Characters / Star vs. the Forces of Evil: Ludo's Forces

Main Character Index | Main Characters | Mewni | Butterfly Family (Moon Butterfly, Meteora Butterfly) | Earth | The Forces of Evil (Ludo's Forces, Septarsis) | Saint Olga's Reform School | Other inhabitants of the Multiverse (The Magic High Commission)

Ludo's Forces

Ludo Avarius

I'm Ludo Avarius! And you have my wand!

^{Click here to see Ludo in Season 2.}

Voiced by: Alan Tudyk

Star's arch-enemy, a cruel tyrant who wishes to steal her wand and take over the universe with its power.

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• Absurd Phobia: Ever since being assaulted by the Tickle Monster at his birthday party, he has had an irrational fear of hair.
• Animal Motifs: Rats are usually a mark of Ludo's presence in Season 2, after he takes charge of an entire swarm of them. "On The Job", "Is Mystery" and "Bon Bon The Birthday Clown" are a few episodes where the rats mark Ludo's eventual involvement.
• Antagonistic Offspring: His parents mistreated him to toughen him up, so when they left on vacation he took over their castle and changed the locks. As a result, they disowned him.
• Arch-Enemy: To Star Butterfly.
• Aristocrats Are Evil: He's one of the only monsters on Mewni who isn't dirt poor and his ambitions are much greater than those below his social standing.
• Ax-Crazy: He starts losing it in Season 2 after he gains his own wand, sporting a Slasher Smile and being generally more cruel than he had been. In Season 1, he's more Laughably Evil.
• Bad Boss:
  • Somewhat zig-zagged and then deconstructed. He tends to berate his underlings when they fail to capture Star, even when they are unconscious and probably dying of internal bleeding. But does try to treat them decently, forgoing You Have Failed Me (in once instance he does leave an incompetent minion behind, but later takes him back) and usually gets them home when they're beaten. His leadership skills aren't the best, however, which Toffee takes advantage of to take over his castle and minions.
  • Fully becomes this in Season 2, where he uses multiple monsters as slaves to harvest corn and has them thrown into a pit if they show any signs of disobedience. It's subverted with his eagle and spider minions, who he treats reasonably well despite enslaving them, referring to them as "girls" in a tone of affection, warning them to run just before he unleashes the power of his wand on the bar rats, and even thanking the eagle when it saves him from trick candles with an earnest "great job".
• The Bad Guy Wins:
  • In "Bon Bon the Birthday Clown", he successfully steals Star's spellbook.
  • At the end of "Marco and the King", he invades and takes over Mewni, and at the end of "King Ludo", he gets rid of the old king and secures his power.
• The Beastmaster: In Season 2, he manages to enslave a giant spider and giant bird, using them as his new servants. He later enslaves an army of rats as well.
• Big Bad:
  • He's Star's most frequent antagonist in season 1, the leader of the monstrous forces that oppose her, and hopes to use the wand to conquer the universe. Toffee ends up usurping him just prior to the season finale, leaving Ludo with nothing.
  • He becomes this again in season 2 after gaining his own wand, though he has fewer overall appearances and not all his plots involve antagonizing Star, due to him trying to obtain new army and a new lair. Toffee once again usurps him, this time by possessing his body through the wand.
• Big Bad Ensemble: With Toffee and Miss Heinous for seasons 1 and 2.
• Big Bad Wannabe: In season 1, he is more of a joke than anything. His plans are simplistic, his minions are idiots, and he has the emotional maturity of an alley cat. At the end of "Marco Grows A Beard", he loses his castle and army to Toffee when the latter instigates a mutiny. By the time Season 2 rolls around, Ludo is determined to take his Big Bad seat back, but Toffee comes Back from the Dead and takes over his body.
• Bird People: He's a humanoid bird monster, but unlike the rest of his family, he never grew wings.
• Boring, but Practical: Until he steals the Book of Spells and learns "Levitato" from Glossaryck, the only magic he can use with his wand is an extremely powerful emerald energy blast, but so long as he's properly grounded, it tends to get the job done.
• Break the Haughty: When Ludo learns that Toffee had been behind his entire rise to power, and had no use for him after regaining his full physical form, he realizes that his Sanity Slippage was all for nothing and willingly gives up his crown and goes back into the void in order to mentally recover.
• Bring It: While training to use his wand, he provokes a bunch of mean rats into attacking him so he can use The Power of Hate to get it working.
• But Now I Must Go: At the end of the movie, he asks to be thrown back in the void by Star, in the intention of finding himself.
• Can't Kill You, Still Need You:
  • His wand "talks" him out of murdering Buff Frog in favour of forming an alliance with him during Season 2. Having been forced into bondage and almost devoured at Ludo's command mere moments before, Buff Frog understandably refuses, but Ludo thought it was worth a shot.
  • This happens again in "Toffee", when his wand tells him to imprison Star rather than kill her since she's still needed.
• Catchphrase: "GET THE WAND!" in Season 1. Used one last time at the beginning of Season 2, after which he gets his own wand.
• Chair Reveal: His introduction, showing that his massive chair hides a tiny bird monster on top of a bunch of pillows.
