The Hunchback Of Notre Dame Disney / Tropes D to G

The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Disney) Trope Examples
A - C | D - G | H - N | O - Z

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D

• Darker and Edgier:
  • This film is much darker than the standard Disney Animated Canon fare. It opens with the villain sentencing a group of refugees to torture and execution, chasing down and killing an innocent woman on the steps of a cathedral, and being stopped in the act of drowning her baby. Later, said villain sings about lusting after a woman and burning her alive if he cannot have her.
  • The villain's a genocidal racist (as demonstrated when he crushes ants beneath a stone block while talking to Phoebus to show what he will do when he finds the Roma) and telling the Roma people he's just rounded up, "There'll be a little bonfire in the square tomorrow, and you're all invited to attend."
  • Also, strangely enough, despite its Disneyfication, this movie somehow manages to be even darker than the novel itself in some ways. Roma genocide isn't on the agenda at all in the book, nor is Paris burned. Also, Disney changed Quasimodo's public humiliation from simple corporal punishment (and he had in fact committed the crime he was accused of) to the whim of a sadistic crowd. Not to mention Disney's Frollo completely lacks any of his literary counterpart's Anti-Villainous traits.
• Day Hurts Dark-Adjusted Eyes: Near the end, Esmeralda turns away from the cheering crowd to offer her hand to Quasimodo, who was staying in the shadows of the cathedral. The moment he is exposed to the light, his pupils shrink in protest as he flinches and raises his hand to protect his eyes from the blinding light.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Unless you're Frollo.
  • The Notre Dame cathedral itself is covered with menacing gargoyles but seems to have a benevolent and protective character about it, which is strange as it's supposed to be just a building. In the intro when Frollo is about to murder Quasimodo as a baby, the various gargoyles and statues glare down at Frollo and scare him out of the deed. This is Truth in Television, of course: the purpose of gargoyles and grotesques (besides often being spouts for rainwater) is to protect the building by deterring evil spirits.
• Dark Reprise: Inverted by multiple melodies simply by switching between major and minor keys:
  • The opening fanfare is in a minor key, as is "Hellfire", but the endings of "The Bells of Notre Dame" and "Heaven's Light" are in parallel and relative major keys respectively.
  • The melody of the verses of "Out There" is repeated throughout the score in a minor key.
• Dead Man's Chest: Quasimodo hides the wounded and unconscious Phoebus under the table when Frollo comes to visit unexpectedly.
• Death by Cameo: In one of the shots of the streets of Paris during the song "Out There", Pumbaa from The Lion King (1994) is being carried off on a pole, presumably to be roasted.
• Death by Falling Over: While mounted on horseback, Frollo kicks Quasimodo's mother down the steps of Notre Dame where she hits her head and dies.
• Death by Irony: "And He shall smite the wicked and plunge them into a fiery pit!" Ask and ye shall receive...
• Death by Racism: In a Disney Film, of all places. Frollo attempts to kill Esmeralda, believing that she's guilty of witchcraft because of her Romani roots, and ultimately dies in the process.
• Death from Above: Happens to several of Frollo's Mooks during the climax, such as getting a heavy stone thrown through a ladder (and causing the Mooks to fall to the street below), Victor dropping a brick on one Mook's head, and finally the cascade of molten metal poured by Quasimodo.
• Death Glare:
  • The statues that adorn Notre Dame Cathedral give one to Frollo during the "Bells of Notre Dame."
    Archdeacon: But you never can run from nor hide what you've done from the eyes! (Points up at Notre Dame) The very eyes of Notre Dame!
  • Frollo does this twice to Quasimodo after he disobeyed his orders to stay in the Notre Dame bell-tower and was humiliated by the crowd (due to Frollo's guards starting a riot). Much later in the last third of the film, he then gives Quasi another one before ordering his guards to take him back to the bell-tower after discovering the Court of Miracles.
  • Quasimodo does one when he sees Frollo lighting the stake that he tied Esmeralda to, showing that Quasi is not going to stand for this any longer.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: The movie has a few:
