Raphtalia

"Please, believe me. I believe, I know you never committed any crime. You gave me medicine, saved my life and taught me what I needed to survive. You are the great Shield Hero, and I am your sword. No matter how rough the path, I will follow you."

- Raphtalia to Naofumi Iwatani in Volume 01, Chapter 23

Raphtalia (ラフタリア) is the main heroine and deuteragonist of The Rising of the Shield Hero series.

She is the first real companion of the Shield Hero, Naofumi Iwatani. Although she was originally bought as his slave, she was never abused, even finding herself bonding with him.

She later travels to another world and obtains the Vassal Katana, becoming the Katana Hero (刀の勇者). Additionally, she becomes the Heavenly Emperor of Q'ten Lo after overthrowing the previous emperor.

Appearance
Raphtalia is a young girl with auburn hair, two locks of hair extending down on her chest, and pinkish-red eyes. Being a demi-human with racoon/tanuki ancestry, she has fluffy, red tanuki ears and a bushy tail. She takes after her father in having a lean build, but she has grown slightly muscular from the demanding life of an adventurer.

Over time, Raphtalia's appearance has changed significantly. When she was first introduced, she was a young, sickly, petite child dressed in rags with an unkempt appearance. However, after she met Shield Hero, Naofumi, he was able to improve her health and provide her with a suitable set of clothes for adventuring. After several weeks adventuring with Naofumi, Raphtalia started increasing her level. Being a demi-human, this accelerated her aging until she was a young adult, eventually giving her a curvaceous body. During this time, Raphtalia switched her knife for a sword and donned a leather breastplate and pauldron. She also wears a seemingly red-and-black, European-styled dress layered above a white, frilled dress, both reaching down to her thighs.

Upon traveling to Glass' World, Raphtalia reverted to her original, childish appearance until she had leveled-up sufficiently. While she was escaping from enemy territory, she was selected as the wielder of the Vassal Katana and given a Miko outfit. The Vassal Katana removes the slave crest she had on her chest up to this point. Now she remains an adult when traveling between the two worlds.

Personality
When she is first introduced, Raphtalia is initially timid and sickly, often fearful for her life. Her village and family, destroyed by the Waves, left her to be captured by Melromarc's knights and sold to a wicked noble. When she got deathly sick, she was sold off and expected to die. This left her in a very vulnerable state of health and mind which was actively worse by her constant nightmares at night. By the time she was purchased by Naofumi, she was despondent.

Contrary to her presumption, Naofumi proved to be a kind master who nurtured Raphtalia. He treated her ailment, as well as fed and sheltered her despite his own misfortune. His unexpected good treatment of Raphtalia allowed her to heal and restore her self-confidence and optimism. Eventually, she was forced to face her trauma when they encountered the Two-Headed Dog which reminded Raphtalia of the Cerberus that killed her parents. Raphtalia was frightened stiff. With Naofumi's help, Raphtalia was able to overcome her deep-rooted trauma and slay the beast. From then on, she swore loyalty to him and to be his sword - preventing others from experiencing the tragedy she had faced.

After a long time adventuring with Naofumi, Raphtalia got separated from him for the first time when they traveled to Glass' World. Kyo had set a trap and Raphtalia was forced to escape a specialty prison with heroes from another world. While Raphtalia was worried about Naofumi and being separated from him, she showed a great deal of growth and independence as she led the prison break by herself. She became the Vassal Katana wielder which permanently removed her slave crest. Raphtalia worried about losing her slave crest since it was a symbol of her connection to Naofumi, but upon reuniting, it became clear that it was no longer needed. Returning to her world, Raphtalia's decisiveness and connection with Naofumi grows. When being targeted for assassination by her home nation, Q'ten Lo, Raphtalia fights back for her own sake. She also eventually becomes the reluctant leader of that nation. Finally, after being ambushed by Takt, Raphtalia decided to stay behind to let her friends, and the critically injured Naofumi, escape to safety.

Despite her mistreatment in the past, Raphtalia is a charitable and compassionate person. When Naofumi has been at his lowest points, such as his duel against Motoyasu, Raphtalia has been there to comfort him. She is also willing to endanger herself to protect those she cares about, such as when singed by the Shield of Wrath to prevent Naofumi from losing his senses. With her village rebuilding, she takes on a "big sister" role to the children inhabitants: being a role model and monitoring them, but also reprimanding them when they perform wrongdoings. Raphtalia has even been shown to protect those who have mistreated her, such as warning her bullies before Naofumi enacts punishment or saving Riyute Village when their nation enslaved her in the first place.

Ostensibly, Raphtalia does not outwardly care for romance and being girly, but this comes from her desire to support Naofumi. At the beginning, he believed that such things should wait until after the waves. As a result, Raphtalia started to instead focus on efficiently and improving in combat though extensive training. Tragically, Raphtalia does harbour romantic feelings for Naofumi but has decided to wait out of respect for him. Raphtalia's close friends have repeated encouraged her to try bolder steps to get his attention. At first, Naofumi felt himself unworthy of such relations but this has begun to change as he has begun to heal from his own trauma.

At times Raphtalia feels disappointed by Naofumi's actions and wishes for him to be the hero she knows he is. She wants him to stop pretending to be the villain and be more straightforward about his motives. For example, she is disappointed that he did not remove his villagers' slave crests upon purchasing them from the slave trader. She often objects when Naofumi does something distasteful, such as acting cruelly towards his enemies or creating the Chivalrous Thief Guild. Finally, Raphtalia is disappointed and slightly disturbed in Naofumi's creation of Raph-chan and the Raph species which he created using her hair. She finds that the creature is based off her unsettling and is jealous is the abundant affection Naofumi gives towards them. She feels that he can sometimes be a bad influence and is worried about people like Ruft taking after his undesirable behaviour.

