Charon


 * "The boatsman of the river Styx."

Charon is a Summon sequence of the Venus element first appearing in Golden Sun: The Lost Age. It is the ultimate Venus summon. When eight Venus Djinn and two Jupiter Djinn are on standby, and Charon’s Summon Tablet has been collected, the Charon Summon sequence can be activated. It resembles a cloaked, skeletal entity, emerging from a giant dark seal in the landscape and summoning a mass of black and purple energy to engulf each individual enemy one by one.

Charon has a base Venus power of 500 and also does additional damage equivalent to 30% of the enemy’s maximum HP. In addition, each enemy affected may automatically be KO’ed. Charon, however, is not automatically summonable once one collects the required Djinn. Charon can only be summoned once the Summon Tablet containing the sequence has been found at the beginning of Anemos Sanctum near the end of the game; only with all 72 Djinn collected does the dungeon open up and Charon and Iris become available.

Charon may be seen as along Iris as one of two “ultimate” Summon sequences in the Lost Age. Charon is the game’s strongest Venus-based attack, much stronger than the Judgment and Haures summons. The hefty and lopsided Djinn requirement most often causes players to use Charon mostly in boss fights, rather than in random monster battles, though Charon proves to be one of the best weapons against the supremely powerful and fearsome Dullahan at the end of that same dungeon. But beware; Dullahan can summon Charon as well.

Cultural Allusions
Origin: Greece

Charon in Greek mythology was the ferryman of Hades. He would take the newly dead from one side of Acheron, the River of Death, to the other side, but only if the dead had a coin to pay the fare. However, later confusion over different rivers in Hades led the natures of the Acheron and the Styx, River of Unbreakable Oath, to be muddled and fused, hence the summon's description.

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