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"Fantasy is more than an empty dream. It's a dream... with the power to change the world!"
The protagonist of Metaphor: ReFantazio, canonically known as Will primarily,[5][6] is a young man of a fantasy background. He is of the elda tribe, a race defined by no distinguished characteristics and an impossibly rare tribe.
Due to unfolding events that lead to a public election that is decided by people's faith, the protagonist joins as a candidate and embarks on a mission to save the prince, his best friend since childhood, from a curse by assassinating the supposed perpetrator Louis Guiabern.
Appearances
- Metaphor: ReFantazio: Protagonist (Defaults to Will)
- Metaphor: ReFantazio (Manga): Protagonist as Will
Design
The protagonist is a slender, young man with short, blue hair and heterochromic eyes: his left eye is yellow while the right is blue. He wears a white double-breasted coat with a windowpane pattern and black buttons, black pants, black gloves and black shoes with spats. Additionally, he wears a metal headband, a gorget, a travel bag and a navy sword belt with a scabbard holding the Legacy Sword that he can use to ride around town. The scabbard may be replaced by alternate equipped weapons while in a dangerous area.
When inside an inn or the gauntlet runner, he removes the coat to show the white and black long-sleeved shirt beneath.
Upon fusing with the prince's body, the protagonist's hair becomes white-silver and both of his eyes become blue to match the prince's. From this point onward, he does not wear his metal headpiece again, although it can still be seen on the King's Rock if he is ranked highly enough to appear on it.
During his brief transformation into a human, he resembled a massive, black and shadowed version of himself lined with purple.
Personality
The protagonist starts out innocent to a gullible degree, being unfamiliar with the culture of the capital, not recognizing prominent and popular figures such as Louis and Catherina and other fantasy tools such as the magic igniters, and initially steps into Grand Trad as if he were sightseeing rather than on an important mission, requiring Gallica to remind him that he is on a mission to save the prince.
He is, however, rather kind towards his allies, as he is willing to make detours as favors for his friends, like with how he insists to help Heismay in his bond events in spite of initial objections. This allows him to quickly gather popularity and respect among other people regardless of race, in spite of the elda's association with ill omens and calamities. This is further reflected in gameplay where he lacks any snarky or snide responses, with only playful responses at his absolute worst (such as telling Fidelio that he wants to join Louis to hit on Junah). At the end, he even garners respect from people from the church like Gideaux and Batlin, and is one of the very few people his arch-enemy Louis respects as a person.
The protagonist is shown to have a great deal of luck on his side. For example, while he originally tried to hunt the "notorious criminal" Heismay down to impress Louis, he instead stumbled into a massive conspiracy in Martira's government and found that the true culprit was actually a sanctoress who was secretly feeding children to a human, which gave him an opportunity to force the seemingly untouchable Forden to execute a fellow Sanctist, dealing a large dent to the church's reputation as an organization that protects mankind and cementing Louis' attention towards him.
After a series of unfortunate events where his reputation was destroyed by Louis briefly turn him into a human and inciting a mob to go after him, then finding out that his supposed childhood friend, the prince is slain and discovering his true identity is nothing by the revelations of the eldan queen, he temporarily enters an existential crisis and falls into despair. If he agrees to merge with the prince, however, he gains a resolve to return to the tournament as the prince of Euchronia to reclaim the throne as the rightful heir, as well as to stop Louis' insane plan to evolve humanity into rampaging monsters.
Unlike most other protagonists, the Travelling Boy is not a silent protagonist and has voicelines and dialogue even out of battle, though most of his lines are still player input.
In the manga, Will is shown to be headstrong and quick to act, which sometimes leads him to acting on his own without explaining his thought process to others, such was the case when he suddenly jumped on Strohl's horse or when he jumped in to attack Homo Avades. His thought process itself is often very straight forward, such as reasoning that he could crack Homo Avades's body because it resembled an egg. This can cause him to act somewhat recklessly. He also has somewhat child-like quality, easily getting excited of new things like when he excitedly looked around the gauntlet runner for the first time, much to Hulkenberg's exasperation. This doesn't make him less intelligent, however. Will has proven to be sharp and observant, noticing Heismay was purposely holding back against them and correctly deduced that the eugief was not what he was accused of.
Despite his occasional childishness and recklessness, Will is strong-willed, not one to be easily influenced by how others perceived him. When he was faced with the discrimination for being an elda for the first time, Will remained calm, not bothered in the slightest by the insults hurled towards him. He's also kind-hearted and caring of others, willing to risk himself for Maria despite having only just met her, even at the expense of losing his precious novel. And when Grius was killed by Louis, he was so enraged that his emotion got the better of him and attempted to attack Louis if not being held back by Strohl. This side of him, however, can also make him self-sacrificial, as demonstrated when he took on the human Sandworm all by himself to buy time for Gallica, Strohl, and Hulkenberg to retreat.
He is strongly loyal to the Prince's cause and willing to go through great lengths to ensure the Prince's return to the throne. Due to his strong sense of justice, he refuse to turn blind eye to atrocities he comes across. These qualities earned him trust and respect from his allies, who in return place their loyalty to him and acknowledge him as a leader.
Profile
Background
The protagonist and the prince in their (supposed) childhood.
