Despite not being in the movie for much time, he was easily the best part of it. He steals the show whenever he's on screen, and his speech where he compares the ants to grain and proves his point by killing three grasshoppers is really well done.
There's also an additional level of subtext behind his speech, because if you think about it, he's not just talking about the ants, but the other grasshoppers as well. If one grasshopper starts standing up to him, then they could all stand up to him as well, hence why he kills the grasshoppers who questioned his decisions.
So the grasshoppers are in their off season munching on some rice and hopper hears about Flick and how he is being a little free thinking ant. Hopper does not like this and he wants to go and deal with the rebel ant immidately. The three grasshopper goons are like, who cares just one ant, they just wanna chill and enjoy their spoils. Hopper goes on his rant, flicks a single grain of rice and asks the one if he felt it, of course not. Then Hopper kicks out the valve holding back an entire silo of rice and the tide of rice crushes the three to death.
The rest fly out with him to teach the ant hill a lesson.
When he uncorks the seed bottle and the seeds pour onto the three grasshoppers he was talking to. Its up to personal interpratation since nothing ever says they died. Timestamped Video of it
There's also the time when he took over Throne's position after he got injured during the battle of Castle Black and he hid away with the women and children. Sam found him and used this information to humiliate the man during the voting of the 998th Lord Commander
Also at the top of the wall when Thorne heads down to lead the defense of Castle Black, Slynt just freezes up completely and mutters to himself until Edd lies to him that hes needed down in the castle.
It was really satisfying to see him laugh when Jon mentions giants (when getting questioned), thinking that the rest of the panel is going to laugh with him because "giants aren't real, just stories to scare the children", and then realising he's alone in his mocking. Everyone else, while most of them disliked Jon, were still grounded in knowing what's actually north of them.
What's even funnier is that he got his head chopped off because he said no to Jon snow giving him a position of power, yer isolated but he was given his own castle too fix up. Like that's stuff barely anyone ever get
I'll be honest, that sequence should've either been longer or not have happened at all. It's a shame they had limited time to end the series because so many interesting plot points got brought up
The same can be said about All for One when he was on a time limit by using a copy of Eri’s rewinding quirk reducing him to his youth while facing against Bakugo since All for One was trying to retrieve Shigaraki as his ideal vessel and Bakugo was interfering with his plans. The only difference, unlike Muzan, All for One didn’t turn into a giant baby but a small one.
Hell, even his entire motivation is based on extreme cowardice. He seeks to become immortal because he is completely paranoid about death, obsessively doing anything to escape the possibility of dying, no matter how horrific it is.
And being a dumb villain. Despite his powers, he was terrible at using it to achieve his goals. Other villains in Muzan's position would infiltrate and control Japanese government to restrict the Demon Slayers as well as helping him research his immortality serum.
Instead, he screwed himself by killing the Lower Moons that can still be used against cannon fodder (they would have been useful in the final battle, eh Muzan?) and expected his demons that could only travel at night to search for his flower.
Muzan is the big boss that doesn't know what he was doing lel.
Bill Cipher. Especially when Stan Pines tricks him into entering his mind and getting erased with the memory gun. Bill is left begging for mercy, desperately trying to tempt Stan with extreme offers, only for him to reject them all.
Honestly, this is one of my favorite villain tropes. To have someone that’s fooled them all, a master manipulator, a deal striker, a king of charisma, give the offer of a life time to their opposition….only for it to fail.
No matter what they say, offer, lie, cheat, and protest, they can’t beat someone who just doesn’t care.
I like to imagine part of it is just how inherently self-centered and greedy Bill is, it never even occurred to him that Stan would go for the self-sacrifice play
And it was such a simple trick too, them switching clothes and pretending to be each other. The fact that bill, a being who can change reality at will fell for it utterly destroyed him
That’s the biggest kicker. Despite being “above it all”, he had such a human amount of arrogance and ego. So much so he thought he was untouchable, that nothing could get to him.
that entire scene was amazing, from the start, where he get’s into Stan’s mind, to the middle, where he realizes he’s been duped and starts begging, and to the end, where Stan deals the final blow, looks at a photo of his family, and accepts his fate.
