Tales of Meta

The main girl in Tales of the Abyss (TotA) has a hell of an intro: She walks into Fabre manor putting everyone to sleep by singing a song in a fictional language. Of course, there’s also the whole animated cutscene with her stepping into the portal in Yulia City and going, “It’s time” and all, but I’m talking about when she really gets down to action, what is her establishing moment.

Tear Grants interrupts Luke fon Fabre’s sparring session with Van Grants not by simply walking in like a normal person. Instead, she stands on the friggin’ roof, jumps down, and declares, “I’ve finally found you, Vandesdelca! ...Prepare to die, traitor!”

If that’s not an Establishing Character Moment, I don’t know what is.

Whether she manages to hold your interest or not depends on the viewer, but I personally was always interested in Tear and her personality...

...which takes us to our topic of the day: Tear’s growth and the criticisms Abyss fans have towards her. The biggest complaint I’ve seen towards Tear is that she’s “boring” or that she “doesn’t grow”. While the first one is absolutely objective, the second one has me going, “huh?”

My short answer: Tear grows, but her growth isn’t nearly as obvious as a character like Luke or even Jade Curtiss. At the same time, you don’t need a magnifying glass to see her development unlike [REDACTED] in Tales of [REDACTED]. But to say she doesn’t grow or she doesn’t have her struggles is, uh, well, it’s Something.

Let’s take a closer look: