Character Bio: Claire Villiers (Ordinary Heroes)

Character Bio: Claire Villiers

Full Name: Claire Villiers
Age: 9 (8-10 depending on the chapter)
Height: 4 feet and 8 inches (142 centimetres)
Eyes: Blue
Hair: Pink
Immediate Family: Serah (mother) and Snow (father)

Cheerful and light-hearted, Claire rounds out the trio of rambunctious Farron children. She strikes a welcome balance between Diana’s mischievous and playful nature, and Averia’s reserved and serious personality.

She is very much a people person, and she makes friends quickly and easily. This is largely due to her kind and tolerant nature, which allows her to get along with others and put up with their quirks. However, she can sometimes find herself in trouble since she does have a mischievous side. But, like her mother, she is very good at keeping it hidden until she is sure she can avoid trouble.

In terms of personality, Claire is very outgoing, and she will not hesitate to approach others to try and make friends. Her warm nature is also complemented by the great empathy she feels for others, and she will do her best to stop others suffering or getting hurt. She is one of the most popular students in school thanks to her friendly nature and industrious, hard working outlook. She accepts her popularity with good grace and makes a point of treating others fairly. Although she despises people who bully or pick on others, she usually adopts a much less physical approach to handling problems than Averia.

Despite being close to many of her classmates – Yuna is a particularly good friend – Claire’s best friend remains Averia. The two have been in the same class since entering school and are often mistaken for twins due to their similar appearance and penchant for each other’s company.

Hobby-wise, Claire enjoys practicing archery with her mother and learning martial arts from her father and other relatives. She also likes reading and has a soft spot for romance novels, which she takes from her mother’s collection from time to time. Like most children her age, she also watches television, and she has a preference for action movies and soap operas. She finds it especially fun to watch them with her father, who gleefully pokes fun at all the clichés and tropes involved. Her mother, however, takes a somewhat dimmer view of such criticism, complaining that her daughter and her husband are not romantic enough.

Claire’s temperament most closely resembles her father. She is difficult to anger, and once angered, she is quick to calm down. Like her father, she is only too happy to show her affection physically, and she will not hesitate to hug the people she likes (or, in Diana’s case, carry them around like a sack of potatoes). Much like both her parents, she has no problems talking about her feelings, which is something they have encouraged, if only to ensure she doesn’t follow in the footsteps of her famous aunt and end up a grouchy, grumbly, spoilsport (her mother’s words, not hers).

Claire’s relationship with her cousins is one of the more interesting facets of her life. Although she isn’t technically their sister, Claire can’t really remember a time when Diana and Averia were not around. Living next door, she is always welcome in the Yun-Farron household, and she spends quite a lot of time there.

Averia is Claire’s best friend, and Claire worries constantly about the other girl’s taciturn nature and general grumpiness. She has been trying to encourage Averia to be warmer, but she has yet to meet with much success. However, she is hopeful that Averia will follow in her Aunt Lightning’s footsteps and mellow with age. Claire has the opposite problem with Diana, and her attempts to settle the younger girl down have been an utter failure. Instead, she has decided that the best thing to do might be to keep Diana from getting into too much trouble – a job that she shares with Averia.

Despite the close relationship she has with her cousin, Claire would very much like a sibling of her own. Indeed, almost all of the few arguments she has had with Averia tend to be related to Diana – the older girl dislikes sharing. Still, both Averia and Diana treat Claire like a sister, and the trio are almost inseparable.

Claire also fills a vital role as a mediator. Although Diana and Averia rarely fight – squabbling, however, is a much more common occurrence – the fights they do have can be quite bitter since they know each other so well. It is usually left to Claire to act as a middleman until her two cousins calm down. Averia, in particular, can be slow to let go of a grudge once she has been truly angered. In contrast, Diana can be quick to get angry, but even quicker to calm down.

Outside of her family, Claire’s best friend is Yuna. She finds the other girl’s calm, soothing nature to be a welcome change now and then when compared to her cousins’ more volatile tempers. She also finds it amusing that Yuna’s extended family, including her cousin Rikku, shares more than a few similarities with her own.

At school, Claire is hard working and industrious. Like her father, she believes in giving her all to a cause and with her mother one of the school’s most well-known teachers, she can ill-afford to slack off. She is a well-rounded student with good grades in all of her subjects, but her favourite subjects are English and science.

Averia’s lack of botanical skill (or rather, Averia’s ability to kill any plant just by looking at it) has turned Claire into quite the amateur horticulturalist. Indeed, Claire has become quite adept at caring for a range of different plants, and some of her fondest memories are of helping her mother in the garden.

Claire is also well known for her ability to help others learn, and she may well follow in her mother’s footsteps. However, her dream is to join the Guardian Corps with her cousins and become a real hero. After all, someone needs to watch Averia’s back and keep Diana out of trouble. Claire is currently learning the piano from her mother and the guitar from her father.

