Characters of Xenogears

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Characters of Xenogears. From left to right: Bart, Citan, Fei, and Billy

This is a comprehensive listing of notable characters from the video game Xenogears, a console role-playing game originally released in 1998 by Square Enix for the PlayStation video game console. Kunihiko Tanaka was the lead character designer, while Tetsuya Takahashi and Masato Kato were the lead writers for the game. Xenogears was a commercial and critical success. In Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu, Xenogears was voted the 16th best video game of all time by its readers in a poll held in 2006.

Xenogears follows the character Fei and his friends as they learn about Deus, a powerful, self aware interplanetary invasion system that crashed onto the planet ten thousand years before the game's story begins. Deus has been secretly controlling the slowly populated planet to one day be revived. Fei and Elly, among others, have been reincarnated throughout history in order to ensure that Deus never achieves its goal.

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Characters

The characters of Xenogears were designed to allude to many psychological concepts, notably of Freudian and Jungian psychology. There is also an important character bearing the name of French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. The most obvious allusion involves the nature of the game's protagonist, Fei Fong Wong, whose Freudian id, ego, and superego are discussed at length throughout the course of the game. Fei had subconsciously repressed his memories because of his unpleasant childhood. However, his desire to remember elements of his past eventually leads him to discover the truth about his identity and his relationship with the character known as Id. This repression also relates to the Jungian concept of the shadow. Distinctly Adlerian in nature, however, are the actions of certain characters, such as Ramsus, whose actions are driven by an inferiority complex that stems from unconscious 'nodes' that often permeate exterior behaviors of an individual. Although not distinctly psychological, allusions to the theories of Friedrich Nietzsche are also found in the game. For example, there is the concept of the eternal return, which, in Xenogears, correlates to the recurrences of the Contact and the Antitype.

Main protagonists

Fei Fong Wong

Fei Fong Wong (ウォン・フェイフォン, Won Fei Fon) is the game's main character. His name is based on the legendary Wong Fei Hung and in katakana is written exactly the same as that of the Guangdong hero. Fei has lived in the village of Lahan for three years and has no memory before that point in time. After being responsible for the destruction of Lahan, Fei joins with Citan Uzuki and other allies to uncover the web of deception and manipulation surrounding Solaris, and ultimately, Deus. Fei experiences frequent memory loss and is unknowingly Id, a powerful individual who is the product of Fei's pain and anguish at a critically young age. As a child, Fei's mother, with Miang inside of her body, experimented heavily with the Contact. As the Contact, he is just one of numerous reincarnations of Abel, the sole survivor of the Eldridge crash. A strong fighter, Fei fights with his bare fists in battle, and his special techniques are known as "Chi".

Abel, Fei's first form, grew up along with the original Elehaym ten thousand years prior to the game's story. When they learn of Deus, Abel and Elehaym rebel against the world's ruler, Cain, and both are killed by him. The second Contact appeared in the Zeboim era, six thousand years before the game starts. Kim was the creator of Emeralda, although his technology was destroyed by Miang and he went into hiding afterwards. During the Solaris War five hundred years prior to the game, the Contact appeared as Lacan, a painter. Joining the rebellion against Solaris, he meets Krelian and Sophia, the reincarnation of Elehaym. When Sophia is killed during battle, Lacan decides to destroy the world, turning into Grahf.

The character of Fei has been called "a mystery for the player to follow and solve on their own" by IGN. Edge said of Fei that he "in some ways, conforms to the classic stereotypical lead character, but we quickly discover he’s anything but a blank canvas. Within an hour of play Fei has leveled his home village in an act of brutal destruction, killing his best friends – who you were busily helping prepare for their wedding the next day."

Elly Van Houten

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Elly as she appears in the Japanese instruction manual.

Elehaym Van Houten (エレハイム・ヴァン・ホーテン, Erehaimu Van Hōten), nicknamed Elly (エリィ, Erii), is a young skilled officer of Gebler who meets Fei in the forest near Lahan Village. Elly was leading an operation to steal a top-secret experiment gear from Kislev, but was forced to crash-land in Lahan, and was partially responsible for the destruction of the village. Her encounter with Fei changes her life forever. Elly is an optimist, and wants to help Fei, despite the fact that he is a land dweller, and she cannot leave the military. She is a competent fighter with her rods, but she has powerful elemental ether, which makes her valuable to the party. Known as the -Antitype-, she has been reincarnated numerous times throughout history along with Fei. She uses rod weapons attached to her wrists, and she has many elemental "Ether" spells at her disposal.

