| “ | Is this a dream, my child? Am I awake? Is this anger I feel? Is this wrath? I think it is! Oh, how infinitely, how intensely, how irredeemably are you all going to suffer now! | „ |
| ~ The Red Queen manifesting through Harriet Jones |
The Red Queen is the main antagonist of the 2018 video game Vampyr. She is an ancient vampire entity who resurfaces every few hundred years to spread her plagues and calamities in order to kill massive numbers of humans and feed on their blood and hatred.
History
Origins
Through many forms and under many names, the Red Queen was worshipped as a goddess among vampires. At some point she gave birth to a son named Myrrdin Wyltt, another powerful vampire entity but without his mother's wrathful drive for human suffering. For an unknown reason she slumbers for a few centuries before awakening and finding angry, hateful women and using them as hosts for "Disasters", carriers of the blood of hate that is used to turn humans and even more advanced vampires known as Ekons into lesser, more savage vampires known as Skals. For every plague she unleashes, Myrrdin chooses a human to turn into a vampire with the purpose of making them his champion against the Red Queen and stop her destructive agenda.
VAMPYR
By the year 1918, the Red Queen has woken up in the midst of the Spanish Flu. The Red Queen finds Harriet Jones, a bitter woman at Pembroke Hospital who, under the care of Dr. Edgar Swansea, was given the blood of Lady Ashbury, unaware that Ashbury was a carrier of the blood of hate (even though Swansea acted with the best intentions of stopping the Spanish flu). The blood of hate combined with Jones' own anger and hatred of the world made her the perfect host for the Red Queen to convert her into a Disaster, who was able to spread the plague through many of London's citizens.
Shortly afterwards, Myrrdin had chosen Dr. Jonathan Reid to be his champion against the Red Queen. Throughout Reid's journey, he hears tiny hints and vague clues about the Red Queen's existence, but the two do not meet until the game's final act when Harriet Jones, fully transformed into a Disaster, kills the Skals that were giving her refuge and escaping in the sewers of London. Armed with an antidote (created by insulin from the morgue, a drop of William Marshall's blood from Lord Redgrave, and the blood of King Arthur from Geoffrey McCullum) Dr. Reid confronts and tries talking down Harriet Jones, who seems to want to be helped, until the blood of hate takes over once again, forcing the two to fight. Once Dr. Reid defeats Harriet, the Red Queen uses her blood to take a corporeal form and fully awaken. The Red Queen and Dr. Reid battle one another, and against all odds, Dr. Reid defeats the Red Queen just as Myrrdin arrives. The Red Queen mockingly teases her son for his many attempts at using a vampire champion to stop her. The two converse briefly before the Red Queen, in her defeat, returns to her slumber, thus ending the plague.
Trivia
- Although she is the main antagonist, she does not appear in any form until the final battle, and while she is vaguely foreshadowed and referenced to throughout the game, her existence is not revealed until the final chapter of the game.
- The Red Queen is one of many interpretations of Morgana le Fey of Arthurian legends, with Dr. Reid as the 'Arthur' figure of the game. This is especially fitting as in the game's lore, King Arthur was a vampire who was previously chosen by Myrrdin to fight the Red Queen in his time.