Raúl (Elite)

✓

This Article Contains Spoilers - WARNING: This article contains major spoilers. If you do not wish to know vital information on plot / character elements in a story, you may not wish to read beyond this warning: We hold no responsibility for any negative effects these facts may have on your enjoyment of said media should you continue. That is all.

This article's content is marked as Mature The page contains mature content that may include coarse language, sexual references, and/or graphic violent images which may be disturbing to some. Mature pages are recommended for those who are 18 years of age and older. If you are 18 years or older or are comfortable with graphic material, you are free to view this page. Otherwise, you should close this page and view another page.

Evil-doer
Full Name	Raúl Cárdenas
Alias	None
Origin	Elite
Occupation	Influencer
Powers / Skills	Manipulation Strength Wealth Intelligence
Goals	Get Sara to stay with him. Keep a secret her involvement in Iván's accident by pinning it on Mencía (both succeeded). Manipulate Chloe and kill her mother (both failed).
Crimes	Abuse (physical, verbal and psychological, of power, emotional) Attempted manslaughter cover-up Sabotage Drink spiking Attempted Murder
Type of Villain	Abusive Manipulator

Raúl Cárdenas is one of the two main antagonists (alongside Luis Marín) in the third story arc of the Netflix series Elite.

Raúl is the abusive and toxic ex-boyfriend of Sara, and he also briefly becomes Chloe's boyfriend. When her mother Carmen finds out, she kills Raúl to protect her.

He is portrayed by Alex Pastrana, who also played Ulises Gracia in Welcome To Eden.

Biography

Season 6

Raúl is a popular influencer in a relationship with Sara. They have an instagram account named SaRaul.Goals, which has a large amount of followers. Mencía meets him and Sara at Isadora's nightclub and they seem to get along. However, Raúl shows his true colors when he furiously calls Sara out for recanting her previous criticism aimed at Isadora over her supposedly made up experience of being raped just for attention, which costs them 1.5 million of their followers. Sara tries to calm him down, to no avail, as Raúl gets even more violent and hits her. Mencía starts suspecting when she notices bruises in Sara's body, who makes it clear that nothing is amiss and that Raúl does truly love her despite having to put up with his behaviour, but Mencía is determined to help free her from that endless cycle of abuse, recalling the traumatic experience she had with Armando when he employed her as a prostitute.

Eventually, Sara leaves Raúl and takes shelter at Mencía and her siblings' home. Unwilling to give up on her, Raúl shows up at the school and demands an explanation to Sara. Mencía comes to her defense, but Raúl insists that he hear it from Sara herself. Mencía hands Sara her phone to call the police, but can't bring herself to do so, causing Raúl to leave. Sara returns to Raúl after he emotionally blackmails her through a livestream in which he promises to be a better boyfriend for her. After noticing that Sara did not show up to the memorial of Iván's father, she comes to her house and tries to talk some sense into her, leading Sara to accuse Mencía of controlling her and slams the door on her face. Nevertheless, Sara realizes that she misses Mencía and comes over to Isadora's nightclub to apologize to her and proceed to have fun by driving a new car bought by her father. With this, she forgets a dinner she had with Raúl, who becomes infuriated to learn that Mencía was the reason why she suddenly changed her mind. Raúl once again becomes violent towards Sara, who tries to record him to get the evidence of his cruel behavior, prompting him to leave.

In a final attempt to get Sara back (not knowing that Mencía realized that Sara wasn't really attracted to girls after all), Raúl sneaks into Isadora's mask party and, after overhearing Hugo talking about Isadora's drugs, he steals some of them and spikes Mencía's drink, resulting in her starting to black out. Raúl catches up to Sara and tries to convince her to take him back, pleading her not to let Mencía's manipulations or anyone else's interfere in the way of their relationship, but Sara ignores him and leaves. As Mencía stumbles outside of the club trying to reach Patrick's car to look for Ari, Sara catches her outside and decides to take her to the hospital. However, since Sara doesn't know how to drive, she accidentally runs Iván over. Afraid of being caught and not knowing what to do, Sara drives away in panic. She stops by in a deserted spot and calls Raúl, who covers up Sara's crime by allowing Mencía to take the fall and put her into the driver's seat.