• Character Development: In Season 1, he relied on his minions to do all of the work, which eventually ended in a revolt that got him thrown out of his castle. "Ludo in the Wild" and onward shows him becoming much more proactive, albeit slowly going crazy, and the fact that his wand starts talking to him does nothing to help matters. After destroying the spellbook, which results in Glossaryck's death, and taking over Mewni, he seems much more uncertain about his decisions, and actually ends up listening to Star when she tells him he's being played, and after the whole debacle is done, requests to be thrown into the void again, because he wants to figure out who he is. He finally seems to have become an entirely different person, embracing some of his old traits while using them for good now, but using them for good. He goes back to Mewni to live with his siblings, rebuilding the old castle.
• Chewing the Scenery: All the time, especially when angry. Downplayed in season 2, where he's somewhat calmer despite being crazier.
• Cloud Cuckoolander: Deconstructed two-fold, it's made perfectly clear from the start that this guy has no idea what he's doing. Which made it all the more easier for Toffee to manipulate him. On top of that, even without Toffee's manipulations, it turns out Ludo's intense emotions, lack of foresight, and limited grasp on reality make him a pretty dangerous and unpredictable figure once he gets into a position of power.
• The Cuckoolander Was Right: Buff Frog and others believed that Ludo had gone insane and started to believe that his wand was speaking to him Ludo was right because the wand was possessed by Toffee which allowed him to influence and manipulate Ludo.
• Dark and Troubled Past: His parents gave him abusive Tough Love since he was the runt.
• Determinator: He may be a silly, wimpy coward, but for all his flaws, his utter refusal to give up no matter how many times he loses gives him an incredible will to survive.
  Ludo: Worried about me? Don't you get it? I lost my army, my kingdom, my clothes! And look... STILL STANDING!
• Deuteragonist: Ludo is the only character aside from the main duo (Star & Marco) who gets dedicated episodes consistently, and has arguably gone through more Character Development than any other.
• Dimension Lord: Aspires to be this.
• Dirty Coward: When he attacks Star in "Bon Bon The Birthday Clown", he begs to be spared when Star summons a black hole but when she loses control of it, he gloats about Star being sucked into the spell and tries to knock her into it, but flees with the spellbook after Star threw a cake at him which set him on fire.
• Discard and Draw: Ludo loses his minions and his castle in the season 1 finale and has to start again from scratch. He comes back stronger with new minions and a wand before losing both again at the end of "Battle For Mewni".
• Distaff Counterpart: While recruiting for a new villain, he encounters a female kappa who looks identical to himself. Noticing her infatuation with him, he immediately dismisses her.
• The Dog Bites Back: Ludo is painfully aware of his status as The Chew Toy and this is partly the reason why he works so hard to be a success. One of his most consistent traits is that for as much of a joke as he appears to be he does not react well to being mistreated, bullied, or abused, and will strike back as vindictively as possible.
  • When he's abandoned and helpless in the wilderness he finds himself below a giant spider and eagle in the food chain. After the spider mistreats him too many times he strikes back by beating it in a fight and displaying his dominance over it.
  • After years of being neglected and abused by his family, Ludo managed to turn the tables on them by changing the locks on their castle when they went on vacation without him, locking them out of their own home and forcing them to live in a ramshackle manor in the Forest of Certain Death. It's later mentioned that Ludo is the only one of fifty children to stand up to their bullying, despite their established status as Abusive Parents to the whole litter.
  • Ludo actually does become attached and close to Glossaryk, viewing him as a father figure. But when Glossaryk becomes as much of an unhelpful Troll as ever, Ludo flies into a rage and burns the spellbook. Ludo didn't seem to know this would kill Glossaryk, but he's the only person to stand his ground against Glosarryk's mistreatment and bullying and actually win.
  • In "Battle for Mewni", Toffee refuses to acknowledge Ludo as anything but his Unwitting Pawn. Ludo responds by pushing a pillar onto what's left to him after Star's Super Mode attack.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
  • When Moon brings up his younger brother Dennis being worried about him, Ludo genuinely asks how Dennis is doing. In "Ludo, Where Art Thou?," Ludo reassures Dennis that he can be strong too, and encourages his little brother to stand up to their Abusive Parents and go on his own adventures. The two also share a hug and say they love each other. They finally end this arc by moving in together with their siblings to the old castle of their parents.
  • He grows to care for his Eagle and Spider minions, even bidding a farewell to them before leaving. Though in "Ludo, Where Art Thou?" he remembers Spider but has completely forgotten who Eagle is.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • He agrees with Toffee and Buff Frog that watching Star in the bathroom is too far.
  • He was upset when firing Buff Frog and even said it was "hardcore".
• Evil Counterpart:
