“ | Careful, I'm contagious. | „ |
~ Thrax's first and most famous line. |
“ | Ya see this? This here little DNA bead comes from a little girl in Riverside, California. Didn't like to wash her hands. Took me three whole weeks. And this one. Nice lady in Detroit, Motown; Six days flat. Then there's this old guy in Philly. I killed him in 72 hours. Yeah, I'm getting better as I go along, baby, but the problem is I never set a record! Until my man Frank, that is. I'm gonna take him down in 48 hours! Get my own chapter in the medical books! | „ |
~ Thrax talking to a group of germ thugs, explaining his evil plan to break his record by killing Frank Detore in two days. |
Thrax is the main antagonist of 2001 Warner Bros. hybrid film Osmosis Jones and the overarching antagonist of its 2002-04 sequel/spin-off television series Ozzy & Drix.
He is an extremely virulent, contagious and pestilential anthropomorphic virus, as well as a disturbingly vicious, dangerous and intimidating murderer who seeks to establish a record as the fastest killing disease ever.
He was voiced by Laurence Fishburne.
What Makes Him Pure Evil?[]
In General[]
- Unlike some other Warner Bros. animated villains, Thrax lacks any redeeming qualities to his character. In addition, he changes the tone of the lighthearted buddy-comedy and is treated seriously during his time in the movie. Not that he hasn't cracked jokes, but all of those instances were quite dark and twisted as well.
- In comparison to most viruses, who cause diseases and all to replicate and survive, Thrax was motivated solely for his sadistic attention-seeking desires to be the fastest killing and deadliest virus ever, which proves Thrax does have moral agency for a virus and stands out as worse than any of them.
- While it could be argued that he is inherently evil due to being a virus, the fact that one virus in Frank's body was shown to be reformed and how Mayor Phlegmming was evil despite not being a pathogen proves that cells are good and evil by choice and vice versa for pathogens. This shared duality between both cell and disease shows that Thrax is acting evil out of his own volition rather than mere instinct to make humans ill before killing them.
- His cruel nature is shown when he kills dozens of people, including at least one child. This is bad enough on its own, but all of his victims have civilizations and ecosystems in their bodies that were completely wiped out when those people died. His only regret in regard to his victims was the fact that he killed them slower than he wanted and failing to make the record, because his main motive was setting a record of the fastest killing disease.
- Worse still, from the point of view of microbes, a human body is like a planet full of life and diverse ecosystems.
- So when a human dies, it's like an entire planet facing total extinction of all life and dying. And with Thrax causing a Cytokine Storm at the film's climax, there's no quick and painless explosion like the Death Star destroying Alderaan, but rather the planet's residents slowly and agonizingly burning to a crisp.
- On average, a human body has over 30 trillion cells inside them and dozens of trillions more in microbes (a human mouth alone has more bacteria on it than the entire human population on Earth).
- With all of this accounted for and the fact that it's established in the movie that microbes have entire ecosystems and civilizations inside their host, this means that on his quest to set the record for fastest killing virus, Assuming that none of these microbes managed to evacuate their cities in time, Thrax has the highest kill count of any animated movie villain.
- While these murders technically take place offscreen as they happen before the story, Thrax shows their DNA beads which he takes every time he kills a person as some sort of sick trophy, proving that they did in fact happen.
- Worse still, from the point of view of microbes, a human body is like a planet full of life and diverse ecosystems.
- The fact that it is a virus suggests that it is trying to destroy humanity because its killing spree is unlikely to ever end. With trillions of cells in the human body, its kill count could reach even quadrillions.
- He has a genuinely sadistic fondness for gruesome murders of both white blood cells and other germs. It's the microscopic equivalent to a serial killer who terrorizes even cops and fellow criminals.
Osmosis Jones[]
- Begins his rampage in Frank's body by killing 2 white blood cells in the mouth, the first one having only his eyes remaining and the second one being burnt from the inside out.
- Brutally killed a germ mob boss in front of his thugs, forcing them to serve and help him with his plan of killing Frank out of fear, though they are impressed with how fast he managed to kill his victims.
- Brutally murdered a worker on the nose dam and was willing to have the nose flooded with snout with Osmosis Jones and Drix standing on the dam, nearly killing them.
- When his minions question what to do about Osmosis Jones and Drix if they get in their way, Thrax says they if or either one of them becomes an obstacle, he will kill them. He demonstrates this by burning the newspaper with a picture of Osmosis Jones and Drix with his claw.
- Cruelly kills Bruiser and Joe Cramp, his only remaining minions, in anger when they suggested that they incubate before taking Frank down alone as a result for the rest of the team dying.
- While he was horrified at the unhealthy lifestyle Frank has when he sees his nightmares and memories in the nightmare room, even saying "This cat was sick before I even got here", it is not a redeeming quality since he was going to kill him anyways, even if he wasn't as unhealthy to begin with. Nevertheless, he's obviously not interested in making things better for humans, nor is he killing humans because they deserve it, but rather, he was more interested in his reckless fame and downright omnicidal sadism, rather than to turn a new leaf or at least made his host's deaths peaceful to comfort their suffering before it's all over. Even then, he still got over his horror over Frank's lifestyle and does not really care for it anymore, moving on to kill Frank as he planned.
- He attempts to choke Osmosis Jones to death with a DNA bead.
- Upon seemingly impaling Jones, he declares that after Frank dies from the infection he caused him, he will go and kill his young daughter Shane to see if he can break his 48-hour record.
Trivia[]
- Shockingly, despite coming from an exemplary comedy, Thrax has one of, if not, the highest explicit kill count of any Pure Evil villain in children's media ever, considering there were trillions of sentient cells living inside every human body and that he killed dozens of them, thus, he also killed those sentient cells and sent their microbiomes headlong into total extinction. In total, he's killed hundreds of trillions of sapients cells and quadrillions of symbiotic microbes who lived alongside them, thus holding the current record of having an outstanding number of kills that aren't undone, than any other Pure Evil Villain.
- Due to Thrax focusing on killing people rather than his own survival like a normal virus, the fact that Frank was infected from a Chimpanzee (Which are known to be used as test subjects) and his name is based on Anthrax which was famously used as a bio weapon, a common fan theory suggests that Thrax is a bio weapon. If this was confirmed it would mean that he would be a living weapon, bringing up possible moral agency issues. However, even then he is still evil on his own volition, along with being a fully sapient virus, and is aware that he is evil in the first place, meaning that rather than making him less evil, it would make him even worse due to how prideful of how awful he is in nature.
External Links[]
- Thrax on the Villains Wiki
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Pure Evils | ||
Animated Features See Also |