Raine Sage

Raine Sage, known as Refill Sage (リフィル・セイジ) in Japan, is a protagonist in Tales of Symphonia. She is Genis Sage's older sister and school teacher of the village of Iselia.

Tales of Symphonia
Raine's family is not well-known at the beginning of the story. The only known fact is that she has a younger brother, Genis, and that she has been acting like a mother for him. Later, when the group travels to Exire, the floating city of half-elves, Raine discovers that her mother, Virginia Sage, is actually living there. She and her friends go to visit her, but when they arrive they discover that Virginia is in a greatly disturbed state, and thinks a doll she is cradling is a baby Raine. They realize that Virginia has become delusional and amnesiac, perhaps from the trauma of abandoning her children and losing her husband, and is permanently stuck in her own past. When the group asks her about Genis, Virginia is surprised that they knew what she would name her second-born if it was a boy. Furious at her mother's amnesia, she yells at Virginia before running out in tears.

However, Raine receives Virginia's diary from the elder of Exire, which reveals the reason she was abandoned with Genis. The Imperial Research Academy of Sybak was desperate to take the already very intelligent Raine, and possibly Genis as well, to raise and study at the Academy. In order to prevent the Imperial Research Academy from reaching them, Virginia and her husband, Kloitz Sage, constantly fled. It was while they were escaping from their pursuers that Raine fell from a ship into the ocean, causing her aquaphobia. Eventually, Virginia decided to put Raine and Genis through the portal of the Otherworldly Gate, hoping to give them a brighter future in the fabled land of Sylvarant. Shortly thereafter, she and her husband collapsed in the Ymir forest, presumably in an attempt to return, and were found by the elder of Exire. Kloitz died, and Virginia was taken to Exire. Raine and Genis eventually learn that their mother abandoned them because she thought it was a way of protecting them, not because they were a burden.

Raine, like her brother, is a half-elf, a race whose people are scorned in Sylvarant and Tethe'alla alike. When her parents abandoned her and Genis in the Otherworldly Gate, she was forced to be not only an older sister, but a mother figure for Genis. By the beginning of the story, Raine is 23, while Genis is 12; Genis was an infant when they were sent to Sylvarant, therefore Raine cannot have been more than 11 when she and her brother was abandoned, forcing her to care for her younger brother from then onward. This explains her high level of maturity. There is a gap of around five years which are uncounted for because Genis himself states that he and Raine only arrived in Iselia five or six years before the story actually begins. Raine has a number of artifacts and knowledge that cannot be explained by their remote location in Iselia, showing that they were came into Sylvarant far from Iselia and traveled to the village itself. Despite her youth, Raine remembers the prejudice she suffered from being a half-elf in Tethe'alla, for she told the members of the village that she was a pure-blood elf. Raine and Genis were then accepted into the village. After taking some tests, Raine became a certified teacher for Iselia.

Raine is willing to sacrifice herself for her beliefs if necessary. After Zelos Wilder betrays the party and kidnaps Colette Brunel at the Tower of Salvation, it is Raine who realizes that the party might have to make the ultimate sacrifice in order to achieve Lloyd Irving's goals. She discusses this with Regal Bryant, the companion she considers most rational, in a skit at the time, saying that they must take the course with the highest odds of success, which is ensuring that Lloyd, with the power of his special Exsphere, survives the trip to the Great Seed Chamber. Raine believes his Exsphere, with the powers it gained from the Angelus Project, is the only real chance they have at defeating Mithos and rescuing Colette. The time comes, and Raine sacrifices herself to save Lloyd by operating a machine that opens the doors that Lloyd passes through, but causes the room she is in to collapse. She says that she believes in his ideals, in a world free of discrimination. Even if she dies, she says, her soul will live on in the world Lloyd creates. Lloyd is forced to leave her, but she is saved from the trap by either Kratos or Zelos, depending on whom Lloyd spoke to in Flanoir. Clearly, her goal for trying to regenerate the world is to end the discrimination that she, as a half-elf, has suffered from all her life, the discrimination that drove her to pose as a pure-blood elf.

In Welgaia, Raine confronts her resentment toward her mother before rejoining Lloyd. She also seems to appreciate Lloyd's focus on the individual. She notes that he came to save them rather than head directly to confront Mithos when they all disappeared. This scene may assume that Raine visiting her mother did not take place before she went to Welgaia, although the group must go to Exire before traveling to Welgaia for the first time to trigger the scene. Virginia is labeled as "Mother", and Raine refers to her as "a mother who was too weak to stand up against the world's hatred" regardless of whether or not the party has met Virginia. In the end, she travels around the world with Genis to help half-elves to gain acceptance, but knowing that Iselia is their home.

Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World
Raine reappears in the sequel Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World as a playable character. After the prequel, she and her brother began to journey around the world to make it easier for half-elves to be accepted. In this story, Raine is worried about Lloyd's whereabouts, so she and Genis separate to track him down. Emil Castagnier and Marta Lualdi first meet Raine Sage at the Martel Temple after the two talk to Dirk. She asks them if they had seen her student Paul from the village, to which the two reply saying he went to the Iselia Human Ranch. She departs shortly afterward to search for the young child. After Emil and Marta entered the ranch themselves, they find themselves ambushed by a hostile creature when Raine arrives on time to attack the monster, giving the two the chance to recover and engage the enemy. After the battle she goes to Paul and spanks him for not listening to the rules, before formally introducing herself to the party.

After returning to the village, she tells the two to wait at the school while she returns Paul to his home. At the school, Raine explains Paul and Lloyd's history and what happened between Lloyd and Paul's mother, Lilia. After listening to Emil and Marta's explanation of Lloyd's involvement in Palmacosta, Raine joins on their quest to find Lloyd and demand an explanation of what he hopes to achieve. Raine accompanies them to the Triet Ruins where she goes fanatical over how badly the area is damaged. Inside the dungeon, she is reunited with Genis, and the group goes into the further areas of the ruins. There there the four find Ignis's core, and Raine resumes her fanatical mannerisms while Marta unseals the core. After Lloyd arrives and threatens to attack them, Genis is shocked when she starts to question Lloyd, but Lloyd refuses to answer her demands and leaves the area.

After these events, Raine continues to travel with the group to Izoold. There, she and the others find Regal imprisoned for a crime he did not commit. The group tries to arrange for his freedom, setting out for the Camberto Caves to help clear his name. Along the way, Raine explains all of Lloyd's beliefs during the Journey of Regeneration. Upon returning to Izoold, Regal is freed from his imprisonment, and he joins the party as they leave for Flanoir. However, Raine postpones her journey with the group here, giving Regal a letter which is wrongly assumed by Marta to be a love letter. In reality, the letter is a private message to Regal, explaining her theories about Emil's true memories and past life.

Raine departs with Genis to search for Lloyd separately. She encounters Emil and Marta's group again at the Temple of Ice, but their reunion is cut short when Raine and Genis continue to search for Lloyd on their own. After Emil and Marta meet with Presea much later in the story, Genis and Raine agree to rejoin the party as they make their way to Altamira following its takeover by the Vanguard. Raine, Presea, and Genis take a separate path through the main building of the Vanguard's headquarters, while Emil and Marta take another path to the top. Both groups are reunited shortly before they encounter the leader of the Vanguard, Brute Lualdi. After the fight she helps Brute by healing him while Marta takes the core from Decus. At the Tower of Salvation, she speaks to Yuan along with the rest of the party before they travel to the Martel Temple. During Emil's final travel throughout all of Aselia, he finds Raine alone in Sybak. She explains how she feels that Emil is going to do something desperate to save the world. At the Ginnungagap, she is turned into stone with many of the other party members of the original Symphonia cast, but she is eventually freed by Emil.

Appearance and Personality
Raine's knowledge is even greater than that of Genis, and she is often seen correcting Lloyd or Genis whenever they misbehave, often accompanied with a kick or slap. She is a horrifically bad cook, and supposedly cannot do laundry either, causing her to rely on Genis to do housework and cooking. Raine is a calm and calculating thinker. She is relatively pragmatic, and she tends to think of longer term consequences rather than the short term need to help someone. When Cacao is to be executed, she opposes intervening, because doing so would possibly result in the Desians attacking Palmacosta. She is also somewhat cautious, and is hesitant to help Sheena Fujibayashi in Luin, fearing that the assassin’s possible comrades will ambush the Chosen's group. Later, it is shown that Raine is generally distrusting of virtually everyone, which may be a result of the feelings of betrayal toward her mother and the general mistreatment she experienced as a half-elf.

Above all, Raine hates not being able to save people's lives, and will attempt anything to change that. When Governor-General Dorr dies after her attempts to save him with healing arts, she deeply regrets her failure. She is also completely and utterly obsessed with ruins and magitechnology, something Genis refers to as "Ruin-Mode". Whenever she sees a ruin, she loses her cool and calm state and becomes extremely fascinated by the slightest thing about something old or scientific. It is revealed later in the story that she was always looking for the Otherworldly Gate, the ruin at which she and Genis were abandoned, and which she subconsciously associated with going back home. However, even after finding the ruin she has been looking for, her obsession remains. In a skit when one character brings up the legend of an underwater ruin, she becomes fascinated with it, while another has her berate Zelos for breaking an ancient vase.

Fighting Style
Raine specializes in healing and supportive magic, with limited offensive abilities. She has a high elemental defense and TP pool due to her high intelligence. When she first joins the party, she only knows the basic healing ability First Aid, but as she levels up, her healing spells grow progressively more powerful. Like all other playable characters in Symphonia, Raine's spells have variations depending on whether she is focused on the "Technical" or "Strike" branch of arte progression. "Technical" abilities focus on area-based healing, support, and damage effects, while "Strike" abilities focus on single allies and enemies with greater and more potent effects.

