Zant

Zant, the Usurper King is a Twili who makes his first appearance in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess as a major villain. In the game, Zant has usurped the throne of the Twilight Realm while serving as one of Ganondorf's chief followers. Zant later appears as a playable character in Hyrule Warriors and its reissues.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Zant is introduced to the game simply through a flashback from Princess Zelda. Here he, addressed simply as the "King of shadows," who raided Hyrule Castle with an army of dark monsters, forcing Princess Zelda's surrender and allowing him to cover Hyrule in twilight by shattering the spirits of light. Zant's name is not said until Midna reveals it following the defeat of Fyrus.

Once Link has defeated Morpheel and recovers the last of the Fused Shadows, Zant meets Link and Midna in person at Lanayru Spring, where he summons twilight again, turns Link back into Wolf Link using a Shadow Crystal, and confiscates the three Fused Shadows they had obtained. He then attempts to persuade Midna to join him, and at her refusal, restores the light, exposing Midna to the full light of Lanayru and gravely wounding her.

Once Midna's health has been recovered by Zelda, Link is restored to normal by the Master Sword, and the two have made their way through the Arbiter's Grounds on the way to the Mirror of Twilight, Zant ambushes them again, this time plunging a twilight-infused sword into a massive fossil, creating Stallord to try and stop them, after which he leaves.

Zant is not directly seen again until Link and Midna have made it through the Palace of Twilight, where he is found in the throne room. Here, it is revealed that his previous calm demeanor is a facade and that he is actually completely insane, rambling his motivation between several bizarre movements and noises. He states that he believed he was entitled to rule the Twili and that he believes their royal family to be too complacent and resigned to their race's exile. He reveals that while he was throwing a tantrum alone on a balcony after being denied the throne, he was approached by "a god" (actually a banished Ganondorf wielding the Triforce of Power), who convinced him he would grant Zant his desires and his own power at the exchange of "combining light and shadow to make darkness." At this, Zant begins to battle the two.

In Zant's battle, he replicates several previous bosses and minibosses, being Diababa, Dangoro, Morpheel, Ook, and Blizzeta, and teleports to their lairs in doing so. In each of these, he also adds his own unique twists, usually involving comedic movements. Most of his attacks involve sending a rapid-fire chain of pink energy projectiles. For all of these, Link getting two chains of sword attacks against him causes him to switch to the next one.
 * For the Diababa battle, he floats in the air, occasionally teleporting or firing. Link needs to use the Gale Boomerang to knock him out of the air, causing him to skip across the water to dry land, where Link can attack him until he teleports away.
 * For the Dangoro battle, he jumps on the edge of the slippery magnetic platform, tilting it around. The Iron Boots are useful to avoid getting rolled off. Eventually, he stops to fire projectiles, but then tires out, allowing Link to attack.
 * For the Morpheel battle, he fires from within an enormous copy of his own helmet that burrows up from the sand and opens its mouth hole. Link needs to use the Zora Armor and Iron Boots to prepare and then use the Clawshots to pull him out of the helmet, allowing Link to attack. After the first attack, the helmet burrows back under and four different ones come back out from different directions (all facing center), with him changing which one he is in when the mouth-holes are all closed.
 * For the Ook battle, he leaps between the totem poles and occasionally stops to fire. While he is firing, Link needs to bash into the totem pole to knock him down and stun him, letting him be attacked.
 * For the Blizzeta battle, he grows giant and again floats, before attempting to stomp down on Link. His position is marked beforehand by his reflection on the icy floor. Once he is on the ground, using the Ball & Chain on one of his feet will cause him to clutch it, leap in pain, and shrink until he is comically small, allowing Link to attack.

At the end, they are transported to the outside of Hyrule Castle Town's south gate, where he now takes a pair of scimitars and attacks in his own manner. He walks up to Link and begins swinging wildly when he is close, but he is fully vulnerable in the back. After enough hits, he varies between madly chopping and spinning in a berserk fashion, teleporting in between. After enough spinning, he becomes dizzy and can be attacked for a short period. Once he is defeated, they are returned to the throne room, and Midna takes back the Fused Shadows and tells him that the Twili never trusted him as his greed was visible in his eyes. Zant attempts to protest more and Midna tries to use the Fused Shadows' power to silence him, but accidentally obliterates him by making him pop like a balloon.

Zant is seen one last time at the end of the game once Ganondorf is defeated, where a brief cinematic of him cracking his neck is used to signify Ganondorf's loss of the Triforce of Power and subsequent death.

Hyrule Warriors
In Hyrule Warriors, Zant is recruited by Cia during her conquest of the Era of Twilight, where he is again found in the Palace of Twilight. As revealed in Cia's Tale, Zant and Midna were already battling, with Cia and Wizzro deciding to assist the former due to his single-minded hunger for power making him easy to manipulate. Later, after Cia is defeated, Ganondorf summons him and Ghirahim to assist in his takeover of Hyrule.

