APPLICATION
NAME: Jane
JOURNAL: mourir
EMAIL: divinify at gmail dot com
AIM: mourir ici
WIKI NAME: N/A
CHARACTERS: N/A
CHARACTER NAME: Yuri Lowell
FANDOM: Tales of Vesperia
CANON: After he kills Cumore in Montaic, right before he meets up with Flynn to talk.
WHAT THEY LOST: His blastia, a little red jewel engraved on his golden bracelet. The blastia is essential to allow Yuri to use his artes - without it, he only has his physical strength and natural skill to aid him in battle. Additionally, though the movie that supposedly takes place two years before the game is inaccurate on several counts, the movie also reveals that the blastia was a memorial of his deceased Captain back when Yuri was in the Imperial Knights. The loss of his Captain greatly affected both Flynn and Yuri, and thus losing such an important item would be like losing his last physical connection to the Captain he looked up to.
ABOUT THE CHARACTER: Yuri lives in a world where cities depend on cores called blastia, spheres made up of aer, the world's lifeforce that compose all matter. This world is Terca Lumireis. The people of this world use blastia to provide water, fight, and others, but the primary purpose is to provide barriers against the monsters that plague the lands (though monsters plague the lands of all other Tales of games, the monsters of Terca Lumireis must be of the slightly more vicious sort). The empire that controls the world was once the mediator of blastia, but the people revolted and formed guilds to gain more freedom, and an awkward balance amongst the guilds and the empire took place.
Yuri, along with his childhood friend Flynn Scifo (who had always bested him in anything and everything), joined the Imperial Army - stationed in Zaphias, the capital - to change the system from within. However, Yuri could not stand the corruption of even the army and left while Flynn stayed behind and rose in ranks. Since then, Yuri committed his time to helping out the Lower Quarter of Zaphias, where he grew up. Sometimes, helping the Lower Quarter involves petty crime and, oh, breaking into the castle once or twice. He'd been thrown in prison many times before and broke out just as many times.
The game begins with the theft of the town's aque blastia, which kept the Lower Quarter's water supply under control. The fountain then begins to flood the Lower Quarter, and Yuri took it upon himself to snatch a blastia from the area where the nobles lived. He is then confronted with the Imperial Knights and taken to the jail within the castle. With the help of Raven, a fellow prisoner, he is able to escape (not that he wouldn't have been able to without the help). Attempting to sneak out, he stumbles upon Estallise, a girl trapped within the castle who asked him to help her escape. Yuri only agrees when hearing of her intention - to warn Captain Flynn of imminent dangers. It is at that point Zagi, an assassin for hire, attacks Yuri, mistaking him for Flynn. That begins the first of many encounters with Zagi, to Yuri's misfortune.
Yuri and Estelle begin traveling together, collecting friends and making enemies as they go from city to city, discovering more about the blastia as they attempt to catch up with Flynn. With their friends - Repede who is Yuri's faithful dog companion, Karol the ex-Hunting Blades guild member, Rita the genius mage, and occasionally Raven - the group try to stabilize barrier blastia, recapture the Lower Quarter's aque blastia, stop corrupted officials from the empire from torturing cizitens, and discover the mystery of the dragon rider.
Later, Judith joins their group, a woman of the Krityan race who had been captured with Yuri on his lone-quest to stop Barbos, a man attempting to turn the guilds and the empire against each other. With Barbos defeated and an aque blastia retrieved, Yuri and the group rest in Dahngrest, the city of guilds. There, they meet the Don, the overseer of all guilds, to warn him of Yeager's guild, Leviathan's Claw (also known as the Red Eyes). While the rest of the group slumbers, Yuri sneaks out to track down Ragou, the magistrate who fed people to the caged monsters in the basement of his manor. There, in the dead of night, Yuri assassinates Ragou, watching as the body tumbles off the bridge and into the river below. To continue his journey with Estelle and the others, Yuri entrusts the aque blastia to Flynn who promptly returns to the capital to replace it.
