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This world can have but one emperor, and I am he!
~ Emperor Mateus to Leon after returning from Hell.
You have braved the bowels of Hell to reach me. But the hand of man, which deals in false justice and forsaken love, can never hope to defeat the lord master of Hell!
~ Emperor Mateus

Emperor Mateus Palamecia, also known as the Emperor of Palamecia (in Japanese: パラメキア皇帝, Paramekia Kōtei), is the main antagonist of Final Fantasy II. He is the oppressive ruler of the medieval-esque land of Palamecia and the fearsome figurehead of the Palamecian Empire who aims to conquer the world through demonic forces.

Though known simply as the Emperor in Final Fantasy II, he is named Mateus (マティウス, Matiusu) in the game's Japan-exclusive novelization: "Final Fantasy II Nightmare's Labyrinth" (in Japanese: ファイナルファンタジーII 夢魔の迷宮, Fainaru Fantajī Tsū Muma no Meikyū) by Kenji Terada.

He usually wields his signature weapon, a seemingly royal bladed sceptre-like weapon called the Malice Rod (better known as "Emperor Mateus' Malice") forged from strongest and even corruptive demonic magic.

He was voiced by Kenyuu Horiuchi in Japanese version, and by Christopher Corey Smith in English version.

Appearance[]

Emperor Mateus wears a light gold-colored armor with a purple robe underneath. His hair is blond and spiked, with an extra-long ponytail. Black and white stripes trace his ribs on his chestplate, and demonic-looking faces embellish his waist and back. His gauntlets sport extended claws. His armored gold boots has heels. Mateus wears purple makeup on his eyes and lips, and appears to wear a purple crown with a cobra-like ornament on it (in the opening FMV within the PlayStation 1 version of Final Fantasy II, and later as part of his alternate costume in both Dissidia: Final Fantasy and Dissidia NT: Final Fantasy, he had a gold circlet-like royal crown adorned with few jewels in front). He also wears a transparent quartz-colored cloth belt around his waist.

As the Dark Emperor, Mateus possesses a bestial Satanic visage with a skull-like face, razor-sharp teeth, and snakes on his head similar to a Medusa. He is covered with spines and wears a dark cape or cloak and has clawed hands. His battle sprite in the NES/DoS and mobile/Steam versions seems to lack a lower half, although in the Dissidia subseries, as well as the PlayStation/GBA versions, he is shown to have it. In the former, he overall has a similar build to his human self, with his lower half having the armor appear darker than in the original human form. At least in the case of violet robes, his own skin also darkens in this form. His field and battle sprites from the PlayStation version onward (and in the case of the latter, as early as the NES version) depict him with his Malice Rod scepter, although the PSP/iOS versions omit the staff in the battle sprite.

As the Light Emperor, Mateus holds an otherworldly and even Luciferian countenance (with his eyes seemingly closed as always), having 4 horns (two are black and two are purple) on his head and a golden gate-like ornament (which some perceived as some kind of halo of sorts) on his back. He appears to be made of clouds and wearing a flowing light-colored robe with jeweled red small ropes on it (almost based on his primary costume). The design may be based on Lucifer, since he was an angel before he fell. The Light Emperor's portrait is based on Mateus's appearance from a promotional poster by Yoshitaka Amano.

Personality[]

Being the ruler of Palamecia, the Emperor is arrogant and egotistical. However, he is also intelligent and manipulative. Despite his arrogance, the Emperor is often reverential and polite when referring to his enemies by name or calling them gentlemen, but at the same time he is quick to call them insects or worms.

He also seems to be an unfriendly and standoffish misanthrope, harboring a hatred of humanity. This is especially evident just before the final battle against the heroes in his Hell Emperor form, as well as being defeated as the Heaven Emperor, declaring humanity to have a flawed sense of justice and forsaken love, and being inherently deleterious and violent.

