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Sorey

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Player: Sorey
Canon: Tales of Zestiria
Canon Point: Before his long sleep
Alignment: Peromei
Date of Entry: 01/07/2016

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Age: 17
Birthday: Unknown
Eye Color: Emerald green
Hair Color: Chestnut brown
Height: 5' 9"
Amulet: First amulet - Earring. This is Sorey's first amulet, which is in earring form. Specifically, it's the stud pictured for the earlobe rather than the clasp, as he already wears those and it'd look silly to have them mismatched. It's located on his left ear and is intended to look like a feather. The gem is a moonstone.
Appearance: Cover Art, Status Art (Shepherd), Status Art
Contact:

redknightdistrict / felledjustice (AIM) /

shepherds_pie

Background: Tales of Zestiria, Sorey, Seraphim, Hellions

There's one detail in the wiki link for Tales of Zestiria that needs to be clarified, as it's not entirely accurate. When it says that Sorey merges with Maotelus to purge the world of malevolence, that's not what happens. He actually merges to purify the entire continent of Glenwood as well as to raise the humans' resonance in the continent, which means an increase in the amount of people with the potential to become Shepherds/Squires. The purification of the continent doesn't mean that the malevolence has completely dissipated, either. That corruption still exists, but Maotelus' restored blessing does give the protection against the malevolence an extreme boost in effectiveness. It's also been confirmed that the person Mikleo is saved by at the end of the second epilogue is, in fact, Sorey reawakened as a seraph.

Personality: Sorey is a cheerful and friendly person. He's outgoing with a love of exploration, and he won't pass up an opportunity to make a new friend. He has an honest and gentle disposition, though he's not afraid to fight back if necessary. Sorey is also compassionate, kind, and selfless, although all of those qualities can get him into trouble. For example, he's broken the rules of Elysia's Elder by bringing a lost human back to the village of the seraphim to rest and resupply for her journey home. He tries very hard to do right for the people around him, whether he knows them well or not.

He's almost honest to a fault, really. The boy is totally incapable of lying convincingly. Once, on trying to pass into the Rolance Empire's territory, he's forced to try lying about his identity. His seraph friends help by using him as a puppet and feeding him lines, but Sorey just sounds like a horrible actor. He's also very aware that he's a terrible liar, mentioning it after waking up from a three-day-long nap when Lailah talks about how Mikleo had to carry him back to the inn to rest. However, sometimes his inability to lie can be a good thing. For example, when Alisha is close to giving up on everything, Sorey reminds her that she can't give up because it's not in her nature to. She cares too much about her people to give up on what she's accomplished.

To go with his honest nature, he's very trusting of the people he meets to the point of naivety. While he does have times in which his trust is in a good person, it doesn't always end up that way. An example of the former is that Sorey openly trusts the Woodsmen mercenary company because of how highly Lucas, the leader, values contracts. However, he's also trusted a woman saying she was saving rare books from a local library when in reality she was going to sell them. Truly, Sorey wants to believe that there's good in every person, though he's forced to confront the fact that not everyone is throughout his journey as the Shepherd. The only times he's never trusted or even liked someone is when it's clear to him that they're beyond reasoning, such as when he learns that Chancellor Bartlow has every intention of getting Alisha killed in whatever manner arises.

Sorey doesn't take joy in causing harm to others, whether it's another person, a seraph, or an animal. This isn't to say that he won't defend himself when necessary, but he prefers diplomacy over violence. He especially doesn't like to kill people. Throughout most of the game, when Sorey is forced to end a person's life, he always hesitates and tries to find another way to save them that doesn't involve their death. It's only by the end when he has to kill Heldalf to end his suffering as the Lord of Calamity that Sorey doesn't hesitate. This is an especially difficult ordeal for him because in the process, he needs to sacrifice all four of his seraphim friends, including his closest friend, Mikleo.

For all his naivety and cheer, he has moments of seriousness and maturity. Sorey knows that there's a time and place for letting his personal feelings take the spotlight, but puts them aside when there are more important things to think about. For example, after learning the truth about how Mikleo had been sacrificed as a baby to make Heldalf into the Lord of Calamity and on how Sorey's own mother had died in the skirmish in Camlann, he doesn't dwell on it. How he feels about it and any discussions to have with Mikleo about it are put aside because Heldalf is still a huge threat to the lives of everyone in the Glenwood continent. Sorey understands that there's no time to reflect on how they feel about it, not when the Lord of Calamity needs to be taken care of as soon as possible.

