Or
“Why Mother Gothel lives alone in the swamp forever”
Disney went hard with Dreamlight Valley.
For the most part I respect the fact that they did not play it safe: an overall story that deals heavily with themes of self-hatred and depression, a questline that got (and deserved) a mental content warning, and the decision to add villains to a cozy game.
But damn, of all the villains, I can’t believe they looked at Mother Gothel and thought “Yep! She should be here early on and be a core part of our story and world! You can’t opt out on this one!”
Every time I talk with her, it’s just gaslighting, narcissism, and negging that shoots my blood pressure straight into the stratosphere, which is the opposite of why I play cozy games. I have not built any other characters’ homes in the Glade of Trust (a surprisingly nice place for a swamp), just because I want to keep them away from her influence as much as possible.
Worse, she’s not just there, avoidable. You have quests where you have to talk to her and hang out with her. The game encourages you to have her follow you around.
Because I have put way too much thought into this, here is my tier list of Disney Villains and how good of an idea they are to include as hangout buddies and why:
#1 Maleficent – She’s a shoo-in and a classic. I’m convinced the only reason she wasn’t there at launch is because they wanted to save the big guns for later on. She was absolutely trivial for them to drum up empathy for in her solo film, and it’s easy to see why. She’s got style. She turns into a dragon. She only lays the smackdown on people who go out of their way to be assholes to her, and only after giving them a chance to apologize that they refuse to take. I would gladly live next-door to Maleficent.
I would be a very polite neighbor.
#2 Madam Mim – Merlin is already in the game as the protagonist’s closest aide and advisor, and the two are clearly best frenemies. Mim has always been magnificent, and if she’s evil, it’s in the cartoony “hating sunshine” evil that’s hard to take seriously. More importantly, she’s fun! Tell me you don’t want to hang out?
#3 Yzma – Yzma is also extremely fun, and easy to sympathize with. I mean, she’d been doing all the work of running the kingdom for years, and then she gets fired for no particular reason. Cuzco is clearly an incompetent evil dictator at the start of the movie, so it’s easy to see how Yzma could see herself as the wronged party or, potentially, even the hero.
I would brew some llamification potions with Yzma in a heartbeat.
Tell me you no part of you likes the idea of being 100 feet tall and crushing your enemies, and I will call you a liar.
#4 Ursula – Already in the game, and an excellent choice. Yeah, clearly evil, but in a shady businesswoman kind of way. You have to agree to be cursed by her for her to hit you with the evil magic, and there’s definitely hints of tragedy in her past. There’s some reason she’s living off alone in a dank cave instead of the pretty mer-castle. Yes, she did turn into a massive titan and start laying physical smackdown when she got the chance, but can you blame her for that? Can you really?
It’s really a shame that you can’t “hang out” with the aqueous characters, because I totally would.
#5 Syndrome – We’re clearly doing Pixar stuff, because we’ve got two Toy Story characters already, Woody and Buzz. Syndrome, yes, murdered a dozen heroes, but his initial goal is to provide superhero technology to everyone, so everyone can be a superhero. He’s the epitome of “Great goals! Terrible methodology.”
I would hang out with him and talk tech.
#6 Gaston – Gaston is basically Maui, and Maui is in the game and doesn’t even count as a villain. I have prepared this chart to prove my point.
 Maui |  Gaston |
| Does great things for his community | Does great things for his community |
| Brags about himself endlessly | Brags about himself endlessly |
| Expects other people to praise him | Expects other people to praise him |
| Thinks he can just take anything he wants because life owes it to him | Thinks he can just take anything he wants because life owes it to him |
| Still an asshole after being punished (steals Moana’s boat after imprisonment on island for stealing) | Still an asshole after being punished (decides to imprison Belle’s father after she rejects him publicly) |
| Eventually becomes slightly less of an asshole | Does not do this. |
I wouldn’t really enjoy hanging out with Gaston per se, but I don’t enjoy hanging out with Maui either.
#7 Prince Hans – Lamest villain of them all. Basically an opportunist. He doesn’t even have an evil scheme, he just bumbles around evilly reacting to shit that happens.
That said, it sounds like he had a shitty childhood, so he can do the sob story thing.
#8 Shan Yu – His only crime, really, is leading the Huns to invade China. He’s pretty egalitarian, recognizing Mulan as a threat without looking down on her for his gender. He’s the antagonist of the movie, but other than his appearance, he’s not terribly villainous per se.
