LeChuck

LeChuck
'Monkey Island' character
An undead man in a stereotypical pirate captain's outfit and a large tricorn hat, which bears a skull and crossbones. With green skin, illuminate green eyes and a glowing beard, the pirate is grinning manically. LeChuck in Tales of Monkey Island
First game	The Secret of Monkey Island (1990)
Created by	Ron Gilbert

LeChuck is the main antagonist in the Monkey Island series of computer adventure games produced by LucasArts.

Undead throughout the series, LeChuck has a different form in each game (evil ghost pirate, evil zombie pirate, evil demon pirate), and in the fourth game he could transform at will between the three forms (including an illusory normal human form). In the fifth game, he started out in a poxed demon form before being turned back into a human, and later returning once again to a poxed demon. Like many villains, he is in love with the heroine, in this case Elaine Marley, and has gone to great lengths to force her to marry him.

Concept and creation

LeChuck was created by Ron Gilbert.

General information

Despite the fact that he is undead, LeChuck resembles a stereotypical pirate captain, complete with a full beard, large captain hat with feather, sword, and common pirate phrases. Many speculate that his earlier ghost and zombie forms are very close to what he actually looked like when mortal, though none of the games have shown him in a living form, except for Tales of Monkey Island, Chapters 1 to 4, after Guybrush's attempt at destroying him fails. After attaining his demon-pirate form in The Curse of Monkey Island, however, he loses many of his human features in exchange for a beard of flames, fiery eyes, and a less humanoid face. He is very fond of voodoo magic and artifacts, and constantly uses them in his plans. Whether he practiced voodoo magic before his transformation is unknown. It is interesting to note that LeChuck has been thwarted four times through the use of voodoo; in the first game he is destroyed by root beer brewed with a voodoo-destroying root, in the second game by a voodoo doll, in the third game by a voodoo-infused cannonball, and in the fourth by a voodoo talisman known as the Ultimate Insult.

LeChuck's origins

Like that of many characters in the series, LeChuck's history before the games take place is quite vague in some areas and even contradicts itself at times.

"Original" history from The Secret of Monkey Island

His origin as explained in the first game is relatively clear. When still alive, LeChuck was a fearsome, bloodthirsty pirate. He fell in love with Governor Elaine Marley after being invited to the governor's mansion (at the time, it was fairly common practice, although it has since become unheard of). She rebuffed his advances, telling him to "drop dead"; he took the advice quite literally and did so, by searching for the legendary Secret of Monkey Island. During the journey to Monkey Island, his ship was sunk by a "mysterious storm". The grave could not contain his black spirit and love for Elaine, however, and his ghost continued to haunt the seas and bedevil the governor. Her continual spurning of his love drives him to pillage and destroy.

His victims included other pirates who were turned into skeletal ghosts and forced to join his crew. This made many pirates very reluctant to sail the seas. As LeChuck put it: "too afraid to take a bath!"

"Revised" history

Even this relatively straightforward origin becomes complicated as the story progresses. An elaborate series of explanations in the third and fourth games attempts to retcon several plot inconsistencies via an overly convoluted revision of LeChuck's original back-story. It is revealed in the third game that the story told in the first game was merely a small portion of a much more detailed story that explains how LeChuck came to be.

In the "new" version, a still-living LeChuck decided to win Elaine's affections by finding the legendary secret of Monkey Island. At the time, Elaine's own grandfather, known only as Captain Marley, was part of a group of four looking for a treasure called Big Whoop.

LeChuck was briefly stranded on Blood Island after a mysterious storm came and destroyed his ship, leaving his crew dead. At this time, Marley and his crew made port on Blood Island and LeChuck was able to get Rum Rogers, one of Marley's crew members, drunk enough to reveal that they had the map to Big Whoop. He was able to get a look at it and quickly made a copy for himself. LeChuck planned to beat Marley and his crew to the treasure and claim it for himself, but he would need to acquire another ship in order to have a chance at reaching the treasure first. He became engaged to local debutante Minnie "Stronnie" Goodsoup but only to obtain the rare diamond on her wedding band. LeChuck stole Minnie's diamond from the wedding ring on the eve of their wedding and sold it to some cutthroat smugglers on Skull Island in exchange for a new ship. Minnie was left standing at the altar, died of a broken heart a week later, and remained in the Goodsoup family tomb as a ghost, haunting it until she married someone else. LeChuck managed to reach Dinky Island ahead of Captain Marley and began searching the island for the treasure. While searching the jungles of Dinky Island, LeChuck discovers mysterious tunnels that eventually led him to Monkey Island and uncovered Big Whoop. The evil pirate found, however, that Big Whoop was in fact a gateway to Hell, which transformed him into a ghost as he passed through it. The transformation also seemed to grant him many supernatural and voodoo powers, including one that allows him to transform others into the undead. Once going through Big Whoop, LeChuck ended up at the crossroads, and created a voodoo spell to return to the land of the living with his plundered voodoo. He hid the spell in a chest and buried it at the crossroads.

