Personality: To assess Dist, let's start with a quick description of him by Anise Tatlin: "A stupid, rotten, friendless, ugly, snotty, poor excuse for a human being."
Dist's most apparent personality trait is his enormous ego. He believes he's the greatest thing to happen to the God-Generals, the elite military faction that he his part of, and that he can handle any situation with his scientific knowledge and his precious robots. in general, he has a horrible habit of thinking everything is about him. When genuinely approached by others, he makes the conversation about himself and his "great achievements." His arrogance tends to turn people off almost immediately, and when Dist catches wind of it, it only angers him. He's prone to frequent tantrums due to this.
Dist is actually the comic relief villain of the game, due to his flamboyant mannerisms and easy-to-anger attitude. His mannerisms are very hard to take seriously, especially when he's referring to his abilities as "super ultra gorgeous" or "ultra super hyper high-grade." It's incredibly easy to make fun of him, and his enraged responses only make things more amusing. There's also the fact that no matter how much boasting he throws at the main party of the game, he is always defeated. Despite being defeated, Dist comes back again and again, even seemingly cheating death in the process.
Although he is comic relief, there is also a lot of seriousness surrounding Dist. He truly is quite sinister at times, and that's why the official title that he hates to go by is Dist the Reaper. He treats many people as a means to his end of resurrecting his long-dead professor. His reason for joining the God-Generals was simply to use their leader, Van, as a way to get to documents about his professor in order to revive her. Once Van's status was no longer useful, he turned on him and schemed against him with Mohs in order to get more documents and resources from him. He's also always up for some good experimentation, even if they're unethical. He turned Mohs into a horrible monster just to see what would happen if he gave someone fonons (magical particles) that their body could not handle. He defended that experiment, saying that Mohs was willing to take the fonons even if something bad happened to him. While true, Dist knew that would likely happen but he let Mohs have the fonons anyway.
So why is Dist the way he is? It's possible that he's just lonely and desperate for attention. When his professor died at the hands of his best friend Jade, things changed. Jade grew more distant and Dist lost several people dear to him in the process. When Jade abandoned the quest to bring their professor back, Dist grew bitter and resented him for it. That's when he took up the goal himself and once Nebilim was back, things would go back to the way that they were before her death. Dist pushed Jade away by doing this, and continued to push others away wherever he went. It's shown in his manga gaiden however, that he actually is desperate for a friend, or at least someone to talk to. However, his personality works against him in his attempts to befriend others.
So it is rather easy to say that Dist has no redeeming qualities, especially since the majority of the time he is portrayed that way. But he isn't all bad. The main good deed he is noted for is his creation of Anise's refined Tokunaga, a doll that can change in size with her fonon frequency. He made those alterations to the doll because Anise actually paid attention to him at the Oracle Knights HQ, and she was (somewhat) willing to actually listen to him. Although they don't show friendly feelings toward each other throughout the game (see: Anise's description of Dist), their appreciation for each other never went away.
As a side-note, it's important to note that Dist has a grudge against his former best friend (although he won't admit to the "former" part) Jade. As said above, Jade's experiments caused their professor to die, and when Jade tried to create a replica of her with the process he created, the replica was imperfect and knew nothing but destruction. When Jade later abandoned that process that he and Dist tried to perfect, he ultimately abandoned the desire to try to bring their real professor back. Dist has never forgotten this, and throughout the game he is constantly trying to either destroy Jade or win him back to his side. Because despite his grudge against Jade, he really just wants things to go back to the way they were when they were friends.
In short, Dist is a somewhat complicated piece of work.
Strengths/Weaknesses: Strengths:
- He's tenacious. Dist's tenacity is brought up several times throughout the game. He is noted to be very determined when it comes to fulfilling his goals, and even surviving in general. He literally cheats death. Twice in the game, Dist withstood attacks that would kill just about anyone else. Basically, Dist will take whatever comes at him. He's a tough guy.
- He's a genius. Dist is one of the famous scientists from Keterburg, next to Jade. He is extremely skilled in robotics and fontechnology, as well as fomicry which is basically a sort of cloning process. He is so skilled at what he does, he was able to join the elite God-Generals of the Oracle Knights, one of the most esteemed positions in the military.
- He is goal-oriented. As mentioned earlier, Dist will stop at nothing to complete his goals. He has a plan of attack for everything, even if they're not the best of plans at times. Although his determination actually spills into weakness range, it could also be a strength in other cases.
Weaknesses:
- He's delusional. Dist is ridiculously caught up in the past, so much that his life's goal is to resurrect his dead professor from his childhood. He truly believes that once he resurrects Nebilim, no matter how impossible that is, Jade and the others from Keterburg will come flocking back to him like gigantic rift that separated them never existed.
- He's so self-absorbed it really hurts him. Dist is fully aware that he has talent, and he lets everyone know about it constantly. He's convinced that he's the biggest genius that the world has ever known, and that everyone should respect him. His flowery tangents about his prowess tend to drive others away or flat out ignore him, which only fuels his loneliness and hatred of everyone around him. It's as though he doesn't have the ability to pick up on cues that he's seriously annoying others with his behavior.
- He's emotional. Dist has always been somewhat of a crybaby, ever since his childhood. He's known to flip-flop between emotions at the drop of a hat. It's ridiculously easy to anger him and send him flying into tantrums, and it's mostly due to his insecurities. When he isn't paid attention to, he's going to make a scene about it.
- He's also kind of an idiot. Despite being a genius, Dist can easily come off as less than stellar in the common sense and tact departments. For example, he sent the main party a ransom note to get them to talk to him in Keterburg, saying that the item they were looking for was with him and not in their current city. However, his wording was so poor that it was practically obvious that the item was still in the current city. He ended up nearly freezing to death in Keterburg since the party never came.
