Etna on Etna.
For those of you who have met her, Etna is a sassy, snarky little demon that takes no sass from anybody. But she wasn't always that way. In fact, once upon a time she was a timid demon girl, lonely and bewildered in the Overlord's castle. So, how did Etna get to be the demon we know and detest? Let's find out! :D
To understand Etna, we need to start from the beginning. No, not the beginning of Etna's life, the beginning of how demons, humans and angels began to understand one another. Essentially, mostly due to the influence of angels, and probably because of a few bad demons messing things up in the human world, demons were known to be the most detestable, awful, corrupt creatures in the three dimensions. So, pretty much from day one, demons are born learning that everybody thinks that they suck, and that probably very good on the self-esteem. This doesn't last long, though, since automatically thinking you are evil really frees up the possibility of shrugging off crimes like theft, arson, murder, and so on. When you're already a DEMON, being labeled any for any of these crimes don't really matter. Heck, in Disgaea 2, its actually a badge of honor to be found guilty! So, yeah, right off the bat, Etna has a bit of a distorted view of reality and probably gets her irreverence because of that.
The next major thing that influences Etna's personality happened when she was very young. While she's a demon lord, now, Etna was born a common-class demon. This meant that she would be destined to work underneath a demon noble, probably doing grunt work similar to what her prinnies do for her. But an interesting twist changed all that. The Overlord of the time, King Krichevskoy, invited Etna to work at the castle. This was a GREAT honor, but there was trouble brewing. In truth, while the Overlord was not one to care about class, the noble demon children did and made sure to make Etna's life miserable. Etna became very lonely and sad because of this, and seriously considered suicide. She got some comfort in befriending a demon puppy and would feed it food she'd swipe from the pantries. When the demon nobles caught the puppy stealing, though, they decided it'd be fun to beat up the puppy -- and accidentally killed it. It was then that King Krichevskoy came to Etna and asked her what was wrong. She told him what happened and without so much as a complaint he personally saw to her puppy's burial. She admired and loved the Overlord after this, and swore in her heart to do anything for him. It is my belief that this is also where she learned that class did not matter -- its what one did which defined how important you were. She also probably learned how to be self-reliant, independent, and very slow to make friends.
Unfortunately, her love of the king was never returned, and eventually the king married a human witch. This infuriated Etna, and she burned with jealousy and animosity toward the new Queen. She would have killed her too, but knowing that it would hurt her King stopped her. Soon, the queen gave birth to a son, and she came to hate him too. Then another curious thing happened. The Prince contracted a very rare and deadly illness, and was close to death. In order to save her son and despite the King's efforts, the Queen sacrificed her own life which cured the Prince of his illness. Though many things are permissible to demons, the ideas of sacrificing oneself for the sake of another is practically unheard of. This gave Etna a lot to think about what it means to love another.
Some time later, a powerful demon named Baal, titled the Lord of Terror, threatened the Netherworld. The King did battle with Baal, but was only able to seal it away at the cost of much of his life. He came to the castle afterward very near death, and Etna, wishing to show his love to the King, was seconds away from taking her own life in the same way as the queen. The king stopped her, and made her swear that she would "Help his son become a fine Overlord." Remembering her vow to do anything her King told her to, she agreed to this and watched her King die.
Not long after this, however, an excommunicated demon of the Netherworld, named Maderas, saw the opportunity to take revenge for his exile. He snatched Etna's memory away, and with it, all recollection of her promise to the King. He then blackmailed Etna to poison the Prince, but even without the memory of it, her heart would not allow her to break her promise. Instead of killing him, the poison she gave him put the prince in a long, long sleep. We don't know much of how Etna was before Maderas in truth, but her two years working under him probably steeled her into being the irreverent, manipulative, two-faced, sarcastic, violent and aggressive girl that she is now. She double-crossed Maderas, and kicked his ass for putting her through the hell that she went through. Since, she swore that she would never allow anybody else to control her ever again, a sentiment that more-or-less follows her to this day.
Etna's personality, then, developed from a lot of unique experiences. She's now completely unabashed to be who she is, and will feel no remorse for doing awful things to other people. Through her plotting against Maderas, she learned and mastered manipulation, the value of information (she serves as the reference of many things in the Netherworld in the first game), and many other skills to be quite the sneaky little minx. But, if you can get her to trust and like you enough for her to consider you a friend, she'd be very loyal toward you. The most important thing to her then, other then the vow she sword to King Krichevskoy, is being a very violent free spirit that is able to do whatever she wants when she wants.
