Sandbox / Mortal Kombat – Dairou

Mortal Kombat Main Character Index
Original and Reboot Timeline: MK (1992) | MK2 | MK3 | MK4 | Deadly Alliance | Deception | Armageddon | MK vs. DC Universe | MK9 | MKX | MK11
The New Era: MK1
Spin-offs: Mythologies: Sub-Zero | Special Forces
Non-video game: The Movie | Conquest | Defenders of the Realm | 2021 Movie
Individual Characters: Scorpion I (Hanzo Hasashi) | Sub-Zero I/Noob Saibot (Bi-Han) | Johnny Cage | Liu Kang | Raiden | Shang Tsung | Sub-Zero II/Scorpion II (Kuai Liang) | Kitana | Mileena | Shao Kahn/General Shao | Quan Chi | Dairou/Havik II

Dairou

Debut game: Mortal Kombat: Deception

Other appearances: Mortal Kombat: Armageddon

Non-game appearances: Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind

Dairou was once an honorable guardsman from the highly advanced and pristine Orderrealm, which as its name suggests places law, order and structure above anything else. He was discharged and imprisoned after he killed a man that murdered his family in a fit of rage. After escaping and freeing a similarly imprisoned Shujinko, he became a mercenary for hire, with one his contracts ordering him to kill his former fellow guardsman Hotaru.

For reasons unknown, he and Hotaru would put aside their differences, and join the Battle of Armageddon.

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Tropes that apply to Dairou as himself

Tropes that apply to Dairou as himself

• Apologetic Attacker: Apologetic Executioner would be a more appropriate phrasing. See Morality Pet below.
• Bling-Bling-BANG!: His ending in Armageddon. Dairou is awarded with a golden, invulnerable suit of armor formed from the fires of Blaze that burns any who tries to attack him. He uses this gift to defeat Shao Kahn, claim the throne to Outworld, and then propose a truce between Edenia and Earthrealm.
• Eye Scream: One of his Fatalities involves him ripping out two of his foe's ribs and then gouging their eyes out with them.
• Facial Markings: On his forehead.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: On the side of his head.
• Ground Pound: Has a move where he falls backwards and slams himself into the ground hard enough to knock his opponent into the air.
• Hired Guns: Once an honorable Seidan guardsman, Dairou spends his days working in Seido's underground as a mercenary, taking on assignments regardless of how inhumane they are.
• Ignored Epiphany: His bio reveals this, as Dairou seems to fondly recall his days as a Seidan guard and all of the lives he saved while in service. However, he's become too embittered and cynical from his incarceration to return back to the path of Order ("For all the good I had done, the event that had come to define me was that one moment of Chaos"), nor does he want to follow the ways of Chaos, so he chose neither, embraced neutrality, and now lives the life of a hired sword.
• Morality Pet: His former guardsman Hotaru would seem to be this, as Dairou is hesitant to kill him. Subverted in that his Deception ending has him killing Hotaru anyway, but Dairou at least announces his intent to kill him beforehand.
• Pet the Dog: In his Armageddon ending, he transforms Outworld into a utopia just as it was prior to Shao Kahn taking over.
• Revenge: His desire to avenge his family allowed Dairou to be tricked into unwittingly killing an innocent man in a fit of rage, leading to his imprisonment.
• Stance System: In Deception he was given Wing Chun and Escrima. Both are replaced by Mi Zong in Armageddon.
• Wild Card: As a mercenary, he doesn't care about the cause, as long as he's sufficiently paid.

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Havik II (Dairou)

"You will accept chaos - by choice, or by force!"

Debut Game: Mortal Kombat 1
Portrayed by: Jacob Craner (English), Raymundo Armijo (Latin American Spanish)

Dairou is a member of one of Seido's lower castes who was brutally punished for a crime and since then has rejected the established order, becoming an anarchist under the name "Havik" that seeks to overthrow the tyrannical government and free his people, whether they like it or not. To that regard, he allies himself with an Outworld sorcerer, Quan Chi, and is given an astonishing ability to heal himself almost instantly from any injury.

