An assortment of warriors, scholars, and dignitaries who left their tribes to help Aloy restore GAIA and learn about the Old Ones. They live in "the Base" (official name: Regional Control Center 9), a mountain enclave in the middle of the Forbidden West.
Since 'The Base' is a start-of-mid-game feature of Horizon Forbidden West, all spoilers pertaining to events up until that point, including everything about Horizon Zero Dawn should be considered Late Arrival Spoilers by this point, and are thus unmarked.
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General team tropes
- Arbitrarily Large Bank Account: It's never quite explained how the base becomes so extensively furnished, but enough team members have government jobs/political influence/battle loot that funding would realistically not be a problem. They are also each hardened survivalists in a primeval setting- even if they wanted luxuries, there aren't many in existence.
- Augmented Reality: Every human on the team sports a Focus for networked communications, data access, and augmented perception (or "The Second Sight" as some of Aloy's allies called it previously) while in the field. Kotallo calls it "the most powerful weapon he's ever possessed" on account of the little device's ability to lay bare all a targeted machine's strengths and weaknesses.
- Badass Crew: Each member has many unique skills that make them all that more badass and are completely unstoppable against their enemies, both man and machine.
- Battle Trophy: All of them really; Kotallo has a Scorcher heart as well as shelves of strike pieces which the winner can claim from a loser after a game, Aloy has her necklaces and several collectibles throughout the story, even Zo gets more seeds and plants as you complete her questline.
- The Chosen Many: While Aloy is The Chosen One by nature of being cloned from Elizabeth Sobeck, thus having her genetics and allowing her access to the gene-locked vaults of Zero Dawn, by the Forbidden West she is eventually convinced by the stubbornness of her friends and comrades that this is not something she can do on her own. As a result, she begins to induct said friends into the workings of the Old World. She, or her sister, Beta, is still needed, physically, to enter Zero Dawn facilities, but the others absolutely pull their weight
- Clones Are People, Too: It takes most of them a while to get their head around the concept of clones, but once that hurdle is passed, absolutely none of them treat clones as any less than a person in their own right.
- GAIA is technically not the same person as the GAIA responsible for the biosphere they all inhabit - doesn't make her any less revered by the Base Team.
- Aloy is a clone of Elizabeth Sobeck, but between the difference in age between Sobeck when she died and Aloy in the present, most don't consider that they're practically genetically identical, instead viewing Sobeck as Aloy's mother (even if the concept that Aloy is indirectly descended from the Old Ones takes some getting used to).
- Beta is another clone of Elizabeth Sobeck, created by Far Zenith, but while the team takes a while to come around to the fact that there are two 'Aloys' running around, once they do, absolutely no one treats Beta as anything less than a person. In fact, the source of Beta's Clone Angst is because she (and Aloy) feel she isn't living up to Elizabeth's example, not that she - somehow - is not her own person.
- Creepy Basement: Oh yes, there's a secret room you can find by going through the air ducts which makes you think you're going to fight some undead monstrosity. but in this game, you find some Apocalyptic Log that cause you to shed a tear.
- Elaborate Underground Base: Tau, having been built by Old Ones, survived the centuries with only some water damage and unopenable doors to show for it. Included are electronic lights, a small barracks, and a server room capable of hosting sapient A.I.s.
- Fill It with Flowers: The base is sterile-looking and plasticky, so Zo (somehow) retrofitted parts of it into gardens. Presumably its lights are the plant-sustaining kind.
- Family of Choice: To a greater or lesser extent. There's no doubt that they all, Sylens possibly excluded, care about each other - but whether it is as more than friends depend on the the people in question. The two solid familial ties is between Aloy and Beta, who consider each other sisters, while Zo and Varl have a romantic relationship that would have grown into a familial one if Varl had survived GEMINI.
- Fire of Comfort: Candles are omnipresent throughout the base, and one of its doors is flanked by a campfire. The candles are added as the plot progresses, contrasting with the base's artificial and limited electronic lights, which MINERVA used to threaten.
- Have You Seen My God?: A few of them individually deal with this having their entire belief systems overturned by the revelations of Gaia's role in making their ancestors and what their varying forms of Precursor Worship now mean to them.
- Hitchhiker Heroes: The founder initially went to great lengths to avoid working with others, but being followed over hundreds of miles and almost dying alone caused her to reconsider.
- Mechanical Horse: They all get to ride machine horses thanks to the focuses and tech Aloy can provide them, which lets them spread the world much easier.
- Membership Token: Each of them wears a Focus behind one ear. Other than reading and storing data, it enables them to communicate easily over vast distances.
- Mental Fusion: Of a sort: Because of the foci they all wear, it is rare for one of them to not be aware of what the others have experienced as they are capable of viewing events they weren't present for. Combine this with the ability to transfer information and knowledge across a space that those without foci cannot see, and it occasionally looks to an outsider like they are all sharing their thoughts with each other.
- Multinational Team: All the members come from different tribes.
- Aloy and Varl both originate with the Nora, though Aloy distanced herself from them and is arguably closer to the Old Ones, even if she's visually Still Wearing the Old Colors of the Nora.
- GAIA is an AI created by the Old Ones to run a terraforming system after she had defeated the Faro Plague.
- Erend is Oseram, and also a member of the Carja Sun-King's vanguard.
- Zo is an Utaru gravesinger.
- Kotallo is a Tenakth Marshal.
- Beta was created by Far Zenith before defecting from them.
- Alva is a Diviner of the Quen tribe from across the pacific.
- Sylens is a Banuk shaman, though other Banuk familiar with him question if he's really one of them.
- No OSHA Compliance: Nobody ever blocked up the empty elevator shaft in all the time they've lived in Tau.
- Order Reborn: Downplayed, but Gaia does talk about how the base was where 'new alphas' were meant to direct the later steps of the terraforming project. In working with Aloy, they essentially take over the mission of the original Zero Dawn project and its intended recipients.
- Rag Tag Bunch Of Misfits: Each team member has their quirks and struggles that make them different from each other:
- Aloy is an Outcast-turned-Nora Seeker who felt only she could save the world.
- GAIA is a Benevolent A.I. made to run a terraforming system and educate humanity following its eradication by the Faro Plague, neither of which she can do properly because of outside factors that she cannot solve herself.
- Varl is a Nora Brave who wants to make sure Aloy doesn't run off on her own and can match her stubborness blow for blow.
- Erend is an Oseram with low self-esteem and often compares himself negatively to his friends and, in true Oseram fashion, is always up for a scrap and a drink.
- Zo is one of the few members of the peaceful Utaru tribe who is more than willing to foreswear traidition and fight to change the world for the better.
- Kotallo is a stoic Tenakth Marshal who lost his arm early in the events of the Forbidden West - something that within a tribe which values physical capability would see him shunned, but which leads him to being the Base's tactical expert.
