"Ha! Looks like the only power they wield is the power to fade away and die on a moment's notice." -Ghaleon, Lunar II: Eternal Blue 

WARNING: Spoilers for Lunar: The Silver Star Story and Lunar II: Eternal Blue!

Of course, the fact that Ghaleon was even in the Villains contest is a bit of a spoiler -- when you first meet him in the magical flying city of Vane in SSS, he is one of the companions of the last Dragonmaster, Dyne, and also happens to be the premier of that city. But soon after you take him to meet the White Dragon, Quark, Ghaleon reveals his true ambitions. Namely, to become the Magic Emperor, and rule the world! Gasp!

"Not Ghaleon, my dear Quark: Magic Emperor Ghaleon!" -Ghaleon, Lunar: The Silver Star Story 

Ghaleon is perhaps one of the wittiest villains in any RPG. Every step of your journey to defeat him, he is always one step ahead, laughing at you all the while. And there's the fact that Ghaleon actually has a pretty good reason for wanting to take over the world -- he's seen firsthand what humans do when they have free will, during his journey with Dyne, and he's decided that he doesn't like it. With the help of a (brainwashed) Goddess Althena, Ghaleon can rule the world and ostensibly solve a lot of it's problems with his iron will. Unfortunately for him, Alex and company don't let him get past the "blow bits of the world up" part of his plan, and manage to defeat him and save the Goddess in the final moments of The Silver Star Story.Ghaleon, stunned that mere mortals managed to defeat him, and perhaps wondering if his companion Dyne had the right idea after all, is destroyed, forever.

Yeah, right. Cut to [a long amount of time] later, and we get an new hero, aptly named Hiro, and a new quest in the world of Lunar. Something weird is going on with the Church and an apparently resurrected Althena. And, after a comic misfire of a giant catapult, Hiro and his party end up in an ancient tower. There, they discover that Ghaleon isn't quite as dead as Alex and company left him, thanks largely to a new enemy known as Zophar whose power rivals the Goddess Althena of old. And then the party accidentally unseals him, Ghaleon promptly joins up with this new Althena, and everything gets worse for the poor Hiro.

Or does it? Throughout Hiro's long quest, Ghaleon behaves strangely -- never finishing off the party when he gets his chances, testing the party's mettle before major bosses, and sometimes even giving them clues. It culminates in a final battle with Ghaleon on top of his old stomping grounds, the ruined, grounded city of Vane, that he destroyed way back in SSS. After Ghaleon's defeat, in one of the most powerful scenes in all of gaming, Ghaleon atones for his sins years ago. He gives Hiro a sword that will allow him to combat the wicked God Zophar, and sends the party off with his blessings. His final scene is a beautiful FMV, The End of a Shadow, in which he is forgiven by Dyne and (the real) Althena, and gives his last words of encouragement to Hiro.

Between his smugness and arrogance in Silver Star Story and his resurrection and redemption in Eternal Blue lies a figure that both falls from grace and regains it. Ghaleon is the lynchpin that holds and ties the two games together, and leaves his impression as one of the most developed villains out there. His sparkling wit and perpetual smirk endear him to the gamer even as they fight through hoards of his minions to thrash him, and his return to the light cements his place in our hearts.