Eunuchs in popular culture

Eunuchs have appeared many times in popular culture.

• The Eunuch, a comedy by Roman playwright Terence.
• In The Country Wife, the main character, Mr. Horner, pretends to be a man turned eunuch by impotence caused by syphilis in order to gain access to the bedrooms of married women.
• Being proud of not being a eunuch is the subject of the song "At Least You're Not a Eunuch" in the play Life and Death in Jaffna (The Musical!)" by Edward Cress
• Eunuchs appear often as villains in Hong Kong kung fu and wuxia films set in ancient China. For example, the films "Dragon Inn (Xin long men ke zhan)", "Butterfly and Sword (Xin liu xing hu die jian)", and "A Touch of Zen (Hsia nu)" all feature a eunuch or a group of eunuchs as the main villain. A popular eunuch villain used in ancient China stories is Eunuch Wei, who is based on a historical figure named Wei Zhongxian. Eunuch villains are usually in charge of powerful political posts, such as being the leader of the East Chamber.
• The Queen Salmissra, in David Eddings' The Belgariad and The Malloreon, is only allowed to be served by eunuchs. Her Chief Eunuch Sadi becomes a principal character in The Malloreon, and is referred to in "The Prophecy" as "The Man who is no Man."
• The character and narrator Taita in Wilbur Smith's "Egyptian" (1991-) series of novels is a eunuch (performed as a punishment while a slave).
• Bagoas was the eunuch favorite of Alexander the Great (referenced above). Bagoas is the main character and narrator of The Persian Boy, a 1972 historical novel by Mary Renault.
• Punk rock band the Descendents wrote a song about a eunuch called "Eunuch Boy", which was on their 1996 comeback album Everything Sucks.
• Eunuchs feature prominently in Montesquieu's 1722 novel Lettres persanes, supposedly about Persian visitors to eighteenth-century France.
• Varys, a character in George R. R. Martin's series A Song of Ice and Fire, later made into the HBO series Game of Thrones, is a eunuch by castration.
• A historical mystery series written by Mary Reed and Eric Mayer, beginning in 1999, details investigations carried out by John, the eunuch Lord Chamberlain to Emperor Justinian I, in and around the sixth-century imperial court in Constantinople.
• In the 2006 film One Night With the King, Hadassah's (Esther's) would-be boyfriend, Jesse, is captured by the Persian empire and castrated.
• The 2002 historical science fiction novel The Years of Rice and Salt features many eunuchs in its opening section, including the character Kyu and the historical Chinese admiral Zheng He.
• Three best-selling novels by Jason Goodwin, The Janissary Tree, The Snake Stone and The Bellini Card, chronicle the investigations of Yashim Togalu, a Turkish eunuch detective to the Sultan's royal court, in the Ottoman Empire of the 1830s.
• The historical novel Memoirs of a Byzantine Eunuch, by Christopher Harris (2002 Dedalus Books, ISBN 1-903517-03-6)
• The Japanese novel (and later anime series) Ai no Kusabi has within their caste system "Furniture", or eunuchs who act as servants to the highest social class. The character Katze was once Furniture, but now works on the black market.
• In the Japanese anime Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion (R2) the de facto rulers of the communist Chinese Federation are a group of eight eunuchs called "High Eunuchs."
• The character Naboo the Enigma from the British comedy act and television series The Mighty Boosh is a eunuch.
• For the greater part of Iain Banks's 1984 novel The Wasp Factory, the 16-year-old narrator Frank Cauldhame claims to be a eunuch, the result of being savaged by a dog when he was an infant. At the novels climax, Frank discovers that she was in fact born female.
• In the TV show Major Dad, a eunuch was in charge of the Security wives of Emir of Katodd.
• One of the characters that Voltaire's Candide meets on his adventures is a eunuch.
• The Vampire Eli in John Ajvide Lindqvist's novel Let The Right One In is a eunuch. However, this detail is not made abundantly clear in the book's 2008 Film adaptation of the same title.
• The Yellow Bastard of the Sin City franchise.
• In the Red Dwarf episode "Quarantine", Rimmer is said to have been Alexander the Great's chief eunuch in a past life.
• In the manga "Red River (manga)" one of the main villains, Urhi, is a eunuch.
• The eunuch Manan is a major character in The Tombs of Atuan, the second book from Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea series. The story largely takes place in a large convent where no men are allowed, so a number of other eunuchs are mentioned.
• In Robert E. Howard's short story The Scarlet Citadel, the main antagonist has a eunuch prison guard named Shukeli. It is stated that in him, normal human passions have been replaced by extreme sadism.
• In William Shakespeare's play "Twelfth Night", Viola initially decides to disguise herself as a eunuch named Cesario in order to serve Duke Orsino.
• In the 2015 video game The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, the loyal servant and bookie of head Redanian Intelligence Sigismund Dijkstra is a eunuch, called Happen the Eunuch. He takes care of the Bathhouse in Novigrad, which is open to both sexes.