Gargamel

Gargamel
Gargamel and his cat Azrael. Gargamel and his cat Azrael.
Publication information
Publisher	Dupuis
First appearance	1959 (comic strip)
Created by	Peyo
In-story information
Abilities	Inventive Command of magic

In the fictional world of the Smurfs, Gargamel the sorcerer is the sworn enemy of the Smurfs and the principal antagonist in the show and comic books. While described as a wizard in the narration, Gargamel is not depicted as possessing real magical powers to speak of. However, he is quite competent at creating magic potions for various usages and thus could be considered an alchemist, rather than a wizard, of much intrigue. His main goal in life is to destroy the Smurfs or to capture enough of them to create a potion to turn base matter into gold. He is voiced by the late Paul Winchell in the English version of the cartoon, Philippe Dumat in the French version, Esteban Siller in the Spanish version, Orlando Drummond in the Brazilian version, Paul van Gorcum in the Dutch version, and Josip Marotti in the Croatian version. He will be portrayed by Hank Azaria in the live action movie.

Appearance

Gargamel is a man who is perpetually stooped. His dark robe is worn and patched, and his teeth are rotten. He is a misanthrope, hating pretty much everyone and the Smurfs in particular, though he will sometimes feign friendship if there is something in it for him. He is also an abject coward, surrendering or fleeing upon the merest hint of personal risk or harm. He is apparently named after Gargamelle, the mother of Gargantua in François Rabelais' mock-epic novel sequence The Life of Gargantua and of Pantagruel, although Gargamel was a common name in medieval France.

Gargamel lives in a run-down, though solidly built hovel with his mangy cat Azrael. Gargamel frequently denigrates, insults, and abuses Azrael, but he does in fact love him. In one episode of The Smurfs, Gargamel is depressed and saddened that Azrael had run away, and wishes he would come back. In another episode, Balthazar wants to kill a wildcat that Azrael befriended for his fur, and Gargamel begged him not to.

Gargamel is an eternal bungler. Some of his schemes to catch Smurfs border on the bizarre (such as a "blue magnet" that attracted solely blue items), though he does have rare moments of genius (the creation of Smurfette, for one). He has a seemingly endless library of spellbooks, potions, and gimmicks for his life's passion. However, no matter how elaborate Gargamel's plans, they invariably end in failure, causing him to spout his catch phrase: "I hate those Smurfs!". (It is worth noting that he possibly does have softer feelings towards at least one Smurf, his daughter/creation Sassette who refers to him as "Pappy Gargamel.")

His conflict with the Smurfs

When Gargamel first appeared in Le Voleur de schtroumpf ("The Smurfnapper"), published in 1959, he captured a smurf which he needed as an ingredient for a potion to make gold in accordance with the famed alchemic legend of the Philosopher's Stone. The other smurfs rallied against him, freed the kidnapped smurf and the sorcerer was defeated and humiliated. Gargamel swore revenge: from now on the conflict would be personal.

Sometimes he wants to eat the Smurfs, other times he wants to use them to make gold, and still other times he has even more bizarre uses for them (in one instance he is so enraged by his loss that he yells "I don't want to eat them, I don't want to turn them into gold, all I want now is to DESTROY THEM!"). Though he often catches Smurfs who wander by his home or which he happens across in the forest, he does not know the location of the hidden Smurf village, a fact which continually frustrates him.

On some occasions, he has discovered the location of the village, but sooner or later gets led away from it due to either a magic spell put on him by Papa Smurf or because of some other bizarre factor. Sometimes it is simply a matter of his being led away from the village while chasing the Smurfs, losing them and then being unable to find his way back.

On one occasion his obsessive search led him to explore the deepest caves, the muddiest marshlands and even going far out to sea. He was just about to give up and go home when, quite by chance, he did finally find the village — but, as always, circumstances were against him.

To try and cause trouble to the Smurfs, Gargamel has created other Smurfs, most notably Smurfette.

Relationships

Gargamel has also worked with other enemies of the Smurfs, although in many cases these other villains, such as Lord Balthazar, prove to be much more efficient and focused enemies of the Smurfs, and even so much as smash their alliance with Gargamel and enslave him.

Not much is said of Gargamel's relationships with women, although in one episode an ugly witch named Hogatha turns herself into an attractive woman in order to seduce Gargamel into giving her his secrets. She almost succeeds, but her constant transformations from ugly to beautiful prove to be too hard for her, and Gargamel eventually is informed of the ruse. One time, Gargamel almost actually got married. His "mummy" decided it was high time he took a wife and introduced him to a lovely princess, who didn't really love him. He didn't really have any feelings for the princess either, until he saw in her hope chest a definitive map to the Smurf Village and then proclaimed his love for her and accepted her hand in marriage. (Of course, he still didn't love her, just the map to the Smurf Village.) Fortunately for the future Mrs. Gargamel (and the Smurfs' well-being), some Smurfs showed up to the wedding and wrought enough havoc as to ruin the wedding completely.

Gargamel in modern times

Sophie was another popular Belgian comic series about a fun-loving little girl, written and drawn by Vicq and Jidéhem. In a story drawn in 1975, it is shown that the Smurfs have survived to the 20th century since Sophie and her friend Little Bernard find them in a nearby wood — the Smurfs being on a winter holiday. Gargamel appears, though he is renamed Edgar Gamel, who is said to be a bit of a sorcerer and who claims to have studied occult sciences. He too wants revenge on the Smurfs, implying that he is the original Gargamel who has also lived as far as the 20th century — or else a descendant who has also had trouble with his ancestor's little sources of frustration.

Cartoon series

Being the earliest of the Smurfs' sworn enemies, it was inevitable that Gargamel would be a recurring character in the Hanna-Barbera cartoon series, even in the opening theme where he shouts out loud his hatred for the Smurfs and his desperate attempts to catch them.

Despite his never-ending hatred and frustration for the Smurfs, more than once has he had to rely on Papa Smurf to help save him from a more wicked enemy's plans (such as Balthazar) or to rescue him from a potion gone horribly wrong. Other times, they have had to team up to fight a common enemy. On another occasion, the episode "The Fountain of Smurf", Papa Smurf drinks too much water from the fountain and becomes a smurfling. The Smurfs rely on Gargamel to come to their aid and help turn Papa Smurf back. In quite a funny, and ironic, ending, Gargamel and Azrael, themselves, fall into the Fountain of Youth.

In later episodes he acquired an apprentice named Scruple, who was frequently rejected from a boarding school for young wizards and only Gargamel was willing to teach him magic. Scruple seems moderately brighter and more savvy than his master, though still inexperienced in the ways of magic. Although Scruple aids Gargamel in capturing the Smurfs, his main problem is with the students of the wizard academy who berate him for failing to qualify for admission. However, in the scheme of things, the smugness of the students proves to be a weakness for them, as Scruple has some success using Gargamel's magic to cause them problems.

In 1989, the final season of the series, where the Smurfs are constantly traveling through time, different incarnations of Gargamel would appear, such as showing him as an Indian fakir, a Russian peasant, or a Spanish bullfighter. In one of the earlier episodes of the final seasons, where Gargamel is shown as an Egyptian pharaoh, Papa Smurf believes that all these similar-looking men (and their cats) seen must be ancestors of the infamous Gargamel and Azrael of their present time.

See also

• List of The Smurfs characters