"Upon the Day of the Hero, whosoever has most earned my people's faith shall ascend upon my throne to rule... according to my judgement. Be thou criminal, pauper, or noble... Thy claim is decided not by stature or tribe. I shall bear witness. From this heavenly seat I am nigh omnipotent. Look to the faces carved upon this rock, and see thou the faces of the chosen. I shall brook no sabotage or obstruction of this trial! Let all hear me and obey!"
Hythlodaeus V is a character in Metaphor: ReFantazio. He is the late king of Euchronia, slain by Louis Guiabern.
Appearances[]
- Metaphor: ReFantazio: Supporting Character
Personality[]
In his youth, King Hythlodaeus V was described as a hopeful idealist. Despite being a clemar, he never allowed the modern day prejudices in his kingdom sway him against the "lesser" tribes. His vision and ambitions of unifying the tribes are demonstrated by his sharing of his ideals to the queen of the elda tribe and falling in love with her and hiring the eugief scholar Russell to mentor their son after her death. He was also a curious and studious individual, having pursued the elda's secret knowledge of the world before the founding of Euchronia and establishing the Mage Academy in order for scholars to better understand and research the magla and the secrets of true magic. In his time outside of politics, he was also a skilled writer and avid reader, as he built his own study room within the Mage's Academy and wrote his own novel recording his ideals and the elda tribe knowledge of the old world.
Upon his later years, while facing difficulties in getting the citizens to overcome their prejudices, along with Sanctifex Forden's schemes bringing about the death of his love and the supposed death of his son, the prince, Hythlodaeus V became a nihilistic and despondent man who lost the zeal he once had in his ideals. This change in himself left him unwilling to challenge any authority that overstepped their bounds or see through to prevent the injustices and anxieties from festering within his kingdom. The Sanctist Church took advantage of this as intended, as the king now enabled them to essentially usurp and replace the Euchronian royal family and allowed their unlawful igniter experiments to be conducted, being too despondent and grief-ridden to do anything despite it's heavily implied that he fully knew of Forden's role behind shattering his personal connections. His seemingly willing neglect of the country has thrown the country into a new era of unprecedented chaos, and he was only known by the public as a decrepit, senile king who has forsaken his ideals for Sanctism. Even the elda of the eldan sanctuary he once visited came to despise him, with Gruidae believing that he was a pied piper who led them to ruin, and his fall was seemingly the final straw for Louis to dive entirely into full-blown radicalism; seeing his childhood idol becoming a shell of his former self made him believe that the system cannot be altered without completely replacing the entire population with insane monsters driven by anxiety. The king was not truly suicidal, but did felt the desire of needing someone to grant him the mercy of death after having lost the people he loved and no allies to turn to, hence allowing his own death at Louis' hands to go uninterrupted.
Despite this radical change in him, Hythlodaeus V was not completely devoid of hope nor motive to rectify the existing problems left rampant after he stepped down from politics. He secretly set the Royal Magic to choose the next king based not solely on the reason to focus on the people's will for a better leader, but also in his final wish to see if his son is still alive and will come to claim the throne. This decision he made as king and father in his final moments was not only an act of defiance against Forden and his Crown Theocracy conspirators in their monopolization of the kingdom's rule, but also his attempt to end all his regrets as a failure of a king and allow someone better suited carry on his vision of a better world.
In his post-mortem appearance under the assistance of the Royal Magic, he speaks with a strict and cold demeanor but is truly impartial to the people's will, and does not tolerate anyone attempting to do harm to the top 20 candidates to the throne. He is also open to accepting any sound request to amending his magic so long as he is convinced, such as Louis arguing the unfairness of himself as the sole candidate that can bypass his Royal Magic's protection via Drakodios.
Profile[]
Hythlodaeus V was formerly the king of the Kingdom of Euchronia and in turn the United Kingdom of Euchronia. He was said to be an idealist that strove to unite the tribes and was the author of a Fantasy Novel based on an idealized depiction of the World Before, which was banned by the sanctist church a decade ago under the superstition that the book will start another civilization-destroying world war.
Some years prior, he visited the Ancient Eldan Sanctum of the Principality of Oceana where he distributed at least two Fantasy Novels and started an illegitimate relationship with the chieftess, a woman only known as the eldan queen. Together, they sired a son, a clemar/elda half-blood known as the prince.
However, Sanctifex Forden, who possesses spite against the elda not displayed in most other sanctists and viewing their heir as an inconvenience against his way to the throne, ordered a pogrom against the ancient eldan sanctum that killed half of the population, including the eldan queen and a young Louis' family. Hythlodaeus V revisited it in the aftermath, saving his son and taking him back to the capital, where he hired Grius and Russell to act as his mentors and Hulkenberg as his bodyguard. His idealistic beliefs also inspired Louis to join him. Disguising himself as a clemar and proving himself to be a military prodigy, Louis would become one of the kingdom's most valuable military assets.
