Ellios: The Lord of Oblivia Manipulated Into Defying Arceus

A man convinced he's doing good, who becomes the catastrophe. Ellios rules the Oblivia of long ago: steward, lord, and father of a boy he never gets to see. Convinced that the Golden Armor will let him bend Arceus to his will and give everyone a world without suffering, he drains Pokémon of their energy and has his own guards hypnotized without seeing the slightest contradiction. The player who arrives from the future doesn't face him as a tyrant: they face him as a man they will later have to go and save.

Contents

• A Steward Turned Lord, and the Perfect World He Thinks He's Building
• Sabios, the Loyal Henchman Pulling the Strings
• Dusknoir, and a Defeat He Refuses to Understand
• The Letter That Opens His Eyes
• Standing Up to Arceus, and the Vow That Follows
• Ellios at a Glance
• Frequently Asked Questions

A Steward Turned Lord, and the Perfect World He Thinks He's Building

Ellios appears in only one segment of Pokémon Ranger: Guardian Signs, the one that sends the player back to the Oblivia of long ago. There he holds two titles at once, steward and lord of the region, and the people around him call him lord long before they call him by name. He is also the father of Ravio, something the story never lets you forget.

His ambition is laid out early and with no mystery: he wants to subjugate Arceus, and he's counting on the power of the Golden Armor to do it. Yet the armor wasn't enough on its own, as he admits himself while savoring his success — it was the orb of light that amplified his power. So the player knows very quickly who they're up against, which shifts the chapter's focus: the question isn't who the opponent is, but what drove a man that far.

The answer lies in the speech he gives his followers once Arceus is under his command. In it he proclaims an ideal world where humans and Pokémon will finally live in harmony, without the slightest limitation: he doesn't think he's waging a conquest, he thinks he's doing the world a service. In the same breath, he addresses the Pokémon whose energy the orb absorbed and the Steelheads he had hypnotized, admits that they have suffered, and asks them for a little patience.

Sabios, the Loyal Henchman Pulling the Strings

Ellios never doubts Sabios. When his son accuses him of being under someone's control, he brushes the idea aside in a word: to him, Sabios is nothing more than a loyal, obedient henchman. Yet it was Sabios who first whispered to him that the Golden Armor had the power to build a better world, and that ruling Oblivia with it would create a paradise for people and Pokémon alike.

The mechanism is already visible in the assault on the Dark Temple. It's Sabios who convinces Ellios to lead it in person, and who uses the maneuver as cover to steal the orb of light. The lord heads to the front while his advisor seizes the one piece without which that front has no purpose.

From then on, every exchange between the two men follows the same course. A Steelhead reports the fall of a temple, Ellios demands an explanation, Sabios promises stronger defenses, then an excellent idea, then a story about a strange device that draws circles. With every temple lost, Ellios accepts one more excuse, until the day he decides to go down and settle the matter himself.

Dusknoir, and a Defeat He Refuses to Understand

The battle takes place in the Dark Temple and comes down to a single Pokémon: the Dusknoir that Ellios sends out against the player. The Ranger from the future gets the better of it, and the lord of Oblivia loses his only direct battle in the game.

The defeat leaves him at a loss. He can't understand how he could lose while wearing the Golden Armor, wonders for a moment whether he might be unworthy of it, immediately rejects the idea, and concludes that he simply picked the wrong Pokémon. Next on his list, he announces, will be Arceus itself.

Rather than stay, he uses the armor's powers to teleport to the Light Temple. The portal he opens as he leaves costs him the game: Ravio and Tanvir join the player and follow him through it. On arrival, Ellios looks for the orb that should be there, can't find it, and calls in vain for the very man who stole it from him.

The Letter That Opens His Eyes

At the Light Temple, Ravio tries to make him admit he has been deceived and runs into a wall. Ellios dismisses the accusation as nonsense and reaffirms his trust: if Sabios is helping him, it's because he cares about the well-being of Oblivia's people and Pokémon. However hard Tanvir urges him to open his eyes, he replies that he has no idea what that means.

What finally convinces him isn't an argument, it's handwriting. His son shows him Sabios's threatening letter, and he recognizes the hand that wrote it. Above all, he reads a sentence in it that portrays him as a father too busy to look after his child — a lie, since he had kept asking to see Ravio, and every time Sabios had told him it wasn't the right moment.

The story then rules on his case without any ambiguity: Ellios was not in control of his actions. Sabios had managed to convince him to use Arceus's power to create a better world, and it was that promise, far more than any thirst for power, that had made him the player's adversary.

🔥 Arceus and titans of its caliber have their own section: check out the Legendary Pokémon.

Standing Up to Arceus, and the Vow That Follows

Arceus appears at the very moment Ellios finally understands, and its fury is aimed at him. The lord chooses to stay behind and try to calm it and uses the power of the Golden Armor one last time to send Tanvir, Ravio and the player back to Cocona Plaza. He doesn't ask for help: he asks his son for forgiveness, then acknowledges that it's up to him to calm an anger he himself caused.

What comes next is out of his hands. It's the player's capture of Arceus that calms the Legendary, and it's Arceus that then brings Ellios back to the temple, having locked him away in another world. He is found unconscious, while the Golden Armor he had used breaks apart.

Once saved, he looks for no mitigating circumstances. He promises the player he will bring peace to the Oblivia of the past and lays down a rule: Sabios is still on the loose, but it's up to the living people of that era to take care of their own Oblivia. Finally, he asks not to be told anything about the region's future, on the grounds that knowing it would weaken their faith in each new day, before asking Celebi to send the Ranger back to their own time.

Ellios at a Glance

Frequently Asked Questions

• Who is Ellios in Pokémon Ranger: Guardian Signs?
  A steward and lord of the Oblivia region, whom the player only meets in the segment set in the region's past. He is also Ravio's father.
• What is Ellios's Pokémon?
  A Dusknoir, sent out against the player during their one and only battle, in the Dark Temple. Once defeated, Ellios concludes that he picked the wrong Pokémon and announces that Arceus will take over.
• Why does Ellios want to control Arceus?
  Because he believes that with that power he will give Oblivia a perfect world, where humans and Pokémon would live in harmony without limitation. The idea was planted in his mind by Sabios.
• Is Ellios really a villain?
  The game establishes that he was not in control of his actions: Sabios had convinced him that the Golden Armor would serve a better world, all while using him. Tanvir describes him as the biggest victim of the whole affair.
• What happens to Ellios at the end of the chapter?
  Once calmed, Arceus brings him back to the temple after locking him away in another world; he is found unconscious and the Golden Armor breaks apart. He then promises to keep the peace in the Oblivia of his own time.

In short

Ellios is the antagonist you have to beat and then go save, and the game doesn't let him off the hook with manipulation as his only excuse: he is the one who wanted the ideal world, and he is the one who made Arceus suffer, as he says before staying behind alone in the Light Temple. A later flashback, however, shows him powering the Sky Fortress by channeling the Golden Armor's powers into the orb — a sign that in the version of the past where no one comes from the future, he really does end up as an evil lord. His heart had cracks, he will say, and Sabios slipped into them: the manipulation didn't invent his dream, it only made it achievable.