Jenna
Jenna | |
---|---|
Element | Mars |
Hometown | Vale |
Age | 17 |
Relatives | Parents Felix (brother) Isaac (husband as of GSDD) Matthew (son) Dora (mother-in-law) Kyle (father-in-law) |
Hair color | Reddish brown |
Eye color | Reddish brown |
Battle style | Mage |
Weapons | Light Blade Staff |
Body armor | Clothing Robe |
Arm/Hand armor | Gloves Bracelet |
Head armor | Hat/Crown/Mask Circlet |
Japanese name | Jasmine (ジャスミン Jasumin) |
French name | Lina |
Spanish name | Nadia |
Jenna is a Mars Adept and a primary playable character in Golden Sun: The Lost Age after appearing as a guest party member in the previous Golden Sun. In the first game's prologue, she is introduced as a resident of Vale and childhood friend of Isaac and Garet who gets emotionally devastated when a terrible incident at the village seemingly claims the life of her older brother, Felix, and both of her parents. At the start of the game's main plot, Saturos' villainous company — whom a very-much-alive Felix has been coerced into cooperating with — steals three of the Elemental Stars and sees fit to take Jenna with them as their captive in hopes that Isaac and Garet will pursue them for her freedom and give them the final Star in exchange.
Though her presence in the first game functionally amounts to a very traditional damsel-in-distress role, Golden Sun: The Lost Age shifts the player's perspective from Isaac's party to Felix's, which immediately reveals to the player that she has become fully willing to fight alongside her brother in his new quest. Her personal stakes in the matter make her highly motivated to see the remainder of Saturos' original quest through to the end — but since this outcome is exactly what Isaac's pursuing party has sworn themselves to prevent, Jenna's standing in the story becomes particularly dramatic.
Jenna is the only Mars Adept in any of the Golden Sun titles whose equipment and statistical set-up position her as a "mage"-style Adept, and her exclusive default class in The Lost Age is the caster-focused Flame User class series. In the thirty years following the conclusion of the game, Jenna eventually becomes Isaac's spouse and has a son with him, Matthew, who becomes the main character and party leader in Golden Sun: Dark Dawn.
As a playable character
Unlike the other party members who will make up Felix's traveling party of four Adepts in the second game, Jenna plays a brief in-game role in the first game as a party member accompanying Isaac and Garet into the first dungeon, Sol Sanctum. Jenna's "Flame User" class seen only in this early prologue segment of this game does not feature any Psynergy beyond the basic Flare Psynergy series, and she will permanently depart the party once the player inspects the glowing portal leading into the Elemental Star Chamber, taking all gear in her inventory with her. Even though this will only be the most basic gear available in the game's prologue, it might still be worthwhile moving every piece of cheap gear and consumable item from her inventory into Isaac and Garet's, since it can be sold for some extra coins.
The prologue of Golden Sun: The Lost Age starts the player off with a "party" consisting of nothing more than Jenna at level 5 and the same basic gear and items as before, and her fully realized Flame User class series gives her the single-target Fume Psynergy series needed to fight her way past basic Ruffian enemies on her way from the exit of Venus Lighthouse and through Suhalla Gate. The player's main quest will properly start at the north end of Indra with her, Felix, and Sheba making up the "real" starting party, and none of them will ever leave the party at any point in the game.
In Golden Sun: The Lost Age, Jenna is strikingly versatile because of her class choices and access to both staffs and light blades. Her exclusive Flame User class series gives her adequate Attack for a class that also grants multiple useful Psynergy series, and light blades can get as powerful as Tisiphone Edge and Masamune by the end of the game, which both have Unleash effects that can deal double or even triple the damage with each proc. The Psynergy granted include the strong yet wide-ranged Beam Psynergy series and the even stronger, single-target Fume Psynergy series already mentioned, making her capable of casting for solid non-physical damage throughout the game.
Once she can set at least four Mars Djinn on herself, her class can graduate to Hex, which adds the restorative Aura Psynergy series to her repertoire; this is essentially a scaled-down version of the immensely useful group-healing Wish Psynergy series, but the HP amounts restored are quite useful throughout the game regardless. On top of all this, the Flame User class series offers a good Agility modifier, letting Jenna pull off either a decent physical strike or a sufficiently strong offensive or restorative spell before most enemies and most other party members. Cool Aura, the final stage of the Aura series, also carries the advantage of being learned at level 33, allowing it to reliably factor into most of the late game of The Lost Age; compared to this, the extremely powerful Pure Wish, which is only available to level 46 Adepts and above, requires endgame-level grinding to get. Cool Aura's 200 base HP restoration value causes every point of Mars Power granted to her by Set Mars Djinn and equipment bonuses, such as from Big Bang Gloves, to add 2 points of healing to the end result.
