Simon

Simon (シモン Shimon) was a childhood friend of Erza and was part of the group who were attempting to rebuild the Tower of Heaven and create the R-System. He died protecting Erza from Jellal's attack.

Appearance
Simon was a very massive, tall and muscular young man, with his overly large arms and hands appearing even larger when compared to his extremely thin legs; during his time in the Tower of Heaven, while not as large or muscular as he'd grow in later years, he was more well-proportioned. His mildly long dark hair possessed two prominent bangs curving outwards on the front, framing and partially covering the upper part of his face; Simon had dark eyes and a wide, rectangular face, with a flat nose and a noticeably prominent jaw. During the revolt in the Tower of Heaven, when he was a child, Simon got struck in the face by a Magical blast, something which seemingly left him partially disfigured: Simon's left eye was covered in a simple, dark eyepatch, held up by an extremely slim rope, with a thin scar emerging from under it and going down diagonally on his cheek. His massive jaw was obscured by an armored metal plate, bearing lines of studs on its upper edges and two side protrusions jutting upwards, plus a set of teeth-like ornaments, making it somehow similar to a skeletal jaw. The top of his head was covered in a light cloth wrapped around it, tied on the back, where a pair of long wrappings were left hanging over his neck, with another one hanging on the right of his face; such headgear bore e great resemblance to a turban.

As a child, Simon's attire was that of a slave in the Tower of Paradise, this consisting of a sleeveless shirt and a pair of light pants reaching down below his knees, held up by a simple, rudimentary rope belt tied in a knot on the front. As a member of Team Jellal, a grown up Simon switched to a different, distinctive outfit: most of his muscular upper body was left exposed, being only covered by a large, light cloth passing over his left shoulder and going down below his waist, where it was tied by a light sash, plus a single, dark sleeve on the left arm, bearing two light stripes vertically going down it, from the shoulder to the cuff. The cloth crossing his chest diagonally had its edges adorned by a series of dark pyramids, and bore in its middle several dark, larger motifs, highly reminiscent of double-edged axes. Simon also wore a pair of extremely loose dark pants, almost reaching down to his ankles, which made his thin legs look larger, and a simple pair of light, ankle boots.

Personality
As a member of Team Jellal, Simon always retained a cool, detached demeanour, hardly showing any emotion, and being seemingly willing to help Jellal to realize his plan, at the cost of Erza Scarlet's life. This, however, was revealed to be false: Simon pretended to follow Jellal's orders, while in fact was the only one among his teammates to have seen through their old friend's deception. He had proven to be logical and cautious, carefully examining situations before taking further steps and choosing retreat or escape if pitted against an unsurmountable opponent, as well as being willing to wait for a long time before carrying out his plans for the sake of his friends and allies.

History
Simon was one of the kids that was taken from his home and forced to build the R-System or Tower of Heaven. It was there he made friends with Erza, Jellal, Wally, Millianna, and Sho who together weathered the cruel methods of the their captors. One day, Erza decided it was time to fight back and inspired the other slaves to stage a revolt. Despite some sacrifices, the slaves were successful and set to leave the island for good. But Jellal, now being controlled by Zeref, destroyed the ship leading off the island and claimed it was Erza's doing to convince Simon and his friends to stay and finish the Tower. However, Simon didn't believe in a that story, because he was already in love with Erza. After eight years, the tower was completed.

Tower of Heaven arc
After eight years pass, he, along with Shou, Wally, and Millianna, appear at a casino where Team Natsu is vacationing at. He begins by attacking Gray Fullbuster and Juvia Lockser, demanding to know where Erza Scarlet is. When the two refuse to reveal he whereabouts, Simon uses Dark Moment, making the room pitch black, and seemingly defeats the two. Simon then meets up with the rest of his friends, who found Erza, and take her back to the Tower of Heaven.

