title: Better Call Saul (season 1)

text: The episode "Five-O" received near universal acclaim, with unanimous praise for Jonathan Banks' performance, with some critics considering it award-worthy. Roth Cornet of IGN gave it a score of 9.7 out of 10, praising the performance of Banks, the episode's pacing and interwoven storylines, as well as the final scene of the episode. She concluded, ""Better Call Saul" continues to deliver some of the best of what television has to offer as both those familiar with "Breaking Bad" and new viewers alike were given a shattering look at Mike's tragic past." Tim Surette of TV.com also highly praised the performance of Banks, and wrote that it was worthy of an Emmy, calling it "one of the best episodes to date of 2015's best new show to date". The episode received three Primetime Emmy Award nominations. Banks was nominated for the Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series, Gordon Smith was nominated for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series, and Kelley Dixon was nominated for Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing for a Drama Series. When Peter Dinklage won for Outstanding Supporting Actor, he praised the other nominees, and singled out Banks by name.


title: Better Call Saul (season 1)

text: The series premiere, "Uno" became the biggest in cable history, drawing in 4.4 million and 4 million in the 18–49 and 25–54 demographics, respectively, and received an overall viewership of 6.88 million.


title: Better Call Saul (season 1)

text: The first season was released on Blu-ray and DVD in Region 1 on November 10, 2015. The set contains all 10 episodes, plus audio commentaries for every episode, uncensored episodes, deleted scenes, gag reel, and several behind-the-scenes featurettes. A limited edition Blu-ray set was also released with 3D packaging and a postcard vinyl of the "Better Call Saul" theme song by Junior Brown.


title: Better Call Saul (season 1)

text: AMC released a digital comic book for "Better Call Saul" titled "Better Call Saul: Client Development" in February 2015, in advance of the series premiere, which details the history of Saul and Mike, acting as a spin-off of the "Breaking Bad" episode "Better Call Saul" that introduced Saul. This would later be retconned by the "Better Call Saul" episode "Breaking Bad".


title: Willy Wonka

text: Willy Wonka is a fictional character appearing in British author Roald Dahl's 1964 children's novel "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and its 1972 sequel "Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator". He is the eccentric founder and proprietor of the Wonka Chocolate Factory.


title: Willy Wonka

text: Wonka has been portrayed in film multiple times. In 1971, Willy Wonka was portrayed by Gene Wilder in "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory". Wilder's portrayal is considered widely beloved and one of his greatest roles. Johnny Depp's portrayal of the character in 2005's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" polarized critics and audiences. Both Wilder and Depp received Golden Globe nominations for their performances. Wonka will next be portrayed by Timothée Chalamet in an origin prequel film titled "Wonka", scheduled for release in 2023.


title: Willy Wonka

text: In "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", Wonka has hidden five Golden Tickets inside his chocolate bars. The finders are rewarded with a tour of his factory, each accompanied by an adult of their choice, and a lifetime supply of chocolate. The children are unaware, though, that the tour is also a competition to test their moral character. As the tour proceeds, four of the children are eliminated, leaving Charlie Bucket the winner. At this point, Wonka reveals that the real prize is the factory itself, as he needs someone to take it over and look after the Oompa-Loompas who work there once he retires.


title: Willy Wonka

text: Wonka is introduced as a "little man" with a goatee, wearing a purple coat, green trousers and a top hat. He is high-spirited and moves quickly like a squirrel, though he later tells Charlie that he is "much older than you think."


title: Willy Wonka

text: Wonka goes aboard the Great Glass Elevator with Charlie and his family and links up with the Space Hotel USA. The Space Hotel tracks the Elevator down back to Wonka's factory. Wonka then goes with Charlie and his family to the White House in the United States.


title: Willy Wonka

text: Willy Wonka (portrayed by Gene Wilder) has hidden five Golden Tickets amongst his famous Wonka Bars. The finders of these special tickets will be given a full tour of his tightly guarded candy factory, as well as a lifetime supply of chocolate. During the tour, Wonka tempts each of the bad children to disobey his orders with something related to their individual character flaws. One by one, each child disappears from the tour, until eventually Charlie Bucket is the only remaining child. However, Charlie and Grandpa Joe have also succumbed to temptation by this time and sampled Fizzy Lifting Drinks, Mr. Wonka's experimental line of beverages that gives the drinker the power to float temporarily. The drinks, still too strong, brought Charlie and Grandpa Joe close to death.


title: Willy Wonka

text: Wonka informs Charlie that the tour is over, abruptly dismisses him and Grandpa Joe, and disappears into his office without mentioning the promised grand prize of a lifetime supply of chocolate. They both go into Wonka's office to confront him. Grandpa Joe asks about the prize, but Wonka tells him that Charlie will not receive it because he broke the rules, angrily referring to the forfeiture clause of the contract that the ticket holders signed at the start of the tour. Charlie's drinking of the Fizzy Lifting Drinks amounted to theft, so he violated the contract and gets nothing. Wonka then dismisses them with a furious, "Good day, sir!" Grandpa Joe angrily berates him for destroying his grandson's hopes, but Wonka is unmoved and angrily dismisses him again.


title: Willy Wonka

text: Grandpa Joe vows to get revenge on Wonka by selling the Everlasting Gobstopper to Slugworth (Wonka's main rival), but in honest acknowledgement of his wrongdoing, Charlie decides to return the Gobstopper to Wonka's desk before turning to leave. Seeing how Charlie did not resort to revenge, Wonka sees an honest character in him and decides to let the fizzy lifting drink incident pass. He joyfully tells Charlie that he passed his test and reinstates his prize. Wonka then reveals that Slugworth, who had been spying on the kids, was actually his own employee in disguise.


title: Willy Wonka

text: The trio enter the Great Glass Elevator, which goes high into the sky as Wonka reveals that the grand prize is really the entire factory and business, which Charlie will get when Wonka retires, and in the meantime Charlie and his whole family will move into the factory. Wonka reminds Charlie not to forget what happened to the man who got everything that he ever wanted: "He lived happily ever after."


title: Willy Wonka

text: Willy Wonka (portrayed by Johnny Depp as an adult and by Blair Dunlop in his youth) is once again the owner of a famous chocolate factory. Due to problems concerning industrial espionage, he has fired all his employees, among them Charlie's Grandpa Joe, and closed his factory for many years. Wonka announces a contest in which five Golden Tickets have been hidden under the wrappers of Wonka Bars throughout the world. The finders will each receive a tour of the factory and a lifetime supply of chocolate; in addition, one winner will receive a special prize at the end of the tour. Charlie is the last to find a Golden Ticket.


title: Willy Wonka

text: On the day of the tour, Wonka greets the winners and the adults accompanying them at the factory gates and leads them through the compound. One by one, all of the children except Charlie succumb to temptations offered by Wonka and are removed from the tour. Wonka offers Charlie a chance to live and work with him in the factory, explaining that the purpose of the contest was to find a successor to take over as owner once he retires. However, Wonka expects Charlie to leave his family behind forever, seeing family as a hindrance to a chocolatier's creative freedom.


title: Willy Wonka

text: Wonka's position stems from a complicated relationship with his father, Wilbur, a prominent dentist, in which Wilbur forbade him to eat any candy and made him wear a large, cumbersome set of uncomfortable braces in order to keep his teeth in good condition. Wonka secretly sampled some candy one day and was instantly enthralled, running away from home in order to pursue a career in making it. When he returned home, he found that Wilbur had moved the entire house to an unknown location, true to his word that if Willy ran away, Wilbur would not be there when he came back, albeit in a literal fashion.


title: Willy Wonka

text: Charlie, who is not prepared to part with his family, rejects the offer, prompting Wonka to fall into a deep depression that saps his creativity and causes his business to suffer. With Charlie's help, Wonka locates Wilbur. As Wilbur checks Wonka's teeth, from which he recognises his son, Charlie finds that Wilbur is genuinely proud of his son, having saved every news clipping of Wonka's success. The two reconcile, and Wonka invites the entire Bucket family to live in the factory.


title: Willy Wonka

text: A prequel titled "Wonka", set to focus exclusively on Willy Wonka's origins, will be released by Warner Bros. on 15 December 2023. This will be the third major film to feature the character. Wonka himself will be portrayed by Timothée Chalamet.


title: Willy Wonka

text: In 2013, an adaptation of the novel was produced at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in the West End starting on 25 June 2013. Willy Wonka in this production was originated by Douglas Hodge. In the play, Wonka decides to open his factory to five children whom can find one of five Golden Tickets hidden in the wrappers of Wonka Bars. The play begins with Charlie in a large trash pile looking for items that are "almost nearly perfect". He later goes home and we see the Golden Ticket winners on an oversized television with actors inside it. Once all the tickets have been won, Willy Wonka invites the children into his factory, where he then tempts each of them with a weakness. Finally, only Charlie is left. Willy Wonka and Charlie board Wonka's "Great Glass Elevator" which takes off over the audience.


title: Willy Wonka

text: A reworked version of the musical, featuring added songs from the 1971 film adaptation, premiered on Broadway in 2017. Wonka was portrayed this time by Christian Borle. While the Broadway version received mixed to negative reviews, Borle's performance was praised. A U.S. tour commenced in 2018, with Noah Weisberg playing Wonka, and the musical premiered in Australia in 2019.


title: Willy Wonka

text: In 2017, a direct-to-DVD animated film featuring Tom and Jerry in an adaptation of the 1971 film was released. The main storyline is largely taken verbatim from the 1971 film, and thus Wonka (voiced by JP Karliak) is portrayed largely the same as in that adaptation. During the tour, Wonka becomes suspicious that one of the guests has smuggled a cat into the factory after seeing bits of fur left by Tom, who along with Jerry had previously been adopted by Charlie, and snuck into the factory in an attempt to stop what they believe to be Slugworth plotting to steal it from Wonka.


title: Willy Wonka

text: Wonka eventually notices Tom and Jerry's presence, and accuses Charlie of smuggling them into the factory (along with his theft of the Fizzy Lifting Drinks) in order to justify denying him the lifetime's supply of chocolate, though this also turns out to be part of the same test that Charlie was put through. Additionally, this version confirms that Wonka and "Slugworth" had intended from the very start to make Charlie the next owner of the factory, something that is left ambiguous by the other versions of the story.


