Count Bleck
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- “Bleh heh heh heh heh heh... The man known as Blumiere died long ago. Now there is only Bleck! The Dark Prognosticus's choice to fulfill the prophecy. Nothing more!”
- —Count Bleck, Super Paper Mario
Count Bleck (real name Lord Blumiere) is an evil count and is seemingly the primary antagonist of Super Paper Mario. While "Bleck" is normally used as onomatopoeia for disgust, it could be interpreted as a corruption of the word "Black" (as in darkness); his Japanese name is also a play on the French word for "black", noir.
Count Bleck is responsible for bringing forth the Chaos Heart by forcefully marrying Princess Peach to Bowser, so he can use the Heart to open The Void, which will ultimately engulf all dimensions. He leads a troop of minions to help move along his plans, including Nastasia, the assistant that has powers to force people under her control, O'Chunks, the strong, dim-witted follower, Mimi the shapeshifter, and Dimentio the evil jester (and, to a lesser degree, Mr. L, a brainwashed Luigi). In the end, however, he changes his ways and redeems himself by destroying the Chaos Heart, thereby helping Mario save all worlds.
History
Background
Count Bleck was once a member of the Tribe of Darkness, whose ancestors stole the Dark Prognosticus from the Ancients shortly after the Pixl Rebellion, to ensure that it will not be used for evil. It's unknown what world or dimension Bleck comes from, but it's mentioned that the tribe lives in a castle located in the middle of a dark forest. It is slowly revealed in vague flashbacks that Count Bleck, when he is known as Blumiere, originally has a human girlfriend, Lady Timpani, whom he cherishes and loves. Apparently, Blumiere accidentally falls off a mountain, is knocked into unconsciousness, and is found on the brink of death at the cliff's base by Timpani, who nurses him back to health at her home. When Blumiere awakes, he is shocked to find that a human saved him as he is from the Tribe of Darkness. Timpani dismisses the thought and states that anyone with a heart will save an injured one.
The pair soon fell in love with each other, and Blumiere attempted to escape from his castle home to see her again. His abusive father, who scolds him for making such an attempt, caught him. He is able to sneak away nonetheless and becomes more and more interested in Timpani, who returns his feelings. Eventually, Blumiere's father finds out what is happening and threatens Timpani, telling her to stay away from the tribe. Timpani is scared for her life and tells Blumiere that they can no longer see each other.
Blumiere can't accept this and tells Timpani that they must go somewhere where their love will be accepted and where they can get married. Timpani agrees and the pair makes plans to leave. However, before these plans can be put into effect, Blumiere's father abducts Timpani and uses his dark magic to curse her to wander dimensions until her death. Blumiere is filled with shock and horror when she suddenly goes missing and demands to know where she is. His father reveals what he had done to her and tells Blumiere that it is for the best.
Overcome with rage and grief, Blumiere goes insane and decides to get revenge on the tribe. He steals the Dark Prognosticus, which the tribe has kept since its ancestors stole it and uses it to gain ancient knowledge of powerful dark magic. Blumiere's spirit and personality soon fade away as he is corrupted and changes into Count Bleck, a villain motivated by grief and regret. It is speculated that, using his new powers, Count Bleck perhaps kills his father and destroys his tribe out of thirst for revenge. Bleck either constructs or finds a fortress and calls it Castle Bleck to serve as a base of operations and as a home, which is located in a realm composed entirely of darkness.
However, Bleck still has a small lingering hope that Timpani might still be alive. He goes from world to world, searching for the woman he loved. He never finds her though, no matter how much he searches. One of Carson's stories tells of a man who comes across a bat held captive in a trap (assumed to be Bleck). The man lets the creature go and then camps out for the night. When he wakes up he sees that the bat has transformed into a woman who pledges her life to the man out of love. This woman is inferred to be Nastasia.
The Count and his new assistant return to his castle where Bleck realizes that the woman he loved is gone forever. In reality, Timpani is still alive as she is found barely clinging to life by Merlon in Flipside. Using the powers of the ancients, Merlon transforms Timpani into a Pixl, but she has no memory of her past life and is christened Tippi by Merlon. All that is left for Count Bleck is to avenge her supposed death by destroying everything that takes her away from him, existence itself. Bleck decides to fulfill the last prophecy written in the Dark Prognosticus, which ends the existence of all worlds and dimensions.
Bleck gathers more followers, who carry out his plan. He has O'Chunks, Mimi, and Dimentio on his side. When Nastasia finds Luigi in Castle Bleck, Nastasia brainwashes him and turns him into Mr. L. The 4 of them attack Mario, Bowser, and Peach several times, though they all fail. Dimentio is shown to be more sinister and evil than Count Bleck and even plans to betray him (this betrayal is hinted at throughout the game).
Super Paper Mario
{{spmenemybox
|image=File:CountBleckCard.png
|hp=150
|atk=8
|def=0
|location=Castle Bleck
|card type=Rare
|tattle=This top-hatted villain is bent on ending the world! Fun fact: he was once known as Count Blumiere.
|tippi=That's Count Bleck... This dark figure wants to destroy the universe. He was once Blumiere, a man that I loved... Max HP is 800, Attack is 54. He will use all the powers the Chaos Heart grants him. But you can beat him if you give it your all... And beat him you must... For the sake of all worlds... And to save the Blumiere I loved...place. In a manner similar to how Tippi becomes human when she reverts to Lady Timpani, the Lord Blumiere form of Count Bleck seen in this picture also appears to be slightly different. Blumiere looks almost identical to Count Bleck except that he is taller and his hat is noticeably larger. What became of the couple after that, however, is unknown.
