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"Mature Content Warning!" |
| “ | Orel, I'll see YOU… in my study. | „ |
| ~ Clay's catchphrase towards Orel whenever he does something wrong. |
| “ | Love is a very beautiful, very intense feeling for a startlingly short period of time. Before long you realize it gets in the way of the real important thing in life like going to sleep or being left alone. That's when love starts to fade and lies kick in. | „ |
| ~ Clay Puppington to his son Orel about love. |
| “ | WHY DO YOU QUIT WORKING ON ME?! She always fools me, Orel. "I'll make things better, dear! Drink me! Put me inside you! I'm great!" And she CHOKES ME, JUST LIKE EVERY OTHER WHORE OUT THERE! They're all worthless, kid! Every woman! Don't let them GETCHYA! All of them wanna GETCHYA! They just grab you and PULL YOU INTO 'EM! And you're forced to STAY IN AND PULL OUT! STAY IN, PULL OUT! And they got ya! And they grip you by the right-where-it-counts, and then start squeezing things out! Things that are like WEIGHTS ARE ON YOUR HEAD! YOU'RE STUCK THERE FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE WITH NOWHERE TO GO AND NO ONE TO BE! | „ |
| ~ Clay Puppington's insecure breakdown in Nature: Part 1. |
Mayor Clayton Middleinitial "Clay" Puppington is the deuteragonist/main antagonist of the Adult Swim stop-motion show Moral Orel.
He is the abusive, alcoholic father of Orel Puppington, stepfather of his wife's second son Shapey Puppington and the unofficial adoptive father of Block Posabule. His wife is Bloberta Puppington. He frequently complains about his 'lousy, stinking dead-end job', which is revealed in the penultimate episode Nesting to be the Mayor of Moraltown.
He was voiced by Scott Adsit.
His Evil Ranking[]
What Makes Him Close to Being Pure Evil?[]
- When he was a child, believing his mother truly didn’t love him, he faked his death which caused her heart to give out. While Clay never intended for this to happen and was saddened by his mother's passing, he never actually expressed any remorse for it.
- Following his mother's death, he would deliberately cruelly taunt and mock his father in order to goad him into hitting him as he had come to associate physical abuse with affection.
- He is lazy and neglectful as the mayor of Moralton, with it being shown in God's Image that he willfully held up a system of racial discrimination.
- Despite the aesthetics of the series, it didn't actually take place in the 1950s, meaning that he is bending the law in order to keep this segregation instituted.
- When he had Orel and Shapey, he is neglectful towards them at best, allowing Shapey (who is heavily coded as autistic) to play with dangerous and sharp objects. He also seemed to not notice when Shapey was replaced with Block.
- He continually cheated on his wife Bloberta multiple times with multiple women, and Coach Stopframe.
- He is neglectful and abusive towards Orel, his own son. He constantly told Orel extremely bad advice which made him constantly do terrible things and get him and other people hurt, and he beat him after the fact and lectured him, not out of making him better, but to make himself look better, and he doesn’t actually care about the things Orel did. His advice caused Orel to do various harmful things, including:
- His advice about conception having Orel trying to get all the woman in the town pregnant.
- Getting Orel hooked on crack and made him beat up the shop owner, Sal Figurelli. He was only mad because Orel wasn’t giving him the drugs.
- Admonishing Orel after he was shot with a BB gun by Shapey and told him to be mature, causing Orel to become alcoholic though a misunderstanding. which Clay showed little care towards.
- Along with the rest of the town, forcibly euthanizing Orel’s new dog Bartholomew when he gave Orel too much happiness.
- His advice to Orel about attacking people before they hurt him first causing Orel to start beating up random innocent people, including his mom and him. He doesn’t punish Orel since he didn’t want to look like a bad father if he was proven wrong.
- As a result of being the Town Mayor, it can be assumed that he's ensuring that Orel doesn't face legal punishment for his various illegal actions so that he can punish him instead.
- He accidentally ran over and killed an elderly man with his car in God-Fearing and then immediately tried to blame Orel for it.
- He instituted an ordinance that segregated the Italian American Figurelli family in God's Image due to Orel realizing that they had a darker skin tone than the rest of the town.
- He brought Orel to hunting trip and, while drunk, started to pressure an uncomfortable Orel to shoot random animals for fun.
- In a season three episode, it’s revealed that he manipulated and befriended Orel’s friend Doughy, who struggled not having a father figure, into getting Orel to accept his camping trip.
- He shot an old hunting dog belonging to an old man and later put their head on a mantle and cooked them while refusing to give any to Orel.
- In his most infamous action in the series, during a fit of rage for Orel talking back, he shot him in the leg with a hunting rifle and started gaslighting him about it being his fault.
