000 • application

[everhoping]

[series]: Suikoden II
[character]: Riou [ Hero 2 ]
[character history / background]:

Riou is the leader of the Dunan Army, a ragtag collection of those left after Highland's blitz invasion of the City States of Jowston and anyone who would take up arms against Highland, and the current bearer of the Bright Shield Rune. He is one of the two orphans Genkaku, a disgraced and exiled City States hero and former bearer of the Bright Shield Rune, took in after the last war.

[ additional resources : gensopedia • suikosource • wikipedia • game summary @ wikipedia ]

[character abilities]:

Having studied under the hero Genkaku together with his sister, Riou is a skilled martial-artist. He specializes in the use on tonfas but is very likely skilled in hand-to-hand combat as well. Also, as the bearer of the Bright Shield Rune he has access to some pretty nifty magic though this is, as it is in-game, mostly of the healing and defensive type of magic. This rune, which is a half of the Rune of the Beginning, also possesses some other kind of higher magic that allows it to stand up against full True Runes if the need arose. This power, however, is something Riou has no direct control of. In addition, tapping into these greater powers taxes Riou's body greatly: Riou passes out several times in the game and at least one instance is explicitly shown to be a direct result of him having used the power of the Bright Shield.

As one born under the star of "Tenkai", Riou has some, uh... additional special abilities. This include:

• attracting flying squirrels for some absurd reason ( There's Mukumuku, and four more flying squirrels he, uh, somehow enlists to join him in his war. Mukumuku is no gag character either, he is given a role and lines in the drama cds and has been shown in official illustrations of young!Riou and co... )

• having some pretty screwed up luck that lets him win dice games... (ICly, multiple failure in chinchironin by the player wouldn't count because if there was a greater ratio of losing, then Riou couldn't count as one having "good luck"... and that's mentioned in-game, him having good luck.)

• ... the ability to uh, trust strange individuals and ~believe~ in them. As with all Tenkai of the Suikoden series, it takes some skill to believe in... shady ninjas and crazy chefs and crazy inventors and crazy girls with a barrel that transforms into a giant robot and a crazy girl that thinks a scary groundhog thing is cute and crazy exiled people and-- you get the point.


[character personality]:


As Suikoden II's Tenkai, Riou possesses an affinity towards people, a desire to do what's right, and a certain kind of determination that stands to inspire and encourage people to place their hopes in him. These qualities are something of a sort of standard for most of the mainline Suikoden heroes, especially those under the Tenkai Star, and it isn't hard to see why as it's these leaders that are considered the ones to gather the Stars of Destiny around them. Riou though, for all the expectation that comes with the title of Leader of the Dunan Army, is still very much a normal teenager.

• on his own •

If there's one thing worth noting about Riou beyond all that comes with being the leader of the Dunan Army and the current bearer of the Bright Shield Rune then it's fact that he possesses a near unextinguishible well of optimism. It's hard to get Riou down and discouraged and he really does try his best to make something out of the lemons life gives him- it may even be that he doesn't realize that some of those lemons are lemons. Riou's just so optimistic sometimes that certain things, complicated things, tend to fly over his head. An example of this is the fact that when he ends up in City States territory after that daring jump off the Tenzan Pass cliff and into the raging waterfall, it doesn't take him long to warm up to the people of the mercenary fort. They're enemies, clearly, at that point of time but even so, it doesn't stop him from happily doing the chores they give him and generally "chilling" until Jowy drops by with the intention of saving him.

He's also friendly and something of a pushover, traits that work very well together for him as he makes new friends in his journey. It's really hard for Riou to be not friendly either as he has no real reason to stand apart from all those that he meets. Having lived all his life as nothing more but that kid from an old run down dojo in a backwater town in the outskirts of Highland, and having had the kind of upbringing and family that he has, Riou's someone who knows not to discriminate at all. Genkaku, being from the City States himself and an exiled hero to boot, would have certainly instilled a great respect for people from the City States and anyone else to his children and Jowy, something that is worth noting as there exists a real discrimination between Highlanders and City States in their region. He's a pushover too in that, really, if someone needs help or asks him to do something? Then he's there whether it's helping someone chase after a criminal, or whacking moles at a farm, or assisting someone in a cooking competition... Riou really has no qualms about what he does as long as he thinks it's for a good cause and that, in the end, he's helping someone. This "willingness" stems from the fact that, really, between Nanami, Jowy and him, the two had had the stronger characters for the longest time: with Riou having had to take the back seat as the de-facto "youngest" of the three. That isn't to say that up until a certain point, Riou had no strengths of his own: If Nanami had a tour-de-force attitude towards everything and just downright overwhelms Riou sometimes, and if Jowy was introduced on the get-go as a resourceful and insightful, not to mention, bright individual, then Riou's strength is something more subtle... because for all their merits, Nanami and Jowy still seem to focus all their attention on Riou who, later on, Jowy notes had had this gentle kind of strength that pulled people towards him and that that he'd always envied.

He's also a bit of a sleepyhead, and tends to sleep in a lot. Sleeping is good.