Phaeroh, a strange flying creature, attacks Dahngrest. He is not an ordinary monster, however, as he speaks to Estelle, calling her an 'insipid poison' to the world. Estelle, wrought with confusion, is determined to find out what Phaeroh meant by his words, and decides to ask him. Though she originally plans to go alone, Yuri and the others insist on accompanying her as a guild, the first job for Brave Vesperia, the guild he and Karol had created together and hope to expand in the future.
The group then travels by boat (given to them by Kaufman, the leader of the Fortune's Market merchant guild, an acquaintance that agree to give them the boat if they were to defeat the mermen monsters while on the journey towards their destination) to reach an entirely different continent (in hopes of finding Phaeroh in the desert there) - they then run across a mysterious abandoned ship that, somehow, interferes the boat's blastia, leaving them stranded until it's fixed. Inside the boat, the group discovers a strange box and captain's log, and Estelle wishes to return the box to its noted destination as described in the log. Though some voice their concerns about visiting a 1000-year-old city, most likely no longer there, the group promises to follow her whims.
Finally, Yuri and company reach Nordopolica where they encounter Regaey, the leader of a guild who tells Yuri of a nefarious man attempting to take over Nordopolica through winning the Coliseum. Reaey requests that Yuri stop him, and Yuri thus agrees. However, it results in a scam as Ragaey steals the box earlier obtained from the abandoned ship. Chasing him into the Weasand of Cados, a mountain range and cave system of sorts, the box is retrieved as Ragaey makes his escape. They arrive in Montaic, a little desert town just outside of the Weasand of Cados. Here they learn that Cumore, a Captain of the Imperial Knights, is playing a game with the locals by sending them out into the desert, essentially to their deaths. Yuri and company run across some children whose parents have gone out to the desert and have yet to return. Rather than allowing the children to search for their parents themselves, the party heads out, prepared, to scour the desert. They eventually find the lost parents and set back toward Montaic - not before encountering a strange monster called an Outbreaker and being sent to the very 1000-year-old city they'd read about on the ship. Despite it being such an old city, however, the area looks like a normal little town rather than an abandoned ghost town. In the town's hall, however, is Duke, and he destroys the box and the crystal (later revealed to be an apatheia) within it. After finishing up in that small town, well-rested from the Outbreaker's attack and heat of the desert, they journey back to Montaic where they attempt to stop Cumore's exploitation of the citizens by breaking down the carriage that takes the helpless men and women out into the desert. When night falls, Yuri has had enough - he corners Cumore into a sand pit, where the Captain dies a very slow death.
At first glance, Yuri is nothing but sarcasm, wit, and delinquency. He can't seem to take a lot of things seriously, and within the first ten minutes of the game he lands himself in jail. Though, of course, he's entirely too casual about it. This is nothing new to him- he'd been in jail before for fighting the Knights regarding taxes. Getting his ass in jail means nothing to him - it only means he has to work a little harder to get out and continue on with his goals. Yuri is constantly teasing and mocking his friends, he'll even exploit fears just to amuse himself - it's all out of good fun, of course. He's certainly not mean-spirited. He's actually fairly friendly, considering how quickly he befriends Estelle, Karol, and Judith.
But Yuri is so much more than a fun-loving, laid-back, sarcastic and go-with-the-flow kind of guy. At the heart of who he is, there's this conviction to bring justice to the world. Inequality and exploitation drive him insane, and he will do whatever it takes to rectify the wrongs he encounters. He absolutely despises the differences between the Lower Quarter and the nobles. While the nobles enjoy their luxuries, levy taxes- the citizens of the Lower Quarter can barely afford to fix the public fountain, can only barely scrape by from day to day. With his own blade, he will cut down the tyrants that take advantage of the weak, run his own court of law, much like what he did with Ragou, who fed citizens to ravenous monsters and was going to be let off with only a minor drop in rank. He did the same with the noble Captain Cumore. This by no means he's a pure-hearted hero, because he's completely aware of his blood-stained hands, and he doesn't believe he deserves such an esteemed title. This is exemplified by the way he continuously looks at his right hand in thought and when he asks Estelle if she's afraid of him for what he's done. He's not Flynn, after all, the good-hearted knight. No, he's the underdog that takes care of the jobs nobody wants to do. If Flynn and the Imperial Knights can't do anything to persecute the corrupt officials protected by their status, Yuri will take up the job, even if it's against the law.
