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Magic makes people feel too powerful… too entitled. It makes them think they can defy the will of a king.
~ King Runeard revealing his true colors in a flashback, as well as his most famous quote.
For Arendelle.
~ Runeard after murdering the Northuldran chief in cold blood, also his final known words.

King Runeard is the main antagonist of Disney's Frozen franchise.

The paternal grandfather of Anna and Elsa, the oldest known monarch of Arendelle and the architect of its modern castle, Runeard was a cruel man who prioritized his power over everything else. His plans to increase his authority ruined the lives of those around him and culminated when he led a brutal battle against the peaceful indigenous people of the Northuldra, cursing both these people and his own for decades to come.

He was voiced by Jeremy Sisto.

What Makes Him Pure Evil?[]

  • He showed his wife Rita, who'd been forced into marriage with him for political reasons, no love or understanding when she grew hopelessly depressed, longing to return to her home kingdom. He simply grew impatient at her when she ceaselessly spent her day locked in her room, sobbing, despite being lavished in shallow royal gifts.
    • His refusal to give Rita freedom drove her to a breaking point, making her flee from Arendelle castle, scope out the magical trolls and implore them to wipe out her memories of her life in Arendelle, as she couldn't bear to remember her marriage with Runeard, nor could she live with the fact that she had to leave her son Agnarr behind. She only left Agnarr behind because she knew that if she ran into the dark with him, Runeard would hunt them down and wage war with her home kingdom, leading to many people dying and even putting Agnarr's life in jeopardy.
  • Unwilling to accept he'd been an awful husband, Runeard erased any sign of Rita's existence by locking away all her things, barring the door to her room and banishing anyone who would even speak her name.
  • He falsely claimed to Agnarr that Rita had been carried off by evil spirits, traumatizing his son into fearing the spirits would get him at night and praying for them to return his mother to him at day.
    • When Agnarr realized his mother wouldn't be coming back and wept, Runeard just shamed him for crying, causing Agnarr to lock himself in his room for years. Runeard persistently denied Agnarr any memory of his mother and would've even locked away his cherished stuffed puffin Sir JörgenBjörgen if not for the servant Gerda hiding it, aware of Runeard's coldness.
    • He emotionally stunted Agnarr through relentless abusive indoctrination. His son would grow up fearing his own feelings and judging himself to be a disappointment to his deceased father.
  • He dedicated his reign to crushing the Northuldra, a people indigenous to the Enchanted Forest, as he hated them for practicing magic, believing they could threaten his power. He perpetuated intense hate for magic in his kingdom by shifting blame onto it whenever he himself made mistakes, teaching his subjects that magic-users never fought fair as their souls had been turned black as night by their sorcery.
    • He commissioned the construction of a massive dam in the Enchanted Forest, presenting it as a "gift of peace" which would truly cut off the Northuldrans' waters supply in order to impoverish their soil and weaken their lands, making the population have to turn to him for their survival.
      • This would also lead to the extinction/migration of animals, which would deprive the kingdom Vesterland of food. He knew about this, but didn't care. Princess Sissel, the older of the two Vesterland Sisters, didn't dare speak up against Runeard, as he'd only prevent her people from receiving food, supplies and medicine as punishment, since he controlled the port.
      • When Sissel died in a flash flood, Runeard forced the only witness to the tragic death, Stig Petter, to frame Sissel's little sister, Inger, who opposed the dam like her sister, as the murderer who killed her sister for the crown, or else he would imprison him for life or worse, forcing Stig to commit Perjury at Inger's trial. Runeard sent Inger to the gallows to be hanged so she would no longer interfere with his plans (but she was freed by Rita).
    • He brought the full Arendellian army to the peaceful celebration of the dam in the Enchanted Forest and ordered them to count the Northuldran population and assess their strength, bracing for an attack.
    • During the celebration, the Northuldran chief urged Runeard to do something about the dam, as he had figured out it was hurting the forest and cutting off their lands. Runeard quickly interrupted him and suggested they discuss this in private. When they moved to an obscured clearing, Runeard murdered the unarmed and unprepared chief in cold blood. Despite claiming that his cold-blooded murder of the Northuldran chief was "for Arendelle", it was really out of nothing more than his own selfish interest.
  • When his son Agnarr is exploring the enchanted forest in a playful manner and showing kind towards magic, he impatiently called him over and scolds him for doing so by telling him it needs to be feared instead of being admired. And when Agnarr apologized to him, Runeard brushed him off without saying goodbye. Proving that he doesn’t care about his own son, only as an extension of himself.
  • He instigated a bloody attack on the Northuldrans during which many died, and the wounded were piled high, devolving the peaceful celebration into violence, despite knowing full well that not only Northuldran, but Arendellian everyday civilians and children were present en masse; endangering them all.
    • Even though the Arendellians and Northuldrans didn't want to harm each other and both sides just wanted peace, Runeard convinced Arendelle that they were the ones who were acting in self-defense against the Northuldra, even though the latter were acting in self-defense against Arendelle. This shows that he caused squadrons of people on both sides to start slaughtering each other meaninglessly all because of his own selfishness.
    • A number of children witnessed their parents get killed during the battle, and so many children were in fact orphaned that the Arendellian orphanage had to ask for emergency subsidies to accommodate and feed all the newcomers.
    • He did nothing to protect his son Agnarr, who by the end of the battle almost bled to death before being saved by the selfless Iduna.
  • He had conditioned his soldiers to the point that a squad of them were in agreement to "slash them all down" if they were to run into more Northuldrans. They even interrogated the hurt twelve-year-old Northuldran Iduna, who was in legitimate danger until the noble Arendellian Lord Peterssen swore she was the child of two Arendellian parents who died in the battle, saving Iduna's life.
    • By painting the Northuldrans as traitors who started the battle, Runeard elevated Arendelle's hatred of Northuldra to the degree that they would see them dead, forcing Iduna to hide her heritage for most of her life in Arendelle.
  • Before he tumbled to his death, he tackled a Northuldran and forced him down with him, killing them both.
  • Unlike Hans, who has sympathetic traits, Runeard was motivated by power.
  • His death isn't played with sympathy at all, it's proved he rightfully deserves to die for all his crimes against magic whatsoever.
  • Despite his death, he is indirectly responsible for the events of the franchise.

