sol_raveh application

Player Name: Pain
Contact: paintan
Referred by: Leia
Other characters: Zeref

Character Name: Mithos Yggdrasill
Series: Tales of Symphonia
Canon Point: Post-game. His Cruxis Crystal is going to miraculously notbe broken, otherwise there'd be no way for him to still be alive.
Summary/History: Here.
Personality: Mithos has been referred to as everything from the ultimate case of Tragic Villain, to a fallen hero. Both are correct.

While Mithos first appears as cruel, megalomaniacal, and with a massive (and seemingly well-deserved at the time) superiority complex, deep beneath the layers of evil, he is really just a depressed, grieving, loving little brother, though this isn't revealed until much later in the game. When he is first introduced, he condescendingly refers to Lloyd, a human, as a "dog" right before delivering a beatdown of epic proportions in which the player is to be commended if the ensuing Hopeless Boss Fight doesn't end in the first ten seconds. Later, however, much more light is shed on Mithos' horrendous mess of a mental health. It is shown that he loved his sister Martel very dearly, and her death at the hands of humans absolutely devastated him. The anime and the manga even shows that while Martel was alive, he was a really sweet kid, and had a lot in common with Lloyd and Genis, though he was a bit of a brat towards Yuan. He genuinely wanted to save the world (even if the reality of what saving the world required at the time was, at best, controversial), but after Martel was killed, it all went downhill from there.

His love for Martel is the driving force of virtually every major goal of his. In his anger and grief, he misinterpreted her final wish to such a degree that "create a world without discrimination" registered to him as "commit genocide against the offending species and turn everyone else into an inorganic, emotionless master race." Her death consolidated his belief that humans, half-elves, and elves will never get along voluntarily, and for that reason, he feels the need to end discrimination artificially by causing everyone to become the same.

Because of Martel's death, Mithos is, to put it bluntly, racist against humans, and he's not a fan of full-blooded elves, either. He outright refers to Lloyd and his party as 'inferior' for being human, and aside from his stint as an undercover (and tragically, unplayable) guest party member, refuses to trust humans on principle. He believes they are incapable of tolerating half-elves, and it's my personal belief that if he ever found out what happened in Dawn of the New World (or especially Tales of Phantasia) when it comes to the war between the Vanguard and Tethe'alla, he'd feel vindicated.

Despite the fact that Mithos has committed everything from creating a false religion, to the attempted, systematic genocide of an entire species, he does not seem to do this out of pure malice. While there is no question that he despises humans, his motivations for these otherwise monstrous actions are not based on prejudice alone. Mithos believes that he is morally justified in ending discrimination by creating an 'age of lifeless beings.' While this is by far the most twisted and downright delusional interpretation possible of Martel's final wish, he is convinced that no race will willingly accept half-elves on their merit; therefore, the only solution is for everyone to become the same species while at the same time removing emotions, thus eliminating the very possibility for discrimination to exist at all.

At one point, Mithos seems to express some form of remorse; or at the very least, doubts that what he is doing is right. He expresses these to Noishe, expressing that he cannot live without Martel, and her death had such a profound effect on him, that it has affected his sanity. This would tend to prove that Mithos does have a conscience; but at the same time, he believes that what he is doing is for the good of the world, and that the ends - a world where Martel's tragic death would have never been possible - justify the means. He tells Noishe that if what he is doing is wrong, he will have no reason to continue living, perhaps even hinting that he has considered suicide. This would not be surprising, given his severe depression.

If Mithos ever had any real shot at friendship, it was with Genis Sage, another half-elf and a protagonist. Genis had everything Mithos ever wanted, up to and including his older sister, Raine Sage. Friends, people who cared about him, humans who accepted him, and a sister that loved him and took care of him. When Mithos found out Yuan was the leader of the Renegades, a splinter-faction of the Desians that were sabotaging his operations from the inside, Mithos' continued downward spiral was assured, which was probably what made him openly betray Genis when it became clear who he really was. Up to that point, Mithos seemed to be closer than ever to recovering; he saved Tabatha's life, when he later admitted to hating her for being a 'failed' artificial vessel for Martel's soul, and even jumped in front of a spell to protect Genis when he was being attacked by Pronyma, during the second boss fight Mithos was fighting the party in his Yggdrasill form. He just couldn't take the idea that the people he thought were his closest allies had turned on him, and had done so a long time ago. Ironically, if Kratos and Yuan had remained loyal and he had stayed just a little while longer with Genis and Lloyd, things might have turned out very, very differently.

