Sheba

Sheba is a Jupiter Adept introduced as an NPC in Golden Sun and becomes a playable character in Golden Sun: The Lost Age. As a party member, she is a mage-style Jupiter Adept in an extremely similar vein to Ivan in the first game.

=As a playable character=



In Sheba's appearances as an NPC in cutscenes in the original Golden Sun, she is, of course, not relevant to the gameplay. In The Lost Age, however, she is the new party's resident Jupiter Adept from practically the very start and remains in the party for literally the entire game. Following the prologue which ends at Idejima and begins right above Daila, Sheba is part of your party starting off at level 5 and equipped with a Wooden Stick, Circlet, Leather Armlet, and Travel Vest, and carrying one Herb as well. Sheba has inherent knowledge of the extremely oft-used Mind Read Psynergy, and at some point in The Lost Age gains the practical and necessary Reveal Psynergy technically makes her extremely important as a party member for the sake of the player's information.



Just like Ivan, Sheba is generally one of the more defensively frail characters, with generally low HP theoretically offset by offensive Psynergy that are oftentimes better for group damage than what warrior Adepts like Felix have available (this "convention", of course, would mainly apply only if Sheba is kept in her default character class series Wind Seer like the others are kept in theirs). This causes players to tend to use any discovered HP-boosting Power Bread items on her. Even though in her default class series she can learn and efficiently use spells in the Ray Psynergy series and Plasma Psynergy series, as the game goes on it becomes apparent that she does not have as much instantly identifiable potential as a damage dealer like Isaac or Felix (because she can only use maces and staffs) or a healer like Mia and even Jenna (lacking group-healing Psynergies); even Ivan can be considered to outperform her in the damage-dealing department because he can equip Light Blades instead of Maces, which include the extremely powerful and desirable weapons Tisiphone Edge and Masamune. Thus, Sheba mainly functions as general support, with offensive Psynergies used to soften up the opposition with damage and with group buffing Psynergies like High Impact.

=Biography=

Background
Sheba's background is the main mystery behind the girl that remains unrevealed and unexplained as of the end of the Golden Sun series to date; the start of her life on Weyard was itself was a fantastic occurence that occured over a dozen years ago. The desert town of Lalivero on the northeastern region of Gondowan is situated just south of the site of ancient ruins belonging to a civilization that existed far in Weyard's ancient past. On one fateful day, a baby Sheba fell out of the sky in the form of a shooting star, and she landed into the ruins with explosive force powerful enough that a massive depression was created in the center of the ruins. As if that weren't unbelievable enough, the baby did not suffer a single bruise or scratch from the impact. The Laliveran townspeople came to investigate to discover the baby, and the town's mayor, Faran, decided to adopt her as part of his own family and raise her.

Sheba was raised in Lalivero with love and kindness by her adoptive family, and with an outright divine reverence by the townspeople - understandable, as she had entered the world via falling from the sky like some sort of divine being. She was given the affectionate title "Child of the Gods"for this and also considered a "holy child". It was not just because of her method of "birth" either; Sheba demonstrated an ability to proce strange powers, which would be recognizable as Psynergy abilities from a Jupiter Adept to anyone who knows about Adepts. More than her natural Adeptness to Jupiter Psynergy, however, Sheba also appears to be surrounded by a mysterious influence that can cause certain events involving her to play out in a non-negative fashion that can be considered more than just mere coincidence, such as her ability to survive great falls by virtue of what appears to be incredible circumstantial luck. (Her survival from her fall from the sky probably counts as the earliest example of this.)

Growing up as pretty much Lalivero's pride and joy, Sheba was generally raised to be a kind-hearted and outgoing girl, but she can sometimes come across as an elitist snob because of all the attention she got. She also wishes to know the truth behind her origins.

In Golden Sun
Sheba figures into the endgame plot of the first Golden Sun as an NPC.

