Konstantin (Rise of the Tomb Raider)

Konstantin is a major antagonist of the 2015 video game Rise of the Tomb Raider. He is the leader of Trinity's mercenarys and is searching for the Divine Source which grants immortality. He believes this to be his destiny and that he is chosen by God.

He is voiced by Charles Halford.

Encounter at Syria
Konstantin is first encountered in Syria, where he leads the Trinity forces searching for the Prophet's tomb. Lara, who is searching for the tomb also, manages to find the tomb but when she opens it, she finds it empty, much to her surprise. When she hears the Trinity soldiers coming closer, she hides in the empty tomb. The Trinity mercenary then blow upt the rooms ceiling and use ropes to descend into the room. Konstantin, their leader, tellls the men to rig the room with explosives, having the detonator strapped to his belt. Konstantin then comes closer to open the tomb, but Lara jumps out of it and holds a pistol to his head. Calmly, he demands that he hands over the Divine Source, the object Trinity was expecting to find in the tomb. Lara lowers her weapon, telling him that the tomb was empty, but Konstantin doesn't believe her and draws a knife, intending to kill her. However, Lara shows him that she took the detonator from his belt and thereby forces him to run for safety. Taking cover in the sarkophagus, Lara activates the explosives and blows up part of the ceiling, killing many of Konstantin's mercenarys. Though many Trinity soldiers die, Konstantin escapes.

At Croft Manor, Lara is ambushed by a Trinity assassin, who fails to kill her but steals a book containing Lara's research, leading Trinity to search for the Divine Source there.

Imprisoning Lara
Having travelled to Siberia, Lara intercepts a voice conversation from Konstantin saying that they are now looking for the artifact in the mountains and the Remnant, a group of natives trying to protect the Divine Source, is resisting them, but they will be handled. After encountering a few Trinity mercenarys, Lara enters an old sovjet base, where she sees Konstantin punish one of his men for his failure by gouging out his eyes (as the man was supposed to be his second pair of eyes). He is then called to come to the prison, where Trinity has captured a prisoner who might have information on the Divine Source. To find the source before Trinity, Lara plans to save the prisoner.

After venturing further, Lara once again watches Konstantin talking over the radio to someone, claiming that they had problems with the Remnant, but that he now has things under control. The man he's talking to then tells him that "they" will intervere if things go awry, to which Konstantin replies that he was chosen, so things won't turn that way. Before she can learn more, Lara is found by two mercenarys and knocked unconscious. Upon regaining consciousness, Lara finds herself strapped to a chair and is shocked to see that Ana, the lover of Lara's dead father, has also been captured. Ana seems afraid and asks Lara what she is doing here, telling Lara to give their captors everything so that they can return home. They are then interrupted by Konstantin's arrival. The man uses a garotte to strangle Ana, demanding information from Lara. However, when it is made clear that Lara has no knowledge whatsoever, Konstantin stops, instead freeing Ana from her chains. Ana then reveals herself as a member of Trinity and Konstantin drags Lara out of her room and throws her into a prison cell.

After escaping, Lara spys on Ana and Konstantin, who are watching a map leading to a Remnant village. When talking about Lara, Konstantin implies that Ana got sentimental, to which she enraged asks how he could say that, knowing what she sacrificed for Trinity. Ana then has a violent cough attack, implying that she sacrificed her health for Trinity. Konstantin tells her that she will live when they finally have the Divine Source and reveals that Ana is his sister. Konstantin is then called by one of his men who tells him that he is needed at the cells.

Attack on the Remnant village
After Trinity's attack on the Remnant village fails, Konstantin is informed that the villagers managed to defeat his mercenarys and that Lara is with them. Konstantin angrily tell Ana that they should have killed Lara as he intended. Ana responds that he has not made any progress so far and that Lara might be able to find what he couldn't. She then reminds Konstantin that Trinity will intervene if Konstantin continues to fail and that her survival is of no concern to Trinity. Konstantin responds that she will get to Source, as it is god's will. Ana tells him to find the Source, as she is running out of time. Ana then leaves the abbey.

Konstantin then prays at the altar, begging for God to show him the way, as he is so close. His stigmata then bleed, causing him to deduce that bloodshed can't be avoided.

Obtaining the Atlas
After his men steal the atlas from Lara and capture Jonah, Lara travels back to the Sowjet gulag, where the Trinity main base is located. While Lara is on her way, Konstantin and Ana get the location of the Divine Source out of the atlas. Konstantin tells Ana that he will tell the men to start the excavation. Ana mentions the Undying Ones guarding the Source and asks whether the men know what is expecting them. Konstantin dismisses the thought, claiming that the men are ready to die for the cause if needed. Ana then shows doubts, telling Konstantin that Trinity is merely using them and might not let him get the Source. Konstantin disrupts her, telling her that he wasn't chosen by Trinity but from God himself and that he will lead God's immortal army after he has located the source. Konstantin then leaves to interrogate Jonah.

