Elphelt Valentine
Write your name here and then we can start our life together! I don't care if it's small but I'd like a nice home in the suburbs...and four kids! Would you want a dog? Or a cat? I like dogs. But cats are okay too! Dogs are just so friendly and happy and we can snuggle up with a dog in bed and say 'I love you, dear--' O-Oh my gosh, I-I can't--!
― Elphelt Valentine[src]
Elphelt Valentine is a major character in the Guilty Gear series. She is one of the Valentines created by the Universal Will, alongside her sister Ramlethal. Somewhat obsessed with finding a suitable husband, she does not wish to follow her mother's directive of destroying humanity.
Design
In Sign, Elphelt has pink hair, green eyes, and wears a primarily white dress resembling a wedding dress, accented with red belts and pink ribbons with clover symbols. Her most notable features are the bouquet of large red roses she carries around, and her revealing bust window.
In Revelator, Elphelt received a new design. Her colors, except for her eyes and smaller details across her outfit are now completely grayscale (with her pink hair changed into light grey, and the red belts on her design to black). She now wears large spiked belts across her neck and wrists, and her dress is given a darker, more gothic motif, along with being open in the front, exposing more of her legs and cleavage. The roses strapped to her waist are now in a black bouquet, the pink clover on her head accessory is changed to mint, and the pupils in her eyes are smaller.
In Strive, Elphelt retains her light grey hair that is now shortened to a bob cut. She now wears a short white dress with pink frills, a pink jacket with a green clover-shaped zipper, pink thigh-high heeled boots with spikes at the tip of the shoes as well as the top, black fingerless gloves, pink spiked bracelets and a matching choker and headband. The bunny ears present in her previous designs are no longer here.
Personality
Unlike her predecessors, Valentine and Ramlethal, Elphelt is bursting with personality. She is capable of feeling emotions as any other human would in order to accommodate to her purpose: to infiltrate human society.
Elphelt is a kind-hearted lover of nature and animals, and never ignores those who are lonely or in pain. She always tries to exemplify the pinnacle of femininity, only to fail repeatedly, and focuses on the concept of "womanhood". She is also optimistic and stubborn, to the point where it is very difficult to dampen her mood or convince her to change her mind.
Story
Background
Elphelt Valentine was a Valentine created by the Universal Will as a sleeper agent for the purpose of observing Sol until Justice is revived, implanted with several subroutine programs within her subconscious that would activate when the time comes. Shortly after she was born, she was left completely ignorant of her nature as a Valentine and led a relatively normal life.
She eventually became the fiancée of a Death Metal singer until the day of their wedding, when her programming reactivated and her memories returned. The details are unclear as to what happened, but Elphelt then set out to "rebel" against her mother's orders and raided the Frasco II laboratory, where she acquired various magi-tech weapons from the top-secret Cyrus Project. Afterwards, she used her ability to locate Prime Gear Cells to keep an eye on Sol Badguy, but she found Ky Kiske instead about a month before the events of Sign.
She told him what would happen with her sister Ramlethal, but for security reasons, she was sealed at the Illyrian Special Quarters on the Royal Fleet One.
Guilty Gear Xrd
Once her predictions come to pass, Ky releases Elphelt and she agrees to stop Ramlethal, telling him that they both possess the same control restraints. Despite Sol Badguy’s initial impression of her as she prevented her sister from triggering her self destruct, Elphelt played a role in helping Sin reach Ramlethal and saves Sol when he attempts to enter the Backyard after the Conclave and Justice. When the Conclave commence with their plan to revive Justice with St. Elmo’s Fire, Elphelt was originally tasked to serve as Dr. Paradigm’s defense before leaving to help Leo Whitefang fend off the Opus under Justice’s control. But during the fight, Elphelt’s programming takes over and reveals her mission of infiltrating Ky’s group as part of her programming. She assumes her Valentine form while fighting Sol, only to be defeated while encased in a barrier by the Universal Will for retrieval. As Sol attempts to break through, Elphelt regains herself and activates her self-destruct as her only act of defiance against the Universal Will. But she is stopped by Ramlethal, who now embraces the concept of emotion while vowing to save her sister. Elphelt is then brought back to the Backyard for one final role in the Universal Will’s plan.
Elphelt ends up in the custody of Ariels who is the vessel of the Universal Will, restrained to a dormant Justice, expressing regret of meeting her mother upon seeing the kind of person she is and her decision to eliminate Ramlethal. Elphelt also learns that the Universal Will intends to merge her with Justice as part of the being’s plan to create the first of a new ideal human race to replace humanity, a plan that the Illyrian Kings learn and seek to prevent.
Elphelt later tries reasoning with Ariels, who uses metaphors to explain her intent to kill humanity and start from scratch before proceeding to break Elphelt’s will by going after Ramlethal. Ariels arranges an imitation of Elphelt’s signal to lure out Ramlethal to a city as she is accompanied by Sin and a coalition Leo assembled to evacuate the residents. Ariels springs the trap, with Ramlethal being caught in a giant Gear’s explosion while being held back by Phalanx Nine member and rescuing a child resembling Elphelt. With Ramlethal seemingly annihilated, a horrified Elphelt screams and denounces her mother as pure evil.
