Garet
 Garet
| |
|---|---|
 | |
| Element | Mars |
| Hometown | Vale |
| Age | 17 (GS, GSTLA), 47 (GSDD) |
| Relatives | Kay (older sister) Aaron (younger brother) The Mayor of Vale (grandfather) A grandmother (unnamed) A father (unnamed) A mother (unnamed) A wife (unnamed) Tyrell (son) |
| Hair color | Red |
| Eye color | Auburn |
| Battle style | Warrior |
| Weapons | Long Sword Light Blade Axe Mace |
| Body armor | Clothing Armor |
| Arm/Hand armor | Gloves Shield |
| Head armor | Hat/Crown/Mask Helm |
| Japanese name | Gerald (ジェラルド Jerarudo) |
Garet (ジェラルド Gerald) is a Mars Adept and a playable character in Golden Sun and Golden Sun: The Lost Age. As part of Isaac's party from the start, he is used in virtually every battle in the original game, and he becomes usable late in the second game alongside the rest of Isaac's party. Garet appears as a prominent NPC thirty years later in the prologue portion of Golden Sun: Dark Dawn. While he usually is not the cause of significant decisions and follows the leadership of his close friend Isaac, he is fairly often played as a comedic foil.
Garet is a young resident of the village of Vale who becomes burdened with the same grave responsibilities as Isaac when they witness a group of antagonists setting out to break the seal on Alchemy at the world's potential expense. The godlike Wise One tasks them with retrieving the Elemental Stars before the group harboring Garet's former childhood friend, Felix, can use them to light the Elemental Lighthouses, and Garet leaves his decisions to Isaac and supports him consistently throughout the entirety of his quest. Within the thirty years between The Lost Age and Dark Dawn, he becomes the father of Tyrell and is complicit with Isaac's plans to send Tyrell and Matthew's group of young Adepts across Angara on a quest intended to hone their abilities.
As a playable character
Garet is featured in Golden Sun as one of the four party members used throughout the game to conduct all of the game's battles with spiritual powers called Psynergy. He is the resident Mars Adept of the four Adepts, thus granting him the ability to use a variety of Mars-aligned Psynergy in his default Guard class series. Depending on the number and differing elements of Djinn that can be set onto him, he can be customized to use Psynergy of other elements alongside Psynergy matching his own. Garet is commanded as a party member alongside Isaac through virtually every single battle in the original game, including the prologue sequence where he and Isaac are briefly controllable as their younger and weaker selves. In this stage, the two are in extremely weak unnamed classes that do not yet have access to usable Psynergy and are outfitted with the most basic gear possible, including a Machete that cannot be removed.
When the main thrust of the game's story and the party's playable role in it begins in Vale, Garet will be holding a Short Sword, Padded Gloves, and Cotton Shirt, and his limited pool of Psynergy will include the Move utility Psynergy; this lets the player remotely move an object in any one of the four compass directions. Though Isaac also inherently knows Move regardless of his current class, its availability to Garet allows the player to alternatively use Garet's PP meter on the many occasions where Move will be necessary.
Garet is structured as a "warrior-style Adept" in that he can equip heavier gear and more offense-oriented weapons like Long Swords and Axes, and the Psynergy collection that will form under his default Guard class series will include the Heat Wave and Liquefier single-target techniques that derive from the user's attack statistic. Statistically, before class modifiers are factored in, Garet has better potential HP and Defense stats than Isaac but lower potential PP and Attack stats, as well as a significantly lower Agility stat. This lopsided stat distribution is accentuated by that of the Guard class series itself, which will result in him being distinctly durable but having very low Agility. His agility and damage shortcomings can be mitigated fairly easily by exchanging Venus and Mars Djinn between himself and Isaac so that both are in the Brute class series.
Up until the last quarter of Golden Sun: The Lost Age, the player controls an entirely separate party led by Felix, and Isaac and his own party will only be added as party members at the point in the game's story that the save data screen will refer to in retrospect as the "Reunion." After that point, the player may freely assemble any four of the eight total party members as their four "active" combatants outside of battle, and the other four populating the "reserve" spaces can be ordered to swap into the active roster during battle one-at-a-time using the Switch function.
By default, Garet and the other three party members will all join at Level 28, each with five out of seven of the original game's 28 Djinn. Garet will be equipped with a Great Axe, a Knight's Shield, a Knight's Helm, and a Steel Armor similarly to Isaac if the Password function is not used to determine the exact inventory and levels of development of the original game's party. Using either a Gold Password or a Game Link Cable will make all inventory items and statistics associated with Isaac's party match what they were at the end of first game.
Classes and Statistics
In his appearance in The Lost Age, Garet sports the highest natural HP and Defense ratings of all eight party members, but he bears the lowest relative PP and Agility values as well. Garet also matches Felix's 2 innate luck points, which are lower than any other Adept's luck value in the game. His natural Attack stat is middling as well, which may confuse some players who initially perceive him to adhere more to a "big and strong but slow" archetype. Each of Garet's relative statistical strengths and weaknesses are particularly accentuated when compared to Jenna, the other Mars Adept of the game, who sports much less HP and Defense but much more PP, Agility, and base Luck.
Garet, as the bearer of the distinction of being the Mars Adept who is presented as a warrior, features exclusive access to the Guard class series, whereas the caster-oriented Jenna bears a different Mars-centric class series. Otherwise, both Mars Adepts have access to the same sets of mixed class series that come about when Djinn of differing elements are Set onto them. Thus, Garet ultimately has access to the following class series based on how many of what elements of Djinn he keeps Set onto himself (with series listed as "Partial" being series Garet cannot advance to the highest class stages of):
- Mono-Elemental:
Guard - Dual-Elemental:
Brute, 
Page, 
Swordsman (Mars)
- (Partial) Pilgrim (Jupiter), Pilgrim (Mercury)
- (Partial)
- Tri-Elemental: Dragoon, Ninja, Samurai
- (Partial) Ranger
- (Partial)
In Golden Sun: Dark Dawn
During the Tanglewood and Abandoned Mine segment of the earliest sequences in Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, the adult version of Garet appears as a computer-controlled "guest" character along with Isaac, both of which provide immense supportive manpower to the traditionally controllable Matthew and Karis. Other than it being apparent from his model during battles that Garet is equipped with a Great Axe, Garet's statistics screen will not be viewable. They will be part of the party until the Abandoned Mine is completed.
