Enemies from the Prince of Persia series
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This is a list of enemies from the Prince of Persia series of video games. It covers the main enemies from the entire Ubisoft trilogy.
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[edit] The Vizier
The Vizier is the predominant antagonist in the entire series and remains as the greatest enemy that the Prince of Persia will ever fight. His lust for immortality and power is his driving force and he will go through any obstacle in order to obtain that power.
[edit] The Vizier in The Sands of Time
In Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, the Vizier is the main antagonist. He has betrayed the Maharaja of India in favor of the Prince's father, King Sharaman, so that he could gain some of the more divine treasures in the Maharaja's palace. He names the Dagger of Time as the price of his treachery, so he can use it to become immortal. However, the Prince keeps the dagger for himself. The Vizier was then taken into service under the King (of which the Prince recalls as foolish). He travels with the victorious Sharaman to pay a visit to the Sultan of Azad. There, he takes his revenge by tricking the Prince into opening the Hourglass containing the Sands of Time with the dagger. When he does so, all in the palace but The Prince, Princess Farah, and the Vizier himself are possessed and transformed by the Sands.
The Vizier takes over the Palace and does whatever he can to get the dagger back. At the climax of the game, the Prince performs a grand rewind, traveling far back in time, to the night before the Persian army even attacks the Maharaja's palace. The Vizier surprises the Prince as he finishes his fantastic tale to Farah, warning her of the imminent betrayal, and attacks the Prince. He admits his treachery in Farah's earshot, and then is slain.
Throughout the game, it remains largely unclear what the Vizier's grand plan is. He never openly states what he intended to do with the Dagger if the Prince had given it to him. However, when killed, his dying words are "I could have been...immortal.". That, along with his role in Two Thrones, seems to confirm that he strove for immortality.
During the opening scenes of The Sands of Time and at the end of the game during the final battle, it is revealed that the Vizier is afflicted with the Consumption (Tuberculosis) which is why he is constantly seen coughing up blood.
[edit] The Vizier in Battles of Prince of Persia
The Vizier makes a return in the Nintendo DS title, Battles of Prince of Persia, as the cause of the rage behind the games antagonist, Saurva. It is shown, through his missions, that before the events of the game he fell in love with Saurva's sister, Sindra. He became so infatuated with her, that he forced Saurva to steal the Box of One Thousand Restraints, for then unknown reasons. He threatened to kill Saurva's wife if he failed to do so.
When Saurva returned with the Box, after killing many Indian soldiers in doing so, The Vizier killed his wife and imprisoned Saurva and all of his race in the Box when Sindra refused him.
He is dead, killed by the Prince in Sands of Time, before the Prince's side of the game actually begins. When the Prince seeks the Box of One Thousand Restraints to attempt to seal away the Dahaka, he unleashes Saurva and his army, who sweep a cross the lands like a ravenous plague.
[edit] The Vizier in The Two Thrones
In Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, the Vizier makes a return as the central nemesis of the game. The Prince has prevented the Sands of Time from even being created, and as a side effect, he has erased all the events in Azad and India, including the Prince's meeting with Farah, and the Vizier's death. Now, prompted by visions from the Dagger, the Vizier has attacked Babylon, searching for the Empress of Time, the Sands of Time, and his own immortality. He captures Kaileena and kills her with the Dagger, thus recreating the Sands of Time. He then stabs himself in the heart with the Dagger. This grants the Vizier immortality and restores his lost youth, but also transforms him into a large, winged sand demon.
He takes the name Zurvan in this form, which is the also the name of the Persian god of infinite time, space and fate. Farah calls him by this name, and the Dark Prince's voice can be heard to say "Maybe Babylon is better off in Zurvan's hands". But there still is a doubt whether this might be the Vizier's actual name or if it is just the result of the lack of an actual name.
The Vizier then unleashes his new army of Sand Monsters upon the Prince's kingdom, capturing and killing most of the populace or turning them to Sand Monsters. The Prince manages to catch the Vizier in a temple, where the vile sorcerer proclaims to his soon-to-be victims "I am Zurvan, God of Time!". The Vizier escapes, and meets with the Prince again near to the end of his journey, kidnapping Farah in the process with the intent on making her his bride. The Prince finally confronts the Vizier atop the Tower of Babel, as he prepares to turn Farah into a Sand Monster. The Prince and the Vizier have a final duel, mystic sand swirling around them. After their brutal fight, the Prince plunges the Dagger of Time into the Viziers heart, and a vortex of Sand engulfs him. As the Prince wrenches the Dagger from the Vizier's chest, he writhes in pain and yells "This is not what the Dagger promised!" before he is overcome and explodes, destroying his monster army and the Sands of Time once and for all.