To understand Etna, we need to start from the beginning. No, not the beginning of Etna's life, the beginning of how demons, humans and angels began to understand one another. Essentially, mostly due to the influence of angels, and probably because of a few bad demons messing things up in the human world, demons were known to be the most detestable, awful, corrupt creatures in the three dimensions. So, pretty much from day one, demons are born learning that everybody thinks that they suck, and that probably very good on the self-esteem. This doesn't last long, though, since automatically thinking you are evil really frees up the possibility of shrugging off crimes like theft, arson, murder, and so on. When you're already a DEMON, being labeled any for any of these crimes don't really matter. Heck, in Disgaea 2, its actually a badge of honor to be found guilty! So, yeah, right off the bat, Etna has a bit of a distorted view of reality and probably gets her irreverence because of that.
The next major thing that influences Etna's personality happened when she was very young. While she's a demon lord, now, Etna was born a common-class demon. This meant that she would be destined to work underneath a demon noble, probably doing grunt work similar to what her prinnies do for her. But an interesting twist changed all that. The Overlord of the time, King Krichevskoy, invited Etna to work at the castle. This was a GREAT honor, but there was trouble brewing. In truth, while the Overlord was not one to care about class, the noble demon children did and made sure to make Etna's life miserable. Etna became very lonely and sad because of this, and seriously considered suicide. She got some comfort in befriending a demon puppy and would feed it food she'd swipe from the pantries. When the demon nobles caught the puppy stealing, though, they decided it'd be fun to beat up the puppy -- and accidentally killed it. It was then that King Krichevskoy came to Etna and asked her what was wrong. She told him what happened and without so much as a complaint he personally saw to her puppy's burial. She admired and loved the Overlord after this, and swore in her heart to do anything for him. It is my belief that this is also where she learned that class did not matter -- its what one did which defined how important you were. She also probably learned how to be self-reliant, independent, and very slow to make friends.
Unfortunately, her love of the king was never returned, and eventually the king married a human witch. This infuriated Etna, and she burned with jealousy and animosity toward the new Queen. She would have killed her too, but knowing that it would hurt her King stopped her. Soon, the queen gave birth to a son, and she came to hate him too. Then another curious thing happened. The Prince contracted a very rare and deadly illness, and was close to death. In order to save her son and despite the King's efforts, the Queen sacrificed her own life which cured the Prince of his illness. Though many things are permissible to demons, the ideas of sacrificing oneself for the sake of another is practically unheard of. This gave Etna a lot to think about what it means to love another.
Some time later, a powerful demon named Baal, titled the Lord of Terror, threatened the Netherworld. The King did battle with Baal, but was only able to seal it away at the cost of much of his life. He came to the castle afterward very near death, and Etna, wishing to show his love to the King, was seconds away from taking her own life in the same way as the queen. The king stopped her, and made her swear that she would "Help his son become a fine Overlord." Remembering her vow to do anything her King told her to, she agreed to this and watched her King die.
Not long after this, however, an excommunicated demon of the Netherworld, named Maderas, saw the opportunity to take revenge for his exile. He snatched Etna's memory away, and with it, all recollection of her promise to the King. He then blackmailed Etna to poison the Prince, but even without the memory of it, her heart would not allow her to break her promise. Instead of killing him, the poison she gave him put the prince in a long, long sleep. We don't know much of how Etna was before Maderas in truth, but her two years working under him probably steeled her into being the irreverent, manipulative, two-faced, sarcastic, violent and aggressive girl that she is now. She double-crossed Maderas, and kicked his ass for putting her through the hell that she went through. Since, she swore that she would never allow anybody else to control her ever again, a sentiment that more-or-less follows her to this day.
Etna's personality, then, developed from a lot of unique experiences. She's now completely unabashed to be who she is, and will feel no remorse for doing awful things to other people. Through her plotting against Maderas, she learned and mastered manipulation, the value of information (she serves as the reference of many things in the Netherworld in the first game), and many other skills to be quite the sneaky little minx. But, if you can get her to trust and like you enough for her to consider you a friend, she'd be very loyal toward you. The most important thing to her then, other then the vow she sword to King Krichevskoy, is being a very violent free spirit that is able to do whatever she wants when she wants.