Maybe this should be in the Easter Eggs or Story Discussion threads, but whatevers.
Anyhow, this came up a couple of weeks ago on the Skullgirls Facebook page where someone asked if anyone associated Parasoul, the Black Egrets and the Canopy Kingdom with Nazisim.
Honestly I didn’t even think this was much of a question as as far as I’m concerned they very blatantly are supposed to immediately make that association. (Black uniforms, identical flags with umbrella motifs, German weaponry, vehicles and naming conventions, etc) However, this being the internet there was dissenting opinion on the subject.
So I’m curious, does anyone here think that Parasoul and company are not supposed to conjure up Nazi imagery? I’m genuinely interested to see if there’s other points of view.
Personally I always got the impression that Parasoul was specifically made to be as typically Evil as possible (Nazi with Satanic imagery), but is actually the good guy of the story. That juxtaposition yo.
I’ve always considered it a simple stab or reference to it. I considered that Parasoul’s original design was something of a villain and she was after the skullheart for her own gains, maybe she had a tyrannical iron fist on the populace before and not only were you stopping her from getting the skullheart but you were fighting against her own tyranny (ROW ROW FIGHT DA POWAH FUCK DA POLICE and all dat gud shiet.) Somewhere along the line Alex may have decided to drop the tyrannical theme (Maybe in fear for getting labeled a Nazi sympathizer) and decided to make her one of the good guys. I was also curious in where he got the inverted cross thing from (Parasouls ist the kvltest). Maybe it was a left over from the evil, tyrannical imagery period. Or maybe Alex was into 80’s Black Metal. I definitely consider her one of the more cryptic characters.
Haha, I was actually told this very recently and completely forgot! But yar, you get what I mean anyway, it’s generally taken as an anti-religious symbol and immediately stirs up negative emotions.
I do like the idea that something taken to be bad at face value is actually a distorted good image though. I wonder if Alex intended that meaning or was more along the lines of “let’s piss people off”.
Back in the day some characters had general magical ability. Umbrella was mentioned as having a particularly high magical aptitude while Parasoul had virtually none. As far as I recall, Parasoul’s father used the Black Tree to grant him enhanced magical power and after his death she used it herself.
I don’t think I ever read what it did specifically, just that the King used it to kill the previous Skullgirl. In doing so the Tree blew up his head, but kept him alive afterwards.
That’s more general Story Discussionthan ‘Is Parasoul a Nazi’ though.
The sad thing is that swastikas (clockwise or not) were pretty common symbols here in the west before that guy fucked up their meaning along with the coolness of the german military uniforms, iron crosses, that nation’s pride and a lot of other cool things.
German shepherds, thankfully, were able to avoid it. I wonder if that is the canine squad.
It becomes more unsettling when you take into consideration the fact that Parasoul oversees and approves using live humans as research subjects in the ASG Labs. Of course, Lab Zero kept her in the dark about Painwheel, but it doesn’t seem particularly scrupulous to approve something like Peacock, either.
However, as djunuu’s post linked to, Parasoul’s poster art and the artistic process carefully took into consideration more than one source of inspiration for her design and theme. The Nazi element is definitely there, but I think the Canopy Kingdom and Egrets are supposed to resemble a hybrid of several different nations at the time. Canopy’s prominently American in inspiration, too.
Yeah wearing a symbol of humility is a pretty big claim coming from a princess, although I guess it doesn’t necessarily have the same meaning in canon.