General Information
Physical Appearance
Bleck wears a white top hat and coat, and is usually shrouded in a white cape fading to blue at the bottom. The inside of the cape is dark blue and starry, like the background texture used in the Outer Space portions of Super Paper Mario. When Count Bleck transports everybody away at Bowser's Castle, the same blue pattern used on The Thousand-Year Door pedestal when Mario holds a Crystal Star can be slightly seen inside his cape. He also wears a large red brooch, somewhat reminiscent of Princess Peach's blue jewel.
His eyes are a glowing red colour and he wears a monocle on his left side. His mouth is also red until he is defeated by Mario, Luigi, Peach and Bowser, at which point it changes to blue. It is unknown if his mouth was originally blue as Lord Blumiere, before he turned evil. Additionally, after he is defeated by Mario and the others, his clothes become tattered and his monocle is cracked, however his appearance returns to normal after the Pure Hearts were revived.
Personality
Count Bleck is a more unique figure among Mario's rogues gallery, as he is the only villain so far who is motivated by sadness and regret, and not by a lust for power or control. He is a tragic villain, whose actions are born from the purest of emotions: love. Regardless, Bleck has demonstrated a lust for destruction and disregard for all life, except those close to him. He, at first, seems to be a stereotypical villain with no feelings, but it is soon revealed that Bleck is an emotionally tortured person, who is not as evil as he first appears.
Prior to his meeting with Timpani, Bleck was known to be extremely kind and cherished all life and the universe itself. When he met Timpani, he fell in love, and was shown to be an extremely caring and devoted man to the woman he loves. This came to a tragic end, however, when his father sent Timpani away on an endless walk through other dimensions to die. The loss of Timpani made Bleck vengeful towards the world. Bleck wanted to destroy the universe, because he thought that life was meaningless without Timpani.
This turned Bleck into an evil and sadistic villain, who sought the destruction of all worlds. Bleck showed how evil he had become immediately after his transformation into a villain by murdering his own father, in an act of revenge, and wiping out his own dimension. Bleck sought to kill all that is, was, and would be, and had an overwhelming amount of hatred at all worlds, as he saw them as the things that took his love from him. Even though Count Bleck was evil, he was still capable of doing kind acts, such as freeing a bat from a trap, who went on to become Nastasia, his closest minion. Bleck was also shown to be very polite and not openly sadistic, but still harboured much hatred and anger.
Bleck also cared very deeply about his minions (with the possible exception of Dimentio, who had a more sinister agenda of his own). Bleck treated O'Chunks, Mimi, and Nastasia as if they were family and felt very close with all of them. He was very forgiving towards them and never punished them with any type of physical or mental torture or abuse. However, in the event such a thing was needed, the form of punishment was writing papers or singing songs, which Bleck didn't even issue. Nastasia, instead, issued those forms of punishment. The Count was also shown to be very upbeat (despite his tragic origin), and was always smiling (though that may have only been a cover to mask his true feelings). Bleck also seemed to be very likable, as all his henchmen had a strong bond with him with (the only exception, again, being Dimentio).
The story started with Bleck wanting nothing more than the destruction of the entire universe, but gradually showed him to be more humane and remorseful of what he has become. By the end of the story, Bleck was shown to be a very caring and loving person, who only did his evil deeds out of his love for Tippi by avenging her (apparent) death. In the end, it was Timpani who made him realize the error of his ways, and they both saved the universe together. His love for Tippi is what made him evil, but it is also what redeemed him. In the end, Bleck is not only a tragic villain, but a tragic hero, who sacrificed his life to stop what he had started.
Powers and Abilities
In addition to being able to use the Dark Prognosticus, Count Bleck has many other magical powers granted by the Chaos Heart that aid him in and out of combat. His most obvious and frequently used power is his ability to freely float without any hindrance to gravity. This power is particularly important due to his lack of visible legs. He also often shows his ability to teleport at will by "flipping", along with the Dark Prognosticus which always teleports at his side. Also, he can use the Chaos Heart's power to shield him from any harm.
In combat, Count Bleck uses his scepter to conjure globs of dark magic and hurl them at Mario and other foes. These globs are unique amongst projectile attacks in that nothing can block them; not even Peach's parasol or Barry. He can also summon a huge vortex of dark energy that sucks up his enemies, however, this skill is simply dodged by running away from it. Count Bleck can temporarily slow the flow of time as well, throwing his enemies off. Finally, he can speed himself in a way similar to using a speed flower of red energy and simply ram into his opponent, damaging them, although this can leave him vulnerable to Barry's spiky barrier, which, if activated quickly, will damage him and protect the player. His shadow blast attack will do 3 damage, his Void move will do 8 damage and the player will take 2 damage when walking into the Count.
Count Bleck is also shown to be quite clever and intelligent. He also is very charismatic, as his followers are loyal to the end, and he is capable of easily persuading others to join his cause (and having both of his female minions develop crushes on him, a very slight one in Mimi's case). However, it's much more effective for him to rely on Nastasia's mind controlling powers to gather more minions.
Super Smash Bros. Brawl Sticker
| Image | Game | Effect |
|---|---|---|
|
Super Paper Mario | [Flame] - Resistance +5 |
Names in Other Languages
Count Bleck
Lord Blumiere
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