Held captive by Babi
In the present day, Lord Babi, the imposing and mysterious ruler of the city of Tolbi, makes a move by sending Tolbian soldiers and workers to Lalivero and ordering the people of Lalivero to help them in a new construction project: Building Babi's own lighthouse upon the foundations of the ruins just north of Lalivero. To force the Laliverans via blackmail to work on what would be called Babi Lighthouse, Babi orders Sheba to be taken captive to Tolbi and held there until construction is complete. Naturally, Babi is viewed as a tyrant by the Laliverans for these actions, and because of Sheba's incarceration they have no choice but to comply with his mandate.

In Tolbi, Sheba is given her own room within Babi's Palace under Babi's pretense that she is "staying as Lord Babi's guest", but is nonetheless confined there for a great while as construction on Babi Lighthouse goes underway, regardless of her repeated tearful pleas to be released. Sheba realizes that though her Psynergy powers could technically be enough to bust herself out of Tolbi, she most likely wouldn't survive the trip back to Lalivero alone because it means passing through the deadly Suhalla Desert. So, she has no choice but to wait.

Right as this year's annual tournament of warriors in Tolbi, Colosso, commences, Babi goes to a cave called Altmiller Cave but becomes lost there, but his life is saved by a travelling group of Adepts led by a young warrior named Isaac. Babi enters Isaac in the Colosso finals in repayment and so he may observe Isaac's own Psynergy abilities in action for himself. As Babi returns to take his seat in Colosso's arena, he sends soldiers to notify Sheba that once Colosso concludes Sheba will be brought back to her hometown via escort with the soldiers, which would give the Laliverans another burst of incentive to complete Babi Lighthouse faster. Sheba is entirely uplifted and eagerly awaits Colosso's conclusion (Colosso being something she doesn't have the slightest interest in anyway).

Following Colosso, Sheba leaves Tolbi with an entourage of Tolbian soldiers as they escort her across upper Gondowan towards Lalivero. When they travel through Suhalla Desert, however, the infamous sand cyclones patrolling the desert - in actuality powerful, vicious monsters named Tornado Lizards - attack them and kill almost all of the soldiers, and Sheba is lost in the desert. Soon afterwards, however, Sheba has an even bigger chance encounter with fate: A group of powerful Adepts, led by Saturos and Menardi and consisting of their allies Felix and Alex and their unwilling captives Jenna and Kraden, passes through the desert at this time, and when they encounter Sheba they identify her as a Jupiter Adept - they've been looking for one for their own purposes, so they take her captive and force her into their group.

Held captive by Saturos
Saturos' group of Adepts are travelling across the world to light each of the four Elemental Lighthouses with their respective Elemental Stars, which will achieve the restoration of the force of Alchemy to the world of Weyard. Each Lighthouse can only be entered if the group has an Adept of that Lighthouse's respective element, and with their current setup they are able to enter three of the four Lighthouses, with the exception of Jupiter Lighthouse - they need to have a Jupiter Adept like Sheba with them in the future. For now Saturos heads out of the desert along the road to Venus Lighthouse with Sheba and everyone else, passing through Lalivero and into Babi Lighthouse to enter the secret underground trail that is the true entrance to Venus Lighthouse. Needless to say, the sight of Sheba being led through her hometown while held captive by a group most certainly not affiliated with Tolbi is very distressing for the Laliverans.

Saturos and Sheba climb up into Venus Lighthouse. Saturos and Menardi then order the rest of their group, Felix, Alex, Jenna, and Kraden, to leave out of the lighthouse's frontal exit and head to a peninsula of land named Idejima, which is where Saturos and Menardi anchored their Lemurian Ship, and wait there while Saturos and Menardi take Sheba with them to the aerie of Venus Lighthouse and light the Venus Beacon with the Venus Star. Right as they are about to cast in the Venus Star down the Lighthouse's well, Felix suddenly arrives. Friction between Felix and his masters over the involvement of an innocent third party such as Sheba in their quest comes to a head; when Saturos re-establishes that Sheba is needed to reach and light Jupiter Lighthouse, Felix demands that Sheba thus must be taken to the ship at Idejima for safety's sake, but the Mars Adepts' trust in Felix has been soured. They prepare to administer final punishment upon Felix when Isaac and his group of Adepts arrives just in time, intent on both stopping them from lighting Venus Lighthouse and rescuing Sheba and returning her to Faran and the Laliverans.