[edit] Subordinates
The Vizier has several subordinates in The Two Thrones. They were all transformed by the Sands of Time upon the death of Kaileena.
[edit] Klompa
Klompa is a powerful ally and general of the Vizier's army, wielding a spear in his human form. When he was corrupted by the Sands of Time, he became a tremendous grotesque giant. Bearing many wounds, he is jawless and dons a mask and a tremendous sword. He now occupies the Arena, where he has captured many people. He is also easy to beat, provided one can reach up to his level to attack. You know hes dead.
[edit] Mahasti
Mahasti is a very well trusted General of the Vizier. She is responsible for embedding the daggertail in the Prince's left arm. It appears that the Sands have not been so merciless in destroying her appearance as they were with the other characters, although they have granted her strength and extraordinary agility. She imprisoned many women in a brothel and confronted Farah and the Prince. Farah told her off and she fled. The Prince fought with her and pushed her off a ledge, ending her life. She wields two jagged swords and fights much like the character Shahdee in Warrior Within.
[edit] The twin warriors, Axe and Sword
These two are both powerful Generals of the Vizier's army. Together they fight as one nearly unstoppable force. One wields an axe and has an impenetrable defense, while the other carries a large sword and is terribly powerful with his strikes. Axe locks the prince in a burning workshop, leaving him to perish in the flames. Axe then pursues the Prince on a charriot. The two gang up on the Prince and fight him in a ring of fire. The Prince kills Sword and Axe gets killed by Farah's arrows.
[edit] Viziers troopers
When overheard by the prince in the palace throne room, the Vizier states that he seized the kingdom and army of the murdered Maharajah. It is presumably this army which is the source of the Vizier's Troopers and Archers. Their helmets are shaped like animals, the Troopers' helmet resembles a bull and the Archers' helmet resembles a bird. The army was nearly wiped out when the Vizier died because the Vizier used the same sand as most of the Troopers and Archers so the troops were also killed. The rest of the army decided to stay normal, when the rest of the army was wiped out, the remaining Troopers and Archers disbanded but some troops have come together making convoys.
[edit] Viziers Energized troopers
When the Vizier energized his troops with the Sands of Time they became sand soldiers: powerful beings that could only be killed by the Dagger of Time.
[edit] Vizir Meaning
A Vizier (Persian: وزير - Wazīr) (sometimes also spelled Vizir, Wasir, Wazir, Wesir, or Wezir - grammatical vowel changes are common in many oriental languages), literally "burden-bearer" or "helper", is a term, originally Persian, for a high-ranking political (and sometimes religious) advisor or minister, often to a Muslim monarch such as a Caliph, Amir, Malik (king) or Sultan. The Middle-Persian ancestor of this word was Vichir.
In modern usage the term has been used in the East generally for certain important officials under the sovereign. It is also used anachronistically or in a modern Islamic republic's cabinet.
[edit] The Dahaka
In Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, the Dahaka serves as the physical manifestation of the inevitability of fate. The beast is the guardian of the Timeline, and seems to appear only when the Timeline is disrupted. But, in The Sands of Time, the Prince uses the Sands of Time to massively manipulate the Timeline and cheat his own death. Therefore it is the Dahaka's duty to make sure that the Prince meets his death in order to restore the timeline.
The Dahaka appears as a massive and powerfully built humanoid, clad in black. It has long ram-like horns that twist in the form of a lemniscate, the symbol of infinity, and its eyes burn with a fierce inner light, though the area around it is always covered in shadows. It also has the ability to shoot four or more tentacles from its abdomen, which it uses to capture the Prince should he fail to keep enough distance between him and the Dahaka (see the Dahaka Chases below). Every aspect of this being suggests it is a creature of a more supernatural world. Until the very end of the game, it is impossible to fight the Dahaka, as it is seemingly invincible to sword thrusts, and as stated above, if the Prince goes within its close proximity, the Dahaka captures the Prince with its tentacles.