  • To Star. Both come from royal families and have poor impulse control at times, but while Star gradually grows out of this Ludo becomes even more erratic with each season. Also, both have problems with their parents. However Star's problem is that her mother expects more from her than she thinks she can handle, while Ludo's parents had no expectations for him in the first place and more or less left him to fend for himself. Finally, Star is a very powerful and creative magic user, but she has trouble following directions and is too impatient to put in the effort to master her spellbook. When Ludo gains his own wand and the spell book, he turns out to be a much more devoted and focused student than Star, but he lacks any imagination. In fact he learns a spell, masters it, and then keeps using just that one spell, much to Glossaryck's annoyance.
  • To King River. Both are short-statured leaders who tend to be self absorbed and ignore their duties. They even have the same voice actor. However, River can put the people's needs ahead of his own when prompted, while Ludo is completely obsessed with making people respect him. Also, River is very strong and can defeat monsters much larger than him, while Ludo is dependent on his lackies and, in season 2, his wand.
• Evil Is Hammy: Courtesy of Alan Tudyk, he has the most hammy lines out of all the characters.
• Flunky Boss:
  • Generally relies on his minions to do the fighting. When they get beaten, he just cuts open a portal and goes home.
  • This changes during Season 2. While still employs minions to do certain tasks (enslaved monsters to grind corn and rats as reconnaissance and sometimes combat), he does most of the fighting himself on the account of having a powerful wand of his own. He is assisted by his spider and eagle during combat, though.
• Freudian Excuse: He was the runt of a massive litter, his father neglected him, and many of his siblings picked on him, which led to his bitter attitude, belief that he deserves better, and desire to use the wand to grow bigger.
• Fusion Dance: By the end of Season 2, Toffee lives inside his body (and has even regrown his wand arm onto Ludo's), although Ludo still has control most of the time.
• Giver of Lame Names: Doesn't bother to remember his minions' names, so he assigns them overly descriptive names for the sake of brevity.
• Goldfish Poop Gang: In season 1, Ludo was in charge of this type of gang. In each episode, he'd order his gang to attack Star and Marco and he'd leave just as quick. When the likes of Toffee and Meteora appear, Ludo's role is minimalised but he's still essential to the plot since he was Toffee's vessel for the majority of season 2 and early season 3.
• Go Mad from the Isolation:
  • It's clear that his time alone in the forest while trying to survive has done a number on his mental health as he deliberately takes part in a bar fight with rats to test his abilities with his half of the wand and he hallucinated that Star was in the forest with him before he gained his wand. He's also gone mad with power after he finds his half of the wand.
  • Exaggerated when he is thrown into the void again after "The Battle for Mewni". By the time Dennis tracks him down in the void, he has built an exact replica of his family's cabin out of garbage, complete with garbage mannequins of his Abusive Parents. He insists that they are real and moves them around the house and talks for them, all seemingly without realizing that he is doing any of it.
• Harmless Villain: Ludo is two feet tall, cowardly, and has no muscle tone at all. He's too dumb to come up with any good plans, too childish to be of any legitimate threat, and while his crones at least TRY to fight, Ludo just barks orders at them. He is utterly useless as a villain. This changes in Season 2, when he gets his own wand.
• Heel–Face Turn: By Season 4, he abandons all his ambitions and hostilities towards Mewni and Star and even invites Star for a game of basketball in the finale, showing that he sees her as a friend or acquaintance now.
• Hero of Another Story: Ludo receives some episodes of his own, detailing the events after "Storm the Castle", often about how he was raised by his family.
• The Hero's Journey: Ludo went through the hero's journey on his path to leave his villainous exploits.
  • Miraculous or unusual circumstances around the Hero's conception or birth: Ludo was born as the runt of the litter because he never developed wings like his brothers and sisters. Causing his parents to give him a hard time until he locked them out of their own castle and took it as his own.
  • Begins in the ordinary world of the Hero's hometown: The series begins with Ludo living in his castle and pursuing Star to take the royal wand.
  • The Herald brings a Call to Adventure: Ludo comes to earth after Buff Frog informs him of Star's new home, business resumes as normal until he meets Toffee.
  • Crossing the First Threshold: After multiple failed attempts at stealing Star's wand. Toffee leads an internal revolution and supplants Ludo. When Toffee is defeated by Star, Ludo is banished into the void by an exhausted Star.
  • The Land of Adventure: After travelling through the void, he lands in the wilderness and takes a wand made from the arm of Toffee. There, Ludo starts losing his mind and becomes a puppet of Toffee.
  • The Spiritual Death and Rebirth: Ludo becomes fully possessed by Toffee and when Toffee regains his body. He quite literally spits Ludo out and when Ludo finishes off Toffee. He asks Star to throw him back into the void in order to find himself.
  • Road of Trials: Ludo makes a life for himself in the void but he ends up developing a personality disorder. Ludo creates multiple objects and treats them as living beings from his past. He seemingly gets over it until he starts talking to "Star" and "Marco".
  • Night Sea Voyage: Ludo is back to his old tricks by travelling to other dimensions to steal other magical items. Only to quit when he realises that he's going nowhere with it all.