While there would seem to be little reason to change Jenna out of such a versatile class, her innate Mars alignment allows her to assume physically powerful multi-elemental classes such as the Brute, Ninja, and Samurai series about as effectively as any dedicated "warrior-style Adept."
Classes and statistics
When it comes to innate statistical trends, Jenna is decidedly average in most statistics; she has lower HP, Attack, and Defense values than any of the four "warrior" Adepts in the party, and yet she is better in all these areas than any of the other three "caster" Adepts. Her maximum PP also lies at this midpoint between these two groups. On the other hand, her natural Agility rating at least comes close to Isaac's moderately high value, and her fairly high four starting Luck points ties with Ivan and is only surpassed by Mia and Sheba's five points. When her innate statistics are directly compared to those of the Mars Adept Garet, she has much less HP and Defense, a little less Attack, much more PP and Agility, and two more Luck points. The following classes are available to Jenna:
- Mono-Elemental: Flame User
- Dual-Elemental: Brute, Page, Swordsman (Mars)
- (Partial) Pilgrim (Jupiter), Pilgrim (Mercury)
- Tri-Elemental: Dragoon, Ninja, Samurai
- (Partial) Ranger
Appearance and Personality
Jenna's reddish-brown hair and eye color match portions of the color scheme of her vest and skirt, which are worn over a reddish-pink garment. Draped over her neck is a short, purple cloak. Like several other characters including her brother Felix, Jenna has several locks of hair seemingly defying gravity and standing up from the center of her head. Her long hair is tied up at the back like Mia.
Jenna has an outgoing personality that lends her determination and confidence, befitting an Adept aligned with the Mars element. Though not to the same extent as Garet, she sometimes acts impulsively and gets insulted easily, and she is not given to backing away from fights. A great tragedy in her early teens that seemingly kills her entire family leaves her quite depressed and distant for a time, and her spirits take roughly three years to brighten again. When it is suddenly revealed that her family is alive after all, albeit currently held captive, Jenna willingly puts in great personal efforts to reunite with them.
In a significant aspect of her character that is lost in translation from the Japanese script, she spends the prologue of the first game speaking in a very girly and cutesy manner — but only the first game. By the time The Lost Age begins and Jenna is now a willing member of Felix's traveling party, her manner of speech is far more mature and neutral-sounding. Nonetheless, she addresses her brother in fairly affectionate terms.
History
Jenna was born in the village of Vale at the base of Mt. Aleph in western Angara, and she lived for fourteen years with her older brother Felix, their parents, and their childhood friends Isaac and Garet. She and her family lived in a house built next to a river near the village's prominent waterfall. Everyone's proximity to the Psynergy-related secrets of Sol Sanctum within the mountain itself made Vale a village of Adepts, and Jenna inherited her mother's Mars Psynergy much like how everyone else her age inherited Psynergy of either the Mars or Venus elements.
In Golden Sun
A personal tragedy
Three years before the present-day events of Golden Sun, Jenna's world was shattered when a horrific tragedy befell the village and appeared to claim the lives of literally her entire family. A violent thunderstorm spontaneously struck Mt. Aleph one night, dislodging a gigantic boulder located somewhere on the mountain and sending it hurtling and crashing straight through Vale below. Jenna could only watch when the boulder crashed straight through her house, and her parents, her brother, and Isaac's father disappeared right before her eyes as the boulder traveled over the edge of the next waterfall. Despite efforts by the villagers to search for the victims, they had all completely disappeared and were presumed lost.
Needless to say, the next three years were very trying for Jenna, who was effectively orphaned. Her grandparents and aunt immediately took her in, and she lived with them in their house on the other side of the river where the tragedy took place. Over the years, she would make it a routine to stand idly at the remains of her original residence, which was never torn down. Responding to her grief, Isaac and Garet would partly blame themselves for not having yet possessed an aptitude in Psynergy that might have made a difference and saved the lives of the four victims, so they devoted their time to studying and training in their Psynergy.
By the time she is seventeen at the start of Golden Sun's present, Jenna has managed to regain most of her spirit and now insists to everyone else that they should forget what is now in the past. She has since joined Isaac and Garet in studying the theory behind topics like Psynergy and Alchemy under their mentor, the scholar Kraden.
