Hello people, here I come with my first Double Silly proposal and the fourth overall. I have come to propose this pair of Angry Birds villains, Gale and Captain Badburger. Thanks to the administrator RubyDoesStuff for giving me permission.
What is the work?
Angry Birds is a Finnish-American video game franchise produced by Rovio Entertainment. It is about birds that fight against pigs by launching themselves with a slingshot to knock them down and recover their eggs. It has had several spin-off media, including a comic series and an animated series about Stella, adapting the spin-off video game Angry Birds Stella. Captain Badburger is from the Angry Birds comic series: Captain Badburger, and Gale is from Angry Birds Stella Toons.
Who are they?
Gale
Gale is the main antagonist (and one of three secondarys antagonists with Mostache Pig and Chef Pig in the franchice) of the spin-off, Angry Birds Stella, a series set on Golden Island. She is Stella's former best friend, but after a disagreement about camping on a mountain, where Gale accidentally set the tent on fire, she distanced herself after finding a golden crown that made the pigs obey her as their queen. She built herself a castle, cut down trees to make a statue, and became obsessed with finding a golden egg that has the power to turn everything it touches into gold. At the same time, she occasionally clashes with her former friends, especially Stella, going as far as ruining Stella's birthday party, but deep down she wants to reconcile with her. After several failed and ridiculous attempts to obtain the golden egg, she ends up searching for it in an active volcano, where Stella enters to prevent something terrible from happening to her. There, the two decide to team up to escape alive together.
However, Gale finds the golden egg and decides to go after it. But Stella later ends up in danger of dying, although Gale saves her. Finally, Stella's friends and the pigs dig a hole to help Stella and Gale get out, but the latter continues to pursue her obsession with the egg and doesn’t get out in time, apparently dying, which Stella deeply regrets, leading her to take temporary charge of Gale’s subjects before leaving them.
Suddenly, Gale returns alive although quite injured and without her crown, so the pigs no longer obey her, except for Handsome Pig, her lover. Thus, Gale returns with her former friends who take care of her, and apparently reconciles with them. However, she misses her life as a queen. Later, Handsome Pig arrives after having recovered Gale's old crown, and she leaves her friends to become the queen of the pigs again, showing a brief moment of remorse before smiling as she becomes queen once more.
During season 2, she hardly shows any redeeming qualities; in one episode, she briefly fights with Stella over a cave to take shelter from the rain. I know it seems standard so far, but this will change soon.
Gale remains obsessed with the golden egg, so after following Luca, she discovers a place where a monster guards a golden egg. Gale manages to obtain it and turns the monster into a gold statue. Upon returning to her castle, she celebrates that she can turn everything into gold by touching it. Her minions are initially happy, but after causing a tower to fall into the volcano's lava by turning it into gold, one of them becomes distressed, so Gale turns him into gold out of spite, to everyone's horror. The Handsome Pig, with the help of other pigs, tries to take the egg from her, but she discovers them and, to bring the Handsome Pig to her side, she gives him a golden wig. During this period, she turns several pigs (more than six) into gold for trivial reasons. It is important to mention that every time an object is turned into gold, another object turns into stone. This is treated as horrific and as a fate similar to death, since it affects sentient beings by turning them.
This is seen when Willow has a nightmare of herself turning into gold, so she goes to the forest to see if everything is okay. There she meets the Artist Pig and spends a pleasant day with him, before he is turned to stone because of Gale. Willow reacts to this with absolute terror, at the same time that other forest creatures are turned to stone because of Gale. This is essentially a fate akin to death, met with absolute horror. It is thus that Gale ends up committing massive ecocide by turning almost the entire island to stone due to the excessive use of the egg, leaving the inhabitants intentionally without food, as he deliberately spies and turns flowers into gold so that their food turns to stone. This puts the inhabitants at risk of death by starvation, and apparently most of the creatures turned to stone, since only two were seen with the flock when they were searching for food.
It is thus that Gale offers Stella and her friends food in exchange for going to her castle. Everyone, hungry, accepts, except Stella. To force her to come, Gale turns the tree that is Stella's home into stone, so she has no choice but to agree. There, she shows everyone how she can transform and revert things at will by touching them with the egg to make gold. She demonstrates this with a plate of fruits, but when the pig holding the plate accidentally knocks the fruits over, Gale gets angry and turns it into gold, much to the annoyance of Stella and everyone present. It is revealed that he has done the same with several pigs, who, judging by their faces, are clearly horrified by this fate.
