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This article is for a character that is approved as a Silly Pure Evil example, meaning they are a character that fits the criteria for Pure Evil while being consistently played for laughs. |
| “ | Little Jack Horner didn't have any magic. He was a pathetic, buttered baker's boy. Little Jack's dead. I'm BIG Jack Horner! | „ |
| ~ Jack's most famous quote as he explains his story to the Serpent Sisters after one of them calls him "Little Jack". |
| “ | I hate talking fairy tale... ANIMALS! | „ |
| ~ Jack trying to stop Puss in Boots and Kitty Softpaws from escaping with the map by throwing Poseidon's Trident at the Magic Carpet and showcasing his hatred for fairy tale creatures due to his past. |
| “ | Ethical Bug: Sweet mother of goose, Jack! Jack: Well, you know what they say: Can't bake a pie without losing a dozen men. [laughs] Ethical Bug: Oh. Oh! That was horrible! Your wish is horrible... YOU'RE HORRIBLE! YOU'RE AN IRREDEEMABLE MONSTER! Jack: Oh, oh, what took you so long, idiot?! [flicks Ethical Bug away] Ethical Bug: Ahhh! |
„ |
| ~ Jack taunting the Ethical Bug once he finally realizes how evil Jack is. |
"Big" Jack Horner, formerly known as "Little" Jack Horner, is the main antagonist of DreamWorks' 43rd full-length animated film Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, the sequel to the 2011 film Puss in Boots and a spin-off of the Shrek franchise.
He is a feared pastry chef and crime lord who has a history of stealing various magical items, creatures and people ever since he was snubbed of fairy-tale fame. Horner plots to reach the Wishing Star in order to enact his wish to harness all magic on the planet, racing with Puss in Boots and Goldilocks for the wish.
He was voiced by John Mulaney.
What Makes Him Pure Evil?[]
In General[]
- While he has a minor tragedy of losing attention from people because magical creatures get more attention than him, it doesn't hold up because his motive of wanting to take all the magic for himself and even destroying Earth makes him far too petty to be sympathetic.
- He even denies having a tragedy to the Ethical Bug because he doesn't want to be sympathized by anyone.
- He also casually admits that unlike Goldilocks, he has no excuse for his crimes, as despite having loving parents, stability, and a major pie baking business to inherit, Jack dismisses them as "useless crap" and admits that he is just a megalomaniac who was jealous of magical creatures for being more famous than he ever was.
- This jealousy is even more petty when the flashback shows that he sang his nursery rhyme too many times that people (his parents included) were understandably starting to get bored of it, hence why they turned to seeing Pinocchio instead.
- He runs a criminal organization with an iron fist. Even Puss in Boots (who is a thrill-seeker known for challenging criminals) was hesitant to challenge him.
- His bakers are shown to be immensely afraid when he personally tastes their latest batch of pies, implying that a horrible punishment awaits them if they make him bad pies. Even given to Jack's high sense of taste and smell, as he finds the latest batch to be quite delicious and allows his bakers to sell them out for distribution, this is only just to reign in profit for his pie factory, which is just considered pragmatic.
- While Goldilocks is an Anti-Villain who manages to redeem herself at the film's climax and Death is a somewhat morally grey force of nature who eventually shows honor by sparing Puss' last life once the latter learns to appreciate life, Jack has no redeeming qualities whatsoever and doesn't care about anything but himself and his wish.
- Although Jack has multiple comedic moments in the film, nearly all of them only emphasize how much of a depraved sociopath he is, with his crimes being treated with genuine horror in-universe and him being taken seriously and feared by the other characters as a threat not to cross. The dark humor in his character revolves around how bluntly and casually cruel he is, only highlighting his lack of remorse. His death at the hands of the Ethical Bug and the Phoenix, while comedic, doesn't detract from his heinousness nor was it played for sympathy, with the heroes watching in disgust when he complained about what he specifically did to deserve that death.