In the tense stand-off that ensues, Saturos suddenly concocts quite the scheme: He knows that among Isaac's group's possessions is an artifact named the Shaman's Rod, which during his prior research into the Lighthouses he learned is necessary for the process of lighting Jupiter Lighthouse as well. So, he promises everyone that he will let no harm come to Sheba if the opposing Adepts trade him the Shaman's Rod, and the Jupiter Adept among Isaac's group, Ivan, agrees. However, Isaac's party assumes Saturos meant he would set Sheba free for the Rod; they are exasperated, to say the least, when Saturos clarifies otherwise. Saturos and Menardi then declare that Isaac has meddled in their affairs long enough, and thus they launch a fierce offensive to wipe out Isaac and his friends. As Felix and Sheba watch from the sidelines, Isaac's party surprisingly manages to defeat the Mars Adepts, albeit only temporarily; they toss in the Venus Star into the well and activate the Venus Beacon, which recharges their strength and allows them to execute their ultimate ability, which is the fusion into a colossal two-headed dragon. An epic battle ensues, but one which ultimately ends in victory for Isaac and death for the Mars Adepts.

The lit Venus Beacon prompts the Venus Lighthouse to generate a violent earthquake, and Sheba suddenly falls off the side of the tower, hanging on for ler life as an aghast Felix tries to reach for her but is unable to. Sheba, realizing that she is going to die when she fully slips off, leaves Felix with a beaten "Good-bye, Felix, and thank you." Then she falls off the tower. Felix, perhaps having lost his mind, jumps clean off the tower after her, leaving Isaac and his friends speechless with the revelation that both of them must have been killed falling from that height.

Sheba's mysterious protective influence kicks in at this point, causing what would seem like a fantastic coincidence: The plot of land at the base of the coastal Venus Lighthouse breaks off from the mainland and filling it with ocean water, which is what both Sheba and Felix fall into. Their lives have been saved, but Sheba is now unconscious. At the same time, the earthquake has torn Idejima just south of their position away from the mainland and is now literally floating east out to sea buoyantly; Felix grabs Sheba and swims as hard as he can to Idejima, and the two of them wash up in front of a surprised Alex, Jenna, and Kraden.

In Golden Sun: The Lost Age
From practically the very start of The Lost Age, Sheba is a permanent party member of Felix's new party. Compared to other party members in general, she figures somewhat more into the plot independently. As she is no longer a "captive" of any one group, Sheba's more outward, slightly snobbish personality shows.

Journey with Felix
On the floating island of Idejima, Felix and Sheba regain their senses and report to Alex, Jenna, and Kraden that Isaac and his group have killed Saturos and Menardi in direct combat, to Alex and everyone else's considerable surprise. Then they attempt to gather their priorities: If the five of them are to continue their quest to activate the Jupiter and Mars Lighthouses, they will need to find a ship they can use, since Menardi's ship on the island is now useless to them since they don't have Saturos' Black Orb anymore (a Black Orb is an object required to be used by Adepts in order to sail a Lemurian Ship).

But as for the matter of getting off the island, they soon find that they are passing by the continent of Indra to the south, but they are not going to collide with it. Their problem is effectively solved by a global disaster: The tidal wave originates from the Sea of Time in the middle of the Great Eastern Sea in response to the fact that two of the four Lighthouses are now lit, and the wave washes over Idejima, Indra, lower Gondowan, and the continent Osenia, causing Idejima to be driven into the north end of Indra and the entire continent of Indra itself to shift southwest and effectively sandwich itself between Gondowan and Osenia. Everyone is knocked unconscious by the wave but manages to survive without injuries.