At several points in the game, (known amongst players as "Dahaka Chases") the Dahaka will catch up with the Prince and chase after him. The player will then have to flee through a series of obstacles in order to escape the beast. If it does catch him, it will reduce the Prince to sand and absorb him, thus eliminating him and his actions from the Timeline. The Dahaka appears blurry during these moments and can sometimes teleport a few yards at a time. During his adventures, the Prince discovers that, like all the Empress' sandy minions, the Dahaka has an intense aversion to water. Contact with water harms the creature, and it cannot pass through the curtains of water that cover certain palace doors and corridors. The Prince must exploit this weakness to escape the thing. Because of this weakness to water, some fans speculate that the Dahaka is a Sand creature and was probably created by the same beings that created the timeline, the empress of time and the many time artifacts (dagger, amulet, hourglass etc) and was created for the purpose of preventing the misuse of the timeline by the sands.
Additionally, the Dahaka will appear in the past during two cutscenes. The first occurs after the Prince unlocks the throne room. In the Central Hall, the Sandwraith suddenly appears before him, then the Dahaka blocks the exit, causing the Prince to surmise that the monster has somehow followed him to the past. Strangely enough, as the Prince begins to flee, the Dahaka grabs the Sandwraith, kills it, and leaves. Later, after the Prince has himself become the Sandwraith and travelled back in time using the Mask of the Wraith, he encounters his past self at the same time and place. Knowing of the attack beforehand, the Prince is able to elude the Dahaka, allowing his past self to perish and freeing himself from the Mask. Although no explicit explanation is given about the Dahaka's odd behavior in these scenes, it is likely that, because the Sands do not yet exist and the Prince's fate is not yet sealed, the Dahaka is only attempting to block the fate-altering powers of the Mask by preventing the same person from existing twice at once.
If the Prince fails to acquire the Water Sword, and kill The Empress in a final duel in the Present, the Dahaka will come forth to claim the Empress' body and then the Prince's Amulet. Both are the last relics of the Sands of Time. With those two things gone, the Dahaka no longer has a purpose to exist in this timeline and vanishes into the mists. However, if the Prince manages to claim the Water Sword, he will challenge the Dahaka to a final battle, with the Empress assisting him. In the end of the fight, the Empress strikes the Dahaka with a blast of energy and knocks him to the edge of the platform. The Prince then attacks, driving the water sword into the Dahaka's skull, causing it to lose its grip and fall into the sea below. In the official ending, there is an explosion of dark power that rises from the water, grown to a massive size, the Dahaka ascends over the Prince and the Empress, flailing in rage. It then collapses back into the water, and is destroyed forever.
The fact that one can escape the Dahaka can be seen as a suggestion from the game's designers that while fate seems inevitable, it can in fact be avoided and even conquered.
During the game the Dahaka appears to speak in a bizarre language but in actuality it talks in backward speech, able to be heard by reversing time. If the Dahaka says something, wait until he is finished speaking, and use the Sands of Time to reverse time, and if you have done this correctly, you can fully understand what the Dahaka is saying. Phrases like: "All who have come before you have fallen" "Come to me... come to your death!" "Disrupt the Timeline no further" "No one escapes the Dahaka" and "You cannot change your fate, you have fallen" will be understandable with this process.
The Dahaka can be compared to the Marut, a somewhat similar creature from Dungeons and Dragons. Both are massive, dark-colored, extra-plannar beings who unendingly hunt down those who have cheated death, seeking to bring about their rightful and inevitable demise. Both creatures are known to walk steadily toward their prey when they've located it, and use short-range teleportation (a dimension door spell, in the Marut's case) to gain ground during such chases. They are both extraordinarily powerful creatures that are impossible to defeat by all but the greatest of characters, and both have resistance to damage from all normal means save for one weakness (Water in the Dahaka's case, and Chaotically-aligned damaged for the Marut)
The Dahaka is also somewhat similar to the Balrog from the Lord of the Rings, as both are giant, nigh-unstoppable demonic creatures of a similar visage, wreathed in shadow. In Warrior Within, there is even a scene where the Prince (in Sand Wraith form) is chased by the Dahaka over a bridge of sorts, which promptly gives way under them. The Prince manages to grab hold of a ledge, while the Dahaka tumbles down into the darkness below, but not before making a last attempt to pull the Prince down with him by using his tentacles. The Prince, however, skillfully slices the tentacles off just as they are about to grab him, screaming "Die, you bastard!". This is highly reminiscent of the scene from the movie Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring, by Peter Jackson, where Gandalf finds himself in a similar situation, but unlike the Prince, is pulled down by the Balrog's flaming whip as the giant demon falls. It is highly likely that this scene in Warrior Within was inspired by the one from the Fellowship of the Ring, perhaps being a pun of sorts.