title: Willy Wonka

text: Early on in the production of the 2005 film, Nicolas Cage was under discussions for portraying Willy Wonka, but lost interest. Warner Bros. president Alan F. Horn wanted Tom Shadyac to direct Jim Carrey as Willy Wonka, believing the duo could make "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" relevant to mainstream audiences, but Roald Dahl's widow Liccy Dahl opposed this. After Tim Burton was hired as director in May 2003, Burton immediately thought of Johnny Depp for the role of Willy Wonka, who joined the following August for his fourth collaboration with the director.


title: Willy Wonka

text: Burton and screenwriter John August worked together in creating Wilbur Wonka, Willy's domineering dentist father. "You want a little bit of the flavor of why Wonka is the way he is," Burton reasoned. "Otherwise, what is he? He's just a weird guy." Warner Bros. and Burton held differences over the characterization of Willy Wonka. The studio wanted to make Willy Wonka the idyllic father figure Charlie Bucket had longed for his entire life. Burton believed that Wonka would not be a good father, finding the character similar to a recluse. "In some ways," Burton protested, "he's more screwed up than the kids."


title: Willy Wonka

text: Johnny Depp was the only actor that Burton had considered for the role. He signed on without reading the script, under the intention of going with a completely different approach than what Gene Wilder did in the 1971 film adaptation. "Regardless of what one thinks of that film," Depp explained, "Gene Wilder's persona, his character, stands out." Depp stated on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" that he based the character on what he believed an "incredibly stoned" George W. Bush would act like.


title: Willy Wonka

text: Comparisons were drawn between Willy Wonka and Michael Jackson, due to Wonka's more childish demeanour. Burton joked, "Here's the deal. There's a big difference: Michael Jackson "likes" children, Willy Wonka "can't stand them". To me that's a "huge" difference in the whole persona thing." Depp explained that the similarities with Jackson never even occurred to him. "I say if there was anyone you'd want to compare Wonka to it would be a Howard Hughes, almost. Reclusive, germaphobe, controlling." Burton agreed with the Hughes similarities, and additionally supplied Charles Foster Kane in "Citizen Kane" as inspiration. "Somebody who was brilliant but then was traumatized and then retreats into their own world." Depp wanted to sport prosthetic makeup for the part and have a long, elongated nose, but Burton believed that it would be too outrageous.


title: Willy Wonka

text: Wilder's performance as Willy Wonka was well received and remains one of his best-known roles. "Time Out Film Guide" called it "Great fun, with Wilder for once giving an impeccably controlled performance as the factory's bizarre candy owner." Critic Jeffrey M. Anderson, of Combustible Celluloid, wrote, "[W]hen the movie does actually reach the factory, and Gene Wilder takes the stage, the movie is saved. Wilder was in the middle of an incredible run of subtle comic performances ... and he was at the height of his powers here." Wilder himself considered the role to be one of his signature roles, with his next of kin noting that he purposely kept his diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease private because so many young children would recognize him on the street as Wonka and he wanted those encounters to be joyful experiences.


title: Willy Wonka

text: Regarding Wilder's effect, Anderson wrote "If you're a kid, Wonka seems magical, but watching it now, he has a frightening combination of warmth, psychosis, and sadism." Kevin Carr, of 7M pictures wrote "This is Gene Wilder's legacy. He was perfect for the role, and it was his mixture of childlike wonder and bitter, deserved vengeance that made the character so compelling.", while critic Widgett Walls simply called it "Probably Gene Wilder's finest, most manic hour." Wilder received a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy for his role as Willy Wonka, but lost to Chaim Topol as Tevye in "Fiddler on the Roof".


title: Willy Wonka

text: Johnny Depp's portrayal of Willy Wonka polarized critics and audiences. Critic Andrew Sarris, of the "New York Observer", who did not enjoy the film's style in general, wrote "I wonder if even children will respond to the peculiarly humorless and charmless stylistic eccentricities of Mr. Burton and his star, Johnny Depp." Ann Hornaday of "The Washington Post" also criticized Depp's acting; "The cumulative effect isn't pretty. Nor is it kooky, funny, eccentric or even mildly interesting. Indeed, throughout his fey, simpering performance, Depp seems to be straining so hard for weirdness that the entire enterprise begins to feel like those excruciating occasions when your parents tried to be hip." Roger Ebert wrote "Depp, an actor of considerable gifts, has never been afraid to take a chance, but this time he takes the wrong one. His Willy Wonka is an enigma in an otherwise mostly delightful movie from Tim Burton."


title: Willy Wonka

text: Positive reactions to Depp's performance include Owen Gleiberman of "Entertainment Weekly", who wrote that "Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka may be a stone freak, but he is also one of Burton's classic crackpot conjurers, like "Beetlejuice" or "Ed Wood"." Mick LaSalle from the "San Francisco Chronicle" found that "all the laughs [in the film] come from Depp, who gives Willy the mannerisms of a classic Hollywood diva". Peter Travers wrote in "Rolling Stone" magazine that "Depp's deliciously demented take on Willy Wonka demands to be seen. Depp goes deeper to find the bruises on Wonka's secret heart than what Gene Wilder did." Depp received a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy for his role as Willy Wonka, but lost to Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash in "Walk the Line".


title: Willy Wonka

text: Wonka served as the mascot of "The Willy Wonka Candy Company", a real-life brand of confectioneries marketed by Nestlé Candy Shop. Real-life versions of the Everlasting Gobstopper and the Wonka Bar were produced, along with a line of other candies not directly related to the book or the film. The company had originated as a tie-in with the 1971 film, originally by Quaker Oats before a series of sales led to the company being acquired by Nestlé in 1988. The Wonka brand was discontinued in 2015; its products have since been sold to Ferrero, which produces them under the Ferrara brand.


title: Chow Chow

text: The Chow Chow is a spitz-type of dog breed originally from northern China. The Chow Chow is a sturdily built dog, square in profile, with a broad skull and small, triangular, erect ears with rounded tips. The breed is known for a very dense double coat that is either smooth or rough. The fur is particularly thick in the neck area, giving it a distinctive ruff or mane appearance. The coat may be shaded/self-red, black, blue, cinnamon/fawn, or cream.


title: Chow Chow

text: The Chow Chow has been identified as a basal breed that predates the emergence of the modern breeds in the 19th Century. One writer proposed that the Chow Chow originated in China 2,000 years ago or possibly originated in Arctic Asia 3,000 years ago which migrated to Mongolia, then to China.


title: Chow Chow

text: One Chinese legend mentions large war dogs from Central Asia that resembled black-tongued lions. One Chinese ruler was said to own 5,000 Chows. The Chinese also used Chows to pull dog sleds through swampy terrain, and this was remarked upon by Marco Polo.


title: Chow Chow

text: Today, the American Kennel Club registers approximately 10,000 Chow Chows a year. The Canadian Kennel Club registers approximately 350.


title: Chow Chow

text: The Chow Chow is a sturdily built dog, square in profile, with a broad skull and small, triangular, erect ears with rounded tips. The breed is known for a very dense double coat that is either smooth or rough. The fur is particularly thick in the neck area, giving it a distinctive ruff or mane appearance. The coat may be shaded/self-red, black, blue, cinnamon/fawn, or cream.


title: Chow Chow

text: Not all these color varieties are recognized as valid in all countries. Individuals with patchy or multicolored coats are considered to be outside the breed standard.


title: Chow Chow

text: Chow Chow eyes are typically deep set and almond shaped. The breed is unique by their purple/blue-black tongue which no other breed has except Shar Pei, and has very straight hind legs, resulting in a rather stilted gait. The bluish color extends to the Chow Chow's lips; this is the only dog breed with this distinctive bluish color in its lips and oral cavity (other dogs have black or a piebald pattern skin in their mouths). Another distinctive feature is the curly tail. It has thick hair and lies curled on its back. The nose should be black, but blue-coated Chow Chow can have a solid blue or slate-colored nose. According to the American Kennel Club breed standards, any other tone is not acceptable for contests. FCI countries, however, do allow a self-colored nose in the cream.


title: Chow Chow

text: The blue-black/purple tongue gene appears to be dominant, as most mixed breed dogs that come from a Chow Chow retain that tongue color. However, the blue-black/purple tongue can also be found on the Shar Pei. This is not to say that every mixed breed dog with spots of purple on the tongue is descended from Chow Chow, as purple spots on the tongue can be found on other purebred dogs.


title: Chow Chow

text: Most commonly kept as pets, Chow Chows tend to display discernment of strangers and can become fiercely protective of their owners and property. The American Kennel Club standards, however, consider an all-too aggressive or all-too timid Chow Chow to be unacceptable. For that reason, some owners have attributed a cat-like personality to the Chow Chow.


title: Chow Chow

text: Chow Chow are not excessively active, meaning that they can be housed in an apartment. However, a Chow Chow living in an apartment will need daily exercise to prevent restlessness and boredom. Upon realizing that exercise is a daily occurrence, Chow Chow will tend to be more assertive with owners in anticipation of such activities.


title: Chow Chow

text: This breed of dog has many strong loyal bonds with friends and family, but the Chow Chow dog is usually overly protective of one or two main family members. It is in the breed's nature to be quiet and well-behaved, but it is also resistant to training. Chow Chows become very stubborn and attach to certain individuals as they age. This makes training them when they are puppies crucial, because they gain respect for those who care for them.


title: Chow Chow

text: To avoid aggression and over-protectiveness as an adult, continuous socialization as early as possible could allow the dog to adjust. When a Chow Chow reaches adolescence it rejects authority from any owner who failed to earn its admiration. Aggression can be one distinctive behavioural characteristic in this breed, though while some are of an aggressive nature, many are known to be easy-going in nature – sometimes adopting an aloof disposition to individuals other than their owners. Aggression when it does appear is often towards other dogs of the same gender, especially Chows. Due to their strong hunting instincts, it is recommended that these dogs stay fenced, leashed, and away from cats and small dogs. This is why it is crucial that they are socialized early and consistently to act appropriately with strangers.


title: Chow Chow

text: At first, Chow Chows are very hesitant in interacting with strangers. However, this problem can be avoided if the owners train the Chow Chow at a young age.


title: Chow Chow

text: Owning a Chow Chow can raise the cost of homeowners insurance because some companies consider them high-risk dogs. In a study in the "Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association", Chow Chow were responsible for 8 out of 238 fatalities related to dog bites from 1979 to 1998.


title: Chow Chow

text: The Chow Chow can suffer from entropion, glaucoma, juvenile cataracts, lymphoma, hip dysplasia, diabetes mellitus, canine pemphigus, and gastric cancer. Chow Chows are a high risk breed for autoimmune disease and are at a predisposition for skin melanoma.


