An adventurous big-game hunter who confronts the nature of life and death for the first time in his life during his few frightening days on Ship-Trap Island. Calm and composed, Rainsford coolly handles any challenge, be it falling overboard in the middle of the night or having to swim several miles to reach the shore. He’s survived numerous near-death experiences, from fighting on the frontlines during World War I to hunting dangerous animals in some of the world’s most exotic locales. Rainsford’s wartime experiences have reinforced his ultimate belief in the primacy of human life and the respect it deserves. Only during Zaroff’s relentless final pursuit does Rainsford truly feel fear and his own primal instinct to survive.

General Zaroff’s refined mannerisms conceal a maniacal desire to inflict suffering and death for his own amusement. In many ways, Zaroff considers himself a god who can snuff out life as he pleases. Zaroffs’s madness stems from a life of wealth, luxury, and militarism, which inflate his ego and sense of entitlement and impose few limits on his desires. Zaroff began hunting at an early age when he shot his father’s prized turkeys and continually sought out bigger game in his family’s tract of wilderness in the Crimea, a peninsula on the Black Sea. Commanding a division of Cossack cavalrymen in Russia, meanwhile, familiarized Zaroff with the horrors and atrocities of warfare. His bloodlust and passion for hunting eventually prompted him to hunt men, the most cunning and challenging prey he could find.

This Cossack sounds like mean version of Andre the Giant. He’s the ideal butler-bouncer: huge, strong, obedient, and dumb (literally). We don't get a ton of character development from this guy—he's basically just there to be the muscle.

And Zaroff puts him to good use as right-hand man and designated whipper. Consider the first time we meet him: “The first thing Rainsford's eyes discerned was the largest man Rainsford had ever seen--a gigantic creature, solidly made and black bearded to the waist. In his hand the man held a long-barreled revolver, and he was pointing it straight at Rainsford's heart.”