During this "tutorial" segment of the game, Garet and Isaac are effectively indestructible and will annihilate any monster in one attack on the occasion that they decide to make a move for the turn. Garet may also unleash any of three Mars Djinn Set onto him: Flash, which reduces all damage the party takes by 90% for the turn; Corona, which heavily increases the party's defenses; and Kindle, which heavily increases the party's attack stats. Garet is also given to using summons like Tiamat and Meteor on the party's behalf if the amount of Djinn put On Standby between the adults and the children becomes high enough. However, the boss battle with the Tangle Bloom (which is impossible to lose because of Garet and Isaac's involvement) is scripted so that even if Garet and Isaac pile on way more damage on it than its maximum HP meter can sustain, only a strike from Matthew or Karis will finish it off.
Appearance and Personality
Garet is an especially tall and sturdily proportioned yound man who eats a lot, but his muscles show that he is not the least bit inclined toward laziness or inaction. Perhaps his most visually apparent physical trait is his outstandingly elevated spiky hair, which in most official materials is an auburn red that matches his eye color. However, his in-game portrait and battle sprites in the Game Boy Advance games give his hair a decidedly bold red color that does not seem to entirely match this depiction. As an adult thirty years later, his hair color in-game is much closer to the "official" auburn color, but while it is upright and spiky as always, it is cut much shorter relative to Garet's cranium.
As his teenaged self, Garet is an impulsive, loud, impatient, and gung-ho personality who is slightly challenged at keeping focus during situations that demand an eye for subtlety and reading the atmosphere. He exhibits a bluntness and an occasional talent for pointing out the uncomfortable truth, and he does not restrain himself on this even in the presence of individuals who are far above his station; while some find this refreshing, others can be rubbed the wrong way. He is competitive and would willingly fight in a dangerous tournament for warriors were he offered the chance. He also tries to see silver linings in situations that appear thoroughly terrible for himself and his friends.
Garet is saddled with a clumsiness that sometimes makes him out as a source of comedic relief. However, Garet exhibits a strong sense of justice that translates into willing loyalty and self-risking protectiveness toward his companions as well as approval and encouragement toward good-natured strangers. This perspective may have been tempered by his willing decision to spend years training hard in Psynergy following his inability to help his friends save their loved ones from a terrible natural disaster. Likewise, he wears his contempt for dishonorable and villainous individuals on his sleeve, and he needs some prodding at times to accept that someone claiming to need help might need it even if they do not approach Garet directly for it. When immense responsibilities would be laid upon him personally, however, he is ultimately inclined to leave his decisions to those who have proven greater leadership skills than himself.
Though Garet treasures his family greatly, he seems to view one's biological relation to whomever they consider their family to be incidental. During a somber moment that his eventual companion Sheba relates regarding her inability to find clues about her parentage during their journey, Garet opines that he wouldn't have been bothered personally in her position because she had loving guardian figures to look after her. Garet is able to put any concerned thoughts about his family at home away from his mind throughout his quest until a point where his family suddenly would be exposed to great danger because of where they live; at that point, he confesses he did not expect to suddenly be thinking about them so much.
As an adult who has aged thirty years following his own quest, he has become considerably more mellowed out and has worked out his issues with brashness and clumsiness. He has essentially traded his bluntness for sentimentality and a slight degree of overprotectiveness toward his son Tyrell and the other children of the Warriors of Vale, Matthew and Karis. Garet is frustrated with Tyrell's immature behavior even as he is inclined to shelter Tyrell from the consequences of such, but when Tyrell sets back Garet and Isaac's work rather critically, Garet is willing to take a more firm stance with him and follow along with Isaac's orders to the young Adepts to go on an expeditionary quest to hone their abilities as warriors while making up for the damage. Garet sometimes banters with Isaac and is rubbed the wrong way by the latter's occasional habit of being indirect at times and bossy with him at others.
History
Garet was born and raised as the second of three grandchildren of the Mayor of Vale, a village whose customs called for societal stewardship of the prominent Mt. Aleph. As Vale was located near the mountain and its great secrets regarding Psynergy, Garet had inherited the Psynergy powers of an Adept like everyone else in the village, such as his childhood friends Isaac, Jenna, and her brother Felix. Garet had established a reputation as somewhat of an oaf whose inelegant composure earned him the beratings of people like his elder sister Kay even as he was shown trust and affection by others like his younger brother Aaron and Jenna's mother, whose cookies he regularly enjoyed. Like most others in the village, Garet had never left to explore the world beyond, and as such he was unaware of so much as what an ocean is.
In Golden Sun
The Mt. Aleph Boulder incident
When he was fourteen years old, Garet bore witness to a terrible disaster that shattered the lives of his friends. When a freak and unusually concentrated thunderstorm manifested around Mt. Aleph one night, a giant boulder situated somewhere on the mountain was dislodged and bore down on the hapless village. At first, Garet was preoccupied with hauling a chest of his valuables to safety, but he quickly came around to Isaac's way of thinking that he should prioritize his own life and head to the safety of the plaza. The two boys used their machetes to successfully defend themselves from the wild monsters from the nearby cave that were also running amok because of a rockslide. Felix was soon found hanging for his life in the rushing waters near his and Jenna's house; on the instruction of Isaac's mother Dora, Garet accompanied Isaac and Jenna to the plaza to fetch an adult who had the Psynergy reserves to save Felix.
Alas, the boulder could not be held back by the other adults long enough for Felix to be rescued, and it did not discriminate as it plunged through the village and destroyed Jenna's house; Felix, both his and Jenna's parents, and Isaac's father Kyle seemingly perished within the waters rushing out of Vale. Isaac wandered away from the scene in a daze, and Garet — though quivering like everyone else — was able to quickly rationalize that he needed to stand strong together with Isaac like men would. Garet's call for Isaac to wait up, however, drew the attention of two strangers who were about to make their escape from the village; the menacing foreign warriors immediately knocked the two boys senseless with powerful Mars Psynergy so as to forcibly remove their memories of the encounter.
