Characters / Dragon Quest XI - The Party

Dragon Quest XI Main Character Index
The Party | Villains | Other Characters

The Party

The Luminary

The Luminary

Voiced by: Rasmus Hardiker (English), Mitsuki Saiga (Japanese) [Definitive version]

A young man from the peaceful village of Cobblestone^note Ishi in the Japanese version who turns sixteen at the beginning of the game. During the village's coming-of-age ceremony, he learns that he is the reincarnation of an ancient hero who saved the world and now carries an important mission to fulfill. He sets out on a journey to discover his destiny.

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• Arranged Marriage: Not enacted, but directly implicated — as Drustan rightly points out if the Luminary should choose to live with Jade that, had the attack never happened, with his being the Prince of Dundrasil and her being the Princess of Heliodor and their families close friends, it was most likely they would have been wed by natural progression anyway.
• BFS: Two-handed swords are one of his weapon types. Special mention goes to the Sword of Shadows he gains access to during the ending stages of Act Two, a massive claymore almost as tall and wide as he is.
• Birthmark of Destiny: Everyone recognizes him as the Luminary because of the ridiculously large anchor shaped birthmark on his left hand.
• Bratty Half-Pint: As a child, the Luminary was actually quite the troublemaker. He once left a live frog in the shopkeep's water jar so it would hop out and scare her and wrote a fake royal edict on the town bulletin board to try and get free sweets from the villagers.
• Brought Down to Badass: Loses his Luminary abilities and mark during the events at Yggdrasil, though they are regained later on.
• Celeb Crush: An in-universe subject of this; nearly every woman in Octagonia starts Squeeing whenever he approaches them after he wins the Masked Martial Arts Tournament.
• Childhood Friends: With Gemma. They've known each other since they were kids, but they began to develop romantic feelings for each other as they grew older.
• Childhood Friend Romance: As previously noted, the game isn't subtle about the Luminary's attraction to Gemma. If the player chooses Gemma as his bride and speak to Veronica (while you're in Cobblestone), Veronica irately asks why he always gets "red-faced around Gemma", yet has no problems speaking to them?
• The Chosen One: Yggdrasil's Chosen One is literally his job title, as he is born into the world of Erdrea explicitly to save it from the forces of darkness.
• Combat Medic: Can learn the most powerful healing spells in his skill panel (even learning Omniheal before Serena), making him ideal for emergency healing. He can even learn the Kazing spell, unlike most heroes, and his Sword of Plot Advancement cures all status effects.
• Cool, but Inefficient: His Blade of Ultimate Power ability. While it looks visually impressive, it's deep in his skill tree, requires four other expensive skills to learn, costs a lot of MP, and has a hard damage cap that's easily surpassed by cheaper skills. By the time the player can reasonably learn this skill, many generic monsters have enough health to shrug this attack off.
• Dangerous 16th Birthday: Destiny comes knocking during his.
• Dark Is Not Evil: During the postgame, he shows no side-effects from wielding the Sword of Shadows, although the rest of the party will frequently rib him about how he doesn't exactly look heroic with something like that on his back.
• Doom Magnet: This is the crux of why Carnelian and Hendrik believe he needs to be killed. Because light cannot exist without darkness, and the Luminary represents light while the Lord of Shadows represents darkness, the Luminary's mere existence is what is drawing the monsters to the world again. Granted, "Carnelian" isn't giving the theory in good faith, but poor Hendrik is so traumatized and embittered by the hardship he's suffered in life that he finds it completely plausible, and even comes to believe the "Darkspawn" is doing it on purpose.
• Doomed Hometown: His native kingdom is destroyed soon after his birth. Cobblestone also suffers this fate, as King Carnelian orders it burned to the ground simply because he was raised there, though Hendrik prevented anyone from being executed.
• Dual Wielding: Can opt to equip a sword in each hand.
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: One NPC even comments that he looks rather more like a heroine than a hero.
• Everyone Can See It: Talking to the NPCs around Cobblestone quickly reveals that they're all aware of the attraction between the hero and Gemma. If the player chooses her as his bride, the consensus among the villagers is that it was only a matter of time. In the Definitive version, if you use the party chat function while you're in Cobblestone, Rab happily seconds the villagers' opinion and tells the Luminary his parents would be proud.
• Extra-ore-dinary: He has an exclusive spell called "Kaclang", which turns one party member into a solid metal statue. They can't take any actions, but they're completely invulnerable to harm. One Pep Power has him use this to turn one of his companions into a ballistic missile.
• Forced Transformation: Spends the timeskip after the world tree falls transformed into a fish in order to keep him hidden from the monsters. He's clearly not particularly happy with the set up while it lasts.
• Guest Fighter: He's one of four heroes that represent Dragon Quest in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate's second DLC pack.
• Greater-Scope Paragon: To Erdrick from Dragon Quest III, since this game is a distant prequel to that one.
• Happily Adopted: At the beginning of the game.
• Happily Married: If the player uses a wish to live with Gemma in the post-game, she is explicitly stated to have gotten married to the Luminary.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: His weapons are one-handed and large two-handed swords.
• Heroic BSoD: Implied to happen to him after Yggdrasil falls. Notably, the first thing he does after returning to his human form is start crying. Thankfully, his Heroic Resolve causes him to put his anguish aside and keep moving forward.
• Heavy Equipment Class: The only party member capable of using Greatswords and a good number of heavy armor until Hendrik joins the party.
• Hello, [Insert Name Here]: The name you select for your game save will be this character's name. Amusingly, during Rab's side episode in between Acts 1 and 2, Irwin and Eleanor will come up with this name and Irwin will proudly announce naming his child...whatever you selected as the name which coincidentally happens to be audibly obscured by Rab sneezing.
• Heroic Mime: As par for the course for main characters in this series. Although he does have a voice to make battle cries and the like, plus his past self does speak like a regular character when you meet him.
  • For truly traditional players who prefer their heroes COMPLETELY silent, there's an option in the settings menu to turn off the Hero's battle cries, thus rendering him totally mute.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Subverted. King Carnelian and his forces try to make him this, and at first it works, but as the Hero adventures, he proves to more and more people that Carnelian's interpretation of things simply can't be right. You still have to reverse your bad publicity place by place, though.
• Hope Bringer:
  • Early on, he brings Rab and Jade the first bit of hope they've had in their quest in sixteen years just by dint of being alive — they thought he was long, long dead.
  • After Mordegon claims the power of Yggdrasil and nearly brings the world to ruin, he becomes this to people as he reunites with his companions and defeats Mordegon's generals.
• An Ice Person: If he uses greatswords, the Luminary can learn to attack a group of enemies with ice using Frost Fangs.
• Instant Fan Club: Octagonia really loves the winners of the Masked Martial Arts Tournament; this is proven when your fandom goes from "basically a nonentity" to "nearly universal" after the Tournament Arc.
• Jack of All Stats: Learns a wide variety of skills but for each area, he falls behind the party member who is designed to be the specialist in it.
• Keet: Something noted about his personality is that he's perpetually optimistic and has an odd sense of innocence about him despite his traumatic life experiences. A Q&A with Erik in the character book even comments on this, Erik remarking how cheerfully proud The Luminary was when he learned the Flame Blade technique and showed it off to him.
• Light 'em Up: He learns some of the Bang family spells naturally.
• Long-Haired Pretty Boy: He is regarded as a bonafide Pretty Boy in-universe, and his silky shoulder-length hair is regularly noted to be his most attractive feature, to the point where it's a small Running Gag for characters to compliment him for how great-looking it is.
• Magic Knight: With powerful sword skills and the Zap family spells to learn from, he ends up being this.
• Master of All: He starts to ramp up later in levels, when you can unlock Omniheal, Kazap and all the stat boosts in the Luminary skill panels, as well as your favorite weapon's ultimate attack. Before then, he barely averts being a Master of None. He is slightly above average with swords.
  • A common problem for this Hero, like in many Dragon Quest games is that his strong mixed set is offset by the action economy; he can do anything, but there's only ONE of him, and sometimes several of his abilities are needed at once, forcing some hard choices turn-for-turn.
• Messianic Archetype: Being The Luminary by default entails it: he's born by human parents but was chosen by the resident Physical God as The Chosen One, he's destined to deliver the world from evil and defeat The Dark One, and he forms a close band of followers, almost all of whom join him specifically because he's the Luminary (Sylvando is the only one who joins the party with no outright-stated connection to him). In an interesting twist, he's technically the second coming of the Messianic Archetype, as he's basically the reincarnation of the first Luminary who died long before by being betrayed by one of his closest followers.
  • For bonus points, he's at first a Hero with Bad Publicity and persecuted by King Carnelian, he's also of royal lineage, but was raised in a small village. Jesus was persecuted during his life, and was stated to have been from a long line of kings, but was born and raised as a commoner.
• Meaningful Rename: In the True Ending, he's given the title of Erdrick: Mightiest of Heroes. What's more, this title is actually made for him, and to top it off, Erdrick was originally the name his father King Irwin, wanted to give him.
• My Greatest Failure: The encounter with the Gloomnivore indicates that he understandably regards his power being ripped from his body and used to empower Mordegon during the fall of Yggdrasil to be his greatest regret.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The hero's time-travel to save Veronica gives the soul of Calasmos another chance to resurrect his body. This time, he succeeds.
• Noble Male, Roguish Male: Occasionally suggested to have this dynamic with Erik, being the straight-laced country boy to his seasoned world-weary thief. If the Luminary engages in slightly taboo behavior, such as gambling or getting a Puff-Puff, Erik will often applaud him and cheerfully admit that he didn't think that he had it in him.
• Not So Stoic: He is noticeably more expressive than other Dragon Quest protagonists, at one point even breaking down after the destruction of Yggdrasil. Though it's hard to blame the poor guy.
• Parental Abandonment: He gets hit with this twice over. His biological parents where both killed shortly after his birth when his home kingdom was overrun by monsters, and his adoptive mother Amber was killed when King Carnelian ordered his childhood home slaughtered to the last man. Except not really. One of the first things the Luminary discovers post-timeskip is that Hendrik had everyone in Cobblestone imprisoned in the dungeon instead of killing them and they were all released once Carnelian was freed from Mordegon's mind control. This is played a second time after going back in time to stop Mordegon before he could rise to power. Amber is still alive and well by the time the credits roll.
• Playing with Fire: He learns a number of fire spells naturally, though not to the same level as Veronica. Like all swordsmen, he can also learn the Flame Slash technique.
• The Power of Lust: One of his Pep Powers, Buff Buff, involves Jade using her Puff Puff move on him to fuel a powerful sword slash. A side quest even lampshades how this Pep Power utilizes this trope.
• Pretty Boy: He has long hair and noticeably finer features than previous heroes in the series, and is frequently noted to be handsome and even beautiful by various characters throughout the game.
• Purple Is Powerful: His clothing is predominantly purple and he's The Chosen One.
• Real Men Wear Pink: Seemingly has no reluctance when asked to don a flamboyant parade uniform (complete with peacock feathers) and sashay around town with a pack of effeminate men.
• Red Baron: Others refer to him as the Luminary.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: He is actually the prince of the kingdom that was decimated by Mordegon's demon army 16 years ago.
• She's All Grown Up: Heavily downplayed and a Gender-Inverted Example, but flashbacks suggest that he was quite the troublemaker as a child, whereas he seems to be perfectly kind and heroic as a young man.
• Shock and Awe: The Zap series of spells and Gigaslash series of attacks are exclusive to him, meaning he's the only character who can inflict lightning damage at all outside some rare weapons and weapon skills with the element. His powers as the Luminary often manifest outside of battle as bolts of lightning.
• The Stoic: While he's a good bit more expressive than previous Dragon Quest protagonists thanks to modern graphical capabilities, he still generally responds to everything, from world-shattering events to wacky hijinks, with a subdued calm. This is perhaps most pronounced during Jade's brutal beatdown of Booga, where the entire party is shaking in panic and looking away... except the Luminary, who just closes his eye while facing the massacre of the doomed moron.
• Super Mode: While all other party members can become Pepped Up during battle, the Luminary is the only one that can unlock a skill to become Pepped at will, including a special animation for when he uses it.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Amber's beef stew.
• Sweet Tooth: He had one as a child, at least, trying to prank people into giving him candy.
• Vague Age: Not so in the beginning, it's explicitly known that he and Gemma climb the Tor shortly after turning sixteen, but midway into the game, this changes: Yggdrasil falls, and the combination of this and his powers being ripped out of him puts the Luminary into a coma for an unprecedented amount of time. It's not incredibly long, as most everyone looks the same, but it has been long enough for the entire landscape of the world to change, with societies having undergone wholesale upheavals and the populous having acclimated to new ways of living to avoid the roaming monsters.^note A guard at "The Last Bastion" even laments how he's been on guard duty "for months" — not that the entire holdout's been that long, that's just how long he's been on that shift. Queen Marina is even more explicit about how much time has passed, noting that by the time the Luminary wakes up "many months" have passed since Yggdrasil fell. The next Sand National is also mentioned during part 2 of the game, implying around a year has passed by that point since the previous one. By the time he goes back in time to rejoin the party prior to the fall, it's difficult to say how much older he is, (Jade lampshades that he suddenly seems to have gotten taller).
  • The Official Character book takes this even farther — featuring Q&As from after their adventure, every known character age as of Act I — and therefore, Act III — is listed, but the Luminary's is not. His is the only one where it's not even a listed category.
• Victorious Childhood Friend: A foregone conclusion in the PS4/PC version which only allows you to marry Gemma. The Definitive version allows you to choose any of the hero's traveling companions to move in with (with the relationship being blatantly romantic with the female ones), though Gemma remains the only one that he is explicitly married to.
• Younger Than They Look: Considering how often he's noted to be good-looking, it can be easy to forget that he's only supposed to be 16 at the start of the game. By part 3 some characters note he looks noticeably older than before (them noticing due to him travelling back in time from perhaps a year or more in the future), but this is not reflected in his in-game design.

Erik

Erik ^note Kamyu in the Japanese version

Voiced by: Gunnar Cauthery (English), Kōki Uchiyama (Japanese) [Definitive version]

A thief whom the hero encounters after getting thrown into the prisons of Heliodor castle. He helps the hero escape and becomes a companion.

