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Chaser1992 — Knight of Cerebus
Published: 2013-04-01 01:14:33 +0000 UTC; Views: 5830; Favourites: 18; Downloads: 23
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the Knight of Cerebus is a villain who is in a story that is fairly comical but the Knight of Cerebus forces the story in to a more dark and dramatic mood. He can have some light-hearted or comical traits but not very many and are still very serious and gives a much higher sense of dread and genuine threat to the heroes then what they are used to. A Knight of Cerebus is very likely to be Dangerously Genre Savvy, but also runs the risk of becoming a Villain Sue. Sometimes, this type of character can be a Complete Monster if he is played straight and does terrible things by the standards of history in a lighthearted series.If played wrong can be a very dry character. If played to far can be a Invincible Villain and/or a Villain Sue.
Examples:
Whenever Medusa shows up in Soul Eater, things stop being wacky and people start dying and going insane.
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann has Thymilph, who manages to kill Kamina, though he ended up tame compared to Lordgenome and the Anti-Spirals.
Pride Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood. Out of all the villains of the show he is the lest played for laughs. When He shows up all the characters (both good and evil and the audience as well) the seriously creeped out. He kidnaps then possesses Al. Pride then fights Ed, Greeling, Darius, and Heinkel all at once and have the upper hand almost the whole time and when he losses the upper hand he then devourers his far more comical villain Gluttony. (He literally eats the joke villains for lunch) and there out the whole show is one of the scariest villains ever. Although he dose have some comical moments especially before you find out who Pride is but he his still way more dark then Lust or Envy.
Although Avatar The Last Airbender was never exactly light or fluffy, considering it launches viewers right into a 100 year war dealing with the consequences of genocide, things get darker when Firelord Ozai is introduced in "The Storm". We discover that in addition to being the leader of the the Fire Nation he also emotionally abused his son Zuko, and permenantly disfigured his face with fire for speaking out of turn.
His daughter, Azula, also amped things up in season 2.
Amon(the character above) from the Sequel Series, The Legend of Korra also fits this. The couple of episodes before his first appearance were quite lighthearted. Once he showed up, the series has gotten darker and darker with each episode.
The most notable thing about Amon is that he is the only major villain in either of the two series who is never once Played for Laughs or the butt of jokes from other characters.
However Amom did become a Invincible Villain for most of the show. Seriously, the guy goes as far as preventing a Big Bad Ensemble by defeating his rival in one fight after displaying immunity to said Rival's powers. And he did nothing but win until the finale, even succeeding in de-powering two major characters (though temporary). Fortunately, this was balanced by a good Character Development in the finale and a notable charisma. It also helps that they explain why he was so invincible.
Darkseid all the time.
The hunter from Bambi. And to make matters worse, we actually never get to see what he looks like.
In The Lion King, Scar himself qualifies. The film begins quite cheerful, but when Scar kills his own brother and takes the power, the film definitely becomes quite dark. He may be this to the whole franchise as he's the first Disney villain to successfully kill a main character.
Zira is no slouch either. Her appearances in the film are quite dark and her Villain Song is even more intense than the last.
Mozenrath from Aladdin. Prior to his introduction, the recurring villains on the show had been a bunch of cartoonish joke characters like Abizz Mal and Mechanikles. Then, suddenly, we meet this highly competent dark wizard with an army of zombies and a magical glove which is slowly eating his flesh. Only his flying eel sidekick prevents him from being too dark.
In the first season of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, we had tragic villain Nightmare Moon combined with some bullies and jerks, but when Discord turns up in Season 2, the show immediately gets darker with him psychologically abusing and breaking the mane cast and threatening to turn Equestria into a chaotic living Hell.
The Canterlot Wedding introduces us to the Changeling Queen, Chrysalis, who plans to feed off of the love and magic of Princess Cadence's groom, Shining Armor, in order to enable her invading army to breach the magical Deflector Shield that Shining Armor cast over the capital city and seize control over all of Equestria.
She gets even darker in the comic where she turns the Mane 6 against one another (although they get back together and she intended them to), and intends to kill Twilight after draining her magic, and have her changelings feast on her friends when their emotions peak. Not to mention she kills a luvcat in front of the Cutie Mark Crusaders ( whom she also intends to do away with).
