Myria

Myria ミリア Miria
Sprite
Occupation												Goddess
I				II				III				IV				V				VI

Myria (occasionally spelled Maria, and referred to as Tyr in the English translation of the first two games) is a major recurring antagonist of the Breath of Fire series. As revealed in the third game, she is one of the Endless, an extra-dimensional entity with profound magical abilities. She is also known by her titles: the Goddess of Desire, and the Goddess of Destruction.

For hundreds of years, Myria has reincarnated into the world under various guises. She tends to use her powers to convince the inhabitants of the world that she is a goddess, and subsequently begins to manipulate world events through exploiting the faith of her followers. Though her degree of benevolence and malice tend to vary, her actions, more often than not, tend to negatively influence the world. Because of this, Myria is often at war with her older and more benevolent sister, Deis, who tries to stop her and her plans.

Myria is the overarching antagonist of the first three games in the Breath of Fire series, which are part of a trilogy in the same continuity. Thus, she can be considered the quintessential antagonist of the entire series, as she tends to feature prominently in crossover media.

Appearance[]

Myria has appeared in various different forms, yet they have some consistent traits. Typically, she's shows up as a female human with long blonde hair.

In the first game, she is shown as a young girl in a blue dress. Her face sports an innocent look, though it changes to a malicious glare once Ryu uses Agni on her to expose her true form. In the third game, she is shown as a mature woman in a long pink dress, flowing golden hair, and two sets of green-tinted wings floating on her back. (Her wings are shown as more radiantly-tinted in Teppen) Her eyes are often closed, though Teppen reveals her eye color is brown.

Her human form is merely a facade though, as her true form is far more monstrous. In the first game, her true form is that of a large, alien monstrosity with several long-mouthed tentacles. She has blue orbs on her upper body and back, dark green horns all across her body, two mouths, and long arms. She can also use an extendable tongue-like appendage to attack her foes.

In the third game, her true form is a massive serpentine entity, with some sections colored green and others a grayish yellow. She also has red ring patterns across her snake-like body with yellow runes inscribed across all of it. Though she keeps her human-like form at the top, she is now naked, with large wings replacing most of her arms. Her hair has massively grown, and spreads across her back and down her serpentine body. Her eyes typically remain closed, but open when she uses her spells, revealing glowing golden eyes and a sinister expression. While this form masks some of Myria's more hideous and disturbing aspects from the first game, they still show up in some of her other attacks, such as swelling up her abdomen before revealing a set of cords to lash at her enemies. She can also expose a pair of large blue eyes hidden inside her hair when using Sanctuary. Finally, when using her strongest attack, Holocaust, her eyes cry blood before her face melts, revealing a cavity from which she releases her power.

Personality[]

Myria is a poly faceted individual, with differing aspects of her shown throughout the series. In the first game, she's manipulative, childish and destructive. Though she promises to grant wishes and happiness, this is purely a ruse, as she actively encourages various parties to fight over her while she watches with sadistic glee. She'll even use the facade of a defenseless, crying girl to try and make others lower their guard around her. When provoked, she will reveal her malignant, arrogant and self-centered nature who craves destruction.

In the third game, Myria is much different, and while not as overtly evil as her previous appearance, she is still not benign. Governed by an extreme mother complex, she believes the world's mortals to be naturally driven to self-destruction and thus takes it upon herself to protect humanity from itself. For this purpose, she deliberately masterminds many events from behind the scenes, and rewrites any history that is not favorable to her cause. She also subtly controls the world by not only splitting it, but also by secretly manipulating the knowledge the world is allowed to have, while providing them the sufficient means of self-sufficiency, therefore ensuring the survival of the world, but at the cost of effectively caging them and depriving them of the means to develop by themselves.

Firmly believing she is in the right to protect them, Myria has engaged in desperate measures and justifies her actions, even if they involve the genocide of the Dragon Clan to save the rest of the world. Though she often displays an maternal, caring, and benevolent disposition, in truth she quite tyrannical, and doesn't take to opposition kindly. She often makes one-sided decisions and is more than willing to punish, and even kill, those who disagree with her.

It is revealed by Jono that, though Myria is the same individual in both games, she manifests herself differently across the ages, sometimes in human form, other times as a devil. This could explain her drastically different appearances and personalities between the games. Throughout the series, she is consistently at odds with the Dragon Clan, whom she greatly fears for their power and seeks to have destroyed at all costs.

Story[]

Background[]

Myria is a centuries old being, who's appearance differs each time she manifests in the world. For as long as she has lived, she views the Dragon Clan as a threat to her power and secretly fears them, with the two parties historically at odds.

