I’m far too eager to turn down any spoiler that comes my way.
That revelation was brilliantly soul-destroying, but it’s not exactly surprising – I’ve been saying that the Magician was Mr Dark for years, though I was never entirely serious. They wear similar dark-blue and purple clothes, along with similar hats, and shoes of the same pointy shape. You hear the Magician’s voice more than any other character’s, but you never really hear Mr Dark’s. The only part of Mr Dark’s body that you see are his eyes – the Magician’s are conveniently hidden. And of course, the two never appear at the same time. It’s only natural that a few of us have put the pieces together before now – what’s stunning is that the developers actually went through with including it as a twist in the game.
I didn’t like the dancing at first, but then I remembered that most of the bosses in the original game danced when they were defeated, as though Rayman had purged them of their evil and redeemed them. I used to think Mr Dark was controlling them and that Rayman broke the spell, or something similar. We now know that the corruption of what were once inherently good characters is caused by the nightmares of Polokus. I sort of preferred the idea that Mr Dark was pure evil and completely irredeemable (and non-dancing), but I guess that’s still the case at the time of R1.
I wonder what this says about R1? Did Rayman know that the Magician was Mr Dark all along? Is the Magician really nothing more than a ruse, or is he one side of a Jekyll & Hyde-type dual personality? Maybe these things will be answered by the game. Until then, we can revel in the fact that Rayman Junior is now officially non-canonical.
And their shoes look a little bit the same.
