Value: Motivation

 

 

First and foremost, a central value to Siffrin's character is his connection to his friends and the bonds they've all formed together. Throughout their off-screen journey, the party becomes their family, with an important milestone in the game being when Siffrin stops referring to their party members as such and begins referring to them as his family members after a heartfelt conversation with his friends during a loop. Earlier in their journey, Siffrin lost an eye in a scuffle with one of The King's sadness, protecting the youngest, Bonnie. Their primary goal is to keep their family members safe. This self-sacrificial tendency makes itself known frequently in the game and can be prominently observed by the way he keeps the loops a secret from them, in part with the desire to save his friends but also to not let them get too close and realize what (or who) is causing the loops. Siffrin's connection to his friends can be analyzed through people's need for affiliation, otherwise described in the textbook as establishing and maintaining positive relationships with others. 

Before meeting the party, Siffrin traveled the continent on their own; effectively wandering, loosely flapping in the wind. No friends, no family... no home, no country... no memories... of anything or anyone in their life. No memories of their country or culture. Throughout the course of the game, we learn that one random day everyone forgot a country. Suddenly, no one could say its name, or anything about the people who lived there, only that it was an island north of Vaugarde. No one could remember friends that they had who lived there; absolutely nothing. Simply trying to remember the country's name would give someone a migraine, an effect used as a practical joke by Bonnie on Isabeau in the story. And Siffrin is one of that country's lost people, who woke up one day not even remembering the language of his people, or anything else from their life. So, they wandered, making money where they could and adjusting to a world with a massive blank space in it. Until he met his friends, first Odile, then Mirabelle and Isabeau, and finally Bonnie. 

They made friends and created a new family. Imagine the trauma of forgetting everything even tangentially connected to your home, never being able to find your family because you can't remember them, and having to start over; then you find new people you consider family. Imagine the terror and anxiety that would come from disappointing them; the fear of losing them in a fight or because they simply didn't like you. You may even come to feel as if you need to put on a sort of performance, keeping yourself useful. This way your family will stay with you. Maybe try to fix your friends' problems if you had all the time in the world, able to repeat the day and make it perfect for those friends. This response can be used as an example of instrumentality, wherein if a person performs well they'll receive a desired outcome or reward. While it's usually applied to employees in other examples, the emphasis of performance begetting a reward fits the above description of why Siffrin is so desperately attached to their friends.