Sure thing.
Hawk’s account will hopefully be ready by the end of this week, and I just won my first batch of Arcadia issues! Hoping for good stuff within.
Guy’s images when he speaks in Namco x Capcom from the NXC Official Navigation Guide and Illustration Book. It looks like he’s wearing a ring in the last picture.
EDIT: Check page 83 in SF Eternal for Guy’s art, mainly his SFZ/A 3 portrait. It’s just a strap for his glove that goes around the middle finger of both gloves, oops…
Ah well, forget I goofed and check me out at the NY comic con… holding up a poster, holding up a sketch book and getting my Ingrid sketch from Omar Dogan… whistle… whistle… whistle… 
http://www.clubudoncomics.com/nycomicon/10.html
Confused, what do you mean middle finger or ring finger? If it’s the middle finger it’s not a wedding ring, if it’s a ring at all.
Ah, fixed with an edit, sorry.
Circumstantial nazi ties are that Hitler LOVED the occult (which would tie into Bison’s occult background with Rose) and Bison’s whole “I’ve been known by many names” thing of which Hitler tends to be one of the first names that comes to mind for some reason (Maybe that’s because it’s not like there are THAT many household name evil dictators throughout history, IMHO)
Of course, both of those are highly circumstantial.
I don’t think I could use that, first Hitler was about a weird mix of celtic symbolism and old European racism while Vega doesn’t show interest in any of the two. Second about the names that is a little too vague, there are no hints that he is a rebirth of Hitler and they don’t have anyhing in common except for a military look and well being evil but even that in very different ways.
I’d say that Vega adopting the skull symbol and making the Dolls do a nazi salute (and Vega having a picture of Hitler in his room Oo) shows that “they don’t have anything in common” is a statement that’s somewhat in error.
And IMHO you can’t use lack of Hitler’s racism as counter-evidence because I think it’s pretty obvious why Capcom (or anyone with half a brain) would NEVER implement something like that into a storyline. Of course Vega won’t share Hitler’s racism when doing something like that would get Capcom condemned to oblivion by every nation in the world (this same explanation is likely why Hitler’s christianity could be ignored and assumed never to have existed. Capcom in general is very hesitant to touch on the subject of God in Street Fighter as far as I can tell. The only characters who acknowledge the possibility of Christian God in any way are Boman and Father Bella, the former belonging to a series designed by a nonStreet Fighter guy who’s almost Snowstorm-ish in his ideals and the latter is a Capcom of America game that has a Mature rating anyways. And of course, they changed Gill’s appearance in part to dodge that issue).
Basically, although I suppose by itself it doesn’t count as evidence towards nazi ties, the whole “names” thing combined with all the other evidence should make it pretty obvious that Hitler being at least least one of the dictators intended for Vega’s past lives was what Capcom was shooting for when they had Vega tell Guy about that (assuming it wasn’t mistranslated/misinterpreted). If Vega wasn’t Hitler in a previous life after he’s told Guy that he’s had previous lives when the guy makes his dolls do nazi salutes, has a portrait of Hitler in his home, and uses that skull symbol, then who the heck was he?
Wrong, 1. Video game companies do make games with nazi topics and 2. Capcom did so already.
Also I don’t think that the picture of Hitler (not actually a picture of Hitler, just someone who lools alike) means that they are the same person. Maybe he admires him like many other people for example racists in Afrika who still use the salute today.
And him making them salute doesn’t mean that they are the same person. And because he said that he had many names doesn’t mean that of all billions of names on earth “Adolf Hitler” would be one of Vega’s old names.
Sorry I can’t follow you, how did you jump from Hitler to god? What does one thing have to do with the other?
I do think there are either nazi ties or just intended parallels to show the type of organization. However I don’t see how the two could in any way or form be the same person since their characters, behaviour, intentions and appearance are completely different (except for the logo). Also you say “the whole name thing” as if there was one, there is no “whole name thing” you just interpreted a completely unrelated sentence in a way that makes sence to you, without any indication to them being the same person.
I’m also sceptical about the whole rebirth interpretation in the first place. Does he say that he has many names in SFZ3?
When did I say they didn’t? I said that video game companies do not make games with nazi RACISM as the topic, not nazis themselves. Point me to the last video game that specifically addressed the nazi’s genocide of the holocaust and then you might have a point. Even games FILLED with nazis such as Wolfenstein and Persona Innocent Sin never REMOTELY refer to it WHATSOEVER, so of course Capcom wouldn’t. Any reference of the holocaust in any video game is a third rail of suicide no matter how blatant your game features nazis, and that includes any mentions of racism regarding nazis.
