Alethea

Forbidden lands lie beyond this marker The following article contains story spoilers!

Alethea
(アリシア, Arishia?, lit. Alicia)
Character information
Chapter	Middle Ages: The Lord of Dark
Affiliation	Kingdom of Lucrece
Occupation	Princess
Physical description
Race	Human
Gender	Female
Hair color	Violet
Other information
Designer	Kiyofumi Katō
Japanese Voice Actor	Miho Arakawa
English Voice Actor	Nicolette Chin

Princess Alethea, known as Alicia in Japan, is a major character from the The Lord of Dark chapter. She is the princess of the Kingdom of Lucrece, who is set by her father, the King of Lucrece, to marry the winner of a tournament.

Profile

Appearance

Alethea is a young woman with long violet hair wearing a golden tiara. She wears a long light violet gown with golden details and a white dress underneath.

Personality

When first encountered, she is shown to be very emotional and caring for Oersted and those around her. However, after being kidnapped and waiting so long for him to rescue her, she proved herself as rash, ignorant and gullible as the rest of her kingdom. She easily believes Streibough's lies and, like everyone else, refuses to listen to any explanation or reason, instead holding Oersted responsible for, effectively, taking too long to save her.

Background

During The Lord of Dark

Alethea is present along with her father, the King, during the tournament. The tournament is won by Oersted after defeating Streibough, winning the right to marry the princess. Alethea says that he is really strong and that she is happy to become his queen. With the marriage set, the King decides to have a feast. Oersted then encounters Alethea at the castle's balcony, where she states her love for him and how she believes in him more than anyone else. The couple is then attacked by a Dragnon, which is defeated by Oersted. However, the Lord of Dark appears and kidnaps Alethea, taking her to his lair at the Archon's Roost.

While being held captive, she is rescued by Streibough, who had faked his death after the defeat of the Lord of Dark by Oersted and the party in order to reach her first without anyone knowing. There, he convinces Alethea that Oersted never searched for her and that he was the only one who cared. This evil manipulation led Alethea to fall in love with him. After Oersted arrives at Virtue's Reward of the Archon's Roost and kills Streibough, she emerges from the statue of the Lord of Dark, where she commits suicide by stabbing herself with a dagger after discovering Streibough's corpse.

Final Chapter

She appears as a ghost in the Trial of Heart, being the last ghost encountered appearing after obtaining the Guts and Glory Glove. When her mind is read, she begs the party to stop Oersted, and transports them outside to the courtyard of Seat of the Betrayers, formerly as Lucrece Castle.

Gallery

Alethea as she appears in the Holy Dungeon mobile game

Promo art depicting The Lord of Dark for the remake

LINE sticker for remake

LINE sticker for remake

Trivia

• Odio can use an attack called Saint Alethea, which seems to summon Alethea's ghost to deal damage to one party member.
  • The attack's name seems to imply that Oersted, even when he claims the Lord of Dark, doesn't blame Alethea for anything that happened to him, as she was only a victim of Streibough's manipulative actions.
  • Alternatively, it can also imply that Oersted decided to make a mockery of Alethea's image as the ultimate payback of rejecting him after all he's done and ultimately driving him to be the Lord of Dark he is. It is shown with how in the attack, Alethea's image quickly degraded from a beautiful woman into a horrifying skull hag. This is only possible because during the battle, Oersted is too deep in his hatred towards humans and his misery that he only remembers Alethea at her worst. It's only in the shorter ending if the player decides to directly kill Oersted to reveal that his human side, when not overly clouded with hatred, still loved Alethea.
• The item Alice Biscuit is named after her, being one of the strongest healing items in the Lord of Dark chapter.
• In the Trial of Heart, Alethea's sprite is seen covering her face as if crying. This can imply that Alethea realizes that she has unwittingly done the greatest damage to Oersted, dooming the realities and is ashamed of her actions.
• The unappealing scenes involving her resulted in her being grouped with two others from different Square-before-Enix-merger games, Yoyo from Bahamut Lagoon, and Milelle from Final Fantasy Legend/Makai Toshi SaGa, the collective name being "The Three Great She-Devils of Square(スクウェア三大悪女)" coined by frustrated Japanese male players in the 90s.
  • In SaGa Scarlet Grace: Ambitions, the enemy team "Lady Power" has a trio of female demons, all named after these three, although two of them are spelt as Alicia and Jojo.
• In Holy Dungeon, Alethea is depicted in her sprite and artwork carrying the dagger she commits suicide with.