Velvet Crowe | |
---|---|
Information | |
Appearance | Tales of Berseria |
Hometown | Aball |
Age | •16 (prologue) •19 (main story) |
Height | 170 cm[1] |
Race | •Human (former) •Therion (current) |
Occupation | Lord of Calamity |
Weapon | Gauntlet Blade (primary weapon) |
Japanese Voice Actor | Rina Satou[1] |
English Voice Actor | Cristina Vee[2] |
Character Designer | Mutsumi Inomata |
Velvet Crowe (ベルベット・クラウ Berubetto Kurau?) is the central protagonist in Tales of Berseria. Originally kind and family-oriented, the events of the Scarlet Night three years prior turned her into an angry woman tainted by vengeance.
History[]
A Stolen Happiness[]
Ten years before the story, Velvet had a warm and happy life in Aball, living with her older sister Celica Crowe, younger brother Laphicet Crowe, and brother-in-law Arthur, under whom she trained. During a Scarlet Night, her village was attacked by daemons, and her older sister was killed, leaving Velvet to take care of Laphicet together with Arthur.
Three years before the story, despite the loss of Celica and her unborn child, Velvet still leads a happy life, caring for her sickly brother. A few days before an upcoming Scarlet Night, Velvet is doing her usual errands. The next day, she wakes and notices that Laphicet is not at home and begins to look for him. Her search takes her to Tranquil Woods, where she finds her brother, who happened to take a break on his way to the cape. She takes him and they talk a bit, but they are soon attacked by a daemon and Velvet attempts to fight off the monster while giving her brother a window of escape. However, she is unable to do so, and Laphicet encourages the daemon to attack him. It gives into his taunt and knocks Laphicet on the ground with Velvet as he attempts to give her a comb.
Velvet loses consciousness and wakes in her bed during the Scarlet Night with the comb in her hand and her brother nowhere to be seen. She rushes outside to find daemons attacking the village, much to her horror, and rushes to the cape in hopes of finding her brother. She finds Arthur together with Laphicet. Relieved to see her brother alright, she rushes to him, but a binding arte is placed upon her, and before her very eyes, Arthur kills Laphicet and drops him into the shrine's depths. Velvet breaks free from the arte's shackles and jumps into the hole, catching her brother with her right hand while hanging onto the shrine's edge with her left. Arthur remarks how Velvet acts on emotion and that nothing can save Laphicet now, cutting Velvet's fingers off her left hand, the dropping the two into the shrine.
A mysterious entity devours Laphicet, and a bright light emerges from the shrine. Seeing her brother dead, Velvet is fueled with rage and swears to avenge her brother by killing Arthur. The same mysterious entity curses her with daemonic powers in her left hand. When she is thrown from the shrine, daemons attack her, but she strikes back and devours them on instinct. Arthur notices this and calls her a "therion". He asks her to look around, and much to Velvet's horror, she discovers that the daemons she devoured were Aball's inhabitants. With her psyche shattered and fatigued from the fight, she collapses as malakhim begin to appear and Arthur reveals his real name: Artorius Collbrande. He takes her to the prison island Titania, where prisoners and daemons are kept and thrown to her so she can devour them.
Escape from Titania[]
Three years later, a malak woman named Seres arrives at Titania and helps Velvet break out of her yoke. She tells Velvet that Artorius is currently in the capital Loegres, where he leads the Abbey. The two come across Rokurou Rangetsu, who, after hearing from Velvet where he can find his blade, Stormhowl, rushes back for it. As the two make their way through the prison, Velvet incites a riot with Seres's help by unlocking arte-locked prisoner cells. They meet Magilou, a self-proclaimed witch who quickly disappears on them. As Velvet and Seres make their way to the front docks, they happen upon a praetor-rank exorcist, Oscar Dragonia, who, with the help of the two malakhim accompanying him, fights the women.
Seeing that Velvet will not go down so easy, he intends to use a ball of dark energy on her, but misses and turns one of his malakhim into a Drake that strikes Oscar against a wall and temporarily stuns him. The monster then attempts to attack Velvet, who intends to fight him head on, but Seres takes a lethal blow while covering her. The malak woman says there is a flame in her heart that cannot be quenched and asks Velvet to devour her, as it will complete her oath. Velvet grants Seres her request and eats her, the malak woman's memories flashing through the other's mind, and the Sorcerer's Ring, Brunhilt, forms. With it, Velvet is able to defeat and devour the Drake, blind Oscar in one eye, and steal a ship with Rokurou and Magilou's help.
