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My top 30 favourite female villains of all time (10-1)

First part (30-21)

Second part (20-11)

Please, first read part 1 and part 2 linked above, don't click "Read More" without having read the first two posts in their entirety.

Number 10: Maleficent (Sleeping Beauty)

It's a tale as old as time.

For those of you who have been sleeping for 100 years, Maleficent is the main villain of Sleeping Beauty, and one of the most iconic Disney villains of all time.

However, before I go on to explain what I like about Maleficent, I'd first like to get a weight off of my chest:

I believe every single version of Maleficent after her first on screen debut heavily mischaracterizes the character, and makes her appear quite dull and boring in my opinion.

I'm not just talking about the versions of the character who deviate so much from the source material that they might as well be considered OCs (aka live action Maleficent and Descendants), no, I'm also referring to versions of the character that try to adhere to her original SB characterization but fall flat because they forgot something or changed a key aspect by accident/will without realising how that would throw off the entire character's equation.

The only alternative version of Maleficent who's mostly true to the original character is the one from The House Of Mouse and that's it.

Let me get something out of the way: Maleficent is an incredibly difficult character to write, and a prime example of why simple pure evil villains are as hard to write as complicated ones.

For starters, the crow that Maleficent carries around in the movie isn't just an accessory, but an important part of her character put there by the animators to fulfill a storytelling requirement:

Diablo gives Maleficent someone to bounce off her dialogue with, but not just that, Diablo is someone who Maleficent can open up with, he allows us to see a softer side of the draconic fairy, and opens up a lot of inferable depth and nuance for the character;

It's truly the small details that really make up Maleficent's character, things like her bored expression while she's sitting on her throne after she captured Philip, or the fact that, apparently, in the 16 years where Aurora was gone she couldn't sleep calm nights, small things like that add up to make Maleficent's character.

I know that this feels more like a critique of the modern Maleficent rather than a tribute to the character, but there's a good reason for it: her original debut was so good, that it speaks for itself, especially that final battle.

Like, girl shoots lightnings from her sceptre, creates a forest of thorns and turns herself into a dragon all the while the most epic gothic score in all of Disney plays at full bombastic strength, and the dragon's sound design is made up of the most weirdly fitting object noises and like...

That's PEAK.

I remember a younger me thinking this was the greatest action scene in all of animation before I saw the Kung Fu Panda movies, and I still hold it in high regards despite those and other movies'existence.

Unfortunately, I think Maleficent truly peaked when her career began; she started off with a bang, and then anything following that were just smaller explosions; but still: one of my favourite Disney villains of all time, and one of my favourite villainesses ever.

Number 9: Black Heron (DuckTales 2017)

I guess this is a spoiler to DuckTales fans for the male villain list, but thinking about it for a while, I really couldn't keep the couple separated, not when Black Heron is just that much of a b##ch in her own right.

Black Heron is a villain of the DuckTales reboot of 2017, who started out as a one time only threat before transitioning to a much bigger role later on in the show.

What I really love about Black Heron, is the level of unsubversive subversion present with her; in a way, she's actually even more of a twist villain than her romantic partner is.

When you first see her episode at the start of the series, you think she's just a "Villain of the week" meant to just serve as a threat for Scrooge, Webby and Beakley to bond over.

Her plan in this episode is rather silly, and it makes you underestimate her greatly, though it doesn't take away from how much of a threat she really is. At the end of it, she disappears, but there is room open to the possibility that she isn't dead.

She was a pretty fun One Time Baddie, and it'd be nice to see more of her.

She's absent throughout the entirety of season 2, and you forget about her existence; at this point, if you weren't fully enamored by her first appearance like I was, you probably are just like "Ah! Ok." when you see her again.

Then, she reappears in season 3, where she shows up a lot more often and plays a major role now.

And here... Is when you start to realise something about Heron.

As the story unfolds, it finally hits you: "Wow, this character really has zero redeeming qualities.", which is, rather astonishing, considering every other recurring villain of the show had at least one moment of humanity, but it's okay, since she really isn't the main focus of any other episode anyway.

Then, the show ends; this character's story ends in a very casual manner, but it's fine, since she was just a side villain, and it was a pretty good conclusion to her arc anyway, so you aren't bothered by the suddenness of it all.

But, as you sit back... and think about the show again... you come to realise that all of the bad events that happened throughout the show are kinda her fault too.

The twist with Heron is not that she's evil or a villain, the twist is that she is pure evil and tied with her boss for the main villain of the show.

And when I say that she's pure evil, I mean that she's really evil for the sake of being evil in the purest form of its meaning, as in that's the only reason behind her actions.

This may surprise you, but there are actually very few pure evil villains whose main motivation is doing bad: Big Jack Horner wants all the magic in the world. Chancellor Palpatine wants to become Emperor. They both fundamentally want UNLIMITED POWAA, but unlimited power is still a different motivation from evil for the sake of being evil.

But Heron, really seems to be doing what she's doing just to do evil; she doesn't even care about her squad's objectives, she just views them as a way to inflict as much damage as possible.

And that's what makes Black Heron so cool: it's extremely hard to make this type of motivation for villains work, but Heron makes it function effortlessly; I'd like to go more in depth on why that's the case, but I think I've made this section lengthy enough.

But what really pushes Heron over the edge into truly amazing villain territory is that she technically won in the end.

She got what she wanted.

Her main objective was to make someone snap and embrace their worst self, and that's exactly what she did.

How villainous.....

Also, her and her partner? Actually Disney's greatest villain power couple, screw concept Magnifico and Amaya, unless Shego X Drakken is that good, this is the only villainous duo I'll ever truly need in my life.

Number 8: Mane Girl (MARVEL) (Moon Girl And Devil Dinosaur)

BEHOLD!

You thought my tastes weren't weird enough yet?

Check this out!

Mane is... a very peculiar addition to the Marvel/Disney series of Moon Girl And Devil Dinosaur, and the main antagonist of one episode.

Mane is, quite frankly, one of the most creative takes on an arch nemesis I've ever seen, and is tied with Dark Vlad from Wakfu for favourite one-shot villain ever.

This was the show's most talked about episode before season 2 came along, and for good reasons: this episode tackles the prejudice that African Americans face for the way their hairs look.

Without talking too much about the episode itself (there's already plenty of great analyses on YouTube), where the episode truly shines for me is with the inclusion of Mane as a living representation of Lunella's self hatred coming to life in order to harm her.

I don't know how many fans of Mane there are out there or if she's secretly the star of a hidden cult inside the fanbase, but for me, this is my favourite character in the show and I'm so obsessed with her.

In fact, I was even thinking of making her my new profile picture on this site too, since I already use her for my Reddit and YouTube accounts, so that I could officially brand her as my version of Tamatoa.

First of all: the animators did a stellar job bringing this delightful mass of strings to life; her body fluition and every single face she makes is immediately iconic, WHERE ARE MY MANE MEMES AT.

Second things second, Mane is the textbook definition of a dumb idea executed perfectly, which is my favourite type of idea: somehow, she manages to be the most personal threat Moon Girl ever faces in the first season despite having almost zero buildup and barely being on screen for more than 5 minutes; it may even be a stretch to call her Lunella's nemesis since she's not very evil (despite attempting to take over the town), but when you think about it, Mane is just her version of Venom, aka an antagonist accidentally created by the hero due to a flaw in their character.