Though Garet had not been among those of Vale who lost a loved one in the Mt. Aleph Boulder disaster, he was deeply affected by the personal losses of his friends. Despite weeks of searching, the four victims' bodies were never discovered, but they were presumed dead. Garet and Isaac shared a conviction that things would be different had they possessed the strength of Psynergy demonstrated by the adults of the village, so they proceeded to spend the next three years intensively studying the craft of Psynergy manipulation. The scholar Kraden became Garet, Isaac, and Jenna's instructor in Psynergy theory, though Garet would have some difficulty retaining Kraden's lectures about Psynergy's relationship to the lost art of Alchemy.
Sol Sanctum
Three years after the accident, Garet has become a robust young man who has developed his Psynergy powers as a Mars Adept, though his lack of awareness of both his surroundings and others' feelings still gets the better of him fairly regularly. On the day that he and his friends are set to embark on an educational expedition into Mt. Aleph's sacred shrine Sol Sanctum, for example, he accidentally pokes a hole in Isaac's roof with his leg while climbing up to greet Isaac and Dora for the day, and his apologetic efforts to get out of Dora's way only leads to him poking another hole. He also draws the ire of Kay when the training stone he uses to practice his kinetic Psynergy incidentally crushes her flower garden.
Though Jenna appreciates the sense of concern Garet is putting on seemingly on her behalf while he trains, she comments that she would rather everyone forget what happened that fateful day, like she herself has resolved to do. When Garet blurts out what has remained on his mind since then — that he and Isaac had wandered off to get help, only for the two to later be found unconscious under perplexing circumstances — he is briefly put on the spot when he realizes that Jenna was trying to change the subject to Kraden at that moment and wonders if he offended her.
On his group's way to Kraden's cottage, Garet hears that a group of visitors in town have not been showing the customary gesture of politeness that is introducing one's self to the mayor, his grandfather, and have instead been sneaking about. When Garet and his friends encounter two of them — whom Garet and Isaac fail to recognize as the ones who assaulted them years earlier — he accuses the duo of this behavior, which leads to some brief antagonism. The two warriors, however, let them proceed to Kraden's without further incident.
Kraden tells his pupils of how the duo, named Saturos and Menardi, spoke as if they had entered Sol Sanctum previously, which leads Garet to hastily propose that the villagers and elders be warned that the strangers might be thieves planning to rob the sanctum. However, he quickly agrees with Kraden's rather bold proposal that they secretly enter Sol Sanctum themselves and see whether Saturos had indeed been in there, which they would need to be able to make that claim about the outsiders to the elders and Garet's family. Garet agrees with the others that Isaac should be the group's leader, though he is put down when he is bluntly told by Jenna that his lack of caution would hinder the group if he were to be the leader instead. Kraden and the three young Adepts successfully sneak past the watchful eyes of Vale's elders and enter Sol Sanctum; though they soon find the evidence they need against Saturos, Kraden convinces Garet and the others to look deeper into the secrets of Sol Sanctum first.
Garet's group makes the amazing discovery that Sol Sanctum contains a hidden chamber housing the Elemental Stars, which contain the purified essences of each of the four elements that make up all matter. Garet is briefly unnerved by Kraden's implications regarding what the stones could be capable of in theory, but he and Isaac soon carry out Kraden's request to navigate the chamber and collect the Stars for him to study. But suddenly, Saturos and Menardi intrude upon the chamber and take Jenna and Kraden hostage, and they demand that the Elemental Stars be handed over. To guarantee that he will let Jenna live if his terms are met, Saturos reveals a companion who turns out to be none other than Felix, to everyone's utter shock; it is revealed that Felix had been saved by the two Mars Adepts that night and has since thrown his lot in with their efforts and goals.
Successfully convinced that Felix would never allow Jenna to be harmed under his watch, Garet moves to deliver three of the Stars to Saturos — and will go so far as to shove Isaac aside and take them forcibly if Isaac still refuses to comply with the demands. The fourth and final member of Saturos' group, Alex, suddenly materializes in front of Garet to receive the Stars from him. As if holding out for the smallest sliver of leniency, Garet tries to capitalize on his enemies' brief failure to specify that the three Elemental Stars Isaac had collected up to this point were not the full scope of their demands — so when they clarify they want the fourth and final Star as well, Garet briefly pipes up about their promise to set Jenna free. Since Jenna currently remains at her captors' mercy, however, Garet has no choice but to submit and head toward the Mars Star with Isaac to retrieve it as well.
As soon as the Mars Star is removed from its pedestal, the entire chamber quakes and begins to fill with lava as Mt. Aleph starts to spontaneously erupt. Garet and Isaac are trapped on an island and can only watch as the giant entity Vale's citizens have long portrayed as the god protecting them, the Wise One, materializes and takes stock of everyone. Garet and Isaac watch as the villains are forced to flee the chamber with Jenna and Kraden as their captives, reasoning that if the two boys survive, they will pursue Saturos and bring the Mars Star in exchange for her safety. The Wise One turns to the boys and explains that the four Stars could well be used to activate four ancient "lighthouses" situated across the world so that the long-dormant power of Alchemy will be brought back to the peoples of the world — but he portrays Alchemy as a power that is too dangerous to be allowed to proliferate and be abused. The Wise One saves Garet and Isaac from the erupting chamber by teleporting them outside the sanctum.
Upon returning to Vale, Garet and Isaac are sternly escorted into the sanctum by the mayor so that they may explain everything that had transpired within Sol Sanctum's inner reaches. The village's Great Healer receives telepathic messages from the Wise One judging that Garet and Isaac each share responsibility for what happened and what that might portend for the world, so each of the two boys is ordered to make his own decision regarding whether to take the fate of the entire world in his hands. Garet quickly leaves his share of the decision to Isaac, so when Isaac takes up the incredible responsibility, Garet flinches; his grandfather sternly tells him that there shall be no further discussion regarding Garet's position in all this. Isaac is given very little guidance as to how he should begin his and Garet's quest, however, but the two boys take the mayor up on his proposal that they stay with their families for one night before departing. The next morning, Vale's people and Garet's family see Garet and Isaac off on their perilous undertaking with a mixture of optimism and concern.