  • Esmeralda deconstructs the Dude Magnet. While all the men, including Quasimodo, are attracted to her, she also draws the unwanted attention of the Big Bad, Frollo. The different types of attraction run the gamut in the film to aid in the Deconstruction: the crowd in Paris find her attractive; Frollo is driven absolutely insane over his lust for her and is convinced that she's some kind of hellish temptress; and Quasimodo sees her as a perfect "angel" (his love for her doesn't appear in the least bit sexual) because she was the first person in his life to show him kindness. Only Phoebus is willing to both acknowledge her beauty and recognize her as a human being, flaws and all; that's probably why she ends up with him in the end.
  • Phoebus deconstructs the Knight in Shining Armor. While he is a noble knight (who literally wears golden armor), he is still a soldier first and foremost, and serves the authority even when the authority orders him to arrest innocent people or let other suffer for things that aren't their fault. Reconstructed, however, when Frollo orders him to burn down a house with an innocent family inside, which Phoebus refuses to do. After escaping from Frollo's wrath, he joins the heroes and helps the people that he once aided in oppressing.
  • The Knight Templar and The Fundamentalist tropes are deconstructed through Judge Claude Frollo.
    • For The Fundamentalist: As far as he's concerned, Frollo thinks he's Holier Than Thou than others, and so, anything he does, no matter how horrible it is, is justified by default. On top of this, he'll repeatedly use Psychological Projection to blame others for all of his issues. Ironically, he's not the pious Christian he thinks he is, and repeated attention is drawn to his hypocrisy. Plus, add some creepy lust for Esmeralda and things really go downhill.
    • For Knight Templar: He believes that All Crimes Are Equal, the punishment for every single one is death, and assumes the gypsies are an Always Chaotic Evil race who cloud people's minds with "unholy" thoughts. While the gypsies have committed crimes, they have not done anything to bring this kind of punishment down on them. He even torches a barn, even though its inhabitants didn't even know about the gypsies. It causes Phoebus to turn against him, and Frollo to try to kill him in return. Frollo demonstrates why a Knight Templar, logically and realistically, would be a horrible person, especially if they're an authority figure.
• Defiant Captive: When Esmeralda is captured and about to be burnt at the stake, she spits at Frollo. She's Defiant to the End.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: Given that the film is set in Medieval Europe, this film has quite a bit of it.
  • All of the characters refer to the Roma people as "gypsies", which is how they were called back in that time period — and in fact, at the time of the movie's making, and for two decades afterwards — instead of the Romani people.
  • Quasimodo being mocked for being ugly was the norm for people born with birth defects.
  • Phoebus is immediately sentenced to death when he rebels against Frollo. In the medieval era, soldiers were supposed to carry out any orders without hesitation, even if they were appalling.
  • To a modern audience, Frollo's obsession with Esmeralda and terror of her having bewitched him comes across as self-rationalizing at best, if not downright delusional. And sentencing her to burn looks not merely disproportionate, but monstrous. But in medieval times, even a high-ranking public official and highly educated doctor of law would not be considered in any way unreasonable for believing that witchcraft and the Devil are very real things. Especially since he has seen her performing "magic" (smoke-and-mirrors tricks, to be sure, but he can't know that), and indeed the movie outright shows that demons really exist in this setting. By the standards of his own culture, fearing that a witch is using some sort of Mind Control on him is not paranoid; back then, respected scholars literally wrote graduate theses on the techniques witches ostensibly used for such things. In such cases, the only way to save the victim was said to be to kill the witch, and/or burn the body and scatter the ashes (much as it often still is with vampires in modern fiction)—which is what the increasingly disturbed and desperate Frollo eventually tries to do.
    