Breath of Fire[]

Main article: Goddess

Myria, simply known as the Goddess, is known as a wish-granting entity. Because of this, the powerful Dragon Clan split between the Light Dragons and the Dark Dragons, as the latter wanted to claim her power for their own. Myria encouraged the fighting, and watched with sadistic glee as their battle began to threaten the world. Eventually, a legendary hero from the Light Dragon Clan, aided by Deis and the rest of his comrades, managed to imprison Myria within a tower and seal her away with six keys, thus ending the war. In spite of this, the massive battle for Myria's power, combined with all the destruction, scarred the Dragon Clan. Thus, they decided to seclude themselves and renounce their powers to live in peace.

Some years later, the Dark Dragon Clan, led by their powerful leader Zog, resurged in strength and conspired to reassemble the keys and release Myria to take over the world with her power. Although Zog was defeated, his general, Jade, successfully releases her. Myria stations herself on her flying fortress Obelisk, flying high above what used to be Scande, the capital of the Dark Dragon Empire. Ryu and his companions storm the fortress, defeat Jade, then encounter Myria, who has taken on the form of a young girl. As the party approaches her, she asks if they have a wish that they'd like her to grant. If answered "yes," Myria will fully restore the party's HP and AP. If answered "no," the party engages her in battle. During the first phase of the fight, she does not attack the party.

After dealing enough damage, Myria pleads with the party in a scared tone to stop attacking her, claiming that she means well and simply wants the party to be her friends. After answering "yes," Ryu's sister, Sara, appears and urges Ryu to use Agni to reveal Myria's true form, warning him that Myria is fooling him with her innocent looks. Myria protests against this, and initiates the second phase of the battle, taking on an angered appearance and attempting to fight back against the heroes. The game slightly alternates into two endings afterwards.

If Ryu didn't obtain the Agni spell, or simply doesn't use Agni, then the party fights Myria in her human form. They manage to defeat her and leave the Obelisk to help rebuild the towns that suffered. However, once they're gone, Myria reveals she survived the battle.

If Ryu managed to learn all of his Dragon spells, allowing him to learn Agni, Agni's attack quickly ends the battle as Myria reveals her true form to the heroes, initiating the final phase of the battle. After a tough fight, the party defeats Myria once and for all, resulting in the Obelisk collapsing. With Myria gone, the world begins to rebuild.

Breath of Fire II[]

Though Myria doesn't appear in the game, she is mentioned to be the indirect cause of the game's events. It's revealed that after her defeat, a "scar" of her was left behind, said scar being her spawn Deathevan, a being of pure evil who grew stronger from the collective malice of the world's mortals. Deathevan manages to influence the world through his proxies, all in order to grow stronger to destroy the world, but ends up getting defeated by Ryu and his comrades.

Breath of Fire III[]

Main article: Myria (Breath of Fire III Boss)

Myria once again manifest into the world, and acts as an overzealous mother of all the world's creatures. Seeing how the living beings can be driven to self-destruction and uncontrollable progress, as was the case with Caer Xhan and its subsequent desertification, she has taken it upon herself to "protect" the world from self-harm, taking drastic and almost tyrannical actions to do so. To prevent the desertification from engulfing the world, she split the world in two parts: the Outer Region where the Desert of Death lies, deprived of life; and the central world which is full of life and prosperity. Both are separated by the Outer Sea, nearly preventing interaction between the two parts and protecting what little life remained.

This was not enough for her, for Myria feared an even bigger threat to her plans, specifically the clan she had clashed with for centuries: the Brood. Knowing of their dreaded powers and how their might could destroy the world, she engaged in the Brood War: a mission to eradicate the Brood from the existence. For this purpose, she made herself the patron God of the Urkans and selected her champions: the Guardians, humans blessed with her power. She convinces her followers that the Brood were evil and had to be destroyed, thus they obeyed her without question. Though successful, a few members of the Brood manage to escape the massacre and seclude themselves in Dragnier, where they would renounce their powers and isolate themselves to live in peace, yet hidden from the mad Goddess' watchful eye.

The Goddess also turned her wrath on anyone who refused to support her cause, which included her big sister Deis and the Trees of Wisdom Yggdrasil. Myria had Deis imprisoned beneath Angel Tower and rewrote history to portray her as an evil witch who aided the wicked dragons, and isolated the Yggdrasil trees into secluded groves throughout the world so that their collective wisdom would eventually disappear. Myria's revision of history and the faith of her followers was so complete that no one would question her actions for generations to come.

