Climb the Hill. - Elegy for the Villains: Luca Blight

Luca Blight from Suikoden II

A Horrifying Reality

In the solar years of 428 - 434 a war was taking place between the City-States of Jowston and the Highland Kingdom. Nearing the end of the six year battle, the king of the Highland Kingdom, Robert Blight, met his demise. His son, Agares Blight, would take command and finally propose a peace treaty which would end the war for good (following a short duel between a warrior from Kyaro and Highland). In the same year, Agares and his wife, Sara, gave birth to a baby boy whom they named: Luca.

Nine years later in 443, Luca Blight and his parents attended a ceremony in Muse.  During the ceremony an unfortunate incident occured where Anabelle, the vice-mayor of Muse, accidently slaps the young Luca Blight in the face due to a confusion of greetings. This event heavily embarrassed the young Blight, and would stay in his mind for years to come. Once the ceremony ended, the Blights doubled back to their castle. On the way, however, they were attacked by a group of bandits. Agares immediately escaped the situation and headed for the capital of Highland, L'Renouille, for backup. For the duration of the king’s absence, Sara and Luca Blight were left defenseless and vulnerable in front of the bandits. The bandits saw this opportunity to repeatedly rape and beat Sara Blight, while the traumatized Luca Blight watched it all in shock. Agares eventually returned with Han Cunningham and his fleet soldiers, but it was too late by then. The damage was done. Sara and Luca Blight were so mentally broken that they each drifted away from their own sanity. He began to hate his father Agares, as well as the City-States of Jowston.

The next year, Luca Blight ventured off from his parents and traveled to the surrounding area of Kyaro. Being only ten years of age, he was easily swindled out of his money by a similar faction of bandits. Once he came to his senses, Luca followed the bandits and overheard them speaking vulgar statements about his mother, Sara Blight. Luca’s mind snapped. Drunk with rage, he set up a trap for all of the bandits in which he eventually and successfully managed to slaughter. Directly after the execution, he returned to his mother, who by this point was so mentally damaged that she couldn’t even remember the face of her own son. This became further fuel to his mental fire as his hatred for Jowston grew.

Soon after, Sara Blight died whilst giving childbirth to Luca’s step-sister, Jillia. The young baby girl represented Sara in every way, which constantly reminded Luca of his horrible past and memories of his mother. Luca Blight then began to train directly under Han Cunningham and his strength quickly increased.

The Mad Prince

Over the course of several years, Luca became a frightening man with unrivaled strength. He was a harsh and ruthless leader and brutally slaughtered his opponents in battle. Because of this he was officially dubbed “The Mad Prince”. Once he attained a certain age, he became fully responsible for the Highland Army. This was the perfect opportunity to seek revenge upon the City-States of Jowston.

Luca’s first course of action was to break the peace treaty between Highland and Jowston. He quickly set up a plan to frame Jowston into staging a coup d'état against the Highland Army. To accomplish this feat he would ally himself with Captain Rowd, the general of Highland’s Unicorn Brigade, and cause confusion from the inside. Luca and Rowd massacred the entire Unicorn Brigade (save, Jowy and Riou) and laid the blame upon the armies of Jowston. Word rapidly spread throughout the land and the treaty was broken.

Luca, now pleased with this new full-blown war and mass confusion, uses this space to inflict a severe blow to the City-States. Luca took his army and burned down the entire village of Ryube, killing most-to-all of its inhabitants. Solon Jhee, one of Luca’s generals, was ordered to destroy the mercenary fort which belonged to the rebel army called the Dunan Unification Army, lead by Viktor, Flik and Riou. With Dunan’s new weapon, the fire spears, they were able to quickly dispatch Solon Jhee’s fleet. After word travelled to Luca of Solon’s incompetence, he gathered his army and invaded the mercenary fort himself, personally killing all those whom he found inside. As the fort started ablaze, Luca was in the midst of killing Pohl, the father of a little girl named Pilika. When he was about to slay the little girl, Viktor hurled more fire spears inside, which distracted Luca and thus, Pilika was able to escape. Soon after this incident, Luca Blight continued his plight and mercilessly burned the village of Toto to the ground.

