  |
This article's content is marked as Mature The page Santa Claus (Violent Night) contains mature content that may include coarse language, sexual references, and/or graphic violent images which may be disturbing to some. Mature articles are recommended for those who are 18 years of age and older. If you are 18 years or older or are comfortable with graphic material, you are free to view this page. Otherwise, you should close this page and view another page. |
“ Santa Claus is coming to town. „ ~ Santa's most famous quote.
“ Not if you still believe! „ ~ Santa, before killing Mr. Scrooge.
Nicomund, currently known as Santa Claus, is the main protagonist of the 2022 Christmas action-comedy movie Violent Night. He is a retired 1110 year-old former viking who would become Santa Claus, setting out to make children happy on Christmas Eve by delivering presents.
He is portrayed by actor David Harbour, who also played Jim Hopper in Stranger Things, Hellboy in the titular 2019 film of the same name, Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Jack Salter in the 2023 Gran Turismo film, and will voice the character Frankenstein in the upcoming Creature Commandos.
Biography[]
Early Life[]
Nicomund the Red, Santa's brutal past life.
Santa Claus (then known as Nicomund) was born sometime around the 9th-11th Century. In his younger days, he was a barbaric viking called Nicumond the Red who used to conquer lands and battle his foes with his hammer "Skullcrusher, "lavishing in battle and greed from the treasures he collected. At some point, he realized the error of his violent ways and turned his life around, becoming the man known as Santa Claus to make children happy, commanding reindeer to fly his sleigh around the world on Christmas to deliver presents to nice kids every year. At some point, he also married Mrs. Claus in the North Pole, but the pair eventually ended up on bad terms.
Events of Violent Night[]
On Christmas Eve of 2022, Santa started his yearly route when he came to the Lightstones' mansion and, after drinking and eating some cookies, fell asleep in a massage chair. By the time he woke up, he realized the entire family had been taken hostage by a group of terrorists led by "Mr. Scrooge," who wanted the family's money. Tinsel, one of Scrooge's henchmen, found Santa hiding behind the Christmas tree and tried to force him at gunpoint to join the family downstairs. However, Santa attacks Tinsel, who accidentally fires in the ceiling, scaring away Santa's reindeer and leaving him with no means to continue his route. Outraged, Santa knocks the henchman out the window accidentally, impaling him on an icicle decoration below. Santa also falls out, but misses the icicle and escapes.
Sneaking into the basement, Santa encounters "Frosty," another one of Mr. Scrooge's henchmen. After a fierce battle, he kills Frosty by jamming a Christmas star decoration in his eye and plugging it in, electrocuting him to death. Santa then finds Frosty's walky talky and tries to call for help, but the line is intercepted with the talky Trudy Lightstone had gotten from her parents. Santa recognizes Trudy from his nice list and promises to come save her and her family.
Soon after, Mr. Scrooge accidentally calls Santa while trying to contact Frosty. Santa reveals that he killed Frosty and demands that Scrooge leaves the Lightstones alone, threatening that he'll come for him.
Later, Trudy calls Santa again and tells him she is hiding in the attic. She then asks if he is really Santa, having just been told by her father that Santa Claus doesn't exist and is just a story parents tell their kids to make them happy. Santa explains while parents do that, he does exist, proving it by mentioning the previous Christmas wishes she'd written for him. Trudy is excited about having been right about Santa all along, asking him if he can use his Christmas magic to make her parents love each other again, but Santa sadly explains he doesn't have that power and that she should let her parents work it out for themselves, even relating to his own issues with Mrs. Claus. He then tells her his past as a barbaric viking, although Trudy doesn't judge him for it and instead, suggests that he uses the bad things he did in the past to do good instead. Santa agrees and instructs Trudy to stay in the attic until he comes to save her.
As he's making his way to Trudy, Santa tries to sneak up on "Candy Cane", but is caught and captured by Mr. Scrooge. Mr. Scrooge tries to question the man, thinking he's an imposter, but Santa insists he's real. However, Scrooge isn't convinced and even throws Santa's magical bag in the chimney, destroying it and the presents it holds, much to Santa's horror. When Mr. Scrooge mentioned how Christmas ruined his life, Santa recognizes him as Jimmy Martinez but says he doesn't get involved in people's personal lives. He also recognizes Candy Cane as Kira David, the little girl who fed her brothers worms which he calls naughty, as well as revealing that Gingerbread wrote him a letter asking for a Huffy bike when he was a kid. When Candy Cane and Gingerbread get suspicious as to how a stranger would have this information, Jimmy immediately dismisses it as a lucky guess.
Just as he is about to kill Santa, Trudy distracts the mercenaries by dumping styrofoam through the air vents to make it look like it's snowing inside, allowing Santa to escape through the chimney. He then witnesses the arrival of the extraction team who turned out to be working for the mercenaries and avoids their gunfire.
