10 Disney Villain Deaths They Could Have Survived

While they definitely have one of the biggest fanbases under the company name, being a great Disney villain can be a dangerous occupation. Although recent Disney features like Encanto and Luca have featured antagonists that don’t necessarily need to be killed or harmed to be defeated, many of Disney’s rogues’ gallery have met some pretty gruesome ends.

Fans have seen them fall, drown, and just plain disappear, and some can’t help but wonder whether or not those ends could have been survived or at the very least limped away from. Most of Disney’s evilest characters definitely reaped what they sowed in the end, a handful of Disney villains could have survived to the sequel given the right circumstances.

10 Doctor Facilier (Princess And The Frog)

Being dragged into the underworld isn’t something many characters are going to walk away from. In reality, the chances of Doctor Facilier actually coming back from the Other Side are slim to none. However, there is certainly a chance that he could still talk his way out from their grasp.

Facilier is known to be a silver-tongued charmer with a highly charismatic persona, even his “friends” aren’t immune at one point in the film. While it’s not very likely that the voodoo spirits are easily persuaded twice, with enough pleading and bargaining, Facilier could strike up one last deal.

9 Gaston (Beauty And The Beast)

For years, Disney has been in the practice of using gravity or steep falls to kill off their villains to avoid showing corpses and carnage on screen in a kids’ film. It’s a smart and reliable tactic, but longtime fans have definitely started to ask a few questions. While there’s no questioning that incidents like the Evil Queen’s fatal fall and boulder crush leave her down for the count, Gaston’s drop to his doom in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast is another question.

The odds aren’t in his favor, but there is a chance that the burly and brawny hunter could have survived the fall. A literal bottomless pit is impossible to create, so he had to land somewhere. Provided he caught enough traction on his way down or had something to break his fall without breaking his bones, Gaston might have survived the drop.

8 Willie The Giant (Fun and Fancy Free)

Considering that the factor of size-to-fall ratio is technically unknown, it’s probably a safe bet that Willie the Giant survived the fall, but was more than likely captured by Mickey, Donald, Goofy, and the rest of the citizens of Happy Valley. Depending on whether or not he really is a “figamentation” of the audience’s imagination, he’s also probably doing fairly better than most Disney antagonists.

In the story of Mickey and the Beanstalk, the oafish giant is shown falling to his demise but appears again before the credits roll. If Disney’s cartoon logic is applied, and considering Willie would go on to be featured in other films and projects like Who Framed Roger Rabbit, the giant undoubtedly reformed himself of his harp-stealing ways to pursue a career in Hollywood.

7 The Weasels (Who Framed Roger Rabbit)

Another case of toon logic at work involves Judge Doom’s comical enforcers, the Weasels, and their strange but seemingly painless deaths. Anyone who’s seen Who Framed Roger Rabbit knows that the trio quite literally laughs themselves to death, resulting in angelic versions of their souls leaving their bodies. Given the fact that Dip seems to be the only way to truly kill a toon, the Weasels are probably only temporarily out of commission.

Toons have proven to be resistant to nearly all forms of bodily harm, so this is probably no more harmful than a case of the flu to the Weasels. Provided their souls found their bodies again, the three sly and sleazy characters probably shook it off and were back to normal after the credits rolled.

6 McLeach (The Rescuers Down Under)

Similar to Gaston’s fall, McLeach’s death is left up to the viewer’s imagination as he vanishes in the mist. He can swim well enough to avoid being eaten by a host of crocodiles, so it’s possible he could have survived a trip over the waterfall. Provided he avoided any jagged rocks at the bottom.

McLeach is an experienced poacher and knows the rugged terrain of the Outback, so it’s logical to assume that the man has at least some level of survivalist skills that come with his occupation. If he was able to cheat death by gravity and drowning, he might have been able to find the energy within him to make it to shore.

5 Mother Gothel’s Vanishing Act (Tangled)

While it’s largely interpreted that Gothel ages herself into dust as she falls off the tower, it’s unsure if that’s really how the hair’s magic works. Gothel didn’t appear to have any negative effects with using the flower’s magic to stay young before Rapunzel came into the picture, reason dictates that it shouldn’t suddenly turn on her after her hair is cut.

It stands to reason that Gothel would have reverted to her natural witchy form rather than a pile of dust. It feels more in character that Gothel would have just vanished in a magical puff rather than age to oblivion. It just feels too convenient that the spell suddenly backfires after years of use.

4 King Candy (Wreck-It Ralph)

King Candy from Wreck-It Ralph is a video game character composed of various bits of code,  therefore it’s not exactly easy to say that he’s 100% dead and gone. There are probably thousands of arcades that had Turbo Time cabinets in this world, meaning that he would never truly be gone.

With the right technological know-how, it would be very easy to bring Turbo back into the game. Provided the circuit board and programming containing his existence is still intact, the maniacal monarch might still floating around in gaming limbo somewhere.

3 Clayton (Tarzan)

Tarzan easily has one of Disney’s scariest villain deaths, and that’s not an understatement. Looking back, it’s not the vines or the fall that led to Clayton’s grim demise, but rather his own haste and carelessness. It was his quick-to-rage temper that caused him to hang himself with a botanical noose. If the vengeful hunter would have only taken a moment to stop, think, and cut the vines in proximity to his head and neck area, he might have escaped to fight another day.

Even if Clayton still ended up with the vines around his neck, there was one other hope of escape. Before he dies, he drops his knife t0o soon to cut the vine tangled around his throat in order to grab the vine that’s keeping him off the ground. He would have still taken a terrible fall, but he might have limped away from it at least.

2 The Hyenas (The Lion King)

It’s overtly clear Scar meets his gruesome end at the hands of his own troops, but the hyenas themselves aren’t seen again while Pride Rock goes up in flames. Some fans wonder whether or not the legions of laughing hyenas were left to cook alive or were simply dispersed after Simba let out his cleansing roar.

Although the terrible trio of Shenzi, Banzai, and Ed have made appearances in other media outside The Lion King, there were dozens of hyena henchmen seen in the film that all suddenly disappeared after the final battle. Considering that the spinoff show, The Lion Guard has introduced a new generation of hyenas to the Pridelands, it’s reasonable to believe that Scar’s former minions lived long enough to have descendants of their own.

1 Ernesto De La Cruz (Coco)

Given the fact that the rules of the afterlife in Coco state that it is memories that keep the skeletal residence of the Land of the Dead in existence, it’s highly unlikely that Ernesto de la Cruz will be out of the eternal picture any time soon. Everyone loves a big celebrity scandal, and since Ernesto was the culprit of a major musical murder and theft plot, no one is going to be ignoring that fact.

Even though Hector gets his justice and his honor restored at the Rivera family alter, the shamed musician will still be remembered in infamy every time Hector’s story is told and retold. It might result in him having a very poor experience in the afterlife, but he’ll likely never truly be gone.

About The Author