Citan Uzuki

Citan Uzuki (シタン・ウヅキ, Shitan Uzuki) is a medical doctor who lives up the mountain path from Lahan village with his wife, Yui, and his daughter, Midori. Despite living on the surface, Citan was actually born in Solaris, and his real name is Hyuga Ricdeau (ヒュウガ・リクドウ, Hyuuga Rikudou). Citan is a Solaris Guardian Angel, and is working under instructions from the Solaris Emperor to observe Fei to see if he will bring relief or destruction to the world. A very smart individual, Citan is responsible for the development of many of the Gears seen in the game. He has a history with number of individuals including Ramsus, Sigurd and Jessie. Citan initially fights with his bare fists but acquires a sword later in the game, during his combinations he is seen to move so fast he has afterimages trailing his movement. Citan's special techniques are known as "Arcane" magic.

Bart Fatima

Bartholomew Fatima is the leader of a group of sand pirates who befriends Fei and Citan after shooting down a prison ship that they were on. Bart is the rightful heir to the kingdom of Aveh, his family having been forced out of the country by Ethos agent Shakhan a number of years before. He leads the sand pirates in their giant submarine Yggdrasil. Bart is constantly accompanied by his mentor and half-brother, Sigurd, as well as the well-mannered Maison. He uses a whip in battle.

Rico Banderas

Ricardo Banderas (リカルド・バンデラス, Rikarudo Banderasu), nicknamed Rico (リコ, Riko), is a massive demi-human and champion Gear fighter in Nortune, the imperial capital of Kislev. He has a sturdy reputation, and his size can be frightening. Despite being a prisoner, his lifestyle is superior to that of many nobles and he appears to have a connection with the Kislev ruler. Rico is one of the game's strongest physical characters, but also the slowest and with lowest accuracy.

Billy Lee Black

Billy Lee Black (ビリー・リー・ブラック, Birī Rī Burakku) is introduced as a young, pacifistic priest of the Ethos religion, and later is revealed as a member of the Etone branch, which job is to "clean" and "purge" the world from the Reapers, or -Wels-. He has a problematic relationship with his father Jessiah (Jessie), who abandoned his family for a number of years after they moved to the surface from Solaris. Having been mentored by the Ethos leader Bishop Stone, Billy dedicated his life to religion and cares for many children including his younger sister Primera at an Ethos orphanage. Billy's sports a trio of guns in battle and also wields a number of useful support "Ether" spells.

Maria Balthasar

Maria Balthasar is a young girl residing in Shevat who pilots Seibzehn, a special Gear her father, Nikolai created, to protect her home. Her father was kidnapped by Solaris to make new Gears, thus giving Maria a large grudge against Solaris. Maria's grandfather is the gear engineer Balthasar. Although her gear is powerful, Maria's physical attacks are weak. However, she can use ether attacks to call Seibzehn to attack enemies, even in enclosed areas.

Chu-Chu

Once mistaken by Bart as a stuffed animal, Chu-Chu (チュチュ) was with Marguerite during the teenage girl's imprisonment in Fatima Castle. Her race once lived in the woods, but due to Solaris's activities, they became almost extinct. Some managed to escape to Shevat and live with Wiseman. Chu-Chu can grow to the size of a gear once the physical part of the limiter is removed. She can heal other gears, and doesn't need any fuel to fight. She has romantic interest for Fei but none of the characters notice and it spooks Fei at first.

Emeralda Kasim

Emeralda Kasim (エメラダ・カーシム, Emerada Kāshimu) is a nanomachine colony built to aid the human race. Kim Kasim (Fei’s second known incarnation) created Emeralda during the Zeboim era by analyzing Elly’s gene pattern, and creating a nanomachine colony. At the time, Miang was manipulating the government, and wanted to reset the human evolutionary cycle by starting a worldwide nuclear war. In the present, Emeralda is revived from an archeological site and is used by Krelian to enhance his nanomachine technology. She is used to guard a Solaris gate, but joins the party afterwards. Emeralda's nanomachine-created body makes her a powerful ally in battle, and she possesses powerful ether spells as well. She does not use any weapons, but rather, she morphs her limbs (and hair) into various melee weapons while attacking.