In addition, he views himself as the only one truly capable of ruling as Emperor, as evidenced by his first lines upon returning from Hell is telling Leon that the world can only have one Emperor, in reference to himself. The Emperor's dark half was also shown to be very inimical and destructive, to the extent that he explicitly stated that he no longer cared about ruling the Empire, and instead wants to destroy the world with his infernal powers.

In Dissidia: Final Fantasy, the Emperor's personality from Final Fantasy II is expanded on. The Emperor is always calm and never seems to lose control of his emotions, because he believes his plan will succeed without fail. His intelligence is again demonstrated, as it is he who formulates the plan to kill Cosmos for good and end the war in Chaos' favor using the Crystals. He is also somewhat exploitative and treacherous, as evidenced by his backstabbing Chaos nearing the end of Dissidia: Final Fantasy. Nonetheless, he is implied to have little tolerance for nihilists, and was depicted in a pre-battle conversation with Kefka Palazzo to threaten to give Kefka "a taste of Hell".

The Light Emperor is quite deceptive in nature; he is also monstrous. He initially comes off as courteous and polite, but is revealed to be a hypocrite and a liar, and just as evil as his former self. Knowing that as long as one half of the Emperor lived, the other could be revived, the Light Emperor pretended to have reformed to lull his victims in a false sense of security.

Even before the Light Emperor drops the charade, his insincerity is shown by him trying to avoid responsibility; constantly downplaying the heinous crimes he committed in life as mere "indiscretions", claiming the heroes were being selfish by not forgiving him immediately and claiming they were just as bad as him. He directly demanded they had to forgive him and attempted to bribe them with eternal life, when true remorse and forgiveness is based on accepting the responsibility for your sins and making penance.

All these factors revealed that the Light Emperor never held any remorse for his actions and his attempt to get the heroes to bow to him was simply an attempt to claim their immortal souls for his own. His hidden evil was further revealed when the Emperor revealed he planned to torture Minwu and his comrades for eternity.

History[]

Final Fantasy II[]

The Emperor was able to build up a gigantic army of demons by summoning up creatures from Hell. With this army, he started taking over the world. Several cities resisted, but they were no match for the Emperor's power. Kingdoms that did pose a threat were conquered by poisoning the drinking water.

After Firion and the rest of the party gather several supplies to help aid the rebels and sink the Dreadnought, the Emperor kidnaps Princess Hilda of Fynn and makes her the prize in a tournament at his Coliseum. Firion and his comrades attempted to rescue her, however it is revealed to be a trap, and the Emperor unleashes the Behemoth on them. Locking the party away, the Emperor continues his assault on the land above.

By the time the party escapes, the Emperor has summoned a giant Cyclone to destroy Fynn. The party makes their way inside, and makes another assassination attempt on the Emperor. He is killed , but it is not over, as the Dark Knight has now taken over the Palamecian army.

After getting into Palamecia's mountain-protected castle, the party confronts the Dark Knight. Before they can do anything, the ruinous the Dark Emperor, formed from the dark half of his soul, in a new demonic body, gained from conquering Hell, meanwhile the other half of his soul has become the deceptive and vile Light Emperor who has conquered Heaven.

Ricard summons the Wind Drake to get the party out of Palamecia while he confronts the revived Emperor. The Emperor kills the Dragoon easily.

Summoning the castle of Hell, Pandaemonium, where Palamecia once stood, the Emperor intended to reign over both earth and Hell. He was backed up by an army of demons and the revived Palamencian soldiers (who like the Emperor had gone to Hell upon their death).

However, the party traveled through the Jade Passage and confronted the Emperor head on. He is eventually defeated and destroyed forever, his death causing Pandaemonium to disappear from Earth.

Under the Light Emperor's tyranny, his former empire and monster forces were brought in from Hell, allowing them to run rampant and kill many innocents in Heaven.

