Hello there !
Here's a complete analysis of Valentine's personality I made just for you !
We'll explore the important sides of her true nature and try to discover why she is like that.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Just a few things before beginning :
First, I plan to make several analyses of this kind (but not only for Skullgirls characters, so I'll probably create a blog or something). So this is a kind of test, to see if it interests people.
Then, I'm french and I maybe made some grammatical errors. If you see some, please tell me ! I really want to perfect my english !
Why making analyzes ?
Cause I'm a very curious person, and I love analysing people, cultures, arts, but also exploring fictional characters, lores, etc, to understand things better.
Moreover, I really enjoy Skullgirls lore (and I would have loved to throw in my two cents !)
I've chosen to do Valentine first, because she's my favorite character, of course, but also because I think she's one of the most complex and interesting characters of Skullgirls, but also the most mysterious one, as “She keeps to herself, so much of her true nature and personality are unknown.” (source : http://skullgirls.com/characters/valentine/).
Everything you'll read in this post are my own speculations, this is just a fan theory.
I will use all official informations we actually know, and different aspects of the human personality, as a base to analyze Valentine (and for the other characters I'll possibly do). Despite the fact that she is my favorite Skullgirls character, I'll remain as objective as possible.
However, a real person's personality is waaay more complex than a fictional character's one (it is impossible to create a complete personality and psychology for a character), so this analysis will be pretty simple.
Sources : - Skullgirls wikia : http://skullgirls.wikia.com/wiki/Valentine
- Skullgirls official site : http://skullgirls.com/characters/valentine/
- Skullheart forums : http://skullheart.com/index.php?thr...-revealed-during-igg-reward-skype-calls.1828/
- Skullheart forums too : http://skullgirls.com/forums/index.php?threads/the-canon-info-thread-what-we-know.8/
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Now we're ready to operate !
1. Her "masks"
We all wear masks everyday and in every situations, even if we're not aware of it. Valentine too, but which ones and why ?
- Sexuality mask :
So, basically, it was just a technique, but she uses it so often that we can now consider it became a part of her as a false personality trait, a mask. But why is she wearing it ?
I think it is because she feels constantly threatened (we'll see why just after) and so, she is always ready to defend herself.
- Cold-hearted mask :
There are people who hates to show their emotions to the others and to themselves. Why ? Because, for these persons, these are signs of weakness. Being cold and condescending is like an armor and showing emotions are like breaches that can be exploited by the others.
This is typical of people who do much of the strength and don't like weak people. They know they have weaknesses, but don't want to see it, because it is a thing they don't like in themselves. In consequence, they repress their emotions and show their strength to intimidate, hoping that the others will believe they are invulnerable.
It can be concluded that Valentine doesn't assume who she really is and hides behind a cold/invulnerable woman mask.
Also, Valentine seems to trust nobody, except maybe the Last Hope members (but probably not totally) before they were killed, and considers everybody else as a potential threat.
So, she also wears the mask of the cold-hearted woman because she feels constantly threatened.
All of this clearly shows a lack of self-confidence (concerning her “sentimental being", not her physical abilities, nor her “job”) and this is the reason (but probably not the only one) of why she feels constantly threatened and sees everybody as a potential threat.
- Cruel mask :
- She's very fond of experimentations and doesn't seem to care about the suffering she can cause to her "subjects", and even seems to love that.
Actually, I think that she only seems to place the blame on Painwheel, but deep down inside of her, Valentine doesn't blame this one, but herself, for having failed to train Painwheel correctly. Of course, according to the first quote of this paragraph and according to what I've said before, Valentine will never admit to it.
Moreover, I agree with the hypothesis that Val has been forced (most likely by Brain Drain) to work on the Painwheel project.
She considers strength and resistance to pain as a virtue (we know she hates weak people) but I think that even her considers there are ethical boundaries to the pain she can cause to another person, and that there are limits to the pain a human can support. She probably hated making Painwheel suffer so much. After all, Painwheel was just an innocent schoolgirl...
So, she doesn't have pleasure to hurt people, but shows the opposite only to scare her opponents. The only case where she could have pleasure to hurt would be for revenge against those who dare getting in her way.
But then, what about her, apparently morbid, fascination for Ms. Fortune (in the story mode of this one) ?...
