Villain Case File: Ardyn Izunia
Villain Case File: Ardyn Izunia
It's hard to put in words, especially in this regard. For capturing the context fully as to what changed his state of mind. What effected his morale compass as to defect to the very side he fought against for so long, that even his body was beginning to mold to it. It all depends on this epic saga that includes betrayal, sorrow, anguish, personality change, revenge, and in some way, redemption.
If ya haven't played the game, this contains major spoilers, just a disclaimer.
Ardyn Izunia, earlier known as Ardyn Lucis Caelum is a first born of the Izunia family, and the first supposed king of Lucis. He and his brother Somnus, were chosen by the astral gods to lead the people of Eos against the starscourge. He was a healer, so he wanted to help people by removing the plague.
Though the scourge wasn't something easy to eliminate, so instead Ardyn used his powers to hold the plague within him. His younger brother Somnus, was more tactful, implemented decisive and brutal tactics to take care of the starscourge. By, well brutally killing people. Behemoth, one of the astrals who granted the Izunia brothers their powers, was kind of playing a gamble on them, his own scheme as he saw was the only way to remove the Starscourge once and for all. (Also, Ifrit created the scourge, so his fault this happened.)
After healing so many people, Ardyn was heralded as a true benevolent hero of the populace. While Somnus was largely scorned upon for his brutal tactics. This made Somnus, well pretty upset, hold in deep contempt, and become jealous of Ardyn himself. This is where things would turn up to be like Cain and Abel, but the other way around.
Two brothers who grow close to one another during their earlier years, playing chess together fondly, are now bitter rivals with different approaches to eradicating the Starscourge. Ardyn exiled himself from the public because the plague began to overtake him, both mind and body. He started hearing things and before he realized it, daemons were trying to corrupt him. Of course, with the powers granted to him, he had incredible resilience and the healing powers also self healed him no matter what it did to him.
This gave Somnus more opportunity to turn the public against his brother, calling him out as a monster. All the while Ardyn's fiance, Aera from the other family, Behemoth has given powers to, is standing by his side. Supporting him all the way. Till one dreadful day, when Ardyn was called by the crystal ball, well something to do with the astrals.
He is to be ordained as the new king of Lucis. Little did Ardyn know, this was a sham set up by his brother to root him out and expose him for the monster he is. Both brothers fought, but Somnus was more battle-hardened so he had the edge. Ardyn was down, but before the final blow was struck, Aera shielded him with her life. Somnus further insulted her death, this resulted in Ardyn enraged and all the daemons started comings out.
But instead of retaliation in full force, Ardyn took her body and went to the crystal to see the truth. But he never could, as he was rejected by the gods. Somnus finished the job by finally slaying him, or so he thought. Remember I mentioned something about Ardyn healing, well because of that, he was locked away for 2,000 years. Time was not kind to him.
Fast forward to modern times, he was freed by the Neifheim empire. In return to help develop better weapons and sorcery. Ardyn refused at first, but after seeing Ifrit, one of the gods who threw a giant rebellion upon the astrals, he got curious enough to know more about them. So he touched Ifrit, to subjugate him, and then saw memories, things that revealed what the astrals actual plans were. Turns out, he was chosen as king, but they've refused him on purpose. So he changed his mind, in return he gets his revenge upon the gods by destroying the Lucis lineage.
Character Assessment
Ardyn was a noble, benenovelent person in his earliest days. Guy just wanted to help people, he had strong characteristics, was intelligent, and a very sensible person. Due to the last part of personality, he kept following his own morale compass instead of looking at the situation properly. Of course, there wasn't much right alternative needed because his path was eventually set by the high-mighty celestial beings. He was supposed to consume the Starscourge, and in return be destroyed with it to end the plague.
Ardyn being driven by years of hatred, disdain, mental torture, and tragedy was unwilling. Instead opted to destroy the very thing he fought to protect. I mean it's easy to hate someone like him for having destructive goals or putting the main characters like Noctis himself on peril. But this time, you really do kind of sympathize with him. He's a fallen hero, who no longer recognizes good and bad, and has been corrupted with a terrible influence for so long. Not to mention the tragic events he'd gone through
He's humanized thanks to his backstory, more even interesting is the later part isn't some "oh lost hero is destroying the world, we still need to eliminate him in order to save it". No, there is a redemption path. Which ends with both the main character dying, along with him. In a spiritual form, he gets to be in peace. With the threat gone. In the bigger scheme of things, even if he was a pawn of a grand plan, he finally got to be the savior he originally wanted to be, even if it was inadvertently.
Allowing both him and the last of his descendent's prophecy to be fulfilled.To bring peace to the world.
Now that's the story assessment, here's one about gameplay. You don't always fight in bossfights. But when you do, boy you have to go all full-cylinder on this guy. He is not only more powerful than most beings out there, he can easily destroy you if you're not careful enough.
Plus ah, he's immortal, there's never a scenario where you can actually kill him. Unlike the final bossfight of the game where you use all the crystals power to destroy him, even on some spiritual level because the scourge has taken over him in that essence as well.
Ardyn is completely immune to any ailments you give him from your weapons and casts his spells entirely using dark magic. You can't beat him with Alterna, though not entirely if your weapon is>to his resistance. He can take physical and true damage, however.
It gets even more interesting, if you've purchased the game with the DLCs, there's one called "Ardyn" where you get to explore his backstory and how it led to the main game. You basically play as him and believe me, you are beholden to his supreme power once you've start playing the character. Taking down celestial gods or ancestors in their powerful forms are no biggy for him. Even he took control of Ifrit, the one god powerful being who nearly destroyed all the astrals when they waged war against him.
Final Fantasy XV lores a little scatterbrain, and it does a bit disservice to help the players under him much more clearly. The game at it's release didn't do a good, so they had to release a different cut, followed by several DLCs to explain more about him. Honestly, he could have been close to Kefka if he was handled much more appropriately early on.