Serah Farron

Serah Farron [sɛrə] is a supporting character in Final Fantasy XIII, and a playable character and the main protagonist in Final Fantasy XIII-2. She is the younger sister of Lightning by three years, and is Snow Villiers's fiancée. Lightning accuses Snow of failing to protect Serah and does not initially approve of their relationship.

In Final Fantasy XIII, Serah's destiny is one of the central plot points, becoming a central character in the game's sequel. In Final Fantasy XIII-2, Serah sets off on a journey with Noel Kreiss to find her sister after her mysterious disappearance.

Final Fantasy XIII
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 are a much darker shade. She wears cat-shaped earrings representing NORA, a black armband on her right bicep like Lightning, 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. She eventually wears the engagement pendant that she receives from Snow. Yoshinori Kitase describes Serah as "the cutest girl" in the game.

Serah is a mature and wise girl, 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 means 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-2
In Final Fantasy XIII-2, Serah now wears a slightly revealing white, pink, and gold dress. Her dress consists of a white top starting at her bust, pink sections adorned with strange symbols on the front and back connecting the top to the skirt over black shorts, cut-out sides at the waist, criss-crossing pink straps on both sides of her torso that go over her shoulders into a cross-back shape, a storage pack on her right hip, pink and black thigh-high leggings, and light purple ankle boots. Although retaining her earrings and engagement necklace, she also wears a pink choker around her neck, gray gloves similar to her sister's, and two armbands (one on each arm); however, the band on her right arm is now gold while a new gold armband in the shape of a bird now rests on her left bicep. She also gains a bow/sword transforming weapon for use in battle.

After Lightning's disappearance at the end of Final Fantasy XIII, Serah is the only one to believe that her sister is still alive, as opposed to many of Cocoon's survivors who believe her to be dead. Therefore, she is willing to go as far as take up arms and join forces with Noel in order to find Lightning.

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 was interested in studying history, and the local landmark, the Bodhum Vestige, got her attention. One day, Serah noticed a door leading inside the Vestige had appeared, and curious, she ventured into the ruins. While inside, Serah was marked on her upper left arm as a l'Cie by the Pulse fal'Cie Anima that was entombed inside the Vestige.

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 they are breaking up but he does not believe her. She tells him it is not his choice, and that she does not want to leave him but has to, because she has been branded a Pulse l'Cie. She tells Snow he is her enemy now, and runs off crying. However, he refuses to abandon her and offers to aid her in any way he can. Serah tells him she does not know what her Focus is and that she will become a monster, but Snow says 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. 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 because things are easier to judge from a distance. 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 she will get through the mission with help from her friends. Vanille apologizes to Serah, since it was her fault Serah was made a l'Cie, but Serah, not knowing of Vanille's involvement, does not understand, and tells Vanille that she will soon find the words to tell 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. Serah buys a survival knife to protect Lightning while she is on duty. The next night, Serah attends the fireworks festival where she and Snow discuss her unknown Focus. As she begins to despair about her impending fate, Snow shows her the engagement necklaces and proposes to her, which she accepts. She tells Snow about her wish to be able to tell her sister about being a l'Cie, but he tells her that their engagement is bigger news. Snow flies Serah into the dome with the fireworks, where they almost kiss but a close call from the fireworks causes Snow to retreat back outside. Enjoying the view from their "private heaven," Serah and Snow kiss before she begins crying. Snow flies away from the spectacle with Serah thanking him. The next day, Serah and Snow tell Lightning about her becoming a l'Cie, and their engagement. This infuriates Lightning, believing that Serah is lying to her as an excuse to marry Snow and drives her away.

Shortly after this, Serah and Snow attempt to seek the council of the fal'Cie in the Bodhum Vestige to see if there is any way to remove her brand and get Lightning to believe them. The Bodhum Vestige is off-limits, though, and so the couple is forced to evade the PSICOM forces chasing after them. They escape on a hover vehicle and Serah jumps onto a ledge on the Vestige at Snow's request as he tries to steer the vehicle after it is damaged. Unfortunately, as Serah reaches out for Snow, she becomes trapped by a silver liquid substance that pulls her into the Vestige.