  • Time Out From the Big Battle: He then reunites with Dennis, who wants to rebuild the family home and make it a sanctuary from their abusive household.
  • The Final Temptation: Ludo's old life starts bleeding back when Dennis unknowingly reunites him with his old minions. He briefly relapses and Dennis is crestfallen and believes that Ludo's back to his evil ways. Dennis and Ludo also discover that they were scammed by a rat into selling the house to him. Leaving Dennis further upset.
  • Apotheosis: Ludo decides to confront the rat himself and utilises his past to regain his home and kill the rat by making his minions eat him alive.
  • The Return: Ludo's dealt with the rat and looks like he's relapsed into his old life. Rather than return to his old life, he instead rebuilds the family castle by enlisting the help of his other siblings.
  • Crossing the Return Threshold: Ludo and his siblings finally restore the castle to its former glory and collectively restore Dennis' faith in good.
  • Freedom to Live: Ludo is finally free of his past and can now live a healthier life away from his abusive parents and from the temptation of the wand. His actions have also freed his siblings from the abuse of his parents.
• Hero Killer: In a fit of rage he destroys the spell book by throwing it into a campfire, this seemingly kills Glossaryk but Ludo expresses a great amount of remorse for committing this act. You could make the argument that Toffee did this while manipulating Ludo but he admits that Ludo did this himself while Glossaryk resigns to his fate by stating that he knew that this was going to happen one day. However, this was eventually subverted as he was resurrected.
• Horrible Judge of Character: He is quick to trust Toffee, who demonstrates himself to be far more competent than his ordinary minions, even though Buff Frog recognizes that Toffee may have ulterior motives. Toffee manipulates Ludo into getting rid of Buff Frog while establishing himself as kinder than Ludo, ultimately using Ludo's Bad Boss tendencies to usurp his as leader, kicking Ludo out of his own castle.
• Inept Mage: Aside from the occasional blast of raw power, Ludo is even more hopeless with his half of the royal wand than Star could ever be. When he gets his hands on the spellbook, he shows that he is a better learner than Star is, though he only masters one spell before Toffee tricks him into getting possessed.
• Irony:
  • Despite having a fear of hair as seen in "Marco Grows A Beard", he gets a beard in Season 2.
  • He locked his family outside the castle because of the way they treated him. Ludo himself then gets kicked out of his castle because of the way he treated his minions.
• Jerkass: He treats his minions like dirt and never thinks about anyone but himself.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Ludo genuinely loves his brother Dennis and is very protective of him. He is very riled when Dennis gets conned into signing over the deed to the castle over to a rat. He also genuinely wants to let sleeping dogs lie on his pursuit of the wand and achknowleges that he has a problem.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: In the first season finale, he tries to make up with Buff Frog for firing him by giving him tadpoles. When Star comes along, Ludo admits that this was just a bribe and that Star's presence makes Buff Frog's help irrelevant. He then leaves, insulting Buff Frog in the process for good measure. Understandably, Buff Frog is less than happy the next time they meet and he outright refuses to work for him again.
• Kappa: The Magic Book of Spells officially lists his race as "Kappa", but unlike traditional Japanese Youkai every member of his race (except him) has feathery wings.
• Knight Templar Big Brother: Ludo initially objects to Dennis rebuilding their family's old castle, until it's revealed that the castle's landowner tricked Dennis into rebuilding it and has no intention of returning the castle's deed to the family. In response, Ludo gets the deed back by breaking into the landowner's house and leaving him at the mercy of Eagle and Spider, flat-out admitting that he loves his brother and will do "crazy things" to protect him.
• Know When to Fold 'Em:
  • Ludo leaves without any trouble whenever his henchmen are defeated by Star and Marco.
  • In season 2 he displays a similar behavior in "By The Book", but for the most part he doesn't run away from a fight anymore until he's attained his objectives.
• Large Ham: OH YES. He is an Alan Tudyk character, after all.
• Laser-Guided Karma: In "Marco Grows a Beard", Toffee takes advantage of Ludo's Bad Boss tendencies and stages a coup, turning Ludo's minions against him and getting him thrown out of his own castle. Then his castle is blown up. Finally, when Ludo swears revenge on Star, she steals his scissors and pitches him through a portal wearing nothing but an eggshell.
• Laughably Evil: In season 1, he's a joke villain who only shows up so Star and Marco can beat his minions up. He gets more serious in season 2, but he still acts hilariously childish.
• Leeroy Jenkins: His strategy for stealing the wand for the most part amounts to having his minions gang up on Star and take it by force. By season 2 he starts planning ambushes, but they still rely heavily on mook rush tactics.
• Like Father, Like Son: In Season 2, Ludo grows a beard, acts more ruthless and makes his voice more gravelly, which we later learn are all traits of his father, Lord Brudo.
