Dreamworks Animation is full of great baddies. We’ve already done a video on how evil
these guys can be, but as fun as it can be to watch a villain do their thing, sometimes
you have to look at their endings. While Dreamworks’ rival, Disney, is known for killing
off their villains in some pretty gruesome ways, it’s actually not as common with
Dreamworks villains. Most of their villains are either reformed, get their comeuppance,
are arrested or just have ambiguous endings. Still, for those rare times where aDreamworks
villain is given their ultimate end, we’re here to rank them from quick and
relatively painless to harsh and brutal even for a bad guy.
I’m Kyle with WickedBinge, and this is Dreamworks Villain Deaths:
Gruesome to Most Gruesome.
First off, we’re starting with the more ambiguous deaths, where we don’t see their
death on-screen, but it’s heavily implied enough that we feel we can make a decent
argument for it. Starting off,
we have Tzekel-Kan from “The Road to El Dorado”. Tzekel-Kan was an
ambitious villain, always scheming and very much bloodthirsty - literally, considering
how much he focused on sacrifices. When Tzekel was tricked into falling into a
whirlpool, which sent him into the jungle outside of El Dorado, he was willing to lead
General Cortes to the city of gold as a means of revenge. However, when they find the
entrance to El Dorado blocked, Cortes assumes that Tzekel was lying to him and takes
him away. We never see what happens to Tzekel but given the time period and the
circumstances he was pushed into due to Miguel and Tulio’s quick save, we can assume
that he either lived out the rest of his days as a slave or in prison. Given how cruel
Cortes seemed and how people like him often saw people like Tzekel as ‘savages’, it’s
also possible that he could have just executed Tzekel as soon as they arrived back in
Spain, not seeing a use for him. While all of these possible ends are pretty harsh and
awful, we have to put Tzekel at the bottom of our list simply due to the ambiguity of his
end, and the possibility of him still having a fairly long (albeit painful and harsh) life.
Next is “How to Train Your Dragon” villain Drago Bludvist. Having control of the
Bewilderbeast, also known as the Alpha Dragon, Draco nearly gains control of all
dragons. But, after Toothless defeated the Bewilderbeast and became the new Alpha,
the Bewilderbeast had no choice but to dive back into the ocean and swim away - with
Draco still on it. Hiccup had offered Draco one last chance to leave peacefully, but Draco
had stubbornly refused help and remained on his Bewilderbeast until the very end.
Although his Bewilderbeast successfully made it to the Hidden World, Drago's ultimate
fate remains unknown outside of Grimmel mentioning his defeat. But given that the
Bewilderbeast swam away, we can only assume that Drago eventually drowned - which
can be either a peaceful way to go or a brutal way to go, depending on who you ask.
And, even if he had been able to hang onto the Bewilderbeast, who’s to say that he didn’t
end up getting eaten by a water creature or another dragon, or even succumbing to
hypothermia because of the water? Either way, even if we don’t see his ultimate fate,
this guy probably isn’t coming back anytime soon.
Up next is Mrs. Tweety from “Chicken Run”. For being an old chicken farmer, Mrs.
Tweety is pretty durable. We see her get briefly knocked out by Rocky, climb a string of
Christmas lights with an axe in her teeth, get smacked into a billboard, fall from the
chicken’s homemade airplane, and land in a vat of boiling gravy. And after all that, she’s
somehow STILL alive! Or, is she? In her last scene, we see a door fall on her, and we
don’t really see the aftermath. On the one hand, having a heavy wooden door fall on you
seems like the last nail in the coffin that you’d need to kill off a character. Buuut on the
other hand, after everything she had already survived, seeing Mrs. Tweety actually
survive this injury maybe wouldn’t be that surprising. After all, the door would be heavy
but not THAT heavy - not as heavy as something
like rock or medal, as we’ll see later on in this list. Still, if this was indeed the
finishing blow, it was a pretty painful way to go out. So, while we have to keep it on the lower end
of the list due to its ambiguity, it does get a couple bonus ‘gruesome’ points.
Finishing up the ambiguous is Dr. Zara from “Abominable”. Zara's death comes after she
triggers an avalanche by accidentally hitting the mountain with her snowmobile in her
attempts to kill Everest. As such, this could be seen as both a fall death, since the
avalanche pushes her snowmobile off the mountain, and a crush death, given the
hundreds of pounds of snow that falls with her. While you’d naturally assume that no
human would survive a situation like this, you have to remember that Zara’s snowmobile
was pretty strong. With it being so fortified, you have to wonder if maybe she could
survive both the fall and the snow’s impact since she was still strapped inside the
snowmobile. However, given the dangerous and harsh environment she was still in, it’s
unlikely that Zara would have made it out of the mountains alive even if she had
survived the fall. We feel that added ambiguity actually adds to the ‘gruesomeness’ of
this potential death. Think about it: When your choices are either a hard fall, getting
crushed by falling snow that came AFTER a huge fall, or freezing to death in the
mountains, it’s hard to decide which of these awful fates would be the worst.