For tropes applying to the original Havik, look here.

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Tropes that apply to Dairou as Havik II

Tropes that apply to Dairou as Havik II

• Adaptational Attractiveness: Played straight, then inverted; Dairou's previous incarnation wasn't ugly, but he had a large tattoo on his forehead and a receded hairline. Here, he has a full head of hair and a more youthful appearance. The inversion comes when Scorpion drives his face into a vat of molten gold, disfiguring him (though not as extensively as the previous incarnation of Havik).
• Adaptational Superpower Change: In previous timelines, Dairou was capable of swapping places with his opponent via teleportation and firing energy stars from his legs. Whereas in this timeline, he is capable of tearing off parts of his own body to use as weapons without it hurting or killing him, he is also capable of reattaching them and almost instantly regenerating them, just like the original Havik of previous timelines.
• Adaptational Villainy: In previous timelines, Dairou was a mercenary, but had numerous noble qualities, whereas in this timeline he is a vengeful bloodthirsty anarchist who has deluded himself into thinking he's Orderrealm's savior.
• All Crimes Are Equal: In Havik's mind, all authorities (the very concept of which is a crime to him) are equally abhorrent. He considers his own oppressors in Orderrealm, Outworld's rulers, Liu Kang, any religion, and even Johnny Cage working as a film director to be morally equivalent and all worth his wrath. It's to the point where, based on a dialogue with Sub-Zero, he even thinks the concept of ice is oppressive. ^note  In his defense, the flow of water was expressed by him to be a very important part of his chaotic beliefs in Mortal Kombat Deception's Konquest mode.
  "Water must flow freely, Sub-Zero!"
• Artistic License – Biology: With his lips burned off, Havik shouldn't be able to speak anywhere near as coherently as he does.
• Anarchy Is Chaos: Falls victim to this himself, crowing that Seido's people have been "blessed with anarchy" after flooding its capital city, destroying its oppressive ruling class but also causing so much death and ruin that the populace may never recover. Given his hatred for all order and his explicitly stated desire for chaos, the distinction between the elective governance of anarchy and a total destructive free-for-all likely doesn't register.
• An Arm and a Leg: He can easily rip off his own arm not only to show off his impressive healing factor but also use his own severed arm as a weapon.
• And Show It to You: In 1, he rips out his own heart in his victory screen. He also rips out both his own and his opponent's hearts to swap them out in one of his fatalities.
• Arch-Enemy: While he doesn't appear, Hotaru is singled out by Havik in some of his intros, implying that Havik's grudge against him is more personal than his general loathing for Seido's government. After the flooding of Seido's capital, an intro with Mileena has Havik demand that Hotaru be handed over to him, though Mileena refuses to surrender refugees.
• Ax-Crazy: This is still Havik we’re talking about. He’s willing to kill whoever stands in his way towards he believes to be true freedom. Doesn’t help he mutilates his own body whilst fighting without so much as a wince from the pain.
• Bad Is Good and Good Is Bad: When Havik preaches freedom, he preaches absolute freedom, and condemns traditionally positive virtues such as loyalty^note He doesn't see any difference between servitude and slavery or patience^note He's dumbfounded that the Tarkatans won't respond to their outcasting with violent rebellion. He seems to genuinely think the downfall of civilization would be a good thing.
• The Berserker: With his ability to shrug off the various kinds of damage he inflicts on himself, he has no regards for his bodily safety while fighting and often voluntarily mutilates himself to give himself an edge, including such acts as ripping off his arm to club them with it or punching the opponent so hard that his hands break, revealing broken sharpened bones that he jabs into their temples.
• Black-and-White Insanity: In Havik's mind, there are only two kinds of people: oppressors and the oppressed. The former should be brought down, and the latter should either be helping him, or be written off as part of the problem. Any attempts by other kombatants to reason with Havik get nowhere because of this.
  Liu Kang: I force no one! Mortals choose to follow me.
  Havik: Making you their master, which makes them slaves.
