The Worst Disney Villains
Hello and welcome back to my blog. Today I am going to be looking at the Disney princess movies and discussing who I think are the worst Disney villains.
There are a couple of things to know before we start:
- I am looking at The Evil Queen/ The Old Hag from Snow White, Lady Tremaine from Cinderella, Ursula from The Little Mermaid, Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty, Jafar from Aladdin, Ratcliffe from Pocahontas, Dr. Facilier from Princess and the Frog, Mother Gothel from Tangled and Hans from Frozen.
- I am not including Gaston as I am still not convinced that he is the villain of his film.
- I am not including Mor Du from Brave because he is a bear and I can’t say that animal instinct is a villainous trait.
- I am not including Shan Yu from Mulan because the war that Mulan is fighting in is not something I can comment on with any authority.
- I am also not including Tamatoa from Moana because she isn’t yet a real Disney Princess, she has not been added to the Disney line up so I’m not going to include him.
- I will be looking at the animated films so this automatically excludes the live action versions and any sequels.
- All of this is my opinion of the facts. I’m very happy to read in the comments who you think is the worst villain.
Let’s start with the fist Disney Princess villain:
The Evil Queen/ The Old Hag
Right from the opening of this film it is obvious that the Queen is the villain of the film, I know not to judge a book by its cover, but just look at her. It takes barely any time before the Queen begins to act out her plan of having Snow White murdered by ordering the huntsman to cut out her heart. It’s not just a normal stabbing, the Queen must obtain a souvenir to cherish. If the huntsman actually went through with the act of murdering the innocent Snow White, I’m sure he would be traumatised for the rest of his life, being unable to forgive himself knowing that he did the wrong thing. This is a small example of how easily the Queen doesn’t mind ruining the lives of the people around her.
This murder may be worthwhile if there was a legitimate motive, but what is her motive? Jealousy. Pure jealousy because Snow White is more beautiful than herself. Nope, sorry, that is not acceptable. She is a Queen with immense magical powers, she owns books titled “black magic” and “black arts”. I’m sure giving Snow White a pig snout wouldn’t have been too hard to do and would have stopped her looking so beautiful. I mean look at Penelope, as soon as she got a pig snout it was all about her inner beauty not outer beauty.
The person she is closest to is a raven, not exactly the most friendly of creatures. The only other person she communicates with in the film is the magic mirror who she calls a slave which begs the question, has the queen cursed someone to live forever in the mirror to help her? This we will never known, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that was true.
The Queen actually succeed in murdering Snow White, it was quick and gruesome, the queen took a lot of pleasure in watching it happen, stating exactly how the poison was working, “breath will steal and her blood congeal”. Of all the ways to die, this has got to be quite a horrible one. It is also so obvious that she is happy about what she has done, she shows no regret or remorse. She is full of pure evil. Her plan worked, now all she had to do is murder the dwarves, which she attempts to do with a boulder. Sadly her plan back fired when she falls from the cliff edge when it breaks and is then squashed by that same boulder she tried to kill the dwarves with before being eaten by vultures.
If she had a villain song she would be a 10, but she doesn’t, so instead I’m scoring her a 9.
- Lady Tremaine
Similarly with the Queen, Lady Tremaine shows that she is the villain of the film very quickly and she too is driven by jealousy, it even says so in the film. She is jealous that Cinderella is more beautiful and talented that her daughters and then later on that the Prince wants to be with Cinderella rather than her daughters. Lady Tremaine only wants to “forward the interests of her own two daughters”. It is for her daughters that she is cruel and uncaring towards her, forcing her to move into the smallest bedroom and perform all of the duties for the house without a please or a thank you after she is forced to let go the workers of the house after she squanders the family fortune on herself and her daughters.
