Malefor

Malefor (メレフォル, Mereforu), also known as the Dark Master, is the Undead Dragon King of the underworld. He is the first in the rare line of magical purple dragons like Spyro. Prior to his debut, he was the one who corrupted Cynder into doing his evil bidding and attempted to capture Hex to learn the secrets of her powers. Malefor is known to be as main as well as the primary antagonist, and the true villain of the series.

"It seems we share other qualities besides that of our color."
 * —Malefor.

Appearance

 * Voice actor: James Earl Jones (English), Not Known (Japanese), Pierre Hatet (French), Claudio Moneta (Italian), Bodo Wolf (German), José Padilla (Spanish), Dick Kaysø (Danish), Rauno Ahonen (Finnish), Per Frisch (Norwegian), Johan Hedenberg (Swedish), Fred Meijer (Dutch), Andrei Tashkov (Russian)

Personality
It was said he was the first purple dragon ever born. Malefor is, in many ways, the exact opposite of Spyro. As his name dictates and represents, he is completely malevolent. Despite being calm and courteous, Malefor is also cunning, highly intelligent and manipulative, being able to devise twisted plans. While Spyro does good and wishes to protect the world he lives in, Malefor seeks the destruction of it, and will use all he can to finish what he started.

Judging from his ruthless and purely sadistic nature, Malefor is, no doubt, a murderer as he killed millions of creatures in his "quest to fulfill the destiny of the purple dragon." He is willing to use anything he can to complete his goal, and destroy everything in his way or anyone useless to him in cold blood unless they can be of use to him again later on.

Malefor is also a skilled orator, able to strike doubt in the resolute and courageous minds and use it to his advantage. With this powerful skill, he is very experienced at using his enemy's faults against them; a prime example is his use of Cynder's past deeds and the fact he used her to free himself to make her doubt herself long enough for him to take control of her.

He seems to personify Lust, one of the Seven Deadly Sins, as his intense desire for power is what lead him to his corruption. Malefor also appears to possess a fatalistic philosophy; believing it his fate and destiny to purify the world by destroying it so a new one would be created. Therefore he most likely does not perceive himself as evil, more so as an anti-hero; using questionable means to accomplish a "noble" goal. But like many villains, he undervalues the power of friendship and ultimately love when he tries to use Cynder to kill Spyro for his nonacceptance of the alleged truth and nature of the purple dragon race, only for her to break his bind over her when Spyro tells her that she has left him with nothing left to fight for, somewhat revealing a trace of his love for her.

Despite his current malevolent nature, it was implied that during his youth Malefor was a rather caring and courageous individual. Chief Prowlus mentioned that when he was young, Malefor's personality was rather similar to Spyro's, displaying great kindness and an eagerness to develop his abilities. Based on the ruins below Warfang, the ancestors had very high hopes for Malefor and had built the whole place as a training ground for him.

Neutral

 * Cynder

Rivals

 * Lyric the Last Ancient
 * Black Arms
 * Black Doom

Enemies

 * The Ancients
 * Chronicler
 * Freedom Fighters
 * Team Sonic
 * Sonic the Hedgehog
 * Miles "Tails" Prower
 * Knuckles the Echidna
 * Team Rose
 * Amy Rose
 * Big the Cat
 * Cream the Rabbit
 * Cheese the Chao
 * Team Chaotix
 * Vector the Crocodile
 * Espio the Chameleon
 * Charmy Bee
 * G.U.N.
 * G.U.N Commander
 * Hope Robotnik
 * Topaz
 * Foxwell Fowler
 * Team Dark
 * Shadow the Hedgehog
 * Rouge the Bat
 * E-123 Omega
 * Silver the Hedgehog
 * Blaze the Cat
 * Marine the Raccoon
 * Christopher Thorndyke
 * Thomas Jones
 * Vanilla the Rabbit
 * Emeral
 * Ponies
 * Princess Celestia
 * Princess Luna
 * Princess Cadance
 * Twilight Sparkle
 * Applejack
 * Rarity
 * Fluttershy
 * Rainbow Dash
 * Pinkie Pie
 * Dragons
 * Spyro
 * Spike
 * King Warfang
 * Dragon Sages

Abilities and Powers
Malefor is unfathomably powerful. Being a rare purple dragon like Spyro, he can control many abilities others cannot, but to a greater extent, such as the element of Fire, Ice, Electricity, Earth, Wind, the Convexity element, and perhaps even Time itself. It is hinted that he can also control other elements, as he was shown using the Fear ability during his final battle against Spyro and Cynder, and most likely wields Shadow and Poison as well, the powers that Cynder was granted with when she was exposed to Malefor's darkness. Since he is over 100 years old, Malefor's elemental abilities are far more developed than Spyro's, as shown by his use of Convexity abilities in place of Spyro's fire abilities, and on a much larger and more powerful scale that Spyro has displayed thus far. He has also demonstrated the ability to project forcefields that protects him from all attacks except for Convexity Breath (which is similar to the heat forcefields Ignitus used), which appears to be an incredibly useful ability.

Living up to his title after choosing evil, Malefor wields powerful dark magic, which enables him to corrupt anything or anyone as he pleases. This is demonstrated when he transforms the Temple Dojo of the Dragons into a Fortress of his likeness and makes it levitate, turns the Apes into undead ghouls, creating artificial creatures like the Grublins, and crafted an energy chain that his minions shackle Spyro and Cynder together. His notable power is having absolute control over everything evil and every malevolent being, also transforming others into a dark version of their former self that greatly increases their power and corrupting them into being in complete servitude to Malefor. Examples of this are the two times he corrupted Cynder, the first after she was born (giving her enough power to defeat all of the Guardians in single combat) and the second (though this form's power is unknown as Spyro refused to fight back).

Like all dragons, Malefor possesses the ability to fly, and holds extreme physical strength. He also claims that he is eternal, thus somewhat possible that he is undefeatable and immortal.

Skills

 * Fire
 * Water
 * Electricity
 * Air
 * Ice
 * Earth
 * Psychic
 * Beast
 * Metal
 * Fear
 * Poison
 * Plant
 * Convexity
 * Darkness
 * Elemental Fury
 * Melee Combat
 * Aerial Combat
 * Fly
 * Longevity
 * Super strength
 * Regeneration
 * Exposing Other Dragons To Darkness
 * Cursing other Races e.g. Apes

Miscellaneous Skills
Since dragons, are also reptiles, he has a natural ability to regrow his parts.

Past
Born in ancient times, Malefor was the first purple dragon, and a talented one at that. He first mastered Fire, despite not being a fire dragon, and harnessed the powers of Ice, Water, Air, Earth, Electricity, and many other elements none thought existed. Thus, Malefor was the first dragon to be able to use more than one element, which other Dragons were restricted to only one. Believing him to be the dragon to usher them into a new age, the Dragon Elders willingly taught him how to master these elements. However, as time went by, Malefor became arrogant and over-confident as his power and knowledge grew far beyond what was expected, as did his lust for power, and he consumed everything.

Fearing his lack of restraint, the Elders banished him to exile. Filled with hatred for his own kind, Malefor took on the title as "the Dark Master" and recruited an army of Apes, teaching them how to artificially harness the power of the gems, which are the Dragons' lifeforce. It wasn't long before he ultimately turned to evil, seeking more and greater power and waging a war against the Dragon race. His actions sent the world spiraling into chaos, ruining the peaceful reputation of the Dragons in the process. With his army established and growing by the day, Malefor built a great fortress upon a mountain, and there he resided, staring out upon the lands with his sheer malice so great, that it split the earth and created a pit of despair, called the Mountain of Malefor, also known as the Well of Souls, by the evil-hearted.

Eventually, Malefor was defeated by the Ancestors and confined within the Well of Souls. While his spirit was imprisoned in the Mountain of Malefor, his essence was trapped in Convexity. He sought to escape the mountain, and while Malefor manipulated a plan to do so, his army was still able to carry out his orders.

Notes & Trivia

 * Malefor's earlier design bore a scar on his left eye as evident in his flashback image and the statue of himself in a shrine within the Well of Souls. The scar is absent in his redesign.
 * Malefor may be a variation of the name "Valefar", a Christian demon and Duke of Hell.
 * His name might be composed from the Latin noun malum (-i,neutrum) - evil; and Greek foreo - i carry; meaning ˝The carrier of evil˝, or maybe ˝The source of evil˝.
 * Malefor may be more clever than he appears. As parts of his plans turned out to be part of a ruse to trick Spyro in releasing the evil dragon, it may be that the rest from the start all were. It may be that Malefor pretended to send his Apes to kill Spyro, but since the young purple dragon would be the key to free Malefor, this action of assassination was probably itself a ruse to scare his enemies, and that maybe along with Cynder, who would be used to bring Malefor back with all his powers, Spyro's egg would also be stolen as well so he could be corrupted and used to free Malefor after Cynder completed her stage. And despite Ignitus' interference in saving Spyro from that fate, the young dragon's part would still be played, as he would be lured to the Mountain of Malefor to save Cynder, and unwittingly free Malefor. He also kept an additional Dark Crystal to control the Destroyer just in case.
 * Additionally like many villains, he underestimated his enemies which was his fatal mistake that caused his demise. He tried to make Cynder betray the people she loves, and it seems Malefor was aiming to confuse Spyro and Cynder before their final battle. Both of these plans failed, which then led to having to fight the the two Dragons by himself and losing.
 * In the movie Dragons: Destiny of Fire, there is a dragon called Vildrok that is very similar to Malefor: both want to destroy the world, both are evil dragons and the main antagonists. However, Malefor is despised and far times more evil, bloodthirsty, malevolent, cruel and ruthless than Vildrok.
 * The massive statue in the Dragon Temple training room and the dragon statue in the large shrine near the top of the Well of Souls are both statues of Malefor. Two more massive statues of Malefor also appear outside the temple of each of the elemental dream levels Spyro is taken to regain his elemental breaths. Many of these statues also appear to have two dragon eggs at his feet, possibly symbolizing his need to destroy Spyro's egg and needing Cynder's egg as a dragon to revive him.
 * Malefor is the only dragon in the series who has reptilian pupils. His eyes are also yellow unlike all other known dragons, who have white eyes. This may be due to his evil and corruption or simply done by the designers to give him a more frightening appearance as a villain.* Worth noting is that Spyro and Cynder didn't actually defeat Malefor themselves since he recovered from their combined Convexity attack unscathed. It was only the intervention of the ancestors that allowed Malefor to be beaten in time to save the world.
 * In most concept art of Malefor, his eyes look completely yellow with no pupils. However, he gains snakelike pupils, making his face seem more gentle and sinister in the series.
 * Malefor is presumably the most evil and darkest villain in the series.
 * His personalities and actions are similar to Lucifer from Dante's Inferno; both have been imprisoned, sought to kill the main protagonist and mention that the hero had freed them..
 * Malefor's fearsome appearance is coupled with a large pair of crown-like horns.