Raziel (Legacy of Kain)
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- See Raziel (disambiguation) for other meanings of Raziel.
Raziel is a main character in the Legacy of Kain series of video games, specifically Soul Reaver, Soul Reaver 2 and Defiance. Raziel, an anti-hero, is a wraith (though he is never called such). As the games progress, Raziel's history is revealed in reverse. Before becoming a wraith he was a vampire and before that, a holy priest of the Sarafan Order. Raziel is voiced by Michael Bell.
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[edit] History
[edit] Human Life
Raziel was born between 520-550 years before the first Legacy of Kain game. At some point, Raziel became one of the Sarafan Sorcerer Priests. He, along with five of the strongest Sarafan, Turel, Dumah, Rahab, Zephon and Melchiah, stormed the mountain retreat of Janos Audron and slew the ancient vampire. Before heading back to their stronghold, Raziel and his allies removed Janos' heart, known as the Heart of Darkness, and the Reaver, the Vampires' holy weapon. Once back at their stronghold, the six Sarafan were confronted and slain by a wraith who, unbeknownst to them, was Raziel's future self.
[edit] Vampire Unlife
Approximately 1,000 years later, Kain raised the corpses of Raziel, Turel, Dumah, Rahab, Zephon and Melchiah as his Vampire sons. Once risen as Vampires, the six had no memories of their lives as Sarafan. Over the next thousand years, Raziel and his brothers served under Kain as his lieutenants, each commanding their own clans and using their authority to conquer Nosgoth in Kain's name. After a millennium of service, Raziel grew a pair of wings after a period of accelerated metamorphosis, accomplishing this feat ahead of Kain, who had always evolved new vampiric features first. In an act that appeared at the time to be motivated by jealousy, Kain punished his eldest son by ripping the bones from his wings and casting Raziel into the Lake of the Dead.
[edit] Wraith Shadow-life
After plummeting into the Abyss, Raziel found himself in the lair of The Elder God, who convinced him to hunt Kain and his brothers down and seek revenge. Raziel systematically killed his brothers (excluding Turel) and, along the way, confronted Kain who resided inside the ruined Sanctuary of the Clans. After making his way inside the sanctuary, Raziel encountered Kain inside his throne room. Judging from him being seated at his throne and the calm voice when he greeted Raziel, Kain was apparently expecting his arrival. During their battle, Kain shattered his weapon, the Soul Reaver, against Raziel. The blade's spirit bonded itself to Raziel, becoming a symbiotic weapon: a wraith blade. After the battle, Raziel was confronted by the spirit of the dead Balance Guardian, Ariel, who had been observing the world from the shadows after Kain's fateful decision at the end of Blood Omen. Understanding that Ariel's hatred for Kain was as big as his, if not greater, Raziel formed an alliance with the former guardian in order to defeat a common foe. Afterwards, the throne room served as a sanctuary where Raziel could regain his health and receive advice from Ariel if he was uncertain of what to do next, much like the Elder God's chamber in the underworld.
During his journey, Raziel learned of his history as a Sarafan and became incensed in his hunt for Kain. Raziel tracked Kain to a cave which concealed the entrance to the lair of the long-dead Moebius the Timestreamer. Raziel's journeyed deeper inside the abandoned underground lair, eventually reaching a huge, ancient Timestreaming Chamber where Kain was waiting. During their battle, Kain managed to activate the old Timestreaming Device located inside the chamber and slipped into the past. Raziel followed him immediately.