To further "protect" the people from self-harm, she allowed the consistent flow of older machinery across the center world through the Black Ship, making it so the inhabitants can do little more than observe and repair machinery, but never get the drive to develop technology themselves, therefore preventing the populace from ever creating destructive weaponry. As an additional measure, Myria is also responsible for the Chrysm ores, the fossilized remains of all living beings filled with magical energy through her blessings, giving the world the necessary means for self-sustenance. Having accomplished her goal of protecting the world, Myria chose to keep a low profile and take residence in her personal Station Myria atop the fallen Caer Xhan afterwards, leaving the world completely ignorant and coddled of her dominance.

At some point and for unknown reasons, Myria blessed Mikba with her power, granting him the power of Demon. Mikba, in turn, would use his might to create and lead his own criminal syndicate with large influence in her "little world."

Eventually, Ryu, another surviving member of the Brood, would be awakened by the mine workers in the Duana Mine. Myria would soon become aware of his existence, and begin watching over him through his dreams. Later on, Ryu's adopted brother Teepo would come into contact with the Goddess after getting separated from Ryu and his adopted brother Rei, who told him the story of his race and the reason for their demise. She manages to successfully convince him to live with her in Station Myria away from the world, though Teepo still secretly wished to reunite with his brothers.

Much later on in the story, when Ryu and his party manage to arrive at Dragnier, Jono, the Elder of the Brood, would explain the fued between the Brood and Myria, which was depicted in a mural mirroring the events of the first game.

Eventually, Ryu and his party would arrive at Station Myria, where holographic programs would explain to the party the scope of Myria's control over the world and her rationale, before meeting with the Goddess herself in her chamber. Myria explains the motivations behind her actions, justifying her "protection" and insisting her children to let themselves be ruled by her guidance, all while demanding that Ryu abandon his powers, reasoning that he is strong to live by himself, but that his powers will ultimately endanger those whom he loves. When the party rejecting her disposition, Myria proceeds to teleport them back to where they originally came from, with intent to manipulate their memories so they would forget about their quest, only for Peco to use his powers as Yggdrasil to restore them. He then confronts her over her extreme over-protection, and tells her that the world is not as satisfied with her control as she assumes, since they traveled through grueling conditions and overcame all of her barriers to reach her. Myria rejects this, but relents by allowing Ryu to make the choice of abandoning his powers and live with her, just like Teepo did.

In the bad ending, carrying the fate of the world becomes too much for Ryu to bare and he accepts Myria's offer, much to her joy. She assures him that letting go of his power was the right choice and is the mark of true strength, then takes him to her domain. Myria then continues to watch over the world as it remains as it was.

In the true ending, Ryu realizes he cannot live without his powers as he would not be himself anymore, and refuses. Myria again attempts to reason with him, but he stands his ground and swings his sword at her. She vanishes before it connects, then attempts to manipulate him by saying his power is driving him mad, only for Peco to reply it just means the life she swore to protect is tired of being in the cage she trapped it in. Realizing trying to convince Ryu to her side is pointless, Myria decides to kill Ryu and his friends to "protect" the world and her children, transforming into her demonic serpentine form. The party fights a grueling battle, but manage to overcome the odds and emerge victorious.

In her final moments, Myria falls into despair. Believing that the world will soon end without her guidance, she pleads to God to tell her where she went wrong and what she should have done differently. Deis then appears before her and tells Myria that her biggest mistake was in turning against the Dragon Clan. Deis assures her that the mortals were better prepared to take care of themselves than the either of them believed, and that the entire world, with all its life, will survive one way or another. With this, both Myria and Deis vanish into the unknown, marking the permanent end of Myria's attempt to control the world.

Breath of Fire IV[]

Although she plays no important role in the game's plot, the book, Breath of Fire: Official Complete Works, confirms Myria cameos in the game. She makes an appearance as a child riding atop a dragon when the spell "Raise Dead" is used, and as an adult with a dragon wrapped around her when the spell "Resurrect" is used. While not stated, she might also be the woman in the spell "Death," due to the woman and the skeletal dragon sharing similarities with the former two spells.

Gallery[]

Breath of Fire

Myria's human form with red glowing eyes

Myria's true form

Myria's overworld sprite (Normal)

Myria's overworld sprite (Angered)

Myria's battle sprite (Normal)

Myria's battle sprite (Angered)

Myria's battle sprite (True Form)

Breath of Fire III

Myria's human form

Myria's true form

Breath of Fire IV

Young Myria (Raise Dead)

Adult Myria (Resurrect)

Adult Myria (Death)

Miscellaneous

Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 Myria Card

Teppen Card "Goddess Myria"

Teppen Card "The Goddess's Birdcage"

Teppen Card "the Goddess's Dagger"

Teppen Card "Fateful Choice"

Teppen Card "Aid to Repose"

Teppen Card "Aid to Rebellion"