King Charles III, the current monarch of the United Kingdom, unveiled a new portrait of himself on Tuesday, May 14. The portrait, painted by British artist Jonathan Yeo, marks the first official portrait of the king since his coronation one year ago. In the reveal video of the portrait, Charles pulls back a shroud covering the painting and is brought face to face with something that can best be described as the painting you see in a video game meant to signify that this old, rich-looking dude is absolutely the villain. So, as previously occurred with his coronation, the internet is having some fun with it.
What makes the portrait so strikingly….evil-looking, for lack of a better term, is the intense red hues and aggressive brush strokes. Charles is presented wearing a dress military uniform while holding a sword, but the entire painting, including the background, uniform, and sword, is in an almost raw-meat color. Only Charles’ face and hands are left to be their natural shades. It’s unnerving.
“Why does the new portrait of King Charles give me such strong Dark Souls boss vibes?” wrote one user on X (formerly Twitter) and they are absolutely right to say it, in fact, they aren’t the only one to think he looks like a FromSoftware villain. Several posters are drawing similarities specifically to Elden Ring’s Volcano Manor, which prominently features a similarly eerie portrait of a ruler. To be frank, it looks like this painting would be the entrance to DLC for a FromSoftware game a la Dark Souls III’s Painted World of Ariandel.
Others observed that, as one poster so succinctly put it, “The Charles painting looks like something I’d find in Dishonored and go ‘Oh that’s the bad guy.’” To illustrate the point further, an artist made a mock-up of what the game’s “Target Assassinated” screen would look like with Charles. Riffing even further on the Dishonored comparisons, another user made a short video of protagonist Corvo stealing the portrait as he does with many in-game pieces of art.
However, the jokes don’t stop at Dark Souls and Dishonored. Other comparisons arose, and not all of them were to video games.
So, all this is to say the portrait’s vibes are rancid in the eyes of the public, and maybe it inadvertently and humorously plays into what many see as the cartoon villainy of the British monarch. Though if I’m being honest, I think the portrait kind of goes hard.
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