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"Spoiler Content Warning!" |
| “ | She's scared. Give me the nut or there will be casualties! | „ |
| ~ The Mouse King makes an attempt to murder Masha. |
| “ | Hey, you can't fool me! | „ |
| ~ Mouse King to the Nutcracker after being injured by him in the English/German version. |
| “ | I want... I... I want...!.. I love, what... I want?! | „ |
| ~ The Mouse King's last words before turning into a nutcracker. |
The Mouse King - one of the two main antagonists of the 2004 animated film "The Nutcracker", created by Russia together with Germany. He is the ruler of mice, eager to seize power over the Prince's kingdom in order to become a full-fledged king and be respected among his relatives. The nephew of his aunt Mouseilda.
In the original he was voiced by Efim Shifrin, while in English he was voiced by the late Leslie Nielsen and in German by the late Wolfgang Völz.
His Evil Ranking[]
His Villainous Deeds[]
In General[]
- Despite his sympathetic moments, the Mouse King is shown to be a rather mean, spoiled brat who thinks highly of himself among others and is not afraid to commit vile acts to achieve his goals.
- He treats his servants poorly, insulting, beating and blaming them for things they did not do despite their best efforts and desire to please him. The worst part is that when he accidentally set the crypt on fire, he immediately blamed the servants for it, even though they did not make any moves, unlike him.
- He has a strong pathological hatred for the Prince, despite the fact that he formed his behavior by imitating him, and it is so strong that every time he interacts with him, the King tries to literally kill the Prince in various ways. The only reason for this hatred is that the King considers himself better than the Prince.
Backstory[]
- Terribly jealous of the Prince, he began to imitate his worst qualities and behavior, such as bullying the servants, which amused him.
- Having learned about the Krakatuk nut and its ability to grant any wish, the Mouse King went to his aunt Mouseilda to learn more about Krakatuk and ask for help, wanting to use the nut to take over the Prince's kingdom.
- During the New Year's ball, he tried to steal Krakatuk when the Prince threw the nut into the fireplace out of rage.
- For the next few years, he followed Drosselmeyer, the Prince's uncle, waiting for the right moment to learn about the location of the Magic Land, when Drosselmeyer found a girl who could lift the nut's curse from the Prince.
The Nutcracker 2004[]
- When his servants helped him down from the tree, he, furious that he had fallen so hard, began to beat them, saying that he would fire them and replace them with cats if they let him down again.
- Having made his way into Masha's house, he ordered the servants to find the Nutcracker while he sat and did nothing.
- When Thick began to dance, seeing how Masha did it with the Prince, the King, in irritation, hit him on the head so that he passed out.
- He threatened Masha that if she did not give up the Nutcracker, then he and the others would gnaw everyone (the Nutcracker and his servants).
- He attacked Masha, the Nutcracker and his servants with his army of mice, which almost guaranteed him that the mice could really gnaw everyone. During this, he also beat up the Prince's servants and kidnapped the Nutcracker, taking him to the cemetery.
- Once in the cemetery, he began to torture the Nutcracker first with beetles that could cut and gnaw the Nutcracker into small pieces; then he tried to intimidate him with shadows, although unsuccessfully; finally, he tried to set the Nutcracker on fire, and all this in order to force information about the passage to the Magic Land out of him. When the crypt caught fire, he and the servants left the Nutcracker to die in order to save his own skin.
- When Masha saved the Nutcracker from death, he and the servants began to catch up with her in order to take the Nutcracker back, at the same time brutally beating the Prince's servants.
- He, again with the mouse army, tried to destroy the heroes, so as not to give them a chance to enter the Magic Land.
- In the Magic Land, he tried to kill the heroes several times.
- During the battle for the Krakatuk nut, the Mouse King inflicted several injuries on the Nutcracker.
- When the Nutcracker was ready to become human again with the help of the nut, the King began to blackmail the Nutcracker that if he did not give up the nut, he would throw Masha off the cliff, and when the Nutcracker gave him the nut, he threw Masha off and grabbed the nut.
- When Masha held him at the New Year's ball, in the form of the Nutcracker, he, out of anger, bit Masha's finger so that she would take her hands off him.
Why Doesn't He Stand Out?[]
- While he excels in his personal villainy towards the Nutcracker, his unique method of torture, and his attempt at usurping the kingdom, he doesn't quite live up to heinous standard of Mouseilda, his aunt, due to the fact that he limits himself in scope, as he only wants to take over the Prince's kingdom while Mouseilda wants the entire world, and there's no indication that he's in cahoots with her desire to rule the entire world. He basically only sticks to his own desire, though he could do worse. It doesn't help that he has equal resources with Mouseilda.
- He suffers from Fridge Horror because it is unclear how bad his rule will be, as it is never stated, plus his dream scene does not at all show him as some tyrannical ruler that torments everyone.
- He has people he cares about:
- He has affection and some care for his aunt Mouseilda, as he showed a bit of compassion when he thought that his aunt must have died a long time ago without him even knowing it, the moment when he smiles when he hears his aunt's voice and the moment when he praises her for being a "fighting old woman". Although he came to her for his own personal purposes, however, nothing suggests that these moments are somehow undermined.
- Although he often curses and insults them, his servants still have some weight to him, as he most likely does not want to be alone, as he is afraid of him on a subconscious level, as seen in the scene where he calls the servants traitors, saying that they forgot about him. And if we compare him to the Prince (still a little boy), the King mostly just yelled at the servants, rarely doing humiliating or cruel things, unlike the little Prince.
- He is almost never taken seriously in the film, being a comic relief and constantly suffering comic moments.
- He is a scapegoat, as he is constantly being maimed and comically hit throughout the film, and at the end he even becomes a nutcracker (a fate worse than death) only because he did not have time to express his wish and the nut fulfilled the one that the Prince had made several years ago, which gives him a moment of sympathy and undeserved punishment.
- He is quite sympathetic as he is shown to be insecure about his position and his jealousy towards the Prince is significant as while the Prince was a snob who had everything, the King only wanted a better life and respect from his people where he seems to be an outcast, spending most of his time with only his two main servants. While this does not make him tragic, it is still played for sympathy.
- Even if there is no clear evidence of this, he may have redeemed himself and disenchanted himself over time, given that the cycle of redemption essentially comes full circle at the end of the film, and he was most likely able to find love and free himself from the spell of the Krakatuk nut.