    Subverted, however, in that he also tries to use the sentence for a Scarpia Ultimatum. That would be as unacceptable to medieval people as it would today, and indeed an indictable offense, then as now. Although his contemporaries might also excuse it as a symptom of the witch's (ostensible) mind control; that would then work as a plea of duress, or possibly a sort of temporary insanity defense, much as the Templar court handles the similar case of Brian de Bois-Guilbert and Rebecca in Ivanhoe. Either way, it would in any case most certainly disqualify him from presiding over her trial in a proper court of the time.
• Demoted to Extra: Downplayed in the case of Esmeralda. While she is still plays a pivotal role in the story, the movie clearly gives Quasimodo more focus than her, even dropping Esmeralda's subplot of finding her mother.
• Descent into Darkness Song: Frollo's "Hellfire" song counts as a Dark Reprise of "Heaven's Light", but it also counts alone as this trope. A sacred chant leads into the song, With composure, Frollo sings to the Virgin Mary, "You know I am a righteous man..." and then the song gets darker as he sings of how desire for Esmeralda tempts him. The accompanying chants turn ominous, and Frollo pictures himself condemned. He concludes: "She will be mine or she will burn!"
• Deus ex Machina: A literal case: Frollo spends the movie on a reign of terror that he proclaims to be for a higher cause, sings a Villain Song that's an inverted confession of sins, and assaults a cathedral. When he's swinging a sword and raving about how He shall cast down the wicked, the gargoyle under his feet roars at him and breaks off.
• Did Not Get the Girl: Quasimodo. He's not bitter about it. In fact, he's encouraging Esmeralda and Phoebus at the end. He recognizes she loves Phoebus but still cares for her safety and happiness so he respects her choice without resentment, another sharp contrast to Frollo and his dangerous and possessive attitude towards Esmeralda.
• Disney Death:
  • Esmeralda is briefly unconscious due to smoke inhalation, not dead.
  • In the stage version, it's not so Disney. She revives long enough to look at him and weakly say, "I... think you are a good friend", then dies, probably from carbon monoxide poisoning. All in all, the chain-yanking makes it worse than in Hugo's novel.
• Disneyfication: You wouldn't think Victor Hugo's original novel would be suitable fare for a children's movie. Despite being one of Disney's darkest movies, they still made it much nicer than the book — Esmeralda was nicer, Phoebus was nicer, Quasimodo was nicer, there was a clearer line between good and evil, and the good guys didn't all die or kill themselves at the end. Even more strangely, the Disney movie is actually darker than the novel itself somehow; Roma genocide isn't on the agenda at all in the book, nor is Paris burned. Also, Disney changed Quasimodo's public humiliation from simple corporal punishment to the whim of a sadistic crowd.
• Distressed Dude: Phoebus and Quasi find the Court of Miracles. They are Bound and Gagged by Clopin and the Roma, mistaking them for "Frollo's spies", leaving Esmeralda to save them from an untimely execution.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?:
  • Frollo's "Hellfire" song contains the lyrics 'Like fire, hellfire, this fire in my skin, This burning desire is turning me to... sin!' Given Frollo's hidden lust for Esmeralda, the "fire in his skin" could be suggestive of some S.T.D. like syphilis or gonorrhea.
  • During that song, he is panting and freaked out when someone walks in on him.
  • Frollo offering pieces of silver to the captured Romani for Esmeralda, with the amount just stopping beneath the infamous thirty pieces of silver associated with Judas' betrayal of Jesus to the Pharisees (the frustration and rising inflection in Frollo's voice after the offer of twenty pieces of silver is rebuffed seems to indicate that even HE could see the irony of the situation).
• Doorstop Baby: Frollo accidentally (but remorselessly) kills his mother and is forced to adopt Quasimodo by the Archdeacon.
• Double Entendre: There are plenty of sexual puns and double entendres that fly over kids' heads. See especially Esmeralda and Phoebus' battle dialogue and the gargoyles' "A Guy Like You."
  Gargoyles: You ring the bell(e)!
  You're the bell-ringer!
• Do Wrong, Right: The Archdeacon tells Esmeralda this after Phoebus helps her claim sanctuary, and Frollo has threatened that Esmeralda will be arrested if she ever leaves. He admires her public display but advises her to be a little more discreet when crossing Frollo next time because the judge doesn't like such humiliations.
• Dramatic Thunder:
  • Frollo has one in his first scene during "The Bells of Notre Dame" just before he begins chasing Quasimodo's mother.
  • Also during "The Bells of Notre Dame", thunderstorm rolls in after the statues that adorn Notre Dame Cathedral gave Death Glare to Frollo.
• Dramatic Wind: Happens during the climactic fight on Notre Dame.

