Tropes VS Tropes: The Big Freaking Kiss Song

As a life long musical theatre nerd, I feel very lucky that my college days managed to coincide with the rise of the Wicked Witch of the West on Broadway. While kids today go around singing their Hamilton and Dear Evan Hansen, I came of age to the angst filled power ballads of Idina Menzel in her most famous pre-Frozen role, that of Elphaba, the famous Ozian witch, in the musical Wicked.

If you have even a passing interest in musical theatre, you know Wicked. If you don't, you've probably still heard a few of it's songs. It was everywhere at it's height, with shows like Glee featuring it's most famous song, "Defying Gravity" in one of it's earliest episodes.

As a nineteen-year-old, I was obsessed. I had the soundtrack memorized. All I wanted was to see a proper production of it. To my incredible luck, a touring production of it visited Toronto the very week I was scheduled to be in Ontario, visiting my sister for reading week. She lived a few hours south of the city, but we took a bus up, spent a couple days sightseeing Canada's great metropolis and, of course, saw Wicked.

Overall, it was spectacular, but I do have one memory of a particular song falling short of my imagination. Towards the end of Act II, Elphaba and her love interest, the dashing Fiyero, are reunited and sing "As Long as You're Mine," a passionate song about how they're gonna smooch and snuggle and probably do more things. This was, in my Wicked addicted brain, the sexiest love song to ever exist.

But on stage, it kinda… fell flat. They just stared at each other and stroked each other's arms a bunch. I kept waiting for it to heat up or for there to be choreography or something. Anything to give the scene a bit more shape than just singing forcefully in the face of the one you love. Instead, it felt like the song was a thing the characters had to get through, before they could finally reach the kissing that came at the end.

I learned a valuable lesson that day. Apparently, you can't smooch and sing at the same time. At least, not in real life. When I listened to the song on the soundtrack, it had played more like a music video in my mind, with shots of the characters making out, cut together with overlays of the actors singing at each other. Like, check out any Taylor Swift song. She makes out with dudes while singing all the time. But this doesn't translate to the stage. In concert, I'm guessing she's never snogged a man while crooning "Wildest Dreams" at him.

For Ms. Swift, this isn't much of a problem. Her songs may exist in the broader context of an album or a music video or a live performance, but they're rarely defined by them. Pop music is meant to exist as something the audience vicariously experiences and can imagine their own lives and fantasies onto. With great songs that come from musicals, there's an aspect of that, but most theatre songs require the context of their plots and performers in order to give full weight to the experience of a particular song.

"As Long as You're Mine" requires context and it still saddens me a little that it's stronger with only the context of the other songs on the album, not the actual performance. It might sadden me more if it weren't such a reoccurring problem in theatre. Yes, Wicked fell into the trap of the boring pre-kissing song, but it's far from the only show to do so.

Oh, Where is the Song that Goes Like This?

Quick question! In a musical, are the characters actually singing? Within the confines of his reality, does Javert actually stand next to the university students, belting out his plans to trick them and infiltrate their numbers, as he appears to do in the song "One Day More" in Les Miserables? Do a group of nuns actually argue about "How do You Solve a Problem like Maria" via song, as they appear to in The Sound of Music? Within the confines of their own realities, the answers are almost certainly "no." I mean, Javert would have to be really stupid to do that. Leader of the students, Enjolras, is literally just a few feet away from him during that number.

Most musical numbers aren't meant to be taken literally. Instead, the music and dancing is meant to stand in for something else. So what do they represent? The quick answer is usually something like "emotion" or the "feel" of a particular scene. Energetic, frantic songs coincide with when the mood is particularly tense or exciting. So in The Sound of Music, Maria sings the bouncy "Confidence" when she's trying to convince herself she feels braver than she does. In contrast, Javert sings the slow, contemplative song "Stars" when he's feeling, well... contemplative. Emotion and mood are the major drivers of song choice and placement in traditional musicals.

