"My power infests all times, all galaxies, all dimensions. But many still seek me out; a green jewel they must possess. But see how I destroy their lives."
Here's yet another character I was completely unexpecting considering the crazy awesome tone of the source material. But after doing the proposal of the Governor, I might as well explore one of the inspirations behind his series.
The Work[]
Heavy Metal is a 1981 science fantasy animated anthology film based on the comic magazine of the same name. Picture Fantasia but instead of scenes played to music, it's scenes played to rock-and-roll, violence, drugs, and sexy sex. Also lots of death by disintegration.
All the segments have nothing in common except for one thing, the "sum of all evils", Loc-Nar.
Who or What is the Loc-Nar[]
A glowing green orb of unknown origins, Loc-Nar self describes itself as the "sum of all evil", a being that exists in all times and dimensions, bringing destruction to all civilizations it traverses to.
The plot opens with an astronaut driving a car from a shuttle to his home (literally he drives from space to his house; take notes Elon Musk). The astronaut shows his young daughter a souvenir he found in space, revealed to be Loc-Nar. The orb melts the astronaut and corners the girl. Loc-Nar says it will kill the girl as well, but for reasons decides to mortify her first by telling her stories of the worlds it visited and the lives it took.
The first story is "Harry Canyon", where Loc-Nar was found in a futuristic New York City and melts several archaeologists before it is captured and taken to a museum expose. A mobster named Rudnick kills the lead archeologist and chases after his daughter to find where the artifact is. Taxi driver Harry Canyon hides the girl at his apartment and she thanks him with intercourse. The girl decides to sell Loc-Nar to Rudnik who buys it only to get melted upon taking it out of its case. The girl double-crosses Harry to keep the money for herself only to get vaporized by Harry's cab disintegrator. But Loc-Nar's quote "My evil corrupts the most innocent," makes me believe that it somehow drove the girl insane with greed.
The next story is "Den", where a teenage nerd finds Loc-Nar which sends him to an alternate universe after experimenting with it using electricity. Finding himself in the "Neverwhere Land", he discovers not only has he transform into a powerful warrior name Den, he discovers a cult offering to sacrifice a virgin named Katherine (who happened to be from Earth as well) in the name of the Loc-Nar. Den rescues her but is forced into a three-way battle between a mad queen and an immortal Ard who offers to help Den if he retrieves the Loc-Nar from the queen. Once Ard has it, he immediately tries to sacrifice Katherine forcing Den to save her again. Den then tricks the queen and Ard into fighting each other for the Loc-Nar, using electricity to send them to another realm.
The Loc-Nar immediately shifts to the next story "Captain Sternn" featuring said space captain being trialed for a ridiculously long amount of crimes. It doesn't play a role until the witness Hanover Fitse unintentionally fiddles with it (mistaking it for a regular marble) causing him to go crazy, becoming a massive monster that chases after Sternn while crushing everyone in his path. Sternn manages to calm Hanover by giving him his bribed payoff before opening a trapdoor sending Hanover into space.
The Loc-Nar enters Earth with Hanover's hand still hanging on to it. In a cut segment called "Neverwhere Land", it's revealed that the influences of Loc-Nar is what caused the evolution of the planet, including all mass extinctions, wars, genocide, mass homicide, etc., escalading to the story "B-17", featuring a WWII bomber plane. Loc-Nar smashes into the plane, with its evil influences reanimating all dead on-board into zombies. The zombies kill off the surviving while the pilot parachutes away onto an island, only to discover it has planes of various times with zombies in them, closing in on the pilot who could only scream in horror.
The next story is "So Beautiful, So Dangerous", which has the least effect from Loc-Nar. It attaches itself to a locket owned by a Pentagon stenographer, causing a doctor to go mad with lust and attack her, coming VERY CLOSE to full-on raping her, only saved at the last second by aliens in a ship resembling Pac-man.
Finally, we reach the last story "Taarna". In another world, Loc-Nar is the size of a meteor and crashes into a volcano that spreads green sludge onto a group of curious people, mutating them into feral barbarians. Under Loc-Nar's influence, the mutants go on a rampage, massacring every civilization they come across. It is up to Taarna, the last of the Taarakians, and her pterodactyl mount to save the world.
So Taarna manages to defeat the mutants and kill their leader before confronting Loc-Nar. Loc-Nar is like "Fool, you can't harm me, I'm immortal." Well, Taarna proves that wrong and unleashes power from her mighty sword that destroys the Loc-Nar, sacrificing herself in the process. This has a ripple effect and causes Loc-Nar to be destroyed across all time and space, including the house of the girl (remember her from the prologue?) in the process. She manages to escape before it blows up and find Taarna's mount, reincarnating her into a new Taarakian to protect the universe and some other heroic stuff.
Mitigating Factors[]
Now here's where things get interesting; what is Loc-Nar's moral agency? It claims itself to be the "sum of all evils", which normally would be an instant "no" by our standards. The contradiction, however, is that the movie never states if Loc-Nar is made of evil or not. While it does bring chaos to everywhere it visits (normally a red flag), all of its boastings make it very clear that Loc-Nar is not following some kind of code or mechanic or something on the lines of being unable from choosing right or wrong. All its actions are out of sadism, it sadistically enjoys watching people suffer.
Heck, the whole "sum of all evils" is only quoted once, which was the scene where Loc-Nar was tormenting the girl with descriptions of how diabolical its nature is.
Work's Standards[]
Sets it, given it was responsible for all the atrocities that happened in each of the shorts. Not to mention just forcing all of its horrors onto a girl just to toy with her sanity after killing her father.
And if the events of "Neverwhere Land" are valid, Loc-Nar is responsible for EVERY atrocity that occurred in all of history.
Verdict[]
I say yes.