When everyone comes to, they find that Alex has disappeared, presumably to look for a ship. As they agree to set out south in search of a ship, they ask Sheba if she wants to join them on their quest, and Sheba proclaims that she believes it's "her destiny" to be with them. She has a personal reason too for wanting to explore with Felix, but she feels she cannot tell them right now and that they must trust her as a party member. With this settled, Felix becomes the de facto leader of his remaining group of adventurers, consisting of Sheba, Jenna, and Kraden, and they set out south together into the new continent in their own search for a ship.

Sheba travels with Felix's party on what becomes a search for a ship spanning several continents; the tidal wave wrecked pretty much all ships that coastal towns were in possession of. The circumstances of their quest and the subplots Felix's party takes part in eventually leads them to befriend a male Mercury Adept named Piers, who hails from none other than Lemuria, the mythic society located somewhere in the Sea of Time far out in the Great Eastern Sea, and who has a Lemurian Ship of his own. With Piers joining them as a fourth Adept, Felix's party sails with the Lemurian Ship in an extended exploration of the entire Great Eastern Sea.

Shortly after Piers joins the party, in the town Madra everyone has a chance encounter with a young Proxean woman warrior named Karst, who is searching for Saturos and her elder sister Menardi; Sheba tells Karst rather bluntly that Menardi was killed in battle by Isaac, and everyone else's gut reactions to Sheba affirms to Karst that the somewhat incredible concept of someone powerful like Menardi being defeated in combat is the truth. Karst, filled with vengeance at the news, declares that she will seek him out to avenge her sister's murder, and leaves. Piers figures that they should seek out Isaac to warn him about Karst, but the others explain that wouldn't be possible, since Isaac's group is journeying to stop Felix from activating the remaining Lighthouses and would most likely engage a violent battle. When Sheba pokes Jenna about how she and Isaac should be able to work something else because they're "an item", Jenna turns bright red and tells her off.

For the next great period of time, Felix's band explores and loots many ancient dungeons and arcane locales to bolster their Psynergy abilities and inventory, and in the various towns they visit they meet several other characters and take part in several subplots. Early on in their sailing venture, Jenna suggests they should go to Lalivero to tell Faran and the Laliverans that Sheba is alright, but Sheba and the others agree that would not be a good idea because then they would force her to stay "safe" in the town and no longer be able to travel with Felix. So, they decide to specifically avoid Lalivero while sailing the seas.

Felix's quest eventually leads them to three pieces of a mythic weapon named the Trident of Ankohl, which is eventually reforged for them. With this, they are able to sail into the Sea of Time and battle the monstrous entity responsible for generating the giant tidal wave earlier, Poseidon. Then they enter Lemuria, Piers' homeland, and in their interactions with Lemuria's king Hydros and Lunpa the Righteous Thief they learn the shocking truth about Alchemy's true role as the world's spiritual sustenance: should Alchemy not be returned to the world in time, the world will eventually shrink into nothingness. With this in mind, the party sets sail for Jupiter Lighthouse in the Great Western Sea.

The Great Western Sea
Now in the Great Western Sea, Felix and his party travel to the continent of Hesperia because the Shaman's Rod in Felix's possession, which is somehow required to properly scale and light the Jupiter Lighthouse itself on the continent of Atteka, is also called the "Rod of Hesperia". In the secluded Hesperian settlement Shaman Village, Felix and his company convene with the town's leader-figure Moapa, and present to him the Shaman's Rod. Moapa is taken aback: Shaman Village has had a prophecy that in the modern age, a descendant of Contigo - the settlement on Atteka near Jupiter Lighthouse - would bring back the Shaman's Rod, a national treasure to Shaman Village, and in return the bearer receives the Contigan artifact known as the Hover Jade, which contains the Psynergy necessary to scale Jupiter Lighthouse (this is how the Shaman's Rod was "required to reach Jupiter Lighthouse"). But Moapa takes a look at each Adept and determines he will not give the Hover Jade to them, because they don't look like they could possibly be descended from Contigo heritage. When Sheba pipes up, Moapa then brings them to Trial Road so that they can prove whether even one of them is of Contigan heritage or not.