The central healer of the party, Raine is near vital to an effective team. Based on her "Technical" arte progression, she is able to learn Nurse, Healing Circle, and Revitalize; likewise, through her "Strike" arte progression, she learns Heal, Cure, and Revive. She is also capable of reviving fallen allies with the advanced spell Resurrection. Raine is the only playable character who uses support magic such as Barrier and Sharpness, as well as their similar advanced spells, Field Barrier and Acuteness, being "Technial"-based, and Permaguard and Keenness, being "Strike"-based. More importantly, she is one of the few who can deal Light-elemental damage without using elemental modifier effects; those methods being the mid-spell Photon and the advanced spells Ray or Holy Lance, "Technical"-based and "Strike"-based, respectively.

Relationships
Colette Brunel - Raine is extremely protective of Colette though she tries her best to hide it. Even in the beginning, Raine acts as Colette's role model and confidant. She always thinks of Colette's safety and well-being, even to the point where she suggested to leave Sheena to die in Luin after the Desian attack, pointing out that she tried to kill Colette and might try to do so again if healed. In the animated version of Symphonia, Raine was the one who stopped Lloyd and Genis from stopping the Journey of Regeneration, ensuring that no one got in the way of Colette's resolution to complete the Regeneration ceremony.

Genis Sage - Genis is Raine's younger brother. The two are very close to each other, ever since they were abandoned by their mother at the Otherworldly Gate. Genis is not as widely knowledgeable as Raine, but he far excels her abilities in cooking and housework. He is also embarrassed by Raine's obsession with ruins, as he tried to hide it from others. At the end of the story, both he and Raine traveled around the world to help half-elves gain acceptance.

Kratos Aurion - Raine has always been suspicious about Kratos, and she is reluctant to trust him because she does not truly believe his reasons for following them, as she does not believe that he coincidentally was at the Martel Temple when the Desians, later revealed to be the Renegades, invaded the shrine. As a result, the few times they talk to each other in private includes Raine with a questioning tone in her voice when she speaks to him. She is openly disappointed in his betrayal when it occurs, at a cost to the trust that they had built prior to the event. If the player chooses to make Raine's affection the highest, she appears to understand Kratos well as she speaks with Lloyd in Heimdall.

Tales of the World: Narikiri Dungeon 3
Raine appears in the first mission with the main protagonists, Frio Sven and Kyaro Orange. She guides them through the first mission by telling facts and tips about it and how to complete it.

Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology
Raine appears along with Genis and Lloyd in Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology as a playable character, and her specialty is healing artes. She is classed as a Priest with the "Professor" title. She gives quests to the Protagonist in the Ailily chapter of the Ad Libitum guild.

Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology 2
Raine arrives on the Van Eltia along with Lloyd, Zelos, and Colette after finishing a mission assigned by Jade Curtiss. Raine reports to Jade and she takes permanent residence aboard the ship so the player can take on missions. Raine plays a large role in the story in certain parts in the third story mission she and Genis go along with the Protagonist to the mines to investigate the causes of the earthquakes going on. In the mines they find out a army is using the mana from the World Tree in weapon experiments. During the second trips to the mines she goes along with protagonist to find out if the can find any clues to the experiments going on. When they go further in they are forced to fight a monster guarding a research area, after defeating the monster they meet Janis, but before Raine can get any information out of him he runs off. Raine after is ordered by Jade to go with Kratos and Lloyd to find anymore information about who attack Asch.

Later Raine goes to the tower in the middle of the ocean. There they are introduce to Niata a resident from the world of Pasca. Raine speaks to Niata about the world's current situation, but the conversation is cut short when Niata becomes unresponsive and shuts down. After certain event she sends the player, Kanonno, and Guy Cecil to the tower to revive Niata. After receiving the crystals from Janis in the mines, Raine along with Harold Berselius, Philia Felice, and Jade devise a way to use them with antennas they made to erase the negative energy made from Goede. After the antennas are place in their designated areas, Raine and they others attempt to erase the negative energy, but this back fires and causes Guede to reveal his hiding place the Negative Nest to them. After Guede is finally defeated, she is seen with the other Symphonia cast on the Van Eltia looking at the mana spreading across the world.

Trivia

 * Raine's strongest weapon is the "Crystal Rod", obtained from the coliseum. The name of her Devil's Arm is "Heart of Chaos". The gag weapon the player can buy for her in the completely rebuilt Luin is "Deck Brush". When receiving her Devil's Arm from Koton at Hakonesia Peak, in exchange for an ancient crown, she mysteriously states the crown holds "too many memories".
 * Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World identifies Raine as being a Water-elemental character; ironically, she has a fear of water.