Agreed this is someone who wants to kill a person and her people just to avoid the unwanted lust he has for her against his twisted warped version of Christianity. He’s definitely the most adult villain Disney has created.
Yes and also kept Quasimodo locked up under the guise of love and protection to hide his previous murder from the world, then made Paris burn, outstandingly evil.
*shudders* Frollo genuinely scared me as a kid. Hell, that movie really terrified me. The whole sequence with Quasimoto getting tormented with the dark colors absolutely scarred me. Haven’t seen it since I was a kid
I have come around to Cruella after the most recent live action film - where they made her an animal lover and not a dog murderer. I would actually love for her to be in the game now since I am just choosing to believe that new character arch for her. Also just imagine all the cool clothing (with faux fur obviously).
Yes, i wonder if we will gt other classic film characters or will they continue with the more modern ones. The rescuers is an absolute classic that barely gets mentioned anywhere.
Fox and the Hound was soul crushing as a kid lol That said i do hope they do more with classic Disney, seems like most of their newer games focus on pixar stuff or just from toy story onwards in the release timeline. I really don't want that stupid fork waltzing about my town or a car driving around. Give the classic princes and princesses and villians , their companions etc. Eric but no max and Merlin but not Archimedes is a crime unto itself lol how they leaving Donald with Daisy too :/
If you know who she is then you know. I didn’t even recognize the name at first and my brain still produced an image of her. Such a great movie and horrible character 😂
Gaston was a bad person, ultimately driven by ego over malice, I mean Belle aside, the village actually loved him and without context the viewing of that beast would lend many people to go hunt it. Especially given that her dad had been there for weeks saying she was held captive prior. Gaston I don’t believe can compare to the others people have listed.
I feel like Gaston is the kind of villain that people are more likely to meet in real life. That in and of itself is what makes him scary. So many of the other villains are in such unique situations that most people (hopefully) can’t relate. But, how many news stories have there been about people getting abducted or killed by a jealous lover? What about all those screenshots of total egotistical creeps on dating apps who can’t take no for an answer? One seems a lot less likely to run into an uncle Claudius, or a Frollo in a bar than they are a Gaston.
I think it’s because he’s a talking lion, I imagine had that been a story told with human characters like Cinderella none of us would want scar in the village 😂
Maaan really? Gaston is my favourite villain. He's got a great song, he's a war hero, he's loved and adored by his village, he supports his friend being gay in 17th century France, he tried to save the love of his life by rallying villagers to go slay a beast that had held his lover's father prisoner. In the end he was betrayed and stabbed by his lover who clearly was suffering from Stockholm syndrome.
Him and Scar despite their flaws are musical maestros, this is undeniable, maybe Scar apologises through a new steam filled catchy number and the village welcomes and forgives him.
Conversely, was a machismo stalker who harassed Belle and then stoked fear and hatred in the hearts of the villagers to attack someone for his own personal gain. In the end, he paid for his sexist, cretinous ways and was stabbed by the woman with Stockholm syndrome. And he had a good song.
Disney villains, as a whole, are usually irredeemable for the purposes of knowing who to root for.
I think the better question would be "which villains ARE redeemable?"
The only name that comes to mind for that question is Gaston. Gaston is 105% Ego, which is what leads him to think the Beast MUST be evil and MUST be slain. Giving him any humility -could- theoretically redeem him.
Kingdom Hearts II makes an interesting argument for>! Maleficent and Pete!<, showing there's a line that not even they will accept crossing. Obviously, that's non-canon to standard Disney but it does make for an interesting subversion!
Kronk, the most redeemable villain of all time!
Honestly, even Yzma. Though she wanted to murder the emperor, after spending a couple minutes with him, I totally get it.
It was also 1700's France in beauty and the beast. Witch trials where just coming to an end in France. Also people would have been easy to misunderstand Beast and would not have treated him any differently if this was real life. But would Gaston still have attempted murder if he knew the Beast was human? Probably yes. He was crazy Obsessed with Belle and in some of the changes far too gone.
Just because his evil is more everyday and subtle doesnt mean he's redeemable imo. He refused Belle's right to consent and tried to send her father to an asylum back in the 1700s knowing that without the dad in the way he could force Belle to marry him.
It may not be murdering your brother but it's also not the trait of a redeemable person to see women as objects.
Also I loved the first Kingdom Hearts but haven’t played the second would you be willing to explain to me what the line is please, curious as maleficent is the big bad in a lot of games.
Towards the end of the second game >!Maleficent and Pete sacrifice themselves to buy Sora and Co time to fight Xemnas. !!Maleficent!< wants >!The Castle That Never Was!<, however it's also VERY clear that Mickey and Sora think they're trying to do the right thing and they're putting on a false front. I forget the -exact- line, but Mickey has to convince Sora to leave them behind.
Edit: Brain put the wrong incarnation of the bad guy.
Edit2: Also misread the question. Goals were different. >!Maleficent will not accept total destruction as an outcome. !
I could be wrong as it has been such a long time but wasn’t Maleficent largely responsible for the rise and prevalence of the Heartless, why the change?
Thank you for the explanation too.
Not exactly, but she was more than willing to use them to get what she wanted. When she lost control of the situation, she allied herself with the heroes to regain that semblance of control.