I truly believe Mane could have been the main villain for an extended arc in the show, as the way she executes her schemes in this episode almost make her look like an S tier super villain, and the action scene at the end of the episode is super epic and also my favourite fight scene of the whole season: the music, the animation and the story all come together to create such an impeccable work of cinema, brilliantly showcasing the interior struggle that Lunella has to go through in order to overcome herself.

I'd honestly be down to doing a 1 hour long analysis of Mane on YouTube if someone asked me; I doubt I'd ever make it for real, due to me already struggling as much as I do to realise my ideas, but I wouldn't be OPPOSED to it.

I wouldn't say this is my favourite episode of the show, but it's definitely the one that impacted me the most, and honestly, this description perfectly fits how I feel about Mane herself.

I don't even think you need to be of colour to love it as much as I do: the themes of self hatred and body shaming make it universal to pretty much every one who wants to check out the show.

Oh, and with that said, check out the show, but not on Disney plus, don't support the company, go on Streaming Community or any other pirate site that you can find.

If you are a fan of Phineas and Ferb, Gravity Falls, Amphibia, The Owl House, The Ghost And Molly McGee, or any of the other great Disney Channel shows, you should like this one too; just be aware that this may be the last truly great Disney animated series before Corporate shuts down the Creative side of things on there too.

Number 7: Jacqueline de Bellefort (Death On The Nile)

While I was a big fan of the 2022 Death On The Nile movie when I first saw it, after reading it, the book is just so much better.

Reading the book after watching the movie is like looking at the moon while the sun is rising: you just can't see the moon anymore.

Though much like our titular couple, that love for the movie is still right there, it's just hidden under the sun's light.

Back to the point, do you wanna know what is the main highlight of both the book and the movie alike?

But why?!? It's Her of course! The mad lad herself:

Jacqueline de Bellefort!

I just love Jackie so much, my brain immediately activates whenever she is just mentioned, she's one of those characters who immediately jumps at you when they pop up.

She's the reason why I still like the movie despite all of its flaws, and why I picked up the book in the first place.

She's just so energetic; especially in the book, you can feel that this is not a character, but a real, living person, which is exactly the feeling that Agatha wanted to give when writing Jacqueline.

What makes Jacqueline better than most other murder mystery twist villains, is one writing decision from Agatha that differentiates her from her peers:

She's insane and antagonistic from the get go.

The very first piece of description that we get on her in the book is that she pierced a guy's hand with a pen because he was bullying a dog and refused to stop.

The contrast between her personality in the prologue and the rest of the story is quite literally night and day, and the lengths that she is willing to go to scare the woman that stole everything from her are quite impressive, if for entirely different reasons.

The insanity makes her so entertaining, that she kind of has to be the villain, otherwise all of that chaotic energy would be wasted, but that's fine, since the twist with Jackie is not that she's the murderer, but that she had a different motivation from the start.

But what is more manic than anything else about Jacqueline is the way she talks, her speech pattern is so erratic that it always keeps you on the edge of your seat; all of Jackie's lines and facial expressions both in the movie and the book are so interesting, they do a great job at making you wonder what the character is feeling at all times and if they are genuine.

Speaking of expressions, I must give my greatest compliments to Emma Mackey for her performance as the character; it's sad to say, but I truly believe that if the movie wasn't so centered on Poirot and she had more screen time, this would have definitely been her performance of a lifetime, the one that immortalises her.

I unfortunately haven't seen the Poirot or 1978 renditions of Death On The Nile and their respective takes on Jacqueline de Bellefort, but I'll still give a shout-out to Emma Griffiths Malin and Mia Farrow performances as the character in case they are someone's favourites.

I highly recommend reading Death On The Nile to anyone who's willing to sit through a detective story.

The movie, despite not being quite as good, can still give you a fun time in my opinion, and Jackie's existence and impact in it definitely enhances the viewing experience of the third one.

Before reading the book, I feared that Jacques (movie) was a rather simple character and not-that-good of a villain, just someone I saw too much into; but after ending the book, I'm extremely confident in saying that Jacqueline de Bellefort is a terribly overlooked character, and one who should definitely be talked about more for the great villain that she is.

Number 6: Julith (Dofus)

Skip this part in purple if you find it boring.

And here, we arrive at the character who's solely responsible for restructuring this top 10 into a top 30, because that's exactly what happened:

Originally, I already had written down all of the top 10 villains that I loved before watching the Dofus and Totò Sapore movies, and while Vesuvia was shockingly great but not enough for me to consider her one of my favourites, Julith, as many other villains from the Wakfu franchise, completely blew it out of the park for me, and therefore, I knew that I had to rewrite this list in order to include her.

The problem was that Halojack, who was previously at number 10 before I moved everyone down a spot to make space for Julith, is a character that's too important for me to disregard as just an honourable mention, therefore, I expanded this project into a top 20.

And then... I also really wanted to talk about Gothel, and at that point the blame is on me for overworking myself (I blame the Other Mother though. Stupid spider b###h).

Julith, titled "The Butcher Of Brakmar", is the main antagonist of the movie Dofus - Livre 1: Julith (2015), based on the animated series Dofus: The Treasures of Kerubim, taking place in the Krosmoz, an extended universe created by the French company Ankama that also includes the likes of Wakfu and other projects.

This franchise (the "Wakfu" franchise, just so we can all have an easy point of reference) is notorious among the fans for almost consistently writing great tragic antagonists, the best of which dunk all over the competition due to the amazing execution of their concepts, and Julith is not an exception to the rule.

While Julith is not my favourite villain in the Krosmoz, I must admit, I'm seriously astounished by how much complicated and multilayered she is with her limited screentime;

By comparison, the main villains of the first and second season of Wakfu are just as much complicated as Julith is, with the main difference being that the formers had multiple episodes and a lot of extra scenes in order to develop, while Julith only has a two hour long movie in which she's not on screen for even half of it, and yet somehow, the movie still manages to convey just how complicated and faceted she is while still making it totally believable at the same time:

Julith is a truly complicated character,

She's a caring woman, a wrathful villain, a heartbroken wife, an ex-warlord, an innocent victim, a cold blooded terrorist, and a mother, all at once.

Our perception of who she is changes constantly throughout the story's runtime as more information and backstory is revealed about her, and the writing does a great job at adding up her new layers with her previous scenes without contradicting or downplaying just how awful the actions that she took were.

Julith's fashion sense is immaculate: this screenshot doesn't do justice to how beautiful she is, her cape is so multitasking it's insane.

Despite falling short of my top 5 by one spot, I admittedly think that, out of all the remaining villains, Julith is the most consistent when it comes to the quality per quantity ratio.

All of the next villains have some very good appearances/portrayals mixed with some poorly written ones: Number 5 has different writers handling her in the comics, thus, she ends up getting some less than stellar moments as a result; Number 4 has some weak moments here and there; Number 3 already had some people second-guessing her legitimate quality before a certain story arc in which she was brought back in stained her legacy forever; Number 2 is........ Number 2, and Number 1 has many different interpretations of various levels of quality, both good and bad.

Julith has no major problems or noticeable writing hiccups: she only has two appearances, the first one in the Dofus movie and the second one in the Wakfu manga, and she's a well written character in both instances (jury is still out on the manga, as it has yet to finish as of now).