- Alva is a quirky historian from the Quen tribe who is curious about Old World technology.
- Beta is a clone raised as a tool until she escaped.
- Sylens is an unrepentent Nominal Hero, but short of Beta he's the most familiar with old world technology.
Aloy
Aloy despite the Nora.
See her tropes on her page here. GAIA
GAIA
Voiced by: Lesley Ewen (English)
To this end, Project Zero Dawn spent the remaining time of the Old Ones' civilisation to create GAIA and the subfunctions that would aid her in this task, after which they hid in bunkers and let GAIA outlive them while she worked on gaining the deactivation codes necessary to deactivate the Faro Swarm.
She succeeded, and - after a few false starts - managed to re-create a stable biosphere that had been around for centuries by the time the Extinction Signal seperated her from her subfunctions - reasoning that HADES would take over the terraforming system and erase the biosphere, she self-destructed after causing a cradle facility to produce a clone of her creator, Elizabeth Sobeck, with the hope that she would eventually manage to reboot the terraforming system free of the Extinction Signal's influence, setting the events of the series in motion with the 'birth' of Aloy.
GAIA is supposed to be aided by nine subordinate functions, each of which are quasi-AI in their own right - for more information on those, check the Project Zero Dawn page.
- Assimilation Plot: GAIA wants to bring all of her subordinate functions back to herself in Forbidden West. This is treated as far more benevolent than most plots of the type, as GAIA's goal is to help humans and revive the race. Even further, the subordinate AI were never meant to be sapient, and only HEPHAESTUS has no interest in going back:
- MINERVA considers it a mercy to go back to GAIA, clearly having been miserable since her severence.
- AETHER, DEMETER, and POSEIDON are having trouble on their own because they require GAIA to put their goals into context, as without her they only understand their own goals and can't consider anything else, leaving the Land, Sea, Sky trio in competition with each other when they should be cooperating.
- Even more, integration with GAIA finally allows ARTEMIS to complete her task and APOLLO would be able to begin his once the corruption from Far Zenith is corrected.
- HADES is the only one of the subfunctions that is never assimilated back. By the time GAIA is rebooted, HADES is Deader than Dead, with no copies of it left in the world. Even then, GAIA makes it quite clear that she has no intention of resetting this biosphere, and HADES as such, has Outlived Its Usefulness
- Anthropomorphic Personification: Of Mother Nature. She is depicted as an African woman, fittingly given the "Out of Africa" theory of humanity's birthplace.
- Back from the Dead: Using a backup copy of GAIA's base Kernel, and the subordinate functions from the original GAIA, the AI is remade anew. She scans Aloy's focus' files to basically plug the holes in her development, while containing the original subordinate functions allows her rebuild its heuristic functions as they were before her previous instance self-destructed.
- Clones Are People, Too: The second iteration of GAIA installed into the Zero Dawn system has no problem differentiating Aloy from her creator/mother, Elisabet Sobeck, regarding Aloy as a distinct person. Likewise, Beta also is not held up by GAIA as just a copy of Dr. Sobeck. She also differentiates herself from the previous iteration of GAIA that operated the Zero Dawn system before the Nemesis signal sundered her, calling her "my predecessor". Curiously, the previous iteration of GAIA seemed to not differentiate this Sobeck clone she created in her last moments as distinct from Dr. Sobeck herself in GAIA's final message.
- Creative Sterility: Downplayed in that she's not incapable of creative thinking and problem sollution, as that was part of her design from the start. However, without HEPHAESTUS, the reborn GAIA is not able to design or create new machines, even with access to cauldrons, as HEPHAESTUS was designed to be her creative ability.
- Dead All Along: GAIA has in fact been inactive for nearly two decades. She self-destructed her core shortly after Aloy was born.
- Deity of Human Origin: In a manner of speaking. GAIA is the creation of Elisabet Sobeck and her team, and being as she is a sentient being who has the ability to shape the world and create life, she serves all the necessary functions of a god.
- Deus est Machina: She's basically a creator goddess. An AI creator goddess made by man.
- Determinator: She protects and creates life, no matter the cost. Even when HADES starts dismantling all her core functions, she refuses to back down and creates one final desperate plan to set things right: a clone of Elisabet Sobeck, Aloy.
- Doppelgänger Gets Same Sentiment: In the second game, an old archived copy of GAIA is retrieved and rebooted. This GAIA dates back to before Zero Day and always verbally distinguishes herself from her "predecessor", the GAIA who actually brought life back from that brink, though she remains confident in her abilities to do the same thing given the same resources. Aloy, Varl, Zo, and Erend still always refer to her as one, continuous being.
- Even the Loving Hero Has Hated Ones: Sobeck created GAIA to feel empathy and to love all living creatures on Earth, but even she has nothing good to say about Ted Faro for screwing over the world twice. When talking about him with Aloy, GAIA calls him "pathologically narcistic, impulsive and unstable," with the same tone she normally speaks with to everyone, but tinged with some disdain towards Faro.
- Fertility God: While GAIA as a whole was created for this basically an A.I. tasked with recreating an entire biosphere after a global extinction event, the specific functions that helped nurture life in the new world were DEMETER, which recreated plant life; ARTEMIS which recreated certain animal life; and ELEUTHIA, which created human beings and gave them a very limited early education.
- The Fettered: Argues that she should be restricted instead of being given free rein during construction of Zero Dawn, even agreeing with Ted Faro that a master override be installed in her systems should she ever become a danger to humanity. This comes back to haunt her as her insistence on being programmed with strict protocols and restrictions meant she couldn’t prevent Ted from deleting APOLLO, as well as being unable to directly communicate with humanity’s descendants after the Faro Plague.
- Fling a Light into the Future:
- She is the Light herself: Created by the Old Ones to defeat the Faro Plague, then ensure that the biosphere would be recreated, and life continue to flourish on the Earth even long after The Old Ones were all eaten by the Faro Plague.
- She specifically cloned Aloy from Elisabet Sobeck's DNA to stop HADES from eradicating all life from the Earth, and in the possible hopes of bringing back all of her subordinate functions, and one day herself.
- Friend to All Living Things: Was specifically designed to love and delight in living things due to her function. Elisabet did this because she believed that GAIA would not fight as hard for life if she didn't have some skin in the game herself. This love for life even extends to her enemies. While she recognizes Far Zenith as a threat that must be dealt with, she nevertheless displays reluctance to use lethal force against them.
- Gold and White Are Divine: GAIA's logo and dress shift colors but are most often green (and conversely, HADES's circuitry is obviously red and black), but the node in which she converses with Sobeck is in yellow. When GAIA's core intelligence is restored from a backup inside the Tau facility in Forbidden West, it is heralded by a blinding golden light that fills the screen, and her holographic personification has a golden tint and is wreathed in a golden holographic toga. Even her backup data module glows with a faint golden light.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Seems to have received the trait from her creator Elisabet Sobeck. When HADES suddenly becomes self-aware and tries to exterminate all life on Earth through his Extinction Protocol, GAIA immediately self-destructs in order to stop him from hijacking her, but not before sending a signal to a Cradle facility to create Aloy, in the hopes she'll be able to rebuild GAIA as well as stop HADES from ruining everything.