[edit] Meanings of Dahāka :
The meaning of Dahāka is uncertain. Among the meanings suggested are "stinging" (source uncertain), "burning" (cf. Sanskrit dahana), "man" or "manlike" (cf. Khotanese daha), "huge" (cf. Pashto lōy) or "foreign" (cf. the Scythian Dahae and the Vedic dasas). In Persian mythology, Dahāka is treated as a proper name, and is the source of the Zahhāk of the Shāhnāma. Zahhāk or Zohhāk (in Persian: ضحاک) is a figure of Persian mythology, evident in ancient Iranian folklore as Aži Dahāka, the name by which he also appears in the texts of the Avesta. In Middle Persian he is called Dahāg or Bēvar-Asp, the latter meaning "[he who has] 10,000 horses".
[edit] The Empress of Time
The Empress of Time, is a mortal, though immensely powerful creature created by the Gods to protect the Timeline. She first appears in Warrior Within, and again in The Two Thrones, where she is the narrator. She carries a part of the Timeline within herself, in fact, and can utilize its powers much like the Prince can, to rewind and slow time. When the Old Man speaks to the Prince about the Island of Time on which the Empress resides, he is most vocal about the cunning and merciless Empress.
The Empress ends up as first Warrior Within's mid-point boss, and then the final boss, although in the alternate ending, the final confrontation with her is replaced by a fight with the Dahaka. The Empress afterwards ends up going home to Babylon with the Prince. This ending is taken to be canonical by the sequel Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones.
When the Prince first meets her, she is fighting with her second-hand woman, Shahdee, who the Prince then kills. She introduces herself as a mere servant of the Empress. By cleverly referring to her Empress rank in the third person, The Prince never suspects that she is in fact the Empress, and that her help is meant to lead him to his death, not his salvation. She gives him newer, more powerful swords, and information on how to access the Castle's central chamber and prevent the Sands from being created in the first place.
However, when The Prince overcomes seemingly impossible odds, and opens the door to the throne room, she is forced to reveal herself and fight him, knowing that she is destined to die at the hands of this man. In fact, her very passion and will to live is inspired by the Prince's fight to save his own life - she decides to rebel against the Timeline, asking that if he can, why should she not change her own fate? In the end, however, the Prince kills her, and believes that her death in his past has undone the very creation of the Sands of Time. This turns out to be incorrect, and he finds out that it was her death at his hand that created the Sands.
He then travels back in time and forces her into the present to kill her there, so that the Sands might still be created but not found by the Maharaja and thus the events of the entire first game will not happen and the Prince will thus not be chased by the Dahaka. However, he ends up fighting along she and, together, they slay the Dahaka. But in the next game the vizier killed her.
The Empress was both voiced by and modeled after actress/model Monica Bellucci.
[edit] Shahdee
Shahdee is a subordinate of the Empress of Time, appearing scantily dressed with a black, short haircut. She is charged with the duty of ensuring that the Prince does not reach the Island of Time. Shahdee departs with the knowledge that the Empress will kill her if she fails in this duty, showing that she'll do everything in her power to ensure the Prince does not reach his destination.
Shahdee and her crew of sand demons attack the Prince's ship during a terrible storm at sea. With the visibility low, the massive attacking ship boards and sets fire to the Prince's sinking vessel. Mercilessly, the sand demons slaughtered the Prince's crew and Shahdee continued to beat the Prince in battle, launching him with a powerful kick into the ocean.
However, she fails in her mission to keep the Prince from the Island and falls into conflict with the Empress of Time. Cinematics reveal that Shahdee chafes under the Empress' rule, and finds her mistress' determination to defy the timeline to be illogical. However Shahdee meets her end at the hands of the Prince, angry for the needless slaughter of his crew. He stabs Shahdee through her torso and as she takes her final breaths Shahdee cites, "Fool, don't you know... you can not change your fate."
It is unclear to whom Shahdee's message is for at first, but it is later revealed that the message was intended for the Empress. Shahdee's death remains as a form of torment for the Empress, as all is coming as it is said to pass.