• Love Hungry: Terribly so. He is extremely eager to have people love him and care for him. In "The Hard Way", he attempts to force the role of Parental Substitute at Glossaryck, asking him to say that he is proud of him and tuck him in at night saying "Good Night, my darling", specifically insisting for him to use the words "proud" and "my darling". In "King Ludo", he is eager to make his subjects love him, and easily falls for La Résistance's tricks just because they made a song that praises him.
• Made of Iron: Ludo may be weak and puny, yet somehow he was able to survive having the Whispering Spell performed on him, which would've otherwise killed him due to his hand being the wand.
• Mind over Matter: After stealing the Book of Spells, the first spell he learns from Glossaryck is Levitato, which amounts to this trope.
• Mister Big: Ludo. All his mooks are several times bigger than he is, yet he intimidates them just the same.
• The Napoleon: Ludo only goes up to Star's knees and has to have a tall stack of pillows on his throne in order to look even remotely intimidating. In the Imagine Spot where he gets Star's wand, he gets his "big boy body". It's revealed that this is actually a birth defect: he was the runt of his family and didn't even grow wings on his arms like the others.
• Never My Fault: In "Marco Grows A Beard", Ludo had the wand within reach, with Star being held down by his minions. However, he was unable to take the wand, due to it being covered in hair. He later blames his minions for this failure, despite the fact that it was he who messed up. Toffee uses this to convince his army to turn on him.
• Non-Action Big Bad: He personally leads his minions to Star, but takes a back seat during the actual fighting, throwing out orders and insults to the minions. In season 2, he gets a wand of his own and is generally on the front lines.
• No Sympathy: Calls Beard Deer a baby for writhing due to internal bleeding.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: After taking a level in badass in Season 2.
• Oh, Crap!: His reaction to being told by Star that Toffee is in his wand, as he realizes just who the voice he's been hearing all this time belongs to.
• Out of Focus: After Battle for Mewni, he only has two major appearance (albeit both in episodes centered around him) plus a cameo in the finale.
• Parental Substitute:
  • Considers himself this to Three-eyed Potato Baby
  • Is actually this in a sense to his Spider and Eagle, and has even referred to himself as Daddy when addressing Spider.
• The Power of Hate: As seen in "Wand to Wand", Ludo's half of the wand seems to grow more powerful when he gets angrier.
• Psychopathic Man Child: He has shades of this, especially in "Match Maker", where he fantasizes about using Star's wand to give him a "big boy body", rampaging and causing destruction, then becoming a lifeguard (with girls in bikinis draped over him). His childish tantrums, proclivity to scorn his minions and happy trigger nature after he gets his own wand don't help his case either. Season 2 reveals that Ludo's manchild tendencies are a product of an abusive childhood, being neglected by his parents and bullied by his brothers for being a runt.
• Red Right Hand: Thanks to being possessed by Toffee, Ludo now looks as if he has a swollen right arm with a missing finger and half a wand embedded in his palm.
• Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: Ludo was believed to be dead because Star threw him into a random portal without his scissors (and Buff Frog assumed he had died when his castle exploded), and since Ludo has suffered Sanity Slippage since then, he believed that Buff Frog was happy to hear of his death even though Buff Frog was genuinely concerned and sympathetic after seeing Ludo.
• The Runt at the End: Ludo was this to his family, despite not being the youngest. Adult members of his species are human-sized and have flight-capable wings. This is a birth defect for him, as not only is he tiny, but it prevented him from developing wings.
• Sanity Slippage: While he was never mentally stable to begin with, losing his castle and being forced to survive in the wilderness and his use of the dark wand have caused Ludo's mental state to degenerate further, making him more deranged and psychotic than ever. In "Ludo, Where Art Thou?" Ludo appears to have gone off the deep with his isolation. He makes mannequins out of various bags and items and talks to them as if they were his parents but without their verbal abuse. He also moves them around but refuses to believe that he's been moving them. He also made figures of Star and Marco but he keeps them in his closet and mainly uses his parents for company.
• Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: Opens a portal and walks away nonchalantly whenever Star beats up his minions. After taking a level in badass he does this only after his main objective has been fulfilled.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: After his castle is destroyed and he starts ranting at her, Star banishes him and holds onto his scissors so he can't come back.
• Skeletons in the Coat Closet: He wears an unidentified creature's skull as a helmet (until he lost it after being eaten alive and later hatched from a giant chicken egg).
• Spanner in the Works: He ends up being this to Toffee's plan along with Star. When Ludo listens to Star's warnings and gets her to help him by performing the Whispering Spell on his wand, he creates a situation where Toffee is fully resurrected but without the wand's magic in the palm of his hand like he had counted on. This helps Star to be able to defeat him, and Ludo to kill him.
• Starter Villain: The first recurring villain Star faces and easily the least threatening.
