Web Video / The Villains Lair

Once upon, and Ever After
The world was filled with joy and laughter
The stories were told, the curses undone
The kingdoms cheered as wedding bells rung
But there are some not filled with glee
Who sneer at endings happily
In a broken castle, they plot and stew
The villains' tale is not yet through...

—Opening Narration in "What Goes Around comes Around"

The Villains Lair is a YouTube Fan-Series created by PattyCake Productions.

In an old castle, many classic Disney Villains led by the Evil Queen commiserate their defeats and await an opportunity to take their revenge on the heroes. The mysterious Dr. Facillier proposes a plan to turn back time and stop the heroes of their stories from ever gaining their happy endings, but even with a common desire of vengeance, other plots turn in the background.

The main villains featured in the first season are: The Evil Queen, Maleficent, Dr. Facillier, Jafar, Lady Tremaine, Frollo, Captain Hook, The Queen Of Hearts, Cruella De Vil, Mother Gothel, Gaston, Yzma, Scar, and Ursula.

The second season, which began airing in September 2021, adds (at least) three new villains - Prince Hans, Hades and Oogie Boogie and fills in more details on how the villains returned. Also, Madam Mim, Madam Medusa, McLeach, and Clayton have cameo appearances as background characters.

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The Villain's Lair contains examples of:

• Abhorrent Admirer: Drizella and Anastasia for Hans, due to their mother convincing him to promise them his hand in marriage when he's done with his job — according to Hans, she wasn't exactly accurate in her description of them. They also fawn over Gaston, though he seems less put off.
• Adaptational Villainy: Surprisingly some of the villains are even more villainous here:
  • Gaston had embraced being evil long before the event of his respective movie when he hunted down his bullies one by one. In the movie the only lethal thing he did besides hunting was failing to kill the Beast.
  • Mother Gothel also loves being evil while in the movie she just did what she had to do for eternal youth. She also mentions that she fed Rapunzel "once or twice" and "a lot of force" when she isn't shown to be physically abusive in the film.
  • Lady Tremaine wasn't exactly a good person in her movie but she didn't appear to have anything to do with Cinderella's father's death. Here, however, episode two implies that she deliberately killed him. The real reason of her hatred towards Cinderella was a fear of losing his money
  • Same goes to Queen Grimhilde she literally sings ( or better say raps) "I never cared to share so the king would have to fall"and the real reason of her hatred towards Snow White was not jealousy of her beauty but a fear of losing a throne.
  • Kronk is still loyally serving Yzma.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: A very minor case with Frollo, who's retained his Politically Incorrect Villain characteristics but has at least mellowed out enough with the religious zealotry to ally with witches, sorcerers, and Greek gods. Ironically, this also goes hand in hand with Adaptational Villainy (at least on paper), as he's now a Card-Carrying Villain like the others instead of a delusional Knight Templar.
• A God Am I: Both Maleficent and Jafar see themselves this way. Or at least, once did.
• Always a Bigger Fish: Some villains are inarguably more powerful than others.
  • No pun intended, but Ursula's divine ancestry makes her the bigger fish to the other villains, even Maleficent.
  • The villains set out to resurrect Hades in the hopes that he'll be this trope to Ursula, as an outright god.
  • Lady Tremaine and Captain Hook easily usurp Hans in "Life's Not Fair."
• All Your Powers Combined: It is through combining their powers that the villains banded together to imprison Ursula... and how they unknowingly set her free.
  • According to Facillier, every villain present possesses a unique quality that must be used to achieve their goal.
• Anachronism Stew:
  • All of the villains seem to be living in the same time period despite most of their films being set at different times to the point of absurd levels. Such as Jafar, who lived in the 800s; Maleficent, who lived in the 1300s; Claude Frollo, who lived in 1482; Yzma, who lived around the 1500s; the Evil Queen, who lived in the early 1500s; Gaston, who lived in the 1770s; Mother Gothel, who died around 1820; the Queen of Hearts, who Alice visited in 1862; Lady Tremaine, who lived in the mid-1860s; Ursula, who lived in the mid-1890s; Captain Hook, whose ship was stolen by Peter Pan around 1900; Dr. Facilier, who lived in 1926; and Cruella de Vil, who lived in 1961.