King Sombra, the villain of the third season's premiere "The Crystal Empire," is arguably the most evil antagonist yet seen on the show between the sheer scale of his atrocities and the fact that a selfish lust for power is apparently his only motivation for it all.note Unlike earlier villains of his tier, his episode almost treats him less like a character than a disembodied force of hostility (hence his few lines of dialogue; he prefers monstrous roars instead), and in a first for this show, he is seemingly Killed Off for Real in the end. Naturally, outside of some tension-lightening comedic moments, the overall events of the episode are presented quite seriously even when compared to past two-parters.
Lord Shen from Kung Fu Panda 2.
Him of The Powerpuff Girls, compared to the rest of the show's Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain cast, had a much creepier presence (even noted frequently by the cast and the narrator) and frequently supplied Mind Rape or other much deadlier tactics of bringing the girls to an end. Granted he also often supplied in Nightmare Retardant and did have the occasional bumbling role (he was Camp Gay after all) but he was still miles deadlier than most of the Rogues Gallery. And then there's the episode "Speed Demon".
The Lich of Adventure Time was supposed be thing but my opinion he's a boring one dimensional character and a Generic Doomsday Villain.
In G.I. Joe: Resolute, Cobra Commander himself has become a darker, edgier, EFFECTIVE villain, explaining away his old incompetence as a (failed) method to coerce his minions into being better soldiers (adaptability, resourcefulness, so on). This CC manages to be a credible threat to the world.
For Renegades, he's being developed into a rich blend of Corrupt Corporate Executive, Magnificent Bastard, and Villain with Good Publicity; it's working.
In the season finale, he's no longer a Villain with Good Publicity now that he's exposed. That also means he won't hold back.
Chase Young of Xiaolin Showdown was introduced as the Big Bad in the second season. In the first season, the villain had been Jack Spicer who is comically beaten once an episode. While he was partly taking orders from Wuya (an evil spirit with no physical form), she was also strictly comical, except in the Season One finale. Chase, however, was a strictly non-comical and threatening villain.
Wuya deserves special mention. Like Rubilax, her snarking makes her strictly comedic for the most part... then she gets free and suddenly the laughing stopped.
Serial killers Mr. Yin and Mr. Yang( actually Mrs. Yang) on Psych. The latter played mind games with Shawn, and later hooked Shawn's mother up to a bomb; and the former murdered Mary, kidnapped Juliet and Abigail, placed them into death traps to taunt Shawn, and got away scot free (for now). A terrified Shawn even remarked during the Yang case that his constant wisecracks were a coping mechanism to keep himself sane.
But since he had to focus all his energies on solving the case, he asked Gus to pick up the slack in the goofiness to keep him from cracking under the stress (with hilarious results and lots of awkward looks from everyone else).
Daleks from Doctor Who. When they show up normally goofy Doctor gets very serious very quickly.
The original Star Wars Trilogy had one of the darkest villains of all time in Darth Vader but when Emperor Palpatine shows up in Return of the Jedi, suddenly Vader seems like a pretty nice guy.
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Let's keep going...
The Golden Age version of the Joker fit this bill. He still had a clownish appearance, but he was more intent on killing people because he found it fun or because they stood in the way of something he wanted. Also, Golden Age Joker didn't regard Batman as a worthy foe to psychologically toy with. He just wanted Batman dead. And this version wasn't a charismatic snarker full of sick jokes. He was a creepy, raspy voiced killer who would just shoot or stab you.
The League of Assassins who appeared at the beginning of the Bronze Age would qualify. They were taken much more seriously than a lot of villains at the time who were still comedic, even if they were gaining some of the darkness their modern versions had. It was arguably the true start of Batman going from a camp kid's comic to a mature graphic novel.
Dimentio from Super Paper Mario is this. Not only did he manipulate Count Bleck and his other minions so that he could steal the power of the Dark Prognosticus, he also pits the heroes against each other with magic, nearly separates them forever, and in a truly disturbing boss battle (and in a Mario game, no less!) uses his magic to turn Fracktail evil, forcing Mario to kill him. Worst of all is how Fracktail seems to be struggling against the spell and begging Mario to end him, meaning that he tortures people, too.
In the first Mega Man Battle Network game, the WWW don't become too threatening until Wily creates the Life Virus. True, Ms. Madd (Maddy for those of you who watch the anime) nearly got people killed by causing a traffic accident, but they're largely focused on vandalism to obtain the four elemental programs. Then in the second game, we meet the Gospel Net Mafia whose first crime is gassing Yai's house in an attempt to kill her. All of their future actions-blowing up a dam, cyber genocide of Yumland, attacking what is basically the FBI and nearly destroying it, crashing a plane, all of it-would qualify as flat out terrorism when you put aside the cyberpunk elements. Add in the fact that all of the members (minus Dark and Shadow Man who are paid assassins) are motivated by revenge for past grievances and that they'll kill the operators who failed them along with their navis (they use suitcase bombs, for God's sake!) and they start to resemble an anime version of IS or the Taliban.