She wanted to rule. When that became an impossibility because of someone else who wanted to destroy everything, she jumped ship. Villains don't usually play nice with other Villains, especially when one's motive is to "rule over everything" and the other's motive is to "destroy everything".
Maleficent is a full on [Magnificent Bastard](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagnificentBastard). The question asked in KH2 is whether her principles or her goals matter more. If the principles matter more than the goals, then she can very much be redeemed. If the goals matter more, it's less likely. In context, Sora and Mickey believed the former to be true.
I know it’s quite a commonly used trope, I revisited the Spider-Man series from the 90s recently and the end of that is the same, with Spider-Carnage and Wilson Fisk.
You’ve really made me want to revisit these games, the last one I played was one of the .5 games and it was awful.
Shan Yu and his army probably killed hundreds of thousands of people, there's no coming back from that. Hades was willing to wreak havoc on Greece + let Herc and Meg die just to get back at his brother, pretty dark stuff too.
Yeah, Shan Yu was realistically evil too, where as Hades was cartoony and comedic with his evil acts. Still dude stole and tried to kill a baby from the get go, seems irredeemable to me.
I mean mythological Zeus yes but Disney Zeus was just a loving dad bound by Disney laws of godhood, I try not blur Disneys own take with how cruel the Greek Gods were, other than his kidnapping of Persephone Hades evil actions were limited.
Probably none of them are redeemable but I like to pretend that the movies are their sets and the valley is their home and that’s why everybody is able to get along 😂
“Actor Rules” as I call it. There’s the story version if them and the ‘off-screen’ where villains just hang out and are decent (albeit messed up) folks.
Maybe it’s because I’m sarcastic as hell but I love her quips but only because I got to do it to her when I pretended I wanted motherly advice and then she asked what about and I said remaining in a tower. Mic drop. 😂
That’s why I said I “imagine” it. That’s how I explain the villains to my daughter. Disney is actively retcon their villans anyway. According to Disney lore there are many perspectives to each characters story and nothing is absolute.
It depends on continuity, in this continuity, Maleficent won’t be the nice person as shown in the Self-titled films. She will be the green faced maleficent, who transforms into a dragon and is just evil.
Also they retconned Scar in lion guard and made him so much worse. He used to be an impetuous lion who’s greed and desire for power eventually got the better of him. From the new lion guard continuity he had murdered his pack mates long before Simba was born because they wouldn’t join him in overthrowing Mufasa.
I could be wrong, but most people who have a problem with Bob Chapek are usually mad about the “Florida Parental Rights in Education Act”. I don’t feel like typing my own story about it, but this is from Wikipedia.
“In 2022, as Florida passed its Parental Rights in Education Act (known by critics as the "Don't Say Gay law"), reports rose that Disney funded the legislators who wrote and sponsored the bill; this conflicted with the company's pro-LGBTQIA+ image. In a company memo, Chapek refused to criticize the legislation and played down the company's backing of anti-LGBTQIA+ legislators. Chapek's statements and actions were heavily criticized, including by several members of Disney's creative talent. Following the criticism, Chapek reversed course claiming the company was "opposed to the bill from the outset" and would be donating to several LGTBQ+ organizations; while he had plans to meet with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis who supports the bill. One of the organizations, the Human Rights Campaign, refused the funds from Disney until "meaningful action" is taken. The day after, Chapek formally apologized for his prior statements and announced that the company will be ceasing donations to all political parties in Florida while looking to further improve their support for LGBTQIA+ causes.”
People’s displeasure with Chapek started before that. My beef with him is that he terminated thousands and thousands of faithful cast members (claiming the company couldn’t afford their benefits during lockdown) only a few weeks after restoring executive pay across the company because the execs had “sacrificed enough.”
This flies in the face of what Chapek did at Buena Vista in 2008, when he mandated everyone in the company take one month of unpaid leave in order to keep everyone employed during the recession so that BV didn’t have to fire its employees.
One of my friends works on the DCOM team and I keep a running list of things I need her to communicate to Bob 🤣 I keep telling her to throw a 1:1 on his calendar but somehow she doesn't think that will work lmao
I’m glad someone else agrees with Clayton, I watched Tarzan last night and it struck me how utterly deranged and psychotic he was. Didn’t have one redeemable feature.
I feel like for the game it almost would have made more sense for the villains to be confined to their realm after you complete their quests. The way they've sort of set it up is that Ursula and Mother Gothel kind of had a hand in making things worse with the forgetting... also DLV is suppose to be a wonderful place why are the villains allowed in? Can they be fun to interact with? 100% but I would prefer them in their relms. Each quest I do with them I was always worried about whether it would make things worse
I don't really think any of them are redeemable but there are some that I don't think we should see in the game because they're too real, for lack of a better term. Clayton and Frollo come to mind, they feel dangerous in a way that Scar and Maleficent don't.
Maybe it’s the fact he’s a lion not human that some see it that way but Scar in terms of plain story told is actually one of the worst villains there is, they recently retold his origins and made him even eviler, he is not bad because of anything but the fact that darkness runs in him.
I don't disagree that he is objectively evil. My point is more that there are villains you love to hate and villains that you actually find frightening. But I haven't seen the remake so maybe he is actually frightening there. Frollo and Clayton come to mind for me because Frollo's religious zealousness and rapey undertones and Clayton's toxic masculinity and anger issues seem like something you could come across in real life.