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• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: In the Japanese script, Erik is made out to be Vitriolic Best Buds with Sylvando, showing frequent exasperation at his flamboyant antics in the party chat and consistently referring to him as "ossan" ^note an informal and somewhat disrespectful way to address a middle-aged man rather than by his name. None of this is present in the English script, with Erik instead generally speaking of Sylvando amicably in the party chat and referring to him by his Affectionate Nickname "Sylv" ^note which is used at other points in the script as a substitute for Onee-sama.
• Ambiguously Bi: Erik gets jealous when other party members attract the attention of women, confirming his attraction to the opposite sex. However, there is a sidequest in Tickington where the Luminary can participate in a wedding rehearsal, and can choose any party member as his "bride". If Erik is chosen, he genuinely thinks that the Luminary is proposing to him, and turns very shy and awkward before saying yes, only realizing afterwards that it's only for the rehearsal. If the Luminary changes his mind before that point, Erik becomes notably upset.
• Animal Motifs: A lot of Erik's character is symbolized by the wolf; suiting his loner tendencies and his origins from the frozen north. One of his DLC costumes is a wolf skin, and the Wild Side pep power turns him into a werewolf in all but name. Mia also uses wolf imagery.
• Anime Hair: His spiky hair is so iconic that all of his costumes include alternate versions that remove any and all headgear that even slightly obscure it.
• Anti-Hero: Very heavily downplayed, but Erik is the only member of the team who'd even think to stray from the straight and narrow path, and even wonders about pawning off a late-game Plot Coupon for cash instead of using it for its intended purpose. He's quick to back off and claim to be kidding when he does this, though. Justified in that he's a very recently reformed thief whereas the rest of the party come from squeaky clean backgrounds.
• The Atoner: Part of the reason why he joins the hero is that he wishes to atone for his past of giving his sister Mia a (unknown to him at the time) cursed pendant that eventually turned her into a golden statue.
• Badass Longcoat: Sports them in his corsair and pirate king outfit sets.
• Battle Boomerang: One of his weapons of choice, which can be used to hit all the enemies at once, though the damage is gradually decreased with each enemy struck.
• Big Brother Instinct: Toward his little sister Mia. His entire motivation throughout most of the game is to find a way of freeing her from being cursed into a golden statue.
• Big Brother Mentor: Functions as one of sorts to the Luminary during the early stretches of the game, using his experiences as a traveling thief to teach the rookie hero the basics of adventuring.
• Celibate Hero: While he's aware of his popularity with women, he mentions that he isn't interested in marriage and considers the attention to be a nuisance (though in one Party Talk he admits he does feel flattered when relating how a girl at the mini medal academy gave him a love letter). His profile in the character book even lists his preferred type of person as "Not worth mentioning".
• Chick Magnet: Apparently receiving love letters is a common occurrence for him. There's practically one female NPC per town who swoons over him.
• Continuity Nod: Erik's character contains an homage to just about every previous story-driven Dragon Quest game. To wit:
  • He is a common thief who ends up becoming the hero's first and most trusted companion, just as Yangus is in Dragon Quest VIII.
  • He and the hero escape captivity by jumping off of a waterfall, just as the hero and Harry do in Dragon Quest V.
  • He teams up with a healslime during his time traveling alone, just as Ragnar does in Dragon Quest IV.
  • He sacrifices his memories in exchange for great power, just as Terry does in Dragon Quest VI. Indignus, the enemy he makes the exchange in order to defeat, is even an Expy of Dhuran, the enemy that Terry makes his exchange with.
• Covert Pervert: He's mostly uninterested in the ladies, and never has any moments of overt perversion like Rab and Hendrik do, but describes getting a Puff-Puff as being "every man's dream" in a way that implies he has firsthand experience. Veronica also repeatedly accuses him of being Distracted by the Sexy.
• Critical Hit: Can learn the skill Critical Claim, which gives a 100% guarantee to hit and crit. Although it costs more MP than literally anything else save Magic Burst (particularly with Erik's low MP pool), it makes hunting those precious Metal Slimes much easier.
• Crutch Character: Erik is one of the better characters and one of your easiest sources of damage, especially when you get his Divide and Dual-Wielding abilites and unlock Critical Claim in act three, but the game has ways of keeping you from relying on him too much. In Act One, there are two main moments that force him out of the party: The battle scene against Jasper and his forces in Gondolia (after which Erik is captured for a while), and the MMA tournament in Octagonia (where the Luminary battles alone with his NPC partner). In Act Two he's lost for the beginning of it, and when he returns his skill tree is completely locked out for awhile afterwards making him utterly useless.
• Damage Over Time: His Rubblerouser, Boulderbringer, Mountainmover, and Ridgeraiser spells will cause damage to an enemy before they act for three turns.
• Deadpan Snarker: He's quick to make wisecracks and jokes about the situations at hand.
• Developer's Foresight: While the time he spends suffering from Plot Induced Amnesia is relatively short if you follow the Sniflheim questline as soon as he rejoins the party, he has completely unique party chat dialogue for every other available questline if you choose to take him along for them in this state. This even extends to the Tickington-related quests in the Definitive Edition!
• Dishing Out Dirt: His small magic repertoire includes this rare element, letting Erik hit enemies over multiple turns for quite a bit of damage. Certain Pep Powers let him do this for exponential damage potential.
• Dressed to Plunder: His corsair outfit set allows him to dress up like a pirate, as does, of course, his pirate king set.
• Dual Wielding: While other characters can do this as well, Erik is the one who specializes in this since he cannot equip most shields and has the Dually Deadly skill that removes the penalty from Dual Wielding (though you will have to go into both the Swords and Knives trees to get both skills). This combined with Divide means he can hit the enemy A LOT, and with the right setup, will be able to surpass anyone else in damage against single enemies.
• Equivalent Exchange: In his sidestory, the Seer gives him a huge but brief powerup to fight off Indignus at the cost of his memories.
• Expy: He's been noted to look very similar to the protagonist of Dragon Quest VI, and has a similar emphasis placed on his relationship with his younger sister. This gets Lampshaded if you travel to Weaver's Peak (the protagonist of Dragon Quest VI's hometown) through Tickington, where he remarks that the townspeople are giving him strange looks.
• Eyepatch of Power: Sports them in his corsair and pirate king outfit sets.
• Forced Sleep: With Sleeper Hit, he can make the enemy fall asleep when attacking.
• Fragile Speedster: He is nearly as easy to take down as Veronica, but in the end game is capable of outrunning METAL SLIMES, acting even before them!
• Glass Cannon: His mediocre defense and armor options are balanced by his unmatched single-target damage, though interestingly his HP only falls off later in the game. Combined with his Fragile Speedster status, Erik is a force to be reckoned with.
• Height Angst: He's on the short side, and playing as him with shypox active reveals that even as an adult he occasionally chugs down milk in the hope of getting a little bit taller.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: He can wield one-handed swords.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: The game seems to push for you to think of him as being this with the Luminary, with his class for most of the game even being listed as "[Hero's Name]'s Pal". Notably, he answers many of the Luminary's interview questions on his behalf in the character book, implying that he knows him intimately enough to be able to answer personal questions about him. In one Party Talk Sylvando lampshades how he wishes he and the Luminary had met in a prison instead so they might have had such a close relationship, likening the Luminary and Erik to brothers.
• Hidden Depths: He's a pretty decent cook; among the better ones in the party. He had to prepare meals for the vikings that owned him all the time growing up, so he has no problem cooking for large groups.
• I Call It "Vera": Used to call his favorite dagger Björn when he was younger, but looks back on doing so with embarassment.
• I Was Beaten by a Girl: Is embarrassed at his loss to Jade in the Octagonia tournament. Later claims to have been going easy on her.
• Iaijutsu Practitioner: Wields swords in this fashion in battle, and is notably the only party member to do so. Fitting considering his strong points are speed and attack power.
• Injured Vulnerability: The main draw for using the normally weaker knives. Erik has knife skills that can hit a status effect-inflicted enemy for a colossal x6 damage. Combined with his ability to dual wield without penalty, Erik has the highest damage potential in the game.
• It's All My Fault: He blames himself for Mia accidentally turning herself into a golden statue, and continues to hold himself accountable when she becomes Mordegon's minion.
• The Lancer: The Luminary’s first ally and best friend, Erik’s more lawless nature contrasts the hero, but he more often than not still acts as the Luminary’s voice. Hendrik takes this role in Act Two, but Erik solidly reclaims the title for the postgame.
• Left-Handed Mirror: It's subtle, but present in regards to the Luminary; Erik is the roguish, experienced left-handed Lancer with spiky hair, whereas the Luminary is (suggested to be) an idealistic, fresh-faced right-handed Hero with smooth hair.
• The Load: His Trauma-Induced Amnesia during the second half of the game renders him unable to use his Skill Panel, making him nigh-useless in combat for a good few hours. He still gets full experience from battles even when on the bench, though, so he's at least safe from falling behind the rest of the party when he regains his memory.
• Lovable Rogue: He's a heroic, loyal guy through and through, but he can't help but gush about selling off some of the treasures the party comes across to make a tidy profit.
• Magikarp Power: Once you start getting other physical damage characters like Jade and Sylvando, Erik's usefulness begins to falter in battle as his damaging spells and skills aren't quite as strong, his stealing has questionable accuracy, and he doesn't have a lot of support built into his skills. His skill tree is also spread out in such a way that almost all of his most useful abilities are far apart from each other, meaning he'll only be able to fully utilize his potential late into the game. With that said, his most useful abilities are incredibly strong and synergize well with all three of his weapon options, allowing him to be one of the best damage dealers in the party after he unlocks them all.
• Master of None: He stands out among the male party members for being the only one without any innate resistances or weaknesses to certain status ailments.
• Me's a Crowd: His unique Divide skill has him create two copies of himself to triple the power of his next attack.
• Mission from God: Erik is helping because someone called "The Seer" told him that if Erik waits in the Heliodor Prison; he would find the Luminary; and in helping him; gain forgiveness. Erik takes this to faith very seriously.
• Mr. Fanservice: Not nearly to the same extent as Jade is the resident Ms. Fanservice, but he's a handsome guy whose looks are often commented on and wears an outfit that shows off quite a bit of his chest at all times. Many of his alternate costumes expose even more skin, allowing for a better glimpse at his toned physique.
• Nice Guy: Despite being a former criminal with a dry sense of humor, he's affable to strangers, loyal to his friends, and caring to his younger sister.
• Noble Male, Roguish Male: Occasionally suggested to have this dynamic with the Luminary, being the seasoned world-weary thief to his straight-laced country boy. If the Luminary engages in slightly taboo behavior, such as gambling or getting a Puff-Puff, Erik will often applaud him and cheerfully admit that he didn't think that he had it in him.
• Not So Above It All: He's generally one of the more subdued and level-headed party members, but when he's forced to dance by an enemy attack? He starts busting out the MJ moves, complete with moonwalking.
• Only Sane Man: While everyone in the group has their serious moments, Erik is the only one among them who lacks any kind of humorous personality quirks and reacts to everything he comes across in a level-headed, if snarky, manner.
  • Particularly noticeable at the end of Act Two - while everyone else is attempting to persuade the Hero not to go back in time to save Veronica, not knowing what would happen to them after you disappear... Erik has nothing to say, well aware that the Hero has already made up their mind and, while reluctant, does nothing other than make sure the Hero is aware of the risks, accepting their decision without protest, and wishes them luck before they go.
• Parental Abandonment: Implied in Act Two; he and his sister apparently grew up as the slaves of a band of vikings, with no mention being made of their parents.
• Playing with Fire: If Erik opts to use swords, he can learn the Flame Slash technique.
• Poisoned Weapons: He can poison the enemy when attacking.
• Pretty Boy: Like the hero, he's quite easy on the eyes, something which doesn't go uncommented on within the game itself.
• Proud Beauty: Somewhat downplayed, but he's completely aware of how handsome he is and isn't afraid to brag about it.
• Recurring Element: He's the Expy of Dragon Quest VIII's Yangus, being a thief who changes his ways in order to serve as the hero's loyal first party member. Unlike the brutish-looking yet earnest Yangus, however, Erik is quite the sharp-tongued pretty boy.
• Ship Tease: After he finds out about Veronica's death, he dejectedly says that he wanted to tell her something before trailing off. While this never gets any sort of follow up, it isn't hard to imagine their relationship being a budding form of Slap-Slap-Kiss.
• Shipper on Deck: As the Luminary is about to travel back in time for the post-game, leaving the other party members behind forever (in a sense, since the time lines end up merging together), Erik winks at Serena and nudges her forwards to speak with him, and she stammers out a veiled love confession. The implication is that he's aware of her feelings and wanted her to have the chance to express them before it was too late.
• Status Effects: Capable of dishing out poison and paralysis via his knife skill tree; on the flip side, he knows how to bring his allies out of sleep.
• Status Infliction Attack: He has the knives skillset, which is built around attacks that inflict status ailments, and attacks that inflict massive damage on targets inflicted with those specific status ailments.
• Stealth Pun: He's a cool thief whose dance moves of choice evoke Michael Jackson — he's a smooth criminal!
• Trademark Favorite Food: Wild traveller's stew.
• Trauma-Induced Amnesia: In Act Two, when the party finds him again, he's lost all memories of the party and even himself. The Definitive version expands on this, revealing his amnesia to be due to having been beaten within an inch of his life by Indignus and an Equivalent Exchange with The Seer.
• Video Game Stealing: He can acquire skills which let him do this and increase the likelihood of doing so successfully. In fact, he can learn a combination move with the hero which almost guarantees he steal an item.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: He and Veronica fight often, but he's as broken up about her death as the rest of the team. After Mia's introduction, the rest of the party begin to suspect that Erik saw a lot of her in Veronica.
• Voice for the Voiceless: Essentially functions as the hero's voice during cutscenes, particularly early on.
• What the Hell Is That Accent?: In the English version, his accent is mildly Scandinavian. It can sound like other things with certain words.
  • His accent makes much more sense when you realize he was an orphan raised by Vikings, but escaped and tried to distance himself from his origins.
• The Worf Effect: He becomes a victim of this during the Tournament Arc when he and his partner are eliminated in the first round by Jade and Rab. Late in the game he'll claim he was going easy on Jade, but in the scene itself it's clear he's overwhelmed by her abilities and his initial excuse to Veronica is that Jade simply isn't normal.
• Work Off the Debt: After he loses his memory and is caught stealing food from the stores of the Salty Stallion, he promises to make it up to the party, offering to wash the dishes or whatever they want. They assure him no such thing is necessary, and are surprised at how meek he is compared to his regular personality.

Veronica

Veronica

Voiced by: Lauren Coe (English), Maaya Uchida (Japanese) [Definitive version]

A small girl whom the hero and Erik meet in the village of Hotto. Introducing herself as a master mage from the sanctuary of Arboria, she enlists the hero's aid in finding her sister Serena. Afterwards, she and Serena reveal their mission to help the hero save the world from the forces of evil and join his party.

