Claude Frollo

> **"And He shall smite the wicked and plunge them into the fiery pit!"**
>
>

   Judge Claude Frollo is the main antagonist of Disney's 1996 animated feature film The Hunchback of Notre Dame. He is a ruthless Parisian justice minister who, after a series of sensitive circumstances, becomes the begrudged caretaker of the deformed Quasimodo.

With a majority of the film's heavy thematic elements being directly tied to Frollo's story arc — such as lust and genocide — he is widely considered to be amongst the darkest Disney villains of all time. He is also a main character in The Frollo Show.

In Phantom Image, Frollo and Gaston are brought back from the dead as zombies by Davis Hunsinger and become minions of his. During the battle with Davis, Gaston accidentally shoots Frollo in the chest in a failed attempt at teaming up on Devon. After being used as a shield against Gaston by Devon, Frollo is left on the ground and wakes up hours later. He is captured shortly after and banished to Mario's Death Island.

In Miidust Odyssey, DAVIS makes Frollo one of his minions once again. Frollo no longer has his claymore and now only has pyromancy and his Stand, Hellfire. He is killed in the desert near Kara Kara Bazaar.

## Appearance

Frollo is a slender, aging man defined by his wrinkled face and white hair. As the Minister of Justice and a high-ranking public official, Frollo is most frequently dressed in black and purple robes, a purple and black striped hat with a red ribbon attached, a purple jumpsuit, and black shoulder pads with red stripes. He also wears rings on his fingers, two on the right and one on the left, with the jewels colored red, green, and blue.

## Personality

Frollo is a character of pure malevolence, completely devoid of the funny quirks that made other Disney villains somehow endearing in spite of their crimes. This is made all the gloomier in that he is a normal human instead of a stereotypical villain. He is the "monster" from the introduction song The Bells of Notre Dame (normal-looking and respected yet repulsive); in stark contrast with the "man" represented by Quasimodo (ugly and shunned yet selfless).

Frollo is cruel, spiteful, manipulative, and blasphemous person who destroys countless lives for the slightest plight without batting an eyelid, and never shows politeness that is not contrived. Frollo sadistically enjoys seeing people getting tortured (which he regards as "being taught a lesson"), and the only genuine emotions he displays are either malice or petty satisfaction.

Even worse, he grudgingly complies to his sole good action out of selfish fear for his soul. He refused to take Quasimodo as a son and hid him away to use him later, completely ruining the redemptive purpose of taking him in. He blatantly abuses him emotionally and verbally, and fakes all displays of affection.

Frollo is a deeply fanatical and sacrilegious person, obsessed with purifying the world from corruption. As such, he despises celebrations such as the Festival of Fools, which he regards as useless and degrading. He is also extremely deceiving, prejudiced, chauvinistic, and xenophobic, as seen with his irrational hatred for gypsies and his inability to conceive that a deformed person could be a normal human. (Such beliefs were sadly common in the times in which the story takes place, although Frollo's character serves to highlight their fallacies.) To him, everything and everyone outside the "natural order" is a stain that must be removed (even though the target's flaws only exist in his head).

What makes Frollo all the more despicable is his unshakable self-righteousness. He regards himself as a paragon of virtue above all blame. In his twisted point of view, he is the purest person alive and everyone else is in the wrong, if not seeking to "corrupt" him. Although he does fear damnation more than anything, his delusion is so strong that he keeps persuading himself that his faults are an innocent person's doing, during the scarce moments he could have realized the error of his ways. No matter how often the Archdeacon, a moral authority, reminds him of the Christian values of caring and compassion, like most fanatics he can only understand a logic of punishment.

Because of this, Frollo regards his lust for Esmeralda as a "spell" meant to damn his soul and fabricates absurd justifications for his murder of Quasimodo's mother. He quickly becomes obsessed with submitting Esmeralda to his will (reasoning that he can have her if he gets her to "repent"), being ready to burn thousands of innocents in the process. By the end of the film, he becomes so unhinged that he no longer fears damnation, persuading himself that his enemies are the most degenerate and wicked ones who must get punished.