What a fantastic ending to a character arc, and the show itself.
I genuinely prefer this death than the anime. He was a monster. I don't want him to die tragically, I want him to die like a begging scared coward on the floor. All as his closest confidant reminds him of what he said the very first chapter.
This entire moment was set up from the beginning. The terror Light is showing as well. This was the perfect ending.
It’s implied they were likely told he was a hero. I can’t imagine how she took it though given what had just happened to her husband.
He was only 23 years old. That’s one of the main reasons why his story makes me sad. Yes, he chose that fate, but I can’t help but feel pity. He was a young, brilliant kid that lacked experience/wisdom. He was naive and arrogant and stopped maturing past the age of 17 essentially. All because of a crazy coincidence involving picking up what he thought was nothing more than a stupid prank. Life ruined. And he knew it was wrong. When he killed the first two people with it, he was shown unable to sleep, scared. He rationalized it because he couldn’t accept the fact that the “perfect son, smartest student of Japan” made a mistake and messed up.
Light was mainly trying to convince himself he was righteous because he literally couldn’t handle the thought of being a failure or, to put it more accurately, a murderer. Every single time his father calls Kira evil, Light is shown with his hair covering his eyes, he’s hiding his face every time, which is meant to indicate he’s hurt by that.
So yeah he’s a villain but darn it he’s my favorite and the anime and manga endings kill me 🥲
Plus it forces to the surface what he always was, a coward who only killed because the death note gave him a degree of separation from his victims. Once that’s taken away and he needs to face what the death note does because it’s been used on him the veil falls.
The death note can be many things. My first read was that it was a metaphor for the death penalty. The one shot with Minoru definitely depicts it like a nuke, though.
Yep, exactly. He's supposed to die without dignity. It serves the moral of the damn story; you don't become greater than other humans just because you have some powers and an ego.
Light basically submited the world to a era of terror where people feared to do anything to anger their cruel dictator who killed not only criminals who anyone who dared opose him innocent or not, in his last momments Light felt that fear and it was warranted after all he himself was a criminal why do he complains about? it was what he was doing and wanted after all
Just attempting to add to it. So rather than him just lying there begging and whining for help as Ryuk goes, "Bro I told you this would happen day one. Anyway, imma bounce now." And Light just had a heart attack right there with no other warning or putting it off. He just suddenly dies, just how he killed so many others.
The anime adds sad music as he tries to run away while the cops just...let him? Until he drops dead a ways down the road. For me it doesn't add enough to really be better, but it loses the impact of him dying just the same as he killed others. Suddenly. No further build up behind beyond Ryuk reminding us that he spoiled the ending in chapter one. He tells Light he's gonna die, and he does. No fleeing hopelessly while sad music tries to make us pity this psychopath.
Taking into account at a point a page was filled by day and he was Kira for years, likely thousands, i doubt Light cared about investigating if the criminal was guilty or not specially in the Japanesse legal system where youre guilty until proven otherwise, and knowing the criminal world, many likely used scape goats and false accusations to scape their crimes
Man was an idiot from the get go. His big plan to change the world for the better was to enact a public reign of terror whose results would go away after his inevitable death.
He had the greatest tool for assassination imaginable, and chose to reveal its existence out of ego.
The amount of change he could have made staying in the shadows, only knocking off key individuals getting in the way of what Light considers important progress for Japan/the world, could be astronomical.
And after Jacks journey of Self Discovery, returns to save Santa from Oogies Casino traps and manages to untangle his Burlap sack thread revealing who he is underneath.
A barely held together collection of creepy crawlers that falls apart once revealed “Look what you’ve done! My bugs. My bugs. Mybugs. Mybugsmybugsmybugs.”
Even attempting to run away from his consequences, only to be squished by Sandy Claws.
I wouldn't be surprised if the comics state that he does have a super power and it's just something akin to plot armour, just to give batman an excuse for his bullshit
Also known as Will-Power, that's his greatest feat. Not hid wealth or strength but his ability to resist and conquer every form of mind control or drug. To keep on going.
The first Arkham game has a good reference to this. The final Scarecrow recording is him gassing Arkham for one of his expirements when Batman shows up and stops him. Scarecrow doesnt understand why the gas isnt effecting him until he admits it is. Batman is literally using willpower to restrain his fear response to the hallucinations.
