Characters / Soul Edge

Soul Series characters index
Soul Edge | Soulcalibur | Soulcalibur II | Soulcalibur III | Soulcalibur IV | Soulcalibur V | Soulcalibur VI | Soulcalibur Legends
Non-playable characters

NOTE: Spoilers will be left unmarked in the examples below. You Have Been Warned!

---

A list of characters who made their debut in the first game of the series, Soul Edge (Soul Blade).

---

Main Characters

Heishiro Mitsurugi

Soulcalibur IV Appearance

^{Appearance in Soul Calibur II}

^{Appearance in Soulcalibur}

^{Appearance in Soul Edge}

"In the fires of hell, we shall meet again."

Origin: Bizen, Japan ^note  The Hinomaru ('ball of the sun') is amongst the oldest national symbols in the world. The first concrete evidence that testifies to use of a sun flag for Japan dates from 1184, with it then appearing in images depicting the wars of the 15th and 16th centuries, around the time period in which the Soul series is set.

Weapon (SE): Korefuji ^note ("Right Wisteria"), a katana

Weapon (SC-IV): Shishi-Oh ^note ("Lion King"), a katana

Weapon (V): Muchimonji ^note ("Nothingness"), a katana

Fighting style: Shin Tenpu-Kosai-ryu

Voiced by: ^note Wataru Takagi (Soul Edge; Japanese), Toshiyuki Morikawa (Soulcalibur onward; Japanese), Scott Keck (Soulcalibur II; English), Ed Cunningham (Soulcalibur III-V; English), Ray Chase (Soulcalibur VI; English)

Your typical Samurai looking for a good challenge. In Soul Edge he seeks a way to defeat the Tanegashima rifle and believes the legendary sword Soul Edge to be the blade that can do it. He eventually beats the rifle without the need of Soul Edge, but throughout Soulcalibur, SCII, and SCIII, he's still searching for it for the sole purpose of fighting Nightmare. In SCIV he realizes that there are no more worthy challengers for him, and seeks to fight otherworldly opponents instead. He found a Worthy Opponent in Algol in SCIV, but due to Soul Edge and Soul Calibur vanishing into a vortex, their battle was cut short as Algol vanished with them. And so Mitsurugi went home to Japan, where over the years he hung up his sword as the era changed - not literally, though, as he loses his Shishi-Oh to Setsuka sometime between SCIV and SCV. Now a farmer, when he heard that Soul Edge had returned, he sold all of his lands for an opportunity to fight Algol again.

For tropes applying to Mitsurugi's appearance in the New Timeline starting with Soulcalibur VI, see here.

Former director Daishi Odashima considered him the main character of Soul Edge.

Mitsurugi is usually the Ryu of the games — a well-balanced character with no glaring strengths or weaknesses. His katana strikes have great range, speed, and priority. Many of his attacks can also track the opponent's movements, making him difficult to guard against effectively at times. He can also switch styles between holding his sword at his shoulders, or using Iaido (only the shoulder stance remains in SCV, however).

---

• Always Save the Girl: His input ending in SCIII. Either way, he comes into town looking for people to fight, but sees a man grabbing a woman and holding a knife. In the input ending, Mitsurugi kills the man and frees the woman.
• Animal Motif: The Tiger.
• Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: More confident and blunt than outright arrogant, but he comes off as such in many of his pre- and post-battle comments, most of which are unabashedly braggadocious, impatient, or dismissive. He's not pompous, he just knows how strong he is and doesn't mince words.
• The Artifact: Mitsurugi was the main character of the first game, even though he was not the one to defeat Cervantes; by SCIII, he is almost completely irrelevant to the plot, mostly serving as the motivator of Setsuka's Standalone Episode. After SCII, he's basically only fighting because he's seeking a challenge, which has virtually no impact on the main story. He still gets bones thrown at him every once in a while, however, such as fighting Physical God Algol to a standstill, fighting Darth Vader in the crossover trailer for SCIV, and being prominently featured in the first trailers for SCVI.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: During his training after his defeat against the Tanegashima rifles, Mitsurugi sought to fight as many varied fighting styles as he could in order to implement their fighting tactics into his own style — to great success.
• Badass Boast: "You will be a stain on my sword." Another notable one is "Not even the king of hell could stand against my blade." And these aren't his most badass boasts.
• Badass Long Robe: Some 2-P costumes have him sport a yukata.
• Badass Normal: Mitsurugi has no special powers and no connection to either spirit sword. The katana he uses is perfectly ordinary metal. He makes up for this by being so skilled that entire armies of normal men, including ones with guns, can't beat him, and he's considered a worthy adversary to blatantly supernatural fighters like Nightmare, Olcadan (who killed a god's messenger), and even Algol, a man so badass Soul Edge has no power over him. He is consistently a powerful fighter who is noted to have a great fighting prowess in-universe. In SCIII, it is noted that he defeated several enemies of the Murakami navy with his sword and was a key part of their victory. In the 17-year time gap between SCIV and SCV, he gave up fighting because anything less than a god-king just wasn't enough of a challenge anymore.
• Blade Across The Shoulder: One of his victory poses has him waving his sword across his shoulder, and looking down on his opponent. Also, see his official artwork for SCIV above, as well as his in-game profile in the earlier games.
• Blood Knight: So much so that he gave up his life as a farmer in SCV just so he could fight Algol. The advent of firearms concerns him, as he's worried that skilled swordsmen like him will no longer be needed.
• Call to Agriculture: In SCV, set at a time when most samurai were running out of business, Mitsurugi turns his hand to farming. He leaves this rustic life to fight Algol.
• Combat Pragmatist: Setsuka managed to shatter his blade during a duel between the events of SCIV and SCV. Mitsurugi's response? A punch to the gut that crumpled her and won the duel for him.
• Dual Wielding: He wields either Soul Edge or Soul Calibur alongside his katana in his ending in SCIII, depending on if the player is successful in the quicktime event.
• Duel to the Death: Most challenges are this for both Mitsurugi and his opponent. Unless he sees value in allowing them to live, in which case he'll simply let them go and tell them to remember his name.
• Expy:
  • Modeled on Toshiro Mifune, who played iconic Samurai roles in the Akira Kurosawa films Rashomon, Throne of Blood, and Seven Samurai. Also could be considered based on Miyamoto Musashi, who was played by Toshiro Mifune, so...
  • He's one to Haohmaru, as their personalities and motivations are pretty one-to-one. In SCII, he even has an outfit that looks nearly identical to Haohmaru's default design.
• Guest Fighter: Mitsurugi has appeared in several other games outside of the Soul series:
  • He and Taki team up together in Namco × Capcom.
  • His outfit can be worn by Yuri Lowell from Tales of Vesperia as part of the Bandai Namco outfits for the protagonists.
  • He and many of the Soul series characters appear as limited event characters for the Bandai Namco mobile game Outcast Odyssey.
• Guns Are Worthless: His initial goal is to find Soul Edge so as to have a way to counter firearms. Canonically, he did not find the sword, but challenged a Tanegashima wielder anyway. He lost, but learned from the experience and developed ways to defeat gun wielders anyway.
• Hired Guns: He's a mercenary who wanders the world fighting in various conflicts in order to give himself a challenge.
• Hunk: He's built, rugged, and not bad-looking at all.
• Iaijutsu Practitioner: Especially in SCII, where he can sheathe his sword and deliver a powerful attack with a Quick Draw. In the description for Shishi-Oh in the weapons gallery, it's noted that he learned Iaijutsu as a way to counteract firearms.
• Jack of All Stats: Which gained him something of a negative reputation, as most characters have significant weaknesses and he tends not to. However, his combo ability is weaker than average and some of his attacks are vulnerable to counters even after a correct use for them.
• Katanas Are Just Better: His goal at one point was to find Soul Edge in the hopes that it could overcome the power of the Tanegashima rifle, which he and his katana were once bested by in a duel. In the end, his katana proves more than effective, and he can also use swords other than katanas in some of the later games, such as western longswords or Damascus Steel scimitars, while still using his fighting style.
• Leitmotif: "The Wind And Clouds", "Hagakure", and "The Invincible Blade".
• Manly Man: Not only he is designed to be a big badass all around, he ditches all of the emotional drama of some other characters and his only wish is to face a strong opponent in battle. Also, there's his epic manly beard, Badass Boasts, and his mannerisms, such as cracking his neck before a fight, and walking around with his sword across the shoulder.
• Meaningful Name: "Mitsurugi" literally means "divine sword."
• Minor Major Character: Mitsurugi has never played a direct part in any game's plot, and in fact, actually stopped caring about either sword after a while. The only reason he continued to seek them out was because the strongest warriors always seemed to gather in proximity to them.
• My Name Is Inigo Montoya: He actually delivers a line like this after the fight.
  The name's Mitsurugi! Don't forget it!
  • Or in SCII:
  The name's Mitsurugi! Remember it!
• Never Bring a Knife to a Gun Fight: The first time he fought Teppou Hei, Mitsurugi was defeated. It became one of his personal goals to defeat the Tanegashima rifle.
• One-Man Army: He goes as far as to purposefully side with outnumbered sides so he has more people to fight.
• Out-of-Character Moment: His B+G throw versus Alpha Patroklos in SCV, where he's uncharacteristically flippant, calling the young warrior "Patty Cakes".
• Parental Abandonment: His parents were both taken by sickness, so he abandoned the pastoral life to start his sword training.
• Perpetual Poverty: Mitsurugi was born to a fairly humble provincial family, and in the early games he has to make ends meet during travels by working as a mercenary. In SCV, he ends up becoming a farmer when Japan has no further use for ronin and samurai, just to make ends meet.
• Red Baron: According to his SC ending, he is known as the "Mercenary of Wartime Age".
• Rōnin: He actually refused to take a Samurai position when offered, preferring a mercenary lifestyle so he could find a Worthy Opponent.
• Samurai: In appearance, and in fighting style, though he's technically a ronin as he's masterless.
• Samurai Ponytail: Mitsurugi has the second, wilder type of hair, and his ponytail is taken to an extreme in his second outfit in SCII, where it looks like a giant brush.
• Scars Are Forever: In his alternate appearances in most of the games, he has a visible scar on his shoulder from the gunshot wound he received during his duel against a Tanegashima musket at the end of Soul Edge.
• See You in Hell: One of his win-quotes, such as the one above.
• Sword Plant: Part of his kata.
• Walking the Earth: As part of his desire for good opposition, he travels all over Japan, amassing fame throughout the nation for his skills. He's also probably the one character that has traveled the most throughout the series' course; during SCII, he spends seven years traveling all over Eurasia.
• Whole Costume Reference: One of his costumes in SCII bears a strong resemblance to Haohmaru.
• Wolverine Publicity: Mitsurugi has appeared in every single game since Soul Edge, was one of Soulcalibur's representatives in Namco × Capcom, and has also appeared in several other titles as a guest character.
• Worthy Opponent: He considers Taki his only worthy rival during SCII/III after having a few unfinished encounters with her. In SCIV, he considers himself so strong, only Nightmare can fill that spot. As of SCV, he seems to have some unfinished business with Algol. In terms of his own prowess, Olcadan's quotes indicate Mitsurugi is one to him.

Taki

Soulcalibur II Appearance

^{Appearance in Soul Edge}

"Demon slain! The deed is done!"

Origin: Fu-Ma no Sato, Japan

Weapons (SE): Rekkimaru ^note ("Slicer of the demon cirle"), a kodachi

Weapons (SC on): Rekkimaru & Mekkimaru ^note ("Slicer of the demon cirle" & "Extinguisher of the demon circle"), dual kodachi

Fighting style: Musō-Battō-ryu

Voiced by: ^note Fujiko Takimoto (Soul Edge-Soulcalibur III; Japanese), Sachiko Kojima (Soulcalibur Legends & Soulcalibur IV; Japanese), Nanako Mori (Soulcalibur VI; Japanese) Desirée Goyette (Soulcalibur II; English), Cynthia Holloway (Soulcalibur III onward; English)

The ninja of the series. Raised in a secret ninja village since her childhood, Taki has developed a mastery of sealing spells and dedicates her life to sealing demons all over Japan. In Soul Edge, she leaves for Europe to find the cursed sword so as to empower her favourite sword, Rekkimaru. She's able to obtain a shard after defeating Cervantes, but the shard ends up attracted to another weapon called Mekkimaru, a sword with strong spiritual powers that have driven her master Toki insane. She is forced to leave her home when she's targeted by her own comrades after Toki discovers she has Mekkimaru. In Soulcalibur, she tries to destroy Mekkimaru by pitting it against Soul Edge. Being unable to, she settles on her desire to control its immense power.

In SCII, the ninjas against her try to ambush her, and she realizes Toki's now after Soul Edge. Realizing the dangers of allowing a man like Toki to claim it, she travels back to face him, stopping and destroying him in SCIII. In SCIV, she realizes that Soul Calibur is as dangerous as Soul Edge (even if it is totally opposite in nature) from the battle between Siegfried and Nightmare, and resolves to destroy Soul Calibur as well — by any means necessary.

During the time skip, she finds an apprentice in Natsu, who succeeds Taki's position in SCV, while Taki herself has gone missing, having yet to return from a journey westward, a journey she took after hearing a rumor Toki had returned from the dead. Natsu sets out to look for her.

For tropes applying to Taki's appearance in the New Timeline starting with Soulcalibur VI, see here.

In-game, Taki is the Fragile Speedster character. She has the fastest mobility of any other character, but does not have many tools to defend herself effectively. Taki's quick dagger strikes are designed to catch the opponent in the middle of their attacks, then move in for big damage after getting a successful counter hit with mixup pressure and Possession stance shenanigans.

