Lord Betrayus

Good

Lord Betrayus "Sneakerous" Spheros (also simply known as Betrayus), or better known as Lord Betrayus, is the main antagonist of the video game Pac Man and the Ghostly Adventures and its sequel, as well as the main antagonist of the animated TV series, Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures. He is the arch-nemesis of Pac-Man who has been banished to the Netherworld for wiping a bunch of pac-people when Betrayus was used to be alive.

Why He (Intentionally?) Deserved to Be Banished

 * 1) Even though he is cocky, cunning, deceptive, and villainous, he can be very empty-headed at times. He may be evil enough to wipe a bunch of pac-people when he was alive, but he acts way too goofy and clownish to be taken seriously in any way as the main antagonist. Because of this, he doesn't seem to pose any real threat as a ghostly overlord despite his many attempts at doing so (albeit them being either useful or useless), even more so than Dr. Robotnik from both Sonic Boom, Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic Underground. All in a rather annoying way.
 * 2) * Like many old-fashioned ineffectual villains, he generally relies on his typically ineffective minions to do the dirty work of defeating Pac-Man for him since Betrayus is way too incompetent (or lazy) to do it himself.
 * 3) * All of his failures and moments of embarrassment typically have him look unfortunate and awkward in an extremely predictable way.
 * 4) Not only is he a generic and incredibly lame supervillain that rips off Mezmeron from the 1982 Pac-Man TV series, but he is also an absolute manchild and a total crybaby as well.
 * 5) * A prime example of his childishness is when he was whining about how he never got over losing to Spheria at a pac-pong tournament years ago as shown in the episode "Pac-Pong Fever" and was constantly saying how she cheated even when Betrayus himself lost, which was something he held a grudge on for years. This is pretty pitiful.
 * 6) * He often blames others for whatever misfortune happens to him despite it usually being Lord Betrayus himself who caused it.
 * 7) * He regularly commands someone to come up with a plan and takes credit for said plan. However, if the plan goes awry, he forces all blame upon the plan's originator, who likely had no choice in the first place to concoct it. He even takes all the credit for the bright ideas his minions make.
 * 8) * For the fact that he cannot sleep without his stuffed toy and sucks on his thumb like an actual baby, this makes him pretty cringe-worthy for a typically ineffectual villain.
 * 9) He is also very cowardly and pusillanimous, letting others do the dirty work on his behalf. As well as being very petulant, irresponsible, and aggravated, he tends to throw tantrums whenever things do not go his way because of how insecure he is.
 * 10) * He throws fits when he isn't acknowledged in various schemes, and passes the blame onto others when he himself fails.
 * 11) Character Derailment: He suffers from both; Flanderization and Character derailment, the latter moreso.
 * 12) * Where he went from being a decent antagonist with his moments of comedic relief in the very first episode, he has later slowly become more of an overly childish & hammy, pathetic, bossy, mostly condescending, downright idiotic, and a whiny bungler who never succeeds at anything in an aimless manner despite being deceptive. This gets to the point that his Flanderization starts to wear thin fast.
 * 13) The worst part about his Flanderization is that he feels more or less like a very mediocre embodiment of Dr. Ivo Robotnik from Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, King K. Rool from the Donkey Kong Country TV series, and King Koopa from both The Super Mario Bros Super Show & The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3; three examples of video-game related villains that are genuinely funny with their cartoonishly evil personas 20 to 24 years prior to Betrayus.
 * 14) * In fact, his personality traits are almost identical to AoStH's Dr. Robotnik as well! Examples of these include:
 * 15) ** Being a very over-the-top villain who opposes the protagonists for his own selfish benefits.
 * 16) ** He is given a character design that makes him seem like a potentially intimidating Goth-like villain to Pac-Man, but his personality is a lot more buffoonish than necessary.
 * 17) ** Seeing trivial events as potential opportunities to further his single-minded goal of ruling Pac-World since he's underhanded and vengeful.