This is how Stella and her friends decide to steal the egg from Gale to stop her. However, Gale is actually conscious, and upon seeing Stella, she chases her almost psychotically in an attempt to turn her into gold, which we can interpret as Gale nearly trying to kill Stella. Fortunately, Stella uses a loose board from the castle and takes the egg, so Gale lunges at her, and in self-defense, Stella turns her into gold. The pigs hold a sort of makeshift funeral for Gale, and Handsome Pig is the only one who mourns her. Stella considers restoring her to her original state, but her friends seem to believe that it is better if Gale does not come back. Nevertheless, Stella restores Gale, who traumatized, runs away upon seeing the golden egg, while the pigs follow her. Apparently, she does not reconcile with her friends, as she is not seen with them when they dispose of the egg to avoid further problems.
During the video game, he commits the standard crime of stealing Stella's album, and they embark on another adventure to recover it. While this is standard, it implies that Gale does not redeem herself, although we don't know more because the game was deleted. Gale returns in Angry Birds Pop before being replaced by King Pig as the main antagonist, so her appearance here will not be considered canon. Similarly, this suggests that Gale's redemption did not happen.
Captain Badburger
Captain Badburger is an major antagonist in the franchise, acting as the main antagonist of his own story arc in the comic series.
He is a cruel zombie pirate pig. In his first appearance, he tells a deliberately horrible story about how he kidnapped two elderly pigs and made his pet Brian devour them both alive, a brutal death in my opinion.
He later returns in another issue where he kidnaps Chuck and Stella to force them to perform various tasks and turns them into his servants. It is revealed that he feeds his "friend" Justin with other pigs by turning them into hamburgers (a rather unique crime). He also feeds Brian with his prisoners. Later, he recruits the skeletal warriors, and when manipulated by Mostache Pig (disguised as a pirate), he sets out to steal the eggs. After losing to Red, he jumps on Justin and punishes Mostache Pig, "making him walk the plank." As Stella and Chuck became friends with most of Captain Badburger's allies, their plan was thwarted.
After using Justin to take revenge on Mostache Pig, Stella and Chuck return to the nest along with the eggs. What happened to Captain Badburger is unknown, but due to the loss of his ship, it is possible that his operations were affected. However, it is a bit of karma since he did not receive an appropriate punishment for how terrible he was.
What are they sillys?
Gale
Gale is quite comical in the animated series, having exaggerated fits of anger, threw a tantrum when Dahila replaced her, is vain to a ridiculous level, and during the first season suffered ridiculous defeats on more than one occasion. However, she was taken completely seriously when she began turning pigs, creatures, and most of the island into gold/stone, almost losing most of her comedic aspect. Everyone, even her henchmen, were horrified and saw her as a serious threat as she put several in a fate similar to death. In my opinion, she is silly enough and serious enough to qualify as Silly Near Pure Evil, as she was constantly used for laughs, but her actions were met with horror within the universe.
Captain Badburger
Captain Badburger is generally exaggerated and acts like a typical pirate, punishing Mostache Pig with the trope of throwing him across the plank, and his curse along with his characterization is similar to Davy Jones. But I wouldn’t call him a parody; rather, more of a tribute, since his name is original and not a copy of Jones’. And regarding his name, plus the fact that he turns pigs into hamburgers, I think it can be considered even funnier. But his actions are taken really seriously, and his abuse of Brian and the fact that he has committed murder are used to make him more horrible to others; no one sees it as a joke that he does that to several pigs. That’s why, in my opinion, he qualifies as a Silly NPE.
Standard Atrocious
In general
The atrocious standard of the franchise is not very high. The main antagonist, King Pig, tries to commit infanticide by attempting to eat the three eggs of the flock, but in general, he is treated as a thief. His henchmen only do what he asks of them. Perhaps Wizpig is the only atrocious character by trying to commit mass murder, but he is a wizard with powers that neither Gale nor Badburger possess.
Gale only has pigs as subordinates and the golden egg. And yet, he subjected several pigs and creatures of the island to a fate worse than death, in addition to eliminating most of the island's food. King Pig, on the other hand, although he has a larger pig army and technology, only limits himself to stealing the eggs and has not tried to kill the birds. Gale, although not directly trying to kill others, attempts something similar by turning them into gold and stone, a unique crime that no one else has committed.