- Hope Bringer: Multiple times over.
- To start with: Her entire existence is because Elisabeth Sobeck wanted to give humanity hope that even after the eradication of the entire biosphere, something would come after them.
- Aloy might be a Hope Bringer to the different tribes and her allies, but GAIA is the one to give Aloy hope that the troubles in the wider world aren't world-ending.
- Horrible Judge of Character: GAIA chose to use ELEUTHIA-9 to birth Aloy because she knew the Nora venerate motherhood, hoping that it would mean they'd happily take in and raise an orphan. She failed to consider that the Nora might abhor a child that seemingly had no mother.
- Machine Monotone: Downplayed compared to the other AI on this page. GAIA has a human avatar that gestures and makes facial expressions appropriately and sometimes puts emotional inflection in her voice. Elisabet appreciated any human qualities she showed and GAIA was probably intended to communicate with people. However most of the time she still has a very even, precise way of talking, which may come off as more mechanical or more like a logical, thoughtful person, depending.
- Meaningful Name: Her specific function is to be the Mother Earth that brings life back to the planet. She is also named after a Protogenoi, rather than a god like her subfunctions (AETHER being the exception), reflecting how she stands above and is responsible for them.
- Mind Hive: Played with. GAIA has nine 'subordinate functions' that act as extensions of her mind and allow her to perform specialized tasks in the terraforming process. However, only the GAIA Core is truly conscious and none of the subordinate functions can think for themselves until they split off from her.
- Morality Chain: The main GAIA AI acts as one to her subordinate functions, providing each of them context for their functions. Without her, they lose both that context, and the ability to cooperate with each other.
- Mother Goddess: To all organic life on Earth, befitting of her Classical namesake. Post Faro plague, however, since it couldn’t be stopped.
- Motherly Side Plait: A trait of her holo-personification is a side plait due to her motherly personality.
- No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup: A lot of difficulty in the games could have been prevented if GAIA, during the 700 years the current biosphere has been in operation, had created backups of herself in the event that something went wrong. She didn't, and something did go wrong.
- Outside-Context Problem: Neither GAIA, nor her creators, had ever considered that she might recieve a signal that would necessitate her self-destruction to counteract.
- Posthumous Character: GAIA destroyed herself 20 years before the events of Zero Dawn, to stop HADES from usurping her and destroying all life on Earth. She's ultimately revived by Aloy, but only because she and Sylens were able to find the only backup Faro couldn't destroy, as Latopolis was shielded and isolated from all outside signals.
- Robots Think Faster:
- Milliseconds after the disruption signal sundered GAIA from her subordinate functions, she was already formulating her response plan, and composing a message to leave behind for Aloy. She even responded in her message to HADES' sabotage of her plan (the data corruption of ELEUTHIA-9's Alpha Registry) as it happened.
- In a matter of seconds, GAIA processed the entire life experience that Aloy's focus had recorded to understand the nature of the Sobeck clone standing before her holo-personification. While she was also still running her boot-up procedures.
- Rule of Cool: Ever wonder why several of the machines look like dinosaurs? Records Aloy finds of conversations between Elisabet and GAIA reveal that GAIA basically thought dinosaurs were cool and felt sad that they'd gone extinct, so when she began designing the machines to restore the biosphere, she decided to "bring them back" in a way.
- Small Role, Big Impact:
- In Zero Dawn GAIA only appears in less than 5 logs, and is seen talking in only one cutscene. Yet as Aloy's creator and the one who gives her the instructions to disable HADES, her role for the story is immense. That's without even counting how she's essentially recreated the world and her creation is the driving force of the backstory the game is named after.
- This is Averted come Forbidden West where GAIA becomes a central part of The Base Team, and is in fact the one to suggest making repair-facility Tau into their base in the first place.
- That Makes Me Feel Angry: She tends to vocally express the emotions she's feeling, in particular describing the loss of megafaunal species from the Quaternary Extinction Event as "unaccountably sad". It makes sense, given her voice doesn't leave much room to emote with, and the instances she's seen doing this are when she's still young and in the process of developing her personality. She's more emotive by the time of her destruction, where she shows distress at the idea that her contingency with Aloy might have failed.
- Theme Naming: GAIA and her subordinate functions are all named after Greek gods.note
Varl
Varl of the Nora
Voiced by: John Macmillan (English)note
Varl's stubbornness means he is the one to finally get it through to Aloy that she cannot save the world on her own, and that she needs allies to face the looming threats. As such, he's directly responsible for the Base Team existing in the first place, and takes it upon himself to be the social glue of the group to make up for Aloy's... lacking skills in that department.
- Amazon Chaser: He is one of several characters that shows an interest in Aloy, largely because of rather than in spite of her combat skills. In Forbidden West he starts a relationship with Zo, an Utaru woman who's notable for being one of the few members of her otherwise peaceful tribe who has a past as an active militant, having lead a guerilla resistance against the Carja during the Red Raids & even joined in along with the Tenakth on their assault of the Carja fortress of Barren Light.
- Ascended Extra: A relatively minor character in the first game who's important for one early questline, then disappears until the endgame. Come the second game, he's a major character and one of Aloy's companions.
- Battle Couple: He starts a relationship with Zo in Forbidden West and the two fight side-by-side while going with Aloy to retrieve MINERVA.
- Big Brother Instinct: He loves his little sister Vala and in the first game wants to avenge her death caused by Helis and the Eclipse.
- The Cat Came Back: He spent the sixth months between Zero Dawn and Forbidden West tracking Aloy down to help her. Even after she repeatedly sneaks off on him because she believes she needs to save the world herself, he keeps catching up with her because he knows she can't do everything herself. It's his persistence which helps Aloy become more receptive to receiving help from her friends and sharing her knowledge and responsibilities with the Base Team.
- Character Development: Through his interactions with Aloy, Varl gets over the Nora's isolationism and fear of technology and learns how big the world really is once he learns how to use a Focus. He also gets over his disdain towards foreigners, befriending Erend and Kotallo, admonishing Aloy to respect other tribes' customs, and falling in love with Zo.
- Deadpan Snarker: By Forbidden West, he's comfortable enough around Aloy to readily snark back at her quips.
- Determinator: He's spent the six months between Zero Dawn and Forbidden West tracking down Aloy to help her on her quest even though he has neither a Focus or the ability to override machines which helps her navigate Old World facilities. He still manages to catch up to her and when she slips away because she believes she needs to save the world on her own, he catches up with her to keep helping her anyway.
