And he is pivotal to the entire game.
The post
I have long been considering how I would write an effortpost about Varkade. The entire story revolves around him – him and Rena. The title of the game itself is based on Varkade’s desire. He is a prominent character throughout the plot, and he is singlehandedly responsible for so many events that a retelling of the story would absorb much of your time and still wouldn’t be better than actually playing the game. Play Dream of Five.
So, instead, I thought I should examine him from different aspects, rather than tackling what he does in a chronological order. Because there is so, so, so much to talk about.
Story Role
In a story sense, Varkade is depicted as the Jagen. No, not in gameplay. He is not actually playable. He is an old man, and while he can use some magic, he does not set his foot on battlefields.
Instead, he is a Jagen in a story sense because he’s Rena’s advisor for most of the story. He offers not just strategic advice, but also advice on leadership and on how Rena should act in front of others. He constantly gives her life lessons, and whenever she has a moment of doubt, whenever she wants to do something he thinks is unwise, he objects, or intervenes, or otherwise seeks to change Rena’s mind. If it is not too devastating, he acquiesces, but he always seeks to shape her behavior.
We are quickly treated to implications that Rena feels indebted to Varkade because he saved her life in the past, and that is why she follows his advice. What helps is that his advice is often proven to be good. His strategy for tackling maps is sound, and he often contributes off-screen. When Rena is sieging a fort defended by Sorcha and Morwen, Varkade is responsible for the strategy that creates a gap and allows Rena to assault the fortress before reinforcements arrive. When Rena is separated from her group on Musain route, Varkade prevents Garath and Arcus from coming to blows when Lyndra, Farrell’s commander whom they captured, tries to break them apart – and he even manages to recruit Lyndra to their cause. On Onduris route, Varkade successfully interrogates another captured enemy commander, Nikita, and also recruits her to Rena’s cause while obtaining important information. And he is able to achieve all this because he is very, very eloquent with his words. Unlike the traditional Jagen character, he does not necessarily intimidate others to get what he wants – he just knows exactly what to say in order to make other people do his bidding. In that way, he is a rather unique advisor character.
And he weaponizes his skills throughout the game.
Methodology
Varkade says at several points throughout the game that everyone is blind, except for him. He believes himself to be the only one unblinded by bias, who sees the world clearly. And perhaps there is a kernel of truth to that, because he does manage to weaponize others’ biases to cause them to make predictable moves. But really, what he calls being unblinded by bias, can rather be described as a complete detachment from identity, humanity, and empathy.
The advice Varkade often gives to Rena makes it rather apparent what he thinks of others. He thinks a leader benefits from others being loyal, but should be unfettered themselves. Oaths should be broken and allegiances changed if it’s expedient. Men must be kept in line with an iron fist, and disobedience as well as dissent cannot be tolerated. Chaos is unacceptable. All pieces must fall in place exactly as they are meant to, and a ruler must not bow to anyone unless they have to.
Varkade wants to reshape the entire continent, and he wants to reshape it by installing rulers who he aligned himself with. He makes those rulers take certain actions by preying upon their desires. On Musain route, he leverages Fleurre’s ambition to elevate her and make her want to be a much better ruler than Guillaume, the previous Provost. On Onduris route, he turns the previously hesitant Mir’Katal into someone who sees himself as an important part of the new order, who must “cut out the rot that exists in Talis.” He weaponizes Trajan’s attachment to tradition to make him seize power in Vishara, topple the “false queen,” and bring Vishara back to what it used to be. Its perceived old greatness. And of course, he also convinces his friends in Aukema to support Rena’s claim to the throne, once she is declared the “lost princess Ethelrena, seeking to become Queen Ethelrena VI.” Wyclif stands behind Rena entirely because of Varkade, and Hereward is also convinced, although Hereward ends up being much more genuinely loyal to Rena than Wyclif.
The last of the rulers Varkade wants to install is Rena. Rena, who he wants to rule Aukema. Rena, who he has molded for years to become the greatest Aukeman ruler – at least, the greatest in his eyes. The ruler who will behave exactly as he desires, being powerful and unflappable, and only pliable to Varkade – no one else.
