Mithos Yggdrasill
Template:Spoiler Mithos Yggdrasill is both the main villain of the Namco game Tales of Symphonia and a primary hero in its story. His existence in the present is not revealed until the player is about a third of the way into the game, after a certain Tower of Salvation incident. Mithos is best known for his belief that he is in fact a hero and is saving the world, his childish appearance, and even his successful infiltration of the group.
Mithos, as a character, has great impact on the story of Tales of Symphonia. Unlike stereotypical villains, Mithos is portrayed as a misguided hero, who truly believes he is saving the world and ensuring the future of all living things (it is even argued by fans of the game that Mithos is in fact a real hero and the protagonists of Tales of Symphonia are the true villains).
Backstory
Mithos's full name is Mithos Yggdrasill, although that is not revealed until extremely late in the game. Part of the intrigue to the character is that "Mithos" is known as a great hero, and it is not known that he is still alive until late in the game, whereas "Yggdrasil" is a great villain, an angel with superpowers who is credited with incredible feats, but whose past is completely unknown. It is not revealed that "Mithos" and "Yggdrasil" is one and the same until after a crucial point in the game.
According to legend, Mithos and his three companions stopped the Great Kharlan War and restored peace to the world. Early on, it is believed that they had sealed away the Desians. Later, however, the war is discovered to have been a war between Sylvarant and Tethe'alla - completely irrelevant to the case of the Desians. This group of mythical heroes was composed of three half-elves and one human. Mithos's full name is not revealed until extremely late in the game, along with the identities of the heroes: Kratos Aurion, Mithos's sister Martel, and Yuan. The whole group, aside from Martel, who was slain in the war, is over 4,000 years old.
Mithos became delusional after his sister Martel was killed; he took to heart her last words, a wish for a world without discrimination (the persecution of those who were half human and half elf), believing the only way to do this was to make everyone in the world of the same species. To this end, he began mutating half-elves, using a form of Exsphere known as Cruxis Crystals, turning them into angel-like entities.
Mithos's plan
The exact details of the Great Kharlan War are unknown, but it is clear that the war was waged using magitechnology, which resulted in such a large exhaustion of mana that the Great Kharlan Tree, the tree providing infinite mana to the world, wilted away, resulting in a massive depletion of mana.
Obviously, without mana the world cannot survive, and it is clear that the world would soon be destroyed without the Great Kharlan Tree supplying mana, so Mithos, the hero and supposed leader of the group, devised a plan to keep the world alive. Using the power of the Eternal Sword, a gift from the Summon Spirit Origin, Mithos split the world in half, creating two worlds: Sylvarant and Tethe'alla. However, the dark side of the deal, which of course is never just clearly told, is that instead of restoring the Great Kharlan Tree, which Mithos could have done, he took the Great Seed, the only remnant of the tree, and used it for his own purposes: to keep his sister Martel's spirit alive. This made him into a fallen hero, and his turn was mourned over by Origin.
With only a small, limited supply of mana left, it was impossible for the two worlds to flourish. Instead, only one world was able to tap into the mana flow, allowing the world to grow and prosper. Meanwhile, the other world, with a mana shortage, declined and slowly died, until finally the mana flow was reversed, causing the dying world to prosper, and the succeeding world to decline. With Martel's essence captured in a Cruxis Crystal, Mithos began the search for a new body for his sister. Mithos, in another masterful twist, combined both his goal for a new body for Martel and the act of reversing the mana flow into one thing: the Chosen. Each century or so, a Chosen is created, a person seemingly chosen by fate to be the one who "saves" the world by giving up their life to reverse the mana flow. Unknown to everyone, the Chosen's quest is actually the quest for a suitable body for Martel; through careful breeding and arranged marriages, Mithos ensures that the Chosen's body has a mana signature similar to Martel's. Colette Brunel, the 8th such "Chosen of Mana", was the reportedly the one with the closest mana signature to Mithos' sister and indeed she housed the spirit of Martel for a short while.
When the Chosen reaches the Tower of Salvation, the pole connecting the two worlds (also the only place that appears in both worlds), he/she gives up his/her life. If the Chosen's body is deemed suitable for Martel's spirit, they are transported to Welgaia, the angel city. If not, they are killed and placed into a coffin, which joins a veritable tornado of floating coffins in the interior of the Tower of Salvation (this is the first thing that the group notices when they enter the Tower). The last body that was sent to Welgaia was over 800 years before the present in Tales of Symphonia. The current generation's Chosens are Colette Brunel of Sylvarant and Zelos Wilder of Tethe'alla.
Of course, Mithos can't handle everything by himself, despite his immense god-like powers. To aid him in this multitiered scheme, he creates two organizations: Cruxis and the Desians, later revealed to be the same group, Cruxis, the supposed holy angel community that watches over the worlds, and Desians, the supposedly evil organization. Both are made of half-elves. The leaders of this massive group are the Five Grand Cardinals, Forcystus, Magnius, Kvar, Rodyle, and Pronyma. Forcystus, Magnius, and Kvar are all slain by the group. Rodyle defects from Cruxis, choosing to raise his own empire with which to openly oppose Mithos, using a mythical device known as the Mana Cannon to do so. Pronyma is defeated in battle by the protagonist party, but is slain by Mithos himself, after making the mistake of calling to him by his first name, an honor reserved only to Kratos and Yuan, his former companions.
Mithos's opposition
Despite the fact that he truly means well and he believes that he is saving the world, Mithos creates enemies everywhere: even his allies, Kratos and Yuan, turn against him. Kratos Aurion escapes from Mithos's grasp and takes up a human bride, Anna. They have a son, Lloyd Irving, but due to Kvar's interference, Anna is killed and Lloyd lost. Believing that his son is dead, Kratos gives up on life, returning to Mithos. Lloyd does not discover who his true father is until late in the game.