- Despite the high Heinous Standards of the Shrek universe, he easily stands out due to his plethora of heinous crimes and willingness to get the world destroyed while possessing lower resources than villains like Bloodwolf.
Background[]
- He collected various magical items, creatures and their parts. Some of these magical objects included the Lilliputians trapped inside a glass bottle, and the horns of baby unicorns, which Jack was implied to have gotten by forcibly removing them himself, either by killing them or cutting them from their heads while forcing them to serve as his horses.
- He nailed a sentient Magical Carpet on the floor in his office for everyone to walk on as it writhed in agony.
- He trapped dozens, if not over a hundred Lilliputians in a bottle.
- At some point, he hired Kitty Softpaws for a job, but apparently then set her up.
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish[]
- He hired a duo of criminal sisters known as the Serpent Sisters to find the Wishing Map which, according to one of them, led to numerous murders, a fact Jack couldn't care less about, angrily interrupting her as she tried to tell him about it.
- Jack promised the Serpent Sisters "their own weight in gold" as payment for their mission, but then tricked one of them into touching Midas' Hand, causing her body to turn into solid gold, due to said sister mocking his nursery rhyme, and leaving the other to drag her sister out from the factory. There was also no indication the transformation can be reversed.
- While the sisters are criminals who murdered a lot of people to get the map (albeit offscreen), the sister who got turned to gold didn't deserve too much of her fate and Jack did it simply out of pettiness for his rhyme being mocked.
- He pins the Magic Carpet to wooden beam with a trident as it helps Puss and Kitty escape.
- He tried to kill Goldilocks and the Three Bears once he encountered them again on the way to the wishing star with the Excalibur, which was stuck in the rock due to Jack obviously not being worthy enough to pull it out so he just used it as a club.
- He uses the Phoenix as a flamethrower by choking it to incinerate the Posies in the Pocket Full of Posies, despite the flowers being peaceful (if unprovoked) creatures who treated Puss and company with kindness earlier. While burning the Posies alive, he also set two of his henchmen on fire, but he didn't care.
- The Phoenix was also shown in a cage earlier in his factory, further showing how abusive he is towards it.
- He released what he thought was a magic locust simply so it could devour the Posies, only to learn that this "locust" was actually the Ethical Bug.
- He takes Perrito, who was a puppy, hostage and threatens to kill him by shooting a unicorn horn right in his face if Puss and Kitty don't hand over the Map. Luckily, Goldilocks and the Three Bears intervened, freeing Perrito.
- Before this, the Ethical Bug asked Jack if he had the guts to shoot Perrito, to which Jack nonchantly replied he does.
- He showed no remorse for having his subordinates being killed or murdered by the dangers of the Dark Forest. As he revealed to the Ethical Bug, his Nanny Bag of magical items would get him to the Wishing Star long after all of his men were dead.
- He infamously states that he "can't bake a pie without losing a dozen men", meaning that he sees these deaths as necessary for accomplishing his goal of getting to the Wishing Star.
- While going over the Posies, he had his bakers get devoured and murdered by them. He was the one who ordered them to raze the Posies in the first place, which is what caused the Posies to attack them.
- During one of the film's battles, he accidentally kills three of his henchmen with the unicorn horns, in which he not only shows no remorse, but excitement at it as well, as he had never tested shooting someone with his unicorn horns before.
- When one of his henchmen called him out for shooting him, he just blamed the sight for being off. He also said "My Bad" to the third baker that got shot, but only in a sarcastic, unfeeling tone of voice.
- In one instance, when he has to get his carriage across a canyon, he makes use of his remaining lackeys by forcing them to make a bridge across it using their own bodies. First, he makes it across himself, telling them to use their entire body weight only for his own needs. Adding onto this, when they attempt to get the carriage across on the human bridge, it collapses, causing almost all of the bakers to fall to their deaths. This callous action is what made the Ethical Bug realize Jack is just beyond redemption, after which he simply asks the bug what took him so long to figure it out after being called an "irredeemable monster" and even calls him "idiot" for it. While Jack does rescue his last baker, he only does it due to her possibly being useful to him and under the condition that she doesn't annoy him.