Final Fantasy XIII
During the Purge, both Lightning and Snow make their way into the Pulse Vestige to save Serah. When Lightning finds the unconscious Serah, Sazh attempts to kill her after learning she is a Pulse l'Cie just before she awakes realizing that Lightning came for her. When Snow arrives, Serah takes his hand and asks if her hero has arrived and Lightning scolds him for not protecting Serah like he promised. Serah tells Lightning to save Cocoon and subsequently crystallizes, leaving behind a tear-shaped crystal for Snow.

This phenomenon bewilders the group, as turning into a crystal means the l'Cie has completed their Focus. Snow believes that Serah will eventually awake, but Lightning believes her sister to be dead. As PSICOM launches its assault on the Vestige, both Snow and Lightning shield Serah from falling debris. The doors to the fal'Cie open and Snow tells Serah to hang on before he goes to confront Anima.

After the party are turned into l'Cie themselves 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. On the Palamecia, Barthandelus tells the group Serah's Focus was to lure more people inside the Vestige to be branded l'Cie. This revelation cripples Snow, who until that point had believed their Focus was to save Cocoon, just as Serah asked. However, after meeting Cid Raines and observing him entering crystal stasis without having completed his Focus, Snow's spirits rise and he vows to follow Serah's wish to save Cocoon until the end. In the Sulyya Springs, Vanille reveals to Snow that Serah saw the same dream of Ragnarok they did, meaning Barthandelus must have lied to the group about Serah's Focus. She says, "I think she beat it. She handed Cocoon over to us, and that's what made her turn to crystal."

In Oerba, Barthandelus uses Serah's guise to try and trick the party into turning into Ragnarok, but they 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 another illusion. After Orphan is destroyed and Vanille and Fang sacrifice themselves to keep Cocoon from crashing into Gran Pulse, Serah wakes up from her crystal stasis and reunites with Snow and Lightning. After Serah forgives Lightning for not believing her, Snow immediately begins to plan for their wedding, and Lightning congratulates the pair.

Final Fantasy XIII -Episode i-
After reuniting with Lightning and the others, Serah and Snow talk about rebuilding around Gran Pulse. Serah decides to become a school teacher and educate people on why Cocoon fell. Shortly after, she discovers that Lightning is nowhere to be seen and becomes frantic.

Final Fantasy XIII-2
Though most people believe Lightning to be dead, Serah refuses to accept it. One day, Snow tells Serah that he believes her. Giving her his engagement pendant, he says that he is going to look for Lightning and bring her back home, but does not return. As New Bodhum is ravaged by mysterious monsters, Serah calls out for Lightning but Lebreau tells her to accept that Lightning can't protect her anymore. She is saved by Noel Kreiss, the man she has been seeing in her dreams. Asking her if she can fight, Noel gives Serah a weapon, enabling her to fight off the monsters with him. Noel offers to take Serah to Lightning, and when the members of NORA begin to argue with him, Serah comes to his defense. Joined by Noel, Serah sets out to search for her lost sister. At one point, Serah finds Lightning's knife outside even though she keeps it in her room. She also shows Snow's engagement pendant to Noel, and interestingly calls it the reminder of a promise that 'a good friend' made her. One night in the Yaschas Massif, Serah and Noel are saved by Hope while fighting a Gogmagog.

At one point, Serah, Mog and Noel travel to the Bresha Ruins in Cocoon through a gate, noting that it is the latter's first time there. Then an arm attached to an invisible body swipes at them, but Noel pushes Serah out of the way to safety. It knocks Noel out of the way, prompting Serah to charge it for battle. Afterward, PSICOM warships fire upon Atlas causing him to retreat further into the Ruins. Their new friend, Alyssa, guides them through the underground tunnels through radio communication in order to locate a strange device that appeared with Atlas. Serah theorizes that since Atlas was a weapon built by humans, the machine will let them control him, however, Atlas's hand appears and takes the group into the Temporal Rift. Escaping the paradox causes the machine to work and slow Atlas down, enabling Noel and Serah to defeat him. Later, Alyssa shows Serah the grave of a friend she lost to the Purge.