She has a very simple but incredibly memorable design (as shown by the fact that she won the Tumblr Krosmoz sexy woman event), an incredibly inspired power set, a rich story with deep themes, and a huge impact on the life of two of the main characters.

I also think that her movie is the best way to get into the Wakfu franchise, as, despite the fact that I largely prefer that TV show over this movie, a common problem for people who want to get into the franchise is the massive amount of filler episodes present in the first season.

The best way to watch the movie is to write f2movies on your browser's research tag, click the link of the green F inside a black square, and write the name on the movie on the research engine of the site.

I HIGHLY recommend watching at least the first two seasons of Wakfu; this franchise has, at least in my opinion, one of the best rogue's galleries in all of fiction, and the very best villains of this bunch are in my opinion some of the greatest of all time.

Number 5: Azula (Avatar The Last Airbender)

When it comes specifically to the female category of these types of ranking, I feel like a lot of people would agree that there isn't a single more picked up candidate than Azula from Avatar The Last Airbender.

With Azula, here, we're talking about the literal poster child for well written, complex female antagonists.

And with that said, I'm just gonna come out and say it: I'm kinda disappointed.

When I first heard that Azula was an evil teenager, I, you know, actually expected her to be really fricking EVIL, or at least on par with Hama; like, an actual psychopath who takes pleasure in causing pain.

Not just the most accurate portrayal of a child soldier I have ever seen.

There's not a single action that Azula makes throughout ATLA that I couldn't see any other Fire Nation general doing.

Even locking up her two best friends and attempting to kill her own brother are things that I could easily see Zhao pulling off.

I know that this makes me sound like an Azula apologist, but can you blame me?

Like yes, Azula is pretty evil, but considering how much some fans like to parade around this aspect of her character, and the fact that Azula is one of the most popular female villains of this century, I was rightfully, you know, expecting more "Evil".

Is this what the golden standard for what an irredeemable evil child looks like?

Pathetic.

Now, let's set aside all of the years of misconceptions that I've heard before actually sitting down and watching not blue Avatar for the very first time in my life;

With all of that said, is Azula actually overrated and is she not as good as she's made up to be?

No.

Not at all.

I came into Avatar as someone who had spent years consuming analysis and video essays for the show despite having never watched it, I already knew what to expect from Azula, including most of her story beats.

And yet that alone could not have prepared me for the astronomical levels of quality that I was about to witness.

This list was always going to be entirely subjective, it was never even a question, but if there is an opinion that I want to express and pass off as a fact, then I'd say that until someone in the upcoming 75 years rises up to the challenge, Azula is THE female villain of the twenty first century.

I don't think any other character quite reaches the same level of iconic that she has, and even if you don't know who Azula is, I still stand by this statement.

I'm not sure what I can say about Azula that hasn't been said already in one of dozens upon dozens of video essays; all of her scenes are just that brilliant and well constructed.

I love The Beach, like anybody else does, and I find her introduction scene extremely memorable.

I guess the best thing I can do is point you to some of those videos, so that they may gush over Azula for me.

Sage's Rain

Rockotar

Hello Future Me

But despite all this praise, one may ask: "Why is she only number 5? Doesn't she deserve number 1 or 2?", and to them I say, one thing that I didn't mention during the number 5 segment of my male villain list (because I was too busy writing poetry and fangirling over him) is that the character I was talking about there had been my favourite male villain of all time for 10 years.

Let me say that again: 10 YEARS.

If I had watched Avatar when it was intended to and not relatively recently, Azula would have been my favourite female villain ever for a comparable period of time.

But alas, with the passage of time, came new baddies or I (re/)discovered some old ones that altered my brain chemistry more than Azula did, so, just like HIM, she fell off in autisticability.

With that said, even when contrasted with Julith, if I tried to make this list more objective, Azula would have definitely been number one or two, as she has by far the best and most consistent writing out of any character present here, with really only the Other Mother and Jobu Tupaki competing in that regard, but even then, they don't have to keep it up for two seasons of TV show like she has to.

She really could be summed up with perfection... if she hadn't massive problems in the comics that I'll be briefly touching upon.

Yeah, this is what I was talking about when I said that Julith was the most consistent character left.

I would like to give my two cents to the conversation, but I think that would be an annoying side tangent, so instead, I encourage you to check out some comics discussions on your own free time.

TLDR: Azula is the goat-bear and go watch Avatar, but the one with Asians.

Also stay AwAy from the comics.

Number 4: Magica De Spell (Duckverse)

(I know that the image on the left belongs to the old DuckTales TV show, but I never saw it, so with that image I'm actually referring to comic book Magica, and not her 90s counterpart)

I remember when I was little Magica De Spell was my favourite villain ever: seeing an Italian sorceress being the number one archenemy of a famous Disney character filled me with so much pride; Flintheart Glomgold doesn't exist in Italian comics, we have Rockerduck in his place, and although I loved Rockerduck just as much as Magica and wish he got represented better in the Reboot, I can't deny that Amelia Che Ammalia (that's her Italian name) had always been my favourite DuckTales villain.

Growing up though, I unfortunately lost touch with the comics and their characters, and so Magica became a forgotten memory, a relic of the past, a lost artifact of an era now gone, waiting to be undug from her prison of dirt.

... And that's exactly what the Reboot did for me.

Hearing Magica speak in the Italian dub was the best moment of my entire life: no offense to Catherine Tate, she gave her best, but those who haven't or cannot watch the Italian dub of DuckTales 2017 don't know what they are missing; the Italian accent provided by Ludovica Modugno is just immaculate, and it makes the character 100 times more hysterical than she already is.

In general it's just great seeing the impact of Duck comics on our country, where characters like Fethry and Rockerduck are much more popular than they are anywhere else.

However, I'd be lying if I said that the Reboot version of Magica De Spell was perfect.

I think there's a big tone issue with DT17 Magica, the show after the first season seems intended to fit her in a "Villain of the week" archetype, probably because that's what she was in the comics, but it undermines its efforts to do so because the show writers keep playing up the "realistic portrayal of an abuser" angle that they introduced with this version of the character, making it sometimes hard for me to take her with the levity that I'm probably expected to.

I also have some grievances with the niece OC herself; despite Lena being in my top 5 favourite Duckverse characters, I don't like how the two get glued together even after the season 1 finale, it feels demeaning to both Lena and Magica alike, I thought it was fine in Friendship Is Magic and Nightmare On Killmotor Hill, but at Phantom And The Sorceress is when I draw the line.

Magica's best post season 1 episode is the one where Lena's absent and she teams up with the other villains, as it removes the tonal problems that she had with the "realistic portrayal of an abuser" angle and treats her with the level of respect befitting of her character, even if at this point in the story she lost all of her powers.

That said, the thing that really sours my opinion of DT17 Magica, is her onscreen relationship with Scrooge McDuck, or lack thereof, which ultimately leads to Magica lacking some depth that her comic book counterpart has.

You see, in the comics, Scrooge's and Magica's dynamic is far more intense and complicated, because, although Magica is the villain, most of the time, Scrooge goes to way further extremes than her, making him not exactly a paradigm of goodness.