As for the whole ‘name thing as if there is one’, there’s a reason I put an “assuming that the name thing was not mistranslated/misinterpreted” disclaimer. If you don’t want to believe there’s a name thing, that’s why the disclaimer is there. The whole idea obviously becomes null and void if the name thing was just a misinterpretation, which is why I’ve stated as such already.
Of course, if someone has a translation of the Japanese version regarding Vega’s dialogue to Guy, that would help there, but in the case that it wasn’t a misinterpretation, I still think it’s quite obvious who Vega meant when he said that. There aren’t any other dictators that Vega has parallels to that he could have meant, even if he doesn’t match up exactly.
Mighty Final Fight available on the GBA, and DS of course since it’s backwards compatible.
Ok I guess we just disagree here. So was it SFZ3? Because then I don’t care anyway since going back to SFIIWW artwork because of a SFZ3 quote doesn’t make too much sence especially since SFZ3 has changed the whole SFII and Zero universe completely (ie Birdie smarter than Bison, Sagat not in Shadaloo, robot statue…), same with the Zangief gay thing but that’s a whole nother topic.
And how can one build an assumption on the quote that says “I had MANY names” on the fact that the ONLY one could be Hitler anyway? That’s a paradox.
About MFF
I guess MFF counts as FF storyline so they’ll reuse again and again like the other games while FF2,3,Revenge and Streetwise will probably just be ignored.
I said the one that most obviously comes to mind (and likely intended by Capcom to be that) as one of the many names he had, not that it was the only one he had. Assuming no mistranslations, he specifically tells Guy in SFA3 that he’s had many names throughout history and all were associated with fear and despair, and considering the whole nazi similarities, it’s pretty damn obvious that unless that quote was mistranslated, at least one of those names was Hitler.
Vega says to Guy, “I have been known by many names throughout history. All have been associated with fear and despair!” and makes his Dolls do nazi salutes and uses the winged skull as his emblem. How could Capcom not have intended Hitler to be one of Vega’s names when they did something like that? Unless they were idiots who never ever heard about Hitler, they wouldn’t think that the player would think Vega meant he was Alexander the Great or Genghis Khan in the past and not think about Hitler at all.
Street Fighter’s storyline was written by human beings, and ANY human being with any modicrum of common sense whatsoever knows that if he makes a character who’s an evil military dictator that uses winged skull emblems and nazi salutes say that he was also many other famous historic evil men in the past, Hitler would be the first thing that springs to peoples’ minds. If they didn’t intend Vega to have meant Hitler was one of those names when he said that line in SFA3, they wouldn’t have inserted all those skull emblem pics and Doll nazi salutes into SFA3 in the first place.
Hitler in videogames is almost always larger than life like that (they have to focus on the occult aspect of Hitler instead of things like his racist ideals because the latter is something you don’t want to touch with a ten foot pole). In Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Persona, and Bionic Commando with Hitler’s head, it’s always about Hitler somehow expanding beyond life into the supernatural. That Vega was Hitler in a previous life would be no exception to that.
Heck, I wouldn’t be too surprised if there were some intended Hitler rebirth lance of longinus symbolism in Vega’s stabbing of Rose in her ending (my occult loving friend sure loved to joke about that). I’ll have to go research into the specifics of that, someday.
Would be ineteresting to see what he says in the Japanese version of that SFZ3 dialoge.
Anyway, Vega (cape) was created to have a few things in common with Hitler, I think, they look (very vaguely) similar, at least the old win portraits. He’s a dictator, and he uses the power of hate to fight- I took a shot at doing some of the translations of his Japanese win quotes from SF2:CE/Dash on the Genesis/MegaDrive, and I noticed that the win quotes were changed between that game and SSF2. I wonder if they were changed to downplay the Hitler references? Or play them up? Was weird that he was the only one to get ALL new win quotes. And the newer Shadolaw logo didn’t pop up until about that time.
BTW- Bison never ever changed bodies, ever. Ever.
…IMO.
Yeah would be very interesting to read the original quote. I have the SFZ3 official guide and the Gamest Mook, can it be found there?