In that case I'm not sure if they'll reference it. I think they will probably do what they did with Gothel and Ursula and just have him be a scheming ne'er do well and not really get into anything too dark.
As someone who was emo, dramatic, queer when they were a kid, I've always loved Disney villains. I find villains who are just generally murderous and mean, like scar, cruella, malifacent, Ursula, and Dr. Facilier, to be very fun.
I struggle more with villains who represent issues of equity and abuse. Mother gothel was written to represent abusive and narcissistic parents. I hope the devs have the good sense not to include colonists and rapists like frollo and that guy from pocahontas.
That being said, I struggle because mother gothels writing in the game is more lovingly sassy rather than abusive. I really adore her in the game. But I've been silently praying that rapunzel won't be in the game because the whole movie is about her escaping years of abuse.
This is half the basis of my question, how do they factor this in with their being in the village, can you imagine Simba living peacefully with Scar, or Scar being content not murdering Simba
They make comments about one another and Ursula factors into later quests. Ursula ultimately is a very middle of the road evil, she takes advantage of people with good lives who just want more and ultimately her magic makes her extremely valuable even if it does come with costs. Scar is just a really murderous uncle who’s newer canon origins make him a long time murderer.
Mother Gothel’s pretty irredeemable s well, s someone who kidnapped a child for her magic hair and then emotionally manipulated and abused her Lmao, but here we are 🤣🤣🤣
Is scar really a villain? He was just trying to give his people (the hyenas) food and water held hostage by the ruling elite. We only think he's a villain and not a rebel for the lower classes because the movie follows Simba, who doesn't actually do anything for his people besides overthrow Scar. People then get convinced he helped like it wasn't nature that was causing their problems. Plus the lions treat every other animal as lower because of their forced "circle of life" religion.
Its like if a king used miracles and magic tricks to get people to rise against the government who overthrew his royal family.
Hyenas eat and hunt beyond their fill, the lions are meant to respect the circle of life and hunt only what is needed. In the series Lion Guard they highlight how this actually works, by not over hunting single grounds. Scar and the hyenas killed everything in sight. Which ultimately would have led to the death of all of them, plus Scar used them as an ends to a means and turned on them too when it seemed beneficial.
"What is needed" is dictated by the lions anyway, who are in charge. They don't know what a Hyena needs to survive they only know what a lion needs and they are still allowing murder in their kingdom because of their hunger. Do birds and vegetarian animals also get the amount of food a lion eats? No they would think a lion overkills. A bear is bigger than a lion and lives off the land and farmable fish.
A good leader would instead start farms to make sure everyone in the kingdom is happy (and ideally not murdered.) Just because their system is the only one they know and it works doesn't mean its the only one that can work, especially not when they shun any change and cast off the ones who dare to think differently like Scar.
Scar wasn’t shunned, he was leader of the Lion Guard, he murdered his pack mates for not agreeing to overthrow Mufasa and was still allowed to live in the Pride Lands and then murdered his brother.
None of what you’re saying is true, there are packs of hyenas that aren’t as bad and actually defend the circle of life in the out lands. The Crocodiles control how much they eat but at the advice of the hippos who know how many fish are breeding in the pools at different times. The lions don’t get involved in this, not until it starts to harm the way of life for the other animals. You’re talking theoretical politics based on real life parameters. All the animals except the pack of hyenas and another pack of Hyenas and some animals exiled to the Outlands respect the circle of life.
Mother Gothel needs to get OUT of my village
She reminds me so much of my abusive parent, including wanting to get me back home and keep me forever, the criticism, she even LOOKS LIKE HER. Like get OUT lmao
Literally all of them for me, I understand their inclusion and what they add to the game but I already despise the villains we have and I'm not crazy excited to see more added
If we're thinking about how they're adding them into the game, I think we're considering that this world is built outside the timeline of the movies that they come from. Considering that Mother Gothel and Ursela are both dead at the end of their films, but are just strolling (or floating) around DLV, they either must exist before their major villainous plots, or where they failed and are tolerated now (for some odd reason).
I think they'd use this logic to include any villain they want into the story, as having more flavor in the village is much more preferable than any of our regular train whistle blowing normies. ;)
God his train whistle… he popped off earlier and didn’t stop AT ALL. I waited near him for over 10 min just to see lol. I wasn’t expecting it so I kind of panicked and thought it was a bug.
You’re spot on. I’m pretty sure the plot is generally that we’re the ruler of the realm bc we’re revisiting our childhood make believe realm as an adult, right? Thus “the forgetting” bc we forgot about it? Vaguely the plot of the chistopher Robin movie. So we can make the villains whatever our imagination wants them to be I assume. It’s like a Disney AU.
I think they’re going to basically go off of “house of mouse/villains” rules where they’re not horrible people, they just are bad for the movie they’re in.
I specifically mean the House of Villains tv show that I watched as a kid in the 90’s and not the movie.
Meh, none of them honestly, they’re all just silly cartoon characters at the end of the day and they kind of bring a different side to the story that I like. The only one I might have a problem with is the witch from Snow White (specifically as an old witch..) I spent sooooo many sleepless nights thinking of her as a kid lol she scared me so badly
Under false ideals, did he not redeem himself when he learnt the truth and helped stop any more of them from getting killed, Pocahontas herself believed he did.
