Characters

Judge Holden is the novel's antagonist. He is very mysterious and one of the most violent characters in the book. Holden is described as hairless, over seven feet tall and rather childlike. He engages with the members of Glanton's gang, discussing mankind's need to be evil and misunderstanding the physical world surrounding the gang.The judge seems to engage in pedophilia and parades around naked often as well.

“Moral law is an invention of mankind for the disenfranchisement of the powerful in favor of the weak. Historical law subverts it at every turn.”

Judge Holden

Glanton is the leader of a group of scalphunters that the Kid joins in the town of Chihuahua. His company is a group of"...vicious looking humans mounted on unshod Indian ponies...." He sells his scalps to contractors for $100 dollars a piece. He always has the Judge with him because he depends on the Judge for support. Glanton never feels remorse for killing so many Indians and villagers, making him slightly insane. Towards the end of the novel, he is killed by a man with a club in his own bed near the Colorado River.

"I can man anything that eats."

John Glanton

The Boy (or the Man as he is referred to right at the end of the novel) is the pale, thin, illiterate, and big-handed protagonist of the novel. Originally from Tennessee, the Boy is forced to perform backbreaking labor at a very young age. The Boy runs away from his home at the age of 14 because his mother died of childbirth and his father was a drunkard. Since his is forcefully placed into a world of violence where every man preys on his youth, he has to harden in order to survive. He really enjoys drinking and is pretty good with a gun. Instead of talking a situation out, he goes straight to violence. This is most likely the reason why he never really speaks in the novel.

By the end of the novel, the Kid (now referred to as The Man) walks aimlessly across the countryside on his own, until he meets Judge Holden once again.

"He can neither read nor write and in him broods already a taste for mindless violence. All history present in that visage, the child the father of the man."

The Boy/ The Man

Louis Toadvine is one of the Kid’s friends (although at first they try to kill each other!) They go their separate ways after burning down a hotel to kill just one person, but they meet up again in prison! He creates a plan to be recruited by the Judge and Glanton to scalp Indians. He is described as a man with no ears, "a man with long hair," and, "His head was strangely narrow and his hair was plastered up with mud in a bizarre and primitive coiffure." He also had the letters H and T burned onto his forehead and an F in between his eyebrows.

"Toadvine sat with his boots crossed before the fire. No man can acquaint himself with everything on this earth, he said."

Louis Toadvine

Tobin is an ex-priest and a member of Glanton's company. He has been with the company long enough to know the story of the Judge and Glanton's meeting. As one of the most intelligent characters of the novel, he is aware of the Judge's philosophical ways and disagrees with him often. He is friendly with the Kid, and he warns him about Judge Holden. The Kid and Tobin flee the scene of an Indian massacre. Afterwards, he pleads with the Kid to kill the judge. He finally disappears in the city of San Diego, where the ex-priest is never seen again.

"The voice of the Almighty speaks most profoundly in such beings as lives in silence themselves."

Benjamin Tobin

Captain White is the head of a company who fight for the American control of Mexico. He is quite the white supremacist. He believes that all Mexicans are degenerates with absolutely no government. He thinks it's his duty to "come in to govern them." Unfortunately, he and his company are attacked by a group of Indian warriors, and the Kid finds Captain White's head, pickling inside a jar in a Mexican bazaar.

"Hell, there’s no God in Mexico. Never will be. We are dealing with a people manifestly incapabale of governing themselves. And do you know what happens with people who cannot govern themselves? That’s right. Others come in to govern for them."