Vote up the betrayals that are too dark for a children's movie.
You can't trust everyone you meet - not even in animated movies for kids. For this list, we'll be looking at times when villains betrayed people who trusted them.
These double-crossers go a lot harder than one might expect from characters in children's animation. Disney films like The Lion King and Coco feature characters who straight-up murdered their loved ones. It's not just Disney that's this intense - Rasputin from Anastasia tricked the Romanov family into thinking he was a holy man, then committed crimes under their watch and tried to destroy the whole family when he was banished.
Which one of these traitors gives you major trust issues?
As the youngest prince of his kingdom, Hans doesn't stand to inherit any land, titles, or riches. Hungry for power, he fixes his sights on Anna, a princess who is desperate enough for love to be easily deceived. He smooth-talks her into wanting to marry him. But there's one little problem - Anna's older sister Elsa. Not only does Elsa not approve of the marriage, but she could have more of a right to rule over Arendelle than Hans would even if he did marry Anna.
So, when Elsa ends up freezing Anna's heart - a problem that can be solved through true love - he opts to let her perish. He claims they already said their wedding vows, so he can become king and have Elsa executed for what she did to her sister. Luckily, the plan doesn't work out, but that moment when he tells Anna that nobody loves her is chilling - no pun intended.
What matters more - friendship, or fame and riches? According to Ernesto de la Cruz, the answer is definitely fame and riches. Ernesto and his best friend Hector started a band together, with Ernesto as the guitarist and Hector as the songwriter. Things were going well until Hector decided to quit because he felt guilty about leaving his wife and child alone all the time. Ernesto didn't think he could be successful without Hector's songwriting, so he tried to persuade him to stay. When that didn't work, he pretended to accept his resignation and offered him some tequila to celebrate the new chapter of his life.
The tequila was poisoned, so it wasn't long until Hector passed away. Ernesto stole his songbook and passed off the songs as his own.
Robert Callaghan used to be a professor at the San Fransokyo Institute of Technology, where he was Tadashi's mentor. Originally, he did care about helping students reach their potential, but after his daughter Abigail passed away in an accident caused by Krei Tech Industries, he became obsessed with revenge.
In order to get it, he steals Tadashi's Microbots, which he created for a competition, then sets off an explosion in the contest hall. He hoped to fake his own demise and use the Microbots for his own purposes, but he ends Tadashi's life in the process. You'd think that someone whose life was ruined by their own child's demise wouldn't want to do that to another family, but Callaghan is only thinking about himself.
At first, there's no reason for Milo to distrust Commander Lyle Tiberius Rourke. After all, he used to work with his grandfather. Besides that, he seems to genuinely care about the success of the mission to Atlantis and the well-being of his crew.
But it soon becomes clear that the Commander has something more nefarious in mind. Rather than simply learning about the Atlantean society, he wants to steal the Heart of Atlantis, a crystal that powers the Atlantean peoples' long lives and helps them create advanced technology. Without it, the entire community would likely perish, but the Commander doesn't care - he just wants the money that would come from selling it.
Milo and his allies are horrified by what they've been tricked into helping with and refuse to comply.
In the Madrigal family, everything is perfect - except for when it's really, really not. Everyone in the family has a “gift” or a magical power that manifests when they reach a certain age. Bruno's power allowed him to see the future. Instead of his appreciating his warnings, his family blamed him for causing the negative things he predicted.
Still caring about his family but not wanting to upset them, he decided to leave. But he didn't go far - he ended up literally living in the walls of the family home. While this may have been an extreme approach, it's also pretty extreme for his whole family to decide he's malicious because his predictions are accurate.
Before Princess Fiona met her husband Shrek, her parents locked her in a tower in the hopes of having Prince Charming rescue and marry her. This didn't pan out, but her parents didn't stop there. While they did care about Fiona's happiness, they don't think the choices she's made will lead to that. So even though she's perfectly happy being married to Shrek, her father continues working with the Fairy Godmother in order to secretly feed Fiona a love potion that will make her fall for Prince Charming.
Ultimately, he chooses not to give her the potion, but both of Fiona's parents put her through hell before finally deciding to respect her decisions.
