"A perfect prince of light, as if he were a character straight from a fairy tale."
"A perfect blight, as if he were a villain straight from a fairy tale. A prince of darkness."
Have you ever seen a man with such a unique design and fascinating, intrique writing that you felt compelled to give him all of the gacha currency in your wallet? That's how we feel about Oberon, also known as Oberon Vortigern, from the mobile gacha game Fate/Grand Order. We've been playing FGO since 2017, the launch year of the EN server, and started a JP account in 2019. While we've had multiple characters we've liked, even loved, over the years, Oberon was the first that we became truly obsessed with. The exact memory of how we fell for him is sadly lost on us now, but learning his complete lore after the release of the third and final part of Lostbelt 6, Avalon le Fae, August of 2021 truly changed everything.
Oberon, the king of fairies from William Shakespeare's famous play A Midsummer Night's Dream, is a major character in Fate/Grand Order's Avalon le Fae main story chapter. Through most of the story, he plays the role of a supporting yet mysterious mentor to the player character and Artoria Caster. He directs the main cast on where to go in order to progress in their journey and provides assistance in information, connections, and occasionally combat. However, despite his helpfulness and good-nature, his methods are often quite suspicious, cutting deals behind the rest of the group's back and withholding otherwise important information. This all comes to a head in the final few acts of the story. After Chaldea defeats Cernunnos, an ancient god who was betrayed by the fae and inhabited a great pit in the center of Fairy Britain, he appears before them, despite seemingly having been killed a few acts earlier. It is here he reveals that he had been deceiving them the entire time. He is not the fairy king from Shakespeare's play; he is the final calamity and the end of Fairy Britain, the Insect of the Abyss, also named Vortigern. Now freed by the defeat of Cernunnos, who's still remaining compassion for the fae prevented the Insect from destroying Britain, he brings forth his form as the Insect of the Abyss and begins swallowing up land, fae, and human alike, including the player character and Chaldea. In the end, he is defeated by them and they escape, while he stays falling for eternity within his own abyss.