With those out of the way, let’s move onto the more unique and seemingly ‘painless’
deaths. Unfortunately for the rest of the villains on this list,
we only have two baddies that fall into this category.
Topping this section is the Fairy Godmother from “Shrek 2”. Being a magic welder with
many different spells in her arsenal, it could have gone MUCH worse for the Fairy
Godmother in terms of deaths. Given that the spell that ultimately destroyed her was
also one that she tried to use against Shrek and Fiona to get rid of them once and for all,
you’d be forgiven for thinking that her end would have been a bit more, well,
explosion-y.But instead, Fairy Godmother goes out not in a blaze of glory, but a blaze of… bubbles.
She turns into bubbles. With how quick it happens and how painless it seems, it’s
probably the happiest end that someone as evil as her could have hoped for.
Next is Tai Lung from the Kung Fu Panda series. Like Fairy Godmother, his end probably
could have been a lot more painful had he not been fighting someone as unconventional
as Po. He does get plenty of bruises and injuries, but what does Tai Lung in is the
extremely powerful Wuxi Finger Hold move. We’re putting this death above Fairy
Godmother’s not because it seems more painful, but because of the fear Tai Lung
shows before it happens. Though seemingly quick and painless, it’s still technically a
means of death, even if he’s essentially just sent to the spirit realm and unable to return.
The only thing that could add to the gruesomeness of this was if someone like Kai did
something to his spirit, perhaps even stealing his chi. But since we don’t see this, we
can only speculate. In any case, since the actual death didn’t seem to be too painful or
prolonged, we feel that we have to rank it low. Hope you’re not afraid of heights. Next is the
deaths that were a result of falls from great heights - a classic when
it comes to animated deaths. First up is Humpty Dumpty from “Puss
in Boots”. Out of all the deaths on this list, Humpty Dumpty’s is probably the most bittersweet,
since his death also acts as a redemption as well as a heroic sacrifice.
He chose to die as a way to not only save his former best friend as well as the town,
but as a way to try and make up for everything he had done. Though he does “have a great fall”,
just like the old rhyme said, seeing him leave behind a golden egg makes this death
just a bit less sad. Even so, he was still cracked like - well, like an egg - and
broke on impact. Maybe just a little gruesome to think about, but we still feel this falls on the
lower end of painful and gruesome villain deaths.
Next is General Mandible from “Antz”. For a little ant, life is pretty tough. There are many
things that can kill a bug, from being stepped on to drowning to even being attacked by
bigger bugs. For General Mandible, his end was not only due to gravity but his own
anger and ego. If not for him attacking and trying to kill Cutter and Z, there’s a good
chance he would have lived. But while Z was lucky enough to survive a fall into water,
Mandible instead ended up hitting a thick root. As if the fall wasn’t bad enough, hitting
something that hard and painful would surely make any viewer wince, and even knowing
that it was most likely an instant death doesn’t quite take away from the brutality
factor.Finishing up the falls is Grimmel the Grisly, from the third Dragons movie. Being a
dragon hunter and rider, it’s almost poetic that Grimmel was killed by falling out of the
sky. Like with Mandible, the experience must have been pretty terrifying for Grimmel,
knowing that there was no way out but down. Maybe that was why he was so desperate
to take Hiccup with him, spending most of the fall focusing on ripping off Hiccup’s
armor and fighting with him. Unfortunately, when he tries to hold onto Hiccup in the
hopes that the Light Fury will have to rescue him as well, he ends up grabbing onto
Hiccup’s prosthetic leg. Once Hiccup removes his fake leg, it’s pretty much game over
for Grimmel. It should also be noted that although he falls into the ocean instead of
earth, at that height, it really doesn’t matter either way. It would have still been deadly
and, if by some miracle he DID survive the fall, his body would still be too broken to
attempt swimming and he still would have died by a mix of intense pain and drowning.
With all of that in mind, Grimmel’s death is definitely the most brutal falling
death on this list.
This next short section is another animated death classic: Here are the Crush Deaths.
Getting a MUCH more painful death than his mother is Prince Charming. In “Shrek the
3rd”, we see that it’s not enough for Charming to kill Shrek and take over Far Far Away,
but he has to do it in front of an audience as well. Honestly, he’d expect nothing less
from an egomaniac like him. Since he had been planning on stabbing Shrek, you could
say that it was karma that Charming got a death much worse than stabbing. As an extra
bit of irony, the stone tower that he was eventually crushed by was part of the set that
he had spent so long putting together. But hey, on the bright side, at least
his death was ‘dramatic’.
