Joachim Karel appears in Lara Croft : The Angel Of Darkness game. He holds a secret - unknown until the last few cutscenes of the game. When Lara attempts to finally kill Pieter Van Eckhardt, Karel seems to appear from nowhere taking the last shard from her. Eckhardt orders for Karel to kill Lara but he turns around instead driving the shard into Eckhardts head.

Karel explains to Lara that he has actually been helping her through Paris and Prague, although this is not very clear during the earlier stages of the game. He then reveals himself as the last living Nephilim on earth and had been manipulating Eckhardt all along to gain access to the Sleeper in an attmept to revive the Nephilim race. Karel also reveals he is a shapeshifter - maybe explaining how the gard outside the Louvre changed appearance. He also changes his appearance many times during the final few cutscenes: shifting into Louis Bouchard, Thomas Luddick and Lara's game companion Kurtis Trent.

Karel offers Lara to help him in his work. She sees a symbol on his hand and begins to have flashbacks to the night that her old Mentor Werner Von Croy was murdered. She realizes he had shapeshifted in Eckhardt and actually murdered Von Croy.

Lara refuses his offer, instead she attempts to kill him. This ends in the end Boss Battle. Karel has the power to levitate during the battle, although it does not show, if he has any wings. He also throws green, electrified bolts at Lara during the fight. Dispite the fact Karel is invulnerable to any of Lara's weapons the battle results in Lara destroying the Sleeper. A light beam cuts through Karel and destroys him.

Contents 1 Core Design's Biography 2 Characteristics 2.1 Personality 2.2 Looks 3 Appearence 3.1 The Angel of Darkness 4 Questions over Karel's death

Core Design's Biography

Karel is a corporate legal mastermind based in Paris. He oversees the Cabal's investments and recruitment whilst protecting their interests worldwide.

Characteristics

Personality

• He is a mastermind
  

  

  Karel in his human form
  

  

  Karel in his Nephilim form

• He is evil

• Last living Nephilim on earth

• He is able to do shapeshifting

• He is immortal

• Boss of the Cabal, which is unknown until the last few cutscenes

• He is able to levitate and throw green, electrified bolts

• He is very strong

• He helps Lara Croft during the game

• He is kind of silent until the end of the game

• He unknowingly rips other people off to achieve his intensions

Looks

• He has two forms: His Nephilim form and his human form

• He wears almost solely black clothes: black shoes, gloves, trousers and jacket (perhaps leather) and a grey turtle neck (maybe to hide Nephilim signs on his body)

• He has blonde hair, blue eyes, fair skin and a kind of deep voice

Appearence

The Angel of Darkness

First time we see Karel in a cutscene right before Lara Croft breaks into the Louvre. He sits together with the other four members of the Cabal (Pieter Van Eckhardt, Kristina Boaz, Dr. Grant Muller, Marten Gunderson) at a table and listens to Eckhardt, who is speaking about one of the five paintings hidden in the Louvre.

It's unsure where exactly they are arranged. The building looks like an old castle. Some people believe it is castle Kriegler, a castle located in Germany, which likely was supposed to be a playable level in The Angel of Darkness game, which however was cut out of the game. It's said, it was also supposed to be the place where Karel and Lara met the first time, what however didn't happen after all.

Short time later we meet Karel at the Louvre in Paris. But he is shapeshifted then, something - besides other things - Karel is able to do, which the player however doesn't know at this stage of the game. He shapeshifted into one of Gunderson's guards, that broke into the Louvre and tried to kill Lara. He hid at the rear exit until Kurtis Trent (later Lara's game companion) came out and Karel knocked him out and took the painting from him, which Kurtis stole from Lara in the Louvre. Then he waited for Lara to come out and knocked her out aswell, next to Kurtis. After that you clearly see, that Karel shapeshifts into Bouchard's doorman, who you met short time before at the church St. Aircard.

The next cutscene shows Louis Bouchard, who helps Lara and drives her to Werner Von Croy's apartment after she regains conciousness - without Kurtis next to her. Some people believe, it's Karel shapeshifted into Bouchard, because Bouchard actually is the type of person, that doesn't care; and now he helps Lara, although she didn't ask for help and without equivalent. Furthermore Karel was the last person around before Lara got knocked out and Kurtis is away when she awakes. But this is still unclear and a little strange, because Bouchard drives Lara to Von Croy's apartment and then sets a cleaner on her.

Lara goes into Von Croy's apartment. She looks into a mirror on the wall and begins to have her first flashback: In this flashback you see Lara getting knocked out by Eckhardt. Von Croy is fighting with Eckhardt and then get killed by him. Although it looks like Eckhardt killed Von Croy you see Karel leaving the room! If you look close enough. Then Lara gets up and walks to Von Croy, who is dead - the flashback ends. Later Lara has to kill the cleaner, who was called by Bouchard and comes into Von Croy's apartment aswell, short time after the flashback. After Lara kills the cleaner she drives to Prague and meets Bouchard again when she arrives the monstrum crime scene, where Bouchard tells her all he knows about the Cabal. She leaves Bouchard alone for a little while and then finds his dead body when she comes back. That all means, Bouchard could have been Karel shapeshifted, but it's not sure.

