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| “ | I shall make an example of one. These mewling worms will never know peace. | „ |
| ~ The Knight |
| “ | You have made a grave mistake, standing in opposition to me this day. | „ |
| ~ The Knight |
Tarhos Kovács, better known as The Knight, is one of the playable killers in Dead by Daylight. A Hungarian child slave from medieval times whose village was destroyed, he eventually became a ruthless knight and a member of the Guardia Compagnia. He is the archenemy of Vittorio Toscano.
He is voiced by Misha Standjofski.
Biography[]
Much of Tarhos' backstory is unknown, as he himself doesn't remember it much. What is known is that, while he was a child, the village he lived in was raided. Upon being knocked out, he woke up he found himself in a mass grave with the village on fire. After climbing out of the grave and seeing all the carnage, death, and destruction that was happening, he felt nothing but awe. Shortly afterwards, he was taken into Italy as a slave, but all he could think about is trying to understand what he just saw.
He then was forced to join the Guardia Compagnia, where he became a mercenary that served whoever employed him. Due to his skill and strength, he gained the loyalty of three other mercenaries, which became his Faithful Three: Alejandro Santiago, Durkos Malecek, and Sander Rault. As the years passed and he claimed more victims, Tarhos still didn't reach the level of brutality he saw in his village, but was eventually granted knighthood and freedom as a warrior. He left the Guardia Compagnia, and after being informed his Faithful Three won't follow him, he decided to gain enough money to do it.
He was employed by one Vittorio Toscano, the Duke of Portoscuro who liked travelling the world and collecting knowledge. Tarhos joined Vittorio's expedition to find a pillar of an ancient school and the Lapis Parasidus, a stone named by Vittorio that, according to him, held the secrets needed to reach a perfect world that didn't have either good or evil in it. After a long adventure, they reached the Portuguese city Sintra, but the citizens considered the catacombs where the stone is hidden to be sacred. Vittorio ordered Tarhos to find a non-violent way, but since he's seen countless atrocities committed under chivalry, he wouldn't let "honor" stop him. Once Vittorio left, Tarhos slaughtered his way through the villagers.
After returning to Portoscuro, Tarhos imprisoned Vittorio and ordered him to explain what the symbols on the Lapis Parasidus mean, and slaughtered his family and friends when he refused to answer. Finally having enough, Tarhos stole all of Vittorio's riches, raised an army, raided the Guardia Campagnia, freed his Faithful Three, slaughtered his enemies, and cut off their heads for valor. He eventually became infamous and considered the embodiment of evil, so the lords of neighboring provinces formed an army to purge Tarhos and his evil. He himself considered them to be nothing more than cowards who hide their greed, ambition and darkness, things he himself embraced, behind false laws and codes.
As his enemies came for him, Tarhos decided to kill Vittorio. He hesitated for a moment, realizing he won't learn the man's secrets, but he was happy knowing no one else will know them either. Just then, the raid meant to kill him started. He slaughtered his way through his enemies until he reunited with his Faithful Three. Together, the four effortlessly slaughtered their way through their enemies, to the point some claimed they had help from something otherworldly. Just then, Tarhos was taken to the Entity's realm.
As he wandered through the darkness, he eventually found his way into a wasteland of destroyed villages and rotten bodies. Realizing he found exactly what he was looking for the whole time, the destruction he saw back at his home village, Tarhos embraced his new task and started slaughtering survivors for the Entity, with the help of his Faithful Three.
Nothing but Darkness[]
| “ | Paradise will come when you make peace with life as it is and not the way you imagine it should be. When you embrace the horror instead of running from it. Only when you can do this will you see the madness of your ways. | „ |
| ~ The Knight |
Tome 14: Betrayal reveals some of the thoughts and backstory of The Knight. Tarhos was a psychopathic youth of one sister and unknown number of brothers. His mother prepares an elixir which will make him and his siblings seem dead as the village was being slaughtered. His father died in battle while protecting the village. Waking up in a pit of corpses, looking directly at the rotting face of his dead uncle, Tarhos doesn't feel anything even when knowing he should feel sorrow and anger. As he was taken out of the pit, he stares at his burning village with disturbing wonder.
Kovács also disapproves Vittorio's quest for peace. He thinks that the world is nothing without violence and the entire world is either all bad or all good. He claims that "Life is violence, from birth to death, and everything in between is a futile attempt by cowards to hide from the horror that is living." He dislikes Vittorio for trying to find peaceful solutions for problems and would rather slaughter everything in his way. He has no respect for knightly codes of honor or any law, for he believes they are attempting to deny the truth of the world.