The new mayor of Muse, Anabelle, later instructed both Riou and Jowy to act as spies and invade an enemy provisions camp. The two are captured shortly after by Luca’s men. Jowy then tells Riou to head back to Muse as he holds the soldiers off. Having one of the Unification Army’s soldiers in his grasp, Luca begins to “manipulate” Jowy in assassinating the mayor of Muse. This causes Muse’s morale to falter and thus the Jowston Alliance rapidly decreases in numbers.

In the Name of the King

After obtaining the brilliant strategist known as Shu, the Dunan Unification Army created an ambush attack against Solon Jhee’s units, and was easily awarded the victor. Enraged by the fact that Solon Jhee had failed for the second time trying to exterminate the Unification Army, Luca personally ended Solon’s life. He then awarded Jowy with five-thousand troops and gave him permission to succeed the late Solon Jhee. Jowy deploys his troops to Greenhill and successfully takes it over.

In the meantime, Luca Blight acquired the forces of a legendary strategist, Leon Silverburg. Following this new triumph, he blew off the dust from the Blight family’s Beast rune, which is a powerful magic that can suck the souls out of a mass amount of human beings. Luca tests out his new rune and exterminates almost everyone in Muse City. He is pleased with the results and plots to use the rune to destroy the rest of the City-States.

When Jowy asked Luca if he could marry his step-sister: Jillia, he was a bit hesitant to grant permission at first. However, they came up with a plan that would benefit both of them. During the traditional Highland celebration to acknowledge a royal wedding, the king must drink the blood of the future spouse. The plan was to poison king Agares during this time so that Luca Blight would become the next king of Highland. However, the wine glass that the king drinks is always tested for poison beforehand, so Jowy had to poison his own blood while it was still in his body. He took daily antitoxins to prevent the poison from becoming lethal to his own immune system, but still deadly enough to kill someone else if they were to drink it. The plan works. Agares drinks the blood-wine, dies, and Luca Blight becomes the new king of Highland.

Luca Blight then arranges an attack on North Window with fifty-thousand men, heavily outnumbering the Dunan Unification Army and their alliances. With the help of Dunan’s strategist, Shu, they are able to withstand the attack to an extent, but in the end it’s another victory for Luca. Following the battle, Shu devised a plan to spring an ambush for Luca Blight during the night time. After the last heavy battle, he wouldn’t expect an attack so soon.

The next night, Shu’s plan was initiated. Riou, Flik, Viktor and hundreds of archers sprung out from the bushes and commenced a battle to the death. Luca Blight managed to escape the battle carrying heavy wounds, and reached a dead end with a tree and a wooden amulet hanging upon a branch. Luca takes the amulet from the tree and opens it when a group of fireflies escape. Thinking that the whole affair is a joke, he begins to laugh fanatically. This was actually the signal for Shu’s archers to attack. The next moment, Luca is bombarded by an onslaught of arrows. Riou steps in to deliver the final blows to the injured king, and after some threatening final words, Luca Blight slowly slips into the afterlife.

Additional Notes

Short Summary – As a youth, Luca Blight murders a group of bandits. Once he has command of his personal army, he slaughters the Unicorn Brigade, burns down the villages of Ryube, Toto, and the Mercenary Fort. He also butchers the residents of Muse as well as North Window. He single-handedly kills Solon Jhee, and Agares Blight. Luca indirectly gets Anabelle assassinated, and fails to kill Pilika. Kill Count: 10,000+ killed, 1 indirect, and 1 failed.

Ichimonji’s Overview – Luca Blight was a maniac, plain and simple. He was a tyrannical leader and almost all of his endeavors were successful. I have a high praise for Luca as a villain because of how well he commanded his troops and because of how hard it was to put him down. During his final moments, you have to battle him three times, while he’s been riddled with arrows no less! And he’s still a powerhouse. What’s worse is that when you’re declared the victor and he’s about to die, he’s still not sad about it. He ends up mocking you as he gets to enjoy his eternal sleep, while you’re left feeling like crap because he still has to power to hurt your feelings in the afterlife.

Why his plan failed? (Ways he could have improved it) – I guess Luca’s biggest fault was his massive pride and ego. That and his unhealthy lust to destroy everything. But even so, he managed to become successful in all of his plots. There was really nothing he could have done to prevent the ambush from happening since he didn’t even see it coming. I suppose in a way he underestimated the Dunan Unification Army.

~ Ichimonji