Shere Khan is the main antagonist of the 2018 Netflix live-action adventure drama film Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle, based on the late Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book.
He is a ruthless Bengal tiger with a crippled front leg and the murderer of Mowgli's parents, whom he obsessively wants to kill. He is also Tabaqui's boss.
He was portrayed in motion capture by Benedict Cumberbatch.
His Evil Ranking[]
What Makes Him Close to Being Pure Evil?[]
- In the past, he had killed two people who had come to the jungle, said people being Mowgli's parents, breaking the jungle's ancient law and causing Mowgli to be left an orphan in the jungle though he would be found by Bagheera who would take him to the wolf pack to be raised by them.
- He tried to get Akela to give Mowgli to him to kill only for him to refuse and defend him with Shere Khan swearing that once he misses his kill, Mowgli's blood will run down his chin before departing.
- He proceeds to kill off the man village's cattle, taking a corpse into the jungle to bring war to the jungle with Akela and bring chaos to the pack.
- Upon realizing Mowgli is in a pond he was drinking from, he chases and attempts to kill him once he escapes it, only failing due to an elephant arriving to take him out of a pit.
- He proceeds to continue massacring the cattle from the man village, resulting in a group of multiple people searching the jungle for the culprit behind their cattle's deaths, another corpse being shown later.
- After the monkeys capture Mowgli and bring him to him, Shere Khan knocks the monkey on him away before mocking Mowgli on the chaos he's brought to the pack and sadistically slashing his arm with his claw before attempting to kill him only for Baloo, Bagheera, and Kaa to rescue him.
- Once Akela misses his kill, Shere Khan arrives and manipulates the wolf pack into turning on and attempting to kill him, only failing due to Mowgli intervening and forcing Khan to retreat by fighting him off with fire stolen from the Man-Village, (which unintentionally caused parts of the jungle to get caught on fire), which would lead to Mowgli getting banished by Akela.
- He attempted to kill Lockwood at one point as shown by the scar Lockwood showed Mowgli when realizing he encountered him too, though it's likely this was out of self-defense given that Lockwood is conveyed to be a poacher who hunts animals sometimes for trophies.
- Even after Mowgli goes to the man village and stays, Khan continues to terrorize the wolf pack after having taken over, forcing Akela and those who stand by him to leave home and having the others come in groups in the night threaten them, pushing them to the very edge of the jungle whilst still continuing to massacre many of man's cattle over the years, further endangering the wolf pack some more.
- Upon confronting Mowgli again and being surrounded by the elephants Mowgli allied with, he attempts to kill him several more times throughout the fight, even mocking him about his mother's death, remarking on how he can still hear her screams the night he took her life.
- He shows no remorse over Akela being unintentionally shot by Lockwood and attempts to attack Mowgli only to try to retreat into the jungle when the whole wolf pack arrives where he would lie down and pretend to die to try to lure Mowgli in so he can try to kill him one last time, though he would miss and Mowgli would finish him off.
What Prevents Him from Being Pure Evil?[]
- His actions of massacring the cattle of the man village which had potential to invoke a war between the man village and the wolf pack and as such endangering the latter and later terrorizing the wolf pack by pushing them to the edge of the jungle endangering them even further fall under offscreen villainy due to mostly being conveyed to have happened through being mentioned by characters with his onscreen deeds not making him heinous enough.
Trivia[]
- This is the only version of Shere Khan to qualify as Near Pure Evil.
