While I like sympathetic villains the most, every so often you need a villain who's simply evil incarnate. As much as you look forward to their downfall, they're still oddly appealing, sort of like the devil himself in human flesh.
And Judge Claude Frollo continues to top my list to this very day.
Sure, I love Maleficent, Ursula, Queen Grimhilde, Dr. Facilier, Jafar, Hades, and Chernabog...
...but villains like Mother Gothel, Lady Tremaine, Prince
Hans, Gaston, Scar, Shan-Yu, and this fine fellow here are frighteningly
realistic. None of them need magic to be powerful, which makes you
shudder to think what would happen if any kind of otherworldly power
fell into their hands.
But what makes Frollo my #1 favorite is the aspect Disney has yet to tackle again: the religious aspect.
We see a man who represents everything true religion should not be, and then some.
We see a man who frequently claims to be God's devoted servant, and yet you might as well see Satan's face peeking out of these ceremonial robes.
We see a man who actually prays about his lewd desires, in song, with all sorts of vivid imagery that truly test the limits of what you can put in a movie for children.
We see a man who has no qualms whatsoever about harming women, children, disabled folk, or even another priest who crosses his path.
And his voice, mates...all I can say is Tony Jay (even in death) stands alongside James Earl Jones, Tim Curry, Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, David Ogden Stiers, Sir Ian McKellen, Sir Patrick Stewart, and many others who have all but perfected the art of acting. You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who could do it better.
Such is my love for Frollo that (what else?) I modeled one of my very own characters after him. Oh, sure, there's bits and pieces of him in Scorpio and Beowulf, and a few others, but I've got a character who is essentially Frollo the Second. His name is Simon and he's mainly featured in Beowulf's backstory.
Before Beowulf became a werewolf, he was sent to a religious school, of which Simon is the head master. Being so small with such a large brain, Beowulf's only true hope of becoming anybody useful (as far as anybody else can tell) is to become a holy man. But with holy men being as revered as they are (we are talking a parallel universe of the Middle Ages here), it's no position to be ashamed of.
For the most part, Beowulf truly loves it, and as you may have guessed, this marks the origin of his pious mindset. However, as you may have also guessed, Simon strikes a particularly bad nerve; he kindles the spark for Beowulf's hatred of religious bigots.
Then I take it a few steps further by giving Simon the biggest chunk of responsibility for Beowulf actually becoming a werewolf. While multiple people are to blame for Beowulf's tragic transformation, you can easily point the most fingers at Simon. I won't say what happens to him, but I can assure you he gets his comeuppance...which is every bit as grim as Frollo's comeuppance, if not more so.
As the (many) years go by, Beowulf still holds great respect for religion itself, but it's no accident that holier-than-thou hypocrites are the ones who should really run from him. Though he never once claims to be personally worthy of God's grace, he hasn't a shred of tolerance for anyone else who drags God's name through the mud. He tells them, "As long as I'm going to hell, I'm taking you with me."
For that matter, it's Beowulf's sincere belief that he's already doomed that gives him the stomach for killing in the first place. That's not to say he enjoys it or that it gets any easier, but he figures he's better off shouldering the blame than someone else.
Better that the world should see him as "the bad guy."
For further irony, it's because Beowulf still has a conscience, because his heart was never truly corrupted, that there's more hope for him in the next life than even he would have guessed. He's still better off than people like Simon...or Frollo.
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