So it's little surprise that there are lots and lots of love songs in musicals, especially songs that come right before characters kiss. Great, big kiss scenes frequently come at the emotional height of a piece, as they release the tension of the character's building romance. Whole stories are structured around that moment of triumph. So of course there are songs about it! On paper, it sounds so incredible, ending a soaring ballad with the leads finally locking lips. But often, it falls flat, because these songs can't help but grind the plot to a halt. As mentioned before, you can't kiss and sing at the same time, which means that often, the characters have to get the song over with before the plot can advance any further, because the next plot point IS the kissing!!!

For here you are, standing there... standing there.

Both Les Miserables and The Sound of Music have scenes that suffer from this. In Les Miserables, Marius and Cossette sing at each other through a gate, and I remember as a kid thinking this scene took for-freaking-ever. They don't necessarily kiss at the end, but they want to, and nothing exciting is allowed to happen until they're done making goo-goo eyes at each other. In The Sound of Music, an even straighter example occurs, where Maria and Captain VonTrapp stand in a gazebo and stare sweetly at each other while their silhouettes delay kissing just long enough to get a refrain of "Something Good" out.

Researching for this article was a blast, because I got to relive some truly hilarious stage direction as I looked up examples of this phenomenon. How many times can Marion run back and forth across a bridge before finally ending her song and kissing Herald Hill in the Music Man? How long can Christine sway side to side before realizing that all Raoul asks of her is a kiss in Phantom of the Opera? Why does the Baker's wife keep wandering away from him during "It Takes Two" from Into the Woods, except to delay his inevitable kiss of her face?

By now, you might be asking what could possibly please me? Haven't I any romance inside of me? Don't I appreciate the need to slow down for these moments? IF THE PLOT CAN'T STOP FOR LOVE, WHAT CAN IT STOP FOR??????

It might be tempting to assume this kind of thing is inevitable--that it's impossible to end a song with a kiss without it coming across as cheesy and overblown. There's a reason White Christmas interrupts the smooch at the end of "Count Your Blessings" with another character stumbling in on the happy couple, because it stops an intensely earnest moment from feeling too corny. But to that I say, the presence of examples where it's done well shows that there's no excuse for doing it poorly. So who did do it well?

The Multitask Scene

The next slew of examples are all going to have one thing in common: In addition to being songs that end with dramatic kisses, they also do something else for the scene. Some subtext or character moment is going on, or the plot is carefully advancing without you noticing it. Returning to Sound of Music and Les Miserables, these shows actually have TWO of these scenes, and the other two are far more poignant.

For Sound of Music, the scene in question is the kiss between Liesl and her baby Nazi boyfriend, Rolfe. The classic "Sixteen Going on Seventeen" serves as a precursor to her first kiss, and between the singing and prolonged dance section, it takes a looooooooong time to get there. But, here, the delay is justified. She and Rolfe are young, inexperienced and nervous about love. When they finally do kiss, it's an impulsive peck by Rolfe, before he runs off into the rain. All the foofering around delightfully illustrates his nervousness, even while he's trying to front maturity to her.

Les Miserables has it's second occurrence with Marius again, but this time, he's cradling Eponine during "A Little Drop of Rain." And, erm, spoiler alert I guess, but... SHE'S DYING! As an audience, we're all heartbroken, like Marius. You get the sense he didn't even know to expect the kiss she gives him at the end, because this is the first time she's desperate enough to make her feelings clear to him. It is, quite literally, her last chance. This subtext makes the scene far richer than any he shares with Cosette and helped launch the wallowing of a thousand lonely theatre girls, who forever see themselves in Eponine's tragic friend-zone fate.

So, now that we've explored this issue thoroughly, what are the best examples? In order to qualify for honors on this list, a scene must involve:

1) A love song.
2) At the conclusion of the song, the characters kiss
3) At some point, they preferably sing directly into each other's faces. Bonus points for volume.
4) While indulging in the pathos above, the scene still manages to progress the plot meaningfully
5) As in yes, there is kissing, but you aren't just waiting for them to get the singing over with so that they can kiss.

And now, for the awards for best use of the singing-in-face-leads-to-kissing trope...

Best Classic Example:

"If I Loved You" - Carousel

Despite having incredible music, this is one of those musicals you don't see very often any more, largely because sections of it haven't aged well. At all. It takes a... VERY outdated stance on a few issues, and I say this as someone who watches Howard Keel movies. But this song, guys. It's that good.