Dist the Rose | Tales of the Abyss
Dist's most apparent personality trait is his enormous ego. He believes he's the greatest thing to happen to the God-Generals, the elite military faction that he his part of, and that he can handle any situation with his scientific knowledge and his precious robots. in general, he has a horrible habit of thinking everything is about him. When genuinely approached by others, he makes the conversation about himself and his "great achievements." His arrogance tends to turn people off almost immediately, and when Dist catches wind of it, it only angers him. He's prone to frequent tantrums due to this.
Dist is actually the comic relief villain of the game, due to his flamboyant mannerisms and easy-to-anger attitude. His mannerisms are very hard to take seriously, especially when he's referring to his abilities as "super ultra gorgeous" or "ultra super hyper high-grade." It's incredibly easy to make fun of him, and his enraged responses only make things more amusing. There's also the fact that no matter how much boasting he throws at the main party of the game, he is always defeated. Despite being defeated, Dist comes back again and again, even seemingly cheating death in the process.
Although he is comic relief, there is also a lot of seriousness surrounding Dist. He truly is quite sinister at times, and that's why the official title that he hates to go by is Dist the Reaper. He treats many people as a means to his end of resurrecting his long-dead professor. His reason for joining the God-Generals was simply to use their leader, Van, as a way to get to documents about his professor in order to revive her. Once Van's status was no longer useful, he turned on him and schemed against him with Mohs in order to get more documents and resources from him. He's also always up for some good experimentation, even if they're unethical. He turned Mohs into a horrible monster just to see what would happen if he gave someone fonons (magical particles) that their body could not handle. He defended that experiment, saying that Mohs was willing to take the fonons even if something bad happened to him. While true, Dist knew that would likely happen but he let Mohs have the fonons anyway.
So why is Dist the way he is? It's possible that he's just lonely and desperate for attention. When his professor died at the hands of his best friend Jade, things changed. Jade grew more distant and Dist lost several people dear to him in the process. When Jade abandoned the quest to bring their professor back, Dist grew bitter and resented him for it. That's when he took up the goal himself and once Nebilim was back, things would go back to the way that they were before her death. Dist pushed Jade away by doing this, and continued to push others away wherever he went. It's shown in his manga gaiden however, that he actually is desperate for a friend, or at least someone to talk to. However, his personality works against him in his attempts to befriend others.
So it is rather easy to say that Dist has no redeeming qualities, especially since the majority of the time he is portrayed that way. But he isn't all bad. The main good deed he is noted for is his creation of Anise's refined Tokunaga, a doll that can change in size with her fonon frequency. He made those alterations to the doll because Anise actually paid attention to him at the Oracle Knights HQ, and she was (somewhat) willing to actually listen to him. Although they don't show friendly feelings toward each other throughout the game (see: Anise's description of Dist), their appreciation for each other never went away.
As a side-note, it's important to note that Dist has a grudge against his former best friend (although he won't admit to the "former" part) Jade. As said above, Jade's experiments caused their professor to die, and when Jade tried to create a replica of her with the process he created, the replica was imperfect and knew nothing but destruction. When Jade later abandoned that process that he and Dist tried to perfect, he ultimately abandoned the desire to try to bring their real professor back. Dist has never forgotten this, and throughout the game he is constantly trying to either destroy Jade or win him back to his side. Because despite his grudge against Jade, he really just wants things to go back to the way they were when they were friends.
In short, Dist is a somewhat complicated piece of work.
Strengths/Weaknesses:
Strengths:
- He's tenacious. Dist's tenacity is brought up several times throughout the game. He is noted to be very determined when it comes to fulfilling his goals, and even surviving in general. He literally cheats death. Twice in the game, Dist withstood attacks that would kill just about anyone else. Basically, Dist will take whatever comes at him. He's a tough guy.
- He's a genius. Dist is one of the famous scientists from Keterburg, next to Jade. He is extremely skilled in robotics and fontechnology, as well as fomicry which is basically a sort of cloning process. He is so skilled at what he does, he was able to join the elite God-Generals of the Oracle Knights, one of the most esteemed positions in the military.
- He is goal-oriented. As mentioned earlier, Dist will stop at nothing to complete his goals. He has a plan of attack for everything, even if they're not the best of plans at times. Although his determination actually spills into weakness range, it could also be a strength in other cases.
Weaknesses:
- He's delusional. Dist is ridiculously caught up in the past, so much that his life's goal is to resurrect his dead professor from his childhood. He truly believes that once he resurrects Nebilim, no matter how impossible that is, Jade and the others from Keterburg will come flocking back to him like gigantic rift that separated them never existed.
- He's so self-absorbed it really hurts him. Dist is fully aware that he has talent, and he lets everyone know about it constantly. He's convinced that he's the biggest genius that the world has ever known, and that everyone should respect him. His flowery tangents about his prowess tend to drive others away or flat out ignore him, which only fuels his loneliness and hatred of everyone around him. It's as though he doesn't have the ability to pick up on cues that he's seriously annoying others with his behavior.
- He's emotional. Dist has always been somewhat of a crybaby, ever since his childhood. He's known to flip-flop between emotions at the drop of a hat. It's ridiculously easy to anger him and send him flying into tantrums, and it's mostly due to his insecurities. When he isn't paid attention to, he's going to make a scene about it.
- He's also kind of an idiot. Despite being a genius, Dist can easily come off as less than stellar in the common sense and tact departments. For example, he sent the main party a ransom note to get them to talk to him in Keterburg, saying that the item they were looking for was with him and not in their current city. However, his wording was so poor that it was practically obvious that the item was still in the current city. He ended up nearly freezing to death in Keterburg since the party never came.