At times, Claire will flit from one subject to another since she loves learning about new things. She enjoys learning about the history of Gran Pulse, and she finds it quite amusing that almost all of the official books and records have either been written by or translated by her Aunts Fang and Vanille. Her father has delighted her in the past by inviting her along to several archaeological digs.

The story of her father’s journey made a huge impact on Claire. When she grows older, she wants to make a difference, just like he did. She believes that joining the Guardian Corps will allow her to make the biggest difference that she can. It will also help her keep her cousins out of harm’s way, given their tendency to find trouble. Her plan is to expand the Guardian Corps’ frontier program, which is responsible for establishing new settlements, mapping trade and transport routes, and setting up outposts. To help get herself ready, she tries to accompany her father on his expeditions as often as possible, and she has been learning survival techniques from her other relatives too.

Claire also deeply admires her mother, whom she sees as having excelled both as a teacher and as a warrior. Although she loves spending time with both her parents, she is definitely a daddy’s girl, and he goes out of his way to spoil her rotten. Despite her age, Claire is actually a very good cook, and she has proven quite adept at baking. This has greatly increased her popularity with Diana, who now sees her as a viable source of cake (it has also spurred Averia into taking a closer interest in cooking).

By nature, Claire is not that competitive. However, she does believe in pushing herself to the best of her abilities and trying her hardest to improve. Thus she gives her all in every competition she joins and any defeat is simply another reason to try harder and improve. Although slower than Averia, Claire is still one of the fastest people in school. But she is best known for her stamina. Her father once joked that she must have inherited it from him. He may well be right – Claire excels in endurance-based physical activities.

In combat, Claire fights much more like her father than her mother, relying on a rougher, less polished style of combat that emphasises closer quarter-striking, practical grappling, and throwing. She lacks the raw speed, agility, and instinct that Diana and Averia have, but she makes up for it by being much stronger than she looks and knowing how force a fight on her terms.

Claire’s favourite colours are blue and pink. She is also proud to have her mother’s famous hair and her father’s eyes. However, she often rues her seeming inability to unleash the Farron death glare. Her father speculates that she is too much like him – there isn’t enough of the good, old-fashioned Farron viciousness in her. Although she can’t glare very well, Claire has mastered her father’s “heroic smile” and “heroic pose” techniques.

One of the things that Claire wants most in the world is a younger sibling of her own. She doesn’t mind if it is a brother or a sister. Unbeknownst to her, she may get wish sooner rather than later. Her favourite foods are pizza and pasta. For a pet, she would definitely like a dog, preferably a big, fluffy one. A chocobo wouldn’t be bad either – or maybe a gorgonopsid, if she could keep Diana from trying to kidnap it. Her favourite Eidolon is her father’s, but she does have a soft spot for Odin, much to the Eidolon’s amusement given his seeming lack of popularity with her cousins.

Compared to the Yun-Farron household, the Villiers household operates on a much more even keel since all three of its members are quite affable and cheerful. Snow and Serah make a conscious effort to include Claire in many of their activities, and she can often be counted on to keep out of trouble unless her cousins are around. Occasionally, Claire will come up with mischief all on her own, but she is rarely caught. She takes after her mother that way.

Apart from her cousins and immediate family, Claire’s favourite relative is probably her Uncle Sazh. She admires his grounded personality and all the things he has achieved since his journey. The fact that he owns his own chocobo ranch doesn’t hurt either, and she wouldn’t mind working on it someday. Her favourite thing to do with him is to watch the clouds go by with him and Chirpy while they talk. He can always be counted on to offer sound advice, and Chirpy usually offers an interesting perspective on things too. However, she is quite fond of all of her relatives, and her Aunt Vanille has a special place in her heart for being able to bring out the more playful side of her mother and her aunts.

Claire’s Top 5 Favourite Family ‘Incidents’

#1- Helping her daddy run away from her Aunt Lightning after the attendants at the zoo thought she and Averia were twins and that her daddy and Aunt Lightning were married. Thanks to her, he just barely got away.
#2 – Having to save Diana from Averia when Averia thought Diana was stealing her candy. In fact, Claire was the one stealing it, and she had to do some running of her own when Averia and Diana found out. She may have used her father as a human shield then.
#3 – Learning how to ride a chocobo under her Uncle Sazh’s and Chirpy’s watchful eyes.
#4 – Baking a cake for Diana’s birthday… then baking another once since Diana ate the first one when no one was looking.
#5 – Being told to stop worrying about having a sibling by Averia since she already had two (Averia and Diana) and a third sibling would be too much trouble.

Claire’s Top 5 Best Dishes

#1 – Chocolate cake (almost as good as her mommy’s!)
#2 – Spaghetti (she makes a mean spaghetti!)
#3 – Pizza (it’s way better than getting it from a store since she can put whatever she wants on it)
#4 – Scones (although her parents have been trying to stop her from putting enough butter on each one to give her a heart attack)
#5 – Pancakes (since she likes eating them on a Sunday morning)