#-heit

[ So I might be in the process of writing way too many essays about this series, especially about this single nebulous character lmao, so here's the Lore:tm: that you get from playing further through the mobile game, including what's up with Karina in this all too. Spoilers for the Bermesiah, Ellia, and Pandemonium worlds and also what you can see in the event dungeon in GCC.

First, the tl;dr in case you're not here for an essay: Karina was turned into a demon by Ashtaroth (possessed by the evil prana of Baldinar). Everyone turns on her, so she decides she's going to make it everyone's problem that she's a demon now. She's now Kaze'aze. The plot of GCC happens; Kaze'aze is defeated in her castle. What we are told is Kaze'aze shows up in Tower of Disappearance, but the event dungeon (Tower of Illusion) tells us that this is potentially Decanee, who is a construct made by Heitaros to imitate Kaze'aze and sow chaos. Decanee takes the memories remaining from Kaze'aze. During the events of GC:DC, she purposefully lets people think she's Kaze'aze when it benefits her (such as with getting Vice's help or taunting the GC in Teroka). At the end of it all, however, she's nothing but a creation designed to press on the old wounds created by Kaze'aze.

Now. This is the longer version. All this is thankfully available to read on the wiki in a longer, less centralized version. You can also find folks playing through the story on Youtube.

Karina Erudon was a member of the Kanavan guard, a close friend of Anyumena (the Queen of Kanavan). One day, their caravan was attacked. The queens survived, but Ashtaroth (possessed by the evil prana of Baldinar that was remnant after the explosion of Kounat), wanted to take revenge on the descendants of Kounat's survivors and cause them pain. Thus, he cast a demonization spell on Karina, framing her for the attack. The country pushed her out, and eventually Ashtaroth approached her with the offer to teach her her magic once she'd grown resentful of her countrymen.

At this point, Karina is given the name Kaze'aze. According to some dialogue said in the GC:DC Tower of Disappearance (potentially just flowery language butchered by the translation), Karina was dead by time her body became Kaze'aze. Regardless, people still think of Karina when they see Kaze'aze, and her memories as Karina no doubt help her cause chaos and start the war that inevitably leads to the formation of the Grand Chase. She is killed in her castle, claiming that she will eventually return to take revenge on the Grand Chase.

At this point, her memories find their way into the many towers that dead souls find themselves into; the Tower of Disappearance is the most memorable one, as it shows up in both Grand Chase Classic and GC:DC. It's difficult to tell which version of events are canon here: the in-game dialogue, Episode &, or the retelling in the GC:DC intro. Regardless, the Kaze'aze that shows up here is Schrodinger's Dekaze'aze. She might be Decanee imitating Kaze'aze, she might not be. Hopefully, KOG will give us a definitive answer. Probably not. 

Let's talk about Decanee specifically, though.

Decanee is a construct explicitly created by Heitaros to cause chaos. According to Pino, she is "The Existence that Sows the Seeds of Chaos." She is quite literally designed to emulate Kaze'aze. She's rather open about this, kind of offering non-answers during the story about being not quite Kaze'aze, but this is taken to an extreme conclusion in the arc leading up to Pandemonium. Decanee is working with a sorcerer, Vice, who was extremely close with Karina. A keen eye will notice that any time Vice calls Decanee "Karina," she is nonchalant about going "well if you say so haha." This even shows in Vice's final scene at the end of Tower of Disappearance.

Some final thoughts, before I wrap this up lol. Let's look at the new GCC event dungeon.

There's a lot of ambiguity to the degree that Decanee has genuinely integrated Kaze'aze's memories into her consciousness. At the end of Tower of Illusions, she absorbs Kaze'aze's remnant memories, which appear to have some cognizance remaining, and then nearly loses herself to those memories, becoming Kaze'aze. She manages to pull herself together in the end, and by time we see her in GC:DC it's much less often that we see her slip into the persona of Kaze'aze.