Sophie

Sophie (ソフィ), referred to as the Child of Fodra by the Little Queen, is the heroine in Tales of Graces. She is a young girl Asbel Lhant meets in his childhood, who has lost her memories and possesses no recollection of her past. Her name was given to her by Asbel; Sophie is derived from the Sopheria flower she seemed fascinated by the first time they met. By the end of the "Lineage and Legacies" story arc in Tales of Graces ƒ, Asbel and Cheria Barnes has adopted Sophie as their daughter, making her full name Sophie Lhant.

Prologue
A young Asbel and Hubert Oswell find Sophie sleeping in the flower garden on Lhant Hill. When Asbel calls to her, she awakens, startling the young boys. Sophie becomes fascinated by a passing butterfly and nearly walks off a cliff following it, but is rescued by Asbel. When asks for her name, Sophie is perplexed and unable to answer. Hubert suggests Sophie perhaps has amnesia, so the two take her to Lhant. When the three travel back to Lhant, they are accompanied by Cheria to see if anyone around knows Sophie. While they are in the Lhant manor, Asbel's father, Aston Lhant, speaks to them about prince Richard's expected visit to Lhant, and about his plans to hand Sophie over to the authorities to find her family. Outside of the manor, Asbel and the others decides to give Sophie her name, Sophie, inspired by the flower that she was fascinated by. After Sophie was named, the group hears that a Turtlez carriage carrying Richard has been attacked. When the group saves Richard's carriage, Aston begins scolding Asbel for his recklessness.

The group return to town and decides to meet Richard. After introducing themselves to Richard, Richard tells them to leave, thinking that they plan to use him as his status as a prince. Soon after this event, Richards sword training with his teacher, Bryce, orders Richard to begin his sword training, despite the fact that Richard is not feeling too well. When Asbel takes Richards place, the training is stopped by Richard's escort and orders him to join the other guards in the manor. Then, Sophie and Asbel decides to take Richard to the Lhant hill. While on Lhant Hill, Bryce arrives and reveals himself as an assassin hired to kill Richard, but Sophie and Asbel defeats him. After defeating Bryce, the trio falls down from the top of the cliff. When the group gets back up, they make a friendship pact on Lhant Hill's tree by carving their name into the tree, agreeing to never split up. Sophie, Asbel, and Richard returns back to Lhant, but Aston confines Asbel in his room for recklessly endangering their lives.

Sophie breaks down the door to Asbel's room, helping him escape to Barona. After arriving in Barona, Sophie Asbel, Hubert, and Cheria decides to explore the capital city. When they ask Richard to take them to the castle, Richard says that they will have to take a secret passage at night to get in. That night, Richard does not show up, so the group goes without him, and fights a passage to the Barona Catacombs. While exploring the dark cave, the group discover Richard, unconscious on the ground. While Sophie and Asbel tend to Richard, a black monster appears and attacks Hubert and Cheria, leaving them unconscious. Asbel recklessly attacks the monster, Sophie having to save him. After this, Sophie battles the monster while Asbel passes out. As Asbel wakes back up, Sophie sacrifices herself the destroy the remains of the monster. As she fades away, she gives light to Asbel, Hubert, and Cheria, living inside them.

Seven Years Later
Sophie appears again, when Asbel, and Cheria are endangered by the fendel machine. Just as it was about to kill them, Sophie is resurrected from the light she gave them at the Catacombs. However, Asbel does not believe this to be Sophie. She helps them defeats the tank, but Asbel and Cheria are shocked when she says she doesn't have any memories of them. Asbel leads the Lhant soldiers through the Seaside Cavern, and they manage to sneak into the fendel camp, but they soon find out that it is a trap and the Fendel soldiers are already attacking Lhant. When they arrive back at Lhant, Asbel's brother, Hubert arrives with Strahtan soldiers and defeats the Fendel soldiers. Asbel decides to speak with Hubert in the manor, so Sophie stays outside and waits for his return. The conversation ends in chaos as Asbel is throw out of Lhant, along with Sophie. After Sophie is thrown out of Lhant with Asbel, they both head to Barona via ship, but two Barona knights chases them after their arrival. Sophie and Asbel travel to the Barona Catacombs and find Richard on the ground, weakened. Then, Richard tells the two that his father was killed by his uncle, [[Cedric. Sophie and Asbel agrees to help Richard reclaim the throne and decides to head to Gralesyde to speak with Duke Dalen.

After the party defeats Lambda and frees Richard from his control, Sophie observes how Lambda has changed from merging with a hopeful Asbel. She decides this "Lambda" does not have to be destroyed, and everyone is satisfied to have Sophie remain with them. She is seen during the story's ending tending to her Sopheria flowers outside Asbel's manor, where Asbel soon joins her. She tells him of a dream she had where she fell asleep in a flower field and woke up an adult, and this vision makes her wonder if she can grow at all.

Toward the beginning of the "Lineage and Legacies" story arc in Tales of Graces ƒ, Sophie is with Asbel visiting his father's grave at the graveyard in Lhant. After a brief conversation with Asbel, she begins to worry about what will become of her when all her friends die, seeing she is very different from the rest of them and wish to become a human. As she worries, she begins having visions of a strange woman, later revealed to be the Fodra Queen, attempting to convince Sophie to join her to vanquish the loneliness.

In the final battle against the Fodra Queen, Sophie refused to follow her, convincing the Fodra Queen that she is an enemy. After the Fodra Queen's defeat, with Lambda's help, Sophie able to convince the Fodra Queen to find another way to save Fodra. The Fodra Queen then merges with Sophie, giving Sophie some human aspects, such as capable of crying. Sophie decides to live her life as it is since she realizes that she won't be alone as long as Lambda is with her until they reach understanding with Fodra.

