Final Fantasy XV: Who Ardyn Is (Spoilers)

Ardyn – Final Fantasy XV

WARNING: HEAVY SPOILERS AHEAD

While playing Final Fantasy XV you will come across a man who introduces himself as Ardyn Izunia. He’s a tall, well built man with a long coat and a hat. He always has a smile on his face, and when help is needed, it is he who tends to show up with an extended hand. While he’s never outwardly aggressive, he carries a dark mystery about him. Even when you first meet him, he remarks that he is a “man of no consequence.” A simple, but foreboding statement that instantly tells you to keep an eye on him.

Yet, as you progress through Final Fantasy XV, slaying monsters and collecting Royal Arms, he is there to help when needed. In fact, it is he who saves your life on multiple occasions, and keeps you from falling into the hands of the Imperial Army. You’ll start to feel like he’s a cool dude, until he finally reveals his true colors, and name.

Ardyn Izunia is actually Ardyn Lucis Caelum. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because he shares surnames with none other than the king, Regis Lucis Caelum CXIII, and our hero, Noctis. He is of Lucian blood, not Imperial, and he wants to wage war on the kings that stand to champion light.

It turns out that Ardyn was once tasked by the Astrals with ridding the world of the evil that now plagues it. He instead used his new power to absorb it all into himself, becoming powerful and immortal. When the Astrals turned their backs on him after seeing what he had become he swore vengeance against the True King, a title which is Noctis’ destiny.

To be honest, he’s easily one of the top main antagonists that the series has seen in some time. He’s handsome, charismatic, and dark. But his smile disarms all those around him as he sets is millennia in the making plan into motion. That final confrontation, as you stand across from one another, king against tyrant, will go down in history.

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