## Stand

Frollo's Stand is Hellfire, which looks like a humanoid spirit-like figure made purely of fire and with symbols of a cross on its body. Hellfire works similarly to Magician's Red, allowing Frollo to freely control the fire he makes with his pyromancy abilities, but it can also place invisible markers on any object that can be activated at any time, instantly starting an intense fire. In addition, the flames are said to be far hotter than any ordinary fire.

## Involvement in plot

### Phantom Image

Frollo and Gaston first appear after being revived by Davis Hunsinger prior to the battle at Davis' Castle. During the battle there, he aids Gaston in trying to kill Jorge Jormoon and his allies using pyromancy, his dagger and his claymore. In an unsuccessful attempt to kill Devon Truman, he is accidentally shot in the chest with a gun by Gaston, who was trying to shoot Devon whilst Frollo was trying to kill him from behind with his dagger. Frollo drops his dagger and starts using his claymore instead. However, Devon manages to get Frollo's dagger and stabs him in the back. Believing to have been killed, Devon uses Frollo as a shield against Gaston, then leaves him on the ground after getting his hands on Frollo's claymore.

Hours after the battle, Frollo wakes up and finds himself alone in Davis' Castle, surrounded by the corpses of Davis' other minions, surprised that he's still alive. When the police arrive minutes later, Frollo is captured and banished to Mario's Death Island.

### Miidust Odyssey

Frollo reappears in Miidust Odyssey as a minion of DAVIS once again, revealing that he escaped from Mario's Death Island with him. He is granted the Stand Hellfire and pledges his loyalty to DAVIS again, having lost his dagger and claymore, Frollo only has his pyromancy and his Stand now, which doesn't seem to bother him that much. He is sent to kill the Jormoon group in the desert near Kara Kara Bazaar, following them whilst staying out of the Sun, as the Sun's rays can kill the undead.

As night falls, Frollo reveals himself to the Jormoon group, initially as a priest travelling by camelback. Frollo then uses Hellfire to trap himself and the Jormoon group in by creating a large ring of fire, and reveals his true intentions. He then tries to separate the Jormoon group with Hellfire, which he succeeds in doing, then tries to pick them off one by one, however, he is caught off guard and distracted by Whales before he can kill any of them, and Cappy punches a hole into a rock for the group to hide in. Eventually, Frollo shakes off Whales, but loses the location of the Jormoon group briefly. However, he finds them and traps them with another ring of fire, sometimes shooting fireballs at them to taunt them whilst obscuring himself with his Stand's flames.

Though the intense heat of the flames is enough to make Jordan Jormoon think the rest of the Jormoon group went insane from the heat, Lanie reassures him that they had in fact found a potential weakness for Frollo: By luring him out of his flames, Frollo could be easier to attack. Testing this theory, Wario uses Whales and Waluigi uses Purple Rain to try and lure Frollo out and distract him, which succeeds with some trial and error. After this, Jorvin makes Cappy throw a rock at Frollo's head, leaving him open for Whales to bind Frollo. The group approach Frollo and he is attacked by a Stand Barrage from Cappy, which launches Frollo towards Jordan, who catches him with Cyclone Green and sends a Graviton Overdrive into Frollo, destroying his body and killing him for good.

The group is surprised by Frollo's demise, and Jordan figures out, to his, and the rest of the group's surprise, that Frollo was a zombie, which was likely why he did not attack during the day. His remains are left lying in the sand for the Sun to finish off.

## Trivia

* He can be seen raving with Gaston after their resurrection.
* Although his personality is mostly taken from The Hunchback of Notre Dame and his other official appearances, he does sometimes borrow personality traits from his appearance in The Frollo Show.
* His Stand is named after the song he sings in The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
* Frollo appears to face the Crusaders during the same part that the Sun arc takes place in Stardust Crusaders.