  • Season 2 adds Hades, Prince Hans, and Oogie Boogie, who lived in the 1200s BC, 1820s, and 1993, respectively.
  • To even more absurd levels, there are background characters villains such as Madam Mim, who lived in the 400s; Clayton, who lived in 1882; and Madame Medusa and Percival C. McLeach, who lived in the 1970s.
  • You can explain all of the above away via Maleficent's magic, as addressed in Season 2, but that begs the question of how the Princess Academy exists. In addition to almost all of the official and unofficial princesses from the above films^{Specifically...}Jasmine, Aurora, Snow White, Belle, Rapunzel, Alice, Cinderella, Ariel, Tiana and Charlotte, Megara, and Anna and Elsa. Notably absent are Esmeralda, Wendy, Sally, Jane, and Penny., it also has Moana, Mulan, Merida, Pocahontas, and Giselle, who lived in/around 100s BC-ish to 100s AD-ish, 500s AD, 900s, 1607, and the 21st century, respectively.
• Art Shift:
  • When telling the story of the Sundial, we shift to a traditionally animated sequence.
  • During Tough Love, we see a storybook like animated pages portraying the events of the villainess's past. Tough Love’s remix video also has a more graphic, neon, urban aesthetic added onto it.
• Ascended Extra: The Wicked Stepsisters made only one appearance in season one but play a larger role in season two.
• Aside Glance: Maleficent gives one to Jafar when he declares himself as formerly "the most powerful being on Earth."
• Back from the Dead: Several villains who died in their movies seem to be just fine now. It's properly addressed in Season 2: the first episode has them remark on how many of them have "cheated death" and "shed their mortal coils," while the fourth episode reveals that Ursula brought back the Evil Queen, who had drowned when she fell from the cliff. The Evil Queen in turn brought back Maleficent, and the dark fairy used her power to bring back all of the others. Of course, this leaves the question of how Ursula and possibly Dr. Facilier were resurrected.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing:
  • The Evil Queen disguises herself as Themis, the Greek goddess of law and order, and puts on a friendly albeit strict demeanor to trick the princesses into giving her the sundial of Kronos. As in the original film, Snow White's birds seem to see through the act but fail to warn Snow White.
  • Also, Ursula, whenever she disguises herself as Vanessa. She appears to be soft-spoken and mostly approachable despite her smooth-talking, but when the façade drops, she reveals she's very demanding and vengeance-driven.
• Character Catchphrase: As always, the Queen of Hearts has "Off with their heads!"
• Canon Welding: While the villains are based off their animated counterparts, details about their backgrounds are incorporated from other media, including Gaston's past as a soldier, Ursula being Triton's sister, Maleficent's history with Stefan, and Jafar being a former street urchin.
• Chick Magnet: Gaston attracts the attention of Cruella, Gothel, and the Wicked Stepsisters.
• The Comically Serious: Frollo and Lady Tremaine spend much of their screentime reacting to the more bombastic villains' antics. Though as shown in "Life's Not Fair", Tremaine can be something of a showoff herself, albeit never losing her poise.
• Commonality Connection: "Tough Love", "Bad Never Looked So Good", and "It's Not Me, It's You" are all sung by villains with shared attributes or motivations.
• Dark Reprise: The reprise of "What Goes Around Comes Around", sung by Ursula as she declares her intent to seize revenge on the other villains. Doubles as an Ironic Echo.
• Deadpan Snarker: Maleficent, Lady Tremaine, and the Evil Queen are the most frequent, but all of the Disney villains are either this or Large Ham.
• Deader than Dead:
  • Hades is initially considered this, as his soul was lost in the River Styx, and thus, he was unable to return to life in whatever way the other villains who "died" in their respective movies managed to do so. This is why the other villains seek out the Black Cauldron to revive him.
