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This Villainous Benchmark was Headlined on August 2023. | ||
| “ | I just love the smell of fear! | „ |
| ~ Death relishing in Puss' fear after drawing blood from him. |
| “ | Death: Sorry to crash the party with your past lives, or your past deaths, as I like to call them. I was there to witness all of them. Each. Frivolous. End. But you... didn't even notice me, because "Puss in Boots laughs in the face of Death", right? But you're not laughing now. Puss: You are no bounty hunter. You are... Death: Death. And I don't mean it metaphorically or rhetorically or poetically or theoretically or any other fancy way. I'm Death. Straight. Up. And I've come for you, Puss in Boots. Puss: But, I'm still alive! Death: [Chuckles] You know... [inhales] I'm not a cat person. I find the very idea of nine lives absurd. And you didn't value any of them. |
„ |
| ~ Death revealing his true identity to Puss. |
Death, also known as the Wolf, is the overarching antagonist of DreamWorks' 43rd full-length animated film Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, a spin-off of the Shrek franchise.
He is the physical embodiment of Death who intends on killing Puss in Boots as punishment for carelessly wasting each and every single one of his nine lives, despite going against his duty and boundaries by his own admission.
He was voiced by Wagner Moura.
His Evil Ranking[]
His Villainous Deeds[]
- Due to him being the literal embodiment of death itself, it is implied that Death is responsible for billions of deaths since the beginning of time itself.
- Due to this, Death may have the highest body count of any DreamWorks villain, causing billions (if not more) of deaths every day since time began.
- When he met Puss in Boots, he said that multiple people have tried to defeat him but have all failed, which implies Death has hunted down other individuals before their actual deaths.
- He admitted that he hates cats for each of them having nine lives, which he finds to be absurd.
- He especially despised Puss in Boots for wasting his lives, as well as mocking him, and pursued him for an unknown amount of time.
- After Puss in Boots wasted eight of his nine lives, Death attacked him at the bar, intending to kill him once and for all, and while Puss survived, he was injured and developed an intense fear of Death.
- Thanks to his attack, Puss in Boots went into hiding for what appears to be months, afraid that Death could be at in any corner and kill him, demonstrating how traumatized Death's attack left him. Given how miserable Puss was as "Pickles", this was a slow and painful death or a fate worse than death.
- When one of Puss in Boot's lives points out he is cheating for targeting Puss while he is still alive, Death shushes him and says "don't tell", which implies that he is breaking his duty's protocol by hunting Puss in Boots for simple revenge.
- He appeared to Puss in Boots whistling several times throughout the movie, taunting him and giving him a warning that he is still after him.
- He cornered and nearly killed Puss in Boots once again in the Cave of Lost Souls, where he revealed his true identity, breaking the crystals that contained fragments of his past lives and nearly grabbing him, only grabbing and tearing a piece of his cape.
- This causes Puss to become so afraid for his life that he betrayed Kitty Softpaws and Perrito and nearly used the wish for himself, which almost destroys his relationship with Kitty.
- He made one last attempt to kill Puss in Boots on the wishing star, taunting him on whether or not that he would actually fight him or take the coward's way out by asking him if he was going to make his wish to regain his lost lives.
- He is the darkest villain in the movie, in contrast to Big Jack Horner, Goldilocks, and the Three Bears, who all have comedic moments that lighten the mood of the story, whereas Death is played completely seriously with no comedic moments, aside from a dark sense of humor which only makes him look very unnerving.
- He could also be the darkest villain in the Shrek universe only rivalled by Bloodwolf, being that numerous other villains aren't played completely seriously and have comedic traits.
- He is highly sadistic by confirming to love sense of fears in his victims.
- While he did ultimately spare Puss at the end, this is not an act of redemption because he never shows remorse for his crimes, never joins the good side, and gets off scot-free with everything. Also, he tells Puss that they will meet again which he will still stalk him if there will be future installments of the Shrek Universe.
Why He Doesn't Stand Out?[]
- While his personal villainy of psychologically tormenting Puss and knowingly giving him PTSD alongside the death of billions because of his role is certainly enough to pass the baseline, his other crimes involving the aforementioned billions of other victims are not truly villainous deeds, as death is just a natural part of life. As a result, Death still massively fails the high heinous standards of Shrek to Big Jack Horner, Rumpelstiltskin, and Humpty Alexander Dumpty, who all do worse with way less resources and power than him.
- He ironically also fails the high heinous standards to Bloodwolf, who is just as powerful as Death but doesn't suffer from Fridge Horror, along with how Bloodwolf is a cataclysmic villain who tried to destroy Earth while Death isn't a cataclysmic villain and only wanted to hunt down Puss.
- Furthermore, his claim that "no one's escaped [him] yet" is before Puss finds out that he's Death, so he likely only said that to scare him and Puss could very well have been the first time he broke the rules to take someone's life while they were still alive.
- He has an understandable motive, as while he is undeniably sadistic and aware of breaking his own rules, he does have a genuinely fair reason to be after Puss in Boots, as he wasted eight of his nine lives in extremely reckless ways, most of which that could have been avoided (like accepting a spotter and not eating shellfish which he was obviously allergic to), and didn't cherish them at all, showing no respect to either life or death in a false belief that he was immortal before encountering the physical embodiment of the latter.
- He does at least possess a sense of honor as after Puss gains respect for his last life and accepts the fact that he will never be able to defeat him, Death spares Puss so he can live his life and sincerely asks him to live it as well as he can, even if he does acknowledge that this will certainly not be the last time they meet.
- Also, during his pursuit of Puss and only Puss, he created flames that pushed Perrito out of the way. It's also worth noting that he was targeting Puss solely to punish him for foolishly and carelessly wasting his first eight lives and laughing in the face of death while doing so. He also had a point that wishing for more lives to prolong his mortality was "the coward's way out".
- While he dislikes that cats have nine lives, he will leave them be if they are at least appreciative of them, as he didn't go after Kitty.
- Eventually, he lets Puss live his last life after he finally learned to embrace and cherish it.
Trivia[]
- He serves as the mascot of the deletion template, which is fitting due to him being the literal incarnation of Death and the deleted candidates aren't shown here anymore, or like how he's gone after them to take their lives like how the deletion takes pages.
- In a way, Death could be seen as the most heinous villain in the Shrek franchise or even the most heinous DreamWorks villain, being that he has caused death since the beginning of time itself. This makes him being a VB very ironic. The main reason why he doesn't stand out is because he suffers from too much Fridge Horror, causing theorists only to speculate in horror about what Death could've done with his previous victims.
External Links[]
- Death on the Villains Wiki
- Death on the Shrek Wiki
- Death on the Universal Studios Wiki
- Death on the DreamWorks Wiki
- Death on the Puss in Boots Wiki
- Death on the Magnificent Baddie Wiki
[]
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