| “ | Samurai Jack! Man, it is good to see you, babe. What took you so long? I decimated this village days ago, just for you. Oh wait, this is you, right? I mean who could recognize you with all that gear, and ruggedness, baby? I'll tell you who: Me! Be-bee-ba-boo-bo-da... Scaramouche the Merciless! The Pied Piper of Ruination, the Crooner of Carnage, the Ambassador of Annihilation, the Eradicator of All, baby! Also known as... Aku's most favorite assassin, babe. | „ |
| ~ Scaramouche introducing himself. |
Scaramouche the Merciless (simply known as Scaramouche) is a recurring antagonist in the fifth and final season of Samurai Jack. He is a robot assassin who is capable of controlling objects with a flute and his voice.
He was voiced by Tom Kenny.
History
First Encounter with Samurai Jack
By the time Jack reaches the plume of smoke, he arrives at a ruined city, filled with rubble and the corpses of its dead citizens. Jack meets the robot assassin named Scaramouche, who claims himself to be Aku's most favored assassin and remarks on Jack's nigh-unrecognizable appearance, including the loss of Jack's sword. In a flashback, Jack recalls his signature weapon falling down a pit as he looks in horror. Laughing, Scaramouche declares that Jack is no threat without his sword, and calls Aku on his mobile phone to make a report, but Jack destroys the phone with a thrown kunai.
Satisfied with this turn of events, Scaramouche begins to fight Jack, first by playing a magical flute that forms a golem out of the city's rubble. Jack quickly discovers that Scaramouch can rebuild the golem easily by reanimating more rocks to replace any part he breaks off. Landing among a pile of rocks after destroying the golem, Jack is once again swept up in another hallucination, this time seeing the rocks around him as the children of the city, begging him for help. The mysterious rider (prevalent in his other visions) universally looks down on the scene. Jack pleads for their understanding, which made Scaramouche thinks Jack has gone "beaucoup cuckoo". Eventually, Jack destroys the flute, but Scaramouche reveals that his voice was the true source of his magic. The robot proves his point by scatting. This impromptu singing animates Scaramouche's sword to continue the fight against Jack.
While Jack barely dodges the sword's attacks, Scaramouche brings out another blade which opens up like a tuning fork, demonstrating its ability to vibrate at a frequency powerful enough to shatter Jack's own knives. As Scaramouche fights Jack to a standstill, he gloats over his victory, but Jack throws his remaining sword at Scaramouche, still vibrating from clashing with the tuning fork sword. The sword explodes at the last second, severely damaging Scaramouche's vocal chord equivalent, leaving him unable to fight. Scaramouche admits defeat as Jack cleaves him in two with Scaramouche's first blade, after which Jack keeps the tuning fork sword for himself as he leaves.
The Search to Tell His Information to Aku
It's revealed that Scaramouche survived as a head all along. Upon awakening in the ruined city, he cheers up himself about being alive but finds out his phone is broken and he is unable to contact Aku to tell him about Jack having lost his sword. As Ashi is traveling to find Jack meeting with people he helped back in the past on her way, Scaramouche travels as a bouncing head trying to find a way to communicate with Aku and finds a boat which he decides to use to reach Aku, but is delayed by a sailor because the rules were only those who have a body can board the boat. It also turns out that Scaramouche is only #3 on Aku's Current Top Assassins list (he's behind Deathblow and Da-Bomb). Scaramouche manages to get on the boat after many failed tries by having another guy with a head small enough to fit Scaramouche to be "his body".
Scaramouche then finds a telephone booth (somehow in the future) and goes to call Aku. Aku does answer, and as Scaramouche tells him that Jack's lost his sword, Aku can't hear it because of all the chatter going on the boat carrying crowds. Frustrated, Scaramouche lashes out at the dog passengers talking to shut up already, and before he can finally tell Aku, one of the dogs grabbed Scaramouche (Aku hangs up the call afterwards) and threw him off the boat into the water.