After that we don't hear about Karel for a long time. Not until Lara breaks into the Strahov building and arrives the Bio-Reseach Facility where she noteless watches him and the other members of the Cabal, however Karel doesn't speak. He only stands there and let Eckhardt do the work again, which is feeding Boaz to one of Muller's creatures, because she couldn't kill the Proto-Nephilim.

Next time we can see Karel in a cutscene together with Eckhardt. This is the first time Karel speaks in the game. Both are watching Lara and Kurtis per observation camera on a screen. Karel asks Eckhardt where Lara has the map and the Periapt Shard from, which she held in her hands. But Eckhardt doesn't care. He orders for Karel to make the preperations, because Kurtis is on his way to Eckhardt's old alchemy lab to find the third shard and Eckhardt wants to stop him and take him as a hostage. You see that Karel dislikes how Eckhardt thinks to be in charge of him, although Karel is his boss. Though Karel is clever enough to keep quiet and wait for the right moment when he can kill Eckhardt easily.

Later Karel doesn't appear until the end of the game for the final boss fight. Lara fought against Eckhardt at the big machine Eckhardt built for reviving the Sleeper, that still hangs above them. Eckhardt got the five Engravigs and put them together to the artifact Sanglyph. Therefore he became stronger and was able to clone himself and to throw electrified and firely beams at Lara. Though she managed to outgun Eckhardt by stabbing two of the Periapt hards into his shoulders - the only weapons, made by the Lux Veritatis, which could destroy Eckhardt. Right before Lara is going to stab the third shard into Eckhardt he leans exhausted against a pillar. Lara runs towards him, but before she could stab the third shard into Eckhardt Karel appears from behind, knocks Lara over and takes the shard from her, being on the verge of stabbing her. Lara aims with her guns at Karel and surprisingly shouts his name. It seems, she already knows Karel very well and didn't expect him there. Maybe they really met each other before in castle Kriegler in Germany - the scene/level, which was cut out of the game. Eckhardt orders for Karel to kill Lara. However, after deeply considering, Karel turns around and stabs the third shard into Eckhardt's head and kills him. Karel is a real mastermind. He only ripped Eckhardt off to achieve his intentions until he didn't need him anymore. He also sees, that Lara is very intelligent and would be usefuller for his work than Eckhardt. So he killed Eckhardt instead of Lara.

After Karel killed Eckhardt Lara quickly gets up, not losing track of Karel. A little confusedly Lara asks him why he did that. From that moment you come to know almost everything about Karel. He tells Lara, that he is the boss of the Cabal and that Eckhardt unknowingly worked for him. Then he turns into his true Nephilim form and also reveals to her, that he's the last living Nephilim on earth and he wants to continue Eckhadt's work, which is reviving the Nephilim race. Lara doesn't like this idea at all, so Karel shows her, that he's able to do shapeshifting in order to win Lara's trust. He shapeshifts into Louis Bouchard, Thomas Luddick and then even into Kurtis Trent. Karel tells her, that he helped her both in Paris in Prague by shapeshifting into other persons and tries to persuade her to work together with him. He reaches his hand out for Lara and says, that Lara can trust him. Lara looks at his hand and sees a known sign, which reminds her of something. She begins to have another flashback: Lara sees quite the same like in her last flashback. Eckhardt approaches from behind and knocks her out after she spoke to Von Croy. But now you see something new: Eckhardt fights with Von Croy and then asks him, why he didn't bring the painting to him, which he found. Then Eckhardt kills Von Croy and draws with his big glove and Von Croy's blood strange signs on the wall - including the same sign, which Karel has on his hand. After that Eckhardt takes Von Croy's glasses, walks to Lara and shapeshifts into Karel. From this moment the player knows, that Karel actually killed Von Croy and not Eckhardt after all.

Karel breaks Von Croy's glasses with his bare hand, says: "You humans break so easily" and throws the glasses in front of Lara's face. You clearly see that sign on his hand again, then the flashback ends.

You come back to the cutscene before the flashback. Karel is still reaching out his hand with the sign for Lara, waiting for her to accept his offer. However Lara says, that Karel killed Von Croy and thus refuses Karel's offer. Perhaps because she doesn't want to get ripped off by him like Von Croy, Eckhardt and many other people or only because he murdered her friend Von Croy and she doesn't want to betray him. Anyway, this is the beginning of the final boss fight against Karel. He says: "Stupid mortal! So be it!" and starts to levitate. The fight begins. Now you have to fight against Karel. What's not easy however. Karel is immortal, so Lara's guns are useless against him, and he throws green, electrified bolts on you during the whole fight. That means, Lara has to kill him another way. She has to grab Eckhardt's glove with the Sanglyph and has to get up all ladders until she reaches the top of the machine the Sleeper is still attached to. When you reach the top you find an unclosed platform where you have to go to and then jump to the Sleeper - the final cutscene begins. Lara jumps at the Sleeper and grabs his foot. She attaches the glove with the Sanglyph to the Sleeper and then lets herself drop to the ground. Light beams blast out of the Sleeper and the room is on the verge of exploding. Lara escapes while Karel still stands on the ground beneath the Sleeper. Suddenly a strong light beam cuts through Karel. He screams and the room explodes.

Questions over Karel's death

Much like Kurtis Trent there have been questions over, if Karel is actually dead. Angel of Darkness was supposed to carry on the story in a trilogy. It was likely like Kurtis, that Karel would have survived and continued his work to try and revive the Nephilim race in Turkey. The trilogy was then scrapped.