In being so rude towards Cinderella, Lady Tremaine has also encouraged this behaviour in her children, making them walk in their mothers footsteps which is also encouraging Anastasia and Drizella to believe that they are entitled and that is okay to act this way towards someone who doesn’t deserve it. For example both girls give Cinderella unnecessarily taxing tasks like getting a load of ironing and mending done within a timely manner. Passing the buck over to Cinderella means that these girls are not learning the skills they are going to need to survive because they are unlikely to marry because no man is going to want to be with such an unkind, uncaring and rude woman and back then not marrying was a travesty and could ruin a person’s life.
However, and this is a big however, the three woman have never done anything that has completely crushed Cinderella’s spirit. Cinderella is still able to fight back in her own way, with her hope and belief for the future, even when at her lowest point after Lady Tremaine has let her daughters rip and tear Cinderella’s dress to pieces, she still has enough hope and kindness in her heart to allow her Fairy Godmother to come and visit. This then allows Cinderella to attend the ball late, not show up with her family, be in the most beautiful dress at the entire ball and be noticed by the Prince who obviously falls in love with her.
I think the thing that make Lady Tremaine not nearly as bad as any of the other villains is she isn’t a murdered. The worst thing that she really does is lock Cinderella in a tower and really if you think that she is going to leave her there forever to starve, I don’t think Lady Tremaine is actually capable of this. All she really does is delay the eventual union of Cinderella and her Prince.
I also have to take a point of for the lack of a villain song.
Overall, so far Lady Tremaine is, in my opinion, the most pathetic villain being that she really didn’t have much of an effect on Cinderella and inadvertently actually helped Cinderella.
I am going to score her a 4.
- Maleficent
Similarly to the previous two villains we have looked at, Maleficent is driven by jealousy because she wasn’t invited to the celebration of the birth of the baby Aurora. As motives go, this in my opinion, is a pretty rubbish one. I mean that hall was pretty packed with people, maybe there wasn’t enough room, it may not have been personal.
Maleficent is a bit of a drama queen and immediately makes many enemies by using her powers for evil and cursing aurora to death by her 16th birthday. I do have to say though that death by pricking your finger on a spinning wheel is a really uninspired method of death, if you’re going to be a villain who is as much of a drama queen as Maleficent, why not have the cause of death be something more interesting, like, well, I can’t think of anything, I’m not an evil being but I’m sure someone could think of something better than an ouchy on your finger. However this is still better planned Merryweather making her wish to let Aurora sleep for 100 hundred years rather than magicing away all of the spinning wheels, I mean how hard can that spell be, if you can magic beauty and song why can’t use do a simple vanishing spell.
So because of this curse Prince Stephen and his wife make the foolish decision to send their daughter, the love and light of their lives away to live with three fairies, stopping them from seeing Auroras first steps, hearing her first words and watching her grow into a young woman. Aurora has to grow up without knowing who she truly is. The fairies also have to live without magic and pretending they are someone they are not. This isn’t down to Maleficent this is down to the adults stupid decisions.
The coolest thing about Maleficent and why I think she is a lot of peoples favourite is because she can turn herself into a dragon. I mean the Evil Queen can make herself old and ugly and Jafar can turn himself into a snake and later a genie, but that is nothing in comparison to turning yourself into fire breathing dragon. In the end though she is a little disappointing, she picks on Prince Phillip and fails to kill him. She has him on the edge of a cliff with a fiery pit down bellow and she is still the one that gets stabbed and falls down to her death.
If you really look at what she did, she cursed a village for a few hours, everyone had a cat nap, big whoop. Maleficent, you may have style but your plan sucks and you don’t have a villain song. You are scored a 5.