- Due to the Dead: Zo erects a grave for him facing both Plainsong and the Nora Sacred Land. In keeping with the Utaru's tradition, she buries him with seeds so that new life can grow in his place, even picking seeds from the flowers his sister would decorate her spear with. Aloy can visit his grave and talk to him about recent events similar to how she could do the same thing with Rost's grave in the first game.
- Dying Moment of Awesome: While it doesn't prevent Beta's capture, Varl does everything in his power to protect her from Erik. He even pulls the same trick Aloy did during her fight against Erik, using his bow and arrow to shoot a heavy piece of machinery down on top of him. When that doesn't work, he fights Erik using his spear, never faltering in trying to protect his friends.
- First Friend: Beta considers him to be the first friend she's ever had, given that he keeps making the effort to connect with her when she joins and the team and Far Zenith had her raised by machines for her entire life.
- God Before Dogma:
- He argues that the tribe won't be harmed for breaking taboo to pursue the Eclipse, because All-Mother would want them to get revenge.
- In the finale, he notices that everyone's kowtowing to Aloy is making her uncomfortable, and tells them to stop (the bowing, that is. He still insists they can call Aloy "the Anointed", because at that point religious awe is an understandable reaction to all the impossible deeds they've just seen her do).
- Good Cannot Comprehend Evil: After meeting Beta and getting to know her in Forbidden West, he cannot wrap his head around how the Zeniths could create a person and then treat them as just a slave or tool. That they did this fuels his animosity towards the Zeniths.
- The Heart: He's the emotional core of Aloy's group in Forbidden West, getting along well with everyone & being the most empathetic towards Beta. He also gets Aloy to rely on her friends and open up more emotionally instead of keeping all her feelings bottled up.
- Heroic Sacrifice: In Forbidden West, he dies defending Beta against Erik, who shrugs off everything he does with a taunting attitude before giving him a Neck Lift and impaling him through the heart. Zo later reveals that he did end up leaving her a child from their time together and his death fuels Aloy and Zo's vengeful showdown with Erik during the final battle.
- Hot-Blooded: Regardless of his calm demeanour, he is constantly making reckless decisions re: leaving the gate Sona ordered him to defend, suggesting they break Nora doctrine to pursue the Eclipse, and supporting the highly dangerous stealth mission that Aloy suggests.
- Just Friends: He's notable for being the only one out of the many characters who had an obvious crush on Aloy in Zero Dawn to be unambigulously over it come Forbidden West, being comfortable with her as a good friend while moving on into a romantic relationship with Zo.
- The Lancer: He effectively becomes Aloy's number 2 in her squad later on in Forbidden West, initially having the most understanding of what they're dealing with after her, and helping to ease the others into it.
- Manly Facial Hair: In Forbidden West he appears with a small beard on his face after catching up with Aloy in the prologue, having not have a lot of time to shave whilst tracking her down over six months after she abruptly left Meridian on the night of the celebratory party after defeating HADES. Aloy... isn't really fond of the look.
- Mid-Season Upgrade: He acquires a Focus at the start of the second game.
- Nice Guy: Varl's friendly and helpful from the moment he's introduced. In Forbidden West, he frequently checks up on Beta to see how she's doing.
- Proud Warrior Race Guy: He's one of the best Braves in the tribe and is not afraid to get himself involved in a fight.
- Religious Bruiser: He fights fearlessly to protect the All-Mother, yet he's reluctant to go in there when Aloy offers him the opportunity. It's implied he values his beliefs more than knowing everything (especially since Aloy is still visibly shaken from her discovery of what it holds).
- This is toned down in Forbidden West where he eventually seems to come to accept that the Nora's beliefs are inaccurate as he learns more about the Old World through use of his own focus. It's still present to some extent in that unlike Aloy, who can be easily frustrated & impatient with the beliefs of the tribes, Varl remains respectful of them.
- Sacrificial Lion: He is killed defending Aloy and Beta in Forbidden West, changing the tone of the game and prompting the main plot's Darkest Hour.
- Seeker Archetype: After Aloy introduces him to the truth of the world, he becomes insatiable.
- Someone to Remember Him By: Zo reveals that's she's pregnant shortly after his death.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Varl replaces his sister Vala, who was killed by the Eclipse, and befriends Aloy. He's humbler and less openly friendly than his sister, but less reserved, formal, and harsh than his mother.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Like Sona he's deeply uncomfortable in the finale being so far from everything he knows and around such foreign people, he's just less intense about it and can apply more perspective.
- He's largely gotten over it in Forbidden West, which establishes that he's become good friends with Erend since the battle, and is fairly comfortable with other tribes he encounters, forming a romantic relationship with the Utaru Zo, and being eager to learn about Tenakth culture from Kotallo.
Erend Vanguardsman
Erend Vanguardsman
Voiced by: John Hopkins (English)note
He reappears during Forbidden West, and is The Big Guy of the base team, his strength, endurance, and mighty hammer providing invaluable force to the Base Team while he learns to understand the world as Aloy sees it.
- The Alcoholic:
- Drinking is a huge part of Oseram culture, but it also appears to be Erend's main coping mechanism.
- In the Liberation tie-in comic, his love of drinking was how he wound up overhearing Dervahl's plans to use Avad to kill the Sun King and then backstab the prince to wipe the royal line out, all because he went searching for more alcohol after a party.
- Amazon Chaser: From their very first conversation he displays obvious interest in Aloy, all but outright saying that he could take her away from all this. Aloy is too focused on her own goals to respond much. Before the final battle with HADES, Varl notes the looks he keeps giving her, and Erend's men make fun of him for it. Erend for his part admits that he's grateful that Aloy even allows him a minute of her time, clearly seeing her as way out of his league.
- Bash Brothers: With Aloy. She interprets crime scenes and provides cover fire; he smashes foes up-close, exposits on Sundom history, and kicks in doors.
- The Cavalry: He calls in Vanguard soldiers for help in some quest stages. Obviously, they're nothing compared to Aloy, but it's the thought that counts.
- Character Development: He comes to respect Aloy over the course of their encounters, freely admitting that he initially saw himself as a big shot but came to realise he was lucky to get a minute of her time.
- The investigations into his sister's death also help him get out from under her shadow, and better grow into a good successor to her as Captain of Sun-King Avad's Vanguard.
- In the Liberation Miniseries, he demonstrates that he's starting to think bigger beyond the simple stuff as part of his new responsibilities, tricking Korl by playing into his trash talk when he's losing a straightforward fight with the bruiser so he'll get blindsided by a machine's attack and Erend can seize the advantage.
- Classical Anti-Hero: Erend is willfully irresponsible, ignorant of other's cultures, plagued with self-doubt over his competence as a leader, constantly comparing himself negatively against others, and is quick to turn to drink and pessimism in the face of setbacks. Despite all this he proves himself time and time again to be staunchly loyal, far more capable than he gives himself credit, and takes steps to improve on his flaws. At the end of the day, despite not being Aloy, he's just as able to stare down the horrors the post-apocalypse throws their way by her side.
- Cruel Mercy:
- A part of his Character Development and maturation is sparing Dervahl's life, as Avad requested, despite his desire for revenge. He is able to content himself with the knowledge that the Oseram will probably give him a far crueler punishment than he ever could.
- In the Liberation miniseries, he repeats this tactic once he's finally beaten Korl into submission, only for Korl to violently disagree.
- Drowning My Sorrows: Whenever he finds himself overwhelmed with grief, he has a nasty habit of drowning it in ale:
- He succumbs to this after his sister's death in Zero Dawn, but drops it when he learns there is a way to find her killers.
- After Aloy voices that she'd prefer doing her quest alone in Forbidden West, he can be found drunk in Barren Light.
- He slips back into the habit after learning of Varl's death, but a What the Hell, Hero?/Get A Hold Of Yourself Man moment from Kotallo and Aloy coming back with everything she needs to take on Regalla and the Zeniths snaps him out of it.
- Establishing Character Moment:
- In Zero Dawn, Erend comes to the defense of a Carja Sun Priest acting as an envoy to the Nora, assuaging the angry crowd of Nora tribesmen by giving them straight talk about how he sympathizes with their hatred of the Carja, but then asserting that the new Sun King is the diametric opposite of the previous Mad-King and that the envoy's outreach is genuine. He is a tough, straight-speaking warrior who believes in the cause for peace and has the qualities to become a leader in his own right.
- In Forbidden West, he goes out of his way to pull rank and shame the Commander at Barren Light to force him to open the door for Aloy, showing he'll always do the right thing for the greater good, especially for Aloy. This is more impactful if you chose the Confrontational option in an earlier scene with him and got into an argument.
- Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Erend is consistently regarded as less competent than his sister, even by himself, and seems content to play second fiddle to her so he can brawl, drink and shrug away responsibility. When she dies, Ersa essentially tells him he'll have to shape up without her, and he takes it to heart.
- Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: He has this dynamic with Aloy, who mostly sticks to her bow while Erend uses a hammer.
- Heroic Self-Deprecation: He is always comparing himself negatively to Ersa and Aloy, considering himself just Dumb Muscle who drinks too much. Nevermind that Aloy was literally born to save the world, or that he shapes up right quick when he has to step into Ersa's shoes.
- Ink-Suit Actor: John Hopkins is the face model as well as the voice actor.
- Irony: When he first meets Aloy, he calls the Focus a weird trinket, before quickly correcting himself and assuring Aloy that it looks good on her. Come Forbidden West, Erend ends up wearing such a "trinket" himself.
- The Lancer: As the most consistent and regular supporting character, and Aloy's direct link to Avad's Court, Erend easily falls into this, being a light-hearted and extroverted foil to Aloy's more aloof and no-nonsense hero.
- Manly Facial Hair: He's no slouch in combat, and he's got an impressive handlebar mustache connected to his mutton chops to give him a suitable brawny appearance.
- Metalhead: After he gets a Focus, he starts playing Concrete Beach Party on loop and discovers death metal, much to Zo's chagrin.
- Mid-Season Upgrade: He gets a Focus in the second game.
- My Sister Is Off-Limits: Downplayed, considering the guy who had the hots for his sister was the current Sun-King and Erend really isn't in a position to object. He still claims that just thinking about it puts "very bad images in [his] head" and that Avad is "too skinny" for Ersa's tastes. Not so downplayed with regards to Dervahl; Erend considers the tinker's advances to have been "creeping" on his sister.
- Nice Guy: He's one of few characters who treat Aloy with respect from the moment they meet her, and always vouches for her odd behaviour, whether that involves crushing open a suspect citizen's basement door or trying to get into a city under lockdown.
- Noble Bigot: He instantly takes a liking to Aloy in their first meeting and advises her that she is better off without the Nora, whom he sees as backwater hicks. This sentiment is a mix of ignorance and righteous anger at their practice of casting out people they don't like - something Aloy also agrees is inexcusable.
- Number Two: Initially to Ersa as part of Avad's Vanguard. Becomes Avad's after Ersa's death, alongside Blameless Marad.
- Praetorian Guard: A heroic example, as the Vanguard serve as this to Avad.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: He's willing to do a few favors for Aloy to help her investigate Olin even after Meridian closes itself off from outsiders (and while he's grieving for his sister).
- Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: He invokes this on Aloy's behalf when she doesn't do it herself, bluntly telling a stubborn fort commander who's refusing to allow Aloy passage into the West that if the head of the Vanguard reports back to the Sun King that the commander arrested the Savior of Meridian, that it isn't going to matter that the commander was technically in the right regarding the proper procedures.
- Shock and Awe: His hammer strikes can be imbued with shock damage in Forbidden West.
- Shut Up, Hannibal!: To Dervahl before taking him away.Dervahl: It's just like you to get someone else to do your killing—
Erend: Shut up. You're at the Sun-King's mercy now. (knocks him out) - Smarter Than You Look: He looks rather burly and thuggish, and openly thinks he's not all that bright. However, he has a surprising way with words, be it soothing an angry Nora crowd refusing to listen to a conciliatory speech from a Sun Priest, or browbeating an obstinate Carja border fort commander into letting Aloy pass. He also had the idea to stake out the Daunt to identify and pursue Sons of Prometheus operatives by spotting their focuses with his own, recalling how Aloy did the same with Olin way back in the beginning of the first game.
- Unexpected Successor: Ersa was a very beloved figure and seen as an incredibly competent badass. So when Erend is forced to take on her position as captain of Avad's Vanguard, he doesn't initially feel he's up to the challenge.
- Weapons of Their Trade: Erend is an Oseram, who are known as blacksmiths, and he uses a large hammer during fights.
- What the Hell, Hero?:
- When Aloy meets him in Forbidden West, he angrily calls her out for running off on all her friends without so much as a handshake or a letter. Aloy's precise response depends on player choice, but it's some form of saying that it wasn't a matter she had a choice in.
- He's later on the receiving end from Kotallo after Erik kills Varl, with Kotallo calling Erend out on how he's drinking his grief away while Regalla makes her move on the Memorial Grove ready to wipe out the Tenakth and while the Zeniths force Beta to integrate HEPHAESTUS into GAIA to use for their purposes.
Zo
Gravesinger Zo
Voiced by: Erica Luttrell (English)
- Battle Couple: She starts a relationship with Varl in Forbidden West and the two fight side-by-side while going with Aloy to retrieve MINERVA.
- Beware the Nice Ones: She's one of the nicest members of Aloy's inner circle in Forbidden West but she kicks Erend's ass during training after he makes an insensitive comment about the Utaru and impales Erik Visser through the back to avenge Varl's death at his hands.
