# Who's the most Evil Disney villain? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 17, 2019, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-most-evil-disney-villain/843576 "2019-11-17T14:57:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2019, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-most-evil-disney-villain/843576/41 "2019-11-18T15:45:05Z")
> [@Author\_Balk](#): > > The guy who shot Bambi’s mother. There’s a theory that Gaston did it. I’m going to vote for Shan Yu in _Mulan_. He (and his troops) destroyed a village, leaving behind some child’s little doll, which Mulan finds. I thought was the only Disney moment sadder than when Bambi’s mother dies. ---
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2019, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-most-evil-disney-villain/843576/42 "2019-11-18T15:47:36Z")
> [@Author\_Balk](#): > > The guy who shot Bambi’s mother. > [@Dendarii\_Dame](#): > > There’s a theory that Gaston did it. > I’m going to vote for Shan Yu in _Mulan_. He (and his troops) destroyed a village, leaving behind some child’s little doll, which Mulan finds. I thought was the only Disney moment sadder than when Bambi’s mother dies. In an early draft of _Who Framed Roger Rabbit_, it’s Judge Doom who killed Bambi’s mother. ---
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2019, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-most-evil-disney-villain/843576/43 "2019-11-18T15:49:00Z")
> [@purplehorseshoe](#): > > Apologies for the total hijack but … thank you for posting this. > > My mother (who’s been mentioned once or thrice here) has a pacemaker, and she used this exact. fucking. line. with me a lot. > > I’m almost 40 years old and still learning (e.g. finding out the hard way) what is or isn’t dysfunctional, or normal, not to mention how interpersonal communication is supposed to work. > > Offhand comments like these are incredibly helpful for re-calibrating that perspective. I’m living proof of the truth of the quoted post. > > Okay, hijacking over, sorry. > > My villain vote is for the butler from The Aristocats … drugging kittens and abandoning them in a field to die. All so he can steal someone’s money. He’d make a terrific boyfriend for Cruella de Vil! > > **Also, what was the movie with two little mice, and an orphan girl with a diamond sewn into her teddy bear? The villain had a pair of pet crocodiles? In my memories she bore a resemblance to Ursula from Little Mermaid … anyway, she can be runner-up.** That’s _The Rescuers_, and the lady’s name was Madame Medusa. ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2019, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-most-evil-disney-villain/843576/44 "2019-11-18T15:52:52Z")
> [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](#): > > In an early draft of _Who Framed Roger Rabbit_, it’s Judge Doom who killed Bambi’s mother. :chin scratch: I may have to re-evaluate my assessment of Judge Doom. Here [I thought he was a bad guy, maybe even worse than Bambi’s mom](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=21978791&postcount=23), yet now I learn he might have killed her, and brought an end to her reign of terror over the forest and her tortured son? Hmmm… This is the kind of moral gray we need more of in children’s animated films! ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2019, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-most-evil-disney-villain/843576/45 "2019-11-18T15:56:23Z")
Well, the Iron Giant drove Bambi’s mom straight to the hunters… Wait, that’s not Diz-nee. Never mind. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2019, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-most-evil-disney-villain/843576/46 "2019-11-18T15:59:20Z")
Director James Algar’s mass slaughter of lemmings in _White Wilderness_ to fake a “mass suicide” claim has always stuck with me. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2019, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-most-evil-disney-villain/843576/47 "2019-11-18T16:38:32Z")
> [@cmkeller](#): > > …Yzma (whose story is very similar, but with the twist that she was fired from her job). Now, let’s be honest. Before his epiphany, Kuzco was both a terrible ruler and person. Yzma taking a shot at the big chair was, frankly, not a villain’s action. An argument could be made that she was attempting a coup that might have resulted in the betterment of all in the kingdom. She didn’t seem to rule for evil, she just wanted competence - herself over bad Kuzco - in the decision-making position. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2019, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-most-evil-disney-villain/843576/48 "2019-11-18T16:51:10Z")
> [@cmkeller](#): > > Surprised that I have yet to see any votes for Jafar, from Aladdin. He strikes me as purely power-hungry and selfishly evil, without any mitigating circumstances or beneficent impulses. He was the second-most powerful person in the kingdom, but wasn’t satisfied with that. I don’t see any reason for him to be harboring resentment, like Scar (who was my first instinct, until I thought about it for a while) or Yzma (whose story is very similar, but with the twist that she was fired from her job). Part of what undercuts Jafar’s villainy is that a lot of his evil actions are at least partially mirrored by other characters in the film. His big plan is to use the lamp to force Jasmine to marry him, thereby gaining control of the kingdom - which is basically Aladdin’s plot after he gets out of the cave, except Aladdin uses the lamp to appear noble to win the girl, while Jafar wants to use the lamp to marry the girl to make him noble. And Jasmine’s own dad is trying to marry her off to someone for political advantage anyway, so Jafar’s action aren’t that heinous, and IIRC, he’s pretty much only interested in her for her political connections. He’s not (IIRC - it’s been a while since I’ve seen it) drooling over her like Frollo does over Esmerelda in _Hunchback_. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2019, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-most-evil-disney-villain/843576/49 "2019-11-18T17:57:14Z")
Concur. Jafar, for all his moustache twirling, wasn’t interested in Jasmine sexually or personally. He didn’t even make it weird that way until she’d turned on the sex appeal to distract him. ---
