How to recognize a villain in 5 easy steps

Are you looking around at the conflict in our country and wondering, ‘Golly Gee!  How can I know who’s telling the truth?  I wish it was as easy to figure out who the bad guy is as it is in my favorite Disney movie.  It would be so much easier if they had ominous music playing in the background to let me know who isn’t to be trusted.”?  Fear not!  I have a handy guide for you in these troubling times.

1.  A Villain is concerned with power. You can easily recognize a villain by their desire to do whatever it takes to acquire power and influence, whether by whatever means necessary.  Do not be distracted by the common use of magic by Disney villains, that is no the only way villains can reveal themselves.   Think of Uncle Scar bringing in the hyenas to force the pride to do his bidding in “The Lion King”.  Or perhaps the grasshoppers in “A Bug’s Life” using the threat of physical violence to keep the ants in line. Whatever method is used a villain can always be recognized by their quest for personal power.
2. A Villain manipulates facts to get people to do what they want them to do.Villains are not hampered by the need to tell the truth.  They will prey upon people’s deepest fears and manipulate them in order to get what they want.  No not be confused into thinking that all villains give direct orders to harm others, some of them are much more subtle.  They convince the crowd that they actually want to do something horrible for the greater good (as illustrated by Gaston, above).
3. A Villain is self centered.Villains believe that they are the heroes of the piece.  They believe that they deserve the power/wealth/attention that is being denied them.  If people cannot realize by themselves how deserving the villain is of their adoration, the people must be forced into the correct behavior.  A villain’s world revolves around their own needs to place themselves at the center of the narrative.  No matter what the issue may be, it ultimately must become about serving the villain’s need for power, control, and (most importantly) adoration.
4. A Villain finds groups of people to blame for the things that are going wrong.If a villain is in power, there must be a reason people are unhappy.  Since the villain cannot be at fault (See #3 above), someone else must be to blame.  The villain pushed the idea that if certain groups can be removed or eliminated, all will be well. People’s discontent can be shifted to a different target by the dual application of emotional manipulation and power (See #1 & #2).  This allows the villain to further consolidate his or her power as well as weakening any further resistance.
5. A Villain refuses to listen to any view but his or her own.Villains do not take advice.  They do not see reason.  They do not believe any fact that is at odds with the world view they have created.  They must be right in all things big or small.  They do not allow for the fact that they might be wrong and surround themselves with people who are happy to agree with them no matter what.  How many of our favorite movies might have ended differently if the villain simply stopped and said, “Maybe we can just work this out.”  Compromise is considered a loss and cannot be allowed.

And there you  have it, readers.  An easy way to recognize the bad guys in our current political climate.  When you hear people speaking, pull out this guide and use it to determine who the villains are.

A little too much to remember?  There is an even easier way to evaluate those in power.See if they follow this:

Matthew 22:36-40 Common English Bible 

³⁶ “Teacher, what is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

³⁷ He replied, “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being,^[a] and with all your mind. ³⁸  This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹  And the second is like it: You must love your neighbor as you love yourself.^{[b] 40}  All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.”

Easy enough.

 

*Cover art by mattesworks-d6ijeyn on DeviantArt

The (not quite) Ultimate Disney Villain Countdown #1 — Frollo

When it comes to Disney villains Claude Frollo is about as evil as it gets.  Self-righteous, xenophobic, and manipulative with no regard for human life; Frollo has no redeeming qualities.  He has all the worst qualities of all the villains on this list with the added awfulness af being totally convinced he is completely in the right.  He has no magic powers and no powerful objects.  He is completely human and I find this character truly terrifying.

Frollo creates his own personal ethical code independent of any outside source.  In fact, he repeatedly ignores the Bishop of Notre Dame who should be his moral guide.  He has his own personal army that he uses to create his vision of a perfect world and doesn’t care if there is collateral damage along the way.  He is a religious zealot and a racist who allows no other viewpoint.  He not only emotionally manipulates Quasimodo into believing himself less than human, he turns the entire city of Paris against the gypsies.  All while believing himself to be the only truly righteous man in Paris.  People like that have led Crusades, started wars, and murdered countless people.