• Blood Knight: The idea of non-violent revolution violently offends Havik; the only kind of victory he'll accept is one written in blood.
• Body Horror: The Havik of previous timelines already had some pretty gnarly things happening with his body, but the New Era's Havik makes things even more graphic. His body appears to be constantly on the verge of falling apart (especially his face as usual), but not only does his regeneration ability mean he can afford to, he actively engages in extreme and self-destructive attacks such as ripping his own arm off to smash with his other arm and firing explosive projectiles made out of his own gore, resulting in visible mutilation that naturally arises from such acts.
• Bomb-Throwing Anarchists: In his war against Seido's government, Havik has become a deranged terrorist who insists that anarchy and chaos are the only ways to live. His flooding of Seido's capital is an unambiguous terrorist attack, and one he takes a horrifying amount of pride in.
• Boomerang Bigot: In Havik's mind, all Seidans are guilty of their government's oppressive nature by association. That Havik himself originates from Seido doesn't change this opinion in the slightest.
• The Bus Came Back: Last playable in 2006's Armageddon, had a significant role in the prequel comics of X and later had a cameo in The Joker's ending in 11. Back here as a playable character.
  • Bonus points if you take account for the man behind the mantle: Dairou, whose last appearance is Armageddon and skipped the first NRS reboot era altogether.
• Combat Sadomasochist: To a much greater degree than his original. Many moves involve Havik breaking or dismembering various parts of his own body to smack his opponent with or stab them with his open fractured bones. One of his intros even has him willingly let himself be disemboweled by his opponent, only to tuck his intenstines back into himself as if it were a mere scratch. Though it is downplayed in the sense that he doesn't seem to enjoy the pain, but admits that he likes how much his battle scars and burnt face makes him look fearsome.
• Composite Character: With Dairou taking up the mantle of Havik in this timeline, he has understandably gained some of the traits that belonged to the Cleric of Chaos who became Havik in previous timelines, such as his chaotic nature, obsession with Chaos, hatred of order, and, most notably, the flesh on the lower half of his face being burnt off.
• Cop Hater: Naturally, Havik despises police as tools of oppression, which immediately puts him at odds with Li Mei.
  Havik: Police only serve to enforce the wealthy's delusions!
  Li Mei: A clueless and dangerous statement, Havik.
• Cultural Rebel: While Dairou still hails from Seido, aka Orderrealm, in this timeline, he now dons the mantle of Havik, and as such he now fully embraces chaos to an insane degree.
• Detachment Combat: He can enact grievous harm with his own body parts, ripping off his arm and using it as a weapon in a few of his moves.
• Doublethink: Havik's guiding principle is that people can govern themselves, an ideal he intends to impose on others by force. That the two ideas are incompatible doesn't register for him at all.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Or in some cases, "Chaos Cannot Comprehend Law." Because of his brutal treatment by Seido's government as the lowest caste of its society, Havik simply cannot comprehend the idea of benevolent leadership. He assumes all authority, wherever it be gods, queens, military leaders, Grandmasters or even Hollywood celebrities, must be corrupt by default. By the same token, he assumes that anyone underneath said authority figures would naturally want to rise up against them, and is baffled and enraged by the idea that anyone wouldn't want that, because he can't comprehend that authority could ever treat their subjects with respect compassion.
• Evil Counterpart: To Baraka in the new timeline. Both are characters who have a disfigured face due to external causes (a disease and being shoved in molten iron, respectively), use their own bodies as weapons and are representatives of their people (Tarkat infected Edenians and the people of Seido, respectively). However, Baraka wishes to take care of other people in his colony, while Havik is just an Ax-Crazy Sadist, caring for nothing of his people. Lastly, the former underwent Adaptational Heroism while the latter, Adaptational Villainy.
• Evil Sounds Raspy: Havik's many pronouncements of violent uprising and even more violent retribution are delivered in a growling voice that illustrates his viciousness and rage.
