Inferno

Though exclusive to Inferno, Dr. Sienna Brooks is archetypal of other characters across Brown’s body of work. Many of Brown’s thrillers—both in the Robert Langdon series and in other standalone novels—feature antiheroic or outright villainous characters, who begin the novel seeming to be friends and allies of the main protagonist, and their involvement in the dangerous events at the center of the plot is revealed as the protagonist discovers more of their secret histories. As with her counterparts in his other novels, Brown hides Sienna’s motives by placing her front and center in the story and granting the reader extensive knowledge of her reactions and thoughts on events via her conversations with and proximity to Langdon while avoiding telling the story from her point of view wherever possible. Combined with her near-total synergy with Langdon up until they part ways, Brown is able to simulate intimacy between Sienna and the reader, thus biasing the reader to overlook her when seeking out an antagonist within the ensemble.

What separates Sienna from other characters of her type across Brown’s novels is her final motivations. When Langdon initially discovers her betrayal after their separation in Venice, Sienna is cast, much like Zobrist, into the light of an anti-villain: a mostly virtuous individual whose final goals are nevertheless unacceptable in the world of the story. However, when it is revealed her interests were not actually aligned with Zobrist, and she only betrayed the others to make sure his technology remained hidden from the world, Langdon and the others are able to forgive her for her actions, and her status actually improves at the story’s end.

Sienna’s character growth is most vitally connected to the themes of the story, particularly the overpopulation crisis at its center and the theme of deception. She has spent most of her life hiding her true self from the world to escape the ostracization and traumas of her past and attempting to appear “normal” and blend in with the larger population.

She is also a student of Bertrand Zobrist’s extremist philosophy, and she argues with Langdon that Zobrist’s attitude toward the severity of overpopulation is well-founded and expresses empathy with his belief that only a serious and abrupt reduction of the population will end the crisis. Following her initial betrayal, this leads Langdon (and by extension the reader) toward an assumption that Sienna also believes in Zobrist’s ends. This turns out to be a deception of its own, however, and the reasons behind Sienna’s betrayal are more empathetic: She is so distrusting of the government and independent agencies of the world that isolated Zobrist—much as she was isolated as a child—that she will go to any lengths to hide his technology from them. In all other regards however, her disagreement with Zobrist’s methods is perfectly attuned to the rest of Inferno’s ensemble.

Sienna’s relationship with Langdon serves as the primary mechanism for her change at the story’s end. Her conversations with him and witnessing of his moral character help her come to the decision that she must stop running and start trusting people, which allows her to take a seat at the table for the Geneva summit at the end of the story.

The leader of the World Health Organization (WHO), Dr. Sinskey represents the attitudes of governments and global independent agencies toward the problem of overpopulation. This positions her as an ally to Langdon prior to his memory erasure, as he is also a member of an elite organization and carries a deep respect for the WHO’s global initiatives. However, it also puts her in direct opposition to Sienna, whose bone-deep distrust of government agencies lead her to temporarily ally with the morally gray Consortium over the WHO.

Sinskey’s history with Zobrist is also a primary mover of the plot, as it motivated Zobrist to create Inferno in the first place. In flashback, the reader sees Sinskey philosophically square off with Zobrist, and she is so appalled by his insistence on curbing the human population that she places him on an international watch list, thereby cutting him off from the rest of the scientific community and forcing him to address the issue alone, though aided by the Consortium only by way of their moral indifference.

Prior to the events of the story, Sinskey and the WHO’s actions to curb population growth encompassed efforts seen in the real world that is contemporary to the novel: promoting family planning and secular values in nations and regions of the world where poverty and high birth rates cohabitate. These efforts, Sinskey admits, are often countered by organizations like the Catholic Church, which leverages its powerful reputation and dogmas to bolster pro-life and multiplicative traditions in those same regions. At the end of Inferno, Sinskey promises to do a better job of listening to Sienna and other outside-the-box minds rather than banishing them into the shadows as she did with Zobrist.

Sinskey’s position in Langdon’s vision is also noteworthy for its relation to Dante’s original Inferno. Langdon sees her standing on the bank of a river of boiling blood teeming with human bodies—a direct reference to the Phlegethon, the river in Dante’s Seventh Circle of Hell, where those who committed violence against others are sent after death. This symbolically accuses Sinskey of violence via her indifference to the overpopulation crisis and refusing her responsibility, potentially allowing billions to die. 

Heading the independent security agency known as the Consortium, the unnamed provost is in many ways Sinskey’s narrative opposite, and the novel’s secondary antagonist. Rather than following legal, acceptable channels to address the crisis, the provost turns almost exclusively to covert, extralegal methods, spinning a web of deceit meant to slow any other attempts to locate Inferno.

Like Sinskey, at the beginning of the novel the provost carries an indifferent attitude toward the overpopulation crisis. This indifference stems from the provost’s larger denial of any form of moral sovereignty—he is entirely pragmatic, focusing only on the wellbeing of the Consortium and his own personal gain, and he washes his hands of any responsibility for the actions of his clients. Once he comes to believe that Zobrist’s actions are far too massive in their effect for the Consortium to avoid answering for, he opts to ally with Sinskey as a last-ditch attempt to avoid justice.

The extent of the provost’s self-serving pragmatism is revealed in his relationship to the Consortium’s strict culture of protocol. At the opening of Inferno, the provost virulently defends this protocol as sacrosanct, treating it as his only moral signpost. However, once that protocol proves useless in addressing the Zobrist crisis, he abandons it entirely, thus illustrating the classic theme that to the morally bankrupt, nothing is sacred. Even at the end of the novel, when the provost thinks himself fully aware of the horrors Zobrist might have unleashed, he refuses to repent and continues to deceive and puppeteer those around him to safeguard himself. This at last proves futile when he is arrested by the Istanbul police. Through his steadfast neutrality, one might argue the provost is Inferno’s most outright villainous character.

An additional thematically relevant quality of the provost is his lack of physical stillness: Placing his headquarters on the Mendacium shows the provost as always on the move, never remaining in one place for too long. This fits his parallel shades in Dante’s Inferno: the denizens of the Vestibule of Hell, the highest rung of the underworld reserved for the morally indifferent. Forced to constantly follow a banner that never plants itself, the shades of this circle are forever trapped between the material world and the afterlife, never knowing the comfort of stillness that even those farther down in Hell from them know.

WHO agent Christoph Brüder fits yet another character archetype present in the Robert Langdon series: the hardworking if immovable law enforcement official whose unquestioning devotion to the organization they serve puts them at odds with Langdon.

Leading the largest armed force present in the novel and with all the resources of the WHO at his disposal, Brüder’s pursuit of Langdon and Sienna serves as the primary “clock” of the first two-thirds of the novel. His intimidating demeanor, well-armed subordinates, and the Consortium’s false narrative all cause Langdon to view Brüder as a connected, brutal assassin out to kill him.

Even after being brought aboard the Mendacium and reintroduced to Dr. Sinskey, Brüder’s harshness and impatience stokes Langdon’s distrust of the situation. His assistance of the professor during their time in Istanbul and actions during the climax at the cistern show Brüder for who he truly is: a devoted, loyal defender of the global citizenry and public health.