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• Action Girl: A magical powerhouse who cannot be outwitted in a fight. She even fought her way out of a dungeon without her powers.
• Always Identical Twins: While not obvious due to her de-aging curse, when we see her briefly in the opening movie and when she gets briefly re-aged in Act Three it's obvious that she and Serena are VERY similar looking. Clothes aside, the only thing different between them is the style of hair.
• Badass Adorable: Despite being de-aged and weakened, she still packs some mean enough magic to wipe out enemies easily.
• Bird Run: Other party members run normally but she runs like this.
• Black Magician Girl: Specializes in offensive magic and can quickly wipe out any number of enemies with her spells.
• Crippling Overspecialization: Despite having access to the healing spell Staff of Salvation in her Heavy Wands tree, Veronica's base Magical Mending is 0, and she gains no points in the stat naturally — a trait otherwise shared only with characters who have no healing magic at all.
• Death or Glory Attack: Magic Burst, her final spell, is one of these, completely draining her MP pool before inflicting massive damage based on how much MP Veronica had left. It'll wipe out just about any enemy in one hit, up to and including some bosses when augmented by Channel Anger, but without magic it'll leave her practically helpless for the rest of the battle. After a story event she and Serena gain the Mighty Magic Burst Pep Power, an even stronger version of Magic Burst that drains all of Serena's MP alongside Veronica's.
• Disappears into Light: The party find her body lying motionless after her Heroic Sacrifice, and it she disappears when Serena tries to touch her.
• Dual Age Modes: Downplayed, but it's implied the pendant Morcant gives her can enable her to assume her natural adult form at will. However, after its initial use, we only see her use it during the animations for a few Pep Powers.
• Early-Bird Cameo: She is the first character seen in the opening movie, before being de-aged.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Zig-zagged in her relationship with Serena. While Veronica is arrogant, short-tempered, and has a harder time getting along with others, she is also the more driven, responsible, and task-oriented of the two. Serena has better people skills, but it's Veronica who does most of the actual decision making between the two of them.
• Fountain of Youth: Quite unintentionally, at that — when one of the Lord of Shadow's minions tried draining her magical power, her age went along with it. It doesn't come back when she reclaims her power, but by then she's not as fussed about it.
  Veronica: "You know what they say: you're only young... twice!"
• The Gadfly: Her favorite activity to unwind with is listed as "annoying Erik" in the character guide.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: She's hailed as a prodigy in her hometown; she's also the party member who requires the least amount of overall experience points to level up.
• Glass Cannon: Boasts one of the highest damage potentials, but her HP and defense growths are the lowest of the party.
• Giving Someone the Pointer Finger: Tends to do this often.
• Happily Adopted: Talking to her parents after Veronica's funeral reveals that she and Serena are not their biological children.
• Having a Blast: Veronica can learn the whole Boom family of blasting spells.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Veronica does this in order to save the party from getting killed by Mordegon. The hero travels back in time to prevent this from happening in the extra scenario.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Thanks to Carnelian's spreading of the Darkspawn legend, the Arborians are considered naive morons at best and outright heretics at worst for still insisting that the Luminary is a hero.
• Hidden Depths:
  • She's deceptively humanitarian beneath her pompous attitude; wanting to become a magic teacher after restoring peace to Erdrea and showing the most interest out of the party in creating a world where humans and monsters can co-exist. She's also said to have never used her magic irresponsibly while growing up.
  • Despite generally coming off as the more feisty and independent of the sisters (with Serena even admitting that she's more used to following Veronica's lead than actually thinking for herself), she's absolutely beside herself when she thinks that Serena has been killed, and tearfully insists that they promised to always be together. This stands in direct contrast to Serena resolutely pushing her own anguish aside after Veronica dies for the sake of her duty and suggests that she's much more dependent on her twin than she lets on.
• Hot-Blooded: It's very easy to rile her up.
• An Ice Person: Veronica learns most of the Crack family spells as she levels up, though is missing Kacrackle that is unique to Rab.
• Insufferable Genius: Very confident in her spellcasting abilities and isn't afraid to brag about them.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She's mouthy and confrontational, but she's also a loyal and dependable friend to have around. When Snorri notes that she was really worried about the Hero's condition in the Hekswood, she gets embarrassed about it. If it weren't for her selflessly sacrificing herself to save her friends, Hendrik, and Carnelian, the world would have been destroyed for sure.
• Lethal Chef: The food she prepares is inedibly spicy.
• Light 'em Up: Nearly as iconic as her fire spells, Veronica is the only party member to learn the highest level light spells.
• Little Dead Riding Hood: Wears red, complete with a hat similar to a hood. Eventually performs a Heroic Sacrifice.
• Little Miss Snarker: She never misses a good chance for snarking.
• Magikarp Power: Veronica's spells are very handy for crowd control early on, but her squishiness, lack of good single damage options and strict focus on magical attacks make her fall behind the more versatile Rab and the harder-hitting physical damage dealers fairly quickly. Late game, however, she begins to unlock some immensely powerful spells which, when coupled with her colossal Magical Might stat, make her top notch when it comes to dishing out raw damage to both single and multiple targets.
• Odd Couple: Should the Luminary choose to live with Veronica, Erik will note in Party Talk that he never thought they got along well enough for that and wonders if its a case of opposites attract.
• Older Than They Look: Although Veronica is actually (marginally) older than her sister Serena, Veronica appears much younger due to a curse.
• Pintsized Powerhouse: Although her curse made her weaker and tinier, she remains a powerful magician.
• Playing with Fire: Her most iconic magical ability, although she does learn other elemental spells as well, not to mention plenty of debuffing and status-inducing spells too.
• Recurring Element: As the feistier, offensively-oriented elder sibling of a pair of mage sisters destined to guide the hero on their journey, she brings to mind Maya from Dragon Quest IV.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The red to Serena's blue.
• Reincarnation: Both she and her sister Serena are the reincarnation of the sage Serenica; with each inheriting one half of her abilities. The eventual revelation that Serenica isn't actually dead and that the twins can merge into a World Tree of their own suggests that their case might actually be more complicated than this.
• Shapeshifting Excludes Clothing: Not immediately apparent, but her clothes didn't shrink along with her when she was de-aged, which is most visible with her bonnet.
• Spell Book: It never comes up in cutscenes like Serena's harp, but Veronica carries a large book that she uses to activate special abilities from her Vim tree. Serena inherits this book after Veronica sacrifices herself at the end of Act One.
• Squishy Wizard: She can wipe out waves of enemies with her magic, but having the lowest HP pool and defense in the party means she will crumple like a wet tissue paper the moment a powerful enemy decides to target her.
• Teleportation: She's the one who teaches the Luminary the Zoom spell, implying this was how she and Serena traveled around before meeting the party. Her Heroic Sacrifice also involves teleporting the rest of the party across the globe to save them from Yggdrasil crashing.
• Three Faces of Eve: The Child; not only does she have the outward appearance of a little girl, but she possesses the most pep and pluck out of the female party members.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: The short-tempered and rude tomboy to Serena's girly girl.
• Tomboy with a Girly Streak: She's rowdy and rude, particularly in comparison to her sister, but still enjoys shopping and eating sweets and wears a dress in almost every one of her costumes.
• Token Mini-Moe: She has the look of a cute little girl despite being the same age as her sister. Her cuteness is naturally played up in-game, with some of her alternate outfits even being adorable animal costumes.
• Town Girls: The Neither; she's more rowdy and tomboyish than Serena, but still enjoys taking part in conventionally feminine hobbies like shopping.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Anything spicy.
• Tsundere: She's short-tempered and prideful, but a caring and reliable sister and ally.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: She seems to get angry particularly easily when dealing with Erik, but both still clearly care about each other. Notably, Erik seems to take her death the hardest out of anyone in the party besides Serena.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Breaking her curse and returning her to her proper age beyond a cutscene and a late-game Pep Power with her and Serena — both temporarily — are never brought up or explored.
• What the Hell, Hero?: If you don't complete Michelle's arc immediately and go off to do quests in other parts of Erdrea, she gets mad.

Serena

Serena ^note Senya in the Japanese version

Voiced by: Jessica Clark (English), Sora Amamiya (Japanese) [Definitive version]

Veronica's twin sister, although she appears to be the older of the two due to Veronica's curse. Both sisters join the hero's party when they're reunited, as their mission is to help the hero on his journey to save the world.

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• Angsty Surviving Twin: Double subversion. She manages to keep it together after Veronica's death... Until she has a moment to herself to let out the floodgates about losing her sister. Even then, she manages to pull it together by the next morning.
• Beware the Nice Ones: She's kind, caring, and overall a total sweetheart. She still stands against all manner of monsters and villains without flinching, and is noticeably one of two party members to learn Whack spells. Becomes even more literal after her Important Haircut — she's still a kindhearted soul, but now she's grown more of a spine and is throwing around Veronica's devastating offensive spells.
• Big Little Sister: A literal example because of Veronica's curse.
• Big Sister Worship: A downplayed example, but she's noted to have essentially lived her entire life following Veronica's lead, and considers her to be the more talented and capable one between them.
• Blow You Away: She naturally learns the Woosh line of spells on her own, which is the only form of attack magic she has until Veronica's death. She is the only party member to learn the strongest versions.
• Cannot Spit It Out: It is implied that she develops a huge crush on the hero, but doesn't say it. In the Definitive version, you can reciprocate those feelings by wishing to live with her.
• Character Development: Becomes much more strong-willed and individualistic after Veronica's death due to no longer being able to simply follow her sister's lead.
• Chaste Heroine: While she loves romance novels and dreams of being swept off her feet by a handsome prince, perverted stuff tends to fly completely over her head. For example, she decides Rab's porn magazine must be an anatomy book.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Some of her actions, such as sleeping in the middle of a dungeon, do paint her as a little odd. She also has a tendency to get distracted by random details, to sniff the air a bunch whenever she is somewhere new, etc.
• Clueless Dude Magnet: Her beauty causes the sailors in Lonalulu to line up to get treated by her after the Tentacular battle, even after all their obvious injuries have been healed. She's completely oblivious to the real reason behind their attention.
• Crippling Overspecialization: Despite gaining several attack spells naturally and in her skill trees, Serena's base Magical Might is 0, and she gains no points in the stat naturally — a trait otherwise shared only with characters who have no attack magic at all. Near the end of the game, she gains Veronica's magic attack stat along with her skills... but her Discard and Draw brings it back down to 0. Thankfully, the high base power of her spells and the Magical Might on her equipment mostly remedies the problem.
• The Cutie: Generally a sweet girl without a mean bone in her body.
• Cutscene Power to the Max: Although she has attack spells, most of them (barring Divine Restitution which scales off her Magical Mending stat) aren't as impressive in actual combat as when she uses them in cutscenes.
• Discard and Draw: In the postgame, she exchanges the skills she gained from Veronica for a further expansion on her own base abilities.
• Dual Wielding: Can opt to equip a wizard stick in each hand, though this generally falls under Awesome, but Impractical until Act Three, when she gains access to wands that grant powerful automatic bonuses.
• Expy: Design wise, she's basically Princess Medea from Dragon Quest VIII with blonde hair instead of dark brown.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Zig-zagged in her relationship with Veronica. While Serena is kind, even-tempered, and easy to get along with, she's also rather scatterbrained and docile. Serena has better people skills, but it's Veronica who does most of the actual decision making between the two of them.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: The opposite of her sister. Serena's described as being a wee bit dim, and she's the slowest leveler in the party.
• Good Is Not Soft: She's a sweet and demure healer, and overall the kindest member of the party. She'll still blow you away with her magic as readily as her sister if you're a monster — just ask the Auroral Serpent or the illusion of Veronica created by Jasper.
• Happily Adopted: Talking to her parents after Veronica's funeral reveals that she and Veronica are not their biological children.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Thanks to Carnelian's spreading of the Darkspawn legend, the Arborians are considered naive morons at best and outright heretics at worst by most of the rest of Erdrea.
• Hidden Depths: After spending most of the game as a spacey ingenue, it can be surprising to see how well she keeps it together after Veronica's death. Even when it's clear that she's absolutely broken up about it on the inside, she never once allows it to deter her from fulfilling her destiny of assisting the Luminary on his quest.
• Holy Hand Grenade: In Act Three Serena learns the unique spell Divine Restitution, which deals light-elemental damage and runs off her Magical Mending stat.
• An Ice Person: By training in spears, Serena can learn the powerful Crushed Ice attack that hits enemies multiple times with a frozen spear.
• Important Haircut: She does this near the end of the game when she discovers that her twin sister Veronica sacrificed herself to save the party. Later, in the postgame scenario, the haircut is undone (in several different ways), though she can obtain a special accessory from Drustan that restores it when equipped.
• The Ingenue: Serena is the closest representative of this trope within the party, being sweet, young and beautiful.
• Magic Music: Serena can boost the party's resistance to the elements or lower the enemy's elemental resistance by playing songs on her harp. She also uses this in two cutscenes to destroy monsters or dispel illusions.
• Magikarp Power: While she'll see a lot of early use as the party's healer, she's quickly surpassed in this department by both Rab, who learns higher level healing spells more quickly than she does, and Sylvando, whose Hustle Dance outstrips most of her healing spells at that point in terms of both cost and effectiveness. Come Act Two, where she gains access to Veronica's skills and skill tree, she suddenly becomes a Master of All who functions as both the party's strongest healer and its strongest spellcaster. While she returns to being a dedicated healer in Act 3, by that point she begins learning stronger healing spells than either Rab or Sylvando and definitively takes her place as the party's strongest healer. She also gains access to an offensive spell that scales off of her outstanding Magical Mending stat, allowing her to retain some viability as an offensive spellcaster.
• The Medic: While other party members can learn healing spells as well, she is the party member who specializes in it.
• Ms. Fanservice: Downplayed compared to Jade, as her normal outfit is pretty conservative and she isn't usually played for sex appeal, but many of her alternate costumes bare a good amount of skin, especially when it comes to emphasizing her legs. The very first one available is a rather pointedly Stripperiffic belly dancer getup.
• My Sibling Will Live Through Me: A surprisingly literal case. After Veronica's death, she inherits all of her sister's powers, abilities, and Magical Might stat as well as swearing to protect the Luminary as well alone as they both would have together. However, adopting a stronger, more decisive personality is a decision she makes herself.
• Nice Girl: She's always friendly to everyone she meets. She's incredibly patient and at worst talks to evildoers like they were a misbehaving child.
• The Nose Knows: She has a keen sense of smell, and often comments on the scent of an area when first entering it.
• Power Gives You Wings: Her Divine Restitution and Saint's Song abilities involve golden wings.
• Power Up Let Down: Serena's Act 2 upgrade has one sore flaw that has no direct tie to her offensive upgrade: it is her Character Builder expansion. All she gets for it is Veronica's own Character Builder very messily slapped on top of her own, with very few actually new panels between her now 6 branches, all of which are locked, which can ironically make her a Master of None due to the now-two-in-one character builders' clashing strengths.
• Purposefully Overpowered: After her Important Haircut, Serena's added spells, skills and stats inherited from Veronica make her the strongest member of the party in offensive, defensive, and support magic, in addition to gaining double the skill points of any other member per level (until she reaches a pretty high level, at which point, it peters out into a normal rate but by then you should have maxed out her more essential trees) and having the most variety in her skill trees, to the point where one can think of it as a detriment. This doesn't last through the postgame, however — see Discard and Draw.
• Recurring Element: As the calmer, support-oriented younger sibling of a pair of mage sisters destined to guide the hero on their journey, she brings to mind Meena from Dragon Quest IV.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The blue to Veronica's red.
• Reincarnation: Both she and her sister Veronica are the reincarnation of the sage Serenica. The eventual revelation that Serenica isn't actually dead and that the twins can merge into a World Tree of their own suggests that their case might actually be more complicated than this.
• Shock and Awe: By investing in her spears tree, Serena can learn the Thunder Thrust ability, which is guaranteed to deal a critical hit if it connects. Unlike with later party member Jade, it's hidden under a locked panel.
• Silk Hiding Steel: Just because she's gentle doesn't mean she's weak — she even holds it together during Veronica's funeral, only finally letting herself cry when she's alone with the Luminary. Her Big Damn Heroes moment against the Auroral Serpent shows just how dangerous it is to underestimate her.

  Serena: Beast begone! Thou black offense! May Heaven's winds propel thee hence!

• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: If the player chooses to live with anyone other than Serena, speaking with her while you're in Cobblestone has her shyly confess that she'd like to be swept off her feet by a nice man of her own someday. She gets her wish if she ends up being the lucky girl. At various points in the game she will also muse about her love of stories of princes and damsels and such.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: If the player chooses to live with her, Serena will bring along a meal especially prepared for the Hero during the Tor-climbing sequence. The screen will fade to black, and the series' "Cursed!" fanfare will play ... only for the narration to say that the food was quite tasty.
• Stripperriffic: Her dancer outfit set puts her in the series' iconically fanservice-y dancer clothing. Averted with the rest of her costumes, which are otherwise quite conservative.
• Team Mom: She's mature and sweet, and naturally looks after everyone else in the party as their emotional supporter. It's notable that she only needs to be supported herself one time, and it's for a damn good reason.
• Three Faces of Eve: The Mother; the party's gentle and caring ingenue.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: The soft-spoken and feminine girly girl to Veronica's tomboy.
• Took a Level in Badass: After her Important Haircut, she gains Veronica's skills, making her extremely versatile. However, this doesn't last in the postgame—see Discard and Draw.
• Town Girls: The Femme; the most stereotypically feminine of the female party members, right down to being most geared toward passively supporting the rest of the party in battle.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Sweets, in particular any of the specialty sweets from Gondolia.
• Tragic Keepsake: She's left with Veronica's staff and spellbook after the latter sacrifices herself in Act Two.
• Trying Not to Cry: Manages to hold herself together admirably during Veronica's funeral, even when her parents and several members of the party are crying openly. It's only when given a quiet moment to reflect the night after that she finally gives way to tears.
• White Magician Girl: Serena embodies this trope. She's demure and feminine, the party's principal magical healer, and almost endlessly caring and forgiving. She picks up elements of Lady of Black Magic after Veronica's death, becoming more goal-oriented and gaining a hell of a lot more backbone in addition to acquiring her sister's offensive spells, but her overall personality and gameplay role still lean towards this trope.

Sylvando

Sylvando ^note Sylvia in the Japanese version, Servando in the Spanish translation, Sylvian in the Italian translation, Rionaldo in the German translation

Voiced by: Shai Matheson (English), Masaya Onosaka (Japanese) [Definitive version]

A flamboyant traveling performer whom the hero's party encounters in the Sultanate of Gallopolis. Although he introduces himself as a simple entertainer, between his skill with blades and profound knowledge of knighthood, it's obvious there is more to him than meets the eye...