During the Mother Russia arc, Frank Castle and a Delta Force agent mow through a silo of guards and scientists with minimal effort. And then General Zakharoff's bodyguard and enforcer, a man known only as The Mongolian, comes out and defeats them both effortlessly with his bare hands.
Seth Coker in Wade H. Garrett's The Angel of Vengeance series is another example of an anti-heroic KOC. He does... bad things to criminals and people who either parole them or don't try to stop them. Things which are so bad that I'd get flagged for talking about them here. Rest assured that the people he does them to damn well deserve what he inflicts on them.
The unnamed Ozunu Patriarch in Ninja Assassin, given the title of Lord Ozunu, is a definite KOC. There's tons of bloody action throughout the movie and it's a lot of fun. When he's onscreen, we get to see just how ruthless the ninja really were, and it's quite frightening.
Ray Pye in Jack Ketchum's The Lost. He's established as a KOC from the beginning, and it's made dangerously clear that he'll kill anybody who rebuffs him or angers him. The final showdown in an innocent couple's house reveals how wretched he is (As he snarls repeatedly, "Do her like Sharon Tate..."), and we cheer out loud when Charlie Schilling and Ed Anderson give him the bloody beating he deserves.
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Sailor John from. Sodor's Legend of the Lost Treasure and Pete Tiberius Boomer from the original cut of Thomas and the Magic Railroad. Diesel 10 was this in his own right.
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Harlequin rides again, baby!
Yokai/Callaghan from Big Hero 6 is a big time Knight of Cerebus, as well as an inversion of an anime themed villain. BH6 is a shoutout to various anime, so you'd think he'd take the villain ball and monologue all of his plans to Hiro and company while seeking a good fight, right? in the words of Lex Luthor, WRONG! Yokai evades the villain ball like the plague. He never stops to chat or call out his techniques, uses sneak attacks and lethal ones from the get go, always plays dirty, and is just a No Nonsense Nemesis. When Krei tried to reason with him, Callaghan is only incensed to kill him even more.
The Elite-Manchester Black, Cold Cast, Menagerie and The Hat-all qualify as they went right to work trying to take over the world and rule it through fear. They really go overboard in the comic version as they not only kill criminals, but their families and anybody connected to them without hesitation.
Superman himself pretends to be one when he stops holding back, both against The Elite and any opponent who forces him to go all out. One time, Superman went to about three percent of his maximum potential and he began breaking reality itself. Thankfully, he always keeps a lid on his power and only disables his enemies as need be.
Many of Charles Dicken's villains-Madame DeFarge, Bill Sykes, Wackford Squeers, even Fagin to some extent-earn the title from how brutally realistic-and just brutal-they are.
Many people point fingers at Makoto Shishio in Rurouni Kenshin, and he'd qualify. And then in the manga comes Yukishiro Enishi, a man who has dedicated his entire life to causing Kenshin pain for losing his sister. For one thing, he has the Six Comrades working for him. Unlike Shishio's Juppongatana who reformed and found jobs with the government and were motived by politics, these guys are just evil for the sake of being evil and do some ugly things. Enishi even breaks Kenshin's spirit by building a fake Kaoru out of human corpses and then mutilating it, temporarily traumatizing Kenshin. When he fights directly, he's not above mixing in unarmed combat with his swordplay, and his own lunatic mind can be used to strengthen his style. I hate to say this, but it's pretty clear why they left this guy out of the anime.
In the first two issues of Preacher, we have some villains who, although evil, are more disgusting than they are threatening. The first real KOC we meet is the Saint of Killers who has been resurrected by Heaven itself to kill Jesse and his companions. The second and far more vile KOC is Jesse's grandmother, Marie L'Angelle and her two henchman, Jody and J.C. After overcoming his fear of her, Jesse kills them all gruesomely.
Not all KOCs are villains, though. There are some heroic ones.
In YYH, Kurama and Hiei would qualify as heroic KOCs. They draw their power from their own anger and willpower instead of their friends (and in shonen, your power comes from your allies, not yourself) and immediately go in for the kill. Kurama is a TERRIFYING example of this in both human and demon form to the point where although Hiei doesn't show it, he's uneasy around the redhead. Several times, the villains made the dangerous mistake of toying with them instead of just ending them. Big mistake.