---

• Big Damn Heroes: When Sophitia was riddled with shards of the evil sword during her battle with Cervantes, Taki swooped down to save her. She then treated Sophitia's wounds and carried her back home to Greece. She couldn't treat all of them, as one of the shards was lodged near Sophitia's heart in a way that meant removing it would absolutely kill her without fail. This becomes a plot point later in SCV.
• The Blacksmith: She forges her own blades and is a highly skilled smithy.
• Character Catchphrase: "Fuuma Kanryo!", literally "Demon sealed, the deed is done!"
• Chekhov's Gun: Mekkimaru in Soul Edge is a mere extra weapon with little story relevance. Come Soulcalibur, it becomes Taki's second main weapon and the focal point of her whole story up until SCIII.
• Contract on the Hitman: From Soulcalibur up through SCIV, she is targeted by the clan she was once a part of, and is only offered respite when an old accomplice took over the Fuma village.
• Demon Slaying: Her main job involves sealing demons all over Japan.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Possession Stance Cancels. They considerably expand Taki's gameplay to a whole-new level and turn her into a Lightning Bruiser who can attack and defend herself at nigh-unreactable speeds and put her about 4 steps ahead of the opponent at all times. Good luck mastering them, though, as the timing is incredibly strict.
• Dual Wielding: Since Soulcalibur, having claimed Mekkimaru to join Rekkimaru.
• Evil Mentor: Toki, though not intentionally — he was corrupted by Mekkimaru's powers.
• Evil Weapon: Mekkimaru. Its powers corrupted Toki into a bloodthirsty madman. These powers were amplified when Taki merged a shard of Soul Edge into it, enough to make it the third-strongest weapon after the Soul swords.
• Form-Fitting Wardrobe: Her body-glove highlights her figure so much that it basically looks like she spray-paints herself red or blue and fights naked.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Chie, her childhood friend.
• Highly-Visible Ninja: She wears bright red (or blue) skin-tight bodysuits and screams many of her attacks. That's without mentioning the obvious reason she'd be easy to spot.
• I Call It "Vera": Rekkimaru is her favorite out of all the weapons she forged, and she has a special attachment to it.
• Intercontinuity Crossover: Appears in Namco x Capcom and Queen's Gate Spiral Chaos.
• Jiggle Physics: She's practically the games' poster girl for it, sporting a pair of pendulous breasts that always receive dedicated animations.
• Katanas Are Just Better: She wields a pair of kodachi — a type of small Japanese sword.
• Leitmotif: ''Future Dancin'' and ''A Haunting Wind''.
• Ms. Fanservice: She wears a skintight bodysuit and is tied for having the third-largest bust size in the series. She'd probably be the Trope Codifier for the franchise if it wasn't for Ivy.
• Murder Is the Best Solution: By SCIV, her primary solution to other people knowing about Soul Edge is to Leave No Survivors. No matter who the character is or how good or bad they are, Taki will indiscriminately show up trying to murder them at some point.
• Mythical Motifs: The background of her character art in SCVI features a Japanese demon or Oni — the type of which she actively seeks out and destroys in her role as a demon-sealer and huntress.
• Ninja: Taki is the ninja of the franchise, and one of the most iconic in fighting games in general.
• Nipple and Dimed: Fun fact, you can actually see nipples and areola through her 1P outfit in SC. In the other games, you can still distinguish nipples.
• Painted-On Pants: Her spray-on, fuchsia-or-blue body-glove is slightly ludicrous, given that ninjas usually wore clothing to disguise their shape, not draw attention to it, though her costumes do allow her to ease of movement, which is essential for a ninja.
• Parental Substitute: For Natsu, out of guilt after sealing the demon that destroyed the girl's village inside her. Hers was her mentor, Toki.
• Power Tattoo: Most visibly in SCVI; her body lights up in symbols when she unleashes her powers.
• Put on a Bus: Taki disappears from the series after SCIV, and doesn't appear in SCV. She returns in Lost Swords, though the canonicity of the game is questionable.
• Renaissance Woman: A skilled fighter both armed and unarmed, as well as an accomplished demon huntress, spy, and blacksmith. In fact, she's the only one in her clan to master both demon-sealing and forging. The fact that she can go toe-to-toe with Mitsurugi is all you need to know.
• The Rival: To Mitsurugi. They often cross paths with each other, and consider themselves to be each other's Worthy Opponent.
• Self-Made Orphan: She killed her Parental Substitute, Toki, after he was corrupted by Mekkimaru.
• Sphere of Destruction: A few of Taki's spells. Best seen in the intro for SCII, although her actual attacks of that caliber in-game are not nearly as widespread or destructive.
• Statuesque Stunner: Borderline. At 5'7", she just misses the mark. However, being that she's Japanese (which for women average at 5' to 5'2" or even shorter, especially back in the 1500s), and that she's the second-tallest female character behind Ivy, she definitely fits here. She's even referred to as being tall in SCIII's Tales of Souls.
• Stripperiffic: Her alternate outfits usually show a fair bit more skin, but in an interesting twist, are actually more modest than her default attire, despite the fact that you could technically say she's covered up.
• These Are Things Man Was Not Meant to Know: Her thoughts on Mekkimaru and spirit swords in general — as a demon huntress, she does her best to suppress knowledge of such artefacts.
• Vapor Wear: Her catsuit is so ludicrously tight and shows off every single detail of her body — including, highly unusually for a mainstream game, her nipples — that it annihilates any possibility of undergarments. But with Taki, there's doubt that there's anything there, as said catsuit is so ludicrously form-fitting you could actually be forgiven for thinking that it's bodypaint and that Taki is actually journeying across the world and getting in battles with warriors and supernatural creatures whilst in her birthday suit. It's so tight, she'd probably be no more exposed if she actually was.
• Wall Jump: A special skill of her (and others) in SCII.
• Wouldn't Hurt a Child: Took in Natsu because the Arahabaki demon possessed her and she couldn't bring herself to kill a baby.

Siegfried Schtauffen

Soulcalibur III Appearance

^{Appearance in Soulcalibur II}

^{Appearance in Soul Edge}

"You could never understand."

Origin: Ober-Getzenberg, Holy Roman Empire (Germany) ^note The flag shown here is that of the historic Holy Roman Empire. At the time the series is set, the modern-day nation of Germany was part of the much larger Holy Roman Empire, and not yet a distinct country.

Weapon (SE): Faust ^note ("Faust" is the protagonist of a classic German legend, based on the historical Johann Georg Faust. The erudite Faust is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a pact with the Devil, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures), a zweihänder

Weapon (SC, III, and V): Requiem ^note (named for a religious mass held for the dead), a zweihänder

Weapon (IV): Soul Calibur, great sword form

Fighting style: Self-taught

Voiced by: ^note Nobuyuki Hiyama (Japanese), Crispin Freeman (Soulcalibur III; English), Roger Craig Smith (Soulcalibur Legends-Soulcalibur V; English), Kirk Thornton (Soulcalibur VI; English)

A protagonist of the series. The son of a knight of the Holy Roman Empire, when his father was sent into a foreign expedition, Siegfried fell into bad company and formed a gang of bandits, the Schwarzwind. During a raid against a group of cowardly knights, he murdered his own father by accident. The horror of what he'd done drove him insane, and he convinced himself that someone else had done it, deciding to seek Soul Edge to take revenge. After traversing Europe, he fought the possessed corpse of Cervantes de Leon and obtained Soul Edge, but became its new host and was transformed into the being known as Nightmare.

He regained his sanity shortly after Nightmare was defeated by Kilik and Xianghua, but was unable to keep the sword under control and again fell into its clutches. He was finally freed from Soul Edge's control by Raphael, sealing Soul Edge using Soul Calibur, and during SCIII, he sought a way to destroy Soul Edge for good. He eventually found a means to do so in Soul Calibur, which bonded to him in SCIV in order to save his life from a fatal injury sustained in a duel with Nightmare. In SCIV, he was out to get Nightmare, while shunning all those who try to help him in an attempt to avoid any more victims. Using Soul Calibur, Siegfried defeated Nightmare and sent Soul Edge back to Astral Chaos.

He returns in SCV, now Older and Wiser, and has reformed Schwarzwind into a mercenary group to combat Soul Edge's malfested servants. Hilde now accompanies him due to the fall of her kingdom during the timeskip caused by Nightmare. Z.W.E.I and Viola also accompany him to find a worthy successor to Soul Calibur.

For tropes applying to Siegfried's appearance in the New Timeline starting with Soulcalibur VI, see here.

Director Daishi Odashima considers him the main character of SCIII and SCIV and considers Nightmare!Siegfried the main character of SCII (read: "more than half the series"), but has explicitly confirmed he is not the main character for SCV, despite his return.

Siegfried may seem like a beginner-friendly character at first, but he is actually one of the more difficult characters to play effectively. Siegfried is a power character with a surprising mixup game through the use of his many special stances. His attacks have very long reach (second longest compared to Astaroth and Kilik later on in the series, and tied with Nightmare as well), but his mobility is quite slow and his attacks are also very linear and easy to evade.