E

• Eiffel Tower Effect: Averted. Most of the action takes place on the Île de la Cité and the tower would be visible from the Cathedral, but the story is set a couple of centuries before the Eiffel Tower was constructed.
• The Eleven O'Clock Number: "A Guy Like You" is the last new song of the film, set before the big dramatic climax.
• Elite Mooks: Frollo's visored soldiers, who may be one of the most competent Disney henchmen in history. Compared to Frollo's more thuggish non-visored soldiers, these semi-faceless soldiers are far more menacing, skilled, and overall, very competent, and have effectively carried out Frollo's will, such as ambushing and arresting Roma, searching for Romani hiding places, shooting down Phoebus without hitting Frollo's horse, burning down most of Paris, and even when they were defeated by molten lead in the climax, they managed to damage the cathedral doors just enough so that Frollo can go after Quasimodo. The worst part is that there are a thousand of them at Frollo's command.
• Eloquent in My Native Tongue: Played with. Quasi sounds VERY different when he's alone with the gargoyles than when he's speaking to anyone else. When speaking to other humans, he sounds more childlike, with simpler vocabulary ("NO SOLDIERS! SANCTUARY!") and a stammer. The one time he speaks clearly is when he stands up to Frollo.
• Establishing Character Moment:
  • The very first thing we see Frollo do is murder an innocent woman and attempts to drown her defenseless child, then to defend his actions as righteous.
  • When Quasimodo is fully revealed on-screen, the first thing he does is demonstrating his compassion for living things and a longing to get out of the bell tower by helping a little bird learn how to fly. He turns and we see this playful smile on his face, and he says hello to the baby bird in a gentle and approachable voice. The DVD commentary states that because this scene is the first moment on-screen where you see Quasi's face, it was very important in making sure that the audience was rooting for Quasimodo right off the bat with this moment, and it makes Frollo's emotional abuse of Quasi all the more repulsive.
• Everyone Has Standards: It took very little incentive from a few guards to push the crowd of Parisian citizens to bully and mock Quasimodo. However, during the finale, they have clearly become disgusted by Frollo's parody of "justice". When he's about to burn Esmeralda, the crowd is clearly furious, with people shouting that she didn't do anything and she is innocent, and the guards are barely containing the uprising. (Also note that Esmeralda is an outcast among their society, yet they still pick her side.) It only takes a brief but inspiring speech from Pheobus to launch a full-blown revolt against Frollo, though it's aided by the fact that Frollo and his men are attacking the Cathedral. If you think Parisians love Notre Dame now, imagine how they felt back then, when religion was far more a part of daily life; he's not just attacking a building, he's attacking God!
• Everyone Hates Mimes: Victor has to stop Hugo from spitting on one during the Feast of Fools (although it's more to console Quasi than to protect the mime).
• Evil Minions: Frollo's regular, non-visored guards, in contrast to the visored soldiers.
• Evil Versus Evil: While Frollo is clearly a genocidal maniac it is interesting to note that the Roma themselves live in the Court of Miracles (where all the criminals in Paris hang out) and try to murder Quasimodo and Phoebus for discovering them, all the while singing a jaunty tune about their crimes and deception. On the other hand, some of the lines in "Court of Miracles" imply that the Roma are doing to (what they think are) Frollo's spies what Frollo did to them. So the lines about how criminals live in the Court might have been their way of mocking Frollo's prejudices, along the lines of "You say we're criminals? We'll give you criminals."
• Exact Words: "And He shall smite the wicked and plunge them into the fiery pit!" God does the exact thing to Frollo by smiting and plunging him into the fiery depths of Hell, if one interprets the way he dies.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: After Esmeralda escapes the cathedral:
  Frollo: I had the entire cathedral surrounded! Guards at every door. There's no way she could've escaped... Unless? (looks up at the belltower) ...
• Extremely Short Timespan: Outside of the prologue, the film appears to take place over about three days: the first is the Feast of Fools, Frollo burns Paris throughout the second day, and the climactic scenes at dawn on the third day.
• Extreme Omni-Goat: Djali, though this trope was not used in the original.