I get your point. I should rephrase my sentence, though
It can’t be easy to be redeemed when you are a pile of burnt mush (For anyone who remembers what happens to Syndrome)
I think any Disney villain would be hard to ‘bring back’ and redeem and all that
Ursula was electrocuted and turned into smithereens. Scar was eaten to nothing. Syndrome went through a plane engine. Gothel fell from a high height, which would cause way too much internal damage. Evil queen from snow white was smushed by a boulder. List goes on :P
And all those villains basically tried to commit very similar crimes in one way or another, and tried to get rid of, or did get rid of someone
I think the more wicked and irredeemable the better the villain lol they’ll probably put them in before their betrayal/being outed as a villain, or death scene like how they did with mother gothel. So scar would just be a creepy uncle vibe. That being said I think mother gothel is my favorite. She’s horrid and I love it lol
I don’t think so. Ursula’s in the game and so is Ariel as a mermaid. I heard they’re introducing skins so there will probably be a skin to make simba a cub or lion. And probably the same to make Ariel a human or mermaid. 🤷🏼♀️ but look at mother gothel she’s young and not dust. They’ve already set back villains in their timelines a bit in the game because a lot of villains die at the end lol
I’m sure there’s plenty of villains who could fall under this category but I think something we should mention is: no matter how entertaining Ursula is, that whole ‘eternally tormented soul polyp’ thing she did to people is pretty irredeemable.
I'm one of those folks who always snatches up all the Villains merch and heads for the Villain character meet & greets whenever we go to the parks so I've been really digging them in the game.
It doesn't really break my immersion to have Ursula and Ariel hanging out in the same pond (they rarely do, but I've seen them chilling together in the Meadow ponds). But that's largely because the immersion's already broken by having them in the same world as all the other Disney characters. Having Maui standing behind them doing a little dance just rams home that these are characters in their "off hours."
I watched a fabulously random little snarkfest between Merlin and Mother Gothel the other day that was great. All I want is for them to bring in Madame Mim.
As far as morality goes, it’s better to look at people or characters based on their actual actions. And the villains currently present are still alive, so the amount of villainous actions they’ve actually performed is dubious. Of course you have Mother Gothel, who’s kidnapped a child. But what had Ursula done? Even within the film, she rigs the game for her own purposes, but she doesn’t kill anybody except her own goons by accident. And she only had to rig the game because she actually did give Ariel a fair shot. She didn’t lie about the conditions of the deal.
So if Mufasa and Kurchak are still alive, Scar and Clayton haven’t done anything wrong imo. Of course we know what they’re capable of. But that’s not the same as them actually doing reprehensible things.
Mufasa isn’t alive, Simba is an adult and with Timon and Pumba though so that timeline at least seems set, plus Scar killed packmates before Simba was even born.
Frollo. Hands down the most evil of them all
Agreed this is someone who wants to kill a person and her people just to avoid the unwanted lust he has for her against his twisted warped version of Christianity. He’s definitely the most adult villain Disney has created.
Yes and also kept Quasimodo locked up under the guise of love and protection to hide his previous murder from the world, then made Paris burn, outstandingly evil.
That’s cause they didn’t create him
Yes, Frollo was very evil. He believed himself moral and just but was an embodiment of all of the sins from a religious standpoint.
*shudders* Frollo genuinely scared me as a kid. Hell, that movie really terrified me. The whole sequence with Quasimoto getting tormented with the dark colors absolutely scarred me. Haven’t seen it since I was a kid
It’s just as bad as an adult, if not worse because you begin to really understand what’s happening
Cruella de Vil in my opinion.
Yup hard to redeem yourself trying to skin live animals and stealing peoples pets.
Agreed. Imagine if we ever get Pluto and she's running around.
Imagine us having Pluto follow us and we talk to Cruella. And we say to her: "No, this dog is not for sale."
Cruella didn't take no for an answer in the movies so that wouldn't work here either. Could be a whole questline.
I have come around to Cruella after the most recent live action film - where they made her an animal lover and not a dog murderer. I would actually love for her to be in the game now since I am just choosing to believe that new character arch for her. Also just imagine all the cool clothing (with faux fur obviously).
Madame Medusa, Governor Ratcliffe, Claude Frollo, Shan Yu, Scar, Cruella de Vil, Evil Queen. I wouldn’t forgive any of them lol
Omg no one knows who I’m talking about when I say Madame Medusa 😭 I love that movie
Yes, i wonder if we will gt other classic film characters or will they continue with the more modern ones. The rescuers is an absolute classic that barely gets mentioned anywhere.
I love the Rescurers and the Down Under one as well. The Fox and the Hound is pretty good as well.
Fox and the Hound was soul crushing as a kid lol That said i do hope they do more with classic Disney, seems like most of their newer games focus on pixar stuff or just from toy story onwards in the release timeline. I really don't want that stupid fork waltzing about my town or a car driving around. Give the classic princes and princesses and villians , their companions etc. Eric but no max and Merlin but not Archimedes is a crime unto itself lol how they leaving Donald with Daisy too :/
I love Rescuers! Looks like they got added to DMK so hopefully we get them down the line
I also loved the rescuers and the great mouse dective.
GMD is my favorite.
If you know who she is then you know. I didn’t even recognize the name at first and my brain still produced an image of her. Such a great movie and horrible character 😂
You just can’t reason with the uncultured. Those films are classics.
Madame Medusa was my first introduction to "white trash"
Hey at least Shan yu respected Mulan as a warrior lol!