Appearance and Personality[]
Velvet is a tall woman with long, black hair and golden eyes. In the prologue, Velvet's attire consists of a brown, short-sleeved shirt over a black, one-piece uniform, with shin-pads strapped above brown boots, with a pair of black short shorts layered over, and her hair is woven in a braid tied by a red strap around the tips. During this time, Velvet is a cheerful, kind, loving girl with a normal life. She expresses overprotectiveness of her little brother, and instantly falls into shambles when her loved ones are massacred.
After three years of her imprisonment, being forced to fight, kill, and devour daemons, Velvet's uniform has been ripped and tattered into rags, exposing a lot of her skin with her left arm's therion capabilities sealed by bandages whenever they are not currently activated. Her hair has become messy, and grown down to her legs, and the red strap is replaced with a bandage.
When Seres helps her escape, she takes a revealing ruby-red corset which reveals her midriff and the top half of her breasts, and a tattered, black coat with several belts and silver leg-guards. Eleanor Hume once offered to mend her clothes, and a confused but appreciative Velvet accepts, even showing consideration to Eleanor's health and hygiene, noting how the male members of the party "aren't considerate enough" to do the same, something Velvet seemed annoyed by. Eleanor chooses not to mend Velvet's clothes only out of respect for Velvet, as Eleanor incorrectly assumed Velvet's clothes belonged to someone Velvet held dear; in fact she just threw her clothes together haphazardly.
Contrary to heroic protagonists fueled by a need to help others and pursue good-intention motives that involve enacting the moral kind of justice, Velvet's rogue path opts for a more personal and less moral kind of justice, almost similar to Yuri Lowell's vigilante approach to things in Tales of Vesperia, as the latter takes things that cause harm to others into a personal matter.
Consumed by the betrayal of Artorius and the death of her loved ones, Velvet has changed from a kind girl into a standoffish woman driven by vengeance. She is very cold, aloof, and brutally honest about her goals and how she views other people, and her aggressive demeanor especially ignites whenever Artorius is nearby. Because of her childhood trauma of losing her arm and her brother, Velvet inevitably shuts herself from all other emotions, viewing them as mere obstacles that would hold her back in her goal to kill Artorius, whom she once loved and trusted. His betrayal ultimately spurred a distrust in Velvet that results in her only using people for her own advantage, initially refusing to form friendships until Laphicet, Eleanor, Magilou, Eizen, and Rokurou collectively wear down Velvet's cold exterior.
Before long, Velvet finds herself showing frequent concern and consideration to the other party members despite herself and repeated statements professing to the contrary. When Eleanor is experiencing ill effects from taking sale'tomah, Velvet goes out of her way to ask Laphicet how Eleanor is feeling, and when told the redheaded Exorcist is doing better, Velvet shows genuine relief, but when Laphicet brings up how she seems worried about Eleanor, Velvet brushes it off and claims she doesn't care. Magilou, who watched the exchange, doesn't believe the Daemoneater at all, even outright saying Velvet has "trouble expressing her feelings." Later on, when Eleanor is driven to tears after Oscar defends the Abbey's atrocities, Velvet kicks Oscar's head to the wall, roundly denouncing him, not for defending the Abbey, but for "making a girl cry," referring to Eleanor. Velvet even admits privately that the only reason she chose not to kill Oscar on the spot is because she did not want to upset Eleanor, and this was long before she discovered the truth of malevolence and how it affects Laphicet.
Velvet's motherly nature allows her to become an older sister figure of the team, particularly to Laphicet and Kamoana to a lesser extent. But Velvet's relationship with Eleanor undergoes the most drastic change due to Velvet's own growth throughout the course of the game, as they start off enemies from their fundamentally different views of the world as well as Eleanor's association with the Abbey. Through circumstances outside their control, Eleanor and Velvet become uneasy allies due to Eleanor becoming Laphicet's vessel, preventing him from dying, leading to some jealousy over their closeness to him and mistrust due to their early rivalry. But as the story progresses, both women grow to respect and care for one another, and by the end of the game, Velvet and Eleanor develop a deep trust despite still retaining much of their snarky banter, eventually becoming close friends despite their initial emnity. Before the final battle, Velvet even says "We're lucky to have you, Eleanor," to which Eleanor playfully notes how strange it is for the Lord of Calamity to show gratitude to an Exorcist.
