Agahnim

:Not to be confused with Agunima, a miniboss in .
 (pronounced , ) is the powerful evil wizard who serves as the secondary antagonist of . He kidnaps the Seven Maidens to break the seal to the corrupted Sacred Realm and achieve his goal. While many believe him to be an apprentice of Ganon, he is revealed to actually be that villain's alter-ego.
==Biography==
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When Hyrule became besieged by an onslaught of terrible misfortunes, the King of Hyrule offered a reward to anyone who could put an end to these disasters. A mysterious stranger named Agahnim came and put an end to these troubles with a previously unknown magic. He was declared a hero and given the prestigious positions of chief advisor to the King and heir to the Seven Sages. Agahnim used this position and his mysterious magic to brainwash all of Hyrule's Soldiers, kills the King of Hyrule by reducing him to a skeleton, and make six of the Maidens, who were descendants of the Seven Wise Men (Sages), disappear to the Dark World.
Princess Zelda, the remaining last of the descendants, hides in the Sanctuary after being rescued by Link followed by her telepathic plea of help. She stays there until Agahnim's troops find her and take her to the tower at the top of Hyrule Castle. There, Agahnim sends her to the Dark World before Link could stop him, thus breaking the Seal of the Seven Sages. He gloats that nothing can stop him, because the Tribe of Evil is armed with the Triforce, and that evil and darkness will soon overrun the Light World. After this, he seemingly vanishes, but Link is able to quickly discover his whereabouts by slicing open a curtain and revealing a hidden chamber where he duels the Dark Wizard, turning his own magic against him. Before Link can soundly defeat him, however, Agahnim draws him into the Dark World. During his quest to rescue the Seven Maidens, Link learns that Agahnim is a servant, or perhaps a pawn, of Ganon.
When Link defeats Agahnim a second time at the top of Ganon's Tower, he ultimately collapses dead, and from his body a faint image of Ganon himself appears. The image turns into a bat and flees to the Pyramid of Power. At the start of the final battle, Ganon reveals that Agahnim was actually his alter-ego.
====Characteristics====
Even with the Master Sword, Link is unable to harm Agahnim directly. He must use the magical blade to turn his own magic attack against him to damage the evil wizard.
When attacking, Agahnim hurls magical beams against Link. The first of them, a magic ball, can be hit with the Master Sword to deflect it so that it hits Agahnim himself and wounds him. The second one, which homes toward Link, can also be hit with the sword, but it splits up and flings fireballs throughout the room. The third one is a lightning attack which Link can only avoid by standing at Agahnim's side (in the first fight). He only does this when facing south from the north center of the room, and it cannot be deflected. If Link attempts to strike Agahnim's body with the Master Sword, he receives a violent electrical shock in consequence, even in Golden form.
While he fights alone in Hyrule Castle, in Ganon's Tower he creates two additional clones of himself to confuse Link. This can work to Link's advantage, as the clones are nearly transparent and only produce magic balls that can be bounced back with the sword and into the real Agahnim, able to quickly inflict damage.
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In , Agahnim makes an appearance as Agahnim's Shadow, one of the forms taken by the Shadow Nightmares. This appearance is very similar to how he was in , as is the method of defeating him. This Agahnim is simply a Nightmare, rather than the real Dark Wizard. He uses the main fireball spell, as well as the four-orbed decoy spell.
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Though himself does not appear in , mentions a "deceitful wizard" who attempted to revive during the days of his alleged six-fold great-grandfather, referring to the events of .
==Other Appearances==
===Super Mario-kun===
Agahnim appears in chapter 4 of Super Mario-kun volume 4. Mario and Yoshi jump into a lake that takes them to the other SNES games' worlds, the first of which is Hyrule from . After surviving a Spear Throwing Soldier, many , some and an , Mario (armed with the Master Sword) and Yoshi (in shield form) are attacked by Agahnim. Mario succumbs to his attacks, while Yoshi manages to hurt him by eating his magic bolts and spewing back at him, just barely tearing his robe. Mario gives up, but Luigi, from the "Super Mario World side" of the lake, tosses at him many Super Mushrooms that power-up the Master Sword into the Master Mushroom Sword. With one blow, Agahnim is defeated, and Mario and Yoshi dive back into the lake hoping to come back to their game, ending up instead in F-Zero.
