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“
You hear that? TALK TO ME! Where are my detonators? Where are they, or shall I shoot another one? Sooner or later, I might get to someone you do care about!
„
~ Hans threatening McClane after murdering Ellis.
“
What was it you said to me before? "Yippee-ki-yay, motherf**ker."
„
~ Hans, mocking John right before getting shot out of a window.
“
Mrs. McClane. How nice to make your acquaintance.
„
~ Hans Gruber before capturing McClane's wife, Holly.
Hans Gruber is the main antagonist of the 1988 action thriller film Die Hard and the posthumous overarching antagonist in its 1995 threequel Die Hard With a Vengeance.
He is the leader of a group of German terrorists who organized the takeover of the Nakatomi Plaza skyscraper in Los Angeles, and the younger brother of Simon Gruber. Hans was a cold-hearted and calculating mastermind with high intelligence.
He was portrayed by the late Alan Rickman, who also played the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and Judge Turpin in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
He attempted to murder over 30 hostages by blowing up the roof of the Nakatomi Plaza skyscraper, one of them being a pregnant woman.
Shows no sympathy for Karl after McClane killed his brother Tony, insisting that the priority is the plan.
He murdered Joseph Takagi and Harry Ellis in cold blood. First, Takagi was murdered after he told Hans he was going to have to kill him because he refused to give him the code to the vault, horrifying John when he witnessed the interrogation. Hans murdered Ellis after he tried to reason with John by using his life and lives of the hostages as bargaining chips for John to surrender, causing panic to the hostages.
He didn't care whatsoever that Karl was still on the roof when he detonated the explosives.
Was technically responsible for the helicopters on the rooftop being blown up and killing everyone in them due to them being too close when he detonated the explosives.
Pretended to be a hostage in an attempt to gain John's trust and kill him, only failing because John saw through him and gave him an empty gun.
Held John McClane's wife hostage while trying to escape with the stolen bonds.
He then attempted to kill her and John after he was hanging from a ledge, trying to take them down with him as a last resort.
While his brother cared for him, or at the very least wanted to avenge him, because Hans never once mentions Simon, there is no indication that Hans cared for his older brother at all, and Simon was never shown to be aware of Hans' overall depravities.
The fact that he found no joy in committing his atrocities doesn't downplay his villainy, because he was shown to not care about anyone else and did all in his power to cause as much misery as possible for no reason other than greed.
His actions are the reason for the action movie baseline, with him becoming the archetypical action movie villain.
Cloaked his evil through virtue signaling. Originally held everyone at gunpoint to punish corporate greed and fooled the police into demanding the release of various captured terrorists. The FBI believed he had been committing these acts due to his past terrorist actions with a German terrorist group known as the Volksfrei. Later in the film, the Volksfrei releases a statement saying they never authorized the Nakatomi Plaza attack and that Hans Gruber was expelled from their organization two years ago.
Trivia[]
In the second revised draft, Hans directly ordered the shooting down of police choppers, and shot an old lady dead once she panicked upon finding out his plans to blow the place up. If this was the chosen script, Hans would've been much worse.
His article here and his article on the Villains Wiki were headlined exactly one year apart.
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Pure Evils