Journey with Isaac
Garet accompanies Isaac on the latter's quest across the expansive world of Weyard as a stalwart companion who rarely takes the initiative in making substantial decisions. As such, he is present for virtually every decision of leadership that Isaac makes as the two pursue Saturos and Felix's band of Adepts both to stop their efforts to break Alchemy's seal and to rescue Jenna and Kraden from their captivity. On many occasions, he provides the manpower needed to overcome various obstacles posed by wild monsters and geographical troubles unleashed by the eruption of Mt. Aleph and the scattering of Psynergy Stones across the world.
On many other occasions, he provides a source of perspective that is decidedly gung-ho and impulsive, often contrasting with the more reserved stances of two allies Isaac quickly bands with in his quest: the Jupiter Adept Ivan and the Mercury Adept Mia. His headstrong nature sometimes makes him out to be a comedic foil, but he proclaims early on that he trusts Isaac's sense of duty — hence why he follows Isaac's decisions whenever the latter temporarily deviates from the party's course to help others in need, even when Garet might personally have been more focused on catching up to their enemies. On one occasion, after Isaac elects to temporarily backtrack to help rescue one injured civilian, Garet attempts to take credit for the suggestion, only for him to appear foolish when his friends point out that he had wanted to resume the party's core objective instead.
Garet, as part of Isaac's elementally diverse group of budding warrior Adepts, enters and scales Mercury Lighthouse in an effort to stop Saturos and Felix from permanently lighting the Mercury Beacon with the Mercury Star, but they fail in this regard because of Alex's involvement. Garet is the one to confirm for Saturos' side that Isaac intends not only to save Jenna and Kraden but also to stop Saturos' plans for the Elemental Stars, leading Saturos to step forward and engage the Adepts in a one-on-four battle so as to forcibly relieve the Mars Star from Isaac and remove his party as an obstacle. Through a mixture of Mercury Lighthouse's environment being unfavorable to Saturos' powers and the surprising degree of aptitude in combat that Garet and the others have developed in a short time, Saturos falters in battle and is forced to flee with the others. Garet and his companions resolve to stop Saturos and save Jenna at the next Lighthouse.
Garet pulls his weight alongside each of his three boon companions as Isaac's company follows Saturos' tracks clockwise across the continent of Angara. At times, he accidentally causes more trouble for his party than necessary; for example, while traversing a mine shaft that a landslide at a particular crossing for a trade route forces them to take a detour through, if the party reaches a dead end without Isaac having acquired a forceful Psynergy technique that would have helped him proceed, Garet will be the one to strike a sensitive support beam out of frustration. As such, it will have been on his account that Isaac must run for his life from a giant, rolling boulder. When Isaac's party later learns from the oracle Hama that it was Saturos and Felix who had caused the landslide, Garet instinctively labels Felix a coward — but is then perplexed that Hama would instead describe Felix as bearing a terrible burden in his position through all this.
Garet seems to become more willing to go along with Isaac's penchant for taking detours as the pursuit across Angara proceeds, for he is the first to stress to his party that they should consider diverging from their course to rescue Ivan's father figure, Master Hammet, from the stronghold of a wicked den of thieves. Garet seems to only consistently adhere to this perspective when it is visually apparent that the person in question is in as much need as they claim; when an immobilized and unwillingly invisible Lord Babi requests that the Adepts fetch some medicine at the bottom of Altmiller Cave for him, Garet does not see at first why they should, reasoning that he does not "trust anyone who's afraid to show himself". It is only after Ivan and Mia press him on how it would only be natural to want to help someone in trouble that Garet relents in frustration.
When Babi scouts Isaac's party as Adepts who can fulfill his unique needs, he enters Isaac in his tournament of warriors currently being held at his kingdom of Tolbi, Colosso, to observe Isaac's skills and abilities at work. Garet is also interested in taking part as a means of passing the time, and he is disappointed when only Isaac is allowed to participate. Isaac puts in a brilliant performance against imposing and fearsome gladiators, but the sheer exertion of the effort puts Isaac in a deep sleep that apparently lasts quite a while; when Isaac finally wakes up, Garet snaps at him for having made the others wait so long and has to apologize for shouting.
Garet defers to Isaac's judgment for the remainder of the company's quest, which sees to Isaac agreeing to take up a quest on Babi's behalf to discover the mythical society of Lemuria far out in the ocean. Despite potential questions that may arise regarding helping a monarch with imperialistic tendencies attain immortality, the company understands that they will not be able to move toward Venus Lighthouse and thwart their own enemies' plans otherwise. Isaac proceeds southeast through the continent of Gondowan, weathering such obstacles as a blustery desert and passing through settlements such as Lalivero — where it is discovered that Saturos and Felix's band has also taken a third hostage, the Laliveran citizen Sheba. Isaac's party resolves to climb Venus Lighthouse and defeat Felix's group before the Venus Beacon can be lit and the captives can be thrust into further peril.
Garet and Isaac's party reaches the aerie of Venus Lighthouse just in time to watch as Felix antagonizes his superiors over their decision to involve Sheba in their quest. Even after Saturos and Menardi tell Felix that Sheba is, in fact, a Jupiter Adept who would be vital for their upcoming objective to light Jupiter Lighthouse, Felix insists on bringing her to safety; on Garet's urging, Isaac moves to capitalize on the fallout and initiate a standoff with the Mars Adepts. Saturos quickly reveals that his side also seeks the rod currently in Ivan's possession because it is also needed to enter Jupiter Lighthouse, and he offers a deal not to hurt Sheba in exchange for it; Garet is surprised by Ivan's willingness to hand it over because Hammet entrusted it to him as an important keepsake, but he defers to Ivan's judgment. But then, Saturos shocks everyone when he clarifies that he had never actually said he would be letting her go, and Garet groundlessly accuses him of altering the bargain.