Main antagonists

Deus

Deus is the core of an interplanetary invasion system, built ten thousand years prior to the game's story. Because of its power, Deus was placed on the Eldridge spaceship, but it soon became fully self aware and took control of the entire ship. When the captain of the Eldridge self-destructed his ship, Deus was not destroyed, crashing into a nearby planet. Deus then created Miang, Emperor Cain, and the Gazel Ministry to establish a human civilization on the planet in order to one day use the humans for its resurrection.

Because of the nature of Deus, much of the game's controversy stems from Fei's goal of killing the god that created mankind. This plot was the main reason as to why there were questions of a North American release of the game.

Gazel Ministry

The Gazel Ministry exists as the main governing body of Solaris. They were originally among the first human beings born on the planet. They were originally half of the core organic component of Deus, known as the 'Animus', and seek to realign with their respective 'Anima' (the Anima Relics).

Five hundred years before the events of the game, the Ministry were at odds with Miang, so they provided her to Shevat in exchange for the rebel army. Soon after this, they were killed by the mysterious Diabolos forces summoned by Grahf. Krelian eventually revived eight of the twelve ministers as computer data in the SOL-9000 after becoming part of Solaris.

Throughout the game the Ministry is fearful of Fei and seek to destroy him no because Fei is the reincarnation of the Lacan, who was responsible for their original demise. They show utter disdain towards Ramsus because of his constant failure to defeat Fei and call him 'Trash'. At the same time, they seek to resurrect their bodies using the main characters, who are descendents of them. The Ministry eventually becomes at odds with Emperor Cain when he prevents them from using the 'Gaetia Key', a device that will resurrect God's paradise, Mahanon. Because of Miang and Krelian's manipulation of Ramsus, he assassinates Cain for them and the Ministry goes ahead and uses the Key. Howevever, once the key has been used, Krelian has no more use for them and has them promptly deleted, wiping them out permanently.

Grahf

Grahf is a cloaked individual wearing a skull mask that Fei initially encounters in the desert of Aveh. He claims responsibility for the destruction of Lahan in order to bring out Fei's powers and initially only says that he seeks to destroy God. Frequently appearing with a gear similar in style to Fei's Weltall, Grahf seeks to use Fei for his own purposes and shares a mysterious connection with both Krelian and Miang. It is revealed that Grahf is actually a mental clone of Lacan, one of Fei's past lives. Grahf had abducted Fei when he was a child in order to bring out Id, but Fei's father, Khan Wong, was able to defeat Grahf and save Fei, bringing him to Lahan. Afterwards, Grahf, along with Wiseman, resided inside Khan, in order to obtain the chance to merge with Fei, the Contact. Through the merge, Grahf will be able to destroy the world.

Id

Id is Fei's split personality, created when Fei tried to repress his childhood memories about being abused by scientists acting as his mother. Throughout the game, Id appears when Fei is off screen. Fei is also unaware of Id until it is explained to him late in the game. Id represents Fei's id, adding a Freudian aspect to his character. Id is an often brutal and malicious character, violently seeking to destroy the planet by making contact with the Zohar.

Kahran Ramsus

Kahran Ramsus commands Gebler alongside Miang and holds a prominent position in the hierarchy in Solaris. He was originally created in a nanoreactor by Krelian as a clone of the Emperor Cain, but was thrown away once Fei was discovered. He grew up in the Elements, a special Solaris fighting squad, and knew Citan, who was attracted to Ramsus' ideals of against class distinctions. Ramsus grows obsessed with defeating Fei over the course of the game because it was Fei's existence that made Ramsus feel worthless.