The long con Varkade intends to play with Rena is nothing short of masterful, and he knows that. When the royal line of Aukema was potentially going to die out, Varkade found an orphan who resembled the sick Princess Ethelrena and kept her in isolation, but gave her an education and decent care. He tutored her in order to prepare her to take over, should Princess Ethelrena die. Since the royal line was at serious risk of going extinct, Varkade wanted to have a contingency – and by molding that “contingency” almost entirely to his desires, he would have immense power over the throne, while remaining in the shadows himself.
But his plan is opposed by Farrell, who tries to murder Varkade – and, indeed, that orphan he had been tutoring, who later becomes the game’s protagonist, Rena. Varkade escapes the capital with Rena, and during the escape, he instructs her to kill a guard, thus teaching her how to kill when “necessary.” Because he had been teaching her before, she trusts him when he tells her they must leave or they will die. He isn’t even lying about this. What he is omitting, of course, is why Rena’s life is in danger to begin with – and it’s in danger because of his own scheme. But it wouldn’t do for Rena to know that. So Varkade spins the situation, to make it seem like he saved Rena from certain death, to make her eternally indebted.
He even sets her up to join the Striders before the start of the game. When we meet Rena for the first time, she is the captain of a tiny squadron of Striders, a group responsible for rooting out banditry. Varkade put her in that position, to give her hands-on experience as a commander. Of course, this, too, had a purpose. She needed hands-on experience in order to effectively lead her men – because if she could do that, she had much better chances of taking the throne. And Varkade would certainly urge her to take the throne. Because he intentionally handpicked her to make sure she’d look similar to the real princess, he gave her an education befitting the real princess, and tried his best to instill a desire to rule, much like the real princess would have had.
The Old Man and the Girl
Varkade’s relationship with Rena is fundamentally so interesting.
Varkade is an advisor character who is incredibly controlling in regard to the protagonist and forcefully imparts lesson after lesson upon her. At the start of the game, Rena defends Varkade wholeheartedly, does exactly what he wants, shelters him from Farrell (who knows Varkade is likely scheming against him and wants to kill him), becomes an oathbreaker to the Striders, runs to Musain or Onduris (depending on the player’s route choice), listens to his tactical advice… truly, it seems like she is the perfect little puppet for Varkade. Which is, demonstrably, what he wants. She is very competent in her own right, and she is rather determined, but ultimately, she walks the paths where Varkade lays down his carpets.
But over time, that relationship changes. Rena slowly starts to think that she might be becoming Varkade’s pawn. And even though she still mostly follows his desires, she doesn’t want to treat others the way he’s telling her to treat them. She may come across as overly pragmatic and even heartless, as depicted in her support with Kolbane, but she has a heart, and that heart does guide her decisions to some extent. And the inner guidance she feels, those repressed desires, those repressed aspects that constitute Rena’s self, are what Varkade ultimately cannot control. She does end up toppling either Musain or Onduris’s regime, claiming to be the lost princess, and marching to Aukema with an army at her back, but she quickly develops ideas for her rule that clash with what Varkade wanted her to do. She takes his tactical advice during her campaign in Aukema, and she does work with the allies he secured for her, but when one of those allies – Wyclif – proves to be a detriment to Rena’s cause in some way, she casts him aside without hesitation, drawing Varkade’s ire. Ideally, Varkade would have wanted Rena to be surrounded by people he wanted to see there, rather than by people Rena herself wanted to see there, but that isn’t something he’s able to achieve. Rena increasingly spirals away from Varkade’s control, despite Varkade’s continued attempts to seize it back.
Whether Varkade cares for Rena as a person in the slightest is an interesting question. At one point, he claims he loves her, but the context makes it unclear whether he actually means those words.
“So you know better, do you? You, the orphan girl scratching around on the filth of a dungeon floor? Everything you know, everything you have ever known, girl, I taught you. I am the only person who has ever known you. I am the only person, girl, who has ever loved you. I have ever been your guiding light.”
He is saying this to make her stay in his grasp. To convince her that she needs him. That following him is in her best interest. That because she is indebted to him, she ought to follow.