• Evil vs. Evil: No one really argues with Havik that the oppressive nature of Seido's government is a bad thing, but they also don't hesitate to point out that he's no better.
• Facial Horror: Averted for a decent chunk of MK1's story mode, where his face is unscarred and he has lips. Unfortunately for him, his attempts to force Scorpion's face into molten metal backfires on him when he turns the tables and gives him a face full of superheated liquid, causing him to become just as disfigured as his predecessor. In one of his intro dialogues, he claims he can restore his looks if he wants to, but his disfigurement gives him a rather fearsome appearance.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: His dedication to chaos is such that even his outfit is uncoordinated.
• Foreshadowing: Him being born in Orderrealm seems odd for Liu Kang's New Era, as such a birthplace would be an Ironic Hell for the Haviks of previous timelines. As it turns out, that would be because this Havik isn't the counterpart of the original one, but instead the counterpart of Dairou, who was also an Orderrealm native in the previous timelines.
• Freudian Excuse: Havik was born into Seido's lowest caste where he was denied any rights or privileges, and was later brutally punished for a minor crime, upon which he swore to bring down Seido's regime. Slips into Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse after he floods Seido's captial, an act that everyone deems despicable and unjustified, with the sole exception being General Shao, who actually compliments Havik for it.
• Good Thing You Can Heal: He shows an even more impressive healing factor than his predecessor, fighting almost akin to Ms. Fortune. From ripping his own arm off and growing a new one (or reattaching it) in seconds or bisecting himself so he can perform a spinning lariat with his upper body. His fatal blow and one of his fatalities even has him destroying his chunks of his hands and forearm just so he could use his broken sharpened bones to stab his opponents. The only reason he doesn't fix his face after it gets horribly disfigured is because he considers his new looks more intimidating.
• Hated by All: After he floods Seido's capital, Havik is disdained by every other kombatant, even Shang Tsung and those sympathetic to the source of his plight, with General Shao being the only person to approve of the act, calling it a masterstroke. That Havik is a deranged fanatic who can't be reasoned with doesn't help matters. The only actual ally he seems to have is Darrius, and even he is nowhere to be seen after the story.
• He Who Fights Monsters: Havik zealously opposes the oppressive regime of Seido, but in doing so, he's become a brutal, insane, bloodthirsty terrorist. The other kombatants barely draw a distinction between Havik's actions and those of his oppressors, and even condemn his actions against said oppressors, as Havik has no qualms about hurting innocent people in pursuit of his goals.
• Healing Factor: Courtesy of Quan Chi's sorcery, Havik has an impressively powerful ability to heal that he is more than happy to take advantage of in gruesome and extreme fashion. He can also control whether or not he heals, choosing to leave his disfigured face as it is because he finds it intimidating.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: His disfigured face? That wasn't natural; he tried to force Scorpion's face into a vat of molten metal, but it backfires when Scorpion overpowers him and dunked his face in the vat.
• Hypocrite: Havik has become everything he claims to be rebelling against — Just on the opposite side of Order Versus Chaos.
  • Havik champions anarchy, believing any and all authorities to be nothing but oppression. He also has a With Us or Against Us mentality and is willing to force his beliefs on others. As an intro with Smoke points out, Havik should be willing to take "no" for an answer if he were serious about his beliefs, meaning that Havik's definiton of "oppressors" amounts to "anyone who has more power and/or authority than I do."
  • Geras also points out that for someone who speaks so highly of freedom, Havik violently refuses to let Geras follow Liu Kang of his own accord.
  • Multiple characters point out that Havik doesn't actually know anything about the regimes he rails against or the people he claims to champion. Kitana, Mileena and Sindel all refute his claims that Outworld's lowest will try to overthrow a regime that actually cares for them, while Baraka chews him out for trying to incite the Tarkatans to violent revolution that would undermine their cause.
