| "When there's no more room in Hell, the dead will walk the Earth."
This article is related to the films created by George A. Romero. |
| “ | In a world where the dead are returning to life, the word "trouble" loses much of its meaning. | „ |
| ~ Kaufman on the zombies. |
Paul Kaufman was the ruler of a feudal society within the Pittsburgh-outpost, being its financer of Pittsburg safe zone and the proud creator of Fiddler's Green.
He serves as one of the two main antagonists of Land of the Dead alongside Big Daddy, while inheriting a supporting character in the video prequel, Land of the Dead: Road to Fiddler's Green.
Biography[]
Land of the Dead: Road to Fiddler's Green[]
Kaufman is on Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, during the Zombies outbreak. There, he met the newly arrived survivor Farmer Jack, and recognizing the potential of a great fighter, he offered him a deal: if he manages to clean of undead an infested skyscrapper of the city, called "Fiddler's Green", he will have a place to live there. Jack accepts and gets victorious, cementing Kaufman's rule into the city.
Land Of The Dead (2005)[]
Kaufman ruled all of the Pittsburgh-outpost from a large building, Fiddler's Green, with an iron hand, where the wealthy stayed in the lap of luxury and protection while the poor lived in slums and were left to their own devices.
He turned all of the refurbished metropolitan area into a safe zone for the living, paying for training it's soldiers and even got many people off the streets as he puts it "By giving them games and devices"; apparently costing him a great deal of money. Something which he compared all that spending to "Responsibility". Unbeknownst to the city and its denizens, however. Is that Paul had his dirty fingers in a number of questionable pies regarding the criminal under circuit which sprang up with the construction of their prime urban haven.
Many questionable activities of which he secretly funds while raking in a lucrative profit all to himself behind the scenes. In return, he has a number of shady individuals do some dirty deeds exchanging them for an empty deal or two he's not too averse to breaking.
Due to the city's impregnable defenses consisting of electric fences and a huge surrounding river, this made Kaufman and the wealthy elite seem rather negligent of investing in the training of their armed forces wisely and effectively as they are portrayed as very inefficient when dealing with zombies. His soldiers often wasting tons of bullets just to kill one zombie and completely lack melee weaponry to deal with close quarters combat situations. Furthermore, he also shallowly has no desire or motivation to cleanse the zombie population to expand the area of his territory. However, he financed Riley Denbo's definitive zombie killing truck known as Dead Reckoning.
After the most recent round up of supplies from a nearby town, Cholo DeMora was looking to finally be properly compensated and call-in his tab after three years of hard work and clandestine service on his behalf, maybe even buy a place among the wealthy; however, Kaufman wanted him to remain where he was and after a disagreement; Cholo's former employer wanted his men to kill him. But the former busboy escaped and took the all but invincible Dead Reckoning, with intent to hold the city for a $5,000,000-dollar ransom, which if not paid on time, Cholo planned to level Fiddler's Green.
Kaufman minutes before his death
Kaufman then sent Cholo's former superior officer Riley Denbo, as well as Riley's buddy Charlie Houk and a prostitute named Slack; someone whom he had stuck in a zombie gladiator arena for her palling around with one too many of his voluminous detractors, after the stolen vehicle. It was also hinted at that Paul had Riley's personal means of transport out of the city absconded to keep him in his unearned service when the former operator opted to quit his position and head off towards another horizon. Kaufman also sent along a couple more soldiers, named Motown, Manolete and Pillsbury, officially as reinforcements, but truly to oversee the mission and protect his interests. Kaufman wanting to preserve Fiddler's Green and in exchange for Cholo's Death, promised Riley a car and supplies to leave the town.
The cost of Paul's arrogance & disrespect
Later on, however after learning about the zombies being too close to entering the city; the head of society actually decided to leave Fiddler's Green with large duffle bags of money and leave all of his patrons & constituents to the zombies as they invaded his domain.
He and his escort ran to the limo just as the Stenches invaded Fiddlers Green, vacating to a parking lot where he was attacked by Big Daddy. After the Goliathan zombie had left, Kaufman went out to reload his weapon and protect his money. But soon, Cholo; now as a zombie, attacked him and they struggled a while until Big Daddy returned with a lit propane tank; causing the gasoline on the floor and in his escape vehicle to ignite and explode; leading to Kaufman's demise.
Personality & Traits[]
Kaufman is known to be a very belligerently manipulative man who can get people to do what he tells them; either via bribing with luxury & wealth only to fail at repaying their services or by coercion and theft, pressganging others until he gets his way. Paul's known to also believe in responsibility; however, even after spending much of his assets on essentials; only to ever really show his entitled greed. It is a rather self-servingly hypocritical idea of which, him being a narcissistic, entitled man through and through.
Having even been capable of killing or ordering people killed who question his every move. Paul going so far as to make empty deals he had no intention of fulfilling just to have his workers removed later on. Even outright hoodwinking employees who wish to leave his service even after voicing their resignation just to rope them back into working under him.
Like most of the wealthy class in Fiddlers Green, Kaufman was extremely short-sighted in terms of dealing with the zombies and despite sponsoring the creation of Dead Reckoning, he never tries to create an effective army to deal with the threat of the Stench's as shown in his soldiers almost complete lack of the ability to aim their weapons properly to shoot the enemy effectively as they usually waste an entire magazines worth of ammo just to kill one undead. Not to mention they lack any form of melee combat or weaponry to deal with CQC situations.
Furthermore, living in absolute security in his domain makes him and the upper-class delude themselves that they are not living in the apocalypse, causing none of them to learn to defend themselves as shown when he struggles to shoot a single zombie.
Weapons & Equipment[]
- Walther PPK:: Kaufman's sidearm. He carries two variants of it; normal and 'Non-gun'.