You wanna have a bad time?
Yesterday, while reporting some proposals from our previous discussion board that haven't been approved yet to Sirin of the Void, he said that the proposal for the Pirate Master was a bit "lacking". No offense to the original creator. So yadda, yadda, yadda, here I am.
What's the Work?[]
Shantae and the Pirate's Curse is the third installment to the Shantae series about a cute half-genie girl and her friends going on adventures and beating up bad guys. Well technically, Shantae's only human now since she lost her genie powers in the last game. Anyways, in this game, she's recruited by none other than her archenemy Risky Boots, who believes Shantae is behind the disappearance of her items and men, and her tinkerbat minions have been cursed into cacklebats that are attacking people. Who is behind this curse? Something worse out there? An evil pirate? Or should I say - a Pirate Master?
Who is the Pirate Master? What has he done?[]
Long before the events of the game, the Pirate Master was an evil pirate with the goal to conquer the seven seas. He was the mentor of Risky Boots, although their relationship was not in the best terms as even Risky found disgust in her boss' cruelties. When they arrived at Sequin Land, home of the genies, the Pirate Master went on an attempted genocide and massacred the genies for their powers until the survivors sealed him away within a grave on an isolated island. Even though it was solely the genies who sealed him away, the Pirate Captain personally blamed Risky, even though all she did was take his crew and booty after his defeat as a final insult to her former boss.
In the present day, light magic is fading from Sequin Land from the fewer number of genies, allowing the hate in Pirate Master's soul to revive him as an undead scourge. He spreads a curse around the surrounding islands, turning tinkerbats into cacklebats and other native creatures into feral monsters. Forced into the Pirate Master's bidding, the monsters seek to raid into multiple dens around the islands to claim dark magic sealed away within them to free the Pirate Master from his imprisonment. He also plans to lure Risky into acting so he can have his petty revenge on her.
Shantae and Risky go on to seal off the dens until they reach the island with the Pirate Master's grave. Despite their efforts to destroy the grave and prevent the resurrection, they are too late and the Pirate Master has claimed enough dark magic to escape from his grave. He grabs Risky, drains her of her power to regrow his skeleton, and escapes to torture her for betraying him. Now free, the Pirate Master shrouds all of Sequin Land in darkness, letting his undead legion of soldiers roam free and kill off all they want for fun.
Shantae pursues the Pirate Master to the Sequin Land palace and engages him for a final battle. Before the fight, the Pirate Master taunts Shantae over the possibility of killing her mother during his original assault (her mother is actually still alive according to Half-Genie Hero). After defeating his first phase, the Pirate Master steals the Pirate Gear to turn himself massive. Despite her powers, Shantae is no match for the Pirate Master. Should Shantae have not collected all dark magic, the Pirate Master calls Shantae a waste of time and flees, leaving only Risky (who is slowly suffering from the curse of her items) to chase after him. If Shantae has collected all dark magic, the Pirate Master offers a sadistic choice to Shantae: give him the dark magic or watch him kill Risky.
Shantae decides to give the dark magic to the Pirate Master. However, the dark magic instead turns into light magic, as it's revealed the dark magic was Shantae's missing genie magic that scattered over Sequin Island rather than being destroyed. With Shantae's half-genie status back, the Pirate Master declares that he will kill every genie on the planet. With the help of Risky, Shantae defeats the Pirate Master for good and restores the islands back to normal.
Mitigating Factors[]
Absolutely... not. He never shows any love or care to anyone but himself. He shows no pity for the genies he massacred nor had any problem in taunting Shantae of "killing" her mother. But where he really outshines is his tortures of Risky and making her suffer for petty reasons. And considering that he almost succeeded in destroying all of Sequin Island just to get back at Risky for turning against him (even when she had NOTHING to do with his imprisonment in the first place), it just shows how much of a cruel thug he is. The torments with Risky prooves that he lacks any empathy for any of his men, and shows sadism in torturing them when they attempt to betray him.
Now as for the whole "made of evil" part... Sure he's essentially created from the dark magic in his heart for the hatred he has towards Risky, but he clearly shows moral agency through his cruel actions of committing a genie genocide, torturing Risky, and how he mocks Shantae of the "death" of her mother.
The only concern that I can find for this guy is the offscreen villainy, in which the Pirate Master doesn't play a major role until near the end of the game. However, like what I mentioned with my proposal for Gorea, he can be justified considering how detailed Risky's dialogue goes into describing the Pirate Master as a horrible person. There's also the fact that he committed an attempted genocide on the genie people, an event that is referred to very seriously in the series. He's also the reason why Shantae never saw her mother again (although she is out there somewhere).
Heinous Standards[]
Good lord. Some of Shantae's foes are irredeemably evil, but the Pirate Master stands out as the purest of evil. The standards for the Shantae games are pretty low, as a majority of the bad guys are either affably evil or way too comedic to take seriously. The most serious villain that I can think of is Nega-Shantae, Shantae's evil clone created from her genie magic. While a game-changer, she can't count due to a lack of moral agency to decide if she is aware of the destruction she causes.
The Pirate Master, however, is fully aware of everything he causes and cares nothing about it. Unlike other villains in the series, he's taken pure dead seriously and nothing remotely hilarious comes from him. Out of all foes that Shantae has fought, he stands out there as the vilest of them all.
Sure in Half-Genie Hero, Risky crosses a major moral event horizon where she hijacks a machine to corrupt Shantae's magic to attacking her friends and seeks to do the same to all half-genies. But when it comes to the Pirate Master, even she rather team up with Shantae than serve someone like him again.
Verdict[]
Causing genie genocide and doing so many horrible things to a land of innocent genie people just to get back at a minion who betrayed him is very petty indeed. Therefore, I think he qualifies.
Yes: 6
No: 0
Undecided: 0
Total: +5
Final Verdict: Pure Evil