Magician
Statistics
Featured in	The House of the Dead The House of the Dead 2 The House of the Dead III The House of the Dead 4 & Special
Encounters	THoTD - Chapter 4 THoTD 2 - Chapter 5 THoTD 4: Special - Chapter 2
Weapon	Pyrokinesis, Claws
Protection	Armoured skin
Weak Point
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The Magician (Type 0) is a sentient, humanoid mutant that was created by Dr. Roy Curien and the final antagonist of the first The House of The Dead installment. Considered by Curien to be the paragon of creation and his 'masterpiece', The Magician possesses the power of pyrokinesis or a 'mastery of fire', it has appeared in three of The House of the Dead games, making it the boss with the most appearances in the series.

AppearancesEdit

The House of the Dead Edit

The Magician is the final boss of House Of The Dead. After an alarming phone call from his fiancee, Sophie Richards, Agents Thomas Rogan and Agent G arrive on the scene at the Curien Mansion on December 18, 1998, against a backdrop of sinister disappearances at the estate, to explore the mansion of Dr. Roy Curien; they storm the mansion in a bid to save Sophie.  When Sophie suffers life-threatening injuries at the hands of Curien's monsters and having encountered his shocking creations first-hand, Rogan and G venture further into the house to seek out Curien and prevent further damage.

However, they arrive too late - Curien has completed his magnum opus, and proceeds to awaken The Magician from its incubator, anticipating commanding it to kill G and Rogan, before having it destroy the world. However, The Magician, upon awakening, reveals that it is self-aware and obeys no inferior being. It proceeds to kill Curien, then vowing to "destroy everything". It escapes onto the balcony, where the agents confront it in a final battle, which is successful. In its death throes, The Magician issues a final chilling omen, warning the two agents that they ...haven't...seen...anything yet!", before succumbing in a fiery explosion.

The House of the Dead 2Edit

Just over a year after The Curien Mansion Incident, The Magician was reanimated by Caleb Goldman, head of the powerful DBR Corporation, furthering Curien's incomplete research into Life and Death.  

The Magician was housed at the Goldman building in Venice to oversee the creation of the Emperor and safeguard it during incubation. AMS agents James Taylor and Gary Stewart arrived at the building's front plaza to stop Goldman's plot, but before entering the building, they are waylaid by the Magician. This time around, the agents had the upper hand, since information about The Magician's anatomy has been established from the Curien Case. They eventually managed to destroy him once again, allowing James and Gary to resume their mission.

The House of the Dead IIIEdit

The Magician himself does not appear in the third game, though he is mentioned in the flashback before the final level, and his name and picture can be seen quickly during the title sequence of the same level. He also makes a similar appearance in the intro movie, appearing in both his original HOTD version, and his more grotesque HOTD2 form.

As well as these subtle appearances, one of the extra point icons scattered throughout the game takes on the form of a golden statuette of The Magician, and even flies about in a quick manner like him, making it harder for the player to shoot it. Because of this, successfully hitting it gives the player a larger point bonus (+2000 points) than most of the other point icons. Interestingly, if one listens closely enough while this item is on-screen, they can hear him reciting, "I've been waiting for this time to come..."

The House of the Dead 4 SpecialEdit

The Magician itself does not appear in HOTD4, but as in the third game, it makes a cameo as an extra point icon. When hit, it grants many points, but to compensate, it flies around in a quick manner to make shooting it more difficult.

However, The Magician itself appears as the Final Boss in the Special. Again, it is unknown if this was the original or a clone, though the dialogue before the fight implies that The Magician remembers his prior encounter with G, and that in the Bad Ending, AMS agents G and Kate Green are attacked by multiple clones of itself, implying that it is indeed the original, once again revived from death. Prior to G and Kate's arrival, The Magician resides in a large, glass chamber, presumably during the process of his resurrection; G and Kate attempted to prevent him from escaping, but were too late to stop him from coming back to life.

Here, The Magician is shown to have energy surging on his weakpoints instead of them pulsating, and is shown to be more powerful than his previous incarnations. He also bears a purple aura. Before actually emerging to battle the agents, The Magician launches a salvo of fireballs at them from within his incubation chamber. This triggers a quicktime event in which the players have to shoot all of the fireballs down to avoid taking damage. The Magician emerges after the attack's conclusion, regardless of the player's success or failure in deflecting it.

After diminishing The Magician's health, he will summon and attempt to open Pandora's Box. The player is given the chance to stop it with a grenade. If the player fails in stopping The Magician from opening the box, it will proceed to release numerous clones of itself from incubation, showing that The Magician had indeed cloned itself; he laughs evilly, implying that he will attack and overwhelm the AMS agents and then all of humanity with his clones, resulting in the Bad Ending.