Following Ariels exposing herself as the Universal Will during the Celebration of Victory, Sol’s group tracks her down to the North Atlantic where Elphelt is being held. Though warned that Ariels will kill them the moment they reach them, Elphelt refuses to send them away even after being told some of them may survive the Absolute World and is moved to tears while Sol greets her from Johnny's plane with the promise of dinner. As Sol, Ky, and Sin hold off Ariels, Jack-O' Valentine moves to free Elphelt and takes her place to merge with Justice. When the battle goes south, Ramlethal arrives with Raven, having received a portion of his immortality, and the Kingdoms' artillery blasts Ariels, incapacitating her and freeing Elphelt from Justice. Elphelt is returned to the Kingdoms' fleet just in time before the armada opens fire on Justice, while Ariels makes one final request for Sol to take care of Elphelt and Ramlethal.
In the aftermath, Elphelt is living with Ky’s family and reveals a newspaper detailing Dizzy’s role in defending the people from the giant Gears to convince Ky not to resign as First King.
Guilty Gear -Strive-
Elphelt and her family appear in the epilogue enjoying a moment of peace after the victory of Ky and Sol against I-No and Happy Chaos. After the battle against The Universal Will, Elphelt took up a postion in Illyria Castle. She isn't able to keep up with the work and makes mistakes. No one blames Elphelt for her mistakes, but they still weigh heavily on Elphelt, which leads her to run off. She wonders what she can do to bring a smile to people's faces, and this leads her to form her band, Speothos Venaticus [4].
Abilities
Elphelt's playing style is remarkably different to other character in that, instead of a single melee-type of weapon, she uses a wide range of weapons to deal damage. She primarily uses long-range rifles and shotguns, which convert ambient mana into ammunition, with her main weapons being the Ms. Confille and Ms. Travailler. From a distance, she is able to snipe and 'potshot' opponents, while being able to aim and reload quickly. Elphelt also makes use of a pistol, fruit-shaped grenades, a cannon, and champagne—most of which are concealed inside her rose bouquet. This bouquet and its individual flowers also function as melee weapons, along with a hidden cake-cutting blade.
Additionally, Elphelt has a latent power that allows her to know and teleport to the location of any individual with Prime field/Pure Gear Cells; however, it is randomized and Elphelt doesn't know who she will teleport to.
Music
- Marionette - Guilty Gear Xrd
- Extras - Guilty Gear Strive
Quotes
Allusions
- Elphelt's floral motif and use of ranged weaponry seems to draw inspiration from the American hard rock band Guns N' Roses. Her -Revelator- attire resembles Stephanie Seymour's wedding dress in the band's "November Rain" music video. Another reference is the quote "You Could Be Mine" written on her dress, which is the title of one of their songs.
- Elphelt's use of artillery may also be a nod to the American concept of a shotgun wedding, wherein one party (usually the groom) is forced to wed another.
- Her wedding themes may also likely draw inspiration from the song "White Wedding" by Billy Idol.
- Her Instant Kill is a possible allusion to Bon Jovi's "You Give Love a Bad Name".
- Elphelt's eyes having a diamond-like color to them could be a possible allusion to the album Diamond Eyes by Deftones.
- Her victory quote "Feelin' lucky, punk? 'Cause I sure do!" is likely a reference to the famous, but often misquoted line from the film Dirty Harry.
- Elphelt's name and rifle could be a reference to Eliphalet Remington, the founder of Remington Arms.
Trivia
- Elphelt shares her birthday with Axl Low and Dizzy, coincidentally two other characters who share inspiration from Guns N' Roses. All three of the characters were born on Christmas.
- Elphelt and Noel Vermillion from the BlazBlue series are both gunslingers who share a dislike of bugs and insects. Coincidentally, they also share the same birthday. They are also artificial beings who bear something in common to the loved ones of the main protagonists. Additionally, they take on their alternate/true forms when they are forced to fight against the protagonist.
- Elphelt's fighting style is quite similar to Bulleta/B.B. Hood from the Darkstalkers series, who also favors concealed weaponry and unsuspecting outward appearance.
- May cannot pronounce Elphelt's name, as heard when using her System Voice in the Xrd games.
- Elphelt shares both her Japanese and English voice actresses with Mika Returna of the UNDER NIGHT IN-BIRTH series
- Elphelt's outfit in Revelator has several phrases written on it:
- On the top of her boots, "No one cares",
- On her gloves and headband, "Never again",
- On her shoulder pads, "I don't know why" (right) and "It can't be done" (left),
- On her bouquet holder, "Nowhere to go",
- On her belt's cross accessory, "It can't be done",
- On her dress, "Never again" (abdomen) and "Nothing matters" (bottom).
- The only male character she does not fantasize about marrying in her win quote is Bedman, and the only female character she fantasizes about marrying is Haehyun due to her male disguise.
- Costumes based on Elphelt's Revelator look appear in Border Break x Zero, Dead or Alive 5 Last Round for Honoka, and in #COMPASS for Jeanne d'Arc.
- Elphelt has made guest appearances in the following games: Crusaders Quest, Brave Frontier, Chain Chronicle, Girls' Frontline, Star Ocean: Anamnesis, Epic Seven, Elemental Story, and Code Shifter.
- Elphelt mentions her being a fan of a show titled "Magical Ab-venger" in her mirror match quotes in both Xrd and Strive[5]
- Elphelt's main weapons are Ms. Confille, Ms. Travailler, and Miss Charlotte.
- Elphelt in Guilty Gear Xrd Revelator is one of two characters to ever get more than one costume, the other being Sol in Guilty Gear 2 -Overture-.
Gallery
External links
References
- ↑ Guilty Gear 2 -Overture- script § "Curtain Call"
- ↑ [GGWorld - "Valentine"]
- ↑ https://www.guiltygear.com/ggst/kr/character/elp
- ↑ Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedGG World - ↑ Elphelt Valentine/Quotes