Igor

Igor may have the following meanings:

Igor (Discworld)

The Igors are a recurring set of characters in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series of novels. They are members of a clan of servants from the region of Überwald, all of which are named Igor.

Origins

The Igors are based partially upon Mary Shelley's Frankenstein's monster, and partially upon the hunchbacked assistant Fritz in the original Universal and Hammer film versions.

Appearance

While Igors are born in the normal fashion, the clan's strong tradition of surgery usually means that by the time they would have grown to maturity in the natural way many of their body-parts have already been swapped around repeatedly, mostly within the clan.

All Igors have stitches, but these appear to be more like clan markings than actual repairs. The male members of the Igor clan traditionally lisp (though sometimes some forget), are considered very good catches for any young lady (it is probably best not to wonder why), and their daughters tend to be very attractive (according to the Hollywood tradition of beautiful lab assistants). In Making Money, it is shown by Hubert's Igor that their lisping is actually just for show, because people "expect it." The female members (Igorinas) tend to not show their stitches and can be very attractive in conventional human standards, although they usually wear one or two subtle rings of stitches to show allegiance to the clan. Igorinas usually share the talent of the males, but sometimes are denied as much access to their work owing to deep-rooted traditional sexism. They also generally do not lisp as much.

Igor (character)

Igor, or sometimes Ygor, is a stock character assistant to many types of Gothic villains, such as Count Dracula or Dr. Victor Frankenstein, familiar from many horror movies and horror movie parodies. Although Dr. Frankenstein had a hunchback assistant in the 1931 film Frankenstein, his name was Fritz; in the original Mary Shelley novel, Dr. Frankenstein has no lab assistant nor does a character named Igor appear.

Origins

Dwight Frye's hunch-backed lab assistant in the first film of the Frankenstein series (1931) is the main source for the "Igor" of public imagination, though this character was actually named "Fritz". The sequels Son of Frankenstein (1939) and The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942) featured a character named "Ygor", played by Bela Lugosi. This character, however, is neither a hunchback nor a lab assistant, but a blacksmith with a broken neck and twisted back. He reanimates the Monster as an instrument of vengeance against the townspeople who attempted to hang him for grave-robbing. He survives a near-fatal gunshot and appears in the next film in which his brain is placed in the Monster's body.