Captain Marley and his crew, who arrived on Monkey Island a half hour later, witnessed LeChuck pass through the portals of Big Whoop and fled the island in terror. In order to insure that no one else would discover Big Whoop and go through its torture, Marley tore his map into four pieces and gave three of them to his crew mates, keeping one for himself. When the crew left Monkey Island however, their ship, Elaine, got shipwrecked on Dinky Island. Knowing that people believe this island to be the home of Big Whoop (it's actually an atoll off the coast of Monkey Island with tunnels connecting the two islands), the crew decided to use it to their advantage to further conceal Big Whoop. In case someone actually obtained all four pieces, they made a chest containing an E-Ticket (to pass as the treasure of Big Whoop) and cemented and buried it at the entrance to the tunnels that connect Dinky Island to Monkey Island and ultimately Big Whoop. To go along with this, they altered much of their story, excluding LeChuck and what the treasure even was. They changed the name of Dinky Island to Inky, hoping that people would believe all of this and never find out the true treasure of Big Whoop and its power.

LeChuck, on the other hand, thought that the powers he obtained through Big Whoop would enable him to carry out his most sinister plans. Along with great strength, the ability to disguise himself as a human and a form of immortality, he could use Big Whoop to create a vast army of undead soldiers to do his bidding. He also intended to use it on Elaine to turn her into his undead bride. One of his plans involved building a theme park named after Big Whoop and one ride, a roller coaster, went straight into the depths of the portal, transforming all passengers into skeletal soldiers. As the series progresses, the voodoo lady reveals that LeChuck continued to perform rituals to draw voodoo into the living world for his own personnel lusts and desires. He did so however without offering sacrifices to the "cross roads", the intersection of the world of magic and the world of the living, causing much disorder and him losing more and more of his humanity in exchange for more power. This apparently explains how LeChuck is able to switch between any of his three previous forms at will in Escape and why he has even more power in Tales.

To ensure that no one else would find Big Whoop, he killed the other three members of Marley's crew and the captain himself. He found out that Rapp Scallion the cook had a habit of leaving his gas burners on in his shack on Scabb island, and sent a fully lit cake to him on his thirty fifth birthday. The flames from the candles went to the burners and the cook exploded along with his shack, leaving only his ashes. The shack was apparently reconstructed in his memory later and his ashes were locked in a crypt in the cemetery on Scabb Island. His piece of the map to Big Whoop somehow survived and was locked in with him. Rum Rogers Senior was taking a bath in his cabin on Phatt Island while drinking rum and eating toast, when LeChuck broke in and pushed the toaster into the bathtub. His son, Rum Rogers Junior, obtained the map piece, and kept it near his father's corpse in the bathtub. Young Lindy the Cabin boy could not bear living in fear and so found LeChuck and begged for mercy. LeChuck let him live and gave him a fortune, which he used to build a successful advertising firm. LeChuck later sent him an account that ruined Lindy's business, forcing him to sell everything he owned (including the map piece), join a circus, and die when he was shot from a cannon without a helmet. LeChuck ambushed Captain Marley while he was racing in the America's Cup and tortured him to insanity. He then sent Marley's ship into a whirlpool that "not even the most accomplished captain could escape". It seemed that before this, Marley gave Elaine Marley the map piece, as she had it at her mansion on Booty Island. With all known people with information of Big Whoop dead, LeChuck was ready to start his reign of terror of the Caribbean.

LeChuck captured a ship and murdered all the crewmembers aboard, then reanimated them as ghosts. With them under his complete control, he threw the Caribbean into the depths of terror. All ships he came across he would destroy and all people he would kill, sometimes turning them into his crew. He soon became infamous for his cruelty and was feared by all, especially the Pirate population. These events made even the fearless pirates too afraid to sail the seas, and most of them abandoned looting and pillaging in favor of simply drinking their lives away. LeChuck was accumulating more wealth than any other pirate as he looted islands with little competition, and anyone who dared sail against him was quickly eliminated. With his fortune, LeChuck constructed a fortress to serve as a base of operations for keeping his loot, imprisoning and torturing people, and where he could store his corpse for resurrection in case his ghost form was destroyed (which is how the first game ends). He entrusted his corpse and fortress to his voodoo priest and Largo LaGrande, one of his original followers. LeChuck also had other allies that helped him find alternative methods to obtain power and complete his control over the Caribbean, such as Ozzie Mandrill who rescued LeChuck after his defeat in the third game.

Appearances in the series

The Secret of Monkey Island

In the start of the game LeChuck, his ship, and crew are anchored in the gates of Big Whoop. LeChuck is almost all set to kidnap Elaine when his first mate, Bob, arrives and informs him of a pirate wannabe that has arrived on Melee Island. LeChuck goes to the island disguised as a sheriff, Fester Shinetop, and attempts to get rid of Guybrush Threepwood. At first he just tries to scare Guybrush off the island by saying that the island is extremely dangerous. When that didn't work, he fought Guybrush while he tried to take Elaine's idol to pass the pirate exam. He takes Guybrush's sword, ties him to the idol, and then throws him into the ocean. Guybrush is able to easily escape and complete the trials that will enable him to become a pirate. Thinking Guybrush to be dead, LeChuck raids the island and kidnaps Elaine.

