Joumae

Joumae is a main character in The Interference and its sequels. Originally Alexander Karsath's mental counterpart, and at one time fulfilling the same role for Edward Elric, he was a personification of both the darkness within Alex and the darkness of the Lockshield who was thought to have been destroyed during Alex's Dark Eco treatments.

The Interference
Joumae is born through an accident. When Alex touches the Cornerstone of Light in Disney Castle, it isolates the remaining darkness in his heart with powerful light. The darkness, so isolated, spawns a consciousness and a personality, and instantly challenges Alex to a battle on the Station of Awakening, referring to himself as Joumae.

After leaving the battle, Joumae quickly reveals his ability to converse with Alex mentally. According to Joumae, he is born of the Lockshield, not of Alex, and so has none of Alex's memories. Though they wish to talk more, Alex stops the conversations in order to avoid being distracted on his journey, as well as situations where he accidentally responds aloud; as such, Joumae quiets down and restricts himself to only the occasional snarky comment on Alex's adventures, only prevented from doing so outright when Alex enters Space Paranoids or uses Anti-Form.

Things begin to change when returning to Twilight Town to rescue Kairi - Joumae uses the opportunity to make contact with Roxas within Sora's heart, which suddenly allows Sora to hear him. Joumae and Roxas take Alex and Sora to the Station of Awakening, wherein they duel each other. They each disarm Alex and Sora, who then swap weapons, allowing the two to defeat them. After this event, Alex and Sora are both able to hear each other's counterparts, and Joumae and Roxas begin to converse with one another.

At the beginning of the second visit to Space Paranoids, Alex makes a request of Joumae and Roxas - that the two work on realizing the transformation into Final Form, which in game is triggered by Sora addressing Roxas' existence. It takes until battling Xemnas in The World That Never Was that the two are able to provide the form to Sora. While aiding Kairi, King Mickey, Donald, Goofy and Lea in escaping the crumbling castle, Joumae briefly greets Alex outside of his body, showing joking disgust for the way Roxas and Naminé act towards one another, and wondering if Alex should have started a relationship with a game character, before recombining with him. At the final stage of the Xemnas battle, Alex is able to trigger Final Form.

When the war is over, and Alex returns to the real world, he notes that time does not seem to have passed since he left. Joumae comments that time in the real world was stopped for his journey, thereby revealing that he exists in the real world now as a part of Alex. In the last scene, Joumae reacts to Alex's nightmare.

The Interference II
When Erica interferes, Joumae alerts Alex to the nature of the situation.

When Scar attacks Alex with alchemy direct to the Lockshield, Alex is sent before the Gate and is forced to give up some of his light in exchange for alchemic knowledge and survival of the attack. Joumae is also made part of the payment, vanishing from Alex's heart after the trade, being replaced by Anti-Alex, a more openly aggressive incarnation of Alex's darkness, which now has possession over much of his heart.

When Alex uses Final Form against Dilan in the final battle, the restoration of his light purges Anti-Alex and reforms Joumae.

The Interference III
Alex is briefly knocked unconscious on the way to meet Melchior, allowing Joumae to travel through Alex's mind. He soon discovers Alex's plan to sacrifice himself to Lavos in place of Crono, to his fury. At the last second before Lavos, he tries to discourage Alex; when that fails, he escapes Alex's body as the Lockshield (and Alex's wallet), leaving Alex himself to die.

Edward is the one to take the Lockshield from the floor, allowing Joumae to append himself to Edward's heart as a replacement host. Having looked further through Alex's memories, Joumae uses the information to lead Edward through the quest that, originally, would've been used to recover Crono, convincing Magus to join the party and stopping them from travelling to the Black Omen in the process.

Once Alex is recovered via the Time Egg, Edward hands the Lockshield to Alex, thus transferring Joumae back as well. Unfortunately, due to Joumae's extended period in Edward's heart, Edward can still hear Joumae's voice despite his lack of presence.

In the non-canon conclusion special, Joumae and Roxas meet to view holiday slides of scenes from the story and make snarky commentary. At the scene's end, Crono berates them for not attending the story's cast party.

The Interference IV
Joumae explains the effects of the Universal Failsafe Law on Erica's disappearance to Alex when he discovers that all traces of her have disappeared from reality. He also 'meets' Alex's father Peter for the first time, expressing that he likes him.

Both before and after Alex's imprisonment, he operates as Alex's confidant, and is able to speak where Alex chooses not to. This comes to an end when Alex is subject to the Dark Warrior Program's Dark Eco treatments; sustained treatments cause Joumae's composition to fade into Alex's, essentially destroying him without return.

