Laharl

***“What fool dares awaken me, the great Laharl?”***

*—Laharl, Disgaea: Hour of Darkness*

**Laharl** is a recurring character in the *Disgaea* series. Arrogant and self-centred, Laharl attempts to maintain the attitude of a typical demon. He is actually a half-demon, due to his mother being a human. He is known for his evil laugh which is heard numerous times throughout the series. The first game in the series, *Disgaea: Hour of Darkness* chronicles his attempt to inherit his title of Overlord after the death of his father, King Krichevskoy, and his eventual discovery of love.

## Appearance

Laharl's appearance hasn't changed much between games, but there are some noticeable differences. In Disgaea 1 he is shown to have short blue hair with a set of antennae-like hair strands coming off of it, bright red eyes, pointy ears and a rather unimpressive body. He wears a red cape that by Disgaea 2 has been changed from one cape trail to two cape trails. His other clothes include a pair of red shorts, red-and-brown shoes and a set of gold bracelets.

In Disgaea D2, his outfit has been slightly re-designed. His shorts are now a slightly-longer pair of red pants, tied at the bottoms with small ribbons. His shoes have been simplified to all-brown boots, and his "hair stalks" have seemingly grown in length. He also now sports a set of black gloves and his body appears more physically mature overall. Laharl also possesses a female form in DD2, which has a very similar clothing design to his normal form. However, there are some noticeable changes. Her cape has gone back to one trail and her pants have been extended to a pair of ripped skinny jeans. Her chest has expanded greatly and now needs to be held back by a small red bra top, and her shoes are now all-black. She also has much longer hair compared to her male self as well as a much skinnier and more feminine figure.

## Personality

Laharl is incredibly arrogant as well as snarky and always tries to prove that he is the strongest demon in the Netherworld and takes being Evil seriously, finding virtues to be vices and vices to be virtues. He is, however, extremely powerful for his appearance, which, despite his age, is still that of a small human child (his large hair antennae and billowing scarf are meant to mask this fact). However, he has a weakness towards (as in, he literally gets hurt by) optimistic sayings (especially anything concerning the word 'love') and women with sexy bodies. Maderas took advantage of both weaknesses in both the game and the anime by having pretty girls say optimistic things (succubi in the game and miscellaneous pretty demon girls in the anime). He claims that Flonne and Etna don't bother him since they're flat-chested, something which they obviously take as an insult. He appears to have gotten over his aversion in his later appearances, as he isn't bothered by Rozalin's revealing outfit (Although a conversation with Machiko in Disgaea 3 after being recruited shows he's still highly nervous around them).

Although Laharl considers himself evil, he never does anything that may be considered truly immoral. He only briefly considers doing anything to the Earth, and the only things he can think of are making it rain pepper and giving kids an addicting video game. Laharl also loves to laugh evilly, believing it is an important part of being the Overlord. Even when towards the end of the first game when Laharl has clearly turned good, he still continues acting like he's evil, except for when Lammington turns Flonne into a flower. At that he point he displays outright hate for the Seraph, believing that he turned on Flonne after she believed in him. This is, and in the normal ending where Laharl sacrifices his life to revive Flonne, are the only times he admits to caring about her, any other time he denies doing so. It is strongly implied that he harbors romantic feelings for Flonne because the only way to cast the revival spell that takes the user's life is if the user has love for the person he/she revives, similar to how Laharl's mother took her own life to cure Laharl's deadly disease. This is the reason Laharl rejects love and thinks love is useless because it was the cause of his mother's sacrifice.

In Laharl's future appearances, he maintains his ego and view that he is evil, and displays outrage whenever he isn't the main character, and attempts to take the role from whoever it happens to be at the time. His obsession with this is perhaps best shown when he appears in Disgaea 3, where he accuses Mao of being the "Legendary Overlord" that stole from him, but reveals after fighting him that he knew it was really Baal and only accused him just so he could increase his screen time.

In Disgaea 4, Laharl again appears in the post-game, wanting to become the new protagonist of the story and take over the Presidency from the challengers aiming to get at it, after Axel, Raspberyl, and others try to take it. He loses against Valvatorez and his party, and joins the party, supposedly to increase the time he spends on-screen. He also asks Valvatorez if he could whip his prinnies back into shape due to current obedience problems he has with them.

In Disgaea D2, Laharl learns of his sister Sicily who comes to the Netherworld to live with him. Typical to his personality, he refuses to openly admit love or adoration for his sister, but constantly goes out of his way to make her happy. He becomes defensive of his sister's happiness, and openly argues with and fights back against Celestia and the Seraph to allow her to stay. In future appearances, Sicily lives with Laharl, although their familial relationship doesn't stop Laharl from assuming a party is actually a rebellion, and responds with his typical narrow-sighted anger.