---

• And I Must Scream: From the moment he clutches Soul Edge, he becomes possessed by the evil sword. He's completely aware of what the sword makes him do, and he actually does scream when it begins to take him over.
• Animal Motifs: His armor in SCV incorporates the eagle symbol of the Holy Roman Empire, his homeland.
• Apologetic Attacker: Only against those who want him dead for his crimes as Nightmare. He feels they are in the right to seek revenge for his crimes, but he can't die before stopping Soul Edge. So he beats the crap outta them... and then apologizes.
• Armor Is Useless: Weapons do the same damage to him as they do to the likes of Ivy and Taki.
• The Atoner: He's spent practically every game since Soulcalibur (except for SCII) trying to make up for murdering his father in cold blood and having been manipulated by the sword into killing thousands of innocents. The fact that he names his sword Requiem speaks volumes.
• Ax-Crazy: Siegfried wasn't exactly the most stable person during his hunt for Soul Edge, entering the service of the lord of Ostrheinsburg Castle in order to see if his sword, the Grimblade, was Soul Edge (it wasn't) and then murdering him in order to take it. He grows out of it, becoming The Atoner, and by SCV he has grown out of that, as well, being Older and Wiser.
• Back Stab: While everyone has a back throw, Siegfried’s is notable for being a literal backstab. He grabs his opponent from behind around their chest, restraining them, and then stabs them in the back and into the ground. Notably, this replaced his back throw from his debut appearance, which was an oddly less practical arm restrain and then using his sword to lift up his foe and toss them.
• Badass Cape: In SCV. His 2P outfit in SCIII and 1P outfit in SCIV instead have him don a Scarf of Asskicking, the latter being long enough to technically count as a cape.
• Badass Crew: His mercenary group, the Schwarzwind (first◊ seen◊ in Siegfried's ending from Soulcalibur) appear to be a small Badass Army. Thanks to Siegfried's reforms post-SCIV, by the time of SCV, they're now◊ a band of noble mercenaries, a far cry from their original status as a band of thieves. They've also gained a traveling companion in Hilde, who tags along with them after the disappearance of her father and the fall of Wolfkrone, as well as enlisting Z.W.E.I and Viola into their ranks.
• Barbarian Long Hair: He's at his most barbaric in his Nightmare 2-P costume. In terms of his default appearance, he sports hair like this in SCIV.
• Battle in the Center of the Mind: Numerous times with Inferno, serving as a rare heroic version of an Enemy Within. It finally comes to an end in SCII.
• BFS: His weapons are massive two-handed swords that stand as tall as he does and would give Guts a run for his money. Despite this, during SCIII, one of his most infamous win quotes is to reassure his opponent that he avoided hitting anything vital and that they would survive the battle.
• Black Knight: His alternative Soulcalibur outfit is black armor, and Requiem is golden. His armor in SCV is also black.
• Blade Across The Shoulder: Some of his victory poses have him pose this way.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: When he was Nightmare, he was a slave to Soul Edge's will.
• Bratty Half-Pint: In his debut appearance in Soul Edge, he's mouthy, rude and arrogant, as well as being the youngest male character at 16, and the shortest in the series at 157 cm (a very petite 5'2" and very short for his age and gender). His short stature is used to enhance his childishness and comparative mental immaturity compared to the adults amongst the cast.
• Celibate Hero: He outright states in SCIV that "No one would touch his heart." This is because he doesn't want anyone to hinder him on his quest to destroy Soul Edge, and that he realized that anyone who gets close to him is in danger. There was some speculation that he was the father of Hilde's children, but this was deconfirmed.
• Character Development: He starts out convinced that somebody else killed his father, sought Soul Edge to kill them, and is cocky and arrogant in battle. After all the turmoils of his possession by Nightmare, he becomes less arrogant and starts his quest for redemption. On a more minor note, he also stops being a He-Man Woman Hater after his debut appearance. In SCIV, he goes a bit too far in this direction and becomes a borderline Knight Templar. In SCV, he seems to have completed his quest for redemption (he no longer mentions words such as "atonement" and "redemption" in his win-quotes) and becomes Older and Wiser, not to mention having a more active role in saving other people from the malfested, instead of focusing only on his issues.
• Confusion Fu: In spite of wielding a weapon typically associated with mindless Hack and Slash, he wields his zweihander with a variety of stance mixups designed to bait his opponent into making a mistake. This is more realistic with zweihanders, because great swords in real life focus on stance game. A combination of power, length and stance game made them very versatile, with their weakness being their length and weight making them less maneuverable and agile against smaller weapons if their opponent got in range.
• Covert Pervert: In one artwork from Soul Edge, he is peeping on a partially undressed Sophitia with Li Long. In a comedic comic for Soul Edge, he is shown staring at Seong Mina with a blush on his face. This trait is not present in any other game, which may coincide with him becoming a Celibate Hero.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Self-inflicted, no less. He was the leader of a group of bandits until he accidentally murdered his own father, then went searching for a cursed sword while killing anyone he suspected of having it.
• Deal with the Devil: In Soul Edge, the sword told him that it'd resurrect his dead father if he were to offer souls to empower it. He agreed and eventually was corrupted into Nightmare.
• Death Seeker: He would gladly die to redeem himself for the crimes he committed as Nightmare.
• Demonic Possession: By Inferno between Soul Edge and SCIII, turning him into Nightmare.
• Destined Bystander: Starting out as a young inconspicuous knight, he goes on to become both the Big Bad and The Hero of the series.
• Determinator: His fighting style has a somewhat desperate "push onward at all costs" feeling to it, emphasized by one of his more basic moves being a series of headbutts.
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!: In his debut, he is incensed when Sophitia tries to dissuade him from seeking Soul Edge alone and offers him help. One of his quotes in SCIII seems to express this directly:
  Sinners need no mercy... or sympathy.
• Enemy Within: In SCII, Siegfried functions as a heroic version of this for Nightmare/Inferno, awakening after lying dormant for so long to try and retake his body. Cue Raphael stabbing the eye of Soul Edge.
• Emergency Transformation: After fighting with Nightmare at the end of SCIII, Siegfried was mortally wounded. Soul Calibur's recently awakened will selected him as a worthy host, due to his hatred of Soul Edge and desire for redemption, and saved his life by covering him in crystal armor. Even when this was broken and Soul Calibur didn't need him anymore, it left pieces of itself inside Siegfried, healing him.
• Fighting from the Inside: Implied by some of Nightmare's win quotes in SC and SCII. Before SCIII, Siegfried was able to hold back Nightmare long enough for Raphael to stab Soul Edge's eye, weakening the evil sword and allowing Siegfried to break free. His playable appearances in SC and SCVI also reflect his struggle to break free from Soul Edge's control.
  Ugh... I will not surrender to this nightmare!
• Foil: Siegfried is one to Sophitia. In their debut appearances, Siegfried fought to find and gain Soul Edge while Sophitia fought to destroy Soul Edge. By IV, they are foils for the opposite reason. Siegfried fights to destroy Soul Edge while Sophitia, reluctantly fights for Soul Edge.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: Siegfried is a playable character in SC, with his own story mode and ending, though he canonically is stuck in his Nightmare persona at this point in the plot. He only became a separate character again in SCIII.
• Gemstone Assault: Whereas Soul Edge (and by proxy, Inferno and Nightmare) is associated with fire, Siegfried seems to embody the element of icy blue crystals in contrast (presumably through his contact with Soul Calibur). Soul Calibur left a shard of itself inside Siegfried as a memento of his time as its host, and he can draw upon its power to create icy crystals. This can be seen with his Critical Finish in SCIV and Critical Edge in SCV.
• Germanic Depressives: He hails from what will become modern-day Germany and is a melancholy sort, which is unsurprising considering his angst-ridden back-story.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: In the opening of SCV, his eyes glow blue and he gets a crystalline version of his old Red Right Hand during his final battle with Nightmare.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: Sports a vertical scar across his right eye starting in Soulcalibur (it's more clearly seen in his 2P costume, as his default outfit has bangs covering it).
• The Grappler: All but one of his throws involve him restraining his opponent.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Definitely by the time of SCV; previously in SCIII, he was rough, but still a good guy at heart.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: When he's not possessed by Soul Edge, he's trying to destroy it. The best thing you can say about Siegfried is however badly he screws up, he never stops fighting.
• He-Man Woman Hater: Downplayed because it is not a major character trait of his. In Soul Edge, Siegfried patronizingly refers to Seong Mi-na and Sophitia as "little girls" and to Taki as an "impetuous female", which is notable because he is one of the only characters to act this way, although it was common for the time period. Ironically, he was shorter than Seong Mi-na and shorter than Sophitia by a good deal in this game. In Legends, Siegfried reacts with anger and outrage when he finds out that the contact he is meeting up with, Ivy, is a woman, and also when he finds out that the Masked Emperor is also female. In general, it seems that he has a problem with women doing masculine things like fighting. This is not Early-Installment Weirdness, because in the Continuity Reboot of VI, Nightmare, who has the worst of Siegfried’s traits, calls almost every female character a "little girl". This traits disappears in future games.
• Heroic Build: All that armor he's wearing and his giant swords have lent him some impressive strength, especially since he was a lot more slender at age 16 when he debuted.
• Hired Guns: Served as a Landsknecht — a type of German mercenary pikeman — to a nobleman in order to kill him and take his sword, which he suspected was Soul Edge. Later reformed his gang of thieves, the Schwarzwind, into a mercenary group.
• Hunk: In SCV. Previously, he was definitely very handsome, but then he got stubble on his face and swept his hair back to give him a more mature look; it also helps that he's broader and taller by SCV.
• I Got Bigger: Siegfried experiences the most height growth out of the cast as the series progresses. He starts out at 157 cm at age 16, then 165 cm at age 19, 168 cm at age 23 and 172 cm at age 40. This coincides with his Character Development, going from a haughty brat in his debut at 16 to a dignified, serious man at 40. His height growth does seem to be inordinately long, as he grows only 3 cm in the four years between 1 and 2, but he has grown another 4 cm between IV and V. This would logically mean Siegfried grew for at least another 5 years after the age of 23, which is odd, because most people stop growing in their early 20’s, at the latest.
• I Work Alone: Has this mentality. When Sophitia offers to help him on his quest for Soul Edge in the first game, Siegfried is incensed. He has this reaction again when Hilde does the same in SCIV. Noticeably part of the reason for both is that he doesn't want to get distracted from his goals by not letting anyone touch his heart, specifically in SCIV. He drops this behavior after SCV, where he has reformed and leads Schwartzwind.
• Kick Them While They Are Down: Siegfried takes it a step further with a move that stomps the opponent up to six times in rapid succession.
• Kid Hero All Grown-Up: He does a lot of growing both in height and bulk from his debut at age 16 to his appearance at age 40. He is rather slender, but by the 17 year time skip in SCV, he has grown both taller and broader. Debuting at a diminutive 157 cm tall, and looking rather childish, he then grows throughout the series, even after age 23, a whole half a foot.
• Knight in Shining Armor: In appearance. He looks the part (especially in SCIV, where an intricate crystalline armor has grown over his regular silver suit) and it was his childhood dream to become one like his father, but it takes years of angsty soul-searching before he plays this straight in SCV.
• Knight in Sour Armor: He becomes embittered from SCIII to SCIV, due to his actions as Nightmare. Ironically, in Soul Edge, one of his alternate costumes is a crimson armor that was based to create Nightmare later, and also, the alternate palette was a golden/silver one.
• Knight Templar: Only against those cursed by Soul Edge, and because he's not aware of any cure for its malfestation.
• Leitmotif: ''Soul And Sword,'' ''Darkness of Fate'', and ''Till Fate Writes My Epitaph''.
• Long-Haired Pretty Boy: From SC to SCIV, he sports a long, flowing blond hair and has pleasing, youthful features.
• Mangst: His angst over his murder of his own father and his atrocities as Nightmare are done without any excess or melodrama and don't make him any less any badass.
• Meaningful Name: Siegfried's weapon is named Faust, in reference to the archetypal story of a Deal with the Devil and his actions as Nightmare.
• Moveset Clone: He is technically one to Nightmare in Nightmare's debut game (Soulcalibur) because Nightmare is unlocked from the start, while Siegfried must be unlocked by playing through the game. However, overall, Nightmare is this to him, since Nightmare uses a lot of his Soul Edge attacks during this era.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • After remembering his atrocities as Nightmare.
  • He hits this wall with regards to his father's death as well, which is how he temporarily frees himself during the latter part of the first Soulcalibur.
• My Greatest Failure: Patricide, specifically. The deeds he committed as Nightmare also weigh heavily on his conscience.
• My Greatest Second Chance: Defied in the interim between Soulcalibur and SCII (where he eventually succumbs to Soul Edge's sway once more), but played straight from SCIII onward. It's most evident in SCIII, where his B ending has Siegfried believe that his father was the one who sent the lightning bolts that destroyed Nightmare and Siegfried interprets it as his father having already forgiven him for killing him.
• Mythical Motifs: His artwork in SCVI features a horned Pegasus, which is doubly suitable in his case, as the creature is most commonly associated with the tragic hero Bellerophon, as well as the fact that knights (the English "cavalier" / the French "chevalier" — literally "horseman") have a long-standing association with horses.
• Named After Somebody Famous: An in-universe example. His father Frederick named him after the legendary Nordic hero, Sigurd, with "Siegfried" being the German name for the character.
• The Napoleon: Has shades of this in his debut appearance because he's the shortest playable character and is very aggressive. He calls Seong Mi-na and Sophitia "little girls”, despite both women being taller than him, hinting at Height Angst. He grows out of this trait after his debut appearance, although his growth spurts afterwards probably helped with this insecurity. This also applies to the Legends manga, where he is angry that Ivy towers over him. This insecurity of his height is definitely related to women, because he doesn’t seem to have a problem with the men being taller than him.
• Not Drawn to Scale: In SCV’s Story Mode he is drawn taller than Patroklos by several inches when he is actually 2 inches shorter than him.
• Not Quite Back to Normal: Despite no longer being Soul Calibur's wielder, according to New Legends of Project Soul, a fragment of its crystal remains embedded in his body and saved his life. He can still draw upon its power to an extent, as seen in his Critical Edge.
• Older and Wiser: By SCIV, though his regretful determination to redeem himself has more than a touch of fanaticism — in part due to Soul Calibur's influence.
• One-Handed Zweihänder: Some attacks and winposes have him wielding his enormous sword with one hand.
• Parental Abandonment: Frederick was accidentally slain by Siegfried prior to the first game, whereas Margaret would pass away due to natural causes sometime before SCV.
• Patricide: Siegfried unknowingly killed his father as he performed a bandit ambush against returning crusaders at night. He managed to convince himself that someone else must have done it for some time.
• Perma-Stubble: Sports it◊ in SCV, a subtle nod to him having reached his forties.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: He's 5'2" (157cm) when he debuts at age 16 and can still kick your ass. Notably, he is the shortest or second shortest male character and short in general for most of the series, even after a series of growth spurts kick in in later games. This is because Siegfried was designed to be a small character wielding a big weapon. Amusingly, three of his throws, "hilt impact", "calamity fall" and "silent pride" require him to pull his foes lower so he can grab them. "Hilt impact" almost seems like the opponent is helpfully kneeling down so that he can connect the hit. Even with them kneeling, there are still at least a handful of characters who are too tall for him to connect the hit.
• Platonic Life-Partners: Surprisingly with Salia in his younger years. He has no problem with Salia, a woman, being in his group and being his right hand, despite his sexism. Perhaps this is a case of If It's You, It's Okay.
• Please Kill Me if It Satisfies You: In Hilde's ending in SCIV, Siegfried openly admits that he was once Nightmare and asks Hilde — whose father had been driven insane by the Evil Seed he'd unleashed — to kill him. Instead, she acknowledges Siegfried's struggle to atone for his sins and pardons him.
• Power Dyes Your Hair: As Nightmare in SCII, he's shown to have flowing red hair.
• Pretty Boy: He's smooth and handsome in a slightly rough-around-the-edges fashion when he's not rocking the Superpowered Evil Side look. In SCV, since he's 17 years older, he becomes a classic Hunk.
• Redemption Equals Death: In every SCIV ending that involves him except Hilde's. And even in Hilde's, he is prepared to die as penance for his sins. Compare this to his ending in the third game.
• Red Right Hand: As Nightmare, he gains a literal red right hand. When Soul Calibur amps its possession of him up in SCV's opening cutscene, he gains one made of crystal.
• Redeeming Replacement: The new Schwarzwind he formed in SCV is a group of noble mercenaries fighting the remnants of Soul Edge's corruption — a far cry from Siegfried's original bandit gang that bore the name.
• Retcon: Siegfried's very short initial height in Soul Edge — 157 cm (5'2"), as listed in his bio — is subject to a retcon in Legends (although it is non-canon), where he is supposed to be 16 years old, but is the same height 165 cm (5'4") as he is at age 19 in later games. In VI, where he is age 19, his short stature is again retconned, with him being 172 cm (5’ 8”) and the same height he is at age 40 in V. The latter is noticeable because it put him from being a short man to a man of average height and being taller than all but one woman.
• Self-Made Orphan: Siegfried decapitated his father under the influence of his gang of thieves, not noticing him in his nightly attack, but developed Trauma-Induced Amnesia and convinced himself someone else had done it and sought Soul Edge to take revenge.
• Ship Tease: With Sophitia and Hilde. With the former, he is shown to be attracted to her in a humorous artwork for Soul Edge. With the latter, he rejects her help because he doesn’t want anyone to touch his heart, distracting him from his goal. It doesn’t seem like a coincidence that he fights the two of them along with Ivy in the penultimate stage of his story mode in SCIV. Both go nowhere because both wed someone else.
• Short Teens, Tall Adults: In his debut game, along with Seong Mi-na. Not only is he very short, he and Mi-na are the only teenagers in the cast at age 16 and are shorter than the rest of the cast by at least half a head.
• Shout-Out: To the legendary Norse hero Sigurd/Siegfried. A recurring weapon of Siegfried is Gram, the sword used by Sigurd to kill the dragon Fafnir (mistranslated as "Glam" until more recent games), and Siegfried himself gets to face Fafnir in Legends.
• Stab the Sky: Another win-pose of his, where he raise his massive sword skywards.
• Stance System: Has several stances, called "Base Hold", "Chief Hold", "Side Hold", and "Reverse Side Hold". When put together, it makes him hard to read, putting him squarely into Confusion Fu territory, as it forces opponents to have to frequently guess (and he can freely transition between these stances to increase the unpredictability). Not bad for a character with a massive sword.
• The Stoic: Siegfried isn't one to show much emotion, especially in the later games.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: His default mood. Although, he can shift between this and Tsundere at certain times.
• Supporting Leader: Becomes this in SCV, where he leads a group comprised of him, Z.W.E.I, and Viola, yet only offers advice to Patroklos.
• Sword Drag: One of his pre-fight intros, and during his critical art in SCVI, whilst he winds up for a deadly horizontal swing attack.
• Sword Pointing: Before fighting him at the Lost Cathedral in SCIII, he thrusts his sword at the opponent.
• Unbreakable Weapons: In Soul Edge, where breaking weapons is possible, Siegfried has one specific weapon (the 7-Branch Blade) which restores the weapon gauge so quickly that it's virtually impossible to break.
• Unwitting Pawn: To Soul Edge initially, and by the time he wised up, it was too late. He also becomes this to Soul Calibur in SCIV, as it takes over him and manipulates his hatred of Soul Edge for its own purposes.
• Villain Protagonist: Between Soul Edge and SCII, Siegfried is little more than a serial killer obsessed with obtaining Soul Edge, and subsequently becomes Nightmare.
• Villainous Face Hold: One of Siegfried's throws, Hilt Impact, involves him grabbing his foe by the jaw and leveraging their head so he can strike them in the face with his sword hilt. It is a notable throw because it either forces his foe to kneel down or they helpfully kneel down for him so he can connect the hit. It replaced a throw from his debut appearance called brutal smack, which is instead a clinch around his opponent’s neck, which makes sense, because the whole cast is taller than him and he can’t reach most of their faces. Interestingly, he switches to this throw after his debut appearance when he was a villain when he goes on his path for redemption.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: A particularly tragic example in SCIV. He believes that Soul Calibur is a sword of redemption that will destroy the evil of Soul Edge. What he doesn't realize is that Soul Calibur will freeze the world over in the process.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: In the original Soul Edge and Soul Calibur, and partially in SCII prior to his quest for redemption. A teenage bandit who accidentally beheaded his own father during a raid, Siegfried completely lost his mind and set off in search of his father's "true killer." On recovering the Soul Edge from the defeated Cervantes De Leon, the Evil Weapon completely consumed the fragile mind of the boy, transforming him into Nightmare. Whilst most characters fall under the thrall of the Soul Edge on possession of it, it is implied the sword influences them to do evil, corrupting them with its power. In Siegfried's case, his immature and unstable mind allowed the sword to transform him into an extension of the sword itself. Eventually, as the sword is weakened by its defeat at the end of Soulcalibur, Siegfried's will begins to reassert itself until he is finally able to break free and begin his quest for redemption.
• Wrestler in All of Us: He has an Enzuiguri-style dropkick and a jumping version of the Russian Leg Sweep grapple ("Calamity Fall") as part of his repertoire of moves.
• You Killed My Father: His initial motivation, but really, he killed his own father, but convinced himself that someone else did it in SE. It took some time for him to accept the truth.