At Trial Road, there lies a wall of sand with a large, peculiar formation in front of it; the Shamans believe that anyone who possesses the power to make the sand disappear is a proven descendant of Contigo. Sheba, with a little Jupiter Psynergy, passes this test with ease and makes the sand disappear, to the shock of Moapa. But now Moapa objects to the fact that the one apparent Contigan among Felix's party is a girl, since Contigan heroes who have tested Trial Road in the past have customarily always been men. Sheba pipes up again, claiming it shouldn't matter what gender Shaman Village's new hero happens to be, and persuades Moapa to allow them to challenge him and his two underling Knights in a match of Trial Road. Moapa is certain they will fail at the end even as he allows them the match and the contest begins. At the peak of Trial Road, Felix's party engages Moapa and the Knights in a fierce battle, and though they are powerful opponents, Felix's party eventually triumphs over them. Thus do Moapa and Shaman Village deem Felix and Sheba's group valid recipients of the Hover Jade.

Having gained the Hover Jade, containing the Hover Psynergy (and labeled "the power of Anemos"), Felix's group is able to enter and properly explore Jupiter Lighthouse. After everyone witnesses Karst and her partner Agatio attempting to kill Isaac's party, Sheba joins the others in stepping in, confronting Karst, and battling her off to save Isaac, while lighting Jupiter Lighthouse. Following this dramatic episode, Felix and Isaac's respective parties convene in Contigo nearby, where Felix and company are properly able to explain to Isaac why Alchemy must be released, and Isaac agrees to join forces with Felix to assist the latter's own quest. They then learn from Hama that because all of the Lighthouses except Mars Lighthouse are lit, the world will be plunged into ice if Mars is not activated in time. With their differences and misunderstandings sorted out, Isaac, Garet, Ivan, and Mia join Felix, Jenna, Sheba, Piers, and Kraden to form their final traveling party.

As the extended clan of Adepts sails out of Atteka to their final destination, Sheba expresses a moment of somberness as she explains her real reason for originally wanting to go on Felix's quest, the reason she kept quiet about way back in Idejima: Having known about her unorthodox "birth" and how Faran was her adoptive father, Sheba believed that she would learn more about herself, her true birthplace, why she was abandoned from that birthplace, and her potential true family by going to Jupiter Lighthouse, which she knew Felix was headed toward eventually. But she did not obtain any answers to these questions. Kraden consoles Sheba with his own life story about how, in the poor village he was born in, he was taken in by Babi into Tolbi at an extremely early age, and thus never felt the comforts of a true home or a loving parent figure like Sheba had.

Sheba accompanies Felix and Isaac's combined party for the rest of The Lost Age, taking part in their last journey into the north, through Prox and into Mars Lighthouse itself. Once the party scales the structure to Mars Lighthouse Aerie. they and their objective are confronted by The Wise One, who is intent on keeping them from unleashing the dangerous force of Alchemy onto the world. The Wise One pits the immensely powerful Doom Dragon against them, and the Adepts conduct their final epic battle and eventually slay the beast, but soon tragically discover that they were tricked into slaying an amalgam of none other than Isaac's father Kyle and Felix and Jenna's parents. Jenna's grief prompts Sheba, Garet, and Piers to lash out and curse the name of the Wise One, who is nowhere to be seen. As the Adepts eventually come around to agree to activate the Mars Lighthouse, Sheba proclaims, "Perhpas we can't save your parents, but we can save countless others."

As it would turn out, once the Mars Lighthouse is lit and all four lighthouses are activated, the energy let loose by the four lighthouses as part of the process that restores Alchemy to the world revives the parents; the Wise One's seemingly cruel plot was in fact a test of the Adept's resolve and ability to handle the great new responsibility of ensuring that throughout the world Alchemy is not used for evil. When the Adepts and the parents return to Isaac, Garet, Jenna, and Felix's hometown of Vale, howeverm they find it has been erased off the map by Alchemy's unleash, and for a moment everyone is grief-stricken, assuming everyone formerly living in the town, including all of Garet's family, has been erased. Sheba, however, notices that Garet's family and everyone else has survived (having been evacuated out of Vale by the Wise One before it got destroyed), but can't resist chiding Garet for the brief moment he's unaware of the good news. The Lost Age ends as everyone celebrates the survival of the townspeople.