  • The Horned King is implied to have also suffered this fate, as Maleficent warns the other villains that the Black Cauldron consumed the king who last wielded it.
• Divine Parentage: Ursula and, apparently, Triton. Ariel, as his daughter, by extension.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • The first time the Villains gather and combine their magic for a time travel spell... is actually in the "Look What You Made Me Brew" video, where they are instead summoned by the Sanderson Sisters. They do this exact spell again in the first Villain's Lair episode with Dr. Facillier and it's never brought up.
  • The Evil Queen and Maleficent are also wearing their costumes from Once Upon a Time and Maleficent instead of their classic animated ones, which they later don.
  • Cruella is also wearing her final outfit from the 1996 live-action 101 Dalmatians film.
• Easily Forgiven/Karma Houdini:
  • Cruella is called out in season 2 for conspiring with Facilier and is sent with the group to steal the Black Cauldron as "penance." This is very merciful, considering their homicidal villains have killed for less, and it was a huge betrayal, especially since the worst they considered doing to her was to send her to the dungeon (probably without food, but still). It's equally noteworthy that she's the only one of the conspirators to be punished, though she was by far the worst at lying about her involvement.
  • All the villains seem to get off of their punishment or deaths and are now living in the lair together. Downplayed since it's implied that the villains have been reduced to mere shadows of their former selves and are now just living in an old, dark, and dirty Haunted Castle with little to none of the power, wealth, or reputations they once possessed.
  • Facillier seems to be back in (relatively) good graces with his Friends On The Other Side.
  • Rapunzel, Cinderella, and Snow White seem to forgive their "mothers" by sending them letters, even addressing them as "Mother," though the women rip them apart without reading them.
  • An offhand comment by Lady Tremaine establishes that both Scar and the hyenas guard the castle, which calls into question how they moved past the mutual betrayal that led to Scar's death.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Subverted regarding the villains' imprisonment of Ursula, which initially seems motivated by this but is later revealed to be because they don't want to honor the deals they made with her—or at least, the Evil Queen doesn't.
  • In Episode 2x03, when Gaston questions why Belle refused to throw herself at him like all the other women in town, Mother Gothel, McLeach, Madam Medusa, and Clayton all shout, "DIGNITY!"
  • Also in Episode 2x03, Maleficent sneers at Hans, Gaston, Frollo, and Jafar for "blaming a woman for all their woes".
• Evil-Detecting Dog: Or birds, in this case. In episode six, a few of Snow White's messenger birds desperately try to warn her that the oracle Themis is really the Evil Queen in disguise. She doesn't believe them.
• Exact Words: Facilier is as savvy with this trope as in his home movie, shown in the first season finale where he reveals how he tricked some of the other villains into freeing Ursula:
  Evil Queen: (threateningly) Understand there are consequences to treason.
  Facilier: Treason? I offered y'all a chance to rewrite the past. Heh. Too good to pass up.
  Maleficent: I commend you on your art of deception, Doctor, but I assure you, the penalty will be severe.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: In the first season finale, the villains realize that Ursula somehow managed to outplay them and steal the Sundial of Cronos before they could get to it. This even though previously, all of them had combined their powers to seal the sea witch away in the magic mirror, and only by the same combination could she be freed. As Maleficent repeats that, she realizes that back in the first episode, all of them had combined their powers for Facilier's apparent time reversal spell; he had tricked them into freeing Ursula.
• Foreshadowing: Facillier's spell in the first episode appears to be a time travel spell of some kind, requiring the combined magic of the villains to enact. By the second episode we learn the only way to turn back time is through the Sundial Of Kronos. By the finale, we learn the spell was to free Ursula, the only person who can use the Sundial.
• Guest-Star Party Member: Some villains and henchmen are part of the alliance but don't appear as regularly or only appear once. They're presumably still around in other parts of the castle, with Scar even being referenced as guarding it with the hyenas after being a part of one previous song.
• He-Man Woman Hater: Prince Hans, Gaston, Jafar, and Frollo all blame a girl for the troubles they faced for rejecting them, as seen in Episode 2x03.