Upon arriving in the past, he was greeted by Moebius who Raziel initially showed great hostility against, remembering Kain's tales of the treacherous and manipulative guardian. Raziel attempted to cut the timestreamer down with his Wraith Blade, only to have it disabled by Moebius' staff. Despite Raziel's threats and distrust, the Time Guardian appeared to have a sympathetic yet confident exterior, which caused Raziel to begin questioning the credibility of Kain's tale about the timestreamer. Moebius revealed that he knew Raziel during his time as a Sarafan and that they even were close friends, a though which Raziel dismissed and replied with a snide remark. It appeared that the ancient Timestreaming Device's destination was the Pillars of Nosgoth, but Moebius managed to pull Raziel out of the timestream and into one of his own Timestreaming Chambers inside the old Sarafan stronghold, which served as a base for Moebius and his mercenary army. The two formed a fragile alliance in order to hunt and kill Kain, who were still waiting for Raziel at the pillars. Raziel made his way out of the stronghold and to the pillars with haste and, upon arriving, is greeted by a rather calm Kain. Raziel prepared to strike down the ancient vampire, but stayed his hand when Kain asked him to listen to what he had to say. Raziel's resolve began to waver during Kain's explanation, after learning of the possibility that Kain's destiny was rigged to produce horrible outcomes regardless of the choice he was forced to make at the end of Blood Omen: If Kain sacrificed himself, the pillars would be restored, but its true guardians, the vampires, would be extinct. And if Kain refused the sacrifice, the pillars would be forever damned. Kain convinced Raziel that there was a third option, a way out the dilemma which was orchestrated for him, which he referred to as "the edge of the coin"(Kain viewed his choices as the two sides of a coin, while the third option would present itself it the coin landed on its edge). Raziel, with a diminished resolve and intrigued by Kain's explanation, allowed him to escape.
After his conversation with Kain, Raziel began to explore the land beyond the pillars in order to find clues about his and Nosgoth's past and, once again, encountered The Elder God residing in a partially flooded chamber directly beneath the pillars. Their reunion, however, showed that Raziel no longer held the same high regard for his old benefactor as he did in Soul Reaver, even as far as questioning the entity's reason for wanting Kain dead. The Elder God, not pleased with his "creation"'s change of plans, urged Raziel not to stray too far from the path he had taken until recently. Raziel ignored the entity's warnings and proceeded past the Elder God and through the underground ruins. He ascended upwards, eventually surfacing in Nosgoth's swampy regions.
As Raziel journeyed through the swamp, he encountered the Vampire Vorador, who stated that only Janos Audron could answer the riddle of Raziel's destiny. Raziel continued traveling back and forth through time and, at Kain's urging, started uncovering the secret past of Nosgoth, much to the dismay of the Elder God and Moebius.
Eventually, Raziel found his way back to a time when Janos Audron lived, but before the Vampire could give him the answers he needed, the Sarafan, led by Raziel's human self, stormed the stronghold, killed Janos, stole his heart and the Reaver. Raziel chased the Sarafan back to their headquarters. There, he found and took up the Reaver and used it to kill the Sarafan, including his human self. After the battle, having nothing else to feed upon, the Reaver turned on Raziel. Raziel discovered a terrible truth: his soul was the one that was the dark entity imprisoned in the Reaver. Before the Reaver could devour him, Kain stepped in and interrupted the fateful moment.
After the Reaver failed to devour him, Raziel spent 500 years in the lair of the Elder God, refusing to serve the dark deity out of fear that he would still end up imprisoned in the blade. As punishment, the Elder God removed the portals that had allowed Raziel to enter the material realm. Eventually, Raziel did leave to try and find a way to defeat his fate, soon discovering that he could return to the material realm by possessing a fresh corpse. Along his journey, Raziel discovered evidence that showed that he was not, as he thought, the Champion of the Vampires, but the Champion of the Hylden, the Vampires' enemy. It would later transpire that he was in fact both prophesied champions as he both freed the Hylden and would later equip the Scion of Balance (Kain) with the means to see the 'true enemy' (the Elder God). Upon seeking advice from Vorador, Raziel went to Avernus Cathedral to seek the Heart of Darkness in the hopes to revive Janos with it. Deep under the church, Raziel met the Necromancer Mortanius who told him the location of the heart. Mortanius had used the heart to grant Kain his vampiric unlife.
