"I'm gonna give you five seconds to get the hell away from me."
THE BOY
As a child, Ragna had a rather endearing personality. He was carefree, kind (his siblings—both of them—meant the world to him) and he seemed quite happy with his going nowhere lifestyle of being an orphan. That is, until his world went down in a ball of flames and he lost both siblings, the Sister he knew to be the closest thing to a mother he would ever have, and lost his right arm in the process.
Ragna's personality did a 180 then, although it particularly manifests itself much later as he grows older, the scarring effects taking their toll. While Ragna says after that fateful day he learned to hate everything, it's seen that Ragna isn't quite so cynical and dark until he reaches maturity. Even after the incident, despite his want for revenge, he's still just a kid (he even calls Jubei a big fluffy kitty when they first meet and he runs around playing with a tiny kitten version of Taokaka when they first meet as well) and has his innocent (and stubborn sides). As he grows up, that hatred seems to manifest, perhaps the gravity of the situation weighing down more heavily and realistically than it once did.
One thing that doesn't change is his rude bickering with Rachel, although he gets less tolerant and more rude as he gets older (and Rachel gets less teasing and more bitchy so maybe it's a mutual transition in an "adult relationship" for the two of them, who knows). The two of them do really care about one another, despite their usual fronts both to the public and to each other.
THE GRIM REAPER
Despite his master's concerns about Ragna himself and his grimoire, Ragna eventually took to starting his revenge, starting with destroying the N.O.L. one base at a time. At the start of Calamity Trigger, it already is shown that he has a temper problem. He had it even as a boy, but over time it seems to have only worsened. Besides a rather hot temper, Ragna is distant and often cold to those he meets, strangers meaning nothing to him. A classic loner.
However, it's eventually shown by the time he meets up with his brother, Jin, now a Major of the N.O.L., that he's not as distant from everyone and everything. He holds a different attitude towards his siblings (even Jin, never delivering a killing blow when he could have, doing his best to keep Jin uninvolved, and even in one game scenario he shows he still has faith in Jin and isn't just ready to give him up as another N.O.L enemy.
Ragna has always had a loud mouth, and he still does even though he often wants to be just left alone. He's blunt, to the point, and sprays vulgar insults every given chance. He's quite impulsive, often jumping too far ahead, but he's also determined like no one else to achieve his goal. (In his defense, no one ever tells him anything until its too late whether he asks for the help or not). There's a bit of a sarcastic side to him, as well, and one might say he probably isn't good with kids.
Most of all, Ragna has severe trust issues, these helping explain his moody loner self. He won't trust anyone on first meeting and he probably won't trust them on the 70th meeting, either. In order to be acknowledged and not receive the cold shoulder is a difficult task, even for those he knows quite well. Considering his sister is still missing, his brother is crazy and trying to kill him, and then another nuisance by the name of Hazama, his trust issues are certainly justified. Gain his trust, though, and you have it for life.
**Note Ragna also ends up with an obsession to not just to destroy the NOL, but find the "Captain" of the NOL's Intelligence department, Hazama. A very personal grudge stands and it is suggested that Hazama (really Yuuki Terumi) has just as much obsession with killing Ragna as Ragna does with him.
≡ THE BLACK BEAST
THIS IS WHEN -- oh
While the "being the human form of the Black Beast (the huge monstrous creature that basically almost wiped everyone out one hundred years prior to blazblue's "present" timeline)" is better explained throughout the light novels (some brief general information can be read here—it's more complicated than that, ahaha...), it's impossible to deny some base things such as Ragna's Grimoire definitely holding the power of the Black Beast and in both games him having endings where he is consumed by the Black Beast itself (and in CS, it's without Nu being anywhere nearby).
In terms of contributing to Ragna's personality, the Black Beast feeds off of Ragna's hate and dependence (greed, even) for power and his lack of ability to respect what he's given. The Black Beast comes about in times when Ragna fails to heed both Jubei and Rachel and their warnings of respecting and acknowledging what power is his and what power isn't. His lack of intuition and understanding of being allowed to tap a power that isn't his and that power being his is what ultimately dooms him and sends him to the bad endings of his storyline in game.
That said, while the Black Beast comes about from wrong decisions and thinking and bad paths taken by the player, the Black Beast is definitely the "dark side" to Ragna and not something to be ignored in terms of his personality and makeup. It's his own inner demon (as well as many others' outer demon and worst nightmare) and feeds off Ragna's inability to have control. Whether it's control over his emotions, his ambitions, his thoughts, or his opinions, it's a significant lack of control. His understanding may not be so much absent as it is simply smothered by his lack of control, but the lack of it for whatever reason certainly doesn't help bring him salvation. Considering Terumi feeds off of his hate in particular, the Black Beast part of Ragna is something that try as he might, probably isn't going to go away any time soon. And as seen from CS, even though they missed the supposed intial timeline point where the Black Beast is created and the loop starts all over again, that doesn't mean it's not still lingering somewhere with the chance to still create—or, rather, revive since it's already been around once before—itself.