This also leads to some inconsistencies in his character. Yes, this means he's a bit of a hypocrite. When Estelle is found out to have been inadvertently causing people and sacred beasts pain due to her healing power, the sacred beasts seek her death. Yuri, despite having said that "the rotten parts need to be cut off before it affects the whole" (referring to Judith, who broke the guild laws) a day earlier, staunchly defends her, saying that one person shouldn't be sacrificed for the many, that she should have just as much of a chance at living than anyone else. Yuri's so confident and stubborn in his beliefs that he doesn't quite see the inconsistency - it doesn't even occur to him that he could be the slightest bit hypocritical. There's also the fact that Estelle did not intentionally harm others unlike those corrupt political officials, the ones who cruelly toyed with human lives, whereas Judith knowingly betrayed the guild laws.
Strangely enough, though, Yuri is willing to give second chances. Though he's not immediately forgiving. He needs some proof, some reason to allow a second chance. Raven, after giving Yuri false information and using the party as bait, demonstrated his trustworthiness the first time by defeating a monster about to attack Karol (despite the fact that he himself put Karol in that situation). Yuri certainly judges people and their crimes on a case by case basis, and though he realizes that his vigilante actions have done more harm than good, he doesn't at all regret what he did, knowing that killing those terrible men with his own hands saved countless people.
Going along those lines, Yuri doesn't quite take others' feelings into account when making decisions or speaking. If he feels that his decisions or words are right, screw respecting your feelings. Screw tact because what needs to be done needs to be done. What needs to be said needs to be said. He isn't cold-hearted or unsympathetic- he simply doesn't see the need in sugar-coating. Of course, Yuri's also notorious for lying and skirting around issues, especially in situations where he feels that no one else needs to know (such as, you know, murdering corrupt high officials). If he feels that he can handle a situation on his own or if he feels that not lying will produce too complicated or undesirable outcomes (such as telling Flynn that his trusted second-in-command kind of, uh, stabbed him), he'll keep those little facts to himself. Despite his personal agenda in protecting the helpless, Yuri's not about the personal. He doesn't often talk about himself, his past, what he feels. He has, however, during the course of the game, acknowledged that it's all right to ask for help.
Yuri is, out of all the Tales of heroes, the most comfortable with who he is. He's found himself, found what he wants and where he's going. There's no self-revelation, no questioning of his motives. He chooses his path and sticks with it, has stuck with it since he and Flynn were children. A major component of how he interacts with people is this very conviction to his choices - he's always telling everyone, especially Estelle, that no matter what, if it's your choice, it's all right (so long as those choices don't interfere with his idea of justice, then he'll just stab you and shove you in a river). Regret and guilt are, to him, useless. Once you make a choice, a decision, you go through with it until the end. People make mistakes, and it's best to just learn from them and move on, to handle consequences as they come, as he tells Duke.
And though Yuri was never one for studying - which is why he doesn't know any magic spells - he is fairly sharp and observant. He can piece together reactions, facts, situations in order to come up with accurate conclusions. He inferred that Estelle was a princess rather than a noble. And though he doesn't know much about blastia, the technology used in his world, he was still able to deduce that Estelle wasn't using her blastia to heal people (most healers depend on blastia to heal just as all special attacks depend on the use of blastia as well). Though of course this does not suggest that he can't be dense about certain things, either. When it comes to women, for example, he's completely clueless.