Rogers and Hammerstein were masters of the I-Swear-I'm-Not-In-Love-With-You song. "Sixteen Going on Seventeen," mentioned earlier, has aspects of this with the way Rolfe clearly has no clue what he's doing. More famously, Oklahoma has "People Will Say We're In Love," which is delightful, even while making you want to smack the people singing it. But those still aren't "If I Loved You."

There's a cat and mouse feel to the whole thing, as both Julie and Bill swear to the other that they don't love each other, but if they did? Well, they know exactly what that would be like. And what would it be like? It would involve failing to say it out loud, because they're both too nervous and proud to admit what they feel. They verbally dance in circles around each other during the song, underscoring the tension in their relationship, yet by the end, they can't help it! They must give in! And yes, we get that glorious kiss.

Bonus points: The sheer length of the scene. I'm amazed this song stays enjoyable when they're taking SO LONG to get to the point, but that's the beauty of a song that spells out multiple levels of character.

What could make it better: They actually face each other very little, and never sing at the same time in each other's faces. Wasted opportunity.

Best Lyric: Longin' to tell you/But afraid and shy/I'd let my golden chances/Pass me by

Best Comedic Example:

"The Night is Young and You're So Beautiful" - Robin Hood: Men in Tights

I had to break the rules a little here, since this number doesn't technically end in a kiss, but it gets pretty close. One of the running gags in this movie is that the characters aren't allowed to kiss, so that's part of why it gets a pass.

The other reason why is because in comedic songs, they don't tend to end with the kiss actually happening. Whether it's "Where is the Song that Goes Like This?" from Spamalot, "Love is Strange" from Galavant, "Let's Have Intercourse" from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend or even "The Most Beautiful Girl in the Room" from Flight of the Conchords, the kiss doesn't come to be. Part of the comedy of the thing, I guess. But the purpose is pretty clear with all of these songs. They're designed to subvert our romance expectations and poke fun at the common tropes associated with these songs.

And with that disclaimer out of the way, the best of them is definitely the one Robin sings to Maid Marion. The whole scene kills me. Carey Elwes hams up his role fantastically, but it's Amy Yasbeck as Marion that really sells the scene for me. She's trying so hard to be into it for his sake, but she's mostly just startled and terrified by the theatrics. Man, this movie is a frickin' classic.

Bonus Points: He sings at her so forcefully her crown falls off her head.

What could make it better: Some sweeping camera angles? Spinning, maybe? I dunno, aside from the lack of a kiss, it's pretty perfect already.

Best lyric: What can I DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO??????

Best Disney Example:

"A Whole New World" - Aladdin

In the movie, both of Aladdin and Jasmine's kisses are scored to this classic, Oscar winning tune. So yes, there is technically a delay between the song and their first kiss, but the instrumentation comes in with the song when they kiss on the balcony and see??? At the end, they kiss as they sing a reprise of the song again. So it counts. It's my list, I say it counts.

This song has been overplayed a little, and even as a wee one back in 1992, I remember getting tired of hearing the pop version on the radio. But this list is all about context and how the scene plays into the overall narrative. And here, it absolutely works. Aladdin works his way up to their epic balcony kiss by giving Jasmine the adventure she was never able to have before. Within the context of the movie, the scene is wonderfully charming. And like the best of these song+kiss scenes, it's about more than their romance. It's about the thrill of discovery and magic of their world. Subtly, it's also about Jasmine putting together the pieces that Prince Ali is the same boy she fell for back when she dressed up as a commoner in Agrabah.

Bonus Points: A flying magic carpet! Obvious, I know, but you'll notice they do way more interesting things than stand in a gazebo or walk back and forth across a bridge.

What could make it better: If the balcony kiss came more immediately on the heels of the song so that I didn't feel like I'm fudging it a bit.

Best lyric: Hold your breath/It gets better.

But enough beating around the bush! You came for the best triumphant, end-of-song kiss, and there must be one! So what is it? What beats out all the others to be Emily's all around favorite scene of this variety? How do you beat Disney at dramatic musical theatre kisses?