But at the end of the game, he says this.
Rena: I used to think, in some little way, you loved me. But it was the con you loved, more than anything. That’s plain as day, now.
Varkade: …I wish it were true.
Rena: What, you deny it?
Varkade: Looking at you now, seeing you overcome your trials… knowing I have set myself against you, and lost… ………No. I’ve said too much.
Rena: It’s the only chance you’ll have to say it, Varkade.
Varkade: I care not. Finish it, girl. Do not draw this out longer.
Perhaps he really did care. It’s intentionally left ambiguous how much, or whether the care was even there. Personally, I’m of the opinion he cared more for the idea than the person. In his own way, he is proud of her for being a strong leader who was even able to defeat him. But he doesn’t like the fact he feels this way because she was only ever supposed to be a pawn, and she stopped being one. He may have grown attached to following her journey, and that is why, perhaps, he genuinely did feel hurt when she rejected him after taking Aukema’s throne. He really thought she would not do that. And while he did, inevitably, sic his remaining allies upon Rena, she defeated all of them, and now that she stands before him, he knows he built a powerful ruler in the end. But he likely wishes he could have stood with her. He couldn’t have – she would not have done what he wanted, and her vision of the new world is very different from his – but he likely does feel some regret that it ended this way.
He likely wishes she were dreaming of the same thing as he.
Dream of Five
What Varkade dreams of for the continent of Talis is a return to the Five. The Folklorist, a recurring NPC in lore houses, tells the player of the continent’s old history, dating back to when the countries were founded. The current landscape begun with the Five, heroes who drank the blood of dragons and created countries in the shape of their ideals. They were individuals of unsurpassed power who had the ambition to make lands where their ideas would come to fruition. But over time, those ideas were either warped, or they eroded, leaving virtually every country in the period of Rena’s life in destitution or decadence.
The world clearly needs reshaping. And Varkade’s idea of reshaping is a return to the old order. Have every country ruled by someone Varkade thinks is worthy – someone ambitious, who will preserve and impose the old ways, who will be like the Five were in their time, who will be unfettered and return their land to glory. To that end, Varkade makes alliances before the game, and he installs – or otherwise motivates – the people he wishes to take control, as outlined before. Rena, in many ways, was his greatest project.
But Rena had no love for the old order.
Rena’s experiences, largely as part of the Striders – but not just that – made her aware a return to the old ways will not work. What the world needed, in her eyes, was to dismantle the current state of affairs, but move forward – look to a new, different future instead of the past. Because of that belief, she has no love for members of the old order who stand in their way, casually disposing of Wyclif when he crosses her one too many times, ruthlessly eliminating Trajan when he gathers an army against her, and showing no mercy against Fleurre or Mir’Katal (depending on whether it’s Fleurre or Mir’Katal who stands against her in the end). She is not interested in aligning herself with anyone who would preserve or return to the old order. She thinks everything needs to be rewritten, and that is why she aligns herself with figures like Tamara, the queen of Vishara who – like Rena herself – is not actually of the royal bloodline, but who wishes to reshape the country into a peaceful one and sign a trade agreement with Aukema to benefit the nation.
To Varkade, those movements forward are an escape from his own dream. Something that sets the world back. He is a staunch traditionalist. He thinks a return to how things used to be is the best possible outcome, and it is what he works toward.
It is not clearly stated why he wants to rebuild that vision so much. Perhaps it is because he wants to see himself as the architect of the new world, pulling strings from the shadows as everyone sitting thrones is sitting them because of him, and doing his bidding. An order exactly as he imagined it in his mind. And the Prophecy of the Leveler certainly suggests that.
The Leveler
Early into the game, Amaryl – a seeress – joins Rena’s party. She can read names as they are writ in the stars, and she offers auguries on every map.
Rena’s name in the stars is The Leveler. But for Varkade, in their conversation on Musain route, she offers no name in the stars at all.
Much later in the game, it is explained why. Amaryl, for the longest time, was unsure whether it was Varkade or Rena who was the Leveler. She had assumed it was Rena, but both fit the criteria, and over the course of the game, Varkade discovered what made a Leveler.