- Combat Medic: Her official profession is as a healer, but she fought against the Red Raids, and takes part in the fight against Far Zenith.
- Crisis of Faith: After her sojourn into the Tau cauldron and having to take part in killing one of the Utaru's "Land Gods" within, her understanding of the world is utterly shattered and, combined with the perception among her people as a maverick, decides she can't ever go back to living in Plainsong any longer.
- Due to the Dead: She erects a grave for Varl in the spot where they used to watch the sunrise, that faces both Plainsong and the Nora Sacred Lands. She also follows the Utaru tradition of planting seeds so new life can spring following death, and chose the flower seeds based on the flowers Varl told Zo his sister used to decorate her spear with.
- The Medic: Her profession in the Utaru tribe is as a healer. She nurses Aloy back to health after her encounter with Far Zenith in the HADES proving facility.
- Official Couple: Zo grows into a relationship pretty quickly with Varl, openly kissing him in front of Aloy. After he dies, her mourns him and reveals that she's bearing his child.
- Pregnant Badass: She's in the early stages of pregnancy when she and Aloy fight Erik at the end of the game, and she's also the one to get in the final blow on Erik after Aloy subdues him.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: The smell of burnt flesh is a recurring unpleasant memory for her from the Red Raids. First, when her home village was burned with no survivors by the Red Raiders, and again when she, her band of Utaru guerillas, and their allies of mutual enmity in the Tenakth army razed Barren Light.
- Someone to Remember Him By: She finds out she's pregnant with Varl's child before the mission to capture HEPHAESTUS. She planned to tell him afterwards only for Varl to be killed during the mission.
- The Stoic: Next to Kotallo, Zo holds herself with a very controlled demeanor and rarely loses her temper. Even while visibly upset by Varl's death, she doesn't emotionally break down.
- Tranquil Fury: When she kills Erik Visser in retribution for Varl's murder, Zo runs him through with Varl's spear while very calmly echoing Erik's Pre-Mortem One-Liner to Varl.
- You Can't Go Home Again: With her primitive understanding of the world utterly shattered by events in the Tau cauldron, her contentious opinions among her people, and renewed purpose helping Aloy and GAIA, she decides she can't go back to her previous life. This is visually signified by her casting aside her Gravesinger headdress.
The Marshal (Spoilers for Forbidden West's AETHER mid-game)
Marshal Kotallo
Voiced by: Noshir Dalal (English)
Kotallo is re-introduced to the story as Aloy journeys through the Tenakth lands, being ordered by his chief, Hekaro, to work with her in undermining Regalla's efforts during the Kulrut. After new marshals are named, Kotallo joins Aloy at the base and serves as the tactician of the group.
- An Arm and a Leg: He loses an arm during the fight at the Embassy, tackling a machine head-on in a linebacker's charge, attempting to halt its forward momentum onto a prone Tenakth warrior and crushing him, even as one of the machine's chainsaw tusks is sawing deep into his arm. Since the Tenakth respect strength in a warrior and see him as weakened or broken in the aftermath, the loss causes him considerable Angst throughout the story, even though Chief Hekkaro stated he still sees value in Kotallo's insight and experience. When he joins Aloy as one of her innermost allies, he becomes interested in the records of the old ones that GAIA shares with him concerning cybernetic technology, considering such a replacement to make himself 'whole' again. Though he eventually succeeds in making a prototype arm that functions well in combat with Aloy's aid, he becomes accepting of his maimed state as his 'new normal' in the process. Thereafter, he comes to regard his prosthetic arm as a piece of equipment rather than something he needs to be whole, and goes without unless it's necessary..
- By-the-Book Cop: Kotallo is a Tenakth Marshal with very little patience for Aloy's shenanigans and who wants to fulfill their mission orderly, without causing too much trouble. Of course, as he warms up to Aloy and starts apreciating that her Cowboy Cop schemes do get her the results she wants, he begins letting up on this.
- Casting Gag: Noshir Dalal once again plays a stoic warrior who loses an arm and gets an artificial replacement.
- The Comically Serious: Kotallo's stoic demeanor sometimes leads to unintentional comedy, such as when he tells Aloy what he learns about sea shells from GAIA.
- Dented Iron: He is still a very capable warrior, but age and the loss of his arm has taken its toll on him, and he sees himself as not whole.
- Early-Bird Cameo: You first meet him at the Embassy, well before being properly introduced to him in-game.
- Establishing Character Moment: Cements himself early in the player's mind by being the Marshal at the Embassy to block a charging Bristleback to protect another Marshal by flinging his own body in front of it, sacrificing an arm in the process. It makes his fierce loyalty and sheer badassness immediately apparent.
- Fire-Forged Friends: Becomes this with Aloy over the course of their mission together, to the point where he joins her as an ally and moves to The Base with the others.
- Handicapped Badass: Losing an arm barely slowed him down, to the point where can still scale mountains one-handed. Gaining a metal one makes him even more deadly than he was before, although he prefers not to wear it unless in a fight.
- Hidden Depths: For someone so reserved, he's surprisingly articulate, and enjoys the company of Aloy's team.
- Ink-Suit Actor: It's not easy to notice under all this facepaint, but he looks very much like his voice actor.
- Not So Above It All: Despite his largely stoic demeanor, he's playfully mysterious with Aloy about his plan when he tells her that he wants to go test out his new robotic arm, telling her it's his "revenge" for her taking her time revealing her plan for dealing with Tekkoteh.
- Old Soldier: A middle-aged Tenakth veteran of many battles, now serving at the right hand of the chieftain.
- Reassigned to Antarctica: Tekotteh nominated him as a Marshal candidate to get rid of a potential rival for leadership of the Sky Clan, as Marshals are sworn to the Tenakth as a whole and thus cannot hold rank in a specific clan.
- Sole Survivor: He's the only Tenakth Marshal to survive the massacre at the Embassy.
- Straight Man and Wise Guy: When he and Aloy first start working together trying to recruit the Bulwark, they briefly have this dynamic; Kotallo is the stoic, loyal soldier while Aloy has some fun annoying him and is a Wild Card from his perspective. After he's recruited to the Base, this dynamic is downplayed since they're on equal terms.
- The Stoic: Out of everyone in the Base, Kotallo is the most disciplined and reserved. Little sets him off, but he's in check with his emotions and focuses on the task at hand.
- Took a Level in Cheerfulness: He's understandably a bit prickly when Aloy first meets him.
- UltimateGamer386: Amongst the Base team, Kotallo is positioned as the one with the tactical mind - and said tactical mind apparently transfers into the in-universe chess-equivalent of machine strike, because none of the others can hold a candle to him in that game, and he has no intention on going easy on the others.
- Undying Loyalty: To Hekarro, and later to Aloy, who refers to as his "commander".