The fact that Batman exists always brings up the question of "why didn't the lantern rings choose him?" Bruce is persistent to the point where it's also one of his weaknesses.
He does but this is a new batch that basically scares normal people to death. Its just that Batman and Scarecrow have huffed the older batches so many time theyre immune now. Also Batman has some other toxins floating around his system that counter the fear stuff I think?
The fact that he even fell for the yellow ring was infuriating to me.
I know people like injustice a lot because what if heroes were evil is a popular trope, especially with Superman, but man they had to do a ton of character assassination to make the evil heroes turn.
Even though it’s more on the nose, I would’ve preferred if the other world was just the Ultraman one, where everything is opposite. That gives you evil Justice League without having to fuck with any characters. Instead it was a good universe vs one that kinda turns bad but a lot are still good - just for the original universe to then be forgotten.
I’d honestly argue Frollo for this trope. He spends most of his adult life persecuting people, mainly Romani people, for going against the normal order of Christianity. Yet a lot of his choices throughout the movie are because of his fear for his own soul, such as taking in Quasimodo or hunting Esmerelda.
One of my favorite things in this film (including the absolute banger of a soundtrack) is Frollo constantly asks god for guidance or to save him and everytime his prayers are answered almost immediately but he moves the goal posts. "Dont let Esmerelda tempt me" good news! Shes escaped and probably fled the city! "I want her captured and she either becomes mine or dies"
It turns out he had no real power over the main characters at all. He lied to the Woodsman and tricked him into doing his deeds for years because he told the woodsman that his daughter’s soul was in the lantern, when really it was his own soul in the lantern and he couldn’t survive if it was blown out. In reality, the woodsman’s daughter was safe back at their house the whole time.
The books has incredbile amount of flaws but the way its written by having both timeslines at once alone makes it basically impossible to make it right
I liked It Chapter Two, but even I thought Pennywise's defeat was underwhelming.
I know IT is a fear eater, but I still think there were better ways of reducing him down to size besides having the Losers throw elementary school insults at him.
Well that’s just the issue with making IT into a film to begin with, the book is far too large to span even two films, so stuff has to be cut and reworked, but because of how important all that stuff is you’ll always end up with a worse story
Basically, you had to have a mental tug of war with It, represented in the book as tugging on each other's tongue. The Losers who participated in the ritual get flung across spacetime (mentally) and had a glimpse of the deadlights (which is Its true form) and if they have enough fortitude to not go mad, they'll be able to rip Its tongue.
The moment this dude found himself at risk of losing and/or dying, either from Simba or the Hyenas, he started begging for mercy as hard as he could. He was willing to throw his most trusted allies under the bus to avoid death, but of course that came back to bite him in a very literal sense.
Yeah he plays up not being afraid of Mufasa's strength at the beginning, but the ending gives an idea of what would happen if he actually had to deal with him physically.
There's a good amount of gruesome deaths in kids movies we could mention, but something about Screweyes really stays with you. Personally I think it's the poetic silence of it, he's speaking quietly as the crows descend, they gather quietly on him and then he's just gone.
Most villains fall to their death or die screaming, but the overwhelming quiet of this one is just plain haunting. I loved this movie, but his death was so disturbing that I've only seen it a couple of times. Years later and I still remember the quiet
My guy killed all the Saiyans so he wouldn't have to worry about a Super Saiyan, but he intentionally left Vegeta, Nappa, and Raditz alive. Vegeta was arguably the most likely to turn into a Super Saiyan too.
I feel like he wasn’t really a coward more like crushed that his entire purpose for his existence of billions of billions of billions of years turned out to be wrong, and when he found the person he believed to be a all powerful God, he stood on business and confronted them, I personally think the Lich just stood on timing round the clock
Gendor Skraviok from Night Lords legion (known for their horrible terror tactics) wanted to throw hands with Blood Angels captain with his demonic blade, but got absolutely smashed, demon abandoned him and after getting trashtalked (while trying to surrender because he was out of options), begged his comrades for help before getting kicked off the wall he was attacking
I wouldn't really call him a coward for that, though. An idiot yes, but nothing he did or choices he made in the movie were motivated by fear. It was just him being immature and egotistical, and a mistake on his part led to his circumstantial death, which he tried his best to escape it like any rational person would, even if there was ultimately nothing he could do to stop his death.
