Jowy Atreides (Suikoden)
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Official artwork of Jowy by Konami |
Jowy Atriedes (IS 444 - ) is one of the central characters in
Konami's roleplaying game,
Suikoden II.
Name: Jowy Atriedes (later on Jowy Blight)
Origin: Kyaro Town, Highland Kingdom
Age: 17 (Suikoden II)
Race: Human
Height : 177 cm
Rune: Black Sword Rune (Half of the Rune of the Beginning)Family: Rosa Atriedes (mother), Marcel Atriedes (stepfather), Marco Atriedes (stepbrother), Princess
Jillia Blight (wife),
Luca Blight (brother-in-law, deceased)
Jowy Atriedes was born in IS 444 into the wealthy Atriedes Clan of Highland. However, there was a distinct lack of love and caring in his family, so Jowy tended to care little for them. He was much closer to two friends from his boyhood: two kids adopted by an old hero named
Genkaku. The children were
Riou and
Nanami.
Riou and Jowy were the best of friends and were inseparable. As kids, they did everything together: Kept secrets, harbored a crush for the beautiful
Jillia, they defended each other's honor, and more. Eventually, the two boys decided to join the Highland Youth Brigade together.
In IS 460, Jowy and Riou witnessed at Tenzan Pass the massacre of the Youth Brigade by Prince
Luca Blight, though it was passed off as an attack by the
City-State of Jowston in order to whip the people of Highland into a war frenzy. Both boys were found out by
Rowd, the captain of the Youth Brigade, and are ordered to death.
Riou and Jowy jump into a river to escape.
Jowy was rescued by child named
Pilika and her parents, Marx and Joanna. Jowy rested to recover his strength, but when he heard
Riou was held captive by
Flik and
Viktor, mercenaries of the City-State, he breaks
Riou out of jail.
The boys were able to return to Kyaro thanks to the aid of a traveling circus troupe, but they are both caught by Captain
Rowd when they go to get
Nanami.
The boys were sentenced to death, but before they are sent to the scaffold, Jowy speaks to
Jillia, at how Highland betrayed him, and not the other way around.
Flik and
Viktor came to the rescue, however. The boys and
Nanami joined with them and went back to the City-State.
Jowy decides to introduce
Pilika to Riou, and both boys are welcomed with open arms.
Pilika informs Jowy that she went to Muse and saw a great gift for her father, and asks Jowy if he could walk to Muse and get it for her if she gave him the money. While Jowy is gone, however,
Pilika's hometown of Toto Village is burned and pillaged.
Pilika is the only survivor.
Jowy meets
Apple, a strategist, and takes her to
Viktor, where they decide they need to fight.
Viktor gives Jowy and
Riou the job to repair Fire Spears, old weapons made by the dwarves.
Riou and Jowy find a man named
Tsai who can fix them, but during this time, Ryube Village, another small town, is ransacked.
Jowy decides he wants to fight, and he,
Riou, and
Nanami join
Viktor in the battle. But
Viktor's plan fails and they must all retreat to the capital of the City-State, Muse.
While going through to Toto Village,
Pilika enters a shrine that her father used to take care of. Jowy examines the writing and is taken to a place where he relives his happy days with
Riou.
Riou is also with him, and the two boys are granted the power of the two pieces of the
Rune of Beginning. Jowy receives the
Black Sword Rune, which grants him powerful offensive magic.
Once in Muse, Jowy tells
Riou he wants to fight for
Pilika's sake, and volunteers to spy on Highland.
Riou goes with him. Jowy finds out the information, but is caught by
Rowd. He hides in
Jillia's tent, where the Princess treats them to tea. However, even with
Jillia's plan to stall
Rowd, the boys are caught. Jowy uses his
Black Sword Rune to stall the Highlanders while
Riou goes to escort
Nanami from the woods where she is hiding.
Jowy is caught and meets
Luca Blight. Although he hates the carnage the evil man causes, he admires the fact that Luca is strong. He accepts an offer to assassinate Lady
Annabelle, Mayor of Muse. Jowy is then released back to the Highland camp, and finds out that
Riou and
Nanami waited outside of the gates of Muse for him.
Jowy watches the Jowston Hill meeting, and is appalled by the fact that the City-State mayors constantly squabble. He doesn't believe the State can manage Highland if it was conquered. After the meeting, Jowy leaves and assassinates
Annabelle as ordered. As he does the deed,
Riou and
Nanami enter, and cannot believe Jowy did this.
