Prince (Prince of Persia)

"Most people think time is like a river, that flows swift and sure in one direction. But I have seen the face of time, and I can tell you, they are wrong. Time is an ocean in a storm. You may wonder who I am and why I say this. Sit down, and I will tell you a tale like none that you have ever heard..."

- The Prince to Farah

The Prince (known by no other name) is the main protagonist of the Prince of Persia video game series.

Early Life
The Prince was born to the king of Persia, King Sharaman, and was the younger brother of Malik. He grew up in the palace of Babylon where he gained his skills in acrobatics and combat. But the Prince was best known amongst the people for his kind nature and good heart and often went out to speak with the people. Doing this also led to his picking up his parkour-like skills, thanks to his time playing amongst the streets and rooftops.

Sands Of Time
One fateful year, the Prince accompanied his father to India, where the Maharajah's vizier had offered to help him overthrow his master if he could have his pick of the Maharajah's treasures afterwards. Sharaman agreed and the Persians took over India. In an attempt to gain favor with his father, the Prince sneaked into the Maharajah's treasure vaults, where he stole the Dagger of Time. Sharaman let him keep it, much to the Vizier's anger. After their victory, the Persian stopped at Azad, where Sharaman presented the Sultan with the enormous hourglass containing the Sands of Time. The sultan marveled at the glow within and the Vizier told him that it came from the marvel inside and that only the Dagger of Time could open the hourglass. The Prince unlocked it and unleashed the Sands of Time from within, transforming the court into sand monsters. As the Prince desperately tried to contain the creatures, he formed an uneasy alliance with Princess Farah, the Maharajah's daughter, who had been captured. Together, they battled through many dangers until they eventually came to the Tower of Dawn, where the Vizier had kept the hourglass. The Prince returned the Dagger of Time to it, calling back the sands and rewinding time back to right before the Persians attacked India. The Prince sneaked into Farah's room and told her about what he had just been through. But when he was finished, the Vizier appeared, his traitorous ambitions now revealed. Despite the Vizier unleashing a whole repetoire of spells, the Prince succeeded in striking him down. After returning the Dagger of Time to Farah, the Prince left with the princess' medallion (which she had given him earlier), leaving the princess to decide if his story was true or not.

Forgotten Sands
After the events at Azad, the Prince went to Malik's kingdom, since due to the great rewind, everyone believed he still had not been in battle. Upon arriving there, he found the kingdom under attack and soon found himself caught in the middle of it. In an attempt to save his kingdom, Malik freed the army of King Solomon, which the Prince was forced to re-imprison. However Malik became infected by the power of the demon, Ratash, and much to his deep regret, the Prince was forced to kill him.

Kingdom of Izdihar
Later in a marketplace, the Prince found a djinn named Zahra, who offered him mastery over death, a princess, and a kingdom of his own. He bought her and after searching for several months, they came across the Kingdom of Izdihar. With use of a shrine at the entrance of the kingdom, Zahra forged a bond between herself and the Prince, giving him limited immortality and use of some of her djinn powers. As they ventured into Izdihar, the two discovered that it was overrun by a parasitic plant known as the Haoma. As their explorations continued, the Prince unwittingly released a sorceress by drawing the magical sword that imprisoned her. Suddenly the Prince was attacked by an abomination of a creature in whose body he accidentally broke the blade of the sword off. The creature ran off and since Zahra believed that the sword could be used to free Izdihar of the Haoma, the pair set off after it. As they pursued it, they came across the sorceress, who said that Zahra, driven from the kingdom long ago, could not deliver on the promises she had made. The second time they encountered each other, the sorceress offered the Prince Izdihar, Persia, and eventually the world, if he would join the Haoma. However he refused and the sorceress swore that she would kill him upon their next meeting. The Prince pressed Zahra to tell him her link to this cursed kingdom and she finally told him that her people had been charged with protecting Izdihar, but the Haoma proved to great for them. The Prince finally cornered the creature in the palace and offered to help him or at least leave him alone, if the creature would give him the blade. He refused and the Prince was forced to kill him, but as he died, the creature revealed that he was the last sultan of Izdihar and begged for him to save his daughter. With the blade recovered, Zahra brought the Prince to a forge dedicated to the gods, where he proved himself worthy of wielding the gods' power, reforging it. The pair then headed to the heart of the Haoma to finally destroy it and encountered the sorceress. The Prince succeeded in striking the plant a fatal blow, but the sorceress collapsed and revealed that she was Narseen, princess of Izdihar. Dying, the Haoma began dragging Izdihar down into the sands and one of its vines wrapped around Narseen. In order to save her, the Prince gave her his djinn power and Zahra attempted to guide him out of Izdihar, but was forced to warp him back to the shrine where their journey began. With his djinn companion gone, the Prince set out alone into the desert.

