Zeref Dragneel
From Fairy Tail
Zeref Dragneel is a supporting character in Fairy Tail, the Black Wizard, the most feared magic user in history, cursed with immortality and a power that kills everything he loves, and the founder of the Alvarez Empire. He is voiced by Akira Ishida in Japanese and Joel McDonald in English.
About Zeref Dragneel
The Black Wizard, the most feared figure in Fairy Tail's history, cursed with immortality and a magic that kills everything around him whenever he values life. Zeref was a gentle prodigy who only wanted to bring his little brother back, and that brother, Natsu, is the key to his centuries-long plan to end his own curse. As emperor of the Alvarez Empire he becomes the final war's architect, tragic and terrifying at once.
Appearance
Zeref looks nothing like his legend: a slight young man with short black hair and dark, tired eyes, dressed in dark robes with a high collar and a white toga-like sash across his chest. He carries a book and wears a small pendant. Nothing about him glows, looms or threatens, the horror is in the details: the grass blackening under his feet, the forest dying in a ring around him when his feelings stir, and eyes that have watched four hundred years pass.
Personality
Zeref is polite. That's the unnerving part. The most feared wizard in history talks like a tired young scholar, apologises for the inconvenience, and means it when he says the world would be better off without him in it. Four hundred years ago he tried to bring his little brother back from the dead and a god cursed him for it: live forever, and watch everything you love die by your own power, because the curse feeds on exactly that love. Centuries of that would break anyone. What's left is a man who drifts between wanting to die and deciding to end everything, and commands an empire while he makes up his mind.
Background & Story
Zeref was a prodigy at a magic academy four hundred years ago, a gentle boy whose little brother died young. His research into life and death, meant to bring the boy back, drew the wrath of the god Ankhseram, who cursed him with immortality and the death-stealing Contradiction Curse. Shunned by a world that named him its greatest evil, he wandered the centuries creating demons, grimoires and finally an empire in the western continent, all in search of a way to die, or a reason to end everything. His masterwork was the resurrection he began as a child: his brother, reborn as the demon E.N.D., Etherious Natsu Dragneel.
Powers & Abilities
- Ankhseram Black Magic: The death magic of his curse: waves of killing energy radiate from him whenever he values life, withering plants, animals and people alike.
- Living Magic: Zeref creates living beings from magic, the Etherious demons of the Books of Zeref, built over centuries, most of them designed to kill him.
- Immortality: His curse halts his aging and repairs any wound; no ordinary force in the world can kill him, which is precisely his tragedy.
Key Relationships
- Natsu Dragneel: His little brother, resurrected by Zeref's life's work into the demon E.N.D., the being Zeref hopes can finally kill him.
- Mavis Vermillion: Fairy Tail's First Master, the one person who shares his curse and understands it; their love and tragedy are bound together.
Quick Answers
Why can't Zeref die in Fairy Tail?
He was cursed by the god Ankhseram for researching resurrection: the Curse of Contradiction grants him immortality, but makes his own love for life release death around him.
Who voices Zeref Dragneel?
Akira Ishida voices Zeref in Japanese, and Joel McDonald voices him in the English dub.
How is Zeref related to Natsu?
Zeref is Natsu's older brother. After Natsu died as a child four hundred years ago, Zeref preserved his body and eventually resurrected him as the Etherious E.N.D.
