Source plot synopsis — published story coverage
Coverage is limited to the scope described in this write-up. Recording changes, further installments or an unwritten ending may remain outside it.
=== Book 1: Europe After the Reign ===
On Guy Fawkes Night in London in 1997, financially desperate 16-year-old Evey Hammond sexually solicits men who are actually members of the state secret police called "The Finger". Preparing to rape and kill her, the Fingermen are dispatched by V, a cloaked anarchist wearing a mask, who later remotely detonates explosives at the Palace of Westminster before bringing Evey to his contraband-filled underground lair, the "Shadow Gallery." Evey tells V her life story, which reveals her own past and England's recent history. During a dispute over Poland in the late 1980s, the Soviet Union and the United States, under the presidency of Ted Kennedy, entered a global nuclear war which left continental Europe and Africa uninhabitable. Although Britain itself was not bombed due to the Labour government's decision to remove American nuclear missiles, it faced environmental devastation and famine due to the nuclear winter. After a period of lawlessness in which Evey's mother died, the remaining corporations and fascist groups took over Britain and formed a new totalitarian government, Norsefire. Evey's father, a former socialist, was arrested by the regime.
Meanwhile, Eric Finch, a veteran detective in charge of the regular police force ("The Nose"), begins investigating V's terrorist activities. Finch often communicates with the other top government officials, collectively known as "The Head." These individuals include Derek Almond, who supervises the Finger (and who is both emotionally and physically abusive to his wife), and Adam Susan, the reclusive Leader of Norsefire, who obsessively oversees the government's Fate computer system. Finch's case thickens when V kidnaps Lewis Prothero, a propaganda-broadcasting radio personality, and drives him into a mental breakdown by forcing him to relive his actions as the commander of a "resettlement" camp near Larkhill with his treasured doll collection as inmates. Evey agrees to help V with the next part of his plan (not knowing that it will be an assassination) by disguising herself as a child prostitute to help V infiltrate the residence of Bishop Anthony Lilliman, a paedophile priest, whom V forces to commit suicide by eating a poisoned communion wafer. He prepares to murder Dr. Delia Surridge, a medical researcher who once had a relationship with Finch. Finch suddenly discovers the connection among V's three targets: they all used to work at Larkhill, and warns Almond. That night after confronting Surridge in her bedroom, V kills her with a painless poison; when Almond appears as V is leaving and tries to shoot him (with what turns out to be an unloaded gun), V kills him too. Surridge leaves a diary revealing that V—a former inmate and victim of Surridge's cruel medical experiments—destroyed and fled the camp and is now eliminating the camp's former personnel for what they did. Finch reports these findings to Susan, and suspects that this vendetta may actually be a cover for V, who, he worries, may be plotting an even bigger terrorist attack.
Book 2: This Vicious Cabaret
Four months later, V breaks into Jordan Tower, the home of Norsefire's propaganda department, "the Mouth"—led by Roger Dascombe—to broadcast a recorded speech that calls on the people to resist the government. V escapes using an elaborate diversion that results in Dascombe's death. Finch is soon introduced to Peter Creedy, the Finger's new head, who provokes Finch to strike him and thus get sent on forced leave. Evey, who has been returned by V to the outside world, takes shelter at the house of a man named Gordon, who found her on the street. While originally platonic, they eventually build a romantic relationship. Evey and Gordon unknowingly cross paths with Rose Almond, the widow of the recently killed Derek. After Derek's death, Rose had reluctantly begun a relationship with Dascombe. With her husband and lover dead, she is cut off from government benefits and has been forced to get a job performing demoralising burlesque work, increasing her hatred of the unsupportive government.
When a Scottish gangster named Ally Harper murders Gordon, a vengeful Evey tracks Harper to a meeting between him and Creedy, who is buying the support of Harper's thugs in preparation for a coup d'état. From a nearby alley, Evey attempts to shoot Harper but is suddenly abducted and later awakens to find herself in a prison cell. Amidst interrogation, humiliation and torture, Evey finds an old letter hidden in her cell by an inmate named Valerie Page, a film actress who was imprisoned for being a lesbian and subjected to medical experimentation, and who had documented her life story in the letter.