F

• Facial Profiling: Most of the Romani, including Esmeralda (who is named for her unusual green eyes), are darker-skinned and darker-haired than the other French characters. There are a few lighter skinned Romani background characters.
• Family-Unfriendly Death: Quasimodo's mother. She is knocked down the stairs of the cathedral and dies the moment her head hits the bottom stair. While we only see her from the front, it's implied the back of her head split open and her neck broke upon contact.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: Esmeralda's outfit isn't symmetrical (she has a decorated wrap on one side of her skirt and only one ankle bracelet), and both she and most of the other Roma such as Clopin (who themselves are hardly symmetrical in dress) only have one earring in. Esmeralda is actually sharing a pair of earrings with Djali. Quasimodo is a bizarre subversion of this—his simple outfit is symmetrical, but his body (his hump is slightly offset to the right) and facial asymmetry aren't very attractive.
• Feminist Fantasy: The film transforms Esmeralda from the weak, fickle woman of the novel into being kind-hearted and street-smart. Even when she's in danger, she makes them regret it. Her role illustrates how unrealistic the Madonna-Whore Complex truly is, as all three men want her....but while Quasimodo sees her as a perfect angel and Frollo sees her as a wicked temptress, Phoebus sees and appreciates the person. When Frollo ties her to a stake and threatens to have her burned as a witch if she doesn't become his mistress, she responds by spitting in his face.
• Fiery Redhead:
  • The red-headed Quasimodo showed anger and violence when he met Phoebus for the first time because the former dislikes soldiers entering sanctuary. He also literally used fiery torch to send Phoebus away.
  • In the climax, Quasimodo can't resists his master Frollo burning Esmeralda to the point that he powerfully broke the large chains that hold him back. He also literally used fiery molten lead to defeat his enemies.
• Fiery Sensuality: A more literal case occurs during the sequence of "Hellfire" when Frollo sees an apparition of Esmeralda in the flames. The song's lyrics even compare Frollo's lust for Esmeralda to a consuming fire.
• Fire Means Chaos: There is fire at the foot of the cathedral as Frollo tries to kill Quasimodo. As Frollo suffers his Disney Villain Death, the fire makes it seem as if he's descending into Hell itself.
• First Girl Wins: Esmeralda ends up with Phoebus, the first love interest that she meets in the film.
• Flames of Love: Judge Claude Frollo's Villain Song compares his "burning desire" for Esmeralda as "Hellfire in [his] skin". He sings in front of a huge fireplace, sees a fiery version of Esmeralda in there and ends his musical number with flame-like shadows surrounding the scenery.
• Flashy Protagonists, Bland Extras: Downplayed. The background characters and minor characters have generic black eyes, while major characters like Quasimodo and Esmeralda have eye colors. This is most noticeable in the ending scene. The little girl gains Innocent Blue Eyes for her close-up, only to go back to black eyes in the subsequent scene.
• For Doom the Bell Tolls: Considering the film's setting and the protagonist Quasimodo being the bell-ringer, it's unsurprising that a lot of the trope is used throughout the film, especially when a scene is focusing on Frollo.
• Foreshadowing:
  • "Remember, Quasimodo, this is your sanctuary." In the film's climax, Quasi does claim Notre Dame as his sanctuary, but in an act of rebellion against Frollo.
  • Quasimodo's speech mocking the idea that he could possibly be the hero - literally everything he says comes to pass by the end.
    Quasimodo: What am I supposed to do, go out and rescue the girl from the jaws of death and the whole town will cheer like I'm some kind of hero?!
  • Look at the scene where Frollo destroys Quasimodo's model of Paris. As he does so he picks up a wooden figure of Esmeralda and throws it, knocking over a figure of himself in the process. Also, aside from the obvious symbolism he's invoking by burning Esmeralda's figure, there is how he smashes all the other figures and the cathedral model in his rage; not only does this foreshadow his Villainous Breakdown later on, it specifically shows how he's willing to do anything, whether killing the citizens or attacking the cathedral itself, to get what he wants.
  • When Phoebus first visits the belltower, an enraged Quasimodo effortlessly picks him up with one arm, showing his extraordinary strength when protecting those dear to him. The next time he becomes angry is when he sees Esmeralda about to be burned alive.
  • Even before Frollo's first Wham Line below that leads to Phoebus' Heel–Face Turn, there are hints that he grows weary of Frollo's tactics to locate Esmeralda. One notable example is just before Frollo's raid at the windmill; Phoebus shakes his head in disgust when Frollo orders a group of gypsies to be thrown into the dungeon for not giving him information regarding Esmeralda's whereabouts.
  • During Frollo's Villain Song "Hellfire" where he sung the part about how he blamed God for making the Devil stronger than him, it looked like the judges are dragging him to Hell. Guess what his fate is going to be in the end.
  • As Phoebus and Quasimodo enter the secret passage to the Court of Miracles, the camera moves from being focused on the passage to a more zoomed out, sideways, shot that clearly has a nearby gate between the viewer and everything else. The shot is suspiciously close to what a person following the pair from a distance would be seeing and it later turns out that Frollo pulled a Trick-and-Follow Ploy on the pair.
• Friend to All Children: The story opens with Clopin entertaining some children with the story of Quasimodo's backstory, and at the end of the film he is seen carrying a little girl as he reprises the opening song with the crowd carrying Quasimodo.
• From Zero to Hero: Quasimodo started as a deformed infant almost thrown into a well by the villain. He's rescued by the archdeacon but kept as a recluse in the belltowers of Notre Dame. Quasimodo will ultimately rescue Esmeralda, and repulse an assault on the cathedral by the villain's mooks. He'll end the film being carried on the shoulders of grateful Parisians and hailed as a hero.
• Funny Background Event: After Esmeralda pulls Quasimodo into line for the crowning of the king of fools and moves away; Clopin can be seen mimicking Quasimodo behind his back.

