Master (The Strain)

Master is a literary character who features in The Strain.

Biography

The Master was one of the original Strigoi and the youngest of the Ancients with him being designated the seventh. According to one account, he was originally known as Sariel where he and his fellow Ancients were said to be seven eldritch beings that have existed since Biblical times. They were said to had been the spawn of the Archangel of Death Ozryel, who, unknown to God, secretly reveled in blood and carnage. When God sent Ozryel and two other angels to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, the Angel of Death could not contain his excitement in killing all he could, being enthralled by the blood spilled. Soon after, a crazed Ozryel attacked fellow angel Micheal in an attempt to drink his blood. Horrified and disgusted, God captured Ozryel and had his body dismembered; the seven pieces were then scattered across the globe. However, over time, the blood that leaked from Ozryel's body parts took form inside the soil of their tombs, becoming the Ancients. Sariel was said to had been the youngest of them, created from the blood of Ozryel's severed head.

In the year AD 40, the Master operated during the reign of Emperor Caligula where he was several centuries young. During this time, he came to the Roman Emperor where he served as his advisor under the name of Thrax where he gave him counsel in exchange for young women to sate his hunger. He gave his condition that the women brought to him were to only be virgins but unknown to anyone that one of the women was pregnant at the time when the Master began to feed her. Upon learning of this, the distraction afforded the woman to cut him and she used the opportunity to escape. Despite his efforts, the Master were unable to find the girl who evaded capture but had been infected by the Strigoi worms. She in turn gave birth to a half-Strigoi/Human hybrid who was among the rare members of their kind known as the Born who gained all the advantages of their kind but none of their weaknesses. For many years, the Master sought out the child in order to kill it as it was a threat to him as it was telepathically connected to him but not subject to his control as ordinary Strigoi. By 58AD, the hybrid grew to a feral Strigoi who was captured and taken as a sideshow attraction. The Born was sought out by Ancharia who knew of Strigoi lore and sought a weapon to find and kill the Master. She freed the child and educated him where she named him Quinlan where he trained for years. The Master learnt of the existence of the child and sought him out to kill him where he confronted them at a cave. Several of his Strigoi were killed and despite the struggle he could not kill the Born. Instead, the Master intended to torture his 'child' where he caused a cave in to trap Quinlan and Anacharia as he intended for the Born's hunger to cause him to feed on his teacher. Ancharia convinced Quinlan to feed on her to sustain his strength allowing him to escape the cave-in so that he could continue his quest to kill the Master.

In the late 19th century, he was present within his host body in the lands of Romania where he hunted humans within the woods. By 1873, a group of Polish noblemen were in the area on a hunting expedition. The Master at the time was stalking them as the hunters were seeking out wolves with each one leaving the group only to be killed. This was the case until only Jusef Sardu remained who followed the tracks into a cave where the Master had feasted on a human. At that moment, Sardu was prepared to kill the Strigoi with his silver blade but the Master was quick enough to land the first strike. He was impressed with the physical body of Sardu who was afflicted with gigantism making him large in form. As such, the Master decided to make him his new host body and expelled a large sum of capillary worms into Jusef Sardu. This saw the death of his old Strigoi body and Jusef becoming the new host for the Master's essence. He later returned to the noblemen Sardu castle where 'Jusef' stopped making public appearances and never was seen in the day. At night, the Master prowled the streets of the town where he began preying on the children of the settlement. The legend of Jusef Sardu was retained for successive generations where it was told as a horror story to children. In 1888, the Master made his way to Victorian London where he began to prey on humans in secret. During this time, he was confronted by his Born 'son' Invictus where he learnt that he had formed a family with a woman named Louisa and had an adoptive daughter named Lydia. The desire to keep living with his family caused him to hesitate in bringing the deathblow to the Master who managed to escape. The Master decided to torture Quinlan by infecting Louisa and Lydia forcing Invictus to kill them.

During World War 2, Sariel met German Officer Thomas Eichorst who became an ally whereby he allowed Sariel to feed on prisoners of the concentration camp he worked at. It was there that he encountered Abraham Setrakian, who attempted to stab Sariel with a silver knife. Quickly overpowering him, Sariel mocked Setrakian's call to God before breaking every bone in his hands. By the end of the war, with the Allies victory near, Thomas Eichorst fled into the woods and arrived at a secret bunker. Once there, Sariel transfused a worm into his body, triggering Eichorst's rebirth as a Strigoi.