Warrior Within
Several years later, the Prince had become more violent, morbid, and sober due to being constantly hunted by the Dahaka, a dark creature that he could not escape, no matter where he went. The Dahaka was the guardian of the timeline and since the Prince had initiated many grand rewinds and cheated death, it now sought to destroy him to set things straight. Desperate, the Prince went to a wise man who had helped to raise him and learned of the Island of Time where the Sands of Time had been created. The Prince decided to go to the island and prevent the sands from ever being created, thus giving the Dahaka no reason to hunt him. However on his way to the island, the Prince's ship was attacked by a mysterious woman clad in black named Shadee. Though he was thrown overboard, he managed to cling to a piece of wreckage and washed up on the Island of Time. As the Prince explored the cliffs, he met up with Shadee again and chased her into one of the island fortresses. He accidentally pursued her into a time portal that linked the present with the past and found her attempting to kill a woman clad in red named Kaileena. The Prince quickly leapt to her defense and battled Shadee, slaying her. However he was denied an audience with the Empress of Time and went to activate two towers that opened her throne room. But when he succeeded and entered the throne room, the Prince discovered that Kaileena was the Empress of Time. She knew that she was now doomed to die at the Prince's hands, but his persistence that she could defy her fate motivated her to try and do so and she attacked him. However she ironically died at his hands when he killed her in self-defense. At first the Prince believed that it was all over, but then Kaileena's remains became the Sands of Time. In the end the Prince had brought about the very thing that he had sought to prevent. Now without hope and the Dahaka still hunting him. the Prince discovered a mural describing a relic known as the Mask of the Wraith. With the mask, the Prince became the Sandwraith and was given one last chance to change his destiny.

Defeat Kaileena
The Prince decided to defeat Kaileena in the present and made him regret killing her. The Dahaka came and took his Amulet.

Defeat the Dahaka (Canon)
He set out to stop himself from killing Kaileena and bring her back to the present with him. This would mean the Sands of Time would never be created, the Maharajah would never find them, and he would never unleash them. The Prince succeeded but his actions had made Kaileena the target of his hunter, the Dahaka, since she was not supposed to exist in the present. Determined to protect her, the Prince engaged the Dahaka in combat and succeeded in driving the mystical Water Sword into the being's head, sending it plunging into the seas below. With the Dahaka finally gone, the Prince headed back to Babylon with Kaileena, finally at peace after all that had befallen him. On the journey he dropped Farah's medallion into the sea, now believing he had no need for it. But little did the prince know that his problems were not over yet and he had forgotten the wise man's last words to him, "Your journey will not end well. You cannot change your fate. No man can."