Mithos is not good with rejection. While Kratos and Yuan did, by any standard, betray him, the way he reacts to Lloyd and his party calling his actions 'evil' and 'murder' suggests far more than a simple ideological disagreement. Given that humans thanked Martel for saving their world by killing her, Mithos views any sort of perceived rejection of him, his goal of resurrecting Martel or 'granting' her dying wish as not only wrong, but the actions of an enemy who must be destroyed. Indeed, the only reason he didn't kill Yuan the moment it was revealed that Yuan had betrayed him was because, in his own words, Martel would have never forgiven him for doing so.

When his sister condemned his actions when she briefly took over Colette's body, Mithos passed the point of no return, and completely snapped, going into a state of complete denial and insanity, to the point where Martel's unfortunate statement of "Maybe the elves should have never left Derris Kharlan" registered to him as "break Derris Kharlan's orbit around Sylvarant and Tethe'alla which would destroy both worlds, and then build a new world on Derris Kharlan itself." After obsessively working to resurrect Martel for four centuries, her rejection of him was, in his view, the ultimate betrayal, and broke Mithos for good, because the idea that she didn't approve of him and didn't even want to be resurrected was so unfathomable that he flat out refused to believe it was true.

While his overall personality traits remain the same, how he expresses them, oddly enough, seems to differ based on which of his two forms he's in. While in his Yggdrasill form, Mithos appears far more brutal and stereotypically villain-like, without the signs of immaturity he shows as his younger form. He claims that he takes this because it is a more fitting appearance to rule Cruxis (because, let's face it, the regal, angelic form of his adult body is more intimidating and imposing than a kid), but it almost appears as if he becomes someone else entirely. Similar to Bruce Wayne, Mithos basically took on an entirely new identity as 'Lord Yggdrasill,' maybe as a coping mechanism (that, for all intents and purposes, wasn't as effective as he might have liked). This makes sense when you consider the Desians are not allowed to call him 'Mithos;' only Kratos and Yuan can, as well as apparently, Lloyd and his party.

Mithos had nobody outside of Martel growing up, and when Kratos and Yuan both betrayed him after she died, the idea of being with her again was all he had left to live for. It isn't impossible that Mithos might find someone else to transfer his feelings onto, assuming we never get a Martel. In fact, this might actually be good for him, and be the first step towards finally letting go of her. A lot of fans speculate that if Kratos and Yuan had stepped up and took better care of him after Martel's death - after all, having Godlike powers and unquestioned authority with no sense of responsibility and a traumatic incident like this (while being only fourteen years old), causing him to simmer in hatred and despair is a very, very bad combination - a lot of his emotional issues later in life could have been avoided. Whatever the case, it is clear that Mithos has a very dependent personality, and was never able to fill the void left behind by Martel's death, leading to his obsession with bringing her back from the dead.

Powers/Abilities: Let's begin by saying there's a reason he was the final boss of Tales of Symphonia. He's fought a total of five times, the first three times in his adult form, and the first two times are Hopeless Boss Fights, in which the first time ends (assuming you don't die in the first few seconds) with him one-shotting the entire party with the Eternal Sword, and the second time ends prematurely due to the fight being interrupted because feelings. It makes sense in context.

There is no question whatsoever that Mithos is by far the strongest magic-user in the game, and in many ways, in both the game and its sequel. He is capable of all of the top-tier magic spells found in the game (except the Dark-element spells), as well as the Angel spells; including some that even Collete doesn't have access to. His Cruxis Crystal, due to its advanced age (as well as Mithos likely creating it specially, in comparison to those born by other characters in the game), produces angel wings that are far more impressive than those of the other characters in the game, being at least twice the wingspan of Colette, and having a myriad of different colors. His physical strength and endurance allows him to shrug off damage that would kill most humans, as well as grant him a healing factor. He describes his body as 'inorganic' in the manga, which is how he is able to change his physical age at will. He usually appears as either an innocent-looking fourteen year old boy (considered his 'true form' as this was his actual age when he first gained the Cruxis Crystal), or as a body that appears to be in its early-to-mid twenties, and is far more regal (and in some ways, intimidating) in appearance, with longer hair and a more 'fancy' outfit. Mithos takes this form because he believes it's more 'fitting' for the ruler of Cruxis. Interestingly, his Yggdrasill form has different colored wings than his 'normal' form, and the reason for this is never explained.

Both Mithos and Yggdrasill are notorious in their boss fights for teleporting around the battlefield at an annoyingly frequent rate, resulting in more than a few misses with spells and high-damage physical attacks. It's unknown how far he can teleport distance-wise for the sake of a game like this, so the mods can impose limitations as they see fit.

