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Phrolova is a major antagonist and playable character in the 2024 Chinese Open-world Science-Fantasy video game Wuthering Waves. She is a former Overseer of the Fractsidus, and is a particularly powerful Resonator who can manipulate and transfigure the frequencies of humans, Echoes, and Tacet Discords alike. A life filled with unexpected suffering, grief, and betrayal led this former musician to align with the Fractsidus, in which she seeks to rekindle a past from which she was the sole survivor.
She is voiced by Rae Lim in English (who also voiced Lin in Superhero Kindergarten, and Miao Ying in Warhammer: Total War 3), Zhang Qi in Chinese, Saki Fujita in Japanese and Choi Hari in Korean.
Appareance[]
Phrolova appears to be a attractive pale-skinned young woman of average build and height with long grey hair kept in braids by brown holders. As a result of the Tacet Discord mutation, her left iris has a faint hue alteration. The right half of her face is covered with a bandage. She wears a red dress that is light pink on the underside, with a grey skirt underneath. Her outfit also has detached sleeves. She wears black leggings and red high-heeled shoes.
Personality[]
Phrolova is a very melancholic and calm girl whose presence is filled with a pervasive sadness that seems to extend to everyone around her. This utter despair comes from a background of intense suffering, betrayal, and loss, which ultimately drove her to become a Fractsidus member. Her former political affiliation with this faction was motivated by a single, driving passion: to reclaim and reawaken her lost past, one from which she was the lone survivor. She is shown to be insecure, as at times she questions her own sanity. She is the personification of the conversion of personal tragedy into an incredible and singular ability.
Biography[]
Background[]
In the past, Phrolova was a young violinist working out of her home village of Ostina, an ancient village in an unknown nation at Solaris-3 that was catastrophically destroyed by a meteor that killed her entire family and friends. This meteor caused the awakening of her Resonance ability after she was nearly killed in the impact, while returning home from a performance in a faraway city.
When she met Rover, she found kinship through a short but meaningful conversation following the performance of her elegy in commemoration of her people's loss at a symphony hall built atop her destroyed village. Used to people misunderstanding her work and treating her elegies with superficial artistic recognition, she felt seen by Rover's correct interpretation that her performance was an allusion to her story and grief. This led to her quickly finding a kindred spirit in Rover. In response to Phrolova alluding to her grief-stricken anguish from the world's cruelties, Rover comforted her by explaining their optimistic worldview, and how they sought to change themselves in response to the conflicts of the world by "starting over," in reference to their memory resets. Moved and inspired by Rover's words with rekindled hope, Phrolova became curious. She asked Rover to return to the symphony hall to come see her perform again eventually and talk more about themselves, which Rover promised to do.
However, as time went on, Rover never showed. Years of waiting went by, and her confusion grew into feelings of betrayal, abandonment, and contempt. This led to her seeking to research the Waveworn Phenomena through various means of looking into ways to preserve the lost frequencies of her family and friends, all of which failed. Eventually, her desperation was preyed upon by the Grand Architect when he came to visit her performance. Having blended in as a male member of the audience during one of her performances, he recruited her into the Fractsidus by offering seductive promises of power and resources, cementing her transformation into the Phrolova that Solaris would come to be terrorized by.
Wuthering Waves[]
At her very core is being a conductor, not of an orchestra per se, but of having dominion over the fundamental frequencies of the universe itself. Phrolova's own demise coincided with the awakening as a Resonator, granting her the incredible ability to shape and alter these frequencies, basically conducting the "symphonies of souls". With the stroke of an apparently effortless hand, she can shape reality, capable of weaving a new, better world and, with equal facility, summon the forces of destruction. This intrinsic duality, the capability for profound creation and eventual devastation, becomes a defining characteristic. Her overwhelming talent is organically linked to her physical state, yet she demonstrates exceptional self-control, even when trying to push her abilities to the extreme, indicating a very high mental tolerance and a possibility to teach others to wield unstable powers.
Despite a serious demeanor, Phrolova possesses a rich internal life philosophically and aesthetically. Her past life as a musician can also be seen in her most valued possessions, a violin and sheet music. The philosophical definition of the reason being torn, and the breaking and rebirth of the notes into a distorted form in the sheet music, allegorically depicts her own destruction and rebirth. The "exalted cries" and "repeated demises" of the violin are symbols of cycles of death and rebirth, perhaps meaning that she is the one who sorts and bears the death of things. She has her secret obsession of mastering musical phrasing and dynamics skillfully, driving an orchestra to a peak where no one can escape, all in pursuit of the "perfect form" of the symphony in her mind. This is testimony to an underlying desire for complete control and perfection, not just in the act of creation, but over reality itself.
