Which Disney Princess Has The Highest Kill Count?

Disney princesses may be designed to positively inspire adolescents in the throes of youth, but that doesn't mean they're children themselves. On the contrary, many of them are young adults embarking on harrowing adventures during really intense, violent periods of history. This leads to more than one animated heroine from the House of Mouse vanquishing (and occasionally even killing) their opponents when necessary.

The question is: Which Disney princess has the highest kill count? The easy answer is Mulan. The fact that Mulan (Ming-Na Wen) is a princess with blood on her hands shouldn't be a surprise. The woman warrior of China is a trained killer. She's a soldier and a clever battlefield tactician, to boot (at least, as far as children's animated melees are concerned).

As far as Mulan's specific kill count, that isn't clear, but it's likely around 2,000. While these deaths come directly from Mulan's actions, she doesn't personally stab, slice, and dice her enemies. Instead, she sparks a thunderous avalanche that wipes out the entire mounted army of the feared Hunnic warlord Shan Yu (Miguel Ferrer). According to the commentary for "Mulan," the animators created 2,000 Hunnic warriors for the snow charge in the mountains. Shan Yu and six others are shown surviving the charge. 

It's impossible to know if anyone else got out alive, but based on those figures, we're going to give Mulan a kill count of 1,994. Mulan may not be a violent war-mongering killer, but she can clearly take life by the thousands when the need arises.

So, how does Mulan's kind of terrifying kill count measure up to other Disney princesses? Overall, it's no comparison. One can make the case that certain people die due to the actions of other princesses. For instance, Elsa (Idina Menzel) could have frozen people to death in her accidental winter wonderland in "Frozen." However, for the most part, very few Disney princesses kill, directly or indirectly, and when they do, it's hard to come up with an official kill count.

When one considers Disney characters, in general, things get sticky. Does "Disney character" mean a character owned or created by Disney? The former would mean you can include characters from the "Star Wars" and "Marvel" universes. FX's content would also be fair game. In that case, Luke's (Mark Hamill) kill count trumps Mulan's to the tune of over one and a half million Death Star deaths, while Armitage Hux's (Domhnall Gleeson) death rate is all the way up at 155 billion. And, of course, Marvel's Mad Titan snaps away half of the galaxy (even if MCU Thanos does actually have a point).

If you open the Pandora's Box of other IPs, things get out of hand quickly. What about pure Disney originals, though? If you consider all Disney creations (not just princesses), one killer quickly comes to mind: King Kashekim (Leonard Nimoy) from "Atlantis." Quora user Roberto Etcheverry nominates the elderly Atlantian king due to his recounting of the wars he attempts to wage using the power of his kingdom's crystal. There are no specifics, but the tidal waves shown are doubtless deadly catastrophes, and many don't get into Atlantis before it sinks into the sea. It's a good counterpoint, but again, an unconfirmed number.

When you count Disney villains, Mulan's kill count comes up against some stiff competition. For instance, Mor'du, the antagonist of "Brave," wages war and defeats kingdoms, along with his own unspecified but likely fearsome personal kill count. Syndrome (Jason Lee) from "The Incredibles" kills countless superheroes and likely causes a ton of collateral damage during his urban attack at the end of the movie. Shan Yu himself slaughtered untold numbers of Chinese citizens before reaching Mulan and her scrappy compatriots. But even here, the specifics are difficult. None of these are statistically confirmed. They're all speculative, and they all take place off-screen.

Without more hard data, it's pretty easy to make the case that Mulan is one of the most violent Disney characters to ever come from the House of Mouse, if not the most violent. She's definitely the most blood-soaked Disney Princess, although it's here that we run into the biggest question mark of them all: is Mulan technically a princess in the first place? She isn't born into royalty. Even when you consider the historical inspiration for the story, Mulan's history is pretty dark.

The key here is the term "Disney princess." Reddit user u/crono09 points this out in a Reddit thread on Mulan's kill count where they say, "In the official Disney Princess marketing line, it's more of an archetype." Along with the archetype argument, Mulan is included in Disney's official list of princesses. So, we can say with relative confidence that her kill count is the highest of any Disney princess and more than most Disney characters. Full stop.