If Disney Villains Won: The Warlord and the Judge

This is a topic that comes up quite a lot in the world of Disney. It’s very easy to search it and imagine what would happen if the plot went differently, or there were added characters and stuff.

I’ve seen stories if Disney Princesses had mothers, if they were historically accurate, etc. but one that recently has sparked a post here is:

What would happen if Disney villains won?

I’ve seen numerous articles online describing what some of those villains would have done if they were victorious in the conflict of their films. Websites such as Oh My Disney, Buzzfeed and a few other notables have analyzed what our baddies would have done after achieving their goal.

However, I was not entirely pleased with what they came up with, because while they mentioned a few Disney villains that I liked, all those articles failed to come up with something for my two all-time favourites: Shan Yu and Claude Frollo.

Since these sites can’t seem to be bothered to come up with something for Disney’s darkest and most tragic villain who is also the most realistic, and their most ruthless villain who not only is a skilled leader, but also a great tracker……it looks like it falls to me to write about what I think these two villains would do if they won. Hopefully the outcome of this will cause other writers out there coming up with their own ideas for these two villains too.

Shan Yu

Since he was my childhood, I’ll have to start with him. Well, it’s very simple; Shan Yu wants to overthrow the Emperor of China and conquer the country. He has very little backstory so it’s hard to decipher what has led him up to this point. I have always thought of him as someone who has conquered many places and China ends up being his biggest challenge to claim for his own. It makes me think that is why he is based off of Attila the Hun; he’s a conqueror who is feared throughout the region and lays waste to many cities in his travels.

Shan Yu was always looking for a challenge from his enemies, so that’s why he never evaded them while working towards his goal. Instead he chose to give them an advantage and take them on to prove his might. In this case, he would have gone as far as to capture the Emperor just like the in the movie, but then he would have killed Mulan once learning she was the one responsible for his defeat in the mountains. Once that was taken care of, he would have most likely killed Li Shang and then the Emperor. Then he would feel free to sit on the throne and he and his remaining Huns would have taken over the city. I can imagine that if he hadn’t lost his entire army (with an exception of five other Huns) in an avalanche, then he would have proceeded to conquer more lands after taking China, don’t you agree?

Another way this could have happened was, imagine if Mulan missed the mountain with that cannon. Shan Yu and his men would have overrun the soldiers in the pass and would have successfully attacked the Imperial city in full force. They wouldn’t stand a chance against them! Therefore that would lead to Shan Yu once again conquering China without fail.

In the aftermath, he would have either stayed in the city to rule over the people or laid waste to it and continued forward in a quest to conquer the world.


Claude Frollo

Well, I think we all know what Frollo wants, and there are a couple ways this could have turned out.

Frollo’s trying to achieve two things here: Rid Paris of all the gypsies, and satisfy his lust for Esmeralda by claiming or killing her. If the story were to make him victorious he would have most likely burned her on the pyre (because there’s absolutely no way she would have agreed to be his based on her personality). The Court of Miracles would be in ruins, and the rest of the gypsies would most likely be driven out of the city, locked up, or killed.

Afterwards, Frollo would probably just continue to do what he always does; resume isolating, manipulating, and educating Quasimodo while maintaining justice and power in the city. The rest of the citizens would live in fear of him for the remainder of the time he is in power. Frollo has always spoken about himself as a righteous man and that everything he does is in the name of God: he hopes to accomplish all that he must do for God before he dies, so I can only imagine him doing exactly that whatever it is after the gypsies are taken care of.

Now, imagine if Esmeralda in the movie was the same as she was in the book from what I’ve read so far. In the book, Esmeralda has a more passive personality. In an early part, she married Gringoire the poet in order to save his life. If her character from the book was added to the movie she would have most likely chosen to be with Frollo despite her love for Phoebus in order to save herself. In that event Frollo would have still rid of the other gypsies and continued to bring justice to Paris. At the same time, he would keep Esmeralda in the Palace of Justice for his own desires (or the Notre Dame if his character in the movie followed the book more since in the book he is the archdeacon); with a good chance that he would do things such as grope and rape her to satisfy his lust regardless of his concerns of eternal damnation.

And that is my spiel on what I think these two villains would have done if they were victorious. What are your thoughts?

👽Emily

PS: Disney Store also excluded these two villains when they released Disney villain tsum tsum plushies……unfortunately….AGAIN.