Vaas Montenegro

"Did I ever tell you the definition of insanity?"

- Vaas's famous quote.

Vaas Montenegro is the secondary antagonist of the video game Far Cry 3. He is the leader of the pirates on Rook Island and the brother of the Rakyat leader Citra. As part of a major running theme in the game, Vaas and all of the other villains are mentally unstable. Vaas is also known to be charismatic but psychotic at the same time.

He is voiced by Michael Mando who would later portray Nacho Varga in Better Call Saul and Mac Gargan in Spiderman: Homecoming.

Early Life
Vaas was born in 1985 on the Rook Islands and from a young age, he was a member of the native Rakyat. He was particularly close to his sister Citra and mentions that his first kill was for her.

Meeting Hoyt Volker
Some time before 2012, Vaas became addicted to drugs, brought to the islands by deranged slave and drug trafficker Hoyt Volker. Vaas eventually established contact with Volker who found potential in Vaas and promoted him to right-hand man. Vaas went on to become the leader of the Pirates, a faction consisting of pirates that came to the Rook Islands to rape, pillage, steal and murder.

Vaas and his men would help Volker with his business (such as growing marijuana fields and kidnapping and selling into slavery people who land in the North Island) and strike terror and injustice in the Rakyat and the islands that are rightfully theirs. Vaas would operate from a hidden fortress in the North Island from where he would oversee the deaths and destruction he caused on the natives and the Rakyat who were once considered his family.

Events of Far Cry 3
During Jason's and his friend’s trip in Bangkok, they hear about an island where you "can do anything" from Doug, the nightclub DJ that works as a spotter for Vaas. They then decided to do a blind skydive over the Rook Islands. After landing, they are soon captured by Vaas and his Pirates. While Jason and his older brother Grant are tied up, Vaas explains how he is going to ransom them for large amounts of money from their parents. It is revealed later that even after receiving the ransom money, Vaas would sell them all as slaves for increased profit.

After Jason and Grant escape and brew up an escape plan for everyone, Vaas shoots Grant in the neck, the latter of whom bleeds to death. Vaas decides that instead of killing Jason, he lets him run, with the clear intent to hunt him down for sport. This would later be his undoing as Jason managed to escape.

While on his campaign to save his friends, Jason learns that Vaas is keeping Liza Snow hostage personally, as a way to make Jason come to him. When Jason assaults a slave prison that is said to hold Liza, he is knocked out and captured by Vaas. When he wakes, he, Liza and Oliver are tied up in chairs in an old abandoned hotel, while Vaas is pouring and covering them in gasoline. He then sets fire to the building and leaves Jason and Liza to die, but he takes Oliver with him. They escape just as the building is engulfed in flames and collapses on itself.

Jason continues his campaign of saving his friends. During a meeting with CIA agent Willis Huntley, Huntley puts on a recording of a conversation between Vaas and Hoyt in which Hoyt briefly chastises Vaas for not taking matters seriously with Jason and urges him to take care of him while he searches Beras Town for a transportation manifest that holds the name of Oliver Carswell, who happens to be one of Jason's kidnapped friends.

After being given a mission by Citra to save some of her kidnapped warriors, Jason and some Rakyat members ambush Hoyt's men who are transporting Citra's warriors. Jason is, however ambushed by Vaas again, when opening a truck that he believed to house the captured warriors. Vaas then ties Jason to a cinder block and introduces him to his insanity monologue before kicking him into a cenote, intending to drown him.

Jason escapes, then proceeds to kill more of Vaas’ men to acquire a helicopter and escape. After the helicopter is shot down by an RPG, Vaas comes up to Jason and shoots him point-blank in the chest. It is later shown that Jason survived the shot by way of a lighter, the same one Vaas tried to light him and Liza on fire with in the abandoned hotel.

Death
After becoming intimate with Citra in her temple, Jason is finally given the task to kill Vaas at his compound, who is throwing a party in celebration of Jason’s "death". Jason is led to believe he is infiltrating the compound successfully, but is surprised when Vaas sounds the alarm and broadcasts that he knew Jason was coming. After killing all of the pirates, Jason stumbles into a larger warehouse looking to confront and kill Vaas once and for all.

When he confronts Vaas, Vaas stabs Jason in the chest and then seemingly walks away. Jason enters a similar dreamy state in which he confronted Buck and kills several visions of Vaas, before finally confronting the true Vaas. After some struggle, Jason plunges his knife into Vaas' chest again and again until Vaas falls to the ground wounded. In the last scene, when Jason collapses next to Vaas after the long fight, Vaas’ eyes look straight into Jason’s one more time before Jason wakes up.

As Jason approaches Citra in the final dream sequence, Vaas, or at least a voice in Jason's head that sounds like him, says that she's going to make him a warrior.

Death Speculation
Following speculation that Vaas may have survived, Jeffrey Yohalem confirmed his death via Twitter, by responding with: "Sam and the privateers confirm Vaas's fate. What reason do you have to question them?" When asked during the Far Cry 4 Gamescom Demo, Ubisoft employees denied rumors that Vaas was to return in the sequel, due to him being "dead".

Personality
"The world is on a diagonal. I am the balancing point"

- Vaas Montenegro

What is known about Vaas' personality comes from his close (and dangerous) encounters with the main protagonists. Close observation shows that he is an extremely, reckless, violent, sadistic, brutal, loathsome, unpredictable, cynical, traitorous, Machiavellian, psychopathic, clinically insane, prideful, oppressive, and remorseless pirate lord with a dark sense of humor in killing anyone who looks at him the wrong way and a frighteningly obstreperous personality who is feared even by his own men, some of whom are as chaotic and psychotic as Vaas.

Despite being more crazier and mentally unstable than the other antagonists, he was the charismatic and masculine leader and provided most of the jokes in the Far Cry Experience which saw the torture of Christopher Mintz-Plasse and his camera-man at the hands of Vaas. However one can notice that once Christopher is not moving for the last time he begins to attempt a resuscitate Chris, after failing however he begins to mourn him just before a fellow pirate announces Jason's arrival, he then humorously begins to bury him in sand. This marks one of the few (if any) times in which he shows remorse towards one of his victims.

Murders committed

 * Vincent Salas
 * Christopher Mintz-Plasse (in the "Far Cry Experience")
 * Numerous "reject" prisoners captured at the same time as Jason and his friends, for apparently being deemed not worthy to either ransom or sell into slavery
 * Grant Brody
 * Kim Jong il (Survival guide on .44 Magnum tells that Vaas had sent a package to Kim Jong il, who died upon receiving said delivery)
 * Four men (seen in Make a Break for It)
 * Numerous others

Mission appearances

 * Make a Break for It
 * Prison Break-in
 * Island Port Hotel
 * Meet Citra
 * A Man Named Hoyt (Voice)
 * Ambush
 * Warrior Rescue Service
 * Payback (Killed)
 * Citra's Favor (Voice)

Quotes
"Did I ever tell you what the definition of insanity is? Insanity is doing the exact... same fucking thing... over and over again expecting... shit to change... That. Is. Crazy. The first time somebody told me that, I dunno, I thought they were bullshitting me, so, boom, I shot him. The thing is... he was right. And then I started seeing, everywhere I looked, everywhere I looked all these fucking pricks, everywhere I looked, doing the exact same fucking thing... over and over and over and over again thinking: "This time is gonna be different. No, no, no please... This time is gonna be different." I'm sorry, I don't like... The way... you are looking at me... Okay, Do you have a fucking problem in your head, do you think I am bullshitting you, do you think I am lying? Fuck you! Okay? Fuck you!... It's okay, man. I'm gonna chill, hermano. I'm gonna chill... The thing is... Alright, the thing is I killed you once already... and it's not like I am fucking crazy. It's okay... It's like water under the bridge. Did I ever tell you the definition... of insanity?"

- Vaas's famous speech.

Far Cry Experience
Vaas is featured in the "Far Cry Experience", a web-series promoting the game, where he somewhat humorously tortures famous actor Christopher Mintz-Plasse who is filming a reality show/documentary. He is played in live-action by his voice actor Michael Mando.

Trivia

 * Due to Michael Mando's performance, Vaas became so popular with fans, critics and even the developers that he ended up becoming the poster boy of the game. Additionally, the character didn't exist in pre-production, but Ubisoft loved Michael's audition so much that they created the character specifically for him.

Vaas Montenegro