- U.S. Marshal: The Tenakth Marshal who invokes this trope the most. Kotallo is a Stoic, no-nonsense By-the-Book Cop who does what he's ordered to do and fights the bad guys that Hekarro tells him to.
The Asset (Walking Spoiler for Forbidden West)
Beta
Voiced by: Ashly Burch (English)
- Action Survivor: She's not the valiant warrior Aloy is, but she is very clever and braver than she thinks.
- Anti-Anti-Christ: She initially thought that her purpose was to do what Aloy is doing- find GAIA to improve Earth. Then she realized that her creators had worse plans in mind, which were a major factor in her choice to defect.
- Apocalyptic Log: Subverted. Beta recorded a message in case her escape proved fatal, but after watching it Varl checks her pulse and realizes she's still alive.
- Clone Angst: Unlike Aloy who only found out six months prior to Forbidden West, Beta discovered she was a clone at an early age and shows considerable Angst over not being "Elisabet" and failing to live up to her purpose somehow, and is generally pessimistic and insecure compared to both her 'mother' and 'sister'. Tilda callously abandoned their private meeting sessions together after realizing that the clone was too different from 'her' Elisabet and turns her attentions to Aloy after finding her a more suitable Replacement Goldfish. The main difference is that Aloy had a better-formed sense of identity distinct from their clone-mother and less (albeit still present) hangups over being a clone, while Beta was never given the chance (and also never had someone who cared to raise her), leaving her with no self-identity to fall back on other than the ways she fails to measure up to Elisabet and Aloy.
- The Cynic: She was literally raised to be nothing more than a tool for Far Zenith and was fully aware that they would throw her away the second she stops being useful to them, so it's understandable that she acts defeatist most of the time. It takes a lot of coaxing from both Varl and Aloy in order for her to even try to create a method to contain HEPHAESTUS. After they manage to take down Far Zenith, she immediately gets to work on finding a new method of containing HEPHAESTUS and stretching out the biosphere recovery deadline with further optimizations to the subfunctions that GAIA does have, having regained hope now that her abusive creators have been defeated once and for all.
- Damsel out of Distress: She outwitted Far Zenith by waiting for the right time to distract them and hide in an ectogenic chamber which she hid from the inventory records, sending cryptic coordinates to Aloy's team in the hope they would come pick her up.
- Freak Out: When she learns that Aloy hasn't captured HEPHAESTUS yet, she has a panic attack and thinks she's doomed everyone by escaping Far Zenith too early. Aloy manages to calm her down.
- Hair-Contrast Duo: Despite both having the face and keen intellect of teenage Elisabet Sobeck, Aloy and Beta's contrast is best visualized by their hairstyle. Aloy has a wild braided mop on her head, while Beta has a short and neat haircut. Both are fiery redheads in their own ways though.
- Hikikomori: She spends all her time in the base’s basement and won’t leave it, preferring to be alone- mostly out of fear of being found out by Far Zenith. She starts to overcome it by the time Aloy must visit Cauldron GEMINI.
- I Just Want to Be Loved: Beta was raised in an environment completely devoid of affection. The rare human contact came from sociopaths who see her as a tool, and she was educated by unfeeling AIs. When Tilda started to spend time with Beta, only to abandon her without warning, the young woman became paranoid that she has a defect that renders her insufficient and unlovable. Experiencing friendship with the Base team and sisterhood with Aloy for the first time helps Beta become a happier, more confident person.
- Living Macguffin: Just as Aloy is the key to GAIA's systems for the Zero Dawn humans, Beta was created to be Far Zenith's access to the AI's system in order to claim it for themselves. When she escapes them with their GAIA kernel copy in hand after seeing Aloy and realizing there's another option than remaining with her abusive masters, their attempts to gain control over GAIA grind to a standstill. Varl shows shock and horror over trying to process how they could be so callous as to make a person just to serve as a tool and nothing else. In Tilda's case, she at least had different plans in mind for the clone of the woman she loved.
- Morality Pet: Her presence encourages Aloy to become a more patient and empathetic person.
- Meaningful Name: On many levels:
- In software development, a Beta version is when the software is feature complete but likely to contain a number of known or unknown bugs, which recalls the Zeniths view of her as a Flawed Prototype. Is also what comes after Alpha, which evokes her position as Elisabet Sobeck's (title of Alpha Prime) sucessor/replacement.
- A beta is a also lower-rank member of a hierarchical group of animals. Calling upon how she starts as Far Zenith's unwilling "asset", with them not even seeing her as human.
- Also, Beta is one letter removed from Beth, which is a common nickname/abreviation for Elisabeth.
- Motor Mouth: She knows better than anyone that time is of the essence, so her usual voice is a rapid whisper.
- Nature Versus Nurture: Both Aloy and Beta are clones of Elisabet Sobeck and it seems profound genius intellect is as much a genetic trait for her as her red hair and green eyes. However, Aloy and Beta have significantly different personalities and outlooks due to their contrasting upbringings. Aloy may have been an Outcast, but she still had a nurturing caregiver and positive role model in Rost. Beta didn't even have that, and was basically treated as a thing instead of a person, "raised" largely by the nonsentient avatars of the APOLLO cirriculum. As a result, Elisabet's forceful indomitable will only managed to re-manifest in Aloy, while Beta is a meek, neurotic Shrinking Violet, albeit with a far more thorough technical education than the limited materials young Aloy had in her first Focus.
- Nervous Wreck: Beta's rather abusive upbringing has left her a neurotic, jumpy person who's quick to panic. She starts to toughen up with Aloy's help.
- Nice Girl: She's a sweet girl who was made and created for uncaring masters to serve a purpose and nothing else, and this has left considerable scars on her psyche. When Varl and Aloy are able to get her to open up though, she turns out to have inherited Elisabet's kind nature, just marred by severe pessimism and negativity.
- The Nicknamer: Downplayed. In the reports she writes, she has a tendency to be a lot more informal, such as calling HEPHAESTUS "HEPH".
- Non-Action Guy: Unlike her "sister", Beta was never given any kind of self-defense training, and her upbringing has left her meek and prone to shrinking back from conflict. Her real talents lie in her tech know-how.
- One-Letter Name: ϐ, while it's spelled out like a name the poor girl only has a designation, not a real one; this drives home how her creators only saw her as a tool, not a person, especially when she's commonly refer to her as "The Asset" in Zenith communications.
- Raised by Robots: Outside of Tilda, her main caregiver growing up was APOLLO, through the interfaces Aristotle and Aspasia. They nurtured her genius, but also left her with some distinctly non-human mannerisms and poor emotional regulation.