Sophitia Alexandra

Soulcalibur IV Appearance

^{Appearance in Soul Edge}

^{Appearance in Soulcalibur}

"Gods, guide me."

Origin: Athens, Ottoman Empire (Greece) ^note The flag shown here is that of the historic Ottoman Empire circa late 1500s. At the time the series is set, modern-day Greece was under Ottoman Turk control and would not gain independence until 1830.

Weapons (SE): Omega Sword & Owl Shield ^note (literally "Great Sword", and in Greek mythology, the owl is particularly associated with Athena in her role as the goddess of wisdom),

a short sword & shield

Weapons (SC onwards): Omega Sword & Elk Shield ^note (literally "Great Sword", and in Greek mythology, the elk is particularly associated with Artemis in her role as a virginal huntress),

a short sword & shield

Fighting style: Athenian Style

Voiced by: ^note Michiko Neya (Soul Edge-Soulcalibur III; Japanese), Chie Nakamura (Soulcalibur Legends & Soulcalibur IV; Japanese), Lynn Harris (Soul Edge; English), Diane Holmby (Soulcalibur II; English), Eden Riegel (Soulcalibur III' to Lost Swords), Erica Lindbeck (Soulcalibur VI; English)

The daughter of a Greek baker chosen by the god Hephaestus to destroy Soul Edge. She reaches Cervantes' lair but ends up being gravely injured in the battle. Saved by Taki from certain death, she is able to return to her normal life. During Soulcalibur, she falls in love with a young blacksmith, Rothion. But the blacksmith god came back to ask her to go destroy the still-at-large Soul Edge. She does but is unable to reach Nightmare before he's defeated, so she returns back and marries Rothion.

In Soulcalibur, SCII, & SCIII, she becomes a Mama Bear due to her children being threatened by Soul Edge. She encounters Tira, whom she fights after she makes a threatening remark about her family. Tira escapes, and in SCIV, Sophie's daughter Pyrrha gets kidnapped and infected by Soul Edge, forcing her to make a Face–Heel Turn. She is succeeded by her son Patroklos and, to some extent, her daughter Pyrrha.

SCV reveals that a shard of Soul Edge was implanted near her heart after fighting Cervantes, and it was impossible to remove without killing her. When Nightmare was defeated, Pyrrha slowly began to die because Soul Edge had left this world. Left with no other choice, Sophitia sacrificed herself to save her daughter's life by removing the shard from her own heart and implanting it within Pyrrha.

Materials that followed SCV, however, are seemly trying to rectify, or put a spin on, Sophitia’s death; the official bio in Lost Swords classify her whereabouts as “missing” instead of deceased, in Unbreakable Soul it is noted that Sophitia’s unconscious body was suddenly brought to the Astral Chaos.

For tropes applying to Sophitia's appearance in the New Timeline starting with Soulcalibur VI, see here.

Her attacks have average range, but are very fast, powerful, and can keep the opponent guessing with mixups. In a nod to Tekken, she has a wavedash mechanic called Angel Step, which allows her to duck under most attacks and go for a powerful stab attack.

---

• Action Girlfriend: She's the one who took to the battlefield, not her husband, Rothion.
• Apologetic Attacker: See for yourself. She'll kick her opponent hard between the legs, but always apologises.
• Armor Is Useless: In Soulcalibur she has an extra costume where she's dressed from head to toe in armor. Not that it affects her gameplay.
• Ass Kicks You: Employs her hips and backside in a lot of her attacks and throws.
• Awesome Anachronistic Apparel: Her overall look is many centuries older than the series’ 16th Century setting, and far more in line with Ancient Greece than the Ottoman period. This is somewhat mitigated by the fact that Sophitia’s worship of the “old Gods” is also anachronistic for the period, and is noted in-series. She does, however, appear in a more period-correct Greek bridal outfit in her SC ending depicting her wedding to Rothion.
• The Bus Came Back: After being absent, killed, and replaced in SCV, Sophitia returns in SCVI. It helps that SCVI is a Continuity Reboot.
• Cain and Abel: In SCIV, she becomes the Cain to Cassandra's Abel, but not willingly (see Forced into Evil).
• Childish Bangs: More noticeable in her character models, but her main costumes almost always feature her sporting a full fringe over her forehead. This emphasizes her innocence and purity, as well as her slight naïveté, especially because she sports the style as a seasoned warrior.
• Cool Big Sis: Became one when Cassandra debuted in SCII.
• Counter-Attack: One of her most iconic abilities is the Angel Step, which is a quick single or double duck that goes into a powerful stab. This lets her pass under medium attacks and cause extra damage if the enemy whiffs an attack.
• Deadly Hug: One of her throws, Broken Promise, has her hug herself close to her opponent, restraining their right arm and then slashing the back of their neck.
• Egypt Is Still Ancient: Or rather, Greece. Sophitia started her whole journey to find Soul Edge because she received a mission from Hephaestus, the Ancient Greek god of blacksmithing. Her comments suggest that she still worships the Greek pantheon, as well. In reality, by the time of the late 16th century, the Greeks had been thoroughly Christianized for more than a thousand years, and they were quite insistent about it too. Classical Neopaganism is not something that would arise until centuries later (and they're fringe, at that). Realistically, a commoner like Sophitia should have been a devout Orthodox Christian and would have freaked out badly when someone claiming himself to be a god of a long-dead religion appeared to her.
• Face–Heel Turn: She unwillingly joined Nightmare's forces in SCIV after Tira took her children hostage.
• Fanservice Pack: Sophitia goes from being modestly buxom in Soul Edge to coming third in the series' official bust chart, landing behind Ivy and Setsuka, and edging out Taki. Her evolution over the games provides the current page image. Her return in SCVI shows she's still quite busty if not even more than before.
• Flower Motifs: Her artwork for SCVI features both the leaves and fruit of a grapevine, which feature prominently in classical Greek iconography.
• Forced into Evil: Sophitia's daughter Pyrrha has been captured and bound to the evil Soul Edge, meaning that if the sword is destroyed, so is her daughter's soul. Sophitia is forced to fight on the side of the villains and spill blood to save her daughter's life. The worst part of it is that her proximity to Soul Edge, her despair, her dread of doing something which can never be redeemed, and the overall exhilaration she tries to deny are all pushing her toward a permanent Face–Heel Turn. To rub salt in the wound, she's seemingly killed before she ever gets a chance to redeem herself.
• Good Is Not Soft: Sophitia may be Purity Personified and one of the most unambiguously good characters in the series, but her fighting style is quite brutal and she is certainly not afraid to fight dirty, including moves like Groin Attacks and Neck Snaps. And while she is an Apologetic Attacker, she does so with an air of confidence and dignity. She is genuinely sorry she has to hurt her opponents, but she is not going to let anything stop her.
• Gorgeous Greek: The original Ms. Fanservice of the series hails from Greece, albeit under Ottoman control, and her appearance is evocative of Ancient Greece, with her apparently even worshipping the old Greek Gods, as opposed to the Abrahamic one.
• Groin Attack: One of Sophie's favorite attacks. She's not above fighting dirty, but she'll apologize to male opponents if it connects.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Her altruism is her defining character trait throughout the series. She originally takes up arms against Soul Edge after being chosen by Hesphestus and is wholly devoted to serving him. Years later (SCIV), Tira and Soul Edge use her altruism to their advantage by infecting her daughter, Pyrrha, with a Soul Edge fragment, meaning if the Evil Sword were to be destroyed, Pyrrha would die along with it; leaving Sophitia no choice but to defend Soul Edge.
• Happily Married: She and Rothion tie the knot◊ for her character ending in the original SC.
• The Heroine: She's the protagonist of Soul Edge, as it is canonically her who defeats Cervantes, and she shares some similarities to other fighting game protagonists, such as being the newbie-friendly all-arounder. However, she becomes a side character come Soulcalibur and other characters such as Xianghua, Siegfried, and her son Patroklos become the canon POV characters of the following games.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Prior to the events of SCV, she removes the shard embedded near her heart. This act saves her daughter Pyrrha's life, at the cost of her own.
• In-Series Nickname: "Sophie", by Cassandra.
• Intercontinuity Crossover: She appears in Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate with Soul Edge's and Soul Calibur's xiphos and shield forms as special weapons.
• Jack of All Stats: In terms of gameplay, Sophitia only has moderate power, speed, and short range, but doesn't suffer any 'real' drawbacks because of it.
• Leitmotif: ''Heavenly Engage'' and ''A Mediterranean Call''
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Her shield and sword were enchanted by the gods to protect her, and augment her own skills in battle.
• Love Makes You Evil: Her love for her daughter Pyrrha causes her to make a Face–Heel Turn and protect Soul Edge in order to save Pyrrha's life.
• Mama Bear: Since SCII. Gets taken to the cruelest extreme in SCIV when her daughter Pyrrha is kidnapped by Tira and infected by Soul Edge. Basically, either she has to kill Soul Edge's enemies or watch her daughter die.
• Meaningful Name: Sophitia means "divine wisdom" in Greek, from sophia - "wisdom" and tia (thea) - "Goddess; Godly".
• Mini Dress Of Power: Her dresses are unrealistically short for the time period.
• Mission from God: She began her journey when Hephaestus appeared before her and gave her the Omega Sword to destroy Soul Edge on his behalf.
• Ms. Fanservice: Of the Gorgeous Gaijin variety, she is introduced in Soul Edge by having Hephaestus appear to her while she's skinny-dipping, and her ending again features her bathing naked in a lake. She has the most extra costumes of all Soul Edge characters — a bikini and a skimpy outfit — at at time when alternate costumes were a rarity. Her fanservice levels continue to skyrocket in the later games with her increasingly diaphanous outfits.
• Never Say "Die": The once clearly and officially dead Sophitia (since SCV) has been tagged as just “missing” in Lost Swords, and in Unbreakable Soul, her unconscious body mysteriously was found in the Astral Chaos.
• Nice Girl: Next to Talim, Sophitia is easily the kindest and gentlest character in the series, though she's willing to fight to fulfil her mission.
• Nipple and Dimed: Her SCIV costume is basically a see-through garb that barely covers anything.
• The Paladin: Her mission and the divine nature of her quest align her with the paladin character class.
• Possession Implies Mastery: Sophitia's instant prowess with the sword and shield, despite being an untrained girl, were imbued upon her by the sacred power of the holy weapons themselves.
• Purity Personified: She was chosen by Hephaestus for this reason.
• Reality Is Unrealistic: The increase in her bust size in Soulcalibur is justified by the fact that she's pregnant.
• Religious Bruiser: The Soul Edge manual notes that her faith is as strong as her sword and shield.
• Retcon: Having supposedly died at the end of SCIV, her website profile was updated to state she's "missing" instead of "deceased".
• Retool: Lost Swords and Unbreakable Soul clearly started building a plot to do Sophitia’s once flat-out stated death away.
• Running Gag: The one about asking an Alexandra for their weight began with Sophitia outright refusing to confirm hers in Soul Edge.
• Shock and Awe: Sophitia's Critical Finish summons Zeus' lightning to strike her foe.
• Stripperiffic: This has become more and more prominent over the course of the series, which is ironic given her pure, dignified character. In SCIV, her shirt is see-through (aside from on her nipples, naturally), has cleavage in front and on the side, and her skirt is very short, causing a Panty Shot practically whenever she kicks, is knocked down, or there's wind blowing in the arena during every match.
• Super Powerful Genetics: Sophitia's children inherited the evil energy of Soul Edge, which infiltrated her body through the wounds from her fight with Cervantes.
• Token Good Teammate: Of Nightmare's Malfested gang in SCIV. She's none too thrilled about her Face–Heel Turn, but has to fight for the sake of her children. Also,in Soul Edge, she's actually the only one in the roster who Is altruistic, selfless, and unambiguously good, fighting for the good of the world and innocent people instead of for personal reasons.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Between the two Alexandra sisters, Sophitia is the feminine, matronly one who eventually wed and started a family. Cassandra on the other hand....
• Tragic Villain: Tira blackmails her into helping Nightmare in SCIV, by holding Pyrrha hostage, leaving Sophitia no choice but to defend the Evil Sword from her friends; including her sister, Cassandra.
• Walking Swimsuit Scene: Her "Sophitia!!" extra costume in Soul Blade.
• You Have to Believe Me!: After returning from her first quest, no one in town, except Cassandra, believed her stories about Greek gods, an Evil Weapon, and Ghost Pirates.

