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BASICS

Character: Emil Castagnier / Ratatosk / Aster

Series/Fandom: Tales of Symphonia 2: Dawn of the New World

Deviance: 2+; “Emil” is actually an amnesiac Aster and struggles to get his memory back throughout the game. Also defaults to the “Perfect” Ending, where Ratatosk stays behind with Richter and Emil/Aster returns to Marta.

Age: 16 [Though Ratatosk himself is tens of thousands of years old.]

Gender: Male

Species: Human Summon Spirit

Canon Used: Tales of Symphonia 1 & 2, with supplementary information from the novels and whatever else I can get my hands on.

APPEARANCE

Emil is a boy of average height, pale, with gray-green eyes and short, choppy straw-colored hair. Upon becoming a Knight of Ratatosk, he is given a makeover. This new, battle-oriented outfit consists of a maze of blue and black fabric with the shoulders exposed, a few straps to hold weapons and items, and a very long scarf. When Emil enters battle, he tends to go into “Ratatosk Mode”, in which his eyes turn red and he becomes notably more aggressive. His voice also gains a deeper pitch, and he seems to be another person entirely. Of note is a star-shaped birthmark hidden beneath his scarf, and a bigger star-shaped scar across his stomach, also hidden.

[http://i40.tinypic.com/34j8uug.jpg] Emil.
[http://i44.tinypic.com/50i005.jpg] Ratatosk Mode.

PSYCHOLOGY

At first glance, Emil doesn’t seem very threatening. Due to losing his parents and being blamed for the Blood Purge of Palmacosta, his hometown, he retreats into a shell. He is meek, timid, soft-spoken, and yet not completely lacking a backbone. He harbors great anger toward the one who slaughtered his parents and the people he knew, and resentment for the people who bully him relentlessly. Marta still has to remind Emil to be a man, though.

Richter’s words of advice, however blunt, echo Emil’s desire to grow stronger and do what he can to improve his situation. No matter how gullible he seems, Emil has a single-minded determination when it comes to what matters most. He will refuse to back down when that rage point is reached, as strong and stubborn as a rock. He can even be a bit reckless in this, even sending Marta to her death in the beginning due to his cowardice. Of course, he went back to save her, but his astonishment at what he’d told her to do haunted him afterward.

As the story progresses, Emil begins to focus more on his goal and solving the problems plaguing the world around him. He matures bit by bit as a person, becomes a tad more independent and surer of his actions. He loses most of the stutter and he isn’t afraid to stand up for himself, or defend his beliefs. Most of all, Emil learns to fight without the help of Ratatosk.

Emil also learns to look deeper. Not everything is as it appears, even himself… While Lloyd seemingly was an enemy—the one who committed the Blood Purge, actually—his friends were eager to help clear his name, and Emil’s revelations about their innocence only threw his own opinion of Lloyd into doubt. Eventually he is able to let go of his misplaced grudge when the true culprit of the Blood Purge is revealed.

Richter, though, is a complicated topic. While Emil wants to be like Richter in every way possible, he’s aware that they are supposed to be enemies, though he knows not the reason. Still, Emil never fails to try and play negotiator. At heart he wants the fighting to stop and the secrets to end, yet he still finds himself trusting Richter with his life over and over again. Emil finds no malice in his actions, and it’s not a completely misguided notion—not until late in the game, anyway.

When entering battle or an otherwise tight situation, Emil’s personality takes a complete 180. Called Ratatosk Mode, and later revealed to be a separate entity altogether, Ratatosk represents everything wild about the beasts he makes contracts with. He is aggressive, loud, blunt and harsh toward others, and completely in charge… basically, what Emil is not.

As cardboard powerful and angry as he seems, Ratatosk isn’t evil, despite what Richter tells Emil. Sure, he seems to have a grudge toward most everyone, but at one point he’s shown to pretend to be Emil in order to cheer up Marta. She seems to be the only one he cares about and even that is a sort of begrudging friendship. To everyone else, he is the ruthless Lord of Monsters.

In this deviance, there is a third spirit residing within the one called Emil. Locked away when Ratatosk sealed himself inside of his body, Aster waits for his time to come again. The Aster that Richter knew was lighthearted, prone to saying corny things to be inspirational. He was the one who told Richter that “courage is the magic that turns dreams into reality,” which repeated ironically to Emil himself, reminded him of what he must do.

Despite their rough situation—a human befriending a half-elf—Aster was resolute about being friends with Richter. He was also adamant about the importance of researching alternate ways to live, and befriended nearly every scientist in Sybak, including Rilena, despite disagreements on half-elf rights. In this way, he was skilled at being friendly without being open. He was dependable, dedicated, an absolute genius, and everything Sybak could ask for. Richter described him as having “a few screws loose”, but it was in a fond manner, and a poke at Aster’s crazy ideas about equality and such.

