Kibosh

> If we scare humans too little, they'll rise up against us, and if we scare humans too much, they'll rise up against us.
>
>

**Kibosh** is the powerful leader of the Underworld, who watches over the behavior of the residents to ensure that they are contributing to the balance between creatures and humans.

He constantly visits the Scare School to evaluate the progress of the students and the teachers' learning.

## Overview

Kibosh is responsible for the rules and laws of the Underworld, and for monitoring each creature to ensure that they scare the humans to preserve the Balance.

When a creature is not complying with the minimum requirements of the Underworld or behaving inappropriately, with being friendly being the main example, he will banish it to a place called the Valley of the Shadows, which is feared by all creatures.

In Casper's case, he gives the alternative of going to Scare School to learn how to scare and not be banished. He is also the founder of Scare School and always makes visits for evaluations and surprise tests to make sure that everything is going well.

## Personality

Kibosh, as the leader of the Underworld, shows himself to be quite competent in controlling and ordering the behavior of each resident there, and will take drastic measures when someone is inflicting a rule, such as being too friendly, which is enough to take a punishment from him.

When there is no apparent way left to get someone used to the nature of the creatures, Kibosh's last option is simply to send them to the Valley of the Shadows, the most feared place in the underworld. In the movie it is revealed that the place is actually a haven for friendly creatures, probably made by Kibosh for the nice creatures to live their lives, which indicates that he really has compassion for the residents of the Underworld, since this punishment is not at all severe for the friendly creatures, although it can still be seen as something terrible by creatures with normal habits.

He proves to be quite strict and demanding during his visits and evaluations at Scare School, however, although he still has his usual intimidating and threatening behavior, he seems much calmer than in his previous adaptations, as he gives Casper one more chance to get used to his rules, ordering him to go to Scare School to learn how to scare and preserve balance.

He also seems somewhat sensible and wise, and although he doesn't like friendship or anything of the sort, he still believes in teamwork, as shown in "Power Outage", where he gives the Scare School students a test to work together against a powerful threat.

## Appearance

Kibosh is a big green ghost, overweight but also burly. He appears to have the original concept, but slightly different facial features, which include yellow and brown eyes instead of red and black (his sclera is however red in the movie), as well as a fuller lower lip and an upturned nose.

## Powers and Abilities

As the leader king of the underworld and all monsters, Kibosh has a possession of several powers other than ghosts.

* **Flight**: As a ghost, Kibosh has the ability to fly and float whenever and wherever he wants.
* **Intangibility**: Typical of any ghost. Kibosh can pass through any solid matter such as walls, people, objects, etc.
* **Thunderstorm**: Kibosh is capable of hurling fortissimo lightning bolts when attacking his targets.
* **Fire Spitting**: Kibosh is also capable of spitting fire to scare, similar to Thurdigree Burns, but with an extremely high length, to fill an entire hall.

## Movie events

Kibosh visits Deedstown to see how Casper is doing with his obligation to scare the humans, and is not happy to see that he has not made any progress. After a brief discussion on the matter, Kibosh orders Casper to be signed up for an academy in the Underworld for creatures like him, called Scare School, where he will learn to change his behavior to fit in with the Underworld and so not have Kibosh take the second option; banishing Casper to the feared Valley of the Shadows, something he has had to do with a former member of the Ghostly Trio's family before.

At the school, Kibosh makes sure that the principals, Alder and Dash, keep watch over Casper to see how he will behave, and refuses their request to allow them to scare. After the students arrive, Kibosh gives a speech about what their days at the Scare School will be like, and their main reason for being there, which is to become really scary creatures and help maintain the balance.

After a while, Kibosh is called by the principals to the entrance of the school, with all the students and teachers present, and discovers their plan to get rid of him and take over the human world, and ends up getting stoned by their invented weapon, while screaming at the students and teachers to stop them from breaking the balance. Alder and Dash then finally move on to the second part of their plan, which is to finish off the humans once for all.

Later, after Casper manages to stop the principals with the help of the residents of the Valley of the Shadows, including their uncle and aunt, Kibosh for the first time allows the creatures to celebrate with the humans, and at the end reveals to Casper that he was also a friendly ghost once when he was his age, and that he understands how hard it can be to grow up and learn to scare, but that he knows Casper will understand this in the future.

## Relationships

### **Casper**

Casper and Kibosh's relationship is somewhat average. Despite Kibosh's rejection of kindness, innocence, friendship or anything nice in general, he doesn't seem to despise Casper, at least not like Thatch and Alder and Dash, as he already gave him several chances to adapt to the creatures' nature and in the last one he even gave him the alternative to go to the Scare School to learn how to scare instead of banishing him straight to the Valley of the Shadows as he did with others before.

Casper, despite not agreeing with the rules made by Kibosh and hating the scares, still showed a great respect for him, due to both his gentle nature and his awareness that he is the one in charge of the Underworld, although he can also be seen raising his voice at him on occasions, as when he corrects him about referring to humans as "fleshies", and sometimes even disobeying his orders when he feels he really needs to, which is an attitude that Kibosh has already revealed he admires in the episode "Vote for Casper", where he exclaims that no other creature has ever had the courage to face him.

At the end of the movie, Kibosh tells Casper that he understands his situation and how hard it is to grow up and learn how to scare, so much so that he was once like him when he was his age; a friendly ghost, but he said he knows that one day he will understand this. He also allowed the creatures to unite with humans for the first time, as a gratitude to Casper for saving him.

### Alder and Dash

In the past, Kibosh banished Alder and Dash's ancle to the Valley of the Shadows, and left as a warning to the latter about being too friendly. Later, after the two became evil after being shocked at losing their aunt and uncle, Kibosh forcefully employed them as principals of the Scare School.

This has left them with a lot of anger and hatred for Kibosh, even though they fear him very much and avoid upsetting him as much as possible. In the movie, they plan to finally get rid of Kibosh and take over the creatures. Also, they don't seem to resent Kibosh for the banishment of their ancle, and seem to hate him mainly for the fact that he controls them, and also refuses their requests to be transferred to scare the humans.

At the time, Kibosh, instead of banishing Alder and Dash, gave them one more chance to adapt to the creatures' habits, as he did with Casper, and later gave them the job of running the Scare School. He at first shows respect for the two, although often in a demeaning way, and enjoys his command of them.

In the series, Kibosh is often angry with them for their incompetence in monitoring the school, often giving them negative scores on evaluations.

### **Ghostly Trio**

Kibosh has a barely explored relationship with Casper's uncles in the *Scare School* franchise, the only time they had an interaction was in the pilot film. He seems to have more of a negative than positive relationship with them, for the reason that they never make progress on Casper's problem with scaring. The three uncles, as well as almost all the creatures, are very respectful towards Kibosh and also fear him a lot, being seen constantly nervous when he is around and repeating and agreeing with everything he says, except for Stinky once, who corrected him about the "fleshies" actually being called humans.

In the other adaptations of Casper's franchise in general, the interaction between them is more explored, but not much different. Kibosh has been shown to be very angry with the Ghostly Trio because of their rebelliousness and infliction of rules, so much so that in *Casper's Haunted Christmas* he states that he really hates them. The Ghostly Trio didn't really have much respect for him either, but they still feared him and avoided raising their voices to him or bothering him.