Taking cover in a shed, Santa confides in Trudy, telling her how he wishes he were reunited with Mrs. Claus. Suddenly, he finds a sledgehammer and uses it, along with various other items in the shed, to bash, cut and slay his way through the extraction team soldiers.
Returning to the house, Santa makes it to the attic in time to save Trudy from Candy Cane, whom he bludgeons to death with the sledgehammer (though not before telling Trudy to close her eyes and ears and sing "Jingle Bells" so that she's not horrified by the bludgeoning).
Freeing the other family members, Santa pursues Jimmy on a snowmobile, but gets tricked into hitting a log and crashes into an outhouse. Jimmy then sees his name on Santa's naughty list describing all the bad things he's done. Finally convinced that Santa Claus is real, he decides to kill him to ruin Christmas for everyone. Santa battles Jimmy a brutal fight to the death, ultimately killing him by dragging him up the chimney with him until he's a pile of lump of meat and gore. Tossing the remains aside, Santa starts laughing, but is quickly shot from behind by the kill squad leader Thorp and succumbs to his wounds. Fortunately, he is revived once Trudy finally convinced her family that he's the real Santa Claus. Suddenly, Santa's reindeer come back and bring him not only his spare bag, but also Skullcrusher in case he runs into any more trouble throughout the night - all courtesy of Mrs. Claus. Santa thanks the Lightstones for resurrecting him and departs on his sleigh to finish his route.
Personality[]
- Trudy: "Why'd you do those things?"
- Santa: "Because I was mean. And I was greedy. And I wanted gold, jewels. Yeah, I mean, if there was a Naughty List back then, I'd be top dog."
During his viking days, Santa was a cruel, greedy, bloodthirsty tyrant who killed people with his hammer Skullcrusher. Once he realized the error of his ways, he sought to atone for his crimes by becoming Santa Claus and delivering presents to children on Christmas. From then on, he became much kinder and caring to children. He also enjoyed the cookies and milk the families left for him, but would spit out skimmed milk. However, he still retained some aspects of his old self as shown during his fight with the mercenaries and kill squad, since he relished in killing them even if it was in self-defense. He sometimes acts like a drunk jackass and does things vomiting and urinating while he flies his sleigh, not caring if anyone gets hit. This is mostly due to him having a sort of burn-out from his bad relationship with Ms. Claus, as well as the increasingly demanding lists of children. Despite all this, he had some remorse for his past life and for alienating Mrs. Claus. He also has some standards since he's disgusted by children being harmed and even made sure Trudy doesn't see him kill Candy Cane so that she's not horrified. He also cares about his reindeer despite always arguing with them. Overall, he's a much kinder person than he was as a viking. A running gag is that he doesn't even understand how his own magic works.
Powers and Abilities[]
- Magic: At some point in the past, Santa was endowed with the Christmas magic (of which he still doesn't grasp).
- Immortality: Santa Claus is immortal due to being endowed with Christmas magic. He has been alive since the 9-11th Century.
- Teleportation: Thanks to Christmas magic, Santa can safely teleport in and out of a chimney without being killed by the tight space. He even weaponizes this at the end of his fight with Jimmy Martinez by holding him as he teleports through a nearby chimney, killing him.
- Resurrection: Santa can resurrect through the power of belief whenever he is killed, as hearing Trudy convince her family he's real immediately healed his gunshot wounds.
- Hammerspace: Santa's bag is an infinite hammerspace Santa carries to deliver all the presents.
- Omniscience: Through the good and naughty lists, Santa knows the names of all children in the world. He also never forgets them even as adults or their past Christmas wishes, as evidenced when he addressed Mr. Scrooge and his mercenary team by their real names despite never having met them.
- Strength: Despite his chubby weight, Santa is remarkably strong able to wrestle a henchman over his gun and throw him out a window.
- Master Combatant: His strength also gives him some fighting skills as he was able to put up a fight against Mr. Scrooge, even without any weapons at hand.
- Combat Proficiency: As a former barbaric viking, Santa is very proficient in handling weapons. He was able to hit Frosty with a makeshift bag of pool balls, plant a grenade in another henchman's clothes, and bash mercenaries with a sledgehammer. He even killed people with Skullcrusher during his viking days.
- Multilinguism: Santa is profound in several languages, either from his past as a barbaric viking or from the countries he visits while delivering presents. When Mr. Scrooge asks who he is, he rattles off various derivatives of "Santa Claus" in different languages.
- Expert Pilot: Since he flies his sleigh around the world in one night, Santa has excellent piloting skills and knows how and where to stop his reindeer on deliveries.
Weaknesses[]
- Power of belief: Since his Christmas magic is fueled by others' belief in his existence, whenever Santa is around people who don't believe he's real or even starts doubts himself, he loses his powers. This is best shown when he was dying after being shot by Thorp, who flat-out admits he doesn't know who Santa is.