One of the oldest examples of a noble KOC is The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in Charles Dicken's A Christmas Carol. The ghost is a towering... thing in a black cloak with a face that can't be seen even looking directly at it's hood (if it even has a face), and all that Scrooge can decipher is the one outstretched hand that points him in the direction it wants him to go. Scrooge is frightened of the creature, rightfully so, but he openly acknowledges that the ghost is here to help him change for the better and is thankful for it. Indeed, Christmas Yet to Come does care about Scrooge. It just doesn't hold back when it comes to teaching the old miser.
The Punisher is a KOC antihero, especially in the MAX series. It's almost a reversal. Various mafias, war criminals, and psychopaths are either stupid enough to fight him or start shaking when he comes their way. As Castle himself puts it, "They laugh at the law. But they don't laugh at me."
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Technically Star Wars is too dark to begin with to have a Knight of Cerebus.
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Well the tone of Star Wars isn't always consistent. The first Star Wars Movie was a lighthearted Whimsical Adventure (with the exception of the destruction of Alderaan.) Empire Strikes Back has darker and had a clear victory for the villains. And Return of the Jedi fell somewhere in between. George Lucas himself argued that Star War was for kids to defend The Phantom Menace. And of course there's Revenge of the Sith which makes Empire Strikes Back seem tame by comparison. And the most recent one Rogue One he's done inspiration from dark gritty war movies. And that's just the movies.
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There's also Abracadaver from The Powepuff Girls.
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To answer people's questions, the term is not misspelled. The term 'Cerebus' is derived from the comic book Cerebus the Aardvark, specifically referencing Cerebus Syndrome, which means that a series can start out comical and light, but as it goes on, it becomes more dramatic and dark. It's not always the case, but in many cases, yes, it happens.
So yes, here I am again, adding onto this list. Let's see...
Charlie Rakes (Guy Pierce) in Lawless: Rakes is a brutal and corrupt cop from Chicago sent to crack down on bootlegging in Franklin County, but he soon becomes more intent on simply killing the Bondurant Brothers and anyone who gets in his way. When he's not around, things are still fairly dark, but when Rakes shows up, bodies pile up, beatings occur, and shootouts begin. Rakes is unbelievably ruthless, and two deeds in particular stand out: hiring two men to rape a lady friend of theirs, and killing their crippled bootlegger friend, Cricket, in revenge for Jack Bondurant simply calling him a name, showing how sick in the head he is.
Peter Stegman (Timothy Van Patten) in Class of 1984: Although just barely underage, Stegman is a feared gang leader, drug dealer, and pimp who will do anything to maintain control over the school, even killing other classmates, teachers, and as revealed toward the end, assault their families if necessary. Whenever he is onscreen, he does monstrous things, as does his gang, and the clash between him and the protagonist teacher is inevitable.
Chozen Toguchi (Yuji Okumoto) in The Karate Kid: Part Two: As already mentioned, he's by far the most evil of all the Karate Kid villains, being the only one who truly wished to flat out commit murder, and claiming it was justified. Whenever Chozen is present, the atmosphere goes from pleasant to dark and almost horrific in an instant, and the fight at the end of the movie is not something we can laugh at.
Inspector Jean-Pierre Richard (Tcheky Karyo) in Kiss of the Dragon: The air is tense enough in this movie, but when Richard appears on screen, we almost feel our hearts start pounding, and our hate beginning to boil.
Lupo (Max Ryan) also in Kiss of the Dragon: One of Richard's pimps who is under police protection, this guy is not one of the stereotypical 'swaggering around in a flashy suit and hat gangsta' pimps we often see in pop culture. Instead, he's played as a no-nonsense sociopath who is completely unafraid of using violence and intimidation against anyone, and when he is present, we feel sick. Even though he is knocked out (and presumably killed) during his confrontation with Jet Li, he displays fearless traits in his pitiful attempt to fight back, showing how ruthless he is.
Legato Bluesummers in Trigun: Up until Vash meets Legato, the villains are rather comical, or at least stock. Legato, however, is a truly menacing force, one which has no inhibitions, and above all else, nothing to lose. Worse, there is nothing redeeming about him, and while the manga version does have a little bit of tragedy in his back story (it is revealed that he was born a sex slave, which resulted in his monstrous nihilism), it is no excuse for his desire to see the human race end and cause Vash '...eternal pain and suffering.'
