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"I'll make those Brie-stuffed pigs bow down to me! I'm gonna be somebody!"
―Archibald Snatcher
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Archibald Snatcher is the main antagonist of The Boxtrolls. He is dramatic, grumpy, ruthless, selfish, clumsy, funny, dangerous, gruff, rude, mean, ill-tempered, kooky, terrorizing, loud-mouthed, smart, intelligent, power-hungry, murderous, and grouchy. He is a terrorist who plots to kill the Boxtrolls, hypnotize the the citizens of Cheeseville, make them his slaves, and take over Cheeseville.

He is voiced by Ben Kingsley.

Infomation[]

Archibald is a conniving exterminator hell-bent on eradicating the Boxtrolls, a race of friendly monsters who have adopted an orphaned boy, Eggs. Leading a band of ragamuffins called the Red Hats, his grand scheme involves stealing the precious cheese of Cheesebridge and ridding it of the trolls to seize power over the town. Snatcher dreams of being part of high society and fancies himself a connoisseur of fine cheeses despite his weakness, in which drinking milk or eating cheese filled with it can make him swell up. Determined to get the respect he feels entitled to, he will do anything, no matter how ruthless, to get it, even if that means leaving destruction in his wake

Personality[]

Archibald Snatcher is a man who was defined by his lust for power and desire to be in a high society class, the Cheese Guild. He was ruthless and immoral, not concerned with crossing ethical lines as long as it fulfilled his goals of being accepted and entitled. This was including but not limited to the genocide of a harmless species. Snatcher profoundly hated the race of Boxtrolls, seeing them as monsters and incriminating them for the "death" of Herbert Trubshaw and his son.

Though he saw himself as a "great man" Snatcher was truthfully a violent, arrogant and narcissistic social climber. He saw himself as extremly deserving of being "the most respected man in town" until he saw obtaining a White Hat as his destiny and was damned if he was going to allow anybody get in his way. Snatcher's becoming ruthlesness and lack of concern for others wellbeing signifies he may have descended into psychopathy to the point where, after his evil nature was revealed to the townsfolk of Cheessbridge and they refused to give him a White Hat he caused destruction across the town.

Snatcher was also envious and resentful, especially towards the Portley-Rind family as the mayor, Lord Portley-Rind was one of the main reasons he was not allowed into the Chees Guild and as such he took a lot of delight in humiliating the lord after he believed he killed the enitre race of Boxtrolls, even demanding his White Hat. He also hated Winifred, Lord Portley-Rind's daughter, seeing her as bratty and vile because of this he took joy in embarrassing her in front of her father and was comfortable with imprisoned/killing Winnie after she discovered the Trubshaw baby was alive and was Eggs.

Despite his obsession in becoming a part of the Cheese Guild, Snatcher is not without patience. After striking a deal with Portley-Rind and it taking him nearly 10 years to exterminate the Boxtrolls he was able to remain fairly calm and level-headed despite his ambition taking longer to achieve than he expected. However Snatcher showed paranoia and terror when he discovered that Eggs was actually alive and knew that if Portley-Rind discovered this it would ruin everything he worked towards.

Snatcher is quite reckless at times, an example would be when he tried to convince Herbert Trubshaw, the town inventor to help him build a machine to help him kill the race of Boxtrolls. When Trubshaw refused to do so, Snatcher struck him at the back of the head with a wrench.

Despite this reckless behaviour, Snatcher was also thoroughly intelligent and manipulative. He knew the town of Cheesebridge would realise that Trubshaw would be missing and as so he framed his demise on the Boxtrolls. He also preceded to feed the people of Cheesebridge lies that Boxtrolls were vicious, child-stealing monsters and even creating the identity of Madame Frou-Frou to help enforce these ideas. Snatcher was also clever enough, during Eggs execution, to hide the boy in a Boxtroll costume as to trick people into thinking that he was "the last Boxtroll" and used the flattened boxes to rally the citizens on his side.

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