In the Good Ending, The Magician is fatally wounded by the Grenade, and succumbs a violent explosion once more. With his final breath, he has time to utter one final monologue- "Nothing can erase my pain".

However, after his demise, The Mystery Man appears at the The Magician's chamber. Upon entering the chamber, he remarks, "So, Pandora's box has been closed... that is if there is any hope left, the Wheel of Fate cannot be stopped."

The Pinball of the DeadEdit

The Magician makes an appearance as the fifth boss in The Pinball of the Dead, and retains his appearance from The House of the Dead 2. Similar to his appearances in previous games, The Magician will quickly attack the players using fireballs, blocking their pinball from moving. He will also rapidly teleport from one area of the screen to the next. However, unlike previous games, the player is not required to hit a specific spot on the Magician in order to damage him.

The Magicians voice is also used to alert the player when they have the opportunity to enter into a boss battle. The player will hear The Magician say, "I have been waiting for this time to come", a line used before Magicians battle in The House of the Dead 2. Also, when the player gets a game over, he will say "You have no future"

Future gamesEdit

Many fans believe he may return in future games, perhaps even as the final boss of the series. While it is still unknown if The Magician will return in the future, his influence in the series is likely to endure.

CombatEdit

The Magician is an incredibly fast and dangerous adversary, One of it's more interesting powers, is its ability to levitate, implying that the creature uses a revolutionary anti-gravity propulsion system to allow it to constantly veer from left to right at crushing speeds in order to confuse the player. It relies on pyrokinesis to attack. It normal attacks consist of moving once and hurling deadly fireballs, and moving several times before forming a fireball in its hand, flying forward, and slamming into the player with its claws and the fireball it was holding at the time.

Its attacks can be predicted by the colour wavelength it radiates when leviatating. When about to throw a fireball while levitating,  it radiates blue light. When about to slam the player with a fireball, the luminations turns red. Its luminations become a pale white when performing its final attack. This light change characteristic is imitated by the Wheel of Fate in House of the Dead III, with each colour signaling a different attack.

In The House of the Dead, it also has a more powerful attack which involves it crouching down and projecting a flurry of larger fireballs in the air that the player must shoot down before they land on the balcony. This final attack is slightly altered in House of the Dead 2 - it hovers in mid-air and hurls the fireballs forward. In this particular version of the attack, it throws slightly fewer fireballs, but to compensate for that factor, this attack is much faster and harder to avoid, as these fireballs don't slowly drift to the ground like they did in House of the Dead.

Its weak points are the areas of exposed, pulsating flesh - the lower right leg, upper left leg, lower right arm, upper left arm and the area around its right eye. The particular giveaway are how the unarmoured parts of it are shown as exposed red or black muscle. Attacking these unarmoured areas during battle can be useful in disrupting The Magician's technique in performing attacks, and through it off balance.

Videos Edit

A silent video depicting the first battle against The Magician in House of the Dead 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfLgwqqE_so&feature=related

A video depicting the second battle against The Magician in House of the Dead 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9VeYBOBHKI&feature=related

A somewhat low quality video of the latest battle against The Magician in House of the Dead 4 Special: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y18UvDLXacI

Another low quality video of the entire game INCLUDING the good ending. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJmr7VDZXh8

A high-quality video of the second half of the game, INCLUDING the good ending (warning; video has commentary obscuring the game sounds): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TeZuLZY1J8&feature=youtube_gdata_player

The Magician's theme in The House of the Dead 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKJo6DGWlaE

GalleryEdit

Magician Type 0 as seen in the second game

Magician in The Pinball of the Dead

Magician's concept art

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TriviaEdit

• The Magician's behavior and appearance may be an allusion to Lucifer of the Bible, as both had betrayed their respective masters and became obsessed with a desire for destruction. His demonic appearance may also allude to The Magician's synonymy with evil.
• The Magician possesses some similarities to another video game character known as Jubileus, the final antagonist of the Bayonetta video game, as both had killed their creators after being released and soon went on a destructive rampage.

• Even though The Magician's weakpoints were determined in House of the Dead 2, they are unknown to the PDA in House of the Dead 4: Special. This appears to be for the purpose of challenging new players to figure out what it is for themselves.
• The final bosses of the first four HOTD games appear to embody primal forces of nature; The Magician uses fire, the Emperor uses metamorphosis, the Wheel of Fate uses electricity, and the World uses ice.