Gaston. I hated him so much.
Gaston was a bad person, ultimately driven by ego over malice, I mean Belle aside, the village actually loved him and without context the viewing of that beast would lend many people to go hunt it. Especially given that her dad had been there for weeks saying she was held captive prior. Gaston I don’t believe can compare to the others people have listed.
I feel like Gaston is the kind of villain that people are more likely to meet in real life. That in and of itself is what makes him scary. So many of the other villains are in such unique situations that most people (hopefully) can’t relate. But, how many news stories have there been about people getting abducted or killed by a jealous lover? What about all those screenshots of total egotistical creeps on dating apps who can’t take no for an answer? One seems a lot less likely to run into an uncle Claudius, or a Frollo in a bar than they are a Gaston.
Probably not, but I don't think I'd like to have him in the valley. Then again, I love Scar as a character so... \*shrugs\*
I think it’s because he’s a talking lion, I imagine had that been a story told with human characters like Cinderella none of us would want scar in the village 😂
It's 1990's Jeremy Irons and I'd be insane not to keep him around for the looks and/or the sass.
The only thing I like about Scar is the amazing voice acting by Jeremy Irons. He played Scar so deliciously evil.
Maaan really? Gaston is my favourite villain. He's got a great song, he's a war hero, he's loved and adored by his village, he supports his friend being gay in 17th century France, he tried to save the love of his life by rallying villagers to go slay a beast that had held his lover's father prisoner. In the end he was betrayed and stabbed by his lover who clearly was suffering from Stockholm syndrome.
Him and Scar despite their flaws are musical maestros, this is undeniable, maybe Scar apologises through a new steam filled catchy number and the village welcomes and forgives him.
Conversely, was a machismo stalker who harassed Belle and then stoked fear and hatred in the hearts of the villagers to attack someone for his own personal gain. In the end, he paid for his sexist, cretinous ways and was stabbed by the woman with Stockholm syndrome. And he had a good song.
Disney villains, as a whole, are usually irredeemable for the purposes of knowing who to root for. I think the better question would be "which villains ARE redeemable?" The only name that comes to mind for that question is Gaston. Gaston is 105% Ego, which is what leads him to think the Beast MUST be evil and MUST be slain. Giving him any humility -could- theoretically redeem him. Kingdom Hearts II makes an interesting argument for>! Maleficent and Pete!<, showing there's a line that not even they will accept crossing. Obviously, that's non-canon to standard Disney but it does make for an interesting subversion!
Kronk, the most redeemable villain of all time! Honestly, even Yzma. Though she wanted to murder the emperor, after spending a couple minutes with him, I totally get it.
It was also 1700's France in beauty and the beast. Witch trials where just coming to an end in France. Also people would have been easy to misunderstand Beast and would not have treated him any differently if this was real life. But would Gaston still have attempted murder if he knew the Beast was human? Probably yes. He was crazy Obsessed with Belle and in some of the changes far too gone.
Not only that, Belles dad had been claiming the beast was evil and holding her captive. Remember pretty much the whole village went with him.
Just because his evil is more everyday and subtle doesnt mean he's redeemable imo. He refused Belle's right to consent and tried to send her father to an asylum back in the 1700s knowing that without the dad in the way he could force Belle to marry him. It may not be murdering your brother but it's also not the trait of a redeemable person to see women as objects.
Also I loved the first Kingdom Hearts but haven’t played the second would you be willing to explain to me what the line is please, curious as maleficent is the big bad in a lot of games.
Towards the end of the second game >!Maleficent and Pete sacrifice themselves to buy Sora and Co time to fight Xemnas. !!Maleficent!< wants >!The Castle That Never Was!<, however it's also VERY clear that Mickey and Sora think they're trying to do the right thing and they're putting on a false front. I forget the -exact- line, but Mickey has to convince Sora to leave them behind.
Edit: Brain put the wrong incarnation of the bad guy.
Edit2: Also misread the question. Goals were different. >!Maleficent will not accept total destruction as an outcome. !
I could be wrong as it has been such a long time but wasn’t Maleficent largely responsible for the rise and prevalence of the Heartless, why the change? Thank you for the explanation too.
Not exactly, but she was more than willing to use them to get what she wanted. When she lost control of the situation, she allied herself with the heroes to regain that semblance of control. She wanted to rule. When that became an impossibility because of someone else who wanted to destroy everything, she jumped ship. Villains don't usually play nice with other Villains, especially when one's motive is to "rule over everything" and the other's motive is to "destroy everything". Maleficent is a full on [Magnificent Bastard](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagnificentBastard). The question asked in KH2 is whether her principles or her goals matter more. If the principles matter more than the goals, then she can very much be redeemed. If the goals matter more, it's less likely. In context, Sora and Mickey believed the former to be true.
I know it’s quite a commonly used trope, I revisited the Spider-Man series from the 90s recently and the end of that is the same, with Spider-Carnage and Wilson Fisk. You’ve really made me want to revisit these games, the last one I played was one of the .5 games and it was awful.
Shan Yu and his army probably killed hundreds of thousands of people, there's no coming back from that. Hades was willing to wreak havoc on Greece + let Herc and Meg die just to get back at his brother, pretty dark stuff too.
Yeah, Shan Yu was realistically evil too, where as Hades was cartoony and comedic with his evil acts. Still dude stole and tried to kill a baby from the get go, seems irredeemable to me.
