The main antagonist of Shonen Jungle Book Mowgli, anime series based on the stories by Rudyard Kipling.
Who is he and what did he do?[]
In addition to the canonical and unreasonable extremist hatred towards the human species and the thirst for power that leads him to desire to become master of the jungle, there are various reprehensible acts that this version of the famous tiger created by Kypling has accomplished:
- He killed Alexander, Mowgli's adoptive father, who sacrificed himself to give the pack time to escape and bring the child to safety;
- He negatively influenced some members of the wolf pack, making them evil and pushing them to attack the man or kill prey for fun (Gryzzle and his two stooges, Jocko and his son Kim);
- He takes pleasure in killing and does so even when he does not need to feed himself (in the flashback in which Alexander's death is shown, he is seen killing a rabbit with a paw, just because he got too close to it, and in another episode he kills with a bite another rabbit - to whom Lala was hunting - and then throw it away to attack the young wolf.
- Attack the people Mowgli loves (like Jumeirah and his grandfather Rahhar);
- He has the hyenas and the Bandar-Logs in his employ, but both clans prove to be afraid of him, which implies that he is not at all generous and tolerant of their failures (Tabaqui, Louie and the other monkeys obey him good degree, but on numerous occasions when they are in his presence they cannot help but tremble with terror);
- It is strongly implied that he may have killed little Keshnu, the son of Meshua and Sanjay (according to the words of the two spouses, the child was lost in the same area where Mowgli was lost).
- All the animals of the jungle (excluding the Bandar-Logs and hyenas) are afraid of him or at least are horrified by his impure deeds. Even those few animals that don't fear him (like Kaa and Hathi) are strongly disgusted by him.
Mitigating factors[]
Despite his hatred of humans and the numerous attacks and killings against them, on some occasions Shere Khan proves to be afraid of them (especially when they are armed with firearms). He also showed that he is afraid of the elephant Hathi (from whom he flees after being threatened with being killed if he dared to violate the Truce of the Great River) and of Kaa (which prevents him from reaching Grizzle and his companions, engaged in fighting against Mowgli , Luri, Lala, Sura and Akru, and against which he does not dare to fight). Unlike his other versions, this Shere Khan does not seem to fear the fire (he killed Alexander right during a forest fire, which he does not seem in the least disturbed by), unless it is used as a weapon to fight it (as he does Mowgli during their final clash).
Final Verdict
In conclusion, I think this can be considered a very obscure version of the character, and in some ways it is very similar to the 2016 live action version, so I think it deserves to be included in the Pure Evil category.