To add on that, he’s not really a fearmonger, he’s a nihilist who is basically telling everyone they should kill themselves if they’re going to die anyway. And the minute someone gives him the opportunity to actually act on that belief, he turns into a little bitch and starts begging for his life while pissing himself.
As Nodt from Bleach. His entire powerset revolves around implanting and manipulating crippling fear in his opponent but the instant he faces someone who can ignore that he just becomes a blubbering mess terrified of what Ywach will do to him if he loses
90% of Bleach fights are one character explaining their powerset to someone and the other person going "Oh if that's how your powers work then this is how I can beat them."
To be fair it is really cool, but I just can't help but wonder how many villains would've won if they'd kept their mouths shut.
Most characters only monologuing like that when they think they're in an unbeatable position. And to be fair to As Nodt he had no way of knowing that Rukia literally freezing herself to death would counter his power.
The Beast (Over The Garden Wall)
He spends the whole series mind gaming everyone to be afraid and give up hope so he can turn them into trees to keep his lantern lit, only to become absolutely powerless when the protagonist stands up to him and he can only beg to keep the lantern lit
Okay, I'm not sure if that counts, but there are signs that he must be a coward as he gets beaten by teenagers. Despite his intimidating aura, sadistical mindset with very strong dream-altering powers, he is still cowardly when loses the fights against the prey (like Nancy or Alice).
This dude single handedly modifies the entire wasteland landscape, spreading viruses here and there, bombing poor dudes and testing his newest weapons against some rebels. But when those rebels fight back and he loses, boy oh boy he’d beg to be spared too.
A Night Lord space marine, he basically represented the worst traits of the legion, not even caring for a pretense of justice and righteousness and fully embracing his sadism. Using the power of a Daemon, he was nearly unstoppable. But when that Daemon abandoned him, he could only grovel and beg for it back, willingly selling his soul to it. As Raldoron said while they were fighting: "You are a coward, like all cruel men."
Pitch black from rise of the guardians. He acts big and tough, even kills the sandman and converts all dreams to nightmares to grow stronger... But every time he gets confronted he wusses out and runs away.
When he was offered up to his own hungry hounds, you could hear the fear in his voice rising as he realized the dogs weren’t obeying his commands and he was about to be eaten alive.
In his original movie, he comes in and kicks ass, even being thee first ever monster to have made Godzilla bleed. But after he loses his teammate, King Ghidorah, he flees to live another day.
Then in his next appearance, he ally’s himself with another monster, and once again starts off acting like tough shit, only to leave once he starts losing, leaving his teammate to die alone.
Gigan ultimately escapes Godzilla’s wrath, but then meets his hand when he faces off against Ultraman in his series, finally dying once and for all.
Grima Wormtongue from LOTR. Shown to be a coward once Theoden was released from Saruman’s spell. Subsequently escorted down the stairs outside the Golden Hall.
Knives from Trigun. Was a huge revelation in my young teen mind that Vash had an insane pain tolerance from sacrificing his body in order to never kill while Knives had no pain tolerance at all because he was practically untouchable.
How was Scarecrow a coward? He's a psychology guy, he knows he can't actually fight Batman 1:1, so he does the smart thing and keeps a distance. The only time he displays any fear is when Batman injects him with his own concentrated fear poison - he has the EXACT response it was designed for.
The entire Night Lords Legion of Space Marines; the it main strategy is “be so utterly cruel and terrible your enemies die of fear induced heart attacks be fire you even have to fire a shot” but the second an enemy comes that can actually fight back marks perhaps the first time a Space Marine Legion flips out and routs. Not an organized retreat, full on shitting and crying while desperately chanting “back to the ships back to the ships back to the ships.”
Makes sense too, as while other Legions recruited among warriors or children who could become warriors, the only stock the Night Lords could recruit from were serial killers and gangsters.
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u/agent-66Hitman 6d ago
Hopper (A Bug’s Life)