Krelian

Krelian (カレルレン, Kareruren) is the main antagonist of the game. He is the leader of Solaris, the antagonistic nation that controls the affairs of much of the world. Initially a land dweller, Krelian's scientific knowledge has enabled him to prolong his life and exert power over the Solaris' Emperor Cain and the main governing body, the Gazel Ministry. After the death of his beloved Sophia centuries ago, Krelian became convinced that God did not exist and that he would need to create God with his own hands. The name Krelian is a mistransliteration from Japanese for "Karellen", referencing an overlord character from Arthur C. Clarke's novel Childhood's End.

Miang Hawwa

Appearing repeatedly throughout the game's events in opposition to the party, both behind the scenes and in direct confrontations, Miang acts as an agent of Deus, an intergalactic bioweapon designed to conduct warfare on a planetary scale. The final moments of the Eldridge catastrophe resulted in the creation of the original 'mother' being, tasked by the Deus system to give birth to an entire civilization that would provide and gather all the biological and mechanical "spare parts" it needed to repair and reactivate. Hawwa is the Arabic name of Eve. Myyah (the official romanization according to Perfect Works) is almost the reverse of Elly's full name (Elhaym), with the omitted 'El' being Hebrew and meaning 'God', symbolizing how she is connected to but different from that character.

One of the few humans that Deus gave birth to, Miang's first incarnation was known as the Complement. The Complement's purpose was to guide and shape the events of human history to better suit the coming resurrection of Deus. All human women descended from the crash of the Eldridge, all inhabiting the planet the game takes place on, possess the genetic factor necessary to become the next incarnation of Miang. When the current one dies, Miang simply awakens in a new body. The target seems to be randomly selected, but she always inhabits the body of an adult female, and the momentary transformation always results in purple hair and eye color. The only notable superhuman abilities she possesses are the ability to retain memory across incarnations and some considerable psionic abilities, strong enough to cleanly "reprogram" someone's subconscious to perform a chosen task, though for the most part she prefers working in the shadows to manipulate world events. This is evidenced by her sparse participation in battles in a mostly supportive role, usually piloting her C-1 Vierge.

TIMELINE OF KNOWN AWAKENINGS

Eldridge catastrophe - 10,000 years prior to game

Deus activated biological computer Kadomony, generating the first mother being in response to Abel's contact with the Wave Existence shortly before planetfall. This original being emerges from the wreckage and gives birth to Miang, Elly, Cain and the Gazel Ministry, then returned to Kadomony's stasis pod where she slowly rots over the next several thousand years. Miang begins her mission to supplement Deus' plans.

Zeboim era - 4,000 years prior to game

Miang awakens in a pair of identical twin sisters, using their connection to her advantage to conduct espionage within the Zeboim government. Upon finding out that a nano-engineer named Kim is working on a way to repair the genetic breakdown causing infertility in the vast majority of Zeboim citizens, she commissions Kim to continue his work. However, when he moves to secure his creation for himself she sends an assault team to requisition it and kill anyone in their way. She influences events to accelerate the death of the civilization so that humanity can 'reset' to a form more desirable for Deus, resulting in nuclear annihilation of the entire Zeboim civilization, which then sinks to the bottom of the Aquvy sea.

The beginning of the end - approx. 20–12 years prior to game

Unable to locate the current incarnation of the -Contact-, Miang cooperates with Krelian to clone an artificial -Contact- using Emperor Cain's DNA. The clone, which would later become Kahran Ramsus, gains awareness before even being born and develops an inferiority complex soon thereafter. Miang dies of old age, and awakens in Karen Wong, Fei Fong Wong's mother, and uses her new position to conduct battery after battery of torturous experiments on Fei while his father is away, resulting in the inadvertent creation of Id. Miang stands by passively while Grahf attacks Khan Wong, triggering a spontaneous release of Fei's power. Karen regains control momentarily, long enough to throw herself in front of her son to save his life, and is mortally wounded in the process. Fei recedes into the "coward" personality, shielding himself by displacing the tragedy and horror of these events onto his alter-ego, Id, who remains the dominant personality for the rest of his teenage years under Grahf's destructive tutelage. Miang reawakens in a new host body, apparently in her early twenties, and begins to court Kahran Ramsus in order to gain power within the Gebler faction on Solaris.