Evey's interrogator eventually gives her a final choice: collaboration or death; inspired by Valerie's letter, Evey refuses to collaborate and, expecting to be executed, is instead told that she is free. Stunned, Evey learns that her supposed imprisonment has in reality been an elaborate charade constructed by V so that she could experience an ordeal similar to the one that shaped him at Larkhill. He reveals that the letter is not a fake and that Valerie really existed, that she was a Larkhill prisoner who had died in the cell next to his. Evey forgives V, who reveals he had long ago hacked into the government's Fate computer system and begun emotionally manipulating Adam Susan with mind games. Consequently, Susan, who has formed a bizarre romantic attachment to the computer, begins to descend into madness.
Book 3: The Land of Do-As-You-Please
The following 5 November (1998), V blows up both the Post Office Tower and Jordan Tower, killing "the Ear" leader Brian Etheridge and effectively shutting down three government agencies: the Eye, the Ear, and the Mouth. Creedy's men and Harper's associated street gangs violently suppress the subsequent wave of revolutionary fervor from the public. V notes to Evey that he has not yet achieved what he calls the "Land of Do-as-You-Please," meaning a functional anarchistic society, and considers the current chaotic situation an interim period of "Land of Take-What-You-Want." Finch has been mysteriously absent, and his young assistant, Dominic Stone, one day realises that V has been influencing the Fate computer all along, which explained V's consistent foresight. In the meantime, Finch travels to the abandoned site of Larkhill near Salisbury Plain, where he takes LSD to conjure up memories of his own devastating past and to put his mind in the role of a prisoner of Larkhill, like V, to help give him an intuitive understanding of V's experiences. Returning to London, Finch suddenly deduces that V's lair is inside the abandoned Victoria Station, which he enters.
V takes Finch by surprise, resulting in a scuffle that sees Finch shoot V and V wounding Finch with a knife. V claims that he cannot be killed since he is only an idea and that "ideas are bulletproof"; regardless, V is indeed mortally wounded and returns to the Shadow Gallery deeper within, dying in Evey's arms. Evey considers unmasking V but decides not to, realising that V is not an identity but a symbol. She then assumes V's identity, donning one of his spare costumes and masks. Finch sees the large amount of blood that V has left in his wake and deduces that he has mortally wounded V. Occurring concurrently to this, Creedy has been pressuring Susan to appear in public, hoping to leave him exposed. Sure enough, as Susan stops to shake hands with Rose during a parade, she shoots him in the head in vengeance for the death of her husband and the life she has had to lead since then. Following Rose's arrest, Creedy assumes emergency leadership of the country, and Finch emerges from the subway proclaiming V's death.
Due to his LSD-induced epiphany, Finch leaves his position within "the Nose." The power struggle between the remaining leaders results in all of their deaths: Harper betrays and kills Creedy at the behest of Helen Heyer (wife of "the Eye" leader Conrad Heyer and who had outbid Creedy for Harper's loyalty), and Harper and Conrad Heyer kill each other during a fight precipitated by Heyer's discovery (via a videotape sent by V) that his wife Helen had had an affair with Harper.
With the fate of the top government officials unknown to the public, Stone acts as leader of the police forces deployed to ensure that the riots are contained should V remain alive and make his promised public announcement. Evey, dressed as V, appears on a rooftop to a crowd, announcing the destruction of 10 Downing Street the following day and telling the crowd they must "...choose what comes next. Lives of your own, or a return to chains", whereupon a general insurrection begins. Evey destroys 10 Downing Street by blowing up an Underground train containing V's body in the style of an explosive Viking funeral. During the chaos in the streets, she abducts an injured Stone and brings him to the Shadow Gallery, apparently to train him as her successor to make sure people like Susan will never hold power ever again. The comic ends with Finch quietly observing the chaos raging in the city, spurning Helen Heyer's proposal to become her partner and seize power, and walking down an abandoned motorway whose lights have all gone out.
Norsefire government
The highest-level officials in the Norsefire government form a council known as "The Head." The five individual departments are named after sensory organs or appendages that reference their functions.