- Queen Ursula
As you can see, Ursula has cursed a lot of mermaids as these are the creatures that Ursula refers to as her garden. Ursula shows no remorse for their entrapment, on the contrary she seems to be keeping them as prizes, trophy’s even of all the wicked things she has done. It looks as though some of these creatures are used in her spell making, which shows she is capable of murder, however this may come as a blessing to those creatures as I’m sure a life lived in a bottle, in fear of one day being used for some sick and twisted spell by the person who probably put you there isn’t a life you are going to want to live. This still doesn’t stop Ariel agreeing to Ursula’s terms and conditions of without even having a proper think about the consequences. Ariel doesn’t even listen to the input of Sebastian who calls Ursula a monster and a demon. I don’t know if this shows how cunning and influential Ursula is, or how stupid Ariel is. Also in defence of Ursula, the mermaids who have come to her have done so of their own free will and are under no obligation to accept Ursula’s help. I’m sure Ursula has targeted them because of the difficult position they are in, and used Flotsam and Jetsam to help her, but they all could have said no.
If Ariel hadn’t gone to Ursula for help, then she wouldn’t have stood a chance with Eric. I don’t truly believe that King Triton would have ever changed his mind and turned her human or him into a mermaid without Ariel doing something drastic like what she ended up doing in the film, so really Ariel and Prince Eric’s love is down to Ursula. Wow, the one thing she didn’t want to do and that’s the one things that she made happen. She really is a terrible villain. On the other hand, she does have a song and a pretty good one. It’s not one that has appealed to me until more recently but I like how it represents Ursula really well, it is different to songs we have heard before and it helps move the story along.
At the ending battle when Ursula, already a pretty powerful sea witch, gains the trident and becomes master of all the oceans, she still can’t defeat one tiny little boat, literally one big wave or one storm or one whack of her now giant tentacles could have murdered all of the people on that boat and then she would have no problems. Her plan would have succeeded, but nope she is defeated by that tiny boat and crushed to death. You lose massive points for that Ursula. You get 7 points.
- Jafar
Jafar is the equivalent of Maleficent in style, they both have a sceptre, both have a bird as their closest allies, both are skinny and tall and a big emphasis on headwear and colour co-ordination.
Jafar however has been building up his plan for a long time and has an end goal which is something he is definitely going to get point for because in all the other films we have covered so far, all the villains are a little bit too spur of the moment. This also gives him a motive, and yes that motive is jealousy, but it’s a jealousy that is a lot more logical. Many kings and queens have been murdered in order for the murderer to become triumphant. I mean just look at Stardust where the king basically tells his sons to fight and kill to become king.
If I were to list all of Jafar’s evil quality’s then we would be here for a long time so I am going to only name the main ones.
- He is completely fine with murder whether by himself or others, as long as it benefits himself. He is also quite creative when it comes to his methods, for example letting someone be buried alive by sand in a sand timer is quite original.
- He can transfigure himself into a snake. Of all the animals, for me anyway, a snake, a spider or a scorpion, these are probably the most terrifying and disgusting which is perfect for a villain.
Something I am going to have to deduct points for is the fact that after he believed he got his dream, he was the ruler and Aladdin was dead, the city looked ominous, Jafar looked like he was ruining the city. This may have been his plan, but really a better plan would be to be the best ruler ever, have your public love you by doing good, not have them fear you and hate you.
- He tries to force Jasmine to marry him. Thinking he can force someone to love him against their will is going too far.
In my opinion, Jafar had the worst ending, he was trapped for years and years to come, to grant wishes for someone else. The Genie has explained what it feels like to go through that and so you know that the experience will be soul crushing for Jafar. However this film ending was fantastic. Having a villain bring themselves down by a logical stupidity, that is just genius.
Without a villains song I am going to have to give Jafar an 8.
- Ratcliffe
Ratcliffe is going over to America with two goals, firstly to make money on the gold he thinks is there and second is that they are going to fight with the Indians. This aggressive and selfish behaviour just shows that he is the villain of the film, it also doesn’t help that Ratcliffe was already rich and therefore didn’t need all of the money he was hoping to find.
Ratcliffe isn’t the smartest of the villains we have looked at so far, he seems to be supportive when anyone does something right, but honestly all of Ratcliffe’s workers know he isn’t all he makes himself out to be.