• Surrounded by Idiots: His general opinion concerning his underlings. He tries to fix this in "Fortune Cookies" by hiring a new minion. He ends up with Toffee, who, while smarter than Ludo's other minions, has an agenda of his own, but is able to whip them into shape. He gets minions that are less sapient, easier to intimidate, and follow orders better in season 2.
• Sympathy for the Devil: Due to Ludo's insanity caused by his wand, people like Buff Frog, Moon and his brother Dennis pity him and fear for his sanity. The last one is especially true for the fact that Dennis actually looks up to Ludo, since he suffered more than any other of his siblings under the thumb of his abusive father, but was the only one to stand up to them.
• Took a Level in Badass: In episode 2 of season 2, Ludo learns how to fend for himself rather than rely on others, is able to tame two monsters into his service, and then he finds the second half of Star's wand. In the process, his personality becomes more solemn and menacing. He later managed to create a fairly impressive operation and earn the servitude of new monsters through honest fear of his wrath. Eventually, he's adept enough with his wand through self teaching that he can hold his own with Star until her superior knowledge on spells overwhelms him.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: In Season 2, Ludo has stopped messing around and is now willing to kill others to fulfill his plans. In fact, this is so bad that his half of the wand is actually the voice of reason at times.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Oddly enough, he also somewhat manages this in Season 2 despite simultaneously taking a level in jerkass. He treats his new minions much better than the army of monsters he led in Season 1, giving the rats a generous portion of the corn they steal and treating the Spider and Eagle with affection instead of berating them and blaming them for any failures.
• Tragic Villain: Ludo was the runt of his family, bullied and neglected because they thought it would toughen him up. It only resulted in him gaining Manchild tendencies and a fair amount of resentment and entitlement. By the end of the first season, he's usurped by his right-hand man Toffee, who had been using him to gain the trust of his soldiers, kicked out of his castle, eaten by one of his minions and then banished to Another Dimension by Star. Finally, in season 2 he finds a wand of his own and slowly becomes more of a threat, finds the closest thing to a fatherly figure in his life in Glossaryck who is willing to teach him how to use his new wand, only to have his body taken over by Toffee, who had been manipulating him through the wand.
• Trauma Button: Hair, due to a childhood trauma involving a hairy tickle monster. In Season 2, he gets over this and actually grows a beard of his own that he seems quite proud of.
• The Unfavorite: He was one of fifty children which resulted in a lot of parental neglect and a truly traumatic birthday party. Consequently, he's largely self-taught in everything he does and is desperate for some kind of mentor to help guide him.
• Unskilled, but Strong: He's this after gaining the other half of Star's wand. On one hand, he's even less skilled than Star (relying simply on standard energy blasts, with some of the more powerful ones being impossible to control), On the other hand, through The Power of Hate, he can far exceed her in sheer power, which makes him an almost equal match.
• Unwitting Pawn: Ludo made it easy for Toffee to overthrow him and take his castle. Then he made it easy for him to take his body.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: As revealed in "Marco Grows A Beard", he seemed to be a pretty innocent child. We see more proof of this in Season 2.
• Vocal Evolution: His voice is slightly lower with a growl in Season 2, presumably due to having somewhat lost his mind. His father is shown to have a similar voice. He later starts switching back and forth between this new voice and a higher-pitched tone like from Season 1, although still not as high and whiny as it was then.
• Walk the Earth: Somewhat, at the end of "The Battle for Mewni", he asks Star to throw him back at the void, so he can find himself. This is subverted later in Season 4, when he comes back to Mewni to live with Dennis
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Behaves this way to Glosaryck when training under him, since his father never gave him much attention or guidance.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: In "Marco Grows A Beard", it's revealed he has an irrational fear of hair thanks to a childhood incident with a "tickle monster".
• Would Hit a Girl: Ludo doesn't have a problem with attacking Star.
• Would Hurt a Child:
  • He regularly attacks two 14-year-olds.
  • He kidnaps a bunch of tadpoles during the Season 1 finale to bribe Buff Frog back into service and punches them to keep the critters in line. Thankfully, they're in good care now.
  • It's implied that he kills the baby eaglets after he tamed their parent.
  • He Levitatos a group of choir children for singing off-key. He shows no concern over possibly killing them, and even jokes about it!
    Ludo: Singin' with the angels! Play me off!
• You Are What You Hate:
  • Toffee's betrayal and isolation has obviously warped him, and he has developed a lot of Toffee's behavior, such as his brutality and determination to fulfill a plan. Ludo also says the same thing that Toffee said when he commanded one of Ludo's minions to swallow Ludo ("Just swallow it") when Buff Frog is in his eagle's mouth. Later on, he continues this trend by shouting "Surprise!" when facing Star and Janna in the graveyard. Ultimately, Toffee takes this trope to its ultimate conclusion and possesses him outright.
  • Also, he has issues with his father, yet begins to take after him in Season 2.

