Pagan Min

"You and I are gonna tear shit up!"

- Pagan Min to Ajay Ghale, after his own arrival.

"Our great and glorious leader who has risked his life and limb to bring Kyrat out of the past. He sacrifices everything for his adopted homeland and loves its people like his own children. May Pagan's light shine upon you all"

- Pagan Min

Pagan "Gang" Min is the main antagonist of the 2014 video game Far Cry 4.

Min is the self-appointed leader over a region named Kyrat, located in the Himalayan Mountains. He rules with an iron fist, terrorizing the people with his militia and trafficking drugs. Under his leadership, the resistance group The Golden Path formed to oppose his tyrannical leadership.

He is voiced by Troy Baker.

Background
Son of a mid-level drug boss in the Golden Triangle, Pagan Min was born in Hong Kong originally named Gang Min by his parents. His father was a small fish in a big pond and even as a young man, Pagan was as ambitious as he was flamboyant. This peacocking is what drove a wedge between father and son. Pagan worked for his father but hated him. He was frustrated as a lieutenant and saw his father as a dinosaur. After his father’s unfortunate passing winch Pagan played a role in, Pagan inherited his small piece of the pie. He then left his old identity behind and adopted the moniker “Pagan”, naming himself after an old Burmese king who had murdered his family to take control. Pagan quickly started carving himself more of the pie he believed he deserved: he built considerable assets, a small private army and started angering his allies in the heroin trade. He didn't fit in and It was only a matter of time before the old guard decided to have him killed.

This is when his eyes fell on Kyrat, a small failed state with multiple warring factions in the wake of the collapse of its monarchy. He managed to escape China and allied himself with the Royalists, propping up a distant heir to the throne. After a few bloody months, Pagan and the united Royalists took the palace by storm, but Pagan betrayed the Royalists by murdering the heir in the palace and seizing the throne for himself. He then started a purge off anyone who didn't fall in line, executing his opposition. This betrayal formed the Golden Path, a small resistance movement dedicated to overthrowing Pagan which was lead by Mohan Ghale.

The rebellion was met with little success against Pagan's well trained and well armed mercenaries. During the course of these events, Mohan Ghale developed an increasingly strained relationship with his wife, Ishwari. Ishwari wanted to fight alongside the Golden Path rebels, but Mohan did not feel this was appropriate for a woman. In response to her insisting, Mohan sent her to Pagan's palace as a spy, Hoping that the source being so close to the truth would sufficiently horrify Ishwari to make her withdraw any further attempts to help with the rebellion. However, Mohan's actions backfired when not only did Ishwari excel as a spy, but she simultaneously began an affair with Pagan Min. Attempts to reconcile Pagan and Mohan failed.

The affair culminated when Ishwari had her second child with Pagan, a daughter named Lakshmana. Mohan killed Lakshmana, for reasons unknown, and Ishwari soon after murdered him and fled with Ajay to the United States. This caused Pagan to isolate himself in the Royal Palace and is cited by many as the reason for his current behavior.

Far Cry 4
Pagan is introduced to the player when, Ajay Ghale, son of Mohan and Ishwari, returns to Kyrat to return his mother's ashes to Lakshmana. Pagan Min learned of Ajay's passage via the border with India, and gave orders for Ajay's bus to be intercepted. The operation is botched, as the soldiers tasked with stopping the bus open fire on the bus when the driver shoots the squad commander. Immediately subsequent to these events, Pagan arrives via helicopter. Pagan becomes angry with the apparent leader of the soldiers because his mission was to stop and capture Ajay, not shoot the bus. He stabs the soldier in the neck with his pen, killing him. After this, Pagan has a bag placed over Ajay's head and he, along with Darpan, is brought to Paul "De Pleur" Harmon's compound. Ajay, De Pleur, Darpan, and Pagan are sat down at a dinner table where Pagan explains himself to Ajay. However, Darpan is caught texting Sabal for help, which leads to De Pleur and Pagan leaving Ajay to himself. After these events, Ajay then has the choice to either escape the compound and meet up with the Golden Path rebels, or wait near the table for Pagan to return, triggering an alternate ending. Pagan frequently interacts with Ajay via radio during the events of the game. Throughout the game, Pagan's interactions with Ajay reveal an ambivalent attitude towards him, in spite of Ajay supporting the Golden Path. After storming the Royal Palace, Ajay is presented with the choice to either kill Pagan where he sits or spare his life and spread his mother's ashes in Lakshmana, as he originally intended. If the player spares Pagan and spreads Ishwari's ashes in the Lakshmana Memorial, Pagan will leave peacefully via his helicopter, leaving Kyrat in Ajay's hands. Or the player can kill Pagan as he attempts to leave Kyrat via shooting the helicopter where the game ends with credits. If this ending is chosen - after travelling through Pagan's Royal Fortress, there will be a crash site where the helicopter landed, (just beside the road leading up to Pagan's palace) with Pagan's body laying beside it. You have the option to loot his body and retrieve a pen, a pin, and 250,000 money.

Personality and Traits
Pagan Min is known for his flamboyant dress, eccentric violence, and generally unconcerned approach even to highly climactic events. His attitude towards Ajay Ghale, despite Ajay working with the Golden Path and making an attempt on his life, is strangely ambivalent. In fact, over the course of Far Cry 4, Pagan has several opportunities where he could easily have taken Ajay's life, but chose not to. Pagan himself claims that he wants to change Kyrat and bring the nation into a glorious future in the ashes of the old society. Whether or not there is a single slice of truth in that, as he seems to only take care of his own needs, is unknown, even though Ishwari Ghale may or may not have had a positive influence on him. Pagan's rule of Kyrat is very much characteristic of a ruthless dictator, reminiscent of the totalitarian personality cults surrounding historical communist dictators such as Mao Zedong, Kim Il-Sung, and Joseph Stalin. He controls all media in Kyrat, which he floods with propaganda for his rule and regime.

However, the events of Far Cry 4 reveals that Pagan Min has become a recluse in his royal palace, passing off the burden of leadership to his lieutenants Yuma Lau, Noore Najjar, and Paul "De Pleur" Harmon. Yuma in particular has become resentful of Pagan, lamenting that he has become weak compared to the ruthlessness of his younger self. Yuma blames Ishwari Ghale for this change in Pagan's disposition, suggesting that Pagan falling in love with Ishwari caused Pagan to temper the former strength and ruthlessness which Yuma was initially drawn to.

Trivia

 * He shares some slight similarities with the James Bond villain Raoul Silva from Skyfall, being blonde-haired, flamboyant, psychotic, manipulative and ruthless.
 * The original Pagan Min was the ninth king of the Konbaung dynasty of Burma and ruled in the 19th century, though he killed his brothers to gain the throne, not his father (as the developers mistakenly claim here. ). The name "Pagan" or "Bagan" also refers to a kingdom and the capital city of that kingdom that existed in modern-day Burma between the 9th and 13th centuries.
 * He is shown to have a liking towards fashion since he was angered when the blood had stained his shoes in the intro.
 * He follows Kanye West on Twitter.
 * A 9 inch figurine of Min will be made available through Uplay.[1]
 * According to the Kyrat Edition trailer, his palace is near to a place called the Royal Fortress and is named the Royal Palace. There is a family grave in the Palace Garden, which is revealed to be the Lakshmana Memorial.
 * He is the only antagonist in the series who is directly or indirectly related to the Protagonist.
 * According to the Official Far Cry 4 website issued by Ubisoft, his originally name was Gang Min before he changed it.
 * Pagan Min will periodically call Ajay to comment on his progress. Lampshades include criticizing the Crab Rangoon meal that Ajay ignored (and had the chef/chef's family executed), meat pockets for all the raw meat Ajay stores as bait (and foreshadows Pagan Min looking forward to Ajay usurping him), all the hundreds of candles scattered around Kyrat that stay lit during a civil war for some strange reason (Min has them all banned as opposed to hiring people to blow them out daily), his body double Eric (after Ajay murders him), and the destruction of a solid gold statue.
 * Pagan Min has a body double, Eric, who has been surgically altered to look like Pagan Min and show up for most of his public appointments, including the money portraits and a solid gold statue. Eric is from Melbourne, Australia, and according to Pagan, is not even Asian, but has the correct cheek bones to pose as his double.
 * Shooting Pagan Min at the dining table prevents the player from returning Ishwari's ashes to the Lakshmana Memorial, even if Ajay makes the trek back. However, he can loot Pagan Min's corpse, which is in a different position than how Ajay left it.
 * It is possible to shoot down Pagan's helicopter after refusing to shoot him at the dining table. If the helicopter is shot down after exiting Lakshmana's memorial, it will award the player with the same achievement as if he or she had initially killed him. The post-credits dialogue with either Amita or Sabal will reflect this choice, implying that this choice is a legitimate variation of the ending choices. If the player revisits the Royal Palace afterward, he or she will find the helicopter's wreckage, as well as Pagan's corpse which has several unique items to be looted.
 * Looting Pagan Min's corpse yields Lapel Pin #2 and Pagan's Pen. The Lapel Pin #2 is one of the only copies in existence, and it has Pagan Min's real face with Pagan dead, this pin becomes extremely valuable. Pagan's Pen is revealed to be the knife that he used to stab the guard at the beginning of the game, which was dedicated to Ishwari and doubles as a pen. For some reason, you never get his phone.
 * Pagan's voice actor, Troy Baker, is a prominent voice actor known for such roles as Joel in The Last of Us, Booker DeWitt in BioShock Infinite, The Joker in Batman: Arkham Origins, Talion in Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, Kanji Tatsumi in Persona 4, and Jack Mitchell in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare among many others.
 * Pagan Min wears his iconic sequin paisley pink suit in tribute of his mother (Mentioned by one of the developers) most likely because his mother wore something pink with the same similar design all the time and it reminds Pagan of her.