After Vittorio orders his retinue to find away around the guards of the tomb, Tarhos is overcome with disgust and hatred. Ranting to himself about how Vittorios own legacy and family forture was built upon nonsensical and brutal laws. He swears to himself that he will take everything from Vittorio, just because he can. After Vittorio leaves, only three knights are left with Tarhos. He slaughters them all singlehandedly before moving into the ruins filled with guards.
Approaching the guards at the gate, Tarhos knows how much of an imposing figure he is, and sees them quaking with fear. He orders them to stand aside but they decide to resist. Suddenly, guards are surrounding Tarhos, and they all attack at once after giving a battle cry. He defeats all of them, burning with a desire to affirm the agony and horror that is life. As the last of the guards begs for mercy, Tarhos finishes him off and wipes his blade. Picking up a torch, he enters the tomb they previously guarded.
Tarhos enters the tomb and makes his way past several obstacles. He sees the corpses of others who attempted to enter the tomb and were killed by various traps. Tarhos himself almost falls victim to a swinging blade and a pit, but manages to escape them both. Reaching the end of the tomb, he finds an armored skeleton holding onto the Lapis Parasdius. Taking the stone, he then exits the tomb, remember the way past all of the traps as his torch burns out. When he exits, he finds a large amount of Vittorios men preparing to stop him. He begins to fight them all, and knows that he should be exhausted and losing this fight by now. However, a dark force has granted him strength, speed, and stamina beyond human compare as the slaughters a dozen men with ease. Eventually, he stops and tells Vittorio to order his men to stand down or else he will kill them all. All of the men kneel, and Vittorio is taken prisoner.
Tarhos enters Vittorios prison cell several times in order to taunt him and try to get information from him. He begins to execute Vittorios men before bringing their heads into the cell to rot. He asks Vittorio the names of the heads, and he recognizes all of them. Before he leaves, Tarhos decides to keep one head, because the man didn't beg for his life before he was slain. He taunts Vittorio for not even being able to crush maggots before they grew into swarms of flies, and says that he has been decorating the village above with corpses twisted into evil symbols. He also tells Vittorio of the 'righteous army' that has come to put an end to his evil, and reveals more of his outlook on the world. Finally, he tells Vittorio of a woman who poisoned her entire family rather than have them die to invaders, and that he has never found her equal. The woman he is referring to is presumably his mother.
Tarhos exits the tomb once more, with a broken longsword in one hand and the Lapis Parasdius in the other. Among the dead bodies and burned one man stands up to stop him. The two clash, and Tarhos drops his sword and the stone. Before the man can lay a finishing blow, he uses the cloth wrapped around his arms to choke the man to death. As another man begins to crawl away, he finish him off with his sword. At this point in time, Tarhos was also wearing a unique helmet that was decorated with hands covering the eyes, though at some point he changed armor before being taken into the Fog.
Additionally, the Knight appears at the end of Vittorios Tome, possibly hundreds of years after Tarhos was taken, and Vittorio escaped using magical symbols.
Powers and Abilities[]
- Swordsmanship: Kovács is a brilliant swordsman.
- Leadership: He gained three incredibly loyal companions through his mercenary work and managed to raise an entire army.
- Summoning: Within the realm of the Entity, The Knight can summon his Faithful Three using his power.
- Smithing: He was the apprentice of Kadir Hakam in the field of smithing weapons and armor.
- Hand-to-Hand Combatant: Tarhos showed tremendous skill in unarmed combat.
- Equestrianism: He was briefly shown to be a skilled horseman.
Quotes[]
| “ | Out with you, cowards! Show yourselves! | „ |
| ~ The Knight |
| “ | They huddle in their villages like parasites! They've lost the drive for power! | „ |
| ~ The Knight |
| “ | I fear he has left me here to die. | „ |
| ~ Vittorio Toscano about the Knight. |
Trivia[]
- The Knight is one of the only Killers to use a two-handed weapon that isn't linked to their power, the other being The Huntress.
- The Knight is the first Killer to have a height shown, revealed to be 6ft. 6in. tall. However, the sizes of Killers and Survivors are slightly distorted in-game in order to give the Killers a more imposing figure.
- The Knight's nihilistic nature represents the grimdark genre (fiction focusing on amoral, violent, and dystopian themes).
- He is the only Killer who can summon more than one minion to help him.
- "Kovács" is the Hungarian translation for "forger" or "smith," which denotes the profession.
- He is the second Killer to have an arch-nemesis Survivor, the first being The Trickster. Tarhos' arch-nemesis is Vittorio Toscano.
Gallery[]