An unwilling captive
On the day Jenna and her friends' Alchemy studies under Kraden would bring them into Sol Sanctum on an educational venture, mysterious visitors to the village named Saturos and Menardi rouse their suspicions that they had previously entered the normally forbidden sanctum and mean to enter it again so that they can rob it of its treasures. Therefore, the three Adepts and their teacher sneak into the sanctum without the village elders being any the wiser, justifying themselves as merely looking for evidence proving Saturos' claims — but even once they do find the evidence, Kraden's curiosity pushes everyone even further inside. Everyone manages to disarm a trap that would otherwise have wrought a storm upon the mountain. They soon make an astounding discovery: the Elemental Star Chamber at the hidden core of Sol Sanctum, where four jewels called the Elemental Stars, which are understood to contain the purified essence of each element, await on statue-like pedestals. When Kraden asks for the four Stars to be gathered up into his Mythril Bags, Jenna coerces Isaac and Garet into doing the legwork while she and Kraden wait near the entrance portal to the chamber.
Isaac and Garet have only collected three of the four Stars, however, when Saturos and Menardi suddenly intrude upon the chamber and hold Jenna and Kraden hostage, and they demand that Isaac and Garet give them all four of the gems. A young man concealing his face behind a mask then walks in behind the villainous Mars Adepts and promises the two hostages that they will not be hurt, and when Kraden asks for a guarantee of this, the Mars Adepts have the man remove his mask. He does so with great reluctance, and Jenna quivers with utter shock to see that he is her own brother, Felix, back from the dead. The Mars Adepts clarify that they were at the village during the storm three years ago, which they had accidentally set off by running afoul of the aforementioned trap during their previous, failed raid of the sanctum, and they rescued Felix from the river flowing away from the village as they fled Vale. Felix is now in league with the duo. Jenna shrieks that she had thought Felix was dead all these years, but Saturos shuts her down and explains to Kraden and the boys that Felix suffices as a guarantee because he would never allow Saturos and Menardi to bring harm to his own sister.
Isaac and Garet are stunned enough by all this that they willingly hand the Stars to Alex, a fourth member of Saturos' group who enters the chamber at that moment, and they do as instructed and fetch the final Star, the Mars Star, for them. Except, as soon as the last Star is picked up, Mt. Aleph suddenly springs to life as an erupting volcano, and the almighty guardian of Alchemy's seal, a rock-like being referred to by the villagers' folktales as the Wise One, emerges into view and observes everyone in the chamber. Saturos' side realizes that they have no choice but to leave the Mars Star behind with Isaac and Garet and make for safety, but Alex proposes that they take Jenna with them; as he sees it, Isaac and Garet will seek to earn her freedom, and they could theoretically agree to hand over the Mars Star in exchange for her. Felix lashes out at Alex for breaking the promise they agreed to, but Alex gets him to stand down by observing that Jenna will likely die if they don't take her with them right now. Saturos' company leaves Sol Sanctum and Mt. Aleph on this troubled note, with Jenna and Kraden now forced to travel with them.
A change in perspective
Jenna and Kraden are now forced to accompany the Mars Adepts Saturos and Menardi and their conspirators Felix and Alex as they begin a lengthy quest to reach each of the world's four Elemental Lighthouses and cast each corresponding Elemental Star into their tops. This will light the energy beacons atop each Lighthouse, which in turn will release the flow of elemental power throughout Weyard and contribute to the eventual unsealing of the powerful but easily abused force of Alchemy. It is not known for sure how early Jenna finds out the truth from Felix that their parents and Isaac's father have actually been alive and well all these years, rescued along with Felix by the Mars Adepts that fateful night. However, the Mars Adepts' home village of Prox, far in the northwest corner of the world, has been keeping them captive in order to coerce Felix's cooperation with their quest.
Saturos reaches the nearby Mercury Lighthouse quite early on, and he and his allies and hostages reach the aerie of the tower and light the Mercury Beacon without incident. Shortly afterward, everyone looks on in surprise when Isaac and Garet catch up to them at the aerie, now accompanied by other Adepts and allies named Ivan and Mia. Jenna calls out to them from the elevator on the opposite end, where Menardi is keeping a close watch on her, Felix, and Kraden. Menardi and Saturos confirm that Isaac's side have sworn themselves to taking back the elemental stars in addition to rescuing Jenna, meaning the idea of an exchange is out of the question, so Saturos steps forward to try to put the four interlopers to death while ordering Menardi to head to the next Lighthouse with their hostages.
Menardi threateningly invites Jenna to come with her, but she resists her at first. Remarking that she ought to teach Jenna a lesson, Menardi advises Felix to get his sister to obey her before harm befalls Jenna, and both Felix and Kraden help convince Jenna to stand down. If Jenna is already aware of the plight that faces her parents at this point, it could be seen as giving meaning to her seemingly resigned parting words of apology to Isaac and Garet just as the elevator brings her back down and out of the Lighthouse with Menardi. Menardi's detachment of Saturos' company rushes across Angara ahead of Saturos and Alex, who later catch up to them and relay the surprising news that Isaac's party actually beat Saturos with the help of the Mercury Beacon's influence suppressing his Mars-aligned powers.
