< Tales of Eternia

Tales of Eternia/Characters


Main characters

Reid Hershel

The Main Protagonist of the game, Reid Hershel is a simple hunter, living in the town of Rasheans, before Meredy quite literally drops into his life. Initially apathetic and irresponsible, Reid develops over time and becomes a proper hero in his own right. He wields the Divine Aurora, the power to counter Shizel's Dark Aurora. Though he starts with An Axe to Grind, he can also wield swords or spears, and is the primary Melee fighter of the group.

Tropes associated with Reid:

  • An Axe to Grind: Reid can use an axe, which typically has good slashing abilities but isn't as good for thrusting.
  • BFS: Some of Reid's swords are specifically referred to as large swords due to their size. They tend to be about as big as Reid himself.
  • Big Eater (This is one of his most famous traits. He also gets Extreme Omnivore points for being willing to eat Arche and Raine's cooking in the first Radiant Mythology game...)
  • Blade on a Stick: Reid can equip a spear, which sacrifices slashing abilities for better thrusting power.
  • The Chosen One
  • Clingy MacGuffin
  • Cutscene Power to the Max: His Seyfert trials only give him some nifty moves gameplay-wise. Story-wise, Reid's power is that of a living god by the end of the game.
  • Dark-Skinned Redhead (Reid is noticeably tanned due to the fairly large amount of time he spends outdoors. ...And he, uh, has red hair.)
  • Deadpan Snarker (Occasionally.)
  • Disappeared Dad (His father died fighting Farah's father, who was possessed by Nereid.
  • Farm Boy
  • Heroes Prefer Swords: Reid can actually equip various types of weapons, but his best in the game are, you guessed it, swords. That and Inomata drew his artwork (pictured to the right) with him holding a sword.
  • Hollywood Tone Deaf (Just listen to his "singing" in the Japanese version, during a certain skit on Mt. Mintche. Yikes.)
  • Idiot Hero (To be fair, Reid is by no means a complete moron; he's just... a little slow.)
  • Impossibly Cool Clothes (How does he manage to go out hunting wild animals in an outfit that is essentially a sports bra and pyjama pants?)
  • Meaningful Name (The name "Reid" denotes a person with red hair, and can also refer to someone who lives in or near woods—both of which fit him very well. His surname, "Hershel", is after astronomer William Herschel.)
  • My Name Is Not Durwood ("My name isn't Feebureel.")
  • Power Glows (Does it ever...)
  • Refusal of the Call
    • The Call Knows Where You Live (Subverted: while Hyades does attack Reid's hometown, he does so to find Meredy rather than him, and it doesn't provide much motivation to Reid either way.)
  • Redheaded Hero
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni (Right down to their respective hair colours, Reid is the friendly, occasionally slightly crude, thoroughly unintellectual and naive Red Oni to Keele's Blue Oni.)
  • Relationship Voice Actor (In Japanese, Reid is voiced by Akira Ishida, whereas Keele is voiced by Soichiro Hoshi.)
  • Somebody Else's Problem (This is more-or-less Reid's attitude toward life prior to his Character Development.)
  • Spell My Name with an "S" ("Reid/Rid/Ridd", "Hershel"/"Herschel")
  • Team Mom (He's pretty much the closest to one in the group. The man bra (fandom joke) he wears doesn't help much.)
  • The Lancer (Arguably, Reid fills this role for a respectable portion of the game, being something of a calm voice of reason for the more energetic Farah.)
  • Took a Level in Badass (After he leaves his apathy and laziness behind him and undergoes the Trials of Seyfert...)
  • Trademark Favorite Food (Omelettes!)

Farah Oersted

Reid's childhood friend and a farmer girl from Rasheans, she is intensely driven almost immediately to help Meredy, and drags Reid along for the ride. The reason for her drive to help others is eventually revealed to be guilt from her childhood. She's a Martial Artist, and also has some ability to heal others, making her something of a secondary Melee fighter.

Tropes associated with Farah:

