This guy definitely earned his title as The Lord of Blasphemy. As befitting a giant, monstrous snake-like creature, Praetor Rykard is without a doubt the evilest villain in Elden Ring…but not for the reason you’re thinking.
Okay, like I said, it’s pretty obvious why I believe Praetor Rykard is the evilest villain in Elden Ring: A. he’s a massive snake-like creature that devours his followers and enemies alike in order to increase his personal power; B. he is the lord and ruler over the Volcano Maner, the very same place that actively hunts down and murders Tarnished warriors in cold blood as they try to become Elden Lord, C. he has one of the funniest and mismatched voices of any monster-like boss in gaming history.
Everything about Rykard oozes treachery, blasphemy, arrogance, gluttony, and evil. Yet, that’s not why I think he’s at the very least one of the Top-3 worst villains in the Lands Between.
The real reason why he is so abhorrent is that he not only conspired with Ranni the Witch, his full-blooded sister, to murder Godwyn the Golden, his half-brother, and start The Shattering War, but he also commanded and directed the Black Knife Assassins to hunt down the rest of his relatively innocent demi-god brothers and sisters in his pursuit of the Elden Ring shards and personal power.
Now, some of what I said is a part of the established lore and can be found on the Elden Ring Wiki page for Rykard, but most of what I’m talking about I found in Daniel Olmos’ YouTube translation of the Lord of Blasphemy’s theme song, God-Devouring Serpent.
Obviously, I can’t be 100% certain that Olmos is correct in his translations of the Latin lyrics, but everything makes perfect sense if it’s true.
It’s already pretty clear that Rykard allowed/snuck the Black Knife Assassins into Leyndell Capital with the powers of his position as Praetor to murder Godwyn the Golden, while it is also true that Ranni gave Rykard the Blasphemous Claw as a backup plan to fight Maliketh in order to steal Destined Death if the plot failed.
So, if we put two and two together, we can conclude that Rykard had direct access to the Black Knife Assassins and was one of the ringleaders of the plot that had them murder one of the purest demi-gods. Therefore, it’s not out of the question that he would have ordered the assassinations of his fellow demigod siblings to gain as much power as possible….which is exactly what the song’s lyrics describe.
According to the lyrics, Rykard ordered his assassins to the Haligtree in order to “slaughter the sacred goddess of two wings before she transforms into an old goddess of sin”, which clearly means he directed the Black Knife Assassins hunt and kill Malenia, the Blade of Miquella, who is Rykard’s half-sister, to stop her inevitable transformation into Malenia, The Goddess of Rot.
And, given how the Tarnished has to fight past seemingly trapped Black Knife Assassins in Ordina, Liturgical Town on the way to the Haligtree, I think it’s obvious that they were sent by Rykard to complete the nefarious plot. Sure, it’s very unlikely that the Assassins would have been able to kill Malenia as she’s one tough badass (as every Elden Ring player knows), but that doesn’t mean the intent wasn’t there.
Thus, if a character, whether they are a demigod or not, is willing to murder multiple siblings in order to achieve nothing but personal power and glory, there’s no way they can’t be thought of as one of the vilest villains in all of Elden Ring.
If you want to hear the song and translated lyrics for yourself, I left a link below to Daniel Olmos’ channel.
Images Source: Featured Image: (Bandai Namco/FromSoftware) (Elden Ring)
Other Source: (Daniel Olmos YouTube) (Elden Ring OST – God-Devouring Serpent (Fan Translated Lyrics) – YouTube)