Gale
Because Gale never showed signs of wanting to reverse that fate in the pigs, it means there was a risk that they would remain turned into gold/stone forever. The number of pigs she turned into gold was around 8, which, judging by their horrified faces, suggests that it is not a pleasant fate. Also, the fact that the Handsome Pig cried for Gale as if she had died after being turned into gold, along with the apparent trauma Gale experienced after being turned into gold (since she looks at the egg and immediately flees terrified once she returns to normal), implies that essentially being turned into gold is akin to a fate worse than death. However, because it is not detailed extensively, we can say that Gale suffers from Frindge Horror, but not excessively, doing the worst she can with her resources. The rest of her crimes are standard, so we will not evaluate them.
Captain Badburger
Captain Badburger is a zombie pig pirate who zombifies other pigs to create an army. It is confirmed that he kidnapped two elderly pigs and killed them by making them be eaten alive, quite brutal deaths for the already atrocious low standard of the franchise. Let’s also remember that his name comes from having turned his prisoners into hamburgers and forcing Brian to eat them. He also abuses him a lot, calling him Crusher, and generally shows no care for him. Serial murder is a fairly rare crime in the Angry Birds franchise, so the captain stands out for having this crime as unique to him among all the pigs, surpassing King Pig with just a pirate zombie crew and Justin and Brian as his pets. Still, his crimes of feeding Brian pig hamburgers are not shown, but they have enough impact and mention to make him stand out enough for NPE, especially given the low standard of Angry Birds.
Preventions
Care
Gale: Yes
Gale does not take care of her henchmen; she is abusive and bossy with them. Although she seems to enjoy being with them and likes being in charge, this is only because she likes being their queen. This can be seen when she has no qualms about turning them into gold and threatening them; she is also abusive, especially toward the Artist Pig. She also doesn't care about the Handsome Pig even though he loves her; she only sees him as a henchman and never reciprocates. Although she was kind to a peon pig who helped her find an egg in a cave, it was only in one episode, so I doubt it counts as a precaution. However, she seems to miss her friends deep down, as she, in her own way, lured them to the castle by offering them food and seemed genuinely happy with them when they briefly reconciled. She also shows a slight weakness for Luca. However, she abandoned them and almost turned Stella into gold, and she didn't seem too guilty about leaving them without food during the ecocide, so it is a minor concern.
Sympathetic
Although her fake death in the first season was used to generate sympathy along with her brief reconciliation with her friends, this is subverted in season 2 when Gale deteriorates and degrades almost completely. Although she was turned into gold, this does not make her a scapegoat, as she deserves it for doing the same to several pigs. Even though Stella returns her to normal, most people did not seem to believe it was appropriate for her to come back, although Stella still feels compassion for her and restores her. I think this gives her a bit of sympathy, but not too much for Near Pure Evil.
Captain Badburger: Not
He takes care of no one in his crew; he only keeps them with him because he finds them useful, but he abuses Brian, and his relationship with the rest of his crew does not seem to be affectionate. He clearly lacks redeeming qualities.
Morality
Gale: Not
Although she is clearly obsessed with the golden egg and the crown, which seems to have influenced her fall into villainy, there is not enough evidence that there is a curse causing her moral agency problems. Before her fall into villainy, Gale was already vain and possibly greedy; the crown and the egg only fueled her desire to gain power with subjects and wealth, bringing out the worst in her. Therefore, I do not believe she has moral agency problems.
Captain Badburger: Not
He suffers from a pirate curse similar to Davy Jones; however, there are no implications that he is a zombie with impaired moral agency or that he has a tragic backstory. He seems to have full control over his actions and consciously spreads this curse himself, so I don't think he suffers from issues of moral agency.
Frindge Horror
Gale: Yes
Gale turns several pigs into gold and also into stone indirectly through the Artist Pig and most of the island. This is treated with horror by everyone, and even she herself seems to be traumatized by the experience after turning into gold. However, the effects of this are not explored in great detail (mainly because she does not speak, only makes bird sounds), although her high number of victims of this fate and the implications it has, I believe, make this a minor warning.
Captain Badburger: Yes
Although he is a serial killer and turns several pigs into hamburgers to be devoured (unique crimes that help him stand out) he has the problem that he only has two confirmed victims and the fact that most of the prisoners he killed and fed Brian are not seen. However, the mention of this, the impact it has on Brian, and the fact that it caused those two pigs to be eaten alive makes he heinous enough for Near Pure Evil.
Veredict
Yes for both.