What makes Ratcliffe a very relatable villain is the fact that he thinks that more money will bring him happiness when we all know it won’t. I think deep down he wants to be as well liked as John Smith, if not more and really gaining more money isn’t the way to go about it. He is a villain that has shown his week side and this is something we haven’t seen before.
It is really hard to write correctly about the character of Ratcliffe because he doesn’t like or accept the Indians, simply because they are different and this is not okay but back then when this was really happening this was the normal thing to believe. White people did believe that they were better than the Indians. We obviously know now that this isn’t acceptable, but to criticise Ratcliffe for this belief seems wrong. Just like in the same way I can’t criticise the Indians for their judgment on the invaders and their belief that the white people wouldn’t even believe.
As villains go, he is one of the most pathetic. He doesn’t learn, that is his problem, he was given a proper chance to have his sins forgiven and become a good guy and what does he try and do? He attempts to shoot one of the Indians and instead shoots John Smith, the only person Ratcliffe has probably ever admired and he shoots him.
When I think of Disney villains, Ratcliffe doesn’t even come into my mind, I think that explains why I’m going to score him a 2.
- Dr. Facilier
The manipulative con artist that is Dr. Facilier shows his villainous tendency’s when he turns Naveen, a prince, into a frog by drawing out some of his blood and using voodoo magic with the help of his friends “from the other side”. He also turns Lawrence against the prince and works with Dr. Facilier to become rich and powerful. One question this arises, is why? All we know is that after Lawrence, who is disguised to look like prince Naveen, marries rich girl Charlotte, he will have a lot of money which I assume he will have to share with Dr. Facilier and that’s only if Dr. Facilier doesn’t double cross him and steal all the money and kill him. We know he is capable of murder because he kills Ray by stepping on him. This is one of the few deaths you actually see followed through because unlike with Snow White and the Beast from Beauty and the Beast, he doesn’t come back to life. Anyway Dr. Facilier by the end of the film has led Lawrence down a path that he doesn’t come back from. He has lost his job, any chance of a reference and most importantly his morals.
Dr. Facilier did not turn Tiana into frog so I can’t credit him with that, but he did consciously decide to leave her as a frog, stopping her from living her dream, which for the whole film you are rooting for her to do, and then it looks as though he is about to personally kill her. This however is where he meets his gruesome end as he gets dragged to the underworld by some angry friends who obviously haven’t been paid back. Hey, I wonder if that person is Ursula after she died? Anyway, one can only imagine what gruesome end Dr. Facilier met down there but I’m sure it wasn’t pretty.
My favourite thing about Dr. Facilier is his song “Friends on the other side”. It is probably in my top 3 of villains songs and it is used to move the story along. I’m going to give him an 8.5.
- Mother Gothel
Selfish is not something anyone should aspire to be, but being selfish does not on its own make you a villain so I don’t believe that at the beginning of the film Gothel was a villain. The moment she did become a villain is the minute when she snuck into the King and Queens room, cut a piece of Rapunzel’s hair, it turned brown and she realised that she was going to have to steal the baby in order to obtain its powers. For hundreds of years she had used the flowers power, this wasn’t something she was going to give up easily.
Vanity has been what has driven Gothel to never return the princess or let her out of the tower. Although one of her crimes have been that she has never shown Rapunzel the love of a true mother and has belittled her on occasions, she has given Rapunzel things to do, she has never starved her and she has never forced her to work from dawn till dusk. Rapunzel has been allowed to read, paint, cook, learn candle making, dress making, chess and much more.
Although she has broken the hearts of the King and Queen and the city of Corona and stopped Rapunzel knowing who she truly was for all those years, the moment you truly knew that she had crossed the line was when she decided to personally stab Flynn Rider. I was debating whether it was when she was going to let him be hanged, but really that was Flynn’s own fault, he shouldn’t have been a thief.
The moment she tied Rapunzel up with a cloth over her mouth and you see her trying to pull her into the basement was very disturbing. I mean did she really think that was a good idea, that she could continue doing this?
