Elhaym Van Houten

Elhaym Van Houten, nicknamed Elly, is a playable character and the main heroine of Xenogears.

Appearance and personality
Elly has knee-length orange hair and blue eyes.

Elly is an accomplished soldier within Gebler, but has sympathies for the land dwellers. She is often concerned with the damage Gebler's activities will cause for them and eventually leaves the military to join with Fei and the others. Elly becomes very well known for her work with the sick and mutated during the later events of the game and is hailed as reincarnation of Sophia. Elly is very fond of Fei and the two get into a romantic relationship with each other.

History (prior incarnations)
See also: Sophia

Elly is the Antitype, the opposing existence to the Contact. When made contact with the Wave Existence, the Existence added the mother's will to the programming of Deus. Every time the Contact is reincarnated a corresponding version of the Antitype will also be born. At least four versions of Elly have existed since the crash of Deus although it is possible that others also existed which the game never gets into.

When the Elridge crashed, Kadomony activated a program known as System Hawwa which awakened the original Miang. After creating the first humans on the planet, Cain and the Gazel Ministry, she created 2 duplicates of herself due to the mother's will, the original Elly and Miang (0000). Elly broke away from Miang and the others and met up with Abel. Initially their relationship was akin to a mother and child, but in all future incarnations they would act as lovers. Once an adult, Abel rebelled against Cain's control of the people and Cain attempted to murder him. Elly jumped in the way and was killed instead. Thus began a recurring aspect of Elly, her self-sacrificing nature and the fact that she would die in front of The Contact.

The next version of Elly introduced in the story lived in the Zeboim era approximately 4,000 years before the event of the game. She worked as a nurse in a college hospital and would meet and fall in love with Kim, that era's version of the Contact. Similar to many from that era, Elly suffered from genetic damage and was unable to have children. When the military launched an invasion on Kim's laboratory in order to seize his nanomachine creation Emeralda, Elly was killed right in front of him.

The most recent incarnation of Elly before the events of the game was Sophia. The Holy Mother of Nisan and a key rallying point for the rebellion against Solaris, she would also sacrifice herself in an attack on Solaris' aerial fortress Merkava.

History (Elly Van Houten)
The current day version of Elly was born 18 years ago, the only child of Erich and Medena Van Houten. Elly was a first class Solarian citizen, but had a complex over her appearance as she didn't have the blonde hair that all first class Solaris citizens have. Elly's father had sheltered a land dweller and employed her as a nurse. As a result, Elly thought that the nurse was her real mother. In actuality, Erich and Medena are Elly's true parents and her appearance is due to being the Antitype.

At the age of 13, Elly was enrolled in Jugend. 1 year prior to the events of the game, Elly suffered adverse reaction to the drug Drive. The drug temporarily unleashed her powers as the Antitype and as a result, 2 of her classmates were killed and 3 were more injured, but eventually able to be revived. Elly was expelled from being able to enter the Elements group and instead became a 3rd weapons divisions officer for Gebler after graduation. Her current rank is second lieutenant.

Present day
Elly as a Gebler officer is stationed on the surface. She takes part in a mission to infiltrate a Kislev base and steal Gears from them, including Weltall. Kislev forces pursue her and her colleagues as they flee and she is forced to make an emergency landing just outside of Lahan Village where she abandons her Gear. Elly flees to the nearby Blackmoon Forest and is uninvolved in the events of that night which result in Lahan's destruction. Within the forest she first meets Fei, pointing a gun at him. After Fei rescues her from a monster she trusts him more and the two converse via firelight. The next day Fei reveals to her his role in the destruction of Lahan Village, Elly feels guilty in her role over landing there but keeps this a secret and argues with Fei after he tries to push off all responsibility for what happened. The two split off from each other but she is soon attacked by a Rankar Dragon, forcing Fei to rescue her with Weltall, which has been brought by Citan. That night, Citan, recognizing that she is from Gebler, asks Elly to leave, which she does so after revealing her actual involvement in what happened with Lahan.

Elly returns to Aveh's capital Bledavik and Fei runs into her when he is escaping along with Bart and Margie. Elly temporarily lets them hide in her room then supplies them with a Gear they are able to use. Fei asks Elly to abandon the military and come with them, but she refuses. Elly is later given command over 5 other Gebler soldiers known as the Gebler Special Forces and is provided the usage of the Gear Vierge. They head to the mountains near the Aveh - Kislev border and run into Fei. Elly is initially unable to control her subordinates, but after they all are defeated by Fei she reluctantly takes drive and fights him personally. Elly's personality completely changes and she tries to kill Fei, but he restrains her and she returns to normal. Elly is next assigned a role in an attack on Nortune by Gebler. Elly is reluctant to be involved as it will result in mass casualties for the land dwellers, but feels she has no choice. While she takes part in the operation, she is encountered by Fei again. When Fei shows all the destruction that the attack is causing for innocent civilians, Elly decides to depart from Gebler and help hold off the attack. She tries to singlehandedly change the path of the Hecht away from a reactor and collapses in the attempt, being saved by the involvement of Grahf.