Although Velvet's rage keeps her pressing forward and fighting for the one thing she believes will deliver her resolve, she nevertheless holds to her former self in vulnerable moments, often showing a tenderness that surprises her companions, who only know her current self. While she is wracked with self-loathing, believing herself irredeemable and calling herself a "selfish, horrible girl," the party members all disagree, and each of whom throughout the course of the game express admiration for her passion and still-existing humanity. Rokurou says she hates as much as she loves, a kind of humanity he admires, while Eizen, who initially felt her crusade against the world was the height of "foolishness," admits that same "foolishness" is worth respecting and following. Magilou, in a rare moment of seriousness, praises her for giving Laphicet a name and helping him forge his own identity. Magilou is left speechless after realizing Velvet will not give up even after losing her first fight with Artorius, and when Velvet breaks through the illusions at Aball, Magilou expresses her surprise, impressed at Velvet's willpower to avoid false happiness such as the sight of Niko and her brother being alive. Even Eleanor, who was her enemy at first, loses all willingness to betray Velvet after realizing the truth behind Velvet's hatred for Artorius and the Abbey's true goals for the world. Laphicet is typically the cause of this vulnerability due to his likeness of Velvet's dead brother. However, Velvet wrestles with connecting and disconnecting the two in her head, knowing they are different people but never fully suppressing her softer emotions she still retains. Ultimately, Velvet spends much of the game's plot in a trance-like state that is only broken when her resolve falters, her rage and sorrow conflicting in her mind and confusing her to the point that her internal struggle eventually reaches a climax.
After learning the truth about her brother's death and nearly succumbing to her despair, and through Laphicet's affection towards her, she finally found balance between the two sides of her, becoming more kindhearted to her friends, but still holding a deep grudge towards those who wronged her. But Velvet never does manage to overcome her self-loathing due to her deep-seated remorse and shame for her actions. She admits that she still loves Artorius for who he used to be and what he meant to her as a kid, but she resolves to kill him to avenge herself and to save the world from falling under Innominat's suppression.
Fighting Style[]
Velvet fights up-close and personal. For her martial artes, she uses blades hidden within the soles of her shoes, performing swift, lacerating kicks. For her hidden artes, she uses a gauntlet-mounted blade on her right arm to perform vicious stabbing and slashing attacks. The elemental properties on her hidden artes are well-suited for performing weak point combos. As Velvet was trained under Artorius's tutelage, as stated in the beginning of the game, some of her artes shares similar animations to his, such as her Rising Moon to his Ascension.
Her Break Soul is Consuming Claw, which therionizes Velvet and unleashes the power of her left arm. She gains certain buffs depending on the type of enemy she strikes and enables her to unleash a special arte. Her health constantly decreases in this state, but she also deals more damage in proportion to the amount of health she loses.
Her mystic artes are Lethal Pain, Annihilating Crash, and Impulse Desire. She also has a dual mystic arte with Laphicet called Innumerable Wounds.
Other Appearances[]
Tales of the Rays[]
In Tales of the Rays, Velvet appears as a stray nexus created from the mysterious non-sanctioned exoflection of her world, with her and her companions being exoflected before their final battle against Artorius and Innominat. Together with Laphicet, they live in an isolated cabin in the forest until they meet Ix Nieves and Mileena Weiss, who explain their current situation. In addition, she meets Edna, who she realizes is Eizen's sister, with Edna revealing that she knows about her and Laphicet from Eizen's letters. While speaking with Ix, Mileena, and Edna, she learns that not only was she exoflected to another world, but that she and Edna were exoflected from different points of time, with the Edna before her being from the distant future of her world.
Afterwards, both she and Edna agree to not talk about their respective eras, with Velvet stating that she has something she needs to do and the last thing she wants to hear is how her story ends. Now knowing that humans and malakhim are not endangered by malevolence in Tir Na Nog, Laphicet desires to give Velvet the chance at a peaceful life by living with her in the exoflected Aball. Velvet is uncertain, but agrees to go see the village. Along the way, the party reunites with Sorey and Mikleo, who quickly become apprehensive, believing Velvet to be the hellion who attacked them and is currently hunting Ix and Mileena while leaving destruction in her path, especially when Sorey reveals that he is a Shepherd from his time. Thinking he is just another one of Artorius' zealots, and that Mikleo is his tethered malak, Velvet reveals she is the Lord of Calamity from her time. Edna manages to clear up the misunderstanding, but then the true culprit appears.
