Inigo Montoya is a fictional character in William Goldman's 1973 novel The Princess Bride. In Rob Reiner's 1987 film adaptation he was portrayed by Mandy Patinkin. In both the book and the movie, he resided in the fictional country of Florin but came from Spain. Note that while the common Spanish name is spelled "Íñigo", the name in the book is consistently spelled "Inigo".
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In The Princess Bride, Inigo Montoya is portrayed as a Spanish fencer and henchman to the Sicilian criminal Vizzini. Inigo's father Domingo was a great swordmaker, but he remained obscure because he disliked dealing with the rich and privileged. When Count Rugen, a nobleman with a six-fingered right hand, asked him to forge a sword to accommodate his unusual grip, Domingo poured his heart and soul into the project. When Rugen returned, he reneged on his promised price. Thus, Domingo refused to sell him the sword, not as a matter of money, but because Count Rugen could not appreciate the great work of the sword. He proclaimed that the sword would now belong to Inigo. Angered, Rugen killed Domingo. Eleven-year-old (in the movie; 10 in the book) Inigo witnessed the crime and challenged Rugen to a fight, wherein Rugen easily disarmed Inigo, spared his life and allowed him to keep the sword, but scarred his face as a deterrent to further displays of bravery.
Devastated by the loss of his father, Inigo devoted himself to becoming a great swordsman to be able to avenge his father. His training started the next year, when he was twelve years old and included tutelage under the most skilled and savage fencing masters of his time. In the 30th anniversary version of The Princess Bride, it is revealed that, while training for his revenge against Count Rugen, Inigo falls in love with a servant girl. He woos her, and she reveals that she is a Countess and is in love with him as well. The two dance, and it is implied that Inigo leaves the next day. After ten years of training, Inigo had become the greatest swordsman of his generation and the only living man to hold the rank of "wizard" (a fictional fencing rank above "master").
Unable to find his father's killer and fearing that he would never fulfill his quest, Inigo sinks into depression and alcoholism before the criminal Vizzini finds him. Vizzini, Inigo, and a Turk named Fezzik are hired by an unknown man to kidnap and kill the "princess bride", Buttercup. Subsequent events lead to Inigo's duel with the "Man in Black" or Westley, Buttercup's childhood sweetheart, an extended sequence in both the book and the movie, in which both contestants begin fencing left-handed and eventually convert to their dominant right hands as the contest intensifies.
Inigo is knocked unconscious by the "Man in Black". When he regains consciousness, he enters the thieves' quarter of a major city, falls into depression, and becomes a useless drunkard once more. Eventually, Fezzik finds him and helps him regain his health. They eventually rescue the "Man in Black" from the Zoo of Death ("Pit of Despair" in the movie; in either case a torture chamber) and take him to the "miracle man" called Miracle Max, who rescues him from his state of being "mostly dead."
Toward the end of the film, Inigo joins the Man in Black to fight Humperdinck and fulfills his vow of revenge by killing his father's murderer while repeating the words: "Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." Inigo says this line many times in the book; he's been waiting most of his life to say it to his father's killer.[1]
Another line (from the film) that has recently become popular in other contexts: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
At the end of the film, having avenged his father and thus no longer in "the revenge business," the "Man in Black" offers Inigo the position of his successor as "The Dread Pirate Roberts."
The novel ends with Inigo's wounds reopening while he is on the run from the Brute Squad, leaving his future in doubt.
Gears of War 3 has an unlockable medal called "Vengeance", whose fourth tier title is named "My name is Inigo Montoya", which quotes Montoya's famous line, as a reference to the medal's theme, and the reason Montoya tried to kill his father's murderer
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