Unfortunately for him, Guybrush gets a crew, ship, and finds Monkey Island. He is able to obtain a special voodoo root that LeChuck stole from the cannibals as it can be used to create the only thing that can destroy him, root beer. LeChuck leaves and seizes control of Melee Island where he sets up the wedding. Guybrush arrives and destroys most of his ghost crew and it is then revealed that Elaine actually escaped and that the bride was actually two monkeys in a bride's outfit. She was also able to conjure her own root beer, but Guybrush ruined the plan. After much confusion, Guybrush sprays LeChuck with root beer, which destroys him and scatters his ghost to the Caribbean winds.

Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge

LeChuck's former right-hand man, Largo LaGrande, resurrected the pirate as a zombie after stealing his living beard from Guybrush. Slightly less interested in Elaine, LeChuck instead focuses his attention on exacting revenge on Guybrush Threepwood. He quickly resumes his reign of terror and relentlessly attacks the Caribbean. As he later reveals toward the conclusion of The Curse of Monkey Island, this time however, his goal is to capture hundreds of people that are capable of constructing an amusement park that will in turn slaughter thousands and transform them into minions for LeChuck's new army. He eventually succeeds in this plot and enslaves them all and forces them to construct the carnival while they are slashing and burning acres of lumber on Monkey and Dinky Island. It seems for "fun", LeChuck would murder hundreds of the workers by staging "construction accidents", the rest falling victim to malaria or wild animals.

He sends Largo to find and capture Threepwood, who is looking for the four pieces of the map that will lead him to Big Whoop, while he instructs his voodoo priest to construct a very special doll, a voodoo doll of Guybrush. LeChuck is desperately trying to prevent Threepwood from finding the pieces of the map, afraid that Guybrush will learn all of the secrets and answers to the mystery of Big Whoop and ultimately LeChuck's origins. LeChuck even goes as far as putting a bounty on Guybrush and this causes some (in particular Governor Phatt) to attempt to capture Threepwood and hold him for LeChuck. Largo fails to find Threepwood despite the fact that he somehow has knowledge of him obtaining the map pieces. LeChuck in the meantime begins to further his plans for Big Whoop by capturing monkeys and uses them as a power source for the rides, converting the tunnels between Monkey and Dinky Island as a storage facility for plundered carnival items, and making a roller coaster that goes into the very heart of Big Whoop and Hell itself.

LeChuck eventually lures Guybrush to his fortress by kidnapping his friend, Wally, (who was helping Guybrush decipher the map to Big Whoop) and having Guybrush retrieve the key to unlock Wally's cell, which in turn is a trap. He hung both Guybrush and Wally by their arms with chains and had them dangled over a pool of acid. LeChuck plans to have them fall in the acid until their skin burns off, so that he may then take the bones, reanimate them, and construct a chair. He would then sit on it every day and listen to their screams. LeChuck constructs an elaborate Rube Goldberg-esque mechanism to lower them into the acid, but this gives Guybrush enough time to develop a way to escape. LeChuck's plans fail and his fortress is blown up during Guybrush's escape to Dinky Island. LeChuck survives the explosion but whether or not Largo survives is not revealed at this point in the game.

When LeChuck eventually catches up with Threepwood, he attempts to use a Voodoo doll to send him to Hell, but the doll proves defective, transporting him no further than a few rooms away. Threepwood eventually constructs a Voodoo doll of LeChuck and tears its leg off, causing LeChuck's leg to break off. LeChuck then claims to be Threepwood's long lost brother Chucky, (in a parody of The Empire Strikes Back) and takes him to a modern day amusement park and apparently back in time as Threepwood and LeChuck are now little kids about to be picked up by their parents. The reality was though that LeChuck placed a spell on Guybrush that made it appear to him that they were both kids and brothers. Everyone in the park, including Guybrush's parents, were skeletons in disguise working for LeChuck. The carnival would later be revealed as the notorious Carnival of the Damned, which LeChuck finally finished and already used it to slaughter thousands and reanimate them into undead warriors through the use of Big Whoop. Guybrush would soon be free of the curse but would become trapped in the Carnival until he devised a way to escape.

The ending of MI2 has been the subject of extensive debate among fans of the series; its ambiguity and surrealism have caused many arguments over what should be considered canon and what should not. However, the events that take place in third game suggest that the current canon is that Guybrush and LeChuck are not related by any means. The next game provides a rational explanation for the events at the end of MI2, but Ron Gilbert had left the company by then, and thus the story was continued by someone else, shedding no light on what Gilbert had in mind for MI2.

The Curse of Monkey Island

In the third game's opening, Guybrush has somehow escaped from the carnival after an undisclosed period of mental torture and is floating aimlessly on a bumper car.