Another Velvet is revealed to have been exoflected by Phantom, summoned after she learned the truth about Innominat and the second Scarlet Night, but before Laphicet restored her sanity. Now fully succumbed to despair, the alternate Velvet seeks to kill Ix and Mileena under the false promise that she can return to her world and kill Artorius. After the encounter, Velvet decides to call her past self the Vengeance Demon (復讐鬼?) to make things clearer.
In order to defeat her other self without endangering civilians, Velvet has the party recreate the Meirchio incident in Aball. When given the choice to pick which Velvet to side with, Laphicet sides with the future Velvet, who taught him how to live. When Sorey fails to reason with and later purify the Vengeance Demon, Velvet takes responsibility and devours her. With no place to return to and refusing the Shepherd's offer to clear up the villagers' misconceptions, Velvet resolves to help Ix and Mileena on their quest until her time comes. Since he is a Shepherd, Velvet asks Sorey a question, concerning the "many over the individual" policy Artorius adopted. Sorey responds that he would "choose the individuals so [he would] end up with the many."
As a result of her exoflection, Velvet's sense of taste is somehow restored, although the feeling of never being full still remains. She and Ludger Will Kresnik frequently cook meals for the party and contribute with housekeeping duties. She also once again heckles White Turtlez to market supplies at bargain prices causing him to accumulate massive debts and become Dark Turtlez.
Tales of the Rays: Last Cradle[]
Revenge Underway[]
In the eleventh chapter of the fourth arc, Rose and Dezel, sneak into the mansion of the Glenwood territory and discover Heldalf, Oscar, and Teresa. Velvet, who learned about the situation from Rose's report, heads to Midgand territory with one certainty in mind.
Tales of Crestoria[]
In Tales of Crestoria, Velvet lived a quiet life with her brother Laphicet Crowe. Laphicet even dreamed of going on adventures. One night, the two were up in the mountains to pick vegetables for dinner. On their way back, they heard a commotion. They followed the noise and found a blonde woman fighting a giant monster. The monster threw the woman off guard long enough to grab Laphicet. Suddenly, Velvet felt another presence flow into her mind, begging to live. When Velvet opened her eyes, she saw that the woman performed an arte that obliterated the monster, along with Velvet's left arm and her brother. Then, right before her eyes, a disembodied monster symbiotically merged with Velvet's body, replacing her burned arm. Filled with rage, Velvet swore bloody revenge until the woman named Milla Maxwell offers her own life in return for helping her on her mission to wipe out the incarnations. Milla explained to Velvet that the incarnations were the physical manifestation of sin that had consumed the body of a transgressor before the vision orbs were invented, and that she could not die until they are all destroyed. Velvet agreed to the terms and worked with Milla to complete her mission.
The Wake of Sin[]
Velvet appears alongside Milla, saving Kanata Hjuger from a monster in Dalchia before the two disappear.
Side Story: Velvet[]
Velvet and Milla are overwhelmed by a swarm of monsters and are separated from each other. It is revealed that the monsters are somehow attracted to Velvet's "incarnation" arm like moths to a flame. During the confrontation, Velvet hears a noise that causes her to tumble down a cliff.
Velvet awakens from a nightmare, in which her brother turned into a monster before being cut down by Milla, and finds herself in a room, where she meets a young boy named Laphicet, who saved her life. Fully healed, Velvet follows Laphicet, outside and Laphicet introduces her to the rest of Kio. As Velvet and Laphicet go out into the forest to regain Velvet's strength, the villagers warn the two not to approach Pasedy Mine. During their rounds, Laphicet reveals that he was the noise Velvet heard before she fell down the cliff. He also opens up to her, telling his backstory as someone taken in and raised by an adventurer who left a long time ago. How Laphicet talks about his "Uncle" reminds Velvet of how her brother wanted to go out on adventures too.
Suddenly, Velvet's arm senses an incarnation and rushes toward the direction, and stumbles upon the very Pasedy Mine she and Laphicet were strictly forbidden from entering. A girl named Presea Combatir shows up. Velvet tells her to stand aside so she can kill the incarnation, but Presea refuses, and fights Velvet. After the fight ends in a draw, Presea reveals that her sister, Alicia Combatir, is in there. To protect Alicia, Presea destroys the entrance into the mine, preventing Velvet’s approach. A group of monsters appear from another opening leading into the mine. Velvet cuts a path through, allowing her and Laphicet to escape.