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• The Ace: Sylvando isn’t just the greatest entertainer in the world. He's a Master Swordsman, a top-level horseback rider, a highly-skilled musician, an innately-skilled people person and knowledgeable of many cities and towns, excellent at all things domestic (i.e. cooking and cleaning), and a businessman with his own line of official merchandise. In addition, he learns the widest range of spells of any character who isn't the Luminary or a dedicated mage.
• Agent Peacock: Not only does he have the motif of one, he also is a preening pretty boy who happens to be the charismatic and skilled son of one of the best warriors in Erdrea, with all of the talent that said lineage entails.
• Alliterative Name: His lesser-used stage name; the Wandering Wonder, and his MMA tournament name; Sterling Sylva. Doubles as Added Alliterative Appeal.
• All Love Is Unrequited: In the marriage quest in Briscoletti's mansion within Tickington, if Eleven picks Sylv, he'll ask to make sure if he means it. The way he asks, it sounds like he's been through it all before.
  Sylvando: Before I get too carried away, though, I'd better check—because heaven knows I've been burnt before—you do actually mean it, don't you, honey?
• Ambiguously Gay: Has all the trappings of a Camp Gay man, but never shows romantic attraction to anyone, male or female. Notably, he has an innate major resistance to all Puff-Puff-based techniques in battle, but, unlike the female party members, is still susceptible to them.
  • Interestingly, he also expresses interest in Puff-Puffs, something the game strongly associates with sexual interest toward women (regardless of how they are often non-sexual in nature). In a Party Talk after one, he asks why the Luminary is always the one to get them and remarking "some guys have all the luck", and after another, he asks the Luminary for "all the juicy details".
• Ambiguous Gender Identity: He is implied to be an onee (a Japanese term that refers to a person who is either a gay or bi man or a trans woman) in the Japanese version, referring to himself using feminine pronouns and occasionally listing himself as being among "the girls" in the party. Similarly, several townspeople refer to him as "onee-san", an affectionate term for a older sister that is also used for feminine men and trans women. This aspect of his character is removed from the English version, likely because there is no English term that is directly analogous to an onee and he is distinctly neither a trans person or a drag queen, the two English terms that come closest.
• And Your Reward Is Clothes: Completing the Kingsbarrow Trial in act three nets Sylv the Coraza de Caballero, a cowboy-esque suit that increases agility and charm. Servantes reveals that it was Don Rodrigo's wedding outfit.
• Artistic License – Music: Averted; the instrument Sylv plays is a dolçaina, a Spanish oboe-like instrument. He not only plays it as it should be played, but the music heard in certain Pep Powers and abilities sound rather like an alto sax, which is how a dolçaina can sound if played in certain ways.
• Big Entrance: Always introduces himself by leaping from a high place.
• Blood Knight: According to Don Rodrigo in the character book, Sylv was this. He seems to have calmed-down in the present (in-game), however.
  Don Rodrigo: Not to brag on my boy, and he was always itching for a fight, but…
• Blow You Away: Sylvando's Pink Pirouette attack hits all enemies on the field with a pink cyclone. He can also learn some wind spells, though not to the same degree as Serena.
• Brief Accent Imitation: After meeting Michelle and upon reaching Lonalulu, he momentarily mimics her Cockney accent.
  Sylvando: Here we are in beautiful Lonalulu — a seaside paradise that Shell tells me is home to the prettiest pearls in all the world!
• Camp: Extremely flamboyant and theatrical, along with very effeminate.
• Campy Combat: An Ambiguously Gay circus performer who dresses flamboyantly and whose special attacks involve attacking his foes by blasting them with giant pink hearts.
• Cast from Money: His Gold Rush ability consumes 1000 gold to deal about 300 damage to all enemies.
• Chewing the Scenery: Before formally joining the party, and especially during his time as Sterling Sylva.
• Child of Two Worlds: Sylvando is half-Valorian (his father's side), and half-Zwaardsrustian (his mother's side). Going further back, he's descended on his father's side from a legendary Heliodorian knight. Overlaps with Hiding Your Heritage in Act One, due to Sylv literally skipping out of Puerto Valor as soon as the party arrive in town.
• Child Prodigy: During his earliest years, training as a knight, he could best men twice his age in duels. As found in a book in Don Rodrigo's villa, he also beat Hendrik at a tournament. In addition, he seemed very studious, if what Don Rodrigo says about him in his character book interview is true; Sylv has great powers of recollection.
• Choice of Two Weapons: Swords, knives, and whips.
• Circus Brat: Spent seven years with the Gallopolitan circus, where he learned to use a whip, breathe and eat fire (Hot Lick), and tightrope-walk (an NPC in Cobblestone act three mentions he can do this). He most likely learned magic at the circus too, hence why he joins your party with a number of buffing, debuffing and ailment-curing spells. Sylv also learned sleight of hand, which is best seen in his side story in the definitive edition, when he turns a weapon into a baguette. By his own admission in one Tickington mission, he mentions he used to tame lions, too.
• Cleavage Window: Sports one when wearing the Glad Rags/Gladder Rags outfit sets.
• Closet Key: His side story in S reveals that his followers in the Soldiers of Smile only developed their flamboyant Ambiguously Gay characteristics after becoming inspired by him.
• Cocky Rooster: Fits parts of this motif; he's almost always confident, and he can be haughty at times. The Parade Master outfit he can get in act two for gathering all the necessary people for his parade certainly fits the appearance of a red rooster. He's also one of two party members to know the spell Cock-a-doodle-doo.
• Combat Medic: Does respectable damage with both weapons and magic, and gets exclusive access to the Reheal line of spells as well as Hustle Dance, a multi-target healing ability available long before Rab or Serena learns Multiheal.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: During his fight as Sterling Sylva, he uses Miracle Slash, Kiss Me Deadly and Grand Stand, the first two of which can only be accessed further into his Swords and Showmanship skill trees. Grand Stand can only be learned in act three, after gaining the Chivalry skill tree.
• Cool Boat: The Salty Stallion; in Sylv's words, "the finest ship to ever sashay across the seas!"
• Cool Horse: He has a white horse named Margarita who, naturally, is just as fabulous as he is.
• Cultured Badass: He's a gentleman through and through even getting a whole skill tree called Chivalry, and he's well-travelled, having lived in several different cities in his time. He also has a high strength stat, allowing him to bring a beatdown unto enemies.
• Dashing Hispanic: Speaks with a Spanish accent in the English dub, and is charismatic and chivalrous at all times.
• Defeat Means Friendship: How Sylv deals with The Beastly Boys in his side story, offering them food after their fight.
• Despair Event Horizon: Teeters on the edge of this at the beginning of his sidestory, feeling useless that he couldn't do anything to stop Yggdrasil's fall. Dave slaps him out of it.
• Determinator: Inherited both his father's indomitable will and his mother's conviction.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: To go along with the rest of his Ambiguously Gay portrayal, his running away from home after falling out with his father over his desire to become an entertainer rather than a knight has many parallels with real world accounts of young queer people being forced out onto the streets after coming out to unaccepting parents. This is made even more apparent in the "Olé! Sylvia!" voice drama, where he only begins speaking in his signature feminine "onee" voice after he realizes that his true calling in life is to be an entertainer.
• Do Not Call Me "Paul": Sylvando does not like his original name, Norberto.
• Dramatic High Perching: Loves to perch on tall structures or object. If there's an opportunity to make a dramatic leap off of a tall object, Sylvando will take full advantage every time. He introduces himself to the party and later joins them full-time in this way. He even manages to work it into his grand entrance during the Tournament Arc.
• Dual Wielding: He can opt to equip a sword or dagger in each hand.
• Eye Scream: Heavily implied he almost had his eyes pecked out by the elysium bird that attacked his family's villa and stole and Silver Orb years before the game began. This explains his fear of them — plus other similar bird monsters — in the Eerie Eyrie and elsewhere.
  Sylv, during a party talk at the Eerie Eyrie in Act One: The Eerie Eyrie… I don’t like the sound of that one bit! If there’s one thing I simply can’t stand, it’s birds! I don’t know why, but the naughty things always try to peck my eyes out. Perhaps they think they’re precious, glittering jewels… I suppose it’s an easy mistake to make! Tee hee!
• The Fashionista: According to the character book, Sylv's outfits are all unique designs. In addition, he has the most Definitive version-exclusive costumes alongside Erik and Jade.
• Fighting Clown: A sizable chunk of his combat abilities are downright ridiculous to look at but very effective nonetheless. In fact, they tend to be among his most potent techniques, as they scale off of his excellent charm stat.
• Fighting Your Friend: In Octagonia, he can't help but join the tournament so he can have a friendly match with the Luminary, whilst Chewing the Scenery in the process.
• Flower Motifs: Roses are his. A lesser-seen one are gerberas — his mother's namesake — in his character emblem, as seen in the official art book.
• Follow in My Footsteps: What was supposed to have happened from birth, being the son of Don Rodrigo. Sylv even alludes to the trope when speaking privately to the Luminary.
  Sylvando: Even before I could walk, I was training to be a knight, you know... I would stay in Puerto Valor, and follow in my father's footsteps.
• Force and Finesse: Both he and Hendrik trained in swordsmanship under Don Rodrigo, but while Hendrik relies primarily on his tremendous strength, Sylvando instead focuses on graceful swordplay. While discussing their days training together in the character book, Sylvando reminisces about a time when he parried one of Hendrik's attacks during a mock battle only to be launched backwards from the force of the blow; highlighting both of their respective strengths as swordsmen.
• Foreshadowing: Sylv has this in spades:
  • His knowledge of the Knight's Pledge despite being a jester is a very early sign there's more than he's letting on to, coupled with his sword and horse-riding skills.
  • The fact he owns the biggest ship in Erdrea, coupled with Veronica's query about him being a millionaire and his subsequent playful dismissal, are also signs that he's clearly richer than he looks. As well, while in Gallopolis he makes a dismissive remark about travelling with the "little people" on a ferry; this is a very rare sign of his haughtiness, stemming from his noble background.
  • As soon as the party enters Puerto Valor in Act One, he leaves before they get to see Don Rodrigo. We later learn this is because he's the Don's son and heir, and they had a huge argument over his career change.
  • In Octagonia Act One, when fighting as Sterling Sylva, he uses Grand Stand — a move that is only unlocked when Sylv completes the Kingsbarrow Trial in act three and unlocks the Chivalry skill tree. Said trial is only open to the best knights.
• Forgotten Childhood Friend: Hendrik trained under Don Rodrigo to become a knight while Sylvando was still living in Puerto Valor, and the two shared a mutual admiration for one another, with Hendrik even claiming that he looked to him for support when the going got tough. By the time they reunite as adults though, the gallant knight-to-be Norberto that Hendrik had known grew up to become the mincing jester Sylvando, causing him to fail to recognize his old friend until the fact stares him directly in the face. Sylvando recognizes Hendrik from the beginning, but keeps his mouth shut about their shared history until Hendrik puts two and two together, seemingly for no other reason than to tease him about his cluelessness. In Act III Hendrik somehow figures out Sylvando's identity on his own.
• For Happiness: His dream is to make people all around the world smile.
• Friend to All Children: He is very good with children. Seeing children in trouble is one of the few times when his normal happy-go-lucky demeanor switches to a more serious one.
• Fun Personified: He's a circus performer who loves playing to an audience, but even outside the circus, he's almost incapable of doing anything without adding flourish. Even during act two, when everything has gone to hell, he continues this. In fact, he doubles down on this attitude because the world needs laughter even more in the face of all the tragedy.
• The Gadfly: Almost exclusively toward Hendrik.
  Sylvando: Same old stone-headed Hendrik. Such a sweet, simple boy.
• Gameplay and Story Integration:
  • Sylvando is all about bringing out the best in others, with his Establishing Character Moment in Gallopolis being inspiring Prince Faris to have the courage to fight for himself. Naturally, his primary function in battle is a supportive one, as he learns a wide variety of useful buffs that improve the strength of the rest of the party.
  • One of the first things we see him do during his introduction is to juggle daggers and breathe fire as part of a circus performance. His default skill set includes the ability Hot Lick, which allows him to breath fire on the enemy. Daggers/knives are one type of weapon he can use.
  • Despite most of his abilities being supportive, he has surprisingly high strength and vitality and can equip swords and heavy armor in battle, which are otherwise generally reserved for combat-oriented classes. This makes sense when you consider that he trained to become a knight for part of his life.
  • As the most Ambiguously Gay character in the game, he has an innate major resistance to Puff-Puff and other feminine charm moves.
  • For being an entertainer and the mood-maker of the group, Sylvando also has an innate major weakness to laughter and dance-inducing moves.
  • Out of the three types of weapons he can wield, whips — especially the best one in the game — give Sylv his highest attack power. While not outright stated, he trained for a long time with the circus, even staying as an entertainer after leaving; he's been an entertainer for longer than he was a knight.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: In the storyline, he is fantastically wealthy enough to have bought Erdea's fanciest ship, but when he's in the party, you're still paying for everything yourself.
• Gender-Blender Name: Goes by the feminine name Sylvia in the Japanese version to go along with his onee characterization. The drama CD explains this by revealing that it is a tribute to his mother, who also went by Sylvia as a stage name.
• Gender Reveal: In the Japanese version, Golden Boy describes his partner in the MMA tournament as a "wonderful lady". It isn't until the Luminary faces him in the ring that he learns the mysterious "Lady Massive" is actually Sylvando. It's still present in the English script to an extent, as Golden Boy avoids using gendered pronouns when discussing his partner.
• Generation Xerox: He's suggested to be a perfect blend of his parents in terms of both looks, talents and personality; inheriting Don Rodrigo's manly build and unyielding devotion to chivalry and his mother's fine facial features and fun-loving personality. Naturally, he blends together their respective professions, as a knight and as an entertainer, into one.
• Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!: He joins the party with Sobering Slap, allowing him to break sleep, confusion, beguilement and paralysis on the other party members with one of these. He is also on the receiving end of one in his side story in the Definitive version, courtesy of Dave.
• Girly Run: A surprisingly more subdued example than most, but he noticeably keeps his arms closer to his chest while running than any of the other male party members. More obvious in the 3DS version, where he uses the same run animation as the female party members.
• Graceful Loser: After you clobber him in Octagonia's MMA tournament, he accepts his defeat with grace, and even remarks that it's no shame coming second to you.
• Gratuitous French: In the Japanese dub, mainly a "très bien!" here and there.
• Gratuitous Italian: Surprisingly in the Japanese dub, and only heard during Sylv's side story; when jumping, Sylv will sometimes say "Amore!". Also, one of his abilities is named "That's Amore".
• Gratuitous Spanish: Heard in the English dub with "sí", and "¡Olé!" and "¡Arriba!" heard in his side story if you make him jump.
• Heart Beatdown: His Kiss Me Deadly and That's Amore attacks feature pink hearts that damage the enemy. His whip abilities Lashings of Love and Lash Batter clobber enemies with hearts, too. He also has two heart-related pep powers: Love Hurts and Kiss of Death.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: He can wield one-handed swords.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: Downplayed and played with. He has generally high self esteem regarding his abilities as a showman, but seems to not think nearly as much of his fighting skills. When he awakens after the events of the end of Act One, he bemoans his inability to do anything against Mordegon, ignoring that the rest of the party was just as helpless. Indeed, he states that without the rest of the group he essentially thinks he has no choice but to give up on everything until Dave snaps him out of it. He then uses self deprecation in a positive way, reasoning that if "a slip of a thing" like him could survive then surely the rest of the party must have gotten out alive too. Further, he never imagined that his father could still see him as a knight after the life he had chosen to live and is in joyous disbelief when he finds out his father still respects him.
• Hidden Depths: It's clear from the get-go that he's got a mysterious past and that the "flamboyant jester" act is far from the totality of his character, but even early in the game, there are some optional moments that can make other aspects of him peek out:
  • Once you get his ship and go back to Cobblestone, the rest of the team is quiet and supportive in Party Chat, but Sylvando is literally quivering with uncharacteristic, barely-contained rage on your behalf. As a man who trained his whole life to live up to the ideal of a knight and still holds the Knight's Pledge dear to his heart even if he isn't a "knight" anymore, the behaviour of Jasper and his men and what they did to Cobblestone offends him to the absolute core of his being.
  • On the Luminary receiving Rab's invitation to meet him and Jade in the ruins of Dundrasil, Sylvando comments that they're "going back to where it began, hm?" This is the first hint at Sylvando being much more aware of the wider situation in the world than he first let on and that his joining the Luminary's quest was in no way an accident or a frivolous act of whimsy.
  • In the second act of the game, he is absolutely furious at what Avarith did to the townspeople of Phnom Nonh, vowing to get their treasures back from the villain. His reference to the Knight's Pledge is one of the few clues that lets Hendrik discern Sylvando's true identity as the son of Don Rodrigo, one of the greatest knights across Erdrea.
  • Parts of Sylv's past, while easily missed, are scattered around Erdrea. One such example are his comments in the Eerie Eyrie about him hating birds, as well as his Party Talk comments therein. In the mini medal academy's library, there's a book that tells the tale of an attack on a local manor house for the Silver Orb. The manor house is in Puerto Valor — Don Rodrigo's villa. Sylvando says in one Eerie Eyrie Party Talk: "I don’t know why, but the naughty things always try to peck my eyes out. Perhaps they think they’re precious, glittering jewels… I suppose it’s an easy mistake to make! Tee hee!" It's not hard to put two and two together.
