| “ | Didn't they tell you, Jack? It's great being a Guardian, but there's a catch: If enough kids stop believing, everything your friends protect - wonder, hopes, and dreams - it all goes away. And little by little, so do they. No Christmas, or Easter, or little fairies that come in the night. There will be nothing but fear, and darkness... and me. It's your turn not to be believed in. | „ |
| ~ Pitch to the Guardians. |
| “ | I'd say "sweet dreams"... but there aren't any left. | „ |
| ~ Pitch after having the Sandman consumed by Nightmares, his most famous quote. |
| “ | No? I don't know what it's like to be cast out?! To not be believed in?! To long for a family. All those years in the shadows I thought, no one else knows what this feels like. But now I see I was wrong. | „ |
| ~ Pitch to Jack Frost about his insecurities. |
Kozmotis Pitchiner, better known as Pitch Black, is the main antagonist of DreamWorks Animation's 25th full-length feature film Rise of the Guardians.
He is the powerful Boogeyman who used to scare and terrorize children hundreds of years ago until the Man in the Moon chose the Guardians to bring light, hope and happiness to the world. This caused Pitch to grow weaker as no one believed or feared him anymore and to develop a distain for the Guardians, which eventually lead to his plot to make every child in the world to not believe in the Guardians and plunge the world in darkness and fear. He is the archenemy of the Guardians and the arch-nemesis of their newest member, Jack Frost, and the Sandman's evil counterpart.
He is voiced by Jude Law.
His Evil Ranking.[]
What Makes Him Close To Being Pure Evil?[]
In General/Background[]
- In the past, he used to terrorize the children and brought misery and fear into the world as a result.
- He is a fear-loving sadist who takes immense joy in scaring and tormenting children with his nightmares and seeks to cover the world in darkness and fear.
- While he does have a Freudian Excuse of being forgotten and not believed in by children because of the Guardians, which also left him insecure, it doesn't make him tragic, not only because of his horrible actions, but also he was already evil beforehand.
- What’s more, the Guardians even offered him a chance to join them in their formation, which likely would have ensured he could have continued to be believed in, but he rejected it out of contempt for letting children control his fate.
- While he has a few comedic moments, such as having a snowball thrown in his face as distraction, getting sucker punched in the air by Sandy and landing unconscious while butterflies circle his head or getting punched by Tooth, they don't detract from his villainy as he and his crimes are still taken completely seriously in-universe and the narrative.
- While he is a being of darkness, this doesn't give him moral agency issues as he's shown to be capable of reason, as seen with him relating to Jack's insecurities about not being believed in and offering him a genuine partnership. Furthermore, it's stated by North that all of the Holliday mascots were human once, with nothing indicating Pitch is any different.
- While he appears to be affectionate towards his Nightmares and even pets one of them, this is just him being pragmatic so as to keep them on his side, as shown when he scares one of them into dust out of anger and tries to flee from them when they turn against them.
Rise of the Guardians[]
- Using his newfound powers, he turns a girl named Cupcake's dream into a Nightmare and ordered it to join the others at Tooth Palace to steal Tooth Fairy's fairies.
- He lures the Guardians away from their posts and kidnapped almost all of Toothiana's fairies from Tooth Palace and the children's teeth. This caused the children around the world to lose their belief in Tooth.
- When confronting the Guardians, he makes it clear he plans to make sure that children don't believe in them anymore and cover the world in darkness and fear, which is heabily implied to be deadly considering the fact that his sand is able to kill beings.
- He corrupted more of children's dreams into Nightmares and siced them at Sandy before killing him.
- He lures Jack into his lair and away from returning to his post with his memories. This allowed Pitch to destroy millions of sentient Easter eggs and caused the Guardians to briefly lose faith in Jack and abandon him.
- He attempts to convince Jack to join him in his plans. When Jack refuses, Pitch reveals he kidnapped Baby Tooth and takes her hostage, demanding Jack gives him his staff.
- When Jack gives the staff, Pitch refused to let Baby Tooth go and proceeded to break Jack's staff before leaving him for dead in a hole, subverting any respect he had for him.
- He nearly succeeds at making all the children around the world not believe in the Guardians.
- He tries to kill the Guardians, Jamie and his friends by consuming the town in darkness.
- He attempts to kill Jack one final time with his scythe.
- While he does suffer a pretty harsh defeat of being forcefully dragged back into his lair by his Nightmares after they smell his worst fear, it's not played for sympathy due to all of his horrible actions throughout the film.
- Even in spite of his defeat, Pitch earlier vows to return as there will always be fear, showing how unrepentant he is of his crimes and that he'll cause trouble again (as Jamie believes he will).
What Prevents Him From Being Pure Evil?[]
- While it doesn't make him tragic, his insecurities about not being believed in are played for some sympathy, as he expresses to Jack how much it hurt him and that he relates to his similar struggles, even offering him a genuine partnership to make children believe in them.
- This is further showcased in his defeat which, while not sympathetic itself, still shows that Pitch is deeply afraid of being forgotten and that being replaced by the Guardians still affects him on some level.
- Despite them becoming enemies, he does have some fondness for the Man in the Moon, admitting he liked having him around in his earlier years of spreading fear. Even centuries later, he still called the Man in the Moon his “old friend”, showing he never fully subverted his respect for him.
Trivia[]
- He is the last Dreamworks NPE from a movie distributed by Paramount.
- His counterpart, Kozmotis Pitchiner in the Guardians of Childhood book series the movie was based on cannot qualify as NPE due to being way more sympathetic as well as having moral agency issues due to being possessed by the fearlings.
External Links[]
- Pitch Black on the Villains Wiki
- Pitch Black on the Ultimate Evil Wiki
- Pitch Black on the DreamWorks Wiki
- Pitch Black on the Rise of the Guardians Wiki
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 Near Pure Evils
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Animated Features Live-Action Features Animated Television See Also | ||