He's perhaps surprisingly an intelligent individual. He isn't all that street-smart, but he's certainly book-smart. Sorey has a passion for reading as well as history and archaeology. Mikleo has commented that when Sorey gets sucked into a book, he normally forgets to do essential things like eating. He's committed entire entries of the Celestial Record to memory, and has added both his own notes and Mikleo's notes to specific pages. Sorey can be surprisingly observant of his surroundings, as he's had to figure out how to solve various types of puzzles in different ruins all over Glenwood. He's also proven himself to be resourceful, like using the elemental abilities of his seraphim friends in interesting ways. One example of this is using Mikleo's ability to turn the party invisible to sneak up on a Minotaur hellion in order to quell it without the beast running away. Another is by using Dezel's wind ability during the Wind Trial to turn the pinwheels and open/close various doors.

As mentioned before, he has a passion for history and archaeology that's only rivaled by his love of books. One of his dreams is to explore all of the ruins in Glenwood, and to learn the history behind them. Perhaps especially, he wants to visit all of the places mentioned in the Celestial Record, which is what first gets him interested in exploring ruins. Sorey can go off on long tangents about the history of a building or room or other object related to the ruins, and gets into debates with Mikleo about his conclusions half the time. It's worth mentioning that even though he has a genuine love for history and archaeology, he doesn't let that turn into an obsession or rule his decisions. Once, he's offered a lot of money that can fund a professional dig, but only if he works with Chancellor Bartlow. Sorey refuses the money politely as he has no interest in helping the council force the people of Hyland into following Bartlow unquestioningly through the Shepherd's influence. At another point, Sorey finds a shrine on the way to meeting Edna to request her help in making the foundation for a downed bridge to Marlind. He examines it briefly, but doesn't let it hold them up. When Lailah asks him about this, he states that the shrine will still be there for further examination later, but the people wanting to use the road can't wait.

The dream he carries in his heart that is the most important one of all, however, is for humans and seraphim to live in harmony. This is his greatest desire, the one thing he'll devote his life to achieving at least the groundwork for such a future. It's partly why he's grateful that he's taken on the Shepherd's burden, as it means that he can better help to achieve this. Even though Edna points out that this might be the most impossible goal to have, Sorey counters that humans used to be able to see the seraphim in the distant past and had coexisted with them somehow. It's also why he gets the idea to fuse with Maotelus and purify him while simultaneously raising the natural resonance of humans to a point where they're able to perceive the seraphim. This will give the added bonus of creating more Squires so that the people don't have to wait for a Shepherd to save them from calamity. Of course, this path means that Sorey will have to deprive himself of all of his senses and requires him to become a seraph in the process, as fusing with Maotelus to purify him means he'll have to purify his own negative energies. He'll have to sleep for a very, very long time, and he'll lose all of his memories as he becomes reincarnated as a seraph. Sorey knows all of this as he makes this decision and accepts the price with courage.

Sorey is the type of person to fully embrace hope with all his heart. No matter the hardships they face, he believes that he and the people he's befriended will come out of it alive, if not okay. It fuels his determination to keep going on the Shepherd's journey and it gives him the courage to face insurmountable odds. This is especially important to his character later in the story as he's faced with the threat of falling into total despair due to the Lord of Calamity threatening the people he's come to love and care about. For example, Heldalf fuses with the seraph who raised Sorey and Mikleo their whole lives, and essentially forces the two of them to mercy kill him. Despite that, Sorey doesn't give in and continues to hope that the Lord of Calamity will find peace in the end.

His kindness and selflessness can get him into a lot of trouble. Sorey will bend over backwards and turn himself into a pretzel to help others in need. People abusing this aspect of him isn't the only thing that can happen to him, though. As the Shepherd, this can risk people becoming too dependent on him to solve their problems. He almost gets caught in this trap near the beginning of the game, when a bridge goes out due to a hellion attack. Sorey truly wants to bring medicine across the river to a town ravaged by plague, but can't do that openly or else risk people expecting him to be their delivery boy and depend on the Shepherd to solve all of their problems. He's forced to come up with a way to help that won't cause that to happen.

