Veigue Lungberg

 

Veigue Lungberg
Game series	Tales of series
First game	Tales of Rebirth
Designed by	Mutsumi Inomata
Voice actor(s)	Nobuyuki Hiyama

Veigue Lungberg (ヴェイグ・リュングベル, Veigu Ryunguberu^?) is the main protagonist of a Japanese-only PS2 game, Tales of Rebirth. He is a Huma orphan from the village of Sulz and adopted to the Bennet family. Claire Bennet is his childhood friend and he's very protective on her. Like all major characters, he is a Force user and uses the Force of Ice, and wields a two-handed sword in battle. Veigue himself is a cold, silent young man who is mostly unaware, not ignorant, of the problems around him, unless it's happening right in front of his face, or involves Claire.

Biography

Awakening

It's not known who Veigue's parents really are. When he was little, he was adopted by Marco Bennet of Sulz village and befriended his daughter Claire Bennet. Along with their pet Zapie, Veigue spent his childhood until his teens in the village of Sulz. In the world, Huma and Gajuma (beastmen) coexisted in peace, and Veigue never has any problems about it. He never thought that during his teens, he would become involved in a grand quest that deals with racial issues.

When Veigue turned 17, in the Capital City of Balka, Gajuma King Ladras Lindblum passed away and at that point , a certain event of chaos erupted in which several Huma suddenly gained the ability known as Force, which was formerly exclusive to Gajuma. Veigue is one such Huma that has his Force awakened. His force ran wild and this worries Claire. However, as she approached Veigue, his Force attacked her, sealing her within an ice coffin. From that point on, guilt overcame Veigue and he spent his time guarding his house where Claire was frozen, accompanied by Zapie.

A year later, in the current timeline of the game, Veigue is visited by a boy who has no memory, Mao, and ex-commander of the Karegia Army, Eugene Gallardo. They claim that they're seeking Force Users like Veigue to find out what's actually going on. Veigue refuses to listen to any of their stories, claiming that he needs to protect Claire. After a brief fight with Mao, he's told that he must learn to control his force and thus won't freeze Claire again. Mao helps him un-freeze Claire.

As a token of gratitude, Claire invited them all to eat at her house. While eating and discussing the current situation, the village is visited by two members of the Karegia's King's Shield lieutenant, Saleh and Tohma. They demand the most beautiful girl in the village to be surrendered to them under the order of Queen Agarte Lindblum, and Claire is selected as the 'most beautiful'. Veigue tried to stop them, but Eugene knocks him out before Tohma and Saleh can kill him.

Rescuing Claire

Eventually Veigue resolves to journey ahead to rescue Claire. Marco also sends Zapie to accompany him. Although he is at first accompanied by Zapie, Mao and Eugene, he later receives the help of several more people, such as Annie Barrs, a girl with initial dislike towards Gajuma; Tytree Crowe, a hotblooded worker from Petnadjanka; and Hilda Rhambling, a Half formerly under the King's Shield. As he journeys, Veigue also witnesses some minor issues regarding on races, between Huma and Gajuma (mostly due to Annie's dislike towards Gajuma). These issues mostly never concern Veigue, as he's used to referring Gajuma and Huma as the same, or just 'people'. He also confronts other members of the King's Shield, Walto and Militsa.

At the end of the journey, Veigue and his group arrives at the capital of Balka. They eventually discover a way to sneak into the castle, through the sewers. Before the go, Veigue tells his companions that should he die, they should continue on and rescue Claire. His friends, however, say that they will stick together. Unfortunately, they are ambushed by the King's Shield upon reaching the Castle, and after an audience with Agarte, they are thrown into jail. They managed to get out thanks to the 'Black Wings' trio. Eventually Veigue, after defeating Saleh and Tohma (infuriating Saleh greatly), reaches the ceremonial site where Agarte attempts to revive the 'King of Sacred Beasts', Geyorkias, in order to save Karegia. Veigue is unable to stop the ceremony. Geyorkias announces that he will destroy the impurity of the world, and that is the Huma race. Veigue and his friends battle Geyorkias and emerge victorious. Just before Geyorkias explodes, Veigue manages to get Claire into safety. After these events, Veigue's group separates on their own paths.

Resurrecting the Sacred Beasts

Veigue makes it back to Sulz. However, when Claire regains consciousness, she is acting a bit weird. Before Veigue can confirm this, he is informed that his Gajuma aunt, Popura, is causing a ruckus in the town plaza. When Veigue reaches the plaza, he witnesses Popura spewing a lot of racist remarks regarding her race. Veigue tries to calm her down, but he is unable to do so. Luckily, Annie comes in and successfully calms Popura temporarily with her Force of Rain.