Riou and Jowy then go their separate paths.
Jowy is made a general and given prestige by
Luca Blight. After the death of
Solon Jhee, Jowy is his replacement, and volunteers to assault Greenhill. Jowy manages this with only 5000 men and Muse's prisoners of war, despite the fact that Greenhill had about double that amount of soldiers. However, he doesn't manage to capture
Teresa Wisemail, the mayor of Greenhill. She goes into hiding.
While Jowy is in Greenhill, he comes across
Riou and Nanami, now members of the Dunan Army, made up of the City-State officials. Jowy allows
Riou to go with
Teresa. When asked why he does the things he does, following Highland and
Luca Blight, Jowy responses that he must, although he won't allow Luca to have his way with the City-State. Seed and Culgan, two high-ranking generals in the Highland Army, believe that Jowy can lead Highland to a better future then the one
Luca Blight is planning, and decide to help him.
Because of Jowy's success in Greenhill,
Luca offers him a reward. Jowy asks that he wants
Jillia as his bride. He later informs
Luca that doing this will allow Prince Luca to become King.
Jillia accepts the marriage, and Jowy is sworn in as a member of the Blight family. Jowy adds drops of his blood to wine and gives it to King Agares, a symbolic representation of Jowy adding his lifeblood to Highland. However, Jowy poisoned his blood, so that when Agares drank it, he would die.
Luca believes the plan ingenious, since his paranoid father never takes a sip of water without having it tasted first.
With his throne secure,
Luca plans to use a True Rune known as the
Beast Rune to summon a large wolf-like monster and eradicate the City-State. Jowy has other plans.
Jowy then plots the death of
Luca, and with
Leon Silverburg, he manages to engineer it. By informing Riou of Luca's movements, it allows Shu, the strategist of the Dunan Army, to plan a counterstrategy and kill
Luca.
Because
Jillia is now blood heir, Jowy is now King of Highland. However, rather then make peace with
Riou, Jowy demands Riou surrender, having Leon create a trap in Muse. He wishes to create a powerful country, born of force and wielding force, and the State cannot do this. However,
Riou refuses to back down, and their war continues. He nearly gets
Riou to surrender, but Shu has planned this, and uses
Pilika to prevent it.
Riou manages to escape.
Jowy manages to capture Matilda, but loses his occupied territories quickly. When Riou takes Greenhill back, Jowy meets him face-to-face. Both men don't want to fight the other, but they have to. For one, the two halves of the
Rune of Beginning always fight each other, and two, if either of them backed down, it would betray the faith of the people who believed in them.
During
Riou's Matilda campaign, Jowy suspects that
Riou is up to something, and hides in the castle, revealing himself to
Riou and
Nanami. They parley, but are interrupted by Gorudo, who wants to kill both
Riou and Jowy and take all the land as his own. However,
Nanami deflects the arrows, but it critically injured. In grief, Jowy kills Gorudo with
Riou and orders his troops to abandon Matilda.
With Matilda gone, Jowy's forces withdraw from Muse and back into Highland. Jowy bolsters the morale of his army by pretending to sacrifice
Jillia to the Beast Rune. But the Highland forces still fall. Seed and Culgan are killed.
Jillia and
Pilika are sent by Jowy to Harmonia to have a new life, and Jowy himself abandons L'Renouille Palace.
Jowy returns to Tenzan Pass one last time, and
Riou meets with him there. This was where their journey began, where the two jumped into the river. Jowy decides that the two of them must fight, and one must kill the other, but
Riou won't fight. Jowy doesn't understand, but then he collaspes from exhaustion.
Luca Blight had planned to use the
Beast Rune, and, to seal away the power, Jowy used his
Black Sword Rune. However, the
Black Sword Rune, without its counterpart, harms the wielder. Jowy wants to die for his sins, of murdering
Annabelle and the others, but
Riou forgives him. Miraculously,
Riou's
Bright Shield Rune heals Jowy's health. Leknaat explains that since
Riou did not bend to the will of the rune and fight Jowy, he is worthy of its power.
The two boys leave together, and are stopped by
Shu, who explains that
Nanami was not killed in Matilda, that she only pretended it so
Riou wouldn't worry about her. The two boys go back to meet her and travel the world together.