Season 7

“	AAAAAH!	„
	~ Raúl falling to his death

Raúl is still not remorseful of his doings and covering up for Sara. He meets her friend, Chloe and starts a relationship with her. Sara is concerned and tries to warn her. He's also abusive with her and slut shames Chloe. Sara later informs Chloe's mom and she is furious upon hearing this. This causes Carmen and Raul to have a heated argument on the rooftop. She eventually kills him by pushing him of and frames his death as a suicide with her daughter.

Season 8

Raúl is mentioned several times as Sara finds out about his death (which she blindly believes to be "tragic") and takes it upon herself to find the culprit, especially when she targets Chloe as the main suspect. Sara later starts a relationship with Nico, but she is initially hesitant to be with him, even accusing Nico of taking advantage of her while being drunk and comparing him to her ex when he tries to stand up for himself, but she later apologizes to him saying that she doesn't know how to handle her feelings for another person other than Raúl. Dalmar, the only person who witnessed the murder and has a video of it, unsuccessfully tries to blackmail Carmen into giving him money, as he is revealed to be an undocumented inmigrant, to not risk being deported to his country. Later on, he is exonerated of Joel's murder, for which he was framed, and gives Sara the video of Raúl being pushed off by Carmen, telling her to do whatever she wants with it. Because Sara now has the video and threatens to have them arrested, Chloe and Carmen decide to flee the country. This clearly shows that, even with Raú dead, he still manages to control Sara.

Personality

Manipulative and controlling, Raúl does whatever it takes to make sure that Sara remains his girlfriend stays with him. If she doesn't meet his rules, Raúl is prone to violent outbursts to the point of hitting her. Raúl is also shown to be vindictive and unsympathetic as he drugs Mencía to get her away from Sara once and for all, then has no problem framing her for Iván's accident to cover her tracks and protect her from legal trouble.

Relationships

Enemies

• Mencía Blanco
• Ari Blanco
• Dídac
• Sara - Ex-Girlfriend turned Archenemy; on-and-off relationship
• Bilal
• Carmen - Killer
• Chloe - Ex-Girlfriend and Attempted Victim

Trivia

• Raúl is the second main antagonist of Elite to protect a significant other (Sara/Polo) over a crime they committed and did not take accountability for them, preceded by Carla Rosón.
  • Polo bludgeons Marina in the head with a trophy after feeling provoked by her harsh words while demanding the red watch from her.
  • Sara accidentally runs Iván over because she doesn't know how to drive a car and left the wheel unattended.
  • While Iván survived, Marina did not, mainly because Polo left her to bleed out and did not call an ambulance.
• The scene in which Sara accidentally runs Iván over and Mencía gets framed for it is very reminiscent of that of The Great Gatsby when Daisy Buchanan did the same to Myrtle Wilson, the unfaithful wife of George Wilson and the mistress of Tom Buchanan (also Daisy's husband). However, the only differences are the following:
  • Myrtle died from the impact while Iván survived, albeit seriously injured and hospitalized.
  • Gatsby and Mencía were on the passenger seat with Daisy and Sara, each whom were taking over the driving wheel, respectively. But while Gatsby himself chooses to take the fall to protect Daisy, Sara, on the other hand, out of fear of being caught, called her boyfriend Raúl, who coerced her into making Mencía the scapegoat without a shred of remorse, and she is even let to think that she was the one who caused it to due to being drugged by Raúl earlier in a final attempt to drive her away from Sara.
  • Even though Tom and Raúl are the respective main antagonists in the sixth season of Elite and The Great Gatsby, only Raúl knows that Sara caused Iván's accident and willingly covers it up to protect his girlfriend (ironically in a same manner as Gatsby for Daisy) while Tom is unaware of the truth and the first person he suspects is Gatsby since the car that killed Myrtle belongs to him.
  • Sara and Daisy drove cars that weren't theirs (Patrick's and Gatsby's). However, unlike Daisy, Mencía did not have a driving license.
  • Despite Mencía getting framed for Iván's accident, she was spared from legal trouble thanks to Ari and their wealthy father Benjamín, who used his influences to get her off the hook. However, Gatsby is not that lucky since he was born in poverty and used a fake name. In addition, Gatsby is killed by George for Myrtle's death, which he falsely took the blame for, while Mencía survived, with her and her family moving out of the country to start over.
• He is the fifth male main character in this show to die and so far the third male antagonist after the first one being Polo and the second Armando.
• Like Armando, Raúl's death was an intentional murder.