title: Chow Chow

text: Chow breed will heavily shed their fur in the seasons of spring and autumn, which requires more grooming attention than other seasons. It is important that owners use the correct tool to avoid harming the skin and facilitate grooming. Three kinds of brushes that owners can use on their Chow Chow are a medium-coarse brush for the larger parts of the body, a slick brush for smaller areas, and a pin brush to maintain the longer strands of hair. Chow Chows are known to have either short and smooth coat, or a rougher and longer coat. Both create a thick woolly layer, as it gets closer to the skin. They should be brushed four times a week; however shedding seasons may require daily grooming. Also, a spray conditioner can help avoiding breakage and tearing to the thick coat of hair. Lastly, a monthly bath is required to avoid fleas and keep a clean coat of fur.


title: Chow Chow

text: Konrad Lorenz an Austrian zoologist, ethologist, and ornithologist, winner of the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine who is often regarded as one of the founders of modern ethology, had a Chow Chow mix named Stasi. He wrote about his dogs in his book "King Solomon's Ring".


title: Chow Chow

text: Georgia O'Keeffe, an American artist, owned at least 6 Chow Chows in her lifetime. O'Keeffe wrote about her dogs in letters to friends and family, took photographs of them, and sketched them. She was a member of The Chow Chow Club, Inc. and kept various veterinary papers, club notifications, feeding schedules, and correspondence relating to her dogs.


title: Chow Chow

text: Sigmund Freud had a Chow Chow named Jo-Fi Ling who attended all of his therapy sessions because he felt that dogs had a special sense that allows them to judge a person's character accurately, and admitted he depended on Jo-Fi for an assessment of a patient's mental state.


title: Chow Chow

text: U.S. Navy admiral George Dewey acquired a Chow Chow in Hong Kong in 1898 and named it Bob. Bob rarely left the admiral's side and had the run of the cruiser . Bob died in 1899 due to eating chocolates given to Dewey by well-wishers upon "Olympia"s arrival in New York City.


title: Chow Chow

text: Martha Stewart owns several Chows, which are frequently seen on Martha's shows. One of them is named Genghis Khan.


title: Chow Chow

text: Vanna Bonta had a cream Chow Chow named Sky, a blue Chow Chow named Seraph, and a red Chow Chow named Beowulf, who was immortalized as a fictional dog in the book "Flight".


title: Chow Chow

text: Walt Disney and his wife, Lillian Disney, had a Chow Chow named Sunnee. It was the couple's first dog. Allegedly, Walt gifted Lilly the Chow Chow inside a hat box, which inspired the scene on Lady and the Tramp where Lady is gifted in the same way.


title: Castlevania

text: Castlevania (), known in Japan as is a gothic horror action-adventure video game series and media franchise about Dracula, created and developed by Konami. It has been released on various platforms, from early systems to modern consoles, as well as handheld devices such as mobile phones. The franchise has expanded into several spin-off video games and other media, including comic books and an animated television series.


title: Castlevania

text: "Castlevania" is largely set in the eponymous castle of Count Dracula, the main antagonist of the Belmont clan of vampire hunters. It debuted with 1986's "Castlevania" for the Nintendo Family Computer Disk System. The first entry and the majority of its sequels are side-scrolling action platformers, and were succeeded by the 1997 game, "". Originally released for the PlayStation, it returned to the nonlinear gameplay seen in "", which introduced RPG elements and exploration. Several installments later adopted "Symphony of the Night"'s gameplay, and along with "Super Metroid", it has popularized the Metroidvania genre. 2010 saw the release of "", a 3D action-adventure reboot of the series developed by MercurySteam and Kojima Productions.


title: Castlevania

text: "Castlevania" is one of Konami's most successful and prominent franchises; several of its entries are ranked among the best video games ever made.


title: Castlevania

text: Many "Castlevania" titles have been released for markets in Japan, North America, Europe and Australia on various video game consoles, personal computers (PC) and mobile phones, with additional remakes and re-releases. The first console title, "Castlevania", was released on the Famicom Disk System in 1986 and then in North America in 1987 on the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). A 2D sidescrolling action game where the player progresses through six stages, many principal features of the "Castlevania" series originated with it. It has since been ported to many platforms, such as the NES Classic Edition. Also released in 1986 was "Vampire Killer" for the MSX home computer, which played significantly different from the original "Castlevania", where players now had to search for the exit before they could proceed to the next stage. Following that year, in 1987, "" further departed from the standard platforming genre of the first "Castlevania" for a game more similar to the nonlinear gameplay of "Metroid", with several RPG elements such as a world map which the player is free to explore and revisit. "Castlevania"'s first arcade game, "Haunted Castle" (1988), returned to the linear platforming gameplay of the original. This continued with the first handheld Game Boy entry, "" and the NES sequel, "", both released in 1989. "Dracula's Curse" added new features to the original gameplay, including alternate stages and multiple playable characters. "The Adventure" saw a Game Boy sequel, "", in 1992 and also a developed by M2 for the WiiWare service in 2009.


title: Castlevania

text: The franchise's first 16-bit home console game, "Super Castlevania IV", was released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) in 1991. A "Castlevania" title for the Sharp X68000 home computer was exclusively released in Japan in 1993 and would not be available in English until "Castlevania Chronicles" (2001) for the PlayStation. During the same year, "" was released for the PC Engine and was also not localized in English until it was included with "" (2007) for the PlayStation Portable. The first "Castlevania" produced for a CD-ROM, "Rondo of Blood" featured Red Book audio and fully voiced dialogue. The game's content would be reused in "", a new game for the SNES in 1995. "" (1994) was the first "Castlevania" entry produced for a Sega console, the Genesis, and was not re-released until 2019 on the multi-platform "Castlevania Anniversary Collection".


title: Castlevania

text: In 1997, "" and "Castlevania Legends" were launched for the PlayStation and Game Boy, respectively. "Symphony of the Night" introduced a major change to the gameplay, incorporating RPG elements and a nonlinear map that the player could freely explore, which was previously seen in "Simon's Quest" and Nintendo's "Metroid" series. This would be the gameplay for several future titles, beginning with the Game Boy Advance entries "Circle of the Moon", "Harmony of Dissonance", and "Aria of Sorrow", which were released from 2001 to 2003. "Aria of Sorrow" received a 2005 sequel, for the Nintendo DS, which was followed by "Portrait of Ruin" (2006) and "Order of Ecclesia" (2008).


title: Castlevania

text: Under the development of Konami's Kobe branch, the first game in the series to employ 3D graphics was "Castlevania" for Nintendo 64 in 1999, and it received an expansion called "" later that year. In 2003, the next 3D "Castlevania" title, "Lament of Innocence" debuted for the PlayStation 2 with combat-oriented hack and slash gameplay that drew comparisons to "Devil May Cry" and "God of War". It was followed two years later by "".


title: Castlevania

text: A reboot of the franchise launched with "" in 2010, a multi-platform 3D action title developed by MercurySteam and co-produced by "Metal Gear"'s Hideo Kojima. Two sequels, "" (2013) and "Lords of Shadow 2" (2014) have also both received multi-platform releases.


title: Castlevania

text: "Castlevania" has spawned numerous spin-offs, the first being the 1990 platformer, "Kid Dracula" for the Famicom, a parody which stars the eponymous character. It was released for the first time in English for the "Castlevania Anniversary Collection" (2019). The game received a sequel for the Game Boy, also titled "Kid Dracula". "Castlevania"'s first multiplayer online fighting game, "Castlevania Judgment" debuted for the Wii in 2008 and was developed by Eighting. Another multiplayer online title, "", was available cross-platform in 2010, where players could play as past "Castlevania" characters and explore stages. A game for iOS called "", a multiplayer title starring "Castlevania" cast members, was released by Konami on September 16, 2019.


title: Castlevania

text: Arcade and slot machines have been produced for the series. "" (2009), a light gun shooter utilizing an LED remote, has only been released in Japan and Europe. The Japanese spin-off series, "Pachislot Akumajō Dracula", is a pachislot line of "Castlevania" titles released between 2009 and 2017. The first three are based on the video game "Dracula's Curse", while a fourth game based on the "Lords of Shadow" reboot, "Pachislot Akumajō Dracula: Lords of Shadow", was made available in 2017.


title: Castlevania

text: "Castlevania" characters and elements have also appeared in crossovers and other titles such as the "Konami Wai Wai World" series, "", "DreamMix TV World Fighters", "Bomberman R" and "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate".


title: Castlevania

text: "Castlevania", released for the NES in 1986 is a typical platform game in which the player takes the role of Simon Belmont, a descendant of the Belmont clan, a family of vampire hunters. He travels to Dracula's castle, Castlevania, and fights his way through the castle annihilating Dracula himself and the castle. Belmont's main weapon is a whip called the Vampire Killer, while the secondary weapons include throwing daggers, bottles of holy water that act as small fire bombs, throwing axes that arc overhead, a watch that stops time, and a cross that acts like a boomerang. These are powered by hearts which are collected by destroying candles and killing monsters. Hidden items such as power-ups and food (health replenishment) items are also found by attacking walls within the levels, a feature inspired by Nintendo's "Super Mario Bros." with countless hidden items across the game's levels.


title: Castlevania

text: "Vampire Killer", released in 1986 for the MSX 2 computer and developed alongside the original "Castlevania" (the two share the same title in Japanese), departs from the more straightforward platforming gameplay of "Castlevania", instead introducing an open-ended, exploration-heavy form of gameplay. "Castlevania II: Simon's Quest" featured nonlinear gameplay even more open-ended than that of "Vampire Killer", with several exclusive elements such as a world map the player was free to explore and revisit. The player could also purchase supplies, equipment and weapon upgrades in several different towns, making it more like an action role-playing game. It also introduced a persistent world with its own day-night cycle which altered gameplay, and offered three possible endings depending on the time it took to complete the game. "Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse" for the NES has more in common with the original NES Castlevania but also added new features, including nonlinear elements such as alternate branching paths with different stages and alternate endings depending on the player's choices, as well as multiple player characters.


title: Castlevania

text: A turning point in the gameplay mechanics of the series was "". Expanding on the open-ended style of gameplay previously used in "Castlevania II: Simon's Quest", "Symphony of the Night"s style of gameplay has been termed "Metroidvania" due to its similarities with the nonlinear and exploration-focused side-scrolling games of the "Metroid" series. It also used role-playing video game elements, such as collectible weapons, armor and hidden orbs. Many subsequent Castlevania games have since followed this template.