Annie explains that lately many Gajuma have developed some hatred thoughts on Huma. Eugene is also one of victims and has been calling out to Veigue, Tytree and Hilda to come to him for some reason. Annie is the one to go fetch the three while Mao stays with Eugene. Veigue decides to meet up with Eugene along with Tytree (only because he'll get angry if he's not involved), but on the way Claire requests to tag along. Veigue accepts her request.

After fetching Tytree from Petnadjanka, Veigue heads straight to Messechinia Cavern, where Eugene holed himself up. To his surprise, Eugene tells Veigue to kill him before he's consumed with his rage and kill them all. Veigue will not let that happen and resorts to find a medicine to cure Eugene. Following Annie's advice, Veigue heads to the Eastern continent while leaving Claire to accompany Mao guarding Eugene.

In the town of Razilda, Veigue witnessed that the racism issue has grown stronger in the town, where Huma and Gajuma isolate themselves and has been hating against each other. He is reunited with Hilda in the town. Helped by a non-racist Huma named Igol, they manage to retrieve a cure for Eugene. Upon making it back to the Cavern, Veigue is forced to fight a berserked Eugene until he calms down a bit and is able to consume the cure calmly, regaining his old self.

Eugene explains that this all may have some connections with Geyorkias. It turns out that after his defeat, several 'thoughts' of hatred from Geyorkias began to grow from the hearts of every Huma and Gajuma. Eventually it is concluded that to dispel the thoughts, they need to retrieve the power of the Sacred Beasts who fought against Geyorkias in the past.

When journeying, they came upon the oriental town of Kyogen. In order to get the hint of the next Sacred Beast (after Tytree and Mao managed to gain the trust of two beasts), Veigue agrees to become a temporary bodyguard for a man named Wan Gin, while Claire becomes his guest. Later, from Zapie, Veigue learns that Claire has been kidnapped. When he rescues her, she's still acting rather strangely. When Veigue met two other prisoners, they told him that they were with Claire. But when he met her, she was alone. Regardless, Veigue knows that Wan Gin was behind this and quits being his bodyguard.

Eventually, they reached the next Sacred Beast. After Annie gains his trust, Mao becomes possessed by a Sacred Beast calling himself Shaorune. He tells Veigue to meet him, or he'll lose something dear. Veigue becomes more frustrated hearing this.

The group decides to gather the hints in the town of Belsas. In the town, Claire asks Veigue about things Queen Agarte, which slightly confuses Veigue. But he confirms he'll still like Claire even if she is of a different race. And to his surprise, he learns that Agarte is spotted somewhere in the town.

The next day, when the racist Huma leader Scarab is about to execute Agarte in public, Agarte delivers a speech that only Claire would give. Veigue realizes that Claire is in Agarte's body and she is once again in danger. He quickly rescues her. In the meantime, the general of Karegia Army, Milhaust Selkirk, arrive and quickly put the crowd at rest.

Eventually, Agarte reveals that during the ceremony, she used the Force of Moon to resurrect Geyorkias. However, after Geyorkias' defeat, Agarte switched her body with Claire as an additional effect of the Force. Veigue demands that Agarte returns Claire's body to her, but she runs off. Veigue then agrees to cooperate with Milhaust to return Claire and Agarte's bodies and spirits to the proper places. Shaorune once again possesses Mao and tells the group that he's at the town of Babilograd.

Veigue eventually arrived at Babilograd. Shaorune claims that he will give him three trials to prove Veigue's worth. During the first trial, on the way to reach Shaorune, Veigue constantly sees several events in his life where his beliefs about Claire and Agarte are tested, such as refusing Claire's body where he knows Agarte's soul reside there.

When the group approach Shaorune, the second trial begins, which is to defeat him in combat. Shaorune is defeated, and asks Veigue who the girl besides him is. Veigue vehemently answers that it's Claire, although she's in Agarte's body. The trial is considered over and Shaorune lends his help to the party, acting like an air transport. Unfortunately, he can't grant Veigue's wish to restore Claire and Agarte's bodies to normal.

Doubts

After finally achieving the power of all the Sacred Beasts, the thoughts of hatred are purified. But the tensions that are born from the thoughts are not. Veigue is forced to go from town to town, stopping any racism issues he meets. Along the way, however, Veigue begins to feel uneasy about Claire being in Agarte's body. He wants to believe that it's Claire who's next to him, but he couldn't help to consider her as 'Agarte' due to her body. These thoughts starts to take toll on Veigue's Force.