  • He's one of two party members who gets visibly agitated upon discovering Rab's copy of the Ogler's Digest, to the point of shaking with rage in the party chat immediately following it. He calls it naughty, nasty and positively nefarious.
  • During act two you find him leading a bright and colourful parade, but he treats the situation with utmost seriousness; people need smiles and laughter more than ever in the aftermath of the Fall. To further this, his title throughout the majority of his side story is 'Unmoored Minstrel'; he's putting on the bravest face around his new friends, but he's desperately worried about his original party of friends.
  • Given that he's a millionaire (or even a multimillionaire, given how much it must have cost him to have the Stallion built and maintained over many years), he's proven he's got a good head for money — which is perfect for him going into business and starting his own line of merchandise, as mentioned by an NPC in Act One Gallopolis.
• In-Series Nickname: Close friends call him "Sylv"; Erik, Dave and his parade members make liberal use of this.
• In the Blood: His side story in the Definitive Edition reveals that his mother was also a famously charming performer before she settled down to marry Don Rodrigo.
• In Touch with His Feminine Side: Very much so. If you pick him as your partner after completing Drustan's Trial in the definitive edition, Hendrik will say in the Party Talk that "Sylvando is as comfortable in the domestic realm as he is on the battlefield."
• Ironic Fear: Given how much he likes to dress as birds — see as well the aforementioned peacock and rooster attributes — Sylvando is terrified of large bird monsters: Eleysium birds, hades condors, and garudas. Overlaps with Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?
• Ironic Name: In the Japanese version, his birth name is Goliath; a very masculine-sounding name that you'd more likely associate with a bulky bruiser than a lithe and effeminate jester like him. Averted in the English version, where his birth name is the slightly more neutral-sounding Norberto.
• Jack of All Trades: While avoiding Master of None, to boot. Sylvando does a whole bunch of things really well — he has a good, varied selection of weapons, good skills and good skill tree layouts, unique and powerful skills in his unlockable tree, and his default magic list is a cornucopia of useful buffs and debuffs (including very early access to the ever-valuable Oomph). He lacks standard healing spells but instead has Hustle Dance, which is a cheaper Multiheal. The only common status ailments he can't cure are poison and death.
• Keet: He almost always has a smile on his face and is very affectionate. When he's first introduced in Gallopolis, he jumps off tall statues a few times and lands ready for action.
• Knight in Shining Armor: Albeit an unconventional one. Sure he's a swishy jester, but he's also a chivalrous defender of the weak who never hesitates when he needs to take action in the face of danger. He's also a Master Swordsman and a top-class equestrian.
• The Knights Who Say "Squee!": In the postgame party chat after meeting Drustan's spirit, he reveals that he is a big fan of the legendary warrior and even contemplates asking the man for an autograph.
• Large Ham: Practically everything he says and does is flamboyant and theatrical. This is especially noticable if you pose for a picture with him in the party, where he'll always add a little extra flourish to his movements compared to everyone else.
• Legacy Character: The "Olé! Sylvia!" segment of the voice drama reveals that Sylvia was also his mother's stage name. While the voice drama was not translated into English, this nonetheless creates a Dub Induced Plothole with his Dub Name Change to the distinctly male-sounding Sylvando, though one can make the Significant Anagram of "Don Sylva", still a somewhat-tribute to his mother's stage name as well as his father's title, and a highlight towards Sylv's own dual nature as both a knight and entertainer.
• Leitmotif: An upbeat tune called Olé! Sylvando! plays whenever he makes a scene.
• Light 'em Up: Uses/deals light-elemental magic damage with a couple of abilities.
• Lineage Comes from the Father: His father, Don Rodrigo, is the current overseer of Puerto Valor, and is a descendant of a legendary Heliodorian knight.
• Like Father, Unlike Son: The stern and manly Don Rodrigo is hailed throughout Erdrea as the greatest knight who ever lived, while his son is lighthearted, effeminate, and hailed throughout Erdrea as the greatest entertainer who ever lived. It is eventually shown that the two aren't so different, though, with Sylvando proving himself to still take knighthood and chivalry very seriously and Don Rodrigo being a Large Ham in his own right who can cut loose when he wants to.
• Macho Camp: Was designed with the intention of being a "muscle okama", and while his final design is very svelte and trim, he's still quite distinctly the tallest and most muscular person in the party after Hendrik despite how effeminate he is.
• Magic Music: His Hustle Dance, Fuddle Dance and Pied Piper abilities. Hustle Dance restores the party's HP; Fuddle Dance can confuse all enemies; Pied Piper can beguile an enemy. His Pep Powers The Fight Fantastic and Hit Parade also utilise magical music-playing.
• Magic Knight: He's no slouch in physical combat, and while he may not have as much magic as Veronica, he's quite adept with the spells he does learn.
• Magical Clown: He's a jester with a plethora of magic spells and abilities at his disposal.
• Magical Queer: He's a Camp Ambiguously Gay man who extols wisdom about being true to yourself and persevering in the face of adversity to several characters throughout the game.
• Meaningful Name: His birth name "Norberto" is derived from the Germanic "nord" and "beraht", meaning "north" and "bright". His mother's home city was Zwaardsrust, north(east) of Puerto Valor, and he was destined from birth to be a bright knight in his own right. "Sylvando", on the other hand, is just as meaningful, being an anagram of "Don Sylva", a tribute Sylv most likely made to both of his parents.
• The Merch: Invoked; Sylvando has official merchandise (in Gallopolis, at least); an NPC mentions it after the Sand National in Act One, which is most likely dotted around the various stalls. A few examples seem to be cushions, carpets, pottery, books, and silverware.
• Mr. Fanservice: It's more downplayed than in Jade's case, but his Glad Rags/Gladder Rags outfit sets show off his toned chest through a Cleavage Window, while his Head-Turner and Gladder Rags sets place emphasis on his long, slender legs in white tights.
• Mysterious Past: Sylv does his best to keep his past hidden, and while parts are revealed in-game such as him being the son and heir of Don Rodrigo, there are still things we never learn about him outright — things that have to be put together through context and dialogue. Could overlap with Internal Reveal if one is able to put together the clues from Act One.
• Mythology Gag: One that is more or less Lost in Translation: the Japanese-exclusive PlayStation remake of Dragon Quest IV reveals that coliseum competitor Prima Donna is actually a crossdressing man. In the Japanese script, Sylvando competes in the Masked Martial Arts Tournament under the alias "Lady Massive", with the player being led to believe that he is a woman until they finally encounter him in the ring.
• Nice Guy: An upbeat mood-maker through and through, his primary goal in life is to bring smiles to the people of the world.
  • This is even reflected in battle where, despite his high Strength, his best role is helping out other characters with his extensive and powerful array of supportive spells and abilities.
• The Nicknamer: Calls Veronica "Ronnie" and Hendrik "Henny-wenny" from time to time. He also calls Rab "Rabbie", but it's only heard when healing him in battle.
• Non-Ironic Clown: Or more accurately, a Non-Ironic Jester.
• Old Money: His family have been the ruling nobility in Puerto Valor for centuries/generations.
• Old-School Chivalry: A postgame event will let him add a new skill category with this theme, taking attacks for others and letting the girls have another turn in battle.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: He's normally so upbeat and playful that the moments where he is so overcome by grief or rage that he is unable to speak always come as a shock.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: As Sterling Sylva.
  Defeated Monsters index entry: ...Okay, we all know exactly who it is, but let's not spoil his fun.
• The Perfectionist: Much like the aforementioned Blood Knight tendencies, this is also very downplayed, and again, it's revealed by a single line from Don Rodrigo; in their reunion scene in Act Two, the Don mentions how he didn't raise Sylv to be a failure. It could explain why Sylv is so excellent at everything; he pushes himself to be the absolute best at anything he tries.
• Petal Power: His Pink Pirouette attack; he sometimes yells "Flower power!" when using it.
• Photographic Memory: Most likely has this; in Don Rodrigo's character book interview, he says of his son: "Whenever I tried to teach him the sword, he’d know what I told him before I even said it, even remember things I hadn’t mentioned." He also has no trouble remembering all of Hendrik's embarrassing secrets from their training days.
• Playing with Fire: His Hot Lick ability has him breathe fire on an enemy, and like all swordsmen he can learn the Flame Slash technique.
  • He also has a few fire-related pep powers: Tempered Tantrum, Frizzwhizz, and Shocking Twist.
• Plucky Comic Relief: While the game overall is quite lighthearted and Sylvando himself is perfectly capable of being serious, his upbeat, flamboyant and wacky attitude tend to make him the most comical member of the party at any given time. Justified in that, as a performing jester, it's part of his profession to be the resident mood-maker, to the point where he apologizes on the occasions when he can't bring himself to lighten up the situation with humour.
• Projectile Kiss: Used in his Kiss Me Deadly ability, and the Pep Power Kiss of Death.
• The Proud Elite: It's very subtle in Sylv's case, but he does have some haughty moments, such as when he tells Serena they don't have time to ride a ferry to Gondolia with the "little people." Almost all of his equipment screen poses are varying levels of haughty, too.
• Quirky Bard: Closely resembles the Minstrel class of the ninth game in both appearance and function. He's capable with both weapons and wind magic, and has a wide variety of skills that make him usable in just about any scenario, but his first and foremost speciality lies in buffing and supporting the party while simultaneously inhibiting the opposition.
• Quivering Eyes: Seen at the start of his side story, when he's in absolute despair over the situation at hand. Overlaps with Trying Not to Cry, and later on in the story with Men Don't Cry (when he turns away to wipe away a tear after saying goodbye to his Soldiers of Smile).
• Really Royalty Reveal: His being Don Rodigo's only son and heir brings forth this in act two. Sylv's paternal line is the ruling nobility in Puerto Valor. As well, that side is descended from a legendary Heliodorian knight.
• Rebel Prince: Aristocrat in this case. He comes from a prestigious household of knights, but left it to pursue a career as an entertainer.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The red to Hendrik's blue; Sylvando is passionate about everything he does, and in comparison to Hendrik he's extroverted and excited to a fault, and defiant to the point of running away from home and going AWOL for many years. Even his default outfit has red in it.
• Rejecting the Inheritance: Ran away from his life of nobility and inheriting the title of Don of Puerto Valor in favour of joining the circus.
• Renaissance Man: He's a knight; an entertainer/musician; a businessman; he owns and runs his own ship; he's amazing at all things domestic; he's well-travelled (thus, he knows a lot about many different places and would know several languages); he's in to fashion...
• Royal Rapier: As a stylish person of noble birth, Sylvando can use any one-handed sword, but he is particularly predisposed to rapiers, including his starting weapon and the unique Shamshir of Light. Rapiers tend to give larger boosts to the user's charm stat, which directly powers several of Sylvando's abilities.
• Secret Identity: Technically, "Sylvando" is one himself, being Norberto's new identity. Then there's Sterling Sylva, but everyone sees through that disguise easily.
• Secret Test of Character: He and Hendrik can go through one in Act Three, courtesy of Don Rodrigo. Completing it unlocks the Chivalry skill tree for Sylvando, as well as a new Definitive Edition-exclusive outfit (the coraza de caballero) for him.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man:
  • Sylvando's flamboyance is sometimes used to contrast the much more stoic Hendrik. Somewhat interestingly, Sylvando's confidence and decisiveness are also used to contrast Hendrik's occasional bouts of awkwardness and self-doubt. This is highlighted by their respective skill trees, which are identical in shape but expand in opposite directions (Sylvando begins with access to the bottom cluster of his skill tree while Hendrik has access to the top). After they prove themselves as knights in the postgame, they each gain access to the missing sections.
  • He also has this dynamic with Dave, where he is once again the sensitive guy. Like with Hendrik, the trope is slightly twisted by Sylvando being the more dominant personality of the two.
  • He plays this trope perhaps the straightest of all with Don Rodrigo, who is very similar to him in build and temperament but is his polar opposite in terms of masculinity.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: His Head-Turner and Even Suaver Sylv outfit sets give him the look of one, complete with a ruffled shirt and Classy Cravat. Perhaps as part of his Rebel Prince tendencies, he wears the cravat around his arm in both costumes instead.
• Shipper on Deck: If the Luminary chooses to live with Jade, Sylvando will remark he thinks they make the "cutest couple."
• Shout-Out: His German nickname (Rio, from Rionaldo) could be a reference to the Duran Duran song of the same name.
  • As he's an entertainer, there are a lot of music references within Sylv's ability and pep power names, ranging from the more obvious (one of his Showmanship abilities being called "That's Amore") to things like the accolade you get for getting all of his costumes ("Dressed to Kill") being the name of a 10cc song.
• Siblings Wanted: One throwaway Party Talk line (only seen if you get Sylvando before Rab in act two) reveals that the High Lama is like the little brother he always wanted.
• Spirited Competitor: Entered the Masked Martial Arts tournament without the rest of the party's knowledge for the chance to test his mettle against the Luminary in a fight. Before that, he volunteered to be a last-minute substitute in the Sand National to see Prince Faris' fabled horseriding skills firsthand. Don Rodrigo mentioned that Sylvando was "...always itching for a fight..." in the character book, indicating that he's had a competitive streak since he was young.
• Stage Names: "Sylvando" is his. His real name is Norberto.
• Status Effects: He's capable of dishing out several thanks to abilities in most of his skill trees. On the flip side, he's excellent at curing most of the common status ailments, and he can dish-out several stat buffs.
• Status Infliction Attack: He has the knives skillset, which is built around attacks that inflict status ailments, and attacks that inflict massive damage on targets inflicted with those specific status ailments.
• Tall, Dark, and Handsome: Combines a tall and strapping figure with rather effete and well-groomed features, overall making him handsome in a different way from the Hero, Erik and Hendrik.
• Technician Versus Performer: The Performer to Hendrik's Technician in terms of swordplay. Sylvando is a natural genius with a sword who picks up techniques easily, but, as an entertainer by trade, is far more focused on visual spectacle than he is on refining the basics. As such, his moveset places far more emphasis on being a Jack of All Trades in battle than it does on dishing out raw damage with a sword.
• Third-Person Person: Occasionally refers to himself as "The Great Sylvando".
• The Unchosen One: Despite being such a uniquely talented individual, he's only member of the party who isn't explicitly linked to the Luminary through some sort of higher power, prophecy, or family ties^note Erik is sent by the Seer, Serena and Veronica are the reincarnations of Serenica, Hendrik is the reincarnation of Drustan, Rab is both his grandfather and implied to have inherited Morcant's magic, and Jade is essentially his sister; he's just a courageous good Samaritan who wants to make the world a happier place and believes that helping to defeat the source of all evil is the best way of doing it.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Fresh fish prepared in the Valorian manner.
• Uncle Pennybags: Sylvando is ridiculously rich — the fact he owns the biggest ship in Erdrea says as much — and he's a really nice guy. Overlaps with Secretly Wealthy, to an extent.
  Veronica: And this is where you're keeping your ship, Sylvando? The ship that you OWN? Don't tell me you're some kind of millionaire?
  Sylvando: Oh come now, Ronnie darling! You know it's not polite to pry!
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Had he not wandered up to the Heart of Yggdrasil and tried touching it, those precious few minutes could have allowed the Luminary to retrieve the Sword of Light before Jasper attacked.
• Vague Age: The most we know is that he's younger than Hendrik, but close enough to him in age for them to have trained as knights together. Erik notably refers to him as "ossan" in the Japanese version, suggesting that there's a considerable age difference between them. His profile in the character book simply lists his age as "It's a secret~!"
  • Sylv is 29 in acts one and three, and 30 in act two; using the fall of Zwaardsrust as a starting point — as well as Hendrik's age (36) — we know that that happened thirty years before the game's events, thanks to a Party Talk at the end of act two with Hendrik at the Warrior's Rest Inn. In it, he says it's been three decades since that day. We also know that Sylv's mother led most of the survivors out of there afterwards, and that she went to Puerto Valor and married Don Rodrigo, thanks to what the ringmaster says in Sylv's side story. Given the distance between Zwaardsrust and Puerto Valor, as well as the time she spent in getting survivors to Octagonia, Dundrasil and Heliodor, it can be assumed it took her a while to get there after getting them to safety, as well as the (assumed) nine months she spent pregnant. There's also a Party Talk line from Sylv at the end of act two in the Viking Hideout, wherein he says he was around Mia's age when Hendrik went to train at Puerto Valor. Given that Mia was encased in gold for five years, and that Erik was fourteen when that happened, it's safe to assume that Mia was thirteen when she became a statue; being turned to gold is the same as being frozen in time. His age -thus everyone else's ages- in act two is thanks to a comment Faris makes about selling the Forging Hammer to fund that year's Sand National. A whole year had passed between the fall of Yggdrasil and the party reaching Gallopolis.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Played with: Sylv and his dad get into a massive argument when the former reveals that he wants to leave knighthood and join the circus, and they don't speak for years, with Sylv fearing his father's disappointment and/or wrath if they ever met again. In reality, after the initial shock subsided, Rodrigo was incredibly proud of whatever path his son took, and wanted a chance to tell him that, which he thankfully gets in the end.
• Wingding Eyes: It's difficult to see, but he gains heart irises in his eyes when using Pink Pirouette.