=Trivia=
 * In all promotional artwork in which she makes an appearance, Sheba's eye color is green. However, in her in-game facial portrait and her animated battle sprites, her eye color is purple, just like Ivan. This is a straight inconsistency, though opinions may vary on whether Sheba should "officially" be considered having green eyes or purple eyes. On an unrelated note, Sheba has purple eyebrows, just like Ivan.

=Quotes= (Coming soon)

=In fan circles= Sheba is a particularly heavy figure in the fandom both due to her somewhat larger plot influence than your "typical" party member and her mysterious, as-of-now unexplained origins. There are two characters she is typically paired with romantically far more than any other shipping genre: In "Windshipping", she is paired with Ivan, who in spite of the two characters hardly ever interacting with each other, are extremely similar in age, appearance, and abilities. In "Lighthouseshipping", she is paired with Felix, and this ship is popularized based on the ending in the original Golden Sun, where after Sheba falls off a many-story-tall tower to what would have appeared to be certain death, Felix, with an impassioned cry of "SHEBA!!! No! I won't let you die", jumps off the tower after her. The fact Felix is 18-years old while Sheba is only 14, however, have led some to poke this as beginning to veer into "Lolicon" territory.

Speculations
Sheba is intentionally presented as a character with an unexplained past that is only cryptically alluded to. It has indeed spawned numerous debates, oftentimes linking Sheba's origin to a hypothetical third Golden Sun game as a likely relevant plot point. While it is impossible to present an explanation for Sheba's origin that can be guaranteed, there is a hypothesis, based on putting several two-and-twos together, that is popular amongst forums.

NPC gossip and Mind Read-able text in Contigo before and after the episode at Jupiter Lighthouse illustrates the story behind the colossal crater next to Contigo: In Weyard's ancient past, it was the site of the city of the Anemos clan of powerful Jupiter Adepts. After the Anemos supposedly suffered a great disaster (possibly related to the seal placed on Alchemy in that era), they performed the seemingly incredible feat of lifting the city up off the ground and flying it far into the sky. With the floating city's rocky underside now only visible to the people of Weyard below, the city in the sky became known as the Moon. In regards to Sheba's origin, this floating city would be a perfectly convenient locale in the sky in which a human baby could conceivably fall onto the land below, and assuming this is true it would have many implications, such as "Sheba is an Anemos" and "Sheba was born on the Moon".

There may or may not actually be further evidence to suggest the Sheba-Moon hypothesis, which is when the player's party is at Shaman Village attempting to clear away the sand blocking the way to Trial Road. Moapa and the people of Shaman Village are convinced that the only individuals capable of making the sand disappear is a descendant of Yegelos, the ancient hero of the Anemos (modern-day Contigo) and its Jupiter Adepts. Thus they are convinced that Sheba is of this heritage when she uses her Psynergy to clear away the sand. The mechanism they used to determine this, however, appears to be based on a mere Whirlwind spell that any Jupiter Adept could potentially do, meaning the Shamans may be wrong about it being definitive proof of Anemos heritage. If the Psynergy object that generates the giant whirlwind to clear away the sand only responds to the Jupiter Psynergy of an Adept that's specifically of the Anemos bloodline, that would prove Sheba's heritage as such and thus dramatically strengthen the notions of the Sheba-Moon theory. But only if.

One more point about Sheba's origin is that in her actual entrance into the world, the people of Lalivero witnessed her falling out of the sky in the form of "a shooting star" which landed into the ruins just north of the town, with explosive force powerful enough that a massive depression was created in the center of the ruins, yet did not result in any harm or bruising to Sheba at all. Depending on one's point of view, this is either a particularly spectacular form of her ability to survive extreme danger (also demonstrated when she fell off Venus Lighthouse and survived), or indicative of intelligent design on the part of whoever or whatever sent Sheba from above.

Cosma