Part of Ragna's growth as a character is learning to accept and acknowledge his own limitations without letting them hold him back. The Black Beast also represents that denial on some level, such as his refusal to acknowledge that the power of the Blazblue is, in fact, not his. He's using it and he's learned to wield it as well as use it to the point that even with a fake he can tap into the power of the genuine Azure, but it's forever important for him to continue to realize that it's not his and to not become so dependent on its power.
The Black Beast also comes about when Ragna abuses the use of his Grimoire (Canonly, despite player options for bad endings and twists and turns, begrudging accepts that he shouldn't use the blazblue unless absolutely necessary—and he holds to this quite well, despite being overenthusiastic in his decisions of when it's neccessary to use it in ... well, using it (case, point: encounter with Hazama in CS—immediate activation of the grimoire despite everyone telling him to not use it/rely on it and that he can't beat Terumi, anyway!!).
≡ THE BLOODEDGE
Just going to very briefly note this still since it's a part of his character, even though this Ragna has passed the point in his timeline where "Bloodedge" came into being through time-displacement in an alternate timeline. As the Bloodedge, Ragna's personality is different from his derpy self. He's more typical bad ass silent hero protagonist, loner, etc (he's still hotheaded, but not on the same "immature" scale as one would put his current time-lined self). He has a very morbid and serious weight to his persona, and judging from most people's lack of knowledge of him (having mostly known about him through Jubei and Rachel—although Nine and Caelica were quite familiar with him, as well) suggest he was quite content with no one ever knowing of his existence.
Jubei has a lot of respect for this man and persona of Ragna, so it's definitely safe to say without his memories he lost a good deal of his derpy brash side (although not enough of that brashness to avoid giving his life in the end without anyone even knowing who he was or what he was doing—talk about self sacrifice). This personality is probably much the same as the transition from Jin to Hakumen that Hakumen has to make, only is quite a bit more abrupt and sudden considering his particularly comes about through amnesia (and with no one or nothing to connect the pieces for him—that is, until he gets his power and memories back in vicinity of the Black Beast, there's no much for him to "transition" from especially being sent to such grim times).
note: This above information, while presented in canon, has been revealed to not be the exact case (aka: more details and little secrets and exceptions have been revealed on what really happened, including more insight on "Bloodedge's" actual personality, oho) but we'll just leave it at this for now since all the information has come via the light novels and I don't want to throwing huge spoilers that are not readily available in english to general fans, especially with the new game coming out in the fall and going to be revealing more as well! Just wanted to mention it though in the case there's ever some personality altering event where info like this might be useful to the mods...).
Abilities/Powers:
Because Ragna is from a fighting game, he has a lot of "abilities" and powers, and his wiki has a pretty informative yet concise section on what his powers are and how they work. I couldn't find anything that said linking to the powers and abilities wasn't allowed, so I'm hoping this will be all right!
I also decided to link it because it has internal links to particular terms used that a canon-blind person might appreciate if needing extra detail on such.
However, if it's preferred I do this entire section in my own words, please let me know, I'll be happy to (I just tend to be really wordy and long winded and didn't want to make it way more complicated than necessary, especially between him being the Black Beast and all the time paradoxes and physics and blah blah blah and general overwhelming nature of Blazblue canon that actually can make this a really complicated and long section to explain).
1. It's mentioned that Ragna's Azure Grimoire downloads something called the Idea Engine, but just a little info further on how that happened. Although Ragna's Azure Grimoire has been proved to be a prototype/fake, Lambda's (her memories as Nu resurface and her feelings for Ragna are the reason) sacrifice to save him from Hazama/Yuuki Terumi during their battle at the cauldron somehow allowed the fake grimoire to absorb the Idea Engine that Kokonoe used to resconstruct Lambda in the first place. This fusion causes Ragna to be able to pull forth and access the actual abilities of the true Azure and tl;dr kick the shit out of Terumi in his fit of rage over Lambda/Nu's death.
2. just a small piece of general info, he's canonly left-handed, even though some of his artwork shows him being otherwise (his right arm is the Azure Grimoire so he learned everything left-handed).
Items/Weapons:
1.Blood-Scythe: His weapon of choice. Takes the form of a large sword, but can transform into a scythe and does so during execution of certain fighting techniques.