Meanwhile, LeChuck has resumed his psychotic courtship of Elaine by bombarding her fortress at Plunder Island with cannon fire with his newly formed skeletal army. Many other ships seemed to have been destroyed by LeChuck, proving that his ship is near invincible. This is also shown by the fact that Elaine's cannon fire doesn't seem to leave even a scratch on the ship. The zombie pirate is either unaware or too busy to care that Guybrush has somehow escaped the Carnival; but Guybrush shows up again after some weeks at sea, having escaped LeChuck's evil amusement park. LeChuck has him captured and is about to kill him when Elaine, her musket, and keen eye interfere. LeChuck has Guybrush thrown in the hold and intends to torture and kill him once his plans for Plunder Island and its governor are complete. He prepares an invasion force, which is dispatched in rowboats while he constructs a powerful voodoo cannonball.

Unfortunately for LeChuck, Guybrush is able to gain control of the cannon in the hold and destroy the invasion force. This is mostly due to the fact that the pirate in charge of guarding Guybrush is his friend Wally, who apparently survived the explosion that destroyed LeChucks' fortress. It seems that LeChuck had been able to brainwash Wally into joining his crew, but this later proves to be his undoing as Wally grows soft and admits he is not suited to piracy. He goes into a crying frenzy, no longer caring what Guybrush does to escape and disrupt LeChuck's plans. Guybrush is able to escape by cutting loose a cannon; the recoil from the weapon as Guybrush fires it blasts him into the cargo hold and shakes the ship, which in turn causes LeChuck to drop the voodoo cannonball. The weapon explodes, destroying both LeChuck's ship and his reanimated form. The arcane magic released in the destruction, however, transformed him into a demon pirate with a fiery beard, more powerful than ever.

LeChuck returns to his carnival and quickly puts it back into operation. He is able to rebuild his army again and once again sends it to attack, sack, and loot the Caribbean until Elaine is found. He has grown desperate and is willing to "burn every island in the Caribbean" to find his love, Elaine, and archenemy, Guybrush. His forces attack Plunder Island again and capture Wally, who had been residing on the island at the time. LeChuck puts him in a situation that is almost exactly the same as that in the second game in which Wally is being hung over a pit of acid. LeChuck is able to finally learn of the location of Blood Island.

CMI was the first game to significantly alter LeChuck's past. In an effort to explain the strange ending of MI2, Big Whoop was revealed as an opening to Hell. LeChuck kidnaps both Elaine and Guybrush, intending to transform them both into undead creatures: Elaine as LeChuck's bride and Guybrush as a soldier under his command. LeChuck also reveals his history, his past plans and schemes, and what really happened on Monkey Island at the end of the second game. Once again, LeChuck does not kill Guybrush but puts the same spell on him as in the second game in which Guybrush is turned into a child. The pirate wannabe is able to create a remedy to the spell and returns back to normal. Again, the object of LeChuck's affections, Elaine, escapes his clutches easily while the half-witted Guybrush manages to bury him beneath a mountain of snow and ice in his own carnival. (A scene in the game's closing credits depicts a father telling his son that the park's founder is frozen deep underground; this is a joking reference to the urban legend that Walt Disney is cryonically frozen somewhere beneath one of his theme parks.)

Escape from Monkey Island

Unsurprisingly, LeChuck turns up once more in the fourth game as the villain along with a newly introduced ally who rescued him from the large pile of snow under which he had been buried at the end of The Curse of Monkey Island. This new confederate is Ozzie Mandrill, an unpleasant, diminutive Australian developer with an intense hatred of pirates. After rescuing the demonic pirate, Ozzie brings LeChuck up to date on recent events, including Elaine and Guybrush's marriage, and tells him of the legendary Ultimate Insult. The Ultimate Insult was a voodoo talisman of incredible power, capable of pulverizing a pirate’s spirit. LeChuck and Ozzie make their plans to find the Ultimate Insult and use its power to seize control over the entire Caribbean. More specifically, LeChuck intends to use the Ultimate Insult to defeat Threepwood and render Elaine his obedient bride.

While their partnership seemed mutual, both Ozzie and LeChuck desired the artifact for their own purposes and to fulfill their own power hunger rather than help each other out of respect. After his return, LeChuck learns that the Gates to Big Whoop have been sealed up. He had mentioned in the Curse of Monkey Island that the Big Whoop's power source wouldn't last forever if used continuously. Since the carnival served no further purpose, he destroys it and makes his way to Melee Island. There, he transforms into a human in which he calls himself Charles L. Charles (the L presumably standing for LeChuck) and has Elaine declared dead, initiating a new election for the office of governor. When Guybrush and Elaine arrive on the island, Elaine decides to run against Charles and win back her position as governor.

While Elaine tries her hardest to convince the pirates to vote for her, LeChuck's deception wins them over. LeChuck's whole campaign is based on lies as he tells the pirates that they will have good times and free grog if they elect him, which puts him in the lead by a landslide. This is all part of his and Ozzie's plans to gentrify the pirate-infested Caribbean, and gain control over all the Caribbean. LeChuck's true motives were to win the election and gain total control over the island so that he may use it as a base of operations and construct an Insult Amplification Tower on an atoll off the coast of the island. The tower is a device Ozzie plans to build in order to amplify the effects of the Ultimate Insult so every pirate in the Caribbean can simultaneously be exposed to its power. LeChuck also hopes that by gaining the office of governor, he will obtain the last power needed for the Ultimate Insult, which is rumored to be connected with the governorship powers of Melee Island.