Saturos and Menardi announce the Adepts' imminent destruction, and Garet responds to their proclamation in kind as a brutal fight ensues. However, Garet and each of his three companions have become powerful enough as warriors by this point that they manage to bring both of their more experienced opponents to their knees. They are all subsequently taken aback when Felix affirms his personal intent to see Saturos' objective through to its end even if Saturos himself would no longer be in his life, leading Garet to work out that Felix is a willing enemy of theirs. At that moment, Saturos spontaneously tosses the Venus Star into the opening atop the aerie, much to the Adepts' horror. As the Venus Beacon starts materializing, the outflow of energy recharges Saturos and Menardi, who pull out a trump card and merge their bodies to form a massive two-headed dragon. Garet and Isaac's party is thrust into an immensely harrowing battle contending with the beast's overwhelming power, but in the most astonishing demonstration of their accrued ability yet, Garet's side slays the beast and witnesses the deaths of the Mars Adepts.
Garet tries to rally his disheartened friends around the notion that they decisively won against the instigators of the plot to light all four Lighthouses even though Venus Lighthouse itself could not be saved, but everyone is reminded that Felix still means to light the remaining two and take Sheba with him. When asked by Garet, though, Felix refuses to elaborate on the specifics of what would happen if all four towers are not activated. An earthquake is suddenly set off by Venus Lighthouse itself at that moment, and Garet's side watches in astonishment as Sheba falls off the structure and Felix willfully dives after her. Garet briefly curses Felix's perceived idiocy before agreeing with his companions that they should search for Jenna outside the lighthouse and tell her of her brother's apparent death.
Jenna and Kraden are never found, despite a lengthy search, but it is surprisingly reported by Lalivero's townspeople that both Felix and Sheba were witnessed falling safely into the ocean and climbing onto a buoyant piece of land that subsequently floated out into the sea. With the party having decided that they must search for Felix, Jenna, Sheba, and Kraden abroad, Garet is eager to take Babi's Lemurian Ship out into the ocean that Kraden wanted him to see, and he has to be reminded that the party also must honor their promise to Babi to use that ship to discover Lemuria on his behalf. The party sets out on their voyage in hopes that they can prevent Felix from lighting Jupiter and exposing the world to what they perceive to be unwarranted danger.
In Golden Sun: The Lost Age
Jupiter Lighthouse
Garet and Isaac's party searches the entirety of Weyard's Eastern Sea for Felix, whom they learn from the hearsay of the locals in various villages is sailing the sea in a Lemurian Ship just like their own. Neither Isaac nor Felix's separately developing parties of Adepts come across each other by chance throughout the sea, despite Isaac's best efforts to locate them and despite the fact that the passage into the Western Sea where Jupiter Lighthouse lies is currently blocked off by natural obstacles. The party presumably locates the area of the Eastern Sea that contains Lemuria and makes an effort to sail into treacherous crag-filled and mist-covered waters, but they are ultimately unequipped to make the journey. There eventually comes a point where Lord Babi passes away because what he needed from Lemuria could not be retrieved in time; the perspective that Isaac and Garet's party may have on this is not recorded.
Shortly after Felix's party bores its way past the natural obstacles between continents and enters the Western Sea, Isaac's party takes the same open route and heads straight toward Atteka, the island continent wherein Jupiter Lighthouse stands. They rush into the tower in a desperate effort to head off Felix before the Jupiter Beacon can be lit, but all of a sudden, Mia gets caught in a trap and nearly falls off the tower's exterior. Garet, without thinking, lets himself fall in after her in an effort to rescue her, but he unfortunately exacerbates the situation by injuring his left arm, and he is left only being able to use his right arm to hang onto the ledge Mia landed on. Mia does not possess the strength to pull him up, and she tells him that he should not have tried to save her, but Garet tells her not blame herself for his decision.
Before Isaac and Ivan can work out a way to get to Garet and Mia's ledge, they are accosted by the duo of strangers responsible for setting the trap: Karst and Agatio, who are Mars Adept warriors out to take vengeance on behalf of their fallen comrades Saturos and Menardi while fulfilling their original goal to light the four Lighthouses, which their distant hometown of Prox is revealed to depend on for its own survival. As Garet continues to hang helplessly near Mia, the Mars Adepts promptly defeat Isaac and Ivan in battle and leave them lying on the ground. But before Karst can finish Isaac off, her hand is stayed by the most unlikely third party imaginable: Felix, whose party has diverged from their goal of lighting Jupiter to save their once-childhood friends from death. Felix had previously crossed paths with Karst and agreed to let her pursue her vendetta against Isaac, but he now forces her to spare Isaac and his group's lives in exchange for him taking the Mars Star from Isaac and going to the lighthouse's aerie to light the Jupiter Beacon. Jenna, Sheba, and Kraden stay behind with Isaac's party to help Garet as Felix and his recent companion Piers head to the aerie.
As Garet is being tended to, Jenna and Sheba head back up to check up on Felix. Once Isaac and his party recuperate, they follow Felix up to the aerie and discover that Felix's party has just concluded a brutal fight with Karst and Agatio, who have just fled Jupiter Lighthouse with the stolen Mars Star in their possession. In the scenario in which Felix's party lost but Karst could not enact her desire to kill Felix for his treachery because they had to avoid Isaac's incoming party, Garet curses Karst's side for what they did to Jenna and tells Mia not to let any of them die — going out of his way to reason, in Felix's case, that Felix has a lot to answer for first. Mia successfully restores Felix's party back to health. In any case, the two parties of Adepts briefly and tensely engage each other about Felix's actions before they mutually agree that they can negotiate with each other in a more composed environment in the nearby settlement of Contigo.
In Contigo, Garet's party learns several shocking truths that put the entirety of their own quest and that of their opponents in a drastic new light. It is revealed to Isaac's side that when Saturos and Menardi raided Sol Sanctum years ago and caused the storm, none of the boulder's presumed victims had actually died; Felix and Jenna's parents, as well as Kyle, were all rescued from drowning by Saturos and brought to Prox, where they have lived all these years. Prox had coerced Felix into helping Saturos' goals by disallowing his parents from returning to their home village. While Felix had been laboring to win his parents' freedom initially, his side has since discovered at Lemuria that the entire world is on track to wither and collapse into nothingness unless the four Lighthouses are lit and elemental energy is allowed to flow through Weyard once again. As dangerous as returning Alchemy's powers to the world's peoples might be, disallowing its return would only keep the world on its current course toward eventual oblivion.