Finally, Raziel confronted Kain in the chapel of Avernus Cathedral. This seemed to be the prophesied battle between the Champion of the Vampires and the Champion of the Hylden, which would decide the fate of Nosgoth. At the end of the battle, just before he could be defeated, Raziel ripped the Heart of Darkness out of Kain’s chest and banished Kain to the demon realm. Raziel then returned to where Janos’ body lay preserved and restored the heart to him. Janos, shocked by the events of the 500 years he had missed, took Raziel with him to the Citadel of the Vampires. Soon after arriving, the Pillars of Nosgoth fell and the Hylden were able to take over Janos’ body. Raziel fought the Hylden-possessed Vampire, but lost and ended up a prisoner of the Elder God in the Spectral Realm.
A short time later, Kain (who was alive due to his nature as a Scion of Balance) made his way to the Citadel where he killed Moebius, who was reporting to the Elder God at the time. After Moebius died for the second time and crossed over into the spirit world, Raziel impaled his ghost with his wraith blade. The wraith blade cleared Moebius' vision and, for the first time, he saw the true face of the god he worshipped. It was then that Raziel realized what he had to do. Using Moebius' body, he shifted back to the Material Realm and tricked Kain into impaling him with the Reaver. Kain, shocked by what he had done, tried to free Raziel from the blade, but Raziel finally met his destiny and entered the sword willingly, preventing himself from becoming a deranged captive soul. The purified Spirit Reaver rejoined with Kain's soul, healing the gaping wound in his chest and purifying his sight. Kain then saw the Elder God for the first time and realized that it was his true enemy. He fought briefly with it and fled when the Spirit Forge began to collapse. It is not clear how the Soul Reaver would once again come into the younger Kain's possession, but it is presumed that this will be cleared up if and when another game is developed as a finale to the series (possibly Kain somehow went back in time after he did whatever he had to do and left the soul reaver for his past self to find).
[edit] Trivia
Interestingly enough, Raziel is one of the characters in the series who has the most changes regarding his views on things throughout the series, mostly due to multiple revelations during the course of the games:
-During his time as a vampire and sometime after his wraith-transformation, he cared much about his clan which is showed in Soul Reaver, where he clearly became upset and angry after hearing that Kain slaughtered the clan. After uncovering evidence of his Sarafan origin, Raziel becomes disgusted with the whole vampire race and longs back to being a noble, human Sarafan only to renounce it after witnessing his former, Sarafan self brutally kill Janos Audron and rip out his heart. When attacking the Sarafan stronghold and killing his former brothers and former self to retrieve Janos' heart, he revels in the irony that he was the one who made it possible for he and his brothers to be resurrected by Kain as vampires in the future.
-The same can be said about his attitude towards the Elder God, where he goes from being obedient and listening to the entity's advice to being downright hostile to him(thought that's understandable, considering the Elder God's purpose which is ultimately revealed at the end of Defiance).
| Preceded by Magnus |
Kain's Second-in-Command 500 ABO - 1500 ABO |
Succeeded by Turel |
| Legacy of Kain series |
|---|
| Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain | Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver | Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 2 | Blood Omen 2: Legacy of Kain | Legacy of Kain: Defiance |
| Major Characters |
| Kain | Raziel | Moebius | Elder God | Mortanius | Hash'ak'gik | Ariel | Vorador | Janos Audron |
| The Circle of Nine |
| Nupraptor the Mentalist | Malek the Sarafan | Bane the Druid | Azimuth the Planer | Dejoule the Energist | Anacrothe the Alchemist | Moebius the Timestreamer | Mortanius the Necromancer | Ariel of the Balance |
| Kain's Lieutenants |
| Raziel | Turel | Dumah | Rahab | Zephon | Melchiah |
| The World of Nosgoth |
| Pillars of Nosgoth | Lake of the Dead | Nosgoth timeline | Soul Reaver | Ancients | Hylden | Material Realm | Spectral Realm |
