Marta Lualdi

Marta is the main heroine in Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World.

Character
Marta tends to think along right-and-wrong lines. A bit of a tomboy, Marta is passionate about getting her way. On the left side of her forehead lies Ratatosk's core, imprisoned in a dormant state. Emil Castagnier became her guardian knight, a Knight of Ratatosk, in order to protect her and Ratatosk's core. She views him as effeminate, but believes he possesses a hidden strength which is why she reminds him by saying "Courage is the the magic that turns dreams into reality". She is the only character in the beginning able to use support spells and some attack spells. She may get her magical powers from Ratatosk's Core on her forehead as she is not an elf or a half-elf. An interesting topic is that Marta's father is able to use magic as well (whether this is solely from Solumn's core is unknown). Marta's weapon is a saw-like spinner, which is strapped onto her wrist.

Marta falls in love with both Emil and Ratatosk Mode Emil. As the game progresses, she begins to love Emil for who he actually is, instead of the fantasy she created in his image. Marta also gets very jealous when Emil tries to get along with other girls, mainly Colette, Sheena and Raine, stating that she shall not give up on getting Emil's heart. Being the romantic that she is, Marta will fully support anyone's attempts at a relationship as long as its not directed towards her or Emil.

Family
Marta's family is not revealed until a little later in the game, when the trio meets Colette Brunel, the last Chosen of Regeneration and the main heroine from the original game Tales of Symphonia. Apparently, Marta's mother was killed during the Giant Kharlan Tree's rampage in the original game. Marta blames Colette, because she thinks that Colette ran away from her duty, and that if she had not been such a coward, her mother would still be alive. Their relationship gets better when Marta discovers the truth about Colette and the rampage of the Giant Kharlan Tree.

Later on in the story, Marta's father is revealed to be Brute, the leader of the Vanguard. Other than that, Marta is an only child.

Cami Was here. Hi Alana

Relationships
Emil Castagnier - Emil is Marta's dearest friend and true love. When they first met, Marta talks to Emil like they've met but Emil cannot remember and starts trying to force Emil to love her. But after enduring enough of Marta forcing their relationship along, Emil finally tells her that he can't be the man she imagined him to be. It's then that Marta learns to start loving Emil for who he really is. And slowly, their relationship grew to the level that Emil and Marta could openly admit their love for each other. When playing through the Perfect Ending, a possible romantic future and marriage for her and Emil is heavily hinted at. Humorously, Marta tends to get jealous beyond ration if she senses someone else may like Emil or believing Emil likes someone else such as Colette, Raine, Sheena, and even Tenebrae (which was a joke on Tenebrae's part).

Tenebrae - Though originally tagging along to protect Lord Ratatosk while his memory returned, Tenebrae became a good friend of Marta and someone she wouldn't want to be without. She even showed her love for Tenebrae after he was awakened from his core in the Temple of Darkness, surprising him that she was acting so much differently than before he reverted to his core state.

Brute - Though he is Marta's father, she had mixed feelings about her father since the Vanguard was formed. She even showed uneasy feelings before going to face him for their final fight against the Vanguard. But with the core controlling Brute's mind taken and hatched, Brute returns to his kind hearted self and their bond with each other slowly heals.

Colette Brunel - At first, Marta was angry at Colette for allowing the Giant Kharlan Tree to kill her mother in Palmacosta and openly despised her, up to the point that she forcefully pushed Colette into a wall and fled. She continued to harbor these feelings until she worked alongside Colette in saving Asgard from the wind storms they've been having. It's then that Marta discovers who the real Colette is, even saying that "it wasn't like Colette just magically appeared and made it her mission to kill Marta's mother". Following this, each meeting they've had shows them becoming good friends and work well with each other. She even praises Colette when she tells Emil that to understand love, he should fall in love with Marta. This can only be seen when winning a battle with Colette and Marta with Emil and the scene plays while showing the results of the battle.

Lloyd Irving - Marta was against Lloyd at the beginning of the story. She hated him for trying to take the Centurions' cores from them before they could hatch them. But this was due to the fact that she had no idea of Decus' involvement by posing as Lloyd for most of the game and learning of Lloyd's true motives. After Lloyd fully joins the team, Marta and Lloyd show signs of friendship and she treats Lloyd the same way she does the other TOS characters.