You do it by looking at what the guys who wrote all your favorite Disney Songs did before coming to Disney. You go just a little Off Broadway to...

Best Dramatic Kissing Song

"Suddenly Seymour" - Little Shop of Horrors

So first off, fun fact:

Back when Disney was trying to kickstart their animation division again, Broadway was experiencing something of a revival. Both Andrew Lloyd Webber and Stephen Sondheim were at the top of their game in the Eighties. What a time it must have been to be alive in New York city! They weren't the only ones doing great work either, with two talented, young writers named Howard Ashman and Alan Menken collaborating together on numerous smaller shows. The strongest of them, and the one that caught Disney's eyes, was Little Shop of Horrors.

Top to bottom, it's a fantastic musical, and once you know that the same people who wrote the music for Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast are helming it, you can never unhear how much the show sounds like a Disney movie. It's got their classic brand of villain song, as well as one of the best love ballads anywhere.

Mind you, "Suddenly Seymour" isn't a song that works great divorced from it's context. Part of why it's so good is because it's tailored to its characters. During the song, they both have the realization that they can and should be together. One of the many tragedies of this show (especially if you see the stage version, which is altogether far more tragic) is that it's taken so long for them to admit this to each other. Both Seymour and Audrey have adored and admired the other from a distance, but until this moment, they don't feel good enough for each other.

This song is so loaded with catharsis. Over the course of the show, we've watched Audrey go through so much abuse and heartache. In "Suddenly Seymour," he finally gets up the courage to put himself forward, Audrey works through part of her own baggage about life and love, and then together, the two of them beg the universe to let this moment last. This song is an absolute emotional ringer of a number.

It's also a good example of how these songs should work. At the beginning of the song, they are not ready to kiss. The emotion isn't there yet. They have to work their way through the emotions of the song and the little character transformations it involves before they reach the moment where they are ready to kiss. The song isn't a delay on the road to kissing, it's the vehicle by which they get there. As a result, it's so satisfying.

Bonus points: This song hits everything. Character transformation in the course of a single song, agonized wailing directly in each other's faces, interlocking melodies, plus a totally sincere smackeroo at the end. What else could you ask for?

What could make it better: As adorable as Rick Moranis is, I've generally preferred the live versions I've seen of this show to the filmed one. For one thing, I think there's some subtext lost to the song with the movie's happier ending.

Best lyrics: All of Audrey's verse. It breaks my heart every time, despite how silly the musical is.
Nobody ever treated me kindly/Daddy left early, Mama was poor/I'd meet a man and I'd follow him blindly/He'd snap his fingers. Me, I'd say, "sure."

You'll notice those lyrics don't seem to have a lot to do with loving Seymour, but that's what makes the song work so well. It points out how all the lies and garbage we believe about ourselves impacts our ability to seize love when it comes to us.

So if you're feeling lonely tonight, maybe get out there, grab someone attractive, and belt your personal issues at their face until you feel like kissing them. I mean... I've seen it work on stage.

Tropes VS Tropes: The Self-Defeating Villains Strike (Themselves) Again!!!!

This summer, my church group needed somewhere to host an activity one Friday night, and because I am an exceptionally generous person, I offered my house on the condition that I get to force everyone to watch a movie of my choosing. Because they were desperate, this worked, and that's how most of my friends came to watch the 1987 cult classic Willow for the first time.

It's a campy fantasy movie, filled with well-known tropes, special effects that have not aged gracefully and Warwick Davis. One of the reasons I love this movie so much is because almost every scene and every creative decision is simultaneously "pretty good for reals guys" and "what is this and why am I laughing" horrible. There's nothing okay about Willow. It is either wonderful or disastrous.

Begin the Ritual!!!

One perfect example of this is how the movie ends. (SPOILERS!!!!) There's a clever little bit where Willow, who has always wanted to be a great sorcerer, uses a common carnival trick seen earlier in the film to confuse the evil Queen Bavmorda. Bavmorda, who is an actual sorcerer, has no knowledge of side-show magic, so assumes the trick is real. As a result, Willow is finally able to get the upper hand in the battle and defeat her.