First Army

Yvgeny "Buff Frog" Bulgoyaboff

See his folder here for tropes regarding Buff Frog.

Ludo's Minions

Bearicorn Voiced by: Jeff Bennett
Big Chicken Voiced by: Adam McArthur
Beard Deer Voiced by: Fred Tatasciore
Lobster Claws Voiced by: Brian Posehn
Three Eyed Potato Baby Voiced by: Eric Bauza
Boo Fly, Unnamed two headed monster, and Man Arm Voiced by: Mark Gagliardi
Emitt Voiced by: Fred Tatasciore ("Match Maker"), Mark Gagliardi ("Cheer Up Star")
Giraffe Monster Voiced by: Adam McArthur ("Lobster Claws"), Jeff Bennett (other appearences)
Spikeballs Voiced by: Dominic Bisignano

The various monsters employed by Ludo to acquire Star's wand.

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• Almighty Janitor: Lobster Claws was basically fired at the time, and he's the one who got the closest to capturing Star's wand (since he actually stole it temporarily). Reconstruction because, as it was shown while Ludo was in eyesight, Ludo became a member of The Knights Who Say "Squee!", and basically gave Lobster Claws the celebrity treatment after re-hiring the guy.
• Attack! Attack! Attack!: Pretty much the only strategy they use.
• Bears Are Bad News: Bearicorn, a bear with a horn on his head.
• Because You Were Nice to Me:
  • While nice is not the word to describe Ludo's treatment of the minions, their loyalty to him is due to him giving them a home to live in as well as apparently having things like Milkshake night.
  • This is also the reason they side with Toffee, until he declares they've outlived their usefulness when the castle is about to blow.
  • This is also the reason why Lobster Claws does not succumb to the power of the wand when Star calls for him, and why the two-headed red demon tells Star about the Fortune Cookie when she hugs him.
• Blood Knight: Ludo's henchmen presumably enjoy fighting, despite regularly getting defeated by Star and Marco.
• The Dog Bites Back: After Toffee spoke up about how Ludo was blaming the minions for his own screw up, they decided to kick Ludo out of his own castle.
• Dumb Muscle: None of them are particularly bright.
• Heel–Face Turn: The monsters that did survive the destruction of Castle Avarius have quit doing evil altogether and settled on living more peaceful lives, at least until Buff Frog convinces them to leave with him.
• Jerkass: They have no qualms about beating up a couple of teenagers. They even fight among themselves with little reason. And when Buff Frog revealed he had been replaced by Toffee's camera eye in "Mewnipendence Day", they showed no concern whatsoever, with Bearicorn even flat-out saying "We don't care".
• Known Only by Their Nickname: Possibly, if Buff Frog was any indication, given how the other names include "Beard Deer", "Man Arm" and "Three-eyed Potato Baby".
• Mooks: They act as Ludo's for the first season. Or at least until Toffee usurps him.
• Multiple Head Case: One of them has two heads.
• Never Smile at a Crocodile: One of them is a crocodile that has four hind legs.
• No Name Given: Most of the monsters haven't been given a name.
• Plant Person: One of them is a giant flower.
• Remember the New Guy?: Lampshaded in an early episode, when Star and Marco take the time to ask where two previously unseen monsters came from. Ludo expresses surprise that they hadn't met, and the monsters in question claim that they're "usually in the back".
• Spikes of Villainy: Spikeballs, who literally has spike balls instead of hands.
• Uncertain Doom: Since Star blew up the castle with the Whisper Spell when Toffee calmly demanded her to destroy her wand. The fate of the monster minions has been unclear since the explosion almost destroyed everything around it with the exception of Marcos prison and Ludo's egg. Since Boo Fly was shown to have survived the explosion and Ludo's egg to be unscathed by the explosion then some of the monsters could have escaped in time then dropped their flags and joined lower ranked monster gangs to survive the environment or to just avoid committing crimes altogether. They finally made a reappearance in "Starfari" where the majority have survived and have started new lives in a monster village.