THIRD-PERSON WRITING SAMPLE: Yuri watched coldly, almost passively, as the sand dragged Cumore's begging body into the embrace of the earth where pressure and lack of oxygen would rob him of his life. He hadn't needed to shed blood this time, but the weight of another murder, direct or not, draped over his shoulders. It was yet another burden he'd placed on himself, but one he'd gladly bear for the sake of the innocent people of Montaic, to be one step closer in achieving a society where people can smile, didn't have to fear exploitation. The rich and the poor would work together and create a better standard of living for everyone. Yuri experienced himself the harshness of poverty - despite that the Lower Quarter and its people were so important to him, could be considered his home and family, growing up in an environment where food couldn't always be expected (especially when the rising taxes were collected) was an unpleasant childhood.
And even with one monster down, there were plenty others out there hurting innocent people because they could. The very thought of it pissed him off, left no room for second thoughts or regret. If he could, he'd do it all over again.
Lives were saved because he took up the job nobody else wanted to do. The ends justified the means, in this case. There was no doubt in his mind that he'd done the right thing - perhaps not lawfully, perhaps not even morally, but that didn't matter. He was going straight to hell, and he was all right with that, even if Flynn wasn't.
"My people have taken control of things here. The residents of this town won't have to suffer any longer," Flynn said, speaking in his Captain voice, so smooth and commanding and full of leadership. Yuri could hardly recognize it, but he knew it fit the other too well.
"That ought to put you one step closer to your next promotion," Yuri responded with his usual sarcasm - though this time there was a harsher edge in his tone. It just pissed him off. Flynn was climbing the ranks so diligently, just as they'd planned to when they first joined the Knights together two years ago. But now things were different. Even with the law and the power to influence it, nothing could be done to eliminate the evils that plagued the innocent. He turned on his heel, walked away from those knowing blue eyes. "I'm heading back to the others."
"Yuri, we need to talk later." There was that voice he recognized, the Flynn he knew so well. That was the Flynn who wouldn't - couldn't - do the sort of job Yuri had taken upon himself. Yuri, too, couldn't endure the politics and the negotiations Flynn experienced on a daily basis. They walked parallel but different paths. Flynn took the high road, and Yuri took the low road.
Yuri closed his eyes, smiled mirthlessly. Since they were children, Flynn was always the one to lecture him - mostly about his recklessness, to which Yuri would respond that he just wasn't the reckless type. Flynn knew him in ways Estelle and the others didn't, and that was both a blessing and a curse. "I know."
He'd return to the inn greeted with smiles that weren't aware of what he'd just done. They were still unaware of his hand in Ragou's death, and he wasn't planning on letting them in on his little secret anytime soon. This was his decision and his alone, and he would handle it himself accordingly. Friends or not, that was the path he'd chosen, and he couldn't afford to look back or hesitate.
In the background, the people were celebrating their newfound freedom. Fireworks shined brightly against the dark night sky, amidst the stars. It was for those smiles and that laughter that he picked up his sword - and he'd continue for as long as necessary.
FIRST-PERSON WRITING SAMPLE: All right, so I figured out what to do with this thing. Now to find out where the hell I ended up. My guess is this isn't Terca Lumireis.
Unless, of course, there was another underground city nobody knew about. Wouldn't that just be convenient.
Of course something else would pop up as soon as we take one thing down. I really am cursed, aren't I.
INTENT: Yuri is incredibly interesting for a hero of a JRPG. Though he has high ideals - a better society in which everyone can live happily and unexploited by the corrupted - his methods of implementing his ideals are far from moral. This leads to a very interesting sort of tension in his CR - it's not something obvious, but it's certainly foreshadowing. Most people would not react quite so kindly to the idea that Yuri lives for his own justice - his hands are certainly stained with the blood of people who, though deserving of punishment, begged for their lives. Despite that Yuri carves his own path regardless of laws, he has good intentions and is a sharp, observant thinker. This is what draws me to his character - that juxtaposition of good intent being horribly executed, his resolve, his ability to both sympathize and become a stability for others. I hope to play out these interesting relationships that I know he's able to build with other characters.