I could go on and on about the way their rivalry is done in the comics; just so you know, the Number 1 dime there honestly feels like a character of its own, similar to the Lost Arc in the Indiana Jones movies, it's this mysterious embodiment of Scrooge's and Magica's obsessions, driving them against each other, and in return towards insanity, though at least Scrooge has his family to distract him from time to time, Magica, instead, has nothing else to do except try to steal this golden coin over and over again.

The relationship between these two is so interesting, that's why I'm so upset.

Anyway, most of you may be asking why I'm bashing on Reboot Magica so much when I apparently like her more than Azula, and the reason is, in other aspects, 2017 Magica is peak.

The Shadow War 2 parter is amazing, that goes without saying, and some sequences where the character is in centre space go really hard.

I don't think neither comic book nor show Magica are better than Azula on their own, but together, they make for a much more complete package.

Comic book Magica is the much more compelling and nuanced character, while DT17 Magica has some of the character's best moments in history, so together they balance each other out.

Also, Magica gets one extra point for being Italian, because we love bias in this house.

Before I move on to the final three characters, one final warning: I'm going to spoil the s##t out of these last ones, especially number 3 and 1, so in case you don't really know the characters that I'm going to be talking about, I suggest you to maybe check out the series in question by yourself before reading this, or if you need an incentive, then look them up once you're done with this post.

Actually, I encourage you to look up every single character mentioned in these three posts, because I genuinely believe all of these stories deserve to have more people take a closer look at them, even the ones that I've barely talked about or that I've randomly name-dropped.

Finally, some last minute honourable mentions:

Ambessa Medarda (Arcane): I'm going to keep it brief with Arcane spoilers, but if I were to re-do this top, I would have put her at number 30; also I would remove Jinx from the honourable mentions since I thought that she was going to fall deeper into her villainy during season 2, instead, her character went into a direction that I didn't expect.

Also, shout-out to my silly little mew Maddie, she's so worthless yet so funny at the same time, she is as close to the primal definition of "serve cunt and die" as a character can possibly get; I guess this is kind of a major spoiler, but honestly, it's better if you go into Arcane season 2 with zero expectations for Maddie whatsoever, trust me, it's for the better.

Agatha Prenderghast (ParaNorman): Very recently, I've rewatched my favourite Laika movie ParaNorman, and this time around, I've realised something about it that I always knew on a subconscious level, but I hadn't quite realised yet: the villain kind of slays.

The movie honestly wouldn't be a masterpiece without her; she's such a well constructed character and the animation of her final form was the thing that I remembered the most about the movie for good reasons.

Dare I say it: Aggie's vengeful form is the peak of stop motion animation, and probably one of the best animated characters I have ever seen; maybe even the best, to be completely honest.

I'd put her into the honourable mentions: I don't have very clear thoughts on her, but she's very cool.

Honestly, just go and watch ParaNorman. I'm not even going to make a sales pitch for it, the movie is ten times better if you go in completely blind.

It's a masterpiece, and even if you end up disagreeing with this statement, I'm still sure the movie's heartfelt message is going to stick with you for a while.

Princess Audrey (Descendants 3): So, back in October, since I had some free time in my hands, I decided to marathon all three of the Descendants movies one after the other, which meant that was the first time I ever saw the third DE, as I had watched the first two back when they released; imagine my shock, while watching the movie, in realising that the song from that Miraculous animatic that I kept replaying over and over again actually came from here; I was like "Wait, is this the movie where that song's from?!?"

Anyway, Audrey as a character is closely tied with Harry for my favourite in the series; while watching the second movie after the first, I straight up forgot she existed, which made it even funnier when she became the main villain of the third one.

She's a character whose traits seem intentionally designed to garner my attention: spoiled, bratty teenage girl? Mean cheerleader? Forgettable background character turned main villain? Check, check.

Unfortunately, she's not as well written as the villains of the first two Descendants movies, but much like Kai from KFP3, if there's one thing that I can definitely give Audrey credit for, is that she is definitely the biggest threat that our protagonists have ever faced throughout their journey.

So yeah, she's cool, very stylish, and I'm such a sucker for wasted potential that I can't help myself from putting her at number 24 if I were ever to re-do this list.

And... yeah, that's enough. I need to talk about what carries Audrey so high.

Queen of Mean... Is a completely different experience.

When it comes up at the beginning of the story, it feels like you are watching an entirely different movie all of a sudden. Not because the music style has changed dramatically like in Evil Like Me, no, this is still a Pop song, but because of the story that it tries to tell and dark themes it goes into.

This song, gives me the same vibes, as BIGGERING, and HELLFIRE. (except way toned down, let's just say this is baby's first fall from grace villain song)

As if the jumpscare of learning this song comes from this franchise wasn't enough, this song being in the movie and coming out of nowhere gave me massive tonal whiplash, of the best kind though.

I really hope somebody has made an in length analysis of this song, because I'm this close to making one by myself.

Sofia Gigante (The Penguin): So, ever since the Penguin's episodes were beginning to air, I started to develop feelings for Sofia, but I never allowed them to blossom because I was afraid she was going to be a disappointment.

She never disappointed.

As you can imagine, I have so many thoughts about Sofia, I'm probably going to be rewatching the show during Christmas to solidify my opinions on her, but for now... I'd say she's my new number 8.

All in all, probably one of the best modern female antagonists.

Also I guess now is the perfect time to reveal that I've never watched Trolls 3 or Hazbin Hotel, so no, Velvet (Trolls 3) and Velvet (Hazbin Hotel) were never candidates for the list for this, and this reason alone.

As to why I'm revealing all of this now instead of establishing it in the intro segment of part 1, well...

It's entirely because of how they are named.

So, because I've been hearing the songs of Trolls 3 more times than I can remember, and because Velvet (HH) is inadvertly responsible for the names that I use online (it's a weird story), I thought that I'd pay tribute to both of them by putting the link to their songs down here, with my respective favourite cover for each.

Mount Rageous (original scene)

Mount Rageous (annapantsu)

Respectless (original scene)

Respectless (literal version)

And yeah, the Fairy Godmother from Shrek 2 and Queen Grimilde from Snowhite are not here because I don't care enough about them, in case you were curious.

Number 3

Harumi Jade (LEGO Ninjago)

Harumi IS gaslight gatekeep girlbossery personified.

You don't know what being a hater means until you've finally met Harumi.

For the longest time, I was fine with Azula discourse describing her as an evil teenager.

Then I sat down and watched the entirety of the Oni Trilogy in a short amount of time, and going back to the Azula discourse, all I could think was: you think Azula is an evil teenager?

LOOK UP HARUMI! THIS IS AN EVIL TEENAGER.

In case you don't know, Harumi Jade is a character first introduced into the eighth season of LEGO Ninjago, "Sons of Garmadon"

...

AND SHE'S MENTALLY DERANGED.

While I think that Julith, Azula and even Magica are on average written much better than her; to me at least, the highs of Harumi's are not only some of the biggest highs of female villainy, but also some of the greatest peaks of antagonism in general.

Like, Harumi doesn't blow up a planet, she doesn't conquer a dimension, she doesn't succeed nor try to reshape the entire multiverse in her image, but the ludicrous amount of batsh#t insane stuff that she pulls off despite literally being an absolutely normal 17 year old with no powers is such that it makes all of these higher than life baddies look uncreative by comparison.