Elly accompanies Fei and the others as they depart from Nortune and head to the Goliath Factory where they steal the and head towards the Aquvy region. Grahf soon comes upon them and attacks the party, but refrains from personally attacking Elly. The Goliath is soon blown out of the sky by Bart and Elly is stranded on the sea with Fei during which time they grow closer to each other. Elly and Fei are soon picked up by the Thames and they fight off Elly's former colleague Dominia when she attacks with the Gear Haishao. While Haishao is defeated, Dominia captures Elly and brings her back to a Gebler battleship. Miang personally steps in between the two but hypnotizes Elly and causes her to secretly damage the Yggdrasil's engine. Elly insists that she be able to help in defending the Yggdrasil and she is able to successfully drive away Ramsus when he also attacks in Haishao. During this attack, Fei is severely injured. Elly feels really guilty over what happened to him and convinces the Etone Billy to treat Fei at the Ethos Headquarters.

Elly accompanies the party in the Aquvy region and then as it heads up Babel Tower to Shevat. While there, the Shevat omnigear El Regrs, which had belonged to her previous incarnation Sophia, starts reacting to her. Elly accompanies Fei and Citan as they fight off the Elements at Babel Tower as the party seeks to destroy the Gates hiding Solaris from the rest of the world. When the party heads to Solaris, Elly accompanies Fei and Citan there. After initially being split up from the two of them, Elly is reunited with Fei and they head to Arbot Plaza where they witness a speech from Cain and Krelian. Due to Fei's reaction to Bart and the others being captured, they are forced to flee. They head through the sewers and make their way to Elly's home in the first class area. Fei is reunited with her mother and brings Fei to her room where she brings up her concerns about her parentage. In order to find the location of Bart and the others she breaks into her father's computer but is soon caught by him. Elly convinces her father to let Fei go, but he forces her to remain. He, however, changes his mind and provides Elly with a keycard to access the Soylent System. Elly heads there with Fei and Citan and they make their way through the system as well as Krelian's Laboratory. Elly becomes suspicious of Citan due to his knowledge and ability to get them past a locked door and calls him out. The lights go out and both Elly and Fei are taken captive. Elly is brought before Krelian, who confirms that she is the Antitype and has the Urobolus Ring within her.

Citan is cleared as a traitor and helps Elly and the others escape. As they are about to depart from Solaris betrays the party and tries to take Elly captive. Elly's mother steps in the way and enables Elly to get away, but is soon killed by Hammer. Elly then witnesses her father get killed by Miang in her role as the Executioner. Seeing both her parents die invokes great ether abilities in Elly but it is countered by Miang. Id soon appears and destroys Solaris with Elly and the others fleeing. When Id attacks the Yggdrasil, Elly personally heads out on the Vierge to stop him. Through his love her her, Fei's personality comes back to the forefront. Shevat desires to imprison Fei in carbonite due to the power of Id with Elly as the only one opposed. She instead escapes with Fei in Weltall. Ramsus is ordered to capture Elly with his new omnigear, but instead blows Weltall out of the sky, causing Elly and Fei to crash to the woods below. They are nursed back to help by Taura. Elly then heads to a Mass Driver facility along with Emeralda in order to launch nanomachines in the air which will remove everyone's limiters. While this is successful, many individuals start mutating as a result. Elly personally helps numerous individuals and is provided with great praise, with many correctly identifying her as a reincarnation of Sophia. Ramsus attacks Nisan in an attempt to get to Fei but is stopped by Elly.

After the party encounters Hammer at the second Anima Dungeon, Elly is greatly distraught by his death. Seeing this, as well as recognizing the great deeds she is needed for in helping the mutated, Fei refuses to allow her to come with the group to Mahanon after it appears. The two of them argue in front of the entire party but Fei makes up with Elly in private and the two have sex. Elly stays behind as the party heads to Mahanon and are all captured and held as bait for her. Despite her hesitancies, Elly heads to Shevat and boards El Regrs then heads to Golgoda where the party members are being held. She shows great power using it but is eventually defeated and seized by Krelian. Krelian brings Elly to Merkava where Deus is about to be resurrected. When Ramsus kills Miang, Miang awakens inside of Elly. After revealing information about Deus's origins to the party she departs along with Krelian to be absorbed into Deus. When the party fights and successfully defeats Deus, Elly remains a part of it. As the Wave Existence is about to depart the and exert a massive amount of energy, Elly moves Deus towards space in order to ensure that the planet isn't destroyed. Fei follows her in and the two are reunited after he defeats the final version of Miang, Urobolus. The two encounter Krelian one last time then return to the planet in Xenogears.

Trivia

 * As the first main heroine of the series, later games often have characters that reference certain aspects of her character.
 * Xenosaga I, II, and III feature a character called Nephilim.
 * Nephilim's design is clearly intended to be a child Elly. She also gains an adult form that looks like Elly in Xenosaga III.
 * She wears a pendant very similar to the Nissan pendant associated with Sophia
 * She is associated with Abel, which is an obvious reference to the Abel from Xenogears
 * Fiora, the main heroine of Xenoblade Chronicles also share some similarity to Elly
 * She is briefly in a situation where she is on the opposite side of the war with Shulk
 * Her possession by Meyneth also shares some parallels to Elly's awakening as the Antitype
 * Pyra from Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is not a direct reference to Elly but when she is found sleeping at the beginning of the game, her pod share some visual similarities with The Mother and Kadomony from Xenogears.
 * Mio from Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is probably the main heroine that shares the most character traits with Elly so far.
 * Both Mio and Elly met their respective protagonists while on opposite sides of war, Noah to Keves, Fei to Bart's crew.
 * Both have reincarnated throughout history.
 * Both eventually fell in love with their respective protagonist.
 * Additionally, Mio's long hair appearance evokes's Elly's knee-length hair.
 * Concept art of Mio's child self depict her with long hair and wearing a white dress similar to the one worn by Nephilim.