In Minal, Veigue hears about Agarte in Claire's body stopping a fight, but he finds nothing. When he asks around, several Gajuma soldiers tell him they saw Claire in Agarte's body and claim that Agarte has returned. Veigue vehemently refuses, and eventually his Force goes berserk. His friends manage to subdue him, but when he wakes up, Claire is nowhere to be seen.

Veigue decides to pursue Claire, but he is stopped and soundly defeated by Milhaust, who asks about his resolution back in Belsas. He wakes up in Minal and finds out that he was saved by Agarte in Claire's body. Veigue requests her to change Claire's body back again, but Agarte reveals that she has failed to use the Force many times. Veigue then decides to give Agarte to Milhaust, blaming all the events on Agarte. This irritated Tytree, and he stops the confrontation and invites Veigue to meet him at the beach alone.

In the beach, Tytree suddenly punches Veigue in the face, irritated on how Veigue seems to be so closed on himself, not letting his friends to feel his pain or difficulty. He claims that it's that attitude that drove Claire away. Veigue and Tytree ended up in a fight where they punched at each other's face. Eventually, Tytree demands that Veigue speaks his feelings and mind. Veigue does so, and eventually calms down a little after Tytree tells him that since they're friends, they should help each other.

Veigue then requests to go back to Sulz, where he asks for advice from Marco and Rakiya. He later returns Popura back to her old self, which causes her to hold a festival for everyone, regardless of race. Veigue is glad on seeing the view, and speaks to Agarte, expressing his gratitude and new trust of her. He also promises not to give up, for Claire and Agarte as well. Finally he learns what is important above race, and that is 'heart'. As he prepares to leave, Veigue calls Marco and Rakiya 'Father' and 'Mother' and bids them farewell.

Final Battle

When they leave, the group find out that the negative emotions stemmed from the racial tensions are welling up into an evil force. Veigue then decides to gamble on reviving Geyorkias once more and persuade him to save the world, as he is the one capable of doing it. They eventually make it to Geyorkias' sleeping place in Mount Sovereign, where they later learn that the negative emotions give birth to the evil being called Yuris, and left alone, it can destroy the world. Veigue decides to defeat Yuris.

While on the way to defeat Yuris, the party feels their power diminishing. However, as of that time, in the real world, people start to help each other regardless of race, which gives power to Veigue and his teammates. Eventually, they defeat Yuris and Agarte is able to execute the Force of Moon to switch back to Claire, and uses it again to revive Geyorkias, which destroys Yuris.

Afterwards, the group bid their farewells to the Sacred Beasts, as they leave the fate of the world to the people. However, Agarte dies of fatigue. Milhaust is instated as her successor, and he asks Veigue to help him fight against the discrimination and rebuild the kingdom. Veigue silently refuses, but knows that no matter which part he takes, he and Milhaust are aiming for the same goal. As he bid farewell to Milhaust, Veigue let out a rare smile.

In the ending pictures that follows, it would appear that Veigue returns home to Sulz along with Claire and Zapie (who seems to have found a soulmate).

Trivia

• Most RPG protagonists wield the fire element, or sometimes wind element. However, Veigue is probably the only main protagonist to ever use the ice element (the element is mostly wielded by female characters or male supporting characters, not male protagonists)
• Veigue doesn't possess some of the most common Tales skills such as Majinken/Demon Fang and Kogahazan/Tiger Blade. However, equipping certain items enables him to change his original skills to classic Tales skills.
• Veigue is prone to yell "CLAIRE!!!!" loudly whenever Claire is in danger. Tales fans and producers have taken this into account and considered his yell to be unique and has been parodied several times. This is most obvious in the Tales of Fandom Gaiden and the Viva Tales Lemon Gumi DVDs (they come with preorders of the Japanese version of Tales of the Abyss and Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology respectively), where Veigue often yells Claire's name out of the blue. Because of this, Veigue's yell is considered something of a running gag to Tales of Rebirth players.
• Veigue is not featured in the Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology. This fact is lampooned in the Viva Tales Lemon Gumi DVD where after learning this fact, he cries and screams Claire's name.
• Veigue and Claire's name is a play on Vague and Clear.
• Veigue bears a striking resemblance to Woodrow Klevin from Tales of Destiny. In fact, there is a sidequest in Tales of Destiny's Remake that refers to the cast in Tales of Rebirth. However, they are not seen in the game; the resemblance goes even further; in the EX Dungeon of Tales of Destiny, there is a boss that uses Dahlis' sprite. It is recolored with blue and white to suggest a direct reference to Veigue. He even has Veigue's common moveset, such as Zehhyoujin and Zesshouzan.
• Veigue is the only main character in Tales that is fought against by the player in his own series.

Donate to Wikimedia