Warning: The following video contains spoilers for Skullgirls.
If you'd rather not have major parts of the plot ruined, then you may want to reconsider
watching this video, at least for now.
Also, for those of you who have hemophobia or get squeamish around blood, consider this
as being an additional warning.
One of my favorite aspects of creating episodes of Character Development is the process of
researching the topic at hand and anything connected to it, and after all the episodes
released so far, the focus has been brought to a myriad of different locations and cultures,
such as Ancient Ireland, Feudal Japan, Hindu India, and the kingdom of the Mayans.
However, I'm quite excited about today's topic, because I get to talk about a place
that I'm honestly surprised I haven't discussed as much as I thought I would by
Episode 48.
And what place is that, you may ask?
♪ Ｅｇｙｐｔ ♪
Indeed, I haven't talked about one of the
world's oldest and most fascinating societies but a couple of times, despite the large amount
of influence it has on media as a whole.
But where exactly am I looking for Ancient Egyptian inspiration this time around?
Only a little niche indie game by the name of Skullgirls, which I might have talked about
a couple of times in the past.
More specifically, I'll be taking the next few minutes to talk about one of the additional
characters to Skullgirls' roster, the nightclub diva Eliza and her bloodthirsty Parasite companion,
Sekhmet.
Considering that one of her dislikes is for historical inaccuracies, I'm hoping that's
the developers' way of saying that her connections to the religion of the Ancient Egyptians run
as proudly and clearly as the Nile River.
I'm the Kitsune Hawk, and today, we're not only going to look into the background
of another femme fatale from Skullgirls, but we're also going deep into the pantheon
of Ancient Egypt, as Eliza so deeply embraces!
So get out your pencils, trivia enthusiasts, because this is Character Development!
Och, so let me just go ahead and say that there's a lot to cover with regards to Eliza,
enough to the point where picking a good place to start is just as much of a challenge as
figuring it all out.
In this regard, I think it'd be best to begin with her backstory.
Eliza is the beautiful diva at the center of New Meridian's top nightclub, Bastet's
Den.
She uses her celebrity status to sponsor a blood drive, though as charitable as it sounds,
Eliza uses it to her advantage, as her body is host to a Parasite named Sekhmet.
Blood is a sort of power source for Sekhmet, who can not only use it as a weapon, but can
also use it to retain Eliza's youthful appearance.
Right off the bat, there's quite a bit we can get from this bit of lore.
Starting with Eliza's name, it's a shortened form of "Elizabeth," which has two connections
to Eliza's character, one direct and one more indirect.
On one hand, the name is inspired by Báthory Erzsébet, a Hungarian noble and prolific
serial killer who was infamous for murdering an estimated 650 young women and bathing in
the blood of virgins, believing that it would keep her eternally young, just like Eliza.
In a more indirect sense, Eliza's name might have also been inspired by Elizabeth Taylor,
an actress well-known for her role as Cleopatra in the 1963 film of the same name.
Elizabeth Taylor's portrayal of the Egyptian Queen is often considered to be her most famous
role, giving rise to a rejuvenation of her celebrity status.
Similarly, it's mentioned that Eliza has had different physical forms in the past,
only becoming particularly famous with her current incarnation.
The name Elizabeth itself is believed to mean either "my God is an oath" or "my God
is abundance," which both tie in rather nicely to the Parasite that shares her body,
Sekhmet.
In Ancient Egyptian mythology, Sekhmet is a lion-headed goddess who embodies war, destruction,
plagues, and also healing.
Her name is even derived from the word "sekhem," meaning power.
How fitting it is, then, that Skullgirls depicts the Parasite Sekhmet as being a skeleton with
catlike eyes; even the shape of her skull resembles the ears and jawline of a lioness.
Eliza and her Parasite also harbor a fondness for cats, yet another callback to the Ancient
Egyptian goddess Sekhmet.
But what about the great amount of focus on blood?
Surely there's some kind of connection between Eliza's manipulation of blood and Ancient
Egyptian myths, right?
Well… not quite to the extreme that Skullgirls went to, but there is a similar tale involving
the Goddess Sekhmet.
