User blog:AustinDR/PE Proposal: Twin Masters

Original: https://villains.fandom.com/f/p/3179493162221867099

What is the work?
Hero: 108 is a British/Taiwanese/Chinese series that aired on Cartoon Network back in 2010. The show revolves around a world where humans and animals lived together in harmony until a trickster named High Roller fooled the animals into thinking the humans were evil. After some years of conflict, a monkey named ApeTrully founds Big Green, an organization meant to unite man and beast. In the series, you have First Squad consisting of Lin Chung, a skilled warrior wielding a staff which he could shoot bamboo shoots from it; Mystique Sonia, a young woman who is about to stretch her tongue far distances; Jumpy Ghostface, the Rabbit King who was one of the first animals to join Big Green; and Mighty Ray, a self-absorbed boy who can fire electricity from his eyes, but he must replenish his energy by eating bananas. High Roller was the Big Bad of the first series as he is responsible for teh conflict of the story, but he doesn't qualify namely because he's Played for Laughs continuously, and he also has a childish demeanor. As for Season 2, tehre are some noticeable differences...

Who are they?
Twin Masters is the main antagonist of Season 2 as well as High Roller’s master. Hence their name, they are divided into two sides; one red, the other blue. The right side of Twin Masters is jagged, resembling lava and fire, whereas on the left side of their body is wavy, not too dissimilar to water and ice.

As revealed in the episode “Time to Go Home,” thousands of years ago, Twin Masters was once a human prince named Yang Tu whose goal was to take over Hidden Kingdom. When Lin Chung was sent back in time through a fiery tornado, he fights with Yang Tu, ending with Lin Chung using his Harmonic Energy (basically positive energy that conflicts with chaotic energy) to propel Yang Tu into a volcano. Unfortunately, his harmonic energy mixes with Yang Tu, causing him to transform. Yang Tu spends countless millennia within the volcano, mastering Chaotic Energy before emerging as Twin Masters. Upon emerging, Twin Masters changed their initial goal of taking over Hidden Kingdom into destroying it and lording over the survivors as a god.

What had they done?
Twin Masters made their debut in the two-parter “The Rise of Lin Chung.” In the episode, he sends High Roller to kidnap Commander ApeTrully with the Chameleon army. Upon being defeated by First Squad, Twin Masters arrives and throws a negative energy ball into a volcano, boasting that once it erupted and consumed Hidden Kingdom, Big Green would be blamed for its destruction. Using their harmonic energy, Lin Chung prevents the volcano from erupting.

In their next appearance, the Zebra Brothers steal an amulet from the Owl Kingdom. When Big Green’s turtles leave the organization due to a misunderstanding, Twin Masters instills some of their chaotic power into the amulet and uses it to transform the turtles into violent monstrosities. However, once again, Twin Masters’ plan is thwarted, and the turtles return to their original forms.

They return in “Second to None” where they strike up a deal with the Second Squad, possessing them with their chaotic energy, sending them to eliminate First Squad. Lin Chung manages to break the Second Squad from their possession and they create a ruse, catching Twin Masters off guard.

When Mighty Ray loses his eyes in the two-parter “The Eyes of Mighty Ray,” Twin Masters claims them, using the eyes to create a chaotic storm in one of his many attempts to destroy Hidden Kingdom. Realizing that by overloading his eyes, he could burn out Twin Masters, Mighty Ray eats several bananas at once, causing Twin Masters to writhe in pain. Mighty Ray retrieves his eyes but Twin Masters brags yet again, saying that the chaotic storm would still decimate everything. Lin Chung is forced to enter the storm, but he succeeds at disabling it, much to Twin Masters’ anger.

“Return of the Pterodactyls” sees Twin Masters tricking the Bald Eagle king and his subjects into drinking tree sap that reverts them into their prehistoric forms…pterodactyls. This results in the creation of a purple substance that Twin Masters intends to revert all life in Hidden Kingdom with.

In “Demon Heartland,” Twin Masters orders High Roller to relocate his demon heart so that it would not be destroyed as he would grow weaker. When First Squad arrive to the island, they are confronted with the Sea Elephant and Hermit Crab Kingdoms. However, this is revealed to be a ruse; what was believed to have been Twin Master’s heart was a chaotic bomb. Twin Masters then seals First Squad and the animal kings and their troops in the cave. After escaping, the Hermit Crab King and the Sea Elephant King join Big Green.