For a complete list of his spells, try watching this video, or this video. From what I counted, I saw the following artes being used by both forms:

Judgment: Pillars of light descend from the heavens and strike randomly around the battlefield.

Death Eater (called "Death Knell" in the Japanese version): A scaled-down version of Judgment, only it's more 'targeted,' and is an insta-cast.

Ray: An area-of-effect, multi-hit light element spell that sprays beams of light in a circle, before causing a larger explosion of light in the center of the circle.

Holy Lance: A multi-hit light element spell that impales the target with spears of light from multiple direction.

Absolute: An ice-elemental attack with a large area-of-effect. A large 'explosion' of ice appears, forming a large tundra of icicles with a chance to freeze anyone it hits.

Indignation: A massive explosion of lightning that, throughout the entire Tale Of series, has an uncanny ability to kill Dhaos in one hit. Hi, Dhaos, I see you over there. He's got BOTH ONE of the things you hate!

Flame Lance: A large lance made out of fire strikes an area of the battlefield for massive damage.

Explosion: Exactly what it says on the tin. Fire-element.

Ground Dasher: A multi-hit, earth-elemental attack that causes a fissure underneath a portion of the battlefield. It can be avoided by jumping, and targets that can fly are immune.

Thunder Arrow: A small area-of-effect, multi-hit lightning elemental spell that hammers the target and its immediate area with a continuous bolt of electricity, that sends sparks flying to any nearby targets.

Thunder Blade: A giant sword made out of electricity stab the ground from above, causing an explosion of lightning.

Prism Sword: Basically Thunder Blade, but with light elemental damage instead of lightning.

Gravity Well: An earth elemental attack that creates a massive, black field of distorted gravity that compresses everything in its area of effect with intense, grativitic pressure for massive damage.

Indignant Judgment (Mystic Arte): Take everything bad about Indignation and Judgment, and mix them together for a dual-elemental explosion that deals massive damage.

Time Stop (Mystic Arte from Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology 3): Exactly what it says on the tin. Freezes time for about fifteen seconds, which is an eternity in a game like Tales of Symphonia, and he has a nasty habit of immediately following this up with a charged spell like Judgment or Indignation, during which the party is completely incapable of defending themselves.

Yggdrasill Laser (from the remake and Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology 3): Mithos stole your favorite move, Dhaos. A large amount of light damage in a straight line from him.

Retribution: The antithesis of Colette's 'Holy Song,' in that it hits all of his enemies with a plethora of negative status effects, instead of positive ones. If the RNG Gods hate you, one of them could be Petrify.

Outburst / Rejection: Both are basically the same spell, only they're used in his Yggdrasill and Mithos forms respectively. They both send a wave of light outward from his body in a three hundred and sixty degree field, knocking back and then knocking down anyone in melee range. Much like Time Stop, he tends to follow this up with a charged spell.

Like other angels, Mithos is immune to light magic, but weak against dark magic. Bringing Colette or Raine to fight him is a bad idea, unless you turn off autocast on their light spells, or they'll only waste their magic. Conversely, Sheena is a good choice to bring, due to her Shadow summon, which hits Mithos pretty hard.

The Cruxis Crystal also removes his biological need to eat, sleep, or drink, and makes him immortal. What it doesn't do is remove his susceptibility to disease, fatigue (both mental and physical), and a need for basic hygiene. That said, in a few scenes, he is shown eating and drinking with Genis and Lloyd, suggesting that while he doesn't have to eat or drink, he can still do so for pleasure, much like Colette. While his body can indeed die, his soul will remain inside his Cruxis Crystal until it, too, is destroyed. This makes his Cruxis Crystal, found on his chest near his sternum (and hidden by his clothing in his younger form), his major weak point; while his actual body can endure and recover from just about anything, if his Cruxis Crystal gets damaged, that's it, he's done for.

Aside from his obvious weakness against Dark-element damage, Mithos' personality is his main shortcoming. He is distrustful of everyone around him, is completely anti-social, and comes across as either a vindictive little brat, or some kind of insane, angelic megalomaniac, depending on which form he's taking. He's simply been betrayed too many times for him to open up to anyone without a lot of work. While it's entirely possible for him to fake kindness - as seen in the game - a lot of character development will be needed for him to overcome his inability to form any meaningful bonds. It's definitely not impossible, but old habits don't break easily.

... oh, and for the record, Mithos is notorious for his final form actually being the easiest out of any of the forms you fight him in. It's seriously not even worth having as a power.

Items on your character: Aside from the clothes on his back, his Cruxis Crystal, which he literally cannot live without.