Kaecilius

Kaecilius is the main antagonist of the 2016 film Dr. Strange, played by actor Mads Mikkelsen who also played Le Chiffre in Casino Royale and Hannibal Lecter in the television series, Hannibal. Kaecilius is based on a servant of the villainous Baron Mordo from the Marvel Comic, Dr. Strange but in the film, he takes centre stage as the powerful nemesis of Dr. Stephen Strange.

History
Kaecilius was once a contented husband and father but after his wife and child died under unexplained circumstances, he travelled to the mountains of Tibet to be trained to overcome his grief by the powerful Sorcerer Supreme known as the Ancient One who trained him in the art of magic. Kaecilius quickly proved to be the Ancient One's most brilliant student and she intended to confer the mantle of Sorcerer Supreme upon him but Kaecilius was proud, stubborn and lusted after power. When he discovered that the Ancient One was channelling energy from the Dark Dimension to keep herself alive, he abandoned her tutelage, stealing pages from her spellbook and turning instead to the service of the Dread Dormammu, an evil being who exists in the Dark Dimension and seeks to enslave all of creation, in particular the Planet Earth. Believing Dormammu to be a benevolent spirit, Kaecilius sought to release the being into our universe, thinking that all death would end and humans would become immortal gods. Kaecilius most likely believed that he would be reuinited with his wife and child when all worlds became part of the Dark Dimension and time and death were destroyed. In actuality, although Dormammu did have the power to offer immortality, the immortality he offered would be a Hell rather than the paradise Kaecilius imagined it to be but the dark sorcerer was too blinded by inconsolable rage and wishful thinking to realise or acknowledge this.

Kaecilius fought the Ancient One's new apprentice, Dr. Stephen Strange for possession of the Ancient One's spellbook. Despite Kaecilius's superior experience and skill, Strange was able to subdue and trap him in a magical suit of armour. Kaecilius told Strange that he was a fool for serving the Ancient One, describing her as an injust oppressor and himself as the world's true saviour, stating that the Ancient One kept all power for herself and despite describing the Dark Dimension as a realm of pure evil, drew on power from it for herself whilst forbidding her disciples. Kaecilius escapes from his suit of armour but is forced to flee along with his acolytes when the Ancient One arrives along with her students Wong and Baron Mordo, forcing them into a retreat.

Kaecilius ultimately wounds the Ancient One fatally and takes possession of her spellbook, using its power to open a portal to the Dark Dimension for Dormammu to pass through but Dr. Strange passes through the portal, bringing time from our dimension and into the dark one where he confronts Dormammu, trapping the two of them in an endless time loop in which the two are doomed to relive the same moment for eternity. Strange offers to release the two of them from the spell on the one condition that Dormammu leaves Earth in peace forever and takes his worshippers with him. Dormammu reluctantly agrees and Strange releases him. Kaecilius and his zealots are dragged through the portal as Dormammu turns away from the Earth, their bodies disintegrating as they pass into the world they wanted, presumably to suffer for eternity.

Powers and abilities
Kaecilius is an extremely powerful sorcerer, able to fight Dr. Strange and even the Ancient One on equal footing. He draws on power from the Dark Dimension which corrupts its user and has caused his face to develop large dark stains surrounding his eyes, but augments the abilities of its user to frightening proportions. Kaecilius is also extremely intelligent, able to understand complex spells and formulate strategies and plans. His power and intelligence caused the Ancient One to regard him as a potential successor but he turned away from her when she refused to share all of her knowledge. In addition to his intellect and magical abilities, Kaecilius is a truly formidable and vicious hand-to-hand combatant able to wield a variety of magical and mundane weapons with prodigious skill.

Personality
Kaecilius is driven by blinding rage and despair over the loss of his family whose deaths he has never fully come to terms with. Unlike Strange, he is unable to countenance that personal tragedy is a natural part of life and as such he views death itself as an injustice. Although not obsessed with himself, he is arrogant and prideful, suffering from a deeply entrenched Messianic complex which drives him to release the Dread Dormammu from the Dark Dimension, believing that this will bring mankind to the natural culmination of its evolution by extinguishing death. His megalomaniacal plans for apotheosis are predominantly driven by a wishful desire to see his wife and family again. In spite of his intelligent and philosophical nature, Kaecilius suffers from magical thinking, being selectively oblivious to the evil of Dormammu and choosing instead to see the Ancient One as an injust oppressor for not sharing her knowledge and power with her students or more specifically him. He believes that is a good man on a quest not to rule the world but to save it but his sheer ruthlessness and disregard for human life shows the hypocrisy of his delusion of heroism. He regards the lives of the innocent people he slays as insignificant next to the achievement of his mission. So stubborn and proud is Kaecilius that he refuses to entertain the idea that anyone but him could possibly be right. Nevertheless, Kaecilius is not sadistic, taking no pleasure from hurting or killing anyone but being willing to do so in the pursuit of his goals. Despite being driven by anger, bitterness and grief, Kaecilius always maintains great dignity and emotional composure, even in his final moments of life. He is a cultured warrior philosopher who speaks politely to his opponents and is possessed of a bitingly dry sense of humour, sometimes making wry witticisms even in the heat of battle.

Trivia

 * Kaecilius is essentially a dark mirror image of Stephen Strange, sharing the nihilistic and Nietzschean belief in humankind as "meaningless specks of time" that Strange possessed before his journey of self discovery, the difference being that Strange overcame his childlike belief that the universe revolved around him. Kaecilius represents the man Strange could have become if he had allowed his feelings to rule his life.


 * He is similar to Manfred from the opera of the same name, an arrogant man who goes on a quest to defy the powers of the universe in order to retrieve a loved one from the grave.


 * Kaecilius also shares similarities with other fallen hero archetypes found in fiction such as Darth Vader, Valentine Morgenstern and General Zod in Man of Steel. He is quite similar to Lord Voldemort as he is a powerful evil sorcerer motivated by a desire for immortality.


 * In the comicbook of Dr. Strange, Kaecilius was a mere servant of Baron Mordo whereas in the film, he is the central villain with Dormammu as the even bigger bad. Nevertheless Kaecilius's personality draws on aspects of Mordo in the comic, being a former student of the Ancient One who turned to the path of evil and served Dormammu, becoming a rival to Stephen Strange in the process.