Vicious in Cowboy Bebop: For the first couple episodes, we are treated to some rather typical villains, even if they do have guns and the desire to kill. When we meet Vicious and the Red Dragons, though, we get our first real dose of fear, and the first true opponent for Spike to go up against. Just the fact he can bring a sword to a gun fight shows what he is capable of, for starters!
Shinobu Sensui in Yu Yu Hakusho: For the previous seasons and episodes, we've seen villains who want to either take over the Human World or just kill Yusuke and crew. Sensui wants to flat out destroy the human race as a whole by opening the gate to Demon World. Even more, he's willing to sacrifice his own men to do so, and is cunning and tactical enough to the point where even Kurama cannot fully anticipate him, something which deeply angers the kitsune (as exemplified when he lets out his anger on the resurrected Toguro Ani). Even when he is defeated by a possessed Yusuke at the end, there is one final trick.
(Warning: These last two are from HBO. Younger viewers should be careful.)
Richie Aprile (David Proval) from The Sopranos: Every mobster on the show has heavy negative traits, but Richie was the first one to be absolutely, irredeemably evil. In addition to demanding to be paid on the arm (again, that means being extorted with no benefit), he ran over a man with his car and paralyzed him for refusing to be shaken down and continued to threaten him, attacked and threatened anyone who so much as owed him a penny, and finally punched Tony's sister, Janice, when she said she would accept his son if he was gay (he had been practicing dancing, which the mob thought was effeminate). This proved to be his undoing, as Janice shot and killed him for it. Did I mention he was also planning to kill Tony and take the mob for himself, something which would certainly be a Cerebus Mark?
Phil Leotardo (Frank Vincent) in The Sopranos: Another mobster with zero pity, Phil was often referred to as 'The Shah' due to his resemblance to The Last Shah of Iran, and he certainly had the personality to match. Excessively violent, openly sadistic, greedy, and fanatically homophobic, Phil had over twenty kills to his name and relished beating and torturing people for little to no provocation, gradually becoming the final antagonist of the series. His most hateful act was killing Vito Spatafore for being a closet homosexual (although Vito had committed his list of murders, too), again, making it an honor killing. Phil's maniacal obsession with masculinity would ultimately imply that he himself was in the closet. Like with Richie, whenever Phil is present, we feel both loathing and fear.
So there you go. A few characters who either add the drama or merely increase it. Hope it helps.
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Here's a list for the villains who I think are the Knight of Cerebuses:
Jeff Fecalman (Family Guy)
Franz Gutentag (Family Guy)
Sheldon the Turtle (Family Guy)
Mr.Perkins (Despicable Me)
Mor'du (Brave)
One-Eye (Speckles)
Sharptooth (first land before time film)
Captain Vidal (Pan's Labyrinth)
Lord Shen (Kung Fu Panda 2)
Voldemort (Harry Potter series)
Darth Maul (Star Wars 1)
Emperor Palpatine (Star Wars film series)
Lots of nazis from the propaganda "Education for Death"
Captain Gutt (Ice Age 4)
The Hunter (Bambi)
And many others.....
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Technically Star Wars is too dark to begin with to have any KOCs. As for Ice Age, don't forget Soto from the first film. He wants to eat a baby alive.
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I was thinking about redoing this anyway.
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I consider the Showa MechaGodzilla, SpaceGodzilla, GMK Godzilla, Destoroyah and the Space Monsters in the IDW Godzilla comic (SpaceGodzilla, Monster X, Gigan and Hedorah) to be these. Also, the way the monsters in Godzilla: Kingdom of Monsters are depicted are in no way light-hearted. In fact, when they show up, that's when things really get intense.
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I think Chrysalis is the real "Knight of Cerebus" for that series if you take the whole situation into perspective, since, if you analyze Discord a great deal, even in his initial appearance, he's more of a spoiled brat than someone genuinely malicious, even if he has traits of a "Magnificent Bastard" like Chrysalis. There is a moment or two where he seems genuinely confused as to why Twilight isn't "having fun" like he is.
I'm guessing Piccolo Daimao or even Tambourine would be the Knight of Cerberus for Dragonball. Tao Pie Pie has the distinction of being the first villain Goku couldn't even come close to defeating in a straight fight (at least in their first encounter), as well as being the first villain to murder one of the good guys (even if only a minor one), but the series still kept a lot of humor throughout that entire story arc and afterward. (Although I would say the series, which had been going about even with action and humor up until that point, started shifting to favor action.) Piccolo Daimao, on the other hand, pretty much had nothing funny about him and killed people left and right, including big characters.
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