JOURNAL: mourir
EMAIL: divinify at gmail dot com
AIM: mourir ici
WIKI NAME: N/A
CHARACTERS: N/A
CHARACTER NAME: Yuri Lowell
FANDOM: Tales of Vesperia
CANON: After he kills Cumore in Montaic, right before he meets up with Flynn to talk.
WHAT THEY LOST: His blastia, a little red jewel engraved on his golden bracelet. The blastia is essential to allow Yuri to use his artes - without it, he only has his physical strength and natural skill to aid him in battle. Additionally, though the movie that supposedly takes place two years before the game is inaccurate on several counts, the movie also reveals that the blastia was a memorial of his deceased Captain back when Yuri was in the Imperial Knights. The loss of his Captain greatly affected both Flynn and Yuri, and thus losing such an important item would be like losing his last physical connection to the Captain he looked up to.
ABOUT THE CHARACTER: Yuri lives in a world where cities depend on cores called blastia, spheres made up of aer, the world's lifeforce that compose all matter. This world is Terca Lumireis. The people of this world use blastia to provide water, fight, and others, but the primary purpose is to provide barriers against the monsters that plague the lands (though monsters plague the lands of all other Tales of games, the monsters of Terca Lumireis must be of the slightly more vicious sort). The empire that controls the world was once the mediator of blastia, but the people revolted and formed guilds to gain more freedom, and an awkward balance amongst the guilds and the empire took place.
Yuri, along with his childhood friend Flynn Scifo (who had always bested him in anything and everything), joined the Imperial Army - stationed in Zaphias, the capital - to change the system from within. However, Yuri could not stand the corruption of even the army and left while Flynn stayed behind and rose in ranks. Since then, Yuri committed his time to helping out the Lower Quarter of Zaphias, where he grew up. Sometimes, helping the Lower Quarter involves petty crime and, oh, breaking into the castle once or twice. He'd been thrown in prison many times before and broke out just as many times.
The game begins with the theft of the town's aque blastia, which kept the Lower Quarter's water supply under control. The fountain then begins to flood the Lower Quarter, and Yuri took it upon himself to snatch a blastia from the area where the nobles lived. He is then confronted with the Imperial Knights and taken to the jail within the castle. With the help of Raven, a fellow prisoner, he is able to escape (not that he wouldn't have been able to without the help). Attempting to sneak out, he stumbles upon Estallise, a girl trapped within the castle who asked him to help her escape. Yuri only agrees when hearing of her intention - to warn Captain Flynn of imminent dangers. It is at that point Zagi, an assassin for hire, attacks Yuri, mistaking him for Flynn. That begins the first of many encounters with Zagi, to Yuri's misfortune.
Yuri and Estelle begin traveling together, collecting friends and making enemies as they go from city to city, discovering more about the blastia as they attempt to catch up with Flynn. With their friends - Repede who is Yuri's faithful dog companion, Karol the ex-Hunting Blades guild member, Rita the genius mage, and occasionally Raven - the group try to stabilize barrier blastia, recapture the Lower Quarter's aque blastia, stop corrupted officials from the empire from torturing cizitens, and discover the mystery of the dragon rider.
Later, Judith joins their group, a woman of the Krityan race who had been captured with Yuri on his lone-quest to stop Barbos, a man attempting to turn the guilds and the empire against each other. With Barbos defeated and an aque blastia retrieved, Yuri and the group rest in Dahngrest, the city of guilds. There, they meet the Don, the overseer of all guilds, to warn him of Yeager's guild, Leviathan's Claw (also known as the Red Eyes). While the rest of the group slumbers, Yuri sneaks out to track down Ragou, the magistrate who fed people to the caged monsters in the basement of his manor. There, in the dead of night, Yuri assassinates Ragou, watching as the body tumbles off the bridge and into the river below. To continue his journey with Estelle and the others, Yuri entrusts the aque blastia to Flynn who promptly returns to the capital to replace it.
