Serah Farron



Serah Farron (セラ・ファロン Sera Faron) [sɛrə] is a supporting character in Final Fantasy XIII. She is the younger sister of Lightning by three years, and is also Snow Villiers' fiancée. Lightning accuses Snow of failing to protect Serah and does not initially approve of their relationship. Serah's destiny is one of the game's central plot points. She is voiced by in the Japanese version, and by  in the English version.

Appearance and Personality
Serah is an eighteen-year-old girl with the same pink tint of hair that Lightning has. She ties her hair into a ponytail on the left side of her head, much like how Lightning's hair is draped over her left shoulder. She also has blue eyes like her sister, although Serah's is a much darker shade. She wears a red plaid pleated skirt lined with black lace, a white sleeveless dress shirt, a semi-transparent pink sweeper in the same style, black thigh-high stockings, ivory ankle boots, and a bandage on her left bicep which she uses to cover her l'Cie brand. Yoshinori Kitase describes Serah as "the cutest girl" in the game.

Serah is a mature girl who shows wisdom well beyond her years, as she is able to give Vanille advice about her problems. She loves Snow and is willing to do anything to protect him, even if it meant trying to break up with him after she becomes a l'Cie. She also deeply cares for Lightning as much as Lightning cares for her. This is evident by her choice for Lightning's birthday present: a survival knife for her older sister's safety.

Final Fantasy XIII Episode Zero: Promise
Serah was about to attend the university in Eden, but she fell in love with Snow during her summer vacation, much to her sister's dismay. Serah had gone into the Pulse Vestige ruins and was marked on her upper left arm as a l'Cie by the fal'Cie Anima entombed inside. She had a dream of transforming into Ragnarok and destroying Cocoon, but initially did not realize it was her Focus. Four days later, Serah tells Snow that they are breaking up. He thinks that she is joking, but she remains firm. Serah tells Snow that it is not his choice, and that she does not want to leave him but has to. After he asks Serah if it is because of something that he did, she reveals to him that she had been branded a Pulse l'Cie. She tells Snow that he is her enemy now, says goodbye, and runs away in tears. Though she drove Snow away out of fear, he refuses to abandon her and runs after her. As she looks at the sunset on the beach, Snow finds her and offers to aid her in any way he can. She tells him that the Sanctum will punish him if they found out that he was with her, but Snow still wants to help her. Serah sadly tells him that she does not know what her Focus is and that she will become a monster. Snow says that l'Cie are granted eternal life after completing their Focus, reassuring Serah.

Two days later, Serah meets Vanille after the latter scrapes her leg on the beach. Vanille asks Serah whether or not she is keeping her from anything, but Serah says that she is not and could sit on the beach for hours. Vanille asks Serah if she thinks they will ever meet again, and Serah says that they probably will. Then Serah listens to Vanille's problem about wanting to apologize to someone but never being able to find the words to do it, and tells her that if things are too much to deal with at first, she should face them later. Vanille asks Serah if that will work, and she says that things are easier to judge from a distance. Then Serah tells Vanille about her nightmare of destroying the world, and how she tried to run away from it after it scared her. She says that due to Snow coming after her, she now knows that she will get through the mission with help from her friends. Vanille tells Serah that she will make it through, and the latter tells Vanille that she will eventually find the words she needs to apologize to her friend and holds out her hand to Vanille. Then Vanille apologizes to Serah, since it was her fault Serah was made a l'Cie and asks what else she can say, but Serah, not knowing of Vanille's involvement, does not understand and tells Vanille that she is not the one she should be asking and that she will know what to say when she finds her friend.

On the next day, Serah goes out with Snow to find a birthday present for Lightning. Unknown to her, Snow slips away and buys engagement necklaces for them. When Snow catches up with her, she buys a survival knife that will protect Lightning while she is on duty and bring her home safely. The next night, Serah attends the fireworks festival with Snow. She says that Lightning will be mad at her for keeping her l'Cie status a secret from her, but Snow tells Serah that he will take the blame for it in her place. She recalls what Snow said about l'Cie turning into crystal once fulfilling their Focus, and he tells her that she will never be a monster. As Serah begins to cry at the idea of becoming a crystal, Snow shows her the engagement necklaces that he bought yesterday and proposes to her, which she bluntly accepts. The next day, she and Snow tell Lightning about her becoming a l'Cie, and their engagement. This infuriates Lightning, believing Serah's lying to her as an excuse to marry Snow and drives her off. Shortly after this, Serah and Snow attempt to seek the council of the fal'Cie in the Bodhum Vestige, the one who turned her into a l'Cie, to see if there was any way to remove her brand. The Bodhum Vestige was off-limits, though, and so the couple are forced to evade the PSICOM forces chasing after them. They escape on an air vehicle to the Pulse fal'Cie in the Bodhum Vestige. At Snow's request, Serah jumps onto a ledge on the fal'Cie as Snow tries to steer the vehicle after it gets damaged, but she becomes trapped by a silver liquid substance that pulls her into the fal'Cie.

