Mr Dark: Difference between revisions

[[Image:Char-mr-dark.png|thumb|right|320px|The mysterious villain of ''[[Rayman Origins]]'']]

The second trailer of ''[[Rayman Origins]]'' shows a brief glimpse of a [[Teensie]] with a top hat and a dark cloak, standing on a stone platform, surrounded by [[Darktoon]]s and [[Psychlops]]. Several months later, clearer artwork of the character was released, and the official website confirmed him to be Mr Dark, stating ‘The archenemy from Rayman 1 returns’. However, the same section of the site also claims that [[Soldier]]s and [[piranha]]s are in the game, which is not correct; the game's final manual contains an updated version of the same information, and makes no mention of Soldiers, piranhas or Mr Dark. He is mentioned by the [[Bubble Dreamer]] if the player pulls his beard as [[DarkRay]] (a renamed Bad Rayman), blaming Mr Dark for DarkRay's  existence. Other than that, the game itself contains no references to Mr Dark making a plan to take over [[the Glade of Dreams]] as in previous games, as the game does not seem to have a fixed plot or a real villain. However, in the level '[[The Reveal]]', the heroes discover that [[the Magician]] is the one responsible for the evil steampunk empire of the [[Moody Clouds]]. A diagram on the wall explains that he has been collecting the heroes' [[Lum]]s throughout the game and using them to power his machines. In response to his cover being blown, the Magician rips the golden star off his top hat, showing more clearly his resemblance with the artwork of Mr Dark, and possibly revealing him to have been Mr Dark the whole time, faking a friendship with Rayman.

However, there are some issues that make this character's identity less clear. An early script found within the files of the game's demo contains scrapped dialogue which indicates that the Magician was not intended to be Mr Dark himself, but a fan and admirer of him, loosely pretending to be as mysterious and evil as him; one of his lines is ‘I always wanted to be like Mr. Dark:  mysterious, dark!...um, dark and mysterious..’. The script also reveals that the Magician's real name is Ales Mansay, and that he became embittered and corrupted when he was bullied at magic school for his poor magical abilities. He eventually disguised himself as his hero, Mr Dark, and hid a microphone in [[the Snoring Tree]] to start a war between [[Rayman]] and the [[Livid Dead]] while he himself set to work building an army of mechas (powered by the Lums given to him by the clueless heroes) that he could use to take over [[the Glade of Dreams]] and free it from the rule of [[Polokus]], whom he considered to be an ineffectual and useless leader, unable to protect his own people from his nightmares. It is unknown why this material was removed from the game. It may be that these ideas were scrapped like several other concepts from the script, and that the Magician is actually Mr Dark's alter ego. However, in the final version of the game, there are still several posters in the Magician's headquarters, some with pictures of Mr Dark's silhouette, and one with '♥ Mister D' written on it, hinting that the original storyline may still hold true. The Mr Dark seen on these posters looks quite different from the Magician; his hat is shaped more like an inverted triangle, and his arms are long and thin, but these differences may simply be a holdover from an earlier version of the game where the original storyline was still in play.