title: Castlevania

text: The "Castlevania" franchise heavily references the iconic horror movies produced by Universal Pictures and Hammer Film Productions. Creator of the series, Hitoshi Akamatsu, wanted players to feel like they were in a classic horror movie. Werewolves, zombies, Frankenstein's monster, and Count Dracula himself make recurring appearances. Alucard, first introduced in "", is also a reference to the character of the same name from the 1943 film, "Son of Dracula". The games also include folklore and mythological monsters such as Medusa, as well as direct references to literary horror. "" explicitly incorporates the events of Bram Stoker's "Dracula" into the series, and the recurring character Carmilla is based on the 1872 novel by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu.


title: Castlevania

text: "Castlevania" mainly takes place in the castle of Count Dracula, who resurrects every hundred years to take over the world. With the exception of some games, the players assume the role of the Belmonts, a clan of vampire hunters who have defeated Dracula for centuries with the Vampire Killer. The Vampire Killer is a legendary whip that is passed down to their successors and can only be used by them. In "Castlevania: Bloodlines", the whip has been inherited by John Morris, the son of Quincey Morris, who is a distant descendant of the Belmonts. Other recurring characters throughout the series include the dhampir Alucard, who sides with Trevor Belmont against his father Dracula in "Dracula's Curse". Trevor is also joined by Sypha Belnades, a vampire hunter who fights using magic and marries Trevor by the end of the game. Descendants of the Belnades clan, such as Carrie Fernandez and Yoko Belnades, would also make appearances as playable characters in later titles.


title: Castlevania

text: "" is a reboot of the franchise, with its first game set in Southern Europe during the Middle Ages. The main character, Gabriel Belmont, is a member of the Brotherhood of Light, an elite group of holy knights who defend people from supernatural creatures. With a retractable chain whip called the Combat Cross, Gabriel fights a malevolent force known as the Lords of Shadow in order to obtain the God Mask, which he believes can bring back his deceased wife. In "", Gabriel stars as Dracula, the main antagonist of Simon and Trevor Belmont. The sequel, "" is set during modern times, where Dracula is now looking for a way to put an end to his immortality.


title: Castlevania

text: In 2002, the games "Legends", "", "Castlevania" (1999), and "" were retconned from the official chronology by Koji Igarashi, a move which had been met with some criticism by fans. Igarashi noted that "Legends" conflicted with the plotline of the series, and that the reason for "Circle of the Moon"'s removal was not due to his non-involvement with the game, but instead the intention of the game's development team for "Circle of the Moon" to be a stand-alone title. The American "20th Anniversary Pre-order Bundle" for "" in 2006 featured a poster with a timeline that re-included the games other than "Legends". In 2007, Konami still excluded them from the canon on the official Japanese website. Igarashi has said that he considered the titles a "subseries".


title: Castlevania

text: "Castlevania" was directed and programmed by Hitoshi Akamatsu for the Family Computer Disk System in 1986. The game's staff roll features names taken from famous horror movie icons, with Akamatsu being credited as 'Trans Fishers', a reference to film director Terence Fisher. This is possibly because Konami did not allow the use of real names at the time in order to prevent other companies from hiring people who worked for them. An admirer of cinema, Akamatsu approached projects with a "film director's eye", and said the visuals and music for "Castlevania" were "made by people who consciously wanted to do something cinematic." The protagonist Simon Belmont uses a whip because Akamatsu liked the mechanics of a weapon able to repel enemies, and also because Akamatsu was a fan of "Raiders of the Lost Ark". After the success of "Castlevania", it was released in cartridge format for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) as one of its first major platform games, and also as part of an unofficial second wave of video games for the system. The international title ("Castlevania") was the result of Konami of America senior vice president Emil Heidkamp's discomfort with "Akumajō Dracula", which he believed translated as "Dracula Satanic Castle." Because of Nintendo of America's censorship policies at the time, most instances of blood, nudity and religious imagery were removed or edited in early "Castlevania" games.


title: Castlevania

text: Akamatsu also directed "Castlevania II: Simon's Quest" in 1987, which adopted gameplay similar to Nintendo's "Metroid". When asked if "Metroid" had any inspiration, Akamatsu instead cited "Maze of Galious", another Konami title which featured exploration and puzzle solving. His last game in the series, "Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse" (1989), returned to the standard platforming genre of "Castlevania". Since Konami's "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" games sold many copies, their development was prioritized above other titles, leading the developers for "Dracula's Curse" to make a game that would outdo them. "Simon's Quest" and "Dracula's Curse" were not a commercial success, and Akamatsu was demoted to working in one of Konami's game centers before he chose to resign.


title: Castlevania

text: In 1993, three "Castlevania" games were in parallel development, which included "Akumajō Dracula", "Rondo of Blood", and "". Directed and produced by Toru Hagihara, "Rondo of the Blood" was the first installment made for a CD-ROM and also the first to be fully voiced. Hagihara would go on to direct a sequel, "Symphony of the Night" (1997) for the Sony PlayStation, with Koji 'IGA' Igarashi joining him as the assistant director and story writer. Also joining the staff was artist Ayami Kojima, who was hired to introduce a new look for "Castlevania". She would be the character designer for several future "Castlevania" titles. Igarashi said it began development as "something of a side story series". From the outset, the game was supposed to take the franchise in a new direction. The gameplay took a departure from the original platforming entries, instead adopting nonlinear exploration and role-playing game elements, which were last seen in "Simon's Quest". The critical reaction to "Simon's Quest" and its gameplay allowed them to pitch "Symphony of the Night" to Konami. Igarashi was eventually asked to finish the game as the assistant director after Hagihara was promoted to head of the division. On release, "Symphony of the Night" was well-received and became a sleeper hit, but its commercial performance was mediocre, particularly in the United States where it was meagerly publicized.


title: Castlevania

text: The first "Castlevania" game to feature 3D computer graphics began development in 1997 on the Nintendo 64 by Konami Computer Entertainment Kobe (KCEK) as "Dracula 3D". Like most of its predecessors, it was an action-adventure and platforming game. It was eventually released as "Castlevania" in 1999 and received an expanded version titled "" during the same year. KCEK's last "Castlevania" game was the acclaimed "", released as a launch title for the Game Boy Advance in 2001. "Circle of the Moon" was the first entry to feature Metroidvania gameplay since "Symphony of the Night". Igarashi, who was not involved with the game, was critical of "Circle of the Moon". In 2002, he retconned "Castlevania Legends" (1997) and the games developed by KCEK from the series' chronology due to story conflicts, which was met with some resistance from fans. After KCEK was dissolved during 2002, the Game Boy Advance received a second installment, "", now produced by Igarashi and developed by Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo (KCET). Starting with "Harmony of Dissonance", the Japanese games adopted "Castlevania" as the title for a brief period. According to Igarashi, the developers did this since Count Dracula is not always the main antagonist. This continued with "" (2003), a 3D title developed as a new starting point for the series. Konami eventually returned to the title "Akumajō Dracula" with the Japanese release of 2005's "" for the Nintendo DS. "Dawn of Sorrow" and "Portrait of Ruin" (2006) introduced a new art style in hopes of broadening the player demographic and preventing younger Nintendo DS owners from being put off by Ayami Kojima's art. This discontinued with "" in 2008.


title: Castlevania

text: Due to concern over the poor sales of the recent "Castlevania" games, a number of prototypes in development competed to become the next "Castlevania" installment, which included a game by Igarashi announced at Tokyo Game Show 2008 and "" by MercurySteam in Spain. Konami told MercurySteam the game would be an original intellectual property (IP) when it was first greenlit as a "Castlevania" title. Konami eventually asked them to cease work on "Lords of Shadow" while it was still in its early stages, until producer David Cox showed the Japanese senior management the game and was offered help by video game designer Hideo Kojima. According to Igarashi, development on his project had not been going smoothly, and Konami had canceled it and chose "Lords of Shadow" as the pitch for the next "Castlevania" entry. Produced by Dave Cox and Hideo Kojima, "Lords of Shadow" was a multi-platform 3D action-adventure reboot of the series. Kojima offered his input on the project and also oversaw the game's localization in Japan. It was the first "Castlevania" to feature celebrity voice talent, starring Robert Carlyle in the lead role and also Patrick Stewart. The art style also departed from the previous games in favor of one inspired by Guillermo del Toro's work. "Lords of Shadow" was met with positive reception in 2010 and a commercial success, becoming the best selling "Castlevania" game to date. It was followed by two sequels, "" (2013) and "" (2014). "Lords of Shadow 2" was not as well received as its predecessor. Following its release, an anonymous source claiming to be employees from MercurySteam alleged that development on the game had been troubled.


title: Castlevania

text: After having been moved to Konami's social division in 2011, Igarashi felt he was unable to release any new games when Konami shifted its focus towards mobile game development. He left in March 2014 to independently create "", a spiritual successor to "Castlevania". Dave Cox followed Igarashi's resignation a few months later. Recent "Castlevania" titles released under Konami's recent business model include pachinko and slot machines based on the IP.


title: Castlevania

text: "Castlevania"s music has been critically acclaimed and released on many albums. The music for the first "Castlevania" game was composed by Satoe Terashima and Kinuyo Yamashita, of Konami's Kukeiha Club of composers, shortly after graduating from college. Yamashita was credited under the pseudonym James Banana for her work on the Disk System version of the game.


title: Castlevania

text: Kenichi Matsubara composed for the sequel, "Simon's Quest", and also the arcade installment "Haunted Castle". In 1993, Michiru Yamane created the soundtrack to "Castlevania Bloodlines", and would also compose the music for several installments, including "Symphony of the Night".


title: Castlevania

text: Most of the music in the series changes from game to game, but some themes recur often. These include "Vampire Killer", composed by Satoe Terashima, , first composed by Kenichi Matsubara, and "Beginning" by Jun Funahashi. These three tracks first appeared in "Castlevania", "" and "" respectively. Several songs, including "Vampire Killer" and "Bloody Tears", were also featured in the soundtracks of other Konami games, including "Konami Wai Wai World", "", and "Konami Krazy Racers", and inter-company crossovers such as "DreamMix TV World Fighters", and "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate".