After the credits, an older Sophie is seen at Lhant Hill playing with a young boy who looks similar to Asbel but with Cheria's hair color. She reads him a story about a boy who took care of a "seed" he found. As she tells the story, the tree with the friendship pact is shown, and Lambda's name is carved next to Sophie's, thereby including him in the pact.

Appearance and Personality
Sophie has lavender hair with long pigtails that reach down to her legs, and during the main arc of the game, she wears her humanoid armor, with which she was born. It consists of a gray suit with a pink over-vest that has magenta lining. She wears a black belt that connects to her white leg warmers, and on her arms are large dark blue gloves, fastened by red rings at the top. She wears light pink shoes, with a red ribbon on each, and an anklet on her right foot. In the "Lineage and Legacies" arc of the game, she becomes accustomed to human clothes.

Sophie is first seen sleeping in a flower field at the top of Lhant Hill by a young Asbel and Hubert. She appears to lack any common sense at first, shown by almost walking off the cliff while chasing a butterfly. Due to her amnesia, Sophie has only basic knowledge of communication, and knows little of anything else, especially emotions; however, as the story progresses, she develops strong bonds with everyone she meets, fueled by her desire to protect those important to her, a trait learned from Asbel. She is often left confused at the more complicated discussions that the party has, and takes many things too seriously. Due to the fact that she does not know much about the world, she is incredibly curious about the world around her often asking the party many questions, though mostly trivial.

Fighting Style
Sophie has two main styles: the Martial Assault Artes (格闘技), which specializes in unarmed attacks and the Regenerative Burst Artes (再生術), which has an equal focus between healing artes and photon-based attacks. Her assault artes have high focus on speed and maneuverability, while her healing burst artes focus more on single-target as opposed to Cheria's area-based ones, while her offensive burst artes are mainly long-ranged techniques that draw inspiration from her friends. In Japanese, the title of those artes contain sounds that are shared with the character they are from, while in English, the techniques directly reference the character's weapons.

Relationships
Asbel Lhant - During childhood, Asbel and Hubert found Sophie lying in a flower field. It is not long before Sophie becomes very protective toward Asbel and his other childhood friends, going so far as risking her life to protect them. This event in Asbel's life makes him want to change and become stronger so that he will not lose anyone again. As Asbel reaches 18 years of age, Sophie once more appears before him and Cheria as they are attacked by tanks. Asbel acts very protective and caring toward Sophie because of what happened in the past. After Sophie's revelation that she is an artificial lifeform created to sacrifice her life in order to destroy Lambda, Asbel consistently shows his disdain toward the idea. The true extent of Asbel's bond with Sophie is shown to be very deep, as Asbel eventually becomes willing to sacrifice his life to spare Sophie from death. Overall, Asbel's relationship with Sophie is that of a father figure and older brother. This becomes more established when Asbel officially adopts Sophie into the Lhant house, effectively becoming her father. In Drama CD, it's shown that Asbel is overprotective towards Sophie due to her cluelessness, worrying almost to the smallest thing like a doting father does.

Cheria Barnes - Cheria becomes a bit jealous of Sophie when the two first meet, thinking that she may be a rival for Asbel's affection, but does not express it openly. She becomes quite fond of her, realizing that she is actually a friendly person. Seven years later, Cheria acts motherly toward Sophie, which Sophie returns, claiming that she wants Cheria to care for her like a mother would. Unlike Asbel, Cheria is more confident that Sophie could take care of herself.

Richard - Sophie develops a discomfort around Richard when they are reunited seven years later, due to Lambda that lies inside him. It is because of this the two are unable to touch, for it would cause a "burning" reaction. As such, when Sophie tries to offer him a hand after seeing him collapse down on his knees, he rejects her immediately. She becomes saddened by this, dropping her head down in defeat. Sophie often wonders whether she and Richard are truly friends or not due to the distance that is placed between them. In the future arc, they both reconcile, Richard even shares his secret hiding spot with her when she was depressed.

Malik Caesar - Sophie views Malik with much respect, since Asbel does the same. She refers to him as "kyoukan" (教官), or Captain, despite him not being her instructor, simply because Asbel does as well, which develops into a sort of nickname for Malik, in which all the party members refer to him as such. Sophie often asks Malik questions about things she does not know as she sees him as the most knowledgeable of the group being the oldest. Malik treats Sophie nicely. In some skits, he taught her a song or tell her stories that could help her sleep.

Pascal - Sophie views Pascal as somewhat a role model, often copying her words and actions. Pascal is very fond of Sophie and likes to hug or tease her, that sometimes Sophie respond by either running away from her or let her do as she pleases.

Lambda - Originally made to destroy Lambda, his destruction was the sole purpose for her existence. But once she recovered her memories and began pursuing her original objective, Asbel and the others refused to let her carry it out and tried to talk her out of killing herself in order to destroy Lambda. Asbel is hurt the most as he angrily shouts at her after escaping from Lambda's Cocoon at World's Eye. Later on, when Asbel allows Lambda to merge with him, Sophie discovers that this "Lambda" is different and does not have to be destroyed. Though it is not seen of their new relationship outside of Tales of Graces ƒ, Sophie later comes to put her own trust in Lambda to care for Asbel.

Trivia

 * Sophie is the diminutive of Sophia, which is derived from σοφία, the Greek word for wisdom.
 * Sophie's "iDOLM@STER" costume is based on the one Eri Mizutani wears in THE iDOLM@STER Dearly Stars. Both characters are voiced by Kana Hanazawa.
 * Sophie is shown enjoying eating crab omelettes to the point that in one downloadable skit for Tales of Graces ƒ featuring Rutee Katrea, Kyle Dunamis, and Judas, she exclaims that she wants all download contents to be crab omelettes.