Jenna's travels with Saturos' party bring them from Angara to Gondowan, where Venus Lighthouse lies. Along the way, Saturos adds yet another hostage to his number, a seemingly uninvolved local girl named Sheba, which intensifies Felix's resentment toward his master. All seven people reach the Lighthouse and surmount its riddles, and Saturos soon orders Felix to lead Jenna and Kraden to the nearby peninsula of Idejima where the Mars Adepts had previously beached their ship. This type of ship can only be operated by Psynergy, and only while the Black Orb for it is fitted into it, which Saturos currently retains on his person.
Felix, however, decides to leave this responsibility to Alex and head back up to the aerie to confront Saturos over Sheba' involvement more forcefully. Jenna expresses concern that Felix could end up fighting with Isaac if they happen to cross paths at the aerie, and she asks out loud "why are boys such fools." Alex expresses surprise to hear such concern coming for her, and Jenna takes this as an insinuation that she is insensitive and snaps at Alex for talking to her like that. At any rate, Alex reassures Jenna that Isaac's party, though sworn enemies to Saturos at this stage, will not be able to defeat the Mars Adepts, and Jenna is convinced to head to Idejima and wait there for Felix.
Jenna, Kraden, and Alex step out of Venus Lighthouse and find throngs of workmen and soldiers waiting for them, all demanding Sheba's release. Jenna nervously concludes that she will have to fight through all of them to get to Idejima, and Alex offers to personally handle the trained soldiers so that she only has to deal with the workmen who "don't look too tough." Jenna manages to beat back a total of five ruffians with her limited Mars Psynergy even while deliberately holding back so as not to hurt innocents. It is only once Jenna and Kraden reach Idejima, and Alex catches back up with them, when Venus Lighthouse is seen activating its Venus Beacon — but this immediately causes a powerful earthquake that tears all of Idejima away from the rest of the continent, and it suddenly becomes a buoyant island that floats east out to sea.
Jenna, Kraden, and Alex find themselves now marooned on a drifting landmass isolated in the Eastern Sea, without any way to use Menardi's ship to escape it. Jenna is left to wonder what happened to Felix while musing that she misses both him and Isaac. As if fate were tempted by that statement, Alex suddenly notifies them that both Felix and Sheba have just washed up on the island's beach, unconscious but miraculously alive.
In Golden Sun: The Lost Age
Jenna is a permanent part of the playable cast in The Lost Age and is technically part of the party even earlier than the game's own main character, Felix, who joins shortly after the prologue. Though Jenna takes a proactive stance in helping Felix's quest, she nonetheless does not make individual decisions that influence the party's course. Instead, she is one of the consistent "voices" that interact with other characters and comment on developing situations largely on the silent protagonist Felix's behalf.
Avoiding Isaac
When Felix and Sheba regain consciousness at the floating island of Idejima, they relate their astonishing story to Jenna, Kraden, and Alex: Isaac's party reached the aerie just in time to confront Saturos and try to stop him, and though Saturos managed to light the Venus Beacon anyway, he and Menardi perished in the battle that followed. Felix recognized that he had no hope of matching Isaac's fighting ability and tried to leave with Sheba, but the earthquake made both of them fall off the tower, which would have killed them had the roiling sea not happened to catch them at the opportune moment. Felix then expended all of his strength swimming after Idejima before it went too far out to sea, with the unconscious Sheba in tow. This unfortunately means, though, that they no longer have the Black Orb that was with Saturos, so they cannot use Menardi's ship to get off the island.
But then, a sudden tidal wave originating from the center of the Eastern Sea washes across the entire sea, which drives Idejima into the north end of the south-central island continent of Indra. When everyone comes to, they find that Alex has gone off on his own to search for a ship, which Felix understands will be needed to reach the remaining two Lighthouses. Jenna cooperates with him on this quest because their parents' freedom continue to be at stake, and Kraden is willing to accompany them because of the opportunity to observe the world and satisfy his scholarly curiosity. Sheba also elects to join them instead of return to her home village, revealing that she is actually a Jupiter Adept; Jenna and Kraden learn that Saturos originally took her hostage because he recognized she could be used to gain access to Jupiter Lighthouse. With it established that they must avoid Isaac's pursuing party and develop their own abilities to compensate for the powers of the warriors sworn to prevent what they are trying to achieve, Felix and Jenna's party embark on a very long and arduous quest to light the final two Lighthouses and break Alchemy's seal.
