| “ | The rule is simple, every day I'll launch several challenges for you! 3 per contracts. If you fulfill those challenges I'll give you a reward. | „ |
| ~ Mr Dark in Rayman Mini |
Mr. Dark is the main antagonist of the Rayman franchise. He is a dark and thieving sorcerer, serving as the main antagonist of the original Rayman and the unseen overarching antagonist of both Rayman Origins and Rayman Legends, as the Magician is following his example.
What Makes Him Magnificent?[]
- He's a cunning and deceitful sorcerer who has his fair share of genius moments.
- If one character in the series is a 'Master Manipulator', it's him, he's calm, collected and charismatic.
- Despite his tyranny, cruelty and sadism, he's genuinely polite and affable especially due to his dialogue in Rayman Mini.
- Combined with his affability is a sense of honor.
- Despite being a Card-Carrying sadist who wishes to turn the Glade of Dreams into a hellish dystopian world where he rules it with an iron fist, it all makes him a good villain which the audience can enjoy.
- In the first game, he attempts to steal the Great Protoon in order to send the world into imbalance to allow him to take over it, when Betilla the Fairy attempts to defeat him, he defeats her in combat, demonstrating his competence.
- His stealing of the Great Protoon caused the Electoons that gravitated around it to loose stability and scatter, allowing his minions to come to Rayman's world in order to imprison the Electoons.
- Throughout the game he tracks Rayman's progress by spying on him with spyglasses, allowing him to make preparations to when Rayman eventually comes to his lair incase all his minions are defeated.
- When Rayman defeats Space Mama, he takes action and captures and imprisons Betilla the Fairy, who had been granting Rayman his powers throughout the game.
- Before fighting Rayman, Mr. Dark strategically casts strange spells on him as he progresses through Candy Château in order to hinder his progress. The first of these is him letting Rayman catch up to him so he can cast a spell before flying away, creating Bad Rayman, an evil duplicate who copies Rayman's every move and causes instant death if he touches him.
- In the next stage, Mr. Dark casts a spell which reverses the player's left–right controls, followed by another spell which makes Rayman run uncontrollably. At the end of the level, Mr. Dark magically steals Rayman's telescopic fist power, leaving him helpless and unable to punch, again showing his competence and strategical thinking.
- When Rayman finally enters the central chamber of his lair, Mr. Dark endulges in a little bit of trolling by dangling his telescopic fist from a rope and retracting it whenever Rayman makes a move to take it. This scene is pretty hilarious and demonstrates Mr. Dark's laughably evil side.
- He then tries to destroy Rayman by trapping him between two moving walls of deadly flame while throwing fire balls at him, almost succeeding in his goal.
- When Rayman gets a new fist power up through the aid of a group of Electoons, Mr. Dark switches to plan B and transforms into three morphed versions of the bosses in order to combat Rayman.
- In the Atari Jaguar version, Mr. Dark makes one final appearance at the end of the game's credits. He flies across the screen, and the message ‘See you soon’ is displayed, showing he has gotten away with his crimes and will come back soon. This is not the case, however, for the other consoles and Game Boy Color versions, where he simply dissolves.
- In the educational spin-off Rayman Junior, Mr. Dark comes back and steals the Magic Book of Knowledge from the Magician and strategically destroys a map to his hideout in Candy Château. In the game he pulls off the same cunning trickery as he did in the original game, although isn't fought as a boss, meaning he evaded justice once again.
- In Rayman Mini, he makes his grand return with a whole new game mod bearing his name. In it, he enlists Rayman and his friends to complete contracts in exchange for rewards where he speaks politely to them while retaining his menacing presence from the first game. He keeps his end of the deal each time by rewarding Rayman when the contracts are completed.
- Overall, Mr. Dark is a cunning, ruthless sorcerer who stands as a powerful, threatening figure, but despite everything he's also an affable, honorable and laughable villain in which the audience can enjoy to no means end.
What Makes Him a Baddie?[]
- In the first game, he attempts to turn the world into a nightmarish hellscape in which he rules it by dictatorship.
- He steals the Great Protoon intentionally plunging the world into chaos and allowing his army of minions to capture the Electoons
- He kidnaps Betilla the Fairy in order to stop her from strengthening Rayman.
- He sadistically taunts Rayman when he overpowers him before almost killing him off for good, and weren't it not for the sudden intervention of the Electoons, Mr. Dark would've succeeded in his dastardly goals.
- In Rayman Junior, he returns to steal the Book of Knowledge for his twisted goals.
- In the Game Boy Color release of Rayman, he plunges the world into darkness and attempts to use the power of the Toons for himself.
- He is indirectly responsible for the events of both Rayman Origins and Rayman Legends due to Ales Mansay following his example. Ales Mansay is the previously thought to be harmless Magician who secretly admired Mr. Dark for his evil and mysterious nature, and wished to conquer the Glade of Dreams in his own industrial, high-technology empire in order to dethrone Polokus, making him basically the Rayman equivalent of Dr. Eggman.
- In Rayman Mini, he returns and enlists Rayman and friends onto numerous dangerous contracts in order to kill them should they fail.
Trivia[]
- He along with Faith Seed are the only Ubisoft villains to be a Magnificent Baddies.
- He's one of two Rayman characters to be a Magnificent Baddie, alongside Jano.
External Links[]
- Mr. Dark on the Villains Wiki.