Allegedly, the protagonist's village has been burned down due to tribal prejudice, as the elda tribe is discriminated against by people due to the state religion, Sanctism, deeming them a "tainted tribe" that has inherited heretical magic and in-general being treated as a symbol of ill omen that has ties with wars that destroyed the old world.
While left as an orphan at a very young age, the prince of Euchronia, however, took the boy in, who did not care about what tribe the protagonist was, leaving the protagonist indebted to him. The prince also gave him the fantasy novel, a fictional story about a utopia where there is one tribe, no discrimination, no magic and people are protected as such by law, implied to be a meta-narrative based on the king's idealized views of the ancient world.
Twelve years prior to the events of the story, the prince would be attacked in the middle of the night and was struck with a deadly curse by an assailant that resembled a child. Three years prior, the prince was declared dead. However, he was saved from the brink of it, and is merely sleeping; the Resistance, which the protagonist is a member of, exists to safeguard the prince in a hidden village and carry on his will, keeping his living state a secret. The rest of the Resistance took in the protagonist and raised him to be a spy.
Following King Hythlodaeus V's death, the protagonist, now at an age of 18, in an effort to rescue the prince from his curse, first embarks on an important mission together with Gallica to relay a message to Grius. The message itself is confidential, and only Gallica knows the contents of it.
Truth
In actuality, the protagonist's backstory is false; he is essentially a living Archetype created by the eldan queen to honor the prince's wish to explore the world, which he could not do in his debilitated state, by separating him from his soul and placing it into a magla body that materialized using his fantasy novel as a vessel. The queen also implanted him with false memories to hide his identity and keep him going with a purpose; the protagonist was never part of the resistance and had never set foot in the eldan sanctum. His fairy companion, Gallica, had her memories altered as well, being made to believe that the protagonist was tasked to relay the message to Grius with her, but she was the only one who partook in it.
Prologue
"Over ten years he has languished under this curse. How much longer can his body hold out? No doubt His Highness would protest... but since he cannot, we have no choice. For the man who cursed His Highness, and murdered our king... There can be no mercy! I never thought I would have to ask this of you. But there are so few of us left now... There is no one else to turn to. Will you infiltrate the military to deliver a message to our contact there? This is your mission. For all our sakes, you cannot fail."
The protagonist is first seen in-game riding a carriage on the way to the Grand Trad alongside Hulkenberg and several others. However, they were attacked by bandits and the protagonist, in an attempt to protect his fantasy novel from being stolen, gets pushed off a cliff and gets lost in Tradia Desert, though with Gallica's help he quickly gets back on road en route to Grand Trad. Despite being a lone elda who sneaked into a massive, bustling capital city, the citizens of Grand Trad quickly caught wind of his presence, which elicited a variety of responses from them such as mockery, fear or even intrigue.
Since Grius is undercover as a soldier in the royal army, the protagonist volunteers to be a soldier at the recruitment center in the royal capital and runs into Leon Strohl, who just happened to sign for the army and resolve what would otherwise be a violent argument between the protagonist and a roussainte man looking down on his eldan bloodline, with Strohl and the protagonist quickly becoming friends after the minor scuffle. For practice, they are first deployed at the Northern Border Fort, which is where their contact Grius is. However, they immediately run into trouble at the fort; the fresh recruits were secretly marked to be thrown away as sacrifices by Captain Klinger in one of Louis' many popularity stunts against the remote areas of the kingdom, where the count would summon humans and other lesser monsters to wreck the fort and slay them himself while Klinger would enable the attacks or in this case, lure the unsuspecting recruits to their deaths. Fighting their way to the top of the fort, they encounter a giant human known as the Homo Gorleo, who easily and grievously injures Strohl. The protagonist, seeing Strohl about to die, awakens to his Archetype, the Seeker, allowing him to fight and survive. He successfully kills the human before the count could complete the stunt himself and runs into Grius.
After finally encountering Grius, Gallica's message is revealed: Grius's mission is now to kill the person responsible for assassinating the king and (supposedly) for cursing the prince, who Grius identifies as Louis Guiabern. This is also where the protagonist learns of who Louis is, a prodigal tactician and a master of magla arts, but regardless a treasonous fiend that evades all allegations because he didn't leave any evidence behind, hence his many supporters.
Grius later attempts to assassinate Louis at Hythlodaeus V's funeral, under the assumption that he'll be there. However, the election magic arranged by Hythlodaeus V himself is triggered, stating that the throne belongs to the one who garners most public support by a deadline. This protects Louis from getting assassinated by Grius, effectively getting him killed in turn. Also, Louis deploys Cirsium Zorba to seize the Royal Sceptre from the Regalith Grand Cathedral and start a terrorist attack known as the "Day of Calamity," where he would steal the Royal Sceptre and unleash a giant human Louis slain in the middle of Grand Trad to destroy it. The protagonist and Strohl, now joined by Hulkenberg, head to the Grand Cathedral to thwart Zorba. The Royal Sceptre ends up being taken by the king's soul into the royal palace where it is mostly out of reach, and Zorba seemingly commits suicide to resurrect the giant human after being defeated. The party puts the giant human down once again and thwarts the terrorist attack.
