Nihilus is the secondary antagonist of the Christian animated series The Story Keepers. He was a centurion of the Praetorian guard who was trying to rid Rome of the Christians.
He was voiced by Tim Curry, who also portrayed It in the 1990s miniseries of the same name, Slagar the Cruel in Redwall, Von Talon in Valiant, Emperor Palpatine in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Hexxus in FernGully: The Last Rainforest, Kilokahn in Superhuman Samurai Syber Squad, Taurus Bulba in Darkwing Duck, Skullmaster in Mighty Max and Anatoly Cherdenko in Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3.
Biography[]
He served under Emperor Nero and was fully backing the Emperor's attempts at purging Rome of Christians. He has no care for his men and freely abandons them to claim more power for himself. He will stop at nothing to become the Praetorian prefect, second only to the Emperor himself.
He became the recurring archenemy of Ben the baker and Tacitus, Nihilus's former comrade, as they try to elude him and the other Romans. Near the end, Nihilus becomes a bounty hunter/bandit and tries to kill Ben and Tacticus at any cost.
What Makes Him Pure Evil?[]
- Whilst it was Nero's idea to commit genocide on the Roman Christian population, Nihilus greatly enjoys his job and comes up with his own plans to kill Christians, making him more heinous than a mindless follower.
- He is consistently played seriously in all his appearances unlike the other villains.
- He built a catapult and enacted a scheme of firing burning debris in the merchant district where Christians were hidden in. He was fully aware that this would kill hundreds of non-Christian Romans.
- He treats his fellow Romans as expendable in his pursuit to power. For example, he ungratefully leaves his loyal comrade, Tacticus to die in the cave-in, which is after the latter had risked his life to save Nihilus. Similarly when Nero's adviser, Tacticus, pointed out that setting fire to the merchant district would kill Roman citizens, Nihilus didn't care.
- He engineered cruel and unusual treatment of prisoners including starving them.
- By his own admission, he has no problem trying to kill children. This is best shown when he tries to turn the main children against Ben the Christian Baker by claiming that he was really planning on selling them as slaves. He decides to trap them in their house and burn them alive when they don't fall for it.
- When he finally has Ben in his clutches, he tries to crucify him, even planning to crucify his own student, Capella, if Ben escaped from him.
- He murders Capella in cold blood for interfering with the crucification, even after disarming him and having him at his mercy.
- After losing his Praetorian prefect status due to failing Nero one too many times, he later hires a group of mercenaries and hunts down Ben and Tacticus to sell to Nero for revenge. He also planned to sell the friends and families of Ben and Tacticus into slavery despite both men pleading to spare their families as they had nothing to do with Nihilus's grudge.
- When dangling off a cliff, he tries to drag Tacticus down with him rather than take his hand.
- Being the animated series set in a continuity independent of the biblical stories, Nihilus easily meets the Heinous Standards.
Notes[]
- Nihilus is named after nihilism, popularly defined as "the rejection of all religious and moral principles, in the belief that life is meaningless", fitting for his ruthless character.
- Nihilus is believed to have been loosely based on Sophonius Tigellinus, the leader of Nero's praetorian guard.
- Given the Christian themes of the series, Nihilus likely was damned after death.
External links[]
- Nihilus on the Villains Wiki