Adel



Sorceress Adel (アデル, Aderu) is a minor antagonist in Final Fantasy VIII. She is a Sorceress and was once the ruler of Esthar for an unknown period of time. Though Adel is always referred to as a "she", her form is very masculine. She has no female breasts of any kind, but instead has a muscular frame with thick shoulders. Adel is also a giant, at least four times the size of the average person.

Rise and Fall
Sorceress Adel rose to power in the country of Esthar sometime after the destruction of the Centra Empire, which occurred eighty years before Final Fantasy VIII due to a Lunar Cry, but before the advent of the Sorceress War, which he began eighteen years before the start of the story. Precisely how he became ruler of Esthar is unknown, but it presumably had something to do with his Sorceress Power, which may have been stronger than any Sorceress known previously.

Few details are known about his rule because it is rarely mentioned in Final Fantasy VIII. This is unsurprising considering that in the end, Adel's own people rebelled against him, and to this day refuse to speak of him in more than hushed voices. Although Estharians have never elaborated on the enormity of the cruelties Adel performed, it may be inferred that his atrocities were truly horrendous.

Eighteen years before Final Fantasy VIII, Adel began what was to be known as the Sorceress War when he pitted the forces of Esthar against the country of Galbadia. His reasons for doing this were never specified, but taking over Galbadia was presumably the first step towards a plan for total world domination. Galbadia, however, created a snag in her plans; rather than allow him to take control, Galbadia fought back fiercely. Instead of being conquered, Galbadia expanded its own power and became a dominant nation in its own right.

Adel's anger at Galbadia's resistance must have been terrible to behold. However, two last-minute advances still gave him hope that Esthar would eventually achieve victory. First, one of Esthar's scientists, a brilliant but unbalanced man named Dr. Odine, stumbled upon the secret of Junctioning powerful creatures called Guardian Forces to human minds. Junctioning allowed the attached human to tap into the powers of the Guardian Force, allowing him or her to cast a form of magic called "para-magic." Although a far cry from the powers available to a Sorceress, para-magic was still far beyond the ken of normal beings. Had Adel managed to Junction every Esthar soldier to a Guardian Force before the end of the Sorceress War, it is doubtful whether Galbadia could have endured his onslaught.

Secondly, Adel himself discovered the Crystal Pillar, a device which controls the periodic Lunar Cry. In fact, it was this device which had prompted the Cry that destroyed the Centra Empire sixty-two years previously. Realizing the destructive power she could harness by using the Lunar Cry as a weapon, Adel ordered that a special compound known as the Lunatic Pandora be built around the Crystal Pillar. The Lunatic Pandora served two purposes: it made the Crystal Pillar mobile, allowing Adel to choose the precise location of each Lunar Cry, and it amplified the Pillar's frequency emanations, causing the Cries prompted by the Pillar from inside the Pandora to be even more destructive. It is possible that Adel planned to use the Lunatic Pandora as a Trojan Horse, giving it to Galbadia as a peace offering just in time for the Lunar Cry to cause the country's utter annihilation.

At the same time, however, Adel was beginning to feel his age, and knew that his time was nearing its end. Since a Sorceress must pass on her power to another upon death before he or she can rest, Adel realized that he must find herself a successor, and soon. To facilitate this, Adel ordered the mass kidnapping of hundreds of very young girls, planning to choose one with the most potential and raise her to become the next tyrant of Esthar. It is likely that Adel's plan to create a Sorceress dynasty caused despair amongst the people of Esthar, who had hoped Adel's death would be the end of the oppressive Sorceress regime.

Fortunately for everyone, it was in his search for an heir that Adel made his fatal mistake. The girl he chose was Ellone Loire, the adopted daughter of Laguna Loire and Raine. Ellone, with her unique ability to send her consciousness back in time, appealed to a Sorceress looking for gifted girls. However, when Laguna, a former Galbadian soldier with a big heart, discovered Ellone had been kidnapped, he stopped at nothing to rescue her. Had Adel chosen another girl, Esthar might still be ruled by him today. However, Adel, being used to getting precisely what he wanted, refused to give Ellone up. Although Laguna may have been able to successfully steal Ellone back, he realized Adel would follow them indefinitely until he captured Ellone once more. Because of this, Laguna realized that the only way to save Ellone was to get rid of Adel entirely, and he joined the resistance faction against him. Because of his magical might, a physical assault was out of the question; no human then alive could have possibly fought him and won. Therefore, the Estharian resistance came up with an alternative solution: If Adel could not be killed, perhaps he could be contained.