Meanwhile, Ozzie uses his skills in various forms of insult duels to seize control of pirate islands and transform them in his image while attempting to discover the secrets of the Ultimate Insult. The secrets are later revealed to lie within the Marley Heirlooms, Elaine's family's safe deposit box, which have key items that can help locate the island where the pieces of the Ultimate Insult are. LeChuck and Ozzie cook up a scheme to obtain the Heirlooms and get rid of Guybrush at the same time. LeChuck has Elaine's mansion set up for demolition to get Guybrush to go to Lucre Island to obtain a deed for the mansion from the Marley Heirlooms in the 2nd Lucre Island Bank. It is on this island where Ozzie will play his part in the plan. LeChuck and Ozzie hired Pegnose Pete, a clever and cunning criminal, to work for them some months prior to the start of the game. Ozzie has Pegnose disguise himself as Guybrush and rob the bank while Guybrush is checking through the heirlooms in the vault. Pegnose steals the heirlooms, locks Guybrush in the vault, and robs the bank, leading to Guybrush being arrested and Ozzie learning the secrets of the Ultimate Insult.

While Ozzie learns what he needed from the Heirlooms, things don't go as planned as Guybrush is able to capture Pegnose Pete and prove his innocence. Pegnose is able to escape however and rejoins Ozzie, who decides to leave the island and join LeChuck on Melee Island to escalate their plans. After Guybrush clears his name and again obtains the heirlooms along with the loot and the deed to the mansion, LeChuck and Ozzie go in a different direction. Once Guybrush returns from Lucre Island and LeChuck is ahead in all the election polls, he reveals his true form to Elaine and Guybrush in order to compel Elaine to tell the island this news, knowing full well that the population would believe her to be crazy and insure of his victory. LeChuck then lets Guybrush go to Jambalaya Island and find the pieces of the Ultimate Insult for him while he wins the election and gains control of the island. He enslaves all the people and rules the island as a tyrant as Ozzie arrives on the Island with Pegnose to begin construction on the Amplification Tower on the Atoll. When Guybrush arrives, they interrogate him, steal the Ultimate Insult he assembled from him, and strand him on Monkey Island. LeChuck sends Pegnose to find Elaine, who had disappeared after LeChuck was elected governor. He forces the enslaved citizens of the island to construct a statue in his honor, which he plans to animate and use with the ultimate insult to spread his evil over the Caribbean.

While Guybrush is on Monkey Island, it is revealed that LeChuck had his priest construct a church in his name so he can use it to marry Elaine. He even created his own religion, despite the fact that he is an unholy demon pirate from Hell. LeChuck plans to return to Monkey Island and the church to marry Elaine, using the river of lava in the church to make her undead. It is assumed LeChuck choose Monkey Island to imprison Guybrush because he was planning on returning to the island to marry Elaine, making it all the more convenient to strand Guybrush there as he would be able to kill him and marry Elaine at the same time. Guybrush is eventually able to learn the secret language of the Ultimate Insult, monkey language, masters the art of using it as attacks in the sport of Monkey Kombat, and creates a massive Ultimate Insult to counteract the one LeChuck has. With Herman Toothrot (who turns out to be Elaine's grandfather, Horatio Marley, who was the former governor of Melee Island until he was stranded on Monkey Island for over 20 years with amnesia) and a talking monkey named Jojo Jr., Guybrush escapes from Monkey Island using a monkey robot, infused with the power of the new Ultimate Insult Guybrush made, and makes his way back to Melee Island.

LeChuck and Ozzie in the meantime finally find Elaine and are able to obtain the last piece of the Ultimate Insult from her, the gubernatorial seal of Melee Island. With the completed weapon in the villains' possession, they use it on Pegnose Pete, no longer in need of his services, to test its' power. After reducing the pirate thief to nothing but a cowardly and pathetic shadow of his former self, Ozzie tells the thief to commit suicide and prepares to combine the Ultimate Insult's power with his Insult Amplification Tower before giving it to LeChuck to use on Elaine. However, Guybrush and his partners are able to sabotage the Amplification Tower and Ozzie's attempt to expose every pirate to the Ultimate Insult fails. LeChuck becomes infuriated that their plans have failed, believing the Ultimate Insult to be dud. With months of planning appearing as a waste, LeChuck blames Ozzie and decides to animate his statue to destroy him and all of the Caribbean. While animating the statue, LeChuck captures both Ozzie and Elaine, one in each hand, and attempts to kill Guybrush.

