King Dedede

King Dedede (デデデ大王, Dedede Daiō), also spelled "King DeDeDe", and "King De De De" is the first antagonist to Kirby in Nintendo and HAL Labs' long-running Kirby video game series, appearing in every game except Kirby and the Amazing Mirror. Although not necessarily evil, he does seem to have some level of malice, though most of his actions in the series have him causing easily correctable problems for the inhabitants of Dream Land, such as stealing their food or building a castle on top of the Fountain Of Dreams. His more heinous actions are more often due to possession by more sinister entity of Dark Matter, along with the rest of the usual franchise enemies. Despite this, he and Kirby have teamed up on occasions with the purpose of taking down a greater common foe.

Due to an ambiguous description of the geography of Pop Star, it is never made entirely clear how much of the planet Dedede assumes rulership of, though he seems to have castles and fortresses all across the planet. Even so, he seems to perform no administrative functions, and for the most part the planet seems to ignore any edicts that are issued by him. Some of his absurd behavior seems to be caused by an undescribed complex where he has a hatred for stars, which is inconvenient, considering the entire planet is shaped like a star, and a recurring motif of the many worlds in the series is a star.

King Dedede resembles a large birdlike creature, based either on a penguin or a duck, dressed in red royal finery, with his personal emblem embossed on the back of his robe. He also wears yellow gloves, and wields a large hammer as an offensive weapon. He is able to suck in objects and shoot them out in a manner similar to Kirby, and following Kirby's Dream Land, he apparently underwent a series of rigorous training to be able to use inhaled air to fly, in the same manner as his rival.

Playable Appearences
Though the villain of the series, Dedede has had a handful of playable appearances in some of the more recent games.


 * In ''Kirby 64, in addition to being a playable ally in some levels of game, King Dedede is a playable character in the minigames.
 * In Kirby Air Ride, King Dedede is an unlockable character, obtained after defeating 1000 or more enemies scattered across the game's racetracks.
 * In Kirby Super Star, Dedede is playable in the two player version of quick draw.
 * In Kirby: Canvas Curse, he is a Medal Swap unlockable after obtaining Waddle Dee, and for a third time allies himself with Kirby in an endeavour to take down a common enemy. However, he also appears in that game as an enemy in the Truck Chase minigame.