Phaeroh, a strange flying creature, attacks Dahngrest. He is not an ordinary monster, however, as he speaks to Estelle, calling her an 'insipid poison' to the world. Estelle, wrought with confusion, is determined to find out what Phaeroh meant by his words, and decides to ask him. Though she originally plans to go alone, Yuri and the others insist on accompanying her as a guild, the first job for Brave Vesperia, the guild he and Karol had created together and hope to expand in the future.
The group then travels by boat (given to them by Kaufman, the leader of the Fortune's Market merchant guild, an acquaintance that agree to give them the boat if they were to defeat the mermen monsters while on the journey towards their destination) to reach an entirely different continent (in hopes of finding Phaeroh in the desert there) - they then run across a mysterious abandoned ship that, somehow, interferes the boat's blastia, leaving them stranded until it's fixed. Inside the boat, the group discovers a strange box and captain's log, and Estelle wishes to return the box to its noted destination as described in the log. Though some voice their concerns about visiting a 1000-year-old city, most likely no longer there, the group promises to follow her whims.
Finally, Yuri and company reach Nordopolica where they encounter Regaey, the leader of a guild who tells Yuri of a nefarious man attempting to take over Nordopolica through winning the Coliseum. Reaey requests that Yuri stop him, and Yuri thus agrees. However, it results in a scam as Ragaey steals the box earlier obtained from the abandoned ship. Chasing him into the Weasand of Cados, a mountain range and cave system of sorts, the box is retrieved as Ragaey makes his escape. They arrive in Montaic, a little desert town just outside of the Weasand of Cados. Here they learn that Cumore, a Captain of the Imperial Knights, is playing a game with the locals by sending them out into the desert, essentially to their deaths. Yuri and company run across some children whose parents have gone out to the desert and have yet to return. Rather than allowing the children to search for their parents themselves, the party heads out, prepared, to scour the desert. They eventually find the lost parents and set back toward Montaic - not before encountering a strange monster called an Outbreaker and being sent to the very 1000-year-old city they'd read about on the ship. Despite it being such an old city, however, the area looks like a normal little town rather than an abandoned ghost town. In the town's hall, however, is Duke, and he destroys the box and the crystal (later revealed to be an apatheia) within it. After finishing up in that small town, well-rested from the Outbreaker's attack and heat of the desert, they journey back to Montaic where they attempt to stop Cumore's exploitation of the citizens by breaking down the carriage that takes the helpless men and women out into the desert. When night falls, Yuri has had enough - he corners Cumore into a sand pit, where the Captain dies a very slow death.
At first glance, Yuri is nothing but sarcasm, wit, and delinquency. He can't seem to take a lot of things seriously, and within the first ten minutes of the game he lands himself in jail. Though, of course, he's entirely too casual about it. This is nothing new to him- he'd been in jail before for fighting the Knights regarding taxes. Getting his ass in jail means nothing to him - it only means he has to work a little harder to get out and continue on with his goals. Yuri is constantly teasing and mocking his friends, he'll even exploit fears just to amuse himself - it's all out of good fun, of course. He's certainly not mean-spirited. He's actually fairly friendly, considering how quickly he befriends Estelle, Karol, and Judith.
But Yuri is so much more than a fun-loving, laid-back, sarcastic and go-with-the-flow kind of guy. At the heart of who he is, there's this conviction to bring justice to the world. Inequality and exploitation drive him insane, and he will do whatever it takes to rectify the wrongs he encounters. He absolutely despises the differences between the Lower Quarter and the nobles. While the nobles enjoy their luxuries, levy taxes- the citizens of the Lower Quarter can barely afford to fix the public fountain, can only barely scrape by from day to day. With his own blade, he will cut down the tyrants that take advantage of the weak, run his own court of law, much like what he did with Ragou, who fed citizens to ravenous monsters and was going to be let off with only a minor drop in rank. He did the same with the noble Captain Cumore. This by no means he's a pure-hearted hero, because he's completely aware of his blood-stained hands, and he doesn't believe he deserves such an esteemed title. This is exemplified by the way he continuously looks at his right hand in thought and when he asks Estelle if she's afraid of him for what he's done. He's not Flynn, after all, the good-hearted knight. No, he's the underdog that takes care of the jobs nobody wants to do. If Flynn and the Imperial Knights can't do anything to persecute the corrupt officials protected by their status, Yuri will take up the job, even if it's against the law.