With his new powers, he summoned the fallen souls of Minwu, Josef, Scott, and Ricard to him as representatives of those who fell in the wake of the Empire's conquests. However Josef had to be rescued from Borghen's spirit who was torturing him under the Emperor's approval.

After they traveled to his throne within the walls of Arubboth, the Light Emperor demanded the four have to forgive him and offered them eternal life to exchange. They are reluctant, and consider his offer. However, the souls of all the people they care about appear before them, and tell them to look past his charade.

With their help, they realize they are being tricked, that this Emperor is just evil as the Dark Half and his supposed redemption was a facade to trick the group into surrendering their souls. Enraged that they have seen past his charade, the Emperor's light side drops all pretenses and attacks Minwu while Firion's group battle his dark counterpart.

As he dies in conjunction with his other half at the hands of their respective parties, the Emperor's light half tells them it is futile that the bloody struggles of violence and war with continue as long as humans exist, he then explodes with his hellish counterpart, Emperor Mateus destroyed forever.

Minwu watching the living world in spirit form with his comrades, comments at the very end that if anyone can change man's violent legacy, it would be Firion and his friends, as they peacefully accept their deaths.

With both halves of his soul annihilated, Mateus was unable to ever come back to life again, the wretched Emperor of Palamecia was gone forever.

Dissidia: Final Fantasy[]

Chaos has summoned a combined force of the series's ultimate villains in an attempt to gain control on a number of Crystals, resulting in total control of the Final Fantasy worlds. The Emperor of Palamecia is one of these villains and he stands as the villain representing Final Fantasy II, opposing Firion.

As one of the higher-ranking villains, the Emperor is the mastermind of the game's overarching plot to destroy Cosmos and drown the world in darkness. He manipulates hero and villain alike towards this goal when needed. However, it is later revealed that the Emperor orchestrated this plan with the intent for both Cosmos and Chaos to die. The Emperor's ultimate goal is for both gods to perish and their warriors with them, leaving him to survive their destruction and rule over existence in their absence.

Muma no Meikyū[]

In the alternate continuity of the novel Muma no Meikyū, Emperor Mateus is a more sympathetic character.

Here is stated that Palamecia is cursed by Satan, corrupting its leaders and people. The Devil, desiring to rule the world by human proxy, turns Palamecian men into malicious and vindictive masterminds by using everything at its disposal to pollute their thoughts with its malice.

Rather then being Mateus, the Dark Emperor is instead depicted as Satan having regained his powers and returned to Hell.

Powers and Abilities[]

Even before he crowns himself the Emperor of Hell, Mateus is incredibly powerful, displaying many formidable hellish powers and considerable mastery of offensive and buffing magic. He is able to create cyclones destructive enough to devastate entire towns and lift one of his own castles to use as a mobile fortress. His Lightning-elemental spells are among the strongest, at level 10, and he also uses equally high level protection spells, such as Protect, Wall, Shell, Haste and Blink. The opening FMV included in the PlayStation version of Final Fantasy II implies the Emperor can manipulate the tide of battle via energy from his fingertips, even when he isn't directly at the battlefield. He can teleport, or at least leave behind an illusion of himself, as evidenced by how he traps Firion and his party at the Coliseum. His power is great enough to defeat Satan in battle and overthrow him as Ruler of Hell as well as presumably defeat the Ruler of Heaven as well, allowing both pieces of his soul to take over the afterlives.

The Dark Emperor is much more powerful than when he was just Emperor Mateus. The Emperor gains the ability to summon Pandaemonium to the surface world as well as a slew of new demonic powers. His physical attacks have a drain effect, allowing him to steal lifeforce from enemies to replenish himself and heal injuries.

His physical strikes sometimes poison or stun whom they strike. His Thunder spell has been enhanced and has gained a high level Flare attack and the original Meteor spell, Starfall as well as many status ailment spells. The Emperor is nigh invincible to most physical attacks unless it's against the Blood Sword or the attacker is augmented by Haste or Temper, and he is immune to all elemental magic and almost any attempt to inflict status ailments on him, with the only known method to do so being the Cursed Sword.