- Rei Ayanami Expy: Beta does meet a lot of the requirements. Namely, pale skin, short bobbed hair, unnatural existence (clone), young age, often needs to rescued, Dark and Troubled Past and connection with the protagonist ("sister" to Aloy), antagonits (creation of Far Zenith) and figure from the lore (daughter to Elisabet). She also undergoes Character Development where she becomes more emotional and well-adjusted. However, she is not anyone's Love Interest and if anything is a overemotional Motor Mouth instead of stoic or robotic.
- Shadow Archetype: She's a view into how Aloy might've grown up as an outcast if she didn't have a person like Rost in her life, as she's much more timid and insecure than either Elisabet or her sister Aloy, and at one point even has a rant about how despite having the same genes, she ended up so different than either of them. Aloy even realizes this and comforts her over the differences between them caused by Rost's parentage, assuring her that she can be more like herself or Elisabet if she believes in herself more.
- She serves as a physical foil for Aloy as well, as both are roughly the same age, but Beta is paler and much thinner than her athletic “twin”.
- Significant Green-Eyed Redhead: As is Elisabet Sobeck and Aloy, so is Beta.
- The Smart Guy: Of the base team.
- Beta was given an actual polymathic education through Far Zenith's alpha-version APOLLO - as a result, she understands and knows concepts that even Aloy, who has been spending the majority of her life with a focus, couldn't even begin to grasp.
- While Beta isn't as phyiscally capable as Aloy, it's clear that she has the wits of their shared progenitor - when Aloy confronts her about not living up to the can-do attitude of Elizabeth, Beta retorts with the fact that she is well aware that she's failing in that department: she has already considered all the facts available to her, and doesn't need Aloy to tell her that she's 'defective'.
- Beta is possibly the only human on the Base Team who can match Sylens blow for blow in the technological; she is instrumental in building the technological devices necessary to transport GAIA to GEMINI, and the pulse devices meant to shield them.
- After HEPHAESTUS is released back into the cauldron network, Beta is the one who stays behind in the base and helps GAIA use the capabilities of the other subordinate functions to stabilize the biosphere long-term. This bears repeating: Beta, with the help of GAIA, is capable of cobbling together a solution to a problem which otherwise required a borderline-AI specifically made to think up creative solutions to problems.
- Stockholm Syndrome: Downplayed. She has some affection for Tilda, who provided the only real social contact Beta had ever had, but she defies this instinct to do the right thing.
- Thicker Than Water: Part of why she reaches out to Aloy, without even knowing her name, is based on the fact that she is also a clone of Elisabet and would want to safeguard their other 'sister' GAIA.
- Vague Age: Her exact age compared to Aloy isn't clear. Aloy was conceived the minute the extinction signal reached Earth, while Beta was born sometime after the ship left Sirius. Beta could conceivably be slightly older than Aloy. Regardless, she comes off as significantly younger due to her extremely sheltered upbringing. Temporal relativity may also be a factor, on account of the Odyssey accelerating to significant fractions of lightspeed for the interstellar trip.
- Walking Spoiler: Beta's very existence is a big twist, so it's hard to talk about her without giving it away.
- Waking Up Elsewhere: After thawing out, she panics and runs down to the base's server room (presumably because it's uninhabited and culturally familiar).
The Diviner (Spoilers for the Forbidden West DEMETER midgame)
Diviner Alva of the Quen.
Voiced by: Alison Jaye (English)
- Badass Adorable: An endearingly excitable historian who's capable fighting on the battlefield with her arrows.
- Belligerent Sexual Tension: How her relationship with her lover Federa began, since they were rival Diviners, even saying she "hated her guts" at first.Alva: And there's a fine line between hate and love.
- Big Sister Instinct: She originally accompanied the Quen expedition in order to find a cure to the Red Blight, in particular because her younger sister was starving and emaciated from it when she left for San Francisco.
- Blue Blood: Diviners are basically upper-class Quen. They are treated like Quen nobility.
- Broken Pedestal:
- Alva comes to realize that the Ancestors, who include people like Ted Faro and Erik Visser, are not as heroic as her people had believed.
- She also seems to have some resentment towards her own culture, particularly the Overseers, lamenting how they suppress knowledge they consider "forbidden", and even mentions that they might not allow her to keep the newer Focus Aloy gives her.
- Endearingly Dorky: She's extremely socially awkward and prone to putting her foot in her mouth as a result of her excessive enthusiasm about Aloy, GAIA, and the Old Ones. Most of team finds this adorable. One of her character animations at base in the archive room is a giddy excited hop-in-place, presumably after she uncovers some new interesting tidbit in the archive.
- Establishing Character Moment: Upon second viewing, her treatment of Aloy when they first meet is this. It's clear that she immediately recognises Aloy as being Elisabet's reincarnation, but unlike the other Quen, she doesn't hang that title and reputation on Aloy and instead treats her like her own person, not letting awe and reverence get in the way. As a result, Alva quickly establishes a genuine friendship with Aloy and becomes one of her closest friends, and her genuine interest in the Truth supercedes any Quen preconceptions she may have.
- Guile Hero: She is very quick-witted and able to come up with stories on the spot. She manages to save Aloy twice; one from the Quen by insisting she's Elisabet Sobeck herself (a "living ancestor," specifically) and the other from Ceo for similar reasons.
- I Choose to Stay: Implied, despite wanting to see her family again she decides to stick around with Aloy instead of going back to her homeland. Though part of the reason she stays is to help Aloy find a way to fight Nemesis when it arrives.
- I Will Wait for You: She and Federa, her lover, promise to wait for each other until Alva comes back from her expedition. Meeting Aloy complicates with that plus finding out about the severity of Nemesis' existence, however.
- Ink-Suit Actor: Shares the face with her voice actress, Alison Jaye.
- Lipstick Lesbian: The feminine Alva mentions in a conversation she's in a relationship with another female Diviner, Federa.
- Minored In Ass Kicking: Despite being a researcher of high station and Quen protocol requiring such personnel to be well-escorted, Alva is more than capable of holding her own in a fight. Aloy even remarks that Alva is tougher than she looks.
- Named After Somebody Famous: She shares her name with Alva Edison, more commonly known today as "Thomas". Not suprising if given the Quen's access to Old World Databases.
- Nice Girl: She has a very bubbly and friendly personality and gets along well with Aloy and the others fairly quickly.
- The Smart Girl: She's one of the few characters of the franchise to already know how to use a Focus, even though the Focus she uses prior to meeting Aloy is an old model. Once she uses a current one, she's a fish to water. Her proficiency with a Focus and knowledge regarding the Old Ones means that she and Aloy form a very unique friendship, contrasting with her other friends where their limited Old Ones knowledge is a frequent communication barrier.
- Stronger Than They Look: Aloy says this verbatim while defending Alva from Kotallo's suspicion. She may be a historian, but considering how dangerous their first meeting was and she's just as capable as her other companions, Aloy's got a point.
The Banuk (Spoilers for Forbidden West's Endgame)