Ultimate Death
Some time later, Scaramouche took control of an octopus and arrived at Aku's lair, where he informs the Master of Darkness about Jack losing his sword. As a reward, Aku restores his body and both dance together. Unaware that Jack had recovered his sword, Aku and Scaramouche confront Jack and Ashi, but after seeing Jack with his sword, Scaramouche pleads, "Oh, but master I..." but Aku angrily explodes his head with his eye beam, killing him, this time for good.
Personality
Scaramouche is a remorseless psychopath who loves slaughtering villages to lure his enemies out for his own enjoyment. He is extremely straightforward, empathetic, and loyal to Aku, as he always wants to please him and become his favorite assassin and servant by any means. Unlike other robots who were sent to kill Jack, Scaramouche is very boastful, talkative, and presumptuous. Upon noticing that Jack was without his sword, he proceeded to mock him for it, to the point of calling Aku to boast that Jack had lost the weapon. He has a tendency to call anyone he meets as "babe" or "baby", even his boss Aku. He is also extremely deceptive, cunning, arrogant, duplicitous, and overconfident, since he self-proclaims himself as Aku's favorite assassin, while his power is vastly inferior to many of Jack's old foes like Demongo or even DJ Stylbator.
His supercilious arrogance leads to his downfall since he lets his guard down long enough for Jack to use his knife, which was imbued by Scaramounche's own magnetic force from his own knife, against him and cripple his neck (the source of his ability) as well as heavily injure him. In addition, Scaramouche is incredibly rude and boastful, as even with only his head did he bark at a bunch of anthropomorphic dogs to keep quiet while he did his phone call for Aku, only realizing when it's too late that the dogs aren't friendly to egomaniacs.
In the face of death, he praises Jack's fighting skill, likely a weak attempt to talk his way out of his fate, before Jack chops him in half with his own sword, showing an act of cowardice when losing.
Appearance
Scaramouche has a similar appearance to X9, but with turquoise eyes instead of red, a longer neck, and a larger functional mouth with teeth and a tongue. He wears a black straw hat, an orange scarf, maroon high-heel boots, a long purple coat with a red interior, and a large black belt.
Powers and Abilities
- Enhanced Speed and Agility: Scaramouche is remarkably proficient and agile. He was able to leap tall structures in a single bound, quickly dodge Jack's attacks, and massacred an entire village in only a day. Not to forget that he can make any object he levitates move at fast speed.
- Musical Telekinesis: Using a "magic" flute, Scaramouche can levitate objects and create golems to fight opponents. When the flute is destroyed, he can continue to levitate objects by scatting, indicating this power comes from his voice and the flute merely amplifies his ability, since he only needs to control his sword through his voice. His power depends on his vocal chords, and he becomes helpless after Jack damages his neck, nullifying the ability.
- Swordsmanship: Scaramouche is a master sword fighter, easily holding his own against even the experienced Jack, and carries multiple blades on his person, including a heavy scimitar and a special "tuning sword" that destroys objects on contact.
- Multilinguist: Scaramouche appears to understand French, as he taunts Jack with au revoir which is "goodbye" in the language. However, he sarcastically remarks it is French for "You're dead, babe".
- Observant Analyst: Scaramouche is shown to be very conscientious and observant, as he is able to point out that Jack has changed his appearance a lot and he even noticed that the samurai doesn't have his sword anymore.
- Maneuverability: Scaramouche can get around anywhere at a quick pace even with only just his head hopping around everywhere, despite how he complained it's hard for him to do so.
- Water Resistance: He is shown to be immune to water, as shown when he was thrown out from the cruise when he messed with a gang of dogs.
Victims
- Hundreds of human children (slaughtered to draw Jack's attention)
- Possibly similar numbers of non-human living beings who opposed Aku's dictatorship (assassinated to impress Aku)
Gallery
Trivia
- Scaramouche's name is derived from a stock clown character of the Italian commedia dell'arte.
- He is among the most popular enemies Jack has encountered.
- His speech pattern is based on late American singer Sammy Davis, Jr.
- His phone has a speed dial that allows him to contact Aku immediately. This allows him to communicate with Aku anytime he wishes while the Cult of Aku have no access to any means to do so.