“The man is a scoundrel! A ruffian! Look at him!”  And so does Willow Ufgood describe Madmartigan, the rakishly handsome rogue played by Val Kilmer in the movie Willow. 

Madmartigan

An improbably charming rogue, Madmartigan was as much a hero as he was a scoundrel. The deuteragonist (the person second in importance to the protagonist in a story) of the 1988 George Lucas film, he was a disgraced warrior of Galladoorn.

“Madmartigan! So! Well, I knew you’d end up in a squirrel’s cage sooner or later!”

Airk Thaughbaer

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Meeting Madmartigan (Val Kilmer)

Torchlight glimmered on a weird scene. In the one cage, the skeleton leered and pointed, revolving uncannily, always facing them, no matter where they moved. In the other cage, a scarecrow dangled the hapless Willow from one long arm…

The man’s parched, cracked lips parted in a kind of smile. Teeth gleamed. He wiped the filthy back of his free hand across his mouth.

“Water, little Pecks, or your friend’s crows’ meat!”

He was a frightening specter. His eyes glinted in the torchlight out of a tangled mass of long black hair. Stubble covered his chin and cheeks. His clothes were such filthy rags that it was hard to tell what they might once have been – perhaps a cotton shirt, a leather vest and high boots, a neckerchief, a sash.

“Water!”