In one particular myth, the people of Ancient Egypt decided one day to stop following the
laws set by the sun god, Ra, and the goddess of balance and justice, Ma'at.
Angered by this, Ra created Sekhmet and sent her to Earth in the form of a lion, with the
intent of punishing humanity for their disobedience.
Once she came down to Earth, Sekhmet went on an uncontrollable rampage, one so violent,
that the fields of Egypt ran scarlet with the blood of slaughtered humans.
Quickly regretting his decision, Ra looked for a way to halt Sekhmet's destruction;
he came up with the idea of creating a large container full of beer, mixing in pomegranate
juice to make it the color of blood, and then presenting it to Sekhmet.
Mistaking it for human blood, Sekhmet drank until she was fully sedated.
When she finally awoke, her bloodlust was gone, and the Egyptians, realizing the error
of their ways, returned to obeying Ra and Ma'at's laws.
As for Sekhmet, she returned to the gods and became the guardian of Ma'at and her laws.
In a similar vein (hahah), Eliza and Sekhmet draw power from blood, being able to alter
their physical appearance or manifest the blood into various shapes in order to attack.
And speaking of attacks, well… there's a lot of details in the animations for Eliza,
mainly in the different shapes she manifests blood into and the names of various Ancient
Egyptian gods and goddesses which she calls out.
Specifically, the gods she calls out are Aset (Greek name "Isis"), a goddess with a
myriad of aspects, including healing and marriage; Bastet, the goddess of cats; Sobek, the crocodile-headed
god of the Nile River; Dhwty (Greek name "Thoth"), the ibis-headed god of knowledge and records;
Seshat, the goddess of writing and astrology; Aten, the disk of the sun closely associated
with Ra; Wsjr (Greek name "Osiris"), the god of death and the afterlife; Atum, the
creator god of Egyptian mythology; Swth, the god of desert and storms; Nekhbet and Hesat,
two minor local goddesses represented as a vulture and a cow, respectively; Khepri,
the beetle-headed god who pushes the sun in and out of the sky each day; Ra, the sun god
at the center of Ancient Egyptian religion; and Khnum, the ram-headed god responsible
for creating humanity.
When sliding away from an attack, Eliza and Sekhmet take on the shapes of Keb and Nwt,
the Egyptian god of the earth and goddess of the sky, respectively.
When the two are depicted together, Keb, on the bottom, has the features of the Earth
on his body, while Nwt, arched above her brother-husband, forms the night sky with her body.
And wrapping up this long list of divine callouts, I have to give bonus points to Eliza for using
Taweret, the Egyptian goddess of fertility, just to smack-talk Valentine.
Stay classy.
A couple of Eliza's animations show her morphing her arms into animal shapes, such
as snakes, falcon wings, and Serpopards, mythological beasts from both Egypt and Mesopotamia that
had the body of a leopard and long, snake-like necks.
And speaking of serpents, another couple of her animations show Eliza morphing her leg
into the image of Apep, the embodiment of chaos in the form of a snake.
She can even slice her Apep-shaped leg, akin to how the serpent was killed in Egyptian
mythology.
More amusingly, Eliza can crouch down and transform into a Sphinx, more specifically
resembling the Great Sphinx of Giza rather than a mythological Sphinx.
She can even sneeze out a nose-shaped projectile, a joke based on the Great Sphinx's infamously
absent nose.
And speaking of more amusing animations (though in a more macabre sense), a few of Eliza's
animations when damaged show her internal organs as jars with animal-shaped heads.
This is based on the process of mummification, as the Ancient Egyptians would remove the
vital organs from the body and preserve them separately in jars modeled after protective
spirits.
The Egyptians believed that the heart was the organ responsible for thought, so the
brain was liquefied, removed from the nose, and disposed of.
And now you know why Eliza can be hit so hard, that her brains come out of her nose.
During her block animations, Eliza can manifest a shield out of blood to defend herself with,
and the three designs used are all based on Egyptian relics.