Wait... sorry, scratch that last sentence. That would have been a good ending. No, what happens is that Bavmorda gets confused and then accidently summons dark spirits to banish her soul into the Dark Dark Evil Way nether region (or something?) Honestly, it's hard to tell. She slaps her ceremonial table and then get's struck by lighting. Valuable lesson, kids: don't forget where you're Satanic ritual offerings are, even in the middle of a battle sequence.

As my captive church group let out a collective "wuh?" I started to laugh hysterically. They were on board all the way through Willow's "Disappearing Pig Trick." But why the crap had Bavmorda just electrocuted herself? How did that happen? Was this seriously the end of the movie?

Yes it was! Because Willow is amazing and terrible. And it might just be the best example of the pitfalls of creating a villain that has to defeat herself. And yet, I've always found the ending oddly satisfying too. Some of that is for the wrong reasons (did I mention all the laughing?) but the joy we feel in seeing a villain cause their own demise is real. Don't we all secretly want a baddy to be hoist by his own petard? So why is it that Self-Defeating villains also strike us as inherently bad ideas from a story perspective?

Character Arc VS the Villain

Defining a villain can be a difficult thing. Is it the story's most evil character? Not necessarily. In Milton's Paradise Lost, Satan fills the role of protagonist, making the villains anyone who sides with God. On a less grand scale, gangsters, pirates and thieves all might fill the role of protagonist in their stories, with law enforcement officers taking the role of villain on.

From a craft perspective, a villain is defined by their relationship to the hero. Villains stand between the hero and their ultimate goal, regardless of whether or not anyone involved is a "good" person. This is one of the reasons why your English teacher insisted you learn the words "protagonist" and "antagonist." They strip away some of the moral implications we associate with Heroes and Villains so that we can instead focus on their roles in the story.

With that in mind, here are some quick n' dirty definitions I like to work with for Heroes and Villains.

The HERO: The person the story is about. The person trying to get a "Thing." The story ends either when they a) get the Thing or b) can no longer get the Thing.

The VILLAIN: The person standing between the hero and the Thing.

The rest of the story then plays out as the Hero's quest to get the Thing. The Thing, of course, doesn't have to be a physical object. It might be love, or your father's respect, or a safe place to live or winning the sports tournament. And of course, sometimes the Hero isn't struggling so much against another person as they are their situation. I love RomComs, even if they don't tend to have villains. There, the struggle is usually more internal. Likewise, disaster stories tend to be about surviving a brutal environment rather than defeating a person.

So Villains are a specific kind of conflict but are, nevertheless, defined by their opposition to the Hero in the Hero's quest to get the Thing. Sauron is trying to stop Frodo from throwing the ring into Mount Doom. President Snow keeps threatening Katniss's friends and family. The closer Moana comes to restoring Te Fiti's heart, the more fireballs Te Ka throws at her.

And because a Villains' purpose in the story is to be a roadblock to the Hero, it's sort of kind of maybe a tiny bit possibly a little important that the HERO be the one who defeats them.

Maybe.

The conquering of the Villain is almost always the climax action of any story involving a prominent Villain. They are the final test; the great struggle that the Hero must overcome in order to earn the Thing that they want so badly. So if the Villains somehow defeat themselves and the final victory falls into the Hero's lap afterwards, you're left with an unfulfilled character arc.

This is what makes the ending to Willow so weird. Willow has a moment where he does do something that advances his goal, but Bavmorda still manages to rob him of the victory by banishing her own soul.

The Self-Defeating Villain Writ Large

So we've established that it's incredibly important to have a Hero that defeats your Villain, at least if you're going for a conventional happy ending. Yet Willow isn't alone in featuring a Villain that successfully foils herself. 

One of my other favorite examples comes from the movie adaptation of Ella Enchanted, which took a lot of liberties with the children's novel it was based on. The book is a more classic take on the Cinderella story, where Ella's main obstacles are her step-mother and step-sisters, though with the added twist that she was "blessed" as a child with the Gift of Obedience by a misguided fairy named Lucinda. As a result, Ella's conflicts are mostly internal, as she fights against magic for her own free will. 

