Harald

Broad-shouldered and heavily muscled, Harald carried ancient giant blood in his veins, which made him larger than ordinary giants and gave him a pair of horns from birth. A curved double line tattoo framed his left temple and crossed his eye, and jagged eyebrows topped his face. In youth, at age forty-nine, he was lean and clean-shaven with a full head of dark hair, resembling his son Loki.

Age brought him a sweeping handlebar mustache and a spiky beard that lengthened over the years. Near the time of Rocks D. Xebec's death he shaved his head to a goatee, and afterward, ashamed of his ancient lineage, he ripped his own horns away, leaving deep scars across his scalp. His royal dress combined a chainmail tunic, black gloves, and a spiral-plaqued belt beneath a clawed cloak. Joining the Knights of God added covenant marks to his left arm, first the Shallows design and later the Depths variant.

The narration once branded a young Harald a lowlife scumbag, a prince who shirked his duties to roam the world spreading terror and crowning himself a god among men. Meeting Ida, a giantess he wrongly tried to rescue from a human kingdom, shattered that arrogance; her scolding made him reflect on the savage image he projected onto all giants. He became a devoted pacifist who prized trade and diplomacy over war, even punishing fellow giants who preyed on humans, convinced that Elbaph's warrior past was a stain to be erased.

His honor ran deep. He defended befriended nations from the World Government at the risk of his own ambitions, and to atone for giant history he offered himself as a potential slave and ripped off the horns that symbolized his heritage. That same idealistic resolve became his ruin. Refusing to heed Rocks' warning that the government meant to weaponize the giants, Harald pressed on until Imu bound him with a Depths Covenant, twisting his morality and turning him cruel toward his own people. Realizing his life's work would be undone, he begged his guards and his son to kill him, cursing himself in his final lucid moments as the worst king Elbaph had ever known.

Raised beside Dorry and Brogy, Harald took the throne at forty-five and ruled recklessly, terrorizing the seas until he stormed the Bunt Kingdom and found Ida caged as a spectacle. Her defiance reshaped him, and over decades of travel together she fathered his son Hajrudin, though Elbaph's customs barred her from queenship and forced him into a loveless marriage with Estrid, who later bore Loki. Through diplomacy he pulled Elbaph out of a devastating famine with foreign aid, and he installed Jaguar D. Saul to found the Walrus School for the nation's children.

His path crossed that of the pirate Rocks D. Xebec at a Levely, where their clash of Supreme King Haki, the first such Haki shown in a non-human, knocked out everyone within five kilometers. The two formed an odd friendship and drank together at Ida's bar, but the Five Elders demanded Rocks' death as the price of Elbaph's membership. Harald reluctantly turned on his greatest friend, duelling him repeatedly until Rocks finally fell at God Valley, a betrayal Harald bitterly regretted.

Distraught and resolved to atone, Harald presented his torn-off horns at Marineford and pledged himself to the Marines, becoming a hidden Devoted Blade who hunted pirates from the mist. The Five Elders eventually granted him a Shallows Covenant, and when Shanks vanished, Harald was elevated to full Knight of God. Imu personally bestowed the Depths Covenant and immortality, then ordered him to conscript every Elbaph giant into a forced slave army. Unable to resist the covenant taking hold of his mind, Harald cut down his own guards, revealed the deception to Loki and Jarul, and instructed Loki to devour Elbaph's hallowed Devil Fruit and finish him. After Loki obtained the legendary fruit and Supreme King Haki, Harald, briefly himself again, thanked his son, professed his love, and was struck apart by a Haki-charged blow from Ragnir.

In the aftermath, 113 guards lay dead and Loki was blamed for the massacre, leaving Elbaph kingless and Aurust Castle abandoned. Harald's policies of peace endured through the Walrus School and the Owl Library, both raised under his orders, and years later Jarul revealed a sanitized account of his death, framing a demon as the killer to keep both Harald's legacy and Loki's honor intact while rallying Elbaph against the World Government.