Yuan, the fourth member of Mithos's group, is a scheming and devious warrior; instead of opposing Mithos directly, as Kratos does, he chooses to become a double agent, using his influence and knowledge of Cruxis's actions to foil their plans with his secret underground organization, the Renegades. Yuan was engaged to Martel before she died, which is why when Mithos discovers that he is betraying him, he does not kill Yuan. Yuan later assists the group, with Botta, his primary enforcer, dead, and his identity discovered.
Mithos's forms
Mithos appears in a total of four forms throughout the game: his angelic form (a tall, adult Mithos, complete with angel wings which he uses to portray the leader of Cruxis), his true form (a short, blonde-haired, innocent-looking half-elf which he uses to infiltrate the group), his avenger form (his child form with rainbow-colored angel wings, which he reverts to when he is angry) and his final form (a giant, fearsome robot-like creature, in which the only recognizable part is Mithos's head inside the 'cockpit'. The form is believed by many to be the physical manifestation of all of Mithos' sins. Namely the previously defeated "sub-bosses" the Judged, the Neglected, and the Fugitive.).
After Ozette is destroyed by the Light of Judgment, Cruxis descending from the heavens, Mithos appears for the first time in his child form. He convinces the group to believe that he is an outsider of Ozette, and joins the group, befriending Genis Sage. He gives Genis his panpipes, which are later used to summon both Mithos and the Summon Spirit Aska. Later, when Mithos appears again in his angelic form at the Tower of Salvation and saves Genis from near-destruction, Genis begins to suspect Mithos's true identity.
It is in this scene that Mithos's personality is truly revealed: despite his capability of sacrificing countless lives and his cruel, bipolar nature, he never lets down a fellow kinsman, in this case, Genis. He is even willing to sacrifice his own life to win someone to his cause, and contrary to many of his actions, he does not believe in killing for no reason, as evidenced in the fact that despite his many encounters with the group and his incredible power advantage, he never kills them.
Boss Battle
Lloyd's party fights Mithos five times in the game: first at the Tower of Salvation, where, in his Yggdrasill form, he promptly defeats them (it is impossible to win against him at this point). The next encounter takes place in the tower as well. Though not as hard an opponent as before, they are interrupted by Colette collapsing. Then Pronyma arrives and Yggdrasill escapes with her. The third battle in the Hall of the Great Seed is actually fought to the end and sees what appears to be Mithos's death. At the end of the game, Mithos fights the group for the last time in his child form (but with the angel wings of Yggdrasill). After his defeat he combines with three previously slain bosses, the Judged, the Fugitive and the Neglected, to challenge the heroes once more.
In all five battles, Mithos acts in a similar manner: he is unable to fight in close combat but has desvastating magical powers. Slow, he rarely moves and teleports around the battlefield to evade the enemy.
Attacks:
- Cyclone - a large tornado sweeps the target up into the air.
- Death Eater - a miniature version of Judgement. Small light beams fall onto the area around the target.
- Ground Dasher - fissures in the ground create a powerful earthquake to hit the target.
- Indignation - a gargantuan bolt of lightning blasts a large area of the battlefield.
- Indignation Judgement - a special variant on the Indignation technique and Mithos's strongest spell. Every character on-screen (excluding Mithos himself) is caught in a huge pillar of lightning. The move ends with a huge sword falling from the sky, dealing even more damage. Mithos only uses Indignation Judgement in his child form.
- Judgement - rays of angelic light shoot down, covering the whole battlefield.
- Outburst - Mithos punches the ground and creates a shockwave around him. Outburst is only used by Mithos's adult form (Yggdrasill).
- Prism Sword - giant swords of light slam into the ground around the target, finishing with one central sword.
- Ray - an orb of light appears above the target and fires beams upon it.
- Thunder Arrow - a triangular field of electricity appears around the target and calls down a giant bolt of lightning.
- Tidal Wave - a cascade of water pours forth from the centre of the battlefield, attacking every character on-screen.
Trivia
- Mithos's background, including his disturbing vision of "fixing" the world that has wronged him and the trauma of experiencing the death of his older sister Martel and thus "waging war on death" in attempts of immortality and resurrection, seems to be a common recurring theme with villains in contemporary entertainment (see Lord Voldemort, Orochimaru). Unlike most similarly-themed villains, who have acknowledged their turning to evil, however, Mithos is not as much truly evil as he is isolated, deluded, and grief-stricken.
- In another game by Namco, Tales of Phantasia, there is a giant tree providing infinite mana. It is called Yggdrasill. At the end of Tales of Symphonia, when the Giant Kharlan Tree is revived, Lloyd is prompted to give it a name, but that name is never revealed. It is widely believed that Lloyd named it Yggdrasill, after the main hero and villain of the story, which could mean that Tales of Phantasia is in fact a sequel to Tales of Symphonia. This is further supported by the presence of angelic wings on the final form of Dhaos, Tales of Phantasia's central villain. Dhaos is also said to be from Derris-Kharlan, the home of the angels of Cruxis. Furthermore, the geography of Tales of Phantasia seems to be the geography of the combined worlds of Tethe'alla and Sylvarant. Another interesting note, one character in Tales of Phantasia is named Suzu Fujibayashi. Her surname is identical to Tales of Symphonias Sheena Fujibayashi which indicates Suzu could actually be a decendent of Sheena.
- Mithos's name is taken from Norse mythology, see Yggdrasil.
- In his Yggdrasill form, he also appears in the game Tales of the World: Narikiri Dungeon 3 as a boss in the ancient city. His costume is usable as well, and is also worn by evil Frio in the final boss battle along with Shizel.