Emperor Kuzco

### Goals

Destroy Pacha's village and build his summer home (formerly).Get back to the palace and take revenge on those who wronged him (formerly).

### Allies

Kronk, Pacha, Winnie the Pooh, RJ, Mickey Mouse, Tuk, Brown, Sally

### Type of Anti-Hero

Redeemed Hero

**Emperor Kuzco** is the redeemed protagonist of the show of Disney's *The Emperor's New Groove* and a few other shows.

He starts off as a spoiled rich brat and an uncaring teenage emperor. As a result, he is unwillingly turned into a Llama by his former adviser Yzma, who wants to take his place. After a journey with a good-hearted peasant who is named Pacha, Kuzco becomes a much kinder and nicer person, which causes him to adjust his attitude, and gets the potion to turn back into a human.

## Plot

Kuzco is the young emperor of an unnamed Incan kingdom. He is notorious for being selfish and vain, and enjoys dancing to his own theme music every morning. Recently, Yzma, his royal adviser, has been ruling the kingdom behind his back. Kuzco decides to fire her for doing so, despite the many loyal years she's served. Soon enough, Kuzco has summoned the village leader named Pacha, to discuss the building of Kuzcotopia, a summer getaway for himself. Kuzco reveals his plans himself to destroy Pacha's village to make way for his getaway. Meanwhile, Yzma and her lackey Kronk are in their secret lab, and they were thinking of ways to murder Kuzco (after Kronk inadvertently gave her the idea).

Yzma planned to invite him for dinner and poison his drink. That night at dinner, Kronk accidentally pours extract of llama in Kuzco's drink instead. Kuzco is turned into a llama and knocked unconscious by Kronk. Yzma then sends her minion to finish the job by throwing him over a waterfall. Kronk accidentally loses Kuzco, and the llama ends up on Pacha's cart. When Kuzco woke up, Kuzco, upon realizing what happened, accused Pacha of turning him into a llama and then kidnapping him. He then (foolishly) travels through the jungle, despite Pacha's insistence that it's not a good idea doing so at night. Ultimately, his advice proved to be sound due to nearly being killed by a pack of Jaguars, with Pacha saving him at the last minute (although they ended up falling into a river and then falling over a waterfall with sharp rocks at the bottom, Kuzco apparently being resigned to his fate, and undergoing an incident where he regained consciousness just as Pacha was about to undergo CPR, causing Kuzco to mistake Pacha for trying to kiss him in disgust). Pacha decides to help Kuzco get back to the palace, although only under the condition that he change his mind about Kuzcotopia.

After a while, Kuzco claims he has changed his mind, but the moment the palace is in plain sight, he tells Pacha the truth, revealing that he was going to proceed with Kuzcotopia. After their fight destroys the bridge to the palace, Kuzco and Pacha are forced to take a longer route. Meanwhile, Yzma announces Kuzco dead and takes over the kingdom. While wallowing in the lap of luxury, Kronk accidentally confesses about not killing Kuzco. The villains then go out on a hunt for him. At a local restaurant, Pacha learns about Yzma's plan and rushes to tell Kuzco.

Pacha tries to warn Kuzco that Yzma and Kronk are trying to murder him, but Kuzco, convinced that Yzma is loyal, doesn't believe in Pacha's word and falls out with him, believing Pacha's claim to be a plan to save his hilltop from destruction, and then orders Pacha to go away. Kuzco makes way for Yzma and Kronk, only to overhear them discussing that they are seeking to kill him, and that the kingdom doesn't miss him. Kuzco realizes Pacha was right, but Pacha has left. With no hope of returning home or becoming human again, Kuzco sadly accepts his fate. He seeks out a herd of llamas, but not even the llamas seem to accept him. However, Pacha appears and forgives Kuzco.

Kuzco and Pacha run to the latter's house to get some supplies, only to discover that Yzma and Kronk are there as well, pretending to be Pacha's "relatives". As Pacha explains the situation to Chicha, Kuzco pops from the window and startles Chicha, who whacks him with her frying pan. While Pacha's family distracts Yzma and Kronk (mostly Yzma), he and Kuzco race into the distance to get a head start.

A race to the palace begins and ends at Yzma's lab. Kuzco desperately searches for the human potion, but Yzma arrives and battles the heroes, also summoning her royal guard under the premise that they were responsible for killing Kuzco (despite the llama being Kuzco), transforming most of them into animals, and Kuzco undergoing further transformations while trying to get the potion (Tortoise, songbird, whale, and eventually Llama again, causing him to briefly celebrate becoming a llama again before remembering that the point was to become human again). During the fight, Yzma is transformed into a cat, and Kuzco retrieves the vial. Kuzco becomes human again, and sets out to redeem himself. He began building a small summer cabin on the hill next to Pacha's home, and become part of Pacha's family at the peasant's invitation.

Meanwhile, outdoorsman Kronk becomes a scout leader, with kitten Yzma forced to be a member of the troops.

## Personality

Initially, Kuzco is a overly-showoff, rude, kind of lazy, and very spoiled teenager who only cared about himself. He even went on as far as threatening to destroy an entire village to build himself a summer home for his upcoming 18th birthday. He also casually fires people, like when he fired Yzma out of the blue after a few times, and is very insulting towards women, showing to be quite a vain person.

He is also likely to be a bit on the snarky side, insulting some people in his mind, and feels he's in the right most of the time. He also enjoys the spot light being on him at all times, as he enjoys to dance and show off his 'groove'. He got angered when someone makes this hard, such as when he had an old man thrown out of his castle after he interrupted his intro.

Later in the film, when he turned into a llama and met up with Pacha, the other hero of the film, he started to change and redeem himself for goot. While vain and uncaring towards the man whom was in charge of the village he was going to destroy, Kuzco and Pacha began to grow a friendship. At the end of the film, Kuzco has grown into a more kind hearted but still fun-loving young emperor who, instead of destroying Pacha's house, makes a summer area for everyone in his kingdom to enjoy, including Pacha's family.

In*Kronk's New Groove*, Kuzco seems to still have some of the spotlight-hogging personality traits from the original film, but shows Kuzco wants to be shown that he's changed and is very forward with making sure others remember that he's now a lot nicer than he was in his previous years.

He is also shown to be emotional many times in this film, and in his movie as he is prone to crying over things that upset him. When he tells Pacha he wants his help, he was in tears.