  • When he insists to Sindel that leaders should be chosen by people, not gods, she hits back that Havik is a self-appointed savior; he's no more a man of the people than any of the tyrants and supposed tyrants he seeks to overthrow.
  • Havik's crusade began as a search for vengeance against Seido's government for the mistreatment he suffered, claiming that his revolution will free the downtrodden from oppressors. In his and Rain's arcade endings, Havik floods Seido's capital, killing thousands of innocent people, and when he's called on it, he claims that all Seidans are oppressors, proving that his actions are about Havik's own anger and bloodlust, not about helping anyone.
  • For all of his preaching against despots and tyrants, one of his alternate timeline selves is "Lord Havik", who commands a coterie of followers and wears armor like that of a Kahn's. Ironically, Lord Havik is maybe more ideologically coherent than his New Era counterpart, being a sadist who seems to just enjoy chaos for its sheer body count.
• Insane Troll Logic: Havik has some truly off-the-walls ideas about what qualifies as "oppression." Anyone who serves another is a slave no matter how willingly they do so, fame is a form of authority which means all celebrities are corrupt, the mere existence of ice is oppressive to water, among other leaps in logic that almost make sense for someone as obsessed with chaos as Havik.
• In Spite of a Nail: Even if he's not from Chaosrealm in this timeline, Havik is still an agent of chaos - one who's even more militant than the last time, due to having suffered injustice as a member of a lower caste in the realm of Seido.
• Invulnerable Knuckles: Played with, his Fatal Blow and one of his Fatalities has him punch his opponent with enough ferocity that his hands break and the flesh peels off, until only sharpened bone of his forearms remain. However thanks to his healing factor he can easily regain his hands and because of his berserker fighting style he doesn't feel pain from it.
• Irony: Despite embracing chaos in opposition to Seido's order, a number of Havik's traits show that he has a bit of a tyrannical streak himself, forcing others to fall in with his views on threat of death if they oppose him, differing opinions or other people's rights be damned.
• It's All About Me: Multiple kombatants point out that, for all of his screaming about overthrowing tyrants and freeing the oppressed, Havik's really only concerned with his own suffering at the hands of Seido's government and getting revenge for it.
• Jerkass: While his Freudian Excuse makes his cynical attitude understandable, Havik is still a growling, bloodthirsty fanatic who refuses to accept compromise and violates his own supposed ideals by refusing to give people a choice in whether they accept his notions of chaos.
• Kick the Dog: While bringing down Seido's government was arguably a case of Pay Evil unto Evil, that Havik keeps trying to hurt his now fallen oppressors pushes him squarely into this trope, especially since he's willing to hand Seidan refugees over to Nitara for use as breeding stock.
• Lack of Empathy: Much as he claims his intended revolution to be for the betterment of all, Havik doesn't seem to much care about the rights or lives of others. His many cries for revolution speak of hurting those in power far more than how (if at all) the lives of the downtrodden will improve. When Rain floods Seido's capital in his and Havik's endings, destroying the city and killing half a million people, Rain is horrified by his actions, while Havik is beside himself with glee. An intro with Scorpion also has Havik all but brag that the number of people who die from his actions doesn't matter.
• Legacy Character: Rather than the Cleric of Chaos from previous timelines, Dairou is the one who takes up the mantle of Havik in this timeline.
• Losing Your Head: He is capable of removing his own head without dying.
• Moral Myopia:
  • Suffering at the hands of Seido's government drove Havik to violent extremism, but when he has no qualms about trying to force others to fall in with his twisted ideas of anarchism. Furthermore, under Orderrealm's oppression, Havik was a victim, for which he feels an overwhelming rage, but once Seido has fallen, Havik revels in having made victims of his former oppressors and wants to keep victimizing them even after destroying their capital and leaving them as refugees. Whenever anyone calls him out for his atrocities, Havik either dismisses them or takes pride in what he's done.