Rab/Lord Robert

Rab/Lord Robert ^note Théo/Théobert in the French translation, Bodo in the German translation

Voiced by: Alex Norton (English), Mugihito (Japanese) [Definitive version]

A quite curious old man who travels with the martial artist, Jade. It seems like he "knows someone" in every city in the world, and he's traveling on a quest to gain old lore and answer a question that has vexed him for many years.

---

• Acrofatic: He's visibly rotund, but if you equip him with claws he gains access to a number of agile attacks.
• Bad Powers, Good People: Despite learning both Zam and Whack spells, types of magic otherwise mostly associated with the game's villains, he's one of the party's most consistently moral and proactively heroic members.
• Big Fun: He's a portly and jolly old chap.
• Blow You Away: During the course of the story, he learns the unique wind spell, Pearly Gates. Some of his claw attacks also use wind.
• Brave Scot: All Drasilians speak with a Scottish brogue.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: He's a goofy old man, but he's also an exceptional martial artist and mage who was known to have been an excellent ruler during his days as a king. During his sidestory in the Definitive version, the player can choose to play up this side of him when accomplishing his royal duties by going about them in the most unconventional ways possible. No matter how he completes them, they always produce a positive outcome.
• Casting a Shadow: Rab is the only character capable of learning dark spells.
• Catchphrase: Lets out an emphatic "Jings!" or "Crivens!" whenever excited or surprised.
• Chivalrous Pervert: He has a keen eye for the ladies but generally keeps it under control and is otherwise a wise, reliable and fun-loving Cool Old Guy. He's also shown to still hold his late wife close to his heart on the occasions when he brings her up.
• Cool Old Guy: A Party Chat with Jade will have her state that she thought Rab was friends with a bunch of old men around the world, but she found his large circle of friends to be quite diverse. His age doesn't stop him from joining his grandson in the fight against demonic overlords.
• Critical Hit Class: Rab gains multiple critical chance bonuses if he uses claws, but he also has an unusual variation in that he relies heavily on magical critical hits, due to the high critical hit rate on his Zam spells.
• Crutch Character: His diverse spell pool initially gives him a serious edge over both Veronica and Serena, who are oftentimes too specialized for their own good. His skill tree also grants him the largest mana pool of any character in the party, giving him a great amount of longevity in addition to versatility. Once Serena rejoins in the second half, though, she eclipses him in just about every other conceivable way as both a mage and a healer, to the point where the only use he'll likely ever see afterwards is as a backup spellcaster when Serena is somehow unavailable. Even when Serena's power is reduced in the postgame, both she and Veronica at that point begin to fully come into their own as specialized powerhouse spellcasters while Rab isn't much different from when you first got him. This is even more of the case in the original release of the game, where he is the only party member without any kind of exclusive postgame equipment.
• Dark Is Not Evil: He has access to the "Zam" line of spells, and is the only character in the party to do so.
• Determinator: World goes to hell? He seeks out his master to learn how to fix the mess. His master died? He enters a meditative state and becomes a mummy at the top of a freezing mountain nearly naked to learn from her from beyond the grave. When this old man sets his mind on something, there is NO dissuading him.
• Dirty Old Man: He brings a dirty magazine with him everywhere he goes and has the combination move with Jade where he powers up after seeing Jade's making a sexy pose. After he drops a magazine after getting the Orb from Sniflheim, even his title becomes the trope's name! In a flashback it is mentioned that his daughter would repeatedly confiscate his Porn Stash.
• Feeling Their Age: While on the whole he has no trouble keeping up with the rest of the (much younger) party in combat or adventuring, moments of sustained physical activity do seem to tire him out, such as the long staircase leading to the Phnom Non ruins or the trek to Yggdrasil's Altar in the First Forest.
• "Flowers for Algernon" Syndrome: During Act Two, he becomes visibly emaciated as a result of spending weeks meditating atop Mt. Angri-La to learn Master Pang's strongest magical secrets. One celebratory feast upon reuniting with the party later, and he's back to his normal rotund self.
• Gameplay and Story Integration:
  • As a Dirty Old Man, Rab has an innate minor weakness to Puff-Puff and other feminine charm moves.
  • He's a chubby old timer in a party filled with attractive young people, so it's hardly a surprise that he has the lowest charm stat of them all.
  • The staff (which is also his walking cane) he starts with can't be removed from his inventory, even if unequipped. He needs it to walk, after all.
  • He has both the second lowest skill point gains per level up (until he rejoins the party in Act Two) and the second lowest EXP gain rate. As expected from an old codger, he's not as spry as he used to be.
• The Good King: Back when he was the ruler of Dundrasil before ceding the throne to Irwin and Eleanor, he was beloved by his people and knights — he even came up with a royal duty to go out and help his subjects with mundane tasks.
• Hidden Depths: His sidestory in the Definitive version encourages the player to assign some to him when reliving his days as a king. Depending on how you choose to progress through it, Rab can be shown to have been astonishingly stern and level-headed in his judgements despite his usual jolliness or a bonafide Bunny-Ears Lawyer who used outside-the-box thinking in order to approach situations from a totally unique perspective. Either one suits the rest of his personality quite well, and both result in positive outcomes in the problems he's entrusted with resolving, meaning it's entirely up to you which one feels "more" true to his character.
• An Ice Person: Rab is the party's master of ice magic, and is the only one capable of learning the strongest version, after some serious skill point management.
• I Read It for the Articles: His excuse for reading dirty magazines, uttered word-for-word in the Sniflheim incident.
• I Was Quite a Looker: Claims to have been just as handsome as the Luminary in his youth, and was so popular with the girls that he had to fight them off.
• Kamehame Hadoken: His Pearly Gates skill manifests as this.
• King Incognito: With a mix of Modest Royalty, he blends into life among common folk quite well. The only people who recognize him are those who knew him as a king, such as the Sultan of Gallopolis and King Carnelian. Besides them, he makes it very clear to the Luminary that word of his nobility is not to be spread around.
• Kung-Fu Wizard: A skilled martial artist who can use a variety of offensive and healing spells. Jade definitely learned her martial arts abilities from him, and her form closely mimics his.
• Leitmotif: Rab the Wizard.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: He's the grandfather of the hero. As in, your blood grandfather (through your mother, Eleanor), not your adoptive grandfather like Chalky was.
• Master of None: He's a solid all-rounder, but is overshadowed in every aspect by someone else in the party. His main asset is being able to cover basically any position in battle in a pinch.
• Miniature Senior Citizens: He's an elderly man and only stands taller than Veronica among the rest of the party. When serving as the player-controlled character, he has to jump just to reach books on bookshelves.
• Modest Royalty: The former king of Dundrasil who's living with simple means.
• Mr. Exposition: Becomes the party's primary source of information once he joins it. He also hosts the recap section that plays every time a save file is loaded.
• Old Master: Old enough to be the grandfather of the hero, and an avid practitioner of martial arts and meditation. He was also Jade's instructor in martial arts while she was growing up.
• Outliving One's Offspring: His daughter and son-in-law were both killed during the fall of Dundrasil, and he wouldn't find out about his grandson's survival for well over sixteen years.
• Parental Substitute: To Jade; her father was possessed, her mother died, and her previous parental substitutes were both killed by Mordegon. Because of all of this, Rab saved her after the Dundrasil disaster and raised her as his own, and it is because of him that she grew into a well-adjusted, albeit hardened, young woman.
• Recurring Element:
  • As an elderly male magic user who differentiates himself from his younger female counterpart in the party by focusing on ice magic and supportive spells rather than fire magic and raw damage, he calls to mind Borya from Dragon Quest IV.
  • Playing as him with shypox active reveals that he at one point was among the series' long legacy of elderly men who desire to become bunny girls.
• The Red Mage: Equally adept in both offensive and support magic, but isn't quite as good at either as Veronica or Serena, respectively. He makes up for his lower stats with abilities unique to him, like Insulate and Right As Rain, and learning the spells he does share with the mage sisters several levels earlier. When equipped with claws, he is also pretty decent at physical attacks.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: The penultimate king of Dundrasil, on the road for years to find out what was behind the fall of his family's kingdom.
• Shipper on Deck:
  • In the PS4/PC version, he's fully aware of his grandson's attraction to Gemma and is simply waiting for them to make it official. The Definitive version makes it more apparent via party chat. If the player chooses Gemma, speaking to Rab while you're in Cobblestone will have him happily congratulate the Hero on finally tying the knot and add that his parents would be proud of him.
  • Rab also supports the idea of grandson hooking up with Jade, calling it a natural choice given she's the princess of Heliodor. If the player chooses to have the Luminary live with Jade, speaking to Rab in Cobblestone has him happily declare that the Houses of Dundrasil and Heliodor have been united at last.
• The Smart Guy: In addition to being the Sage of the group, he's also the most knowledgeable of the land of Erdrea.
• Team Dad: As the oldest member of the party, he functions as both a fatherly influence to them (and in the case of Jade and the hero, a Parental Substitute and a literal grandfather) by providing exposition and guidance.
• Tender Tears: Breaks into them on finally being able to tell the grave of his daughter and her husband that their child and thus his grandson the Luminary, is safe, sound, and knows the truth of his lineage, and that against all hope, he'd found the Luminary after presuming him dead for a decade and a half. He tears up again shortly after when he finds out his daughter inadvertently put her son in danger by leaving a letter telling him to seek King Carnelian for aid, unaware the king she trusted with her life was no longer himself.
• Too Kinky to Torture: Completing a quest in Angri-La will have an NPC reveal that Grand Master Pang had a student that would purposely screw up his tasks to face her punishment. It’s not hard to put two and two together. He did this so much over his six years of training with her that he racked up an unprecedented record beating from the Naughty Stick, 10,000 strikes in all.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Dundrasil sandwiches. Based on a comment in Lonalulu, these may be smoked salmon sandwiches.
• Turn Undead: His unique Pearly Gates spell is powerful regardless, but it is devastating against undead monsters.
• Uptown Girl: His wife worked as the clerk at a book store when he, a prince, first met her. This also explains why he didn't object to his daughter marrying a commoner.
• Weak, but Skilled: When using claws, he focuses more on dealing critical hits and striking several times at once over raw damage.
• Youngest Child Wins: In one of the random loading screen tidbits and Rab's episode in the Definitive version, it is briefly mentioned that Rab had two older brothers, yet Rab is the one that became king.

Jade

Jade ^note Martina in the Japanese version

Voiced by: Laura Aikman (English), Ami Koshimizu (Japanese) [Definitive version]

A wandering martial artist of extraordinary skill who travels in the company of Rab. When first met, she's fairly cold to the Luminary's party and seems unimpressed with them, focused entirely on her own private mission, but she has a much, much deeper link to the Luminary that only a few people know about...