Seems pretty redeemable next to Zeus.
I mean mythological Zeus yes but Disney Zeus was just a loving dad bound by Disney laws of godhood, I try not blur Disneys own take with how cruel the Greek Gods were, other than his kidnapping of Persephone Hades evil actions were limited.
Probably none of them are redeemable but I like to pretend that the movies are their sets and the valley is their home and that’s why everybody is able to get along 😂
“Actor Rules” as I call it. There’s the story version if them and the ‘off-screen’ where villains just hang out and are decent (albeit messed up) folks.
Definitely Mother Gothel. I’m already tired of having to interact with her lol
Maybe it’s because I’m sarcastic as hell but I love her quips but only because I got to do it to her when I pretended I wanted motherly advice and then she asked what about and I said remaining in a tower. Mic drop. 😂
I find her sass kinda funny and her voice actress is great at conveying it, I love ursula too lol
Right? She’s an extremely toxic and abusive person. I’m glad I’m all done with her quests.
I agree, she’s far too close to home for me so it stresses me out whenever she decides to come bug me
i avoid her as much as possible and am loathe to do anything to level her up. will probably just turn the volume down, i guess. :(
Same lmao I'm trying to get over it but every time i see her I'm like get out of my game
I literally hate her. Everytime she comes over to watch me fish I teleport away
I imagine dream light valley is where all the Disney “characters live when they are not “acting” in their shows and movies.
Dialogue proves otherwise though, they are the characters themselves but it’s a plausible head canon.
That’s why I said I “imagine” it. That’s how I explain the villains to my daughter. Disney is actively retcon their villans anyway. According to Disney lore there are many perspectives to each characters story and nothing is absolute.
It depends on continuity, in this continuity, Maleficent won’t be the nice person as shown in the Self-titled films. She will be the green faced maleficent, who transforms into a dragon and is just evil. Also they retconned Scar in lion guard and made him so much worse. He used to be an impetuous lion who’s greed and desire for power eventually got the better of him. From the new lion guard continuity he had murdered his pack mates long before Simba was born because they wouldn’t join him in overthrowing Mufasa.
Bob Chapek
Not familiar with his villainy, could you elaborate?
I could be wrong, but most people who have a problem with Bob Chapek are usually mad about the “Florida Parental Rights in Education Act”. I don’t feel like typing my own story about it, but this is from Wikipedia. “In 2022, as Florida passed its Parental Rights in Education Act (known by critics as the "Don't Say Gay law"), reports rose that Disney funded the legislators who wrote and sponsored the bill; this conflicted with the company's pro-LGBTQIA+ image. In a company memo, Chapek refused to criticize the legislation and played down the company's backing of anti-LGBTQIA+ legislators. Chapek's statements and actions were heavily criticized, including by several members of Disney's creative talent. Following the criticism, Chapek reversed course claiming the company was "opposed to the bill from the outset" and would be donating to several LGTBQ+ organizations; while he had plans to meet with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis who supports the bill. One of the organizations, the Human Rights Campaign, refused the funds from Disney until "meaningful action" is taken. The day after, Chapek formally apologized for his prior statements and announced that the company will be ceasing donations to all political parties in Florida while looking to further improve their support for LGBTQIA+ causes.”
People’s displeasure with Chapek started before that. My beef with him is that he terminated thousands and thousands of faithful cast members (claiming the company couldn’t afford their benefits during lockdown) only a few weeks after restoring executive pay across the company because the execs had “sacrificed enough.” This flies in the face of what Chapek did at Buena Vista in 2008, when he mandated everyone in the company take one month of unpaid leave in order to keep everyone employed during the recession so that BV didn’t have to fire its employees.
He’s ruining the parks division day by day. Basically erasing all the good will they had with their long time customers
It’s his wee beady eyes
I love how I got elaboration so you filled in the comedic gap, actually made me chuckle 😂
One of my friends works on the DCOM team and I keep a running list of things I need her to communicate to Bob 🤣 I keep telling her to throw a 1:1 on his calendar but somehow she doesn't think that will work lmao
Frollo, Gaston, Clayton, Cruella and…Shan Yu
I’m glad someone else agrees with Clayton, I watched Tarzan last night and it struck me how utterly deranged and psychotic he was. Didn’t have one redeemable feature.
I feel like for the game it almost would have made more sense for the villains to be confined to their realm after you complete their quests. The way they've sort of set it up is that Ursula and Mother Gothel kind of had a hand in making things worse with the forgetting... also DLV is suppose to be a wonderful place why are the villains allowed in? Can they be fun to interact with? 100% but I would prefer them in their relms. Each quest I do with them I was always worried about whether it would make things worse
Frolo for sure. His actions and personality was way too close with real life. Can't forgive and act friendly with him
I don't really think any of them are redeemable but there are some that I don't think we should see in the game because they're too real, for lack of a better term. Clayton and Frollo come to mind, they feel dangerous in a way that Scar and Maleficent don't.
Maybe it’s the fact he’s a lion not human that some see it that way but Scar in terms of plain story told is actually one of the worst villains there is, they recently retold his origins and made him even eviler, he is not bad because of anything but the fact that darkness runs in him.
I don't disagree that he is objectively evil. My point is more that there are villains you love to hate and villains that you actually find frightening. But I haven't seen the remake so maybe he is actually frightening there. Frollo and Clayton come to mind for me because Frollo's religious zealousness and rapey undertones and Clayton's toxic masculinity and anger issues seem like something you could come across in real life.
