Ferris

Felix Argyle (フェリックス・アーガイル), commonly known as Ferris (フェリス), is Crusch Karsten's knight. Debuting in Arc 3, he played a rather vital role as Crusch's knight and supported Subaru in his fight against the Hakugei and Sin Archbishop of Sloth.

Appearance
Ferris has flax colored hair and yellow eyes. His casual wear consists of a blue collar with a ribbon, a blue dress, black tights, blue leggings, blue shoes, white arm covers, and a blue scarf tied around his right arm.

Ferris' cat like appendages are a result of his ancestors having demi-human blood, and because of this, he was mistreated by his father. The white and blue ribbons that he wears in his hair are a gift from Crusch and he always wears them no matter what he's wearing.

Personality
Ferris usually refers to himself in third person, calling himself Ferri-chan (フェリちゃん), though he will refer to himself as Ferris, Felix, or with female pronouns depending on the situation. He is absolutely loyal to Crusch and will do anything she says, however he will oppose her if needed. He also enjoys teasing other people, especially those that are surprised that he's male, using cutesy language and gestures to agitate them.

Although he hides it through his actions and words, Ferris has a severe view on death and values due to his job as a healer, leading him to hold those who no longer have any will to live in contempt from the bottom of his heart. He also hates weaklings because of his complex, causing him to hate Subaru for a while, however he lets go of his feelings against him after seeing his actions during the battle against the Hakugei.

Ferris can get emotional when it comes to Crusch, such as the time when she was infected by Capella's dragon blood, becoming visibly stressed by her poor condition and even going as far as to demand to see a captured Sirius so he could torture her to gain information on how to cure her. He is constantly thankful for Crusch and everything that she's done for him in her life.

History
From the moment Felix Argyle was born, he had cat like appendages due to a distant ancestor from his father's family, the Argyles, having them as a recessive trait. However, his parents mistreated him because they suspected an affair. He was locked in the basement of the Argyle Mansion for the first nine years of his life and was barely cared for. One day, as a result of rumors that were in the Karsten Duchy, a young Crusch Karsten visited the Argyles’ household and found Felix. After slowly learning about the truth behind his circumstances, he encountered his parents and attempted to stab his mother out of hatred. However, Crusch was ultimately the target of his fury, and as she approached death and told him to live in a way that brought no shame to his soul, a blue-white light emerged from Felix and spread to the girl's body. By using healing magic for the first time in his life, Felix saved Crusch's life and, remembering her words, requested that she allow him to use his life by her side. He was subsequently taken to the Karsten Manor to be cared for and made Crusch's attendant while his parents lost what little standing they had with the Karsten family, leading to their decline.

In the following years to come, Felix would establish a strong sense of loyalty and devotion towards Crusch for taking him from the hell that was his life before. Half a year after arriving at her mansion, Felix made an oath with Crusch to act like a girl and “exchange” his boyhood to her, since she sought to succeed her father and become a duke, which she did not believe she could do as a woman. While Ferris began wearing girls’ clothes, Crusch wore formal men’s suits to fulfill her oath and cease acting like a woman. Some time after their oath, Felix met Fourier Lugunica for the first time. When Fourier mistook Felix's name as Ferris, he began using that name at Crusch's suggestion. Together, Crusch, Ferris, and Fourier would get into all kinds of mischief that defined much of their friendship. Under Fourier's recommendation, he also took lessons from Garitch Fabless, the then court healer.

At age 18, Ferris would join the Royal Guard under recommendations from Fourier and the Royal Institute of Healing. Although he wanted to be of better use to Crusch, Ferris at first was not very comfortable in being the elite group for several reasons: he stood out due to his odd features marking him as a demi-human, his preference for wearing women's clothing, his own lacking combat abilities and lastly dissatisfaction of his unusual and sudden appointment despite all that from the other knights. However, on the first day, he also came to be acquainted with Reinhard van Astrea and Julius Juukulius which would be the first step in breaking the wall between Ferris and his new environment. Through his good relationship with both of them and the subtle opportunities to display his worth crafty granted by Marcos Gildark, Ferris would come to earn the respect of the other knights for saving their lives with his magic. This would come to give him a sense of his abilities and place there.