Inevitably, Ozzie double-crosses LeChuck, also unintentionally saving Guybrush by distracting LeChuck, and enslaves him using the power of the Ultimate Insult. Controlling the huge statue of the demon pirate, Mandrill is placed on the statue's head and plans another assault on piracy until Guybrush challenges him to Monkey Kombat using the giant monkey robot. After Guybrush cleverly tricks LeChuck into a draw three times, LeChuck performs the respective move for a third draw in Monkey Kombat, faltering his arms and then smashing his head. As a result, Elaine is able to escape as his arms falter and Ozzie is crushed to death when LeChuck smashes his head repeatedly. The Ultimate Insult Ozzie was wielding is destroyed, explodes, and sends LeChuck hurling into the stratosphere with the effects of the Ultimate Insult leaving his body as well. LeChuck's gubernatorial powers are soon dispelled when Elaine grants the governorship back to her grandfather, Horatio Marley. LeChuck was presumed dead, but would later return yet again some time later.

Tales of Monkey Island

LeChuck returns in Tales of Monkey Island, once again serving as the main villain, but his role being quite different than previous titles. The first episode, "Launch of the Screaming Narwhal", opens with LeChuck once again having abducted Elaine after he hijacked her ship, hoping to make her his bride once and for all. It appears that prior to this event, LeChuck scourged the Caribbean and abducted dozens of monkeys that are said to hold valuable and dark secrets in their minds and locked them in the hold of Elaine's hijacked ship. LeChuck sailed to the Rock of Gelato and is hoping to harness the voodoo energies in the rock to tap into the monkey's mental state, discover the secrets, and sacrifice them in exchange for powers that will enable him to conquer the seas and kill all his enemies. Guybrush arrives just as LeChuck is casting his spell on the last monkey and attempts to destroy LeChuck for good with a voodoo cutlass and voodoo root beer. LeChuck however causes Guybrush to break the root beer, leaving the pirate to make substitutions to kill the demon pirate.

When Guybrush attempts to do so though, the poor substitutions cause LeChuck to be transformed into a human instead and his demonic energies are transferred into Guybrush's hand and all over the Caribbean, turning many into short tempered and violent villains. Guybrush's hand develops an evil mind of its own as the ship explodes, stranding Guybrush on Flotsam Island and leaving LeChuck with Elaine. LeChuck is able to get on board Guybrush's ship and uses it to rescue Elaine and the monkeys. At the same time, LeChuck disposed of Guybrush's crew who were in the hold, and acquired the voodoo cutlass Guybrush left behind in the explosion for his own purposes. The last scene shows LeChuck on Guybrush's old ship, giving Elaine a flower, who accepts it and starts to admire the apparently reformed pirate. Elaine still did not fully trust LeChuck and still believed him to be an evil villain, but decided to stay with him and make sure he does no further harm. It is later reveled that LeChuck used a voodoo trust cham and that this led to Elaine to slightly trust him more than she anticipated.

In the second episode, "The Siege of Spinner Cay", LeChuck and Elaine sail to the Jerkbait islands to return some of the abducted monkeys back to their original habitats. When poxed pirates lay siege to the islands and the merfolk that live on Spinner Cay, LeChuck goes off to collect one of the three artifacts that are capable of summoning the ocean creatures that can lead others to La Esponja Grande. The poxed pirates are after the same artifacts in order to find and destroy the sponge in order to eliminate the only cure of the pox and their new found powers. LeChuck claims to be completely voodoo free and reformed, but Guybrush does not believe him and thinks he has alternative motives. After helping Guybrush in his quest of obtaining all three artifacts and getting rid of the poxed pirates, LeChuck persuades Elaine to stay with him to help him in returning the remainder of the monkeys while Guybrush goes to find La Esponja Grande. Elaine however was more motivated to keep an eye on LeChuck's activities rather than help him. LeChuck assures Guybrush that Elaine will be safe in his care, but Guybrush is still highly suspicious of LeChuck's motives.

LeChuck's role is very minor in "Lair of the Leviathan" as he is only seen in one cut-scene with Elaine. Both are still sailing the oceans to return the rest of the monkeys to their proper islands, with Elaine falling more and more under the influence of the pox. She and LeChuck seemed to have formed a strong bond and the scene ends with LeChuck stating that "it's only the beginning", the true context of his words unclear. LeChuck was really placing each monkey at a rip of the crossroads, having previously placed them under his control to insure they do his bidding and gave them voodoo power to open the rifts at the right moment. Soon after they return the last of the monkeys, they hear of Guybrush's capture and trial, causing Elaine to go into a poxed rage and make her way to Flotsam Island. LeChuck goes after her, apparently braving many dangers and perils according to himself, to get to Flotsam Island.