As Amaryl puts it:
Amaryl: I no longer know your name, Rena.
Rena: …What?
Amaryl: I thought it must be you, when you found me. For I knew it was my destiny to follow and guide the Leveler. I knew that they would come from Cweneth in the company of others; the Deadeye, for instance. I knew they would fly to the east to evade the pursuit of a great lord, who would rise in their absence. I knew they would overthrow a tyrant, and return to the west. And I know, in the end, they will be true to their title. They will achieve dominion over Talis, and reshape the land as they see fit. The Leveler’s victory is assured. Only I know not whether it is you, or Varkade Hengist.
Rena: How the hell can that be?
Amaryl: Prophecy is imprecise, Rena. The Leveler was Aukeman, they were an enemy of Farrell’s, they sought to use the royal name as the means of acquiring power. There were other, small things, but they could mean either of you. I first grew to doubt myself when it became clear that you did not want this. If retaking Aukema was not your vision, but indeed Varkade’s… but technically, you did still lead your armies here, and you did still earn victory. Now he has his own army, and his own designs on the land. Forgive me, Rena.
It really is unclear whether it’s Rena or Varkade who is the Leveler. But Varkade certainly takes direct action to ensure that he is the one, not Rena, once he and Rena are on opposite sides of a conflict. Perhaps the ambiguity was not considered a problem while he still had Rena in his grasp. Perhaps he still thought he was the Leveler and Rena just happened to suit the criteria because he was stringing her along. Or, perhaps, he thought Rena was indeed the Leveler, but Varkade was still above her.
Amaryl: The Leveler is set to take with them one of the Bold Deceiver’s blood, and in so doing, reconcile the nation. That is, in part, why I freed Adalheid from your dungeons. Take her with you. I believe she will listen, despite everything.
Varkade finds Sorcha and convinces her to join him. Sorcha is Farrell (Bold Deceiver)'s other daughter. This is an action that does make sense from a strategic point of view, but is much better – in fact, nigh-perfectly – explained by a desire to align with what the stars say. The stars say the Leveler will take one of Farrell’s daughters, so Varkade does just that with Sorcha… and Amaryl, the seeress, does that with Adalheid for Rena, because she wants the prophecy to be about Rena.
Rena is not actively working toward the prophecy. At least, not in a conscious manner. That much is clear. Retaking Aukema was not initially Rena’s vision, as Amaryl points out, but it was definitely the vision for Rena that Varkade had, and which he convinces her of. Varkade is actively working to be the Leveler. Because he wants his success to be writ in the stars, so that it may come to pass.
This is rather informative in regard to his desires. He wants to be exactly as the prophecy describes. Someone who, as Amaryl puts it, “will achieve dominion over Talis, and reshape the land as they see fit.”
In the case of someone like Varkade, who has a clear vision of what he wants the world to look like, and who is obsessed with maintaining order and respect… for someone like that, being the Leveler is a perfect fulfillment of all dreams. He wants to be the one who sets the world as he wills it before he dies. Just like the Five did, long ago.
But of course, he does not win. Rena does. Rena becomes the Leveler, despite never consciously working to become one.
Rena: How did you learn of the title of ‘Leveler,’ anyway? It was only after you left that Amaryl spoke to me truthfully. I hadn’t given it much thought, until I realized it might not be me after all. Strange how that works, eh?
Varkade: I am a scholar, girl. I researched. The babbling mystic had given me enough to go on, and Gwynel Kirk’s collection of prophecies was most extensive. They did not miss my borrowing. It did not take long before I was able to assemble the picture. But I dreamed long before this title came to life. No, it was only this which made me start to believe I could prevail, after you, my greatest hope, threatened to fail me… as, in the end, you did.
Rena: And so you found the daughter of Farrell, the ‘Bold Deceiver,’ so you could technically fulfill the bounds of the prophecy…
Varkade: As you took the other, I see.
