Emil Castagnier

''"Courage is the magic that turns dreams into reality." ''

Emil Castagnier is the main protagonist of Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World. His parents were killed by Lloyd Irving, the main protagonist in the original Tales of Symphonia. He is portrayed as a coward, but promises to protect Marta Lualdi, the bearer of the Ratatosk Core by forming a contract with the Lord of Monsters, Ratatosk, thus making him the Knight of Ratatosk. He receives the strength to fight against monsters through this contract, making his voice deepen, his eyes turn red, and his attitude bolder. In the duration of this phase, Emil is more violent and blood-thirsty, which is why some call him a monster. This form is later on called "Ratatosk Mode". His goal is to help Marta hatch the Centurion Cores and ultimately avenge the death of his parents.

Emil eventually falls in love with Marta. Depending on the choices the player makes, Emil may or may not end up with Marta in the end.

An Almost Humble Beginning
As the game starts, Emil is shown to have saved Marta during the Palmacosta Blood Purge. However, he leaves her with barely a word, returning to his parents, who are dying from wounds that Lloyd had inflicted on them. His mother's final words were to find his relatives in Luin. After this introductory sequence, the game skips forward in time. Emil is in Luin, living with his Aunt Flora and Uncle Alba, yet he is shown to be timid, indecisive, and otherwise cowardly. He has a less than loving relationship with the two, in addition to the rest of the town, due to him being a so-called, "supporter" of the Vanguard--an organization that wishes to free the Sylvaranti people from oppression--and against Lloyd, who led the attack in the Blood Purge, but is, ironically, a true hero to almost every person in the game. This is why most people call him Lloyd The Great.

Emil's day in Luin begins with a howl of a monster waking him up. He wanders around town, eventually bumping into Richter, who saves him from some bullies. Richter ends up having quite the impact on Emil, saying things that inspired him to perservere until the end of the game, one of his quotes being, "Courage is the magic that turns dreams into reality." As quickly as he met Richter, he parted with him, as he didn't know of who he was looking for - a girl with a red gem on her forehead. However, some chaos outside Luin gave Emil the chance to sate his curiosity as to what was going on with the recent monster influx, despite not truly being able to defend himself. It was then that he first met Marta, who saved him.

The Real Emil Castagnier
Later on in the story it is discovered that Emil is not really Emil Castagnier, but actually an amnesiac Ratatosk. The name Emil belongs to a person who most likely died during the Blood Purge. Ratatosk assumed the form of Aster, possibly because he was the last human he saw before Richter reduced him to core form. Ratatosk was awakened by Marta Lualdi as she called for help in Palmacosta. In a ruse to escape, he implanted her with a fake core to draw attention away from himself while he regained his power. Exhausted, he lost not only much of his power but also his memory. Ratatosk, in the guise of Aster, wandered upon Emil's dying parents and Emil's mother Lana, now blind, mistook Ratatosk for her son. Having lost his memory, Ratatosk accepted this as a fact and followed her directions to escape to Luin.

Ratatosk was actually an amnesiac at this point, filling in the blanks of his memory as he went. This is shown several times in the game, for example Ratatosk, as Emil, doesn't know how to fish despite having supposedly lived by the ocean, doesn't know the basic geography around Palmacosta, and doesn't remember anything about the Desians' human ranches despite the fact that one existed near Palmacosta. These periods of forgetfulness are often followed by "Emil" agreeing with the other party members. In fact, he had just learned about the facts but really thought he was Emil Castagnier, not realizing he was filling in the false "blanks" in his memory as "Emil" with the facts presented to him by other people.

With the identity of Emil and physical form of Aster, Ratatosk was able hide after being attacked by Richter Abend. The Emil who acts as the protagonist in the story is an alternate personality of Ratatosk born from his experiences after fleeing Palmacosta. Some clues that other characters are aware Ratatosk does not look like Emil despite taking on his identity are when the player meets Ms. Dorr (the widow of Palmacosta's governor-general) and Thomas (Emil's apparent next-door neighbor) both stated that they didn't recognize Emil, but eventually let it slide.

For reasons that can only be speculated, Tenebrae chose to let Ratatosk live a false life as Emil for a time without telling him the truth, even letting him believe the core on Marta's forehead is real. The pact with Ratatosk and the title of Knight of Ratatosk that go with it in fact do not exist, and are fabrications by Tenebrae. Since Tenebrae is the one who rescued Ratatosk's core from Richter, it is possible but not confirmed that by concealing the truth from Ratatosk himself he wanted to give Ratatosk the chance to live from a human perspective and actually protect Marta, the one he actually tried to use as bait to escape, and change his mind about his orders to kill all humans and half elves. This is possibly hinted at late in the game when "Emil" laments that it was wrong to use Marta as bait, and Tenebrae points out that as "Emil" he gave everything he could to protect her.

