Salum Barows was an antagonist in Suikoden V.
Profile[]
Background[]
Salum Barows is the head of the Barows family. He is one of the two powerful Senator in the Queendom of Falena. He has a wife and four children, his first child and the eldest son is Hiram Barows, who was killed by the Nether Gate. His second child and the eldest daughter died on an illness. His third child and the youngest son is Euram Barows, who was dandy and unintelligent. Lastly, his fourth child and the youngest daughter is Luserina Barows, who was beautiful and intelligent. After the death of Hiram, Salum's wife, Alison, locked herself on her room fearing for her life.
He feared that the Godwins influence could become to powerful because two of the Godwin men is both married to Queen Olhazeta Falenas and the crown Princess Shahrewar Falenas. In order to avoid it, he pushed Falzrahm Falenas to take the throne for herself.
Appearance[]
Personality[]
Salum is the kind of man who likes to gain money and power. In order to have it, he carefully plans everything and use peaceful accord with others. He is considered as the worst person in this game, even the prince's allies keep calling him with degrading nicknames such as "snake", "fop" or "toad", something that even Marscal Godwin and Gizel Godwin aren't being nicknamed like that
Story[]
Game[]
Before the Sun Rune War, while he was in the Falenan senate preparing for the Sacred Games, he met the crown princess Lymsleia Falenas, Prince Freyjadour Falenas and his party. Salum bought skillfull galdiator named Zegai, who he choose to becomes Euram's champion for the Sacred Games. Eventually Salum withdrew Zegai due to Gizel Godwin's evil plot.
After the Godwin's attack the Sun Palace during the engagement ceremony. Freyadour took shelter to the Barows, in order to gain more power Salum plan to marry Freyjadour to Luserina and become Freyjadour's father-in-law. He also plan to make Freyjadour a King and create his own kingdom then killed him to take over the reigning power. Eventually his planned failed, because Freyjadour only wanted to save his sister from the Godwins. Salum thinks that Freyjadour will consider his offer and he doesn't loose hope.
Salum had made a deal with Jidan Guisu to invade and attack General Novum's forces. It would make Freyjadour indebted to Armes and allow Salum Barows to consolidate power, but Lucretia Merces, Freyjadour's tactician discovered it and plans to prevent it. After this, Salum denied everything he knows, Euram in panic told to his father to use the Dawn Rune to Godwin's Army who was following them. Freyjadour and the other heard it and they went to the Barows Mansion basement. Freyjadour found the Dawn Rune in the basement and after learning that Salum steal the Dawn Rune during the Lordlake Rebellion. Freyjadour and his party along with Luserina and Chuck left and remove all their ties with the Barows.
Eventually Rainwall surrenders after General Dilber Novum attack the city. He was unhappy when he attend as guest at Lymsleia's coronation as Queen. Later Sialeeds Falenas came into his mansion and killed him using the Twilight Rune.
Trivia[]
- Accepting his proposal to become king would result to a game over.
- If Prince Freyjadour succeeds in collecting all 108 Stars of Destiny, he will see a vision of his deceased family members and enemies including the Godwins, Zahhak and Alenia. It is worth noting that Salum is not among them. Fans have theorized that while the Godwins are main antagonists of the game, they had done what they did with what they believed was in Falena's best interest. Salum, on the other hand, not only planned to betray the Prince during their brief alliance but his act of stealing the Dawn Rune had essentially caused the entire Sun Rune War to take place thus causing him to be more hated than even the Godwins. Below shows Falena's events that Salum had caused/influenced:
- By building his dam on the Feitas River, Salum incurred the anger of Lordlake's residents due to the lessened flow of water into the town. The townspeople went to the dam to stage a protest. Euram Barrows, who was captain of the garrison at the time, panicked upon seeing the crowd and ordered his men to disperse them by force but they were overwhelmed by the crowd and the dam was destroyed. Riding on the momentum, they decided to take their protest directly to the Queen while Lordlake's lord, Rovere, tried to calm them down in vain.
- Learning of the protest, Salum took advantage of this by planting some of his private soldiers among the protesters and incited them to attack the East Palace. In the ensuing chaos, Salum's men stole the Dawn Rune and Arshtat blamed Lordlake for the theft and executed Rovere and his entire family for high treason.
- Marscal Godwin tried to take advantage of the chaos and steal the Sun Rune. Lucretia Merces, Marscal's tactician at the time, betrayed him by advising Arshtat to bear the rune in order to protect it. However, due to the rune's power, Arshtat began a slow decent into madness and, in one of these moments combined with her anger over the Dawn Rune's theft, used the Sun Rune on Lordlake which dried up the area instantly. Marscal then worsened the town's situation by building his Hatred Fortress where the dam once stood thus keeping water from flowing back to the town for two years.
- During the Godwin's coup, Arshtat used the Sun Rune to protect her husband Ferid from an archer which caused her to be influenced by the rune once again. In her maddened state, she killed Ferid and threatened to destroy Falena itself. Georg Prime, as per his agreement with Ferid, killed Arshtat to prevent this.
- This would culminate with the Prince fighting back against the Godwins which marked the start of the Sun Rune War. Therefore, if Salum had not stolen the Dawn Rune, it was possible that the Lordlake tragedy and the Sun Rune War could have been avoided.