Application - Tower of Animus

Player Information

Name: Vex
Personal LJ: yeshallbeasgods
Age: 21
Contact Info: AIM - turbotracy14
Other Characters Played: Tetra, Fi, Master Eraqus, Legolas Greenleaf

Character Information

Character Name: Mary Magdalene
Character Series: Xenosaga
Character Age: Physically, in her early twenties so about 23. In terms of her soul, several billion years old since her soul was born with the universe as one of its guardians.
Character Gender: Female
Original Canon
Canon Point: Near the end of Xenosaga Episode 3 when Mary’s soul is released from KOS-MOS but before lending her power to Nephilim
Background Link: Right this way
Personality:

Mary is a kind and loving soul, whose compassion towards humans caused her to break past her intended purpose at the birth of the universe and take on a position of protecting them and the universe. The wellbeing of those around her always takes precedence over her own, much to the displeasure of those that care for her. However, this changes nothing and Mary will still place herself in harms way to protect them. Part of this is due to a number of painful events throughout her life, which makes her treasure her friends and lover, Yeshua, even more. She very much dislikes being alone, as shown in a cutscene where she drops to her knees in sorrow, watching Yeshua leave.

Her birth in the universe did not go as expected. As mentioned earlier, she has a great amount of compassion for humans. This wasn’t how things were meant to be. Human life was meant to be disposable but somewhere in the early moments of her life, a compassion for them was born and Mary refused to fulfill her purpose as originally intended. The young woman saw beyond her purpose and saw the potential that humans possessed and so sought out ways to protect them and the universe. However, her hopes were found to be slightly naïve, and in her attempts to do so, sped up the process in which Anima would trigger. Her self-confidence dropped drastically as a result of this and she took the last option available to her: She divided Anima. She gave her life, in a supreme act of love for the humans she’d taken to, to give them as much time as possible.

Along the way, Wilhelm persecuted Mary and her companions in an attempt to slow the triggering of Anima. Her friends all suffered because of him but she couldn’t ever bring herself to hate him. Truthfully, it appears as though Mary is completely incapable of hating anyone. In fact, somewhere along the way, Mary began to see Wilhelm’s point of view and eventually started to help him. If anything, at least they’d have another chance at everything as the universe is never reborn in quite the same way.

While hatred is a foreign emotion to her, anger is not. Seeing those she cares for so deeply in danger will result in her lashing out in their protection, even if she would find herself in even greater trouble as a result. Mary would gladly suffer for others and this isn’t because of some form of masochism but because she cares that deeply that her own pain doesn’t hurt her nearly as much as watching others in pain.

It also appears that her sense of loyalty is unwavering. Throughout the Lost Jerusalem Era, she stood by Yeshua, the Messiah and her friends and when it became apparent that her methods were failing, and all of her friends were persecuted, she turned her hopes to Wilhelm’s method. And, 6000 years after her death, it appears that she will still assist him in the activation of Zarathustra. If it weren’t for KOS-MOS’ personality taking dominance after a failed (well, perhaps not failed but it didn’t go as it should have) merging of Mary’s body and soul, Mary would very well have helped him in started Eternal Recurrence.

While what she did may appear that her loyalty to her friends, Yeshua and the Messiah was false, it was hardly anything like that. Mary is a devoted woman who will do anything to protect the universe and humans. And to that extent, her devotion to protecting everything took precedence over her loyalty to them. In her own mind, she was still being loyal to them and their purpose, she was just taking another path to achieve it.

Mary is also a very generous person. We can’t see this in-depth in Xenosaga but that fact that she gives up everything for others shows that she is a generous young woman. Mary is the type of person that will break herself completely for the sake of making another person happy. She feels pleasure from giving her own well-being to other people who are lacking in it. This is a huge personality flaw but it also shows, again, how loving and caring and generous she can be.