  • Action Girl
  • Badass
  • Bare-Fisted Monk
  • Can't Catch Up: Farah on occasion gets annoyed with the fact that despite Reid's laziness, he is still much stronger than she is. (Though this has more to do with the story rather than actual gameplay.)
  • Catch Phrase ("Ikeru ikeru!"/"No problem!")
  • Chronic Hero Syndrome (Very, very much so.)
  • Cute Bruiser
  • Dark and Troubled Past (When she, Reid and Keele were children in Rasheans, Farah stole the key to Regulus Knoll -- a place that the children had been expressly forbidden to enter -- from her father, and dragged Reid and Keele along to look for "star fragments" deep inside the temple. Her father came looking for the children, and was attacked and turned into a monster by Nereid, who had been sealed there and apparently released by the three children. As a result of Nereid being freed, Rasheans was completely destroyed and many villagers were killed, leaving Farah in a crushing state of grief and regret ever since.)
  • Disappeared Dad (Her father was possessed by Nereid when it was freed, and was killed by Reid's father.
  • The Hero (At first; she is the one who insists upon helping Meredy, and has to convince Reid to come along because Meredy does not want to be separated from him. For a large part of the game, Farah is the character who primarily keeps the party together and enthusiastically "leads the way".)
  • It's All My Fault
  • Jumped At the Call (...And Reid gets dragged along.)
  • Love Triangle (Farah is at the centre of a very brief Reid/Farah/Ras triangle.)
  • Like Brother and Sister (At first, she and Reid are like this, but Farah begins to develop feelings for Reid at about the time he undergoes the Trials of Seyfert.)
  • Meaningful Name ("Farah" means "joy" or "pleasant and beautiful", both of which apply to Farah rather well. "Oersted" is after Hans Oersted.)
  • Names to Know in Anime - Yuko Minaguchi
  • The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything (Farah is supposed to be a Farmer, but is never seen doing any actual farming in the game itself. The Animated scenes show her throwing haybales..but then again though; not like she has a chance to do much farming in the game.)
  • Plucky Girl
  • Pollyanna
  • Power Fist
  • Real Women Never Wear Dresses: Averted hard. She wears a huge dress.
  • Shorttank (In many ways, although she does wear a big, fluffy dress.)
  • Stepford Smiler (Her outward cheeriness and impulsive actions hide an intense guilt over her apparent role in the destruction of Rasheans and death of her father ten years ago and overall doubt about who she really is.)
  • Tomboy (averted—Farah shows many stereotypically "boyish" traits and behaviours such as exuberance, [over]confidence, bluntly speaking her mind and willingness to play rough and fight without holding back... but she does not at all eschew typically "girly" activities either, as she also cares for and about her appearance, cooks and cleans, and favours cute, brightly-coloured clothing.)
  • Victorious Childhood Friend

Meredy

A mysterious girl who drops from the sky aboard a Craymel Craft, Meredy warns Reid, Farah and Keele of the impending doom known as the "Grand Fall" and tries to get help in averting the crisis. Eventually it's revealed that her own mother is the source behind the Grand Fall, and that Meredy has the latent ability to harness the Dark Aurora, the very power causing it. Meredy is also a Craymel Mage.

Tropes associated with Meredy:

  • Adult Child: For extremely horrifying reasons.
  • Cannot Spit It Out: ... Wow. Meredy knows most of the major plot twists from the very beginning but doesn't tell anyone for a variety of reasons, mostly because she knows because she experienced the associated traumas first hand.
  • Catch Phrase ("Haina!"/"You bet!". "Waiiru!"/"Hweel!" also shows up rather often.)
  • Dark and Troubled Past
  • Eloquent in My Native Tongue (Meredy sounds perfectly coherent and mature in Melnics, but when her speech is translated through the party's Orz Earrings, it essentially comes out mostly as awkward and fractured-to-broken—and incredibly cute—English/Japanese.)
  • Fictionary (Meredy speaks Melnics, the Cipher Language spoken in her native Celestia.)
  • Foreign Cuss Word ("Baiba!", which literally translates to "Wow!"—she uses it to express emotions ranging from simple surprise to anger to confusion.)
  • Genius Ditz (She piloted a prototype Craymel Craft to Inferia by herself, is apprentice to the greatest Craymel Engineer in all of Celestia, and, judging by the scene in which she and Keele stay up all night together in the library in Imen, she evidently manages to impress even Keele with how knowledgeable she really is.)
  • Halfbreed: Her father was an Inferian who traveled to Celestia via the Bridge of Light and her mother was a native of Celestia.
  • Heroic Sacrifice
  • Improbable Weapon User (...She equips whistles. And she fights by commanding her pet, Quickie.)
  • Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter
  • Meaningful Name ("Meredy" is taken from "Melody", referring to her love of music and dancing, as well as the fact that she equips whistles. Her infinity plus one whistle is in fact called "Eternia Melody".)
  • Mysterious Waif
  • Non-Human Sidekick (Quickie, of course!)
  • Obfuscating Stupidity (Possibly, although technically it is more like Obfuscating Childishness—fans have theorized that despite her actually being quite intelligent and brave, she "refused to grow up" after she, at six years old, had to watch her father be brutally assassinated by people her parents had trusted, and her mother essentially go insane with grief and anger as a result.)
  • Omi Minami
  • Spell My Name with an "S" ("Meredy"/"Melody")
  • Stepford Smiler (Meredy puts on a cheerful, bubbly and childlike face, but is much, much sadder and lonelier than she lets on.)
  • Summon Magic
  • Verbal Tic

Keele Zeibel

Childhood friends with Reid and Farah, Keele moved from Rasheans to Mintche to pursue a life as a scholar, and is thus incredibly knowledgeable on a number of subjects, but somewhat out of touch on the social side of things, rude, and also very out of shape. He eventually softens up, and comes to respect Meredy and Celestia more than even Reid and Farah do. Keele joins Meredy as a Craymel mage, and is somewhat better at the offensive side then she is.

