#and colette with all she had to go through and unlearn

[likes-words-and-shrimp]

Colette loses her life at the Tower of Salvation.

I am just always thinking about Colette's psyche and how much she internalized her worth as only a commodity to save the world since she was a child, and how almost literally everyone enabled this thinking to such a damaging point, that she goes through with her sacrifice. Even Lloyd does this to some degree, that the Chosen will save the world, until he realizes what that actually means. (This got kinda long so the rest is under a cut).

Colette, at one point refers to herself as a creature, and that she wasn't even considered human. She's the offspring of an angel, and her role is to go save the world when she reaches a suitable age, to never be seen again. Almost everyone believed this, including herself.

She's been told time and time again that the world would be better once she's gone, and she believes that too. Because no one in her family, in her church, or in her village tells her otherwise. People cared about her, but for many, their belief in that she needed to fulfill the role she was born for superseded anything else.

Raine is her teacher and protects her, but she's essentially walking her to her death, and feels guilt as she does so. Genis accepts this too, and even tries to stop Lloyd from going to Colette, saying what else could they do? Lloyd is the only one to counter this, once he starts to understand just what being an angel does to her. And he tries so hard to, but he doesn't save her.

Maybe to some people it seems like she made the choice to go to the tower? But it's motivated by years of conditioning, of people telling her she's not human, that she has no other role than this. It’s not really a choice if you feel there isn’t any other choice at all.

Lloyd begging her to not go is him trying to break through over a decade of that conditioning, of that internalization that she’s not meant to keep living. He tries, and he fails. He may have rescued her body afterwards? But he failed in actually saving Colette herself.

Colette does want to save the world, but it's at the cost of losing herself. Selfish to think that, selfish to want there to be another way. Even when Lloyd is the only voice to tell her it's okay to want to live, it doesn't get through to her. The damage done to her is too much.

And even after she comes back, that decade of conditioning, of not seeing herself as human still shadows her. Her body gets covered in crystal, and she think it's a punishment, that it's a symbol of the weakness in her. She can't even say out loud yet that she wants to stay living.

Lloyd is the only voice, at least at the beginning, to tell her that it is okay for her to feel otherwise. It takes so long to break through her, she goes through so much struggle over it until the reveal of her shame and failure makes her collapse. She finally breaks down.

And Lloyd still going to her and saying that the crystal on her skin isn't ugly is what sends her into such disbelief. The only person to keep seeing her, to keep wanting her around. But that's the moment when it changes to how much she can say she wants to live.

Like when she's kidnapped by Zelos and calls out to Lloyd? She's finally letting herself do so, letting herself be selfish and call out to the one person who has been supporting her time and again. She no longer feels she has no choice but to die.

Her trauma is something that can be easily missed, because of her constant need to keep up a positive attitude, brushing off any hurt she sustains. But the people of Sylvarant called her a failure and blamed her for Palmacosta’s destruction, (even shown in Dawn of the New World). I really believe Colette is one of the most deeply traumatized characters in Symphonia, who loses her life at the tower, and Lloyd never gets to save her from that moment.

But the ending with her and Lloyd at the Tree, at the prospect of new life, and that she witnesses the birth of a name, really shows hope not only for the world, but for her as well. She’s seeing the growth of life before her, and she is able to do so without needing to die. Like the tree, she needed love and admiration from another to thrive.

#tales of symphonia #colette brunel #lloyd irving #meta #colloyd #its not the biggest focus but its there #I personally don't think you can talk about either lloyd or colette without referencing the other #theyre just so entwined #anyway this is from a twitter thread I wrote a while ago #I think about Colette and Lloyd's love for her so much #and colette with all she had to go through and unlearn #I want to do more meta stuff in the future #this is a bit rambly honestly but hey thats okay