2. + 3.Azure Grimoire + Idea Engine : From his canon point, these two items are fused into one in the form of Ragna's right arm.
no subject
THE BOY
As a child, Ragna had a rather endearing personality. He was carefree, kind (his siblings—both of them—meant the world to him) and he seemed quite happy with his going nowhere lifestyle of being an orphan.
That is, until his world went down in a ball of flames and he lost both siblings, the Sister he knew to be the closest thing to a mother he would ever have, and lost his right arm in the process.
Ragna's personality did a 180 then, although it particularly manifests itself much later as he grows older, the scarring effects taking their toll. While Ragna says after that fateful day he learned to hate everything, it's seen that Ragna isn't quite so cynical and dark until he reaches maturity. Even after the incident, despite his want for revenge, he's still just a kid (he even calls Jubei a big fluffy kitty when they first meet and he runs around playing with a tiny kitten version of Taokaka when they first meet as well) and has his innocent (and stubborn sides). As he grows up, that hatred seems to manifest, perhaps the gravity of the situation weighing down more heavily and realistically than it once did.
One thing that doesn't change is his rude bickering with Rachel, although he gets less tolerant and more rude as he gets older (and Rachel gets less teasing and more bitchy so maybe it's a mutual transition in an "adult relationship" for the two of them, who knows). The two of them do really care about one another, despite their usual fronts both to the public and to each other.
THE GRIM REAPER
Despite his master's concerns about Ragna himself and his grimoire, Ragna eventually took to starting his revenge, starting with destroying the N.O.L. one base at a time. At the start of Calamity Trigger, it already is shown that he has a temper problem. He had it even as a boy, but over time it seems to have only worsened. Besides a rather hot temper, Ragna is distant and often cold to those he meets, strangers meaning nothing to him. A classic loner.
However, it's eventually shown by the time he meets up with his brother, Jin, now a Major of the N.O.L., that he's not as distant from everyone and everything. He holds a different attitude towards his siblings (even Jin, never delivering a killing blow when he could have, doing his best to keep Jin uninvolved, and even in one game scenario he shows he still has faith in Jin and isn't just ready to give him up as another N.O.L enemy.
Ragna has always had a loud mouth, and he still does even though he often wants to be just left alone. He's blunt, to the point, and sprays vulgar insults every given chance. He's quite impulsive, often jumping too far ahead, but he's also determined like no one else to achieve his goal. (In his defense, no one ever tells him anything until its too late whether he asks for the help or not). There's a bit of a sarcastic side to him, as well, and one might say he probably isn't good with kids.
Most of all, Ragna has severe trust issues, these helping explain his moody loner self. He won't trust anyone on first meeting and he probably won't trust them on the 70th meeting, either. In order to be acknowledged and not receive the cold shoulder is a difficult task, even for those he knows quite well. Considering his sister is still missing, his brother is crazy and trying to kill him, and then another nuisance by the name of Hazama, his trust issues are certainly justified. Gain his trust, though, and you have it for life.
**Note Ragna also ends up with an obsession to not just to destroy the NOL, but find the "Captain" of the NOL's Intelligence department, Hazama. A very personal grudge stands and it is suggested that Hazama (really Yuuki Terumi) has just as much obsession with killing Ragna as Ragna does with him.
≡ THE BLACK BEAST
≡ THE BLOODEDGETHIS IS WHEN -- ohWhile the "being the human form of the Black Beast (the huge monstrous creature that basically almost wiped everyone out one hundred years prior to blazblue's "present" timeline)" is better explained throughout the light novels (some brief general information can be read here—it's more complicated than that, ahaha...), it's impossible to deny some base things such as Ragna's Grimoire definitely holding the power of the Black Beast and in both games him having endings where he is consumed by the Black Beast itself (and in CS, it's without Nu being anywhere nearby).
In terms of contributing to Ragna's personality, the Black Beast feeds off of Ragna's hate and dependence (greed, even) for power and his lack of ability to respect what he's given. The Black Beast comes about in times when Ragna fails to heed both Jubei and Rachel and their warnings of respecting and acknowledging what power is his and what power isn't. His lack of intuition and understanding of being allowed to tap a power that isn't his and that power being his is what ultimately dooms him and sends him to the bad endings of his storyline in game.
That said, while the Black Beast comes about from wrong decisions and thinking and bad paths taken by the player, the Black Beast is definitely the "dark side" to Ragna and not something to be ignored in terms of his personality and makeup. It's his own inner demon (as well as many others' outer demon and worst nightmare) and feeds off Ragna's inability to have control. Whether it's control over his emotions, his ambitions, his thoughts, or his opinions, it's a significant lack of control. His understanding may not be so much absent as it is simply smothered by his lack of control, but the lack of it for whatever reason certainly doesn't help bring him salvation. Considering Terumi feeds off of his hate in particular, the Black Beast part of Ragna is something that try as he might, probably isn't going to go away any time soon. And as seen from CS, even though they missed the supposed intial timeline point where the Black Beast is created and the loop starts all over again, that doesn't mean it's not still lingering somewhere with the chance to still create—or, rather, revive since it's already been around once before—itself.