Two Thrones
Upon arriving at Babylon, the Prince found the city ravaged and under attack by an unknown army. He had little time to contemplate what was happening when a catapult destroyed his ship with a flaming projectile, leaving the Prince and Kaileena to cling to wreckage. They were both washed ashore, alive, but separated. The Prince awoke to see Kaileena being dragged away by soldiers and having vowed earlier to protect her, he set out to rescue his companion. As the Prince made his way through the palace, he discovered that the enemy leader was the evil Vizier that he had slain in his first adventure. He realized that since the hourglass had never existed, he had never slain the Vizier, who still had his ambitions of immortality. He overthrew the Maharajah and lead the India army to Babylon, driven to do so by a voice from the dagger. The Prince eventually found Kaileena, about to be killed by the Vizier so that he could unleash the Sands of Time. He attempted to stop this, but one of the Vizier's lieutenants, Mahasti, restrained him by burying her daggertail whip in his arm. The Prince was forced to watch as the Vizier drove the Dagger of Time into Kaileena, unleashing the sands then into himself, gaining immortality and transforming himself into a winged creature. The sands swept across the palace infecting and transforming those it came into contact with, including the Prince. However his transformation was slowed for an unknown reason, giving him time to grab the dagger and leap from the terrace as it collapsed, halting but not undoing the infection. The wound the Prince received from the daggertail glowed with the sands and he began to hear a disembodied voice that initially helped and guided him, but its criticisms became less and less constructive as time went on. Eventually the voice identified itself as the manifestation of the Prince's dark side, the Dark Prince. The Dark Prince taunted and helped the Prince, but it seemed to have its own motives. Whenever the Prince felt extreme emotion, he would undergo a forced transformation into the Dark Prince, becoming stronger and faster and wielding the daggertail whip as his weapon, but the corrupting power of the Sands of Time constantly drained his life in this form. The Dark Prince implied that if he ever lost all of his life in that way, then he would take the Prince's body and identity. The only way that the Prince could return to normal was by coming into contact with water, the natural weakness of sand monsters. While this transformation proved helpful as the Prince battled his way through the city, it became a problem when he encountered Farah, who had come to avenge the death of her father at the hands of the Vizier. Now a stranger to her, the Prince attempted to win her trust by hiding his darker other half from her, but regretted doing this when she did find out about it. The Dark Prince insisted that he was better off without Farah, but they eventually reached the palace. But upon entering, the Vizier captured Farah and cast the Prince into the palace well system which had been drained and was completely dry. After being in Dark Prince form for a long period of time, the Prince was on the verge of losing control, when he found the body of his father. It was then that he realized that he had always been running from conflict, not facing the consequences of his actions like a man. The Prince had always relied on using the powers to change time to fix his mistakes rather than face his failures, own up to then, and move on. This, coupled with his overexposure to the sands and artifacts like the Mask of the Wraith is what gave birth to the Dark Prince. By coming to grips with this, the Prince took up his father's sword and with the acceptance of all of his mistakes and the consequences that came with them, the Prince regained his normal form permanently and destroyed the Dark Princes influence over his body. He then went to Farah's rescue and finally succeeded in destroying the Vizier with the Dagger of Time. But after the Vizier's death and the apparent disappearance of the sand's taint, the Dark Prince reappeared and made another attempt to take control. He pulled the Prince into a dream-like world in his mind and the Prince chased him through an ever-shifting landscape, including various landscapes from the past games. The Dark Prince preyed on the Prince's insecurities and angered him so as to distract him, but his attempts was shattered by Farha's voice, which urged the Prince to let go of his anger and hate and turn away. The Prince ascended a staircase into a blinding light, leaving the Dark Prince alone and afraid, shouting into an oblivion. The Prince awakened and as he and Farah looked out onto Babylon, she asked him how he knew her name. The Prince told her the tale from the beginning of the game, bringing everything full circle.

Abilities
The Prince is a skilled warrior, versatile with a number of weapons and able to use his agility to out fight his enemies. His most prominent ability is his acrobatic skill and he is able to run on walls, leap long distances, and jump from pole to pole. Throughout his adventures, the Prince gains numerous magical items, such as the Dagger of Time, which allows him to slay sand monsters and the Mask of the Wraith, which allowed him to manipulate time infinitely.

Warrior Within

 * "Die, you bastard!"

Trivia

 * The Prince is stated to be very fond of the color blue in the Two Thrones, while the Dark Prince hates blue.


 * It also stated that he hates pomegranates since they're messy and impossible to eat with dignity.


 * The Prince's voice actor in Sands of Time, Forgotten Sands, and The Two Thrones was Yuri Lowethal, but in Warrior Within, he was voiced by Robin Atkin Downes due to his personality.