Background
Raphtalia lived in a small coastal village in the country of Melromarc until the age of ten. This village was peaceful until the First Wave of Calamity laid ruin to the area. During the disaster of the first wave, Raphtalia and her parents fled their home to try and reach safety. Their family friend and protector Sadeena was out fishing at the time, which lead them to be largely defenseless against the wave. This led them to try and escape with their lives by attempting to flee to the sea. It was during this attempt to escape that they were cornered by the First waves boss Cerberus. This forced Raphtalia's parents to save their daughter by sacrificing themselves to distract it while they pushed Raphtalia herself into the ocean. This act left Raphtlaia terrified as she witnessed here parents being eaten and killed by the boss.

In the end Raphtalia survived the fall and when she returned to the village the wave was already over. From here she looked for her parents which only confirmed that they had died protecting her. This led her to build their graves inside the village. From here she tried to bring the remnants of the village that had survived together, to try and rebuild the village themselves. This was a short peaceful time where they worked to try and rebuild their lives. This time was interrupted by a group of Melromarc Knights coming to the village. Who came and killed the adult survivors while capturing and selling the children into slavery.

This occurred due to Melromarc being a human supremist country. The village itself was only able to exist due to the Governor of Seaetto the territory the village was in. This territory was welcoming to demi-humans as the lord was striving for equality. This Governor was known as the "right hand" of the Queen, sharing many objectives with her such as equality for the Demi-Humans. Sadly this peace and territory fell apart after their death during the first wave where they scarified themselves to save the demi-humans. They were in charge of the entire country before this in the queens stead who was out of the country for international affairs. Leading to the human supremacist's taking power and causing ruin to the Seaetto territory.

After being enslaved she ended up being purchased with several of her friends by Idol Rabier. Who pleasured himself by torturing innocent demi-human children. Eventually Raphtalia was forced to witness the death of her best friend Rifana. This final event caused her to have a mental breakdown after finally putting her over the edge. These series of tragic events left her traumatized. Over time she was sold and returned multiple times eventually ending up with slave dealer in Melromarc. This was due to her screaming in her sleep from her trauma and her deteriorating health from the same illness which killed her best friend. Eventually she ended up for sale in the capital of Melromarc. This led to her eventually being purchased by Naofumi Iwatani the shield hero. This one event would lead to her life being changed forever, as she became the primary companion of Naofumi and eventually becoming a hero herself.

Trivia

 * Her bond towards the Shield Hero has reached a point where she can often tell what exactly he is thinking with just his facial expressions. She often points it out and scolds him when he thinks of something very unreasonable.
 * Raphtalia has a strong dislike for the Raph species, she finds it strange for a monster to be based on her genes.
 * In the Anime Raphtalia is portrayed as far more naive than in the light novel. A well know example is the scene where Raphtalia thinks kissing Naofumi would get her pregnant.
 * In the anime the otherworld arc is dramatically changed. For in the Light Novel Raphtalia is transported alongside Glass, L’arc and Therese instead of Naofumi’s group. This means she is not originally present for the beginning of the arc.
 * Raphtalia’s POV from when she is separated from Naofumi is also exclusive to the Manga and Anime while it was not in the Light novel.
 * The character who helps Raphtaia and gives her a Miko outfit in the Anime is completely original as she does not show up in the Light Novels. Instead I the outfit was chosen by L’arc.
 * The whole reunion between Naofumi and Raphtalia is very different between the Anime compared to the light novel. In the Anime we see Naofumi find and protect her after she defeated Trash 2. While in the Light novel we see her, Glass, L’arc and, Therese meet up with Naofumi, Kizuna, Rishia, Filo, and Raph-Chan in a very emotional scene. Before the fight with trash 2 and his harem, army and divine beast clones.
 * In the anime there was a lot more buildup to the battle with Trash 2 and his harem When compared to the Light Novel. The Light Novel itself had little to no buildup to the fight as we followed Naofumi’s view instead as Raphtalia’s POV is absent from it.
 * The whole fight with Trash 2 played out out completely differently between each source. For In the Light novel It is a group battle between Trash 2 alongside his Harem with his Divine beast copies Fighting the combination of Raphtalia’s and Naofumi’s group. While in the Anime it’s a single battle where Raphtalia fights Trash 2 on her alone.
 * In the Light novel Trash 2 dies to Raphtalia due to his own pride and ego when he does not heed Raphtalia’s warning to not move. While in the anime he does not move which spares ends up sparing his own life.
 * In Light novel 22 When Naofumi asks her to stop calling him Mr.Naofumi and instead call him by his name alone. Raphtalia tries to do it but she is unable to do it an gets extremely embarrassed. Naofumi then says that she can one day drop the Mr prefix.
 * In light novel 22 Naofumi teases Raphtalia about what he should call her once they get married. The joke name is Raphtalia Heavenly Empress Iwatani. This interaction makes Raphtalia extremely embarrassed and unable to speak properly for a moment.
 * In the Web Novel, she possesses the Vassal Hammer rather than the Vassal Katana. This may have been a late change due to the rushed nature of the ending of the web novel. Similarly, the web novel hinted at the existence of Raphtalia's ancestral land, Q'ten Lo, but never explored the idea.