"IH? That does it!"
What's The Work?[]
Spyro the Dragon is the first game in the Spyro franchise, and a pretty damn good one at that. This game specifically has the titular character travel through 6 worlds to collect gems to restore the Dragon Realms' treasure and save the dragons from Gnasty's curse.
Who Is He?[]
Gnasty Gnorc is the main antagonist of the first Spyro game, a minor character who appears only in the Epilogue of Year of the Dragon, and the first boss of A Hero's Tail. Since his only major role was in the first game, we'll discuss that, since I believe this is his most heinous appearance, given that it is his only major role.
Basically, Gnasty Gnorc gets ticked after the dragons insult him by calling him "simple", "no threat", and, finally, "ugly" and places 74 dragons (not 80, the last six dragons you rescue in Gnorc Gnexus are the same dragons from previous worlds, and Spyro even comments on saving Delbin again) under a curse that petrifies them.
Is He Heinous Enough?[]
For sure. Gnasty Gnorc may not be the worst villain in the Classic series overall, but his petrification spell still put a lot of dragons in fates worse than death. This isn't Fridge Horror either, as there are some that thank Spyro for rescuing them, meaning they are obviously aware of their fates. The rest of the dragons do other things than that, but that is basically their way of thanking Spyro and giving him the courage to save other dragons from his spell. Even though there is Fridge Horror surrounding the implication that Gnasty Gnorc did imprison dragons exactly like this before the events of the first game according to the Reignited Spyro 1's opening cutscene, where there is a motivational poster that has a crystalized dragon and actually has the quote say something about 'gnowledge' being the very thing needed to crystalize them, that doesn't even matter anyway, because Gnasty already crystalized 74 dragons in the game.
Competition[]
Sorceress is out of the equation, as while she passes the heinous standards for a different reason, her transforming of her own minions into ferocious monsters being her way of giving them FWTDs is only done thrice.
Ripto is more heinous than Gnasty Gnorc, but in terms of fates worse than death? Only six for the Satyrs. No, this isn't Fridge Horror, because Elora, a credible source of information and the one who gives Spyro the Guidebook in the first place, states Ripto caused every problem in Avalar after his takeover, but didn't have time to explain, but since there were only six, his FWTDs don't make Gnasty fail the standards.
Gnasty Gnorc put 74 dragons in FWTDs, doing this twice to six of them, and I already explained why this isn't Fridge Horror.
Mitigating Factors?[]
Actually, the main reason why he's IH instead of SPE in my opinion is because there are many times where he isn't taken seriously in-universe. The news anchor brushes off his crimes after Spyro defeated him, and Spyro himself does not take Gnasty seriously either, and in the 100% ending, Spyro merely takes the re-petrification of the dragons (which was implicitly done by Gnasty) as another challenge. Spyro considered him a worthy opponent once, but by Hero's Tail, he doesn't consider him much of a threat anymore, even reminding Gnasty that he never defeated him. In fact, since he is merely the first boss of Hero's Tail, it shows that Gnasty Gnorc wasn't taken seriously anymore. This is why I think he's IH, not SPE.
Oh, yeah, and Gnasty does have a subtly sympathetic quality in the Reignited version of the first Spyro game. The opening cutscene, implies Gnasty has self-esteem issues as shown by the multiple motivational posters in his room at the beginning of the game.
Final Verdict[]
Weak yes to Gnorc imo. I think the fact that whether he is taken seriously or not was a mixed bag in the first game, with the problems he caused to the Beast Makers being an example of him being taken a bit seriously, but by Hero's Tail, he was seen as no threat, which is the reason I think he's IH instead of Silly PE.