V
V, the novel's protagonist, is an enigmatic anarchist revolutionary who systematically eliminates the leaders of Britain's fascist Norsefire government. V's true face is always concealed under a Guy Fawkes mask, wig, and black cape. V is a fearless, skilled fighter who shows an immense tolerance for pain, which he developed after being injected with a trial chemical at Larkhill Resettlement Camp. V often quotes literature when speaking, and has a penchant for theatricality.
Evey Hammond
Evey "Eve" Hammond is a sixteen-year-old girl who V rescues at the beginning of the story and trains as his eventual replacement in his fight against the fascist regime. Eve had been an orphan and turned to prostitution. She begins the story with long blonde hair; midway through the story, V shaves her head as part of a simulated torture to help Eve free herself.
The Leader (Adam Susan)
Adam Susan is the Leader of the Norsefire Party. He serves as the organization’s face and coordinates most of its operations. He values order as well as cultural and racial homogeneity above civil and personal liberties, seeing the latter as frivolities and a threat to national security in the long run. In pursuit of his ideals of a fully culturally and racially homogenous United Kingdom, he relegates all non-white, non-Christian, and non-heterosexual members of society into concentration camps. In place of normal human life, he instead venerates Fate, the super-computer surveillance network that manages the United Kingdom.
Eric Finch
Eric Finch is a detective who heads the branch of Norsefire known as The Nose, analogous to the FBI or MI6. Finch is the chief of New Scotland Yard. He is a rarity in government as he is actually morally upright and strives for integrity. Later in the novel, Finch takes LSD and visits Larkhill to help him understand V's mind. The trip helps Finch free himself and the novel closes with him deciding to leave London and live according to his own rules.
Derek Almond
Head of The Finger, Norsefire’s secret police force, Almond is a cold, arrogant man, fully assured of his organization’s abilities and reach. He is emotionally distant and abusive to his devoted wife, Rose. V kills Almond at Delia Surridge's house when Almond's gun turns out not to be loaded.
Rosemary Almond
Initially Derek Almond’s wife, Rosemary begins stripping after running out of money when her husband is killed. Her bitterness at the injustice of society builds over the novel, leading her to assassinate the Leader with a pistol.
Peter Creedy
Creedy is installed as the new head of The Finger after Almond dies. Creedy is opportunistic and spiteful. He seeks to replace Adam Susan as Leader, who he sees as weak and ineffective. Creedy dies when Alistair Harper betrays him and murders him.
Roger Dascombe
Dascombe is the head of The Mouth, tasked with creating and disseminating propaganda material for Norsefire. Police and Fingermen unwittingly shoot Dascombe, who V has used as a decoy to help him escape from Jordan Tower.
Brian Etheridge
Etheridge is the Head of The Ear, Norsefire's audio-surveillance arm. Etheridge speaks with a conspicuous stutter. He is killed in the destruction of the Post Office Tower, which was the cover for The Ear's headquarters.
Alistair "Ally" Harper
Alistair Harper is a Scottish mobster who kills Gordon. Creedy hires Harper in an attempt to reinforce the police force. However, Helen Heyer pays off Harper as part of a ploy intended to bring about Creedy's ruin. Harper later becomes Helen's lover. Toward the end of the book, Harper kills Creedy. He is then killed by Conrad after Conrad finds out about his wife's affair.
Conrad Heyer
Conrad Heyer manages The Eye, the organization that monitors and maintains the United Kingdom’s CCTV system. V sends Conrad a videotape of Helen, Conrad's wife, having sex with Alistair Harper as part of his destabilization plot against the Norsefire party. Conrad proceeds to beat Alistair Harper to death with a wrench. He is mortally wounded during the struggle, and his wife refuses to help save him.
Helen Heyer
The ruthless, scheming wife of Conrad Heyer, Helen leverages sex and cunning to keep her husband under her thumb. She is a skilled manipulator and has ambitions of power, hoping to control the country herself by installing Conrad as the next leader of Norsefire. She sleeps with Harper in order to gain his allegiance and to turn him against Creedy. All her scheming fails because of V. At the end of the novel, Finch encounters Helen selling her body in exchange for protection to a group of tramps.
Bishop Anthony Lilliman
Bishop Lilliman is the corrupt priest who serves as the official voice of Norsefire in the Church. He is a vicious pedophile, molesting young girls in various parishes under his care. Before being given his post as bishop, he worked at Larkhill as a priest. He was tasked with providing spiritual support to the prisoners receiving experimental hormone treatments. Using Evey Hammond as bait to lure the bishop, V captures him and stages a mock communion ritual, killing the bishop by forcing him to eat a communion wafer loaded with cyanide.
Lewis Prothero
The former head of the Larkhill concentration camp where V was incarcerated, Prothero is The Voice of Fate, the Norsefire radio personality who broadcasts propaganda to the public. He is captured by V and mentally broken through having to watch his cherished doll collection be incinerated as a reenactment of the Larkhill fire.
Dr. Delia Surridge
Delia Surridge is one of the Larkhill doctors and the only one of V's tormentors with the distinction of actually feeling remorse for her crimes. V kills Dr. Surridge by injecting her with an unnamed chemical. She apologizes to V before she dies.
Dominic Stone
Apprentice to Inspector Finch, Stone manages to draw the connection between V’s anarchistic activities and the former Larkhill concentration camp staff. Similar to Eric Finch, he works out of civic duty, not out of political aspiration. It is implied later on in the book that Dominic will take on the personage of V after Evey has groomed him as her successor.
Gordon
Evey’s lover for a time and a small-time bootlegger, Gordon is later on murdered by the ruthless gangster Alistair Harper.
Valerie Page
Valerie was a well-loved actress who was imprisoned at Larkhill for being a lesbian. Her torture at the hands of Norsefire was chronicled in a letter that V discovers while he was incarcerated at Larkhill. V keeps the letter; during Evey's mock imprisonment, he makes sure that she finds it and reads it. The contents of the letter provide the impetus for both V and Evey to fight against the party.
