Jade Curtiss

Dr. Jade Balfour, more commonly known as Jade Curtiss (ジェイド・カーティス) or as Jade the Necromancer is a colonel serving in the Malkuth military and an exceptional wielder of Fonic Arts well known throughout Auldrant. He always seems to be smiling, or at least cheerful, regardless of the events taking place about him, giving little indication of his true thoughts on anything.

Background
Jade is known as the father of Fomicry, the science of extracting data from an existing entity to produce a perfect copy known as a 'replica'. His first attempt was when his sister, Nephry, broke her favorite doll, at which point Jade created a replica to soothe her tears. He was nine at the time.

He lived in the wintery port city of Keterburg, along with his sister, Nephry, Dist, and the future Empororer Peony IX.In his youth, he was, as described by his sister, a "devil" highly adept in casting Fonic Artes; his sister saw him as one who did not understand the significance of life or perhaps that anything but himself could be sentient -- and he, therefore, enjoyed killing monsters through Fonic artes even adults found difficult. Sometime after Luke's conversation with Nephry regarding her brother, Jade confesses to Luke that he still fails to understand what it means for someone to die.



He was, however, significantly changed by his teacher, Dr. Nebilim, a healer who commanded the Seventh Fonon, which Jade could not command himself. Though he had great respect for his teacher, Jade attempted to cast a spell using the seventh fonon, but instead unleashed a power beyond his control that resulted in the death of Nebilim.

As Nebilim lay dying, Jade extracted her data and created a replica of her, though rather than resurrecting his beloved teacher, he only succeeded in creating a monster which he found himself forced to seal away due to its destructive nature.&#160;

At some time after these painful events, Jade's talents in fonic artes and fomicry were recognized, and he was adopted into House Curtiss, a family of high position within the Malkuth military. Jade was eventually convinced to cease his endeavors with Fomicry by his close friend, Emperor Peony the Ninth, who spent his childhood years in Jade's hometown of Keterburg. It is also revealed that Jade forbade the practice of Fomicry on living organisms due to both ethical and technical issues arising from the subject.

Dist (also one of Nebilim's students), however, still didn't accept Nebilim's death. His dream was to see Jade return to normal, and help him resurrect her again. However, Jade had always refused, and often opted to make fun of Dist instead.

He introduces himself as "Colonel Jade Curtiss, Third Division, Malkuth Imperial Forces." He also refers to himself as the "Necromancer" once in the story. When the Tartarus is captured by the oracle knights he initiates a emergency shutdown sequence by announcing something into the land ship's communication system which starts with, "By my name as the Necromancer..." He also refers to himself as the Necromancer when using his Mystic Arte in battle.



Meeting Luke
Jade was hunting the Dark Wings in the Tartarus when he passed the coach that Luke and Tear were in, he later met them in Engeve when Luke was accused of being a thief, he was escorting Ion to Baticul as a emissary of peace and introduces himself.

Jade comes into the picture during the battle with the Liger Queen, using his fonic artes to easily defeat the Liger Queen and then capture Luke and Tear on the way out of the Cheagle Woods and learning of Luke and Tear's purpose after interrogating them and asking Luke for his assistance, even to the point of swallowing his pride and kneeling to him, to Luke's annoyance.

The Fon Slot Seal
The Tartarus came under attack from the God Generals and Largo attacked Jade, Tear and Luke, using a fon slot seal on Jade, Jade still wounded Largo and stabbed him.

Later when Asch attacked and knocked Luke and Tear unconcious with Icicle Rain, Jade was the only one of the three who remained conscious as they were captured.

Upon the escape of the Tartarus, Jade attacked and held Arietta hostage to stop Legretta from continuing her attack, he then repeated this method after being knocked away from her by a Liger.

Personality
Jade is at first mostly an enigma, his teasing smile always hiding his true thoughts. He is sarcastic, witty, cracks jokes at the most innapropriate moments, loves to tease for his own amusement and does it all with a straight face, though he can be extremely professional should the situation calls for it. He teases Guy about his gynophobia, often saying something after Guy's phobia triggers, most likely, "I know you're enjoying yourself Guy, but we really must be going." No one can usually tell if he's being serious, though it's easy to see when he actually is- and surprising, and at least one person will usually comment on it.

Beneath his decidedly lively exterior lies a business-like and scarily practical soldier's attitude. As Arietta lay defenseless on the ground at the Fubras River, Jade is the first to whip out his weapon- only the protests of Luke and Ion stop him from cutting her life short. Even as early as that are we given a glimpse of Jade's true nature- whereas Luke thinks it's wrong to kill an unconscious enemy, Jade feels that sparing her will simply give her another chance to come back and harm them. He never even stopped to consider the morality of such a move.

Often, when the actions of those around him are less than thought through, Jade uses sarcasm to show that he disapproves. Other than amusement, Jade rarely shows signs of any emotions at all, though occasionally they get out of his control. The subject of fomicry is a sore spot for him, and he is absolutely furious when he hears that fomicry experiments are being revived.

