Profile
CHARACTER NAME: Clow Reed
SERIES: Cardcaptor Sakura
CANON POINT:After his death, but before the events of the main storyline take place
LOSS: The deck of Clow Cards - they’re his ultimate creation, and by the time of his death, he’s grown quite used to having them around both for the use of their powers, and for their personality. Losing them is a personal slight to a very proud man, and makes magic use more complicated and less powerful for him, as a portion of his power is bound in the Cards.
ABOUT THE CHARACTER: In canon, Clow is something of an enigma - he only appears in a handful of flashbacks, and, once, speaking directly to Sakura. His demeanor is friendly, quietly and politely upbeat - always smiling, although there's always sort of the sense that he's smiling /at/ you, rather than /with/ you. He is of mixed Chinese and British heritage, and an extremely powerful mage - the most powerful in his world, while he was alive. He is shown to have a talent for innovation - the Clow Cards represent the culmination of his life’s work on magical theory, and are an interweaving of both Eastern and Western magical traditions, implied to be the first of it’s kind.
Many of his personality traits seem to be a result of this immense power - the ability to bend reality to your whims alters one’s perspective and one’s desire. He has absolutely no qualms about manipulating people for what he thinks of as their own good, and seems to even enjoy it. For example, he’s responsible for almost all the events that unfold in the series itself, particularly the Sakura Card arc, where his partial reincarnation affects events directly. He also alters memories of his Guardians of the time surrounding his death, giving them a more peaceful closure to his life, and his reincarnation alters Sakura’s memories, to keep their little game going longer.
At one point, Keroberos accuses him of having a 'twisted personality', which he matches with a smile, and no denials. He's one of the most powerful mages in the world, which means he can do pretty much whatever the hell he wants to, and so he /does/. There’s evidence that having this much power has lead him in pursuit of the new and unique. His character profile lists his favorite thing as ‘anything unpredictable’ and his hobby as ‘surprises’ - when you can see the future, finding something /new/ becomes increasingly hard, and Eriol (his reincarnation) shows both some surprise, and a great deal of interest, in the the elements of his planning that did not work, such as Sakura’s choice to be in a relationship with Syaoran rather than Yukito - it’s an instance in which he was wrong, and that’s something that’s infrequent in his life. It’s also implied that he could have chosen to live for longer than he actually did, but was simply bored of life.
Overall, on the surface he can seem like he's airheaded and has zero attention span, as he tends to jump from one thing to another rapidly - however, if something really catches his attention, he can be incredibly thorough, and underneath the smile, he's an incredibly intelligent man with a passion for scheming. He's not actually outright evil or malicious, but he does have a very strange sense of humor, and a tendency to pull pranks which can seem a bit unfunny to those who doesn't share his outlook. He finds people in particular interesting - the more unpredictable, the better.
ABILITIES: Clow is an extremely powerful mage - in his universe, the second most powerful who will ever exist (Sakura being the first), and an experienced master of both traditional forms of Chinese and British magic (with some dabbling in other forms because he’s a nerd like that). The powers he or the cards he created are shown to have in canon include basically complete mastery over creation and change of the physical forms of things (up to doing things like entirely remapping where doors lead within a single building, shifting objects, looping sections of the physical environment, creating sentient beings), divination (not 100% accurate, and it seems to be more focused on his family), memory wiping (this would absolutely not be used without player consent), and postcognitive spells (possibly with a small measure of interaction, but nothing that would allow him to alter past events, as far as shown).
(for a more in-depth list, this page covers the abilities of various cards - it can be assumed that if the Cards can do it, Clow can, as he created them)
SERIES: Cardcaptor Sakura
CANON POINT:After his death, but before the events of the main storyline take place
LOSS: The deck of Clow Cards - they’re his ultimate creation, and by the time of his death, he’s grown quite used to having them around both for the use of their powers, and for their personality. Losing them is a personal slight to a very proud man, and makes magic use more complicated and less powerful for him, as a portion of his power is bound in the Cards.
ABOUT THE CHARACTER: In canon, Clow is something of an enigma - he only appears in a handful of flashbacks, and, once, speaking directly to Sakura. His demeanor is friendly, quietly and politely upbeat - always smiling, although there's always sort of the sense that he's smiling /at/ you, rather than /with/ you. He is of mixed Chinese and British heritage, and an extremely powerful mage - the most powerful in his world, while he was alive. He is shown to have a talent for innovation - the Clow Cards represent the culmination of his life’s work on magical theory, and are an interweaving of both Eastern and Western magical traditions, implied to be the first of it’s kind.
Many of his personality traits seem to be a result of this immense power - the ability to bend reality to your whims alters one’s perspective and one’s desire. He has absolutely no qualms about manipulating people for what he thinks of as their own good, and seems to even enjoy it. For example, he’s responsible for almost all the events that unfold in the series itself, particularly the Sakura Card arc, where his partial reincarnation affects events directly. He also alters memories of his Guardians of the time surrounding his death, giving them a more peaceful closure to his life, and his reincarnation alters Sakura’s memories, to keep their little game going longer.
At one point, Keroberos accuses him of having a 'twisted personality', which he matches with a smile, and no denials. He's one of the most powerful mages in the world, which means he can do pretty much whatever the hell he wants to, and so he /does/. There’s evidence that having this much power has lead him in pursuit of the new and unique. His character profile lists his favorite thing as ‘anything unpredictable’ and his hobby as ‘surprises’ - when you can see the future, finding something /new/ becomes increasingly hard, and Eriol (his reincarnation) shows both some surprise, and a great deal of interest, in the the elements of his planning that did not work, such as Sakura’s choice to be in a relationship with Syaoran rather than Yukito - it’s an instance in which he was wrong, and that’s something that’s infrequent in his life. It’s also implied that he could have chosen to live for longer than he actually did, but was simply bored of life.
Overall, on the surface he can seem like he's airheaded and has zero attention span, as he tends to jump from one thing to another rapidly - however, if something really catches his attention, he can be incredibly thorough, and underneath the smile, he's an incredibly intelligent man with a passion for scheming. He's not actually outright evil or malicious, but he does have a very strange sense of humor, and a tendency to pull pranks which can seem a bit unfunny to those who doesn't share his outlook. He finds people in particular interesting - the more unpredictable, the better.
ABILITIES: Clow is an extremely powerful mage - in his universe, the second most powerful who will ever exist (Sakura being the first), and an experienced master of both traditional forms of Chinese and British magic (with some dabbling in other forms because he’s a nerd like that). The powers he or the cards he created are shown to have in canon include basically complete mastery over creation and change of the physical forms of things (up to doing things like entirely remapping where doors lead within a single building, shifting objects, looping sections of the physical environment, creating sentient beings), divination (not 100% accurate, and it seems to be more focused on his family), memory wiping (this would absolutely not be used without player consent), and postcognitive spells (possibly with a small measure of interaction, but nothing that would allow him to alter past events, as far as shown).
(for a more in-depth list, this page covers the abilities of various cards - it can be assumed that if the Cards can do it, Clow can, as he created them)