Judge Claude Frollo

### Most Entertaining Features

Having a deep, multi-layered characterization that explores the hypocritical mindset behind evil.
His well-received song "Hellfire."

### Most Detestable Traits

His hypocrisy and self-righteousness.
His bigoted hatred of Romani people.
His creepy obsession with Esmeralda.

### Type of ED

Delusional Fanatic

**Claude Frollo**, also called by his title of **Judge Claude Frollo**, is the main antagonist of Disney's animated film *The Hunchback of Notre Dame*. He was voiced by the late Tony Jay.

## His Qualities

### What Makes Him Entertaining?

* Especially compared to other villains of the Disney animated canon, Frollo is surprisingly complex:
	+ He thinks of himself as a righteous, pious man, but when committing murder makes him fear for his immortal soul, he tries raising Quasimodo as a son to evade divine wrath.
	+ He becomes obsessed with Esmeralda, a Roma woman, despite his hatred for Roma people. This lust fills him with a great deal of internal conflict and mixed feelings. His song "Hellfire" examines his psyche and shows him being driven mad by his hatred mixed with lust.
	+ His hate/lust for Esmeralda makes him try to rationalize himself through psychologically projection, as is explored especially in "Hellfire."
	+ His hypocrisy makes him a deconstruction of fundamentalist villains. His persecution of "sinners" is how he copes with the fact that he is a grave sinner himself, as he projects his problems on others to convince himself that he is holy. It all shows that his motive isn't true devotion, unlike more simplified depictions of fanatics.
	+ All in all, he shows that pure evil villains need not be one-dimensional, and that complex villains need not be morally grey.
* He is a smart manipulator who tricked Quasiomodo into revealing where the Court of Miracles was. He deceived Quasimodo into thinking that he already knew where the Court was and that he was going to attack it; this compelled Quasimodo to go to the Court of Miracles and warn the people there of the coming attack, when in truth, Frollo was secretly following him to figure out where it was. In fact, Frollo once mentioned that Quasimodo would be of use to him back when he was first adopted, which may suggest that he planned this years ahead of time.
* The voice acting by Tony Jay is incredible. He has a collected yet intimidating "cold ham" voice that reflects the character's nature. Plus, his song "Hellfire" is a great song from a musical standpoint.

### What Makes Him Detestable?

* Ironically, he is loathsome for many of the same reasons why he's interesting. Frollo is defined by his pride, hatred, and lust, with these traits all leading to his fall. The focus of his character is primarily on how heinous, self-righteous, hypocritical, and (most of all) nauseating he is. Despite his hypocrisy making him more complex, this also serves as a loathing quality.
* The only reason he was able to corrupt Quasimodo is because he'd raised him from infancy, and Phoebus was skeptical from the get-go about being tasked with kidnapping random fortune tellers.
* He is a xenophobic bigot who hates the Romani people. His primary plan is to carry out a genocidal extermination of all the Romani people of Paris out of his bigoted hatred. He accuses them of inflaming the primal instincts of humankind so they can be unruly and savage, when obviously the only one doing anything of the sort is Frollo himself.
* He tries to drown who is literally an innocent little baby for no reason whatsoever, only relenting because he's not the biggest fan of fire and brimstone.
* He has a creepy, obsessive, and perverse lust for Esmeralda and wants to make her a gerontophile just to satiate his own sex drive.
* He was horribly abusive to his adoptive son Quasimodo, even before they became outright enemies.
* He is unbelievably sadistic, especially in the final act.
* He has nothing better to do at night except sing to his fireplace, and it shows when Phoebus can tell he's feeling rather off in the morning.
* He is practically incapable of self-reflection, as the movie frequently highlights. Whatever vice he may have, he psychologically projects onto others that he can easily scapegoat to convince himself of his own righteousness. This is prominently displayed in "Hellfire," which has him sing "of my virtue I am justly proud" near the start, and which eventually has him blame God himself for allowing temptation to exist. In the film's final act, he also blames Quasimodo for setting Paris ablaze when it was literally Frollo himself who did that.
* The film's final act is effectively one giant villainous breakdown, going from a collected manipulator to a rage-driven madman over time. He indiscriminately sets Paris on fire just to search for Esmeralda, endangering countless lives in what is pretty much a tantrum, and eventually abandoning any pretenses of piety by attacking Notre Dame itself. All of this just to force Esmeralda to be with him sexually.
* Given his bigoted hatred of Romani people, combined with how he burned down Paris just to search for one girl, he is obviously extremely petty.

## External Links

* Judge Claude Frollo on the Villains Wiki
* Judge Claude Frollo on the Pure Evil Wiki

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See Also
Warner Bros. Entertainingly Detestable