Regal Bryant - Marta and Regal appear to have an uncle/niece relationship, seeing how much Marta asked Regal for advice or opinions. She also admires how much of a gentleman Regal is, though gets a bit disturbed when she hears how many times Regal was falsely arrested, especially when showing his "admiration" for cooking by carrying his own knife around.

Genis and Raine Sage - Marta had a fear of half-elves from hearing the stories about them and was first uneasy about Raine and Genis when she learned of their true identities. However, setting her fears aside, that didn't stop her from befriending the two half-elves and becoming good friends with them. While she and Genis get along great, she admires Raine for her wisdom and beauty, though groans with the others when Raine goes into "Ruin Mode" or starts acting like a teacher to them.

Sheena Fujibayashi - Marta and Sheena hit it off pretty quickly, especially since Sheena saved her. Marta can often relate to Sheena and Marta sometimes teases her when Sheena begins to fluster. Though Marta is definitely jealous of her body, especially when she catches Emil staring at them. The both of them also have very similar personalities and can be identified with the "tsundere" girl archtype.

Zelos Wilder - While she was initially put off by Zelos's attempt to flirt with her, she eventually does come to respect him as a valuable friend and helps to save Seles. He is, however, disappointed that all of Marta's romantic attention is focused on Emil, though this doesn't stop him from attempting to occasionally flirt with her. Though, when conflicted with her feelings for Emil and Ratatosk, he does give her some insightful advice fully supporting her romance.

Presea Combatir - When compared to the other original characters, Presea and Marta do not talk to each other as much as the others. Though Presea did help Marta by keeping her inside an Iron Maiden and protecting her by saying that the Iron Maiden was cursed. Though during an after battle quote, Marta wonders why Emil is so protective of Presea to which he replies that she's small.

Fighting style
In battle, Marta primarily serves the role of a supportive spell caster with a few light-based offensive spells, somewhat like Raine. Unlike Raine, who specializes in multiple target healing, Marta's healing spells are restricted to single target casting.

In close combat, Marta proves to be graceful attacker who uses her saw-like spinner along with quick kicks, spins, and leaps to attack enemies. The majority of her artes are named after types of birds or types of dances. An interesting fact is that the description of a few of Marta's attacks mentions the use of chi to attack. The chi manifests itself within Marta's hands and she then slams it into her target. Similarly, Regal is able fire bursts of chi from his palms and is able to use a limited amount of chi healing.

The most important thing about Marta's strike artes are that they are all base arts, and thus relies on the skill Ability Plus to link together long combos.

Endings

 * Bad Ending - Depending on the player's actions when Emil faces Lloyd and Marta, Marta either lives or dies at the end of the game. This is called the Bad Ending, where Emil kills himself to revert to core form, carrying out his original plan to become a lock to the door separating the mortal realm and Niflheim. The last cutscene is a letter that Marta sent to Emil saying she will still love him always and that she will live on to protect the world he gave his life for. Originally it was speculated that this was a suicide note to Marta's father, because she could not live in a world without Emil, but this was due to a mistranslation.


 * Normal Ending - Depending on the player's actions from before Emil faces Lloyd and Marta, Emil will unite himself with Ratatosk, making them one. Ratatosk, having realized his mistakes in the past, tells the party to leave the Ginnungagap, because he intends to lock himself inside in order to rewrite the laws of mana, and thus save the world. Marta, the last of the group to say goodbye, tells Ratatosk that she loves him, and just as the door to the altar of Niflheim closes, Ratatosk turns around, revealing Emil's green eyes, and tells Marta that he (meaning Emil and himself) loves her, as well. Nothing is known about Marta after that.


 * Perfect Ending - Depending on the player's actions from before Emil faces Lloyd and Marta, the Normal Ending will occur, but with another cutscene where the Centurions agree to split Emil and Ratatosk into two beings and let Emil return to Marta and the others. Richter then could guard the door with Ratatosk, who assumably now shares his body, and the Centurions. After the credits, another cutscene will show Marta in Palmacosta, talking about what she will do to make up for Vangaurd's crimes. Emil then appears, to Marta's surprise. After a brief pause, they embrace, reunited.

Trivia

 * Marta wears a keychain that resembles Mieu, a character from Tales of the Abyss; Tokunaga, Anise's doll from the same game, is also visible on the back of her pouch.
 * Marta is stated to be very bad at cooking, especially when compared to Emil and Ratatosk's cooking who are very good at it. By the end of the game though, Marta does end up becoming a much better cook as she starts to taste her food as she cooks, which Emil thinks that she never tasted her own food before.