Fay D. Flourite
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Fay D. Flourite (ファイ・D・フローライト Fai D. Furōraito?) is a character in the manga Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle by acclaimed manga artist group Clamp. The romanization of his name has also been expressed as Fai D. Flourite, Fye D. Flowright, or any combination of the three, but in the character guide published by Clamp, the name is officially represented as "FAY D. FLOURITE." His name is pronounced by rhyming Fay with 'eye'. The Del Rey editions of the series began release in English before the proper romanization was published, however, resulting in the widespread use of the "Fai D. Flowright" rendering among many English-speaking fans. Del Rey has yet to publish official corrections.
In the anime adaptation of the manga he is voiced by Daisuke Namikawa in Japanese and Vic Mignogna in English.
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[edit] Story
His first appearance in the manga is in chapter 2, where he is about to leave his country, the country of Celes. His past is largely unknown; compared to Syaoran and Kurogane, his motives for joining the group are the least clear. What is known about him is that he is connected to Ashura, the King of Celes, whom Fay has now trapped in a state of eternal (or near eternal) slumber (This is the elder Ashura-ou, not his child who is the protagonist of RG Veda) . It is also known that he has transformed his "creation", Chii (originally from Chobits) into a net-like shield to serve as a sort of alarm for Fay should Ashura awaken. It appears that a battle had taken place within the palace; there are bodies dressed in the same blue coat and black armband that Fay sports.
His greatest desire becomes ensuring he never returns to Celes, fearing an unknown consequence if Ashura should awaken. He also fears that if Ashura does awaken, he will search for Fay throughout the dimensions.
Unlike the other members of Syaoran's group, Fai does not require the magic of another to arrive at the shop of the Space-Time Witch, Yūko Ichihara. Instead, he uses his own magic to send himself, because he is a mage. While he does possess the power to travel to other dimensions, Fay notes that his powers (and others with the power to send others through dimensions, like the High Priest of Clow and Princess Tomoyo) are limited in this ability and usually must use a great deal of magic to accomplish the task. Yuko Ichihara, as he states, is currently the only person who possesses the power to send people through multiple dimensions.
[edit] Character
Of Syaoran's group of allies, Fay is the most enigmatic. He appears to be happy-go-lucky and good-natured, and acts like a fool, but has been shown to be as perceptive as Kurogane, and a skilled fighter. However, it has also been seen that he does not value his life and that he hides a deep emotional burden; this is demonstrated by his dark reactions when Kurogane asks him about his past, and the aftermath of a battle where Fay does not defend himself for an attack when he had the ability to. His past is a profound motivating factor for his actions and is something Fay cannot seem to overcome; instead he masks it all with the guise of cheerfulness and carefreeness.
Fay is emotionally distant, refusing to allow anyone to become too close to him, in fear of harming them by allowing them to get involved with his personal problems. Despite this, Kurogane has noted that the mage has become attached to Syaoran and Sakura. While Fay places little value on his own life, he worries about his companions and would go as far as breaking his own personal vows to ensure their safety. Kurogane confronts Fay about this, and states that Fay should figure out what he's doing with his present and future, because his past has nothing to do with neither Kurogane nor their younger companions.
None of Fay's traveling companions are aware of his past, save that he is trying to escape someone (Ashura). Kurogane, the most perceptive of the group, is usually the one to question Fay outside the presence of Syaoran and Sakura as to why he is trying to escape and why he fears Ashura. In rather careful responses, Fay has revealed that he would know if the Ashura he flees from is just another look-alike sharing the same soul (there can be someone who shares the same soul in several dimensions) because he "...would know if it's just the same face or if it's the same person. I would know.". It is not clear if Fay is a criminal on the run, but it seems to be how he has come to think of himself judging from a conversation between him and Kurogane in manga chapter 112. During their stay in Outo, Mokona using one of his 108 Secret skills was able to detect that Fay was lonely too despite the fact he smiles a lot: "Fay still thinks of something else."
It is also interesting to note that Fay seems to know the secret behind just what is going on nearly all of the time. The fact that he does know and doesn't bring it to the attention to his companions is a sign that he again has no wish to involve himself too deeply in their affairs and that he is extremely intelligent.
In the recent chapters of the manga, Fay lost his left eye to the Syaoran clone. Due to the severity of the injury and the fact that there was no available medication or qualified doctor, Fay would have died. To save Fay's life, Kurogane turns to Yūko and demands to know if Fay can be saved. She affirms it, but for him to directly pay her for the wish would be too heavy a price to bear. At this moment, it is brought to attention that the fresh water stored underground is almost gone (the inhabitants of this world depend heavily on that water) due to the actions of both the clone and the vampire twins, Subaru and Kamui. Subaru requests that the water be restored.