- He then deliberately drank the rubbing alcohol instead of helping Orel’s wound to further taunt him and passes out, leaving Orel bleeding out for the night. This also forced Orel shoot a bear who was trying to kill Clay.
- This act marking a turning point into the series, leaving Orel psychologically scarred and broken, and making him lose his faith and become much more negative in season 3. When Clay got sober in the afternoon and wakes up, he showed no remorse or care, saying he simply doesn’t remember it and lied about it being a bear attack.
- He then deliberately drank the rubbing alcohol instead of helping Orel’s wound to further taunt him and passes out, leaving Orel bleeding out for the night. This also forced Orel shoot a bear who was trying to kill Clay.
- In the bar, he started insulting Reverend Putty, Officer Papermouth and Dr. Potterswheel over their insecurities and past in order to goad them into attacking him. It's demonstrated that he's deliberately kept track of information of their personal lives for all of them in order to do this.
- Additionally, he discovered that Dr. Potterswheel has a gore fetish and endangered the lives of his patients, including his own wife, but didn't do anything about this because he wanted to use this fact as emotional leverage against him.
- He bullshited an apology to Orel about being a terrible father and shooting him purely for the sake of collecting information on his mayoral election rival Ms. Censordoll only to take it all back when Orel refused to help him and declares that he's glad he shot him.
- He ruined his relationship with his boyfriend Danielle Stopframe by cheating on him for a shallow and entirely sex and power-based relationship with Ms. Censordoll.
- He accused his own ex-boyfriend, Danielle Stopframe, of being a pedophile, implicitly threatening him with legal punishment, because he tried to emotionally council Orel. It's worth noting that he himself is bisexual but is knowingly invoking the "All gays are pedophiles" stereotype in doing this.
- In the end, he felt remorse for none of his actions and in the finale, still lived miserably married to Bloberta, presumably for the rest of his life.
- Despite having many comedic moments, he lost many of them in Nature after shooting Orel, and in season 3, he is taken much more seriously, with his moments of comedy not taking away from his seriously his actions are taken.
- While him being shocked at Dr. Potterswheel suggesting he molested his son and Orel bathing in children's blood may suggest he had standards, there's no indication that he's actually morally horrified by these, but that this was a simple expression of surprise at shocking material.
- While Cecil Creepler did worse, Clay still stood out due to his personal villainy towards Orel, as he is the reason that the latter started losing his faith in humanity and gained numerous corrupting qualities in season 3.
- While Clay was rejected by Stopframe and left to remain miserable married to Bloberta for likely the rest of his life, this didn't make him a scapegoat as he deserved it for shooting Orel and cheating on Stopframe.
What Prevents Him from Being Pure Evil?[]
- He is tragic as he was completely coddled by his helicopter mother while his father disliked him due to his mother’s nature rubbing off on him. He accidentally causes his mother’s death, which causes his father to completely neglect him, causing Clay to insult him to get his dad to abuse him, thinking pain equals love, and so this sentiment is instilled with him for years. This was coupled with meeting Bloberta, being introduced to alcoholism by her, being pushed into marrying her with questionable consent, which lead to their unhappy marriage and his inability to feel love towards his children. He is also bisexual and is forced to repress these feelings as a result of the homophobic society that he lives in.
- This is portrayed with sympathy throughout the story, including the Nature episode during his “WHY DO YOU QUIT WORKING ON ME?!” Speech and the season 3 episode Passing in which he seems to remember his childhood while drinking. There is also the Numb ending with Bloberta and the Help flashback episodes, and even the episode Sacrifice, where Clay starts drunkenly crying when no one tries hurting him to show love to him.
- He showed genuine love towards his gay lover, Coach Stopframe, he genuinely shows happiness and opens up about his actual feelings and concerns around Coach and while he cheats on him and ruins their relationship, he still tries hard to have Stopframe forgive him in the finale and says he loves him and is heartbroken at his rejection.
- His defeat is played for sympathy even if he deserved it, with him pathetically trying to say that he loved Stopframe before he is rejected and depressingly walked back into his house to his dead marriage and (as the final scene shows) still isn’t happy and is presumed to remain depressed for the rest of his life.
Trivia[]
- Clay Puppington is the only Moral Orel character to be Near Pure Evil.
- His voice actor, Scott Adsit, is most known for voicing Baymax, who is coincidentally Near Pure Good.
- If the series had continued, it would've been revealed that Mrs. Censordoll had been manipulating everyone in Moralton through voodoo. This will include Clay and would be the reason for him shooting Orel in the leg. It is believed that this would have probably affected his status as Near Pure Evil as it would give him moral agency issues.
External Links[]
- Clay Puppington on the Villains Wiki
- Clay Puppington on the Moral Orel Wiki
[]
 Near Pure Evils
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