About a year later, on Alex's birthday, a strange voice commands Even to rethink turning Alex into a Heartless. This is heavily implied later to have been Joumae.

Some time after, a boy in green armour confronts Jak and Daxter at the Stadium, challenging him to a battle between Jak's JET Board and his own Lockshield Glider. The boy loses the battle, but makes it clear that (at least in his opinion) it was by choice, and disappears before their eyes.

The armoured boy reappears later that night, sent out by Even to meet Alex and Jak atop the Palace roof. Alex recognizes him as Joumae, and is thoroughly confused by this turn of events; Joumae explains that Even was able to extract him from Alex's heart during his experimentation, and gave him his own body. Joumae's debt to Even is his duty to Even and the Baron, meaning he is now Alex's antagonist. Using Alex's surprise, he gets in close and unlocks Alex's heart, incapacitating him as his darkness overflows and consumes him. However, this action is not enough to either end Alex or turn him into a Heartless, and Jak uses that opening to soundly defeat Joumae, though he again survives and disappears.

Personality
Because of his original position simply existing within Alex's heart, Joumae initially exerts very little control over situations, so his personality is largely captured in the way he provides his commentary over situations. The most notable thing about him is his constant requirement to provoke others into reacting, as indicated in The Interference IV: Dark Renegade when he makes note of Jak's "shut up threshold". To achieve this, Joumae's commentary is snide, sarcastic and insulting, and peppered with attempts at humour (and on a few occasions sexual comments), which Alex usually tries to ignore. Upon gaining his own body, he realises his capability to mess with other people, which causes him to be more persistant in running his mouth.

Though many of Joumae's comments are made in jest, he is still able to confront Alex on his shortcomings without mincing words, and he finds it difficult, if not impossible, to make light of the event of death. While this may seem to indicate a level of care for Alex at first glance, all it does is highlight that his repeated acts of aggravation are entirely intentional. At all other times, Joumae is far more inclined to insult, and shows little interest in Alex's life, only peering into Alex's memories when required for the situation.

Joumae becomes notably and totally silent on two occasions: first, when Alex and Lucca spend the night together second, just after Azelas dies.

Appearance
Joumae's physical appearance is an almost identical copy of the fourteen-to-fifteen-year-old Alex's, apart from the colour of his eyes and his hair, which are both green.

Joumae's costume of choice is a suit of armour that covers his entire body with a removable helmet. Its only specific description is that it is dark green in colour and resembles the Lockshield, but it is usually depicted as a form of plate armour with either a black suit or black segments beneath the green plates. In The Interference, his helmet reveals his face; in The Interference IV, his helmet completely covers it.

Powers and Weapons
As a counterpart, Joumae was able to connect with Alex's separated mind, allowing him a few small advantages over his other friends. For one, Joumae was able to communicate with Alex and other counterparts mentally; for another, he had permanent access to both Alex's heart and his mind and was free to explore both at will, although he preferred Alex to describe things for him instead of slogging through memories.

Since he was directly linked to the Lockshield, Joumae could also transfer himself, along with the Lockshield, to another heart; this is performed in The Interference III when Joumae becomes Edward's counterpart for a short while. A side effect of this ability is that Edward then became able to hear Joumae as well, despite not having a counterpart anymore. During The Interference III, when not connected to any other heart, Joumae can switch between the Lockshield's form and the form of an orb of energy, and as the orb is capable of transporting the party to safety.

While technically personifying Alex's Lockshield, Joumae is also in possession of a Lockshield himself - and, unlike Alex, is (or at least implies himself to be) a Master of its capabilities. Joumae is able to transform the Lockshield into a Glider similar to the Keyblade Glider, and is also capable of unlocking Alex's heart, which he demonstrates to great effect, allowing Alex's darkness to run out of control.

As a counterpart he is only seen with one design, called the Kingdom Copy, which seems to be equivalent to Alex's Heartless Seal, as both offer access to a full range of Kingdom Hearts magic. After being recovered by Even, however, he is revealed to be capable of using the Crimson Catalyst and the Time Fracture as well, or at least duplicates of their designs, and with them has access to alchemy and Chrono Trigger magic, respectively.

Name origin
As admitted by Joumae soon after he appears, the Japanese word 錠前 (じょうまえ joumae) is a noun translating as 'lock', more specifically a lock on the front of an object (まえ mae means 'before').