Rena: We were only enemies through your machinations to begin with. …But yes, Amaryl felt it prudent to stack the dice our way. I suppose the mantle was not meant for either of us; it simply exists. Or perhaps not even that, and we’re all chasing incoherent, star-mazed visions… yet here we stand.
Varkade: Yet here we stand.
Rena may not care. But Varkade has made his peace.
The Themes
The matter of Dream of Five’s themes is something I will likely discuss in more detail if/when I make an effortpost about Rena in the units thread, because Rena represents the game’s themes and messages perfectly. As a good protagonist should. Rena is the best romhack protagonist I’ve seen.
But Varkade, well… he is one of the best romhack villains I’ve seen, and the way he plays into the game’s themes is a notable part of what makes him so appealing as a character.
One of the primary themes of Dream of Five is that a fake can surpass the real thing. That is, indeed, what Varkade is going for with Rena, in a sense. His entire plan revolves around the idea that once the real princess Ethelrena dies, Rena will take over, and rule at least as well as Ethelrena would have, if not better. Under Varkade’s thumb, of course, but still.
Yet, if Rena were to be Varkade’s pawn on the throne, she would not really be surpassing anything. Varkade’s entire goal is to shift the world back to the old ways, back to how he envisions the continent during the period of the Five. If Rena were molded to do that, then she would not be making progress in the way she ultimately does after liberating herself from Varkade. Ostensibly, Varkade is making the fake surpass the real thing, but in reality, he’s building a fake that can inherently never surpass what came before. Only follow in his footsteps as he tells her what to do.
Rena is the person who puts the surpassing in that statement. Varkade is just the person who turned a thing into a fake. But he could never make her surpass.
He is an obstacle to her surpassing. Even if he thinks he’s making her surpass by making her Aukema’s queen, that queen would never actually surpass what came before. Not without ideals of her own, and the will to enact them.
Another prominent theme in Dream of Five is that oaths, pledges, promises, tradition, and other such shackles should not prevent a person from doing the right thing at a time of need. Everyone who sides with Rena over Farrell – and over other corrupt authorities – is rewarded, because Rena is the objectively better ruler, better authority, than the people she is toppling. Trajan would squander his country’s manpower and resources to fight wars and continue being a warmonger. Farrell would let brigands destroy his lands to find one man that was his enemy. The Triumvirate of Onduris would put the nation in their vice grip without regard for anyone else, and the Provost of Musain would exorbitantly tax his people and even sacrifice them to fund his increasingly ambitious magical experiments. Everyone who sides with Rena against these individuals visibly benefits from doing so during the story.
Ironically, one of Varkade’s primary teachings for Rena is that she should be unfettered. Loyalty is a useful tool, he says, but Rena should not be bound by it. She should not bow to anyone unless she has to, and she should exploit others’ devotion, but not be blinded by oaths and promises herself.
In a sense, that could be construed as not allowing oaths to prevent doing the right thing. He asks Rena to make the best decisions for self-benefit regardless of what she may have promised, and to shift allegiances for self-benefit. To not concern herself with what others think when their opinions do not matter.
But what he is doing is espousing a twisted version of that idea. He is asking Rena to not be honorable. To not keep commitments, to not put herself in a position where she has a duty to someone, where she is indebted. His version of that theme is to not be beholden by any oaths at all, to do whatever she sees fit without considering whether it’s just. If she thinks it’s a good idea, or if it’s “objectively” a good idea for self-interest, she should just do it. But what Rena wants to do is introduce good ideas for the people. To usher in a new age. She feels beholden to the people. She may be their ruler, but she feels responsible to improve their lives and to topple the structures and people she’s seen fail.
Ultimately, Varkade’s idea of “the right thing” is “whatever serves your ambition, everything else be damned.” And because of that, when the idea of being unfettered by oaths comes from him, it is downright evil. But when it comes from Rena at the end of the game, it becomes being unbeholden to traditions that do not work, and individuals who do not seek to do good, which is significantly more noble. Rena fights Fleurre or Mir’Katal (depending on route) at the end of the game despite the fact she receives an army from both of them. It doesn’t matter that they helped her. It doesn’t matter if allying herself with them would result in her position being stronger. If their ambitions are more important than benefitting the world by letting it develop and progress, then they are harming people, who Rena feels a duty to.
