Throughout history, h✤umanity has pondered many big-picture questions. Above all, we have sought answers to the most pressing of them all: what hap💝pens to us once we have shuffled off this mortal coil?

This list does not make any effort to tackle that query. You must discover the answer yourself, in your own way, as is your custom. What I can tell you is that death does not thwart these villains' plans. In some cases, it accelerate✃s them. Within the confines of these specific fictional characters, death's mystery is answered in full, and it frequently spells bad news for the heroes of their tales. These antagonists have seen what awaited them on the other side, and they have laughed at it.

7 ꧅ Final Fantasy: Garland ꦿ

Disgraced knight Garland didn't take his potential punishment lying down when the Warriors of Light approached🔯 him to answer for his crimes at the beginning of Final Fantasy. Kidnapping the Princess of C🐼orneria was a vile deed, indeed, and delusions of grandeur had clearly seeped into his brain. He went as far as telling the brave Warriors that he would knock them down. His words, not mine.

But oh, what a twist. The first twist in a franchise that's proven to be chock-full of them, in fact. Garland's🅺 "death" is averted (or, at least, its ramifications are) when the Four Fiends send him 2,000 years into the past. His treasonous machinations have brought about a loop in time, allowing him to exist forever - effectively immortal. Absorbing the individual elemental powers of the Fiends, Garland then transforms into Chaos. Only then is ❀he put down for good.

6 🦋 Breath Of Fire Series: Myria

Myria is the overarching lead antagonist of the first three games in the Breath of Fire series. In the first Breath of Fire, in the form of a little girl with a penchant for crying wh💛en it gets her what she wants, Myria pits the Light and Dark Dragon Clans against each other both in the past and again in the present.

She's pet🌳ulant, but she does offer happinܫess to those who will serve her whims. The offer is nothing more, however, as in truth, Myria is sadistically determined to bring further pain to the world.

Myria's defeat in the first game and absence in the second doesn't mean she isn't still responsible ওfor Breath of Fire 2's own string of problems. The villain in that game♒, the ridiculously-named Deathevan, is something not unlike her offspring.

It's in Breath of Fire 3 that Myria really kicks into overdrive, though. Having been reincarnated multiple times, she's now back as a "guiding figure" of supposed benevolence who restricts humanity's progress because she views us all as children. To 𝓀be honest, looking at what humanity has been capable of doing to the planet in that game's lore - and uh, in our own world - I kind of get where she's coming from. But this ain't it, Myria.

By the way, Capcom. You keep bringing back everybody else's favourite Capcom f𝄹ranchises. Mine is Breat꧃h of Fire. Please?

5 Final F꧒antasy Tactics: Ajora Glabados/Ultima

It is unclear whether the man named Ajora Glabados was ever truly himself. 1,200 years prior to the events of Final Fantasy Tactics, Ajora, venerated as a saint by his followers for performing alleged faith-based deeds, was in fact possessed by a Lucavi - which is to say, demon - name♊d Ultima. A disciple named Germonique betrayed Ajora to the jealous Holy Ydoran Empir𒁃e, and Ajora was summarily executed. Ultima was effectively trapped as a result.

Final Fantasy Tactics tells a deepꦏly sociopolitical tale with plenty of medieval-style intrigue. As the story progresses, however, it becomes increasingly evident that the Lucavi are orchestrating much of the realm of Ivalice's ongoing tragedy. Ultima's resurrection through a revived St. Ajora, and protagonist Ramza Beoulve's daring plan to defeat him, marks the game's grand finale.

Still, after twelve centuries, Ultima refused to give up. Her Lucavi followers, led by Hashmal, went as far as to bring Ivalice into a f🎐ull-blown civil war simply to shed enough blood for the resurrection ritual to commence. Perhaps it's more apt to say that the Lucavi as a whole did not take Ultima's "death" as the end of their play, given their tenacious methods to br💧ing her back; regardless, Ajora is swept up in it all, and must be felled a second time before Ivalice can know peace.

4 🌌 Xenosaga Series: The Four Testaments

Namco's Xenosaga trilogy, now something of an awkward in-between phase after Square's 𒊎legendary Xenogears and Nintendo/Monolith Soft's ongoing Xenoblade Chronicles franchise, has the "death and rebirth" concept on lockdown. It's all over the place, in myriad ways. But none are so overtly impactful as the Four Testaments.

• Erich Weber, a cyberterrorist, becomes the Black Testament.
• Kevin Winnicot, a scientist, becomes the Red Testament.
• Luis Virgil, a soldier, becomes the Blue Testament.
• Albedo Piazzolla, a Realian (humanoid robot), becomes the White Testament.

Colle꧂ctively, these four individuals have drastically different personalities and separate objectives in the lives which they lead prior to being reborജn in the service of Wilhelm, Xenosaga's main villain. Even then, they've got hefty wills of their own.

3 Final Fantasy 10: Seymour Guado ꦡ

Seymour Guado isn't quite Final Fantasy 10's main antagonist, but he's its main humanoid antagonist, and a thorn in the party's side for most of th♑e melancholy story's back half. The te🤪am slays him at roughly FF10's halfway point, but without a proper Sending, he keeps coming back in increasingly unnerving form.

It's only after second, third, and fourth battles that Yuna can at last send the scheming Seymour to Spira's version of the afterlife. Seymour Flux in particular - the third fight, fought atop sacred Mount Gagazet - has been responsible for many game overs through the years. And the heinous act which Seymour com🌺mits in the lead-up to that fight? Man, what a jerk.

2 Persona 3𝐆: Dea꧙th

When the🌟 Kirijo Group discovers documentation from a destroyed civilization concerning the prophecy of The Fall, Persona 3's backstory quickly kicks into high gear. Death, an Arcana that ought never have manifested, will be its harbinger. Nyx, the being who brin✱gs that death upon humanity, is fated to awaken.

Not much can be done about it, really, and the scientist෴s of the Kirijo Group almost manage to happily bring♊ about Nyx's arrival, themselves. Thankfully, that's subverted. But what is Death, if not relentless? Three times throughout the story, Death takes on distinct manifestations.

As Pharos, he mournfully helps to guide the game's protagonist, Makoto Yuki. Later, as Ryoji Mochizuki, he seeks to expand his horizons, keenly apꦿpreciative of the n꧃atural world and the humans who inhabit it. And Thanatos, a recurring demon/Persona within the Megami Tensei franchise, is not only summonable by Makoto, but a form which Ryoji can assume as well.

After it all, and at the intense conclusion of Persona 3's tale, the hero and his friends challenge Nyx Avatar. Makoto himself goes on to battle Nyx itself, Death's ultimate manifestation. While it's a stretch to classify the entirety of this list's passage on Death a🌼s a thorough embodiment of a single drive, I'd argue it is, at minimum, safe to say that Death begs death begets death - there's no antagonistic force so indomitable.

In Persona 3 Portable, the player can select a female protagonist. Unfortunately, this isܫ the only version that allows it. With chagrin, I tend to think of Makoto Yuki first and foremost, so that's why I've cited him here.

1 ꦫ Xenogear🌄s: Miang Hawwa

Then again, even Death can't quite top Miang Hawwa's persistence. Miang, also known as Myyah, has enough backstory for me to sternly suggest that interested readers ought to consult Xenogears: Perfect Works, a 304-page full coverage of the game as well as its more than 10,000-year preceding events. (Thereꦏ is nothing quite like X👍enogears.)

For the purposes of my article, then, it will suffice - if barely - to say that Miang is an artificially-created creature with a feminine form, created by the computerized superweapon Deus. When the starship Eldridge crashed on the pl𒈔anet upon which Xenogears is set, 9,999 years before the events of the game itself, she created the first "humans" which populate this newfound world.

Miang's goal is to bring about the Day of Resurrection, merging with her Elehayym counterpart and brutally utilizing the ꦫparts of the humanity she's created - her children, if you will - to restore her own creator: Deus. In this manner, she has reincarnated countless times, steering history to her whims in such well-documented instances as Zeboim, the construction of Solaris, and the Shevat-Solaris War. Across millennia, Miang emerges, twisting people to suit her ambitions.