| “ | Magic makes people feel too powerful… too entitled. It makes them think they can defy the will of a king. | „ |
| ~ King Runeard's most famous quote in which he reveals his true nature |
King Runeard is the main antagonist of Disney's Frozen franchise, being the posthumous overarching antagonist of the first film, the main antagonist of the sequel and the spin-off novel Polar Nights, and the overarching antagonist of the prequel novel Dangerous Secrets.
He was voiced by Jeremy Sisto.
What Makes Him a Hate Sink?[]
- He is a domestic abuser, showing his wife Rita no love or freedom after she had been arranged to marry him, which caused her to suffer a mental breakdown. She asked the magical trolls to wipe her memories and flee into the dark. She couldn't even take her son Agnarr with her because she knew Runeard would hunt them down and wage war against her kingdom. He just kept on abusing Agnarr after this, yelling at him for disobeying him and even shaming him for crying over losing his mother, causing him to lock himself in his room for two years straight.
- He is controlling, as he would banish anyone who even spoke Rita's name. It also proves that he's incapable of taking criticism.
- He is a quintessential bigot who has cultivated undeserved xenophobia towards magic and its users.
- He is a power-hungry mass murderer who made his mark in history by building a dam just to weaken the lands of the peaceful Northuldran people, forcing them to have to turn to him to survive. This insidious scheme would also lead to animals dying off, depleting the neighboring kingdom of Vesterland of food to hunt for. In fact, when Vesterland's princess, Sissel, drowned in a flash flood, Runeard forced Stig Petter, the only witness, to lie that her little sister, Inger, killed her out of jealousy. Otherwise, he would imprison him for life or worse, forcing Stig to commit Perjury at Inger's trial. He then attempted to execute Inger, since she opposed the dam, showing his willingness to slaughter anyone intent on putting an end to the ongoing famine. When the Northuldran chief begged Runeard to do something about the dam, Runeard murdered the old, unarmed chief in cold blood.
- Despite claiming that his act of killing the chief was "for Arendelle”, it's clear he did it entirely out of his own selfish interests.
- He scars his name even deeper into the history books by starting the war against the Northuldrans, fooling the Arendellians into thinking that the Northuldran people had betrayed them, and leading to many meaningless deaths on both sides.
- He has no qualms about hurting children, and he callously left his own 12-year-old son to die for no reason, which could have ended his bloodline forever.
- He dragged another innocent Northuldran off a cliff to his death with him.
- The worst thing about this is that history was very kind to him for the next three decades. It was only then that his terroristic actions were brought to light and became public knowledge, removing the concealments around the scars he burned into Arendelle's history.
- His legacy is a dire one, given that he indirectly trapped both the surviving Arendellians and Northuldrans in a magical mist for decades to come, forcing them all to suffer due to his own unfounded xenophobia and bloodlust.
- His claims of magic making the Northuldran people think they can defy him makes no sense whatsoever, as he is not actually in charge of them. It also makes him a quintessential hypocrite because the simple truth is that magic makes him feel powerful and entitled enough to defy the Northuldran chief. The chief never demonstrated any entitled behavior and never defied Runeard in any tangible way.
- He's not shown to be a very intelligent king at all, given that his vacuous scheming makes viewers (and readers) incredulous as to how his underhanded and murderous actions could possibly give him more power.
- Although his plan of building the dam to deprive Northuldra of its resources may seem clever on paper, it didn't even take long for the Northuldra chief to figure it out. Since Runeard was incapable of manipulating him, he just decided to kill him instead.
- The dam built up so much water behind it that should it ever collapse, it would unleash a tsunami so big that can wipe out Arendelle. This means that in an effort to secure his position, Runeard essentially doomed his own kingdom. And if it wasn't for Elsa's interventions, Arendelle would have been wiped out after the dam is destroyed and the cursed is lifted.
- It's baffling as to why he would expect Vesterland to fund money for him to build the dam, given by the fact that the dam would have destroyed Vesterland's lands and wildlife.
- As a fighter, he’s shown to be truly pathetic: He was easily beaten by a civilian armed with only a stick, whilst he had both a sword and a shield. It also doesn’t help that he’s one of the first fatalities of the war he started.
- Unlike Hans, he has no excuse for his crimes other than gaining power for himself.
- Mari Mancusi, the author of Dangerous Secrets, confirms that even if Runeard was made aware of the law that Rita wasn't legally required to marry him, he wouldn't care and would have forced her to marry him anyway. This shows how selfish he is to the point of depriving Rita of her basic rights for the sake of his own powers.
- What's more, compared to many other Disney villains, King Runeard's loathsome personality and unforgivable sins are extremely realistic forms of evil. There are, were, and always will be men that are the spitting image of him in the real world.
- Him being praised by history for being a benevolent and heroic king with his true crimes and nature being hidden is also a very realistic thing, since, there are men and women who commit crimes, yet are still seen as historical heroes in real life.
- His relationship with his family is a plausible example of “Every child deserves parents, but not all parents deserve children” and is a very realistic thing as well since many people in real life also reflect Runeard's actions to their family.
- There's nothing about Runeard that's comedic in the slightest, with him being taken as a completely serious threat by everyone, in-universe or not.
Trivia[]
- Runeard can be considered the morally opposite to both of his granddaughters and Olaf, since he's Hate Sink and Pure Evil, while they're Pure Goods and Love Exalteds.
External Links[]
- King Runeard on the Villains Wiki
- King Runeard on the Pure Evil Wiki
- King Runeard on the Disney Wiki
- King Runeard on the Frozen Wiki
- King Runeard on the Ultimate Evil Wiki
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 Hate Sinks
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