As the Emperor of Heaven, although not much is known about his true capabilities, it can be assumed he wields incredible holy powers, although most likely twisted. He is capable of resurrecting souls and giving them bodies in Aburoth and granting eternal life. His strength is shown to be even greater than his dark half, displaying greater attack power and stronger Flare and Starfall. He also has access to two equally dangerous attacks, Holy and Blaze. He only has access to high level Dispel and Slow, although he still has his dark half's draining effect on his physical attacks and immunity to any magic and status ailments except from the Ancient Sword.

It seems that only with the Heaven Emperor killed can the Hell Emperor too be desroyed.

In Dissidia, Mateus retains his Flare and Starfall but has new powers to create magical crests capable of homing and firing projectiles and generate explosive mines that home on his enemies and also homing trapping orbs that also explodes. He can access his draining ability, named "blood magic", by taking on either his Heaven or Hell Emperor form, allowing him to heal as much as he damages enemies. His EX Burst is called Absolute Dominion. The player must enter the commands that appear on the screen as the Emperor charges with energy. Successfully entering the commands will have the Emperor end the EX Burst with Entice, where he enters his human form and shocks the enemy repeatedly before light gathers from all around to consume the two in a blast. Failing to enter the commands will have The Emperor end the EX Burst with Cyclone. In NT, he can cast devastating cyclones, shoot blue flares that repels all other magic and red flares, summon lightning sigils and explosive thunder orbs as well as blast eldritch magic, shoot exploding orbs or gravitational ones and cast arcene circles that can pursue and trap his enemies.

Gallery[]

Trivia[]