 * 18) ** He's a tyrannical jerk that always acts like an immature & petty psychopath who happens to be very inefficient a lot of the time.
 * 19) ** Being completely neurotic, high-strung, and excitable whenever he's humiliated or looked down upon.
 * 20) ** He is generally depicted as the show's object of ridicule for how bumbling and theatrical he generally is.
 * 21) ** He has a superiority complex over his loyal but long-suffering and fallible minions despite Betrayus himself also being a bungler who nearly succeeds at his plans.
 * 22) ** He comes up with elaborate yet silly-sounding insults and retorts towards those he disapproves of.
 * 23) ** He shows to have a personal vendetta towards those who hinder his progress (especially when Pac-Man is often praised for winning over him all the time and his brother Stratos is living the good life as a president; to the point of growing a certain level of antagonistic hatred towards them for their status).
 * 24) Much like The Storm King from My Little Pony: The Movie, while he can be amusing and/or sympathetic sometimes, Betrayus is an extremely campy and weak comedic villain that takes the idea of a "comedic villain" to a pitifully piss-poor extent that it becomes rather irritating & humorless than funny, as he mostly lacks the charm of a "comedic villain". In fact, aside from being the villain, his childish silliness & petty motives/actions are pretty much his sole characteristics, and nothing much else other than that.
 * 25) His levels of flamboyance, pettiness, incompetence, immaturity, egotism, overreaction, hamminess, buffoonery, and occasional sarcasm are generally taken to the point of being stale and irritating.
 * 26) His voice is passable at best and very grating at worst. The worst offenders of this are him whining, his nasal voice cracks, and his moments of crying, whimpering, wailing, or squealing.
 * 27) Misleading name: Despite his very name being Lord Betrayus, he doesn't nor is he even capable to betray anybody that trusted him throughout the animated series. Sure he is a self-centered, manipulative, and egotistical sociopath who wants nothing but to rule Pac-World after being banished and is often mean to characters that are loyal to him such as his ever so luckless servant, Butt-ler. Yet he never shows any real signs of betraying others like genuinely helping out his enemies or being traitorous/disloyal to his minions.
 * 28) * As a matter of fact, he has shown to be betrayed by other Pac-People in his past like his favoristic mother, the iconic Ghost Gang who often helps out Pac-Man a lot of the time (basically being disloyal to Betrayus), and some of Betrayus's minions constantly screw up at defeating Pac-Man in a traitorous manner. So his name is rather contradictory than anything else.
 * 29) He is somewhat of a hypocrite on occasion because of how self-deluded he is; these moments include:
 * 30) * Getting jealous over his brother, Stratos, and then asking Dr. Buttocks why people are so cruel when Betrayus himself often mistreats everyone around him.
 * 31) * In the episode "The Spy Who Slimed Me", he labels each and everyone in the Netherworld as a complete klutz (who also considers Dr. Buttocks as the most inept, pathetic, and worthless minions around) when Betrayus himself is completely incompetent with defeating Pac-Man.
 * 32) * In the episode "Heebo-Skeebo", when Skeebo was tied up and then locked into one of Betrayus's dungeons for being a clumsy charlatan of a hero, Betrayus first called him a "buffoon" considering that Betrayus literally is one personality-wise.
 * 33) Despite being an extremely childish and insecure coward for a villain, he often demeans and belittles the ghosts that continue to serve him in trivial ways (all for little to no reason), he seems to not care that much if his own minions indulge in toxic behavior with each other (e.g Butt-ler and Dr. Buttocks fighting with each other) and he always make them do whatever he wants them to do, no matter how stupid it can be.
 * 34) * Also, due to his egomaniacal nature, he has a superiority complex with almost everyone unless they're on his side, all in a rather immature way since he can act like a persistent, competitive yet selfish little kid who calls his rivals "losers" despite him being a sneaky scoundrel.
 * 35) In the PMATGA games, despite being able to commit villainous actions (especially in the second game), his boss fights are a joke since they're too easy to be challenging (with the exception of the his boss fight in the first game having some amount of challenge to beat him).