Voldo

Soulcalibur IV Appearance

^{Appearance in Soul Edge}

"Ssssssshhhhhhhhkkkkkk...."

Origin: Palermo, Kingdom of Sicily (Italy) ^note The flag shown here is that of the historic Kingdom of Sicily. At the time the series is set, modern-day Italy was separated into several distinct city-states and kingdoms.

Weapons (SE): Karma & Mara ^note ("Karma" refers to the spiritual principle of cause and effect and "Mara" is a demon in the Buddhist faith, a pair of katars

Weapons (SC): Shame & Blame, a pair of katars

Weapons (II onwards): Manas & Ayas ^note (Sanskrit for "mind" and "metal" respectively), a pair of katars

Fighting style: Self-taught contortionism

Voiced by: n/a

Easily the freakiest character in the series, and possibly of all fighting games period. Hailing from Palermo in the historic Kingdom of Sicily, Voldo is a guardian of the treasures that were gathered by his master, Vercci. He seeks Soul Edge because it is the only treasure that his master did not have before his death, but which he longed for so passionately.

Most of the series, he's just traveling around accomplishing nothing. In SCIV, he finally reaches Soul Edge, and is tricked by the sword into becoming one of its servants/guards by imitating his beloved master. In SCV, he returns to the Money Pit and becomes its guardian once again, but when Soul Edge reappears, he seeks it out, believing it to be Vercci, apparently now a slave to the evil sword's will.

It turns out that Kilik had actually purified him in SCIV, meaning that his search for Soul Edge in SCV is now once again of his own volition as a last will and testament to his beloved master Vercci. To do this, he gets close to Graf Dumas.

Voldo is easily the strangest and one of the most difficult characters to use in the series. His movements are designed primarily for evasion and confusing the opponent. His attacks are not that strong normally, but once he gets a successful knockdown or mixup, he has many options at his disposal. Voldo's true strength lies solely in the mindset of the player — you never know what he will do next.

---

• Animal Motifs: His costume in SCV references a tarantula spider, complete with tufts of arachnid-like hair and a horrific multi-eyed, spider-face codpiece.
• Anti-Magic: All evidence suggests that his obsessive devotion to Vercci renders him immune to Soul Edge's influence. So, Soul Edge imitates Vercci. However, by the time of SCV, he's malfested. Apparently, Voldo's luck didn't last.
• Badass Back: For most characters, having the enemy behind them limits their options to a small handful of weak moves or just turning around. Being turned around is just a stance to Voldo, which gives him access to a lengthy movelist and mix-ups that are actually stronger than when he's facing his foe. It's actually safer to be in front of him.
• Badass Normal: Voldo's so weird that many players assume him to be some kind of monster or undead at first, but he is in fact a physically normal man with no superpowers. He's just weird.
• Bald of Evil: He’s amongst the oldest playable males in the series (50 in SCIV), and he's not only villainous but also insane.
• Blind Weaponmaster: He's spent so many years in the dark protecting his master's fortune that he's gone blind — and insane.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Voldo's morals are actually pretty simple; if you steal from Vercci, you die. Otherwise, he really couldn't care less what you do.
• Bound and Gagged: A lot of his costumes have a strong BSDM vibe, including various harnesses, restraints and ball-gags.
• Collector of the Strange: Voldo's master was a fan of collecting weapons, especially Eastern katars. He used to boast that "if it isn't in [his] collection, then it doesn't exist." Voldo's distinctly Subcontinental weapons are derived from said collection.
• Confusion Fu: Voldo's fighting style consists of twists, flips, rolls, and walking on his back like a crab.
• Contortionist: Voldo can fight standing, with his back turned, arched on all fours with his pelvis in the air, and can twist around his opponent like a snake.
• Disability Superpower: Due to the loss of his sight, he has greatly developed both his hearing and smell, allowing him to fight on-par with even trained veterans.
• Dual Wielding: Katars do not usually need to be used in pairs, but Voldo wields a matching pair.
• Expy: His outlandish, slippery, exotic fighting style is reminiscent of Silat from Berserk; they even both dual wield katars.
• The Faceless: His eyes are always blindfolded and his mouth always gagged shut. Even when changing his clothes in Create-a-Soul, you can't take those off to see what he looks like, aside from being bald and middle-aged.
• Fighting Clown: He looks utterly ridiculous, flinging himself all over the arena, but he's a very effective fighter.
• Genre Refugee: Next to the conventionally attractive fantasy archetypes that comprise the rest of the cast, Voldo comes across as an invader from some bizarre giallo or slasher movie.
• Go Mad from the Isolation: His backstory. The decades he spent isolated in the darkness of the Money Pit made him blind, mute, and insane.
• Gonk: He stands out dramatically against the rest of the cast, who are pretty much all conventionally attractive (and downright beautiful in some cases), whereas he is nightmarishly creepy, to the point that he almost belongs in a different series, so (brilliantly) disturbing is he compared to the rest of his fellow fighters.
• Gross-Up Close-Up: His end poses mostly involve him contorting himself into various weird shapes, incorporating merciless close-ups of his aggressive-looking codpiece and thong-bound backside.
• Handicapped Badass: He's blind and mute.
• Hearing Voices: He has been hearing Vercci's voice in his head ever since the first game.
• Idle Animation: A very slinky stationary moonwalk, compounding his weirdness.
• Island Base: The Money Pit, located on a Mediterranean island Vercci obtained, was intended to safeguard the merchant's remaining possessions after the ones on the mainland were confiscated. Voldo manages to restore it to its former glory around the time SCV kicks in.
• Leitmotif: ''The Gears of Madness,'' ''Another Fanatic'', and ''Amid the Pure Insanity''.
• Madman in the Attic: For years, Voldo was kept in total darkness at the bottom of the vertiginous Money Pit. Unlike other examples, he's perfectly happy to have done so, due to his Undying Loyalty to his master.
• Older Than They Look: As of SCV, he's 67 years old, but appears to have lost none of his freakish flexibility.
• Rummage Sale Reject: Voldo's outfits often lack any sense of continuity or flow, helping to add to his crazed motif. Spikes, lots of exposed skin, and BDSM-like themes are common. In SCV he does take a little uniformity by adopting a somewhat spider-like motif, although the colors are a bright and abrasive yellow and purple scheme.
• Shown Their Work: Since the series’ inception, and for the next twenty years, his birthplace was listed as “Palermo, Kingdom of Naples”. However this has never been historically accurate, and come SCVI, his official in-game bio is corrected to “Palermo, Kingdom of Sicily” — the correct name for his homeland at the time the series is set.
• The Speechless: He's mute, and his dialogue consists solely of rasps and hisses.
• Stereotype Flip: In the Fighting Game genre, Italians are mostly depicted as sexy and suave, with examples including Robert Garcia from Art of Fighting, Rose from Street Fighter, Claudio Serafino from Tekken, and Brad Burns from Virtua Fighter. Voldo, a native of Palermo, is a brilliantly freaky, hideous-looking bondage-fiend and provides a rather excellent exception to the rule.
• Stripperiffic: A definite example, as most of the time he only sports a leather harness and a thong, although not all of his costumes qualify.
• Undeathly Pallor: He's as pale as a corpse, and sometimes even has Tainted Veins, likely because he spends all his time underground.
• Underwater Ruins: After a heavy rain, most of the lower levels of the Money Pit were drowned, and treasures found there lost forever. The flooded Money Pit features as his stage in some early games in the series.
• Undying Loyalty: To his deceased master, Vercci.
• Unwitting Pawn: He thinks Inferno's voice is Vercci's, and thus serves the sword of his own free will.
• Vader Breath: In Soulcalibur, his vocalizations sounded like he was breathing through a respirator (which would be pretty anachronistic). In later installments, these were changed to sound like unaltered hisses and grunts, which makes more sense.
• War for Fun and Profit: Vercci did it on a smaller scale. He specialized in selling weapons, often to conflicting sides (like the Spanish Armada and Cervantes). This lent him and his business associates the title of "Merchants of Death." However, it also backfired on him when the Italian Wars set off and all his possessions were confiscated, due to his very fame as a weapons merchant.

Seong Mi-na

Soulcalibur III Appearance

^{Appearance in Soul Edge}

"I won't be beaten so easily, you know."

Origin: Jirisan, Joseon Kingdom (South Korea) ^note The flag shown here is that of the historic Joseon Kingdom. During its reign, the Kingdom consolidated its effective rule over the current territory of Korea up until 1897.

Weapon: Scarlet Thunder, a guandao ^note a bladed staff, referred to as a zanbatou in Japanese

Fighting style: Seong-style Longsword

Voiced by: ^note Hekiru Shiina (Soul Edge; Japanese), Yuko Miyamura (Soul Blade; Japanese), Houko Kuwashima (Soulcalibur-Soulcalibur III; Japanese), Sanae Kobayashi (Soulcalibur IV; Japanese), Chinatsu Akasaki (Soulcalibur VI; Japanese), Molly Lin (Soulcalibur II; English), Erika Lenhart (Soulcalibur III-Soulcalibur IV; English), Erica Mendez (Soulcalibur VI; English)

The only daughter of Seong Han-Myeong. She first leaves home to join Hwang in his search for Soul Edge, only for him to drag her back home. She leaves again in Soulcalibur to search for Soul Edge (and to get away from a clingy student of her father's), but is dragged back home yet again by Hwang. She later commits the mistake of giving a family sword to Yun-seong, who later runs away with it; she then receives permission from her father to seek him and the sword. During the quest, she discovers Soul Edge's true nature, and now seeks to warn Yun-seong to stop him from searching for it.

As of SCV, she and Hong Yun-seong returned to Korea, and were hailed as heroes. History then plays out as normal, with Japan no longer attempting to invade, meaning that Korea no longer has a part in the current events.

Mi-na is the original polearm character in the series. She has excellent reach, speed, and mobility, but her damage is subpar and she gets put at a disadvantage rather easily if her attacks are continually blocked. She was succeeded by Kilik, but she remained as a secret character, having gained some moves from Hwang. To avoid eventually becoming a "model-swap" of Kilik, her style kept changing over time, discarding and gaining different stances and attacks altogether.

---

• Arranged Marriage: If her father had his way, she'd be settling down with Hwang... or as seen in her SC ending, the idiot son of the neighboring Kim family.
• Braids of Action: She wears her thick hair in a long tapering braid, much like Yuri Sakazaki's.
• Cool Big Sis: To Yun-seong, who refers to her as such in Broken Destiny's Gauntlet mode, and several of her interactions with him throughout the series illustrate her concern for his well-being, and how much she cares about him.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • She fought Ivy during the events of Soulcalibur, and was completely overwhelmed by her Whip Sword, a weapon she had never seen before and was unprepared to counter. Though her easy-to-anger impulsiveness got the better of her, too.
  • Sometime prior to SCIII, she met Kong Xiuqiang, who said she was an amateur. She took it personally, challenged him to a duel, and lost. Badly. This went on for weeks, 'til she finally accepted that she was outmatched and acquiesced. Xiuqiang admired her spirit and decided to train her.
• Demoted to Extra: Her role in the series becomes progressively smaller after Kilik's introduction. In addition, she was retroactively stated to be borrowing moves from the Ling-Sheng Su, despite being introduced ahead of Kilik. Much of her original moveset was transferred to him and, by SCII, she was reduced to being an unlockable character, rather than part of the default cast. She would no-show in SCV, but managed to return in SCVI.
• Fanservice Pack: In SCII (especially in her artwork) and more so in SCIII, she wears a loose-fitting halter top that shows she's topless underneath it. It's inverted in SCIV, as her outfit is more conservative and her figure slimmer (which is ironic considering how just about all the other ladies went in the opposite direction). This came back around completely in SCVI, which features what could be her most sexualized costume to date.◊
• Fatal Flaw: Her pride as a martial artist, which has led to her being humiliated twice, by Ivy and Kong Xiuqiang respectively (noted in the Curbstomp Battle entry). From SCIII onwards, she tones it down a bit, but, as seen during her bad ending, it can still get the better of her.
• Groin Attack: A rather brutal example is her "Opening Treasure" attack, where she parts her opponent's legs and then stabs her weapon into their crotch. She even quips "bye bye" right as she does it, since a male opponent would likely be castrated. Ouch.
• Idiot Hero: Not as obvious as Yun Seong, but despite being better-informed than him, she makes the same mistakes, only with Soul Calibur instead of Soul Edge.
• I Got Bigger: Grows from 159 cm at age 16 to 162 cm from age 19 and onwards. Oddly, she is one of only a few female characters to grow.
• I Will Show You X!: In her story mode in Soul Edge, Siegfried patronizingly calls her a "little girl" while not letting her pass the stage he is guarding, and she says this to him verbatim. Amusingly, Siegfried is actually shorter than her in this game, so it's a touch ironic he calls her "little".
• Inconsistent Spelling: Seung Mina? Syung Mena? Seong Mi-na is the most commonly seen variant.
• Jumped at the Call: She's always seeking adventure, even defying her father and running away from home to do so.
• Just Friends: With Hwang, though her father (and the fans) wish otherwise. As she plainly told her father in her original ending in Soul Edge, marrying Hwang just wasn't for her. By the time of SC IV, she's still happily unwed.
• Leitmotif: ''Kkaduri'' and ''Tiny Amulet''.
• Naginatas Are Feminine: She wields a larger-than-usual version, designated a "zanbatou" (large katana) in her bio, and her moveset involves keeping the opponent at a safe distance with precision strikes, which is why naginatas were traditionally wielded by women in Feudal Japan. Kilik, who shares mostly the same moveset, wields a more gender-neutral staff.
• Not Drawn to Scale: Which can be noted for many characters in the series. In Soul Edge, she is supposed to be only 2 centimeters taller than Siegfried, but as seen in their render together, she clearly towers over him by half a head, even when she is not standing straight. Her model is taller than Sophitia’s even though she is always shorter than her at 159 cm and 162 cm. Her character model is also one of the taller ones for the girls, being just behind Setsuka, Taki and Ivy’s. This makes sense because she has one of the longest reaches of all the female characters.
• Older and Wiser: From SCII onwards, having learned the truth about Soul Edge. She spends the remainder of the series trying to warn Yun Seong that the sword is evil and that it'd be impossible to save their country with it, but he just won't listen.
• Plucky Girl: The series original example, she's only 16 when she makes her debut and defies her strict father to run away and learn more about Soul Edge in defense of Korea — "I will never lose!"
• Secret Character: In several of her appearances, namely SCII.
• Sexy Mentor: To Yun Seong, particularly in SCIII, not that he seems to notice all the eyecandy that's on display.
• Ship Tease: With Siegfried all of people. In the renders for Soul Edge, she is paired with Siegfried, who she doesn't have much of a connection with besides him appearing in her story mode. Everyone else who is paired together have more of a connection to each other. In said render, she is staring slightly flirtily at him and her left foot is placed firmly against his right foot. They are even striking the same pose, while everyone else isn’t. In one humorous comic, Siegfried is seen ogling her.
• Stripperiffic: Zigzagged. Her outfit in SCII is basically a bra and loincloth, but unlike most of the ladies in the series, whose outfits have gotten skimpier with each new game, SCIV sees Mi-na actually cover up more than she ever has. In fact, one of her alternative outfits is a quite conservative hanbok. And then VI happened, and Seong Mi-na was given her most fanservicey costume to date.
• Tomboy: Much to her father's chagrin, who wishes she'd settle down and start a family so he'd finally have "a son" to leave his dojo to. Instead, she's rebellious and has an adventurous streak. By SCII, he's given up trying to keep her at home, figuring she'd set off on another journey in spite of him... and she did.^note Though she had good reason, since she was trying to catch up to Yun Seong so she could warn him about Soul Edge, before it was too late.
• Tomboy with a Girly Streak: Despite her personality, some of her outfits can be quite feminine, particularly her mostly pink outfit in SCVI, adorned with flowers. She also tends to wear her hair in a long, feminine braid.
• Underboobs: Her official art for her default outfits in SCIII, SCIV, and SCVI makes it easy to see the undersides of her breasts.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: The series is set in 16th century Europe and Asia — which is why it's odd that no one bats so much as an eyelid at the fact that she traverses the continent half naked; especially considering how nubile she is.
• You Go, Girl!: She wants to prove her fighting worth to her overprotective father.