Final Fantasy XIII
When Lightning finds the unconscious Serah within the Pulse Vestige, Sazh attempts to kill her after learning she is a Pulse l'Cie. Serah wakes, surprised that Lightning came. When Snow arrives with Vanille and Hope, she takes his hand and asks if her hero has arrived. Then Lightning scolds him for not protecting Serah. She tells Lightning that she can save Cocoon and subsequently crystallizes, leaving behind a tear-shaped crystal for Snow. After the party are turned into l'Cie and wake up in Lake Bresha, they eventually find Serah, who has become part of the crystallized lake. Soon after Lightning, Vanille, Hope, and Sazh abandon Snow, who stays behind to try and free Serah. She is brought aboard the Lindblum along with Snow when he is captured by Fang and Cid's troops. After this, Serah mainly appears in flashbacks and continues to be mentioned by the other characters. Barthandelus uses Serah's guise to try and trick someone in the party into turning Ragnarok, but they can see through the illusion. At the end of the game, Barthandelus destroys an illusion of the crystallized Serah to unnerve Snow and Lightning, but Snow, remembering Serah's crystal at Lightning's insistence, realizes it was only an illusion. After Orphan is destroyed and Vanille and Fang sacrifice themselves to keep Cocoon from crashing into Gran Pulse, Serah is restored, and she reunites with Lightning and Snow. During their reunion, Serah tells Lightning that it is okay that she did not listen to her. Then Lightning finally accepts Serah and Snow's relationship with each other.

Serah's Focus
The game gives conflicting clues as to what Serah's Focus actually was. Barthandelus tells the group Serah's Focus was to lure more people inside the Vestige, yet it is contradicted by the fact that Serah had the same dream of Ragnarok the rest of the party had, leading to the assumption that her Focus was the same as the rest of the group's. After relating the story to Snow at Sulyya Springs, Vanille says that Dysley must have lied about Serah's Focus, to which Snow replies that he already knows. Vanille also says, "I think she beat it. She handed Cocoon over to us, and that's why she turned to crystal." What also points toward Serah's Focus not being to lure more people inside the Vestige, is that a group of PSICOM soldiers already followed her inside and were branded l'Cie, and went on to turn into Cie'th, yet Serah didn't crystallize until having talked to Lightning and asked her to save Cocoon. It can be speculated that Serah could have been able to overcome her Focus, and to disguise the fact, Barthandelus lied to the group.

Development
According to the Final Fantasy XIII Ultimania Omega, Serah was originally planned as a playable character, but issues during development led to the decision of turning her into an NPC.

Musical Themes

 * ''Main article: "Serah's Theme"

Despite not being a playable character, Serah's leitmotif appears in several pieces of the Final Fantasy XIII: Original Soundtrack. "Serah's Theme" often plays when Serah is featured or mentioned in the story, mainly during cutscenes that show flashbacks of Serah's life before the Purge.

In the English version of the game, "Serah's Theme" is played during the scene of the fireworks festival, in place of "Eternal Love" in the Japanese version.

Trivia

 * Serah is 18 years old and 164 cm (5'5") tall according to the Ultimania guide.
 * Serah's engagement pendant resembles Final Fantasy XIII's [[Media:Final Fantasy XIII Logo.jpg|logo]]. A matching pendant is also worn by Snow Villiers.
 * The bracelet that Serah wears is also worn by her sister Lightning. Both wear it on their right bicep.
 * Serah's earrings feature the cat logo of NORA. Snow's pendant also shares this motif.
 * Though her name is spelled differently and she is not royalty, Serah continues the Final Fantasy tradition of supporting female characters named Sarah.
 * According to the web novellas, Serah is a straight-A student and one of her favorite subjects is history.
 * Her crystal is in the shape of a tear drop that Snow holds onto for most of the story.
 * Serah, Dajh Katzroy, and Cid Raines are the only l'Cie that do not show their summons, it is unknown if they have any, but highly doubtful. In the case of Serah and Dajh, this could be justified in how they complete their respective Focus in such a short period of time, giving them little opportunity to reach the state of despair that calls forth the intervention of an Eidolon.
 * Serah is a better cook than Lightning, as mentioned in Final Fantasy XIII Episode Zero: Promise.
 * In Final Fantasy XIII Episode Zero: Promise, it is revealed that Serah bought Snow's NORA pendant.
 * In the web novel, Snow comments on how Serah resembles Lightning whenever she looks serious.
 * Serah shares her English voice actress, Laura Bailey, with the Cloud of Darkness in Dissidia Final Fantasy and Belle in Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers.