#and yes i know that the devs already said raphael isnt inspired by jean valjean but !! i dont care

[soulofamy]

as someone who loves classic literature, i really love how much it feels like each character in soulcalibur's story is influenced by the literature from the culture they come from. the japanese characters, especially mitsurugi and yoshimitsu, were probably the ones writers spent the most care with but i LOVE how much you see it in the european characters too. sophitia, cassandra, and aeon are all characters that feel like they were plucked out of a greek tragedy, and you can see so many echos of storybeats that many greek tragedies had. i guess its not hard to feel like that when the greek gods are so intertwined with their stories but still, it honestly feels so well thought out. to avoid being repetitive, im linking an in depth analysis from @laikaflash that talks about this right here

but i think my favorite example of this is raphael and amy tbh, but mostly raphael. as someone who so enjoys classic french literature, i cant help but see bits and pieces from the different stories i love laced throughout raphaels story. the fact that he was the head of his house at the beginning of his story and is in good standing with the king, but is then framed for conspiracy and has his life ruined, reminds me so much of what happened to edmond dantes from the counte of monte cristo. dantes had a much more humble beginning than raphael but still, that undeserved fall from grace at the hands of someone who was jealous of him, forcing him to be on the run from the law, i see that parallel.

then we have the fact that he adopted a little orphan girl while on the run from the law, and then was able to lie his way back to the top with the hopes of raising and protecting her, which makes me think of jean valjean and cosette from les miserables.

but i think the thing that gets me so excited thinking about this is that they chose not to give these storybeats to a character who is meant to be viewed as heroic, they gave them to someone who is objectively a terrible person. they flipped these stories from classic french literature on their heads, which i think makes it very exciting to try and speculate where his story will go from here because he as a person is such a departure from dantes or from jean valjean. it also makes me wonder what else they will take inspiration from for him going forward (minus the dracula stuff because that all feels more aesthetic than anything. then again ive never read bram stokers dracula so i could just not know what im talking about)

anyway im curious to know which other characters take inspiration from their country's classic literature. i know siegfried is literally named after a knight from legend, i know groh is supposed to be based on the knights of the round table, xiba is based on the monkey king from journey to the west, im not sure if kilik is either. but still, i would love to know about talim, about the koreans, xianghua, honestly everyone on the roster

#soulcalibur #soul calibur #sophitia #cassandra #aeon #raphael #amy #this isnt super in depth or anything i just had thoughts on my way home from school that i wanted to get down #i could probably go and crossreference things on my own at some point but we will see #and yes i know that the devs already said raphael isnt inspired by jean valjean but !! i dont care #it just makes too much sense for me not to believe it