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Don Rafael Montero is the main antagonist of the 1998 Western action film The Mask of Zorro.

Rafael is the corrupt former governor of California who orchestrates a scheme to buy the land from the Mexican President Santa Anna with gold which is extracted from the secret Californian mine El Dorado. He is also the archenemy of the original Zorro due to him inadvertently causing his wife Esperanza's death and kidnapping his daughter Elena to raise her as his own child.

He was portrayed by Stuart Wilson.

His Evil Ranking[]

What Makes Him Close To Being Pure Evil?[]

  • He is a corrupt governor working for the Spanish government who has ruled over California for many years with Alejandro mentioning that his soldiers have killed many people. The only one who resists him and fights against his tyranny is Diego de la Vega who dresses up as Zorro at night to fight against his soldiers which is why Rafael wants to uncover his identity and kill him.
  • When President Santa Anna starts driving back the Spanish dons and makes Mexico independent, Rafael still makes an attempt to get rid of Zorro before he returns to Spain. He takes three random innocent people and prepares to publicly execute them, hoping that this would cause Zorro to come to their rescue and fall into his trap.
    • When Zorro confronts him about this, Rafael says how he would execute not just three, but a hundred innocent people if that's what it takes to kill Zorro.
  • After Rafael finds out that the real identity of Zorro is Diego de la Vega, he goes to his house to arrest him. During the chaos, one of his soldiers shoots Diego's wife, Esperanza, and kills her, though Rafael didn't intend for this happen as he was in love with Esperanza and he stabs the soldier who killed Esperanza in anger through the chest.
  • He has Diego arrested and thrown in jail for the rest of his life in miserable conditions. Aside from that, he takes his daughter, Elena, adopts her as his own and takes delight in the fact that Diego would never see her again and he would languish in prison with the thought his daughter is being raised by Rafael. Rafael even holds her in his arms in front of the caged Diego and doesn't allow him to hold her as he is taken away.
    • While he loves Elena, raises her as his own daughter and never mistreats her, Rafael still lies to her that he is her biological father and doesn't tell her anything about her real father Diego.
  • Twenty years later, he returns to California with Elena and schemes with a number of allies in Mexico to create an independent country of California with himself at the top. To that end, he has hundreds of random people taken against their will and enslaved to work in a gold mine in horrible conditions. The slaves are malnourished and whipped by Rafael's men if they don't perform well enough and there are even children among them.
    • His plan is to make the slaves dig gold from the mine and put the Spanish stamp on it, so it looks like it comes from Spain. Then, Rafael plans to buy the land of California from the Mexican president Santa Anna because he needs a lot of money for his war against the United States. Rafael wants to pay for the land with gold from that mine because Santa Anna doesn't know about its existence and Rafael lies to him the gold comes from Spain, which means that Rafael is cheating him out of his own land.
  • When his subordinate, Captain Harrison Love, shoots a worker from the mine for attacking them, Rafael makes a cruel joke at the man's expense and laughs at his death along with his allies.
  • He makes attempts to kill both Diego and his successor Alejandro because the two try to thwart his plot.
  • When Diego confronts Rafael over what he did to him 20 years prior and tries to make him confess the truth to Elena, Rafael still lies to Elena and tells her Diego is a madman who has lost his daughter and now wants Elena as his daughter, though Elena still realises that Rafael has been lying to her.
  • Because the existence of the gold mine is exposed by the two Zorros, Rafael starts worrying that if Santa Anna learns about his scheme, he would have him butchered. When his subordinate, Captain Harrison Love, suggests they blow up the whole mine along with the hundreds of slaves inside, Rafael agrees with him and attempts to do it.
    • While he initially seems disturbed by the suggestion and is conflicted, he goes over it rather quickly and decides to implement Love's idea anyway.
  • During his battle with Diego, he threatens to kill his daughter Elena if Diego doesn't drop his weapon.
    • While this is later revealed to be a bluff because Rafael himself loves Elena as his own daughter and would never kill her and he just wants to trick Diego into dropping his own weapon, it's still cruel and underhanded to threaten a father that you would kill his daughter in front of him.

What Prevents Him From Being Pure Evil?[]

  • He cares about Esperanza and Elena:
    • He is in love with Esperanza and in the past has tried to make her love him, but she has instead married Diego de la Vega. When Rafael discovers that Diego is his mortal enemy Zorro, he goes to his house to arrest him, but he still apologises to Esperanza that he is leaving her without a husband and that he couldn't make her love him in the past. When one of his soldiers kills Esperanza when Zorro resists arrest and fights against Rafael, Rafael looks distraught and kills the soldier who did that. He then assures Zorro that he wouldn't have let any harm come to Esperanza if it was up to him.
    • Even though he is possessive of his adoptive daughter Elena and a huge part for why he takes her in is to spite her real father, Diego de la Vega, he still loves her as a daughter, treats her well and provides her with a comfortable life, even allowing her to take fencing classes from the age of 4. Even after she discovers the truth about Rafael kidnapping her as a baby and not being her real father, he doesn't try to kill her and when Captain Harrison Love tries to shoot Zorro with a bullet which could have hit Elena, Rafael shouts "No!" and pushes Captain Love, so he misses his shot because Rafael doesn't want to risk Elena's life. During his final battle against Zorro, Rafael takes Elena hostage and threatens he would kill her if Zorro doesn't drop his weapon, but when Zorro does this, Rafael asks him if he really believed he would kill his own child, which shows that Rafael threatening to kill Elena was just a bluff on his part to trick Zorro into throwing his weapon away and he still loves her.
  • He has one notable Pet the Dog moment. When he is about to publicly execute three innocent people, he orders his soldiers to make sure that all children are removed from the place of the execution, so they wouldn't be able to see it, and Rafael explains to one of his closest allies that he is doing it because children shouldn't witness such things.

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