Garet is approving of Felix's decision to help Saturos in retrospect because of how the quest Isaac undertook to thwart that would have inadvertently doomed the world in its own right. But Garet and Isaac are briefly put on the spot when Kraden points out why Felix had not approached Isaac earlier with this discovery: Isaac and Garet had been clinging onto their adherence to the sacred teachings of Vale up until this point. Hama, the oracle Isaac's party met earlier, then arrives and notifies the Adepts that Karst and Agatio will not be able to successfully light Mars Lighthouse with the Mars Star because of a powerful external will that intends to see the beacon remain dormant, so Isaac, Garet, Ivan, and Mia willingly pool their forces with Felix, Jenna, Sheba, Piers, and Kraden to help Felix see his own quest through to its end. Garet admits to being glad that Felix will not have to get beaten up after all.
Mars Lighthouse
Using Piers' Lemurian Ship for the remainder of their journey, the expanded party of Adepts that includes Garet heads into the Northern Reaches and proceeds through Prox, which had only seen taking hostages as an unfortunate necessity. Prox had originally sent emissaries to Vale to tell them of what was ailing Weyard, but Vale's elders stubbornly refused to listen and drove them away. Prox had intended for the parents to be released once Felix returned, but Felix and Isaac make the distressing discovery that all three parents mysteriously left Prox for the lighthouse up north. The party explores Mars Lighthouse on this troubling note, and during their exploration, they successfully retrieve the Mars Star from what remains of Karst and Agatio.
At the aerie of Mars Lighthouse, to the Adepts' great surprise, they are prevented from casting the Mars Star into the lighthouse's well by the Wise One — the very being that originally sent Isaac and Garet on their quest to prevent precisely this from happening. The Wise One labels the two "betrayers" for disobeying his command after he had saved their lives, and he asks why they did so; Garet's allies respond by reciting everything they learned about the world's impending fate should the last lighthouse remain dormant. Despite the party's vows that they can police the world and prevent Alchemy from being used for evil, the Wise One shares a terrible revelation that seems to confirm how such a thing is not feasible: Alex is set to claim tremendous power for himself at Mt. Aleph, the location where a burst of energy named the Golden Sun will transpire as the final lighthouse is lit and elemental energy returns to the world. Garet is enraged that Alex has used everyone involved in the effort for his own self-serving interests.
Since the world itself will not survive without the final beacon and the Golden Sun, Garet quickly rationalizes that he will have to bear doing exactly what Alex wants and tells Felix that he is all clear for lighting the beacon. But the Wise One forces the party to fight through a giant three-headed dragon for that right, and Garet and his seven companions thrust themselves into their final battle for their future — ignoring Kraden's sudden pleas not to kill it. Once the Adepts weather the beast's immense power and strike it down, the beast transforms back into the forms of three dying bodies, and a horrifying discovery is made regarding them: The Adepts were duped into slaying an amalgam of the very parents they were hoping to reunite with. Garet is the first to excoriate the Wise One as a monster for making them destroy Jenna's parents.
However, Isaac reveals that he had already guessed what it was that the Wise One had set before them but had judged that the world's well-being was ultimately the more important objective. His companions generally agree with him that their parents would understand that they defied the Wise One to save the world, and so Felix casts the Mars Star into the well. As the Mars Beacon forms, Garet muses that many lives had been both lost and inexorably changed just so that this would be possible. But then, an effect transpiring at each of the Elemental Lighthouses that allows people near them to telepathically communicate allows Hama to remotely notify the Adepts that the Wise One is spreading the message to people based near each lighthouse to move far away from the imminent danger. Garet is incredulous about this because of what the Wise One did to his friends, and he is all the more so when Hama appraises the Wise One as having a "caring heart." Before the Adepts can get away from Mars Lighthouse, however, the structure begins the process in which its beacon forms the Golden Sun above Mt. Aleph, and no one is able to avoid being bathed in energy flooding the aerie.
Miraculously, this wave of Psynergy-based energy passes through everyone and incidentally enters the bodies of each of the three parents, staving off their deaths and allowing the party to transport them out of the structure and back to Prox. Once the parents are nursed to health, Prox's leadership thanks the Adepts for saving their village and the world — but they share the Adepts' concern that Vale itself may not have been safe from the Golden Sun's burst of energy. Garet admits to being highly preoccupied with the health of his family back home, but he latches onto Kraden's guess that the Wise One would have warned Vale's citizens away from their village as well. Kraden also suspects that the Wise One had planned from the start for Jenna's parents and Kyle to be revived by the energy at Mars Lighthouse, and he surmises that the entity had actually been testing the Adepts' resolve when he made them fight their parents.
The uneasy optimism Garet and everybody else hold onto is shattered when they finally arrive back at Vale and see that a giant, ruined crater is all that remains of the area around Mt. Aleph; with Vale having been wiped off the face of Weyard, Garet jumps to the conclusion that his entire family has perished, along with Isaac's mother. Felix, fully aware of how his and Garets' fortunes have cruelly reversed, attempts to console Garet and Isaac by relating how he once felt exactly as they do now. A tearful Garet laments that, unlike Felix, whose family is now safe, he is now alone in the world and does not know what to do. When both Sheba and Mia suddenly talk down to him over his sniveling, Garet is briefly appalled — but at that moment, Garet's entire family calls out to him to comment that his journey should have made him more confident by this point. It is revealed that the Wise One had indeed saved all of Vale's citizens by warning them away before the village was destroyed. As everyone celebrates, Garet realizes he is not alone.