Deep inside, Jade feels guilty for all the people he has killed, especially Professor Nebilim. He is also very insightful of others, such as Anise's suspicious behavior at Mt. Zaleho or Luke's lies. Because of his knowledge on the adverse effects that fomicry creates, he is concerned with Luke's health and well-being, which the party is not fully aware of until near the very end of the game.

Throughout the game, Jade always seems to be several steps ahead of the rest of the party. He hardly ever appears shocked, and always has a complex and lengthly explination behind many of the events that stun the party. He appears to enjoy pushing the group in the right direction, letting them think they are filling in the gaps of what they experienced, when he might have discovered the answer long before the question appears.

Abilities
Jade could be considered the strongest character in Tales of the Abyss, given all of his powerful Fonic artes. When Luke first encounters him, Jade is Level 45, with artes like Blessed Drops and Ground Dasher. Largo the Black Lion (a God-General), however, uses a fon slot seal to seal Jade's Fonic artes. Jade's Level is immediately dropped to 5 and he loses all his artes except Energy Blast and Sonic Spear. His increases in level, therefore, actually represent how much of the fon slot seal he has undone. Although, when he returns to his initial level, he states in a skit that the others probably caught up to his level by then making all of them relatively equal by that time.

Through leveling up, Jade gains one high-tier Fonic arte for each element but light and darkness: the aforementioned Blessed Drops, Ground Dasher, Thunder Blade and Infernal Prison. Through sidequests, however, Jade can also learn Absolute, Prism Sword, and Meteor Storm. Also, each of Jade's high-tier Fonic artes invokes a fully charged Field of Fonons of its element after it is used. Each of Jade's four Strike artes--Sonic Spear, Thunder Lance, Impaling Heaven, and Sovereign Gale--is changed by a different element of FoF, meaning that Jade can use any fully charged FoF to change a Strike arte.

Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology 2
Jade and most of the Tales of the Abyss characters appear as playable characters. Jade is first seen when the Protagonist and the guild on the Van Eltia see his ship is attacked out on sea. Jade with Luke, Guy, and Tear flee into a nearby cave and stay in there until the manage to recover from the attack. After the player gets the story mission to go save him and along with the others. The player first finds Jade waiting for Tear to return and he asks the player to go find Luke and Guy for him. After the player defeats Guy on the second level, he and Tear show up to prevent another fight from starting. After Tear heals Luke of his injuries they head to the the ship with the others to report to Chat.

Jade is often seen speaking to Raine Sage during the beginning of the game, but after the Van Eltia gets remodeled he is located in the research lab with Harold Berselius and Philia Felice. During the later parts of the game Jade goes on a mission with the Protagonist to find Anise after she leaves the guild. When they find her, Jade and the others are forced to fight her shadow and defeated it. After defeating the shadow Jade and the others return to the ship. After Guede is finally defeated, Jade is seen on the ship speaking to the rest of the Abyss cast as mana is flowing through the world. Jade is seen at the end of the game a year later welcoming Kanonno Earhart back from her adventure. The spear Jade uses throughout the entire game is his weapon the Fonic Lance.

Tales of VS.
Jade is one of the five playable characters from Tales of the Abyss in Tales of VS., where he is one of the competitors in the Yggdrasil Battle entering on behalf of the Kingdom of Nidhogg. His story mode, in which he pairs up with Anise Tatlin, is unlocked following the completion of the story shared by Luke fon Fabre and Tear Grants. Like in Abyss, he is capable with both physical and magical abilities of many elements, but due to the absence of the FOF Change system, artes like Goring Hell are now standard attacks. He is also capable of casting Mystic Cage as his mystic arte.

Trivia

 * Jade's original last name, Balfour, was the name of an actual, historical doctor.
 * Jade has a fondness of curry, as seen when you get him back from the bar in Grand Chokmah and talk to the bartender downstairs, he refers to it as "Jade's favorite".
 * Jade's belt buckle shape is a reference to Namco's iconic Pac-Man, with the belt notches appearing to be pellets.
 * While Jade wears glasses, he has stated that he doesn't use it to correct his eyesight. His glasses are actually limiters to help control his fonic sight and even then he shows he has great control without it. Although the characters note, especially the female ones, that he does look really good without his glasses on.
 * Jade is featured in the "Viva Tales Of!" extra DVDs. He appears alongside Zelos Wilder (from Tales of Symphonia), and the two comment together on various Tales Of games and their characters.
 * Jade is one of the 'main characters' in a DVD-minigame on the 'Tales Of Innocence: Dramatic Voice Acting' DVD. In the minigame, Jade quests around looking for quarters of a small word, all the while being confronted by Barbatos Goetia, the main antagonist from Tales of Destiny 2. In his travels he visits the Renegades Hanger (Tales of Symphonia), Veigue Lungberg (Tales of Rebirth), Keele Zeibel (Tales of Eternia), and makes Asch (Tales of the Abyss) his partner. Asch then finds Zelos Wilder (Tales of Symphonia) and Arche Klaine (Tales of Phantasia)