title: Castlevania

text: The "Castlevania" franchise had sold over 20 million copies worldwide ; it had previously sold over units by 1993. The franchise has received mostly positive reviews, with the most acclaimed game being "" for the PlayStation and the most panned being "Judgment", with aggregate scores of 93 and 49, respectively, on Metacritic and 93.38% and 52.71%, respectively, on GameRankings.


title: Castlevania

text: Many of the games have appeared on lists of video games considered to be the best. "Symphony of the Night" appeared at #16 on "IGN" "Top 100 games" and was one of the first to be introduced on the "GameSpot" "The Greatest Games of All Time". Both acclaimed the game to successfully making a game in 2D while the industry was moving to 3D. "" was named the 9th best 8-bit game by "GameTrailers". "Super Castlevania IV" was named the 11th best game of the SNES by "ScrewAttack" on their "Top 20 SNES Games". The series as a whole was also named the 4th best franchises in game ever by IGN, behind only "Final Fantasy", "The Legend of Zelda" and "Mario", and citing "Super Castlevania IV" and "Symphony of the Night" as highlights. "Aria of Sorrow" was also named the 2nd best game on the Game Boy Advance and one of the must buys for the system, according to the same website. "Castlevania" and "" appeared on Nintendo Power's "Top 200 Games" list. Trivia about the series has also been mentioned in the "Guinness World Records: Gamer's Edition 2008".


title: Castlevania

text: Simon Belmont was one of the stars in the animated series "". He was a member of the N-Team, a group of mostly video game characters who defended Videoland against the antagonist Mother Brain from "Metroid". Dracula, referred to only as "the Count", also appeared as a villain in "Captain N". Alucard appeared in one episode, though he was portrayed as a rebellious skateboarding teenager. Several other "Castlevania" monsters had minor roles, including Frankenstein's Monster, the Mummy, the Wolf Man, and the Skull Knight. Simon is portrayed as egotistical on the show and his physical appearance differs from his design in the video game series.


title: Castlevania

text: In 2005, IDW Publishing released a comic book adaptation, "Castlevania: The Belmont Legacy", written by Marc Andreyko with art by E. J. Su. It was based on "". In 2008, a graphic novel adaption of "Curse of Darkness" was released by Tokyopop in English.


title: Castlevania

text: The streaming service Netflix released an American animated series titled simply "Castlevania" as part of its original programming. The show is being showrun by Adi Shankar, who had previously teased plans for an animated mini-series based on "" in 2015, and is written by Warren Ellis. Fred Seibert and Kevin Kolde also co-produce. The series is animated by Seibert's Frederator Studios and Powerhouse Animation Studios, under Michael Hirsh's Wow Unlimited Media company. The show's first season released on July 7, 2017, and ran for four episodes, while the second season premiered on October 26, 2018, and ran for eight episodes. By the time the second season became available in 2018, "Castlevania" had reportedly garnered nearly viewers worldwide according to Netflix analytics, becoming one of the most successful original animated shows on Netflix. A third season released on March 5, 2020, and ran for 10 episodes. The fourth and final season was released on May 13, 2021, and a new series set in the "Castlevania" universe is in the works. It will focus on a descendant of Trevor, Richter Belmont, and Maria Renard in France during the French Revolution.


title: Castlevania

text: The franchise also has its own toy line manufactured by NECA which consists of six figures of Simon Belmont, Alucard, Dracula (available in two variants with one variant with its mouth closed and another one with its mouth open showing Dracula's vampire fangs), Succubus and a Pixel Simon mini figure which was exclusively available as a promotional item at Comic-Con 2007 where the figures were first shown in full form.


title: Castlevania

text: The franchise also consists of a calendar of "Lament of Innocence" available with the limited edition of the game and containing seven illustrations and another released as a promotion for "Castlevania Judgment" from April 2009 to March 2010 containing images of various Castlevania characters from the game. Artbooks of many games have also been released. The franchise also includes comics, prize collection artworks of "Symphony of the Night" and "Judgment" as part of its print media.


title: Castlevania

text: Adapted and illustrated by Kou Sasakura, a two-volume manga adaptation titled was published in Japan from 2005 to 2006.


title: Castlevania

text: A "Castlevania" television series was considered in the late 1980s as part of the "Super Mario Bros. Power Hour", a one hour animation block of Nintendo focused video game adaptations. Concept art was produced for the project by DIC Animation City. Only the Mario and Zelda segments for the block were ultimately produced, airing in 1989 as part of "The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!".


title: Castlevania

text: A "Castlevania" film was planned in the late 2000s. However, in December 2007, Rogue Pictures halted active development of "Castlevania" due to the writers' strike and, later, the sale of the studio to Relativity Media and possibility of a screen actors' guild strike. On May 27, 2009, the "Castlevania" film was reported as officially canceled.


title: John le Carré

text: David John Moore Cornwell (19 October 193112 December 2020), better known by his pen name John le Carré ( ), was a British and Irish author, best known for his espionage novels, many of which were successfully adapted for film or television. "[One] of the greatest novelists of the postwar era", during the 1950s and 1960s he worked for both the Security Service (MI5) and the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). He is considered to have been a "sophisticated, morally ambiguous writer".


title: John le Carré

text: Le Carré's third novel, "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold" (1963), became an international best-seller, was adapted as an award-winning film and remains one of his best-known works. This success allowed him to leave MI6 to become a full-time author. His novels which have been adapted for film or television include "The Looking Glass War" (1965), "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" (1974), "Smiley's People" (1979), "The Little Drummer Girl" (1983), "The Night Manager" (1993), "The Tailor of Panama" (1996), "The Constant Gardener" (2001), "A Most Wanted Man" (2008), and "Our Kind of Traitor" (2010). Philip Roth said that "A Perfect Spy" was "the best English novel since the war".


title: John le Carré

text: David John Moore Cornwell was born on 19 October 1931 in Poole, Dorset, England. His father was Ronald Thomas Archibald (Ronnie) Cornwell (1905–75), and his mother was Olive Moore Cornwell (née Glassey, b. 1906–1989). His older brother, Tony (1929–2017), was an advertising executive and county cricketer (for Dorset), who later lived in the United States. His younger half-sister was the actress Charlotte Cornwell (1949–2021), and his younger half-brother, Rupert Cornwell (1946-2017), was a former Washington bureau chief for "The Independent". Cornwell had little early memory of his mother, who had left their family home when he was five years old. His maternal uncle was Liberal MP Alec Glassey. When Cornwell was 21 years old, Glassey gave him the address in Ipswich where his mother was living. Some sixteen years later, mother and son reacquainted at Ipswich railway platform, at her written invitation, following Cornwell's initial letter of reconciliation.


title: John le Carré

text: Cornwell's father had been jailed for insurance fraud and was a known associate of the Kray twins. The family was continually in debt. The father–son relationship has been described as "difficult". The Guardian reported that Le Carré recalled that he had been "beaten up by his father and grew up mostly starved of affection after his mother abandoned him at the age of five". Rick Pym, a scheming con man and the father of "A Perfect Spy" protagonist Magnus Pym, was based on Ronnie. When his father died in 1975, Cornwell paid for a memorial funeral service but did not attend, a plot point repeated in "A Perfect Spy".


title: John le Carré

text: Cornwell's schooling began at St Andrew's Preparatory School, near Pangbourne, Berkshire, and continued at Sherborne School. He grew unhappy with the typically harsh English public school regime of the time and disliked his disciplinarian housemaster. He left Sherborne early to study foreign languages at the University of Bern from 1948 to 1949. In 1950, he was called up for National Service and served in the Intelligence Corps of the British Army garrisoned in Allied-occupied Austria, working as a German language interrogator of people who had crossed the Iron Curtain to the West. In 1952, he returned to England to study at Lincoln College, Oxford, where he worked covertly for the British Security Service, MI5, spying on far-left groups for information about possible Soviet agents. During his studies, he was a member of a college dining society known as The Goblin Club.


title: John le Carré

text: When his father was declared bankrupt in 1954, Cornwell left Oxford to teach at Millfield Preparatory School; however, a year later he returned to Oxford, and graduated in 1956 with a first class degree in modern languages. He then taught French and German at Eton College for two years, becoming an MI5 officer in 1958.


title: John le Carré

text: He ran agents, conducted interrogations, tapped telephone lines, and effected break-ins. Encouraged by Lord Clanmorris (who wrote crime novels as "John Bingham"), and whilst being an active MI5 officer, Cornwell began writing his first novel, "Call for the Dead" (1961). Cornwell identified Lord Clanmorris as one of two models for George Smiley, the spymaster of the Circus, the other being Vivian H. H. Green. As a schoolboy, Cornwell first met the latter when Green was the Chaplain and Assistant Master at Sherborne School (1942–51). The friendship continued after Green's move to Lincoln College, where he tutored Cornwell.


title: John le Carré

text: In 1960, Cornwell transferred to MI6, the foreign-intelligence service, and worked under the cover of Second Secretary at the British Embassy in Bonn; he was later transferred to Hamburg as a political consul. There, he wrote the detective story "A Murder of Quality" (1962) and "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold" (1963), as "John le Carré" ("le Carré" is French for "the square")—a pseudonym required because Foreign Office staff were forbidden to publish in their own names.


title: John le Carré

text: In 1964, le Carré's career as an intelligence officer came to an end as the result of the betrayal of British agents' covers to the KGB by Kim Philby, the infamous British double agent, one of the Cambridge Five. Le Carré depicted and analysed Philby as the upper-class traitor, codenamed "Gerald" by the KGB, the mole hunted by George Smiley in "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" (1974).


title: John le Carré

text: Le Carré's first two novels, "Call for the Dead" (1961) and "A Murder of Quality" (1962), are mystery fiction. Each features a retired spy, George Smiley, investigating a death; in the first book, the apparent suicide of a suspected communist, and in the second volume, a murder at a boys' public school. Although "Call for the Dead" evolves into an espionage story, Smiley's motives are more personal than political. Le Carré's third novel, "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold" (1963), became an international best-seller and remains one of his best-known works; following its publication, he left MI6 to become a full-time writer. Although le Carré had intended "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold" as an indictment of espionage as morally compromised, audiences widely viewed its protagonist, Alec Leamas, as a tragic hero. In response, le Carré's next book, "The Looking Glass War", was a satire about an increasingly deadly espionage mission which ultimately proves pointless.


