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The Smiling Devil
Minister and the King's Regent
Sariel Noir
Voice: Show Hayami
A minister of the palace and the king's regent. Everything about him is shrouded in mystery, but the way he devises to get what he wants earns him the nickname of the "devil". Why is he here and what does he want?
Birthday: Jan. 20th
Height: 180 cm
Blood Type: AB
Crest: Snake
"Until you choose the next king, I wield all the power in the palace, albeit from the shadows. There is no harm in sucking up to me."
–Ikémen Prince: Beauty and Her Beast
Betcha thought I would start the characters section off with my protagonists, huh?
Nope. Sorry, Ivetta and Chev. You'll have to wait.
Those familiar with the game may have noticed a glaring omission in the political chapters, and while I’d like to say I did that on purpose… I just plain forgot about Sariel. And I may have forgotten because he’s the most underrated character in the game (in my opinion, anyway).
He’s a big deal. A huge deal. And yet even Belle, who he selected personally to choose the next king of Rhodolite, doesn’t know how big of a deal he is at first.
Also, he doesn’t really fit in the political chapters, anyway. He’s in a class all his own.
Rhodolite has an indeterminate number of court ministers who advise the king and handle political and diplomatic matters, and although Sariel is the youngest among them (around thirty-four years old), he was the king's most trusted aide and is thus at the top of the ministerial food chain. The king placed so much faith in him that, before he died, he named Sariel the king's regent.
What does that mean, exactly?
Basically, Sariel is the king. Until Belle chooses a new one, that is.
But Sariel doesn't take advantage of this position. As I said earlier, even though Belle knows he's the king's regent, she doesn't realize what that means until it comes out in the main characters' storylines. Sariel behaves much as he did before the king died, advising the princes and remaining in the shadows. He defers to Chev and Leon as the heads of their factions, and if he thinks they should take a certain course of action, he guides them toward that decision instead of giving them orders.
Not that they'd listen to orders. Chev points out to Belle that they're all beasts who haven't been house trained, and it really doesn't matter if she chooses an inept king. If the remaining seven princes disagree with the king's decision, they won't obey him.
But back to Sariel. He has the all-important task of selecting a woman to become Belle and choose the next king, and he then has to give her a crash course in everything Rhodolite so she can make an informed decision after a single month in the palace. Whenever Belle runs into a problem, Sariel is her point of contact. She is his highest priority. He is responsible for her safety, her education, her health, and everything else Belle-related.
She isn't his first student, though. He actually tutored the princes when they were children. And for context, he's only about two years older than Jin, which means he's only eleven years older than the youngest prince, Luke.
It's never stated how old Sariel was (or the princes were) when he took on this role, but Licht and Nokto's mother died the night before their tenth birthday, and Sariel was already their tutor when that happened. So, Sariel couldn't have been older than eighteen when his career as a tutor began, and he may very well have been younger.
Whenever it happened, Jin was already self-taught and didn't need a tutor. Chev had stumped his last tutor when he was eight years old, so he didn't need Sariel, either. But interestingly enough, he recommended Sariel focus on Clavis, who then latched on to Sariel, declared himself Sariel's apprentice, and followed him around like a duckling follows its mother.
So, Sariel tutored Clavis, Leon, Yves, Licht, and Nokto (and Luke, when he finally joins the picture and decides to give the prince thing a try). Sariel was especially close to the twins, since he began working with them when they were so young. And… reasons.
There were some hurdles he had to cross to gain the princes' trust. He never smiled, and his severe expression had the same effect on Yves, Licht, and Nokto as Chev's icy glare: they burst out crying and ran away on sight. Jin advised him to try smiling at them—but no luck. Sariel's thin smile was too frightening. Then Jin recommended pairing cookies with a smile, and that was it. Problem solved.
Jin now stops by Sariel's office in the evenings to talk about his brothers while drinking fine ale. Clavis is Sariel's apprentice no more, and I'm sure Sariel regrets teaching him how to pick locks every day. His once-apprentice has become a hellion and a headache. Yves drops sweets off with Sariel from time to time with the excuse that he 'made too much.' Licht and Nokto…
Well. It's complicated.
Spoiler Alert
Okay, there are probably minor spoilers in all the above, but nothing groundbreaking. I don't feel like I spoiled anything, anyway. The really juicy stuff is coming up now, so if you haven't played Sariel's route in the game and don't want to ruin the experience, skip to the next section divider.
Is everybody who doesn’t want spoilers gone now?
What about you? Are you okay with spoilers? Or maybe you already know all of this.
Shh, don’t spoil my spoiler to the other people who want spoiling spoilers spoiled!
Well, I’ve waited long enough. Here we go!
Sariel is an incredibly mysterious person, and to be perfectly honest, his romantic route in the game raised more questions for me than it answered. I haven't played his dramatic route yet, but I'm guessing a lot will still be left up in the air after that, too. His backstory smells like prime sequel material to me.