Friendly is another way to describe Mary. Among such a large group of people that followed the Messiah and being so close to Yeshua and the Maiden (Shion’s Lost Jerusalem Era incarnation), friendliness was a common trait. Without it, the group have torn themselves apart but Mary and Yeshua, in the center of it all, kept them all together and guided them.

Mary also suffers from guilt, and often. The death of the Maiden of Mary wore on her and after, the division of Yeshua’s powers. Both things she found herself directly responsible for. While the division of Anima was her fault directly, the potential for it trigger prematurely was not. The deaths of those that followed the Messiah are also on her conscience, constantly, as well as the loss of Lost Jerusalem.

And finally, we’ll cover how ambitious she can be. Her intentions from day one of her physical life has been to save the lives of every human being in the Lower Domain while making sure that the universe does not collapse. This is a very high goal for one whose intended purpose was to protect the integrity of the universe at the cost of life within it.

Abilities:

Animus: A power in direct contrast to Anima, which acts as a failsafe. Animus can control Anima and the Relics of God. It is a necessary part of the Universal Failsafe and of Eternal Recurrence through the use of Zarathustra. Through the use of Animus, Mary is able to divide the power of Anima into the Vessels of Anima which will slow the rate at which the Failsafe reacts. However, the act of dividing Anima will result in Mary’s death and is only used as a last ditch effort.

Animus and Anima existed for the sole purpose of preserving the universe. Anima’s purpose being to destroy the Domain of the Universe where Earth, and all the Galaxies we observe, exist. To humans, this domain appears to be the universe itself, but it is in fact just a part of a much larger universe. Humanity has the potential to destroy our domain if too many humans reject each other, thus threatening the balance of our domain. The destruction of our domain due to the Rejecting Will’s would contaminate every other Domain of the Universe and, ultimately, the Higher Domain of the Universe, leading to the destruction of the Whole Universe. By destroying our universe before the number of Rejecting Will’s outweighs the number of normal wills, Anima would ensure the safety of all others domains, and so of the universe as a whole. At the same time that Mary appeared, Anima’s incarnation did as well: Yeshua.

With Animus, she is also capable of performing small miracles. In her world and in the Lost Jerusalem Era, it was Mary and Yeshua that performed the miracles that the Messiah was given credit for,

Immortality: Without outside interference, or dividing Anima, Mary’s life is untouched by time. Along with Yeshua (chaos) and Wilhelm, Mary was born into the universe in her present form and none of them experienced a childhood.

Imaginary Domain Existence: Mary is a being of the Imaginary-Number Domain, like the Testaments. This means that, while she does have a physical body unlike them, she possesses the same ability to interact directly with the Imaginary Plane. Her interaction with the imaginary plane appears to be magic in the eyes of those who do not know of its existence or mechanics. An ability derived from this is the ability to teleport oneself or something else from a location to another.

Sample Entry:

[Upon waking, fear gripped her heart. This was not Michtam, this was not Lost Jerusalem and her friends were not here. Oh God, where was Yeshua? Shion!? Jin and Junior, Allen and KOS-MOS, Ziggy and MOMO! She had to go back, had to help them before the Rejecting Wills caused the Lower Domain to collapse, she couldn’t let them die!

The moment she could move she threw herself from the bed. Eyes landed on the notes but they didn’t register. Only the room did and then the tears. And then, finally, she read the note and the tears flowed freely again.]

No! No, no, no, no, no! I failed them! … Yeshua… forgive me…

[Pulling her knees up to her chest, Mary cried freely for quite some time. She didn’t want to eat, didn’t want to live if it meant her friends and loved ones couldn’t. Why should she live when they could not? What good was regaining her life and having immortality if it meant leaving them behind to die? Although, a little voice in the back of her head told her that Yeshua wouldn’t approve of this. That he’d want her to live.

After all, no death was permanent. Souls were reborn. It took a few thousand years but souls were inevitably reborn. The memories of their last life would be lost but it would be them. But-]

Do their souls live on if our universe was destroyed?