Trivia[]

  • In one of the 5,000 planned prologues, King Runeard is shown ordering Mattias to protect Agnarr as he attacks a magical entity before he is crushed to his death by a boulder during their battle. If this had been canon, it would've shown that he was protective of his son to an extent despite his abuse towards him.
  • It was said by the author of the canon novelization that Runeard wished to eradicate the Northuldran population with his battle. Despite that, his extreme emotional abuse towards his wife and son, along with sparking a war that caused casualties on both sides (while manipulating Arendelle that they were in self-defense against the Northuldra) is what ultimately pushes him into Pure Evil status.

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See Also
20th Century Studios Pure Evils | Aladdin Pure Evils | Alice in Wonderland Pure Evils | Amblin Entertainment Pure Evils | Avengers Pure Evils | Buena Vista International Pure Evils | Captain America Pure Evils | Darkwing Duck Pure Evils | Deadpool Pure Evils | Die Hard Pure Evils | DreamWorks Pure Evils | DuckTales Pure Evils | Entertainment Film Distributors Pure Evils | Fantastic Four Pure Evils | Gargoyles Pure Evils | Guardians of the Galaxy Pure Evils | Hulk Pure Evils | ImageMovers Pure Evils | Indiana Jones Pure Evils | Lucasfilm Pure Evils | Marvel Cinematic Universe Pure Evils | Netflix Pure Evils | Once Upon a Time Pure Evils | Paramount Pure Evils | Pinocchio Pure Evils | Pirates of the Caribbean Pure Evils | Pixar Pure Evils | Punisher Pure Evils | Sony Pictures Pure Evils | Spider-Man Pure Evils | Star Wars Pure Evils | Steven Spielberg Pure Evils | The Chronicles of Narnia Pure Evils | The Owl House Pure Evils | Thor Pure Evils | Tim Burton Pure Evils | Vanguard Pure Evils | Warner Bros. Pure Evils | X-Men Pure Evils | X-Men Movies Pure Evils

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