User blog:Red Chevalier/Pure Evil Proposal: Bishop and Rook

Time for another Kiva proposal. Now that King has been approved, we can move onto his two subordinates.

What is the work?
Kamen Rider Kiva, the 9th installment in the Heisei era of the Kamen Rider series and the 18th show in it overall.

Kiva's narrative is split in two between two time periods, telling the story of the battle against the Fangires, a race of vampiric monsters who survive by draining the life of humans. The first takes place in 2008 and follows Wataru Kurenai, the titular Kamen Rider Kiva, as he fights the Fangires, while the other takes place in 1986 and follows the ancestors of the main cast as they do battle against the Fangires as well and lay the groundwork for their successors.

Who is the villain?
The Swallowtail Fangire aka Bishop, one of the four (later three) members of the Checkmate Four, a quartet of elite chess-themed Fangires who lead the Fangire Race.

Bishop himself acts as the right-hand to the King of the Checkmate Four, the Bat Fangire, and appears in both the 1986 and 2008 storylines. While he doesn't really do much particularly heinous in the 1986 story beyond enabling King's domestic abuse, in the 2008 story he's effectively the true main antagonist and gets to show off how vile he really is.

What does he do?
Following the 1986 King's demise, Bishop took the role of raising his heir, Taiga Nobori.

When Taiga discovers that Wataru is actually his half-brother from the 1986 Queen, he orders Bishop to awaken Wataru's Fangire blood so he can make him his right-hand man. Bishop does so and causes Wataru to be overcome by his Fangire impulses, almost leading him to assault his human friends.

In addition to serving the new King, Bishop also watches over the new Queen Fangire, Mio Suzuki aka the Blue Pearlshell Fangire, to make sure she fulfills her duties as Queen. Mio soon finds herself reluctant to carry out her duties as the Queen Fangire, which involve punishing Fangires who break the rules or defy the Checkmate Four. When Mio refuses to kill a Fangire whose only crime was that he fell in love with a human, Bishop burns the Fangire alive in front of her.

Due to Mio's continued reluctance, Bishop deems her a failure and begins conspiring behind Taiga's back to murder her. After Mio intervenes in a fight between Wataru and Taiga to block a Rider Kick from Wataru, Bishop kills her and makes it seem as though Wataru was the one who killed her, further driving a wedge between them and causing Wataru to fall into suicidal depression over the belief he killed her. Bishop however is very gleeful over this, so much so that he ends up (stupidly) confessing all of this to Taiga, who promptly kicks him out and banishes him from the Checkmate Four.

Desiring revenge against Taiga for kicking him out, Bishop begins uses a crystal ball to drain humans of their life so he can use their souls to summon an army of revived Fangires to overthrow Taiga. Bishop has his revived Fangire army rampage through town and kill dozens of humans so he can use their souls to revive the original 1986 King and destroy the entire human race. Eventually, though Bishop and his army are put down by Wataru and Taiga, but not before Bishop uses his own soul to revive the Bat Fangire as a mindless berserker to "destroy everything".

Heinous Standard
Bishop doesn't really do much in the 1986 storyline, but in the 2008 storyline he's the driving force and the cruelest member of the Fangires. He not only emotionally manipulated Wataru and Taiga, even driving Wataru to the point of suicide, but also killed many humans in order to complete his revival ritual.

Mitigating Factors
Despite his belief in the supremacy of Fangires, Bishop is happy to kill any Fangires that break the rules, even for trivial and harmless offenses. The only thing even close to a redeeming factor he has is his loyalty to the Fangire King, thought even that's mitigating when he conspires against the 2008 King behind his back. Bishop is really just loyal to whichever monarch fulfills his interests of total Fangire domination.

Alright, onto the next villain.

Who is he?
The Lion Fangire aka Rook of the Checkmate Four. Rook acts as "muscle" for the King.

What does he do?
Under King's orders, Rook single-handedly slaughtered almost the entire Wolfen race, leaving only one member alive. Though Rook did this under the commands of another, he clearly enjoyed it, seeing killing as only a game. Rook later takes to murdering massive amounts of humans within a specific amount of time in games he plays called "Time Plays". If he succeeds in killing the number of people he set out to, he rewards himself by eating ice cream, while if he fails he punishes himself with electric shocks. While most Fangires kill humans to drain the life energy out of them to sustain themselves, Rook kills humans purely for fun.

However, Rook winds up getting defeated and critically injured by Yuri Aso, whose mother Rook murdered in the past. Rook survives his injuries, but is forced to entire sleep in order to recuperate.

Eventually, Rook wakes up in 2008, but with amnesia, and is found by Wataru Kurenai and his caretaker Shizuka Nomura. Lacking any of his memories from his time as Rook, he goes by the nickname "Dai-Chan" and develops a friendly, child-like mentality (in a striking contrast to who he was before). Rook later regains his memories after seeing one of his old battlegrounds, but, rather than continue with his Time Plays, Rook decides he's become bored with mass murdering people and decides to engage in a different kind of game, doing good deeds. Of course, Rook doesn't desire to do good out of a genuine desire to help others but simply because he's bored (and to get a ticket into heaven). However, he is eventually killed, fittingly enough, by Megumi Aso, the daughter of Yuri Aso, with the Ixa System.

Heinous Standard
Rook single-handedly committed genocide against an entire race and murdered countless others just for fun. He's a different class of Pure Evil from King and Bishop but is Pure Evil nonetheless.

Mitigating Factors
Again, the good deeds Rook does in 2008 aren't for genuinely benevolent reasons but simply because he was bored and wanted a ticket into Heaven. Think about that. Rook killed so many people that he, an unapologetic violent sadist, got bored of it.

Final Verdict
Easy yes. He's basically the Asakura or Kitazaki of the show.