Hythlodaeus V's magic serves as a catalyst for the Sanctist Church to announce the Tournament for the Throne, where the entire population of the United Kingdom of Euchronia competes. The protagonist himself decides to participate as well in order to save the prince. In spite of the announcement of the first challenge being to bring a monster head evaluated by size, Strohl hatches a plan to capture Heismay, an allegedly nefarious criminal responsible for a series of mass disappearances in Martira, in order to stand out from their competition and display sincerity in their intent to pursue the throne. Hulkenberg manages to secure a gauntlet runner for the protagonist through recruiting Neuras, allowing them to participate in the tournament. As a candidate, he initially stands dead last amongst the 4,000 that participated in the tournament courtesy of his eldan lineage.
On the way to Martira, the party encounters Louis' representative Glodell and monk knight captain Gideaux, who are trying to disable each other's runners. To gain Louis' attention, they help Glodell to fend off Gideaux, which forces the monk captain to retreat. Despite Glodell's ungratefulness, Louis drops down from the Skyrunner Charadrius alongside several of his followers and asks the protagonist about his motives, at which he expresses an intent to join him. The count then tells the protagonist that if he wants to join him, he should prove his worth.
Martira arc
Once the party arrives to Martira, Joanna offers the protagonist her family heirlooms as bounty for Heismay's capture, adding that she will rally public support for his campaign should he solve the case. They make way to the Giant Sandworm's Nest where Heismay is supposedly at, and in spite of the inclement weather and being attacked and devoured by a sandworm-like human, they manage to capture Heismay and make way for the gauntlet runner.
Despite successfully apprehending Heismay, the kidnappings did not cease. On the next day, Strohl found a lost children's shoe which suggests more townsfolk are getting kidnapped, and Heismay reported hearing the sound of a monstrous creature walking around town. After confronting the townsguard, a now-sober Neuras further proves Heismay's concerns by reporting to the protagonist that he also saw the shadow of a giant monster moving around town. As a result, the party investigates Kriegante Castle for the true culprit.
There, they spot Morris and several other townsguard delivering a wooden cart with children towards the castle. They catch up to Morris and confront him, at which point he makes a snide remark that strikes a chord within Heismay. Courtesy of the protagonist's special power, Heismay awakens the Thief archetype and joins the party to take out several monsters summoned by Morris. The guards escape, leaving the carts of children behind to be brought back to Bardon and saved.
The party goes further into the castle to pursue Morris. To avoid being caught, he periodically summons a giant human to attack them. Eventually they catch up to him with Joanna. Morris activates a trap that drops them into an underground prison complex where the protagonist and Gallica hears Captain Klinger being fed to the human. However, he manages to free himself and then his teammates.
The party comes across a room filled with incriminating evidence indicating Joanna as the kidnapper. Some time prior to the uptick of human attacks, Joanna lost her child to a particularly brutal halfblood persecution incident. One day, she came across a human resembling a baby and delusionally thought that the human was her child and kept it under the castle basement where she would order the townsguard to kidnap the townsfolk and use them to feed it. In the next room is an oversized room where they finally caught Joanna and Morris in a dead end, where Joanna feeds Morris to the monster when he failed to secure the party as food for her "child," causing Heismay to confront her of her insanity. Maddened and presumably influenced by the human's melancholia herself, she summons the human to attack the party. They manage to slay the monster and the protagonist decides that instead of an actual monster, he can force Sanctifex Forden to execute an indirect serial killer in his ranks to stand out. Once out of the castle, the protagonist decides to distribute all of Joanna's money and family heirlooms she promised as bounty to the affected families as compensation. Bardon and Heismay agreed to escort her to Port Brilehaven where she gladly awaits her execution.
Brilehaven arc
The protagonist's plan to climb the tournament works as expected. During the headhunting exhibit, Heismay and Bardon deliver Joanna in front of Forden, and the sanctoress admits her crimes. Despite initially hesitating because of the outrageous circumstance, Forden orders two sanctist guards to execute her once he confirms that her words are true. The official exposure of a Sanctist Church failing causes its once-stellar reputation to take a large hit and garnered Louis' attention towards the protagonist, who has his own designs against the church and thus recruits the protagonist in hopes of forming an alliance. On the next day, he officially recruits them into his faction through Basilio and Fidelio, who take them on a tour of the Skyrunner Charadrius so he can prove his loyalty to the count. Once the protagonist manages to convince Louis that he is loyal, he plans to take advantage of the count's upcoming soiree to find the cure for the curse.
During the soiree, the protagonist and Gallica go to infiltrate the count's private quarters, where he is spotted first by Junah, then by Glodell. Glodell goes to report the protagonist and Junah to Louis but forgot to lock the doors, so they pursue him all the way to the top of the Charadrius only for Glodell to take Junah hostage and gang up on the protagonist with his dog Hector, now mutated into a monster. However, Junah manages to free herself on her own volition and awakens her own archetype, the Masked Dancer, turning the battle into a two-on-two. They manage to defeat both Glodell and Hector, but the pompous man uses an underhanded trick trying to ambush him. However, the king's magic activates on him and strangles him to death. The Magnus brothers came to the scene a bit too late to witness the aftermath, and the protagonist was able to get away with telling Louis a half-truth that Glodell was the rat he's looking for.