In Golden Sun: Dark Dawn
Though Alex is never seen throughout the many years to follow and the eight heroes are left to presume that he had died when Mt. Aleph exploded, that does little to mitigate the troubles that face the world and the Adepts in the long term. The Golden Sun event results in years of destructive geographical upheaval and sociopolitical fallout for the peoples of Weyard, and the world comes to know the eight Adepts very well as the instigators of the chaos. Collectively known as the Warriors of Vale, they are seen in an extremely controversial light, with only some circles acknowledging that they did what they had to do to prevent the world from dying off. Those who see the Warriors only for the harm they have wrought have no shortage of grievances to cite; as nations proceed to militarize against each other, an unusual phenomenon labeled by Isaac as Psynergy Vortexes begin making occasional appearances throughout the world and wreaking havoc, and one particular vortex inflicts pain and destruction on such a scale that it becomes referred to in retrospect as the Mourning Moon.
As the years go by, Isaac and Garet are among the Warriors who see themselves as owing Weyard's denizens answers regarding the nature of these Psynergy-draining spatial distortions and the other aftereffects of the Golden Sun. As the Goma Plateau had been uplifted near Mt. Aleph by the geographical changes, Isaac and Garet decide to construct a "Lookout Cabin" as their home, from which they would study the remains of Mt. Aleph from afar. Each man would father a son roughly fourteen years after the Golden Sun event, in Garet's case with an unknown woman; Garet's son, Tyrell, would be raised in Lookout Cabin alongside Isaac's son, Matthew. As of thirty years after the event, both boys would be aged sixteen, and both adults would remain biologically younger than their actual ages as a result of the energy that entered their bodies in Mars Lighthouse having slowed their rates of aging.
Garet, who has mellowed out with age, becomes annoyed at times with Isaac's habit of invoking the name of the Wise One while praying for guidance as to what they should do to help the world in these turbulent times. He does agree, however, that the remains of Sol Sanctum must be reached to see if the Wise One himself can be contacted. The two have had Ivan develop a valuable invention called a soarwing, a winged harness that would let the adults traverse the uncrossable terrain surrounding Mt. Aleph. Garet likely accompanied Isaac on a prior expedition into the recently designated Morgal region of Angara to retrieve a critical material in its construction, the feather of the local Mountain Roc. Many years after this takes place, Ivan's daughter, Karis, brings the completed invention over to the cabin and will instruct the adults on how to channel their Psynergy into its flight mechanisms.
Unfortunately, Tyrell takes the soarwing for himself and defiantly claims that he will take it out for a ride. Garet, who has been displeased with his son's immature behavior for his age, warns that Tyrell will drop into the Tanglewood forest below because he has not received proper training yet, but Tyrell retorts that he is fed up with people like Garet not having any faith in him. Tyrell ends up trying to fly with it, only to find himself plummeting toward the forest like they had warned, so Isaac instructs him to fly to the Abandoned Mine just past the forest so that they can retrieve him. Garet pressures his son by telling him to fly there without doubting himself, like Tyrell had indicated he would originally, and he reassures Tyrell that he obviously will not leave his son to the wolves. Tyrell musters the nerve and focus to make the trip.
Though everyone is worried about the state of the soarwing itself in all this, Garet tells Karis that she is not to blame for letting Tyrell snatch it. Garet jumps at Isaac's proposal that both Matthew and Karis accompany the adults through the Tanglewood as a means of furthering their children's training with field experience; Garet reasons that the kids would slow them down, but Isaac responds that Tyrell is more capable of fending for himself than Garet gives him credit for. As the children gear up, Isaac and Garet scout the cave at Goma Plateau that connects the cabin to the woods, and Garet continues to relent to Isaac's plans to let the children take the lead — as much as he disapproves of using this incident to put them in danger.
As the four Adepts trek through the cave, the children are annoyed when a natural obstacle that forces them to use their Psynergy to move it aside is revealed to have been set up by Isaac and Garet to test them. As everyone enters the Tanglewood, however, the onset of the night worries the adults because that is sure to make the forest's local monsters much more dangerous; as the adults themselves had never been in the woods at night either, they temporarily lend Matthew and Karis some of their Djinn and take a more direct role in supporting them in battle. When the Tanglewood's twists and turns stop the Adepts in their tracks, Garet helps them move forward by burning the darkened corruption at its vulnerable roots.
When they reach the Abandoned Mine, Garet is equal parts thankful to the fates that Tyrell avoided severe injury and displeased that the soarwing itself has been smashed in the landing. However, they are shocked to discover a large Psynergy Vortex pulsating inside and Tyrell unconscious near it, his personal Psynergy reserves having been sucked out from getting too close to it. The Adepts must contend with a fearsome plant monster growing near the vortex before they can reach Tyrell, and Garet and Isaac promptly funnel some of their own reserves into him to save his life. Garet chews Tyrell out for his casually dismissive attitude about what he had done, and Garet explains that he cannot just shelter Tyrell on this matter this time. The group retrieves what remains of the soarwing and make the trip back to the cabin.
The next day, Garet and Isaac hand down a quest to Tyrell and Matthew that charges them with making a difficult trek east across Angara into the Morgal region, where they can acquire a replacement Roc Feather for the soarwing's repairs. While getting Tyrell straightened out is part of Garet's motivation for allowing this plan, Garet is surprised by the notion of the seemingly untested Karis accompanying the boys as well — but it is implied by Isaac's intention to draw her willingness out into the open that Isaac has been seeking a means to temper the children of the Warriors of Vale as Adepts and warriors regardless of the soarwing matter. Garet defers to Isaac's judgment and approves of Tyrell's willingness to go off on a tough excursion with his friends, and he holds back some slight emotions as he sees his son off with the expectation that it will be a great while before Tyrell comes back better-grown.
Garet is not seen for the rest of Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, and virtually nothing is known about his and Isaac's fates as of the end of the game. As an indirect outcome of the quest that Tyrell and his friends are sent on, much of Angara suddenly becomes encased within an enormous dome of dark energy that brings swarms of dangerous monsters empowered by the darkness out into the open. This phenomenon reaches far enough to the west that it technically would encompass the Lookout Cabin, raising the possibility that Garet and Isaac are forced to fend off the shadowy monsters on their own. Tyrell and Matthew's subsequent efforts to make this phenomenon dissipate are successful, and they eventually return home with a successfully procured Roc Feather. What greets the young Adepts upon their return, however, is a massive Psynergy Vortex that is now pulsating near the cabin, with Isaac and Garet nowhere in sight. (The camera in this scene following the game's credits never makes it a point to show the state of the cabin itself, but Dark Dawn's data files reveal that the cabin has been destroyed; whether this is a point of canon is unknown.)
