Ridley (Metroid)

Ridley
Metroid character
Ridley, as depicted in Super Metroid
First game	Metroid (1986)

Ridley (Japanese: リドリー, Hepburn: Ridorī^?), also known by his aliases Geoform 187 and The Cunning God of Death, is the primary villain of the Metroid series (despite not actually acting as the main antagonist of any of the individual games he appears in). He is a draconic extraterrestrial who acts as Samus Aran's archenemy, due to his leadership position within the Space Pirates and the raid he led on her homeworld that included the murder of her parents when she was still a child. Despite having been destroyed numerous times by Samus, he is always resurrected, thanks in equal part to Space Pirate engineering and his natural regenerative ability, which allows him to swiftly recover from what would otherwise be fatal wounds as long as he is able to consume a requisite amount of biomatter from his fallen adversaries.

Originally appearing as a subordinate of Mother Brain, the primary antagonist of multiple titles in the Metroid series, he returns in Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption in his cybernetic Meta Ridley form, independent of such fealty. Despite his monstrous appearance, he is fully sentient, occupying a position of importance within the Space Pirate military and even revealed in the Metroid e-manga to be capable of speech, though he has not yet been witnessed speaking in any of the games.

Throughout the series, Ridley has undergone a variety of changes in appearance. In the original Metroid title, he was roughly the same size as protagonist Samus Aran and sported a more alien appearance (particularly in official artwork, which depicted him with eight eyes running down the length of his head and a small, lamprey-like mouth). In Super Metroid, he is larger than in the original title several times over, sporting purplish-brown skin, glowing yellow eyes, chameleonic abilities (possibly explaining his inconsistent skin tone across different games and even within different parts of Super Metroid), and an overall body shape that heavily resembles a European dragon. Later games depict him as larger still, and Other M departs from previous depictions by giving him a bulky, muscular form in contrast with his skeletal appearance in previous games, along with completely purple skin and flattened jaws resembling a pointed duck bill with a noticeable underbite. Ridley's vocalizations were first depicted in Super Metroid and took the form of a predatory screech; later 2D titles instead gave him piercing, high-pitched wails, while 3D installments such as the Prime games and Other M had him perform monstrous roars. His cybernetic form during the events of the Prime series is referred to as Meta Ridley and incorporates various ballistic weapon systems, while a robotic duplicate, Ridley Robot, appears as the final boss in Zero Mission.