In the PS3 TGS 2011 trailer, Hope gives Serah Lightning's knife and she frantically tells Snow that her sister can't be in the pillar supporting Cocoon, since she was there with them a second ago. As Serah meets Mog, Noel says that he is a gift from Lightning, prompting Serah to ask him where he has seen her. On the beach in New Bodhum, Serah has a strange vision of Lightning beckoning her before being engulfed in darkness. She and Noel eventually encounter Caius and Paddra Nsu-Yeul in Oerba. Serah and Noel are saved by Snow in the Sunleth Waterscape, and she stands by him as Noel shouts at him for calling himself a protector. Then she and Noel listen to Hope in Eden, telling them how her wish for him and the others to save Cocoon motivated them to work together. In the Yaschas Massif, Serah asks Noel if Cocoon was destroyed in his time. He says that after the fall of Cocoon, the world fell into chaos. Then she tells him that they can change the future and find a way to fix it. Lightning emerges from a portal before them on the beach of a destroyed New Bodhum, saying they are in a future she had failed to save.

In the Xbox 360 TGS trailer, she listens to Noel's backstory as the last human left alive in his time. She and Noel are confronted by Caius, threatening to kill them in a city after numerous people suddenly transform into Cie'th. Yeul gives Serah a cryptic message, saying that they are the same in how they can 'show others the way'. Serah and Noel engage Caius in battle in Valhalla, and she sinks to the ground in despair as Noel holds a fallen Yeul in his arms.

In Battle
Serah fights with a weapon given to her by Noel when they meet, which changes between bow and sword forms, and whose true form is Mog. Depending on the distance between her and the enemy, she will change her weapon's form. If the enemy is close, Serah will use its sword form, and if the enemy is far, then she uses its bow form.

She has been seen operating in every role of the previous installment. She also shows her agile nature by jumping while firing her bow and performing backflips in the middle of battle, likening her fighting style to Lightning's.

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. However, she becomes a playable character in the sequel. According to issue 219 of Game Informer, Serah was given a bow able to transform into a sword as a weapon to "preserve her femininity."

According to an interview in Famitsu, Serah's clothing from Final Fantasy XIII-2 was designed by Yusuke Naora. It is based on plugsuits from , as requested by director Motomu Toriyama.

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" that plays in the Japanese version.

Kingdom Hearts
Serah does not make an actual appearance in the Kingdom Hearts series, but her hairstyle is available for the Avatars in Kingdom Hearts Re:coded.

Serah is also a collectible Kingdom Hearts mascot cellphone strap appearing alongside the other characters of Final Fantasy XIII.

Etymology
"Sera" is a feminine name of Latin origin that means "Heavenly" or "Winged Angel".

Biblically speaking, the Seraphim are the highest order of angels.

Trivia

 * 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 armband 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.
 * 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 is the second female protagonist of a final fantasy linear sequel.
 * Serah, Dajh Katzroy and Cid Raines are the only l'Cie that do not show their summons, and it is unknown if they have any. In the case of Serah and Dajh, this could be justified in how they complete their respective Foci 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 but not as good as her sister in housework chores, 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.
 * Also in Final Fantasy XIII Episode Zero -Promise-, 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.
 * In Final Fantasy XIII -Episode i-, it is revealed that Serah knows about Snow staying with her at Lake Bresha, possibly due to Snow carrying her crystal tear, enabling her to hear what he heard and see what he saw.
 * Art director Isamu Kamikokuryo consistently draws Serah and Lightning with blonde hair in concept art, despite their more "official" appearance. Additionally, Kamikokuryo's Serah concept art for Final Fantasy XIII-2 looks noticeably older and less skinny than her in-game appearance, and a few details on her outfit are different (such as a different collar).
 * In Final Fantasy XIII-2, Serah wields a bow that can transform into a sword, mirroring Lightning's use of the Gunblade that transforms from a sword into a gun.
 * In Final Fantasy XIII-2, the symbol on the front of Serah's dress is also on Lightning's shield. In addition, Etro script can be seen on both symbols, the blades of Serah's weapon, and her storage pack. She and Lightning also have a golden bird on their respective outfits. Serah wears the bird in the form of the armband she wears on her left bicep where her l'Cie brand used to be.
 * Serah appears on the 500th cover of Dengeki Playstation magazine with Lightning, Noel, Noctis, Machina, and Rem.
 * In her CG render for Final Fantasy XIII-2, Serah's ponytail is held by a pink band matching her outfit, but in-game however, she retains the black band she wore in XIII.
 * Serah is the second female playable teacher in the series, the first being Quistis Trepe from Final Fantasy VIII.