Interrogating Jonah
Having found out about the Trinity base while listening to the militia's radio messages, Lara heads to the weather station. While climbing the weather station, Lara can find an audio diary of Ana, where she describes how she created the stigmata of Konstantin when they were young, cutting him while he slept and whispering into his ears. She justifies it with giving purpose to her brother's live. Konstantin believed this to be the work of God, as Ana expected. At the top of the weather station, she takes the atlas and then heads to the gulag to save Jonah.

At the gulag, she sees Konstantin interrogating Jonah to find out what he knows, however he tells Jonah how he admires his deep loyalty to Lara. Lara shoots at Konstantin, but the bullet is held at bay by bullet proof glass. Surprised, Konstantin turns to find out who is attacking him and Jonah uses the oppurtunity to tackle him, disarming Konstantin and taking his gun. He aims the gun at Konstantin's head, but the man begs for his life, claiming that he only did what he considered to be the right thing. Unable to kill an unarmed opponent, Jonah does not shoot Konstantin despite Lara urging him to do so. Konstantin uses the oppurtunity to draw a hidden knife and stab Jonah in the chest. He uses his radio to call for backup and then walks out of the room, leaving Lara to fight off the arriving Trinity mercenarys.

Now even more determined to find the Divine Source, because it is the only way to save Jonah's life, Lara follows the map she saw in the atlas and ventures to the hidden city Kitesh, where the immortal guards of the prophet are still guarding its treasures. After Lara has fought her way through the Undying Ones, Trinity breaks through the ice mass and enters the hidden city, ready to obtain the Divine Source.

Battle in the hidden city
To prevent Lara from entering the chamber of souls, Konstantin sends the rest of his Trinity mercenarys against her. Arriving on the battlefield on board of a helicopter, Konstantin also attacks Lara, shooting at her with the helicopter's mounted gun. However, with the help of the prophet's daughter Sofia, her Remnants and a catapult Lara is able to bring the chopper down. The chopper crashes down in a lower level of the tower and the force of the impact destroys the floor underneath Lara, dropping her down onto the same level. After having fought the remaining Undying Ones, she is ambushed by Konstantin who overpowers her and takes her bow from her. Armed with a machine rifle, he then attacks her, resulting in a final fight with the mercenary leader. By attacking from above or by hrowing the nearby rubble to distract Konstantin, Lara is able to injure Konstantin, eventually mortally wounding the man by thrusting her knife into his chest. While dying, Konstantin tells Lara that Trinity killed her father. Lara can chose to finish off Konstantin or leave him to die in the chamber, if the latter choice is made Konstantin is ignited by the fire raging in the room, with the floor underneath his feet crumbling, sending him falling to his death.

Personality
Konstantin demands the utmost respect and loyalty from his soldiers however he has no respect for them, nor Trinity and dangerously used the organisation to further his own goals and ensure the survival of his sister. Konstantin was extremely unstable which was probably brought on by the stress of Ana dying and him unable to locate The Divine Source to save her. He was normally quite calm although he was initially rather upset about his guard's failure to "be his eyes" and responded with enucleating his eyes but while doing so didn't seem at all fazed that he was torturing the man instead acting like it was a casual thing however a person would say Konstantin's breakdown would be at the Chamber of Souls where he ambushed and attacked Lara all the while screaming in rage to her direction.

Konstantin was ruthless, cruel with an extreme capacity for violence and a lack of empathy, compassion or morality all signs of him being quite insane. He had no respect for the natives in Siberia, ordering his own men to kill them on sight as he knew they would stand in his way of reaching Kitesh. He did have some albeit very warped honour however while interrogating Jonah he comments that he does admire him for his willpower and loyalty towards his friends however after Jonah got the upper hand by holding him at gunpoint, Konstantin pretended to be helpless and actually begged however this was a manipulation and it allowed him to stab Jonah, nearly killing him.

Despite this Konstantin was also a deluded and misguided man. His love of his sister was incredibly powerful so much that he didn't realise that Ana was actually manipulating her brother to locate the Divine Source and save her own skin. Konstantin does appear to have more loyalty and belief towards Trinity than Ana does however they were still a way for him to complete his own goals. Konstantin's delusions have gotten completely out of hand, he actually thinks himself a soldier of God and was found praying to Him for guidance when he was lost and believes that He was speaking to him to continue the bloodshed.

Despite his ruthlessness and insanity Konstantin does display a slightly more affectionate side of his personality however this was only for his sister, Ana whom he would protect at the cost of anything even the lives of innocence. Even at the end when he was close to being killed by Lara he admits that everything he did he did for Ana. After being mortally wounded by Lara, and finally realising that he had been deceived by his sister and that his destiny was wrong he actually goaded Lara to kill him, trying to force her by revealing that it was Trinity who killer her father, Lord Richard Croft.

Trivia

 * In one of her diary entrys, Lara laments that she always encounters religious fanatics, refering to Father Mathias, the main antagonist of the previous game.
 * The fight against Konstantin is reminiscient to the Mr. Freeze bossfight in Batman: Arkham City, in both fights the opponent cannot be attacked directly, the environment must be used instead to take him down.