I guess you could argue that because Gothel allowed Rapunzel to heal Flynn she was partially redeeming herself, but no, this was her trying to suck Rapunzel back into her delusional world that she is a good person. It was all about keeping Rapunzel happy enough to feel like she had some control but really Gothel was in control the whole time. That is until Flynn was the hero.
Gothel hurts Pascal by kicking him, however it is important to note that she could have murdered him by stepping on him, she could have used her anger and frustration to kill Pascal but strange as it sounds, she didn’t have the heart to, why? Because she isn’t that good of a villain, not in comparison to Dr. Facilier who squished Ray in a second. Gothel definitely looses points for her weakness, but she gains them back with one of the best villain songs. Overall I am going to give her 8 points.
- Hans
Hans, I don’t really know where to begin with Hans, he was the unexpected villain. He really did fool me. Hans turns out to be a character that prays on the week, is very manipulative, has come to terms with what he was going to do and is willing to go to almost any lengths to get there.
Hans leaves Anna to die when she is at her lowest point, he is uncaring, selfish and really, there was no reason why those two couldn’t have ruled Arendelle together because actually he was doing a really good job and when he was given the order by Anna to be in charge. He handed out blankets and opened the castle to the people. He also stops Weselton from taking over and yes I do get that this is because he wants Arendelle for himself, but it’s also because he knows that he can do a better job and I would have to agree with that.
Because Disney wanted to really make it a shock having Hans turn out to be evil, they didn’t leave many clues about his true nature, except one, he let Weselton cronies on the trip to save Anna because he knew that Weselton would instruct them to get rid of Anna and or Elsa which means that Hans himself wouldn’t have to. He just has to look like the nice guy ordering for no one to harm Elsa. This just goes to show how sneaky and how much of a forward thinker Hans can be.
There are two scenes that perplex me though. The first is when Hans and Anna meet. I don’t know if Hans knew who Anna was, when he met her. I’m going to go with, he didn’t, only because, if your Hans you’re going to want to put yourself where Anna is likely to be and that is in the palace waiting to greet her royal guests, not out in public near the water. If I’m right then Hans first reaction to a girl he had just met was a kind one, BUT, as Hans would have known, a lot of royalty would have been there and bumping into anyone might have meant bumping into a queen or princess with whom he could impress. With this kink smoothed out, let’s move onto my second quandary.
Why did prince Hans stop Elsa from turning into a monster. She was well on her way to killing to men in her ice palace, yes they were trying to kill her, but does that mean it’s okay to kill them, no. If Hans had let her kill these men, I believe the film would have gone way more differently. Hans kept her a hero. No one else was going with the intension to save Elsa so why did he? I can’t satisfactorily answer this question, only to say that I guess it was part of his plan.
So Hans leaves Anna to die in a pretty callous way and then attempts to have Elsa murdered. After this though I still don’t hate him. I honestly think he could have done good for Arendelle, I mean just look how far he was willing to go to become king. His priority was Arendelle. He was giving them a ruler, unlike Elsa who was shutting everyone out and Anna who was just going along with it. Even news of how badly their country was going was reaching other islands.
To be clear, I don’t like Hans, and I definitely think he is a villain, but he isn’t the worst and actually there is more too him than meets the eye. It’s because Elsa and Anna by the end are so good that Hans can’t win.
I am giving the villains points depending on how evil they are and because I don’t think that Hans is really that bad of a guy I can only give him a 6, but just know that he has been the hardest to score.
So Who Won?
There we have it, a very long run down of my opinion on the Disney Princess villains and if you have been keeping track this is how the leader board goes:
- The Evil Queen/ The Old hag with 9 points
- Dr. Facilier with 8.5 points
- Mother Gothel and Jafar with 8 points
- Ursula with 7 points
- Hans with 6 points
- Maleficent with 5 points
- Lady Tremaine with 4 points
- Ratcliffe with 2 points
Please do let me know in the comments what you think.
Thanks for reading, I’ll see you next time.
Disney Inside 
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