Her monologues provide us with more information about her multifaceted personality. She is performative, inviting others to witness a "wild side" and become complicit with her "show", yet she also carries a rich undertow of nostalgia and longing, as she speaks about the clean, warm sound of a fountain forming the sense of "meeting an old friend". Phrolova considers abstract ideals, like the reflected paths of Ferris wheel houses that long to touch but never do, which could represent her own sense of disconnection or a more allegorical commentary on connection. A transient spark of vulnerability shows itself in questioning her own sanity, feeling her thoughts blown away by the wind, implying a mind under constant battle with suffocating internal and external realities.
Phrolova's philosophical outlook is particularly interesting. She views extreme states, even death, not as an absolute end, but as a portal to a "different kind of rebirth", to a reign of being greater than mere mortality. This perception is the complete reverse of the common human fear of death and self-preservation tendencies. Her ultimate objective is to learn about the cycle of life by experiencing it over and over again, a relentless pursuit of knowledge of existence. She is deeply sympathetic with Hecate, her called-upon friend, regarding Hecate as her own self from another "other world", a guardian of boundaries who perceives all existences. This self-identification supports her status as a liminal creature, one who travels freely across the borders of life and death, and between planes of existence.
In her relations with others, Phrolova is practical and discerning. She recognizes a relation of mutual usefulness to the Grand Architect, whom she regards as an important point of reference. She is skeptical of unadulterated idealism, and she feels that "blind will" without a pragmatic basis is ultimately ephemeral. She despises disordered and unpredictable people, and she likes order and control. Her jealousy of Cartethyia, an offspring of Divinity with a "whole will", suggests a want of the ultimate knowledge of being or absolute state of existence, possibly related to her own ongoing search for significance and a "universal truth".
Even her tastes in food give slight clues as to her character: that she can accept the "sour and bitter" taste of redcurrants suggests a tolerance, even a subdued fondness, for hard or complicated things, having grown "accustomed to it". Her half-hearted distaste for death-smoked or roasted flesh, however, betrays a past trauma or an inherent distaste for rot and endings, as opposed to her existential acceptance of death as rebirth.
Powers and Abilities[]
Like all Resonators, Phrolova possesses a unique Forte formed from her personality and experiences. Her Forte allows her to sonically refine, manipulate, and transfigure frequencies at will. Her Tacet Mark is located on her left arm.
Powers[]
- Frequency Orchestration: Considering her musician past, Phrolova's Resonance awakening granted her the ability to refine and harness frequencies on a refined level with a red spider lily baton, which she views as conducting the "symphonies of souls" and dubs as "orchestration". Due to the nature of frequencies comprising most beings' "essence" in the Wuthering Waves universe, she can use this ability to reshape aspects of reality and being to a limited degree with exceptional self-control. She explored using this ability to attempt to resurrect her parents and village via preserving their frequencies within Tacet Discords.
- Tacet Discord & Echo Summoning: Phrolova's frequency conduction ability allows her to summon Tacet Discords at will. She used this ability during her attempts to sabotage the Carnevale. Phrolova can summon an Echo known as Hecate, whom she can freely puppeteer. She used Hecate to fight Rover in the Carnevale, Fabricatorium, and later in the Journeying Paradise inside of Rover's mindscape, after Rover was trapped there by Cristoforo. Hecate also functions as her Resonance Liberation ability in gameplay, which the player can control.
- Sonoro Sphere Creation: During her battle with Rover at the Carnevale, Phrolova transported Rover, Carlotta, and Roccia into a surreal Sonoro Sphere that was populated with broken mirrors, flying books, and her signature red lycorises threaded throughout. Phrolova also used this ability to create the Lost Beyond, a recreation of her home village of Ostina and its inhabitants that was powered in part by the Threnodian Leviathan's gem. However, following the loss of the gem, Phrolova was forced to maintain the realm with a pedigree of her own Resonance power.
- Healing Factor & Immortality: Phrolova is partially Tacet Discord in physiology, and this has led to her having a healing factor that makes her both functionally immortal, and extremely durable, to the point of being able to return from physical death. Despite suffering a physical death to Rover during their fight over the Threnodian Leviathan's gem in the Fabricatorium, and the drowning of her body, she inexplicably was able to return to life by the events of Dawn Breaks on Dark Tides, fully healed. Between her death and resurrection, her consciousness had been preserved in the Lost Beyond.
Abilities[]
- Superhuman Durability: Due to being part-Tacet Discord, Phrolova possesses a high degree of superhuman durability that enables her to survive fatal injuries that would otherwise kill or critically injure other Resonators and normal humans.