And I really need to highlight this: Harumi does some of the most absurdly cruel s##t I have ever seen a villain do in a children's cartoon, I swear to god her laundry list would make many Batman villains do a double take, including THE Joker.

To give you just an idea on who we are dealing with, her very first major crime on-screen, after organising an heist in the intro of the episode and starting a cult/terrorist organisation/biker gang off screen, is to steal another priceless artifact, while blowing up the royal palace with at least twenty guards still inside it, and to burn her adoptive parents, the Emperor and Empress of Ninjago, ALIVE, meaning that in one fell swoop, HARUMI COMMITS:

Murder

Grand Larceny

Arson

Treason

Terrorism

Patricide

Matricide

Regicide

And More,

Right after being introduced, IN THE VERY FIRST EPISODE OF THE SEASON.

And while she arguably never hits the same heights of scale x absurd cruelty ever again (emphasis on "ARGUABLY"), she somehow still gets worse right after that.

Do you know Lord Garmadon?

Father of Lloyd Garmadon, one of the most important characters in the series?

Back in season 4, after/while completing his redemption arc, he sacrificed himself in order to save Ninjago and died, going to the Departed Realm and forever marking himself as a hero for doing so.

Well, fast forward to some time later and skipping over a lot of her atrocities, Harumi resurrects Lord Garmadon, and uses him as a puppet to physically and psychologically torture his son with.

And then, as if that wasn't enough, once she has fulfilled her goals and taken over Ninjago city, to consolidate her position of power, she manipulates Garmadon into adopting her; meaning that she and Lloyd have now unofficially become siblings, and she uses this newfound family dynamic with Lloyd to torture him even further, saying that HIS father prefers her, more than he prefers him, and earlier into the episode, before revealing this information, SHE WAS STILL FLIRTING WITH LLOYD, TO GASLIGHT HIM INTO HARMING HIMSELF EVEN FURTHER.

SHE IS SUCH A TERRIBLE PERSON!!!!!!!!!

DID I MENTION THAT SHE'S 16/17?

She also fricking wins in the end, because she's just that much of a girl boss.

There's no other character in this list who I can point to for the line: "She did everything wrong".

Don't get me wrong, Harumi is a very complex and tragic character too; I know that I've been painting her as some unredeemable monster, but she's also quite sympathetic.

It's just that, unlike with characters such as Azula or number 2, to me, personally, the most interesting thing about Harumi is that, despite having way more support and chances to grow than these other characters, that still didn't stop her from becoming a complete and utter monster.

This girl's ability to dodge every single safety net given to her is unmatched; it'd be one thing if she was given an olive branch once or twice, but the story and characters give her chances upon chances to scram, AND SHE STILL CHOOSES EVIL.

However, it'd be wrong to say that Harumi is a perfect character without any flaws.

I'm not going to say them, I just hope to have hooked someone into watching the show for themselves, but they are there, even if they can be explained with some leaps in logic.

... But I think it's time to finally mention Crystallized.

You see, season 16 of Ninjago, named Crystallized, is notorious amongst fans to be... "Not that great".

Some of the characters, unfortunately for the viewers, have been mishandled, and Harumi, as you can imagine, is one of the characters to end up on the bad side of the writing coin.

This season damages Harumi.

..... Which is why I never watched it!

Listen, I went very in deep when making this list, I bought the book of Death On The Nile just to see if it improved my opinions of Jackie, but LEGO Ninjago is not a franchise that I'm as closely attached to as Wakfu, Kung Fu Panda, and DuckTales;

I'm pretty well informed about the lore, I remember season 1, 4 and 5 pretty well, I saw some pieces of season 2, 3 and 7, and I watched season 6, 8, 9, 10 and 15 in full, and I constantly keep up with Dragon Rising news, but that's about it.

I only watched the colloquially good stuff, and I don't go out of my way to check out the rest, so when I tell you that season 16 of Ninjago fumbled Harumi badly take it with a grain of salt.

I saw some people that I trust saying Harumi was good, and I decided to check her out to see if the voices were true. She delivered, but I also heard about her mishandling in season 16, and I peaced out from watching that.

With stuff such as Ralph Breaks The Internet, Kung Fu Panda 4, The Incredibles 2 eccetera coming out often in the last couple of years, I started to get increasingly more burned out by follow-up to stories that end up subtracting some of the impact from their original tale;

I think Harumi is an extremely cool character and I really didn't want to ruin her for me, and since LEGO Ninjago isn't an hyper fixation of mine, I'll hopefully never have to sit through Crystallized and instead I'll skip directly to her iteration in DR if she ever makes a comeback in that (only if she's good though, however, with the current quality of DR, I'm sure the writers would handle her just fine if they were to use her).

If you know a lot about Ninjago lore and have seen the most important story beats of the previous seasons, I'd honestly recommend giving season 8 a try, though I'd probably ask a long time Ninjago fan what they think of it, as the emotional impact of the Oni Trilogy is dependent on how many seasons of Ninjago you consume I'm afraid, cause you really need to get attached to the characters in order for the story to hit you quite as hard, noticeably Lloyd and Garmadon in the particular case of Harumi.

Also, now that I've done the Harumi entry, I guess now it's the right time for me to reveal that no, unfortunately I haven't seen LEGO Monkey Kid, sorry Lady Bone Demon fans, she's cool, but I haven't experienced her in the show.

By the way, LEGO writers are surprisingly good at writing female villains.

Obviously, Harumi and Lady Bone Demon are the two obvious standouts (at least to me) for different reasons, but there are some other solid ones there too (I never saw the show, but I saw a compilation of Lady Bone Demon scenes, and I'm already sold on the character hype).

I've already talked about Brainfreezer in number 30, but then there's Naare from LEGO Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures, Crooler from LEGO Chima, the Spider Queen, many versions of LEGO Harley Quinn, the spectacle of a character that is Queen Whateverwannabe but also smaller characters like Ultra Violet....

Oh right.

Aspheera is there too.

REVENGE!!!!!!

Number 2:

Doll (Murder Drones)

(I chose this picture because loving this character is like staring at a loading screen waiting for something cool to happen, except it's just a picture and it's never gonna change).

If you've seen my male villains list, you know that number 2 is the spot that I reserve for the "I really wish I could put this entry as my number 1, but I can't, because objectively and subjectively, they don't deserve it" entry.

I don't care: Love is Love, Obsession is Hyper Fixation, and True Love is Pure, Unfiltered, Rage and Hatred when it isn't reciprocated.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the show or this blog, Doll is a side character in the indie series Murder Drones, made by Glitch, who, depending on your personal view point, may be considered the show's side antagonist.

Simply put, there hasn't been a character who has impacted my personal life quite as much as Doll.

The very existence of this blog hinges on her and the impact she had on me, and if even sometimes I despise how much I'm still mourning her wasted potential and fumbled (insert every single aspect about the character that you want here), I can't help but still think about her all the time.

I don't know what else to say that I haven't already said through the massive amounts of reblogs and analyses I've made for the character, but I'll try anyway:

I love how much I'm still discovering about Doll; it may just be the messy writing, but my perspective on Doll has changed drastically over time, to the point where the character feels entirely different from how I viewed her a couple of months ago, every single day, I'm discovering something new about her that I never considered before, or I'm revaluating a previous notion that I had about her, she's like a pit with no bottom, a tunnel with no end; she scratches the same hitch that number 11 did for me, that being of a weird yet complex villainess, and I appreciate her even more for it.

