Pete

Pete is a minor antagonist in the Kingdom Hearts series. Once a steamboat captain at Timeless River who employed a young Mickey Mouse, he used to live in Disney Town, but was cast into the Lanes Between by Queen Minnie Mouse for causing mischief. Maleficent releases Pete from his prison in return for his loyalty, and throughout Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days and Kingdom Hearts II, he goes on various missions for her to rebuild her power base of allied villains and Heartless minions after her disastrous defeat in Kingdom Hearts. However, Pete is a chronic bumbler, and as Sora puts it, "not smart enough to tie his own shoes."

Pete also serves as a Dimension Link and Command Board opponent in Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep. As Captain Pete, he temporarily serves as an assistant fighter in Timeless River.

Before Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep
Many, many years before Kingdom Hearts, Pete worked as the captain of a steamboat. His deck hand was none other than the future king of Disney Castle, Mickey Mouse. This past association causes Pete to refer to Mickey as "the Boat-Boy King."

When Sora travels back in time to find the reason for the evil surrounding Disney Castle, he is quick to blame Captain Pete, unaware that he is not the Pete they are dealing with. However, when Sora, Donald Duck, and Goofy point their fingers at Captain Pete, to answer his question of if they saw any bad guys, the shipmaster is visibly offended, but instead of fighting them, he merely goes off to find his stolen steamboat. But Sora, Donald and Goofy still attack him, and it is only when Captain Pete nurses his injuries and does not summon any Heartless that Sora and company realise that they have made a mistake. Sora promptly apologises to Captain Pete for the misunderstanding and offers to help him recover the steamboat to make amends.

Later on, Sora meets Captain Pete again, this time arguing with his future self over the steamboat. Present Pete, subtly hinting that his past self's incarnation's life is at stake, wins the fight, knocks his past self away and steals the steamboat. Captain Pete aids Sora and company in the battle against Pete, and succeed in defeating him and chasing him off. To show his gratitude, Captain Pete (still completely unaware of Present Pete's true identity) allows Sora, Donald and Goofy to take a ride in the steamboat, since Mickey has not shown up.

Sometime later, "after" Sora had defeated Xemnas, Captain Pete rides his steamboat up the river as Mickey jumps aboard.

Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep
Pete appears in Disney Town as a resident and plays under disguise as Captain Justice and Captain Dark. Captain Dark and Captain Justice are supposed to be two different people played as Pete who are entering into the Million Dreams Celebration in Disney Town. The goal is to get as many popularity votes as possible to win the Million Dreams Award.

He became Captain Justice to help people in order to gain popularity votes so that he could win the Million Dreams Award, but whenever someone needed help, he used an excuse and ran away.

After Queen Minnie announces that Terra, Aqua, and Ven win the award, Pete jumps on stage and creates an uproar. When Queen Minnie says that some people do care for him and that he got their votes, Pete says that he doesn't care for their "lousy" votes, he just wants the prize. He is then taken away by a squad of "security" brooms. He is sent into the Lanes Between by Queen Minnie where he hears Maleficent's voice telling him that she can free him if he helps her conquer the worlds. She then opens a dark corridor, which Pete walks into and vanishes from his prison.

Between Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep and Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days
In return for his freedom, Pete became a commander in Maleficent's Heartless army, and traveled around many worlds building up more and more legions of Heartless to help her plot of universal domination (considering there is more than one world).

Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days
While searching for Jafar's Lamp in Agrabah, Pete is followed by Axel and Roxas when they come across the villain in the Marketplace as he was looking for a secret entrance out of town to the Cave of Wonders. Pete eventually escapes Organization XIII's sights, not appearing until Roxas finds him during another mission in Agrabah, this time with Xion. While investigating the Cave of Wonders, Roxas and Xion end up battling him.

Later, Pete appears in Neverland, making fake treasure maps for Captain Hook to follow, relying on the pirate's greed to conjure up tons of Heartless in his mad quest for riches. Roxas winds up destroying these Heartless anyway, and Pete's manipulation of Hook eventually leads to the creation of the Ruler of the Sky, Pete's "Prize Heartless", yet that too is defeated by Roxas.

Kingdom Hearts II
Pete is first encountered outside Yen Sid's Tower, having sent in a squad of Heartless to turn the powerful sorcerer Yen Sid into a Heartless to act as Pete's bodyguard. But Sora, Donald, and Goofy show up, informing him of Maleficent's demise, and in anger Pete calls an army of Heartless to attack. After Pete tells them who lives in the tower, Sora, Donald, and Goofy run inside in excitement, leaving Pete to lose his temper.

He returns to Hollow Bastion to see if what he'd heard was true and finds Maleficent's fortress devoid of activity, until Maleficent's pet raven, Diablo appears, a precursor to her own return. When she finally revives, he informs her of the breakdown of her alliance of villains, and the pair set their sights on raising more Heartless and finding a new castle.

Pete appears in Olympus Coliseum to help Hades defeat Hercules. He kidnaps Megara and fights Hercules and Sora long enough for the Hydra to attack the Coliseum. These attempts to defeat Sora end in failure. After being admonished by Maleficent, he begins pining for the old days, causing a portal to Timeless River to open up. Going back into the past to steal Disney Castle's treasured Cornerstone of Light, which would enable Maleficent to take it over in the present, Pete is again defeated by Sora, along with his past self.

He also appears in Port Royal to lend advice and assistance to Captain Barbossa, calls on the Illuminator to help Barbossa fight Sora and Jack Sparrow.

He later appears in lion form to aid Scar in taking over the Pride Lands, successfully turning Scar into a Heartless in an attempt to cover the Pride Lands with darkness, but thanks to Sora and Simba, his plan is foiled. He also tries to steal Jafar's lamp from the Peddler in Agrabah, but thanks to interference from Iago and Genie, he loses it. After the Blizzard Lord and Volcanic Lord that he summons are defeated, he runs off in a fury.

During the invasion of Hollow Bastion, Pete flees when he sees the Nobodies defeating Maleficent's Heartless.

He and Maleficent turn up one last time in the Castle That Never Was, seeking to take it for their own. When Ansem the Wise's Kingdom Hearts Encoder explodes, it causes the creation of thousands of Heartless. Knowing that the Sora and his friends are the only ones who can stop Xemnas, Maleficent volunteers to hold off the Heartless, on the condition that when they've destroyed them all, the castle would be hers. Pete suggests fleeing, causing Maleficent to dismiss him. However, Pete meets Mickey face to face for the first time in a decade, and a brief conversation encourages Pete to stand and fight. It is unknown how Maleficent and Pete escaped the destruction of the castle.

Kingdom Hearts coded
Some time later, Pete appears in Disney Castle while King Mickey, Donald, Goofy and Jiminy were trying to uncover the secrets of the Journal. The moment they were taken to the data world, Pete was taken with them, but to a different location. He calls Maleficent to him, and the two decide that the data world could be used for their plans to plunge the world in darkness.

Pete makes his first reappearance in the data version of Olympus Coliseum, where he taunts Data-Sora. He then travels to Data Agrabah, where he gives the data version of Jafar a bugged lamp, which gives him power over his world. Maleficent and Pete then appear together, and Maleficent destroys Data-Sora's Keyblade and infects Data-Riku with bugs. The two take Riku to the digital Hollow Bastion, where Pete fights Data-Sora, and then forces him to fight Riku. After Sora defeats them and debugs Riku's data, the Journal begins erasing itself. Maleficent and Pete attempt to fight Sora's Heartless, but are quickly defeated. Before they can be erased, however, Data-Riku retrieves them, and they return to the real world shortly before Mickey.

Personality
Pete is very mean, selfish and, shown at various points, cowardly. He tends to get scared in the presence of characters with overwhelming power, or in situations of being outnumbered. He is quite loyal to Maleficent, although his cowardice interferes from time to time. He has the tendency to run at the mouth, bragging and insulting, even with people such as Hades. Whenever he is defeated, he runs off in a huff. Though Pete appears incompetent, his heart has strangely been strong enough to resist the darkness.

Despite his cowardly appearance, Pete is one of the sneakier villains in the game. This is shown shown first in the Underworld where he tricks Sora into opening the Underdrome by losing a fight to Sora. Next at Agrabah, he uses Sora and his friends to find Jafar's lamp so he can steal it and turn him into a Heartless. Later, during his fight with Sora at Timeless River, he continuously changes the scene to give himself an edge.

When he was a captain, Pete had many of the same personality traits he would later be known for, such as his gruff demeanour and generally rude behaviour. However, Captain Pete is shown to be much more benevolent than Pete, and appears to have no intention whatsoever of harming other people for any reason. It is never explained how Captain Pete evolved into his ruthless and conniving self, but a possible explanation is resentment and jealousy over his cabin boy Mickey's ascension to King of Disney Castle, especially given the fact that Mickey once used to work for him, suggested when Pete refers to Mickey as "the boat-boy King".

Appearance
Pete is a portly, black furred, anthropomorphized cat (often confused for a dog). Like Mickey, he wears a heavily modified version of his usual outfit in the modern cartoons; in Pete's case, suspenders and a shirt. He wears what seems to be armor colored in shades of blue and purple overtop a red, short-sleeved shirt with a vertical pink stripe descending from the neck. He wears navy blue and white sneakers with light blue fronts and two periwinkle straps keeping each one secure. His pants are also navy blue, with light blue lining, purple lower legs, and two enormous pouches on either front side. These pouches are attached to his pants by four pins, both sporting a silver, horizontal zipper. The most distinguishing feature of these pants is the comically large zipper going down the front and reaching around to the back side of the pants.

He wears two navy blue pauldrons, each sporting two cyan bumps and a periwinkle area near on the lower section on each shoulder. Two gold buttons at the top of Pete's pants connect to two blue suspenders that intersect over his chest before connecting to two similar, albeit smaller buttons on his shoulder pauldrons. Pete also wears a pair of fingerless gauntlets. The wrists of these gauntlets are light blue with a pale yellow semi-circle on top, while the gloves are periwinkle with a bump on each knuckle. There is a dark blue-green design on the back of each glove, descending from each knuckle to the end of the glove.

Oddly, unlike all other characters to visit the Timless River, his outfit remains largely unchanged, apart from becoming monochrome.

As Captain Justice, Pete dons a white jumpsuit with gold highlights and two large, orange lightning bolt patterns on its front. He has a black undershirt, orange straps on his upper arms, and an orange cape pinned to the shoulders of his jumpsuit. His gloves are white, gold, and black with a silver band around each of his wrists. His boots are black with silver soles, gold straps on the legs, and orange lightning bolts decorating them. The upper half of Pete's face is covered by a white mask with a red arrowhead bent into a shape resembling the letter "P". He also wears a teal belt with silver pins lining it and a red and yellow buckle. The buckle is a stylized version of the letters "C" and "J".

As Captain Dark, Pete wears a nearly identical outfit, albeit with a different belt buckle and color scheme. His jumpsuit is now black with red highlights and purple lightning bolts decorating it. The straps on his arms are lavender-colored, his cape is violet, and his gloves are red and black. His mask is black, but retains the red and yellow "P" symbol. Pete’s boots are also black with red straps and purple lightning bolts on them. His belt is red-violet with a violet and silver buckle. This buckle resembles a stylized version of the letters "C" and "D".

Captain Pete strongly resembles the modern-day Pete, but like all natives of the Timeless River, he has a simplified, monochromatic design. He has black fur, very large eyes with pupils set close together. His mouth is white and he has four short whiskers, two on either side of his oval-shaped, black nose. His teeth are very straight and white. While still fairly heavy, Captain Pete appears to be thinner than he is in his other forms. He dresses in grey overalls held up with a single strap over his right shoulder, showing a tail from behind. The strap is secured by a white button and his feet are covered by black fishing boots. His captain's hat is a tall, cylindrical, white hat with a grey symbol shaped like a rounded triangle on its front and a puffy, black additive on its top. The hat's overall appearance resembles one of his steamboat’s smokestacks, with the black additive resembling smoke.

Abilities
Pete is capable of throwing explosive bowling balls at his opponents. He can also use fireworks to immobilize his opponents.

Another attack involves throwing a close-range "temper tantrum".

Lastly, he can generate a shield with regenerating and protective properties. He has been shown to be able to conjure items and telekinetically throw them, as he did while trying to make off with the Cornerstone of Light.

Besides that, he does have some magical talent, as shown when he somehow conjured a portal to the Past while reminiscing, a surprising feat for Pete, and he evidently has a strong Heart as he is likely able to use the Corridors of Darkness to travel the Worlds to gather Heartless without being strained by the Darkness. He also seems to have some power of teleportation as when he appeared alongside Maleficent to stop the Heartless and allow Sora and his friends to continue on to battle Xemnas. He obviously has above-average strength, and unlike Maleficent, was strong enough to resist the darkness.

D-Link
In the European, North American and Final Mix versions of Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep, Pete is a D-Link ally to the player, and the only D-Link that needs to be unlocked. To unlock, play the Command Board (except as an Event in the Mirage Arena), if you or another player lands on a Special Panel, and Pete as either Captain Justice or Captain Dark appears this unlocks Pete as a D-Link at the conclusion of the Command Board session.

Origin
Although Peg Leg Pete's debut dates back to 1925 in Alice Solves the Puzzle in which he was portrayed as a bear-like creature, it was not until Steamboat Willie in 1928 that he made his first full-fledged appearance as Mickey Mouse's feline antagonist. Despite this, he holds the distinction of being the oldest surviving Disney character. Coincidentally, Pete's role in Steamboat Willie is relatively minor compared to Mickey and Minnie, appearing only at the beginning to throw Mickey back onto the deck to work, and at the very end when he stops Mickey and Minnie from their mischief and punishes Mickey by ordering him to peel potatoes.

While most portrayals of Pete give him an antagonistic role, in some cartoons, he was shown to have a somewhat caring side, including to his children in the show Goof Troop, his son in the Goofy Movies, and most recently, in the children's show . His design in the Country of the Musketeers is based on his look from the film Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers, in which he is the main villain.

Forms and Costumes

 * Captain Pete
 * Lion Pete
 * Captain Justice
 * Captain Dark

Notes and references
Pat (Rétro) Käptn Karlo