Galileo Gall is as close as the novel comes to a protagonist in its first half. He is a Scottish anarchist and phrenologist, seeing himself as both a man of science and a revolutionary. He believes “revolution will free society of its afflictions, while science will free the individual of his” (14). Although not a flat character, because Vargas Llosa gives him a rich psychology, he is an archetype in the sense that he represents 19th-century rationalism. He is contemptuous of superstition in all its forms, from that of the Catholic Church, to the machismo code of honor pursued by Rufino. Equally, he detests hierarchy and tradition. Utterly fixed in his ideas, Gall never allows the evidence of his own eyes nor his experiences to affect his ideas.

In this sense he is a static character, and a parody of the idealist. This is exemplified by his scientific inclination toward phrenology, which is in fact a pseudoscience. Ironically, Gall’s chosen science has no more validity than the superstitions he denigrates. When he palpates a bandit’s head, the bandit asks Gall if he is a “magician” and if he can predict how the bandit will die (201).