Years later, Sariel hid on a plane arriving at New York, attacking and infecting everyone onboard. An airport official, Peter Bishop, comes across Sariel and drained of his blood by Sariel before having his skull smashed in. After Sariel killed Bishop, he returned to his coffin, which was then smuggled past airport security and delivered to Eldritch Palmer, who kneels in terror upon seeing The Master. Later, a fully turned Kelly Goodweather is summoned Sariel, who meets her face-to-face and tells her to 'rejoice'. Meanwhile, Eph and the others locate Sariel's lair only to find it littered with resting strigoi. Eph hears Kelly's voice crying out for help, but Setrakian knows it is a trap leading them to Sariel. The voice leads Eph into a large chamber containing Sariel's coffin, only to be surrounded by strigoi. After arriving and finally meeting Eph face to face, Sariel attempts to kill him, but Fet, Setrakian, and Nora arrive and set off a home-made UV light bomb, killing some strigoi and repelling Sariel. Setrakian wants to pursue his old foe but is forced to retreat when the group come upon hundreds of newly turned strigoi inside a cavern. Later, after his battle and face to face with Eph, Sariel rejuvenates a dying Eldritch Palmer by giving him a drop of his white blood. Following another battle, the Strigoi Hunter's enter the theater Sariel is using as a lair and fight past his strigoi, including Bolivar and Eichorst. Upstairs, Setrakian and Eph confront Sariel and drive him into the daylight where he is severely burned, but escapes. Setrakian and the others are stunned that sunlight failed to kill the Master.

After his battle, Sariel's body was dying after exposure to sunlight whereby he ordered Eichorst to retrieve blind children that were to be converted into a new type of Strigoi called Feelers. These were imbued with psychic abilities and to be used as trackers. By the Master and Eichorst's command, the Feelers were given to Kelly, whose memory had been restored. Eichorst and Bolivar then prepared for the Master's transfer to a new body. However, Eichorst was shocked and dismayed when the Master transferred his essence into Bolivar's body rather than his. The Master then demanded that Eichorst swear fealty to him in his new form. After Sariel transferred into Bolivar's body, Setrakian and Quinlan confronted Sariel, who had been nesting in a factory along with Eichorst. When Fet dynamited the building, Sariel escaped in the explosion. Quinlan angrily blamed Setrakian and Fet for thwarting his opportunity to destroy the Master, then warned them to abandon the hunt to him. Following a failed assassination attempt by Eph on Palmer that leaves the businessman lover Coco in critical condition, Eldritch refused to help Sariel anymore until he saves her with the Master begrudgingly complying. After Eichorst lost an auction for Occido Lumen', an ancient tome apparently containing the secret to killing Sariel due to Palmer cutting off the money in an attempt to convince Sariel to treat him as an equal, Sariel infects Coco in retaliation, forcing Palmer to kill her.

After Illumination Day, the Strigoi began to emerge onto the surface but rather than actively hunting humans they were held at bay by the Master. Instead, using his host body Eldritch Palmer's resources along with human collaborators formed the Partnership. This consisted of human collaborators working alongside the Strigoi in bringing order under a dictatorship government.

In reality, the Master had used the Partnership as only a disguise to hide his true intentions for mankind. Learning from Nazi Germany, he intended to turn mankind into cattle by having them shipped into remote farming communities where they would be drained of their blood to feed the Strigoi. Thus, he reasoned that this would contain mankind's violent instincts and bring about a true peace on the planet. To accomplish that, he had the Partnership secretly ship large populations of humans to these communities where they were to be deprived of any aspect of their former life in civilization.

He returned to his headquarters where he gathered all the Strigoi in the city and decided to end the charade of co-existence with humanity. Thus, he dispatched all the Strigoi to actively attack and feed on humans in order to depopulate the city. The Master had intended to kill all humans to make it to easily track down Quinlan and his allies through their heart beat. As a result, the city was to be killed and left barren with the Master intending to move elsewhere once they had completed their achievement.