Hythlodaeus V changed following the prince's attempted assassination twelve years prior to the start of the game, after which he broke down, eventually becoming nothing more than a puppet king under Forden. Forden would later manipulate him into implementing policies so that he would seize the throne completely unopposed, which ranged from having him turn Sanctism into the state religion to shutting down the mage academy, all of which he agreed with because he was simply too mentally weak to resist. Eventually he disintegrated into a husk living in his bed, and he stopped participating in politics. Disgusted by the incompetence and weakness of his former ally, Count Louis put him down in his bed with a dagger only recently prior to the events of the game, both to seize the Royal Sceptre for his own plans and put him out of his misery. Whatever remained of his willpower was then transformed by the soul of the eldan queen into a living, disembodied Archetype-like being known as More.
Before his death however, Hythlodaeus V prepared a magic spell that would trigger the royal magic upon his passing. He not only did it in secret, but it completely defied his style of reign until then, as he was the first king to invoke said magic in several hundred years.
Hythlodaeus V's face in the sky.
During his funeral, Louis appeared on his gauntlet runner, the Skyrunner Charadrius, before the mourning crowd that he should assume the throne. Right as he said this, Hythlodaeus V's magic stirred, and lifted the royal palace into the sky, with the bedrock itself contorting into Hythlodaeus V's face, and announced that the spell he has cast will be undone when his soul finally leaves the mortal plane on 10/27, the annual holiday the "Day of the Hero," and upon that day, the candidate who has won over the most hearts of the people shall take the throne. The spell also protects the most popular candidates of the throne such as Sanctifex Forden and Louis, from being killed; as demonstration, he intercepts Grius' attempt at Louis' life, chaining him up to protect the possible candidate for the throne. The only way to circumvent this is to challenge the candidates to a duel or kill them with a divine relic like the dragon lance Drakodios. The royal magic activating at his funeral greatly shook the church and most of the populace, as up to that point he was thought to be an empty husk of a man who discarded his ideals long ago. It prevented the church from directly stealing the throne as they originally planned and forced them to think of a solution to ensure that they could still take the throne unopposed, and also prevented Louis from stealing the Royal Sceptre, teleporting it from his aide Zorba's hands straight into the royal palace.
The sudden turn of events throws the royal capital into chaos until the sanctist church discovered a solution around it. In response to the election magic, the following events at the Regalith Grand Cathedral after the funeral, and realizing the crown is out of their reach, the church moved to take advantage of the spell to stage an official tournament called the "Tournament for the Throne," resulting in all walks of life throwing their hat into the ring in their attempts to claim the throne for themselves. In reality, the tournament was secretly rigged by the church's elites led by Forden to make sure their power-grab goes unopposed; this backfired horribly for them when circumstances allowed the protagonist to force Forden to expose Sanctoress Joanna's horrific crimes, followed by Louis obtaining Drakodios and using it to kill Forden on Montario Saint's Day, sending the church's once-firm grip over the country into disarray. As a last ditch attempt to secure power for themselves, Forden's remaining cronies appointed Saintess Rella to use as a pawn, and her face replaced Forden's on the king's rock.
On the day after the Saint's Day festivities, Louis becomes unsatisfied by how only he can kill other candidates, and demands the king to lift it for everyone else, allowing all candidates to be killed regardless of their popularity. On the same day, the church's spare candidate, Rella commits suicide to free the king's son from the curse and exposes Forden's crimes to the public, effectively cementing the church's conspiracy to end in failure.
Near the end of the game, with seemingly no more valid opposition, Louis invades the royal palace to take the Royal Sceptre so he could enact his plans of a "meritocracy" where he will forcibly evolve all of mankind into rampaging human monsters. Before he can reach the throne room, the king's soul appears in front of him as a last-ditch futile attempt to stop Louis. He berates Louis for skipping procedures to declare himself the winner and claim the Royal Sceptre. Louis expresses his disappointment regarding the king's betrayal of his former ideals and reveals his true eldan heritage by discarding his fake clemar horns.
Once the protagonist (now an incarnation of the prince) refuses Louis' offer to join him and he retreats to the Tyrant's Star awaiting a confrontation, the party hears the voice of Hythlodaeus V, who reveals to them that as his mind was too weak to act on his ideals after the sanctist treachery that killed both his beloved and his son, he allowed Louis to kill him, and even if he didn't want Louis to take the royal scepter for his own ends, he will not and cannot stop it, and it is up to the party to stop him from unleashing his insane plan.
After the protagonist's final victory against Louis, More reminiscenced about his past life with the eldan queen while taking the form of King Hythlodaeus V. Their spirits then passed onto the afterlife, entrusting the future of their kingdom to their son, the protagonist/prince.
Quotes[]
- "I shall not suffer the defiance of my people's will. In my name art thou punished."
- "From the lofty heavens shall my unfading soul look down upon thee, and from the whispered hopes of thine anxious hearts... ...Shall those to whom thine allegiances lie be laid bare!"
Gallery[]
Etymology[]
- Hythlodaeus means "speaker of nonsense" in Greek.
Trivia[]
Hythlodaeus V in the battle UI.
- Hythlodaeus V's face appears in the battle UI for the rest of the game from the start of the Tournament for the Throne, right next to the Press Turn icons. His hand shows up during the turn transitions.
- His name is likely a reference to Raphael Hythlodaeus, a character in Thomas More's Utopia.