Arriving back at Kio, Velvet informs the villagers about the incarnation and asks for their help in reopening the mine. The villagers refuse, saying that “whatever Presea says goes.” Velvet reluctantly decides not to involve herself with someone else’s affairs and leaves.
Laphicet catches up and explains that Presea and Alicia worked together as lumberjacks for Kio Village. The reason why Presea looks so young was because one day, Presea fell deeply ill. A traveling apothecary came by and healed her. Unfortunately, the medicine provided had all sorts of side effects. It amplified her strength, at the cost of her growth. Laphicet states that she is much older than him, but looked the same age for as long as they have known each other.
Suddenly, Presea suffered a terrible accident that prevented her from cutting more trees. The medicine needed was too expensive for working in Kio. So Alicia resorted to traveling to the city to find higher paying work while Laphicet stayed behind to tend to Presea's wounds. Alicia worked day and night at a nobleman's mansion to earn enough money to buy the medicine needed for her sister. And it all went along smoothly. But while she was working, Alicia caught the eye of the nobleman's son, who wanted to marry her. He could not take no for an answer, so he abducted Alicia and locked her away. The details for the rest of the story are currently unknown, but in the end, Alicia killed the nobleman's son and escaped. When the residents of the city learned of this, they showed the son's corpse to Vision Central and sealed Alicia's fate when her vision orb transformed into a Stain of Guilt on her arm. Desperate to save her sister's life, Presea resorted to cutting Alicia's stained arm off. Unfortunately, this only made things worse, and transformed her into an incarnation.
Laphicet wonders if Alicia's spirit was still alive in the incarnation she was absorbed into, since it seemed very tame around Presea, and theorizes that Velvet's arm could be the key to separating Alicia from her incarnation, though neither of them know how it would work. Velvet refuses, stating that if Laphicet's plan fails, Presea's mental condition would worsen. Laphicet is ready to bear his sin, if it comes to it.
After reaching the caved-in entrance, they come across Caius Qualls, who is looking for a girl named Rubia, and Norma Beatty, who is looking for treasure. The two newcomers manage to help Velvet and Laphicet find another entrance into the mine, where Velvet senses the presence of Alicia's incarnation. Laphicet tries to reach out to Alicia, but Velvet intervenes, saying that Alicia is no more. Then, the incarnation starts crashing into the walls, causing the cave to quake. The group follows the incarnation outside the mine, toward Kio. Laphicet tries to stop Velvet from killing Alicia, but to no avail. Velvet consumes the incarnation. Presea arrives at the scene and is filled with rage. As the two fought, Velvet acknowledges Presea's right for revenge before the latter faints from exhaustion.
Back at Laphicet's room, Laphicet is tending to both Velvet and Presea's wounds when Norma and Caius barge in to give them a letter the incarnation dropped.
Trivia[]
- Velvet is the second solo female protagonist in the Tales series. The first one is Mika from Tales of Breaker.
- Velvet is a type of woven fabric with a dense, even pile that gives it a distinctive soft feel.
- Velvet's surname, "Crowe", is of Middle Old English origin. It was a nickname for someone said to resemble the crow bird, probably if they had very dark hair, which Velvet has.
- Velvet is allergic to cats. In a skit, she avoids going to Katz Corner to conceal her allergies, which results in her sneezing. Strangely enough, in the special skit that comes with a pre-ordered copy of Tales of Berseria, Velvet claims her favorite animal person is a Katz despite her allergy. In another skit, Velvet admits that she is a dog person, stating that dogs do not betray. On a similar matter, during the collaboration event with Another Eden: The Cat Beyond Time and Space, Velvet states that she hates cats.
- In Tales of Zestiria the X, while sleeping in Meirchio, Sorey dreams of meeting Velvet where she encourages him to follow the path that he believes in.
- In her artwork, Velvet uses the Blood Blade, which appears as her default weapon in her crossover appearances.
- Velvet's main arc outfit appears as a legacy costume for Shionne Imeris in Tales of Arise.
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Tales of 20th Anniversary テイルズ オブ 大全, page 525, ISBN 4047330965
- ↑ I'm Velvet Crowe in #talesofberseria... Twitter (2017-01-24) Retrieved on 2017-01-24.