The movie adaptation clearly worried that this would be too heady for kids to understand (forgetting that it was already a wildly successful children's book, but whatever) and so shoe-horned in an Evil Uncle for Prince Char (Char. Charming. Get it?) who is bent on segregating all the world's magical races from each other. Because Evil.

The movie is goofy and dippy and doesn't try at all to match the tone of the books, but it still seemed extra odd when the final conflict involved the Evil Uncle poisoning a crown that was about to be placed on his nephew's head at his coronation. POISONING A CROWN I SAY. 

Anyway, Ella arrives after breaking her curse, and exposes the Evil Uncle, who earlier tried to command Ella to kill Char. Except Char doesn't believe her because, as noted, she almost killed him on order of Evil Uncle. So there is every reason for Evil Uncle to get away with it all until this happens:

Char: But Ella, you tried to kill me! Now you want to turn me against my beloved uncle? Lies!

*Evil Uncle's pet snake attempts to bite Char*

Ella: OH MY GOSH HOW HAVE YOU NOT NOTICED THIS EVIL SNAKE BEFORE???

Char: On second thought... are you Evil, Uncle?

Uncle: Screw you all! You suck, nephew! You don't deserve to be king! I should be king!

*Evil Uncle places poisoned crown on his own head mid-rant*

Uncle: Oops.

And then the movie ends with a dance party. 

But seriously. Char, your Uncle *might* be Evil.

All of this is played for laughs and if I'm being honest, I had a good time with the whole thing. But it did reinforce how pointless the Evil Uncle subplot was. Ella's essential conflict - getting over her curse - was not tied to the Evil Uncle, so defeating him wasn't part of her character arc. This disconnect both speaks to why he was a weak Villain, but also why the movie got away with it. It's such a silly film, that they might as well lean into how unimportant the Villain is and have him defeat himself. Honestly, that moment is the best use of his character the entire movie.

Ella Enchanted highlights the two instances where Self-Defeating Villains can work, or at the very least sheds light on why they get used despite the way they inherently weaken the Hero's arc.

1) The Comedic Death

Self-defeat! Now with more lampshade hanging!

There is nowhere a Self-Defeating Villain is more welcome than a comedy. Here, the Hero's personal journey can take a hit in the name of humor. Self-Defeating Villains are inherently funny because they tap into our sense of Schadenfreude. People love seeing the wicked get their just desserts. This is one of the reasons I laugh during Bavmorda's death even though I'm not *supposed* to. The fact that she just stumbled into soul banishment is kind of hilarious.

After the shenanigans of the rest of Ella Enchanted, there really was no more fitting end for Evil Uncle. Additional examples include:

• In The Emporer's New Groove, Yzma drops Kronk down a trap door for betraying her. Much later in the final battle, he pops out of another hidden door and squishes her right as she's beaten Kuzco. 
• In the second Scott Pilgrim book, Scott is getting pummeled by Ramona's second Evil Ex-Boyfriend, Vincent Lee. Scott asks Vincent how fast he can skateboard and Vincent demonstrates by grinding down a very long stairwell. He goes so fast he explodes from friction.
• In The Incredibles, Syndrome is in the middle of ranting at the Parr family that he WILL return... when his cape gets sucked into a jet engine. #NoCapes
• I swear I'm not obsessed, guys, but there's an amazing episode of Survivor: San Juan Del Sur where a doofy, arrogant guy becomes convinced one of the nice, quiet girls on his tribe is secretly a mastermind. He throws an immunity challenge so that his tribe can vote her out and then gets voted out instead because of his erratic behavior. This is a prime example, but this arc generally happens at least once a season on Survivor.

I think this list helps show why it is that despite how it weakens a character arc, I still love this trope. In the right context, it can bring a lot of humor to a story.

2) Tonally, it would be Problematic for the Hero to Kill the Villain

The other reason Evil Uncle has to off himself in Ella Enchanted is because NEITHER of the film's Heroes are cut out for the job. Ella just doesn't care enough (as stated earlier, her character arc isn't about Char's Evil Uncle) and Char... well, this is a Disney movie, for Pete's sake! Do you honestly think Disney is going to let a sweet young prince murder his uncle?

