The Headmaster

The Headmaster (portrayed by Terrence Hardiman in the original TV show and Nicholas Gleaves in the 2019 series) is the antagonist of both the Demon Headmaster Book series and the 90's Television adaption. He has the power to put almost anyone into a hypnotic state by having them look into his eyes after which he is able to fully control them.

Although he is one of the main characters of the series, we do not know his actual name and is simply just refereed as the Headmaster as he is the Headmaster of St Champions when SPLAT first meet him.

In each book he is planning new ways of conquering the world and installing himself as its new leader, because he sees the world as unordered and inefficient. He believes in order and discipline and wants to make a world of complete order without love and happiness, as he thinks they are silly emotions. This also includes getting rid of choice and making everyone subservient to his will; he also hypnotises children to take over the world. It can also be implied that he is a sadist and psychotic, as he is willing to murder and enslave others through hypnotization to achieve world domination.

It is unclear if he is the leader of a terrorist organization, a fascist or if he is a communist, but he does display some of the characteristics of all of these throughout the series. Moreover, it is more heavily implied that he is the leader of a terrorist organization, as he typically hypnotizes people with a high ranking, e.g such as Tim Dexter, who is a well-known scientist working on A.I in series 3, and has his own army of believers of his brutal ideology. His megalomania and desire to control every aspect of people's lives also places him on the fascism spectre.

Description
He was tall and thin, dressed in an immaculate black suit. From his shoulders, a long black teacher's gown hung in heavy folds, like wings, giving him the appearance of a huge crow. Only his head was startlingly white. Fair hair, almost as colourless as snow, lay around a face with almost paper white skin and pallid lips. His eyes were hidden behind dark glases, like two black holes in the middle of all the whiteness. When it came to children he would show no mercy whatsoever.

Names
The headmaster is known throughout the series by many different names and titles as each of his plans to take over the world includes different means:


 * In The Demon Headmaster (Book) he is known as the (Demon) Headmaster
 * In The Prime Minister's Brain he is known as The Computer Director.
 * In The Revenge of the Demon Headmaster he is known as Hunky Parker/Ape.
 * In The Demon Headmaster Strikes Again he is known as the the Director of the The Biogenetic Research Centre (BRC)
 * In The Demon Headmaster Takes Over he is known as the controller of the HyperBrain project
 * In Facing the Demon Headmaster, he is known as the manager of DJ Pardoman
 * In Beware of the Demon Headmaster, He is known as the Master

Character history
Not much is known about the Headmasters history prior to the series with us not even knowing his real name, with him being refereed as Sir, Headmaster, The Director or The Controller. We first meet him when he's the Headmaster of St Champions School that is attended by Dinah and the rest of SPLAT. He has complete control of the school having Hypnotised the staff and students and using the School Prefects to maintain control. He planned to have his pupils take part in The Eddy Hair Show which, if they won, would give him the opportunity to talk to the viewers and hypnotise and take control of the nation. His plan is foiled by Splat and the defeated Headmaster leaves the school.

In "The Prime Minister's Brain" he has a new operation/plan and has taken over Saracen Tower, its staff and programmed the powerful Super Salamander computer. He planned to use the "Junior Computer Brain Of the Year to gather the countries smartest children to the tower where he would use their Brain power to hack into the Downing Street computer system so that he could meet and hypnotise the Prime minster and take over the country. The plan is foiled by SPLAT after Dinah is invited to the competition and splat infiltrate the building. SPLAT removes the Headmaster from the downing Street visitors list and alerts them to the system breach and then flips the Headmasters helicopter away from Downing Street.

In "Hunky Parker is watching you" he has created the Hunky Parker craze which uses subliminal frames to control the viewers and create a fevered craze. He then planned to replace Hunky with a new character Ape which would cause the viewers to want Ape mechanise, which wouldn't exist and would cause the people to riot. After several weeks of rioting the Headmaster would step in and stop the rioting and therefore take control of the country. His plans where foiled when SPLAT comes aware of the subliminal frames in Hunky Parker episodes and investigates. They infiltrate the headmaster's HQ, The Sty, where they uncover his plans and ultimately sabotaging the subliminal frames making the viewers hate APE instead of loving him.

Death and Clone


In "Strikes Again" the Headmaster arrives in Shellbrook village where he takes control of the Biogenetic Research Centre and its staff members and starts studying science and evolution. He plans to use his research in order to do away with childhood, which he sees as a waste, and emotions therefore creating a more efficient world with him in charge.

He plans to achieve this by luring the Hunter family to the village, by offering Mr. Hunter a job at the BRC, so that he can steal Dinah's DNA. The planned to use her DNA and combine it with a Lizards DNA and create a cold emotionless genius child whose age was accelerated by the Evolution Accelerator.At the end of the book his plan fails when the Headmaster is "killed" when he is grabbed and dragged into the Evolution Accelerator.

In "Takes over" the army takes over the BRC and accidentally triggered the Headmaster's DNA reproduction, by switching the power back on, and created a clone of the Headmaster. Since the Headmaster is a clone he has no memory of his former life, what his name is or recognises his enemies SPLAT. The newly created Headmaster is taken to the University of Wessex by Mr. Smith after he learns it is a source of information.

At the university he discovers the Hyperbrain, an Artificial intelligence project, and takes over the project whilst greatly advancing it. HyperBrain starts to become sentient and starts to trying to take power for its self, in order for the Headmaster to take complete control of Hyperbrain he needs to identify his self which he can't do as he doesn't know his own name. He plans to relearn his name by finding Dinah, who he identifies from a CCTV tape from the BRC, and force her to tell him his name.

Possible Crime Charges
Had the Demon Headmaster being caught by the police, and failed to hypnotize them, this is the list of the possible crimes the Demon Headmaster would have been charged for, and convicted given that there would be enough evidence to do so:


 * Numerous murder attempts (possibly 1st and 2nd degree murders as well)
 * Torture; generally inhuman treatment
 * Child abuse
 * Kidnapping
 * Deception
 * Insurrection
 * Physical assault
 * Terrorism, if he was in fact the leader of a terrorist organization
 * Arson

The list of crimes would have been similar to the prefects had they been caught too. The Demon Headmaster would have been sentenced to life prison if he was proven guilty, or if caught in another country where the death penalty was in practice, then he would have been killed for his crimes. The prefects would either have been sentenced to 30+ years of prison each, with the maximum being a life sentence for each.

See also:

 * The Headmaster's Staff
 * School Prefects