“ | You've come to die! Your world is now my world, like all worlds! | „ |
~ Dormammu welcoming Doctor Strange in the Dark Dimension- his famous quote. |
Dormammu is the overarching antagonist of the 2016 Marvel Cinematic Universe superhero film Doctor Strange.
Dormammu is a primordial cosmic mystical entity. He is the Lord of Chaos a gigantic, godlike force of evil who exists in the Dark Dimension and seeks to spread his malign influence on all other worlds. Dormammu offers to bring his dimension into Earth to Kaecilius, a former student of the Ancient One, in exchange of "immortality".
He was voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch, who also played Sauron and Smaug in The Hobbit trilogy, in motion capture and by an unknown British voice actor.
What Makes Him Pure Evil?[]
- Dormammu has consumed countless dimensions off-screen and incorporated them into his own, and later tried to do the same to Dr Strange's universe, but failed.
- He was responsible for the corruption of Kaecilius and his Zealots, granting them powers from the Dark Dimension which they used to destroy the three magic sanctums on Earth.
- He sought to assimilate all of existence and have all life be tortured for eternity.
- He killed Doctor Strange over and over again in multiple horrible ways only for Strange to use the Time Stone to be brought back each time, and while Dormammu ultimately relents and goes through with Strange's bargain for him to spare Earth, he only did it to escape the time loop he trapped him in rather than doing it because it was the right thing to do.
- As part of his deal with Strange, Dormammu took Kaecilius and his remaining Zealots to torture them forever despite their loyalty to him.
- While it may seem like he is a generic doomsday villain, Dormammu does show enough personality to qualify as Pure Evil, showing sadistic pleasure in killing Strange and the capacity to ignore and accept Strange's bargain.
- While his origins are unclear, as told, he is shown to be very sadistic and deceived Kaecilius into thinking what he is doing for him is for the greater good and that his eternal life was paradise and is able to hold back his destructive nature to be bargained with, so it is highly unlikely that Dormammu has impaired agency.
- While one could argue gods have different morality than humans, like with Arishem, this doesn't change anything about Dormammu as his entire "ideology" is that people should just let him torture them.
Trivia[]
- Dormammu is currently the Pure Evil villain with the least amount of screen time in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, being physically present for less than two minutes. This makes his actions even worse since he makes such a huge impact on the story in such a short period of time.
- He is the first Pure Evil villain of Phase 3.
- He is one of two Pure Evil villains in the Marvel Cinematic Universe who is not the main villain of the films they appear in, along with Arnim Zola.
- He is the second of only two Pure Evil villains to survive through the end of the Infinity Saga, along with Red Skull.
- Dormammu was stated to have already absorbed whole dimensions and universes into his realm. If this was confirmed to be true, it would make Dormammu much worse.
- His What If...? version doesn't count as Pure Evil due to its minimal screentime and an absolute lack of characterization.
External Links[]
- Dormammu on the Villains Wiki
- Dormammu on the Marvel Cinematic Universe Wiki
- Dormammu on the Disney Wiki