• Jerkass: All of the villains are this to an extent, but there are some standouts:
  • Dr. Facillier tricks the Villains into freeing Ursula, and sends the Evil Queen into the Princess Academy in disguise to steal the Sundial knowing it wasn't there simply for laughs. When Ursula vanishes, he takes his chance and goes with her.
  • "Tough Love" features the Evil Queen, Mother Gothel, and Lady Tremaine justifying their abuse of their foster daughters.
  • "It's Not Me, It's You," which serves as something of a Spear Counterpart to "Tough Love," re-establishes Hans, Gaston, Jafar, and Frollo as unrepentant misogynists.
• Large Ham: To no one's surprise, the Queen of Hearts.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: As a safeguard against additional betrayals, Jafar surreptitiously hypnotizes the villains that Captain Hook and Maleficent lead to claim the Black Cauldron such that they'll momentarily forget the purpose of their journey if anyone asks what it is.
• MacGuffin: Thus far, each season revolves around claiming an artifact of great power.
  • The first season, Dr. Facilier tells the villains about the Sundial of Cronos, which can rewrite the past, present, and future, which the villains unanimously agree to use to claim their happy endings. Between the Evil Queen's mastery of disguise to infiltrate the Princess Academy where the Sundial is stored and Maleficent's knowledge of the arcane arts, they plan to claim the Sundial. In the season finale, Facilier reveals that he left out one key detail: the Sundial can only be used by a god or a descendant of one. To that end, he tricked them into freeing Ursula, daughter of Poseidon, who stole the Sundial herself and holds it ransom behind making a deal.
  • The second season, the villains set their sights on the Black Cauldron, planning to use its magic to bring back Hades from the River Styx. They plan a two-pronged attack: one group remaining at the castle to distract the witches who guard the cauldron, and another sailing for their land to steal it.
• Never My Fault: Pretty much all the villains have this attitude, though some exhibit it more than others.
  • A pretty brazen example, in Episode 2x03 "It's Not Me, It's You" Prince Hans claims that Anna dumped him for "some random guy who talks to reindeer." In reality, she broke up with him after he tried to kill both her and her sister and take over their kingdom.
  • In the same episode, Gaston frames his attack on the Beast's castle as an attempt to rescue Belle, conveniently ignoring that he was the one holding Belle captive at that point.
• Noodle Incident: Ursula was imprisoned for an unspecified event before the series started. Whatever it was, it affected all the villains enough for them to have a mutual hatred of her. That includes Maleficent, who cursed a child to die for the actions of her parents.
  • That's All, Season 2 Episode 4, reveals exactly what happened: the Evil Queen is trying to dodge her debt to the Sea Witch. When the dwarfs chased her up a cliff, she fell into the ocean and drowned. Ursula brought her back to life in return for Triton's crown, but the Evil Queen betrayed her; to ensure her survival, she resurrected Maleficent, who in turn resurrected all the other villains, and together they sealed Ursula away. The full scope of these ramifications is unknown, as it implies that all of the villains were trying to dodge their debts. And while Frollo implies that many of them did indeed bargain with the witch, the only other one outright confirmed to have made a deal is Maleficent, who traded her wings for the Sleeping Curse, a debt that appears utterly settled.
• Not So Stoic:
  • Lady Tremaine maintains an attitude of cold dignity for most of the series but loses her temper in both the first and last episodes of the first season.
  • While still understated, Maleficent's visible alarm when she realizes that Ursula is free and out for revenge serves as a sharp contrast to her normally cool, detached attitude.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: In "It's Not Me, It's You," Hans, Gaston, Frollo, and Jafar all display canon-compliant misogyny, something even Maleficent shows disgust at. Hans expresses entitlement towards Anna due to him being a prince and calls Belle a "monster" for rejecting Gaston's unwanted advances; Gaston himself argues that the only way to happiness is to "listen to the man and ignore the wife" and believes that said wife's role should be to Stay in the Kitchen; Jafar states his belief that women should be silent and have no voice; and Frollo declares that if his potential lover doesn't want him, she should be burned alive.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The Evil Queen and Maleficent in "That's All," where Maleficent is cold and snarky while the queen is confrontational and direct.