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• Action Girl: The butt-kicking female warrior of the party, who wields both spears and claws with equal deadliness. Her attack power is every bit on par with the Luminary's, and she easily beats the crap out of basically everyone who crosses her before she even joins the team, let alone after.
• Ass Kicks You: Her Hip Drop.
• Badass Normal: By the standards of the series, at any rate, as Jade is the only party member who learns absolutely no magic whatsoever.
• Bait-and-Switch: If you choose to live with her, it will start to rain during the Tor-climbing sequence and she will suggest that she and the hero do something to keep warm. Especially since they are holding hands at the time, one might expect some Intimate Healing — instead, she wants a spar. The misleadingly seductive wording may be intentional on Jade's part given that the Luminary is surprised when she starts the spar and if he chooses to say "no" to her offer she'll teasingly ask if he's afraid and then assure him she'll "be gentle."
• Battle Couple: If the player chooses to have the Luminary live with her their interactions become like this, with a sweet handholding scene followed by a vicious sparring exercise.
• Big Sister Instinct: As a young child, after hearing Queen Eleanor was going to have a baby, she got quickly attached to the idea of being like a big sister to him and in the present she is very protective of him due to having blamed herself for his supposed death for sixteen years. When he ends up falling off of a cliff soon after they're properly reunited, she jumps off after him and uses her body to shield him from the impact of hitting the river below, swearing she'll never leave him alone again.
• Blow You Away: Jade's unique Pink Typhoon and Pink Tornado attacks hit all enemies on the field with a pink whirlwind. Some of her claw attacks also make use of wind.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: She was turned into a monster and enthralled to the Spectral Sentinel Booga. Although the heroes are able to free her from his control, a part of his magic lingers, letting Jade enter her Re-Vamp form at will.
• Brief Accent Imitation: When brainwashed by Booga, she mimics Rab's Drasilian accent when he tells her to stop fooling around and join them again.
• Bruiser with a Soft Center: She's introduced as a no-nonsense hardass, but her first bit of faltering is when she sees the Luminary's mark and realizes she's been fighting the boy she thought of as a little brother after spending sixteen years believing he was dead.
• Character Development: It's subtle, but for Jade this consists of moving past her regrets. In the post game she is able to tell her father she's reached a point where she no longer wishes to change things, happy with who she has become and the bonds she's been able to forge, a far cry from when the Luminary first reunites her and she expresses how when growing up she often wished she had died in the river instead of losing him.
• Charles Atlas Superpower: Aside from her Super Mode (and perhaps some of her allure powers like Sexy Beam), all her abilities are the result of regular training rather than magic or supernatural power and yet are well beyond what most humans in the setting can hope to achieve. As exemplified in one Party Talk conversation where she'll reminisce on the first time she was able to kick right through a brick wall.
  Jade: When I was the same age as these schoolgirls, I was studying too. Rab was teaching me how to perform the perfect roundhouse kick. I can still remember the very first time I was able to put my boot through a brick wall. Such happy days...
• Contralto of Strength: One of the most powerful front-line fighters in the party. The physical female fighter in the party is appropriately the deepest-voiced one.
• Critical Hit Class: Both of her weapon options give her multiple "critical hit" mechanics, including Thunder Thrust and its upgraded counterpart, Lightning Thrust. Hell, her Pep Up state gives her a bonus to her crit stat.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Even after being freed from Booga's control, she is able to access her demonic playboy bunny form willingly and uses it to fight alongside the heroes.
• Does Not Know Her Own Strength: Normally not an issue, but one bit of possible dialog should the Luminary choose to live with her is Jade apologizing for breaking a broom recently when she got too excited sweeping the house.
• Empowered Badass Normal: Once she learns Re-Vamp.
• Facepalm: She does one if she messes up on the Electro Light pep power, summoning mechanical monsters instead of the hoped for Metal Slime monsters.
• Fan Disservice: Her brainwashing by Booga comes off as this. She ends up being dressed in a racey bunny outfit with sheer tights and a lower-cut collar, and her dialogue absolutely drips with seduction and double entendres, including flirtatiously calling Hendrick (who she thinks of like a brother) Henny-wenny, and saying her body belongs to Booga in a sultry tone. Since Jade is a no-nonsense, graceful warrior princess this comes off as severely out of character and makes it obvious how much her mind is being messed with to act so differently. Even more so since her references to her body belonging to him imply she's had sex with Booga with the brainwashing making her like it. Thankfully, Definitive Edition reduces the squick a bit with the interlude to Act Two, having letters by Booga that make it apparent he actually thinks holding hands is the most indecent thing a couple can hope to do, and that he's actually waiting 10 years to hold the hands of his actual girlfriend. The abrupt character contrast still comes off as disservice, though. She gets him back for it by immediately kicking him to death after the battle against him, but jokingly immitates her "Henny-wenny" comment again to pretend she's still brainwashed. This does have the added implication that she remembers some of what she did while under Booga's control.
• First Girl Wins: Competes with Gemma for the title, depending on how you look at it. She knew the Luminary before any of his other potential partners, is the first girl seen with him in the game aside from his mother, and in the Definitive edition can be chosen as his lifelong romantic partner. Multiple characters note how her and the Luminary's personal history and that of their families make the relationship a natural outcome. Sylvando even outright calls them "the cutest couple".
• Form-Fitting Wardrobe: Her top in every single one of her costumes tightly clings to her chest, emphasizing her very large breasts.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: She's a Head-Turning Beauty in-universe, so it's only natural that she has the highest base charm stat out of the party. Since she's more focused on her martial arts than her good looks, though, she has fewer equipment options that increase said charm stat than Sylvando does.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: When she first shows she can now access and control her demonic form (right before she kills Booga), her glowing eyes get special attention as the rest of her is enveloped in magical energies. Interestingly, while she has red eyes in her demon form, the glow in this scene is golden.
• Head-Turning Beauty: It's practically a requirement for there to be at least one NPC per town that talks about how breathtakingly beautiful she is.
• Heroic Seductress: Part of her moveset involves charming her opponents.
• Hidden Depths: She's an excellent dancer, and even occasionally worked as one professionally to raise money during her travels with Rab.
• Hidden Buxom: Not so much in terms of her curves, but how she dresses. In all but one of her outfits, she completely covers up her chest and shows no cleavage whatsoever despite having such sizeable breasts. Her Xenlong outfit places armor on top of one of them and even her bikini is specifically large enough to show no cleavage from the front. This makes her Divine Bustier outfit stand out more, as it actually has a deep neckline that shows off her cleavage and just how large her chest is.
• An Ice Person: Jade's strongest attack in terms of raw damage is the Crushed Ice skill in her spear tree, provided her target doesn't resist ice.
• Jack of All Stats: Among the melee-oriented characters of the party, Jade fits this trope. She's not as hard-hitting as the Luminary, as fast as Erik, or as durable as Hendrik, but she hits very high marks in all three of those areas and has a wide variety of special attacks that allow her to adapt to almost any situation, making her a very customizable frontline warrior.
• Kick Chick:
  • In the main, not exclusively one, though her Fisticuffs tree is focused completely around kickboxing, in cutscenes she does utilizes kickboxing almost exclusively, her kickboxing skill is remarked on at length in the story, and her other personal tree still has a few moves... kind of like this, shall we say.
  • Curiously, there's a moment she can appear as an enemy in the battle engine during the Octagonia Tournament Arc, and for that appearance she actually has a completely unique idle stance and basic attack that is this trope in full — she doesn't use a spear or fist weapons, she attacks exclusively with kicks.
• Killer Rabbit: Her Re-Vamp form which puts her into a bunny girl outfit and boosts her stats.
• Leg Focus: Her martial arts skills feature this and several cutscenes during the game focus on her legs.
• Lightning Bruiser: She has very good speed and can reach sky-high attack power when using spears (and still put out good numbers with claw weapons)... and she can take a heck of a beating thanks to her good equipment selection ("medium" armors and helms) and the fact that she has the highest HP out of anyone in the party for most of the game, and one of her personal trees can make her even bulkier in this regard. Only when Hendrik joins is she finally outdone in that department. This makes her a great choice against breath weapon enemies and the like, since she can last a lot longer against them before needing a heal.
• Like Brother and Sister:
  • The Luminary is the closest thing Jade will ever have to a little brother, though there are hints that her feelings go deeper than that. A sidequest in Tickington has the Luminary do a rehearsal proposal to help someone out, and if he tries to pick Jade as the bride, she says she's "basically his older sister". When he asks anyway, she dumbfoundedly asks if he marrying his sister is what he wants, realizing he's still interested in her romantically. When he goes through with it, it becomes apparent she never thought highly enough of herself to consider the Luminary might be romantically attracted to her. Averted if the Luminary chooses to permanently live with her in S, where they develop a Battle Couple vibe and flirt by sparring, with Drustan pointing out that if the Luminary had been raised as a prince he and Jade might have already been married.
  • She's also described as having this dynamic with Hendrik, who acts as the stern but caring older brother to her rambunctious and rowdy younger sister.
• Magically Inept Fighter: Jade has zero magical aptitude in both might and mending, learning not a single spell, with all her attacks being in the Abilities tab. As a result, she also has the smallest MP bar in the party, which makes her run out of steam quickly without a steady diet of seeds of magic.
• Missing Mom: Her mother died not long after she was born, and as a result Queen Eleanor of Dundrasil — the Luminary's mother — was the closest thing to a mother figure she ever had, by her own admission. Needless to say, Eleanor being murdered was utterly devastating to the poor girl.
• Ms. Fanservice: The most attractive female in the cast, complete with big breasts and long legs. She also gets several alternative costumes, like a Battle Bikini, similar to that of Jessica from Dragon Quest VIII and one of her skill trees is Allure. Taken even further with her Re-Vamp spell, turning her into a demonic Playboy Bunny with super powers.
• My Greatest Failure: She spent a good decade and a half thinking that the Luminary died as a baby and that it was her fault for being a weak little four-year-old who couldn't hang on to his bassinet. To say that she's almost overwhelmed by emotion on discovering he's really alive would be an understatement. Even after their reunion, she still blames herself for the suffering he experienced because of her failure, referring to herself as having been too weak and stupid to fulfill Queen Eleanor's last wish. She outright says she wished it was the Luminary who Rab managed to rescue from the river instead of her. She comes to terms with her past by the end of the game, telling her father she is thankful for how things turned out.
• Naginatas Are Feminine: One of her major weapon types is spears, and her signature weapon, which she starts with, looks very much like a short-bladed naginata.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: In Octagonia's MMA tournament, her first bout features her beating the hell out of both Erik and his partner while her partner does nothing.
• Not So Above It All: Every once in a while Jade shows she has a bit of a lighter and even goofy side, such as when she teases Hendrik. She also very embarrassedly admits that Atsuo and Atsuko's monster act actually did frighten her at first.
• Playboy Bunny: Like Jessica from Dragon Quest VIII, Jade can dress as a bunny girl. Her bunny suit also takes visual cues from a Stage Magician, which she acts like when performing the Electro Light and Haulellujah Pep Powers.
• Primal Fear: She's not at all good with heights. That doesn't stop her leaping after the Luminary when he falls off a cliff in Act One.
• Princess Protagonist: Crown Princess of Heliodor and one of your main party members.
• Purple Is Powerful: Her strongest pre-Final Boss outfit is the Warrior Princess attire, a Battle Ballgown that's predominately purple in color. It bears visual similarities to the dress she wore while saving the Luminary from Mordegon's minions as a child, befitting for a princess all grown up.
• Raven Hair, Ivory Skin: Jade has fair skin and jet-black hair, and is frequently noted to be quite beautiful. Veronica literally gushes over her hair while describing it as "jet-black", and if Jade and the Luminary become a couple, Gemma gushes immensely over how silky, smooth and shiny her long black hair is, and expresses the desire to ask Jade how she gets it that way.
• Really Royalty Reveal: She is the daughter of King Carnelian, making her the Crown Princess of Heliodor, which is even her "job title". That said, when you first meet her, she's heavily estranged from her father and the retainers she used to know, and siding with the "Darkspawn" puts her in no position to be an inheritor.
• Recurring Element: As a tomboyish prinicess who serves as the party's fast-moving and hard-hitting martial artist, she brings to mind Alena from Dragon Quest IV.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: Heiress to the throne of Heliodor and a formidable martial artist.
• Ship Tease: Some of her Pep Powers heavily tease her with the Luminary, in particular Brownie Boost (in which Serena plays music for what can be interpreted as a mid-battle Dance of Romance).
  Jade: May I have this dance?
• Shipper on Deck: The Definitive version reveals her to be an avid shipper of the Hero and Serena, as choosing to live with Serena and then speaking with Jade in Cobblestone Village opens the following dialogue:
  Jade: (smiling) "YES! Serena is quite the catch. You must be feeling mighty proud of yourself to end up with her. You be sure to treat her properly, alright?"
• Shock and Awe: Jade learns a few lightning-elemental attacks if she studies spears.
• Showgirl Skirt: Her Warrior Princess and Warrior Goddess costumes are both fancy dresses with open skirts, all the better to kick ass in all her finery with.
• Siblings Wanted: Of the "motivated by loneliness" variety. In one party talk she remarks that as a only child she often wished she had siblings growing up, explaining why she sought out surrogates in Hendrik, Jasper and the Luminary (the latter so she could be the big sister).
• Stripperiffic: Her normal outfit already reveals quite a bit of her arms, legs and stomach, but the majority of her alternate costumes are even more form-fitting and revealing.
• Strong Family Resemblance: A teacher at the L'Academie de Notre Maitre les Medailles describes Jade's mother in very similar terms to Jade herself.
• Super Mode: After Booga's defeat, she gains the ability to enter her Jinxed Jade form at will via the Re-Vamp skill, boosting all of her stats and increasing her resistance to status effects. Physically the only changes aside from her clothes are her gaining red eyes and a greyish skin color. Interestingly, there are indications her demon form is her own power rather than something Booga gave her. Not only can she control it when freed from his spell (unlike everyone else he used his powers on who simply returned to normal), but in the postgame The Elder awakens the power in her despite Jade having never encountered Booga in this timeline. In Party Talk after this she remarks that it feels like The Elder awakened something that's always been in her, waiting.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: To both Princess Medea and Jessica from Dragon Quest VIII. Like the former, Jade a dark-haired princess who knew the protagonists since they were children. Like the latter, she is the party's resident Ms. Fanservice (equipped with her own Playboy Bunny outfit like Jessica's) who can be a romance option in a Updated Re Release version their respective games.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: Tries her very hardest to act like she isn't freezing when in Sniflheim, even when it's painfully obvious that she is.
• Sweet Tooth: The party chat in Gondolia reveals that she has this, just like her father King Carnelian.
• Three Faces of Eve: The Seductress; the only one of the female party members who exploits her sex appeal, to the point of having several combat skills dedicated to seducing the enemy.
• Tomboy with a Girly Streak: She's a powerful and somewhat masculine martial artist who nonetheless is unafraid to use her feminine charm to her advantage in battle, and is just as obsessed with the sweets served in Gondolia as the rest of the party's women (and Sylvando). She also enjoys getting manicures as a way of unwinding.
• Town Girls: The Butch; unlike the slightly sheltered Veronica and Serena, she's a hardened wanderer who serves as one of the party's strongest frontline fighters.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Sweets (like her father) and Heliodorian cuisine.
• Tragic Keepsake: Jade's Belle's Bow accessory originally belonged to her late mother when she was a girl at the Academy.
• Trojan Prisoner: In Octagonia, she allows Vince Vanquish to abduct her so that she can find out what happened to the other missing fighters. When Vince sets her seemingly unconscious body down before Arachtagon, she quickly pops up, ready for battle.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Flashbacks from certain characters and an extended flashback to the fall of Dundrasil show that she was a slightly bratty (as might be expected of a princess) but ultimately still very kind, soft-hearted girl. More than a decade of travel, hardship, and personal training spurred on by her own self-hatred for letting the Luminary "die" has turned her into one of Erdrea's fiercest martial artists, with an initially icy disposition to match. Hendrik is particularly astounded by the change at first.
• Vague Age: She's older than the Luminary, and was old enough to walk and talk fluently when they were a newborn, but her exact age is not listed in the character book.
• Weight Woe: Along with the more typical fear of gaining weight after gorging on sweets, she worries about the ease at which she builds muscle while training.
• Wingding Eyes: Like Sylvando, she gains heart irises in her eyes when using Pink Typhoon and Pink Tornado.
• World's Most Beautiful Woman: Jade is certainly a contender for this, as is mentioned in Head-Turning Beauty. Seemingly every NPC in the game that takes note of her praises her extraordinary beauty, women included.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Done to catch both Vince and Hendrik off guard.
• Wolverine Claws: One of her weapons of choice. She can learn skills that let her do Critical Hit more often and Life Drain from enemies.

Number Eight (SPOILERS)

Hendrik^note Greg in the Japanese version

Voiced by: John Hopkins (English), Rikiya Koyama (Japanese) [Definitive version]

The general of the Kingdom of Heliodor who is known for his strong sense of duty and loyalty. He has defeated countless monsters in the service of his kingdom and would gladly lay down his life to protect his lord. Under the king's order, he pursues the hero.