G

• The Gadfly: Clopin during the Feast of Fools. The second he spots Quasi, you can see plainly on his face that mentally he's saying "This is going to be fun."
• "Gaining Confidence" Song: "Out There" starts off soft and melancholy, and the lyrics are about how miserable Quasimodo is to be shut away from the rest of Paris, but as the song progresses he sings more about how much he's willing to risk to spend one day out there, and how great it would be.
• Game Face: The gargoyle that drops Frollo to his death snarls in his face, glaring at him all the way down with Glowing Eyes of Doom. Keep in mind that gargoyles in this film may or may not really be angels in statue form.
• Genius Loci: The cathedral of Notre Dame itself seems sentient, and the characters sometimes treat it as a person.
  • When Frollo tries to drown the baby Quasimodo, the Archdeacon points toward the facade of the Notre Dame, showing that all the statues of the saints, demons and angels, the Holy Mother and even little Jesus are menacingly staring at Frollo. This shakes him enough to backtrack on his murder and merely raise Quasimodo in an abusive environment.
  • Quasimodo's gargoyle friends, confirmed to be actually sentient, try to be a positive influence on Quasimodo. They revert back to stone statues whenever someone else is present, making their nature quite ambiguous in the first film.
  • In the climax of the film, Frollo tries to hang onto a gargoyle only for the gargoyle to come to life and roar toward the judge, breaking and sending him into a fiery pit of molten lead.
• Get Out!: When Phoebus comes into Quasimodo's tower looking for Esmeralda:
  Phoebus: Hi there. I'm looking for the gypsy girl. Have you seen her? [Quasimodo approaches Phoebus glaringly] Whoa - whoa, whoa, easy!
  Quasimodo [grabs a torch from the wall]: No soldiers! Sanctuary! Get out!
  • When the brutish guard reports Esmeralda's escape:
    Brutish Guard: Minister Frollo, the gypsy has escaped.
    Frollo: What?
    Brutish Guard: She's nowhere in the cathedral. She's gone.
    Frollo: But how? I... [pause] Never mind. Get out, you idiot. I'll find her. I'll find her if I have to burn down all of Paris!
• Get Thee to a Nunnery: Multiple:
  • The mention of 'strumpets' in "Topsy Turvy".
  • Frollo calling the common crowd "licentious" (a somewhat archaic term for "sexually promiscuous").
• God Is Good: Everyone from Frollo to the Archdeacon believes that God will always punish the wicked and aid the righteous. However, the Archdeacon also seems to believe in God's mercy, and scolds Frollo for not showing it. Given it's implied that God Himself struck Frollo down, saving Quasimodo and Esmeralda from him in the process, all signs point towards them being correct.
• Good Bad Girl: Esmerelda is a seductress but she uses her sensuality to entertain, rather than to seduce. Frollo imagines her as a Femme Fatale but she is a much more kind-hearted person than that.
• Good Parents: Quasimodo's mother seems to have been a loving parent to him. She didn't reject him because of his appearance and she risked her life trying to keep her baby from Frollo.
• Good Shepherd: The Archdeacon is well named; he's the most benevolent character in the story. A lesser man would give a minister with armed soldiers what he wanted but he denies Frollo with a simple rebuke and assures Esmeralda of her safety. He'll put the fear of God into anyone who violates the sanctity of the Cathedral. In the climax, he tries to go out to stop Esmeralda's execution, but the guards barricade his way, forcing him to watch. Later, he confronts Frollo for "attacking the house of God".
• Gory Discretion Shot: When Quasimodo's mother is murdered by Frollo, she instantly dies the moment she lands headfirst on the stairs with no hint of gore anywhere, not even when the archdeacon holds her we don't see any hint of blood where her head got hit.
• Gosh Dang It to Heck!: Averted. It's the second Disney film that refers to "hell"/"Hell", Sleeping Beauty was the first, and the first that outright mentions "Damnation" . . . Twice in the same scene.
• Groin Attack: Quite a few, once notably with a bottle cork. Also, pity those poor guards who ran afoul of the guy in stilts. Ouch.
• The Grotesque: Multiple:
  • Quasimodo won a prize for being the ugliest person in Paris.
  • Victor, Hugo, and Laverne, while repeatedly referred to as Gargoyles, are all actually technically Grotesques (a Gargoyle generally has a spout to convey water, while these three are apparently just decorational when in stone form. Grotesques are the correct name for the fantastical stone figures that often adorn buildings). This is entirely separate from the trope, however.

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