Emperor Dornkirk

''"When the dragon and the girl come close, the image of the future wavers. That girl from Earth is the key to everything. I must separate them!" -Dornkirk''

Emperor Dornkirk is the ruler of the Zaibach Empire and the ultimate antagonist of The Vision of Escaflowne.

Personality
Emperor Dornkirk is an obsessive man who has spent his entire existence searching for a way to control destiny and going to whatever lengths necessary to obtain that power. He has noble intentions of wanting to create a perfect existence for the people of Gaea, regardless of whether that perfect destiny really exists, but it comes at the cost of destruction and war across all of Gaea. He is ultimately responsible for the destruction of three countries and counts the death and devastation wrought by his actions as the price of obtaining his ideal future.

Life on Earth
Originally from Earth, Dornkirk was a scientist known as Isaac. After his discovery of gravity, he began to question why people were drawn to each other and why they act the way they do. He eventually concluded that the unseen force known as destiny was responsible for the fates of humans.

Isaac began to research a way to control destiny and continued to pursue that goal all his life but never found an answer. On his deathbed, just before he expired, he was transported to Gaea.

Life on Gaea
Upon arriving on Gaea, Isaac discovered a desolate country barren of natural resources and constantly under threat of invasion from neighboring countries. Isaac decided to use his knowledge to give the people the tools to forge their own destiny and become an industrial, militarized society. In this way, he founded what would become known as the Zaibach Empire.

His search for the power to control destiny continued on Gaea and he discovered the legend of Atlantis. He became obsessed with the secret of Atlantis and at some point, he met Leon Schezar, who was also searching for the secret of Atlantis, said to be located in the Mystic Valley. Leon discovered the secret of Atlantis, but refused to tell Isaac, so he was killed.

At some point, Dornkirk built a giant machine called the Fate Alteration Machine which allows him to predict the future. However, his ultimate goal is to be able to bend reality to his will through his wishes as the Atlanteans were once able to do. He seeks Escaflowne and the Mystic Valley in order to accomplish this. Dornkirk himself is also connected to a mechanical chair that appears to sustain his life, ensuring that he can live to a much longer age than would normally be possible for a human from Earth.

Ten years ago, after Folken Fanel had his arm bitten off by a dragon during the Fanelian Rite of Succession, Dornkirk took him in. The Zaibach Sorcerers outfitted Folken with a mechanical prosthetic arm, and Dornkirk convinced Folken to join him in his quest to create the perfect destiny on Gaea. After Naria and Eriya die as a result of the Fortune Blood transfused into them, Folken abandons Zaibach, seeks asylum in Asturia, and eventually decides to atone for his deeds by killing Dornkirk. However, the tip of Folken's sword falls off and lodges itself in Folken's chest, killing him soon after he kills Dornkirk.

In the final episode of the series, Dornkirk's spirit observes the end of the war alongside Hitomi, and he is only completely vanquished when Van shatters the Fate Alteration Machine in the process of rescuing Hitomi from Zaibach.

Inspiration
Emperor Dornkirk's design, character, and origins were based on Sir Isaac Newton, an English mathematician, astronomer, and physicist known for discovering gravity and for his three Laws of Motion. When Hitomi returns to Earth in episode 24, a teacher is heard discussing Newton's theory of gravity.

Similarly to Newton's interest in gravity, Dornkirk developed an interest in destiny, another unseen force that drew things to each other. Additionally, in Newton's time, understanding how matter behaved was thought to allow prediction of the future, represented by Dornkirk's Fate Alteration Machine. Newton was also interested in the occult and alchemy.