Specifically, the three that she uses are a section of the Narmer Palette, which was
a makeup tray depicting the victories of Narmer, the first Pharaoh of Egypt; the Rosetta Stone,
upon which a command by King Ptolemy V was engraved in Greek, Demotic Egyptian, and hieroglyphs,
making it a valuable tool in understanding the Ancient Egyptian language; but as for
the last one, it doesn't seem to look as Ancient Egyptian as the rest of Eliza's
callbacks, seeming to more likely resemble a Coptic Cross or other form of early Christian
Egyptian art.
If we can also take a moment to step back and look at Eliza's design as a whole, there's
four particular elements that stand out here.
Firstly is Eliza's headdress, as the centerpiece is shaped like the Egyptian hieroglyph for
a feather, just like the headdress worn by Ma'at, the goddess of harmony, justice, and balance,
whom Sekhmet serves to protect.
Given Ma'at's domain of influence, it could also possibly symbolize the harmony
between Eliza and her Parasite, who are close enough to act in shared consciousness.
The second element is Eliza's weapon of choice, a staff with a very distinct shape.
More specifically, it's modelled after the Was Sceptre; often carried by Pharaohs, gods,
and goddesses in Ancient Egyptian art, the Was Sceptre was a symbol of power, authority,
and dominion.
Not only does that suit Eliza's image mimicking an Egyptian Pharaoh or Queen, but it also
plays on the meaning of Sekhmet's name.
Third is the ankh wrapped around Eliza's outfit; the ankh is an easily recognizable
icon from Ancient Egyptian society, serving as a symbol for eternal life, just as Eliza
has existed in multiple incarnations alongside Sekhmet, and retains her youth through her
Parasite's abilities.
The fourth and final detail in Eliza's general design is the scarab motif that the bottom
half of her outfit has: the scarab beetle is another recognizable symbol of Ancient
Egypt, as its habit of rolling balls of dung to use as food and a place to lay eggs was
likened to the cycle of rebirth and renewal.
The previously-mentioned god Khepri, often symbolized by a scarab beetle, was said to
roll the sun into place every morning, and then roll it back during sunset, when it needed
to be renewed.
Thus, like Eliza's ankh motif, the scarab-like design of her lower outfit serves as another
callback to her multitude of incarnations.
Also of note is the fact that Eliza doesn't exactly fight alone; Sekhmet aside, she also
has two bodyguards named Albus and Horace.
Rather obviously, based on their physical appearance, Albus is based on Anpu, the jackal-headed
Egyptian god of death known to the Greeks as Anubis, while Horace is based on Heru,
the falcon-headed god of the sky, whom the Greeks called Horus.
I find it quite clever that whenever Eliza calls for Albus, he appears out of the ground,
as a nod to Anpu's association with the Underworld, and whenever she calls for Horace,
he appears from the sky, a nod to Heru's association with the heavens.
But why these two Egyptian gods in particular?
It's simple, really: they're both guardian spirits.
Anpu guided the deceased in their journey to the afterlife, while Heru was the protector
of the ruling Pharaoh.
Pretty fitting choices for bodyguards, eh?
And that's a wrap for today; I know that I can't possibly cover every last detail
with regards to Eliza's inspirations and animations, but I do hope that I was at least
able to cover the majority and also clarify a bit of Ancient Egyptian mythology, as it
can often be a smidge confusing to discuss.
Like I mentioned earlier, one of Eliza's dislikes is for historical inaccuracies, and
though she hails from a fictionalized location based on Egypt, there's still quite a bit
accurate that she gets concerning the religion and folklore of the people of Kemet.
But, ah, before I things off, I do want to mention the inclusion of hieroglyphs in Eliza's
official artwork.
Both Sekhmet's name and Eliza's alternate name, Neferu, are spelled out in hieroglyphs;
not only that, but they're placed in special brackets called cartouches.
The cartouche was a special form of Ancient Egyptian punctuation reserved for the names
of gods, Pharaohs, and monarchs, and in the case of the latter two, they generally appeared
in couples, to denote the names of the ruling monarchs.
Essentially, Eliza and Sekhmet are calling themselves the queens of the world, which
only gets more fitting the more you read into their inspiration and story ending.
The people at Lab Zero are insane when it comes to the little details, and I love every
second of it.
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