And yeah, Russians are cool.

There's no better way to show my love for Doll than to put the link to my so-called "Master guide" of Doll media here, I hope other Doll fans who haven't seen it before can get a kick out of it.

However, it's at this point that I must open an entirely unrelated, yet necessary side tangent.

You see, I assume many people who are going to read this post will use it as a sort of "recommendation guide" for cool shows/movies/games to consume, and they expect the villains placed higher on the list to be more worthy of the hype compared to those who ranked lower.

Now, if you are looking for who I think the objectively best villain in this list is, it's probably Azula. The Other Mother, Jobu Tupaki, GLaDOS and Julith are close seconds for me, but if you preferred either of them over Azula, I wouldn't be surprised. Jacqueline is underrated, and totally worthy of much more hype, but she's not THAT good. You can definitely prefer/not prefer all three versions of Magica over Azula, that's up to you. Number 1... is also up to you, and although Harumi is clearly not on the same level of quality as Azula, Harumi's best moments are so good, that I can imagine them being what puts one over the other in some people's eyes.

Ultimately, what I'm trying to get at, is that I can see arguments to be made for all the aforementioned characters to be the best female villains of all time and people buying it, it's entirely within the realm of possibility.

Doll?

OH, LET'S NOT KID OURSELVES, SHE'S AWFUL.

I'm not joking when I say that what puts Doll so high is sheer hyper fixation alone: this, even more than Halojack, is the reason why the whole top 30 is completely subjective, and should only be viewed as a random person expressing their love for their favourite characters on the internet.

Disregarding the idea that, depending on your interpretation of the character, she's not even a villain, even then, she's not a character to be excited about.

The show hyped her up, accidentally or intentionally, and the pay off was abysmal.

NEVER, watch Murder Drones expecting it to be an amazing show, you will be disappointed; the show, much like Doll, is great at getting you hooked, but much like her, it fails to provide any significant payoff for that initial hook.

Other than that... it's a pretty fun show, give it a watch.

With that said, I still LOVE Doll, and I feel like my attraction to the character is still going to impact many years of my life to come.

And yet, despite all that, there's a character that I still like even more.....

Number 1

Number 101

It's Cruella De Vil, baby! (101 Dalmatians franchise)

You don't understand.

I love Cruella De Vil.

I LOVE HER!!!!

I'm a massive fan of the 101 Dalmatians franchise, which is weird, since it's the only one of my hyper obsessions that I can keep a secret.

I've consumed almost every major piece of 101 Dalmatians media (and by that extent Cruella content) that exists. The only things I have yet to check out are the 90's TV show (which I plan to correct as soon as possible), Disney's Twisted Wonderland, Cruella's Chills book, the tie-in videogames, and those obscure comics.

And as you can all well imagine, the reason for my hyper fixation comes from my deep obsession for this puppy skinning psychopath.

You better believe I've listened to Selena Gomez's cover of Cruella De Vil on the ride back from my birthday.

If you are a female villain, you can have the most well written backstory ever, you can have 100 shades of depth, you can have as many great scenes as you want, but if you can't bring me as much unfiltered joy and weird autism juices as this psychotic fur obsessed maniac, then you clearly aren't worthy of my praise.

Most of the characters that I've covered up to this point had very big ambitions and larger than life goals to go along with it.

Some wanted power; they wished to rule over something, to be obeyed, to subjugate, and would go against the competition in order to achieve that.

Others wanted revenge; those who wronged them, the societies, the individuals, and the world alike needed to feel the full force of their wrath, and if an innocent happens to be in the way and gets hurt, that was his mistake.

Others were just broken, and acted out on it; they tried to fix themselves, or the world around them; their brokenness, source of pain and sorrow, meant that they had to change their current predicament, by any means necessary.

Some others, wanted Nothing, but to impose their view of the world on everybody else.

And most were a combination between all four and more.

Cruella?

She couldn't give a shit about any of that, she just wants to skin some Dalmatian puppies and wear them as a coach. She doesn't have any big dreams of grandeur, weirdly enough she doesn't even care about money: she is perfectly fine in her own little world, living her own little adventures, and trying to make her coach, at any cost necessary.

I'm admittedly someone who likes to complicate classic pure evil villains a lot, explaining why they are actually complex and have a lot of depth; but with Cruella, I actually don't do that.

This is not to say that Cruella doesn't have depth (I would never say such a thing), but I don't feel the need to explore the character in depth to feel comfortable with them in the same way I do with other baddies.

And I really like that; it brings me comfort to have a character that I can enjoy in the same way as anybody else does, as it makes me feel way less alien about my favourite type of characters, and I don't get that a lot.

And I think it's fun for me to also have a villain who I don't need to deepen and just have as a one dimensional unredeemable asshole.

The reason why I almost never talk about Cruella to anybody except people that are close, is because she's a deeply personal character to me, in ways that not many would understand.

I relate to her a lot, in the sense that I can also get invested too much into my silly hyper fixations that I forget about the morality of my own actions.

I know this sentence is going to get me many concerned looks, but it's the truth, it's how I feel, and there's nothing I can do about it.

I don't condone any of her actions though, I just empathize with her more than others since we are so similar.

Anyway, Cruella has such a weird place in mainstream culture, she's super popular but you'll be hard pressed to find anyone other than me who considers her their favourite Disney villain.

She's kinda like The Penguin of Disney villains - and the Joker too, except her movie went into production first, so he's the one who ripped from her and not the opposite - much like the Penguin, every version of Cruella De Vil is different, to the point where the character almost becomes a blank slate for the artist to tell the story they want to tell.

For example, did you know that Cruella was originally meant to be the main villain of the Rescuers Down Under, instead of Madame Medusa? And she was meant to have a jacket of crocodile skin?

And that her book version is quite different from her movie version?

It seems that as early on in the character lifespan, she was always meant to be different, like it was hard coded into her that she was a character bound to be changed, while still remaining the same at her core.

Because, to be completely honest, what's more memorable than Cruella herself is her fashion design.

In that sense, the 101 Dalmatians franchise is much more similar to the Alice In Wonderland one than anything else, where the iconography of the series is more important than the actual canon; that being 40s London, dalmatians, its art and fashion design, the number 101, Cruella De Vil's styled clothing and mannerisms, eccetera.

Speaking of her career, unlike Maleficent's, who peaked early on and then was never quite as good as her very first on screen debut, Cruella's career, in my opinion, only improved after her very first on screen debut, and it's still getting better to this very day.

One day, it could be fun to rank all of the different versions of the character in their own separate list, but for now, here are my opinions on almost every single iteration of Cruella:

One Hundred And One Dalmatians:

Starting off with a controversial opinion, the Cruella De Vil from the original 1961 movie is actually one of my least favourite iterations of the character, which is a bold take, since it's the version who popularized the character in the first place.

While I appreciate the original 60's movie for having some of the most iconic moments in her entire career, I must admit, I feel like she's not as interesting of a character as she is in some of her subsequent portrayals or in her original book version.

