#there is something endearing about how LOM went with a chosen one character

[lomappreciationblog]

This one is a little speculation post, but...I've noticed that the game keeps it very vague as to where exactly the protagonist comes from. You wake up in your fully furnished home after having a dream call from the Mana Goddess, boom, that's it, go rebuild Fa'Diel now. Simple and straight to the point as far as intros go, haha, no exposition or anything (though, if you read all of the History tome, there's a complex backstory that explains a lot of things the game itself doesn't show).

The fact that Domina is your second location after Home and some of the resident's familiarity, and the bgm for it being named "Hometown of Domina" seems to indicate the protagonist was based there, but it's not conclusive...actually, the residents' interactions with you differ, some of them introduce themselves to you as if they don't know you, while some of them do indicate familiarity (say, the entry about Rachel reveals her strained relationship to her dad, as if the protagonist grew up with them).

Aside from that, for some reason, Shiloh/Serafina are skilled in quite a lot of skills and weapons from the get-go, and they can use artifacts to rebuild Fa'Diel (which is sort of a big deal because some of Nunuzac's dialogue in the Cage of Dreams, and the History tome, again, indicates that magic of that level is something like a forgotten art).

It makes me wonder if Shiloh/Serafina are in some way, a piece of the Mana Goddess who represents the light part of her, a representative of her that spreads healing rather than strife. ...though, all things considered, Shiloh/Serafina aren't all pure kindhearted heroes, you kinda majorly screw over some characters (temporarily in the Dragon Arc and permanently in Niccolo's Business Unusual). So in that aspect, that makes them living humans of Fa'Diel, just one who happened to hear the Goddess's call.

I guess I'm bringing it up because I just noticed when I finished LOM HD that in the cinematics for the credits, the protagonist doesn't appear, and when Niccolo comes over to bring flowers, the protagonist isn't shown, so a part of me wonders if, since Fa'Diel is renewed in the ending, if Shiloh/Serafina disappeared since their role is done.

In the other adaptations, they do present a bit more backstory. In the Teardrop Crystal anime, Shiloh was raised by residents of Domina, and he's good friends with Duelle, even. The anime also reveals that his home was a gift given to him by the Domina residents (I think the anime also indicated he's 15, which. Wow, the Mana Goddess really recruited a teenager to do the whole rebuilding the world thing huh). Though, the anime doesn't say exactly how Shiloh came to Domina, but it does sound like he's something like a child they found. Serafina...has special circumstances which I won't talk about in this post since spoilers for the anime.

The manga made a whole other backstory, though I'm going off fanlations so my info might be inaccurate. Though, basically, the manga seems to indicate Toto and Imu are humans who were gifted artificers ever since they were kids. They're also siblings in the manga, and...well, saying more would be spoilers, but they do have a connection to the Mana Tree. Though, the manga seems to ignore the Mana Goddess entirely?