To satisfy the conditions of Kurogane and Subaru's wishes at reasonable equivalent prices, she has Kurogane ask her to restore the water. In exchange for requesting Yūko to grant Subaru's wish instead of his own, one of the twins must give their blood to Fay, since the healing powers of a vampire far surpasses that of a human, and again even more so since the twins are purebred. Since Kurogane wishes for Fay to live, but Fay does not want the same thing (Fay claims that with his death, the magic the clone stole from him will also perish. The clone with only half of Fay's magic is already unstoppable), the responsibility of forcing Fay to live would lie with Kurogane. In short, Kamui mixes his blood with Kurogane's such that Fay gains Kamui's vampiric healing ability, but can only drink blood from Kurogane.
When he did awake the first thing he did was smile at Kurogane and said, "Good morning, Kurogane." Kurogane reacts by throwing a blanket over him and telling him to go back to sleep. This is the first time that Fay has actually called Kurogane by his full name. It has been a long running gag of the series that Fay would always come up with silly nicknames for Kurogane. This seems to be because he is angry with Kurogane for acting against his wishes. He says that he had not realized how close he had become to Kurogane, and that, if he forgave him, they would be even closer. It has become very apparent that Fay does not want anyone to get hurt because of him. This is most likely why Fay is very hesitant to allow his travelling companions to find out much about him, despite the fact that he still finds himself emotionally attached to them. His emotional involvement with his companions is evident when he finds out that Sakura went into the desert by herself. He is deeply worried and rushes to go after her but is stopped by Kurogane and Syaoran. After Sakura comes back badly wounded from her journey, he is the first to greet her, grabbing her in a hug. In the recent chapters, he decides to follow Sakura to look for the clone Syaoran, calling her "My only princess".
In chapter 133, the reader is given a small look into Fay's previous life. He is in a dark cell with only one barred window. He is muttering to himself over and over again "I want to die", but also thinks to himself "But before that I want to be...". It trails off there. In some scanlations, Fay finishes with, "...loved by someone" but that is pure fan speculation (the scanlator mistook the translator's theory as part of the actual translation). It is not yet known what Fay wants and whether that desire has come true. We later find out in chapter 148 that the person who kept repeating "I want to die" during the flashback might not be Fay himself, but a person who looks similar to Fay, possibly his twin sister or brother.
In chapter 137 - 138 we see more of Fay's more serious side. In chapter 137, we witness his feeding, which he goes through only because Kurogane says that "it [his blood] will just keep dripping" if he does not drink it. Not wishing others to suffer for his sake, he obeys and drinks from Kurogane. At the end of that chapter, he asks Kurogane if he can feel the unseen people watching them. When Kurogane says 'yes', we are brought to chapter 138, which starts with them trying to figure out who is watching them; whether it is their next opponent or the person who has been watching their entire journey so far. Fay says he doesn't care who it is but he will "not let anyone hurt them anymore" ('them' implying Kurogane, Mokona, Syaoran and Sakura). He then walks off without another word.
In chapter 140, Fay is talking to Sakura when he suddenly has a vision of Chii telling him that the King has awakened. The final two panels of this chapter show Ashura-ou's eyes opening. The timing is deliberate on Clamp's part as it has been officially confirmed that the next world the group visits will be Celes.
In chapter 148, it has been revealed that Fay has had a curse placed on him: he will kill anyone whose power surpasses his own. This explains why Fay did not want to live with only half his magic or why he is running from Ashura (Fai might not have actually wanted to put him to sleep, It was just that Ashura had more magical power than Fai) ; now, even more people would die because his magic is half as great as it was. In 148, he was also shown stabbing Sakura because she received another feather and therefore, her magic surpassed Fay's. We also get another glimpse of Fay's past through a flashback, which shows that Fay perhaps once had a twin brother/sister who died as the result of a bloody fall, right in front of Fay (they are both children at the time).
Based on a Tsubasa popularity contest, Fay is the 4th most popular character, losing to Kurogane by only 18 votes.
[edit] Magical Ability
Fay sports a tattoo in the shape of a phoenix, which spreads all the way across his back and wraps around his body. This tattoo is the "most precious thing" that Fay pays in order to have Yuuko grant his wish to maintain dimensional distance from Celes.
