Finé

Finé (フィーネ Fīne?) was the main antagonist of season one of Senki Zesshō Symphogear turned anti-heroine at the end of season two.

She was the mistress of Chris Yukine, a scientist and researcher of relics and ancient heretical technology, and a former priestess, who works in the shadows to bring an end to the Curse of Balal and become the supreme ruler of the world.

Etymology

 * "Fine", in Italian, means "end". It is derived from the Latin term finis, which refers to the end of a musical composition, or the end of a set piece of music, particularly the end of a section before a repeat of music. It is a term never used in speech and only used in reference to musical composition.
 * In French, "Fine", derived from finen, means "finish" or "climax"; however, this is an obsolete definition of the French word.

Appearance
Finé is a tall woman with long white-blonde hair that goes past her hips, styled in a hime cut that parts into two "curtains" down her back; gold serpentine eyes; slightly tan skin (white in season two and onwards); and red or pink lipstick, or otherwise emphasized lips. When possessing a host, she usually takes her host's appearance, but can also change their body to look like her original whenever she pleases. She can also transform partially by giving her host the eyes of her original form, or her original form the eyes of her hosts.

At home, Finé prefers to be unclothed, wearing only a pair of lace-trimmed translucent black elbow gloves, butterfly lace-trimmed translucent black thighhighs, black heels with maroon soles, and a black belt choker with a butterfly emblem on the front. When conducting business outside, Finé covers herself with a loose long-sleeved black V-neck dress that reaches just past her pelvis, and a black bowler hat with a butterfly ornament and a purple ribbon rose attached. She also wears round black sunglasses with a dark tint that obscures her eyes at one point. It can be assumed that she wears these clothes in part to hide her similarity to Ryōko Sakurai, her host at the time.

In the past and as a spirit, Finé is seen in a priestess outfit consisting of a white hood with a short cloak, a long white skirt, a "knot" at the center where several teal-striped white strips originate to loop around her front and arms, and gold necklaces adorned with jewelry of different colours.

Personality
Finé was an incredibly sadistic and cruel, cunning and calculating woman. Her demeanor is usually either smugly arrogant or ruthlessly cold; while she is usually calm and controlled, she easily turns to anger and thus violence when enraged or inconvenienced. In private, she comes off as exhausted and weary from her constant, tireless working and her disdain and frustration with other humans always failing her expectations or meddling with her plans. Finé is very observant and speculative, quick to pick out weaknesses and improvise on the spot, and she always has backups in place for when things go awry. She is dedicated to her science to the very last, spouting off explanations and reasoning even in the middle of mass destruction; however, this same dedication — specifically, her need for clear-cut labels and reasons for everything — ends up being her limitation, as she is unable to understand the true nature of the bonds between humans.

Finé constantly abuses and skillfully manipulates the people around her for her own purposes, be it to further her plans or out for simple entertainment; this is most prominently seen with Chris Yukine, whom Finé kidnapped and isolated for two years to use as a pawn, emotionally abusing her into staying with Finé despite all the mistreatment Finé put her through. Along with this, Finé is narrow-minded, lamenting the cruelty of humanity at the same time that she inflicts pain on those around her, refusing to sympathize with them, believing her feelings to be above all other's and continually forcing them and her beliefs upon others. Due to witnessing (and possibly being a victim of) humans fighting and killing each other after the Curse of Balal struck, most prominent with their creation of the Noise simply to kill one another, Finé believes that pain is the only thing in the world that can connect human hearts, that love is simply idealistic garbage, and that humans cannot truly understand one another.

Finé also shows herself to be an avid researcher and scientist, on top of being incredibly self-sufficient, singlehandedly accomplishing and creating a great number of things with her given resources. In the space of twelve years, under the guise of her host Ryōko Sakurai whom she skillfully impersonated to almost complete success, Finé developed the Symphogear system to use as a tool to secure funding for Kadingir, created LiNKER and utilized Kanade Amō as a test subject for it, made Chris Yukine awaken Solomon's Cane and then utilized her as a test subject for the stolen Nehushtan Armor, and performed various other related experiments, all while building her magnum opus, the Kadingir, in the shadows — or rather, right in plain sight, under everyone's noses. Finé also claims she was responsible for the paradigm shifts that had changed humanity throughout history, working through the bodies of her descendants. Finé shows interest in Hibiki Tachibana's medical fusion with the Gungnir relic, and aspires to create one of her own, eventually fulfilling this by fusing with the Nehushtan Armor herself. In season three, Carol Malus Dienheim further reveals that, in the past, Finé was also the creator of the practice of alchemy, and several other teachings to help humans connect after they were struck by the Curse of Balal.

Finé claims to be in love with God, enough to be part of the construction to build the Tower of Babel to reach Him up in Heaven, but it is ambiguous whether she genuinely loved Him or was using Him as an ideal with which she could attain power and validation through, as she shows no real infatuation or attraction for Him outside of her verbal claims. On the other hand, Finé shows sexual interest in the teenage girls under her supervision: she sexually abused and tortured Chris, showing "love" for her through cruelty as per her belief that only pain can connect humans; she sexually harassed Hibiki several times, vocalizing a wish to "make [Hibiki] [hers] before someone else does", and built a stalker shrine made out of photos of her; and she even made inappropriate moves on Miku Kohinata at one point.

Though obstinate in her selfish and narrow-minded goals and beliefs, Finé shows a small speck of kindness at the end of season one despite all the pain and suffering she has caused and been a victim of, responding to Hibiki's words by telling her to "believe in the song of [her] heart". (Notably, she does so while taking on Ryōko's eyes and voice, thus delivering her parting words to Hibiki in the image of someone who used to be a guiding figure to her.) By the end of season two, Finé seems to have undergone a complete turn-around in her attitude and beliefs thanks to Hibiki's words. She hides herself away in Shirabe Tsukuyomi's soul, hoping to have to not revive again lest she destroy Shirabe's soul, and selflessly takes the blow of Kirika Akatsuki's soul-destroying attack in place of Shirabe. In her final moments, Finé asks Shirabe to pass on a message to Hibiki, saying that humans will one day be able to understand one another, while at the same time acknowledging that, as a ghost, it's not Finé's place to be a hero in the present age.