Meanwhile, the protagonist's stunt against Forden soured the sanctifex's mood, so he, with the proposal of his right-hand man Gideaux, decided that for the next round of the competition, the contestants will plunder pagan relics to prove their loyalty towards the Sanctist Church. Louis takes the opportunity to take a dragon-enchanted lance known as Drakodios, which would allow him to bypass the election magic to slay Forden. In return, the protagonist plans to use the lance to assassinate Louis and free the prince of his curse. He tasks the protagonist to take the lance for him while the Magnus brothers were tasked to keep an eye on his travelling party.
Virga Island Arc
Before making their way to secure Drakodios, the protagonist goes to ask a contestant that has dropped out of the race to protest the church's abrupt meddling against the mustari natives, the village chef Edeni. While he discourages them from reaching the island, he manages to namedrop the place where Drakodios was in; Virga Island. The party, alongside the Magnus Brothers, make their way to the island to secure the relic. On the way, the gauntlet runner is attacked by a large, aquatic human known as Sea Horror Homo Sabara, who threatens to kill Fidelio by swatting him flying towards the sea with its tentacles. Fidelio was saved by the protagonist, but slaps his arm away afterwards stating that they were not friends yet. In spite of this, the Magnus brothers agreed to help the protagonist to fight the human by cutting off its tentacles while the party fights it. They successfully fend off the human and it was never heard of again.
Once the party reaches Virga Island, the protagonist runs into the Dragon Priestess Eupha taking a bath in a nearby lake. He is then captured alongside the rest of the party by vigilant mustari guards working for Edeni, who has ordered the locals to capture all intruders to protect their relics from ending up in the church's hands. Despite the initially hostile welcome, the protagonist manages to get Edeni to warm up in front of him when he discovers that the village chief was severely injured by rampaging monsters in an attempt to transport Eupha to the Dragon Temple an island away and makes a deal with him to save his sister, as he does not want to see her die.
The party manages to reach the Dragon Temple, but not only is the entrance blocked by a tree that previously wasn't there, but Fidelio fell ill from enduring his injuries until his wounds became infected, forcing them to retreat. They manage to return again with a Potion of Blight at hand to get rid of the tree, this time only with Junah pretending to keep an eye on them. However, the "tree" is actually a disguised monster, and pouring the potion on it enraged it, causing it to attack them. The party slays it and enters the Dragon Temple, where they manage to locate and escort Eupha and discover the ruins of a modern-day city known as Shinjuku that the temple was built on.
Despite Eupha's insistence to throw her life away to the Dragon God thinking that it was her life's destiny, the party was concerned that something is horribly amiss with her faith. A mural also indicates that the priestess is not supposed to sacrifice her life to the Dragon God. Their concerns were confirmed when they meet the dragon god and noticed that it was possessed by a human. Under the human's control, the dragon attacked everything around it indiscriminately, knocking the protagonist and the rest of the party flying. Receiving a rude awakening to the truth, Eupha awakens her Summoner archetype and fights with the party to save her people's god. The party manages to separate the human from the dragon and the latter returns to Drakodios, granting it the ability to bypass the royal magic.
However, the human is not done yet, and swims towards the main island looking for prey. The party sees it standing right next to them when reassuring some villagers, so they go out to confront and slay it. They successfully kill the human and spend their supposed departure date celebrating the Dragon Festival, where the protagonist could spend time with a person of his choice.
Back to the gauntlet runner, the protagonist and Strohl sparred with each other to see if Drakodios can actually bypass the royal magic. Despite blocking the attack, Strohl was able to attack the protagonist without being tied up by the royal magic, suggesting that the lance's purported powers are real. With the lance in their hands, the protagonist tasks Neuras with forging a fake which he plans to present to Louis, while keeping the real one to assassinate him with.
Altabury Heights Arc
The protagonist seemingly deceives Louis by offering him the fake lance. In actuality, Louis called the protagonist's deception but pretends to let it slide, as he had a plan to get around the protagonist to still assassinate Forden that required both the forgery and the real lance. During Saint's Day Eve, he and Eupha sneak towards the rooftop of the Montario Opera House to throw Drakodios at Louis' heart while Junah sings for the audience. On the way, they encounter enemies mostly consisting of Sanctist guards; they know the protagonist is protected by the royal magic, so they target Eupha instead, which would cause a game over if she gets knocked out in battle.
Once they reach the rooftop, the protagonist throws Drakodios at Louis and seemingly impales his heart, but he survives and goes atop the roof to fight the party. Despite already being wounded, Louis manages to gain the upper hand and hold the protagonist by his neck, only for Eupha to telepathically lift Drakodios and have the protagonist deal the killing blow. Louis seemingly dies from the injuries, but not before telling them that "they have achieved nothing," as he was not the true culprit.
The tip of Drakodios shatters the glass panel above the opera house and the count's seemingly dead body comes crashing down the floor, where it was examined by Forden's attendant, who confirms him to be dead and retrieves his body. Meanwhile, the party goes downstairs to report to Forden, who congratulates them and confiscates Drakodios for safekeeping.
Their victory was short-lived, however, as the protagonist finds out that the prince still appears cursed in his farsight mirror. Hulkenberg suspects that Forden was involved with the prince's assassination, as he accidentally slipped up by complimenting her for slashing the assassin on their back, despite the fact that she never told anyone else out of shame. The party rests for the night, aiming to confront Forden on Saint's Day.