Tropes associated with Keele:

Chat

Descended from the great Pirate Aifread himself, Chat is a pirate girl who puts the party through a long series of tests shortly after they arrive in Celestia, and eventually views them as being worthy of joining her crew, though in reality, this amounts more to her loaning out her Cool Ship, the Van Eltia to them. For the most part she prefers to remain on board, but she can be called to fight if necessary. Chat is a ranged fighter, throwing all manner of weapons at enemies from her Bag of Holding.

Tropes associated with Chat:

  • Awesome but Impractical / Awesome Yet Practical: Eternal throw. Not worth using on trash mobs since you're just wasting TP and gels...but on bosses? As long as you keep feeding her gels she can keep on throwing hammers until the cows come home.
  • Bag of Holding (Literally. She uses the things inside as weapons.)
  • Bokukko
  • Cool Ship (Chat is captain of the Van Eltia—an extremely cool ship, indeed.)
  • Dark-Skinned Blond
  • Gadgeteer Genius
  • Insistent Terminology (Don't forget that she's the Captain.)
  • Insufferable Genius: She has a tendency to call other party members' behavior childish. At one point she does this at the hotel in Tinnsia, referring to her roomates', Farah and Meredy, habit of randomly looking at the stuff in the room as childish and stated that she examined the room herself to look for a fire exit.
  • Junko Noda
  • Licked by the Dog (Chat can yell and scream and cry all she likes about how much she hates animals... but Quickie jumps on her, tries to play with her, and rides on her hat anyway.)
  • Mad Scientist (It's definitely there... Definitely In the Blood.)
  • Nice Hat (Chat's giant pirate hat shows up as an equippable item in later Tales games.)
  • Optional Party Member (She's easy to get though; just talk to her in the Engine Room any time after you pick up Celsius.)
  • Pirate: She is a descendant of Aifread, after all.
  • Pirate Girl: Albeit one constantly mistaken for a boy.
  • The Smart Guy (She shares this role with Keele, albeit to a lesser degree.)
  • Sweet Tooth (If you look at the recipes that receive her musical-note-approval on the Cooking menu, it becomes fairly clear...)
  • Viewer Gender Confusion (Reid mistakes Chat for a boy upon first meeting her; later on, an employee at the Craymel Hot Springs does the same, to her great annoyance.)
  • Wrench Wench (She built her house, the basement, and all the traps in it, by herself.)

Fog/Max

The boisterous head of La Résistance, Shileska, the party agrees to work with Max's group in Celestia in order to defeat Balir. Max is a rather simple-minded man, and prefers to let his insane strength and durability solve his problems for him. Amusingly, he also wants to Take Over the World. He wields a BFG in combat, which he either uses as a bludgeoning weapon, or fires a variety of beam weapons from it.

Tropes associated with Max:

  • Artificial Stupidity: Arguably Gameplay and Story Integration on this part since he's...not the brightest. He tends to bludgeon with his weapons, which isn't bad considering that this does essentially make him the third melee next to Reid and Farah. But his weapons have a long charge time and are ranged; so naturally unless you program him to keep his distance, he'll run in and get interrupted.
  • BFG: His preferred type of weapon.
    • Frickin' Laser Beams His mystic arte is even spammable. (Granted though; this was actually the first games to have one of these)
  • Big Damn Heroes (At Balir Castle, Max and the rest of Shileska get such a moment.)
  • Catch Phrase ("OH!"/"YEAH!")
  • Evil Laugh: His "Bwa ha ha ha!" laugh when he's first met at the hideout, which he lets out after stating his goal. He also uses it at other points after that, usually when his goal is brought up again. Of course, considering his personality and lack of evilness, it's pretty much played for laughs.
  • Game Breaker: Aqua Spiral.
  • Hot-Blooded
  • Large and In Charge
  • Large Ham (Wow.)
  • Masashi Ebara
  • The Big Guy
  • The Fool (The other characters comment on his being more-or-less miraculously indestructible regardless of the stupid things he does.)
  • La Résistance (Max is the leader of Shileska, an organization based in Tinnsia whose goal is to locate and defeat Balir, and then Take Over the World.)
  • Take Over the World (And he's not subtle at all about it either. The party doesn't seem overly concerned.)