Notes
On Guy Fawkes Night in London in 1997, financially desperate 16-year-old Evey Hammond sexually solicits men who are actually members of the state secret police called "The Finger". Preparing to rape and kill her, the Fingermen are dispatched by V, a cloaked anarchist wearing a mask, who later remotely detonates explosives at the Palace of Westminster before bringing Evey to his contraband-filled underground lair, the "Shadow Gallery." Evey tells V her life story, which reveals her own past and England's recent history. During a dispute over Poland in the late 1980s, the Soviet Union and the United States, under the presidency of Ted Kennedy, entered a global nuclear war which left continental Europe and Africa uninhabitable. Although Britain itself was not bombed due to the Labour government's decision to remove American nuclear missiles, it faced environmental devastation and famine due to the nuclear winter. After a period of lawlessness in which Evey's mother died, the remaining corporations and fascist groups took over Britain and formed a new totalitarian government, Norsefire. Evey's father, a former socialist, was arrested by the regime.
Meanwhile, Eric Finch, a veteran detective in charge of the regular police force ("The Nose"), begins investigating V's terrorist activities. Finch often communicates with the other top government officials, collectively known as "The Head." These individuals include Derek Almond, who supervises the Finger (and who is both emotionally and physically abusive to his wife), and Adam Susan, the reclusive Leader of Norsefire, who obsessively oversees the government's Fate computer system. Finch's case thickens when V kidnaps Lewis Prothero, a propaganda-broadcasting radio personality, and drives him into a mental breakdown by forcing him to relive his actions as the commander of a "resettlement" camp near Larkhill with his treasured doll collection as inmates. Evey agrees to help V with the next part of his plan (not knowing that it will be an assassination) by disguising herself as a child prostitute to help V infiltrate the residence of Bishop Anthony Lilliman, a paedophile priest, whom V forces to commit suicide by eating a poisoned communion wafer. He prepares to murder Dr. Delia Surridge, a medical researcher who once had a relationship with Finch. Finch suddenly discovers the connection among V's three targets: they all used to work at Larkhill, and warns Almond. That night after confronting Surridge in her bedroom, V kills her with a painless poison; when Almond appears as V is leaving and tries to shoot him (with what turns out to be an unloaded gun), V kills him too. Surridge leaves a diary revealing that V—a former inmate and victim of Surridge's cruel medical experiments—destroyed and fled the camp and is now eliminating the camp's former personnel for what they did. Finch reports these findings to Susan, and suspects that this vendetta may actually be a cover for V, who, he worries, may be plotting an even bigger terrorist attack.
Book 2: This Vicious Cabaret
Four months later, V breaks into Jordan Tower, the home of Norsefire's propaganda department, "the Mouth"—led by Roger Dascombe—to broadcast a recorded speech that calls on the people to resist the government. V escapes using an elaborate diversion that results in Dascombe's death. Finch is soon introduced to Peter Creedy, the Finger's new head, who provokes Finch to strike him and thus get sent on forced leave. Evey, who has been returned by V to the outside world, takes shelter at the house of a man named Gordon, who found her on the street. While originally platonic, they eventually build a romantic relationship. Evey and Gordon unknowingly cross paths with Rose Almond, the widow of the recently killed Derek. After Derek's death, Rose had reluctantly begun a relationship with Dascombe. With her husband and lover dead, she is cut off from government benefits and has been forced to get a job performing demoralising burlesque work, increasing her hatred of the unsupportive government.
When a Scottish gangster named Ally Harper murders Gordon, a vengeful Evey tracks Harper to a meeting between him and Creedy, who is buying the support of Harper's thugs in preparation for a coup d'état. From a nearby alley, Evey attempts to shoot Harper but is suddenly abducted and later awakens to find herself in a prison cell. Amidst interrogation, humiliation and torture, Evey finds an old letter hidden in her cell by an inmate named Valerie Page, a film actress who was imprisoned for being a lesbian and subjected to medical experimentation, and who had documented her life story in the letter.
