Golbez (Final Fantasy XIV)

Golbez , real name Durante , is a powerful voidsent from the Thirteenth and the primary antagonist of the post-Endwalker patch content in Final Fantasy XIV.
==History==
===Before Endwalker===
During the Contramemoria, Durante was a Memoriate together with his friend, the true Golbez. Durante claims that it was through Golbez's faith and support in him, that he became the knight he was then. The two, hailing from the kingdom of Baron, would travel the realm hunting Memoriates taken by darkness and assisted individuals in need. At some point in their adventures, they encountered Zero. Sensing a kindred spirit, Durante offered her an invitation into their party, but was declined, with Durante lamenting the inability to overcome distrust in troubled times. An unknown amount of time later, Baron came under attack. Whilst fending off their enemies, a dark memoriate managed to corrupt Golbez, leaving Durante no choice but to seal his friend into a memoria crystal. Taking Golbez's armor and name, he promised them that the people would eventually sing of the hero that shattered the wheel, and brought salvation to the world.
The Ascian Igeyorhm would eventually appear before Golbez, telling him of the existence of other worlds and that the only way to end the Contramemoria and bring balance to his world was to get rid of the Watcher of The Thirteenth. However, in striking down the Watcher, his actions unleashed the Flood of Darkness. Golbez was amongst the many denizens turned into voidsent, but maintained his mortal form, and realized he had been misled. He came to loath his world's purgatorial state and wanted to end the cycle of life and immediate rebirth. He would also establish his base of operations on his world's moon. 
Golbez began plotting a war against the Source, hoping to lead all voidsent there to reclaim their mortality. He captured and imprisoned the great wyrm Azdaja, a dragon from the Source who had made her way to the Thirteenth in an effort to stem the flow of voidsent conjured up by the Allagan Empire. He recruited four powerful voidsent to serve as his generals for his cause, allowing them to feast on a portion of Azdaja's aether. As Golbez's forces gained strength and conquered more of the void, so too did his notoriety rise, and the rulers of other domains heard of him and feared they would be his next conquest.
===Post-Endwalker===
Golbez and his four Archfiends convened to discuss a recent voidgate being opened from the Source to the void. They reasoned that the beings responsible must be the ones who slew the Cloud of Darkness, but also sensed this was their chance to put their plans into action. They later sensed the gate reopening and intruders from the Source entering, being the Warrior of Light and their companions searching for Azdaja. Golbez sent his first Archfiend, Scarmiglione, to investigate, but that ended in failure and Scarmiglione being sealed in a memoria crystal. Concerned that a Memoriate still lived, Golbez dispatched Barbariccia to eliminate the threat to his plans, but this, too, ended in failure and her sealing at the hands of the half-voidsent memoriate known as Zero.
At their petition, Golbez granted Rubicante and Cagnazzo permission to engage the enemy, bestowing upon them one of the eyes of his captured wyrm to distract the Warrior of Light's party. While the two Archfiends were slain in the Source, the plan succeeded in destroying the intruders' only way to enter the void. Golbez reflected on his fallen Archfiends' work, but declared to no longer need minions and vowed to move forward with his plans.
When the Warrior of Light and their companions arrived on the moon of The Thirteenth, Golbez appeared and though he failed to recognize Zero from the time before the Flood, he nonetheless offered her a chance to join him so they can "break the wheel" but the memoriate refused. Though Golbez admits he never imagined that his foes would reach his domain, he states that by doing so they had presented him a golden opportunity. He clarified that by renewing Azdaja's yearning for freedom and to return home, the group had given him exactly what he needed. He then released Azdaja from his bindings, which allowed the ambient Darkness to transform her into a voidsent he dubbed Shadow Dragon, to serve at his beck and call, much to Vrtra's and the groups horror. He immediately ordered his new servant to savagely attack Vrtra while the Warrior of Light's companions were occupied by other voidsent. Declaring his ability to recognize individuals with incredible strength, Golbez then challenged the Warrior of Light in combat, but was defeated after an intense fight.
