User blog:Red Chevalier/PE Proposal: Barlckxs

Time for another PE Proposal. This time we'll be taking a look at Kamen Rider Barlckxs from the Kamen Rider movie, Kamen Rider Zi-O: Over Quartzer.

Massive spoilers for Kamen Rider Zi-O ahead.

What is the work?
Kamen Rider Zi-O: Over Quartzer, the summer movie of Kamen Rider Zi-O, made to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Heisei Era of the Kamen Rider franchise, as well as serve as a finale for the Heisei Era and an introduction to the Reiwa Era.

The movie sees Kamen Rider Zi-O, Sougo Tokiwa, and his friends facing off against the Quartzer, a mysterious band of time travelers seeking to erase the entire Heisei Era.

Who is the villain?
The leader of the Quartzer, an alternate version of Sougo, known as "SOUGO Tokiwa", aka Kamen Rider Barlckxs, who is the true manipulator behind Sougo's rise as the Demon King Oma Zi-O and the mastermind behind the Quartzer's plan to erase the entire Heisei Era.

SOUGO and the other Quartzers, calling themselves the "Wardens of Time" seek to remake the Heisei Era of Kamen Rider, deeming it "messy" and "rotten" due to the numerous conflicting story elements between shows. Their plan to do so involves using a massive portal created by the Dai Mazines to suck up the 2019 World of Heisei Kamen Rider and collide it with the World of Heisei Kamen Rider in the year 2000, creating a new Heisei Era from the destruction of both worlds with a more coherent setting and with themselves as the Kamen Riders.

What does he do?
In order to unite the various worlds of the Heisei Kamen Riders, as some of them take place in alternate realities, SOUGO manipulated his alternate self from childhood to become Oma Zi-O. When Swartz abducted Sougo and several other children to select a candidate for King from them, SOUGO awakened time powers in Sougo so that he would be chosen by Swartz, and so Swartz would manipulate Sougo into gathering the Ridewatches of each of the Heisei Kamen Riders, unifying their timelines into a singular reality for the Quartzer to rewrite.

Because Oma Zi-O's brutal and tyrannical reign in the future was necessary to keep the timelines unified as one, SOUGO sent his henchman Woz to ensure Oma Zi-O's rise would happen as planned by following the events detailed in the Oma Advent Calendar. In order to ensure Oma Zi-O would stay in power, Woz infiltrated the Resistance against Oma Zi-O and fed them false information to get them all killed in an ambush. When Geiz and Tsukuyomi of the Resistance traveled back to the year 2018 to stop Sougo before he could become Oma Zi-O, Woz, declaring himself a prophet of Oma Zi-O, traveled there as well and to give Sougo the Ziku Driver to become Kamen Rider Zi-O to begin his rise into Oma Zi-O.

After Sougo collects all but one of the Ridewatches, the Drive Ridewatch, SOUGO sends his top two henchmen, Kagen and Jogen, back in time to the Sengoku Era to target an ancestor of Krim Steinbelt in order to facilitate a meeting between Sougo and Krim where Krim would give Sougo the Drive Ridewatch.

After Sougo gathers all of the Ridewatches however, Woz steals them and delivers them to SOUGO Tokiwa, his true king. SOUGO then reveals to Sougo and his friends how he was the mastermind behind Sougo's rise and how he used Sougo as a "body double" before having Sougo beaten up and imprisoned.

SOUGO and the Quartzer then begin their plans to destroy and remake the Heisei Era. SOUGO summons the Dai Mazines to form a massive portal over a city block and begins sucking up countless innocent civilians, along with chunks of the city, into the portal, planning to erase destroy the entire World of Heisei along with all of its civilians.

However, Sougo manages to escape the Quartzer prison with help from Tsukuyomi and Gou Shijima and faces off against SOUGO, who transforms into Kamen Rider Barlckxs to fight his alternate self. Barlckxs manages to beat down Zi-O initially but Zi-O, after achieving Zi-O Oma Form with help from his future self, summons the other 19 Heisei Kamen Rider and performs a combined Rider Kick with them on Barlckxs, destroying the Quartzer leader.

Heinous Standard
Barlckxs stands out as one of the biggest villains in Zi-O and probably the entire Kamen Rider franchise. His plan didn't just target the Kamen Rider A.R. Worlds, but essentially the Kamen Rider franchise on a meta-level Had his plan succeeded, it would have seen the deaths of everyone on Earth and across the Kamen Rider multiverse in being sucked up into his portal, all so SOUGO could create a new one more to his liking where he reigned as King of Time. SOUGO was also responsible for Oma Zi-O's reign of terror in the future, which devastated the world and saw the deaths of half of humanity. While SOUGO didn't directly cause those deaths, he knew what would happen if Oma Zi-O took power and ensured it would happen anyway because it allowed his plans to come to fruition.

Mitigating Factors
Barlckxs has no problem with killing millions of innocent civilians with his portal. Before he commences his plan, he even mocks the people by telling them to "relinquish [their] lives for the king." While he does have a point about the Kamen Rider Heisei Era having continuity errors between shows, to say his response (destroying the entire world and remaking it with him ruling as King of Time) is disproportionate is an understatement, and it's clear that Barlckxs only cares about ruling and having his fellow Quartzers take the places of the Kamen Riders.

The only thing really mitigating is that his plan is a bit over the top, he's basically targeting the Kamen Rider franchise itself and trying to patch all of the plot holes in it, but it's played seriously and there are plenty of scenes showing the horrific destruction caused by his plan (including scenes of him sucking up schoolchildren into his portal, because harming children is always a sign you know a Kamen Rider villain is really bad).

Final Verdict
A pretty big YES from me. Oma Zi-O is too vague and underdeveloped to qualify but SOUGO has plenty of context to his plans.