He is, to me, the most frightening Disney villain.  He is entirely devoid of compassion and has both the power and resources to carry out his destructive whims.  He could wipe out every gypsy in France and simply consider it a job well done.  There is no compelling back story.  There are no redeemable qualities.  He is wholly evil and believes himself to be wholly right.  This is the scariest villain.  To him, he is the hero of the story and will do anything he can to ensure his own happy ending.

 

 

Happy Halloween, readers!  Don’t get too scared.

With faith, trust & pixie dust — Pastor Mouse

The (not quite) Ultimate Disney Villain Countdown #2 — Dr. Facilier

Dr. Facilier has got to be the scariest Disney villain so far this century.  He is a classic bad guy complete with crooked deals, dark magic, and scary shadow henchmen.  Unlike other classic characters, he has a grand and sweeping plan.  This plan involves killing key people, taking over New Orleans, and feeding the souls of its inhabitants to the evil spirits of the underworld.  Facilier has no delusions that he is working for the greater good, upholding a correct world view, or doing something a little wrong for a better purpose.  He is evil.  He knows it.  He revels in it.

There is something truly frightening about a character that is this overtly evil.  His name suggests the French ‘facile’ which means easy.  We all know that someone offering the ‘easy’ way to do something big and important doesn’t necessarily have our best interests at heart.  And someone named “Dr. Easy” with voodoo connections should raise at least a few questions.  However, there are always people (in narrative and in real life) that are willing to believe that there is an easy way to get what they want.  Facilier preys on those people, steals their souls, and feeds them to his ‘friends’:  Happily and with great enthusiasm.  While Facilier is not set on world domination, it doesn’t seem like a big leap to imagine it.  Neither he nor his friends would be easily satisfied with only one city full of souls to consume.

Like many villains, Facilier is an object lesson for the viewer.  He is what can happen when we turn our back on hard work and try to find an easy out.  While we may not lose our souls to evil shadows, we can be lost and wandering.  Facilier is frightening because he offers hope, while delivering something else entirely.

The (not quite) Ultimate Disney Villain Countdown #3 — Governor Ratcliffe

Greed and racism all wrapped up in one colonizing package.  Meet Governor John Ratcliffe, the third worst villain of the Disney animated features.  He rates the number three spot in volume if nothing else.  He is not content to target just the protagonists, Pocahontas & John Smith, he has to go after an entire race of people.  As an added bonus he has the manpower to make it work as well as the support of the English crown.

Ratcliffe wants money and power in that order and doesn’t care what he has to do in order to get it.  Keep a farming settlement from farming?  Easy.  Sow discontent between groups of people.  No problem.  Genocide?  All in a day’s work.  Convinced that Virginia is full of gold that is his for the taking, Ratcliffe will stop at nothing.  Eventually is it only the wisdom and good sense of the people around him that stops his evil.  While he is imprisoned and sent back to England, it is implied in the sequel that he received no punishment for his crimes.

Ratcliffe is a conglomeration of historical characters that represent the hatred and violence of European settlers to the native Peoples not only on this continent, but on every continent they claimed.  He is everything I hate about my own history.  He is entitled, empowered, and completely convinced he is right.  The sad thing is, in the world he lived in he was right.  It great that Disney can spin this story for us to give it a happy-ish ending, but we know in the long-term that Ratcliffe and those like him won.  The natives were robbed, pushed out, and slaughtered in the name of greed, racism, and ‘progress’ and no award-winning soundtracks can change that fact.  Once again one of Disney’s most frightening villains scares us, because he is real.  His motivations and power are around us every day and we must live with the consequences.

The (not quite) Ultimate Disney Villain Countdown #4 — Mother Gothel

Vanity and emotional manipulation are the key traits of Mother Gothel, the primary villain in “Tangled”.  She shares some of the initial characteristics with our #5, Cruella de Vil, but takes them even further.  She is obsessively focused on her looks.  And while Cruella steals puppies, Mother Gothel steals a child to use for her own ends.  As that isn’t bad enough, she raises that child to be afraid of the outside world, unsure of herself, and convinced that Gothel is the only person who cares about her safety and well-being.  As evil goes this is up there.

Gothel never sees herself as a villain and she doesn’t really see Rapunzel as a person, referring to the girl as ‘my flower’.  The chaos and destruction that is created by the theft of a child doesn’t bother Gothel at all.  As long as she has what she wants, everything is fine.  When Rapunzel starts to question the life that she has led, Gothel goes to more and more elaborate measures to convince the girl that no one else truly wants her or could ever want her.  After Rapunzel realizes the truth, Gothel steps up to physical violence to control her.

Why is she on my list?  She is not the scariest or most powerful of the villains.  She is, however, one of the most realistic.  Disney spin notwithstanding, Gothel is a child abuser in no uncertain terms.  One might even make an argument for human trafficking.  She is an ultimate villain to me because she reflects many real life stories.  There are Mother Gothels in real life.  There are children being imprisoned, manipulated, and used.  They don’t all get rescued and returned to loving parents.  I see Mother Gothel and I remember those faceless children living horrendous lives and I am afraid.

The (not quite) Ultimate Disney Villain Countdown #5 — Cruella de Vil

Fashion and fur are the two guiding principles for Cruella.  So much so that she is willing to first steal and then slaughter her ‘old school chum’s’ puppies.  This is pretty shocking for a children’s movie.  I find it interesting that Cruella is never portrayed in a favorable light.  In 1961, when “One Hundred and One Dalmatians’ was released, fur was not only acceptable in fashion every woman needed to have at least one fur piece in her closest.  Mama Mouse had her very own mink coast in the late 60s that lived in her closet most of my life.  In this days and age, fur loving (like smoking which Cruella also does) is a tool used to establish a villain.  We don’t approve of killing animals simply for their fur, but in the 60s that would have been a hard sell.

What makes Cruella so villainous?  One might argue that with a name that combines the words cruel and devil she never had a chance.  The American Film Institute listed her at #39 in their list of 100 Villains for the first 100 years of American film.  (Ironically, she is listed across from Lassie, #39 on the hero list).  Ultimate Disney ranked her #6 in their list of villains.  It is implied in the song “Cruella de Vil” that her list of cruelties is long, but they are never stated.  People are afraid of her, but we never get to know why.

What we do know is that Cruella is willing to kill puppies, beloved family pets, simply for a whim.  We know that friendship is meaningless to her.  We know that she is obsessive, thoughtless, and disrespectful.  We know that the only person who matters to Cruella is Cruella and the loss of 99 lives is meaningless as long as she gets what she wants.  We know that no matter what else she has done that disregard for life is villainous.

The (not quite) Ultimate Disney Villain Countdown

To celebrate Halloween week I am going to do something a little different.  Every day I am going to present a villain from a Disney animated feature and talk about (what I think) makes them so villainous counting down to the MOST villainous of all Disney villains.  I am aware that this is subjective.  I am also aware that some villains are actually quite engaging.  Personally I quite like Yzma and Kronk.  If you take out the whole kill-the-emperor thing, they aren’t that wrong about Kuzco.

Villains are a complex character group.  Some are simply glorified comic relief.  Some are simply misunderstood.  Some are merely doing their job.  The question becomes what make a truly evil villain?  The villain in ‘Bambi’ is an anonymous poacher.  He is breaking the law, but I would assert that he is not evil.  He has no personal animosity towards Bambi or his mother but his actions have consequences for the characters.  I would submit that he is not a ‘good’ villain.  Therefore, I submit for my purposes a villain must:

1. Want to intentionally wish to harm the protagonist(s) in some way.
2. Be aware that his/her actions go against the accepted moral norm.
3. Be committed to her/his goal in spite of any outside warnings or unintentional harm to others.

Feel free to disagree or offer your own suggestions.  The countdown starts tomorrow!

*** Awesome art by disneyfreak19 on DeviantArt.com ***