| “ | Accept it. Accept your weakness. | „ |
| ~ Helis taunting Aloy in the final battle. |
Helis is the secondary antagonist of the 2017 action-adventure video game Horizon Zero Dawn.
The Champion of Sun King Jiran, former military leader of the Carja, and former commander of the royal guard, Helis is the leader of a rogue Carja tribe, known as the Shadow Carja, who awaken the ancient machine of destruction, the rogue artificial intelligence HADES, and found the Eclipse cult under Sylens' guidance to take over Meridian.
Not knowing of HADES's true intentions, Helis and his followers would later piously and blindly treat HADES as the "Buried Shadow" as their own God, where in reality HADES seeks to target the ancient MINERVA broadcast tower to start the Faro Plague and exterminate all life on Earth. He is Aloy's archenemy, with him being responsible for her father figure Rost's death during the Proving Massacre.
He is voiced by Crispin Freeman, who has also voiced Firefly in the Batman: Arkham series, Kirei Kotomine in the Fate franchise, Itachi Uchiha in Naruto, Alucard in Hellsing and Sundowner in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance.
Appearance[]
Helis is a tall and intimidating Carja warrior, with pale skin, dark hair, and cold, dead eyes, with two deep cuts on his cheek. He typically is seen wearing normal brown pants, and a shirt and cape made of red cloth and black machine plates, with a collar made from ancient bullets. His armor is also made from black interlocking machine plates with red plumage, giving it a avian vibe to it.
History[]
Not much is know of Helis' past, other than that he was the champion warrior under the 13th Sun King Jiran of the Carja Empire. Helis also took part in the brutal raids committed against neighboring tribes for sacrifices to the sun after Jiran descended into madness and tyranny.
During the uprising carried out by Jiran's son Avad, it was Helis who took Avad's brother Itamen and many loyalists to Jiran out of the city and to the western settlement of Sunfall, where they established the Shadow Carja, with Itamen as a puppet, with Helis and former high priest Bahavas as the true rulers.
At some point, he was approached by the wanderer Sylens, who introduced him to the "Buried Shadow", HADES, which offered to make a deal with him in order to get their holy city of Meridian back. Although wary at first, Helis accepted Hades' offer, and became the leader of the Eclipse cult, gaining control over the resurrected war machines and corrupted machines that they dug up. In truth, Helis and the eclipse were just pawns for Hades in order to achieve his true goal of wiping out all life, but the only one even mildly suspicious of this motive was Sylens much later on when he defected.
"Turn and face the Sun!"[]
Several years later, Helis would be tasked by Hades to eliminate a strange girl from the Nora tribe. While Helis failed to see what was so special about her, he moved swiftly, and nearly killed Aloy by cutting her throat. However, Aloy's former guardian, Rost intervened and fought Helis. Though he managed to inflict a deep cut on Helis' face, Rost was beaten and stabbed in the gut. Helis left them both to die by setting up explosives. Aloy would survive however.
Captured[]
Although Helis' armor was seen in the Eclipse camp, Helis himself would not be seen again until Aloy began searching the ruins of Project: Zero Dawn underneath Sunfall. Checking for intruders, Helis knocked out Aloy with a bomb and captured her. When she awoke, Helis and Aloy argued over the validity of his actions and his following of Hades, with Helis also explaining how he was left perplexed as to why he failed to kill her, before realizing it was destiny for her to die in the sacrificial sun-ring, while the rest of her tribe perishes to the detachment that he sent to wipe them out. Helis then drops Aloy into the ring, proclaiming to the crowd that a new era for the Carja will begin soon, starting with the death of Aloy by the hooves of a corrupted behemoth. However, Aloy defeats the machine, and is rescued by Sylens.
The Battle for Meridian[]
After learning of Hades' true motives, Aloy gathers her allies and prepares' the defences of Meridian, while Helis readies the Eclipse and their machines, dragging Hades with. Early on, Helis manages to infiltrate the walls of the city, forcing Aloy to confront him directly. Aloy eventually defeats and disarms Helis, before stabbing him with her spear, executing him.
Personality[]
Helis is cold, cruel, bloodthirsty, and a religious fanatic who blindly follows both his king and his "deities" without question or doubt. He only values strength as a judge of character, and firmly believes in destiny. However, his arrogance and belief in his might has typically resulted in his most crucial failures, and ultimately his death.
Helis's unrelenting devotion and religious fanaticism also makes him an easy prey for HADES, the rogue artificial intelligence, who only treats the Eclipse as its pawns for its greater goal: destroying all life on Earth.
Abilities[]
- Peak Human Intelligence: Despite his brutish status, Helis is shown to be extremely intelligent, as he was able to outsmart Aloy on two seperate occasions. He also is shown to have a vast array of knowledge and very well educated, given his noble birth. Helis also is said to have been one of the 50 best stratigests and tacticians of the Carja Empire.
- Extreme Peak Human Combat Prowess: Helis is shown to be an extremely, insanely skilled fighter, being an expert combatent of melee combat. As a kestrel-an elite guard of high-ranking warriors- Helis would also be incredibly gifted in all forms of combat. As a Carja he would also be given a great deal of training. Helis was also able to beat Rost- one of -if not the most- powerful Nora excluding Aloy (who he trained)- with no armor and only a sacrificial knife. During his final fight with Aloy he was also ruthless, nearly killing Aloy with the Shield Weaver armor on multiple occasions during their duel, in this fight, Aloy herself stated that shouldn't let him get to close, as he was a beast in melee combat.
- Leadership: Helis is shown to be a great leader, as during the Red Raids he led a vast army within the Carja Empire, and-despite his ruthlessness- seems to value the lives of the Shadow Carja and Eclispe warriors, a long with him being implied to want the minamal amount of casualties amongst his troops during the Red Raids. Aside from caring about the lives of his men, Helis is shown to be a very skilled leader, as it was said he led many armies to battle during the war.
- Super Human Strength: On top of being extremely skilled as a melee fighter and having Combat Prowess far beyond the Peak Human warrior, Helis is also shown to exhibit Super Human Strength. Helis is easily able to pick up things far heavier than him. Helis is also easily able to knock out a dozen Carja Royal Guards during the Siege of Meridian with his bare fists; even though he punched solid, thick, heavy metal with his bare hands-and somehow knocked the soldiers who wore them out as well, which is an even more impressive feat-his hands weren't affected at all. The highest example of Nigh Super Human Strength is far below what Helis's capabilities are.
- Super Human Reflexes: Helis's Reflexes seem to be beyond what normal human capabilities are; when Aloy first meets Helis, he seems to easily catch all of Rosts arrows after the first shot. Helis later shows this when he blocks all of the arrows that follow after the first in their boss fight.
- Super Human Durabilty: Helis is easily able to tank a heavy precision arrow to the heart (with little more armor than a leather strap) fired by Rost and shows no signs of even being remotely damaged by it, with little more than a scar coming from his encounter with the warrior (A single light hunter arrow is strong enough to pierce strait through bare flesh and able to pierce lower tier machine metal). Additionally, during his bossfight he cannonicly took lots of damage from Aloy, though was barely affected, even when he was blown up by the blaze cannisters.
- Super Human Endurance: Helis is easily able to endure various flaming explosians a long with him.
Audio Datapoints[]
| “ | When sleep refuses to come, I think of our wedding night. How you welcomed me to the marital bed. How, after, when you fell to sleep, I lay there watching your delicate face. For all its beauty, I detested its... fragility. A rage swelled up inside me. I abhorred that bed, how its softness threatened to swallow us up. And that room; the stench of incense, the fine embroidery of the drapes. All of it - weak. I slipped from the bed, threw open the casement, and lay naked on the stone floor, determined to spurn all seductions of comfort. But when I woke the next morning, you lay beside me, naked as I in the cold. Your body, stretched beside mine, seemed chiseled from stone. I saw you wake. Instantly alert, like an animal ready to strike. You said nothing. You did not have to. Already you had shown me, beyond doubt, that we were meant to be. | „ |
| ~ Helis reminiscing about his late wife. |
| “ | Never does the Sun show pity. And yet... when my wife died in birthing, and in dying ended the life of my child unborn... I pitied myself. My Lord sensed this. But instead of casting me down for weakness, he cast upon me a radiant beam on honor. He ordered my kin buried in the sacred caves reserved for royals and heroes. Unimaginable. Never again would I doubt that I am the Chosen of the Sun. Never again would pity find a place in me. Not for myself, or another. | „ |
| ~ Helis describing the events that transpired following the death of his family. |
| “ | My lord, the thirteenth King of the Carja Sundom, was murdered: cut down by cowards who mistook firm rule for madness. "Ever the strong are beset upon by the weak." So he said as the traitors launched their assault, as their cannons, forged by Oseram filth, toppled the battlements and burst the gates. I would've fought to the end, but it was his will - the will of the Sun - that I lead the prince and queen into the west; to safety. My lord did not hesitate. He saw his fate. He looked into the Sun, and he did not blink. With me he sent kestrels, nobles, Sun-Priests and slaves. Killing all that stood in the way, I carved a path to Sunfall. There, to join others and gather the strength to take back our home. But our strength only faded... until the Buried Shadow was brought to light. | „ |
| ~ Helis describing his escape of Meridian. |
| “ | Every morning I wake up to the same nightmare. The same... reality. Holy Meridian in the hands of profligates, debased. The Spire, towering above the horizon in a glittering spike though the center of my mind. Every daybreak in exile is a mark of failure. But the count of days runs thin. I will see Meridian re-taken, the profligates slaughtered, a True King restored to the mesa throne. In this, I have become an instrument of prophecy. | „ |
| ~ Helis describing his goals. |
| “ | So long as King Itamen languishes at Sunfall, coddled by his mother, he will never learn the true lessons of the Sun. I have tried to instruct him, but the shadow of his mother's influence is upon him. One day, I took him to the palace balcony to behold an offering of sacrifice in the Ring. But he showed no thirst for it. He averted his gaze. Look to the Sun, I told him. Do not shield your eyes. In all things, it is absolute. One day it nurtures life, and the next, scorches life away. It burns the skin of champions and wretches alike. Never does the Sun show pity. That is the example a Sun-King must follow. The example of your father. But before my instruction could take hold, she was there, clutching him to her robes, burying his face against her breast. How is a King to rule when he cannot even see? | „ |
| ~ Helis shares his doubts about the young King. |
| “ | When I first set eyes on the Buried Shadow... I trembled. Was I not the Chosen of the Sun? A blazing light of faith to shred and scatter darkness? Was it not my place to destroy this Devil? But High Priest Bahavas instructed me in the prophecy, and set right my frame of mind. The murder of the true Sun-King broke the cosmic circle short of completion. The whole world, cast into darkness. Doomed. To resume and turn the wheel of time, would require more than Sun and faith. All forces must combine, all halves of nature joined to one cause: Shadow to Sun, Night to Day. Even a Buried Shadow wants the wheel to turn. For without a Sun in the sky, there can be no shadow. | „ |
| ~ Helis describing his first meeting with HADES. |
Trivia[]
- The name "Helis" is very similar to the name "Helios", the Greek titan of the sun, which fits the Carja's sun-themed religion.
- Ironically, Helios from God of War III is also voiced by Crispin Freeman.
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 Villains
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Artificial Intelligences Organisations Carja Shadow Carja Banuk Oseram Tenakth Londra's Devotees Far Zenith | ||