To this end, Laguna enlisted the help of his friends Kiros and Ward, as well as the scientific knowledge of Dr. Odine. Although initially loyal to the Sorceress, Odine's ultimate desire was simply to be left to his research. When he saw the turn of the tide coming, he joined the resistance to build a special cryo-containment device which would effectively bind the Sorceresses powers and place him in suspended animation. The resistance placed the device inside a building they hastily erected just outside of the capital of Esthar which would later become known as the Sorceress Memorial. Taking control of the Lunatic Pandora, resistance fighters moved it to the Sorceress Memorial. When Adel came to investigate, resistance members told her they believed Ellone was inside, ripe for Adel's taking. Much to the resistance's delight, the Sorceress took the bait.

Although it is possible that Adel realized the story was a trap even before he walked into the Memorial, Adel trusted that his incredible power was enough to protect him from anything which might be waiting. When Adel entered the building, he found a facsimile of Ellone resting within the container, Laguna following close behind. Before Adel could regain his bearings, Laguna had pushed him backwards into the device and the container snapped shut, binding him in thin golden cords, freezing him almost instantaneously, and releasing a gelatinous cooling and buffering agent which would protect the frozen Adel from outside penetration, hopefully preventing any stimulus from ever awakening the evil Sorceress again. The container&mdash;appropriately dubbed Adel's Tomb&mdash; was then launched into space and brought to rest in orbit around the moon. In order to prevent other nations (all of which were, unlike Esthar, without space travel technology) from detecting Adel's Tomb from Earth, an anti-transmission system was activated that caused worldwide radio static and prevented the transmission of anything&mdash;audio, visual, or otherwise&mdash;on, around, or off Earth from that point onwards.

Despite the powerful sealing, Adel is still able to channel his thoughts down to Earth into radio waves. On Squall's first visit to the Timber TV Station, several repeating phrases are shown on the huge screen, including "IAMALIVE" (I am alive), "IWILLNEVERLETYOUFORGETABOUTME" (I will never let you forget about me), and "BRINGMEBACKTHERE" (Bring me back there). These are undeniably the thoughts of Adel confined in space.

Rebirth
Although peace and tranquility returned to Esthar, the battle for freedom was not over. The terrible Sorceress Ultimecia managed to possess Rinoa Heartilly and reach the Lunar Base, thus gaining access to Adel's Tomb. Rinoa entered outer space and managed to deactivate the trap, freeing Adel from her prison.

At the time, the diabolical Sorceress still could not move; however, this was a point which soon became moot, as Seifer Almasy started a Lunar Cry from the Lunatic Pandora, far below on Earth. As monsters traveled down from the moon, Adel's Tomb was caught up in their boiling morass and brought down with them. He entered the Lunatic Pandora and slowly began to regain consciousness.

As he did so, it seems that Ultimecia left Rinoa's body and instead possessed Adel's, which was, after all, her reason for forcing Rinoa to unleash the powerful Sorceress to begin with. Thus combined, Adel/Ultimecia then Junctioned Rinoa to herself. Junctioning between two physical bodies as opposed to two minds is a highly unusual occurrence, one that seems to be a technique known only by Ultimecia, as she is the only one to perform it (and she does so twice: once between Adel and Rinoa, once between herself and Griever) throughout all of Final Fantasy VIII. It is possible that the technique was only realized in the far future Ultimecia comes from; it is also possible that only Ultimecia possesses the power to perform it.

At any rate, Adel/Ultimecia/Rinoa was now one being; three Sorceresses joined into a single entity, with Ultimecia as the mind, Adel as the body, and Rinoa as the channel for the magical powers of all three. This twisted parody of the Triple Goddess waited for Squall Leonhart and his allies to reach her, and entered vicious combat with them. Despite the power of the three conjoined Sorceresses, Adel ultimately lost the fight, and was forever destroyed. Upon hIS death, Ultimecia left his mind and Rinoa her body, and with no other options, Adel (probably unwillingly) transferred his powers to Rinoa.

Personality
Adel's personality is mostly ignored throughout Final Fantasy VIII. He speaks very little, only three lines throughout the entire game, and none of them are very informative: "What is going on?" "Where?" and "You thought I would fall for that trick?" don't exactly give much hint of personality. He is actually quite the rarity in that even when he is finally resurrected and fights against you while Junctioned to Rinoa, he says nothing to the player. He is said to be cruel, brutal, avaricious, power-hungry, and utterly ruthless. She has no morals and no sympathies; he is the epitome of pure evil. None of his actions in the game show anything more than this.

Battle
Adel is fought at the start of Disc 4 in the Lunatic Pandora. Here, the player must also rescue Rinoa and keep her alive.

Adell