Despite being bested, Golbez revealed that his plan from the very beginning was to infuse Azdaja with Zodiark's residual aether, which had remained coalesced within the moon even after Zodiark was destroyed, giving birth to a voidsent with the desire to breach the barrier between worlds. Naming the voidsent after the ancient hero of the Thirteenth, Zeromus, the immense darkness forces the Warrior of Light and their companions to escape back to the Source on Vrtra's back. Not long after, Golbez continued to observe as Zeromus gathered strength, remarking that while the entity had awakened, Zeromus had yet to reach its full potential. Remembering the loss of his friend and of the vow he took to fulfill their shared goal of saving the world, Golbez posited that the people would "sing the songs of Golbez" once Zeromus broke down the barriers between worlds and allowed the voidsent to invade the Source.
Using Light channeled from the First, the Warrior, Zero, Y'shtola, Estinien, and Vrtra fought their way deep into Golbez's domain. After witnessing what happened to the original Golbez, the current Golbez appeared and revealed how Igeyorhm had deceived him, and his desire to undo the spiral of undeath. He swore not to let the heroes reach Zeromus and battled them. Still wounded from his battle with the Warrior, Golbez tried to even the odds by summoning shades of his archfiends, but the Scions struck them down and Zero was able to distract Golbez enough for the Warrior to jump into the core and face Zeromus. They brought Golbez to his knees, but he still refused to yield out of sheer determination to complete his crusade. Zero posited his way had no true salvation, as the Thirteenth would still remain the same and their people would remain trapped by their hunger for aether and distrust in others. Zero presented the Light she had gathered from the First, and when it touched Golbez, he not only remembered Zero from when he and Golbez first met her but began to feel hopeful again, believing that perhaps his world could be saved after all.
Having a change of heart, Golbez joined the heroes in defeating Zeromus. By dispersing its aether, Vrtra called out his sister and Zero sealed Zeromus in memoria. Despite the victory, and seeing the miracles the heroes had achieved, Golbez felt—despite his newfound belief that the Thirteenth can be saved—he that he had no place at their side for what he had done and nearly wrought. Zero felt that Golbez deserved another chance, and gave him the same offer he had given Zero all those years ago. Unlike that time, Golbez accepted the offer. He refused to join for farewell, however, due to his actions against Azdaja, he felt his presence would be inappropriate. He still began to labor for the restoration of the Thirteenth alongside Zero.
==Characteristics==
===Appearance===
Golbez is a tall and physically imposing voidsent, towering over the Scions when first confronted. He wears a black suit of armor with a long black cape. He has a single white glowing eye. In battle, Golbez wields a massive black broadsword. His appearance is based on the Golbez from Final Fantasy IV. However, after the Warrior defeats him in battle, Golbez shrinks down to the size of a mortal man, suggesting that his massive height was due to the amount of aether he had devoured. Even so, Golbez remained a head or two taller than Zero and the Scions.
Without his armor, Golbez appears as a Hyur with light blond hair, braided on his right side and flowing freely on the left and back.
===Personality===
Golbez loathes the cycle of life, death, and immediate rebirth his world is trapped in and seeks to end it. He has given up hope to restore his world to its former glory and believes the only salvation for the voidsent is to invade the Source, where they can die a true death. When confronting the Warrior of Light, Golbez displays an extreme envy of the residents of the Source as they have never had to spend millennia suffering in a lost world. He posits the Scions could never understand the envy and agony the voidsent feel.
Golbez usually does not meet directly with any of his minions, instead communicating with them via magical sceptres. Only his spies and Archfiends are able to meet him, the Archfiends' minions having never talked to Golbez themselves. This shows that Golbez is skilled in the art of delegation and secrecy, ensuring that his domain of the Thirteenth's moon remains out of the reach of rivals and foes.