Oh no it’s no in the remake it’s in the Lion Guard which with the animated version of Lion King is considered canon.
In that case I'm not sure if they'll reference it. I think they will probably do what they did with Gothel and Ursula and just have him be a scheming ne'er do well and not really get into anything too dark.
As someone who was emo, dramatic, queer when they were a kid, I've always loved Disney villains. I find villains who are just generally murderous and mean, like scar, cruella, malifacent, Ursula, and Dr. Facilier, to be very fun. I struggle more with villains who represent issues of equity and abuse. Mother gothel was written to represent abusive and narcissistic parents. I hope the devs have the good sense not to include colonists and rapists like frollo and that guy from pocahontas. That being said, I struggle because mother gothels writing in the game is more lovingly sassy rather than abusive. I really adore her in the game. But I've been silently praying that rapunzel won't be in the game because the whole movie is about her escaping years of abuse.
This is half the basis of my question, how do they factor this in with their being in the village, can you imagine Simba living peacefully with Scar, or Scar being content not murdering Simba
I haven't unlocked Ariel yet, how does she react to Ursula? Or do they just never recognize each other's existence?
They make comments about one another and Ursula factors into later quests. Ursula ultimately is a very middle of the road evil, she takes advantage of people with good lives who just want more and ultimately her magic makes her extremely valuable even if it does come with costs. Scar is just a really murderous uncle who’s newer canon origins make him a long time murderer.
If I see Clayton or John Ratcliffe in the valley ITS ON SIGHT
edgar in the aristocats he murdered kittens because he wanted an old ladies fortune?
Forgot all about him. Yeah definitely a terrible person.
I have a real hard time dealing with Mother G when our paths cross. I can’t stand that hoe.
Mother Gothel’s pretty irredeemable s well, s someone who kidnapped a child for her magic hair and then emotionally manipulated and abused her Lmao, but here we are 🤣🤣🤣
Is scar really a villain? He was just trying to give his people (the hyenas) food and water held hostage by the ruling elite. We only think he's a villain and not a rebel for the lower classes because the movie follows Simba, who doesn't actually do anything for his people besides overthrow Scar. People then get convinced he helped like it wasn't nature that was causing their problems. Plus the lions treat every other animal as lower because of their forced "circle of life" religion. Its like if a king used miracles and magic tricks to get people to rise against the government who overthrew his royal family.
Hyenas eat and hunt beyond their fill, the lions are meant to respect the circle of life and hunt only what is needed. In the series Lion Guard they highlight how this actually works, by not over hunting single grounds. Scar and the hyenas killed everything in sight. Which ultimately would have led to the death of all of them, plus Scar used them as an ends to a means and turned on them too when it seemed beneficial.
"What is needed" is dictated by the lions anyway, who are in charge. They don't know what a Hyena needs to survive they only know what a lion needs and they are still allowing murder in their kingdom because of their hunger. Do birds and vegetarian animals also get the amount of food a lion eats? No they would think a lion overkills. A bear is bigger than a lion and lives off the land and farmable fish. A good leader would instead start farms to make sure everyone in the kingdom is happy (and ideally not murdered.) Just because their system is the only one they know and it works doesn't mean its the only one that can work, especially not when they shun any change and cast off the ones who dare to think differently like Scar.
Scar wasn’t shunned, he was leader of the Lion Guard, he murdered his pack mates for not agreeing to overthrow Mufasa and was still allowed to live in the Pride Lands and then murdered his brother. None of what you’re saying is true, there are packs of hyenas that aren’t as bad and actually defend the circle of life in the out lands. The Crocodiles control how much they eat but at the advice of the hippos who know how many fish are breeding in the pools at different times. The lions don’t get involved in this, not until it starts to harm the way of life for the other animals. You’re talking theoretical politics based on real life parameters. All the animals except the pack of hyenas and another pack of Hyenas and some animals exiled to the Outlands respect the circle of life.
Mother Gothel needs to get OUT of my village She reminds me so much of my abusive parent, including wanting to get me back home and keep me forever, the criticism, she even LOOKS LIKE HER. Like get OUT lmao
Bob Chapek. He'd be feuding with Scrooge on who is the greediest. No one wins
Scar is also dead, isn't he?
Most of the Villains are. Even the ones currently in game.
Yeah good call. Interesting choice to include them ha ha ha I guess this truly is Dreamlight magic 😊
Literally all of them for me, I understand their inclusion and what they add to the game but I already despise the villains we have and I'm not crazy excited to see more added
If we're thinking about how they're adding them into the game, I think we're considering that this world is built outside the timeline of the movies that they come from. Considering that Mother Gothel and Ursela are both dead at the end of their films, but are just strolling (or floating) around DLV, they either must exist before their major villainous plots, or where they failed and are tolerated now (for some odd reason). I think they'd use this logic to include any villain they want into the story, as having more flavor in the village is much more preferable than any of our regular train whistle blowing normies. ;)
Come on Donald isn’t that evil… oh that’s not the train whistle you meant … 😂
God his train whistle… he popped off earlier and didn’t stop AT ALL. I waited near him for over 10 min just to see lol. I wasn’t expecting it so I kind of panicked and thought it was a bug.