Aster’s desire for a better world lives on in Emil, if only on a level below his consciousness and Ratatosk’s. A few of his mannerisms and ideals tend to leak through, too, more of which will be revealed as Ratatosk regains his power and memory, and discovers the truth.

SKILLS/ABILITIES

In Ratatosk Mode, Emil is extremely agile, and his strength and swordplay increases exponentially throughout their journey.

Besides his swordplay, Emil can execute powerful dark and light magic, mostly in the form of a Mystic Arte, but having certain Cores can lend elements to his attacks as well.

Most importantly, as a Knight of Ratatosk, Emil has the power to forge pacts with monsters, particularly those of an element that he can control. In order to cooperate with monsters and grow stronger, he must subdue monsters and cast the appropriate pact magic. “Hatching” Centurion’s cores also adds significant strength, particularly if their element is compatible with another monster.

Other Weaknesses: Emil seems just as human as everyone else. He can bleed, and he could very possibly die, reverting Ratatosk back to his core form. However, under times of extreme stress, Ratatosk Mode will appear and Emil will suddenly have superhuman strength, magic, and agility, because he is.

HISTORY

Four thousand years ago, the world of Aselia was split into two: Tethe’alla and Sylvarant. A false religion was set up, backed by equally corrupted fallen heroes of the world. Lloyd Irving and his friends restored the worlds, but at a cost. Even the Chosen traveling with them could not foresee the consequences of their actions.

When the Great Kharlan Tree died, the spirit that protected it became angry, bitter, and resentful toward humans and half-elves alike. Only the elves were innocent of the parasites’ crimes. Afterward, Ratatosk rested at the Ginnungagap, where he and his Centurions held the door to the underworld shut. As they slumbered, the mana of the world became out of balance, causing monsters to rampage and the world itself to fall into chaos.

A teenage genius from Sybak, a research center in Tethe’alla, and his half-elf partner researched Ratatosk and deduced that he controlled the flow of mana, rather than the summon spirit of the new World Tree. In order to restore the world to the proper balance, Ratatosk would have to employ the Centurions who regulated mana.

However, when Aster went to plead his case, Ratatosk awakened the Centurions—then sent them to wreak havoc on mankind. And then, at the boy’s protest, Ratatosk killed him with a powerful blast of dark energy, killing him. Richter was furious that his human friend was dead and struck Ratatosk down, reducing him to his core form. He would have destroyed that, too, but a Centurion transported himself, the core, and Aster’s body away. Richter was left with accusations that he’d killed Aster on their trip, and dedicated himself to a life of revenge for the death of his friend.

In the meantime, Tenebrae, the Centurion of Darkness, helped find a diversion. The Blood Purge of Palmacosta was the perfect thing. A girl named Marta was implanted with a fake core in her forehead to draw her away from the still-recovering Ratatosk, who took Aster’s body as his own. He then sealed away Aster’s memories and consciousness and adopted those of a dying boy instead, the son of supporters of the Vanguard. Still in a daze, he went to watch Emil’s parents die with barely a word. Emil’s mother didn’t recognize him, but she was dying, and so with her last words she told Emil to go to her sister in Luin.

… Too bad that didn’t go according to plan. Emil’s Uncle Alba and Aunt Flora had never met the boy, but still blamed their problems on him along with the whole town. Emil was singled out as a supporter of the Vanguard, who were basically a terrorist organization in the guise of a liberation front, and often bullied and spat on, as well as beaten into submission by his uncle. It was in this town that he first bumped into Richter, who told him to stand up for himself and repeated something Aster said to him. Perhaps it was the familiarity of the boy… The kindness would end soon, though. Richter told him that he was looking for a girl with a jewel in her forehead and left.

Emil kept hearing a strange howl. Eventually he went to investigate and was attacked by a monster. A girl with a jewel in her forehead—Marta, with the fake Core— saved him and mentioned that it was payback for saving her before. Emil returned to Luin and fetched Richter, and when he showed Richter exactly where Marta went, it was revealed that Richter’s intent was to destroy Marta. He tried to interfere, but was overpowered and thrown out, and then Tenebrae approached Emil with an offer. In order to save Marta, Emil would need power—so he became a Knight of Ratatosk.

Of course, Tenebrae knew who he really was all along, but Emil obviously did not have his memories, and thus would have to learn. He stepped in to save Marta and fought against Lloyd, who easily floored the pair, took Lumen’s core, and vanished. This would be the beginning of a long and frustrating pattern of losses for them.