I think Vega looks like Kato more than anyone else http://mitleid.cool.ne.jp/vega-washizaki.htm and he already had the dictator look. A common way to make a hint to nazis would be to give him an armlet but instead they gave him that rag which Hitler never wore as far as I know. Also Vega doesn’t have any kind of beard or any physical similarity (small, hairstyle, beard…) only a military (still different) look. The red color of his suite to me shows that Vega is a mix of all dictators and resembles the typical power hungry military leader, not a specific one.
I see the salute as a way to show how he established the organization completely committed to him, just like dictators do it (ie Führer, Stalin, Caesar).
Him being a mix of dictators would likely be why he said “many names throughout history” as opposed to just one. It’d actually go against his quote if they made him too similar to Hitler because based on that quote, you’d think he’d be more a combination of various evils throughout history, not just Hitler. That and his body shouldn’t be like Hitler’s even if he was Hitler because Vega’s body is constantly changing. He’d be Cammy one day and Ryu’s the next had things gone according to plan. What’s important then is not that Vega looks like Hitler (he shouldn’t), but that Vega is associated with Hitler (which he’s obviously been almost since day one judging by that artwork with the Hitler portrait). From there, it only takes a storyline writer to later on get the ‘genius’ idea to say “Hey! Vega’s associated with Hitler! How about we make it so that he actually WAS Hitler” to set things in motion (the possibility of one of SFZ3’s storyline writers getting that ‘genius’ bit of inspiration should be no surprise to anyone who knows the SFZ3 storyline)
The main thing really is that among all those names he had throughout history, the chances of Capcom not intending Hitler to be one of them is pretty slim. Although they probably didn’t think of the “Vega is other evil people in previous lives” thing until SFZ3, it’s now obvious they’ve always had a little Hitler on mind regarding Vega (it doesn’t get any more blatant than that picture of Hitler in that artwork, although them specifically going out of their way to change the Emblem into that winged skull is pretty blatant too).
With that in mind, the storyline writers HAD to be aware of the Hitler connotations when they made the storyline for SFZ3. Any insider within Capcom would have to be BLIND and mentally challenged to not realize it was there (especially given how they shove that winged skull emblem down the player’s throats all over the place. It’s in the backdrop of every ending and I find it difficult to imagine they would not realize the whole nazi similarity while doing that).
Now, if you’re a story teller and you KNOW that a character has had several references to Hitler in the past, and you decided to make your character say that he used to be several famous evil people in the past, odds are pretty good you meant Hitler to be one of them. Because they don’t get much more famously historically evil than Hitler does and all the other references are already there. If you really didn’t intend Hitler to be one of those names despite all the nazi references that you yourself went out of your way to plaster all over the backdrop of the credits, you should have been nice enough to give something to completely contradict it like… I don’t know, make one of the Dolls Jewish or something (then again, Vega didn’t care for the lives of his Dolls very much either). Although you’d still be wierd because most people would be smart enough to not have made Vega say that line in the first place if they didn’t intend the player to think about Hitler when Vega said it.
(On a side note of conjecture, the date of Hitler’s death might actually make a decent date for Vega’s birth, given what little we know about the timeline of Vega’s life. Not that I’d count that as evidence so much as just saying it could fit if the Hitler rebirth thing was true)
All of this is assuming that quote wasn’t mistranslated of course.
Vega(cape) mentions genocide is one of his agendas in SF2V in either the next or the next to the last episode, that was one of Hitler’s agendas too.
I myself thought of him to be lots of powerful people throughout history. Alexander the Great, Napolean, Julius Ceaser, Attila the Hun, Hitler and so on. Could just be due to reincarnation given some of the time gaps here, or him just jumping bodies upon death until he finds the right one, with the Shun Goku Satsu stopping that cold sending him to Hell.
Yeah, a few times this discussion comes up on the net of who he was, someone will mention Hitler and someone else would say, “Hell no he’s not a racist!” I think it even happens in those Saiki pages I’ve been sending Aerialgroove too, can’t recall. It’s a very touchy issue.
Thanks again, vasili10! Lately I’ve been expanding on the Saturday Night SLam Masters entry at wikipedia.
Vega=Hitler?
Again it’s not a Hitler portrait, the beard is different and that’s one of his main “gimicks”. I think it could be a Hitler imitation though, to show he admires his power or something. I don’t doubt the association at all, that’s why I brought it up in the first place, I just don’t see them being one.
Even IF the SFZ3 storywriters want him to once have been Hitler that doesn’t mean that the people who drew the original art wanted it, therefore you can’t use it as an evidence in my opinion.
