Scut Farkus is the neighborhood bully who terrorizes Ralphie Parker and his friends in A Christmas Story, stalking the winter streets with Grover Dill and an apparently legendary pair of yellow eyes.

At least according to Ralphie.

Farkus occupies an enormous amount of space in the boys’ imagination. He lurks behind fences, chases them through alleys, twists arms, demands surrender, and seems to represent the unavoidable natural predator of every kid trying to walk home from school in peace.

That makes Ralphie’s eventual confrontation with him such a powerful childhood moment.

After one humiliation too many, Ralphie finally snaps and attacks Scut with years of accumulated anger, transforming the seemingly unbeatable neighborhood terror into another crying kid in the snow.

For Ralphie, it becomes “the Scut Farkus affair.”

For Scut, presumably, it becomes a very bad afternoon.

Either way, those yellow eyes stop looking quite so supernatural afterward.