screens recalls Big Brother, and John Hurt had played Winston Smith in the 1984 film of Nineteen Eighty-Four. Alan Moore conceived the original comic in the early 1980s, and his 1988 introduction explicitly set it against Thatcher's Britain, while the film updated the story for the era of the war on terror.
Which minds are closest to Adam Sutler?
On the 99ideologies three-axis compass, the minds closest to Adam Sutler are António Salazar (96% alike), Augusto Pinochet (96% alike) and Coriolanus Snow (94% alike). The furthest is Emma Goldman (0% alike).