Malladus

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Malladus
Species	Demon
Hair color	Red
Eye color	Yellow
Voiced by	Unknown
Debut	The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks

This article is about the Zelda villain. For the Fire Emblem character, see Malledus.

Malladus is the Demon King who serves as the main enemy and final boss of The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks.

Background

Malladus's origins are unknown, but he terrorized the land that would later become the new Hyrule about a century ago. A war sparked between him and the spirits of good that protected this land. The spirits found themselves unable to truly destroy Malladus, so they instead sealed him away in an underground prison. A series of railroads known as the Spirit Tracks acted as the shackles of his prison, while the Tower of Spirits acted as the lock. It would seem that Malladus lost his corporeal form in the process.

During the events of Spirit Tracks, his loyal follower Cole underwent a great effort to revive Malladus, using Princess Zelda's body as a vessel, as only a vessel from the royal line of ancient Hyrule would suffice. The ceremony was performed successfully, and Malladus was revived in Zelda's body atop the Tower of Spirits. Cole's minion, Byrne, then requested ultimate power from Malladus, only for Malladus to reject this request and attack him with a brutal magic blast that left him badly wounded. Cole and Malladus then escaped aboard the Demon Train into the Dark Realm. Link and Zelda followed them there and eventually battled Malladus and Cole atop the Demon Train, with Zelda's spirit inhabiting a Phantom due to Malladus being in Zelda's body. However, Zelda was able to reach Malladus and held her body still while Link attacked it with a Light Arrow that successfully expelled Malladus from Zelda's body.

The Demon Train was then destroyed, causing them all to return to a field in Hyrule, with Malladus now being shown as a blue shroud. He attempted to return to Zelda's body, but Byrne held him off with a field of energy while Zelda reunited her spirit with her body. Malladus proceeded to destroy Byrne with some type of dark magic and then turned on Cole, consuming him whole. Presumably using Cole's energy, Malladus transformed into his true form- that of a blue, horned, quadrupedal creature with a mustache. Apparently he could only hold up this form temporarily, but he planned to use that time to destroy as much of the world as he could, starting with Link and Zelda. He would charge at Link and Zelda and also spat out flaming rocks. During the first phase of the battle, Link deflected the rocks while Zelda recharged her energy. They then played a Lokomo duet together that caused a circle of light to appear on Malladus's back, his weak spot. During the final phase, Link distracted Malladus so that Zelda could fire Light Arrows into Malladus's back. After enough Light Arrows, Malladus would fall to the ground stunned, at which point Link could attack Malladus's head to destroy his horns and then attack the ruby on his forehead, his true weakness.

The battle ended with Link shoving his sword into Malladus's forehead and Zelda coming to help him. Together and using all the strength they could muster, Link and Zelda firmly planted the sword in Malladus's forehead together, destroying the ruby. This caused Malladus to disintegrate in an explosion of light, seemingly destroyed for good.

Trivia

• Malladus bears various resemblance to Ganon, the main villain of the Zelda series. His color scheme is similar to Ganon's in the first game, and his quadrupedal form is similar to Ganon's beast form from Twilight Princess (although Malladus seems to be a type of ram rather than a pig). There is also the obvious fact of both being referred to as Demon King, and the Demon Train's face resembles the face of Ganondorf.
• His name seems to be a combination of several train-related puns; "mal" can mean "evil" as in "malevolent", while his name as a whole seems to be a play on "Mallard" (which actually is his name in the Spanish version), after the fastest steam train ever built and could also be a play on "malleus", a type of hammer used to hammer in railroad spikes.
• A trophy of Malladus appears in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS.