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OOC: Background information!
Early Childhood
If Zelos's parents had a choice, Zelos would have never come into the world. He was the result of a forced arranged marriage that was done in order to create another Chosen, a 4000 year long eugenics project under the guise of a system meant to save the world. His parents both loved other people, but the church forced them to marry and procreate. Until the end, the marriage remained to be completely loveless and a source of great resentment for both of them.
Only tidbits are known about Zelos's father. It's known that he was the Chosen before Zelos and had bright red hair like Zelos. His relationship with Zelow is implied to be very negative. When Zelos was a young boy, his father left him and his mother for a half-elf mistress. Eventually the public caught wind of the affair and Zelos's father committed suicide.
For the next three years, he lived with his mother, Mylene, in the manor meant for the Chosen in Meltokio. Overall he was a sweet kid who seemed to want nothing more than his mother's love and to make the people around him happy. Yet his mother wanted nothing to do with him. She'd never look at him, always sent him away and seemed to ignore his existence.
One day in the manor gardens, he came across a young girl with red hair that had collapsed. It turned out to be Seles, the daughter that his father had had with the half-elven mistress that no one ever told him existed. She had snuck out so she could meet her father and brother- no one had told her that her father was dead. Even though he was told that her and her mother were the reasons his father was gone, Zelos was happy at the idea of having a little sister and invited her to play with him from now on.
It snowed in Meltokio a few months later. Zelos, extremely excited to see snow for the first time, asked his mom to go outside with him. For what probably was the first time, she agreed to do so. Happy at the chance to spend time with his mother, he made a snowman to make her happy. But suddenly the snowman fell apart and he saw "red snow". Seles's mother, now insane with the thought of making Seles the Chosen, had decided to assassinate Zelos. Her attack had missed and instead hit his mother, fatally wounding her. In her last moments, Mylene grabbed her son and said her final words to him: "It would have been better if you hadn't been born."
Yeah thiiiis might have been a bit traumatic for the kid.
Seles's mother was caught and executed for her crimes. Seles was to be taken away to be confined to an abbey for the rest of her days. Zelos went to talk to her as she was the only family he had left. Seles being a little kid who just learned that both of her parents were dead, reacted badly to Zelos being around. While this is very understandable for her, being freshly traumatized by the death of his mother- Zelos took this as confirmation that his mere existence did nothing but make everyone around him unhappy and everything bad that happened was because of him.
Which...for a kid that was literally bred and raised on the idea that he's supposed to possibly save the world and bring happiness to everyone if things ever started to decline? This...might have done quite a number on his psyche.
Teenage Years
Now an orphan and incredibly emotionally fucked up, things were made only worse for Zelos's mental state as he started interacting more with the world around him. Tethe'alla was a world that had been prospering for a good eight hundred years now, thus making for a very sophisticated society compared to Sylvanrant that was hanging by it's threads. A sophisticated society built on racism and classism, with the nobles at the top well...most of them were pretty vile, self-serving human beings.
To put it simply, Tethe'alla doesn't have therapists and no one was interested in helping out a kid that was essentially a glorified sacrificial lamb. People would often treat him as if he strange and inhuman. Outside of schooling, his duties as Chosen and required social events - he was likely locked up in his house unless he sneaked out. Assassination attempts from various groups probably happened intermittently (there are 5 or 6 attempts over the course of the series alone - he seems to treat it like its pretty normal) He had no real friends, no family aside from a sister in an abbey halfway across the world that he was convinced hated him and the only people who probably made effort to interact with him were people who thought they could use him for their own advantage. The Pope and the royal family would view him as a potential threat on good days too. All in all, he was a kid that no one gave two shits about and he knew it.
This framework only continued when he hit puberty and girls started flocking around him. While initially surprised that girls suddenly cared, he quickly learned they wanted him because he was the Chosen and being involved with the Chosen was something prestigious. But instead of telling them to fuck off, he went along with the ladies man image - possibly because he was simply that starved for any sort of affection in his life, no matter how meaningless.
Zelos dealt with this life the best way he could think of, by building walls of defense. No one gave a damn about him, so he decided not to give a damn about anyone but himself. He trusted no one and did everything he could to make sure he didn't have to rely on anyone for anything. The sweet kid who wanted to make people happy was shoved away so much by Zelos that it's possible he forgot he was ever like that at all. Everybody lies or has an agenda. Never get close or attached to anyone. Never do anything that won't benefit you. Always be on the winning side- those became Zelos's mottos and survival strategies. And just so no one would think twice about looking too close at him, he adopted a flighty and cheerful playboy persona that got him flings with girls, but pushed everyone else away.
But no matter how sound or successful his defenses were at keeping people from hurting him, they did little to solve his problems. His self-hatred and sense of worthlessness only grew as the years went by, as did the guilt of his childhood and existence, the loneliness, his unhappiness and his resentment for being the Chosen. More and more he made reckless decisions: heavy drinking, sleeping around, blowing off lessons, avoiding any sort of responsibility and all around proving his own insecurities about being a terrible Chosen right - continuing the downward cycle. He became fixated on the idea that maybe things would be better if Seles was Chosen instead of him (he was convinced by now Seles only wanted to be the Chosen like her mother wanted). That way she could be free from the Abbey and have what she wanted, while he'd be free from his own miserable life. Two birds, one stone.
This idea seemed like a pipe dream until he was approached by Cruxis. Being male and not a perfect mana signature match, Zelos was useless when it came to being a host for Martel. Instead they saw him as a perfect candidate to spy and do their bidding, promising him to be freed of being Chosen if he worked for them. Not too long after, the Renegades approached him as well with similar offers. Living on the philosophy of trust no one, he decided to play the field and work for both of them- carefully observing to see which one would be the winning team.
A Journey with Shonen Derps
The years passed and Zelos continued playing his cards with both the Renegades and Cruxis. Life remained to be the status quo craptastic until he was twenty-two years old and a group of mysterious travelers showed up in Meltokio. They were from Sylvarant, who had come to Tethe'alla in hopes of finding a cure for their Chosen, Colette. Zelos was sent to accompany them to keep an eye on them (by Cruxis, the Renegades and the kingdom of Tethe'alla - though they only knew about the last one). Zelos intended nothing more than to use them for his own advantage- then lose them.
They were the oddest group Zelos had ever met. Two Half-elves that were nothing like he had been taught, a ninja summoner that was far from secretive, a Chosen that seemed different from him in every single way and later on- a noble turned criminal who wished to repent for actions not his fault and a taciturn girl willing to fight despite having everything robbed from her. They were all confusing, yet the one that perplexed Zelos the most was their leader - Lloyd Irving, a simplistic hot headed idiot teen that wanted nothing more than for everyone to live in happiness without sacrifices. Open about everything, Zelos could read him so easily. Yet the contents of what he read threw and confused him again and again. No signs of deceit, no hidden motives, nothing negative like that- he was completely sincere in his beliefs that there was a way to save the world without people being sacrificed.
The journey lasted a long time, spanning across two different worlds. While initially apathetic to everything, Zelos began getting affected (or "infected" as he called it) by the events and people around him much more than he had ever anticipated. Little by little, he found himself caring about his traveling companions and the state of the world. He began doing actions that went against the defensive mantra, doing things that served no benefit to him and only brought him trouble - simply because they were the Right Thing to Do and he wanted the people around him to be happy. Whenever he realized what he was doing? He'd waiver between scoffing in disbelief and feeling a great deal of fear that this would only lead to more pain - yet there was little he could do to go back.
But eventually it came time for Zelos to choose a side, as things started to stack up. He caught himself feeling torn about what to do, to do the logical thing and side with Cruxis - or do the right and scary thing and side with Lloyd's group of idiot idealists. He only grew more torn when Kratos approached him with a task - to use his skills to get into Cruxis and retrieve an item that would make it possible for Lloyd to reunite the worlds once and for all - though would completely jeopardize everything Zelos had worked for if things went badly. He sat on this problem, trying to figure out what to do until Lloyd approached him after a group meeting- simply to tell Zelos that he trusted him no matter what- all while being oblivious to Zelos's dilemma. This was the first time anyone had shown Zelos this level of trust, and it was after that moment Zelos knew what he was going to do.
Two hours later at the Tower of Salvation, he betrayed Lloyd and his friends. W e l p.
But oh not really. He just fake betrayed them so he could get inside Cruxis and grab the item that Kratos told him about. He then saved all his friends from dying in various ridiculously cheesy traps and showed up in the nick of time to put a keycrest on Colette so she'd stop channeling dead chicks like a Big Damn Hero and help Lloyd & Company fight Mithos. It's safe to assume that all of this was pretty damn badass.
After this display of badassery, Zelos was welcomed back into the party even if he had owned up to being a spy for...everyone. After this point, Zelos became very much a strong supporter of Lloyd and his ideals (even if he remained cynical about a lot of things). He decided to start changing himself for the better, as well as devoting his life to help make a world a better place whether it be by fighting discrimination of various groups to helping maintain peace between Sylvarant and Tethe'alla once they were reunited and the journey had finally come to a happy end.
After the Journey of Regeneration
(note, this is what is known from the Drama CDs and Novel)
Except not so much, as there was still a lot to be done. Zelos returned to Meltokio and began pushing for changes to what was Tethe'alla's messed up system. This included things such as acting as the King's Adviser, making reforms to the church, getting rid of the discrimination laws for Half-elves, aiding Sylvarant, weeding out corrupt officials and pushing for Exspheres to be illegalized.
Yeah. He was busy.
The passionate change in their once apathetic Chosen was received with mixed reviews. Many people applauded his acts and felt a strong sense of loyalty to their Chosen (seriously, at least two fights break out among NPCs and minor characters because someone talked smack about Zelos). However people in power and fanatics viewed him as a threat and assassination attempts yet again became a regular occurrence in Zelos's life.
The first major attempt was about six months after the events of Symphonia. Zelos was investigating the possible corruption of a Tethe'allan prime minister, and was finding that every time he came close to getting a lead- that lead would turn up dead. Being a high profile celebrity, Zelos knew he was being watched constantly and that his team most likely had a spy. And so when the spy poisoned his food, Zelos pretended to eat it and faked his own death. From there he was able to find plenty of evidence as he was no longer being watched, and was able to put a stop to the Prime Minister once and for all. Oh yeah, and save Colette and Lloyd who had gotten themselves in trouble because they actually thought Zelos was dead because he's a jerk that didn't let them in on the plan.
The second major attempt that's shown was some time after, when a cult/terrorist group declared that Zelos needed to die for religious reasons. As they were a group who was prone to cause a lot of collateral damage in their methods, Zelos decided to use himself as bait and travel until the group could be taken out. That way if they did attack him, they'd be less likely to get innocent people killed. Sheena traveled along with him, and they were on the road for about a month or two until the cult kidnapped Seles and they went and murdered them themselves.
Some point after those two incidents, Seles was finally able to come back to live with him and they worked out their issues. Exspheres became illegal, and Seles was the first to give back hers- causing her to become sick all over again much to Zelos's constant worry. Aside from that, it's implied he's kept in close contact with his friends- particularly Sheena, Colette, Regal and Lloyd.
At least until Lloyd seem to up and disappear. None of his friends could find any trace of him no matter what methods they used. Seeing how this was completely unlike Lloyd, they all grew very worried. Zelos began working with Colette to try to find him, sometimes leaving Meltokio to go on journeys in search for leads.
The one day, there was news that Lloyd attacked citizens in Palmacosta under claim working for the Church of Martel in a massacre that would be later known as the Blood Purge. His friends reacted to the news in disbelief and horror, but ironically it was Zelos- the former traitor- that believed the stories least of all.
After this, the Vanguard, an extremist group of Sylvarantis, declare the Chosens to be traitors to the world and start hunting them down. But since both Chosens had taken several levels in badass since the start of the series, all these attempts were hilariously unsuccessful.
Dawn of the New World
Six months after the Blood Purge, Zelos heads to Palmacosta to discuss matters with their leader, Dorr. There he runs into Emil and Marta, breaking up a fight between Emil and Richter.
And blah blah I'll finish this later PRETTY MUCH JUST SHOWS UP AND IS BADASS.
