#i've been meaning to write a fic about sophitia growing up with stories of the gods but it just hasn't worked out for me yet

[laikaflash]

Dead-serious analysis of converging themes in Sophitia’s character design (and Elysium)

For a character whose entire story involves ancient Greek deities, Sophitia Alexandra has quite a bit of angelic imagery about her. This can be seen even in her move list where among names like “Olympus Shower” and “Dawn of Eos”, there’s “Angel Step” and “Seraphim Punisher”. I wasn’t about to make an exhaustive list for this point, but the latter two aren’t the only instances of this theme, as you’ll see in this one from Soul Calibur VI.

(Source: Soul Calibur Wikia.)

I haven’t managed to find the original source of this very compressed render, but I include it because it illustrates my point. This is Sophitia’s Soul Blade design with wings added, and it’s one point where the themes overlap. Considering that and the character’s backstory, you could make the case that this was made with the goddess Nike in mind.

(Source: Wikimedia Commons. The photo is in the public domain.)

This relief from the ruins of Euphesus (near Selçuk in Turkey) shows Nike, the personification of victory, in flight with a wreath in her hand. Come to think of it, this one reminds me a lot of Sophitia’s design in Soul Calibur III.

Here she’s wearing a wreath, a symbol of victory, as though to say “I have triumphed before and I can do it again”. She appears to be at mid-run, and with her swift movements in the games proper, the Nike motif is a natural fit. (It wasn’t until I worked on this bit that I noticed what was going on with the dress in both images. I leave it to the readers to decide to what end that similarity was a happy accident on Namco’s part.)

I only have so much to go on where Nike is concerned, but I think this is as good a spot as any to mention that she was closely identified with Athena. The following excerpt from the Byzantine encyclopedia Suda nicely sums it up:

"Nike Athena : Alternatively [she stands] allegorically for the notion that even winning is completely dependent on thought; for thought contributes to victory, but being thoughtless and impetuous while fighting leads to defeat. When she has wings she symbolizes that aspect of the mind that is sharp and, so to speak, swift-winged; but when she is depicted without wings she represents that aspect of it that is peaceful and quiet and civil, that by which the things of the earth flourish, a boon of which the pomegranate in her right hand is a representation. Just as the helmet in her left [is a representation] of battle. Thus she has the same capability as Athena."

(Retrieved from Theoi.com. Emphasis mine.)

While Sophitia starts off on a mission from Hephaestus, Soul Blade mentions her praying to “Pallas Athena”. Suffice it to say that in 16th century Athens, she’d be quite alone doing so, if anything. (Let’s be real: the series shies away from the fact that the ancient Greek religion died out long before the Ottomans were a thing.) But at the end of the day, her story starts because Soul Edge was powerful enough to attract the attention of the Olympian gods, and out of all the characters seeking the sword in Soul Blade, she’s the only one that knows it’s evil from the get-go. She destroys half of it, almost at the cost of her life, with even a shard stuck in her chest as though to remind her that the sword is far from done for.

Now, here’s why I brought up the angel imagery earlier:

Okay, that was one of the reasons. In Soul Calibur V, Elysium embraces the angel motif. As noted in New Legends of Project Soul, “Elysium’s design is meant to convey the divinity and grace of a goddess, but also a merciless apathy.” In story, this is the form that the spirit of Soul Calibur itself takes to manipulate Sophitia’s son Patroklos, who tries to live up to her legacy as a holy warrior (the operative word being “tries”, but that’s neither here nor there). It probably helped that the name Elysium comes from the paradisic realm of the ancient Greek afterlife reserved for heroes, but I digress.

Sophitia sought to purify those cursed by Soul Edge out of a sense of altruism, whereas Elysium’s ultimate goal is (at the risk of sounding a little Jungian) to bring order into a world afflicted by its counterpart’s chaos, regardless of who suffers in the process. Soul Calibur itself (and by extension, Soul Edge) is not tied to any god, has a will of its own, and is far from a compassionate being, its spirit’s angelic form is in contrast to Inferno’s fiery and monstrous one (and, well, the latter is named after Hell). Even so, Elysium’s guise is just that.

Tangents aside, you’ve probably inferred from the image of winged Nike that the angel comparison wasn’t much of a leap. Judging by the aforementioned setting, I think Sophitia would not be unfamiliar with at least the idea of angels, and that’s where I think the overlapping motifs work. In her efforts to cleanse Soul Edge’s evil, she desires to save people from it, going as far as to help Siegfried even with the knowledge that he was once Soul Edge’s wielder. That is where I see something of a guardian angel in her, and I like to think it ties into her surname Alexandra, which means “protector of mankind”. Sophitia fights not only at the behest of the gods, but on behalf of humanity.

P.S.: I omitted her story in Soul Calibur IV, since that was more about the lengths she went to save her daughter’s life because Soul Edge doesn’t give anyone a break. And apparently, her mother is named after Nike, but I couldn’t think of how to bring that up aside from an “oh, by the way...” I just feel like it could be short for something, but that one’s for the fanfics.

Last minute note before posting: I can’t believe it only just occurred to me that Sophitia was never shown with both a wreath and wings.