foundering

PLAYER INFORMATION

Player Name: Eri
Are you 18+?: Yep
Preferred Contact: subjuggul8ion, Miburo#2189, pm
Current Characters: N/A

CHARACTER INFORMATION

Character Name: Ardyn Izunia
Canon: Final Fantasy XV
Canonpoint: Between Chapters 13 and 14, about halfway through the 10 year timeskip.
Character Age: 2000+

Appearance: Here he is! No changes for humanization necessary.

Background/History: Wiki

Strengths:

✓ Ardyn's primary strength is how charming he is. He carries himself with an air of dramatics, but speaks politely to everyone he meets, at least on the surface. Nothing seems to phase him, so as a result, nothing seems to be able to put a crack in that charming air about him, come hell or high water. (Especially if he's the one bringing the hellfire, but. Details.) This trait has propelled him to a high political station - High Chancellor of the Empire of Niflheim - when he is not a native of the Empire, and would have appeared to simply come out of nowhere with no apparent ties to anyone only to end up leading the most powerful nation on Eos in all but name.

He's also a self-styled "man of no consequence," but has "friends in all places," which is not a state of being one can have without actually having an active hand in a little bit of everything, and certainly not if one is outwardly and openly hated by the people he is in charge of. He claims to have no influence over the military, and yet can lift military blockades for the main party without the slightest bit of effort. And, while the main party is always suspicious of him on some level, he does succeed in winning a considerable level of trust before they find out exactly who he is, with very little trouble at all, simply from being friendly and speaking casually with them.

✓ Similarly, Ardyn is also highly calculating, both politically and in his interpersonal relationships. It's one thing to be charming - anyone has the potential to be charming - but it's another thing entirely to use that charm as a tool to your own advantage, which Ardyn has honed into an art. He uses his power and influence throughout the entire game to guide the party down whatever path he needs them on most at any given time, often without allowing them to encounter insurmountable difficulty.

Just enough difficulty to keep them motivated, of course, even if sometimes that motivation is rooted entirely in 'ugh, fuck that guy in particular.'

His personal goals run parallel to the main party's as well, so he spends most of the time in the shadows ensuring that everything runs smoothly and everyone keeps steadily moving forward to the final confrontation, like a well-oiled machine that he's also designed and built himself.

✓ For better or worse, Ardyn is also terribly patient. He's had to be - it takes "milennia" for the prophecy of the chosen king to fall into place with Noctis, and he's been waiting (and plotting, and scheming) the entire time. In addition, there's a ten year timeskip that occurs in the game that he waits through. In that time, he could have destroyed the world - and in some ways he did - but at the end of it, there's still a world for Noctis to wake up to.

Ten years is a drop in the bucket compared to two thousand (or more), but when all his plans are nearing their resolution, it takes quite a bit of patience indeed to see them through.

✓ As one would have to be to follow and refine the same schemes over thousands of years, Ardyn is highly dedicated, almost to the point of being single minded at times. More than that, though, it's shown and implied that he's always been this way, even before gaining the immortality that has dragged him through to the present day. Once he has a cause to adhere himself to, he'll see it through to the end, for better or worse.

Weaknesses:

✗ Many times, both prior to and during the game, it's shown that despite his dedication to his ideals, Ardyn still feels highly conflicted in his actions and motivations. He is the starscourge incarnate, but he waits for thousands of years to plunge the world into darkness. He cannot die, and seems to desire to finally pass on, but when it comes time to do so, he has trouble giving in. He loved the world once, and now most of his actions are geared towards its demise. He helps the party at nearly every step of the way, but still acts in ways that could see them killed prematurely.

✗ As charming and polite as he is on the surface, Ardyn is also terribly vindictive in his actions and motivations. He was cast out and demonized for acting with genuinely good intentions, so he seeks to end the family line and/or the world that rejected him. Less serious slights are met with condescension and a general effort to make the life of whoever slighted him just a bit more difficult. When he's outright defied by someone who had previously been at his beck and call, he sees to their demise by first masquerading as Noctis to kill them, and then sending their daemon-turned self after the party in a gut-wrenching boss fight where the person in question begs you to kill him throughout. When Lunafreya tries to offer forgiveness and salvation to him, after he'd severely wounded her, he rejects the offer by way of leaving her to die.

And, when the Empire as a whole stops being useful to the advancement of his goals and starts being a more serious threat to the party, he allows the Emperor to transform into a daemon entirely and abandons the nation and everyone in it to darkness and corruption.

✗ The most devastating weakness, though, is Ardyn's immortality. Because of his long life, he's had time to stew in his hate and feelings of betrayal. He's had time to formulate and set into motion all the plans he needs to see his goals through to the end. He's been able to refine all of his facades and fronts so he can be the most trustworthy person he can appear to be. But Noctis comments that; "He's been living a long time. In a world he could share with no one." While that does reflect extremely well on Noctis himself, showing that he's even kind and understanding towards the man who has been actively trying to ruin his life and see to his demise, it also highlights a trait of Ardyn himself. He hasn't had anyone to help shoulder his burdens like the main party does. His existence is a long and lonely one. He's faced with myriad rejections at every turn which only fuels his hatred and desire to see the world to its end.

And yet he doesn't simply end the world. He could have at any point along the way, but he doesn't. Here, his conflicted nature comes back into play, because there's still the scrap of humanity deep down inside that leads him to waiting to see if he can still purge the scourge from the world without destroying it.

Fatal Flaw: His fatal flaw would have to be his single minded determination and dedication to whatever cause he's decided to serve. In the beginning, he sought to cure the world by taking the scourge into himself, but as a result was deemed too impure of heart to take the throne, and too corrupt to die. This dedication then shifted to ending the line that demonized and attempted to kill him, which he pursues relentlessly for thousands of years.

In the end it also proves to be quite literally fatal as well, when he forces Noctis to choose between sacrificing himself to take him down or to let the world fall into darkness.
Driving Force: Strangely enough, Ardyn's driving force is a desire to die. At the moment, he can't - and it's strongly implied he can't even feel pain - because his soul is too tarnished to enter the afterlife, and the daemons inhabiting his body and his very nature as the scion of the starscourge itself keeps his body alive. But all his scheming have two outcomes, both of which will lead to Ardyn Izunia ceasing to be, whether he's actually able to pass on or whether the world itself is destroyed in the effort.

Patron: While there are several patrons that would suit him, I'd lean towards placing him in the house of venus/aphrodite. He embodies quite a few of the traits of the house - both positive and negative - such as being charming, persuasive, and emotion-driven, but also dramatic and manipulative, especially compared to many other characters in his own canon.

That said, if the mods believe there is a better fit for him, I'm definitely open to it!

GAME INFORMATION

Setting Suitability: As the main villain in a Final Fantasy game, Ardyn is well acquainted with war and violence, even orchestrating quite a bit of it himself. His canonpoint is the primary reason he'd consent to the call as well - he has no love for gods and their conflicts, but several of his lines after the timeskip indicate that he was bored waiting around for Noctis to wake up. Personally, I'm interested in seeing how he might develop without his litany of powers to lean on and with having to work together with people who may or may not be as susceptible to his charms as characters from his own world tend to be.



Sample: TDM links here and here.