title: John le Carré

text: "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy", "The Honourable Schoolboy", and "Smiley's People" (the Karla trilogy) brought Smiley back as the central figure in a sprawling espionage saga depicting his efforts first to root out a mole in the Circus and then to entrap his Soviet rival and counterpart, code-named 'Karla'. The trilogy was originally meant to be a long-running series that would find Smiley dispatching agents after Karla all around the world. "Smiley's People" marked the last time Smiley featured as the central character in a le Carré story, although he brought the character back in "The Secret Pilgrim" and "A Legacy of Spies".


title: John le Carré

text: "A Perfect Spy" (1986), which chronicles the boyhood moral education of Magnus Pym and how it leads to his becoming a spy, is the author's most autobiographical espionage novel, reflecting the boy's very close relationship with his con man father. Biographer LynnDianne Beene describes the novelist's own father, Ronnie Cornwell, as "an epic con man of little education, immense charm, extravagant tastes, but no social values". Le Carré reflected that "writing "A Perfect Spy" is probably what a very wise shrink would have advised". He also wrote a semi-autobiographical work, "The Naïve and Sentimental Lover" (1971), as the story of a man's midlife existential crisis.


title: John le Carré

text: With the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, le Carré's writing shifted to portrayal of the new multilateral world. His first completely post-Cold War novel, "The Night Manager" (1993), deals with drug and arms smuggling in the murky world of Latin American drug lords, shady Caribbean banking entities, and western officials who look the other way.


title: John le Carré

text: Most of le Carré's books are spy stories set during the Cold War (1945–91) and portray British Intelligence agents as unheroic political functionaries, aware of the moral ambiguity of their work and engaged more in psychological than physical drama. While "[espionage] was the genre that earned him fame...he used it as a platform to explore larger ethical problems and the human condition". The insight he demonstrated led "many fellow authors and critics [to regard] him as one of the finest English-language novelists of the twentieth century." His writing explores "human frailty—moral ambiguity, intrigue, nuance, doubt, and cowardice".


title: John le Carré

text: The fallibility of Western democracy - and of its secret services - is a recurring theme, as are suggestions of a possible east–west moral equivalence. Characters experience little of the violence typically encountered in action thrillers and have very little recourse to gadgets. Much of the conflict is internal, rather than external and visible. The recurring character George Smiley, who plays a central role in five novels and appears as a supporting character in four more, was written as an "antidote" to James Bond, a character le Carré called "an international gangster" rather than a spy and who he felt should be excluded from the canon of espionage literature. In contrast, he intended Smiley, who is an overweight, bespectacled bureaucrat who uses cunning and manipulation to achieve his ends, as an accurate depiction of a spy.


title: John le Carré

text: Le Carré's "writing entered intelligence services themselves. He popularized the term 'mole'...and other language that has become intelligence vernacular on both sides of the Atlantic — 'honeytrap', 'scalphunter', 'lamplighter' to name a few." However, in his first tweet as MI6's chief, Richard Moore revealed the agency's "complicated relationship with the author: He urged would-be Smileys not to apply to the service."


title: John le Carré

text: Le Carré records a number of incidents from his period as a diplomat in his autobiographical work, "" (2016), which include escorting six visiting German parliamentarians to a London brothel and translating at a meeting between a senior German politician and Harold Macmillan.


title: John le Carré

text: As a journalist, le Carré wrote "The Unbearable Peace" (1991), a nonfiction account of Brigadier Jean-Louis Jeanmaire (1911–1992), the Swiss Army officer who spied for the Soviet Union from 1962 until 1975.


title: John le Carré

text: Credited under his pen name, le Carré appears as an extra in the 2011 film version of "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy", among the guests at the Christmas party in several flashback scenes.


title: John le Carré

text: In 2017, le Carré expressed concerns over the future of liberal democracy, saying "I think of all things that were happening across Europe in the 1930s, in Spain, in Japan, obviously in Germany. To me, these are absolutely comparable signs of the rise of fascism and it's contagious, it's infectious. Fascism is up and running in Poland and Hungary. There's an encouragement about". He later wrote that the end of the Cold War had left the West without a coherent ideology, in contrast to the "notion of individual freedom, of inclusiveness, of tolerance – all of that we called anti-communism" prevailing during that time.


title: John le Carré

text: Le Carré opposed both U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, arguing that their desire to seek or maintain their countries' superpower status caused an impulse "for oligarchy, the dismissal of the truth, the contempt, actually, for the electorate and for the democratic system". Le Carré compared Trump's tendency to dismiss the media as "fake news" to the Nazi book burnings, and wrote that the United States is "heading straight down the road to institutional racism and neo-fascism".


title: John le Carré

text: In Le Carré's 2019 novel "Agent Running in the Field", one of the novel's characters refers to Trump as "Putin's shithouse cleaner" who "does everything for little Vladi that little Vladi can't do for himself". The novel's narrator describes Boris Johnson as "a pig-ignorant foreign secretary". He says Russia is moving "backwards into her dark, delusional past", with Britain following a short way behind. Le Carré later said that he believed the novel's plotline, involving the U.S. and British intelligence services colluding to subvert the European Union, to be "horribly possible".


title: John le Carré

text: Le Carré was an outspoken advocate of European integration and sharply criticised Brexit. Le Carré criticised Brexit advocates such as Boris Johnson (whom he referred to as a "mob orator"), Dominic Cummings, and Nigel Farage in interviews, claiming that their "task is to fire up the people with nostalgia [and] with anger". He further opined in interviews that "What really scares me about nostalgia is that it's become a political weapon. Politicians are creating a nostalgia for an England that never existed, and selling it, really, as something we could return to", adding that with "the demise of the working class we saw also the demise of an established social order, based on the stability of ancient class structures". On the other hand, he said that in the Labour Party "they have this Leninist element and they have this huge appetite to level society."


title: John le Carré

text: On Brexit, le Carré did not mince his words, comparing it to the 1956 Suez crisis which confirmed post-imperial Britain's loss of global power. "This is without doubt the greatest catastrophe and the greatest idiocy that Britain has perpetrated since the invasion of Suez", le Carré said of Brexit. "Nobody is to blame but the Brits themselves – not the Irish, not the Europeans." "The idea, to me, that at the moment we should imagine we can substitute access to the biggest trade union in the world with access to the American market is terrifying", he said.


title: John le Carré

text: Speaking to "The Guardian" in 2019, he commented "I've always believed, though ironically it's not the way I've voted, that it's compassionate conservatism that in the end could, for example, integrate the private schooling system. If you do it from the left you will seem to be acting out of resentment; do it from the right and it looks like good social organisation." Le Carré also said that "I think my own ties to England were hugely loosened over the last few years. And it's a kind of liberation, if a sad kind."


title: John le Carré

text: In January 2003, two months prior to the invasion, "The Times" published le Carré's essay "The United States Has Gone Mad" criticising the buildup to the Iraq War and President George W. Bush's response to the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks, calling it "worse than McCarthyism, worse than the Bay of Pigs and in the long term potentially more disastrous than the Vietnam War" and "beyond anything Osama bin Laden could have hoped for in his nastiest dreams". Le Carré participated in the London protests against the Iraq War. He said the war resulted from the "politicisation of intelligence to fit the political intentions" of governments and "How Bush and his junta succeeded in deflecting America's anger from bin Laden to Saddam Hussein is one of the great public relations conjuring tricks of history".


title: John le Carré

text: He was critical of Tony Blair's role in taking Britain into the Iraq War, saying "I can't understand that Blair has an afterlife at all. It seems to me that any politician who takes his country to war under false pretences has committed the ultimate sin. I think that a war in which we refuse to accept the body count of those that we kill is also a war of which we should be ashamed".


title: John le Carré

text: Le Carré was critical of Western governments' policies towards Iran. He said that Iran's actions are a response to being "encircled by nuclear powers" and by the way in which "we ousted Mosaddeq through the CIA and the Secret Service here across the way and installed the Shah and trained his ghastly secret police force in all the black arts, the SAVAK".


title: John le Carré

text: Le Carré feuded with Salman Rushdie over "The Satanic Verses", stating that "nobody has a God-given right to insult a great religion and be published with impunity".


title: John le Carré

text: In a 1998 interview with Douglas Davis, Le Carré described Israel as "the most extraordinary carnival of human variety that I have ever set eyes on, a nation in the process of re-assembling itself from the shards of its past, now Oriental, now Western, now secular, now religious, but always anxiously moralizing about itself, criticizing itself with Maoist ferocity, a nation crackling with debate, rediscovering its past while it fought for its future." He declared: "No nation on earth was more deserving of peace—or more condemned to fight for it."


title: John le Carré

text: In 1954, Cornwell married Alison Ann Veronica Sharp. They had three sons: Simon, Stephen, and Timothy—and divorced in 1971. In 1972, Cornwell married Valérie Jane Eustace, a book editor with Hodder & Stoughton who collaborated with him behind the scenes. They had a son, Nicholas, who writes as Nick Harkaway. Le Carré lived in St Buryan, Cornwall, for more than 40 years; he owned a mile of cliff near Land's End. Le Carré also owned a house in Gainsborough Gardens in Hampstead in north London.


title: John le Carré

text: Le Carré was so disillusioned by the 2016 Brexit vote to leave the European Union that he secured Irish citizenship. In a BBC documentary broadcast in 2021, le Carré's son Nicholas revealed that his father's disillusionment with modern Britain, and Brexit in particular, had driven him to embrace his Irish heritage and become an Irish citizen. At the time of his death, le Carré's friend, the novelist John Banville, confirmed that the writer had researched his family roots in Inchinattin, near Rosscarbery, County Cork, and that he had applied for an Irish passport, to which he was entitled having completed the process of becoming an Irish citizen and having Irish ancestry through his maternal grandmother, Olive Wolfe. His neighbour and friend Philippe Sands recalled:


title: John le Carré

text: Le Carré died at Royal Cornwall Hospital, Truro, on 12 December 2020, aged 89. An inquest completed in June 2021 concluded that le Carré died after sustaining a fall at his home. His wife Valérie died on 27 February 2021, two months after her husband, at age 82.


title: John le Carré

text: Le Carré's son Timothy died on 31 May 2022 at the age of 59, shortly after he finished editing "A Private Spy", a collection of his father's letters.


title: John le Carré

text: In 2010, le Carré donated his literary archive to the Bodleian Library, Oxford. The initial 85 boxes of material deposited included handwritten drafts of "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" and "The Constant Gardener". The library hosted a public display of these and other items to mark World Book Day in March 2011.


title: John le Carré

text: In addition in 2008, "The Times" ranked le Carré 22nd on its list of the "50 greatest British writers since 1945".