ApeTrully is captured again in “Animals Inside Pt. I & 2” by High Roller and the Zebra Brothers. When Lin Chung and the others arrive in the form of their spirit animals, Twin Masters reveals he had relentlessly struck ApeTrully with bolts of their chaotic energy. ApeTrully is seen being aware of what was happening to him, but he was unable to resist. Twin Masters then has a possessed ApeTrully try to kill First Squad, only for Lin Chung to then free him with his Harmonic Energy. ApeTrully faces off against Twin Masters and fires the chaotic energy from within his body back to them.

Twin Master’s next plan on destroying Hidden Kingdom involves forcing Oyster-Rahmas (oyster-piranha hybrid animals) to drain the ocean, which would also suck all Hidden Kingdom down with it. He positions them to begin eating away at a trench called “The Trench of Lost Souls.” Whilst fighting First Squad, they try to push Lin Chung into the trench, gleefully telling him that they’d hope he enjoys having his soul ripped out.

“Collison Course” sees Twin Masters using their powers to remove an asteroid from its course, with having it crash land into Hidden Kingdom as the outcome. This forces First Squad to embark into space to destroy the asteroid.

Other minor plans involved Twin Masters transforming ants into abominations and forcing them to dig deep into the ground thereby allowing molten magma to engulf Hidden Kingdom and putting chaotic gems into the Swamp Hippo King’s mouth, making him mindlessly obliterate everything around him without his consent.

Lastly, we have the “Bronze Giant” two-part series finale. In the episode, Twin Masters cocoons himself with water from Lake Thai-Gi which was the source of Hidden Kingdom’s life energy. Everything around Hidden Kingdom begins to die, until Twin Masters emerges from his energy cocoon with ultimate power. They boast saying that now they could bring death to all life – which of course includes High Roller, Bearstomp, the Zebra Brothers. Twin Masters continues their campaign of absorbing life energy into themselves when Lin Chung is advised by his mentor that to defeat Twin Masters, he needed to construct what is known as the Bronze Giant. However, they needed specifically 107 heroes to activate the Bronze Giant. So leads to the enemy mine situation with Bearstomp and the Zebra Brothers. They combat Twin Masters, but Twin Masters gradually gets the better hand. Realizing that to defeat Twin Masters it must take all of the harmonic energy everyone had within them, Lin Chung calls on everyone to lend their harmonic energy. Shocked, Twin Masters goes on a tirade about being invincible before exploding.

Freudian Excuse? Mitigating factors
One of the first things I remembered about Twin Masters was the episode "Time to Go Home." In it, we learn that Twin Masters was originally a human prince who became what they are because of having Harmonic Energy getting mixed into him by Lin Chung's actions. Now, Twin Masters wasn't actually a nice guy prior to their transformation. They had already desired to take over Hidden Kingdom and threw Lin Chung into prison for stopping him from killing two komodo dragons. But one of the first issues I am concerned about is whether being exposed to Harmonic Energy caused a drastic change in Twin Masters' initial moral agency. To me, there are no indications that his moral agency was warped from their transformation. They still retain that desire to rule over Hidden Kingdom, but now as a chaotic overlord before eventually opting to destroy all life in the series finale. This feels like one of those cases similar to other examples like the Lord Commander in that they enjoyed the powers they accidentally received and embraced them rather than being corrupted by the power itself.

As for mitigating factors, there are none. Twin Masters had a father thousands of years ago that they had no deep relationship with, and they generally despise everything else because of its order so there's that. As for the series itself, the show is a lighthearted comedy where High Roller doesn't even begin to portray himself as imposing. Twin Masters, however, is consistently played as a serious threat, and the destruction they intend to bring is never sugarcoated.

Heinous standard
Blows a majority of the villains out of the water. Their plans always amount to trying to perform mass destruction and extinction, with them trying to make a volcano erupt and trying to pass teh blame to First Squad is also pretty nasty.

Conclusion
Overall, I can see the argument on Twin Masters' moral agency so I am ultimately indifferent towards Twin Masters qualifying or not. But at least, we'll have a definitive answer