Yuga (Zelda)

Yuga is the central antagonist in The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds. He is the equivalent to Ganondorf in Hyrule's sister world Lorule. He works for Princess Hilda until the end of the game, where he fuses with Ganon and betrays her, intending to take over the universe.

History
Yuga worked as a high-ranking advisor to Princess Hilda for many years, alongside Ravio, Link's counterpart in Lorule. As Hilda was struggling to prevent the destruction of her dying kingdom, she eventually discovered that Lorule needs a Triforce to sustain itself. Indeed, in the beginning of time, the Loruleans destroyed their own Triforce to stops the wars for its control that almost destroyed their world. Yuga eventually ventured into the Lorulean Sacred Realm and discovered the existence of Hyrule, the Hylian's Triforce pieces, and the exploits of Ganon. He and Hilda then decided to steal the Triforce of Hyrule in order to bring Lorule back to glory, but Ravio disapproved of their plan and left them. Yuga then heads to Hyrule and sets into motion the conflicts between both worlds.

A Link Between Worlds
Yuga is first seen in the Sanctuary, where he abducts the Priest's daughter Seres by turning her into a painting, after effortlessly defeating the Captain of the Guard. He is confronted by Link but avoid his strikes by turning into a wall mural and departs.

Link and Yuga meet again in the Eastern Palace, where he turns Sage Sahasrahla's disciple Osfala into a painting and abducts him. He reveals that he is after the descendants of the Seven Sages who sealed Ganon into the Dark World. (In this timeline, Ganon killed Link during the final battle of Ocarina of Time, forcing the Seven Sages to banish him themselves.) Yuga plans to use them in order to revive Ganon, who was sealed prior to the game. Link battles Yuga and emerges victorious, but the revengeful wizard turns him into a painting and leaves him here. However, Link gained a magic bracelet from Ravio that enables him to turn back to normal and to become a painting at will.

Yuga then casts a spell that makes impossible to enter or exit Hyrule Castle, keeping Princess Zelda at his mercy, and sets out to abduct all the descendants of the Seven Sages. With six of them in his power, he returns to the castle and turns Zelda into a painting, only to be confronted once again by Link, who gained the Master Sword and used it to enter the castle. Link defeats the soldier-monsters that Yuga called forth to stall him and defeats him once again.

Furious, Yuga retreats to Lorule and proceeds to resurrect Ganon through the Seven Sages' descendants' power and merges with him, becoming YuGanon. YuGanon scatters the paintings of the six first descendants all over Lorule, within dungeons guarded by powerful monsters, and attempts to destroy Link who followed him. Link is saved by Princess Hilda, who restrains Yuga and instructs Link to save the six descendants, in order to gain the Triforce of Courage and become powerful enough to defeat Yuga and save Zelda.

However, It is revealed when Link returns to Lorule Castle with the Triforce of Courage that Princess Hilda manipulated him to gain the Triforce for herself. She takes the Triforce of Wisdom from Zelda's painting and summons YuGanon to take the final Triforce from Link.

After Link defeats YuGanon, Hilda demands him to hand over the triforce of Power but the demon wizard reveals his plan to seize the Triforce for himself to remake all worlds in his image. he then proceeds to turn Hilda into a painting, which he absorbs to steal the Triforce of Wisdom. Now having two pieces of the Triforce (and a new look), he sets his sights on Link's last piece to claim his "place among the gods". Though YuGanon is finally destroyed by Link, sending Ganon's soul back to Hyrule.

Ravio then barges in and convinces Hilda that they cannot doom Hyrule even with Lorule at stake. Overcome by remorse and sadness, Hilda returns Link and Zelda to Hyrule, where they promptly wish to their Triforce to restore the Triforce of Lorule, saving both worlds.

Eastern Palace
The first battle against Yuga is pretty easy. The wizard is fought in a room with a large chasm in its center. He casts a lightning spell before him, summons two soldier-monsters, and turns into a painting as soon as Link gets too close. (Destroying the soldiers provides health.) Link must keep away from the chasm and fire at Yuga with his bow to stun him, so as to slash him with his sword or keep firing arrows until he awakes. The more Link wounds him, the faster Yuga becomes, and he will start to cast two lightning spells at once.

Hyrule Castle
Yuga can put up a considerable challenge here, so it is best to be prepared. Much Like Agahnim, he creates two doubles of himself to fight, and the three of them alternate between their normal aspect and their painting transformation to confuse him. Yuga attacks by making fiery blasts erupt from the wall, by summoning soldier-monsters, and by casting his lightning spell. (Link can exit the spell's area of effect before it is cast, or hide behind one of the pillars. Once again, destroying the soldiers provides health.)

Link must track down the real wizard (the one with the glowing staff) in and out the paintings. Striking Yuga stuns him and leaves him open to attacks. Striking a double turns it into a soldier-monster that must be dealt with and prompts Yuga to attack. The more Link wounds him, the faster Yuga becomes, and the bigger his spells' range gets, making them harder to dodge.)

Personality
Yuga is someone extremely conceited, self-absorbed, and scornful, who despises everything he deems ugly, that is to say almost everything and everyone beside himself. He considers himself perfect and never hesitates to trample everything he does not like, considering turning people into paintings an improvement. The only one he seems to respect is Princess Hilda and still, he regards her as a tool. He acts in a regal and dignified way, which is contrasted by the spiteful insults he directs towards everyone he talks to, including those who bested him in battle.

More than everything, Yuga is treacherous and power-hungry. He only obeys Hilda because it serves his own agenda and betrays her as soon as he no longer needs to pretend loyalty. His narcissism and disgust for the world are such that he wants to become a god and remake everything in his own image. He is also quite cowardly, as he always flees when defeated, while stating to be "bored" instead of admitting defeat.

Considering that Yuga betrays Hilda after merging with Ganon and that his ultimate goal is very similar to that of Ganon himself, it can be guessed that he was corrupted by Ganon's malice, as it was only after merging that he revealed his scorn of Lorule. However, given that the game keeps referring to him as Yuga, and that he keeps raving about beauty and ugliness, it is strongly implied that Yuga remains mostly in control and that Ganon's influence is minor, only showing aspects such as his liking for destruction.

Powers and Abilities
Yuga is a highly powerful wizard, whose power comes from a paintbrush-like staff that emits rainbow coloured paint-like energy. His signature ability is to to turn people, himself included, into two-dimensional paintings. However, anyone turned into a painting becomes unable to move, while this allows him to merge with the walls and "live" in there just like in the real world. He is also able to teleport, to raise impenetrable barriers, to travel between dimensions, to create replicas of himself, to call forth his servants and to cast a wide variety of attack spells.

After merging with Ganon, their power increases dramatically giving them both Ganon's incredible Dark Power and Yuga's signature abilities. Yuga's staff turns into Ganon's iconic trident and he gains even more dangerous attack spells. Their power increases even more after stealing the Triforce of Wisdom, but fortunatelly this is still not enough to defeat Link.