title: Sri Lankan Civil War

text: The Sri Lankan Civil War (; ) was a civil war fought in Sri Lanka from 1983 to 2009. Beginning on 23 July 1983, there was an intermittent insurgency against the government by the Velupillai Prabhakaran-led Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE, also known as the Tamil Tigers). The LTTE fought to create an independent Tamil state called Tamil Eelam in the north-east of the island, due to the continuous discrimination and violent persecution against Sri Lankan Tamils by the Sinhalese dominated Sri Lankan Government.


title: Sri Lankan Civil War

text: Violent persecution against the Tamil population erupted in the form of the 1956, 1958, 1977, 1981 and 1983 anti-Tamil pogroms, as well as the 1981 burning of the Jaffna Public Library. These were carried out by the majority Sinhalese mobs often with state support, in the years following Sri Lanka's independence from the British Empire in 1948. Shortly after gaining independence, Sinhala was recognized as the sole official language of the nation. After a 26-year military campaign, the Sri Lankan Armed Forces militarily defeated the Tamil Tigers in May 2009, bringing the civil war to an end.


title: Sri Lankan Civil War

text: Up to 70,000 people had been killed by 2007. Immediately following the end of the war, on 20 May 2009, the United Nations estimated a total of 80,000–100,000 deaths. However, in 2011, referring to the final phase of the war in 2009, the Report of the Secretary-General's Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka stated, "A number of credible sources have estimated that there could have been as many as 40,000 civilian deaths." The Sri Lankan government has repeatedly refused an independent, international investigation to ascertain the full impact of the war, with some reports claiming that government forces were raping and torturing Tamils involved in collating deaths and disappearances.


title: Sri Lankan Civil War

text: Since the end of the civil war, the Sri Lankan state has been subject to much global criticism for violating human rights as a result of committing war crimes through bombing civilian targets, usage of heavy weaponry, the abduction and massacres of Sri Lankan Tamils and sexual violence. The LTTE gained notoriety for carrying out numerous attacks against civilians of all ethnicities, particularly those of Sinhalese and Sri Lankan Muslim ethnicity, using child soldiers, assassinations of politicians and dissenters, and the use of suicide bombings against military, political and civilian targets.


title: Sri Lankan Civil War

text: The origins of the Sri Lankan Civil War lie in the continuous political rancor between the majority Sinhalese and the minority Tamils. The roots of the modern conflict extend back to the colonial era when the country was known as Ceylon. There was initially little tension among Sri Lanka's two largest ethnic groups, the Sinhalese and the Tamils, when Ponnambalam Arunachalam, a Tamil, was appointed representative of the Sinhalese as well as the Tamils in the national legislative council. In 1919 major Sinhalese and Tamil political organizations united to form the Ceylon National Congress, under the leadership of Arunachalam, to press the colonial government for more constitutional reforms. British colonial administrator William Manning actively encouraged the concept of "communal representation" and created the Colombo town seat in 1920, which alternated between the Tamils and the Sinhalese.


title: Sri Lankan Civil War

text: After their election to the State Council in 1936, the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) members N.M. Perera and Philip Gunawardena demanded the replacement of English as the official language by Sinhala and Tamil. In November 1936 a motion that "in the Municipal and Police Courts of the Island the proceedings should be in the vernacular" and that "entries in police stations should be recorded in the language in which they are originally stated" were passed by the State Council and referred to the Legal Secretary. However, in 1944 J.R. Jayawardena moved in the State Council that Sinhala should replace English as the official language.


title: Sri Lankan Civil War

text: In 1948, immediately after independence, a controversial law was passed by the Ceylon Parliament called the Ceylon Citizenship Act, which deliberately discriminated against the Indian Tamil ethnic minority by making it virtually impossible for them to obtain citizenship in the country. Approximately 700,000 Indian Tamils were made stateless. Over the next three decades more than 300,000 Indian Tamils were deported back to India. It wasn't until 2003–55 years after independence—that all Indian Tamils living in Sri Lanka were granted citizenship, but by this time they only made up 5% of the island's population.


title: Sri Lankan Civil War

text: In 1956 Prime Minister S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike passed the "Sinhala Only Act", which replaced English with Sinhala as the only official language of the country. This was seen as a deliberate attempt to discourage the Sri Lankan Tamils from working in the Ceylon Civil Service and other public services. The Tamil-speaking minorities of Ceylon (Sri Lankan Tamils, Indian Tamils and Sri Lankan Moors) viewed the Act as linguistic, cultural and economic discrimination against them. Many Tamil-speaking civil servants/public servants were forced to resign because they weren't fluent in Sinhala. This was a prelude to the 1956 Gal Oya riots and the 1958 widespread riots in which hundreds of Tamil civilians perished. Sinhalese civilians too were affected in these outbreaks. The civil war was a direct result of the escalation of the confrontational politics that followed.


title: Sri Lankan Civil War

text: In the late 1960s several Tamil youth, among them Velupillai Prabhakaran, also became involved in these activities. They carried out several hit-and-run operations against pro-government Tamil politicians, Sri Lanka police and the civil administration.


title: Sri Lankan Civil War

text: During the 1970s the Policy of standardization was initiated. Under the policy, students were admitted to university in proportion to the number of applicants who sat for the examination in their language. Officially the policy was designed to increase the representation of students from rural areas. In practice the policy reduced the numbers of Sri Lankan Tamil students who had previously, based on their examination scores alone, gained admission in a higher proportion than their participation in the examination. They were now required to gain higher marks than Sinhalese students to gain admission to universities. For instance, the qualifying mark for admission to the medical faculties was 250 out of 400 for Tamil students, but only 229 for Sinhalese. The number of Sri Lankan Tamil students entering universities fell dramatically. The policy was abandoned in 1977.


title: Sri Lankan Civil War

text: Other forms of official discrimination against the Sri Lankan Tamils included the state-sponsored colonization of traditional Tamil areas by Sinhalese peasants, the banning of the import of Tamil-language media and the preference given by the 1978 Constitution of Sri Lanka to Buddhism, the main religion followed by the Sinhalese.


title: Sri Lankan Civil War

text: Prabhakaran—together with Chetti Thanabalasingam, a well-known criminal from Kalviyankadu, Jaffna—formed the Tamil New Tigers (TNT) in 1972. This was formed around an ideology that looked back to the 1st Millennium Chola Empire—the Tiger was the emblem of that empire.


title: Sri Lankan Civil War

text: A further movement, the Eelam Revolutionary Organisation of Students (EROS), formed in Manchester and London; it became the backbone of the Eelamist movement in the diaspora, arranging passports and employment for immigrants and levying a heavy tax on them. It became the basis of the Eelamist logistical organization, later taken over entirely by the LTTE. The formation of the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) with the Vaddukkodei (Vattukottai) resolution of 1976 led to a hardening of attitudes. The resolution called for the creation of a secular, socialist state of Tamil Eelam, based on the right of self-determination.


title: Sri Lankan Civil War

text: The TULF clandestinely supported the armed actions of the young militants who were dubbed ""our boys"". TULF leader Appapillai Amirthalingam even provided letters of reference to the LTTE and to other Tamil insurgent groups to raise funds. Amirthalingam introduced Prabhakaran to N.S. Krishnan, who later became the first international representative of LTTE. It was Krishnan who introduced Prabhakaran to Anton Balasingham, who later became the chief political strategist and chief negotiator of LTTE. The "boys" were the product of the post-war population explosion. Many partially educated, unemployed Tamil youth fell for revolutionary solutions to their problems. The leftist parties had remained "non-communal" for a long time, but the Federal Party (as well as its offshoot, the TULF), deeply conservative and dominated by Vellalar casteism, did not attempt to form a national alliance with the leftists in their fight for language rights.


title: Sri Lankan Civil War

text: Following the sweeping electoral victory of the United National Party (UNP) in July 1977, the TULF became the leading opposition party, with around one-sixth of the total electoral vote winning on a party platform of secession from Sri Lanka. After the 1977 riots the J.R. Jayewardene government made one concession to the Tamil population; it lifted the policy of standardization for university admission that had driven many Tamil youths into militancy. The concession was regarded by the militants as too little too late, and violent attacks continued. By this time TULF started losing its grip over the militant groups. LTTE ordered civilians to boycott the local government elections of 1983 in which even TULF contested. Voter turnout was as low as 10%. Thereafter, Tamil political parties were unable to represent the interests of the Tamil community.


title: Sri Lankan Civil War

text: Supported by the ongoing politics of conflict in Sri Lanka, politicised Tamil youth in the north and east started to form militant groups. These groups developed independently of the Colombo Tamil leadership, and in the end rejected and annihilated them. The most prominent of these groups was the TNT, which changed its name to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or the LTTE, in 1976. The LTTE initially carried out a campaign of violence against the state, particularly targeting policemen and also moderate Tamil politicians who attempted a dialogue with the government. Their first major operation was the assassination of the mayor of Jaffna, Alfred Duraiappah, in 1975 by Prabhakaran.


title: Sri Lankan Civil War

text: The LTTE's "modus operandi" of the early war was based on assassinations, whereas the mode of operation of the then government was through setting up a series of checkpoints around the city. The attempted assassination in 1978 of a Tamil Member of Parliament, M. Canagaratnam, was carried out personally by Prabhakaran, the leader of the LTTE.


title: Sri Lankan Civil War

text: In May 1981 the burning of the Jaffna library, in the presence of two Sinhalese cabinet members, by what witnesses described as uniformed police and Sinhalese mobs, resulted in the destruction of more than 90,000 books, including palm leaf scrolls of immense historical value. This violent example of ethnic biblioclasm was a major turning point in convincing the Tamil people that the government could not protect them or their cultural heritage and persuaded many of them to back a separate state.


title: Sri Lankan Civil War

text: In July 1983 the LTTE launched a deadly ambush on Sri Lanka army patrol Four Four Bravo outside the town of Thirunelveli, killing an officer and 12 soldiers. Using nationalistic sentiments to their advantage, members of the ruling UNP organized massacres and pogroms in Colombo, the capital, and elsewhere (see Black July). Between 400–3,000 Tamils were estimated to have been killed, and many more fled Sinhalese-majority areas. This is considered the beginning of the civil war.


title: Sri Lankan Civil War

text: Apart from the LTTE, there initially was a plethora of militant groups (see list). The LTTE's position, adopted from that of the PLO, was that there should be only one.