**Author:** ![sachertorte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sachertorte/32/3727_2.png) [@sachertorte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sachertorte)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2019, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-most-evil-disney-villain/843576/50 "2019-11-18T18:13:46Z")
I consider myself fairly well Disney-educated, but wow. This thread is amazing! We are watching all the Disney animated classics on Disney+. So far just Snow White for us, but damn, that Queen is messed up. I guess real people do terrible things to be the prettiest in real life, which is kind of depressing. As an aside, the creepy Prince kissing wasn’t quite as creepy as I was expecting it to be. They meet early in the film and had already fallen in love. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2019, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-most-evil-disney-villain/843576/51 "2019-11-18T18:35:48Z")
How about Ratigan? His plan was to kidnap the Queen and replace her with a robot duplicate so he could take over the country. That’s already pretty evil. But there’s also the details of his plan. After he kidnapped the Queen, he planned on killing her by feeding her to a cat. To get his robot duplicate built, he kidnaps an inventor and his young daughter gets the inventor to co-operate by threatening to kill the child. And after this plan is thwarted, he doesn’t go quietly. Instead he tried to kill the hero as revenge. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2019, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-most-evil-disney-villain/843576/52 "2019-11-18T19:13:09Z")
> [@Biggirl](#): > > But Cruella? She was evil just for evil’s sake. Because she liked causing pain and suffering. She gets my vote. It’s worth noting that they are, right now, filming a live-action “Cruella” film (in the same mold as “Maleficent”) in Greenwich. So we may get a more in-depth motivation (or at least backstory) for her evilness. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2019, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-most-evil-disney-villain/843576/53 "2019-11-18T19:16:40Z")
> [@KMS94](#): > > Cruella de vil popped into my head as soon as I read the thread title. Puppies! Even her name is basically “Cruel devil” Nasty but not evil. Maleficent and Evil Queen are pretty up there, along with Jafar. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2019, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-most-evil-disney-villain/843576/54 "2019-11-18T19:19:10Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > Walt. > > Racist, misogynist, credit-stealing, McCarthy-ite, virulently anti-union, etc. Walt was not a racist, not a misogynist, nor credit stealing. He did hate Commies, but wasnt a McCarthy-ite. He hated only that one Union boss who was a admitted Commie and called a strike even tho Walts employees were better paid than others in the field. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2019, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-most-evil-disney-villain/843576/55 "2019-11-18T19:20:25Z")
> [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](#): > > Another one flying under the radar is the Coachman from _Pinocchio_ who buys boys and takes them to Pleasure Island, where they turn themselves horrifically into donkeys, which the Coachman then sells (for a higher price one assumes). Yep, that one is pretty evil. I can’t figure out the economics of that one, honestly tho, donkeys are not that expensive. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2019, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-most-evil-disney-villain/843576/56 "2019-11-18T19:46:13Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Walt was not a racist, not a misogynist, nor credit stealing. Um. _Song of the South_? The NAACP repeatedly tried to get him to not do such a racist movie and he refused. Plus scenes in other movies that the black centaurs serving the white centaurs, stuff in _Dumbo_. Etc. He deliberately underpaid his female animators less that his male ones since they were merely women. Credit stealing? Ask any animator who worked for him back in the day. Lots of plotlines of movies were stolen without crediting the source. Etc. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2019, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-most-evil-disney-villain/843576/57 "2019-11-18T21:37:37Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > I guess it’s because he’s too much the walking mustache-twirling stereotype. That tends to be a bit comical - See: Iznogoud. Meant to mention this earlier, but… Iznogoud! I loved those books as a kid. Always wondered if they held up at all, or if they’d come across as cringingly racist nowadays. ---
**Author:** ![Infovore](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/infovore/32/420_2.png) [@Infovore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Infovore)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2019, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-most-evil-disney-villain/843576/58 "2019-11-18T21:46:37Z")
Add Gaston to my list. He had no redeeming value and was another straight-up evil (I’d say incel, but I suspect quite a few of the village girls would be happy to sleep with him–he just wanted the one he couldn’t have). ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2019, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-most-evil-disney-villain/843576/59 "2019-11-18T21:54:20Z")
All this talk of Gaston, while I don’t disagree that he was a villain, I can’t help but feel it overlooks the real villain of the story: the sorceress (or whatever) who cast a spell on the Beast. Not just the Beast, but all his servants, as if they were mere chattel, and should suffer with their master for all eternity if he couldn’t guilt-trip someone into loving him before the petals fell from the magic flower. What an awful, awful witch. She didn’t kill anyone, so she’s definitely not at the top of my list, but she’s way worse than Gaston in my mind for her literal objectification of the Beast’s servants. One of them was just a child, for Christ’s sake! ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2019, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-most-evil-disney-villain/843576/60 "2019-11-18T22:05:54Z")
Jonathan Chance: > [@](#): > > Yzma taking a shot at the big chair was, frankly, not a villain’s action. An argument could be made that she was attempting a coup that might have resulted in the betterment of all in the kingdom. She didn’t seem to rule for evil, she just wanted competence - herself over bad Kuzco - in the decision-making position. No way. Remember when she was sitting on the throne before Kuzco caught her and fired her? “Your family has no food? You should have thought of that before you decided to become a peasant!” She was no better than he was to the kingdom. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-most-evil-disney-villain/843576.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-most-evil-disney-villain/843576.md?page=4)