  • How people use their authority means nothing to Havik; if they're in authority at all, they're "oppressors" and need to be violently destroyed. That he considers the Lin Kuei and the Shirai Ryu morally equivalent shows this mentality perfectly.
• My Way or the Highway: Havik won't accept any form of compromise or negotiation in his quest for anarchy. Even characters who wish to help him, but offer any aid beyond violent uprising, may find that the idea of alternatives lethally offends him. One of his intro dialogues with Liu Kang shows him outraged by the mere suggestion:
  Liu Kang: What is left of Seido's government will negotiate.
  Havik: Negotiate?! I'm dictating terms!
• Nom de Guerre: "Havik" was chosen by Dairou as an alias because it sounds more intimidating than his given name.
• Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: Havik never shuts up about how the oppressed need to tear down their oppressors, but he doesn't really care about other people's suffering; if innocent people die in pursuit of his goals, he doesn't blink, and as Raiden notes in an intro, Havik is clearly more interested in revenge for his own mistreatment than in justice for others. Having Rain flood Seido's capital demonstrates this beautifully; while others, even Rain himself are horrified by the carnage and destruction, Havik is overjoyed at having hurt his oppressors, gloating about the "freedom" the survivors now enjoy... in their destroyed city after Havik killed hundreds of thousands of them.
• Not in the Face!: Zig-Zagged; Havik is absolutely livid when Scorpion dunks his face into a pot of molten gold but he decides against healing the disfigurement as it makes him look more intimidating.
• Obviously Evil: Johnny Cage points out that his appearance and "ring name" are very unsubtle.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: Havik seeks to avenge his suffering upon Seido's powerful, who run an oppressive, draconian government that horribly mistreats those in lower castes (like Havik himself). After the flooding of Seido's capital, Havik revels in the downfall of his oppressors, and seeks to further hurt them, promising Nitara Seidans to breed and demanding that Mileena hand over refugees to face his "justice".
• Practically Joker: His scarred mouth and total embracement of chaos as an ideology is very Joker-like, more specifically the Heath Ledger version of the character.
• Psychological Projection: Due to a variety of factors, Havik projects his own terrible experiences with a totalitarian regime onto all authorities and those who live under them, which only feeds his fanaticism.
• Rage Against the Heavens: Blames Liu Kang, creator of the New Era, for his status as a low-caste slave and the way his life has turned out.
• Required Secondary Powers: He's an interesting case where he doesn't have the power you expect. His strength does not include the durability to punch at the weight class of other kombatants, and so his healing allows him to reverse the tremendous damage he does to himself.
• The Reveal: His identity as the New Era's incarnation of Dairou is revealed through one of his pre-fight intros with Reptile.
  Reptile: Return to Seido, Dairou.
  Havik: (shocked) Where did you learn my real name?!
• Small Name, Big Ego: For all his pronouncements of being the downtrodden's deliverance from oppression, Havik's campaign against Orderrealm never got anywhere until he allied himself with others, needing Quan Chi to give him his Healing Factor and relying on Rain's magic to flood Seido's capital. His delusions of grandeur are echoed in his intros, where he's met with near-universal hostility, even from those he'd assume would welcome his efforts.
• The Social Darwinist: What else is he expecting in a world where any kind of unity or cohesiveness is forbidden?
• Technically-Living Zombie: His appearance (and regular dismemberment) make him look like a zombie, but he is technically a living man.
• Villain Has a Point: Multiple fighters go on the record to say that even if his methods are incomprehensibly cruel, that the anger behind them is far more understandable.
• Villain Respect: In contrast to all of the other villains, who disapprove of the act, he find himself on the receiving end of this from General Shao after flooding Seido.
  General Shao: Laying waste to Seido was a masterstroke.
  Havik: (surprised) I didn't think it would earn your respect.
• With Us or Against Us: Anyone who won't aid Havik in his crusade to overthrow Seido's government, and every other authority, is part of the problem, as far as he's concerned.