Fanel, Folken

フォルケン・ラクール・デ・ファーネル

Folken Fanel is the older and only brother of Van Fanel. Folken left Fanelia after being dispatched to retrieve a drag-energist as his rite of passage to becoming king. He allied with Emperor Dornkirk and the Zaibach Empire, hoping to end war (through war, ironically). He is torn between his duties as commander and his bond as a brother, a conflict that is resolved by the series' end.
(As the Strategos or tactician of Zaibach, Folken is revealed to be Van's older brother and the original heir to Fanelia. After failing to kill a dragon, he lost an arm to the beast and was subsequently taken in by Zaibach, who nursed him back to health under Dornkirk's orders and fitted him with a mechanical arm. He initially joined the empire hoping to realize Zaibach's ideals of a world free of war...)
Although Folken appears in the first few episodes as a rather heartless, robotic devotee of Zaibach's regime, he reveals himself to be a profoundly brilliant and compassionate man. He is an engineer, a sorcerer, a chemist, and a strategist of a caliber paralleled only by Dornkirk himself. He is a true archetypal tragic villain; he genuinely believes that his actions are for the greater good. Ultimately, his desires extend far beyond merely eliminating war—he aims to re-create the very laws of "fate" governing a world he sees as otherwise doomed to drown in needless tragedy.