• leader of the dunan army •

As a leader, Riou is compassionate, and really does what he can to stop the war. For the longest time, he may have been simply swept along, snagged by the currents of fate, so to speak, as he finds himself working for his home country's enemy, but even so, what remains true and constant for Riou is that desire to help people. It's hard for someone like Riou, who actually does possess good leadership qualities, to be a leader of an army that not only stands to go against his home country, but also, later on, his best friend. It's really here that his optimism becomes a liability, and he fails in leading by simply being too stubborn to accept the harsh reality... it something that almost crosses into denial sometimes, albeit of the distrubingly positive tone.

Having said that, this means that, Riou can really be pigheaded with regard to what he believes in. This is exemplified by his near undying faith in his bestfriend who, through treachery, betrayal, and downright murder, climbs to the highest rank in the Highland Kingdom. After the defeat of Luca Blight, his decision to accept Jowy's offer for a peace treaty, as the King of Highland, may seem naive and downright stupid if you look at him and judge him as someone who represents a whole army. However, it is in this event that Riou shows that he is someone who can choose to lay down that mantle of leadership and simply be governed by his near blind faith in all that's good. That is, in this particular event, Jowy's goodness as his friend and the belief that the war can be resolved with just a peace treaty.

Riou has some real shortcomings, and various iterations of Suikoden II - the drama cd and the novels in particular- highlight this fact even more in that one way or another, Riou briefly runs away from all his responsibilities. But despite these shortcomings and weaknesses, Riou makes up for being determined to make it right. He makes mistakes, and he himself knows how ill-fitting he is for the position of leadership but... he doesn't dwell on this failures and, as a branch of that optimism, pushes forward and keeps going in hopes that things will be better.

• as a friend and as family •

Riou is someone who values his friendships and his family more than anything else in the world. In all the other versions of his story, he's featured to be running away in one way or another (that is, before the end) and these events are prompted chiefly by one thing: his desire to be at peace with Nanami and Jowy. Even the best ending of the game has him running away from the responsibility of leading the new country in favor of traveling the world with his sister and best friend, so Riou truly is someone who can forget all else... just not these guys. His ending note for the best ending sums this up perfectly too:

"To him, the smiles of Jowy and Nanami are his greatest treasure."

To talk of this aspect beyond Nanami and Jowy, this means that once he counts someone as a friend then he believes in them and really grows to be very concerned about them. He'll do a lot of things for his friends, and can be very forgiving because one way or another, he'll understand. Someone doesn't become his friend after all if they weren't a good person to begin with.

Finally, Riou, possesses some real ability to forgive. "Can be very forgiving" is one thing, but Riou takes it to another level, by being able to forgive without pity or any sort of negative connotations. He is able to, later on in the game, forgive Jowy for all that he's done and Nanami for outright lying to him and faking her death. Beyond that, even, he's able to do this and resume living normally with them. This shows an amazing character that... is rare even for Suikoden heroes.


[point in timeline you're picking your character from]: Shortly after the events at Rockaxe~ ♥

[journal post]:

[ the device starts with shuffling sounds as Riou fumbles with it- ]

This button... that button-... it has letters too... and- oh- It came out of the squa--

[ more fumbling- ]

At least it doesn't look dangerous...

[third person / log sample]:

The moon was full again that night, something Riou couldn't help but feel a bit of irony towards as he sat at the rooftop watching it. It was cold too, but he didn't mind that because it really was a nice view up there. To the north, there was this wide span of water glittering under the moon and the stars. Beyond that was a dark shadow of land- Muse and Highland were both to that direction. Then when he turned to look away from the lake, there was this wide expanse marked by patches of trees, and towns, villages, mountains... To the east was Kuskus, and, squinting in that direction, he could almost make it out from the clump of lights he imagined was from their city watch.

It was peaceful up there with nothing but the sound of the wind and his own breathing in his ears. And it was strange, too, because... because like this, it was clear that there really shouldn't be a war. If the land could be peaceful just like this at night then, why did they have to have wars in the first place? But the reality was that there were wars and that they were in the middle of one. To add to that, he was the leader of an army too, leading it so the war continued.

He looked again to the north, to where his homeland - it came naturally but that was a strange truth to admit to now - lay. Somewhere there, in the far far distance was L'Renouille: a place he'd never even seen for himself. That city was where Jowy was, or where the King should be because they'd just liberated the Matilda Knightdom from Highland troops. It made Riou think... was Jowy looking at the sky too right now? Was he, maybe, thinking about that night they spent in a jail cell together and talked about how they hated the war? Riou knew that, at least, he was... and he was also thinking about how he hated the war too.

If it weren't for the war, he wouldn't be up here alone too: he'd be downstairs in his room getting bullied into sleeping early. By Nanami.

That brought fresh tears into his eyes. And just when he thought he'd cried enough in the day too!

Clumsily, he wiped those tears away with an elbow and sniffed. He had to pull himself together. No more crying. It hurt, and if he had thought about running away from this all then then he had more reason to do so now! He knew more now though: if he ran away again, what good would that do? More people would get hurt, and die. The war will just drag... or, or- worse yet, he may never have a chance to save Jowy. If he left, then... that would mean letting all the people of the City States lose, or Highland. And if Highland lost, where would that put Jowy? Maybe Jowy thought killing him was something he had to do, if Riou had no plans of backing down, but Riou...

If he won this war on the behalf of the City States, of the Dunan Army, he knew that he would save Jowy.