"You don't know the power that you have with that tear in your hand."-Tori Amos

When the audience is first introduced to the strategist, who is watching the destruction of a city, his most obvious and striking feature is a purple teardrop on his cheek. Soon he makes a comment that he is a man who has betrayed his country and his expression becomes even more enigmatic. While the tear never receives an explanation, the viewer can make a few educated guesses based on an understanding of Folken's character.

To understand the possible significance of the tattoo tear, another character should be mentioned. In the story "Neon Genesis Evangelion" there is a woman named Ritsuko who has a mole on her cheek up towards her eye. Although she is very successful and important scientist, her relationship with her mother has left her scarred and suffering. A friend makes a remark that "a person with born with a birthmark tear will lead a sad life," or something to that effect. In other words, her destiny is bound to be tragic, which is actually true. She is doomed to repeat the mistakes of her mother even though she hates herself for doing it.

Her mole is a natural mark while Folken's is tattoo, but both are very similar. The tear form makes their faces appear sad even when their expressions are neutral. Both characters are drawn to science, and specifically to the sciences of technology, where both are geniuses. Ritsuko is a rather cynical, distant woman whose primary identity revolves around her work, about which she is very serious, yet occasionally she reveals a biting wit, especially in regard to her co-worker and friend, Misato. Folken too is distant and obscures his identity with his work and secretive cloak which usually hides his metal arm, yet he seems silently amused by some joke the world has played, even if it is on him. Significantly, both have a tragic destiny.

The fact that her mark is natural and his is not is very important though. She was born to tragedy, but he wasn't necessarily meant to lead a sad life. Ritsuko existed in a Freudian world (constructed by the story's creator) were the influence of her mother would trace out a path for her ultimately leading to her own destruction, much the way her mother destroyed herself. In fact, she ends up in the very hands of her mother who must decide her fate. Because her mother influences all of her decisions, she is without choice. It was her mother who gave her the "birthmark" and marked her for tragedy, both physically and symbolically.

Folken's mark is different because it is unnatural, even if it had the same "effect" of invoking or foreshadowing tragedy. When he was young he was as happy and free as Van, or at least partially since he would become king, but was by no means as psychologically scarred as Ritsuko. He might have become king, but at least he would have his mother (whose love was uncomplicated) and brother by his side to love and support him. Failing to kill the dragon might have ended this possibility, but it didn't necessarily doom him to suffering. Choosing to work for Dornkirk and trying to control destiny was what sent him down the path to the tear.

The dragon had taken his arm and Dornkirk had replaced it with a monstrous, though strangely elegant, mental arm, and while this is an unnatural element, it was not a chosen element. It's likely, however that the tear was chosen since no one else seems to have it. If the tear like birthmark is a sign of destiny, than a artificial tear is both a revolt against and an embrace of destiny-it is a destiny chosen. The tear takes him down the same tragic path as it did Ritsuko and its permanency binds him to it even when he learns that he was wrong. He will hurt and destroy everyone he loves and his brother will never be able to embrace him as he did before the tear and everything it symbolizes. He will hurt others and suffer for it with a deep loneliness, but, like a mime, his pain will be hidden in subtle expressions but never given a voice.

In the end, he dies trying to rescue his brother (and the world) from a war he helped start. When he returns to his brother as a spirit, he no longer has the teardrop mark because he is finally free from fate and once again able to be happy. He was able to help Van who once again "embraced" (by acknowledging him) as a brother. He will have a chance to be happy, even if only in spirit, while Ritsuko, with her natural birthmark, never will (for reasons that, if revealed to those who haven't seen it, would spoil the entire story).