Part of Ragna's growth as a character is learning to accept and acknowledge his own limitations without letting them hold him back. The Black Beast also represents that denial on some level, such as his refusal to acknowledge that the power of the Blazblue is, in fact, not his. He's using it and he's learned to wield it as well as use it to the point that even with a fake he can tap into the power of the genuine Azure, but it's forever important for him to continue to realize that it's not his and to not become so dependent on its power.
The Black Beast also comes about when Ragna abuses the use of his Grimoire (Canonly, despite player options for bad endings and twists and turns, begrudging accepts that he shouldn't use the blazblue unless absolutely necessary—and he holds to this quite well, despite being overenthusiastic in his decisions of when it's neccessary to use it in ... well, using it (case, point: encounter with Hazama in CS—immediate activation of the grimoire despite everyone telling him to not use it/rely on it and that he can't beat Terumi, anyway!!).
Just going to very briefly note this still since it's a part of his character, even though this Ragna has passed the point in his timeline where "Bloodedge" came into being through time-displacement in an alternate timeline. As the Bloodedge, Ragna's personality is different from his derpy self. He's more typical bad ass silent hero protagonist, loner, etc (he's still hotheaded, but not on the same "immature" scale as one would put his current time-lined self). He has a very morbid and serious weight to his persona, and judging from most people's lack of knowledge of him (having mostly known about him through Jubei and Rachel—although Nine and Caelica were quite familiar with him, as well) suggest he was quite content with no one ever knowing of his existence.
Jubei has a lot of respect for this man and persona of Ragna, so it's definitely safe to say without his memories he lost a good deal of his derpy brash side (although not enough of that brashness to avoid giving his life in the end without anyone even knowing who he was or what he was doing—talk about self sacrifice). This personality is probably much the same as the transition from Jin to Hakumen that Hakumen has to make, only is quite a bit more abrupt and sudden considering his particularly comes about through amnesia (and with no one or nothing to connect the pieces for him—that is, until he gets his power and memories back in vicinity of the Black Beast, there's no much for him to "transition" from especially being sent to such grim times).
note: This above information, while presented in canon, has been revealed to not be the exact case (aka: more details and little secrets and exceptions have been revealed on what really happened, including more insight on "Bloodedge's" actual personality, oho) but we'll just leave it at this for now since all the information has come via the light novels and I don't want to throwing huge spoilers that are not readily available in english to general fans, especially with the new game coming out in the fall and going to be revealing more as well! Just wanted to mention it though in the case there's ever some personality altering event where info like this might be useful to the mods...).
Abilities/Powers:
Because Ragna is from a fighting game, he has a lot of "abilities" and powers, and his wiki has a pretty informative yet concise section on what his powers are and how they work. I couldn't find anything that said linking to the powers and abilities wasn't allowed, so I'm hoping this will be all right!
I also decided to link it because it has internal links to particular terms used that a canon-blind person might appreciate if needing extra detail on such.
However, if it's preferred I do this entire section in my own words, please let me know, I'll be happy to (I just tend to be really wordy and long winded and didn't want to make it way more complicated than necessary, especially between him being the Black Beast and all the time paradoxes and physics and blah blah blah and general overwhelming nature of Blazblue canon that actually can make this a really complicated and long section to explain).
Wiki: Powers and Abilities
Extra Notes on Powers Taken from his Canon Point:
1. It's mentioned that Ragna's Azure Grimoire downloads something called the Idea Engine, but just a little info further on how that happened. Although Ragna's Azure Grimoire has been proved to be a prototype/fake, Lambda's (her memories as Nu resurface and her feelings for Ragna are the reason) sacrifice to save him from Hazama/Yuuki Terumi during their battle at the cauldron somehow allowed the fake grimoire to absorb the Idea Engine that Kokonoe used to resconstruct Lambda in the first place. This fusion causes Ragna to be able to pull forth and access the actual abilities of the true Azure and tl;dr kick the shit out of Terumi in his fit of rage over Lambda/Nu's death.
2. just a small piece of general info, he's canonly left-handed, even though some of his artwork shows him being otherwise (his right arm is the Azure Grimoire so he learned everything left-handed).
Items/Weapons:
1. Blood-Scythe: His weapon of choice. Takes the form of a large sword, but can transform into a scythe and does so during execution of certain fighting techniques.
2. + 3. Azure Grimoire + Idea Engine : From his canon point, these two items are fused into one in the form of Ragna's right arm.