Weaknesses[]
- Bodily Damage: While her healing factor is immensely efficient and can lead to her body surviving situations like being drowned, according to her Forte report- her healing can be staggered if her body is not intact, or in a "healthy" state. The consequences of this were seen in Dreamcatchers in the Secret Gardens, where she spent a longer period of time physically deceased and psychically waylaid in the Lost Beyond, due to Rover accidentally causing her to fall and drown in the depths of the Fabricatorium.
- Baton Dependency: Despite her dexterity, her ability to orchestrate frequencies into refined melodies relies on her baton to be fully effective. If she is separated from it, the scope of her orchestration becomes more limited, as seen in Dreamcatchers in the Secret Gardens.
Relationships[]
Rover[]
In short, Rover and Phrolova have a complicated relationship and are friends turned enemies. After Rover failed to reunite with her to come see her performance following their final memory wipe, this gradually became the basis of Phrolova's contempt and hatred of Rover, with her weaponizing Rover's philosophy of self-transformation as a means of rationalizing her choice to discard her humanity under the Fractsidus.
Scar[]
Phrolova particularly dislikes Scar, as seen in the "About Scar" tab of her character voicelines page, where she refers to him as an inelegant madman who doesn't play by the rules, and that "he remains as far from me as fate will allow," showing that she has a particular disdain for Scar's sadistic, chaos-abetting nature, and only works with him out of sheer necessity. When she chose to leave the Fractsidus, Scar threateningly implied he wanted to pursue her, through tagging along to "add a few more flourishes to her symphony," before being told to refocus by Schwarzloch. When they still were cohorts, Phrolova had a fragile working relationship with Scar, focusing on the realization of their shared agenda in Huanglong.
Cristoforo[]
In contrast to Scar, Phrolova was more openly comfortable to working with Cristoforo, as she had done in aiding his efforts to maintain a Sonoro Sphere that enclosed Septimont in a loop. However, she commented that she did not particularly care for his theatrical methods.
Schwarzloch[]
The man who arguably "made" her what she became later in life, Schwarzloch has been one of the biggest influences and manipulators in Phrolova's life. In the past, he took advantage of her feelings of betrayal from Rover's failure to uphold their promise to visit her symphony, and weaponized her grief as a means of goading her into service. Phrolova was fascinated by his preachings and the picture he painted of a callously bloody, but sharply efficient means of attaining her goals, with him encouraging her to turn to the pursuit of power in finding a way to bring back her loved ones.
This relationship had deteriorated by the point of Dreamcatchers in the Secret Gardens. He took the form of Triss in order to encourage her to focus on realizing Cristoforo's plan before engaging in restoring the Lost Beyond, and implied that he had a history of doing this as she "used to like" him taking Triss' form. However, having grown tired of his deceit and mockery of her dead child friend, and remaining true to her mission to restore her loved ones, Phrolova angrily told him to stop using it. Later, Schwarzloch accepted Phrolova's departure from the Fractsidus without issue during Dawn Breaks on Dark Tides, allowing her to leave without confrontation, as he viewed the eventual overlap of their shared goals as inevitable.
Trivia[]
- Phrolova is the first playable antagonist character in Wuthering Waves, and the first playable character to have physically died onscreen, albeit temporarily. However, Phrolova found a means to restore her physical body back to life from the Lost Beyond by the events of Dawn Breaks on Dark Tides. This may be related to her Forte report's description that she possesses the ability to regenerate internal injuries as long as her body remains in a "healthy" state, and dialogue from NPCs within the Lost Beyond that stated she still possessed the ability to leave it at will.
- Phrolova appears in the Rinascita finale's montage group photo despite her antagonistic role in the main story.
- Phrolova has several recurring thematical ties to death and the underworld.
- Her lycoris or red spider lily is a flower that is linked to the afterlife in certain cultures, particularly in Japanese and Chinese beliefs.
- Her Echo, Hecate, shares her name with the goddess of the same name from Greek mythology associated with witchcraft, magic, and crossroads- which Phrolova's Lost Beyond may symbolize. In-game, the Echo is also described as a three-faced witch of the underworld who hails from the Lost Beyond.
- "Phrolova" is a name likely derived from "Frol", a Russian patronymic given name meaning "wise man", and "-ova", signifying "belonging to". This makes Phrolova's name mean "daughter of Frol" or "daughter of the wise man".
- Further, her name may reference the 1927 poem Journey of the Magi by T.S. Eliot, which is narrated from the perspective of the three wise men.
External Links[]
- Phrolova on Wuthering Waves Wiki
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 Villains
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The Fractsidus Overseers Members Tacet Discords Threnodians Order of the Deep Fisalia Family (Wuthering Waves) Montelli Family Others | ||