"Fun for the whole family", my ass.
Guess who's back with a new proposal? Although I was originally at a dead end for a proposal I could make without much work, I finally found a option that is not only from a game I already played, but one that doesn't require too much research to begin with. Although the carnival is coming to town once more, this is one amusement park you may want to skip, as it could be your last. This proposal is for Ludwig von Tökkentäkker from CarnEvil.
What is Ludwig von Tökkentäkker from?[]
Ludwig von Tökkentäkker hails from the arcade rail-shooter CarnEvil. Through the supposed curse of the titular sinister carnival, and that if one would put a token in the coin slot built in Ludwig's gravestone, CarnEvil would rise up from beneath. Our nameless protagonist does this, and although the rumors ring true, he gets more than he asks for. Now trapped inside the place, our hero must blast through the hordes of ghoulish goons to escape from it with his life intact. Ludwig von Tökkentäkker serves as the main antagonist and final boss of the game, and serves as the ringmaster of CarnEvil.
Who Is Ludwig von Tökkentäkker?[]
Ludwig von Tökkentäkker, as said, is the game's main antagonist. Commanding a horde of the monsters that dwell inside it, Ludwig traps anyone brave/foolish enough to summon CarnEvil inside the place, as has his minions hunt them down and kill them, as judged by the myriad of corpses or bones of those less fortunate strewn about it. Ludwig himself however isn't just cruel to his victims, but to his own men as well, with the official website telling of both a time where he manipulated and mutilated two of his circus workers through lobotomy and stitching them together, creating Flap-Jack in the process, and another case in which from his "genetic sense of humor", he created the enemy known as Nik-Nak. His overall goals are also far greater than to trap those who dare summon CarnEvil, as his ultimate goal is to take over the world with his fiendish freaks so he can rule over it in a endless fair of fright.
The player finally confronts the man behind their troubles in the final level of the game, the Big Top. After fighting through this and the previous three areas of the park and having to deal with an army of his various monsters under his command, his final strike against the player with his goons is to summon his clownish surgeons to try and steal the brain of our hero to implant it in a minigun-wielding gorilla. When this fails, he captures the protagonist aboard his zeppelin, expresses his fury with his disobedience, and challenges him to one final battle to the death, using his right-hand Umlaut, a army of skeletons, and his own blunderbuss and explosives to seal the protagonist's fate. However, his attempts are in vein to do so however, as he is shred to pieces by his vessel's own fans before the machine itself explodes. Happily ever after, right? Not so fast. Judging by the protagonist's surprising action of reinserting the coin inside his grave, its possible that Ludwig himself overall reigns successful in his actions, once again trapping the protagonist inside his domain.
Freudian Excuse? Mitigating Factors?[]
As Ludwig would say in his native tongue, nein. Ludwig himself is a hegemonic control freak who desires to have the world under his heel, killing an untold amount of people in his current curse to do so. Ludwig himself also isn't above actions besides trapping and ending the lives of those who accept his curse, as not only is he not above harming innocents (Such as the protagonist's love interest Betty) and his own performers, he has a disturbing habit of having other lobotomized or painfully altered for his experiments, as judged with the two circus performers he lobotomized and his plains for the protagonist. Despite his limited screentime, the results of Ludwig's experiments and reign of terror excuse this factor.
Heinous Standard?[]
Seeing how nearly every other major boss or enemy in the game (Umlaut, Hambone, Evil Marie, Eyeclops, and Junior applying) all do little in their runtime with their only known actions are trying to kill the protagonist and some lacking clear morality, Ludwig easily passes it as not only being the one in control of them all, but also going beyond attempted murder with the plans or results of his schemes actually being shown. Additionally, Krampus, despite his actions of kidnapping and enslaving children to serve him, has all of his actions done offscreen and might be made of evil, judging by the website saying that he "embodies all that is mean and cruel".
Conclusion[]
Ludwig von Tökkentäkker is a fine addition to the roster of PEs from lesser known work, don't you think?