Rather than having his memories return as he gains his power back, his old and new memories form two conflicting personalities: the new "Emil" and the old, bitter, and angry Ratatosk out for revenge for the destruction of the original Kharlan Tree. In this way "Emil Mode" and "Ratatosk Mode" Ratatosk remain both aspects of the same character as well as separate personalities throughout the game.

Family
The real Emil Castagnier's father and mother were named Reysol and Lana Castagnier respectively. They probably knew Lloyd, hinting this when they were afraid for Lloyd killing them in the Blood Purge. They are killed by Decus, who was impersonating Lloyd at the time, and with her last breath, Lana tells Emil (Ratatosk in Aster's form) to go to her younger sister in Luin, Flora, and her husband, Alba. She does that without being able to see his face. This suggests that she thinks Emil is the one right there. She then dies.

The reason that Flora and Alba accepts Emil as their nephew is because they had never seen Emil before, but knew of his birth. [At a certain point in the game, Emil says that before he moved in with his Aunt and Uncle, he has never seen them before. It is unknown if this is true of the real Emil.]

Endings

 * Bad Ending - Depending on the player's actions when facing Lloyd and Marta at the end of the game, Emil may or may not live. If the Bad Ending occurs, Marta will pass out, and when Emil's feelings come forth, he kills himself, thinking that Marta is dead. He then transforms into Ratatosk's Core. Marta then wakes up and cries out for Emil. There's a small scene with a journal background where Marta writes about what happened. The end is right after that. If you get this ending you have to restart from your last saved point, making this a sort of game over screen.


 * Normal Ending - Depending on the player's actions when facing Lloyd and Marta and the player's choices throughout the game, the Normal Ending will occur, where Emil recombines himself with Ratatosk. Ratatosk, realizing his past mistakes, tells the group to get out of the Ginnungagap, in order for him to be locked inside there. However, when Marta, as the last to exit, tells him that she loves him (referring to Emil and Ratatosk), Ratatosk turns around, revealing Emil's greens eyes, and says that he (Emil and himself) loves her, as well. The door is then locked.


 * Perfect Ending - Depending on the player's actions when facing Lloyd and Marta and the choices throughout the game, the Normal Ending will occur. Before the end credits, Richter and Ratatosk will have a conversation where it seems like Richter switches place with Ratatosk in the job of guarding the Ginnungagap. Richter then suggests that Ratatosk, here noticed to be able to maintain a physical form along with his core one, divides himself in a Emil and a Ratatosk form. Ratatosk tries to refuse, but after some arguments from Richter, Tenebrae, and Aqua, he thanks them and the credits roll on. After the credits, there will then be a cutscene where Emil appears before Marta in Palmacosta, smiling. They then hug or possibly kiss and unlock their ultimate titles Perfect Partner.

NOTE: The result of the very final battle, the one between Emil himself and Ratatosk, does not interfere with the endings, although the fight will only occur when going through either Normal or Good ending.

Trivia

 * The name Emil in general means, "enthusiasm". This is possibly an indirect reference to Emil's character growth in the game.
 * Early magazine scans for ToS: DotNW had shown Emil to have not only red and green eyes, but blue eyes as well. This has led some people to believe that Ratatosk has red eyes, Emil has green eyes, and Aster's eyes are blue.
 * Both Emil and Ratatosk have a talent for cooking, and both have their unique styles; Emil has a habit of carving what he makes into various things (examples being: carving a turnip into a dove, making a turtle out of a pumpkin, shaving carrots into flowers, etc.) while whatever Ratatosk makes is very rough in appearance (as described by Marta). Regardless of who cooks, it's still apparently good.
 * Many fans have notice that Emil has many similiarities to Luke fon Fabre from Tales of the Abyss. This can be suspected, because Emil earns many of Luke's artes, they are both replicas of somebody else, they carry their swords in a simliar way, and their endings are very similiar.
 * Apparently no one ever notices the difference in Emil's and Ratatosk's eye colors, only being able to tell the difference through their behaviors and possibly tone of voice. A prime example of this is late in the game, during a period when Ratatosk has remained dominant for a long period of time. Marta was distressed at this, and Ratatosk tried to cheer her up, looking her in the eyes and mimicking Emil's tone of voice, but accidentally calling Marta a "fool". Marta only realized that Ratatosk was in control after this. Another example is at the end of the game, when Emil tries acting like Ratatosk to get the group to kill him and turn him into a core. While he replicates Ratatosks personality and voice perfectly, fooling everyone, his eyes remain Emil's green.
 * Both Emil and Ratatosk can mimick each other's voices perfectly; only Emil can perfectly replicate Ratatosk's personality, not the other way around.