On Saint's Day, the protagonist, alongside the rest of the party, sneaks into the backstage of the opera house where they eavesdrop Forden making a self-confident victory speech. At the middle of the speech, they rush in front of Forden to confront him for the prince's curse, but he merely shrugs them off and declares them to be executed with support from most of the audience. However, before any fighting actually occurs, Louis shows up on stage disguised and unannounced preparing to assassinate him. Forden strikes him with Drakodios, only for it to be revealed as the fake upon him being bound by the king's magic, allowing Louis, who has the real one, to kill him by stabbing him in the heart.
The count's attack on the opera house forces the festival to be canceled and sends most of the audience running away screaming. He then turns his attention to the protagonist and reveals that Zorba is still alive, and that he set up the framework for Forden's assassination, before concluding that the protagonist being willing to assassinate him to free the prince means that he is still alive somewhere, and asks him where he is. When he knew he wasn't getting an answer, Louis fired a beam off from Drakodios toward a family of innocent Sanctists. The protagonist tries to intercept, only for Basilio and Fidelio to intercept the attack instead, killing the latter. The cold-blooded murder of his elder brother causes Basilio to defect to the protagonist out of disgust, securing him another member of his party.
Concerned that a double pillar of power between Rella, now designated as the church's new representative, and Louis would bring forth trouble, the protagonist plans to announce himself as the prince in front of the public during Rella's speech. During Rella's speech, Louis would confront Rella and ask the king to remove the election magic, allowing all candidates to be killed. He then turns his attention to the protagonist, telling him that if he wants the throne, he must go back to Grand Trad and challenge him to a duel before leaving. The protagonist goes to announce himself as the prince afterwards, which causes Rella to admit that she was the one who cursed him. When the party confronts her, she fakes being a horrible person before taking her leave toward the ruins of the Mage Academy, awaiting a confrontation. The party is forced to leave for Rella as Gideaux sics a mob on them.
At the Mage Academy ruins, Rella summons an ice dragon from a relic to fight in her place in hopes of testing if the protagonist is truly worthy of being the prince. The party manages to defeat the dragon and Rella reveals that she was actually blackmailed by Forden, and her hesitation caused her to cast a slow-acting curse instead. She then telepathically exposes Forden's crimes to the rest of the church and commits suicide to free the prince of his curse. Following this incident, the tournament is now out of the church's control, and it degenerates into a battle between the protagonist and Louis.
Catching wind of Rella's death, Louis asks a crier to read a letter out loud for him, announcing that he would be waiting in front of the Regalith Grand Cathedral for a final duel.
Skybound Avatar arc
The party, answering Louis' call, departs from Altabury Heights back to Grand Trad to face him in a supposed final duel to decide the king. When they returned to Grand Trad, they were welcomed back and applauded by the populace, then made their way to the Hushed Honeybee Inn to meet Fabienne and Maria and rest up for the following day. Upon the day of the duel, the party goes to Regalith Grand Cathedral in high spirits to fight Louis for the throne. When the protagonist meets Louis face-to-face, he asks the travelling boy what kind of qualities he considers to be fit for a king before stating his own views and challenging the party to a duel.
The party manages to defeat Louis again, but he unleashes his backup plan that he planned from the get-go. He announces in front of the audience that the elda and humankind are one and the same, and that the protagonist is no prince, but rather a monster in disguise. To "prove" his half-truth statement, he uses his human transformation spell on the protagonist, making him writhe in pain and turning him into a towering human version of himself. The protagonist quickly snaps himself back to normal, but because of the stunt, his reputation is completely crushed as everyone believes that he is a monster, and the party becomes surrounded by the state army. The party is forced to run from the angry mob and escape to the Ancient Eldan Sanctum to meet the prince.
Unfortunately for them, they arrived to the Sanctum a bit too late as Russell, the prince's old eugief mentor, informs them that a person heavily indicated to be Zorba already assassinated the prince under Louis' orders, off-screen and using the party's duel with his boss as a distraction. Russell turns his head towards the protagonist, but fails to recognize him beyond his pretending to be the prince himself, despite having supposedly asked him to kill Louis. However, he does sense that the protagonist has a flow of magla similar to the prince's, and informs him and Gallica to follow him to the caves underneath to meet the prince's corpse for themselves.
The protagonist shortly after fusing himself with the prince's body
The protagonist and Gallica finally catch up to the rest of the party mourning the prince, as well as Russell and the current chieftess of the elda tribe, Gruidae. Much to his surprise, Gruidae doesn't recognize him either, despite having supposedly been among those who tasked him with assassinating Louis and freeing the prince. It was at this time that the protagonist heard the eldan queen's voice, who revealed to the protagonist that in truth, he is nothing, and was created by her using the prince's soul, adding that while he failed to save the prince and his entire existence and background is nothing but fictitious, he can still fuse himself with the prince to revive him in the flesh.
The protagonist can choose to desert his journey by responding to the queen with pessimistic responses, or by refusing to fuse with the prince's body; doing so results in a bad ending where the protagonist abandons everything, and Louis presumably uses the Royal Sceptre to evolve all of mankind into humans. If he responds with optimism and fuses with the prince, he will become an incarnation of the prince himself; for the rest of the game, his hair color becomes white and both of his eyes become blue to match the prince's facial features. The eldan queen then follows up by telling Gallica that the protagonist was never tasked to assassinate the person who cursed the prince; only Gallica was a part of the mission. During a tour of the world's history by Gruidae, he also awakens to the first Royal Archetype, the Prince.