  • Mateus is a Portuguese form of the name Matthew, which also means "gift of God".
  • In Dissidia 012 Prologus, Emperor Mateus's fighting partner is Garland, his superior. Coincidentally, their respective Japanese voice actors, Kenyu Horiuchi and Kenji Utsumi, voiced the Metal Gear Solid 3 characters Ivan Raidenovitch Raikov and Yevgeny Borisovitch Volgin, who possessed a similar role of second-in-command and commanding officer, respectively, although the main difference between them is that Mateus and Garland's relationship was strictly professional, while Volgin and Raikov were also lovers.
    • In addition, the shoe was also on the other foot regarding characterizations and voice actors: In Dissidia, Garland (voiced by Keiji Utsumi) is the comparatively more noble character, while the Emperor (voiced by Kenyu Horiuchi) was Pure Evil, whereas in Snake Eater, Volgin (voiced by Keiji Utsumi) was the Pure Evil villain while Raikov (voiced by Kenyu Horiuchi) was comparably more noble.
  • His appearance and, in the Dissdia subseries at least, his voice was similar to Jareth the Goblin King from the 1986 Jim Henson film Labyrinth, portrayed by singer David Bowie. His Dissidia art even bore some similarities to Jareth's design in the sequel manga.
    • Ironically, similar to Jareth and his interest of Sarah Williams, Mateus in the Dissidia series has some interest in Terra Branford, as he expressed disappointment in the first game that, although Terra's likely to be back under their control, Kefka Palazzo will have control over her; and in Dissidia 012, he offered to have Terra under his command in Kefka's stead after Terra had trouble obeying Kefka's demands due to Kuja's interference. In addition, his opening quote when fighting her in the first game in a standard match had him chuckling evilly and saying "Why don't you let me control you?".
  • He is also known as "Empire" in the Dark Shadow Over Palakia translation.
  • The alias used for the tyrant Mateus within the Japanese version of Final Fantasy called "Kōtei" is the Japanese archaic form of the title "Emperor", which itself was derived from the Chinese term for the commanding epithet, or more specifically, the figure Huangdi the Yellow Emperor, a culture hero in ancient Chinese mythology.
  • While it is not known if the Emperor intentionally allowed the heroes to kill him so he could gain the dark powers of Hell, given the fact he already had power over Hell-spawn, it is possible that it was his true intention all along.
  • In the original Famicom version, the Dark Emperor has a unique targeting byte for the final boss battle. This results in a bug when using the Wizard Staff as an item to cast Scourge XVI. The spell will target one random enemy or ally, but it does not exclude the Emperor's unique targeting byte, potentially causing the spell to target the Emperor despite him not being present (resulting in no effect).
  • In the Famicom version, this is the only final boss of the series where the characters do a victory pose after winning. This is changed in the remakes.
  • In the cutscene preceding the battle with the Light Emperor, where Minwu, Scott, Ricard, and Josef experience a vision of the battle, Firion used the Masamune on the Emperor, with Maria following up with Holy Lv. 16; the Emperor retaliating by casting Flare XVI on Maria; Guy using an Elixir on himself, Leon attempting to strike the Emperor down with Excalibur and the Sun Blade, but missed him, and Guy and Maria following up with the Rune Axe and Yoichi's Bow, respectively; Leon casting Cure Lv. 16 to the party; the Emperor casting Starfall X, and Firion casting Ultima Lv. 16 on the Emperor in return.
  • In the GBA and PS versions, the Dark Emperor's battle sprite possesses a lower half and torso, while in all other appearances he lacks those attributes.
  • In Duodecim Final Fantasy, the prequel to Dissidia Final Fantasy, Emperor Mateus can get a downloadable costume which turns him into the light emperor. As the costume's EX Mode is still called "Power of Hellfire", likely a reference to his connection to his Dark Half and his connection with the hellfish forces in Heaven.
  • When Minwu and company visit Heaven, the only people who aren't invaders from Hell, are people who have died to the Emperor and his Empire throughout the game, such as populations of towns destroyed by him. This was noted by Cid, who led Machanon, one of the last residents for the surviving residents of Heaven. The spirits of the Emperor's victims were tormented and killed by the damned souls of soldiers of the Empire.
  • It is unclear how the Emperor's "Light Half" was allowed into Arubboth, where good people go when they die, despite his being unrepentantly evil.
    • It is implied the Emperor invaded Heaven, as his old soldiers and Demons had invaded the afterlife, running rampant in his palace.
    • It is also possible the Emperor had created a fake Heaven as a trap for his victims.

External Links[]

Navigation[]

           Final Fantasy logo Villains

Final Fantasy
Garland | Fiends of Chaos | Chaos | Astos

Final Fantasy II
Palamecian Empire
Emperor Mateus | Leon | Borghen | Dark Emperor | Light Emperor

Final Fantasy III
Xande | Djinn | Gigameth | Goldor | Gutsco | Hein | Cloud of Darkness

Final Fantasy IV
Baron Empire
Golbez | Kain Highwind | Baigan | Dr. Lugae | Red Wings | Elemental Archfiends: Scarmiglione | Cagnazzo | Barbariccia | Rubicante

Others
Zemus | Maenad | The Creator

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Exdeath | Gilgamesh | Enkidu | Demons of the Rift | Void | Enuo | Shinryu

Final Fantasy VI
Gestahlian Empire
Emperor Gestahl | Kefka Palazzo | Typhon | Ultros

Cult of Kefka
Kefka Palazzo | Magic Master

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Siegfried | Vargas

Final Fantasy VII
Shinra Inc.
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Anabella Rosfield | Sylvestre Lesage | Olivier Lesage | Tiamat

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Barnabas Tharmr | Benedikta Harman | Sleipnir Harbard | Gerulf

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Hugo Kupka

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Imreann

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Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light
Chaos
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Dark Lord

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Cu Caspel | Galdes

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Elgo

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Dark King

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Khamja
Ewen | Illua

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World of Final Fantasy
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Final Fantasy VII Remake Trilogy
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