Characters: Once again there will be spoilers here so if you haven’t played, or finished, Holy War you have been warned.
SPOILER WARNING!
Holy War has an impressive cast of villains.
Alvis: Alvis gets my vote for “Best Villain in the Series”. He starts off as a guy who gives you a Silver Sword but then proceeds to frame the assassination of Prince Kurth on Sigurd and his family. After letting Sigurd kill of Langobalt and Reptor Alvis lures him into a trap before proceeding to kill Sigurd and his army. Oh did I miss something? That’s right, Alvis stole Sigurd’s wife Diadora and then proceeded to flaunt this fact in front of him too. Let me repeat: Alvis stole the main character’s wife before proceeding to murder the main character. How many villains pull off a feat like that? That is some of the most epic villainy I have ever seen in a fictional story. What’s even more impressive is that the guy got to take over the continent for about 15 - 18 years after that. He literally won in the most epic way a villain can win. He kills the main character, steals his wife, outplays his treacherous allies and then proceeds to dominate the continent. GG Alvis.
But the story doesn’t end here though. After clawing his way to the top he then gets to watch everything he worked so hard to achieve get ripped away from him bit by bit. His empire started off peacefully but eventually the Loputo cult turned it into hell on earth by conducting child hunts and brutally oppressing people. Alvis also had to watch his wife Diadora get murdered in front of his eyes by his son who has now been possessed by an evil book and turned into Fire Emblem Satan. What’s worse is that the son of the man he betrayed is now leading a liberation army that’s tearing the empire apart country by country using the weapon that he gave to his father (the Silver Sword).
By the time we see Alvis again in Chapter 10 he’s a pathetic, broken mess. He lost his wife, his son is evil incarnate, his daughter has been working with the liberation army that’s tearing down his empire (and at this point is being sent away by Manfroy to be killed off so she can’t oppose Julius) and his empire is being torn apart. Manfroy and Julius tell Alvis to his face that he’s a useless puppet whose usefulness has come to an end. He knows there’s nothing left for him so he willfully gives Seliph the Tyrfing so that Seliph can end his life.
This is why Alvis is such a great character. He is both a puppetmaster and a puppet at the same time. He’s a villain that achieved so much and yet died a broken mess. Most villains never get it quite as good as Alvis but in the end everything he worked so hard to achieve comes crashing down on him. Despite all the horrible things he did to Sigurd he still remains sympathetic and three dimensional, which is a really hard feat to pull off. He was a dangerous idealist at heart. He believed that he could bring a peaceful utopia and Holy War wouldn’t be Holy War without him.
Trabant: The next best villain on the list is Travant. He’s the proto Naesala. Travant is characterized by the willingness to do absolutely anything to save his people from starvation. He’s a mercenary stereotype mixed in with being a king. He’s cunning and intelligent, willing to stab anyone in the back if it makes life better for the people of Thracia. I gotta give props to this guy for being smart enough to ambush Cuan and Ethlin in the Yied Desert. Not every villain would be smart enough to do something like that. Another major element of Travant’s character is that he doesn’t really care if the rest of Jugdral looks down on him as a bad guy so long as the people of Thracia can put food on the table. He was also willing to raise Altenna as his own child (making him the proto Garon too. Holy crap! Altenna’s the proto Corrin without being a spineless Mary Sue). In the end I do think that Travant is one of the better secondary villains this franchise has produced.
Ishtar: Next on the list is Ishtar. Ishtar is Julius’s girlfriend and the daughter of Blume. Prior to the events of the story she fell in love with Julius before he got possessed. Julius still continued to love her even after he got possessed which explains why she stayed with him (unlike Eldigan who is arguably the stupidest Camus in the series) and it’s easy to see why she’d still fight alongside him. Once she finds out about the child hunts she tries to convince him to stop, but when that doesn’t work she helps Alvis try to bring an end to the child hunts. In other words, she’s a Camus that tries to resist the evil ruler that she cares about.
In addition to all that the player is continuously killing one member of her family after another so she has a personal reason to oppose the liberation army. In Chapter 7 you kill her brother, Ishtore, (he’s the guy that looks like a girl that sits on the castle down at the bottom) and then you proceed to attack her father Blume. He lives, but that changes in Chapter 8 when you finish him off for good. In two chapters you’ve killed her father and her brother and then two chapters later you kill her mother Hilda and eventually you’re going to kill her fiance. I’d say that’s plenty of good reason for her to actively fight against Seliph.
Here’s one more quote about Ishtar that I think deserves to be here: “Her father used her as a weapon and her mother used her as a political tool. She was pushed into that position, and not being a very strong individual, she didn't see or was too scared to take her way out.” (Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/2nvgcn/did_i_miss_something_about_ishtar/)
Overall, Ishtar is one of the best Camuses in the series and one of the better written villains in the series. She definitely gets my approval.
Manfroy: So I had a hard time deciding between whether Manfroy or Gharnef was the better “master manipulator”. They both achieve their goals of resurrecting the Final Boss in addition to bringing back the empire that the good guys have to defeat. They’re both dark mages and they both manipulate A LOT of people and countries.
However I think Manfroy comes out as the superior manipulator. Gharnef always accomplishes everything prior to the start of the games, whereas Manfroy performs all his accomplishments in Holy War itself. To me that’s a lot more impressive. There’s also the fact that Manfroy was able to prevent Sigurd from stopping his plans while Gharnef got foiled by Marth and co. not once, but TWICE. I’m also fairly sure that Manfroy’s empire lasted longer. The Grandbell Empire had about 18 years of dominance over Archanea while I don’t think that the Dohlr Empire’s reign lasted that long since Marth doesn’t seem to be significantly older when he decides to fight back.
Why am I bothering to bring all this up? Well my point is that Manfroy is the most successful Gharnef archetype out of all the Gharnefs in the series. That’s not something to sneeze at. Successful villains are more rare than sympathetic ones. Manfroy always stands out to me for just that exact reason. That being said, Manfroy loses points for a lack of character development. We don’t know much about his background or his motivations. Still, he’s effective at being that master manipulator type of character and that counts for something.
I would consider those four to be the best villains of the game. Everyone else does what they’re supposed to do but aren’t quite as good as these four, although there’s something creepy about Joffrey Julius aka Mr. Incest Satan. I also have to give it up for Chagall (who I still refer to as “Chagall the Hutt” from my Holy War x Star Wars crossover fanfic. Ah good times) for being a prime example of being phenomenally stupid and corrupt.
Overall Summation: Holy War has an extremely impressive cast of villains. Alvis still gets my vote for "Best Villain of the Franchise" and Trabant and Ishtar score major points for their impressive villainy too. Manfroy may not be developed but he does succeed at what he does far better than any other Gharnef in the series. Without these villains Holy War would not be as awesome as it currently is.
Holy hell I need to play this
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