Felix's search for a usable ship eventually covers three continents — Indra, Osenia, and southern Gondowan — before they manage to find and band with a wayward Mercury Adept who has a ship just like Menardi's, Piers. He was driven out of his home, the hidden society of Lemuria within the Sea of Time, by the tidal wave from earlier, and Felix's side agree to help him return there. This is one of various goals the party pursues during their time "locked" within the Eastern Sea for the sake of developing their powers, for the Tidal Wave has blocked off the one oceanic route that can be taken to reach the Western Sea. However, Felix's party find themselves pressured to open the way west as soon as possible by third parties intent on making sure they do not treat their quest as an excuse to have a pleasure jaunt abroad.
Right before boarding Piers' Lemurian Ship, the party encounter Karst, another Proxian Mars Adept, and she learns from them that Isaac was responsible for the death of her elder sister, Menardi. Despite Karst's parting vow to avenge her sister and threat to Felix not to get in her way, Jenna tells Sheba and Piers that they shouldn't look for Isaac and try to warn him about Karst because their two parties would probably fight if they were to happen upon each other at this stage. (At one moment, Jenna turns beet red when Sheba suggests that she and Isaac could probably work it out because they are an "item.") Felix's party next encounters Karst at Champa, where it is revealed that she and her partner, Agatio, have since banded together with Alex, whom Jenna talks to disapprovingly because he had abandoned them shortly after Saturos met his demise. Alex reveals that he plans on "incentivizing" the party to prioritize their quest over exploration by letting Karst and Agatio threaten them with the promise that they will always be nearby, pushing them toward Jupiter Lighthouse.
Jenna and Sheba are exasperated when it comes out that Felix and Kraden have been secretly formulating a theory over the course of their quest thus far and will not explain it until they can confirm it inside Lemuria. The party eventually manages the feat of entering the Sea of Time, defeating the monster that was responsible for the tidal wave, and stepping into Lemuria, and Piers helps them earn an audience with the Lemurian king Hydros. What is revealed to Jenna and confirmed for the party at large is that the entire world has been steadily crumbling into the abyss, its continents shrinking in size, ever since the seal on Alchemy was originally placed in the world's ancient past. The free flow of elemental energy was what had sustained the world's being beforehand, and only by lighting the remaining two Lighthouses can the world be ensured to survive in some form, even though it will likely cause chaos and devastation in its own right. With it now confirmed for Jenna and Felix's party that their quest is even more important than they could have imagined, the party makes for the Western Sea and successfully bores open the previously blocked-off naval passage with their developed Psynergy.
Felix's party reach and begin their climb through Jupiter Lighthouse with all haste, but they suddenly find themselves watching from a distance as Isaac's party, having also entered the tower to find and stop Felix in time, are caught in an ambush arranged by Karst and Agatio. Despite knowing that Isaac came all this way to stop Felix's side, Jenna declares that she will not let the duo kill Isaac, and the party step forth and vow to the weakened Karst that she will have to fight them next if she does not let the defeated Isaac live. Karst sees she has no choice but to agree, and she and Agatio force Felix and Piers to accompany them to the aerie of the tower with the Jupiter Star. Jenna personally treats Isaac's wounds as the rest of her group does the same for Isaac's companions. Right after the Jupiter Lighthouse is lit, Jenna becomes worried for Felix and follows him up to the aerie, and she finds that Karst and Agatio are attempting to kill Felix and Piers for going back on their word not to interfere with Karst's revenge scheme. Jenna joins the battle, and so does Sheba a moment later.
This battle can be either won or lost by the player without affecting their ability to play the rest of the game. In the event the party loses, Alex prevents the Mars Adepts from executing the group over "petty grudges" and convinces them to flee with him before Isaac's party arrives, and Isaac's party expresses outrage over what their enemies did to Jenna and has Mia individually restore Jenna and the others to health. If the party wins, however, Jenna casts doubt on Karst and Agatio's claim that the people of Prox will kill her parents if the Mars Adepts die here — but before the party can make a decision on whether to finish them, Alex restores the duo to health and convinces them to escape with him.
At any rate, Isaac demands an explanation from Felix, but other parties soon diffuse the tensions and get both sides to agree to talk things over in the nearby village of Contigo. Even if Felix has a mind to disagree, Jenna tells her brother that it is time they explained themselves and promises Isaac that they will come, and Isaac cites his unwavering trust in Jenna as the reason he will wait for them before he leaves with his own party. Jenna will be the one to hold Felix to their word by preventing him from stepping back into Atteka Inlet southwest of Contigo, where they had moored their ship, and she will stress that they shouldn't run from Isaac anymore.