He is manipulative, promising his Archfiends greater power in return for their service. He is perceptive and seems to know his Archfiends' true intentions, even though the fiends themselves initially do not. Golbez is permissive towards his Archfiends in letting them carry out their own plans, though the fiends also understand the consequences are severe if they fail him. In truth, he does not care much about his minions, offering only passing words of disappointment or praise (depending on how successful their plans were) upon their passing. Golbez is determined to see his plans through even if he has to sacrifice his pawns, and states his plans are at a point where he does not need the Archfiends. 
Golbez later proved capable of taking initiative when presented with opportunities, as seen when using the Warrior's group to rescue of Azdaja and giving her hope as a means to corrupt her into a voidsent with the purpose of granting salvation. He is unconcerned with winning his battles against the group, only striving toward winning the war for the salvation of his world. This only shows how ruthless his methods are when it comes to "breaking the wheel", unconcerned of who suffers for the sake of his plans or that his crusade of saving the people of the Thirteenth would cause unimaginable harm to another world. He also does not lose sight of his long term vision and can shrug off instances of defeat if it does not derail his plans. He does not hesitate to order the corrupted Azdaja to kill her own brood-sibling, showcasing there are no extremes he would not take to accomplish his goals. Y'shtola encouraged Zero to share the Scions' knowledge of the First with Golbez, believing Golbez is resourceful enough to figure out how to make use of that knowledge for the Thirteenth.
In the past before the Flood, Golbez (his original name of Durante), was a noble warrior of the kingdom of Baron, albeit slightly jaded and cynical, and a close friend to the original Golbez. He despised how many of the memoriates abandoned what morals they hand in favor of serving their own ends at the expense of the innocents and how it birthed the "wisdom" of the era of not trusting anyone. After being lied to and used by the Ascians that ultimately led him to unwittingly unleashing the Flood of Darkness, however, Golbez swore to never trust in others again. Following the loss of his friend, Durante vowed to fulfill their shared goal of saving the world in honor of his friend, no matter the cost. He kept the memoriate crystal of his friend, likely to remind himself of the vow. Deep down, Golbez knows that he is an "imposter playing at hero", and that he could never be the same paragon of virtue that his friend was. He even questions why his friend perished and not him, as it was his friend who believed in him to become the knight he was.
During his final confrontation with the Warrior, Zero, and their companions, Golbez remains steadfast in granting his world salvation through Zeromus. Upon hearing Zero's resolve and how she believes that with her friends' support and faith, miracles and the impossible can be achieved, Golbez begins to have a change of heart and believe himself that there is, indeed, another way the Thirteenth can be saved. After remembering that the same trust and faith from the original Golbez had inspired him to become a hero, he realizes that his crusade was misguided, that he betrayed the ideals his friend once stood for, and that he does not have to shoulder the burden alone. This leads Golbez to aid the group in defeating Zeromus and saving Azdaja, granting himself a measure of redemption. Despite this, he feels he does not truly belong with such a group of heroes, having become little more than a villain who compounded his sins with his crusade. Zero, however, is convinced that if he truly wishes to honor his friend and live up to his name, he can help restore the Thirteenth.
==Gameplay==
In Endwalker, Golbez is fought during , as well as the harder . He uses various elemental abilities similar to his original counterpart, while incorporating new skills such as Crescent Blade and Gale Sphere, which are capable of striking the party across a wide range. He is also able to call upon Azdaja to wrap around his blade in order to strengthen his attacks.
His original self as Durante appears as an ally in during the memory of Baron, and later as the final boss of the dungeon.
==Behind the scenes==
While referred to as Durante in the English version of the echo flashbacks during the Dark Throne main scenario quests, the Japanese version refers to him as a "Man Who Seems to be a Partner" . The Japanese version does not reveal Durante's name until the events of the dungeon.
==Musical themes==
When battling against Golbez, an arrangement of the "Battle With the Four Fiends" theme, titled "Voidcast Savior" plays, which also uses leitmotifs from "Main Theme of FINAL FANTASY IV".
Category:Antagonists
Category:Voidsents
Category:Characters in Final Fantasy XIV