Hi, today I’ll propose a villain which, since last year when I heard the story on youtube, I’m wanting to propose.
What is the work?[]
Penpal was originally an internet forum creepypasta, but was turned into a book.
The story in question involves a boy, his best friend and a psychopath who has been chasing them since he was a child and who is our candidate in question. Penpal tells the story of the protagonist, whose real name no one knows, being then known as Dantan, due to the fact that this is the author's name. As a child, he discovered through a school activity that involved photographs that he was being pursued. Since then, he has spent the subsequent years of his life coming across this guy who is nothing more than an obsessed and psychopathic Yandere pedophile.
Who is the candidate and what he did?[]
Since he was a child, the protagonist, named Dantan, has been chased by an unnamed stalker, who had an obsession with him, taking pictures of him and the house where they lived and even kidnapping him from his home while he slept and taking him to far away, abandoning him in the forest at night. Once, the protagonist's mother saw that they needed to move out of the current home immediately, seeing the risk they were taking on the spot with this man on the prowl.
The protagonist had an elderly neighbor, Ms. Meggie, who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease and ended up confusing Dantan and his best friend, Josh, with their two children as children. He was invited by the lady to his home, with whom he soon befriended. The stalker, seeing this, eventually murdered Meggie because she was approaching Dantan. Taking advantage of the Alzheimer’s disease that she suffered, the stalker made her believe that he was the deceased her husband, who was returning home and then killed her, butchered her, and left her remains in her home to decay until the authorities sealed her. her house and remove the decaying remains in black trash bags. Dantan, an innocent child at the time, only came to understand that a murder had happened years later, when he understands why the whole street smelled like a corpse at that time and why her house had been sealed, with men pulling out stinking trash bags from inside.
Eventually, in teenage, Dantan meets Josh’s sister, Veronica, and the two began a relationship, which also generated jealousy from the obsessed stalker. When the protagonist and Veronica are inside a car in the street, the stalker causes designedly an accident that hurt badly Veronica, to the point of body horror. Later, she ended up dying in the hospital due to wounds. The intention of the stalker was really to kill her.
At this point, while Veronica was dying in the hospital, Josh, her brother, is missing. Everyone, including her, believes he ran out. His parents did everything to find him and his mother was sick of Josh’s disappearing and became worst after Veronica’s death, with crescent mental deterioration. Josh’s dad, who works as a constructor, had to work close to the house, avoiding travel due to his wife’s condition. In one of those works, he had a surprise that no father wants to have. During an excavation, he ended up found a kind of box, and when opened, he found his son, Josh, dead, along with the stalker, also dead, holding him. Then, he realized the horrible fact that he accidentally killed his son. Actually, the stalker kidnaped Josh, kept him for himself during a time, when he had the boy’s hair dyed with Dantan’s hair color and Josh using Dantan’s old childhood clothes that he took from Dantan’s old house, and probably harassed him, until he went to Josh's father and asked him to fill holes in his backyard, taking advantage of his need of money, but in the hole in question, the stalker came in with Josh and his father, accidentally and without knowledge, buried the two alive. How the stalker could not have Dantan, he copies him in Josh and took him to death with him, a slow, cruel death.
Heinous Standart[]
Despite we never have a clear vision of him, his actions are too present in the story and I can say he is heinous enough. He initially does not seems too heinous, but just an unknown mad man who senseless stalks a kid, but at the moment he and his actions are more present and he starts to murder, we can see how heinous, cruel, and somewhat competent the stalker can be. Particularly when he takes advantage of a senior’s Alzheimer and fragility to kill and dismember her, only because she was Danthan’s friend; caused the accident that killed Veronica and ultimately causing Josh’s father to bury his own son alive, a guilty he (the father) will take for the grave. This is heinous enough for me and he is the only antagonist in the story. He caused damage not only in Dantan’s life, but destroyed many others.
Mitigating Factors[]
When the stalker was proposed in TV Tropes, he was almost rejected due to don’t appearing clearly in the story, with his name, what he is, etc. But, we have similar villains like Josh from Meghan is Missing: we don’t know who he really is, just he was an unknown man that kidnaped, raped, and killed girls, we can’t even see him right on the screen. The difference between Meghan is Missing’s Josh and Penpal’s stalker is the medium they are set (Josh in a movie, and the stalker, written). Despite non appearing, his actions are clearly in the story. Soon, I don’t think this is a disqualifying factor.
There’s also the Stalker’s mentally ill condition if the community thinks it could disqualify him. But, I really do not know to say if he actually had a mental ill condition.
Veredict[]
Given the above, I give him a tentative yes.