Looking before he leaps is not a strength of his in most respects. A lot of the time, Sorey will run ahead or do something without really thinking about the consequences of his actions. This is especially true when someone's life is in danger. For example, when he first meets the Lord of Calamity, it's during a war and at a time in which Sorey is very much not ready to face him in combat. Yet, Sorey rushes off to face Heldalf, even though it nearly results in his death. He almost tries again soon after being rescued by Rose, but he's stopped when Lailah, Edna, and Mikleo tell him that he's woefully unprepared for a confrontation of any sort with Heldalf. Even though Sorey backs down afterward at his friends' insistence, that doesn't mean he won't still throw himself at enemies potentially stronger than himself.

He's very stubborn, naturally. It's not just that Sorey is committed to his decisions 110%, but it can be a danger to himself and the people around him. One example is that he tries to keep Mikleo from becoming Lailah's Sub-Lord, even though they need a willing water seraph to join them on the Shepherd's journey. The last thing he wants is for his best friend to quit his dream because of Mikleo taking this path. However, as the manga highlights most profoundly, Mikleo isn't the type to sit around and watch while Sorey is fighting the good fight. A couple times in the manga, Sorey's adamant refusal to let Mikleo become a Sub-Lord almost gets the seraph killed as he tries to cover Sorey's back in the middle of a battle against hellions. It takes at least two heated arguments between the both of them before Sorey relents.

It's not in his nature to leave someone in trouble to fend for themselves. He wants to do everything he can to save them, and he'll fight all the harder for those he cares about. This is something Sorey is forced to face during the Fire Trial. He's told to burn the face of either himself or the seraph who would get the blessing. Sorey almost does it to himself because he doesn't want to burn Lailah, but she manages to persuade him to against that decision and causes him to armatize with her so that they both gain the blessing. It comes up once again when Mayvin tells Sorey that to defeat Heldalf, it'll require the sacrifice of all four seraphim with him. He hesitates with Mayvin, but doesn't when he finally faces the Lord of Calamity. Regardless, if there's a way for him to protect someone, he'll do it whether it'll kill him or not. He merely acknowledges that he can't always be their shield, as much as he wants to be, although it won't stop him from trying.

This ties back into his stubbornness, but Sorey has trouble letting people in when something is bothering him on a personal level. He doesn't want to burden other people with his problems, even if it's a burden that needs to be shared. Lailah and Mikleo both comment that the Shepherd's burden is not something that one person can carry alone. This is something Sorey struggles with over the course of the game, but especially so during the beginning. After making Alisha his first Squire, he starts to deteriorate physically. His right eye goes temporarily blind, he experiences dizzy spells, and generally isn't doing very well. Despite that, he doesn't let the others know and writes it off with some excuse. He doesn't even tell Mikleo about it when pressed, and it almost gets Mikleo and Alisha killed. Even when he mourns Dezel's death, Sorey struggles to let people see just how badly it's hurt him.

Abilities:

Shepherd - As the Shepherd, Sorey has the ability to allow people to hear the seraphim. Only to hear. He needs to make physical contact with the person and will need to close his eyes in order to allow that person to hear them. Sorey also has the ability to purify corruption, thanks to his pact with Lailah, and he acts as a vessel to Lailah and her Sub-Lords. Should Sorey ever be corrupted himself, then so, too, will the seraphim connected to him as their vessel. In addition to that, he has the ability to fuse with a seraph (aka "Armatization") and use their divine weapon or Seraphic Artes while in that form. Sorey can also sense high amounts of corruption or malevolence, feeling like a pressure in his chest or a sickness if it's particularly strong.

Sword - Sorey's weapon of choice is an ornamental sword! With it, he's able to use a variety of Martial and Hidden Artes. The blade isn't sharp at all, dealing more damage as a bludgeoning weapon than a slashing one.

Resonance - He has the ability to perceive seraphim, hellions, and other supernatural creatures or phenomena as they truly are.

Other: His skills in cooking are decent. He fails about as often as he succeeds, but what he makes is good, at least? Sorey has a weird ability to sense ancient monuments, important points of discovery, herbs they can use, and treasure within a certain radius.

Permissions: Permissions for actions done to this character.
Key: ☐ (neutral; contact first) | ☑ (yes) | ☒ (no).
» Backtagging: ☑
» Threadhopping: ☐
» Hugging: ☑
» Kissing: ☐ ~~unless you're named Mikleo, in which case always yes~~
» Fighting: ☑
» Injuring: ☑
» Killing: ☐
» Fourth Wall: ☐
» Manipulation: ☐