| “ | If one of us falls, we all fall. | „ |
| ~ David Prentiss' motto. |
David Prentiss is the main antagonist of the 2021 dystopian action film Chaos Walking, an adaptation of Patrick Ness' 2008-2010 book trilogy of the same name.
He is the cunning mayor of Prentisstown, the father of David Prentiss, Jr. and the leader of The Ark army. The highest authority of the planet New World, Prentiss feels his rule threatened when a mysterious woman called Viola lands on New World, doing whatever he needs to get rid of her.
He was portrayed in the film by Mads Mikkelsen, who also played Randall Boggs in the Danish dub of Monsters, Inc., Le Chiffre in Casino Royale and Jürgen Voller in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
What Makes Him Pure Evil?[]
- Rules the New World town of Prentisstown with an iron fist. During his allowing his son Davy and his friends to serve as his backup and bully whoever they want, like Todd Hewitt. He even incited the townsfolk to found it over a swamp to prevent other communities from seeing their Noises.
- He is, overall, the one responsible for the absence of any women at New World, whom he targeted because they weren't affected by the Noise so he couldn't read their feelings.
- To do so, Prentiss teamed up with Father Aaron to control Prentisstown, having all books burned down to prevent their people from reading, establishing an exclusive-female curfew to prevent women from learning what men knew and ultimately massacring all of Prentisstown's female population, depriving several young boys from their mothers and prohibiting his fellow male villagers to tell them about what happened to their maternal figures.
- It should also be noted that, in the long run, with the absence of all females, all of Prentisstown's population would eventually go extinct due to a lack of reproduction.
- Steals alongside his men from the ship where Viola landed.
- Captures Viola and interrogates her before trying to kill her after realizing with his men the threat Viola posed and the opportunity her spaceship could represent to leave New World.
- Organizes a manhunt on Todd and Viola, arming his men with weapons to kill the duo.
- He is so infamous that the townsfolk of Farmbranch get unnerved upon learning from Viola and she and Todd escaped from Prentisstown, even revealing to hang anyone from Prentisstown.
- Offers Farmbranch's population to let them inside Viola's spaceship in exchange of surrendering her to them.
- Has the former Prentisstowner-turned-Farmbrancher Matthew blasted into nothingness by his men for trying to shoot him.
- Forces Ben to try to talk Todd and Viola out from resisting.
- Sends his men after Todd and Viola, leading to the death of Todd's dog Manchee at the hands of Father Aaron in the process.
- Tracks down Todd and Viola to an abandoned spaceship whose technology Viola can use to contact her people and tries to have both young teens killed, sending Aaron after Viola while looking for Todd on his own.
- Threatens to shoot Ben dead and ends up doing so, promising Todd that if he tells him where Viola is, he would let him spend his father's last moments a little while.
- Torments Todd with visions caused by his own noise and is about to shoot him dead before Viola comes to Todd's rescue.
- Expresses zero remorse for the women he killed when surrounded by his victims in a vision created by Viola before being knocked to his presumed death into a hole behind him.
- David's lack of remorse before his death highly contrasts how Viola killed Aaron, who expressed huge remorse for his role in killing all of Prentisstown's women and let Viola burn him alive to atone for his sins. Meanwhile, Prentiss didn't show any remorse in front of his hallucinating victims but more of horror as he felt that he was being haunted.
- Though he allows Ben to bury Cillian, this was out of pragmatism, as he made clear that he didn't care what Ben would do with Cillian's corpse as long as he reunited with Prentisstown's population in a few hours.
- His relationship with his son Davy isn't an affectionate one, with David seeing his son as an extension of himself (as evidenced by the fact that he named him after himself) and the stern look he gives to Davy when he impulsively insists that he can handle Viola and gets angry at his father for ignoring him.
Trivia[]
- Only the film version of David Prentiss qualifies as Pure Evil, while his original book version isn't because, while a more horrible father to Davy to the point of killing him once Davy starts rebelling against his authority over him, Prentiss is genuinely affable to Todd Hewitt, teaching him how to hunt so he can learn how to survive in New World's forests and ultimately sparing Todd by committing suicide upon realizing the monster he had become.
- It's believed that among the women David Prentiss killed during his misognystic crusasde was the mother of his son Davy, as Davy's mother is never mentioned but Davy was born through the same way as all humans. If this were confirmed, it would make David even worse.
