So, this is a character I’ve been doubting ever since I saw him on the wiki, and having talked about it on Discord, it’s agreed that he should get the boot.
Note, this character has a pretty controversial history, so it’s best that you read and consider everything thoroughly.
Thanks to The Pro-Wrestler for giving me permission to do this.
What's the work?[]
SMG4 (short for SuperMemeGuardian4) is a fairly popular YouTube series centering around Mario and the usually memetic adventures he and his friends get up to. It’s mostly a very comedic series, but it has been known to dabble in much more serious stuff. Well, there isn’t much more to say, so may as well move on.
Who is Francis?[]
Francis is a major villain in the series, serving as the main antagonist of the Anime Arc. A much more villainous adaptation of the Paper Mario character of the same name, Francis is an evil weeb who seeks to use the Ink weaver to create a waifu island for himself, seeking to use the ink of many Inklings to achieve this.
Why Doesn't he Qualify?[]
The problems with Francis are two-fold, so I’ll cover them with their own sections.
Comedy[]
The main thing I’d like to contest is that Francis…just isn’t that serious of a character. For one, Francis in his home series is a comic relief nerd, so him becoming this anime-obsessed madman is already really comedic, and his characterization here is too inherently ridiculous for NPE; he’s depicted as an evil weeb who’s the head of the Anime Cartel and his goal revolves around, as already stated, creating a Waifu Island. What’s more, like many characters in the series, he’s ‘voice acted’ by meme voice clips, such as using “you freaking fricks” from SammyClassicSonicFan; his catchphrase being a Filthy Frank soundbyte; going “REEEE” and “YEET”; his final words coming from a Minecraft parody video and his death scream being ripped from Racist Mario. There’s also moments such as him making an Infinity Wars reference by going “you should have gone for the head” as he summons Super Sayian God Goku, and proclaiming that Axol “isn’t half the otaku” he is.
And even if Francis as a character is serious enough, SMG4 is still a really comedic series, and the Anime Arc isn’t that much different. The plot literally starts when anime gets banned from the Mushroom Kingdom, and even after the most serious moment (Desti’s death, which in of itself is a reference to the scene of Final Fantasy 7 where Sephiroth kills Aerith, complete with a Sephiroth clone being the killer), it goes right back to showcasing comedic shenanigans, such as Tari stalling Goku by playing Dragon Ball FighterZ with him; SMG4 going “I have so much more memes to live for!” when cornered by Sephiroth clones and Mario disguising himself as Cloud in an attempt to scare them off; the climax literally involving Ultra Instinct Shaggy fighting Goku; Bob attacking Francis with a body pillow of Solid Snake and Tari then tossing a rubber duck at him, and everybody still spouting meme voice clips, Francis included.
Finally, the nail in the coffin for Francis being serious enough is the fact that SMG4 has introduced characters who are taken much more seriously in comparison, Niles and One-Shot Wren. Not only are they both properly voice acted instead of using meme voice clips, but have actual serious motivations and are from drama-based arcs. In comparison, Francis doesn’t come off as a proper Knight of Cerberus, but yet another meme character who just happens to be taken slightly more seriously than usual.
Heinousness[]
My other, probably more debatable argument would be that Francis might not even be heinous enough for the series. Francis’ big claim to fame would be his supposed genocide attempt on the inklings, as draining their ink will result in their deaths. There’s….a few things wrong with this.
First of all, full-blown attempted genocide is an exaggeration. The sole area he’s shown to target is Inkopolis, not inklings all over the world or anything like that. This would more so fall under attempted populicide, and secondly, the idea of inklings dying from their ink being drained isn’t given enough weight. The sole time that it happens with Meggy, the only thing that happens is that she gets turned back into a human, and a future episode shows Meggy in a humanoid form as a child. While Francis *is* told that draining Meggy’s ink could kill her, he doesn’t really react with glee, it’s more just “meh, whatever”
And with this, what remains of Francis’ rapsheet is….
- Getting dozens of soldiers killed by his replicas.
- Torturing dozens, maybe hundreds (on-screen anyways) of inklings (and it’s not even something like flaying them alive or anything, he just drains them of their ink)
- Killing Desti.
- Trying to kill the heroes.
This…isn’t exactly a very impressive rapsheet for something like SMG4, who has characters like….
- Mario, who, among other things, tries to subject the whole world to a FWTD by turning them into NFTs; destroys a college, killing everyone inside; burns down an entire village and rapes SMG4 in WOTFI 2014
- Lawyer Kong, who’s aiming for the explicit genocide of every non-Nintendo in the SMG4 universe, which would number in the millions.
- SMG3, who tried to use a blackhole to destroy the entire Earth, and Ztar who also tried to destroy the planet.
- Waluigi, who infected nearly the entire Mushroom Kingdom with the T-Pose virus, and tried to do so to the whole world.
And really, it’s not like resources are going to save Francis. In fact, they arguably make it even worse. With Ink weaver, he was able to summon hundreds of Sephiroths, and even Goku (with the implication that they are as strong as the original), so it’s not like Francis is incapable of taking his scale beyond a single city (or a single species for that matter).
Final Verdict[]
Going with a cut.