After Natsu Dragneel and co. invade the tower, and Erza reveals to the group about her past, and how Jellal framed her to look like she betrayed her friends and left them, but in actuality she was banished, as Jellal wanted to finish to tower to bring Zeref back. Shô appears shocked by the truth that Jellal lied about Erza betraying them. As he falls into a state of confusion, Simon appears telling Shô what Erza just said is true, and he knew all along Jellal lied about Erza's betrayal. Everyone then agrees to work together to stop Jellal's plans.

He was forced to split from the others after Shou turned Erza into a card and ran off, coming across Natsu's fight against Fukurou. He tried to help by using his darkness Magic but Fukurou, being an owl, could see in the dark and attacked him, leaving him wounded and forced to watch the rest of the fight from the sidelines. After Fukurou's defeat, Simon begged Natsu to rescue Erza warning him that Jellal would take advantage of her feelings to defeat her, which was enough to get Natsu involved in the battle between the two.

In the middle of the fight against Jellal, he sacrificed himself so that Erza would not be hit by Jellal's attack; he reveals just before he dies that he loved Erza all along.

Magic and Abilities
Darkness Magic (闇の魔法 Yami no Mahō): A form of Magic which Simon employed in an exclusive, peculiar way, taking advantage of the physical element of the Magic itself, of real darkness, instead of the more common, ghostly apparitions wielded by most users of Darkness Magic.
 * Dark Moment (闇刹那 Yami Setsuna): Simon's only known spell, which allowed him to remove all of the light within a wide range, enough to cover an entire casino hall, turning everything pitch black, and preventing opponents from seeing, distracting them and putting them at a disadvantage. Simon and his allies, on the other hand, were apparently capable of perfectly manoeuvreing in the darkness, being seemingly unaffected by the spell. However, opponents capable of seeing in the darkness will be unaffected by such spell. To cast Dark Moment, Simon was shown performing hand gestures with both of his arms, moving his hands with the index and middle fingers outstretched, and the others bent.

Telepathy (念話 Terepashī): Simon was able to communicate with other people away from him through their thoughts, being capable of remaining in contact with his teammates from afar. To converse with them, he placed his left hand's outstretched index and middle fingers on his head's side, something which allowed the words he pronounced to reach others.

Enhanced Durability: Simon was shown to be quite resilient: during his time as a slave, he survived being struck on the face by a Magical blast which left him disfigured; later on, he endured Fukuro's Judgement Hou piercing clean through his chest. Lastly, he was shown taking on himself the brunt of Jellal Fernandes's Altairis spell, an attack whose power is said to rival that of a meteor, and talk afterwards, with his body still in one piece. However, the latter feat brought, shortly after, to Simon's death.

Enhanced Strength: As evident of his muscular and massive build, Simon possessed a high amount of physical strength: he was shown sending Juvia Lockser crashing through a bar counter several meters away from him, breaking the bar counter she was sitting at in the process, with only a careless slap of his left hand. The fact that he managed to physically hurt her is also worth noting, due to the woman's body being composed of intangible water.

Keen Intellect: Despite his grunt appearance, Simon was clever and hard to fool: he was capable of seeing through both Jellal's deception, which had all of his fellow slaves deceived without a suspect, and through Gray Fullbuster's ice dummy with ease; the latter was even used by Simon to his own advantage, in order to feign Gray's death and gather some powerful Mages at the Tower of Heaven, which would have helped him to stop Jellal's crazy plan.

Major Battles

 * Team Natsu vs. Team Jellal
 * Natsu Dragneel & Simon vs. Fukuro

Trivia

 * In Japanese, the name Simon can mean 'under'.
 * In the manga Simon slaps Juvia away when he first appeared. In the anime he blows her up, using Magic.
 * Simon has shown a liking for Erza Scarlet.
 * Simon looks a little different in the anime than in the manga, this difference is more appreciable when he was a kid in manga and anime (in the anime he is visibly thiner and less bulkier than in the manga).