Unlike previous magic-using characters created by Clamp, Fay's magic is "written" out as he casts it, previously by aid of his magical staff and later using his finger, instead of summoning a magic circle like Yūko Ichihara, Clow Reed, and Sakura Kinomoto. During the group's escape from Lacourt country, Fay casts his magic by whistling, which he remarks is a method he had never used before and doesn't really count as his "real" magic. [Against popular belief] Fay actually could not whistle beforehand (he whistles once before he does the magic one and nothing happens), at this point in the story Fay is seeing how useless he is (he makes a comment on how "kind" Kurogane and Syaoran are always fighting and risking their lives) and that is why in most fights in these chapters he tries to whistle and not help fight (Fay usually finds some way to help in a fight even if it is just carrying him and Sakura to safety).
While initially believed that he could no longer use magic without the tattoo, it is later revealed that Fay can still use magic; it's just that he made a vow to not use magic without the tattoo. It is hinted that he may just have a more difficult time controlling his powers without it. While he manages to use "passive magic" to detect things such as barriers, he breaks the vow once in the world of Lacourt in order to aid the group's escape after stealing back one of Sakura's feathers. Fay is presumed to have used magic in episode 26 of the anime against Fei Wong Reed's guards, as he acknowledges the consequences of invoking magic (The camera focuses on Fay's blue eyes *hint*). In chapter 120, he uses his magic again in the world of Tokyo in a vain attempt to reseal Syaoran's "heart", the source of Syaoran's emotions and memories, located in his right eye. Fay had known from the beginning that the Syaoran that they have been traveling with is just a clone with half of the "heart" from the original Syaoran.
It is revealed that Fay's eyes are his source of magic, which is the reason why in chapter 120, Fay's left eye was ripped out by Syaoran, who - once his "heart" was removed - was revealed to be a clone seeking only power to regain Sakura's feathers. Syaoran consumed the eye, causing his right blind eye to turn blue like Fay's eye, and was then able to use Fay's magic with a devastating level of power. After the original Syaoran turned up, he remarked that Fay must have been trying to reseal the clone's "heart" by letting the clone have his own eye (by letting the clone consume his eye, the clone would also be consuming the "heart", which Fay picked up after it was discarded). It was also said that Fay must have known the chance of that working was near nil, but he still tried.
It is uncertain how powerful he is while missing one eye, or if there is more to Fay's magic than what we can see. However, because the clone successful gained half of Fay's magic, Fay believes it is best that he dies as he knows that even with half his magic, the clone will be incredibly dangerous and that by dying, Fay's magical power will die along with him.
Fay had a cursed placed on him as a child; to kill anyone whose power surpassed his. This is why he is running from Ashura; he does not want to kill him. In chapter 148 his curse activates and he stabs Sakura.
[edit] Trivia
- On several occasions, Fay would say the sound 'Hyuu!' (translated as 'Wheet-Whoo', or occasionally just 'Whoo' in the English Del Rey books), because he does not know how to whistle. Later on, the group finds themselves in a pinch, and Fay lets out a little whistle. A few seconds later he somehow uses the sound, instead of a chant, seal or script, to cast a spell.
- In Volume 1 of the English Del Rey translation of Tsubasa, there has been an error in translation, in which Chii referred to Fay as 'my king'. Fay is not the king of Celes, he personally introduces himself as the Wizard/Magician of Celes. (This could be arguable. Chii may have thought of Fay as her king, not as the king of Celes.)
- In the Ōto Country he used the alias 'Big Kitty' and in Piffle World he entered himself in the race under the name 'Swallow' (Tsubame), the latter having been picked by Mokona.
- During the group's stay in the Hanshin Republic, the Kudan which was attached to Fay is an alternate version of Windam, one of the Three Mashin (Rune Gods) from Magic Knight Rayearth, which possibly got its name from the Toyota Windom, considering that many of the characters from Magic Knight Rayearth were named after cars.
- In omake made by Clamp published at the end of their manga, Mokona teleported them to a sushi restaurant where they ate "Sushi", here we see that all the TRC characters are enjoying the "raw fish" meal, Fay seems to be more uncomfortable by it (although not confirmed yet in original storyline if he really dislikes raw fish) or rather wanting to "barf" at the mere sight of it. Fay is also unable to use chopsticks, this suggests that his character is more based on western culture.
- According to chapter 126, Yūko stated that Fay is also the oldest among his group, as his magical powers slow his aging process and allows him to live several times longer than humans.
- It appears that Fay has a deceased twin brother or sister and that Chii may be based off on him/her.
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