=== (Ishinomori)===
Agahnim appears in the . Like most adaptations of the game, Agahnim is a separate entity from Ganon, rather than his alter ego. 
Agahnim first makes an appearance when Link witnesses his uncle being defeated at the hands of the wizard. After the young hero rescues Princess Zelda and takes her to the Sanctuary, Agahnim easily takes her back again to the top floor of Hyrule Castle where, on a full moon, he will cast the final incantation on the princess to open the way to the Dark World and release Ganon.
After Link obtains the Master Sword, Agahnim's preparations to cast the final incantation are complete, but he is soon interrupted by Ganon. He warns the wizard that a "being with intense emotional energy" is approaching the castle, much to Agahnim's surprise. Knowing this, Agahnim decides to wait on casting the incantation until Link arrives so that he can send Zelda into the Dark World right in front of the young hero. Just then, Link lands on the castle's highest tower and rushes to find Agahnim in the middle of his spell. Although Link tries to harm the wizard with the Master Sword, the weapon passes right through Agahnim, which causes him to turn around and paralyze Link by only looking at him. Agahnim then casts Zelda into the Dark World, triumphantly mocking Link that not even the legendary hero could stop them from obtaining the Triforce. 
As Agahnim continues to ridicule Link, the Master Sword begins to shine while Link is still frozen. Link's rage towards Agahnim begins to channel through the Master Sword, which causes for the castle to begin to crumble down. Agahnim and Link begin to battle, and Link uses the sword to turn back Agahnim's magic against him and successfully defeat him. Bested by Link, Agahnim reveals that him being killed will not restore the Wise Men's seal, and with his final breath transports Link to the Dark World as Hyrule Castle crumbles to reveal the Pyramid of Power.
Towards the end of the comic, when Link, Princess Zelda, and Roam reach Ganon's Tower, an illusion of Agahnim approaches Zelda. Although Roam successfully interferes and saves the princess's life, he is killed by Agahnim, and Ganon himself soon rises from the defeated illusion.
=== (Himekawa)===
In the , Agahnim is given a backstory as a friend to Link's Father. He studied to become a magician while his friend trained to become a Knight of Hyrule. When Link's father told him the story of the Imprisoning War and the Triforce, Agahnim became intrigued and researched for ways to break the ancient seal. When Link's father confronted him about his investigations, he used his magic to trap Link's parents in the Dark World. He then struck a bargain with Ganon: he would undo the seal of the Sages and Ganon would grant him powerful magic.
Agahnim also exhibits some attraction to Princess Zelda, as he tells her just as he is about to send her into the Dark World. Eventually, he succeeds in reviving Ganon, but quickly learns the hard way that Ganon was unwilling to share any power, being struck down as Ganon denounces him as a mere mortal.
=== (Cagiva)===
Agahnim also appears in the earlier . His portrayal is similar to that of the game, but the manga shows him doing good deeds with his magic so that the people will not suspect his treachery, such as reviving a puppy that was run over by his carriage. Agahnim later kidnaps Zelda by sneaking in through the Sanctuary, and later tries to kill the King of Hyrule, though unlike the game, the King survives. Later, he and Blind the Thief plot to unleash Ganon upon Link and his allies.
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Agahnim appears as a Spirit with the Magic Attack 🠅 ability in , which increases the attack power of a Fighter's Magic attacks.
=== Twilight Princess ===
While Agahnim doesn't appear himself, Zant is a parallel to Agahnim, appearing to be the primary antagonist until the plot takes an unexpected turn, revealing Ganondorf to be the .
==Trivia==
* The Magician from The Adventure of Link shares many similarities to Agahnim: both were close to the Royal Family of Hyrule but tricked them in order to serve Ganon. The Magician may have served as a prototype or concept for Agahnim.
** On a similar note, the Hyrule Historia implies that the Magician was an alter-ego to Ganon, much like how Agahnim was revealed to be Ganon's alter-ego in the climax to A Link to the Past.