Hwang Seong-gyeong

Soulcalibur III Appearance

^{Appearance in Soul Edge}

"I shall vanquish...the evils of the ages."

Origin: Jirisan, Joseon Kingdom (South Korea) ^note The flag shown here is that of the historic Joseon Kingdom. During its reign, the Joseon Kingdom consolidated its effective rule over the current territory of Korea up until 1897.

Weapon (SE): Blue Storm, a Chinese sword

Weapon (SC onwards): Blue Thunder, a Chinese sword

Fighting style: Hwang-style Longsword

Voiced by: ^note Toshiyuki Morikawa (Soul Edge; Japanese), Wataru Takagi (Soul Blade-Soulcalibur; Japanese), Naoki Imamura (Soulcalibur III; Japanese), SungWon Cho (Soulcalibur VI; English), Subaru Kimura (Soulcalibur VI; Japanese)

A Korean soldier given orders to investigate and destroy Soul Edge. Orphaned from a young age, he came to rely on others, and once grown he decided to help those in need by joining the Korean Coast Guard. In Soul Edge, he was sent to find the titular sword, under the impression that it would help in the fight against his country's mortal enemy, Japan, but he has to hurriedly return home after hearing rumors of Korea being invaded.

In Soulcalibur, he was sent to seek the runaway Mi-na under the guise of a second search for Soul Edge. During said quest, he learns of the sword's evil, but no one in Korea believes him and he ends up demoted. After spies from Japan are found looking for the sword, the higher-ups send him again, as he's the most experienced, but he decides to destroy the sword against his bosses' wishes. Ends up injured by Sophitia and letting Yun-seong take over his spot on the roster.

As of SCV, Korea no longer has a part in the current events. As such, whatever happened to him is still unknown, although it is said that he, Seong Mi-na, and Yun-seong were hailed as heroes and began training a new generation of soldiers for Korea's army.

Originally, Hwang was a balanced character who made more utilization of kicks than any of the other characters. His style would later be split between Xianghua and Yun-seong.

---

• Anime Hair: Never seen without his vertiginous spiky hair.
• Bowdlerise: Before Arthur's introduction, Mitsurugi was switched out with him in Korean arcades, as depiction of Samurai are not allowed in Korea. This made him a Secret Character in the western arcades.
• Bridal Carry: Does this to Seong Mi-na in her SC ending when he forcibly returns her to her anxious father.
• But Now I Must Go: According to the artbook for SCV, once Tokugawa took over Japan and ended the war with Korea, there was no longer a need for Hwang to concern himself with Soul Edge. So he returned home, along with Seong Mina and Yun Seong, ending Korea's role in the series.
• Inconsistent Spelling: Hwang Sung Kyung? Korean names always seem to have this problem. G's are sometimes K's, O's are sometimes U's...
• Jack of All Stats: He's mostly a Palette Swap of Mitsurugi in SE, so he retains most of his strengths and weaknesses. He's still a balanced fighter in later games, even with an updated move-set, though.
• Just Friends: With Seong Mina, though her father, Han Myong (and fans of the pairing), wishes he'd reconsider.
• Leitmotif: ''Horangi Arirang'' and ''Yellow Sands''
• Mentor: Mi-na's father Seong Han-myeong is his. He also has a mentor figure in real life Admiral Yi Sun-sin of the Korean Navy.
• Moveset Clone: In SE and SC, he never had an original style, instead sharing his moveset with another character while retaining a few original moves. He shares with Mitsurugi in SE, and Xianghua in SC.
• Patriotic Fervor: He set out to search for Soul Edge in order to protect Korea from Japanese invasion.
• Put on a Bus: Went missing after Soulcalibur, and enjoys a brief return in SCIII and its arcade port. Even then, he still appears on the sidelines in Yun-seong's story.
• The Rival: With Mitsurugi in Soul Edge and Maxi in Soulcalibur.
• The Stoic: He's not very emotional, maintaining a granite-like facade most of the time.
• You Have to Believe Me!: Nobody back home in Korea believes him when he returns home claiming Soul Edge to be an Evil Weapon.

Nathaniel William "Rock" Adams

Soulcalibur III Appearance

^{Appearance in Soul Edge}

"Spirits, grant me strength!"

Origin: London, Kingdom of England (raised in the New World) ^note The flag shown here is that of the Kingdom of England. The series is set prior to the Union of the Crowns of England and Scotland in 1603, and the Kingdom of Great Britain was not yet established.

Weapon (SE-SC): Apocalypse, a battle axe

Weapon (III onward): Onslaught, a mace

Fighting style: Self-taught

Voiced by: ^note Takashi Nagasako (Soul Edge-Soulcalibur; Japanese), Minoru Inaba (Soulcalibur III; Japanese), Tōru Ōkawa (Soulcalibur IV; Japanese), Robert Belgrade (Soul Edge; English), Wally Burr (Soulcalibur III; English), David Jeremiah (Soulcalibur IV; English)

Born the son of an English curio dealer specializing in rare weapons, Nathaniel William Adams obtained his nickname, "Rock," because of his immense strength. Rock's father had bid on Soul Edge at a secret auction, and was bringing it home on his ship with his family on board when the dread pirate Cervantes de Leon attacked. Rock's father ran to the storage room to hide Soul Edge, and his mother ran after to stop him, telling Rock to stay where he was until their return — but they never came back, and the ship sank before they even had the chance. Rock washed up on the shore of the New World, where he learned to live off the land as the Native Americans had been practicing for many centuries before.

Later, he adopts a son named Bangoo. In Soulcalibur, Bangoo is kidnapped and he rescues him from Astaroth's cult, which used him as bait to take his soul. Afterwards, he seeks to become stronger to prove his worth as a father to Bangoo.

While missing in SCII, due to believing that heading out to fight frequently instead of being an available father was not the way to raise Bangoo, he returns in SCIII and SCIV, wielding a large mace instead of his axe. In SCIV, he confronts Astaroth and notes the similarity in their fighting styles, which worries him. It is currently unknown what became of him in SCV.

Rock is the original grappler character in the series, but eventually was replaced by Astaroth until SCIII. He is slow, but his axe and his throws have a long reach that give him the edge up close. As of SCIII, his mace has a much shorter reach than Astaroth's axe, and his style focuses more on grabs than normal attacks.

---

• Action Dad: The best way to spur him into action is to kidnap or threaten his adoptive son, Bangoo.
• Ass Kicks You: Using his impressively-muscled butt, he leaps into the air and squashes his opponent flat.
• Barbarian Hero: He's certainly got the appearance down pat, due to being raised in the wilderness of North America, and despite originating from a well-to-do English family.
• The Bear: He's big, strong, hairy, and like a wild animal almost. He's definitely got the manly looks.
• Boisterous Bruiser: A loud and hammy power-based fighter, yet a very nice guy.
• Catchphrase: BANGOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!
• Charles Atlas Superpower: In his SCIII ending, he travels back to the New World... by swimming across the Atlantic.
• Dub Name Change: His actual name is Rock Adams. The translator of the first game decided to turn it into a nickname and gave him the full name "Nathaniel William Adams." Worth noting this name only appears in Soul Edge, and all subsequent games have ignored/failed to mention it, while names of other (actual) nicknamed characters (Ivy, Lizardman) are always mentioned.
• Great White Hunter: The man has apparently brought down bears, rhinos, bison, and even a freaking mammoth.
• Ground Pound: His Canyon Dive (B+G) throw, where he crushes the opponent under his muscular behind.
• Improbable Weapon User: His "Juggernaut" weapon in SCIII & SCIV is a stone statute of the head of a Buddha fastened to a pillar.
• Lead You Can Relate To: Almost all fighting games include an American character, mostly to ensure a nation that makes up a huge proportion of the game-buying public has a representative character. In the Soul Series period setting, the USA does not yet exist as a nation, and so the almost prerequisite "American" character is not possible. However, Rock's design provides a happy compromise — he's from England (the USA's "parent" nation) and was raised by Native Americans, so to all intents and purposes he fills the slot of the "American" fighter (as well as the English one).
• Leitmotif: ''Recollect Continent'' and ''A Continental Gale''.
• Mighty Glacier: He's slow in walking speed and when swinging his weapon, but hits like... well, a rock.
• Mighty Whitey: Downplayed. He's British in origin and became known as the "White Giant" by the Native Americans after he was shipwrecked in the New World as a youth, but it's the "Giant" part that's far more relevant to his reputation as a great warrior.
• Mistaken for Gods: As seen in his SCIII ending. Sailors who witness him swimming the Atlantic, wearing his horned headdress, mistake him for "The Protector of the Sea." Years later (presumably), this sighting becomes Shrouded in Myth and his ending finishes with an antique-looking illustration that shows a highly exaggerated, Titan-sized Rock emerging from the sea dwarfing a ship.
• Mr. Fanservice: His standard outfits leave very little to the imagination, and he has quite the nice muscular frame on him.
• Nature Hero: He lived alone for most of his life on the New World, and has developed his fighting style as a way to communicate with mother nature. He also wears the fur/skulls of the animals he needs to kill in respect of the wild creatures he co-habits with.
• Papa Wolf: To his adoptive son, Bangoo. Rock's main motivation for fighting is to rescue Bangoo when he is kidnapped by the Fygul Cestemus cult.
• Primitive Clubs: Reflecting his status as a Barbarian Hero, since SCIII Rock has wielded maces as his preferred weapon, instead of the axes he used in SE and SC.
• So Proud of You: After being trapped in a crevasse for a whole night, Rock found Bangoo and asked him if this experience made him fear nature. He said that he didn't, and Rock realized he was ready for his rite of passage into adulthood.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: Most of his outfits.
• You Can't Fight Fate: He reaches this conclusion after investigating Astaroth and realizing his connection with Soul Edge. He considers it his destiny to stop the vile monster.

Li Long

Soulcalibur III Appearance

^{Appearance in Soul Edge}

"Not bad."

Origin: Peking, Ming Empire (China) ^note The flag shown here is that of the historic Ming Empire.

Weapon: Falcon, bladed nunchaku or three-section staff ^note (due to censorship)

Fighting style: Matchless Dragon

Voiced by: ^note Jin Yamanoi (Soul Edge; Japanese), Masaya Takatsuka (Soulcalibur III; Japanese)

A mercenary from the Ming Empire. Believing Mitsurugi to have killed his mute lover Chie (daughter of the former head of Taki's clan, childhood friend of Taki, and in hiding with her father as innkeepers), he intends to has his revenge, and has no problem killing anyone who gets in his way. Later, he was almost killed by Cervantes, but survived, albeit with his self-esteem damaged.

While on the run from Ming assassins for disobeying orders, he was rescued by another mute girl. He stayed with her until his pursuers found him, which forced him to fight again in order to protect her. Having remembered what it was like fighting for someone, he decides to restore his confidence by fighting the sword that shattered it in the first place.