Felix and Jenna's side arrive at the agreed place in the village and begin their talks with Isaac's party. Jenna explains that they had been purposefully avoiding Isaac this whole time to avoid the two sides being forced to fight, but she is questioned on why she ran away from Isaac for so long, which had caused Isaac to worry nonstop about Jenna ever since everything started. Jenna explains how she and Felix ultimately had to help Saturos because their parents' lives were at stake, and Kraden and Piers explain how Weyard is on track to meet with its total destruction if the Lighthouse Beacons are not lit. Isaac's side are greatly stunned and humbled over both revelations, and even though it is uncertain whether the world will avoid being destroyed anyway by Alchemy's release, Isaac agrees to join forces with Felix and support the latter's quest to its conclusion. Jenna apologizes for leaving Venus Lighthouse without making an effort to see Isaac, but she is otherwise clearly relieved and happy to see that the two rival parties have sorted out their differences.
Victim of a cruel trick
Felix and Isaac's combined party of eight battle-hardened Adepts commence a campaign to breach the Northern Reaches of the world, reach Prox to reunite with their parents, and eventually scale Mars Lighthouse and light its Beacon to save the world. Along the way, Jenna becomes uniquely adroit among Mars Adepts at manipulating flames while exploring the mountainous Magma Rock in search for a commodity that can be used to clear the ice that has formed to block the way into the Northern Reaches.
When they eventually reach Prox, they find a desperate populace who regrets having had to resort to coercing Felix into helping their strongest warriors journey across Weyard to break Alchemy's seal, which is needed to prevent Gaia Falls, the growing edge of the world up north, from eventually erasing both Prox and Mars Lighthouse out of existence. Disturbingly, the Proxians discover that Jenna's parents and Isaac's father all went up to Mars Lighthouse on their own, rendering the villagers incapable of following their chieftain's orders to set the parents free once Felix returned to Prox. Felix and Isaac head north into Mars Lighthouse and valiantly overcome its many riddles and obstacles, and they eventually reach the tower's aerie.
Before they have an opportunity to cast the Mars Star down the well, the Wise One appears before them and berates Isaac and Garet for disobeying his command and seeking to light the last Beacon. Jenna first tries to reason that Prox will be destroyed if they do not go through with it, and she then joins everyone else in explaining what they now know about Gaia Falls and what will befall the world if things are left as they are. Jenna goes so far as to ask how the Wise One can "just allow the world to crumble into nothingness." Claiming that they have "learned far too much," the Wise One staggers everyone with the revelation that Alex is currently counting on them to light the final Beacon and initiate the Golden Sun event, which will take place in the skies above Mt. Aleph and allow him to absorb ultimate power into himself. Even knowing this, the Adepts resolve to carry onward with their plans and state that the Wise One will have to deal with Alex by himself. When the Wise One claims he "cannot interfere in the actions of mankind," Jenna wisely points out that this should render him unable to stop them from lighting the Beacon.
However, the Wise One introduces the notion that some completely incidental miracle could hypothetically occur to render them incapable of lighting Mars. Suddenly, a gigantic three-headed dragon is summoned before them, as if they are expected to fight for their future. Jenna, like the rest of her friends and companions, pay no heed to Kraden's sudden pleas not to kill it as they charge into their final battle, and they eventually cut off all three of its heads. The remains of the dragon transform into the dying bodies of three adults, and Jenna collapses into utter grief the moment she realizes the Wise One deceived them into killing her parents and Isaac's father. The best efforts of Mia and Piers to heal them with Psynergy fail, and Jenna mournfully laments that she was going to be with her parents for the first time in years. All Kraden can say to lessen the blow is to explain that the parents would not have survived the energy expenditure of being transformed into a dragon even if the Adepts had lost the battle, so she cannot blame herself.
Several among Jenna's companions bellow into the skies to excoriate the Wise One as an evil being unworthy of his label of "protector" because of his inability to understand the damage done to a child who has learned she has destroyed her own parents. Isaac suddenly tells them off and states that he knew what he was doing when he first began the battle, and he reasons that their parents would understand their decision to defy the Wise One to save the world and its countless denizens. While Jenna would be inclined to agree with Felix if he disagrees with Isaac's notion, she acknowledges regardless that they made a sacrifice for all of Weyard. Felix casts the Mars Star down the well on this incredibly strained emotional note.