If Zelos's parents had a choice, Zelos would have never come into the world. He was the result of a forced arranged marriage that was done in order to create another Chosen, a 4000 year long eugenics project under the guise of a system meant to save the world. His parents both loved other people, but the church forced them to marry and procreate. Until the end, the marriage remained to be completely loveless and a source of great resentment for both of them.
Only tidbits are known about Zelos's father. It's known that he was the Chosen before Zelos and had bright red hair like Zelos. His relationship with Zelow is implied to be very negative. When Zelos was a young boy, his father left him and his mother for a half-elf mistress. Eventually the public caught wind of the affair and Zelos's father committed suicide.
For the next three years, he lived with his mother, Mylene, in the manor meant for the Chosen in Meltokio. Overall he was a sweet kid who seemed to want nothing more than his mother's love and to make the people around him happy. Yet his mother wanted nothing to do with him. She'd never look at him, always sent him away and seemed to ignore his existence.
One day in the manor gardens, he came across a young girl with red hair that had collapsed. It turned out to be Seles, the daughter that his father had had with the half-elven mistress that no one ever told him existed. She had snuck out so she could meet her father and brother- no one had told her that her father was dead. Even though he was told that her and her mother were the reasons his father was gone, Zelos was happy at the idea of having a little sister and invited her to play with him from now on.
It snowed in Meltokio a few months later. Zelos, extremely excited to see snow for the first time, asked his mom to go outside with him. For what probably was the first time, she agreed to do so. Happy at the chance to spend time with his mother, he made a snowman to make her happy. But suddenly the snowman fell apart and he saw "red snow". Seles's mother, now insane with the thought of making Seles the Chosen, had decided to assassinate Zelos. Her attack had missed and instead hit his mother, fatally wounding her. In her last moments, Mylene grabbed her son and said her final words to him: "It would have been better if you hadn't been born."
Yeah thiiiis might have been a bit traumatic for the kid.
Seles's mother was caught and executed for her crimes. Seles was to be taken away to be confined to an abbey for the rest of her days. Zelos went to talk to her as she was the only family he had left. Seles being a little kid who just learned that both of her parents were dead, reacted badly to Zelos being around. While this is very understandable for her, being freshly traumatized by the death of his mother- Zelos took this as confirmation that his mere existence did nothing but make everyone around him unhappy and everything bad that happened was because of him.
Which...for a kid that was literally bred and raised on the idea that he's supposed to possibly save the world and bring happiness to everyone if things ever started to decline? This...might have done quite a number on his psyche.
Teenage Years
Now an orphan and incredibly emotionally fucked up, things were made only worse for Zelos's mental state as he started interacting more with the world around him. Tethe'alla was a world that had been prospering for a good eight hundred years now, thus making for a very sophisticated society compared to Sylvanrant that was hanging by it's threads. A sophisticated society built on racism and classism, with the nobles at the top well...most of them were pretty vile, self-serving human beings.
To put it simply, Tethe'alla doesn't have therapists and no one was interested in helping out a kid that was essentially a glorified sacrificial lamb. People would often treat him as if he strange and inhuman. Outside of schooling, his duties as Chosen and required social events - he was likely locked up in his house unless he sneaked out. Assassination attempts from various groups probably happened intermittently (there are 5 or 6 attempts over the course of the series alone - he seems to treat it like its pretty normal) He had no real friends, no family aside from a sister in an abbey halfway across the world that he was convinced hated him and the only people who probably made effort to interact with him were people who thought they could use him for their own advantage. The Pope and the royal family would view him as a potential threat on good days too. All in all, he was a kid that no one gave two shits about and he knew it.
This framework only continued when he hit puberty and girls started flocking around him. While initially surprised that girls suddenly cared, he quickly learned they wanted him because he was the Chosen and being involved with the Chosen was something prestigious. But instead of telling them to fuck off, he went along with the ladies man image - possibly because he was simply that starved for any sort of affection in his life, no matter how meaningless.