---

• All Asians Wear Conical Straw Hats: His 1P outfit in SCIII has him wearing one, as depicted in the art above.
• Bruce Lee Clone: His fighting style and nunchaku make him an Imperial China version.
• The Cameo:
  • He makes a cameo appearance in Cervantes' SCIII story mode as a shadow enemy. Though this enemy appears in other stories, only Cervantes recognizes Li Long as this "Unknown Soul".
  • He has cameos as a created character in the Quick Battle mode of both Broken Destiny and SCV.
• Contract on the Hitman: The Ming Empire command sent assassins to kill him for having disobeyed orders.
• Disappeared Dad: He was unaware he had a child for most of the games, and may still not be aware, as far as it's known.
• Disney Death: Chie's "miraculous survival," considering the only mark she had was a huge sword slash on her back.
• Dual Wielding: In SCIII, he's given twin nunchakus to fight, probably to differentiate him from Maxi.
• The Four Gods: He has four weapons in Soul Edge named after them.
• Happily Married: With Chie, as of SCV.
• Heroic BSoD: After being defeated by Cervantes, Li Long's confidence crumbled as he started doubting if his manhunt was righteous after all, or just full of atrocious acts. Feeling condemned by everything, his guilt weighted on him until he could not hold his weapon anymore. After that, it took him quite a while to even stop his hand from shaking when in a fight.
• Leitmotif: ''Dragon's Call'' and ''Moonlight Shadows''.
• Mentor: To Maxi, under the alias of Zhang Wu. After losing a battle to him, Maxi asked Li Long if he could train under him while traveling together.
• Nothing Personal: One of his win-quotes in SCIII:
  It was nothing personal.
• Put on a Bus: Has it far worse than Hwang, who at least was still around (mostly thanks to Yun-seong) story-wise during his in-game absences. Li Long has barely gotten any mentions at all.
• Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: Most fans assumed this was his fate after he stopped appearing in the series after the first game. SCIII confirms he's still alive, and didn't die at Cervantes' hands.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: He has killed many swordsmen on his search for Chie's killer.
• Sixth Ranger: To the Fu-Ma clan, being that he was originally from China and was adopted by the Fu-Ma. He isn't even a ninja, but enjoys being a full-fledged member due to being married to current leader, Chie.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Him and his family. Finally resolved between SCIV and V. Supplementary materials for Broken Destiny state that he met with Taki in SCIII, who told him that Chie was still alive. Chie herself becomes the new head of the Fu-Ma clan. Li Long's actions after this revelation and his current fate, though, remains unknown. New Legends Of Project Soul reveal he now lives amongst the Fu-Ma Clan with Chie and their son.

Cervantes de Leon

Soul Calibur V Appearance

^{Appearance in Soul Calibur IV}

^{Appearance in Soul Edge}

"Wallow in your despair."

Origin: Valencia, Kingdom of Spain ^note  The flag shown is that of the historic Spanish Empire, known as the “Cross of Burgundy”, which was used up until 1793 before being replaced with the familiar la Rojigualda.

Weapon (SE): Soul Edge (male & female)

Weapon (SC, IV, V, VI): Acheron & Nirvana, a longsword & pistol sword

Weapon (II and III): Soul Edge & Nirvana, a longsword & pistol sword

Fighting style: Memories of Soul Edge

Voiced by: ^note Takashi Nagasako (Soulcalibur-Soulcalibur III; Japanese), Jin Urayama (Soulcalibur Legends & Soulcalibur IV onward; Japanese), Warren Rodgerson (Soulcalibur II; English), Wally Wingert (Soulcalibur III, Soulcalibur IV, & Soulcalibur Legends; English), Patrick Seitz (Soulcalibur V onward; English)

A badass pirate from Valencia, who learned of Soul Edge's existence via Vercci, the Merchant of Death, and took it for himself. He subsequently went insane and killed his own crew. He is then controlled by Soul Edge into absorbing souls to increase its power. Sophitia fights him and destroys one of the two parts of Soul Edge, sending Cervantes into a berserk rage. Taki assists a wounded Sophitia and kills Cervantes.

Normally, he would have been dead from that fatal blow, but after Siegfried became Nightmare due to Soul Edge's influence, Cervantes was resurrected. And so as of Soulcalibur he became a Ghost Pirate, seeking out Soul Edge once again.

In SCII, he regains enough pieces of Soul Edge to recreate one of his original weapons and became a Zombie Pirate, then went to look off for more pieces. In SCIII, he finds out that his body is starting to decay because Soul Edge's influence has been sealed off. To preserve himself, he decides to take his daughter Ivy's soul… and he succeeds according to SCIV. He reached his final evolution of Ghost Zombie Pirate, then headed to Ostrheinsburg once again to claim Soul Edge as a whole and become a god.

When Soul Edge was sucked into a vortex at the end of SCIV, so too was Cervantes due to his deep connections with it. However, Cervantes escaped the void as well as Soul Edge's will, and gained a new body. Seeing that many seafarers had believed him to be dead, he set out to prove the contrary, now acting on his own free will without the use of Soul Edge.

Cervantes is a power character with excellent mobility who is designed solely for the purpose of pressuring and punishing any of the opponent's actions. He is similar to M. Bison in this regard, as he has very weak defenses. He also has the ability to teleport, but this was nerfed in later games. In exchange for this, the later games also granted him the ability to use the hidden gun within his short sword for quick mixups.

---

• Archnemesis Dad: To Ivy, since she owes her cursed existence to him raping her mother. Years later, Cervantes wants to kill her and absorb her soul to gain more power.
• Back from the Dead: He is resurrected in SCV, and becomes human-looking for the first time since Soul Edge.
• Badass Longcoat: It gradually becomes a badass vest over the course of the series.
• Badass Normal: In SCV, he's resurrected into a living body that conveniently looks exactly like his previous living form.
• Baddie Flattery: Now and again. Unlike his fellow villains Nightmare, Tira, and Astaroth, he's occasionally willing to give a particularly Worthy Opponent their due.
  I salute your courage... for challenging me.
• Big Bad: Of Soul Edge.
• Black Eyes of Crazy: In his default costume in Soul Edge/Blade, his eyes have yellow irises and black sclerae, accentuating his status as being Malfested by Soul Edge.
• Brought Down to Badass: He no longer has Soul Edge in SCV, and gained a new, human body... albeit one still suffused with Soul Edge's power, letting him still fight at a superhuman level. According to New Legends of Project Soul, his sword-swings with the Acheron are capable of cleaving through cannon balls, and the Nirvana's bullets are more powerful than cannon-fire.
• Carpet of Virility: In SCV, his reborn body has got some chest hair action going on.
• Cool Boat: His flagship, The Adrian, which forms his home stage in many of his appearances.
• Cool Sword: We wields a 'pistol-sword' — a sabre with a gun incorporated into the handle. Seems like pure fantasy, but it was very much a real, if exotic and unusual, weapon during the time period of the series.
• Degraded Boss: Downplayed in the sequels. He is no longer the main villain, but hasn't got any less powerful.
• Deity of Human Origin: He effectively becomes a god in his SCIV ending.
• Dual Wielding: Regardless of what actual weapon he uses, Cervantes always wields a long blade and a short blade. Soul Edge takes the form of a straight sword and a curved dagger called "Male & Female" when in his hands. When not using Soul Edge, the long blade is called "Acheron" and the short sword is "Nirvana", which is an unconventional pistol sword. During the period where he constructed his own Soul Edge from fragments he found, it replaced his long sword while he kept the pistol sword.
• Empty Shell: Post-resurrection, he's described as feeling a "long emptiness" only brought to an end by joining with Soul Edge once more.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Cervantes was devastated at the loss of his father Phillip, whom he was proud of during his childhood decades prior of the events of SE. This event prompted him to snap and become the pirate he is today.
• Evil Versus Evil: Although the same evil sword is signing both of their paychecks, Cervantes is as much an enemy of Nightmare and his gang as the series' heroes. This dread pirate does not share power.
• Evil Weapon: In-life he wielded Soul Edge in the form of a pair of swords. After being reanimated, he created an offshoot of Soul Edge using fragments he collected, but later relinquished it and resumed wielding his old swords the Acheron and Nirvana — which were suffused with Soul Edge's power and became corrupted themselves.
• Ghost Pirate: He's killed by Sophitia and Taki in the first game and resurrected by Soul Edge as a Ghost Zombie Pirate... with a gun and delusions of trying to achieve godhood.
• Going Cold Turkey: At the end of SCIV, he is sucked into a vortex along with Soul Edge, but somehow fights his way out of the void known as Astral Chaos, becomes mostly human again, and realizes his hunt for Soul Edge wasn't worth it anymore because it led him astray from his true goal — becoming the most dreaded pirate in the Seven Seas.
• Human Traffickers: Horrifyingly, he expresses his intent to sell any female character or child to the sex slave markets if he wins against them in SCV.
• Hero Killer: Originally was believed to have killed Li Long due to the prologue in the first Soulcalibur, although Japanese sources from the very same game hinted and later confirmed he survived, albeit gravely injured^note Western fans had to wait up until SCIII to become aware of this fact, however. He also canonically defeated his daughter Ivy and drank up her soul. She did get better, though.
• Immortality: From SCII to SCIV, he's undead and kept alive by Soul Edge's power.
• Large Ham: He's loud and boastful during combat, barking his attacks in a booming, bass rumble. He's also incongruently voiced with a classically hammy Bristolian 'pirate accent', which is completely at odds with him being Spanish.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: After his resurrection, he has forgotten everything about his past. Over time, he only recovered selected memories.
• Leitmotif: ''Bravely Folk Song,'' "Castaway Into Darkness", and ''The Storm Bringer''.
• Lightning Bruiser: Fast and powerful, but with complexity that makes him difficult to master and even more difficult to use effectively under pressure.
• Monochromatic Eyes: Usually white; red in SCII.
• Must Have Nicotine: Cervantes' obsession with Soul Edge is likened to an addict having a relapse. After recovering his memories, he craved to find the sword again, even though he remembered quite well how it manipulated him.
• My God, What Have I Done?: His non-canon good ending in Soul Edge has him break free from the sword's influence long enough to see the devastation it's made him wreak on his beloved Valencia, and he sacrifices his life to destroy Soul Edge.
• Offing the Offspring: He's tried to consume Ivy's soul at least twice, most recently in the events leading up to SCV. Not only did he fail in that attempt, but she reclaimed every soul he ever consumed.
• One-Winged Angel: When defeated in SE, he becomes the titular Soul Edge to fight you again.
• Out of Continues: His immortal life is maintained by Soul Edge's influence. Without it, his body would start to rot away and he'd be Deader than Dead. Apparently he's capable of body-hopping, as his bio for SCV states that he is now inhabiting a new body. What, exactly, happened that let him do this is unclear.
• Pirate: His occupation both before and after becoming Soul Edge's host — he's even voiced with a hammy "Argh, Jim lad!" Bristolian brogue.
• A Pirate 400 Years Too Late: Inverted; Cervantes looks as though he comes straight out of the Golden Age of Piracy, but bear in mind that the Soul series takes place during the late Renaissance. He's a pirate 150 years too early!
• Promoted to Playable: In the original arcade version of Soul Edge, he was an unplayable Sub-Boss. He became playable in the revised arcade edition Soul Edge ver. II, and has remained so ever since.
• Shout-Out:
  • He's named after two historical figures: Miguel de Cervantes, considered one of the best writers in Spanish language history (if not the best), and author of Don Quixote (although "Cervantes" is actually a family name, not a first name); and Juan Ponce de León, a Spanish conquistador who sought the Fountain of Youth.
  • His Geo Da Ray (214+B) move looks a lot like M. Bison's Psycho Crusher.
• Sword and Gun: Manages to have it both ways, as his shorter sword is a gun.
• Supernatural Gold Eyes: In Soul Edge, to denote his possessed status. Interestingly, SCII is the only game where he has Glowing Eyes of Doom and red eyes.
• Talk Like a Pirate: Develops a Bristolian, nautical tone to his speech in SCIII, but has shades of this in other games as well, which is totally at odds with his Spanish nationality.
• Teleportation and telekinesis: He has these powers when an undead.
• This Banana is Armed: His joke weapons (wood carvings of Soul Edge in SCII and a pair of shish-kebabs onward) are still able to use the bullet-firing moves.
• This Is Your Brain on Evil: Cervantes became a bloodthirsty and ruthless pirate after his beloved father's death, keeping his crew in line with fear, and terrorizing the Atlantic for decades. After getting his hands on Soul Edge he became enthralled by the dark swords' power, raping the daughter of the Black Tail Inn's innkeeper to sire a replacement host for it. After he's killed and reanimated by Soul Edge's shards, he retains his mind but New Legends of Project Soul elucidates that he was being puppeted by Inferno.
• The Undead: From SC to SCIV, all that's keeping him alive is Soul Edge's power.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: According to his Soul Edge profile, as a child Cervantes idolized his kindhearted privateer father, who was killed by an English warship disguised as a merchant vessel. Devastated, Cervantes took his dad's hat, repudiated his ideology, and became a notoriously ruthless pirate long before he got his hands on Soul Edge.
• Volcanic Veins: His redesign in SCVI incorporates these, marking him as a malfested slave to Soul Edge's will.
• Who Dares?: One of his intro poses in SCV and Lost Swords.
  "So... you DARE to defy ME?!"

Inferno

Soulcalibur VI Appearance

^{Appearance in Soul Edge}

Origin: Astral Chaos

Weapon (SE): Soul Edge (male & female)

Weapon (SC onward): all weapons

Fighting style: all styles

The physical embodiment of the titular Artifact of Doom Soul Edge, though only when it brings forth its own dimension, Astral Chaos. Inferno is invisible and intangible in the real world up until Soulcalibur III, when Zasalamel allowed it to animate Siegfried's trademark blue armor, turning it into Nightmare. In Soulcalibur IV, Inferno — as Nightmare — reclaimed Soul Edge and became its physical manifestation, but was unable to unleash his full power without a proper host and was defeated.

Originally, Inferno was a more powerful version of Cervantes with more powerful attacks, but in later games, he is a mimic character with a few exclusive moves of his own. In the first game, he was known as 'Soul Edge', but was changed to Inferno in Soul Calibur to differentiate him from the sword.