Within the underground chamber, he battled Quinlan with the two being disarmed of their weapons forcing them into melee battle. Despite the Born's prowess, the Master was able to overwhelm his opponent and was ready to deal the killing blow when Quinlan tore at the Ancient's throat. This caused him to be badly wounded as his life fluids to pour out of his throat but he retained enough strength to kill Quinlan by stomping on him with his feet. Zack then tended to the Master when they saw Ephraim in the chamber with the boy raising the gun at his own father. The Master commanded Zack to shoot but the boy refused as he could not shoot his father and instead shot at the Strigoi. The Master's host as a result was badly wounded and he intended to claim Zack as his new body. However, Ephraim tackled the Ancient to save his son but the Strigoi was still physically powerful allowing him to overwhelm the human and he decided to use him as his new host. The Master thus expelled the worms from his body including the control worm into Ephraim before his old host expired. When Ephraim regained consciousness, he could feel the Master slowly awakening and he said a fond farewell to Zack before priming the nuclear weapon. Before he could detonate it, the Master claimed his body and attempted to welcome Zack into his graces as he was now in control of his father. Whilst embracing the Master, Zack confessed his love for his father then activated the nuclear weapon thus killing them all within the underground chamber. With the Master dead, his Strain of Strigoi became directionless and more simplistic in their actions leading to mankind being easily able to kill them. In the aftermath, humanity had rebuilt their civilization with a few Strigoi kept alive for study in containment facilities typically designed to study deadly diseases.

Overview

Personality and attributes

In appearance, the Master was one of the Strigoi with his core body being that of the worms as he was one of the Ancients who changed new host bodies. Since the late 19th century, his physical form was that of Jusef Sardu who was a Polish noblemen that the Master had infected with his essence. The body was afflicted with gigantism making the Master massive in size and meant he towered over human beings.

He did not tolerate weakness and viewed such individuals with contempt.

Powers and abilities

As a Strigoi, the Master was a superhuman creature with a great number of abilities beyond that of normal humans. He had far greater strength, speed, endurance and stamina. He was shown to be capable of incredible levels of speed allowing to move faster than the human eye to the point that he appeared as a blur. Such was his speed that he could move to disarm a person that had primed a grenade that was to detonate if they let go of the trigger.

As an Ancient, his body also generated a substance known as the 'white' that was a white liquid that had recuperative properties and healed degenerative illnesses with but a few drops. These substance was similarly able to restore a person that suffered critical brain damage with them gaining full health in mere moments.

He had the power to emit a silent noise that could paralyse humans. This feat was described in legend that stated that the hum of the Master had left his enemies dumbstruck.

The Master was able to transfer his essence and consciousness into new host bodies. The process required him to expel the worms that constituted his body into the chosen host. Once done, his old host body died whilst the new one housed his mind. A key element within this transferral was a red worm that contained his mind. If this worm survived, it could take over a new host allowing for the Master to get a new body for himself.

As an Ancient, he was connected to all the Strigoi of his bloodline allowing him to see through their eyes and know everything that they observed or heard. The level of his control over his bloodline was powerful to the point that feral Strigoi that served him willingly killed themselves if the Master desired it. The Master used such an act when he discovered that a small nest of Strigoi were infect with a plagye and had them kill tgemselves ratger than infect the rest. He could take a more direct control over one of his Strigoi whereby he spoke through their mouths. Such moments were characterised by the red glowing eyes of the Strigoi that began speaking in the unnatural tone of the Master allowing him to remotely communicate to others or taunt his enemies.

Similar to other Strigoi, exposure to sunlight burnt his skin and left burns on his body though unlike those vampires he could not be killed by prolonged contact.

The Master was known to gain followers to assist him, offering promises that only he can fulfill, such as immortality. One of his closest lieutenants, Thomas Eichhorst, was generally the physical manifestation responsible for carrying out many of his orders. It was through him he recruits his other helpers.

In promising Eldritch Palmer, a successful billionaire, immortality, he has gained virtually limitless wealth and resources for his 'New Order'. Through his contacts and infrastructure, he was able to gain the help of other mortals.

Kelly Goodweather was one of the few strigoi, to be given sentient access to her memories after being turned. She becomes one of his greatest assets, by using her bond with her son Zach to track him and by doing so also finding his father Ephraim, the Master's nemesis Abraham Setrakian and his Group.

After the death of his mother, Zach has been willingly helping the master and attempts to gain information on nuclear bomb's whereabouts from his father as part of a subterfuge mission given to him by The Master.

Notes

• The Master was created by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan where he featured in the setting of The Strain universe.

In other media

Television

• In The Strain, the Master appeared in the setting of the live-action television series adaptation where he was portrayed by actor Robert Maillet with Robin Atkin Downes providing the voice.

Appearances

• The Strain:

External Links

• The Strain Wiki Entry

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