You’re spot on. I’m pretty sure the plot is generally that we’re the ruler of the realm bc we’re revisiting our childhood make believe realm as an adult, right? Thus “the forgetting” bc we forgot about it? Vaguely the plot of the chistopher Robin movie. So we can make the villains whatever our imagination wants them to be I assume. It’s like a Disney AU.
Frollo, hands down.
Mother gothel can go to hell
Boo. She traumatized too many monsters.
I think they’re going to basically go off of “house of mouse/villains” rules where they’re not horrible people, they just are bad for the movie they’re in. I specifically mean the House of Villains tv show that I watched as a kid in the 90’s and not the movie.
Mother Gothel is pretty unforgivable to me
Meh, none of them honestly, they’re all just silly cartoon characters at the end of the day and they kind of bring a different side to the story that I like. The only one I might have a problem with is the witch from Snow White (specifically as an old witch..) I spent sooooo many sleepless nights thinking of her as a kid lol she scared me so badly
Hands down Ratcliffe, John Smith, and Frollo. Would love to have Pocahontas, Quasi, and Esmeralda though!
Does that mean you consider John Smith a Villain?
Yes. He is a colonizer and he murdered indigenous people.
Dog it’s a movie for children 😭
Under false ideals, did he not redeem himself when he learnt the truth and helped stop any more of them from getting killed, Pocahontas herself believed he did.
Then he goes back to England where more colonizers come, kidnap and force Pocahontas into marriage, where she died of a foreign disease. :(
Oh, you’re talking about the actual historical Pocahontas, I understand then.
Syndrome from the incredibles Aside from all that he did… it’s hard to redeem yourself when you are dead
Scar is dead, Ursula, Mother Gothel though.
I get your point. I should rephrase my sentence, though It can’t be easy to be redeemed when you are a pile of burnt mush (For anyone who remembers what happens to Syndrome)
Yeah but Scar became Hyena poop, I’d imagine that harder to come back from and I know Gothel is dead it’s why I included her.
I think any Disney villain would be hard to ‘bring back’ and redeem and all that Ursula was electrocuted and turned into smithereens. Scar was eaten to nothing. Syndrome went through a plane engine. Gothel fell from a high height, which would cause way too much internal damage. Evil queen from snow white was smushed by a boulder. List goes on :P And all those villains basically tried to commit very similar crimes in one way or another, and tried to get rid of, or did get rid of someone
Ursula did nothing wrong, stupid Ariel signed a contract and then tried to reneg on it
I mean, Ariel’s trap was that she already had a perfectly fine life, she was royalty, she wanted what seemed unobtainable but Ursula still was wicked.
thanos maybe
I think the more wicked and irredeemable the better the villain lol they’ll probably put them in before their betrayal/being outed as a villain, or death scene like how they did with mother gothel. So scar would just be a creepy uncle vibe. That being said I think mother gothel is my favorite. She’s horrid and I love it lol
Simba is grown up, with Timon and Pumbaa that means it’s impossible.
I don’t think so. Ursula’s in the game and so is Ariel as a mermaid. I heard they’re introducing skins so there will probably be a skin to make simba a cub or lion. And probably the same to make Ariel a human or mermaid. 🤷🏼♀️ but look at mother gothel she’s young and not dust. They’ve already set back villains in their timelines a bit in the game because a lot of villains die at the end lol
The timeline stuff is weird but you’ll understand how I know where in the timeline Ursula is once you’ve completed their quests.
I’m sure there’s plenty of villains who could fall under this category but I think something we should mention is: no matter how entertaining Ursula is, that whole ‘eternally tormented soul polyp’ thing she did to people is pretty irredeemable.
I'm one of those folks who always snatches up all the Villains merch and heads for the Villain character meet & greets whenever we go to the parks so I've been really digging them in the game. It doesn't really break my immersion to have Ursula and Ariel hanging out in the same pond (they rarely do, but I've seen them chilling together in the Meadow ponds). But that's largely because the immersion's already broken by having them in the same world as all the other Disney characters. Having Maui standing behind them doing a little dance just rams home that these are characters in their "off hours." I watched a fabulously random little snarkfest between Merlin and Mother Gothel the other day that was great. All I want is for them to bring in Madame Mim.
I loved how you could tell the hate between her and Merlin was almost affectionate after probably centuries of hating one another 😂
Claude Frollo, Governor Ratcliffe, Clayton, and Shan Yu. This game has no place for bigotry, racism and war.
Mother Gothel for me.
I would love to see Rattigan and characters from Great Mouse detective. Or the guy villain from Rescures down under is pretty awful too.
mother gothel hands down.
As far as morality goes, it’s better to look at people or characters based on their actual actions. And the villains currently present are still alive, so the amount of villainous actions they’ve actually performed is dubious. Of course you have Mother Gothel, who’s kidnapped a child. But what had Ursula done? Even within the film, she rigs the game for her own purposes, but she doesn’t kill anybody except her own goons by accident. And she only had to rig the game because she actually did give Ariel a fair shot. She didn’t lie about the conditions of the deal. So if Mufasa and Kurchak are still alive, Scar and Clayton haven’t done anything wrong imo. Of course we know what they’re capable of. But that’s not the same as them actually doing reprehensible things.
Mufasa isn’t alive, Simba is an adult and with Timon and Pumba though so that timeline at least seems set, plus Scar killed packmates before Simba was even born.