Zelos dealt with this life the best way he could think of, by building walls of defense. No one gave a damn about him, so he decided not to give a damn about anyone but himself. He trusted no one and did everything he could to make sure he didn't have to rely on anyone for anything. The sweet kid who wanted to make people happy was shoved away so much by Zelos that it's possible he forgot he was ever like that at all. Everybody lies or has an agenda. Never get close or attached to anyone. Never do anything that won't benefit you. Always be on the winning side- those became Zelos's mottos and survival strategies. And just so no one would think twice about looking too close at him, he adopted a flighty and cheerful playboy persona that got him flings with girls, but pushed everyone else away.
But no matter how sound or successful his defenses were at keeping people from hurting him, they did little to solve his problems. His self-hatred and sense of worthlessness only grew as the years went by, as did the guilt of his childhood and existence, the loneliness, his unhappiness and his resentment for being the Chosen. More and more he made reckless decisions: heavy drinking, sleeping around, blowing off lessons, avoiding any sort of responsibility and all around proving his own insecurities about being a terrible Chosen right - continuing the downward cycle. He became fixated on the idea that maybe things would be better if Seles was Chosen instead of him (he was convinced by now Seles only wanted to be the Chosen like her mother wanted). That way she could be free from the Abbey and have what she wanted, while he'd be free from his own miserable life. Two birds, one stone.
This idea seemed like a pipe dream until he was approached by Cruxis. Being male and not a perfect mana signature match, Zelos was useless when it came to being a host for Martel. Instead they saw him as a perfect candidate to spy and do their bidding, promising him to be freed of being Chosen if he worked for them. Not too long after, the Renegades approached him as well with similar offers. Living on the philosophy of trust no one, he decided to play the field and work for both of them- carefully observing to see which one would be the winning team.
A Journey with Shonen Derps
The years passed and Zelos continued playing his cards with both the Renegades and Cruxis. Life remained to be the status quo craptastic until he was twenty-two years old and a group of mysterious travelers showed up in Meltokio. They were from Sylvarant, who had come to Tethe'alla in hopes of finding a cure for their Chosen, Colette. Zelos was sent to accompany them to keep an eye on them (by Cruxis, the Renegades and the kingdom of Tethe'alla - though they only knew about the last one). Zelos intended nothing more than to use them for his own advantage- then lose them.
They were the oddest group Zelos had ever met. Two Half-elves that were nothing like he had been taught, a ninja summoner that was far from secretive, a Chosen that seemed different from him in every single way and later on- a noble turned criminal who wished to repent for actions not his fault and a taciturn girl willing to fight despite having everything robbed from her. They were all confusing, yet the one that perplexed Zelos the most was their leader - Lloyd Irving, a simplistic hot headed idiot teen that wanted nothing more than for everyone to live in happiness without sacrifices. Open about everything, Zelos could read him so easily. Yet the contents of what he read threw and confused him again and again. No signs of deceit, no hidden motives, nothing negative like that- he was completely sincere in his beliefs that there was a way to save the world without people being sacrificed.
The journey lasted a long time, spanning across two different worlds. While initially apathetic to everything, Zelos began getting affected (or "infected" as he called it) by the events and people around him much more than he had ever anticipated. Little by little, he found himself caring about his traveling companions and the state of the world. He began doing actions that went against the defensive mantra, doing things that served no benefit to him and only brought him trouble - simply because they were the Right Thing to Do and he wanted the people around him to be happy. Whenever he realized what he was doing? He'd waiver between scoffing in disbelief and feeling a great deal of fear that this would only lead to more pain - yet there was little he could do to go back.
But eventually it came time for Zelos to choose a side, as things started to stack up. He caught himself feeling torn about what to do, to do the logical thing and side with Cruxis - or do the right and scary thing and side with Lloyd's group of idiot idealists. He only grew more torn when Kratos approached him with a task - to use his skills to get into Cruxis and retrieve an item that would make it possible for Lloyd to reunite the worlds once and for all - though would completely jeopardize everything Zelos had worked for if things went badly. He sat on this problem, trying to figure out what to do until Lloyd approached him after a group meeting- simply to tell Zelos that he trusted him no matter what- all while being oblivious to Zelos's dilemma. This was the first time anyone had shown Zelos this level of trust, and it was after that moment Zelos knew what he was going to do.