In the meantime, Russell notices the assassin slinking around and trying to escape, and so tasks the party with pursuing him. The party catches up to the assassin, who reveals himself to be Zorba and tells them that he only stayed there because he sensed that the protagonist's magla resembles the prince's. He then resurrects Homo Gorleo to buy him time to escape. With the protagonist's new Prince archetype, the human was slain once again, but Zorba successfully escaped and managed to report to Louis that the prince had been resurrected through the protagonist. The party then departs back to Grand Trad in order to try and put an end to Louis' grand plan. Russell and Gruidae bid the protagonist farewell, the latter adding that he cannot return to the Sanctum until he has saved the country.
When the party returns to Grand Trad, they are immediately confronted by an angry mob who accuse the protagonist of being a monster in disguise, and his party members to be criminals sympathizing with a monster. Batlin asks them to hide in an alleyway and informs them that Louis' stunt has driven the public completely insane. Accusations of people being monsters in disguise and violent (and often deadly) incidents frequently occur, and humans are sighted near Grand Trad. Furthermore, the sky is painted an ominous red by a cover of magla, causing constant Blight/Dread weather. When the party and Batlin escape all the way to Hushed Honeybee Inn to meet Maria and Fabienne again, Batlin suspects that Louis has gone to the Skybound Avatar, the former Royal Palace now above the King's Rock, and tampered with something there to drive the public into insanity.
With Neuras' gauntlet runner, the party is able to reach the Skybound Avatar to confront Louis. However, the protagonist must first destroy four King's Servant relics to break down the melancholia barricades on the staircase. For each barricade destroyed, the party finds the public slowly regaining their sanity, and the protagonist steadily regaining his popularity. Furthermore, before the party ascends to the next floor, a flashback of the king prior to his death is shown only to the protagonist, the first one showing how he enabled Forden to do whatever he wants to in his depressive state despite his actions were way over the pale, and the second one showing Forden tricking the king into shutting down the Mage Academy, which he agreed with as he was too weak-willed to resist.
They find Zorba defending the final King's Servant across the room where the prince was cursed, who reveals himself to have been partially mutated into a human and spitefully curses the protagonist before fighting them. Zorba was defeated, but as a last-ditch act of defiance, he commits suicide by falling off the King's Rock, unwittingly alerting the public of Grand Trad that Louis can transform people into human monsters and is steering the country towards insanity. Meanwhile, Batlin manages to convince the lords of Oceana and Montario to help the protagonist by soothing their citizen's nerves, as it was their only shot at survival, considering the only other option is to face certain death or forced evolution.
After breaking all four of the King's Servants, the party reaches the throne room to meet Louis, having discarded his fake clemar horns (thus revealing himself as an elda), and seated himself upon the throne. Behind the throne is the Royal Sceptre, now swirling with stagnant magla. When the party confronts him about what he has done to the general populace, he claims that he has done nothing, but indirectly admits that he overwhelmed the Royal Sceptre with enough magla to evolve all of mankind into rampaging humans through years of terrorizing the public with fear and anger, with the final straw that broke the camel's back being the stunt he pulled on the protagonist back in the Grand Cathedral. As a result, the public went completely insane due to longer being able to contain their anxieties. He also reveals the true extent of his plans; he actually has no interest in the throne, he did everything so he could take the Royal Sceptre to fulfill the king's lost ideals in the most twisted way imaginable by releasing all the stagnant melancholia stored inside the Sceptre to forcefully evolve all of mankind into humans.
As a last-ditch attempt of mercy, Louis offers the protagonist to join him. He can accept this offer, at which his teammates will express disappointment over his decision, and the two eldans will rule over a world overrun by rampaging human monsters. If he refuses and cites it as false fairness, Louis will declare that he had dreams that were long-dead and show the party his copy of the king's Fantasy Novel, before vanishing into a noxious swirl of stagnant magla known as the Tyrant's Star where he awaits their final confrontation. The king soul then speaks to the party revealing that he actually let Louis kill him to free him from his despair and in hopes that somebody will inherit his dead dream, and tells the protagonist that if he wants to become king, he must brave the Tyrant's Star and defeat Louis.
Once they descended back to the capital, the party was forced right into the Hushed Honeybee Inn by an angry mob. They then report to Batlin about their findings in the royal palace, and decide that they will invade the Tyrant's Star on the Day of the Hero by having Neuras' gauntlet runner brute-force through the swirl of magla.
On the promised day, the party goes straight to the Tyrant's Star to confront Louis. Once they encounter him, they finally manage to make him speak up on what drove him to his insane plan. He reveals that he was born in the same village as the protagonist (prince), and was an idealist who wanted to experience the outside world and make the world equal, but the raid orchestrated by Forden killed many of his neighbors and relatives and reduced him to be nothing but a weeping child, thus he vowed to not let this happen again and create a land of equality, now by forcefully evolving every person in the world into humans. The protagonist and the rest of his allies call him out for his insanity, with Strohl remarking that Louis no different from his former self during the eldan pogrom. Seeing that there is no more room for negotiation, Louis transforms into a stabilized human and challenges the party to a battle.