** Agahnim himself acted as the partial namesake for the character Ghirahim from Skyward Sword.
* The battle against Agahnim is the first example of a Dead Man's Volley in The Legend of Zelda series.
** Strangely enough, Agahnim's magic beams can be reflected back at him by hitting them with the Bug Catching Net. This is referenced in later games by the fact that Link can reflect Ganondorf or Phantom Ganon's similar attacks by swinging an Empty Bottle.
* It is likely that Ganondorf replaced Agahnim as Ganon's alter-ego throughout the franchise since Ocarina of Time, as Agahnim never appeared again since A Link to the Past and Ganondorf serves as his Gerudo form rather than a wizard (although both use dark magic).
* Agahnim is the first antagonist in the series to be seen physically dying on-screen upon his defeat rather than exploding into thin air.
* In the Japanese version of A Link to the Past, Agahnim was referred to as a priest rather than a wizard.
* The Blue Stalfos of Ancient Tomb in Oracle of Ages attacks in a quite similar manner to Agahnim, except that this foe cannot create lightning, but instead turns Link into a baby.
* Although the death of Link's uncle in A Link to the Past is completely vague, in the comic adaption by Shotaro Ishinomori, Agahnim is the culprit.
* The Eye Symbol that Agahnim has on the front of his robes in the official artwork, as well as a design throughout Hyrule Castle when on the way to confront him, somewhat resembles the Crest of the Sheikah, though mirrored about the horizontal.
* Interestingly, in a concept artwork of A Link to the Past where it shows several mainline characters of The Legend of Zelda series as well as the Super Mario franchise of the SNES era at a size scale, Agahnim, despite being Ganon's alter-ego and appears large in-game, is significantly smaller than the main antagonist. With this in mind, as Ganon's soul appears out of his body upon his ultimate defeat, this suggests Agahnim was indeed a separate entity under that villian's control as a pawn, unlike Ganondorf.
* In the official artwork, Agahnim is depicted with red robes, whereas in-game they are green, due to the graphical limitations of the Super NES.
* According to Link's profile at his guest appearance in SoulCailbur II exclusively for the GameCube version, the Hero of Time in-game had defeated a powerful wizard in Hyrule before entering the Soul series' universe to destroy Soul Edge which had controlled such enemy. Although it is unknown what sorcerer Link actually stopped to save his homeland prior to the game's events, it is speculated by some fans to possibly be Agahnim himself.
* Agahnim closely resembles the common Wizzrobe, albeit larger and with more detailed robes. They also share a similar attack pattern that involves shooting orbs of magic at Link. Since Agahnim, like the Wizzrobes, is a dark sorcerer, he may be somehow related to them.
* Agahnim is a very rare example of an enemy being completely immune to the Master Sword in the franchise.
* In the Japanese version of A Link to the Past, the "tribe of evil" that Agahnim was referring to, was called the Demon Tribe, making Ganon the current ruler of the Demon Tribe.[citation needed]
* His in-game sprite strongly resembles Ganondorf dressed in green robes. Agahnim and Ganon also share the same theme music; this music later became Ganondorf's leitmotif in future games.
==Nomenclature==
==Gallery==
File:ALttP Agahnim Artwork.png|Artwork of Agahnim
File:ALttP Agahnim Artwork 2.png|Artwork of Agahnim
File:ALttP Agahnim Artwork 3.png|Artwork of Agahnim
File:Agahnimdefeat.png|Agahnim preparing to draw Link into the Dark World upon his first defeat
File:ALTTP Agahnim defeated.png|A dead Agahnim after being defeated a second time in A Link to the Past
File:Agahnim kills Link's uncle.png|Agahnim killing Link's uncle in the A Link to the Past manga
File:Agahnim Comic Book.jpg|Agahnim in the comic by Shotaro Ishinomori
File:AgahnimManga.jpg|Agahnim in the manga by Akira Himekawa
File:Agahnim Ataru Cagiva.jpg|Agahnim in the manga by Ataru Cagiva
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