The Grand Wizard in Coven

The Grand Wizard in Coven The Grand Wizard has a pretty convenient arrangement in Coven. He gets to tell his followers that witches are evil, send them out to kill those witches, and quietly use witchcraft to keep himself alive. Anybody who notices the contradiction becomes somebody he needs to get rid of. He's been doing this long enough that even the people who grew up trusting him haven't stopped to ask why he never seems to age. Major spoilers for Coven, including what happens to him. His deal with Liza goes back to Salem. He has her restrained and tortured, and he's already worked out that she isn't the prophesied witch he wants. She can't do everything he expects the Chosen One to do. She's still powerful enough to be useful, though, and he has a spellbook she needs. He offers her freedom and revenge in exchange for extending his life. The exception to that revenge is him, obviously. Liza agrees, and the men serving him become the price of keeping the arrangement quiet. He knows they would turn on him if they realized he was using magic. So he locks them in a barn and lets Liza burn them alive. They think they're fighting witches under his leadership, while he's making a deal with one over their bodies. He can recruit more desperate men afterward. His own life is the thing he intends to preserve. By the present-day story, he's doing it again. Avril Williams is the real prize, and he wants another four hundred years from Liza before handing her over. He's careful about the order, too. He wants his payment first. Liza has her own plans for what she'll do once she takes Avril's power, but that doesn't make him hesitate about trading a captive young woman to her. Meanwhile, he keeps feeding his followers the same certainty that there are no innocent witches. When Dartanian starts questioning that, the Wizard has no interest in listening. He orders him to kill Avril if the witches are about to take her. Everything can be justified as protecting humanity, including murdering the person they're supposedly trying to keep away from the enemy. Once Dartanian and Baba Yaga expose him to the other Crusaders, he tells the men he loves them like sons. Some still believe him. Some don't. He locks both groups inside and releases gas anyway. That's how little their loyalty actually protects them. Even choosing his side doesn't make them safe once they've heard too much. His immortality does work. We watch injuries close, and Dartanian shoots him through the throat after he's captured without managing to kill him. He keeps talking and bargaining. He even insists that Dartanian was special and that he had plans for him. After everything he's done, he's still trying to find the words that will make somebody let him out. Dartanian and Baba settle on a different answer. They put him in a coffin, pour cement over him, and seal the lid. He's alive when they do it. The story leaves him trapped with the four hundred years he was so determined to buy. I like how ugly that ending is for this particular man. He treated whole generations of followers as replaceable, because he expected to be around long after they were gone. Now he has all that time and nowhere to go. The magic he used to stay above the consequences of his choices becomes the reason he can't escape them.