In this game, Zant wields the Scimitars and switches between his two demeanors seemingly at random. He fights with several of his boss fight moves from Twilight Princess and is additionally assisted by Zant Masks, Zant's Hands, and Phantom Zants. When he is an opponent, guarding against his attacks several times consecutively will cause him to eventually slip up and expose his Weak Point Smash gauge. When playing as him, a meter on the screen grows as he attacks and when full, will cause him to mess up an attack unless he drains it with his basic strong attack, causing him to perform either his projectile barrage or rapid spinning attacks from his original fight. In his dialogue, he is shown with his helmet fully on while acting stoic, with his mouth showing while acting sycophantic or prideful, and unmasked while acting crazy.

Personality
For most of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Zant is calm and aloof, standing straight and speaking in a cruel, sinister voice. An aspect of this persona is Zant's extreme arrogance, exemplified when he curses Midna instead of simply killing her, and later, when he sets Stallord on Link and leaves without waiting to see if the creature is victorious. Despite his animosity towards Midna for being chosen over himself, he nonetheless extended an offer for her to join him in his bid to merge the Twilight Realm with Hyrule. However, when confronted with the face of defeat, Zant's behavior becomes extremely erratic, wild, and unexpected, then his voice changes from a bold tone to a much higher pitch. A flashback depicting Zant's encounter with Ganondorf implies that the latter was his true personality, as he was seen slamming his fists and head on the pavement in anger over being denied kingship after running out. He also implies in his rant to Midna right before fighting Link that his insanity stemmed from his being the only Twili to express any emotion, and holding disgust towards the rest of the Twili for suppressing their emotions and the royal family for such being the case. According to Yoshiyuki Oyama, the more erratic characterization had been included at the last minute to give a more comical element to the confrontation and add more characterization. He also has a pronounced hatred of light-worlders, largely stemming from his ancestors being exiled to the Twilight Realm eons ago.

In combat, he fluctuates between his two personae. When on an erratic tangent, his movements, such as hopping up and down and hitting his head against the floor, are awkward and almost comical. The music that accompanies Zant's several stages could itself be seen as reflective of his mental state: the first five tracks are remixes of previous boss or mini-boss music played at increasing speed, culminating in the sixth track, which is a haphazard mix of the first five played much faster. Additionally, the screeches Zant lets out as the battle progresses become higher and higher pitched.

Physical appearance
Zant wears a tall metal helm with unnerving lizard-like facial features, which can be retracted to reveal his face. His actual face has a flat nose, a tattoo on his forehead, giant red and yellow eyes, and a mouth with diagonal splits going up and down on each end, giving off the impression of a smile and frown at the same time. He also appears to wear a balaclava that covers his neck and head, but not his face, explaining the yellowish color of his head and neck, unusual among the Twili. He also has red hair, which can be briefly seen underneath the top of his balaclava near the top of his head. The robes' sleeves were long enough to completely obscure his hands. However, his hands were seen only once, right before resurrecting Stallord, which had them being red and almost skeletal. Zant has a mark on his robe that bears a striking resemblance to the Gerudo symbol. He is seen wearing this in the scene right before he meets Ganondorf, meaning it is not a symbol of his allegiance.

Abilities
Zant possesses a wide array of magical abilities, which Ganondorf gave to him in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. What powers he possessed before, aside from the standard powers of a Twili, are unknown. He can exist in the Light World without being harmed or requiring the protection of someone's shadow, unlike most Twili. Zant can create portals similar to Midna's, and move between the world of light and the Twilight Realm without the use of the Mirror of Twilight. He can also create Shadow Beasts and phantoms of himself, teleport, and perform telekinesis. Zant's powers appear to be quite potent, as he displays the ability to overcome one of the sacred Light Spirits and humiliate Midna without even raising his arms. He can also corrupt areas of the Light World with Twilight and even seemingly manipulate reality&mdash;creating a giant version of his helmet to combat Link, altering his own size greatly, and apparently duplicating several boss arenas that Link had previously visited. Just prior to his demise, he claimed that he could be resurrected without cease so long as Ganon himself was still alive.

In battle, Zant can float and even swim freely through air and water. He also seems to possess superhuman strength, as he is able to tilt the arena merely by jumping when impersonating Dangoro's fight, a feat that looked as if it strained even the huge Goron himself. His primary attack comes in the form of purple energy balls that he fires rapidly. Link can strike these with his sword, but they merely explode on contact, making them ultimately unrelated to Dead Man's Volley. Later in the battle, Zant utilizes two scimitars with which he maniacally flails about, sometimes employing a high-speed, heavily damaging spinning attack. Another of Zant's skills is his dumbfounding flexibility.