In "The Trial and Execution of Guybrush Threepwood", LeChuck finally arrives on Flotsam Island to find Elaine who is also on the island and to seemingly help Guybrush with his trial. Wanting to get rid of all loose cannons, LeChuck duels Morgan, defeats her, and murders her by stabbing her chest with her own blade. LeChuck then proceeds to interrupt the trial just as Guybrush is about to be found guilty of creating the pox and states that Guybrush is innocent of spreading the pox. He reveals to the the jury that it was his doing as it was his accumulated voodoo energy and lust for power that created the pox within himself before it was released into the world. LeChuck then accuses the voodoo lady of being the source of his power hunger and lust for Elaine, providing a journal that outlined her plans through the course of many years as evidence. LeChuck's testimony convinces the court to release Guybrush and imprison LeChuck and the voodoo lady, both of whom are soon put in separate, but neighboring, cells. This action finally allows LeChuck to earn Guybrush's full trust and faith, but the voodoo lady assures him that things are not what they seem and that LeChuck was always destined to have a villainous life. Guybrush soon creates a recipe to amplify the strength of La Esponja Grande and places it in the wind control device of Flotsam Island to cure the pox.

After Guybrush kills De Singe, foils his plans, and cures everyone of the pox, LeChuck escapes from jail and reveals his true hand. With the voodoo lady locked up and all other obstacles taken care of, LeChuck violently murders Guybrush in front of Elaine with the same voodoo cutlass Guybrush attempted to use to destroy LeChuck, stating that everything that has occurred since the pox spreading was all part of a plot to find and use La Esponja Grande to plunder all the voodoo in the world and conquer the seas. He reveals that he was always evil even without all his voodoo powers, but hoped to finally win Elaine's hand by using his human form to be kind and polite to her. Elaine still does not accept his hand, prompting LeChuck to happily reacquire his voodoo energies from the sponge, transforming him back into the undead and plans to turn Elaine into his demonic queen before leading a conquest on the very heart of voodoo itself. Using his last breaths, Guybrush begs Elaine to destroy LeChuck, a request Elaine tearfully accepts and engages LeChuck in a sword fight. The results are a mystery, though LeChuck is heard laughing, hinting at the villain winning the duel.

LeChuck is able to gain the upper hand on Elaine and defeats her. With Elaine captive and the sponge in his complete control, LeChuck uses it's unlimited voodoo turn the seas into a demonic hellish place. LeChuck then proceeds to go on a mass murder, torturing and killing many on his way to kill the voodoo lady. He learns that she has escaped, causing him to go on a rampage on the entire island. In the course of his killing spree, LeChuck reanimated many of those he killed into new warriors for his army and took the Screaming Narwhal from Winslow and sent it a drift to sea to insure no one would follow him. LeChuck then creates his own demonic ship with his legions and Elaine on board and proceeds to attack and destroy Spinner Cay, killing all who stood up to him on his first journey to the city. It is later revealed that LeChuck was the one who murdered Morgan and manipulated the course of events to become a human, as the voodoo lady would be unable to control LeChuck's fate without any voodoo on him until it was too late. Using her diary as a guide, LeChuck made his plans to find La Esponja Grande, using his human form and a trust voodoo artifact to gain Elaine's and eventually Guybrush's trust. It is also revealed LeChuck hypnotized all the monkeys and used them to find the rips into the crossroads, placing one monkey in each location to open the portals with the voodoo powers he infused into them prior to becoming a human again.

While LeChuck had difficulty opening the crossroads, Guybrush opened them in an attempt to escape the land of the dead. LeChuck took advantage of this and used La Esponja Grande to suck up immense energy from the crossroads, turning him into the pirate god. LeChuck revealed all his plans to Guybrush, that he was using the pox to manipulate others to do his dirty work and to compel Guybrush to find the sponge, that he used Guybrush to find the sponge for him, that he was placing the monkeys at the rips of the crossroads rather than helping them, and desired the voodoo cutlass as it was the only weapon capable of destroying the voodoo lady once infused with enough demonic energy. LeChuck then proceeded to turn Elaine into his demonic bride and got her to spray Guybrush's ghost with root beer, sending him back into the crossroads. Guybrush however, is able to get back to his body and uses a counter voodoo spell to shrink La Esponja Grande back down, transforming Elaine back to normal and rendering the voodoo cutlass much less powerful. LeChuck still remained calm, stating that even with La Esponja Grande gone, he has enough demonic energies to just enter the crossroads themselves and take as much voodoo as he desired.

When LeChuck attempted to do so though, Morgan stabbed him in the chest with a blade given to her by the voodoo lady, injuring his spiritual portion. Morgan told Guybrush that LeChuck must be defeated in both the physical and the spiritual worlds to destroy him for good. Aided by Winslow, Bugeye, the monkeys, and the mer people, Guybrush has a final duel with LeChuck on his ship. Though LeChuck has the upper hand most of the battle, Guybrush cleverly traps LeChuck in one of the rifts in the crossroads. As all the rifts close once Guybrush sacrifices his one shred of life left, Morgan stabs LeChuck in the land of the dead and Elaine stabs him from the land of the living, injuring both his physical and spiritual forms. LeChuck's body and spirit are soon destroyed as a result and his voodoo essence is captured by Morgan and placed in a voodoo container and given to the voodoo lady, who allows Morgan to return to the land of the living as a ghost in return for her services. Guybrush is eventually able to return fully alive with Elaine and Winslow at his side. As of now, LeChuck is trapped in a sort of eternal limbo, but his grunts can still be heard inside the jar.

