Schala

1 General Information
2 Media
- 2.1 Images
- 2.2 Music

General Information[edit]

Game Information[edit]

Chrono Trigger[edit]

Full Name: Schala Zeal
Japanese Name: サラ Sara
Age: Indeterminate, teens
Species: Human
Home Time: 12000 B.C.
Home Area: Zeal Palace

Schala is the gentle, meek princess of Zeal. Born into royalty, she was immediately identified as having a penchant for magic; some speculated her ability surpassed Queen Zeal's. When the Enlightened Ones constructed the Mammon Machine, they gave her a special Pendant to control it and other Sealed Doors. She deeply cared for her younger sibling Janus and looked out for his well-being. Perhaps only she and Melchior knew of his true power as well, for Janus expressed feeling the Black Wind to her at times. Schala also visited Algetty, where she entertained the children there and convened with the Elder. The people of Algetty later remarked that only Schala treated them as equals. After Crono's team was captured in her era, she mercifully released them in hope that they would in turn free Melchior from Mt. Woe. Unfortunately, The Prophet forced her to seal the Gate from which they arrived.

After the party freed Melchior and regrouped among the Earthbound, Schala noted that she had refused to help bring the Ocean Palace to full speed. Dalton then kidnapped her, threatening to kill her if anyone opposed his actions. At the Ocean Palace, Queen Zeal forced her to use the Pendant to unlock the Mammon Machine's full potential, which caused the Ocean Palace Incident. Aghast at the wild energies and dark auras erupting from the Machine, she attempted to stop it but was shocked into submission by her mother. In her last gesture, she transported Magus and the remaining party members away after Lavos killed Crono in his attempt to save her and stop the beast. This was her final appearance; she remained behind amid the collapsing palace. The only solace concerning her demise came at the ending of Chrono Trigger, when Magus noted that he would search for Schala in 12000 B.C. without fail. After defeating Lavos, it would become his life's objective.

One of the unexplained mysteries of Chrono Trigger is what happened to Schala in the Lavos Timeline during the original Ocean Palace Incident. Since her pendant was passed down to Marle, it is generally accepted that Schala was able to transport herself and possibly her mother out of the Palace before its collapse (her mother's absence tidily explaining why the Black Omen never originally rose). This method of transporting via the pendant or other means only gives rise to other questions, as Schala notes to the party that she only has enough power to send the three of them to safety. However, we know that Schala powers up the pendant for such actions by holding it next to the Mammon Machine, and at that moment in the Ocean Palace, the Mammon Machine was literally bursting with Lavos's power, begging the question why she wasn't able to power it up further (or possibly, if she wanted to stay behind out of some sense of guilt, consistent with her characterization in Radical Dreamers).

Chrono Cross[edit]

In Chrono Cross, Schala's fate at the end of Chrono Trigger was finally revealed. In the Ocean Palace, Schala fell into a dimensional vortex that brought her to the Darkness Beyond Time with the ruined Mammon Machine. There, the defeated Lavos cruelly absorbed her, resulting in the Time Devourer (apparently, her fusion enabled Lavos the ability to consume time by having a way back into time or boosting his magical ability). The pure hatred and enmity of Lavos filled her mind, and she became split in wanting to destroy all existence and save the world and herself. This new being was not complete, but eventually, the Time Devourer would mature and begin destroying the universe. As Schala remained bound to Lavos, she heard Serge crying from being wounded by a panther demon, and struggled with all her might to make contact with the time period 1006 A.D. This caused the magnetic storm that nullified the power systems of Chronopolis and allowed Serge to touch the Frozen Flame and become its Arbiter.

Before the hatred in her mind took over, she also cloned herself to create Kid and sent the baby to Lucca in 1004 A.D.. She left Kid with her pendant for protection. (The issue of Schala giving her pendant to Kid and therefore not allowing Marle to receive it by way of Guardian heirloom is an old one, but theories below resolve it.) Thanks to Project Kid, Serge and his group were able to utilize the Time Egg and defeat the Time Devourer; using the Chrono Cross, they restored the dimensions into one and seamlessly separated Schala from the evil entity binding her. She then delivered an oration on the struggle of lifeforms to truly achieve "life" and evolve into something beautiful and new entirely. Before Serge returned to his own time, she told him that she would find him someday.

The last appearance of Schala in the Chrono series is, like her disappearance in Chrono Trigger, painfully without stable ground. It is unknown where she goes after she is freed, or why finding Serge would be such an impossible task considering she knows that he is in 1020 A.D. More odd is the fact that she makes no mention of Magus, a brother who has devoted his life to finding her. However, the most enigmatic aspect of the ending is her deliverance of a few lines in Kid's manner of speaking and her signing the ending journal entry as Schala "Kid" Zeal. This begs the question of whether the two were fused together, but considering that Kid had declared her independence on Opassa Beach, and that we never see such a fusion, it is unlikely.

The "lost" storyline of Chrono Cross suggests that Schala fused with Lavos because she was an Arbiter of the Frozen Flame in Zeal, which was probably kept inside the Mammon Machine (and was referenced by the book in Enhasa as the shard of red rock). In the lost storyline, Arbiters had to deal with Lavos for the sake of humanity; if they failed or perhaps gave in to negative emotion, they would fuse with Lavos and threaten to destroy space-time. Serge was going to face this decision in Chrono Cross, but this storyline was apparently not fully represented in the game, later appearing in Ultimania. Read the Arbiter entry for a better summary.

Chrono Trigger DS[edit]

Chrono Trigger DS reveals that Schala and Lavos, before becoming the prototypical Time Devourer, experienced an intermediary evolutionary stage—the Dream Devourer, capable of feeding on thoughts, memories, and dreams across time. Magus located Schala and tried to free her to no avail. Schala awoke long enough to tell Magus that his attempts were futile, and no power could be used to save her. She admonished him to live out his life in other pursuits before the Dream Devourer would destroy everything. Magus protested but was sent away, and eventually sacrificed his identity in abject frustration over Schala's fatalism and predicament.

Radical Dreamers[edit]

In Radical Dreamers, it is said that after the Ocean Palace Incident, Schala was consumed with guilt for what she had helped bring about. The Frozen Flame (hinted to have been used in or with the Mammon Machine) then unaged her, erased her memory, and sent her to the modern era, where she grew up as Kid. No explanation for why the Flame did this (other than "it did not wish for her to die") is given, let alone why Lavos would take pity on Schala.

Theory and Analysis[edit]

Name Origin[edit]

Sara (Schala's Japanese name) Has several possible meanings. The name Sarah means 'royalty 2. sarabakari (balance) 3. sarabande (music) 4. sarakedasu (to expose, to lay bare, to confess) 5. saranari (of course) 6. sarasara (rustling, murmuring, fluently, silken hair) 7. sarasara (not at all) 8. sarashi (bleach, refine) 8. sarau (kidnap, abduct) 9. sarabada (farewell)