With the Mars Beacon now formed, everyone on the aerie suddenly receives long-distance telepathic communication from several people they met on their separate journeys, such as the children Justin and Megan from Imil, who were instructed by the Wise One to go to Lighthouses near them and remotely warn the Adepts and everyone residing near the towers to stay away for their own safety. Among these voices is Master Hama, who apologizes to Jenna for the horror she has experienced but advises her not to give up hope on her parents yet, stating that the Wise One "has a caring heart." Obviously, Garet and the other Adepts are completely incredulous about this claim, but they recognize it is at least true that they should get away from Mars Lighthouse as soon as they can. However, the Mars Beacon bathes the aerie in its energy before anyone even has a chance to go back down, and it fires its beam southeast toward the airspace above Mt. Aleph to play its part in the Golden Sun event. This massive quantity of Psynergy and elemental power passes through everyone's bodies at the aerie, including those of the three adults... and this miraculously rekindles their life force. The party rushes the adults back to Prox to give them the necessary treatment.
Some time later, after the parents have fully recovered, the leaders of Prox are seen thanking Isaac and Felix for saving their village and bringing out what can only be hoped to be a new golden age for their world. Jenna's spirits are obviously a far cry from what they were atop the Lighthouse, and she is gung-ho about departing for Vale with her family and everyone else and tries to downplay her friends' teases about the tears she wept for her parents after the battle. As light-hearted as the general tone is for the Adepts, they still share a palpable concern about whether Vale survived the Golden Sun event unscathed, though they give themselves reassurances by recalling when Justin and Megan had stated that the Wise One had also warned people away from Mt. Aleph. Therefore, the Adepts and the parents proceed with faith that their other families, whom they last saw at Vale, are still alive.
Said faith unavoidably lapses for everyone at first when they finally reach Vale and behold only the desolate remains of the blasted landscape now surrounding the remnants of Mt. Aleph, leading Jenna to rhetorically question what she can say to comfort Isaac and especially Garet. But grief turns to jubilation when all of the villagers and family believed to have been lost arrive none the worse for wear and welcome them back. This confirms that the Wise One had saved everyone at the village by giving them advance warning of Vale's destruction, and Jenna cannot help but rough-house with her brother as everyone celebrates what is, at least for now, the happiest outcome they could imagine.
Kraden, for his part, would speculate that the Wise One's utter cruelty to the Adepts at the top of Mars Lighthouse was secretly a test of everyone's resolve and willingness to accept sacrifice for the needs of the many. The Wise One evidently intended for the parents to be revived by the Mars Beacon. With the world now faced with the advent of a power that is equal parts dangerous and necessary, it is as though the Wise One wanted to ensure that the individuals who brought back Alchemy in the end could assume the great responsibility of leading the world through dark and tumultuous times.
In Golden Sun: Dark Dawn
The sudden introduction of Alchemy into the affairs of Weyard's denizens lead to both years of terrible natural disasters for the world and decades of military conflict between its newly empowered nations. Jenna becomes known as one of the eight extremely controversial individuals making up who are popularly called the "Warriors of Vale", with separate camps either praising her group for saving the world or blaming them for bringing about a new era of chaos.
Like what happened with everyone else who was exposed to the energy that erupted atop Mars Lighthouse, Jenna's body was infused with energy that has slowed her rate of aging, making her eventually look hardly any older than thirty even when in her late forties. Jenna is never seen in Golden Sun: Dark Dawn because she settles in Kalay, a city in southwestern Angara that was not part of the swath of Weyard's crust that ended up elevated above the rest of the plane-like world. Roughly twelve years after the Golden Sun event, she would have a son with Isaac named Matthew, who is noted to have inherited her "bright and determined spirit." Matthew would spend his years living not with his mother at Kalay, but with his father at his and Garet's "Lookout Cabin", an outpost built to observe the remains of Mt. Aleph from afar.
The first time she is mentioned by name in the game, it is by the elderly Champa pirate Briggs, whom Felix and Jenna butted heads with on at least two occasions during their own quest in The Lost Age. Briggs comments upon seeing Matthew at Port Rago for the first time that he recognized him as Jenna's son because he had supposedly inherited his mother's "eyes," though this seems to be contradicted by Matthew's light bluish gray eye color not matching up with her reddish brown eye color at all.
Trivia
- Nearly every screen from a beta build of the first Golden Sun game that depicts the prologue shows Mia taking Jenna's place as Isaac and Garet's female counterpart, as though Mia were originally envisoned as a resident of Vale instead of Imil like in the final product. It was evidently decided at some point that Jenna would be created to take her place. See here for a full gallery.
- Considering that the password-based data transfer method between the two GBA games is meant to shape the levels and inventory of the four main playable Adepts of the first game when they join the party in the second, Jenna is noteworthy for being left out. Even though she is a "playable character" in some regards in the first Golden Sun, the level she is raised to during the party's time in Sol Sanctum is replaced by her starting level of 5 (with 297 experience) in the second title.
- Throughout the GBA duology, there are two points where Jenna seems to lose her entire family. The first is in the first game's prologue, where the giant Mt. Aleph boulder crashes through Vale and causes her parents and brother to go missing for three years. The second incident is when the rock-like Wise One makes her party fight a transformed dragon for the right to light the final beacon at the end of the second game; it is found that Jenna and the others unknowingly destroyed her parents and Isaac's father. Perhaps coincidentally, both are instances where either a literal boulder or a boulder-shaped entity are responsible for taking away Jenna's loved ones... at least at first glance.
- Jenna is the only character in the series who does not personally know any Psynergy usable outside of battle whatsoever while in her default class series, at least for most of The Lost Age. This only stops being the case once she learns Blaze very late in the game.
- In The Lost Age, the first game's standard battle theme commonly associated with Isaac plays when he is part of the frontal party at the start of the battle and Felix is not present. Jenna is the third and last party member who supplies her own battle theme, which happens when neither Isaac nor Felix are in the front row; this theme is otherwise only heard in the game's prologue when the player directly controls her and guides her out of Venus Lighthouse. Since Jenna is technically "leading the party" in those scenes, it is debatable whether Jenna should be considered the only "non-leading Adept" in the second game's final party to have their own battle theme.
- Jenna from this game, as well as Himi from Dark Dawn, are the only playable Adepts aligned with the Mars and Venus elements, respectively, who are also positioned as "casters" or "mages." Jenna's distinctly "mage-like" exclusive class series in The Lost Age gives her healing Psynergy, whereas other Mars Adepts throughout the entire series have to change to multi-elemental classes to access healing Psynergy.
- Felix and Jenna are the only playable characters that are siblings, and Jenna is the only playable character known to have married another playable character, that being Isaac.
Quotes
In Golden Sun and Golden Sun: The Lost Age |
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Golden Sun: Dark Dawn's encyclopedia entry for Jenna:
- This Fire Adept was a Warrior of Vale who fought at Felix's side. She currently resides in Kalay, along with other Vale survivors.
- While her son Matthew's powers are inherited from his father, he did get her bright and determined spirit.
In fan circles
Jenna is easily one of the most popular characters for fan fiction to focus on because of the wide range of emotions she is given through the initial Golden Sun duology. In a widely appreciated reversal of the usually maligned "damsel in distress" role she is limited to in the first game, she takes a proactive role in the second game as one of Felix's permanent party members even though doing so logically puts her at odds with the main "hero" of the first game, Isaac.
In Golden Sun fan fiction, Jenna's primary two shipping genres were fiercely contested by their respective advocates: "Valeshipping," which pairs her with Isaac, and "Flameshipping," which pairs her with Garet. Over Isaac himself, Valeshipping fans often butted heads with fans of a potential Isaac/Mia relationship, "Mudshipping."
For a game series that provides far less plausible ship material than its shipping scene might suggest to outside observers, the second title went out of its way to show one very overt romantic overtone between two of its characters, which is the scene in Madra in which Jenna's sprite turns red when Sheba suggests she and Isaac are "an item." This naturally riled up the two camps a great deal, and Flameshipping — and Mudshipping — fans were further dejected when the third title, Dark Dawn, made Valeshipping the canonical ship. Fans of many other ships were similarly annoyed when literally none of the other oft-described shipping scenarios between other party members were made canon in the third game.
If Golden Sun: Dark Dawn is played entirely blindly without any information from external sources, then the first time the player is ever clued into or told the identity of Matthew's mother is technically at Port Rago roughly halfway through the game, when the elderly pirate captain Briggs warmly describes Matthew as having his mother Jenna's "eyes". It may or may not be a coincidence that the very next line, coming from one of Matthew's party members making an observation about Briggs' broken-down sailing vessel being worked on nearby, reads as follows: "I cannot help but notice that your ship is in an advanced state of disrepair."
Main characters in the Golden Sun series | |
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Playable Characters | |
Golden Sun | Isaac Garet Ivan Mia |
The Lost Age | Felix Jenna Sheba Piers |
Dark Dawn | Matthew Karis Tyrell Rief Amiti Sveta Eoleo Himi |
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 |
Dark Dawn | Arcanus Baghi Blados Bogho Chalis High Empyror Hou Zan King Wo Laurel Nowell Paithos Ryu Kou Unan Vande Volechek |