We could chill. He’d probably have some great advice about besieging castles if I needed it.
#9 Queen of Hearts – Evil, but in a very “bark is worse than her bite” way. Happy to sentence people to death, doesn’t seem to much care if they actually die.
I can’t see her being too fun to hang out with, but she’s from Wonderland, so I guess it depends on what my goals were.
#10 Prince John – Evil, but in a pathetic and hilarious way. The thumb-sucking, the ill-fitting crown… He’s honestly adorable, like an angry toddler. He gets dinged basically for not being from a more popular movie.
I don’t want to hang out with him but it doesn’t sound upsetting, either.
#11 Captain Hook – Yeah, he wants revenge on Peter Pan for feeding his left hand to the crocodile, but, uh… wait, was Peter Pan the good guy here? It’s hard not to feel at least a little sorry for Captain Hook. Maybe he shouldn’t be trying to kill Peter, but his anger is understandable at least.
I have never captained a pirate vessel, but the idea holds a certain charm. We could probably converse quite amicably on the topic.
#12 Shere Khan – Literally a tiger doing tiger things. I mean, yeah, he wants to hunt Mowgli, but he literally has to hunt and kill to survive and apparently everything in this jungle is sapient. So… whatever really. He’d be higher up the list, but his nostalgia factor is low.
He’s like dead neutral here. I don’t even care if he’s there or not.
#13 Scar – He’s in the game, and he’s honestly pretty irredeemable as a child-and-brother-murdering asshole… but he gets a little bit of a pass because his parents decided to give his brother a name meaning “King” and him a name meaning “Garbage.” Like, he’s evil, sure, but what did you expect.
I try to avoid hanging out with him, but he’s a minor irritant. Mostly because he’s so whiny.
#14 The Evil Queen – So, some clear image issues here, just from the name (or lack thereof). On the other hand, we don’t have any actual evidence of her being a bad queen other than her weird obsession with having a mirror thinking she’s not as pretty as a 14-year-old girl. We know she’s vain and petty, and given to extreme measures, but it’s also totally possible that she implemented great changes to the tax code or improved the country’s sanitation or something.
I do respect that she was willing to dress up as what was apparently her worst nightmare – an old, unattractive woman – to pursue her goals. I could totally see her being actually fun to hang out with in-game, depending on how they wrote her.
#15 Cruella de Vil – She should probably be higher on this list.
She’s this low because she wants to kill puppies, which is pretty much the dictionary definition of evil. On the other hand, I bet you walked past a dozen people on the street today wearing leather shoes. If she hadn’t hired criminals to steal her childhood friend’s puppies – a seriously poor judgement call, and yes, definitely evil – she’d pretty much just be another fashionista. It’s not about the puppies’ deaths to her, it’s about the fashion. Judging by the amount of Cruella de Vil fanart and merch I see, a lot of people are into that.
#16 Lady Tremaine – Cinderella’s stepmom. Evil in a very petty and honest kind of way. She does slightly more than she’s legally obligated to do, is vindictively cruel, and wants to be thanked for her kindness. Doesn’t really pretend there’s any more to it than “I can do this so I am.” Do I like her? No, but I respect her more than Gothel. I would be less irritated to hang out with her than Gothel.
#17 Jafar – Jafar is a creepy old man, canonically. The whole thing with Princess Jasmine was just sad. Still, it’s interesting to me that he actually wanted her to love him, not just to obey him, even if he pursued that goal in a sorcerous and totally unacceptable way. It suggests a level of loneliness and self-hatred there that could be interesting to explore.
Bonus: If we get Jafar, we hopefully get Iago, who is a delight.
#18 Mother Gothel – Mother Gothel is mentally and emotionally abusive to Rapunzel for basically no reason at all. Like, she’s already won. She has eternal youth. She has everything she wants. But she values Rapunzel only for her hair/powers and constantly belittles her and gaslights her. Throughout the whole movie, she just manipulates and lies to everyone she meets.
No one needs this energy in their life.
#19 Governor Ratcliffe – He is a racist who sings a racist song. This is what it takes to be worse than Gothel.
#20 Frollo – He is a racist ableist sexist who sings a creepy sex predator song. It boggles me that Disney ever thought he was a good idea.
So, there you have it. There are only two villains less cozy-game friendly than Gothel.
Feel free to argue with me in the comments.