 * 36) * His final boss battle in the second game makes him seem like a total idiot since he could just kill Pac-Man if he wanted to instead of making some pointlessly long tennis match, especially how he increased in size because of the ray Dr. Buttocks used to make Betrayus giant.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) He does have his moments here and there with being humorous or entertaining. Mainly because of how over-the-top and eccentric he is.
 * 2) * He was a decent comic-relief antagonist in the very first episode "The Adventure Begins" who also had a somewhat sympathetic backstory for being banished and wanting his body back as his source of motivation for conquering Pac-World (especially since he was just a harmless man-child who became evil because of his childhood-related trauma disorders), too bad he was badly flanderized as the series progressed.
 * 3) * On the topic of sympathy, as mentioned at WH(I?)DtBB#6, there are times where his pathetic defeats and levels of humiliation can make viewers understand why he hates Pac-Man with a strong passion.
 * 4) As mentioned at WH(I?)DtBB #1 and #12, there were moments here and there when he can be effective and come off as a little bit of a threat despite being ridiculous and highly fallible. These include occasions in episodes like "Heebo-Skeebo" when Skeebo was sent to one of Betrayus's dungeons, right after Betrayus attempted using a fire attack to burn Skeebo.
 * 5) * As mentioned at WH(I?)DtBB #12, he did commit some heinous actions that make him a little bit of a threat like in the second game where he kidnapped Pac-Man's parents and needed to make Pac-Man bring the repository to him by tricking Pac-Man with a subtle lie that had potential to succeed. This is where he actually betrays Pac-Man for once (despite being deceived by Sir Cumference), which is a shocker since this was what makes his name somewhat meaningful compared to the last game and the animated series he starred in.
 * 6) Some of his quotes are pretty funny, such as:
 * 7) *  "I AM THE BEST! ME! ME! IS THAT CLEAR? MMEE!!!"
 * 8) *  "Pulverize the old hag!"
 * 9) * "Oh, I see! My dear sweet mother is visiting her favorite son Stratos and not ME!! How can people be so cruel?" 
 * 10) *  "No-body is sneakier than ME!! So deal with them and leave Pacworld to me and MY ghosts!!! Also, my nose itches and I can't scratch it, YEOW!!"
 * 11) *  "What are you free-loaders doing?! Is that my credit card? I'm not paying for those pizzas and-"
 * 12) While his voice can be quite annoying at times, at least his voice actor Samuel Vincent did a decent job at voicing him and you can that he tried his best to have fun voicing Betrayus by doing a Peter Zimmerman voice impression.
 * 13) His ghost design and his Pac-Worlder design are both appealing.
 * 14) Since he is the main antagonist of the show, it's clear that he was meant to be hated due to how mean and despicable he is. (But not all villains are supposed to be hated, they can also be likable, understandable for their motives, and sometimes very funny/entertaining like for example: Doctor Doofenshmirtz, Thanos, Darth Vader, mh:greatcharacters:Eren Yeager, and Steppenwolf (Snyder Cut), etc.)
 * 15) He always receives comeuppance for his sinful deeds, usually by Pacster eating him and belching out his eyeballs. So it can be argued that he isn't a Karma Houdini in the slightest.

Videos
1EGAbNi-VFk gUc-d3PyLZQ VI_eT64UZFg lIi5O3olH0s prrKEt4Dan4 R3-0iBcoMg8 (Skip to 8:29 for the fourth video on the bottom left) (Skip to 8:07 for the fifth video on the bottom middle)

Trivia

 * His name is a play on the two words "betray us".
 * His name is also a pun on that of former CIA Director David Petraeus.
 * Probably unintentional due to obscurity, but he shares a lot of similarities with Klogg from The Neverhood (hammy, sharp-fingered, red and white colors, has a good guy brother) and Lucius from Jimmy Two-Shoes (ruler of Hell-in-everything-but-name, fire powers, attached to a stuffed pink rabbit).
 * In addition, he is also similar to Lord Shen from mh:greatestmovies:Kung Fu Panda 2, as both are particularly associated with fire, have red/white/black colors, metal talons, and have supposed involvements in the genocide of the hero's entire race who may not have been eradicated after all.
 * There are fans who simply support and adore this character throughout, much to the point that fans of the show (or people who don't like the show) both consider him to be the best part of the show.

Comments
