Vigo

"I, Vigo, the Scourge of Carpathia, the Sorrow of Moldavia, command you!"

- Vigo

"On a mountain of skulls, in the castle of pain, I sat on a throne of blood! What was will be! What is will be no more! Now is the season of EVIL!"

- Vigo

Vigo the Carpathian (real name: Vigo Von Homburg Deutschendorf) is a 16th Century medieval tyrant and sorcerer who then later died in the 17th century. He appears in Ghostbusters II as the chief antagonist and is portrayed onscreen by Wilhelm von Homburg and he is voiced by Max Von Sydow in Ghostbusters: The Video Game.

History
Vigo was born in 1505 in the small Balkan kingdom of Carpathia in Hungary, near Italy. He soon rose to power and ruled his home country with an iron fist, and the land itself was in a constant state of spiritual turmoil thanks to his despotic rule, which earned him an infamous name, the "Scourge of Carpathia". Vigo later conquered another land, the country of Moldovia in Romania, which its people while still resenting the psychotic autocrat, gave him another notorious alias, the "Sorrow of Moldovia". It was said he was a powerful magician and a genius in many ways, as well as a tyrant, an autocrat, a lunatic and a genocidal madman. Because of his evil ways, he wasn't well liked by his subjects and he killed hundreds of them. He was also known as Vigo the Cruel, Vigo the Torturer, Vigo the Despised, and Vigo the Unholy. Peter Venkman jokingly adds Vigo the Butch to the list of aliases.

He eventually died at the age of 105 in 1610, but not because of his old age. His people had led a rebellion and they tried and executed him in a manner that they saw fit for his rule. He was poisoned, shot, stabbed, hung, stretched, disembowled, drawn, and quartered (to which Venkman commented, "Ouch."). Just after they removed his head, he uttered this prophetic warning: "Death is but a door. Time is but a window. I'll be back.".

Ghostbusters II
True to his word, he returned in modern day New York in 1989 and took up residence in his self-portrait that was created long before the events of his death. Vigo used the river of mood slime, generated by slime, which flowed through abandoned subway tunnels to a location underneath the city's museum, where the Vigo resided. The mood slime boosted Vigo's powers and make him available to channel people's negative emotions needed for the manifestation of the army of angry spirits, that soon started terrorizing New York City. Although the slime granted Vigo power enough to manifest, he could not regain a physical form. For this reason, Vigo needed a baby to possess.

Vigo manipulated the Museum's Curator Janosz Poha into bringing Dana Barrett's baby, Oscar, to the Museum of Art, so that on the eve of the Millennium he could possess her child and be reborn and freely rule the world once again. Vigo's plans were halted by the Ghostbusters. They attacked him with positively charged slime and blasted him back into the painting, completely draining all his powers. After that, the painting of Vigo redesigned itself as an image depicting the Ghostbusters as heavenly saints.

Ghostbusters: The Video Game
Vigo appears in the firehouse in his painting near Janine's desk on the right from the firehouse doors in Ghostbusters: The Video Game. In the Wii version, it is in the basement near the Storage facility. If they player interacts with the painting, it will talk to them, with over 100 different line variations. Its reason for existence is unknown, seeing as it was melted at the end of the movie to reveal a painting of the Ghostbusters.

An explanation could be that this is not the original painting, but a replica that Vigo's spirit now inhabits.

Another possibility is that the painting of Ghostbusters (which itself was created by changing Vigo's powers into positive energy) still held what's left of the Scourge of Carpathia after his defeat, and after some time it returned to its normal form (Vigo painting). However, Vigo's spirit is now nearly powerless and unable to act outside the painting, making it unessential to even put him into Containment Unit.

Another theory is that after the shockwave at the beginning of the game could have reverted the painting back to it's original form.

Powers and Abilities
Vigo is a powerful spirit in Ghostbusters II, but this was because he was powered by the River of Slime and its negative energies (the people's bad vibes & emotions.) Vigo can change matter, utilize telekinesis, mind control, and telepathy, but has since lost most of his powers because of the positive energies stirred by the Ghostbusters and the slime-enhanced Statue of Liberty.

Although, technically speaking, Vigo is ranked as a class 4 ghost, the River of Slime boosted his powers to a class 7 - making him almost as strong as Gozer.

Other Ghostbusters Media
Vigo also faced the animated version of the Ghostbusters, but the encounter was never seen. It was however mentioned by Egon in the episode Partners in Slime.

The encounter was however chronicled in the comic book adaptation of the second movie by NOW Comics. In this the live action Ghostbusters were replaced with their animated counterparts. It also contained the first appearance of Louis Tully and the only appearance of Dana Barrett in a RGB continuity.

The Sorrow of Maldavia himself was also the final boss in the video games based on Ghostbusters II.

He was also the main villain in an adventure based on the second movie in a re-issue of the role-playing game. To defeat his defenses in order to approach him, the players had to utilize effigies of The Tinman, Scarecrow and Cowardly Lion from Frank Baum's "Oz" series. When Vigo's painting melts, the Oz characters are shown instead of the Ghostbusters.

Trivia

 * Vigo's surnames, as stated from Egon's research from the Occult Reference Net in Ghostbusters II and the Tobin's Spirit Guide entry found in Stylized Version of Ghostbusters: The Video Game, are Von Homburg Deutschendorf. This is a combination of those of Wilhelm von Homburg, the actor who portrayed him in Ghostbusters II, and William T. Deutschendorf and Henry J. Deutschendorf II, the actors that portrayed Oscar.
 * A painting of Vigo is seen above the shoulder of Artie Lester in What in Samhain Just Happened?! on page 9 as he shows Janine Melnitz inside Tobin's Mansion.