Finishing up this section is another “Kung Fu Panda” villain, Shen. Like Charming, Shen’s
death falls under being both painful AND ironic, given that he ends up being crushed by
the exact same cannon that he used to try and hurt and kill Po and the other Furious
Five. His death was also his own fault, since while fighting Po, he was the one who cut
the ropes that were holding the wreckage of his destroyed cannon. Add in the added
explosion that came with the cannon falling, and you have a pretty painful death. What
makes this death all the more tragic is that, by the expression Shen makes when the
cannon falls on him, it’s implied that he not only accepted his death but that maybe he
had cut the ropes on purpose rather than on accident. Of course, he was still trying to
kill Po too, but maybe the intent had been to try and take them both out since he knew
that after everything he had done, there would be no other way to escape punishment. If
Shen did indeed choose his death, that level of acceptance does push the cruelness of it
down a bit, but it doesn’t make Death by Heavy, Explosive Cannon any less painful.
Finally, we’ve come to the cruelest deaths - the most brutal and without a doubt the
most painful ends of all for any Dreamworks villain, as well as the deaths that just so
happen to be our top 5! First, we have Chef and Creek from
“Trolls”. Now, you may not even remember this particular death. In the film proper, we only
see Chef getting knocked into her serving cart after she refuses to accept the peace
between Trolls and the Bergens, with Creek accidentally coming along as a stowaway.
But then, in a mid-credits scene, we see them both get eaten by a hill monster. It’s a fitting
fate for a chef who tried to cook and eat creatures as innocent as the Trolls. Still,
getting eaten whole by a creature is still pretty
brutal, especially if Chef and Creek had to live through being digested.
Similarly, we have Lord Farquaad’s death from “Shrek”. When it comes to painful and
gruesome deaths, getting eaten by a dragon is kind of in a league of its own. We’ve
already established that getting eaten alive by ANY creature is already bad, but getting
eaten by something as scary as a dragon is all the more terrifying. Like Chef and Creek,
Farquaad also likely had to live through the disgusting and painful process of being
digested - and in a stomach that was likely much smaller than that of a hill monster’s.
But unlike Chef and Creek, whose death was more of a quick ending gag than anything
else, Farquaad’s death just had much more weight and impact to it, making it all the
more memorable. So yeah, just because this particular instance of someone getting
eaten isn’t particularly gorey doesn’t make it any less gruesome or terrifying.
While very much a spectacle, Kai, from the final “Kung Fu Panda” movie, and his death
isn’t exactly your traditional ‘explosion’. Instead of having to deal with fire or dynamite
taking him out, Kai is destroyed after getting exactly what he wanted: chi. Having the chi
of the entire panda village at his disposal, Po was able to overwhelm Kai with it, and as
such, the extreme power and pressure that Kai felt from the chi attack caused him to
disintegrate from existence. Not only was this painful, but the added pain of being
unable to control or stop the flow of chi just adds to how terrifying this death must have
been for Kai. It just goes to show that you don’t always need a big fire to go out with a
bang. Though, as seen with our last too entrees, a bit of fire certainly doesn’t hurt either.
Gallaxhar, from “Monsters VS Aliens”, gets our silver medal for Most Gruesome Death.
When we saw Gallaxhar set his ship to self-destruct, I think we all knew just how this
guy was going to go out. Being at the core of his ship, he certainly felt that explosion
too. You also have to add in the anticipation of it, and how it must have felt for Gallaxhar
being so SO close to escaping his fate, only to go down with his spaceship in
the end.While we can definitely consider it fiery, painful and gruesome, there is one thing
keeping it from the top spot. Though we doubt that it did much considering that it was
caught up in a literal explosion, Gallaxhar was in his escape pod when the self-destruct
was activated. The pod may have just protected Gallaxhar from the worst of it, even if it
still couldn’t completely save him. Though, you could also argue that being stuck in a
pod that could potentially prologue your painful death isn’t exactly an improvement. Still,
when compared to our top spot, we feel that Gallaxhar still wasn’t quite the worst.
Taking the Gold Medal for Most Gruesome Dreamworks’ Villains Death, we have the
dragon that’s appropriately named the Red Death from the first “How to Train Your
Dragon” movie. Though this monster of a dragon seemed nearly impossible to beat, the
Red Death had the same weakness that every dragon has. When Toothless shoots a ball
of fire into her mouth, the Red Death is completely powerless to stop what comes next.
With the firepower that she already had, that one fireball was able to ignite her internal
methane fuel, which naturally caused her inner ‘gas chambers’ chambers as it were to
explode and tear her apart from the inside. This was all happening while the Red Death
was falling, with her wings actually burning up because of the fire which prevented her
from trying to fly towards the ocean to try and douse the flames. The force of finally
hitting the ground was enough to bring the full explosion outwards. Between the
helplessness that the Red Death must have felt during her death, the prolonged and
painful nature of it due the explosion being internal and needing to properly build up, and
the final fiery landing, we can easily say that this is the most gruesome villain death in
all of Dreamworks Animation. But what do you think? Do you agree,
and did we miss any other Dreamworks villain deaths? Let us know in the comments if
you agree with our ranking, and tell us which series you’d like to see next. Be sure to hit
that notification bell so you don’t miss new episodes of Good-to-Evil featuring your favorite
cartoons and videogames; but most importantly: stay wicked!