title: Sri Lankan Civil War

text: In November 1984, Sinhalese convicts were settled in the Kent and Dollar farms after the Tamil civilians living there were evicted by the Sri Lankan Army. The settlement of prisoners was used to further harass Tamils into leaving the area. The Sinhala settlers confirmed that young Tamil women were abducted, brought there and gang-raped, first by the forces, next by prison guards and finally by prisoners.


title: Sri Lankan Civil War

text: Initially, the LTTE gained prominence due to devastating attacks such as the Kent and Dollar Farm massacres of 1984, where 62 men, women and children were attacked during the night as they slept and were hacked to death with fatal blows to the head from axes. Attacks were often carried out in revenge for attacks committed by the Sri Lankan Army, such as the Anuradhapura massacre which immediately followed the Valvettithurai massacre. The Anuradhapura massacre itself was answered by government forces with the Kumudini boat massacre in which over 23 Tamil civilians died.


title: Sri Lankan Civil War

text: Over time the LTTE merged with or largely exterminated almost all the other militant Tamil groups. As a result, many Tamil splinter groups ended up working with the Sri Lankan government as paramilitaries or denounced violence and joined mainstream politics; some Tamil-oriented political parties remained, all opposed to LTTE's vision of an independent state.


title: Sri Lankan Civil War

text: Peace talks between the LTTE and the government began in Thimphu in 1985, but they soon failed and the war continued. In 1986 many civilians were massacred as part of this conflict. In 1987 government troops pushed LTTE fighters to the northern city of Jaffna. In April 1987 the conflict exploded with ferocity, as both government forces and LTTE fighters engaged in a series of bloody operations.


title: Sri Lankan Civil War

text: The Sri Lankan military launched an offensive, called "Operation Liberation" or Vadamarachchi Operation, during May–June 1987 to regain control of the territory in the Jaffna peninsula from the LTTE. This marked the Sri Lankan military's first conventional warfare on Sri Lankan soil since independence. The offensive was successful, and LTTE leader Prabhakaran and Sea Tiger leader Thillaiyampalam Sivanesan "alias" Soosai narrowly escaped from advancing troops at Valvettithurai. Key military personnel involved in the operation were Lt Col. Vipul Boteju, Lt. Col. Sarath Jayawardane, Col. Vijaya Wimalaratne and Brig. Gen. Denzil Kobbekaduwa.


title: Sri Lankan Civil War

text: In July 1987 the LTTE carried out their first suicide attack. Captain Miller of the Black Tigers drove a small truck carrying explosives through the wall of a fortified Sri Lankan army camp, reportedly killing 40 soldiers. The LTTE carried out over 378 suicide attacks, one of the largest suicide campaigns in the world, and the suicide attack became a trademark of the LTTE and a characteristic of the civil war.


title: Sri Lankan Civil War

text: Involvement was particularly strong in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, where ethnic kinship led to strong support for the independence of Sri Lankan Tamils. Throughout the conflict the Indian central and state governments supported both sides in different ways. From August 1983 until May 1987 the Indian government, through its intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), provided arms, training and monetary support to six Sri Lankan Tamil militant groups including LTTE, Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization (TELO), People's Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE), Eelam Revolutionary Organisation of Students (EROS) Eelam People's Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF) and Tamil Eelam Liberation Army (TELA). LTTE's rise is widely attributed to the initial backing it received from RAW. It is believed that by supporting different militant groups, the Indian government hoped to keep the Tamil independence movement divided and be able to exert overt control over it.


title: Sri Lankan Civil War

text: India became more actively involved in the late 1980s, and on 5 June 1987 the Indian Air Force airdropped food parcels to Jaffna while it was under siege by Sri Lankan forces. At a time when the Sri Lankan government stated it was close to defeating the LTTE, India dropped 25 tons of food and medicine by parachute into areas held by the LTTE in a direct move of support to the rebels. Negotiations were held, and the Indo-Sri Lanka Peace Accord was signed on 29 July 1987 by Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Sri Lankan President Jayewardene. Under this accord the Sri Lankan government made a number of concessions to Tamil demands, including devolution of power to the provinces, a merger—subject to later referendum—of the northern and eastern provinces into a single province, and official status for the Tamil language (this was enacted as the 13th Amendment to the Constitution of Sri Lanka). India agreed to establish order in the north and east through the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) and to cease assisting Tamil insurgents. Militant groups including the LTTE, although initially reluctant, agreed to surrender their arms to the IPKF, which initially oversaw a cease-fire and a modest disarmament of the militant groups. The Sri Lankan armed forces were confined to barracks in the north and east, and Sinhalese settlers were disarmed. In October 1987, 12 LTTE members who were prisoners of the government committed suicide, leading to an anti-Sinhalese pogrom committed by Tamil militants, especially the LTTE, throughout the Eastern Province in which 150 Sinhalese were killed and tens of thousands were made refugees.


title: Sri Lankan Civil War

text: The signing of the Indo-Lanka Accord, so soon after J.R. Jayawardene's declaration that he would fight the Indians to the last bullet, led to unrest in the south. The arrival of the IPKF to take control of most areas in the north of the country enabled the Sri Lanka government to shift its forces to the south to quell the protests. This led to an uprising by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna in the south, which was put down bloodily over the next two years.


title: Sri Lankan Civil War

text: While most Tamil militant groups laid down their weapons and agreed to seek a peaceful solution to the conflict, the LTTE refused to disarm its fighters. Keen to ensure the success of the accord, the IPKF then tried to demobilize the LTTE by force and ended up in full-scale conflict with them. The three-year-long conflict was also marked by the IPKF being accused of committing various abuses by many human rights groups as well as some within the Indian media. The IPKF also soon met stiff opposition from the Tamils. Simultaneously, nationalist sentiment led many Sinhalese to oppose the continued Indian presence in Sri Lanka. These led to the Sri Lankan government's call for India to quit the island, and the government allegedly entered into a secret deal with the LTTE that culminated in a cease-fire. However, the LTTE and IPKF continued to have frequent clashes. In April 1989 the Ranasinghe Premadasa government ordered the Sri Lanka army to clandestinely hand over arms consignments to the LTTE to fight the IPKF and its proxy Tamil National Army (TNA). Although casualties among the IPKF mounted, and calls for the withdrawal of the IPKF from both sides of the Sri Lankan conflict grew, Gandhi refused to remove the IPKF from Sri Lanka. However, following his defeat in Indian parliamentary elections in December 1989, new Prime Minister V.P. Singh ordered the withdrawal of the IPKF, and their last ship left Sri Lanka on 24 March 1990. The 32-month presence of the IPKF in Sri Lanka resulted in the deaths of 1200 Indian soldiers and over 5000 Sri Lankans. The cost for the Indian government was estimated at over ₹10.3 billion.


title: Sri Lankan Civil War

text: Support for the LTTE in India dropped considerably in 1991, after the assassination of ex-Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi by a female suicide bomber, Thenmozhi Rajaratnam. The Indian press subsequently reported that Prabhakaran decided to eliminate Gandhi, as he considered the ex-Prime Minister to be against the Tamil liberation struggle and feared that he might re-induct the IPKF, which Prabhakaran termed the "satanic force", if he won the 1991 Indian general election. In 1998 a court in India presided over by Special Judge V. Navaneetham found the LTTE and its leader Velupillai Prabhakaran responsible for the assassination. In a 2006 interview, LTTE ideologue Anton Balasingham expressed regret over the assassination, although he stopped short of outright acceptance of responsibility. In a 2011 interview, Kumaran Pathmanathan, who was the Treasurer of LTTE and its chief arms procurer, apologized to India for Velupillai Prabhakaran's "mistake" of killing former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. He further said Rajiv's assassination was "well planned and done actually with Prabhakaran and (LTTE intelligence chief Pottu Amman). Everyone knows the truth". India remained an outside observer of the conflict after the assassination.


title: Sri Lankan Civil War

text: The violence continued unabated despite the steps taken to appease Tamil sentiments, such as the 13th Amendment (enacted in November 1987). Meanwhile, the Chief Minister of the then North and East Provincial Council, Vartharaja Perumal, put forward a 19-point demand to resolve the ethnic crisis. He threatened if these demands were not met that the Provincial Council would go ahead with a unilateral declaration of independence of the northern and eastern provinces, as in the case of Rhodesia. President Premadasa moved to quickly dissolve the Council (March 1990). At the same time LTTE used terror tactics to scare Sinhalese and Muslim farmers away from the north and east of the island, and swiftly took control of a significant portion of the territory. When the Indian Peace-Keeping Force withdrew in 1989–90, the LTTE established many government-like functions in the areas under its control. A tentative cease-fire held in 1990 as the LTTE occupied itself with destroying rival Tamil groups while the government cracked down on the JVP uprising with the Operation Combine. When both major combatants had established their power bases, they turned on each other and the cease-fire broke down. The government then launched an offensive and tried to retake Jaffna but failed.


title: Sri Lankan Civil War

text: This phase of the war soon acquired the name "Eelam War II", and featured unprecedented brutality. On 11 June 1990 the LTTE massacred 600 policemen in the Eastern Province after they had surrendered on promises of safe-conduct. The government placed an embargo on food and medicine entering the Jaffna peninsula and the air force relentlessly bombed LTTE targets in the area. The LTTE responded by attacking Sinhalese and Muslim villages and massacring civilians. One of the largest civilian massacres of the war occurred when the LTTE massacred 166 Muslim civilians at Palliyagodella. The government trained and armed Home Guard Muslim units.


title: Sri Lankan Civil War

text: Notable international jurist Neelan Thiruchelvam, in a speech at the ICES-Colombo, indicated that the appropriate investigations into massacres and disappearances of civilians including many children in the Sathurukondan, Eastern University, Mylanthanai and the mass murder and burial of school children at Sooriyakanda were hampered by the adoption of emergency regulations which contributed to a climate of impunity. Along roadsides in the north and east, burning bodies became a common sight. Throughout the country, government death squads hunted down, kidnapped or killed Sinhalese or Tamil youth suspected of sympathizing with the JVP or the LTTE, respectively. In October 1990 the LTTE expelled all the Muslims residing in Northern province. A total of 72,000 Muslims were forced to leave their homes, taking nothing but the clothes on their backs.


title: Sri Lankan Civil War

text: The largest battle of the war took place in July 1991, when 5,000 LTTE fighters surrounded the army's Elephant Pass base, which controlled access to the Jaffna Peninsula. More than 2,000 died on both sides in the month-long siege, before 10,000 government troops arrived to relieve the base.