Trivia
- Near the end of the Altin Peak dungeon in the first Golden Sun, there is a sequence in which the player is supposed to knock aside a wooden support beam and initiate a cutscene in which Isaac sprints for his life from a giant rolling boulder. This is ordinarily triggered by using the Force Psynergy on the beam, but if the player has neglected to collect it from Fuchin Falls Cave (a location that cannot be returned to by backtracking from the Altin and Xian region), the player would be permanently stuck. In this case, once the sign is read, an alternate version of the cutscene will take place in which Garet appears and strikes the beam himself out of frustration over having reached a dead-end after so much effort. As the screen shakes, Garet humorously runs away and tells Isaac to do the same, and after Isaac outruns the rolling boulder as normal, Garet wordlessly rejoins him.
- Shortly after the final boss battle in Golden Sun: The Lost Age, there is a scene where Mars Lighthouse begins bathing its aerie in energy as the Mars Beacon contributes its share of elemental energy to the Golden Sun event. Mysteriously, Garet suddenly exclaims as though some invisible force is dragging him by the wrist for a brief moment, and Isaac exclaims that no one is touching him. This brief scene had perplexed players for many years following the game's release because of both the attention the game arbitrarily devotes to it and the lack of something similar being shown happening to fellow Mars Adept Jenna, which makes it harder to claim that the Mars Beacon was pulling in Mars Adepts like Garet with some sort of magnetic force. Nothing remains known of any potential implication of this detail because it was never followed up upon.
- Garet, as of The Lost Age, is the playable party member with by far the most living family members depicted on-screen in the Golden Sun series; though his son Tyrell would add to this number, none of Garet's previously seen family are seen on-screen in Dark Dawn thirty years after the previous game. In addition to both of Garet's parents and both of his siblings being shown with their own facial portraits, at least two of his grandparents are shown on-screen, with each of them also receiving facial portraits in The Lost Age and one of them having a mayoral position that is fairly significant to the plot. Garet's wife and Tyrell's mother, meanwhile, is also unseen and never mentioned in the released version of Dark Dawn — though in a beta build of the game, Karis is seen saying during her crying scene at Patcher's Place that Tyrell's mother had died when he was young.
- In each game in the Golden Sun series, the main protagonist is silent and is always the character depicted as wordlessly sharing the simple response chosen by the player whenever a prompt for conveying either a yes/no response or an emotion appears. In one brief moment early in Golden Sun, however, the game suddenly and briefly shifts the player's personal perspective from Isaac to Garet while Alex is pressing the latter on fetching the Mars Star for the antagonists; the player is able to provide yes/no responses as Garet, and Garet will even remain silent as Alex reacts to the chosen responses. The player seemingly reassumes Isaac's role as soon as Garet comes back to him. This is the only occasion in the series where the player can give an answer as a character other than the party leader.
- Garet, along with Ivan and Mia, can briefly be directly controlled on the field during the Colosso segment of Golden Sun when assigning party members to cheer at stages of the obstacle courses. While helping Isaac cheat at Colosso, each party member's casting animations can be seen, though none of the three have any special running animations and simply play their walking animations at a higher speed when the player runs amongst the crowds as them.
Quotes
| In Golden Sun |
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| In Golden Sun: The Lost Age |
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| In Golden Sun: Dark Dawn |
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Golden Sun: Dark Dawn's encyclopedia entry for Garet:
- This old friend of Isaac's fought alongside him as a Warrior of Vale in the events leading to the Golden Sun phenomenon.
- He is Tyrell's father and a Fire Adept just like his son. He lives near Mount Aleph, helping Isaac monitor the area.
In fan circles
Garet, as a party member, is popular in the fandom for contributing a distinct personality and some comedy relief to what would otherwise be some fairly dour proceedings. As perhaps the character who gets the most lines throughout the first game, Garet has provided a wealth of material for the series' fan fiction community, which usually plays up his comic impulsiveness and "dumbness" as a contrast to most other characters. Garet is also the main character with the largest family in terms of who is seen on-screen and whom he is able to bounce off of.
During the years in which the Game Boy Advance duology were the only games released, fan fiction explored potential romantic relationships between Garet and either Jenna or Mia; it had been passionately debated whether Garet or Isaac was more likely to get together with Jenna because Garet shows at least as much devotion toward protecting her as a concerned childhood friend. Their matching elemental affinities had also drawn attention, which led to the fan fiction genre being referred to as "Flameshipping." On the other hand, Garet would later show some spontaneous and impressively life-risking devotion to Mia, the prominent female member of his party throughout both games, when he dives after her to try to rescue her from a trap. Fanfiction about this pairing focuses heavily on the sharp contrast between both their personalities and their elemental affinities, the latter of which leads to the genre name "Steamshipping."
As a result of this long-running investment in Garet's potential romantic relationships, some players were disappointed that Dark Dawn revealed that Garet never married one of his established comrades-in-arms — and that the woman he did marry and father a son with is never identified or shown on-screen. Some fiction plays on a humorous suggestion of a same-sex relationship between Garet and Isaac as adults based on how they are almost never seen apart and have lived alone with each other in the same cabin for some time as of Dark Dawn.
| Main characters in the Golden Sun series | |
|---|---|
| Playable Characters | |
| Golden Sun | Isaac Garet Ivan Mia
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| The Lost Age | Felix Jenna Sheba Piers
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| Dark Dawn | Matthew Karis Tyrell Rief Amiti Sveta Eoleo Himi
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| Non-Player Characters | |
| Golden Sun & The Lost Age |
Agatio Alex  Babi Briggs Dodonpa Dora Feizhi Hama Hammet Hydros Karst Kraden Kyle Menardi Moapa Puelle Saturos Susa The Wise One Tret
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| Dark Dawn | Arcanus Baghi  Blados Bogho Chalis High Empyror Hou Zan King Wo Laurel Nowell Paithos Ryu Kou Unan Vande Volechek
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