Who is Sariel? Where did he come from? How did he gain the king’s trust and his powerful position?
The last question is actually the only one with a definite answer.
In short, even Sariel doesn't know who he is or where he came from. His earliest memories are of being a child with no parents, eking out an existence in a world where he could only rely on himself. By the time he was ten years old, he was the leader of a gang of other orphans and outcasts, many of whom were older than him.
Then he and his gang attacked a royal carriage bearing the king of Rhodolite.
A royal carriage guarded by trained knights isn't a great target for a bunch of rogue children. I didn't jot all the details down, for which I'm kicking myself, but I think the rest of the gang escaped and left Sariel behind. It was an every-man-for-himself situation for an every-man-for-himself group, so Sariel bore them no ill will for abandoning him, because everybody abandoned him, anyway.
Everybody except the king of Rhodolite.
He brought Sariel back to the palace, and I don't think it's much of a stretch to say the king treated Sariel more like a son than he did any of his biological offspring. Sariel became his aide and stayed by his side, a confidante and a friend, and that was when people began whispering about him being the Palace Devil.
Sariel's mysterious origin and speedy rise to power made him plenty of enemies, most of them envious, but some truly worried he was a devil who would destroy Rhodolite. There is an old Rhodolitian story where a devil disguises himself, befriends a king, and eventually kills the king and brings the kingdom to ruin, and Sariel fits the description for the devil (pre-killing the king, of course).
He played into that. He loved the king and Rhodolite so much that he set himself up to be a scapegoat if worst came to worst. He stayed by the king's side when his mind began to give out on him, knowing when the king eventually died, people would wonder if Sariel had killed him. He also took on all the king's dirty work, ensuring if someone discovered his actions, he and he alone would take the blame.
That last bit there is really important.
He became a spy, an assassin, and a warrior. He learned how to fight using all manner of weaponry, and he began leaving the palace for days at a time on covert operations. Gathering information, dealing with a problem in a way the king couldn't officially authorize due to legal and political implications—and the danger didn't matter to Sariel. Rhodolite and the royal family were more important to him than his own life.
Are more important to him than his own life. Because even though the king is dead when he chooses Belle, his devotion to the royal family hasn't changed. He will quite literally do anything for the princes he watched grow up and helped form into the men they are now.
He was the one who cleaned and bandaged Licht and Nokto's hands after their mother beat them. The twins would complain about how mean he was to them while he was tending their wounds, but when that was done, they loved him again. Although they distanced themselves from him (and everybody else) after their mother died, he still harbors a strong affection for them and wants them to find healing and happiness again.
As for himself, he clothes his entire body to hide the many scars he's accumulated in service to the royal family.
He never takes his gloves off, either, but that's for a different reason. On the back of his right hand, he bears a tattoo of a serpent. He's had that tattoo for as long as he can remember and doesn't know what it means.
I'm betting we'll find out in his sequel.
Okay, I’m about to shift out of the massive spoilers and into a spoiler-free zone.
But I want to add extra lines here so someone trying to skip the spoilers doesn’t glimpse something right above the divider.
I could press “Enter” a million times to create a bunch of blank space, but I hate it when people do that.
And y’all know I can write at length about anything.
Is that enough?
I think that might be enough.
…Okay, now it’s definitely enough.
Spoilers Done!
Alright, bring it back in, people. It's time to wrap up this chapter, and we're doing that with a quick summary of some basic information about Sariel.
- Name: Sariel Noir6Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWkF35TvOEA
- Nicknames: Devil, Palace Devil, Devil of the Court, Four-Eyes (Chevalier, Silvio), Bossman (Rio)6Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡme6CeHNbR5
- Titles: King’s regent, court minister6Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsQH6i01P0K
- Crest: Serpent
- Age: 346Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLy1J9dnf0L
→For context, he’s older than all the other main characters in the game.6Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTFJCD20GeU
- Birthday: January 20th6Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFIoWpaXHyI
→For context, his birthday is the first to occur in a calendar year of all the main characters in the game and is the only January birthday.6Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYxX3oowCRf
- Height: 180 cm (5’10”)6Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnRWsIJnbSG
→For context, he’s shorter than Luke, Keith, Jin, and Leon; the same height as Chevalier and Silvio; and taller than all the other main characters in the game.6Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHdNmCrEwZh
- Hair: Black6Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvrGpg7B2xB
- Eyes: Variably described as amethyst, lavender, or violet; wears glasses6Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6dwdVIgSmh
- Weapons: Carries a whip (hidden); capable of using any weapon6Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZD1ZgpMKIB
- Clothes: Black boots, pants, shirt, jacket, gloves, and priest's stole; three black belts with gold buckles (1) around his left ankle and (2) above and (3) below his left knee; gold ornamentation on jacket; snakeskin pattern down the center of the jacket and on coattails; hints of dark purple in shirttails and priest's stole
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