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• Accent Slip-Up: Though very subtle, Hendrik drops his Ts in certain pronunciations, which is a call-back/hint to him being Zwaardsrustian.
• And Your Reward Is Clothes: In the Definitive Edition, winning the Duel Boss against Jasper's spirit grants him charm-boosting, beguilement-repelling golden armour, forged from their spirits joining forces.
• Ambiguously Bi: Has a definite interest in women given his interest in the Ogler's Digest magazines. However, in one of the sections in Tickington, the Hero can participate in a wedding rehearsal and ask one of his party members to act as his bride. If he picks Hendrik, he'll at first think he's seriously proposing to him and reluctantly accept though feels that they both should get to know each other better. Once he realizes it's actually just for a rehearsal, he'll laugh it off and play along.
• Ambiguously Related: While it's never said outright like it is with Veronica and Serena's relation to Serenica, Hendrik is stated to look very and act very similarly to the legendary warrior Drustan who accompanied the original Luminary on his quest; implying that he is either his Reincarnation or descendant.
• Anti-Villain: He clearly takes no joy in hunting a teenager with the expressed purpose of murdering him (at most, early in the game he has a kind of grim satisfaction when he think he's keeping the world safe), but he genuinely believes it's the only way to stop the chaos currently engulfing the world.
• The Atoner: In the second half of the game and in the new timeline, he joins the party in order to make up for the crimes he committed in the first half.
• Avenging the Villain: Speaking to Hendrik after Jasper's death will show him making peace with his former friend and promising to avenge him, by killing the one who led him down the path to darkness.
• Badass Bookworm: When the group is encamped, he can sometimes be found reading by the fire. He's also fond of less high-brow literature as well.
• Badass Longcoat: Sports one in his General and Field Marshal outfit sets.
• BFS: He defaults to two-handed swords in cutscenes.
• The Big Guy: He easily towers over everyone else in the Luminary's group and he has the highest strength and defense.
• Black Knight: His position as the right-hand man of King Carnelian, which is further emphasized with his armor being black. He ditches the getup for more practical traveling clothes in the second half of the game, but it is still available as one of his alternate outfits
• Brains and Brawn: He's known as Heliodor's indomitable warrior in contrast to Jasper's reputation as its unrivaled tactician. He's not without brains himself, though, and is shown to be respectably eloquent, well-read and insightful throughout the game.
• Brains Evil, Brawn Good: Played with. He's both the brawn of the two generals and is a Dark Is Not Evil Hero Antagonist while Jasper is an Obviously Evil Smug Snake, but he gets that reputation only he's dumber than Jasper; that's hardly a low bar, and Hendrik is a perceptive Genius Bruiser.
• Can't Hold His Liquor: In his character book interview, he admits to falling drowsy as soon as he starts drinking, and that he challenges himself not to fall asleep when attending banquets.
• Cast from Hit Points: Hendrik's final level-up spell is "Kerplunk", which kills him to fully-heal everyone else in the party... allowing someone else to revive him, of course, if they have the time.
• Cerebus Retcon: When afflicted with the dancing status ailment, Hendrik performs a variant of a traditional Japanese bon dance that is rather goofy and unfitting for someone of his frame. While one might dismiss this dance as simply being a joke poking fun at his stodginess, the character book reveals that it actually originated in his ruined home country of Zwaardsrust, where it was performed during festivals, and his memorization of it is his way of honoring the legacy of his fallen people. With this knowledge in mind, seeing Hendrik do the dance becomes bittersweet instead of funny.
• Charles Atlas Superpower: According to the Character Book under Don Rodrigo, Hendrick was rather clumsy during training, but trained far more than anyone else. He wasn't naturally talented as a knight, he earned it.
• Chick Magnet: After the defeat of Mordegon, he attracts the attention of several women in Arboria.
• Choice of Two Weapons: One-handed and two-handed swords and axe.
• The Comically Serious: He's serious as a heart attack regarding just about everything, which provides the majority of the humor surrounding his character. While traveling with the Soldiers of Smile, watching Hendrik try to remain his usual stoic self after Sylvando somehow convinced him to dress up in a clown suit has to be seen to be believed.
• Conflicting Loyalty: Learning that his princess and Lord Robert, who he greatly respects, are not only alive but are firmly on the "Darkspawn's" side shakes his previously absolutely firm loyalty to Carnelian. Learning of Jasper's role in the Sniflheim crisis compounds this further, to the point that he lets the party go despite being fully capable of facing them in order to investigate further.
• Cool Horse: Obsidian, a mighty black stallion only comfortable around Hendrik.
• Covert Pervert: He's a connoisseur of Ogler's Digest, enough to recognize its first issue from a glance and temporarily gush over its rarity, and shows clear interest in both Erdrea's abundance of bunny girls and the ever-elusive Puff-Puff. He's quick to act sheepish and make excuses for himself when these feelings come out, though. It actually factors into gameplay, as he innately has a severe weakness to Puff-Puff-related attacks; even moreso than Rab, implying that he's the biggest pervert in the party.
• Crutch Character: He will likely serve as the party's key to survival against Mordegon during his stint as a Guest-Star Party Member at the beginning of Act Three, as his invincibility and access to the Forbearance skill will soak up attacks that the rest of the party will otherwise have great difficulty recovering from. When he rejoins as a full party member afterwards, while still very strong, he reverts back to whatever stats he had before the player traveled back in time and loses access to Forbearance until the Fraternity branch of his skill tree is unlocked.
• Dark and Troubled Past: He was originally from the Kingdom of Zwaardsrust, the first kingdom to fall to the monsters' return, and is one of the few known survivors.
• Dark Is Not Evil: While initially an antagonist, his Black Knight armor is in stark contrast to his genuinely noble Anti-Villain nature.
• Declaration of Protection: A triumphant one towards the hero when they confront the usurper together. It becomes a recurring line through the rest of the game.
• Defrosting Ice King: He will eventually warm up to the hero and reminisce about his past, apologizing for how he treated them as an enemy.
• Don't Make Me Destroy You: Tries to threaten Jade this way during the third encounter with him, but he is ultimately unable to bring himself to act on it. Jade takes advantage of this by catching him off guard and stealing his horse.
• Doomed Hometown: He's a survivor of the destruction of Zwaardrust, and it was his desire to prevent others from experiencing the same loss and trauma that he did as a result of it that motivated him into becoming a knight.
• Dual Wielding: Can opt to equip a sword or axe in each hand.
• Fatal Flaw: His loyalty to his king is so great that he never thinks to question his orders; if he had, he would probably have seen through the Darkspawn lie instantly, since, as a Zwaardsrustian refugee, Hendrik has personally seen large-scale monster attacks that predate the teenaged Luminary's birth by more than a decade, which would prove that said large-scale attack is not even remotely his fault.
• Force and Finesse: Both he and Sylvando trained in swordsmanship under Don Rodrigo, but while Hendrik relies primarily on his tremendous strength, Sylvando instead focuses on graceful swordplay. While discussing their days training together in the character book, Sylvando reminisces about a time when he parried one of Hendrik's attacks during a mock battle only to be launched backwards from the force of the blow; highlighting both of their respective strengths as swordsmen.
• Freudian Excuse: The reason he believes so strongly in Carnelian's accusations against the party is because he's seen firsthand the horrors the Luminary has supposedly brought to the world, first when his homeland and family were massacred by monsters, and then when Dundrasil fell.
• Gameplay and Story Integration
  • As a Covert Pervert who is adored by the ladies, he has an innate major weakness to Puff-Puff and related feminine charm attacks.
  • Having earned his status as Heliodor's greatest knight, he has an innate major resistance to the fear status effect.
  • Being a stoic man most of the time, he has an innate major resistance to laughter-inducing moves.
  • He is mentioned to rely more on brute force than finesse in his swordplay, which is reflected in his having the lowest Deftness out of the entire party in exchange for the highest base strength.
• Genius Bruiser: He's known as the strongest knight in all of Heliodor but is also very well-read and worldly on top of that. His preferred way to unwind is reading books, and he can often be seen with one when the party rests at a campfire.
• Good Costume Switch: After his Heel–Face Turn, he changes from his Black Knight armor to a Blue Is Heroic padded armor set. You can later recover his Black Knight armor as a costume, however, once you regain access to Sylvando and the Salty Stallion, and mosey on over to Gondolia. In the third act he gets a gold version of his original armor.
• Good Is Not Soft: A stern and driven man with a strong code of honour, he will show mercy to the innocent but never to those he believes to be wicked. He mellows out a bit as a party member, but is just as ruthless with your enemies as he was with you.
• Guilt Complex: Tends to needlessly blame himself for causing problems for other people, particularly after the fall of Yggdrasil.
• Heavy Equipment Class: Not only capable with Greatswords and Heavy Armor like the Luminary, but is the only party member that can use Axes.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: Hendrik is incredibly self-critical and can often be quite sullen when made to talk about himself, despite everyone around him seeing him for the paragon of knightly virtue that he truly his.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: After Mordegon rises, while many of the surviving populace of Erdrea still see him as a hero and Hope Bringer, many others, such as the monks of Angri-La, have not forgotten the crimes he and Heliodor as a whole committed in the first half of the game.
• He's All Grown Up: Sylvando describes him as having been awkward and meek when he was younger, whereas he's the perfect picture of courageous knighthood as an adult.
• Hidden Depths: Though he has pledged his life in service to Heliodor and clearly thinking of the country as his home, he still feels a deep attachment to his birthplace, the fallen kingdom of Zwaardsrust, and takes upholding its traditions seriously. For example: the goofy dance he performs when under the influence of an enemy attack is actually a customary dance performed by the people of Zwaardsrust during festivals that he has memorized by heart despite having only seen a few times in his very early childhood. As he is implied to be the reincarnation of Drustan, the founder of Zwaardsrust, this devotion may run deeper than even he realizes.
  • There's also an example before his Heel–Face Turn; after Krystalinda mentions Jasper while freezing him and the Luminary, and after the Luminary's party frees them both, Hendrik leaves instead of resuming his encounter with him; he cares more about Jasper (and/or his betrayal) than catching the "Darkspawn".
• Hope Bringer: At the beginning of the second act, he acts as this to the people of Heliodor while the hero is out of commission.
• Hunk: Handsome in a more traditionally masculine way than the other male party members.
• An Ice Person: If he uses greatswords, Hendrik can learn the ice-based Frost Fangs attack.
• Innocently Insensitive: Flashbacks reveal that Jasper isn't entirely exagerrating when he claims that Hendrik began to ignore him after overtaking him in fame, but it's made clear that Hendrik wasn't conscious of his friend's feelings at the time and would never do anything to deliberately hurt him.
• It's All My Fault: In Act Two, he blames himself for the fall of Yggdrasil and Veronica's death, because he was the one that brought the possessed King Carnelian to the world tree.
• Knight in Shining Armor: He is praised as such by people for his loyalty and bravery; in fact, Octagonia even has a statue of him in front of a colosseum.
• The Lancer: Becomes this to the hero's, well, The Hero in the second half of the game.
• Large Ham: While he's a stone-faced, serious knight through and through, his overblown reactions to certain things (such as discovering that Sylvando is Norberto or that Rab owns a mint condition copy of the first issue of Ogler's Digest) put him squarely in this territory. Even when the thing that he's reacting to is relatively innocuous, he responds to it as though it's as much Serious Business as his knightly duties are.
• Lightning Bruiser: While normally a Mighty Glacier, he gets an enormous speed boost when pepped up (2.5 times his regular speed with the Pep Up Power Up bonus active), making him the second-fastest party member after Erik.
• Like Brother and Sister: He's described as having this sort of dynamic with Jade when she was little, and shades of it can still be seen in their interactions after he joins the party.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Upon catching Jasper making a move for Yggdrasil's Heart, Hendrik denounces him and prepares to fight him on behalf of King Carnelian... who then Zam's him In the Back, having been a puppet of Jasper's true boss all along.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: The only party member who can learn skills associated with equipping a shield, which makes him an ideal tank.
• Magic Knight: Though leaning on the "Knight" side of things, he learns a handful of healing and buff spells, and gains access to more when his skill tree expands in Act Three.
• Manly Facial Hair: Sports a striking goattee to go with his generally manly image. The loading screen mentions that he grew it out specifically to look like King Carnelian.
• Mighty Glacier: Has attack and defense skills that let him deal much damage and take much in turn but is generally the slowest member of the party.
• Mirror Character: The character book raises this theory in regard to his relationship with Jasper, arguing that Hendrik may have also had a subconscious inferiority complex regarding his friend's intelligence and popularity with women (two qualities that Hendrik is often very critical about his own perceived lack of) that caused him to inadvertently overlook his feelings and sour their relationship.
• Mr. Fanservice: His General and Field Marshal costumes give him a very nice looking suit while Drustan's armor shows off his abs and his muscular arms and legs.
• My Country, Right or Wrong: Even if he didn't have personal reasons to latch on to the Darkspawn legend, he outright tells Jade in the third encounter with him that he is a loyal knight and enforcer to Carnelian and Heliodor above all else, which Jade replies has always been his Fatal Flaw. Letting go of this mindset is a big part of his Character Development in the second act.
• My Greatest Failure: Comes to view allowing himself to be deceived by Mordegon while he was in possession of King Carnelian as this after becoming a party member. This is particularly pertinent in the original timeline, where doing so resulted in the collapse of the world tree and the world being plunged into darkness.
• Nerves of Steel: As a bold and courageous knight, he has an innate major resistance to any skills that induce the frightened status effect.
• Nice Guy: He's kind, compassionate, and far more critical of himself than he is of others. Even during his time as an antagonist, the game makes it clear that he is a noble man who is doing what he believes is necessary to save the world and takes no pleasure in hunting the party.
• Noble Top Enforcer: To King Carnelian. Most clearly shown when he stopped Jasper from executing the residents of Cobblestone.
• No Sympathy: Subverted with Jasper. He gives a single brief, pained look when Jasper Unbound fades away, immediately wanting to continue the quest and not dwell on his fallen friend. When Jasper reappears not soon after for one last hurrah, though, Hendrik engages him at length, shows him some kindness, and lets him die happily.
• Not So Above It All: When he finds Rab's copy of Ogler's Digest, he gets rather excited even identifying it as a first edition and in mint condition. Up until this point Hendrik had always been presented as a very upright, strait-laced figure.
  • This is further illustrated when in The Battleground, Hendrik can comment in party chat about there being an angel who gives Puff-Puff there, and is eager to see her.
• Not So Stoic: He lurches backward in shock, complete with a lightning bolt effect, and screams in agony when he finally realizes that Sylvando is his old friend Norberto.
• Older Sidekick: A loading screen blurb mentions that both he and Jasper are 36 years old, so he becomes this to the 16 (or potentially 17 at that point)-year-old Luminary upon joining the party.
• The Paladin: His character is built in such a way: a powerful, heavy-armoured fighter with access to heals, defensive buffs, and the Heroism tree. He can be played as either a fantastic tank or a powerful damage-dealer.
• Playing with Fire: Like all swordsmen, he can learn the Flame Slash technique.
• Primal Fear: He fears darkness and bugs.
• The Reveal: His destroyed homeland is revealed to be Zwaardsrust, the kingdom founded by Drustan, of whom Hendrik is heavily implied to be a reincarnation.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The blue to Sylvando's red; Hendrik is somewhat-introverted and calm for the most part, and he takes control and authority with being a Heliodorian general. His default outfit heavily features blue, too.
• Secret Test of Character: He and Sylvando can go through one in act three, courtesy of Don Rodrigo. Completing it unlocks the Fraternity skill tree for Hendrik.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Hendrik's stoic nature is sometimes used to contrast the extremely flamboyant Sylvando. Interestingly, Sylvando's confidence and decisiveness are also used to contrast Hendrik's occasional bouts of awkwardness and self-doubt. This is highlighted by their respective skill trees, which are identical in shape but expand in opposite directions (Sylvando begins with access to the bottom cluster of his skill tree while Hendrik has access to the top). After they prove themselves as knights in the postgame, they each gain access to the missing sections.
• Serious Business: Judging by his reaction to seeing a mint condition, first edition copy of the Ogler's Digest, he takes his dirty magazines just as seriously as he does being a knight.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: His Field Marshal and General outfits give him this look.
• Sir Not-Appearing-in-This-Trailer: His joining the party at all is completely ignored in promotional materials, likely to maintain the surprise when it happens.
  • Subverted in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, where there's a Spirit for the "Hero's Comrades"; Hendrik is in the artwork, which could be a spoiler for those who hadn't yet played the game.
• Sixth Ranger: He doesn't join the party until Act Two. And in Act Three, when the Luminary goes back in time, he isn't in the party until after defeating Mordegon at Heliodor Castle.
• The Stoic: While far from emotionless, he makes a concerted effort to maintain the air of reserved dignity expected of a knight at all times. This makes his general demeanor stand in rather stark contrast to the rest of the party, who are all to varying degrees expressive and jovial, and causes the moments when his calm is broken to be either hilarious or heart-wrenching.
• Taking the Bullet: As a Guest-Star Party Member, he can use the Forbearance skill, allowing him to absorb hits for the party for a turn. However, he can't use this ability once he becomes controllable. At least not until his Fraternity skill tree becomes available in Act Three.
• Technician Versus Performer: The Technician to Sylvando's Performer in terms of swordplay. Hendrik is not the naturally gifted swordsman that Sylvando is, and so had to achieve his current success as a knight through nonstop practice and rigorous training. This is reflected in his moveset, where he is squarely focused on both giving and taking as much damage as possible compared to Sylvando, who is more of a Jack of All Trades that does a bit of everything.
• Took a Level in Kindness: At the beginning of the second act, despite being no longer an enemy, Hendrik acts cold to the hero due to heavy pressure from defending the Last Bastion and guilt from the atrocities he committed in the first act. However, once they successfully drive out the forces of darkness from Heliodor region and travel together to end Mordegon's reign of terror, he becomes considerably nicer.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Any kind of mushroom.
• True Companions: Averted with Jasper; although they have the reputation of stalwart brothers defending the kingdom together, and they used to be this in their youth, their friendship soured long ago. Played wonderfully straight with Hendrik and the party though.
• Undying Loyalty: To King Carnelian, the royal family, and Heliodor. He actually has a late-game epiphany about this if spoken to, realizing that blind loyalty is not good enough to save the world and that he needs to stand with you as a comrade, not a follower.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: He leads King Carnelian, then possessed by Mordegon, up to the World Tree, where the Luminary, the Heart of Yggdrasil and the Sword of Light all wait for him.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Type one with Jasper. He doesn't work out Jasper was jealous of him until the first boss fight of Act Two, and was VERY oblivious to his feelings for over sixteen years.