Odessa Silverberg

Odessa Silverberg (オデッサ・シルバーバーグ, Odessa Shirubābāgu) is a major character in Suikoden. The original leader of the Toran Liberation Army, Odessa's ideals continued to inspire the Liberation Army throughout the war.

Suikoden
"Remember that you can't turn away from what you see and what you feel. Because if you do, that's a sin..."

- Odessa Silverberg

Odessa Silverberg is the original leader of the Toran Liberation Army; despite her birth into an aristocratic family, Odessa had a sincere concern for how people were suffering under the corruption of the Scarlet Moon Empire. Her aristocratic upbringing left her ignorant of much of this corruption. Odessa largely became aware of the plight of the people after meeting Achilles, a member of the Anti-Imperial Movement. Odessa eventually joined the movement and became Achilles' fiancée, helping him raise a war orphan named Michel. Odessa asked her brother Mathiu Silverberg to join their cause, but Mathiu refused to do so. This lead to a a schism between the siblings, as Odessa regarded Mathiu as a coward who was unwilling to use his talent.

The year 453 saw Achilles arrested on trumped-up charges due to his role in the Anti-Imperial Movement. Odessa attempted to save her fiancée and, indeed, the two managed to make a break from his execution, but Achilles was felled by Imperial archers. His last words to Odessa were "Defeat the Empire!". Odessa managed to fight her way out of the group of soldiers clad in her wedding gown with sword in hand. Using the Anti-Imperial Movement as its basis, Odessa then founded the Toran Liberation Army with the express goal of overthrowing the Imperial regime.

Over the next two years, the Liberation Army grew in size, recruiting such members as Flik, Humphrey Mintz, Sanchez, Viktor, Mose, and Ronnie Bell. Odessa's foresight and intelligence led her to begin the foundation of plans necessary for the future years in advance, including the building of a Secret Factory north of Kalekka to develop specialist weapons for the fledgling force as well as the purchase of the plans for the Fire Spear , a weapon which would have had no practical use to the movement at that time but, Odessa believed, could be vital in the future.

The Liberation Army under Odessa mainly worked as an underground group, working out of a hideout established in the Lenankamp sewers. Odessa herself would take an active role in missions, travelling with Tir McDohl to Sarady in order to deliver the plans for the Fire Spears directly to the Secret Factory messenger. The force would aim to help those persecuted unfairly by the Imperials rather than engage in open warfare. This tactic won the movement several allies and sympathisers but eventually everything came undone when the location of the Liberation Army's main hideout was revealed to the Imperial Guard by Sanchez, who was a spy. During the attack on the base, Odessa was attacked and killed by Imperial soldiers during the act of protecting a small child who happened to be in the hideout at the time. Before she died, she told Viktor and Tir McDohl to throw her body into the sewer to avoid spreading the news of her death, which she believed would affect the morale of the movement. She then told Tir to go to Seika to recruit "a man named Mathiu"; even in death she lacked the resolve to forgive her brother. Odessa also passed on parting words for her lover, Flik, telling Viktor and Tir to tell him that Flik's kindness saw her through hard times as well as for Tir, hoping that he would see the free world that she would not be able to.

After her death, Tir and Viktor obeyed her wishes and threw her body into Lenankamp's sewers. Her brother, Mathiu, would agree with Odessa's reasons for keeping her death a secret, and would keep her death a secret for much of the early stages of the Gate Rune War, only telling the truth after the defeat of Kwanda Rosman in the Battle at Pannu Yakuta Castle. Both Mathiu and Flik were deeply moved by Odessa's death; Mathiu vowed that he would strive to fulfil Odessa's dreams and Flik felt unworthy of her expectations in him and felt he had to improve as a person before meeting her again. Tir McDohl was handpicked by Odessa to lead the Toran Liberation Army and he was frequently reminded that it was up to him to fulfill her wishes. Her ideals and belief in a better world continued to inspire the Toran Liberation Army long after her death.

Trivia

 * Ted shares the same weapon name as Odessa in Suikoden, which is a strange coincidence since they both join only temporarily.
 * Odessa refers to Leon Silverberg as her father in Suikoden, but this is a translation error; Leon is her uncle, not her father.