For a century, Disney has been capable of creating truly nightmarish content, able to keep every child up at night. In its arsenal of villains, very few have been able to top the one that truly makes us shiver even as adults, and finally, it has been brought up.
Leave it to Reddit to bring some truth to the table, and when the original poster posed the question of the worst Disney villain, which raised questions about whether it is just villainous or poorly written, the comments overwhelmingly pointed out that the most unsettling villain is, by far, Frollo. In case you might’ve forgotten him, he’s the genocidal abuser from Hunchback of Notre Dame, a character so unsettling that he would undoubtedly make me cross the street if I saw him coming my way.
Not only is Frollo absolutely frightening in his appearance and overall stance, but he’s also a fanatical religious zealot with an intolerance for sinners. For more than twenty years, he dedicated his life to eradicating the Romani people, often referring to them as “gypsies,” believing them to be the most heinous of all wrongdoers. Combine his terrible nature and extremist beliefs with his psychological and religious abuse towards Quasimodo, along with his questionable actions against Esmeralda, and boom, you get something truly nightmarish that could totally exist in real life (in fact – it has).
Alternatively, aside from Frollo as the obvious answer finally getting ripped apart by Reddit users (as it should be), some popular replies included Cruella, Scar, and Mother Gothel – though I’m still gonna say genocide is worse than any of the crimes done by the aforementioned characters. Well, with the exception of Cruella, after all, murdering puppies is right up there on the scale of the heinous crimes.
Of course, you can also argue that the original post may create some confusion, especially among users who simply decided to share their least favorite villains purely because they’re terribly written. And yes, most of these answers included Prince Hans and Michael Yagoobian.
Regardless of what anyone might believe, I hereby claim that Frollo is definitely the creepiest villain Disney has ever produced – but at least he’s brilliantly written. And no, I will take no criticism.