This also leads to some inconsistencies in his character. Yes, this means he's a bit of a hypocrite. When Estelle is found out to have been inadvertently causing people and sacred beasts pain due to her healing power, the sacred beasts seek her death. Yuri, despite having said that "the rotten parts need to be cut off before it affects the whole" (referring to Judith, who broke the guild laws) a day earlier, staunchly defends her, saying that one person shouldn't be sacrificed for the many, that she should have just as much of a chance at living than anyone else. Yuri's so confident and stubborn in his beliefs that he doesn't quite see the inconsistency - it doesn't even occur to him that he could be the slightest bit hypocritical. There's also the fact that Estelle did not intentionally harm others unlike those corrupt political officials, the ones who cruelly toyed with human lives, whereas Judith knowingly betrayed the guild laws.
Strangely enough, though, Yuri is willing to give second chances. Though he's not immediately forgiving. He needs some proof, some reason to allow a second chance. Raven, after giving Yuri false information and using the party as bait, demonstrated his trustworthiness the first time by defeating a monster about to attack Karol (despite the fact that he himself put Karol in that situation). Yuri certainly judges people and their crimes on a case by case basis, and though he realizes that his vigilante actions have done more harm than good, he doesn't at all regret what he did, knowing that killing those terrible men with his own hands saved countless people.
Going along those lines, Yuri doesn't quite take others' feelings into account when making decisions or speaking. If he feels that his decisions or words are right, screw respecting your feelings. Screw tact because what needs to be done needs to be done. What needs to be said needs to be said. He isn't cold-hearted or unsympathetic- he simply doesn't see the need in sugar-coating. Of course, Yuri's also notorious for lying and skirting around issues, especially in situations where he feels that no one else needs to know (such as, you know, murdering corrupt high officials). If he feels that he can handle a situation on his own or if he feels that not lying will produce too complicated or undesirable outcomes (such as telling Flynn that his trusted second-in-command kind of, uh, stabbed him), he'll keep those little facts to himself. Despite his personal agenda in protecting the helpless, Yuri's not about the personal. He doesn't often talk about himself, his past, what he feels. He has, however, during the course of the game, acknowledged that it's all right to ask for help.
Yuri is, out of all the Tales of heroes, the most comfortable with who he is. He's found himself, found what he wants and where he's going. There's no self-revelation, no questioning of his motives. He chooses his path and sticks with it, has stuck with it since he and Flynn were children. A major component of how he interacts with people is this very conviction to his choices - he's always telling everyone, especially Estelle, that no matter what, if it's your choice, it's all right (so long as those choices don't interfere with his idea of justice, then he'll just stab you and shove you in a river). Regret and guilt are, to him, useless. Once you make a choice, a decision, you go through with it until the end. People make mistakes, and it's best to just learn from them and move on, to handle consequences as they come, as he tells Duke.
And though Yuri was never one for studying - which is why he doesn't know any magic spells - he is fairly sharp and observant. He can piece together reactions, facts, situations in order to come up with accurate conclusions. He inferred that Estelle was a princess rather than a noble. And though he doesn't know much about blastia, the technology used in his world, he was still able to deduce that Estelle wasn't using her blastia to heal people (most healers depend on blastia to heal just as all special attacks depend on the use of blastia as well). Though of course this does not suggest that he can't be dense about certain things, either. When it comes to women, for example, he's completely clueless.