More than anything, I appreciate this movie's take on Cruella for being an incredibly solid foundation for the character, and if it didn't exist, then most likely there wouldn't have been all this many talented artists taking their own short at their unique take on the character; art is a very important thematic element throughout the 101 Dalmatians franchise, but it definitely wouldn't have been as recurrent if the 1961 movie didn't exist to establish its presence.

The One hundred and One Dalmatians:

Now, the original book version is about as good as the final movie version, however despite the two portrayals being very different from each other, I think book Cruella is slightly better than her movie counterpart; you see, the way that I would describe how book Cruella differs from her movie counterpart is that book Cruella feels like a character written by Tim Burton;

She is very similar to the leader of the witches in Roal Dahl's Witches, almost described as a supernatural force and has a lot of unique lore details that are absent from the movie, like the fact that she only eats food with pepper in it, including ice cream, and the fact that her skin tastes like salt, hence why the dogs cannot bite her; the only thing holding book Cruella back is that she doesn't have that iconic and absolutely deranged car chase sequence at the end of the movie, otherwise I'd say that with full confidence that movie Cruella is a downgrade compared to her book counterpart.

But honestly, "downgrade" is an over exaggeration, the movie version is very good in her own right, and just as important as the book, so I'm definitely glad for its existence regardless.

Also shout-out to Cruella's husband in the book, Mr De Vil, since he needs more recognition within the fanbase. He's a character that doesn't exist in any other version of the story, but he's interesting regardless: he's kinda like the protagonist of Helltaker but with none of the wits and muscles, he apparently just summoned Cruella from the depths of hell to be his wife in exchange for his skills and then just allowed her to step all over him.

One hundred and one Dalmatians 2 (Patch's London Adventure):

One of the best direct to DVD Disney sequels, and my personal second favourite after The Lion King 3/2, already this sequel gives an interesting continuation to Cruella's character at the end of the first movie, and that's by making her deal with aftermath of her crimes and introducing the character of Lars, this polkadot artist who has an interesting dynamic with Cruella; the best way I've seen anyone describe their dynamic is that it's as if Gargamella fell in love with someone who loves the colour blue, and I think its a rather accurate description.

Once Upon A Time:

Sympathy for the De Vil is peak television and I won't accept any rebuttal about it. While her time on the show was short (thankfully), Victoria Smurfit ate her role as the character, and from what I've seen, this is definitely the darkest version of the character, being a cold hearted serial killer with a lust for blood and harming others. This version of Cruella is so violent, that is actually one of the very few versions of the character to die, which I don't exactly love, but it's definetely an interesting change of pace.

Once upon a studio:

Cool background cameo. Love the little faces that she makes.

Funko Pop Cruella:

I don't like my Funko Pop Cruella very much. She's too angry, and I feel like they could have used a way better pose for her, like when she smokes the cigar, though I bet Disney is trying to not remind you of that.

LEGO Brickz Head:

I prefer the constructible Cruella figure over the Maleficent one, even if the latter has the foldable horns. It has to do with variety: the bricks you use for Cruella have way more different shapes and colours that help keep the construction process fresh.

Simpsons:

Straight up, Cruella was a last minute change to the episode, since they couldn't use Maleficent for god knows whatever reason and had to redesign all of her scenes. They didn't even bother to change her lines, how is modern Simpsons so stupid!?

Twisted:

10 out of 10 cameo. It's so good that, despite it being a single line of dialogue, I could write an entire essay talking about its huge importance for the overall narrative of Twisted, and its brilliant understanding and use of Cruella. Team Starkid did such an amazing job with this musical, there's so much heart, care, and two Ds poured everywhere. Twisted is an impeccable theatre production, I encourage everyone to at least check it out for free on YouTube. I promise, it's going to be one of the best Disney movies you'll ever see in your life, especially since Disney won't gain a nickel from it.

Disney Mirrorverse:

This game, is a travesty; one that does not deserve to be forgotten by time, but that instead should go down in history as one of the greatest atrocities ever committed by the gaming community.

I played this game, A LOT, in fact, I was a member of the number 1 ranked Italian alliance in the game, and let me tell you, it was a slog.

And yet, it still has a pretty good version of Cruella De Vil... conceptually. I really like her gameplay, and the trick that you could pull off early on by hitting the enemy with a second heavy attack just as the first root effect expired to give them a second root was so satisfying to pull off (I gave it the name of "Coyote Timing")

But what I really LOVE about this version of Cruella is that she does something with the character that I always wanted a Disney property to do: make Cruella a crime lord.

Every new version of Cruella has always been slowly adding mobster features to her, but this is, as far as I'm aware, the very first version of the character that has made the full jump to the role of Kingpin of her respective universe, and just for that alone, I'm glad for this game's existence.

Descendants:

Descendants is great because it's cringe, and it fully embraces it.

This series knows exactly what it is, and isn't ashamed of it in the slightest.

Some context for those who aren't in the know: Descendants is a Disney Channel's original franchise, that kept its cultural relevance thanks to its extremely catchy songs, focused on the offspring of the most popular Disney villains+some other character, who in this universe exist in the same time period and live close to each other.

The franchise takes many creative liberties with the characters that it chooses to adapt, with a very divisive track record of success; however, it then comes as no surprise that a character as suited for drastic changes as Cruella was left mostly unharmed by the transition into a new interpretation of the villainess.

AND YET, despite Cruella being the most fitting character for dramatically different reinterpretations, she's arguably the non-original Descendants character that changed the least out of everybody, because all classic Disney characters, from the Beast to Lady Tremaine, have even a small changes applied to them, but Cruella

It'd also be reprehended to not mention her son Carlos, played by the talented Cameron Boyce, who unfortunately died sometime ago during the production of the third movie. My condolences to the family.

Carlos is my second favourite OC relative of Cruella, though from what I've seen of Cruella's niece in the 90s animated series, I doubt he'd remain as such if I watched that show; though one thing that at first I didn't like about Carlos in the movies is his relationship with Jane:

On a first look I thought the two didn't have much chemistry because they were too similar, but as the relationship progressed, I realised that wasn't the case and I started buying it more and more, because Jane is that christian household kid who has a massive rebellious phase once she grows, while Carlos is a street rat with a hard past and a soft heart that grows up to become the emotionally stable adult, so him and Jane are actually a pretty decent ship.

Cruella:

Cruella is a complicated case, in that this movie has two different versions of the character simultaneously: Estella and the Baroness, and each of them is great in their own separate ways; Estella is a pretty engaging and complicated protagonist, even if she does suffer from not getting enough backlash by Jasper and Horace for her villainous actions, and the Baroness is a deliciously psychotic antagonist that's more in line to the typical Cruella characterisation than Estella; the scene where she's torturing Estella and she doesn't even recognise who her mother is is hysterical and insane at the same time, truly a deranged woman.

I feel like what really carries this movie for me is the vibe though, this punk rock style is absolutely stunning, and once again, if there's something more immortal than Cruella herself is her aesthetic, and this movie brings that to a whole new other level.

So yeah, I like Cruella, it gets a pass for me.

I don't know what else you expected me to say; it may just be because I have consumed way more Cruella content than the average person and therefore I feel like I know the character better than anyone else, but Cruella De Vil hasn't been the same character for decades, and this being the second most recognizable version of Cruella after the 1961 movie one doesn't ruin her character, especially when 80% of all Cruellas out there are unredeemable b###es;

Evil versions of Cruella still exist and are still going to exist in the future; this movie's popularity and income mean nothing, grow up.