- During the final battle for the Wishing Star, he accidentally blasts his last baker and doesn't even bother helping her out when she gets stuck in the Wishing Star's barriers and is calling for his help, simply claiming that he was "busy" at the moment while leaving her to be disintegrated.
- He infamously states that he "can't bake a pie without losing a dozen men", meaning that he sees these deaths as necessary for accomplishing his goal of getting to the Wishing Star.
- As the sphere depicts, Horner's plans for world conquest through gaining all the magic in the world would unleash untold damage to the world and, considering the Ethical Bug's horror-filled reaction to it, there is some genuine weight to it even if the extent the sphere depicts is exaggerated.
- On top of his ultimate plan, he also plotted to murder Puss, Kitty, Perrito, Goldilocks and her family, even casually asking the Ethical Bug if he should do this all at once or wait for Puss and Kitty to steal the map to the Wishing Star from Goldilocks first.
- Even if the orb was exaggerating, Jack showed a disturbing amount of calmness (even longing) while watching a vision of himself ruining the world with magic.
- He mocked and flicked away the Ethical Bug, a creature who tries his best to find whatever positive inner moral conscience people might have in their hearts, who stopped trying to help Horner once he realized how horrible he truly is.
- If one looks closely at the scene where Jack flicks the Ethical Bug away, you can see that he loses not only a wing, but a leg as well.
- It is also implied that he only kept the Ethical Bug for as long as he did just to see how long it took before his belief in there being good in him was crushed.
- He attempted to blast Mama Bear, only stopped by Baby Bear who defends her.
- He blasted Baby Bear, when the latter defends him from hurting Mama Bear, which caused him to get stuck in the Wishing Star's barriers and nearly disintegrated just like the last member of his Baker's Dozen, with Horner laughing in response, had Goldilocks and their parents not been able to rescue him from certain death.
- When Perrito begged him not to use his wish by using his puppy-eyes, Horner only mocked him and declared that the puppy-eyes don't work on him due to being "dead inside".
- He makes one final attempt to claim the wish.
- Even though his death is somewhat comedic with him asking what he did to deserve this despite what he did, it also highlights how egotistical he is. He also deserves this for all of his horrible actions and crimes.
Trivia[]
- He and Lord Farquaad are the only canon villains from the Shrek universe to be Pure Evil.
- He can be considered a foil to Perrito. While Jack is selfish, wrathful, and only wants the Wishing Star to ruin the lives of those around him out of pure jealousy, Perrito is selfless, polite, and wants the star purely to make Puss happy. They also have conflicting backstories, where Jack was born into a loving and wealthy family, but still became evil due to his jealousy over being upstaged by Fairy Tales, while Perrito was abused by his former owners before being left homeless, but still turned out optimistic and upbeat in spite of that. To be noted that Horner is Pure Evil while Perrito is Pure Good.
- He is considered to be the prime example of the Silly Pure Evil trope, hence why he's the Icon of the Template.
- Initially, he was considered Serious Pure Evil, but he would be eliminated due to his comedic moments and was downgraded to Inconsistently Heinous. Later on, he would approved as Near Pure Evil after it was realized he still posed a major threat that was taken seriously by the characters, and he would stay there for a while. However, with the inclusion of the Silly Pure Evil trope, he finally regained his Pure Evil status.
- He was the only main character who didn’t find out about Death and thought Puss referred him as an evil alias called Death which if he knew about Death he would have become way more evil and even loved being named that to make his purpose more villainous.
External Links[]
- Big Jack Horner on the Villains Wiki
- Big Jack Horner on the DreamWorks Wiki
- Big Jack Horner on the Shrek Wiki
- Big Jack Horner on the Universal Studios Wiki
- Big Jack Horner on the Adventures Of Puss in Boots Wiki
- Big Jack Horner on the Entertainingly Detestable Wiki
- Big Jack Horner on the Main Light Horse Wiki