Despite his misgivings and nearly bringing destruction to Luin because of his actions, Emil and Marta headed to Asgard, where they encountered the Chosen of Regeneration. She helped save Marta from Alice, Marta’s sadistic rival in the Vanguard, despite Marta showing pure animosity. The trio ended up working together to solve the problem of the rogue winds, and then Colette took off to search for Lloyd.

It was decided that to get the other cores, they would have to take a ferry from Palmacosta to Izoold. Six months after the attack, Emil and Marta both were hesitant to return. It wasn’t quite the same. And in town, they wandered into a strange little shop…

REALITY

Once two worlds, and now one again, Aselia is a varied and wide world undergoing drastic climate change, all brought about by the lack of mana control. Lakes are drying up, forests are burning, and deserts have turned absolutely frigid. This is because of how the world functions. All life on Aselia exists because of the mana present in everything. While the original Aselia had no mana, the arrival of Derris-Kharlan—a wayward, drifting comet, homeland of the elves— and the Great World Tree the elves planted forced everything to change. Even so, the only people who can use magic are elves and half-elves, or people who have been gifted with Ratatosk’s power, like Emil and Marta.

Despite the promise of world peace that reuniting the worlds promised, Aselia is as divided as ever, with Sylvarant as the backwater and oppressed country and Tethe’alla as the technologically-advanced, faithful, and righteous country. The Chosen of Regeneration and Lloyd Irving were raised in parts of Sylvarant, and several statues exist in Luin to commemorate this. Resting within Sylvarant is the so-called Sylvaranti Liberation Front… really just a dishonest, ruthless military force called the Vanguard, headed by Commander Brute. Marta was once part of this force and quit for reasons she has yet to explain to Emil. Richter also played a part in shaping it into how it is today.

Tethe’alla is home to its own flippant and proud Chosen, Zelos Wilder, who has been trying to balance his own power with that of the Church of Martel. Since the ugly face of Mithos’ fake religion was revealed, it’s left quite a hole in power. Half-elf discrimination is still strong, but they don’t enslave half-elves and hide them beneath Sybak anymore, which is always an improvement. The Church of Martel’s power is a bit diminished when the Lezareno Company is involved, the head of which is one of the heroes of World Regeneration himself, Regal Bryant.

The most important person to Emil or his other personalities is Marta, a girl who lost her mother in Palmacosta, an ex-member of the Vanguard, and the girl whom he swore to protect. Only Marta can break Ratatosk out of his killing rages, and the threat of her being hurt is enough to send him into one of said rages. She has an extremely flirtatious relationship with Emil, one that often makes him uncomfortable, but she has her serious moments too. Also of note is the Centurion of Darkness, Tenebrae, a dark floating cat-creature loyal to Ratatosk to the end. Tenebrae serves as the know-it-all and guide of the group, but even he can be wrong sometimes.

Other heroes who help Emil and Marta on their quest are Regal, the president of the Lezareno Company and calm, kind, and strong; Presea, a strange superpowered girl who is older than she appears; Sheena, a summoner from a village of ninja; Genis and Raine, two half-elf siblings gifted with magic; Zelos, the Chosen of Tethe’alla; Colette, the trusting and loving Chosen of Sylvarant; and finally, Lloyd himself, who harbors (and rather poorly) his own worries and motivations, and concerns about his innocence.

MERGERS/PARTIAL MERGERS:
Full merger with Marta, of course.

lamb_of_gold: Emil gets one of the Saints' temples sitting on top of the Temple of Earth.

bit_impossible: Marta and Emil get some awesome French vineyards in their Altamira as well as a locked TARDIS popping up in random places.

DEATHS:

Why they are dying: The Master shot him.
Change in ability: He is now able to see mana signatures like a half-elf. It's sort of like a person's aura. Mana flows through everything, and since Ratatosk is a Summon Spirit and lives BECAUSE of mana, it's not too far of a stretch for the twins to make him able to see it in his human body.
Change in reality: Parts of Tethe'alla and Sylvarant will begin to separate, causing highly unstable vortexes where water falls up, people tumble through the floor, that sort of thing. It'll be most prevalent at the old sites, such as canonically the temple of earth.

Why they are dying: Riku's freeing him from the candy event.
Number of deaths: 2
Change in ability: Emil would lose his sense of pain.
Change in reality: Every library he finds is actually Sybak's library. The books are all the same, and it's always empty, like when people go into the Shop. But no one else seems to see it. If he isn't alone, the library will be the way it should be.