Rassius Luine Fomalhaut

A Merchant the party meets a ways into the game, Rassius agrees to help them find the Wind Craymel, Sylph. During the search, Rassius displays a number of talents that seem unusual for what appears to be a normal Merchant to possess. This is because he's actually the Senior Knight of the Inferian Empire, and was spying on the party. He attempts to stop them crossing over into Celestia, but later learns the truth behind the nature of Celestia, and instead saves them from certain death at Shizel's hands, giving his life to do so. Like Reid, he can command the Divine Aurora, but he never manages to finish his training. He also uses a similar fighting style to Reid, though his style involves more Thrusts than Reid's (hence his preference for rapiers over wider swords), and is more refined and trained.

Tropes associated with Ras:

  • Big Damn Heroes (At Balir's Castle.)
  • Bishonen (Except that he does have the typical Bishonen personality!)
  • The Chosen One (The other candidate, who would have been the one to receive all of Seyfert's powers, until he died.)
  • Counterpart Comparison (Ras fights similarly to Reid. In fact, if you pay attention, you'll notice their sprites and animation frames are both very similar, especially when running or during their victory animation.)
  • Guest Star Party Member
  • Heroic Sacrifice
  • The Mole: The guy Reid, Farah, and Meredy thought was some merchant turned out to be an Ifernian soldier sent to spy on the group. Keele was suspicious of him as soon as he laid eyes on him, and of course it turned out he had a very good reason to be.
  • Momma's Boy (He idolizes his deceased mother, and wears the flowers on his hat in her memory.)
  • Nice Hat

Shizel

The wife of Balir, who is Dead All Along, and is thus actually not the ruler of Celestia, and Meredy's mother. Balir's death drives Shizel over the edge, allowing her to become possessed by the evil god Nereid, who uses her to begin the Grand Fall. Like Meredy, she can wield the Dark Aurora.

Tropes associated with Shizel:

  • A Taste of Power (It's pretty late in, but Shizel's got pretty wicked stats and spells for the brief time you're allowed to control her.)
  • Abusive Parent (Doesn't get much worse than trying to destroy the world and then sending your poor child's uncle to kill her when she tries to stop it. And that's just the start.)
  • Fashion Victim Villain.
  • Mama Bear (Before she was possessed.)
  • The Man Behind the Man (Played with. At first, it seems the bad guy of the game is a man called Balir. So your party sets off to find and stop him. Only it turns out that Balir has been dead for years, and Shizel is the person behind it. But then it turns out it's not totally Shizel's fault, as she's been possessed by a god called Nereid, triggered by Balir's very death, among other factors. How's that for role taking?)
  • Redemption Equals Death (Uses her Dark Aurora to help Meredy do her part of breaking the Seyfert Ring at the end of the game.)
  • Signature Move (Eternal Finality.)
  • Squishy Wizard (She's pretty slow on her feet while you're using her.)
Greater Craymels

Undine

One of the Primary Craymels of Inferia, and the spirit of Water. Opposed to Volt, the spirit of Lightning. Undine is the first spirit encountered by the party, and she fights them to test their strength. After being defeated, she agrees to help the group in their quest. Undine is particularly critical, as all the healing spells Keele or Meredy can learn are learned through her.

Tropes associated with Undine:

Sylph

One of the Primary Craymels of Inferia, and the spirit of Wind. Opposed to Gnome, the spirit of Earth. Sylph is encountered by the party not long after Undine, and, just as she does, battles the party to test their abilities. Sylph has few abilities for direct attacks on his own, and instead is best used to link with other Craymels to boost their own attacks, or learn supportive spells.

Tropes associated with Sylph:

Efreet

One of the Primary Craymels of Inferia, and the spirit of Fire. Opposed to Celsius, the spirit of Ice. Efreet reacts violently upon encountering the party, not even giving them time to plead their case to save the world. After defeating him, Undine more or less forces him to help. Befitting his nature, Efreet teaches a number of powerful offensive skills, and his summon is the first that is all about raw damage, with no tricks added in.

Tropes associated with Efreet:

Rem

The Governing Craymel of Inferia, and the spirit of Light. Opposed to Shadow, the spirit of Darkness. After gathering the three Primary Craymels of Inferia, Undine, Sylph and Efreet, they come together to summon Rem, who informs the party of how to reach Celestia. She appears from time to time to offer the party guidance, and ultimately tests their talents at the Regulus Knole, after which, she joins their cause.

Tropes associated with Rem:

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