I recently rewatched Disney's Bambi, and while watching the movie I was struck upon by just how horrifying the film's villain is. Known only as Man, this character's evil has come to define the film in a way I don't think any other villain has for any other Disney movie. Oh certainly, other Disney villains are perhaps better known, but when you ask someone about what happened in Cinderella the wicked Step Mom probably isn't the first thing out of their mouths. When you ask someone what happened in Bambi, though, they will always, always remember what Man did.
I'm talking, of course, about Man's murder of Bambi's mother. Everybody knows it happens. It's the "Aerith dies" of Disney animated movies. What stuck with me, though, was how much presence and power Man commands aside from this action.
Jaffar? Scar? Ursula? Petty, small time nobodies compared to Man. Each of them is undone. Man isn't. I don't care if the villain turns into a dragon and breathes fire or if the villain is the Devil himself, none of them has shit on Man.
Lemme break it down for you.
Man is invisible. The entire movie you never see Man. His first "appearance" is simply the sudden fear he strikes in the hearts of the entire meadow that sends them screaming and running in sheer terror. Even Man's weapons are unseen. His bullets are just shrieks accompanied by explosions and death. Perhaps in an effort to show how little the animals can comprehend Man, his being and the means he uses to kill them are completely impossible to see. Even the forces of nature are seen in the movie, bolts of lightning and fire are understandable, but Man is a strange, absurd alien whose coming causes even the woodland's mighty king to run in fear.
What's more is that Man's power defines their society. The Woodland realm's Great Prince is chosen because he is the oldest of all stags in the forest, and he's the oldest because he is the best at running away from Man. The one function as Prince we see him fulfill is warning others that now is the time to run. Their very social structure is built around fearing and fleeing from Man.
Man is invincible. It follows that, if no one can ever even SEE Man, then no one can hope to fight him. There is no choice but to flee from him. When first Man appears his gunfire seems to cause the entire meadow to explode, almost at random. The implication is obvious: no one can so much as approach man, because Man is an absurdly good shot. At one point Bambi, fleeing from Man's servants, the Hounds, jumps out over a canyon, only to be shot dead on in the flank. He spends the remainder of the film shot. Man lands a fucking shot on Bambi's side in what is a brief moment of visibility on kinda long odds.
Man is not alone. He has an army, and they are legion.
You tell me if that boneless lump of sugar stands a chance against the soulless horde that Man unleashes to corner Bambi and his friends. Those dogs have sclera, at least, but some of them just have gaping holes of evil where their eyes and hearts should be. And even Bambi, who is many times larger and armed with sharp horns stands no chance against The Hounds. There are too many of them, and they're too fast, too angry, and fearless. The best Bambi ever manages to do is slow them down. The worst of all, though, is that The Hounds are loud. When they come for you, Man will know where you are, and sooner or later you'll have your back to a cliff as The Hounds nip at your heels and Man leisurely strolls up to you. That screaming, incomprehensible fiend from another world, with the shrieking death in his hands.
Man is insatiable. It doesn't matter if you're a chipmunk, deer or pheasant, Man will find you, Man will kill you, and Man will eat you. When Man arrives at the Meadow, the Pheasants are cowering as he draws nearer and nearer, never seen but ever felt, until one of them, overtaken by her fear, tries to fly. She dies almost instantly. And although we can assume Man's motives are to eat you, there's no circle of life to explain that. To the animals, there's no closure of knowing the shapeless evil that comes for them in the Meadow is doing it for sport and nourishment. Man just comes, kills, and takes you away. What becomes of you from that is completely unknown.
Consider that the film never actually shows Bambi's mother's death, nor even her dead body. Bambi runs home from the meadow, realizes mom didn't make it, and gets back to the Meadow. His craven father is standing there, and all he can say is that "your mother can't be with you anymore."
I'm sorry, son, but your father, the Great Prince was too busy running from the inexplicable scion of doom to save your mother. She's gone now, and there is no means of knowing why, or to where, or to what end. There's nothing for you now, save the dark, cold embrace of an empty and meaningless winter.
And of course, even after Man kills your mother or your neighbor or someone else you love, it doesn't matter, because Man can and will effortlessly destroy your world. At the film's climax, Man sets the forest ablaze without, really, any action. We never even see Man in his camp. He has no real interest in destroying the forest, yet his power to do so is shocking. Where Jaffar needed Godlike powers from the Lamp just to overturn a few towers in Agrabah, and where Ursula needed the Trident to oppose Triton, where Hades needed an army of Titans to fight Zeus and conquer Olympus, Man destroy's Bambi's world in a matter of moments without lifting a single finger.
Now sure, you might be saying "But Man's victims are tiny animals and not Gods!" but that's the point. Nobody in any other Disney movie is anywhere near as outmatched by the villain as the forest creatures in Bambi. The fact that Man is also unseen, seemingly unfeeling, unthinking and uncaring only serves to make the fact that he is also all-powerful that much more pointed.
He's not a God, not an Alien, not a Wizard or a Genie or a Witch or a Dragon. He's just a Man, with a gun, some dogs and a campfire. He doesn't need to surround himself with demons, scary catholic imagery or third reich callbacks to scare you. Without ever appearing on screen he drives home to small kids the chilling reality that their moms will some day die, and that they are tiny, powerless children in the face of a world that can burn to ash without ever giving two shits.
In short, Man in Bambi is scarier and more evil than any other Disney movie villain, and he does it without ever being on screen.
