Pitch Black

**Pitch Black**, the Nightmare King, is the Rise of the Guardians' re-imagining of the Boogeyman, the mythical creature that haunts the closets and dark corners of childhood nightmares and the main antagonist of the film. He is voiced by Jude Law.

## Physical Appearance

Pitch is tall, lithe, and dark in appearance. He has silver-golden yellow eyes resembling an eclipse, dull pale-gray skin, and glossy black hair that is styled to come out as slick, sharp spikes from the back of his head. He wears a long, black robe with a v-neck line and shadows running down his arms, obscuring his body like a shadow. Underneath the robe, he wears black trousers and black footwear.

## Personality

Pitch is everything a child fears, and he thrives on the fear of children, taking a cruel delight in turning their pleasant dreams into nightmares. But what Pitch hates is when children overcome their fears and don't believe in him, particularly when parents tell their kids that the Boogeyman is just a bad dream.

As such, he is hatefully jealous of the Guardians, who are believed in and beloved by children everywhere. Eventually, his hate and jealousy would convince him to undertake a conspiring vendetta against the Guardians and destroy the children's beliefs in them, and he could usher in another Dark Age.

Being a master manipulator, Pitch often preyed on his victims psychologically. His knowledge of people's worst fears allowed him to unnerve his enemies and enjoyed watching them squirm, often leaving their fates to their imagination through thinly-veiled threats before finishing them off. With these abilities he was able to draw Jack from the other Guardians despite being the most powerful against him and distract him long enough by exploiting his worst fear of being forgotten and give his Nightmares time to destroy Easter. This behaviour is evident towards the Guardians due to his deep jealousy toward them. At the Tooth Palace instead of immediately finishing them off, he only gloats and insults them individually by rendering their purposes moot.

As displayed multiple times, Pitch has a perverse level of pleasure from playfully tormenting with his victims in an almost animal-like fashion; these traits are exhibited when he turned Cupcake's dream into a Nightmare, overlooking Sandman's "death" and his behaviour before his attempt to kill Jaime. Pitch also considers his rivalry with the Guardians to be enjoyable as he reacted with excitement when he found another who shared this viewpoint, exclaiming "someone who knows to have a little fun" when Jack was able to challenge him with his magic.

Despite his cruel nature, Pitch has a sympathetic side. Years of loneliness caused him to find a degree of solace within Jack Frost another person who wasn't believed in and admits that he understands being cast out like Jack when he was isolated in the North Pole and consoles that he does indeed long for a family. However, as Jack points out Pitch only wants to be feared rather than loved or believed in and this becomes his undoing as his own nightmares defeat him when his worst fear of not being feared comes true.

However, he is still full of contempt and spite, as he target Jack, at first to use and manipulate him, then to try and recruit him, and then tried to depower (and kill) him when Jack refused to side with him.

## Powers and Abilities

"Darkness came in the shifting of a villain named Pitch. The dreams he hungered for most were those of children, the pure of heart. He could sense children from seven planets off, and with a mere touch of his hands, he could leave them plagued with nightmares for the rest of their lives." - William Joyce [18]

#### **Powers of Shadow and Darkness**

Pitch has various shadow powers, such as traversing great distances through shadows and darkness; he can literally *become* a shadow, and affect the physical world by interacting with other shadows.

While literally hiding in the darkness, he can't be touched or seen unless he deliberately makes his presence known. As darkness is everywhere, Pitch can appear from any shadow or dark corner almost instantly. This is why he hides under beds, because beds are always dark underneath.

#### **Powers of Fear and Nightmares**

He can create Nightmares shaped as black horses with glowing golden eyes; they are manifestations of fear or corrupted pleasant dreams pulled from the mind of a sleeping child for Pitch to control.

Pitch thrives on Fear, primarily the fear of children, but back in his day, during the Dark Ages, he fed on everyone's fears, which made him incredibly powerful. He appears to have an intuition and power of insight on personal fears, enabling him to determine what any individual fears, which he uses to play mind games or break one's spirits. He claims to *always* know people's greatest fears.

#### **Black Sand**

Pitch has his own version of the Sandman's Dreamsand, but Pitch's sand is black and induces bad dreams. He can corrupt Sandy's Dreamsand as well as any pleasant dream a child is having, turning those dreams themselves into Nightmares. Pitch also has the ability to morph his black sand into weapons such as a scythe or a bow and arrow.

According to Pitch, it took him "a while" to perfect his Black Sand, for the purpose of turning Dreams into Nightmares.

## TMNT X Pokemon

Pitch Black is one of the many villains you'll face throughout the game. He's one of the most dangerous on the difficulty scale.

## Trivia

* His signature color is **black**.
* Pitch and The Sandman are identical spirits, but one is potentially more lethal than the other.
* Pitch is more commonly known to children as the Boogeyman.
* He is voiced by Jude Law.
* His lair is in an underground palace accessed through a tunnel under a broken bed. This would refer to the old tale of monsters, like the Boogeyman, hiding under children's beds.
* Pitch can morph and blend into shadows around him.
* Pitch is older than the Man in the Moon because he was alive during his father's time.
* Pitch spreads fear across the world because he wants to be believed in and in a world where only fear exist, he will be believed in.
* Nightmares come from the fears that live in every heart.
* Pitch's Nightmares take the shape of black horses which help him accomplish his dark deeds.
* There is a pun following his Nightmares, as they are described by him as female, and female horses are known as mares.
* Pitch was on Earth first, he ruled the Dark Ages with fear at a time before the Guardians existed.
* Pitch hides under children's beds because of his love for scary and dark places.
* His eyes resemble an eclipse.
* According to story Artist Juan Pablo, Pitch's design was heavily inspired by "the Joker for his unusual movements and personality... Hannibal's stare... Gary Oldman's Stansfield in Leon: The Professional... and trying to bring that randomness and aura to Pitch."
* Pitch's appearance holds a strong resemblance to Dream from *Neil Gaiman's The Sandman*. Ironically, *Sandman* is one of Dream's alliances.
* His appearance, particularly his pale skin, angular face and dark robe, also bears a strong resemblance to Hades from Walt Disney Animation's *Hercules.*
* "Pitch doesn’t have a key color or pattern. He’s like a chameleon that blends into the background. We always stage him at night, when he comes out of the dark corners of the rooms.” – Patrick Hanenberger, production designer.
* According to the DVD commentary, Pitch's height changes over the course of the film as he grows in power. In the Antarctic scene with Jack Frost, Pitch is in his "Medium Form," a head taller than Jack himself.
* During the development of Rise of the Guardians, the designer even toyed with the idea of Pitch and Jack being brothers. [20]
* According to Sandman, creatures as powerful and mysterious as Pitch or Emily Jane had dreams, but he has no clue what those are like since they both had successfully blocked his effort to read them. [21]
* According to William Joyce, Pitch is left handed. And keeps his ancient uniform from when he was a hero of the golden age.[22]
* Sandman and Jack Frost are the only beings who are able to match against Pitch Black.