• Villainous Friendship: Boo Fly seems to have one with Buff Frog, albeit in a more Punch-Clock Villain way. He recommends Buff for a job, and keeps covering for him when things go wrong. Boo Fly also appears to babysit Buff Frogs children when Buff Frog was on an investigation as shown in the ending of Is Mystery
• What Happened to the Mouse?:
  • Some of Ludo's warriors have only appeared one or two times before vanishing completely. Lobster Claws is a particularly egregious example, considering one of his appearances was an A Day in the Limelight episode.
  • Their fate post-"Storm the Castle" is unclear, as it seems unlikely that they managed to escape Ludo's castle before it went boom. Boo Fly does show up in "On the Job", and Buff Frog officially quit.
  • According to Daron Nefcy in a meet & greet. She does confirm that some have died in the resulting explosion. Not all of them, as some may have gotten out in time but some have died in their escape. Later in the series it's confirmed Boo Fly, Three-eyed Potato Baby, Beard Deer, Big Chicken, the giraffe monster and the two-headed monster survived in "Starfari", and Bearicorn, Man Arm, and Spikeballs survived in "Princess Quasar Caterpillar and the Magic Bell". Making the rest unaccounted for when the remaining monsters fled mewni for sanctuary.
• Would Hit a Girl: None of them have a problem with attacking Star.
• Would Hurt a Child: They regularly attack two teens and show no remorse for their actions.

Second Army

Ludo's girls (spider and bird)

Voiced by: Dee Bradley Baker

A giant spider and a bald eagle from Mewni's wilderness that Ludo tames in "Ludo in the Wild", serving as his new minions after the destruction of his castle.

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• All Animals Are Dogs: In a way, since the eagle was wearing a leash and acts a little like a dog.
• Defeat Means Friendship: They antagonize Ludo until he tames them both.
• A Dog Named "Dog": Following his habit of giving really unimaginative names, Ludo refers to his new minions as "Arachnid/Spider" and "Bird", respectively. Although he just calls them "girls" most of the times.
• Elite Mook: They are way more competent and effective in combat than Ludo's former minions, holding up much better when fighting Star and Marco. They also greatly contribute to the stealing of Star's spellbook.
• Giant Flyer: The eagle is big enough to swallow Buff Frog.
• Giant Spider: The spider is also about as big as an adult human.
• Missing Mom: The bird was a mother to hatchlings but was taken from them by Ludo.
• Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: The Spider refused to eat Ludo because he "tasted bad" and subsequently released him from her web. A case of Truth in Television as some spiders will simply discard any prey they cannot eat rather than kill them.
• Undying Loyalty: Despite having been basically forced into servitude, they seem to be completely loyal to Ludo, even if they are sometimes weirded out by his antics.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: What became of the eagle's babies after Ludo tamed their mother is never shown.

Rat Army

Voiced by: Dee Bradley Baker

A colony of bar rats that Ludo intimidates into being part of his new army.

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• Mooks: They serve as his frontline troops, but unlike his old minions, these rats are more loyal and do a far better job at wearing down the heroes.
• Replacement Mooks: They replace Ludo's old army. Plus, his old minions were rather lacking in brains, but these rats are more obedient and can overwhelm the enemy with superior numbers.
• Rodents of Unusual Size: These rats are about the size of a cat. Even Star notes how huge they are.
• Swarm of Rats: Ludo sometimes sends them off in waves to overwhelm the heroes. Despite being able to hold them off decently, Janna couldn't take much more of them. As a swarm, they were intimidating enough to coerce other monsters into working for him.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Or rather, Rats. We saw what happened to Bird and Spider, but it is never addressed what happened to his rat soldiers, yet it's likely that they were all rounded up and thrown in the dungeon.
• You Dirty Rat!: They are rats, and they are abhorrent and menacing.