Varkade would tell her to work with them. They are both his catspaws. He wanted them to be among the new Five, certainly. He would tell her to be unfettered by her ideals (selfless progress forward) and do the right thing (align herself with them).
But Rena’s answer is to be unfettered by their ideals (selfish progress backward) and do the right thing (eliminate them).
Varkade represents a twisted version of the theme. And that is a big part of what makes him such an effective villain.
He is ruthlessness. Rena is ruthless… devotion to improvement. True improvement. Not the image of the world that Varkade conjured in his mind.
Postscript
Varkade is not a villain you ever really fight on a map. He only shows up on a map once, at the very end of the game, and on that map, not killing him results in a better ending.
His stats there look like this.
There is no conceivable way that Rena doesn’t one-round him at this point. Nor can he do any serious harm to her. But he doesn’t attack her. Not at first.
The map only contains Rena and Varkade. You cannot deploy anyone else, and Varkade is still depicted in green despite being an enemy. He was an ally, once, or so Rena believed. And the way it will end between them is… not going to be a regular battle. Not when there is so much that connects them.
Waiting without killing him results in a few conversations being triggered. Rena asks him if he ever loved her. How much he cared. About the prophecy. About the plan.
But she doesn’t kill him. And he wants to be killed. If he cannot win, he wants everything to end with his death, at the hands of who will ultimately become the Leveler.
But… while you can make Rena kill him, and it does conclude the chapter, the slightly better ending – and the writing intent – are locked behind the path of not killing Varkade.
Continually refusing to kill Varkade results in him screaming and throwing himself at Rena, attacking her, trying to force her to kill him. But she does not. Instead, after that occurs, she simply says goodbye and leaves the map. Varkade has no allies at this point. No connections he can leverage. All the armies he had influence over had been defeated. The old order is well and truly dead. All he can do now, in his last remaining years, is watch the dream he attempted to construct slowly crumble into dust as Rena does everything Varkade didn’t want her to do. And he will be powerless to stop the change, the entire time.
He isn’t even mentioned in the ending if you spare him. The easy interpretation is that he doesn’t deserve it. There is no place for Varkade in history. Because he hasn’t earned one. He wanted to move history backward, not forward, and he manipulated everyone around him, only to achieve nothing. A footnote, in the end. And among Varkade and his pawns, only Varkade will end up living to see it all crumble – the man who started building the foundations in the first place. Fitting that the first man to lay the stones would be the last man to watch them removed.
And replaced with something better. But that replacing will go past Varkade, and past his lifetime. The world itself will move past him. He will be a mere figment of the past. Something he wanted to bring back again… is ultimately what he will become a part of, but with no acknowledgment whatsoever.
And perhaps it would suit him, under better circumstances. After all, Varkade never sought to become a ruler himself. He just wanted to build a world from the shadows. But that world is never, ever going to be built now.
Miscellanea
I think Varkade has an excellent character voice. Formal, and very authoritative, and wholly disregarding of others’ feelings. He is blunt, yet at the same time, clever, and well spoken.
I really like the fact he doesn’t want to be a ruler himself. He wants to be the power behind thrones. He wants to be the architect, not the monument, in a sense. It’s distinct from most romhack, and vanilla FE, villains.
This borders on a conspiracy theory, but I like the fact his portrait is somewhat reminiscent of Jagen. I think it serves to somewhat trick you into believing he’ll stay on Rena’s side, because he looks a bit like Jagen and acts in a manner reminiscent of him throughout the game. Though of course, this does not last.
I love the fact the first text you see in Dream of Five is a memory of Rena and Varkade parting ways after Rena defeats Farrell. Without context, it reads like a quarrel that leads to a parting, but which could potentially be resolved. With context, once you get there in the game, it is very clear that they will be genuine enemies, and that the final act will be Rena against Varkade.
To whoever ended up clicking the spoiler – thank you for reading. Next time, I will likely write an effortpost about Rena in the units thread. But I need to find the time to do so. Much like with Varkade, I want to do her justice.