• The Reveal: In Episode 2x03, Maleficent reveals the real reason why she cursed Princess Aurora: Long ago, she used her power to give a young King Stefan the fame and glory he desperately wanted, but he refused to let her rule by his side afterward. Episode 2x04 reveals that Maleficent and Stefan were in love, but he chose Leah instead, and Maleficent made a deal with Ursula for a sleeping curse that she used on Aurora and now owes Ursula.
• Rewatch Bonus: In the first episode, it is subtly revealed as to who is involved in Facillier's secret plan: the only people he doesn't sing to and lure into making the potion are Cruella and Gothel, and both of them subtly glance at Facillier and play along during his "eye for an eye" spiel with Gothel singing along and Cruella glancing at her. Cruella is also seen smirking maliciously as Hook drops his ingredient ("a clock from a pirate ship covered in fog") into the potion, and the three—Facilier, Gothel, and Cruella—are together during the final "Eye for an eye" song over the cauldron. Then, in Bad Never Looked So Good, out of the foursome, only Yzma seems surprised at Facillier turning up. But even that is implied to be surprise that he just came out of nowhere, rather than him actually turning up, implying that she, too, is involved.
  • Vanessa's lyrics in Bad Never Looked So Good become much more meaningful after watching the first season finale.
• Secret-Keeper: The finale of Season 1 reveals that Gaston, Ursula and Gothel and, possibly, Yzma, knew what Facilier was planning all along. Makes Gothel being the first to sing "An eye for an eye" in episode 1 and interacting with Cruella rather telling, doesn't it?
• Shared Universe: Not only within the Disney animated canon, but also the world of Hocus Pocus. Also with The Princess Academy, also by Pattycake Productions.
• Shout-Out: The creators add in a lot of subtle Disney lore and references:
  • A lot of the background music and magical sound effects come from Once Upon a Time, another live-action Disney series featuring the villains often teaming up and using a dark curse to attain their happy endings. This was taken to a logical conclusion when the group developed a musical based on the show, in which Michelle Knight reprised her role as the Evil Queen.
  • A couple of shout-outs to the live-action Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella:
    • One of the lines in "Tough Love" is Drizella and Anastasia proclaiming, "Mother, your heart's too big for you!", a paraphrasing of a line that the stepmother seemed to coerce her daughters into saying.
    • In season two, episode three, Hans tells the two sisters, "Ladies, how's a man to choose between two such extraordinary creatures?", a paraphrasing of a line that the stepmother says when she asks them to choose between which of them looks better in a hat.
  • In Gothel's part of "Tough Love," she says, "They only have themselves to blame! If you'd been there, you'd do the same!" This comes almost verbatim from the Cell Block Tango.
  • Ursula is stated to be the daughter of Poseidon, a concept only revealed in a deleted scene from the original movie but kept in the Disney On Broadway show.
• Shown Their Work: In the first installment of season 2, Mother Gothel looks noticeably older and more rundown. This makes sense, given that she's aging without Rapunzel’s magical hair to give her eternal youth.
• Stay in the Kitchen: Gaston, unsurprisingly, has this attitude, stating that his ideal wife would "cook and clean, be with the kids all day, then she'd call [him] perfect and do anything [he] say[s]."
• Teleportation: Despite neither being shown having this ability in their original films, both the Evil Queen and Ursula are shown to be able to do this. Though it's possible and even implied that they borrowed the power from Facilier (though he didn't have it in his original film either).
• Tough Love: Gothel, Tremaine, and the Evil Queen see their treatment of their respective "daughters" as this. Fittingly, it's the name of the song they sing about it in the second episode.
• Tranquil Fury: Maleficent is noticeably irate when she realizes that Facilier has tricked all of them into releasing Ursula, but keeps her voice down when questioning Facilier.
• Villain Protagonist: Nearly every Disney villain is assembled to gain the endings they want with the show focused on them.
• Villain Song: The series introduces a new villain song nearly Once per Episode.