Evey's interrogator eventually gives her a final choice: collaboration or death; inspired by Valerie's letter, Evey refuses to collaborate and, expecting to be executed, is instead told that she is free. Stunned, Evey learns that her supposed imprisonment has in reality been an elaborate charade constructed by V so that she could experience an ordeal similar to the one that shaped him at Larkhill. He reveals that the letter is not a fake and that Valerie really existed, that she was a Larkhill prisoner who had died in the cell next to his. Evey forgives V, who reveals he had long ago hacked into the government's Fate computer system and begun emotionally manipulating Adam Susan with mind games. Consequently, Susan, who has formed a bizarre romantic attachment to the computer, begins to descend into madness.
Book 3: The Land of Do-As-You-Please
The following 5 November (1998), V blows up both the Post Office Tower and Jordan Tower, killing "the Ear" leader Brian Etheridge and effectively shutting down three government agencies: the Eye, the Ear, and the Mouth. Creedy's men and Harper's associated street gangs violently suppress the subsequent wave of revolutionary fervor from the public. V notes to Evey that he has not yet achieved what he calls the "Land of Do-as-You-Please," meaning a functional anarchistic society, and considers the current chaotic situation an interim period of "Land of Take-What-You-Want." Finch has been mysteriously absent, and his young assistant, Dominic Stone, one day realises that V has been influencing the Fate computer all along, which explained V's consistent foresight. In the meantime, Finch travels to the abandoned site of Larkhill near Salisbury Plain, where he takes LSD to conjure up memories of his own devastating past and to put his mind in the role of a prisoner of Larkhill, like V, to help give him an intuitive understanding of V's experiences. Returning to London, Finch suddenly deduces that V's lair is inside the abandoned Victoria Station, which he enters.
V takes Finch by surprise, resulting in a scuffle that sees Finch shoot V and V wounding Finch with a knife. V claims that he cannot be killed since he is only an idea and that "ideas are bulletproof"; regardless, V is indeed mortally wounded and returns to the Shadow Gallery deeper within, dying in Evey's arms. Evey considers unmasking V but decides not to, realising that V is not an identity but a symbol. She then assumes V's identity, donning one of his spare costumes and masks. Finch sees the large amount of blood that V has left in his wake and deduces that he has mortally wounded V. Occurring concurrently to this, Creedy has been pressuring Susan to appear in public, hoping to leave him exposed. Sure enough, as Susan stops to shake hands with Rose during a parade, she shoots him in the head in vengeance for the death of her husband and the life she has had to lead since then. Following Rose's arrest, Creedy assumes emergency leadership of the country, and Finch emerges from the subway proclaiming V's death.
Due to his LSD-induced epiphany, Finch leaves his position within "the Nose." The power struggle between the remaining leaders results in all of their deaths: Harper betrays and kills Creedy at the behest of Helen Heyer (wife of "the Eye" leader Conrad Heyer and who had outbid Creedy for Harper's loyalty), and Harper and Conrad Heyer kill each other during a fight precipitated by Heyer's discovery (via a videotape sent by V) that his wife Helen had had an affair with Harper.
With the fate of the top government officials unknown to the public, Stone acts as leader of the police forces deployed to ensure that the riots are contained should V remain alive and make his promised public announcement. Evey, dressed as V, appears on a rooftop to a crowd, announcing the destruction of 10 Downing Street the following day and telling the crowd they must "...choose what comes next. Lives of your own, or a return to chains", whereupon a general insurrection begins. Evey destroys 10 Downing Street by blowing up an Underground train containing V's body in the style of an explosive Viking funeral. During the chaos in the streets, she abducts an injured Stone and brings him to the Shadow Gallery, apparently to train him as her successor to make sure people like Susan will never hold power ever again. The comic ends with Finch quietly observing the chaos raging in the city, spurning Helen Heyer's proposal to become her partner and seize power, and walking down an abandoned motorway whose lights have all gone out.
Norsefire government
The highest-level officials in the Norsefire government form a council known as "The Head." The five individual departments are named after sensory organs or appendages that reference their functions.
Notes
Sources and content license
Source and revision history ↗ · Adapted from Wikipedia contributors, V for Vendetta. Section headings and formatting adjusted. · Content license