| “ | War is not in human nature. Humans fight by making themselves enter insanity. It is...the same for revenge. This is a tool to amplify the insanity. | „ |
| ~ Rose |
Rose (ロゼ, Roze) is a major protagonist and playable character in the 1999 video game The Legend of Dragoon. She is a mysterious woman who aids Dart at the beginning of his adventure, she is the first to recognize that Dart wears a currently inactive Dragoon Spirit. She is the only character to have an active Dragoon Spirit when she joins the party, however because she joins the party at the same time that Dart becomes a Dragoon, he is listed as the first Dragoon in the game.
The reality of her situation becomes apparent later in the game, when it is revealed that she was one of the original Dragoons who fought in the Dragon Campaign and was apparently the only survivor having watched all her friends who were also Dragoons die in battle, either giving up their lives heroically or being killed by the weapons of the enemy. Since then, she has remained immortal through the use of a magical choker in order to prevent the end of the world by destroying the Moon Child. As part of her task, she was not only required to kill the Moon Child, but also any who laid eyes on her, as they would become thralls to the Moon Child later in life. To this end, she burned entire villages, killing any and all she could find and soon became the legendary Black Monster. She was directly responsible for the destruction of Neet and the death of Dart's mother and Haschel's daughter, Claire.
She is voiced by Yumi Toma in the Japanese version of the game and by Awele Makeba in the English version.
Appearance[]
Rose has a long dark hair, pale skin and blue eyes. Her usual outfit consists of a set of dark blue armor with golden accents, along with a pair of boots of the same color, although oddly, the left one is short while the right one covers most of her leg, as well as a blue dragon circlet on her head with horns on her head. She also always carries a rapier as her weapon of choice.
As a Dragoon, as seen both during the events of the Dragon Campaign and the present, she wears mostly dark blue Dragoon armor with red accents and a red gem in the center, and the rapier she usually wields is a darker color.
Personality[]
When initially introduced, Rose comes off as very emotionally distant to the point of stoicism most of the time, and she pretty much responds to everything with cold logic and pragmatism. This is later revealed due to be the result of the trauma of losing all of her friends and her former lover/fiancé, Zieg, during the Dragon Campaign, as well as having to take on the unenviable task of repeatedly killing otherwise innocent people every 108 years as the Black Monster to prevent the Moon Child from fulfilling their destined purpose. She even admits later on that she has literally forgotten how to smile and can't even remember the last time she laughed. In turn, she's also pretty harsh, blunt and sarcastic when interacting with her allies, and compared to the others, she generally has little issues with fighting and even killing as a go-to method for solving their problems since she's already so used to it.
However, over the course of the game, Rose gradually begins to open up to her allies the more time she spends with them, especially Dart, who reminds her a lot of Zieg due to being his son and resembling him in several ways. She also begins to express more emotions, such as chuckling to herself privately near the end of Disc 2 and remarking that she likes it and showing more visible concern and even shock at some of the major events that happen later in the game, particularly the more negative turns of events. She also shows care and concern for the rest of the party in her own repressed and less emotional way even before she starts opening up to them, such as expressing regret for not stopping Lavitz from attacking Lloyd, which got him killed due to Lloyd wielding the Dragon Buster, which she didn't know about.
She even begins to regret her past atrocities more; at first when she boarded the ghost ship of Saint Louvia in Disc 2, which contained the souls of many of the people she slayed as the Black Monster in order to kill her, whom she believed to be the Moon Child, she only did it because she was tagging along with the others and was mostly concerned with keeping her responsibility for it a secret from the others. However, later on, she remarks that "the monster is dead" when interacting with Charle Frahma, the Wingly who gifted her with the magic choker to keep herself immortal. Additionally, she shows more of a willingness to confront her past, such as paying a visit to the ruins of Neet, during which she crosses paths with and befriends Luanna, the daughter of one of her victims there, as well as potentially goes back to Velweb later on to help the spirits of some of her friends move on to the afterlife.
One development that particularly shocks her is the revelation that her former lover/fiancé and Dart's father, Zieg, was not only still alive, but the true mastermind of the game's events manipulating Lloyd, and that he not only knows all about the Moon Child and the continuing reincarnation of the Virage Embryo's soul, but that he actually desired to reunite it with its body, The Moon That Never Sets to "fulfill the creator Soa's will" since this is extremely incongruous with the person she loved and fought alongside for humanity and all other race's freedom back in the Dragon Campaign. At first it causes her a lot of emotional conflict, but by the party's encounter with him in Zenebatos, she begins to suspect it isn't really him, which proves to be correct when it's revealed he was being possessed/controlled by the former Wingly emperor, and their old archnemesis, Melbu Frahma. Upon finally reuniting with him, she decided to sacrifice herself along with him to finish off both Melbu and the God of Destruction, both because she now feels her role is complete due to the God of Destruction being stopped for good, and because she feels like her and Zieg's time in the world is over, though she thanks Dart one last time for everything, such as presumably reawakening her passion for life and helping her receive closure on multiple fronts. It is then implied she and Zieg were reincarnated as seagulls in the epilogue, with her fondness for her former companions lingering enough that she flies around to check on all of them to see how they're doing.
Abilities[]
Due to how long she's been alive and her experience from the Dragon Campaign and stints as the Black Monster, Rose is a very battle-hardened warrior, and is very efficient with the rapier she wields. She can only perform a few additions with it, meaning her technique isn't as varied as some of the other characters, but this also allows her to more easily access her most powerful final addition, Demon's Dance. She can also efficiently use dark magic when she transforms into a Dragoon using the Dark Dragoon Spirit. Stats-wise, her physical attack power is high, and her speed is also pretty good, though not as much as some of the others like Meru, Shana/Miranda and Haschel, allowing her to dish out a fair bit of damage and get enough turns to deal it out pretty quickly. Her magic defense is also pretty strong, aside from light element magic which she's vulnerable to, giving her a decent amount of resilience towards most magic attacks. Conversely, however, her physical defense isn't very strong, and she doesn't have a lot of endurance as evidenced by her low amount of HP compared to most of the others. This isn't initially much of a problem since her stats early in the game are pretty strong for that point, but it becomes more of a potential problem and even a noticeable Achilles heel of hers later in the game. On a lesser note, her spells are powerful, but they're pretty situational in terms of how useful they can be. Therefore, while she remains an offensively powerful character, she's also quite frail and vulnerable in other ways, mostly to enemies that specialize in strong physical attacks.