In the last month of his probationary period in the Royal Guard, before he became a permanent member, dark rumors surrounding his old family would reach his ears via Fourier. Learning that Crusch had gone to investigate them, Ferris – together with Fourier and Julius – would rush back to the Karsten estate to learn the truth of the situation. After their arrival, things would take a turn for worse when they learn that Crusch had been captured and her men were engaged with an undead army outside the Argyle Manor. Ferris would also receive a message from his father that would demand he came to Argyle estate alone in exchange for Crusch's life. Returning to Argyle mansion for the first time in nearly a decade, Ferris would confront his father and a maid named Hannah who he felt a familiar connection to. Following a cold reunion, Ferris would acquiesce to his father's demand to revive his mother with the Argyle family's ancient spell called the Sacrament of the Immortal King. However, when Ferris was brought to the master bedroom, and examined his mother's corpse he would come to the shocking conclusion that she was murdered due to numerous and frenetic stab wounds in her body, partially thanks to Biehn's meticulous preservation. After a tense argument between Ferris and Biehn, the later would lose his composure and admit his guilt in the matter. Eventually realizing any further discussion was pointless, Ferris revived the woman. The spell, however, ended up being a partial failure as despite his mother seemingly coming back with some part of her personality, she was but a walking corpse without her former soul. Moreover, the now undead mother would kill Biehn as they embraced, then crumbled into ash a moment later. Hannah would then reveal to Ferris where Crusch was being held and that she had already freed her from her bonds. Just as Ferris raced out of the room, he would hear the locking and smoke coming from the room. Despite his protest, Hannah would not open the door choosing to die along with her master and mistress. The event marked a scar on Ferris' heart and he developed deep hate for those who easily gave up their lives. He would meet Crusch and Julius in the foyer of the manor, relieved but utterly distraught by the whole event and escape the burning building with them.

After the incident, Fourier would collapse from a mysterious illness and Ferris would spend over a month looking after him. Desperate and frustrated at the lack of progress, Ferris would consider using the Sacrament of the Immortal King to revive him after death but Fourier would forbid it, as he wanted to be allowed to die on his own terms if that was the case. They share a sombre heart to heart moment and Fourier would pass away a couple of days later. On that same day, Ferris would take his oath of knighthood to Crusch to support her and Fourier's memory.

Abilities
Divine Protection (加護 Kago): Ferris has the Divine Protection of Water (水の加護 Mizu no Kago), which makes him highly skilled at Water Magic.

Magic User (魔法使い Maho Tsukai): Ferris has extraordinary power and talent with Water Magic thanks to the combination of his bloodline and his Divine Protection of Water.
 * Healing Magic:Ferris Healing Magic.gif Ferris can summon Water Mana through a person's body which stimulates an individual's natural healing capabilities and speeds up wound recoveries. Healing Magic can help restore an injured body or cure a target of any ailment they might have within an instant. That being said, Healing Magic can only treat physical wounds and ailments whilst having no affect on mental afflictions. The skill, talent, and raw power of the mage using Healing Magic naturally affects the effectiveness of the treatment. Ferris is a healing prodigy who is considered to the greatest healer in the Kingdom if not the world, earning him the alias of Blue (青 Ao). He can, with little effort, instantly bring someone back to perfect health from the brink of death, and even a gravely wounded person can be completely healed by Ferris without so much as a scar to show after the healing procedure. Ferris can even seamlessly reattach lost limbs such as when he reattached Crusch's cut-off right forearm after it had been cleanly severed by the Sin Archbishop of Greed. There are, however, a couple of known afflictions that not even Ferris can heal, including the illness that felled the entire Kingdom's Royal Family and the infection caused by Sin Archbishop of Lust's black Dragon's blood. Additionally, the target of Felix's Healing Magic needs to still have an ember of life within them for him to be able to save them, as even someone who had only recently passed away can not be rejuvenated by Ferris. He can also use his magic for other purposes. For example, Ferris can make someone's body go out of control, enabling him to do things such as using their body like a puppet or destroying the circulatory system of their Gate from inside. During his treatment of Subaru in Arc 3, he implies that he can brainwash people. Finally, he can die and heal himself to perfect condition, as shown during the original failed battle against the Sin Archbishop of Sloth; however, it is unknown if he has a limit to how many times he can do this.

