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Quote:

Originally Posted by MaskedRiderAsakura

The series leaves it kinda ambiguous as to whether Ren died or not. We don't know if he succumbed to his injuries or if he was simply taking a well-deserved rest after winning the Rider War.

And I don't think Kamen Rider Knight was intended to be the main Rider. When Ryuki came out, it deconstructed a lot of Rider tropes and played with the audience's expectations. Not only did we see the first instance of an evil Rider in the show, but, to this day, it's the only Rider series I can think of where most of the Riders are undoubtedly evil. Most of the Riders in the series are selfish, hedonistic, excessively violent or just flat-out batshit insane. Then you've got a Rider unsure of what the 'right' thing to do is, which contrasts with the Riders of old simply knowing how to do the right thing. And on top of that, we've got the whole concept of fighting a war that ultimately can't be won. Even if Ren got his wish, it cost him his best friend.

I'd imagine that they wanted to take Rider in a new direction with the series, and gave us a main character who didn't win for once. On top of that, I don't think Shinji surviving the Rider War works nearly as well as Ren winning the Rider War. Ren was always the one dead-set on surviving, Shinji was the one who would gladly give his life to save everyone else, which is what he ended up doing.

I can't reference this to a particular episode, but I swore Shiro said he started the Rider War so he could find the strongest life to give to Yui. Which I thought meant the winner died as well, essentially meaning Ren is dead.