Return To Monkey Island Lechuck
Angie Troia
LeChuckBiographical InformationAliasFester Shinetop
Chuckie
Charles L. CharlesStatusUndeadPhysical InformationSpeciesHuman - Formerly
ZombieRaceCaucasianGenderMaleHair ColourBlackCareer InformationOccupationPirateRankCaptainSeries InformationAppearance/sThe Secret of Monkey Island
Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge
The Curse of Monkey Island
Escape from Monkey Island
Tales of Monkey IslandVoice/sEarl Boen
Adam Harrington
Kevin Blackton (human form)
Jess Harnell
LeChuck, sometimes officially known as G.P. LeChuck is arguably the most fearsome pirate ever to sail the seven seas. He was a skilled swordsman, a ruthless killer and a master of manipulation.
His weakness was his hopeless love of Elaine Marley, the Governor of the Tri-Island Area. Rumour has it that when she told him to 'drop dead' he took it literally. Since then, he has strived to make her his undead bride.
She was not enamoured with him though and told him to "drop dead" in response to his advances. LeChuck took this quite literally and was supposedly killed by a storm when he was searching for the Secret of Monkey Island. But his black spirit and love for Elaine was enough for him to resurface as a vengeful ghost who haunted the seas. His victims were killed, turned into living skeletons and ghosts and then forced to join his crew. This made many pirates afraid of the ocean and, as LeChuck puts it, "too afraid to take a bath".
Even this relatively straight forward origin becomes complicated as the story progresses. An elaborate series of explanations in the final two 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 a fearsome pirate even in life and sailed the seas with a cutthroat crew including his first mate Largo LaGrande. LeChuck was stranded on Blood Island after a big storm rose and destroyed his ship, killing everyone on the ship but him. It is unknown if LaGrande was present at this time or how he survived if he was.
Around this time, Marley and his crew also made port on Blood Island to stock up on supplies. 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 managed to get a quick look at the map and made a copy for himself to use. LeChuck planned to get to the treasure before Marley and his crew so that he could claim it for himself but could not immediately afford a ship.
He became engaged to the local debutante Minnie Goodsoup in order to get the rare diamond on her wedding ring. When he was able, LeChuck stole the diamond from the 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 alone on the wedding altar and died of broken heart a week later.
LeChuck managed to reach Dinky Island before Captain Marley and his crew and found Big Whoop. LeChuck found, however, that Big Whoop was actually the gateway to hell, which could be used to transform him into a powerful ghost when he passed through it.
Captain Marley and his crew (who arrived on the Island a half hour later) witnessed LeChuck pass through the portals of Big Whoop and fled the island in terror. In order to ensure 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. 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 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 invented a number of stories including one about a great shipwreck that left no survivors except themselves forcing them to swim ashore to an island where they found Big Whoop. They hoped that people would believe the tales and never find the true treasure of Big Whoop and its terrible power.
LeChuck thought that through his powers he could carry out all of his evil plans. He had gotten a form of immortality, great strength, the ability to disguise himself as a human and he could use Big Whoop to create a vast army of undead soldiers to do his bidding. He intended to use this power on Elaine Marley to make her his undead bride.
To ensure that no one else would find Big Whoop, he set out to kill Marley and the other three members of his crew. 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. 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 took a ship and killed the crew so that he could reanimate them as ghosts. With them under his control, LeChuck set up dock at Monkey Island and his new reign of terror in the Caribbean began. He killed everyone that his ship came across and made many of them members of his crew. He soon became infamous for his cruelty and was feared by all, especially the Pirate population.
This made even the most fearless pirates leave the seas and they started to drink their lives away. After some time, LeChuck was the only pirate left roaming the seas. He got very wealthy as he was one of the few left that looted the islands, and anyone who dared to sail against him was quickly killed.
With his fortune, LeChuck constructed a fortress to serve as a base of operations for keeping his loot, imprisoning and torturing people. This was where stored his corpse. A Voodoo Priest was kept alive and in charge of preserving the body as best he could.
The original origin tale has LeChuck sail off and die in a storm shortly after being told to 'drop dead' by Governor Elaine Marley. At this time, she is Governor and an attractive young woman old enough to hold her own.
The expanded origin retcons the storm that killed him while searching for Monkey Island making it a storm which strands him on Blood Island. From here he travels on to Dinky Island, discovers Big Whoop and makes himself a powerful ghost pirate.
Seeing as she is clearly between the ages of 20 and 30, as Guybrush Threepwood is, there may be an alternative explanation. It also calls into question the age of LeChuck, though it is more acceptable to assume that he could be somewhat older.
One of LeChucks ghost powers was the ability to transform into a human disguise. It is not out of the question that when in the general public and not plundering, he may have taken this form to fit in better for a time after his 'death'. So he may have raced Captain Marley twenty years before Threepwood became a pirate, and lived on pretending to be a human. The four men who knew the truth were over the years killed or went into hiding.
Twenty years later, when he met with Elaine Marley at her mansion and was told to drop dead, he may have naively believed that doing so might prove his love for her. He then sailed out to that same storm surrounding Monkey Island and faked his death, probably at this stage knowing how to safely travel through. He then most likely spread the tale that his love for Elaine kept him alive in spirit form, effectively publicly announcing that he was an undead being. Revealing the story that he had gone in search of Monkey Island may have served as a warning that he had chosen to make it his home port.
Before Guybrush Threepwood washed up on Mle Island, The Ghost Pirate LeChuck had taken control of a ship and its crew and through the power of Big Whoop transformed them into his Ghost Ship and Pirate Crew. Among its numbers were the previous Captain Bob and Allegro Rasputin.
They made port underneath the Giant Monkey Head of Monkey Island deep inside the volcanic maze hidden there. When not docked, the ship would sail between the islands of Mle and Monkey, terrorising anyone who crossed their path.
Little did anyone know that the ships journeys were for the purpose of allowing LeChuck to masquerade on Mle as its Sheriff Fester Shinetop in order to be close to the woman he loved, Governor Elaine Marley.
LeChuck's ship was anchored under Monkey Island when Threepwood first arrived on Mle Island. LeChuck was planning to kidnap Elaine Marley when his first mate, Bob informed him that a plucky new pirate wannabe had appeared on Mle. As Bob questioned whether the news had been worth delivering at all, LeChuck decided to deal with Threepwood himself.
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