Two hours later at the Tower of Salvation, he betrayed Lloyd and his friends. W e l p.
But oh not really. He just fake betrayed them so he could get inside Cruxis and grab the item that Kratos told him about. He then saved all his friends from dying in various ridiculously cheesy traps and showed up in the nick of time to put a keycrest on Colette so she'd stop channeling dead chicks like a Big Damn Hero and help Lloyd & Company fight Mithos. It's safe to assume that all of this was pretty damn badass.
After this display of badassery, Zelos was welcomed back into the party even if he had owned up to being a spy for...everyone. After this point, Zelos became very much a strong supporter of Lloyd and his ideals (even if he remained cynical about a lot of things). He decided to start changing himself for the better, as well as devoting his life to help make a world a better place whether it be by fighting discrimination of various groups to helping maintain peace between Sylvarant and Tethe'alla once they were reunited and the journey had finally come to a happy end.
After the Journey of Regeneration
(note, this is what is known from the Drama CDs and Novel)
Except not so much, as there was still a lot to be done. Zelos returned to Meltokio and began pushing for changes to what was Tethe'alla's messed up system. This included things such as acting as the King's Adviser, making reforms to the church, getting rid of the discrimination laws for Half-elves, aiding Sylvarant, weeding out corrupt officials and pushing for Exspheres to be illegalized.
Yeah. He was busy.
The passionate change in their once apathetic Chosen was received with mixed reviews. Many people applauded his acts and felt a strong sense of loyalty to their Chosen (seriously, at least two fights break out among NPCs and minor characters because someone talked smack about Zelos). However people in power and fanatics viewed him as a threat and assassination attempts yet again became a regular occurrence in Zelos's life.
The first major attempt was about six months after the events of Symphonia. Zelos was investigating the possible corruption of a Tethe'allan prime minister, and was finding that every time he came close to getting a lead- that lead would turn up dead. Being a high profile celebrity, Zelos knew he was being watched constantly and that his team most likely had a spy. And so when the spy poisoned his food, Zelos pretended to eat it and faked his own death. From there he was able to find plenty of evidence as he was no longer being watched, and was able to put a stop to the Prime Minister once and for all. Oh yeah, and save Colette and Lloyd who had gotten themselves in trouble because they actually thought Zelos was dead because he's a jerk that didn't let them in on the plan.
The second major attempt that's shown was some time after, when a cult/terrorist group declared that Zelos needed to die for religious reasons. As they were a group who was prone to cause a lot of collateral damage in their methods, Zelos decided to use himself as bait and travel until the group could be taken out. That way if they did attack him, they'd be less likely to get innocent people killed. Sheena traveled along with him, and they were on the road for about a month or two until the cult kidnapped Seles and they went and murdered them themselves.
Some point after those two incidents, Seles was finally able to come back to live with him and they worked out their issues. Exspheres became illegal, and Seles was the first to give back hers- causing her to become sick all over again much to Zelos's constant worry. Aside from that, it's implied he's kept in close contact with his friends- particularly Sheena, Colette, Regal and Lloyd.
At least until Lloyd seem to up and disappear. None of his friends could find any trace of him no matter what methods they used. Seeing how this was completely unlike Lloyd, they all grew very worried. Zelos began working with Colette to try to find him, sometimes leaving Meltokio to go on journeys in search for leads.
The one day, there was news that Lloyd attacked citizens in Palmacosta under claim working for the Church of Martel in a massacre that would be later known as the Blood Purge. His friends reacted to the news in disbelief and horror, but ironically it was Zelos- the former traitor- that believed the stories least of all.
After this, the Vanguard, an extremist group of Sylvarantis, declare the Chosens to be traitors to the world and start hunting them down. But since both Chosens had taken several levels in badass since the start of the series, all these attempts were hilariously unsuccessful.
Dawn of the New World
Six months after the Blood Purge, Zelos heads to Palmacosta to discuss matters with their leader, Dorr. There he runs into Emil and Marta, breaking up a fight between Emil and Richter.
And blah blah I'll finish this later PRETTY MUCH JUST SHOWS UP AND IS BADASS.