Top 30 Final Fantasy Villains - #17

#17 - Nidhogg

(Final Fantasy XIV)

Hey, what gives? Someone spilled some Skyrim in my Final Fantasy game! Yes, it’s another Final Fantasy XIV villain, this weekend has had a lot of those. This one is from the game’s first expansion, Heavensward.

Long ago, the humans of Ishgard lived in peace with the dragons, and only Nidhogg was suspicious that something could go wrong. This eventually did happen when the villainous Ascians revealed to Thordan, Ishgard’s king, that dragon eyes could be used as sources of power, and Thordan went on to kill Nidhogg’s sister, Ratatoskr, for her eyes. In retaliation, Nidhogg attacked Ishgard, but he was defeated and his eyes taken as well. After convincing his brother Hraesvelgr to lend him one of his own eyes, Nidhogg spent centuries relentlessly attempting to destroy Ishgard- not helped by the clergy presenting a fabricated version of events where Nidhogg attacked unprovoked. The result? An endless cycle of vengeance with both sides believing the other struck first.

Because dragons live thousands of years, they don’t perceive time the same way we do. As such, the wounds are still fresh in Nidhogg’s mind even centuries later, and he refuses to see a distinction between the knights who killed his sister and their descendants who are none the wiser. He has been completely consumed by rage and is beyond reasoning with, making him one of the scariest, most threatening villains in the game.

Nidhogg succeeds primarily for two reasons. First, the sheer amount of buildup he gets. For the first half of Heavensward, we never see him. We only hear about his immense power, the threat he poses, his influence over the Dravanian Horde, and the power exhibited by the one eye in the possession of the heroes. And when we finally do meet him in person, he doesn’t disappoint. He is huge- not quite Smaug levels of huge, but still huge- and while there is nothing about his design that makes him distinct from the other dragon characters like, say, Hraesvelgr, he definitely stands out compared to other villains of Final Fantasy XIV.

Second, he is a scarily effective parallel to one of Heavensward’s primary characters, Estinien. Estinien, also known as the Azure Dragoon, lost his family to one of Nidhogg’s attacks and is also driven by a desire for vengeance, and this drive for revenge nearly compromises the heroes’ attempt to restore peace. This makes it more interesting when, after Nidhogg is killed, he manages to live on through the power of his intact eyes and claim Estinien’s body for his own. Because the two are so similar to a degree, it honestly sort of makes sense story-wise how this would happen, and adds to the drama. And his design while possessing Estinien is incredibly cool and creepy, but it is sadly underused compared to his dragon form.

All in all, Nidhogg is imposing, intimidating, thematically sound, and overall the best main villain throughout Final Fantasy XIV. But as established with Fordola, lesser villains are fair game for this list, and we haven’t seen the last of Final Fantasy XIV on this list yet.