Holy, sometimes also called Pearl or Faith, is a recurring spell in the Kingdom Hearts Series. In each appearance, Holy makes use of rays, spheres, or pillars of holy light to damage enemies, and, in Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep also restores the caster's health. This spell is usable only in side games and is unavailable in both Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts II.
Learning
Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories
Holy is learnt if the player chooses a new slight after Sora has reached level 42. The sleight requires that a mega-ether, a megalixir, and any other item card be stocked.
Kingdom Hearts: Re: Chain of Memories
Holy is learnt if the player chooses a new slight after Sora has reached level 47. The requirements for casting are unchanged.
Recipe
Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep
Casting
Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep
Faith appears as a Deck Command exclusive to Ventus. It releases a circle of lasers similar to those employed by Roxas that annihilate nearby enemies and restore his health all at once.
Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories
A pillar of white light appears to lift enemies into the air, inflicting large amounts of damage. Most boss characters are immune to this effect.
Kingdom Hearts: Re: Chain of Memories
Four pillars of white light strike the targeted enemy at regular intervals. If no enemy is targeted, the pillars fall on Sora's location and damage any nearby enemies.
Kingdom Hearts II
When escorting Queen Minnie, the reaction command Faith becomes available. When activated, it calls a pillar of white and pale-pink light from above that erupts into a wave that repels enemies when it hits the ground. Queen Minnie is also able to summon slow-moving orbs of light with homing properties that appear to draw upon the same power as the reaction command.
King Mickey casts Pearl during certain boss fights if Sora is defeated. It attacks with homing spheres of white light.
Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days
Holy appears as King Mickey's limit break.
Origin
Spell Origin
Holy, also rendered into English as Fade (the original Final Fantasy), White (Final Fantasy IV upon its first English release, under the title Final Fantasy II), and Pearl (Final Fantasy VI upon its first English release, under the title Final Fantasy III') owing to censorship of religious imagery by Nintendo of America, is a recurring spell in the Final Fantasy series. One of few White Magic spells capable of damaging the enemy, Holy is often effective against enemies alligned with darkness and the undead, though its appearance ranges from summoning orbs of light to coalescing shining pillars to blasting enemies with light-based explosions.
Faith also appears as a spell in Final Fantasy XII, in which it augments magical power.
Etymology
The word holy is of Old English origin and survives largely-unchanged from the Middle Ages with regard to pronunciation. It is ultimately derived from Old English halig, which has a pronunciation very similar to its modern equivalent and which, prior to the Christianisation of the English-speaking peoples, meant "that which must be preserved intact". In other Germanic languages, the word appears as heilig in both German and Dutch, and as helga in Swedish.
Both faith and pearl have French roots and entered the English language after the Norman Conquest. Faith, spelled feid at the time, has the modern French cognate foi, while Pearl has survived generally-unchanged in French as perle.
Trivia
- Holy is one of several spells that appear recurringly in spinoff games that are not castable in main-sequence games. Other such spells include Quake, Warp, Raging Storm, Mega-Flare, and Tornado.
- Although it often has an attribute of its own in Final Fantasy titles, Holy has no attribute in the Kingdom Hearts series.