Once defeated, Louis reverts back to his normal self, but decides that he is not done yet. He boards the Skyrunner Charadrius to escape, and deploys a seemingly endless swarm of humans to attack the party. The protagonist and Neuras alone give chase, while his teammates all seem to perish in the endless wave of humans. The protagonist finally catches up to Louis, who transforms into his stabilized human form again and uses his human transformation spell to turn the protagonist into a human, causing him to writhe in pain. Unlike the previous time, however, this failed to work, as the protagonist instead committed suicide by ripping out and destroying his resonant vessel, only to be saved by More through his fantasy novel.
Inside Akademia, More tries to convince the protagonist that everything is hopeless and all of his friends are dead, using his ill-fated endeavor to change the country as Hythlodaeus V as a backing argument. To further convince the protagonist, More shows him an illusion of Shibuya from the World Before as it appears in the Fantasy Novel, calling it utopia and trying to have the protagonist stay inside forever. If the protagonist agrees with More's pleas, it will result in a bad ending where the protagonist is trapped in the novel forever.
If he refuses, he will rebuke More that the utopia in his fantasy is impossible, and realized that the "Shibuya" he was in is an illusion thanks to the music played by Gallica's magic. This causes More to become overwhelmed by his past despair and regrets as Hythlodaeus V and attack the protagonist. The protagonist wins against More and is alerted that his comrades were still alive. More entrusts him with his power and his life as his father, and the protagonist is allowed a final chance to prepare inside Akademia before he heads towards the final battle.
The protagonist steps out of Akademia and is awakened by Hulkenberg and his fellow comrades, who are revealed to have all survived the onslaught unscathed. They then take one final stand against Louis, who is determined to see his ideals of an equal world overrun with monstrous humans to the very end, and uses the Royal Sceptre's magla to transform into a massive unstable human known as Destroyer Charadrius, first resembling the three-headed Lucifer from The Divine Comedy, then an ominous, angelic version of himself with his sanity deteriorating in spite of his iron-clad will.
The party manages to defeat Louis after a hard fight and the king is about to announce the protagonist as the winner of the tournament of the throne, only for Louis to rise back up for one last stand. However, the king's rock grants power to the protagonist and the gauntlet runner to fuse into the King Archetype, who cleaves Louis in half and puts him out of his misery alongside the Royal Sceptre. Destroying the Royal Sceptre releases all of the magla stored inside it, restoring sanity to the public and making the skies clear once again.
Epilogue
On the following month, the protagonist is coronated as king and the proper heir of Hythlodaeus V. He is not coronated as Hythlodaeus VI, but instead starts a new dynasty using his name, with himself being "Will I".
During his reign, he made vast reforms across the country. These include:
- Employing Strohl as the new state army general;
- Employing Hulkenberg as the captain of the royal guard;
- Employing Heismay as the captain of the royal knights;
- Reopening the closed Mage Academy and instating Junah as its headmaster;
- Instating Eupha as chief magistrate, summarily reducing trialless executions;
- Having Basilio take over all of Louis' remaining troops to serve under him;
- Stripping Forden's cronies in the senate of their positions and titles and replacing them with the "Six Partisans" led by Batlin and consisting of the six party members he traveled with. Unlike the previous incarnations of the Euchronian senate, the Six Partisans allowed citizen representatives to their hearings. Furthermore, the former igniter consortium head was replaced by Brigitta Lycaon.
While some people still do not like the protagonist, his rule has been noted to have beneficial effects upon the country at large, with Junah even convincing Gruidae to visit Grand Trad and sparking general interest among the eldans of the ancient sanctum to visit the city.
A year later, having been bored by the constant piles of paperwork he had to do as king, the protagonist seeks to go on a journey all over Euchronia to solve the country's remaining problems. After meeting with his party members, fellow tournament candidates, and allies a final time, the protagonist heads to the Grand Cathedral to find Maria and take her back to the Hushed Honeybee Inn. During the epilogue, he and his fellow party members, now joined by Maria, venture forth on the Gauntlet Runner to parts unknown.
"The young king who earned the peoples' trust and ascended the throne after meeting the lofty requirements of the magic set in place by the previous king, Hythlodaeus V. Though oddly enough the rightful heir to the crown, he values having become king by the people's will and not his lineage. He was not coronated as Hythlodaeus VI, choosing instead to start a new era of kings as [protagonist's name] I. Once a fond reader of his father's fantasy novel that convinced him that the country depicted therein was a utopia, [protagonist's name] eventually eschewed the past and its lost glories and chose to embark instead on a path of a better king. Having achieved uniting the people in the kingdom's recovery from turmoil only a year after his coronation, his true worth as a leader will be put to the test as he moves into the second year of his reign. Euchronia is a united kingdom, a place where people of different lands and cultures live together. In order to be a king whose face is known to them, it may be time for him to set out once again as a traveller, a book that would tell his own story clutched in hand."
Manga version
Unlike in the original game, Will was with Strohl instead of Hulkenberg in the carriage. Furthermore, he did not infiltrate the army to meet Grius. Instead, he saves his daughter Maria from being abducted by a paripus vagrant by chasing him all the way to Tradia Desert alongside Strohl, then meets him lounging inside the Hushed Honeybee Inn.