Sacrament of the Immortal King (不死王の秘蹟 Fushiou no Hiseki): Sacrament of the Immortal King is an ancient and incredibly powerful curse art created by an unknown Witch long ago. The curse, when cast correctly, will allow the user to reanimate corpses of the dead and make them do their bidding. Sadly, the technique to properly cast the curse has been long lost to time, and only an incomplete incantation exists which was transcribed in an old and withered book regarded as the most important heirloom of House Argyle. Originally, the curse was thought to be capable of fully reviving a dead person, and there are legends of the aforementioned Witch being supposedly capable of bringing back people exactly as they were before their demise. Effectively, the written chunks of the curse's full passage is incapable of producing anything more than walking corpses with no soul of their own, creating "Corpse Soldiers" whose flesh slowly withers away and decomposes through time. To further limit the usefulness of this mostly-lost curse, a caster with an extremely rare natural affinity for it must be found in order to recreate even the most basic effects of this forbidden curse art. Ferris used this spell once, roughly a year before the start of the main story, on the two-year-old corpse of his mother — who had been repeatedly stabbed and killed by her husband and Ferris' father Biehn Argyle. Upon chanting the incomplete incantation, a faint blue light transferred from his palms and seeped into the dead body, springing it back to life almost immediately. In total, the corpse had remained "alive" for no more than a couple of seconds as almost immediately after opening her eyes, Hannah strangled Biehn and — after killing him — dissipated to dust. Perhaps the most enigmatic thing about the whole ordeal was Hannah's faint but genuine smile upon laying her eyes on her husband and her supposed son — something that was not a possible reaction from one of Biehn's countless reanimated corpses.

Pseudo-Immortality: One way Ferris' body differs from most humans and demi-humans is his extraordinary connection with Water Mana imbue it with strong passive effect in which results in rapid cellular regeneration. With this in effect, it means he can resurrect from death. However, in exchange it further weakens his ability to fight.

Demi-Human Traits: Due to the demi-human blood flowing through his veins, Ferris sensory organs were significantly enhanced past the limitations displayed by most humans. His cat-like ears in particular were able to detect the slightest change in his surroundings to the point that he could tell when someone turned to look at him. Because of his excellent hearing, he could always tell when someone was approaching him, with the exception of Reinhard van Astrea.

Equipment: Ferris owns a short sword he received from Crusch, but as he doesn't like to damage his skin, he generally refuses to wield it. He has wielded it once in an effort to intimidate an unimpressed Capella.

Trivia

 * According to the author, Ferris's birthday is January 16.
 * As stated by the author, Ferris’s character was intended to be a boy who wears girls’ clothes. Furthermore, the author says he did this because he wanted to write things that could only be done with a character like Ferris.
 * According to Tappei Nagatsuki, Ferris was considered to become the final boss of the series, but due to Crusch's existence, he scrapped the idea fairly quickly.
 * Ferris, just like Reinhard, is drawn with the wrong sword hilt on the cover of Re:Zero Ex Light Novel Volume 4. The hilt looks identical to Julius' treasured sword.
 * Ferris has been ranked among the five weakest characters in Re:Zero.
 * In 2014, the author stated that Ferris was among nine known characters introduced in the story up to that point who had the highest capacity for holding mana. However, he chose to not rank Ferris or any of the other listed characters in order. It is unknown if the list has changed since then.

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