Final Chapter

Miang is cut down by Ramsus in front of the newly-activated Deus. The party witnesses her reawakening in Elly, who explains humanity's purpose relative to Deus shortly before being absorbed into its core. Deus utilizes its newly acquired Anima Relics and Krelian's nanotechnology to ascend to a higher, more advanced form than its original design was capable of, and climbs into orbit in an attempt to resume its journey. Fei gives pursuit in the Xenogears, the only Gear left operational after the destruction of the Zohar Modifier, and battles with Miang in her final incarnation, that of the Urobolus. After Fei had successfully defeated her in this form, she had then ceased to exist. Once Miang is eradicated for good, Krelian is convinced of Fei's point of view and resigns from his original mission, opting instead to walk the Path of Sephirot and travel to the higher dimension from which the Wave Existence originated, leaving Fei and Elly to return to the planet in the Xenogears. The chains of fate are broken, and Fei and Elly become the final incarnations of their eternally returning personas, with the memories and experiences of all their past selves incorporated into them.

Other characters

Emperor Cain

Created along with the Gazel Ministry and Miang, Emperor Cain's role was to also serve in the resurrection of Deus. When Abel and Elly fight against Cain's plans for resurrecting Deus, it was Cain that plotted the death of Abel, an allusion to Original sin. Although he is supposed to aid Deus, as a leader of Solaris, Cain actually believes in making the lives of the humans better. He becomes at odds with the Gazel Ministry when they want to use the Gaetia Key and is eventually assassinated by Ramsus under Krelian's orders.

Marguerite "Margie"

The current Holy Mother of Nisan, the position once held by Sophia. She is both Bart's first cousin and his fiancee, as they are both the only living members of the Fatima royal family. She has a calm, endearing nature, despite her duties.

Wave Existence

Existing in the Zohar, the Wave Existence was present during the events of the Eldridge. The Zohar was an energy source for Deus, but the Wave Existence's goal is to ensure that Deus never achieves its own goal. The Wave Existence makes contact with Abel, Fei's ancestor, aboard the Eldridge, allowing Abel to safely land on the planet with Deus. The Wave Existence also creates Elly as a companion for Abel and gives them both the power to be reincarnated throughout history in order to defeat Deus. It wants to be free from Deus and when Fei defeats Deus, the Wave Existence is freed.

Wiseman

Often appearing to Fei to help him, Wiseman is secretly a personality inside of his father, Khan Wong. Wiseman forms inside of Khan when Grahf enters Khan's body after Khan defeated Grahf ten years prior to the game's start. Wiseman's appearance inside Khan occurred to balance out Grahf's destructive persona. Wiseman brought Fei to Lahan to hide him from Grahf.

Reception

The characters of Xenogears have been well received, the lead protagonist Fei in particular, who has been called videogames' "most complicated Freudian hero." The staff of Edge felt that Fei's deep backstory and character in general was "a far cry from the simplistic two-dimensional leads of SquareSoft’s Super Nintendo RPGs of just a few years earlier." Edge also pointed out the NPCs present during the beginning scenes and how they bring depth to the scenario. "As a player, you feel awkward and ashamed in the presence of these NPCs, a guilty confusion and helplessness which perfectly mirrors that felt by your character and justifies his immediate exile", the staff wrote. IGN praised both the characters themselves and their designs. In a review for the game at Pulpfilm.com, attention is paid to the secondary characters, who, as the reviewer explains, have "profoundly interesting backstories", but are never adequately resolved by the end of the game, which other reviews also note. An article from Electronic Gaming Monthly titled WTFiction!? listed Xenogears as one of the "wackiest game plotlines ever." Jeremey Parish went on to write that many characters in the game only made the plot more confusing, including Chu-Chu and Grahf.

The in-game character sprites have met less praise. A Gamespot reviewer stated that the "game's character sprites are poorly animated and suffer from terrible pixelation, no doubt due to the PlayStation's limited RAM." Other critics disagree, arguing that the characters are more realistic than the characters from Final Fantasy VII. In a preview of the game, IGN compared the character sprites to those of Parasite Eve, saying that "the game's designers have opted for a more traditional, anime-style look. But this doesn't mean the pint-size characters or low-detail environments of RPGs gone by."

External links

• Characters of Xenogears Official North American Website
• Xenogears Database at the Xenosaga Wiki

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