Children's stories often face the messy task of finding themselves with Villains that need defeating, but the Hero is too pure to straight up kill the Villain. In fact, it's almost rarer that a Disney Villain meets their fate directly at the hands of the Hero than that fate intervenes in some way. To give an idea, here are a few of the numerous ways Disney Villains have defeated themselves/fallen victim to fate:

Climbing too high and then falling:

• Gaston
• The Wicked Witch/Evil Queen
• Judge Frollo
• Clayton (Tarzan even tries to save the guy by wrapping him in vines but he just HAS to keep swinging that machete)
• Captain Hook
• Percival McLeach
• Lucifer the Cat
• Ratigan
• Charles Muntz

Colliding with oncoming traffic:

• Cruella DeVille
• Bill Sykes

Eaten alive by other nefarious forces:

• Hopper
• Scar
• Captain Hook (again)

Someone more equipped to deal with the problem arrives:

• Prince John, Sherrif of Nottingham et al

Strapped to the front of a garbage truck by passers-by:

• Lotso-Huggin Bear

In fairness, some of these Villains were partially defeated by the Hero. In fact, the ideal Disney formula seems to be that the Hero gets the Villain within range of defeat, and then let's fate do the rest. Simba tosses Scar into the mouths of the Hyenas. Peter Pan tricks Hook into falling off the mast and into the crocodile's jaws. But I have to admit, I have some serious respect for Mulan when she blows up Shan Yu as well as when Eric rams a boat into Ursula. Not a lot of Disney good-guys get their hands that dirty.

But the best defeat of a Disney Villain is, in my opinion, also the ultimate Self-Defeating Villain. And because this is a Trope Showdown, I guess you could say that this is winning TWO CONTESTS AT ONCE!!! Wowie-zowie!

It involves a Villain defeating himself BECAUSE the Hero has learned a valuable lesson, grown as a character and uses that knowledge to trick the Villain into doing the very thing HE was guilty of earlier in the film.

Aladdin VS Jafar: When Self-Defeat is the Right Move:

Thematically, Aladdin is the story of a boy trying to escape his own identity. You can't blame him for it. He's a street rat that no one respects, barred from being with the girl he loves because he isn't "good enough." 

Then he meets the Genie and has an instant ticket to Princedom! But deep down, Aladdin knows he's living a lie. Even when Jafar is exposed and Jasmine promised to him as his bride, he's terrified of what will happen when he becomes the Sultan. He denies Genie his freedom, because he doesn't know how to live the lie alone.

Meanwhile, Jafar is outwardly doing the same thing - trying to escape his station. Once he gets ahold of the lamp, his thirst for power goes wild. Its not enough to be the Grand Vizier, he must be Sultan! But it's not enough to be Sultan, he must be an all powerful sorcerer!

Aladdin recognizes that his own inability to embrace his real identity led to this. If he'd freed the Genie like they'd planned, Jafar would have only found an empty lamp. Instead, he must fight Jafar as nothing but his regular street rat self. 

To say the least, he's outclassed. Jafar has victory on lock until Aladdin points out the very thing that made him screw up earlier - Jafar is nothing without the Genie. He's still second best. And so Jafar, weak to the same temptation Aladdin was, uses his final wish to become a Genie.

Phenomenal cosmic powers? Itty-bitty living space.

I love this sequence. I love how at first, Aladdin's only solution for fighting Jafar is to reclaim the lamp. He and his friends all run at the lamp over and over, knowing the Genie could end this conflict if they only controlled him. But it's not until Aladdin turns that impulse to crave the Genie's power against Jafar that he's able to defeat him. 

It's a perfect circle for Aladdin's growth as a character, and yet still let's us enjoy that delicious irony when Jafar gets sucked into his own lamp. Aladdin's hands might not get all that dirty, but he also clearly directs his own destiny. And so, with all that said, Jafar, by virtue of his relationship with Aladdin, is the best Self-Defeating Villain!!!!

I'm sure he's thrilled. Congratulations.