Personality

In spite of his love for evil and wreaking havoc and destruction, LeChuck is more often than not a comical figure. Regardless of his comical undertones, he is incredibly sadistic, ruthless, and power-hungry, craving nothing more than to control all the seas, accumulate all it's wealth and voodoo power, humiliate and destroy Guybrush, and have Elaine as his demonic undead bride (whether Elaine likes it or not). Throughout the series, he develops numerous complicated and odd plans to achieve these goals.

Generally, his scheme includes building up his army while developing ways to accumulate power. His ruthlessness and disregard for human life cause other pirates to shudder at the mere mention of his name. LeChuck has demonstrated on occasions to be highly intelligent and capable of clever and inspired planning. Despite his intellect, though, he is gullible, which often leads to his downfall. Elaine escapes him on one occasion in The Curse of Monkey Island by simply saying she was "going to powder her nose".

While he shows little remorse or kindness, he claims to truly love Elaine. While he does not seem to care for her perspective, doing for her entirely what he wants, he is usually kind to her, and the two of them engage in some rather humorous conversations regarding their relationship. This has not stopped him though from torturing and murdering her friends and family, attacking the islands she governors, abducting her, and even attempting to murder her and reanimate her as one of the undead. While the fact remains that LeChuck loves Elaine given his own twisted definition of the word love, he will never cease to pursue her and wreak havoc in her life until he succeeds or is destroyed for good, an event that the voodoo lady has stated several times is highly unlikely as true evil can never be destroyed completely.

LeChuck harbors an immense hatred for his nemesis Threepwood, who has disrupted his plans and destroyed him numerous times. However, though LeChuck clearly despises Guybrush, he also seems to have a sort of fondness or respect for the young pirate. At different times in the games, LeChuck and Guybrush engage in humorous, childlike bickering, and their relationship sometimes mirrors that of siblings. LeChuck seems constantly amazed that Guybrush escapes almost every situation despite the odds. He knows him to be a real threat and remarks that Guybrush is very clever, stating in the fourth game that it was a mistake not to kill him in the past. But, like most evil masterminds, LeChuck is arrogant and overconfident, and always seems to let Guybrush live, despite all the damage caused to his plans, apparently preferring the opportunity to gloat in victory over simply eliminating his enemy. This trend was finally broken in Tales, where LeChuck brutally murders Guybrush, not making any sort of elaborate trap or spell to imprison him in and give him time to escape.

A different take over the original LeChuck personality is shown during the Telltale Games Tales of Monkey Island, where a mystical mishap caused by Guybrush turns him into a human. The human LeChuck has shown wielding a lesser intellect, admiring the innate ability at puzzle-solving and the pirate smarts of his former nemesis Guybrush, a kinder personality, willing to go over great distances to repair the damage caused by his own actions, and a friendly disposition. Despite his unrequited love for Elaine predates his transformation into a demonic, voodoo powered overlord, as a human LeChuck has not even tried once to marry her, and seems to respect, the feelings between Guybrush and Elaine.

His feeling about his past as an undead pirate are mixed, shown to be regretful about his malicious deeds, but longing for the powers he lost, feeling weaker and less bright than he used to be. However, it is revealed in "The Trial and Execution of Guybrush Threepwood" that his new personality was nothing more than an act LeChuck put on to orchestrate his latest scheme for power and Elaine's hand in marriage.

Notes

The "Le" prefix in LeChuck's name may be a reference to famous buccaneer Jean Lafitte. The "Chuck" portion reportedly comes from LucasFilm general manager Steve Arnold, who told designer Ron Gilbert that he really liked the name Chuck and would like to see it appear in more games. [1] (See also Chuck the Plant.) The name is also reminiscent of "Le Chiffre", the villain in Ian Fleming's Bond novel Casino Royale. The name he adopts in EMI, Charles L. Charles, is clearly based on "LeChuck", "Chuck" being a shortened form of "Charles".

LeChuck's voice is provided by Earl Boen in both The Curse of Monkey Island and Escape from Monkey Island. Boen continues to voice the character in LucasArts The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition. In Telltale Games' episode game Tales of Monkey Island LeChuck is voiced by Adam Harrington in his undead form in Chapter One, and Kevin Blackton as a human in Chapters Two, Three and Four. At the very end of Chapter Four, Boen returns as the undead LeChuck.

Although CMI stated that LeChuck was permanently transformed into a ghost by passing through Big Whoop, he subsequently finds a way to change its effect. Later in the game, the portal seems to instantly convert full humans to animated skeletons.

Due to similarities in plot, it would seem that the writers of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies are fans of Monkey Island; Ron Gilbert, in fact, openly stated that he believes this to be the case after seeing Dead Man's Chest.

Legacy

• LeChuck ranked eighth on Electronic Gaming Monthly's "Top Ten Badass Undead" list.
• LeChuck ranked first on Screw Attack's "Top Ten Beards" list.

External links

• Template:Imdb character
• LeChuck on the Monkey Island Wiki