THIRD-PERSON WRITING SAMPLE: Yuri watched coldly, almost passively, as the sand dragged Cumore's begging body into the embrace of the earth where pressure and lack of oxygen would rob him of his life. He hadn't needed to shed blood this time, but the weight of another murder, direct or not, draped over his shoulders. It was yet another burden he'd placed on himself, but one he'd gladly bear for the sake of the innocent people of Montaic, to be one step closer in achieving a society where people can smile, didn't have to fear exploitation. The rich and the poor would work together and create a better standard of living for everyone. Yuri experienced himself the harshness of poverty - despite that the Lower Quarter and its people were so important to him, could be considered his home and family, growing up in an environment where food couldn't always be expected (especially when the rising taxes were collected) was an unpleasant childhood.
And even with one monster down, there were plenty others out there hurting innocent people because they could. The very thought of it pissed him off, left no room for second thoughts or regret. If he could, he'd do it all over again.
Lives were saved because he took up the job nobody else wanted to do. The ends justified the means, in this case. There was no doubt in his mind that he'd done the right thing - perhaps not lawfully, perhaps not even morally, but that didn't matter. He was going straight to hell, and he was all right with that, even if Flynn wasn't.
"My people have taken control of things here. The residents of this town won't have to suffer any longer," Flynn said, speaking in his Captain voice, so smooth and commanding and full of leadership. Yuri could hardly recognize it, but he knew it fit the other too well.
"That ought to put you one step closer to your next promotion," Yuri responded with his usual sarcasm - though this time there was a harsher edge in his tone. It just pissed him off. Flynn was climbing the ranks so diligently, just as they'd planned to when they first joined the Knights together two years ago. But now things were different. Even with the law and the power to influence it, nothing could be done to eliminate the evils that plagued the innocent. He turned on his heel, walked away from those knowing blue eyes. "I'm heading back to the others."
"Yuri, we need to talk later." There was that voice he recognized, the Flynn he knew so well. That was the Flynn who wouldn't - couldn't - do the sort of job Yuri had taken upon himself. Yuri, too, couldn't endure the politics and the negotiations Flynn experienced on a daily basis. They walked parallel but different paths. Flynn took the high road, and Yuri took the low road.
Yuri closed his eyes, smiled mirthlessly. Since they were children, Flynn was always the one to lecture him - mostly about his recklessness, to which Yuri would respond that he just wasn't the reckless type. Flynn knew him in ways Estelle and the others didn't, and that was both a blessing and a curse. "I know."
He'd return to the inn greeted with smiles that weren't aware of what he'd just done. They were still unaware of his hand in Ragou's death, and he wasn't planning on letting them in on his little secret anytime soon. This was his decision and his alone, and he would handle it himself accordingly. Friends or not, that was the path he'd chosen, and he couldn't afford to look back or hesitate.
In the background, the people were celebrating their newfound freedom. Fireworks shined brightly against the dark night sky, amidst the stars. It was for those smiles and that laughter that he picked up his sword - and he'd continue for as long as necessary.
FIRST-PERSON WRITING SAMPLE: All right, so I figured out what to do with this thing. Now to find out where the hell I ended up. My guess is this isn't Terca Lumireis.
Unless, of course, there was another underground city nobody knew about. Wouldn't that just be convenient.
Of course something else would pop up as soon as we take one thing down. I really am cursed, aren't I.
INTENT: Yuri is incredibly interesting for a hero of a JRPG. Though he has high ideals - a better society in which everyone can live happily and unexploited by the corrupted - his methods of implementing his ideals are far from moral. This leads to a very interesting sort of tension in his CR - it's not something obvious, but it's certainly foreshadowing. Most people would not react quite so kindly to the idea that Yuri lives for his own justice - his hands are certainly stained with the blood of people who, though deserving of punishment, begged for their lives. Despite that Yuri carves his own path regardless of laws, he has good intentions and is a sharp, observant thinker. This is what draws me to his character - that juxtaposition of good intent being horribly executed, his resolve, his ability to both sympathize and become a stability for others. I hope to play out these interesting relationships that I know he's able to build with other characters.