Followers
The protagonist has two sets of followers: a traveling party with eight party members noted to consist of a member from each tribe, and six other people he befriended over the course of the events of the game. In addition to the permanent party members in the protagonist's party, Grius is counted towards the list of his traveling allies despite dying early on.
The following is a list of followers that are actively present in the protagonist's traveling party and accompany him on his journey. All of them (sans Gallica) have been promoted to high government positions following the protagonist's coronation as king.
- Gallica: The protagonist's fairy companion with a serious attitude unlike most of her kin.
- Strohl: Clemar son of a noble family that was devastated in the first human incursion Louis and Klinger orchestrated.
- Hukenberg: Roussainte former royal knight who left the royal palace in shame for failing to stop the prince from being cursed and returned to the capital shortly after the king's death.
- Neuras: Eccentric ishkia engineer formerly working for the royal family who built a gauntlet runner once intended for the prince and now used by the protagonist and his party. Despite not directly participating in combat, Neuras is responsible for piloting the protagonist's gauntlet runner and thus counts towards the list of traveling companions.
- Heismay: A eugief former wanted criminal framed for a serial abduction case in Martira. He joins once the party proves his innocence.
- Junah: The nidia songstress of the Sanctist Church and an undercover spy for the resistance infiltrating Louis' ranks.
- Eupha: Current dragon priestess of the mustari. She joins once she realizes the errors in her faith towards the dragon god.
- Basilio: One of Louis' former paripus henchmen. He defected to the protagonist in disgust due to Louis mercilessly killing his elder brother Fidelio.
The following is a list of followers befriended by the protagonist in his journey;
- More: The enigmatic owner of Akademeia. He is later revealed to be created from king Hythlodaeus V's lost soul.
- Maria: Grius' rhoag-ishkia halfblood daughter. She joins the protagonist's traveling party in their journey to parts unknown during the epilogue.
- Catherina: Renowned bounty hunter who became a contestant in the Tournament for the Throne. She drops out of the race to become one of the protagonist's followers once she has been defeated three times and her followers began robbing people indiscriminately.
- Alonzo: An infamous nidia con-man who scams the rich.
- Bardon: The townsguard captain of Martira who was appointed to its governor following the exposure of the former governor Sanctoress Joanna's crimes and her execution.
- Brigitta Lycaon: Owner of the Lycaon Magic Association shop in Grand Trad. She was promoted by the protagonist to replace the Crown Theocracy's igniter consortium head after his coronation.
Gallery
In Other Languages
| Language | Title | Name |
|---|---|---|
 Japanese
|
主人公 (Hero) | ウィル (Uiru) (Will) |
 Korean
|
주인공 (Hero) | 윌 (Wil) (Will) |
  Traditional Chinese
|
主人公 (Hero) | 威爾 (Wēiěr) (Will) |
| Simplified Chinese
|
主角 (Hero) | 威尔 (Wēiěr) (Will) |
 French
|
Protagoniste | Éric |
 Italian
|
Protagonista | Victor |
 German
|
Protagonist | Wilheim |
 Spanish (Spain)
|
Protagonista | Víctor |
 Spanish (Latin America)
|
Protagonista | Víctor |
 Portuguese (Brazil)
|
Protagonista | Pedro |
 Russian
|
Александр (Alexander) |
Trivia
- While the protagonist is referred to by default as "Will" when changing the game's language in Japanese, English, Korean and both Chinese versions, other language localizations have given different names for the protagonist. All of these names correspond to historical emperors just like his English name, foreshadowing Will's connection with the Prince.
- Both Italian and Spanish versions name him "Victor."
- In French, he's referred to as "Éric."
- In German, he's called "Wilheim."
- In Portuguese, he's "Pedro."
- In Russian, he's "Александр," or "Alexander."
- "Will" is also the official name given to him in the manga.
- During the story, when the king's royal magic was triggered, the protagonist would end up in physical pain. The reasoning for that is not yet explained.
- Due to him being initially a tulpa-like being manifested by the thoughts of the prince, Will is one of the very few protagonists in an Atlus RPG video game that is not human. The others are the Demi-fiend (a human-Demon hybrid) and Ringo (an AI).
- Apart from being ridiculed for being an elda, the protagonist is also often ridiculed for his scrawny stature during the early game.
- The protagonist shares the same voice actor as the prince in both the original Japanese script and the English dub, furthering the connection that the protagonist and the prince are the same person.
- The text on his campaign poster reads: "ni helpas iun ajn en problem" in Esperanto, which roughly translates to "We help anyone in trouble."
References
- ↑ "Hero Passive" refers to protagonist-exclusive skills.
- ↑ Dialogue option before naming the protagonist: https://youtu.be/Cky2dNmS1LY?si=kWnWLF36__syLQcz&t=217
- ↑ Name in English: https://youtu.be/vgtv1orwhmU?si=S8DKP8Ab2I76Kvcc&t=937
- ↑ 『メタファー：リファンタジオ』体験③貴島明日香 プレイ＆チャレンジ動画 on the atlustube YouTube channel (September 5, 2024)
- ↑ The protagonist's name change to English (Will)
- ↑ The protagonist's name change to Japanese (Will)