Cruella De Vil (book):

My favourite part was the beinning. One detail that I particularly liked is that they added Cruella's necklace from the book. For those of you who don't know this, in the original Dodie's book, Cruella wore a black skull necklace, that wasn't added to the movie's final design, I enjoyed that it popped up here of all places.

As for the rest... If you think Cruella (2019) is bad, don't read this book, it's even worse, despite me getting some ironic enjoyment out of it.

Cruella's motivation for skinning the Dalmatians here is to make her mother, who has been neglecting and spoiling her since birth, who has manipulated her (Cruella) into giving her (the mom) all of her (Cruella) father's possessions when that's not what he would have wanted, and who's probably responsible for the death of Cruella's husband, proud.

The best part is at the end when the writer reveals to us that apparently, she has been writing the entire story while inside Hell Hall, with Cruella by her side screaming into her ears what to write, and... yeah, the mental picture of that is very funny, especially with all of the implications present in the passage.

Trust me, if this was a Cruella centric post, I could keep going, and Going,

AND GOOOOOOIIIIIIINNNNNNGGGGGGGG,

But unfortunately, I need to restrain myself from going overboard.

While all these different interpretations of the character are great and all, there's one version of Cruella De Vil that I wanted to highlight and talk about the most,

The rendition of the character that singlehandedly made me obsess over her and the franchise that she's from, and turned her from a character that I rarely think about to my absolute favourite female villain of all time and one of my life icons;

The version of Cruella De Vil that I'm talking about is none other than the one from 101 Dalmatian Street, the show who Disney desperately tried to put under the rug yet that didn't stop it from gathering a small fanbase around it, with myself as an outskirts member of said fandom.

I had written down a passionate piece about this show's version of Cruella a couple of years ago; I'm not going to translate it, you can do that on your own, because I wrote a new one that you're just about to read, but here's the original one anyway:

Già lo sapevo che avrei posto questa come la mia versione preferita del personaggio, ma ammetto di aver vaccillato un po' quando ho visto la versione di Once Upon a Time, ma l'aver rivisto vari episodi della serie e non solo il finale, mi ha convinto di nuovo che la versione di Crudelia del quale mi sono innamorato per la prima volta è ancora la mia versione preferita; Questo è davvero il culmine della storia del cattivo e della sua follia, nonché una celebrazione; sebbene lei appaia in carne ed ossa un solo episodio, lei riesce a rimanere impressa nella tua mente anche più di altre cose riguardo la storia, e la ragione per cui riesce a installare questo effetto è poiché la serie ha un tono così comico che quando Crudelia fa il suo debutto ruba lo show e lo fa diventare qualcosa di completamente diverso. Una lettera d'amore finale davvero degno del personaggio e di tutto il franchise della "Carica dei 101", e possa questa serie essere un giorno trattata con il giusto rispetto che si merita.

Cruella De Vil in 101 Dalmatian Street feels like the climax of the character's personal insanity, the show does an amazing job at celebrating the huge impact that the character has had on pop culture by making the first part of the season finale play out almost entirely from her perspective.

But I have a lot to praise even before that:

I love how she was built up all throughout the show as this looming threat, from her shadow appearing every time in the background of the intro song, to the cameos of Hunter and his centric episodes, to the times where Cruella's voice is heard but her physique is not shown, to... JUST THE WAY CHARACTERS TALK AND BEHAVE ABOUT HER, gives out to the viewers the feeling that this character embodies Impending Doom, and that's exactly the last note that the episode right before the series' finale leaves you with.

The first three quarters of the final two episodes of this show are some of the biggest tonal whiplashes any animated property has ever made me experience; Cruella comes suddenly, with a lot of foreshadowing, but oh boy I was not prepared for what would happen next.

I'm not joking when I say that Cruella in these two final episodes feels more like a Slasher villain; she relentlessly tries to break the puppies down, so that she can come inside their house and kill them.

THERE'S ONE SCENE, WHERE THE DALMATIANS ARE DECIDING WHAT TO DO NEXT, AND SHE JUST CREEPILY LAUGHS AS SHE SCRATCHES THE WALL RIGHT NEXT TO THEM, FOR NO OTHER REASON BUT TO TERRORIZE THEM.

It didn't give her any tactical advantage, she gained nothing from doing it, she just did because she wanted to instill fear in their hearts.

I'm not going to reveal much else, since I want to keep some of the surprises a secret for those who got curious, however, there's something that happens in the last episode that I want to talk about:

In the first part of the show's finale, Cruella manages to capture all of the Dalmatian puppies, including the adults; this is the closest she's ever gotten to making the coach of her dreams, so how does she celebrate the news?

BY WALKING UP TO THE PUPPIES' PARENTS, TELLING THEM THAT THEIR FUR IS TOO HARD TO MAKE A COACH OUT OF SO SHE'LL TURN THEM INTO BAGGAGES INSTEAD, AND PROCEEDING TO FORCE THEM, BY LITERALLY PULLING THEM FROM THE EYELASHES, TO WATCH HER SUPER MEGA PUPPY SKINNING MACHINE BOOTING UP, AS IF TO SAY: "OH YEAH, I'M SKINNING YOUR CHILDREN AND WEARING THEM RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU, AND YOU CAN'T STOP ME, YOU CAN ONLY WATCH POWERLESS AS I KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN AND YOUR HEAD STILL BEFORE I KILL YOU TO AND TURN YOU INTO SOME SECONDHAND CONTAINERS FOR MY OTHER ACCESSORIES", AND THEN LAUGHS MANIACALLY.

Inconceivably evil; if these 101 dalmatians were humans - which is probably how they feel to the audience by this point due to how much time the show has spent on several of them anyway - this would have been one of the darkest things a villain has ever done in the history of ever.

And now, it's impossible for me to go on without also mentioning Hunter, Cruella's nephew, who helps her in her schemes (side note: Dalmatian Street came out before the second season of The Owl House, so no, our poor little miao miao hasn't copied anything from that show. If anything, the opposite happened).

Simply put, Hunter is fantastic, and Cruella's treatment of him is exceedingly cruel; ever since he was a child (and he still is a child by the end of the show), Cruella forced Hunter to undergo a very rigid training designed specifically to turn him into the perfect "Hunter", the one who would be bring her the dogs that she was seeking; she made him learn the language of dogs, so that he could manipulate the dalmatians into falling for a very cruel trap meant to optimise the quality of their fur, but then, once he failed and fell into the trap himself, she vocally abused him in a very terrifying manner, even making him cry during their first physical encounter.

That's even worse than what Carlos and the other Hunter have gone through; Cruella straight up treated her nephew as an animal, no different from the actual puppies that she was hunting down, and it's no surprise that he ends the show still being a bit mentally damaged.

If possible, watch the show one episode after the other, as the finale hits harder if you have seen everything from beginning to end.

Nowadays, I definetly enjoy Cruella more as an idea rather than a character, but this iteration still remains one of my favourites.

She is proof that to be a great villain, you don't need to be powerful, complex, or to have great goals;

Sometimes, to be an amazing antagonist, you just need to want something intensely, and be willing to do anything to get it.

#dofus julith

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