Zen Wistaria

Zen Wistaria is the deuteragonist of the Snow White with the Red Hair anime and manga series.
He is voiced by Ryōta Ōsaka in Japanese and by Jessie James Grelle in English.
==Appearance==
Zen is a young man with have silver white hair, blue eyes, and is fairly average in terms of height. Clothing-wise, he is often seen in his blue uniform, with white pants, blue boots, and pretty much always has his sword equipped at his waist. He also occasionally wears a white cape when in especially formal settings or situations. When in more casual circumstances, he occasionally removes his uniform and is often seen wearing a more plain dark blue t-shirt. 
==Personality==
Zen embodies a very kind, caring and straightforward personality. Unlike a decent amount of other nobles of the time, he does not look down on other people based on their social status and is respectful to his aids, servants and commoners alike. Due to how well he treats those around him, he inspires a great amount of loyalty, respect and trust in those that follow him. He is also pretty easy-going and not one for formalities. However, when the people close to him are threatened or in danger, he can quickly get very serious and take a very intimidating, even threatening tone with those who have either done wrong or intend to do wrong to his companions. Also, despite his generally easy-going attitude, he still takes his duties as the second prince very seriously, and after excursions from the palace, will often go through workaholic fits where he complete a lot of paperwork in short bursts of time. It also goes without saying that he is especially compassionate and protective towards Shirayuki, even before confessing his love to her. Ever since just meeting her, they get along especially well due to sharing a lot of the same values, and he will quickly come to her rescue without hesitation whenever she's in danger.
In flashbacks, it's shown that when Zen was younger, he was comparitively more lacking in social skills, especially as evidenced by his cold behavior towards Mitsuhide when he was first assigned to him as an attendant, with him not even realizing he was coming off as rude and hurtful towards him until Mitsuhide directly tells him so. Between this and finding out that his supposed best friend, a boy who worked at the castle as an archer named Atri, was actually a spy for Lido helping his clan to get revenge on his older brother Izana, as well as that he was deeply jealous and envious of his privileged unbringing, he was likely motivated to develop better social skills as a result. It's also because of this that he developed a drive to be a prince that inspires loyalty. However, he also places a lot of importance on others seeing and valuing him as a person, rather than just treating him a certain way because of his title, which is why he especially values his friendships with Mitsuhide, Kiki, and of course, Shiraryuki after meeting her. 
==Biography==
Zen is the second prince of Clarines, and as such, has grown up with an immense amount of pressure since a young age to be an ideal prince. This severely limited his opportunities to make friends and left him with a strong desire to make connections with others that had nothing to do with his title or status. Therefore, he had a tendency to discreetly meet with a boy the same age as him named Atri who worked at the castle as an archer. He considered the time he spent with him to be the best part of his days and his feelings of being restricted by his duties only increased when Izana, his older brother and the first prince, assigned Mitsuhide to him as an attendant to always accompany and protect him. Despite initially feeling awkward with him around and acting cold towards him though, he quickly began to warm up to and respect Mitsuhide when he showed an unusual level of honesty towards him, 
However, he would eventually experience a devastating betrayal when Atri reveals himself to be a spy for Lido, and that the whole time, he was helping a faction of their people who bore a strong grudge against Izana for previously getting a corrupt feudal lord associated with them removed from power, infiltrate the castle and assassinate him. However, Izana himself and Mitsuhide come to his rescue just outside the castle walls and subsequently defeat the group in combat. During the battle, however, Atri admits to him that he secretly despised him due to how envious he was of his privileged lifestyle, and despite Zen trying to assure him he always genuinely saw him as a friend, Atri tries to shoot him with an arrow, forcing Mitsuhide to fatally wound him in defense. He then comforted Atri in his dying moments, during which the latter lamented how things may have been different between them if he wasn't born into royalty before passing on, while Zen cried over his death. This whole experience had a profound impact on him, as he later shares with Mitsuhide that he hopes to be someone who earns the respect and loyalty of others, as well as find people that value him as a person beyond his status as a prince.
In the present, he meets Shirayuki while on a trip outside the castle with Mitsuhide and Kiki, during which she treats an injury he sustains after he stumbles while climbing over a wall. Shortly after befriending her and bonding over similar values, he is poisoned when he eats a poisoned apple that Raj sent to Shirayuki so he could immobolize and bring her back to Tanbarun to make her his concubine, which was the whole reason she fled in the first place. Shirayuki temporarily agrees to comply in exchange for him receiving the antidote, but he soon unexpectedly bursts into the palace room to object to it, during which he reveals that he's largely okay due to having built up an immunity to it. He then reveals to both Shirayuki and Raj that he's the second prince of Clarines, and subsequently intimidates Raj with the threat that he makes his poisoning of him public knowledge, it could lead to war between their respective kingdoms. He then demands that in exchange for keeping this quiet and avoiding all the trouble, that Raj leave Shirayuki alone, to which the cowardly and terrified prince quickly agrees to.. He also gives him the antidote when Zen gives Shiraryuki the chance to air her grievances, during which her only serious demand is for him to do so. In the aftermath, he invites Shirayuki to live in Clarines like she intended.
Initially, Zen is often seen escaping his duties to experience Clarines first-hand and get to know the kingdom better, though he also takes his official work seriously and will go into fits of doing a lot of it in a short period to compensate for his excursions. He has a close relationship with his three aides, Mitsuhide, Kiki, and later on, Obi, whom he has both their respect and genuine loyalty of, and who all follow and support him without question. Over the course of the story, he falls in love with Shirayuki and rescues her from various dangers.
==Trivia==
*As a young child, Zen has built up an immunity against various poisons by exposing himself to poisons in specific controlled doses causing convulsions, fever, and difficulty walking to name a few. These results were carefully documented by his doctors.
**This made him almost immune to the paralysis poison meant for Shirayuki.
*Zen enjoys the company of Mitsuhide, Kiki and Shirayuki as they don't see him for his royal status.
*As his brother currently is unwed and not engaged, Zen's children with Shirayuki would likely inherit the throne of Clarenes
==Gallery==
Zen Wistaria.jpg
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6c2ff565bf7ec9c29a6878ec4b34279a.gif|Don't make Zen suspect you may be after Shirayuki for human trafficking 
Akagami-no-shirayuki-hime-episode-11-zen-and-shirayuki-kiss.png|True love beyond status
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Zen Hugs Shirayuki.jpg
Zen and Shirayuki S1E6 (2).jpg
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Tumblr phs4hepz6h1syr7zp 1280.jpg
==External Links==
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