Marta Lualdi

Marta Lualdi (マルタ・ルアルディ) is a protagonist in Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World.

Appearance and Personality
Marta tends to think along a fully defined line of right and wrong. As a bit of a tomboy, Marta is passionate about getting her way. On the left side of her forehead lies Ratatosk's Core, in which Ratatosk is imprisoned in a dormant state. Emil became her guardian knight, a Knight of Ratatosk, in order to protect her and Ratatosk's core.

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, 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.

Marta's family is first described when the trio meets Colette Brunel, the last Chosen of Regeneration and the main heroine from the original game, Tales of Symphonia. According to Marta, her mother was killed during the Giant Kharlan Tree's rampage in the original game. Marta blames Colette, believing Colette ran away from her duty to regenerate the world while being unaware of the events that led to the disaster. Marta claims that if Colette 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 Lualdi, the leader of the Vanguard. Marta also states that she is the only child in their family.

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 area-based healing to support multiple party members at once, Marta's healing spells are restricted to single targets. Her magical abilities are unexplained due to her lack of elf or half-elf lineage.

Marta's weapon is the saw-like spinner, a unique weapon that is strapped onto her wrist. In close combat, Marta proves to be graceful attacker who uses her spinner along with quick kicks, spins, and leaps to attack enemies. The majority of her artes are named after types of birds or dances. 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 to able fire bursts of chi from his palms and is able to use a limited amount of chi healing. Marta's physical attacks are all classified as base artes, requiring the passive skill Ability Plus to link her attacks together into a chain of at most three base artes.

Relationships
Emil Castagnier - Emil is Marta's dearest friend and love interest. When they first met, Marta talks to Emil as if they had met previously, but Emil cannot remember. She quickly starts trying to force Emil to love her, but after enduring enough of Marta forcing their relationship along, Emil finally tells her that he cannot be the man she imagined him to be. It is then that Marta learns to start loving Emil for who he really is. Slowly, their relationship grew to the level that Emil and Marta could openly admit their love for each other. Humorously, Marta tends to get irrationally jealous if she senses someone else may like Emil or Emil may like someone else, sometimes bringing her to conflict with Colette, Raine, Sheena, and even Tenebrae, which was a joke on Tenebrae's part.

Tenebrae - Though originally tagging along to protect Ratatosk's core while Ratatosk himself regains his strength, Tenebrae became a good friend of Marta, who eventually sees him as someone she would never 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 Lualdi - 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 after the core controlling Brute's mind had been recovered and unsealed by the party, Brute returns to his kindhearted 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. Marta openly despised her to the point that she forcefully pushed Colette into a wall before fleeing. She continued to harbor these feelings until she worked alongside Colette to save Asgard from the wind storms they have been experiencing. Through their shared goal, Marta discovers who the real Colette is, finally realizing that Colette did not deliberately attempt to kill her mother. Following this, they become good friends who work well with each other. She even praises Colette in a random battle victory scene when she tells Emil that to understand love, he should fall in love with Marta.

Lloyd Irving - Marta was in open conflict against Lloyd's plans at the beginning of the story. She hated him for trying to take the Centurions' cores from them before they could be unsealed. She had no idea of Decus's involvement by posing as Lloyd for most of the game before learning of the real 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 treats their other allies. Sometimes, she will flirt with him after a battle for the sake of making Emil jealous.

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

Sheena Fujibayashi - Marta and Sheena quickly become friends after Sheena saves her from being kidnapped. Marta can often relate to Sheena, and Marta sometimes teases her when Sheena begins to fluster over Lloyd. Marta is extremely jealous of Sheena's body, especially when she catches Emil staring at her chest. The both of them also have very similar personalities.

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 she helps him to save his sister Seles Wilder after she had been kidnapped. He is disappointed that all of Marta's romantic attention is focused on Emil, though this does not stop him from attempting to flirt with her occasionally. When conflicted with her feelings for Emil and Ratatosk, he gives her some insightful advice, fully supporting her romance.

Trivia

 * Marta wears a keychain that resembles Mieu, a character from Tales of the Abyss. Tokunaga, Anise Tatlin's doll from the same game, is also visible on the back of her pouch.
 * The game's producers were originally planning to name Marta Selene, and give her much darker hair and personality.