Fou-Lu (フォウル) is a character from Breath of Fire IV, a 9-year old Playstation RPG. There is also a manga, which is currently being scanalated on One Manga under "Utsurowazarumono - Breath of Fire IV," which, though largely the same, does have some minor alterations from the original game canon and a greatly clarified script. This character article contains spoilers for both.

Personality

Fou-Lu is most obviously a white-haired pretty boy god-emperor who was split at birth from Ryu, the red oni to his blue oni, and by the end he is kind of a woobie: essentially his entire career as a god-emperor involves being gut-punched or face-stomped by some terrible event or another, including a super-harsh subversion of Love Redeems, ultimately deciding Humans are Bastards and pretty much not worth keeping around. Aspects of evil counterpart apply, but he and Ryu are more arguably the shadow archetype of one another. Alas, he speaks in Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe, though the Player does his best to avoid making Fou-Lu sound stupid, even if it's inaccurate. YMMV. Personality-wise, he initially appears purely as The Stoic, but we see hints that deep-down, he is painfully Kuudere.

In short poster form:

Abilities

Though initially stripped of most of his power upon arriving in Marina, negotiation with Sentience won him a portion of it back. Even so, the Player does his best to avoid godmoding, often playing up the exhaustion factor enough that a full-tilt Fou-Lu would result in very rapid collapse.

In his "human" form, he can summon energy swords and small energy blasts, and is very adept in their use. His fighting style is very agile, almost acrobatic, and while he is capable of short-range teleportation in-game, he has lost it as a result of the power stripping in Marina.

Fou-Lu can access two of his divine forms: the "hybrid" or half-dragon form, and his lowest-level dragon form, refered to in English canon as his Astral form (though Aura is a more correct translation). Both utilize the same abilities: flight, ice and water magic, and increased physical strength. He also has a scattering of other spells that are very weak, like Eraser (pure pain, really). Canonically, he also possesses and instant death spell, but obviously he doesn't have use of it here. However, only in Astral form can he use his dragonsbreath, which is similarly based on ice and water. A full-powered dragonsbreath can punch holes in mountains, though in Marina, it is more like being hit by a very cold and stingy firehose.

He also has a passive aura that draws people to him without their consciously realizing it. This is a feature of all the gods in his "pantheon." At full power, it literally sweeps the fates of mortals up with the god's own, compulsing them to help them, worship them, follow them, and generally just like them. Canon indicates that the presence of gods in worlds that aren't supposed to have them causes an effect where non-magical creatures will absorb magic and mutate, some even becoming powerful enough to think themselves demi-gods. It is vastly weaker here, but still present. Anyone able to see auras can tell Fou-Lu's is larger than normal and pillar-like, swirling off into the sky. It is also, for some unfathomable reason, magenta.

He is the other half of Ryu.

Please see the journal for additonal information, including the relationship meme and permissions post~