---

• Anthropomorphic Personification: It is the personification of Soul Edge's will.
• Arch-Enemy: To Siegfried. Inferno was responsible for corrupting him and turning him into the first Nightmare.
• Artificial Stupidity: His constant spamming of that torpedo attack in Soul Edge makes him laughably easy to ring out simply by leaping over him as he rushes.
• Big Bad: Of Soul Edge, Soulcalibur and SCII, being the physical form of Soul Edge.
• Dem Bones: In SCII, he appears as a flaming skeleton.
• Demonic Possession: It takes over anyone who takes ahold of Soul Edge and uses their body to gather souls in the corporeal world (Inferno himself cannot exist outside of the Astral Chaos dimension until Zasalamel forces him to be bound to the Azure Knight armor in SCIII) via slaughter. Inferno needs to have a host to unleash his full potential, which is why he's so fixated on Siegfried. The process of being possessed by Inferno and Soul Edge is called "Malfestation".
• Ditto Fighter: He mimics other characters' movesets, but also has exclusive special moves.
• Enemy Within: For those who seek to wield Soul Edge.
• Enemy Without: To Siegfried as Nightmare in SCIII and SCIV.
• Evil Is Burning Hot: In all of his appearances, he is wreathed in flames.
• Final Boss: Most prominently in SCII, though he's also in essence the Final Boss of Soul Edge (see "One-Winged Angel" below) and Soulcalibur.
• Flaming Skulls: In Soul Edge, he was basically "a firespawn with Cervantes' clothes and a skull head", and in SCII, where he is a malformed skeleton that is Wreathed in Flames.
• Grand Theft Me: If the wielder of Soul Edge is unable to best Inferno in a Battle in the Center of the Mind, then he/she will become the sword's host. And even if they do win, it's only a matter of time...
• Humanoid Abomination: Those who he possesses are turned into this.
• Leitmotif: ''World Atlas Collapsed'' and ''Doubtful Judgment''.
• Made of Evil: Soul Edge was once a normal blade until it tasted too much blood on the battlefield, giving it sentience and an evil soul (Inferno).
• One-Winged Angel: In Soul Edge, Inferno possesses Cervantes's corpse to fight Siegfried, functioning as this for the Dread Pirate.
• Outside-the-Box Tactic: Throws do about as much damage as normal against him, while normal attacks do roughly 3/4 their usual damage.
• Power Limiter: As Nightmare in SCIII and SCIV, it was unable to unleash its full power without a host and lost to Siegfried.
• Promoted to Playable: Unplayable in the arcade versions, but became unlockable in the home versions of Soul Edge and Soulcalibur. He remains unplayable in the home versions of SCII though.
• Seven Deadly Sins: His voice samples in Soulcalibur are named after them.
• Shapeshifter Weapon: Inferno can create weapons out of its body to accomodate any style he's willing to use.
• Tin Tyrant: Manifests as Nightmare in Soulcalibur Legends, and is Nightmare in SCIII and SCIV.
• Wreathed in Flames: In all of his appearances, his body is constantly aflame.

Soul Edge

Soulcalibur V Appearance

^{Appearance in Soulcalibur}

The titular Artifact of Doom, Soul Edge was once a two-handed sword that, over years of being bathed in blood, developed a demonic soul called Inferno. Claimed and subdued by the Hero-King Algol, Soul Edge was stolen by his son Arcturus and quickly took him over. Algol was forced to kill his son, and out of a desire to destroy the cursed sword, forged Soul Calibur out of a purified shard of Soul Edge. Soul Edge was passed down through the ages until it fell into the hands of the pirate Cervantes de Leon, who wielded it in the form of two longswords. One of its halves was shattered by Sophitia, and the remaining half was claimed by Siegfried Schtauffen, who became Nightmare. Siegfried eventually escaped from the sword's control and sealed it with Soul Calibur, but Inferno escaped into his discarded armor, becoming the second incarnation of Nightmare. Zasalamel split the two swords apart and it was claimed by Nightmare, who wielded it against Siegfried and was defeated. As revealed in SCIV, Soul Edge is now an otherworldly force of evil that seeks to devour all life, contained in the form of a sword.

---

• Achilles' Heel: Soul Edge's eye is vulnerable to piercing attacks, and attacking it can disrupt its control over its host.
• Arch-Enemy: To Soul Calibur, it’s Good Counterpart.
• Artifact of Doom: Is incredibly ancient, and seeks to devour all life.
• BFS: Soul Edge was once an ordinary two-handed sword, but by the time of the main series, its most common form is of a massive sword with an eye in its hilt.
• Big Bad: The main one for the whole series.
• Bishōnen Line: Fits this trope the best way that an inanimate object can. Soul Edge's most common form is closer to a messy heap of red flesh rather than an actual sword, but when it finally becomes complete during SCIV, it takes the form of a solid, proper-looking zweihander. By SCV, it's back to its original "heap of flesh" form as it recuperates from its defeat, but when it finds a very suitable host in the form of Pyrrha, its blade once again becomes much sleeker (as pictured above).
• Bling-Bling-BANG!: The sword that would one day become Soul Edge was an ornate greatsword. Its Nauplius form, depicting the "young" Soul Edge wielded by Algol and Arcturus many years ago, still looks like one even with Soul Edge's corruption beginning to grow over it.
• The Corruption: Soul Edge's evil energy taints the souls of those who are exposed to it, turning them into Malfested. Most Malfested are indistinguishable from humans except for pale skin, red eyes, and homicidal tendencies. Others, like Nightmare and Necrid, undergo grotesque metamorphoses as a result of exposure to particularly potent doses of Soul Edge's power.
• Demonic Possession: If the wielder of Soul Edge is weak-willed or unable to best Inferno in a Battle in the Center of the Mind, then he/she will become the sword's host. And even if they do win, it's only a matter of time...
• Determinator: The only ones able to successfully resist its influence were Algol and Pyrrha.
• Dual Wielding: Took the form of two longswords when wielded by Cervantes.
• Eldritch Abomination: While it started out as an ordinary sword, according to Darth Vader's intro in SCIV, Soul Edge is the physical manifestation of "[a being] that could best be described as a convergent energy [form]". Furthermore, when damaged, it retreats into an Eldritch Location called Astral Chaos and either repairs itself or scatters its shards around the world, and its power transforms those infected by it into monsters called Malfested.
• Empathic Weapon: Has a mind and will of its own (see Inferno above), and actively tries to influence and take over its wielder.
• Eternal Recurrence: The Soul series' motto isn't "a tale of souls and swords, eternally retold" for nothing. Soul Edge awakens and claims a host in order to destroy/conquer the world. Soul Calibur awakens and claims a host to seal/shatter Soul Edge. Once Soul Edge regains enough power to take a new host, the cycle repeats, and it's been going on for millennia with neither weapon being powerful enough to fully destroy the other.
• Evil Counterpart: It’s one to Soul Calibur, both are ancient and powerful swords that have spiritual beings in them and both were wielded by different individuals. But while Soul Calibur is a holy sword of light, Soul Edge is a demonic sword of darkness.
• Evil Weapon: Soul Edge used to be a normal sword, but after centuries of being soaked in blood, it became a shapeshifting demonic weapon with its own mind and will.
• Eyes Do Not Belong There: Has an eye in its hilt, and some of its forms are studded with eyeballs.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Literally, considering its host. It was initially an ordinary sword, but after too many battles, it became a sentient Evil Weapon.
• Holy Burns Evil: The only times Soul Edge has canonically been destroyed were by holy weapons like Sophitia's Omega Sword and Soul Calibur.
• Humanoid Abomination: Not Soul Edge itself, but Charade, who is a conglomerate of Soul Edge's shards in the shape of a human skeleton with an enormous eye in its ribcage. Nightmare in SCIII is Inferno possessing Siegfried's discarded armour, and in SCIV said armour has become an extension of Soul Edge itself.
• Hungry Weapon: Soul Edge is ravenous for the souls of any and all who stand before it, growing stronger with each kill.
• Fisher King: Its power taints the city of Ostrheinsburg, turning it into a cursed place that is haunted by the ghosts of those who have died there.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Was once a normal sword, but by consuming the blood and souls of countless people, it became something much more.
• Instant Allegiance Artifact: It corrupts whoever wields it regardless of their intentions, and only a handful of people have been able to successfully resist.
• Living Weapon: It's a sword made of twisted flesh, metal, and bone, with a huge eye in its hilt.
• Made of Evil: Soul Edge was once a normal sword until it tasted too much blood on the battlefield, giving it sentience and an evil soul called Inferno.
• Man Behind the Man: The puppet-master pulling Nightmare's strings.
• Mind Manipulation: It can read the souls of its wielders, and seeks to manipulate or outright control them into serving it.
• More Teeth than the Osmond Family: Its Complete forms when wielded by Nightmare in SCII and SCIII are lined with fangs.
• More than Mind Control: If it doesn't outright take over its host, it manipulates them to serve its interests.
• Morph Weapon: A key feature of Soul Edge is that it will take the form of whatever weapon the user is most comfortable using. When Cervantes used it, it was two separate swords referred to as "Male & Female" (the Male sword being the long sword and the Female sword being the shorter wavy sword). The Female blade was shattered by Sophitia and the Male blade was picked up by Siegfried, who became Nightmare and wielded it as a zweihander because that was his weapon. Later on, Pyrrha wields Soul Edge as a short sword and shield, like her mother. Cervantes also reclaimed a piece of Soul Edge during the events of SCII and SCIII, during which it replaced his longsword (Acheron) but Cervantes continued to use his shorter pistol sword (Nirvana). Soul Edge/Inferno itself takes a liking to Siegfried and prefers to stay in the great sword form, which is why it manipulated Graf Dumas to stick with the One-Handed Zweihänder style in SCV that Nightmare had been using during SCIII and SCIV (assuming that it was Raphael under the armor, this is quite a difference to what he would be accustomed to).
• Omnicidal Maniac: Its raison d'etre is to kill.
• Pillar of Light: Due to being imbalanced after its Female half was destroyed, when Soul Edge Male claimed Siegfried as a host, it unleashed the Evil Seed, which infected thousands of people with its power and scattered shards across the world.
• Power Limiter: Despite Inferno-as-Nightmare collecting almost all its scattered shards in SCIV, Soul Edge wasn't able to unleash its full power due to needing a proper host. After recovering from being shattered in SCV's opening cinematic, Soul Edge forced Siegfried's style on Graf Dumas in an experiment to see if it could take a host while retaining its favorite form. However, it found that in order to unleash its full potential, it still had to take on a form suited to its wielder. As such, it was delighted to claim Pyrrha as its new host due to its fragment inside her containing memories of Sophitia — who had once destroyed it — and Pyrrha being skilled in Sophitia's fighting style, which it wanted to use against Soul Calibur.
• Sealed Evil in a Duel: In III, Siegfried attempted to destroy Soul Edge with Soul Calibur, but failed due to Inferno escaping into his discarded armour and only ended up merging the swords into the Soul Embrace.
• Shapeshifter Weapon: Can change shape to accommodate its wielder's fighting style.
• Soul-Cutting Blade: Soul Edge cuts and consumes the souls of its victims.
• Soul Eating: Devours the souls of its victims to become more powerful.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Due to information not traveling as fast or reliable in the 16th century, Soul Edge's reputation has been skewed, particularly in the eyes of Mitsurugi and the Korean fighters, who see it as a powerful weapon that will end the firearm age before it ever starts and a salvation that will drive invaders from their shores respectively. Characters like Sophitia, on the other hand, know its true nature and stop at nothing to see it destroyed.
• Weapon Wields You: Soul Edge has possessed everyone who wielded it except Algol.
• Worf Had the Flu: It's purportedly the most-powerful weapon in existence aside from its counterpart Soul Calibur, but it's almost never seen at full power due to Sophitia shattering half of it at the end of Soul Edge. Even when Inferno-as-Nightmare collects most of the shards in SCIV, it's still unable to release its full power due to needing a compatible host and it is shattered again by Siegfried in the opening cinematic of SCV.
• Wrecked Weapon: One half of it was shattered at the end of Soul Edge, and following that Nightmare's goal — as well as that of several other antagonists and protagonists — is to collect the scattered shards.
• Yandere: It seems to have a fixation on either reclaiming or killing Siegfried.
• Yin-Yang Bomb: As the Embrace of Souls in SCIV.
• Yin-Yang Clash: With its Unholy Holy Sword counterpart Soul Calibur.

Additional Characters

Seong Han-Myeong

Soul Calibur VI Appearance

^{Appearance in Soul Edge}

"Is that all you got?"

Origin: Jirisan, Joseon Kingdom (South Korea)

Weapon: Mountain Breaker, a Chinese sword

Fighting style: Seong-style Longsword

Voiced by: ^note Takashi Nagasako (Soul Edge; Japanese)

The father of Seong Mi-na. The master and owner of the Seong dojo. The owner of the Seong family swords Mountain Breaker which he uses, Blue Storm which he gave to Hwang, and White Storm which Mi-na lent to Yun-seong who took it with him when he left the dojo. A secret character only playable in Soul Edge.

---

• The Artifact: Originally, the console game was set to feature various playable 'guest fighters' who were prominent in various character's Edge Master Mode storylines. This idea was scrapped early on. However, Han Myong was already finished and so was implemented into the game. Remnants of unfinished characters can be seen through hacking.
• Cool Teacher: The master of the Seong dojo.
• Fantasy-Forbidding Father: Han-Myeong isn't too thrilled about his daughter's adventurous streak. Somewhat understandable if you remember that his wife and son died of illness.
• Leitmotif: ''Asia Dawn'' and ''P.N.K.N.''
• The Mentor: To Hwang and Yun-seong.
• Moveset Clone: His moveset is the same as Hwang's, though adding a handful of additional attacks.
• Put on a Bus: Stays in his Dojo and does not appear after Soul Edge but is mentioned in Seong Mi-na's and Yun-seong's profile.

---