In the last part of Building Character, Ghaleon’s portrayal in The Silver Star was examined. If you have not read part 1, read this first and then come back to this part. Back when Silver Star Story was being developed for the Sega Saturn and later the Sony PlayStation, Game Arts decided to change Ghaleon’s character, backstory, and his role as the villain. This became the common interpretation of Ghaleon as both Lunar Legend and Lunar Silver Star Harmony used it as well while taking their own liberties. He would no longer be motivated by revenge. Instead, Ghaleon became a tragic figure. He was essentially the Anakin Skywalker of Role Playing Games before Anakin’s backstory was revealed in the prequel trilogy.
Just like The Silver Star, Ghaleon is one of the four heroes who helped save Lunar by defeating an evil man who wanted to become a demi-god. 15 years before the events of Silver Star Story, Althena requested Dyne’s help to ensure she would be reincarnated as a human permanently. Althena believed humans were depending on her too much. Their dependence on Althena caused jealousy and internal bickering. She believed it was time for Lunar’s inhabitants to take control of their own destiny. Dyne helped Althena become reincarnated as Luna, but in the process, he lost his powers as the Dragonmaster. This event devastated Ghaleon and he became angry at Dyne’s actions. Ghaleon believed the world of Lunar needed Althena to bring order and prevent chaos. Without the protection of Althena, Lunar would become a wasteland and the balance of magic would be thrown off course. Eventually, Ghaleon decides to revive Althena so he can rule the world with her by his side.
He takes the same actions as he did in the Sega CD version with some differences. Xenobia is not the only right hand villain this time. Ghaleon also recruits Royce and Phacia to help execute his plan and to occupy Alex and his party. Ghaleon no longer kills Quark and the remaining dragons. He instead captures and enslaves them instead to use their energy to take over Lunar. He kidnaps Luna and uses his dark magic on her to revive her as the goddess Althena, but this time as an evil goddess. With Althena under Ghaleon’s control, he uses her and the power of the four dragons to revive Althena’s Fortress. The Vile Tribe is enslaved to build the Grindery and not the villagers of Burg. The grindery is then used to destroy Vane. The magic emperor façade is only an illusion in this interpretation. The game at one point teases players with a false ending only to reveal Ghaleon was not truly defeated. Ghaleon never meets Dyne, but he knows of Laike’s existence.
John Truitt’s voice acting shines through in the PlayStation version. He once again embraces Ghaleon’s personality. There is a difference between a voice actor reading his lines and a voice actor embracing his lines and Truitt passionately enjoyed voicing Ghaleon. He had more opportunities to play the role of Ghaleon whereas the Sega CD version was limited due to the hardware limitations.
Ghaleon enjoys taunting Alex and makes it a priority to destroy Alex’s love for Luna in his quest for world domination. When Ghaleon is defeated by Alex, he perishes believing he won since Lunar was under control of the Dark Goddess Althena and he broke Alex and Luna apart. If Ghaleon couldn’t have his way, he wanted no one to achieve their dreams. His misunderstanding of the events between Dyne and Althena drove him mad. Ghaleon never understood Althena’s motivations for a better world and only saw Althena’s disappearance as a path towards destruction. From his point of view, Ghaleon believed his actions were of noble intentions by restoring Althena as the goddess of Lunar with him ruling over it to ensure Lunar never lost Althena. Ghaleon would spend the rest of eternity in the afterlife…….or does he?
Stay tuned for the final segment. It will be out before the end of the month.
