(Um.. my opinions belong to myself.. As does this rant.. And the one in the 'who' section goes under this same basis.. Yeah.. I'll just get started now. ^~)

Allright.. So Alen is a very minor character in the game, who only helps start things off. But if he's so minor, why would the first three episodes of Star Ocean EX include him? Minor character or not, he gives a little bit of Rena's history, and gives a starting look over the power of what seems to be the sorcery stone.

Alen's character as a whole is very interesting. He's your average 'rich boy that likes mysterious country girl,' type of person. He's sweet and carring, and tries his best to win over Rena's heart, by riding his horse all the way between towns to go see her whenever he can. While Rena considers him a very good friend, you never really see any hope of a relationship there, for the relationship between Rena and the other main characters grows in the game, and Alen is not one of those main characters.

The townspeople from both Salva and Arlia respect Alen, and like him. But when he gets possessed by the stone, people are naturally against him. The stone, I think, brought out his innermost feelings and dwelled on them, hoping to bring him to emotional destruction, at which point the stone could fully take over and transform him into a beast, as it did. It did this, as things go, by waiting until Claude had come to Arlia. It was a love interest conflict, as you can see how attached Rena is to him at the beggining of the game/anime, since she's infatuated with the 'warrior-sama.' Using Claude as the enemy, the stone prompts Alen to kidnap Rena, so that Claude will follow. Rena's love of the Warrior-Sama caused her to stand against Alen's offer, as did the actions that the purple stone was causing Alen to take. The two combined made Rena show such pity towards him, that Alen could clearly see that she did not want to be with him like that, and that she had feelings for someone else, thus shattering Alen's heart to the point where he was taken over. In the game, this is similar because Claude frees Rena and it agrivates Alen because Alen wanted to be her 'hero,' her 'savior,' her.. 'warrior-sama,' so to speak. By marrying her, he thought everything would be okay again. To have Claude save Rena, and Rena show such appreciation, angered Alen in a similar way which made his heart shatter and made him fall to the stone's power.

Now.. The demon he turns into, is not so unlike himself. It lunges at Claude before lunging at Rena (or Yuki, in the anime), and it maintains a semi-similar appearance. When Rena cries at him, in the anime, he snaps back into reality briefly before the stone is shattered, and he is returned to normal. Which obviously means that Alen was still in there, and seeing that Rena did not completely disregard him helped to bring enough strength back for him to hold onto himself for a moment, so Claude could free him.
But as for Alen.. You find, in Alen's mansion, in both the game and anime, a portrait of Rena. It's clear Alen had a crush on Rena, but the stone turned that crush into an absolute obsession, which caused the problems that occured.

As Alen wakes up, he remembers nothing, and shows absolute remorse when faced with what he had done. The stone's influence clearly drove him mad, since you can tell by his quiet and kind nature, that he would never have done something as stupid as kidnap Rena and force her to marry him. But he still cared for her, which is why he had the guts to go back to Arlia, and apologize to Westa, Rena's mother, and Regis, the town mayor. As if that wasn't enough, he also gave Rena and Claude, yes, 'warrior-sama,' too, a ride to the kingdom of Cross.

All in all.., Alen is your typical kwaii little meek and kind bishie who gets cast aside after his moment in the spotlight. Those of you out there that don't usually think twice about him.. should look again. Besides.. Like in the anime.. Claude was already in Salva, having refused to take Rena with him. Do you really think she would have gone along if Alen hadn't done what he did? Do you think the world would have been saved? The whole plot is traced back to one little incident with one little person..
My Alen-chan!

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