I ignore SFIIV, it’s too far away from the original story unlike the Kanzaki manga and SFIIAM. Who was he going to order genocide on anyway?
He’d commit genocide on weaker people / unruly and chaotic nations I suppose, something like what Shishio Makoto of Rurouni Kenshin wanted, the strong ruling over the weak. That was one of the reasons Himura Kenshin stopped Shishio Makoto, he knew that a world of the strongest ruling over the weak would result in massive slaughter. Just a guestimate there, who knows.
I don’t think Vega(cape) himself was acting out of character in SF2V. Unlike say, Cammy. He was still brainwashing, dealing drugs and so on. You might have to swap out the Eagle head for the Psycho Drive, but at that time the Psycho Drive itself didn’t exist, ditto for Doll Cammy. The bad SFZ3 ending shows you by him blowing up that city that he is not above mass murder, which may or may not fit what you consider a form of genocide but at least he won’t bat an eye at killing hundreds of people. Not that I care if you chose to embrace or ignore SF2V though, really subjective.
Worth noting that there’s a big difference between Alpha Bison and SF2/Other Bison. Alpha Bison is patterned more after the one in the SF2 animated movie (this is where the plot from A2/A3 of Bison kidnapping Ryu to harness his power for his own use comes from, though it may have been in some manga prior to that), and is more of an anime supervillian. SF2 Bison generally carries himself with a bit more dignity, especially compared to A3 Bison. The latter is a bit more cartoonish IMO, though maybe it’s partially because of the art style.
To reiterate my stance on Bison switching bodies (with one caveat)-
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A3 text regarding Ryu is a mistranslation; Bison clearly wants him under his thrall and/or to power the Psycho Drive, and that’s exactly what happens in Bisons/the Bad Ending of A3. The text is translated as something very specific like “You will be my new host body!!” while the text in the Japanese version was something more along the lines of having Ryu’s body to use, which would make it easy to mistranslate, I guess. Vega’s ending says Bison wanted Cammy as a substitute body- which could mean that he wanted to use it in the same way, but as a backup plan (using his own DNA in her to make her more powerful and able to survive to be useful). Or, it could mean he wanted to jump into her body, which of course makes no sense whatsoever. But crazier things have been written.
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Most importantly, this only happens in A3. Even in SF2 Revival, if you want to accept that as new canon (I don’t think canon really exists in a specific way either, but that’s another post), AFAIK mentions nothing about Bison changing bodies. Seeing as how Bison blows up in every single ending in SFA3 with the exception of his own, it would be worth mentioning, yes? AFAIK it makes no mention, either, of Bison having been defeated- which would be pertinent information, I think. Does it even mention the Psycho Drive? I forget. That’s if you even want to accept SF2:R as canon- you’ll notice that HSF2 didn’t adopt any of it’s storyline changes.
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It is not necessary- If SFA3 storylines were written so that they fit into SF2 (they were obviouly not…Bison dies in all A3 endings, many characters show up who have no business at the time, etc…much more of an A2 sequel than an SF2 prequel), he simply could have escaped or survived “somehow.” He would only need a new body (of which there is no evidence anywhere that he ever obtained, in any source ever), if his normal one died.
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The A3 Rose ending exception: Bison does hop into Rose’s body here (in this one specific ending), in a very specific situation. Bison and Rose use two versions of the same power, so there’s a reason you don’t see him jumping into Blanka or Ken’s body instead. There is literally no other sitauation in any source where Bison ever changes bodies, other than maybe some manga somewhere (though I’ve never even heard of that being mentioned). And, furthermore, there is no mention of Bison ever leaving Rose’s body. It is assumed that he gets a new body and that’s when the SF2 events happen, because you’re seeing A3 as a prequel to SF2, which it strictly isn’t. Since Bison never demonstrates any ablilty to change his body, it’s actually a better assumption that he stays in Rose’s. Actually…wasn’t it vasili who quoted some book that talked about various endings and said “Bison continues on in Rose’s body…” after translating it? If that’s the case at all, you’d have to assume that it never happened in canon, as Bison in Rose’s body is not who we see in the later games (and the writer of the ending would have of course known this while writing it).
So, Bison never changes bodies, unless we’re talking about A3 Bison specifically. So, for him to say he’s been known my many names (the “throughout history” part is what I’m curious about), sorta fits in A3, I guess, kinda. Maybe.