Well, you have to admit that, biologically, Ms. Fortune is quite interesting, no ? So ok, we know that what maintains her alive is the Life Gem, but not Valentine. For her, this is an entire mystery to unravel ! If such a thing happened in real life, don't you think tons of scientists from all around the world are gonna want to study her ?
I think Valentine never really planed to hurt Ms. Fortune, this was just her cruel mask, but she is still (scientifically) interested by the mystery she represents.
So, Valentine is not cruel. And, to be honest, I even think that she is afraid of cruel people, which could explain why she wears a cruel mask. It is probably a bit like Batman and his fear of bats (in the Nolan's trilogy).
To conclude, Valentine wears three main masks for different situations : The cold-hearted mask to protect herself, and the sexuality and cruel masks (linked to the cold-hearted one) to distract or scare her (potential) opponents.
2. Her vision of good and evil
So ok, Valentine is not really cruel, nor a cold-hearted person, but she still seems to be immoral and unethical.
- Balance :
Valentine is fond of eastern culture, so she perhaps follows the Skullgirls universe equivalent of the Taoist philosophy, which is based on a dynamic vision of the Yin and Yang.
To summarize, the yin and yang represents a vision of the duality where the two opposites are complementary and inseparable. Good can't exist without evil, this is like two sides of the same coin. When you do something good, something evil happen too, and vice versa : if you do something evil, something good happen too.
For example : You offer a gift to someone you love, just to make her/him happy, without expecting something in return. This is a good act, but it can have some unexpected consequences : maybe someone else (who sees you giving the gift to this person) can be jealous. This is not entirely your fault, but you still have a part of responsibility because, if you had not given the gift to the first person, the second one would not have been jealous.
Another (more direct) example : You offer a gift to a person you offended in the past, to make up for that. You see this as a good and sincere act, but the person can see this as if you just tried to buy her/him, just by interest.
It questions entirely our vision of reality, right ? But this is another subject...
The goal of life, of people who follow the Taoist philosophy, is to work endlessly on themselves (and on their acts) to keep balance in everything.
I think she does not really care about acting only good or only evil. She act as she thinks of being the most fair. So ok, most of the time, fairness requires to do good but, some rare times, it requires to do evil. Val probably just thinks that, sometimes, the end justifies the means.
So, Valentine wants to destroy the Skullgirl and her masters just to save the world, but it may require to do bad things and eventually to sacrifice some lives, even if she doesn't like that (but, once again, she will never admit to it).
- Experiences :
So, of course, most of you (and people in general) will probably not share her vision of life, and I can understand that, this is not a common thing in our actual occidental societies after all. This (and the fact that she wears cold and cruel masks) is also why she is seen as having no morality.
We can conclude that she is not really immoral, but rather a kind of rebel or, at least, she sees herself like that. And, to me, it seems to be perfectly logical !
Now, you're probably wondering : “But she loves only medical experiments, no ?”
According to the second quote, and to my own opinion, I would say no. Of course Valentine loves medical science, but she also simply loves to learn all sorts of things trough experiences. She seems to consider many things as experiments, even her fights, but probably uses medical vocabulary only to scare her opponents.
To conclude, Valentine is just a rebel and has a moral, but which is kind of different of what we are used to. So, she has her own sense of moral and ethic.
3. Valentine's real personality
Up to there, I have mainly exposed what she was not. Here, we will see who I think she really is, and why.
- Who really is Valentine ?
- “ “ , we can also read that she dislikes sentimentality.
- “ “ , we can also read that she loves studying things from afar.
* One of the only official infos we have concerning Val's real personality is that she is very straightforward. So, she is a simple person, she is honest, frank, direct, sincere, straight and even open.
According to that, I think she is not interested in power, otherwise we would know it, no ?
* I think that what she really wants, is to destroy the Trinity becauseshe's afraid of cruel people, and also because she simply wants to save the world. So, Valentine is not totally selfish. After all, that's (most likely) one of the reasons of why she joined the Anti-Skullgirls labs !
And concerning the weapons she took to the Last Hope members, this is probably more a sentimental act than a selfish one, given that they were the persons to whom she was closest (but not friend with, apparently). But she will never admit that it is a sentimental act, since she hates sentimentality.
* For me, “studying things from afar” means that she is a person who always step back before acting. She seems to think before acting and talking, and she carefully plan her actions. She is not the kind of charging ahead like Beowulf does.
* And so, Valentine does not care about heroism and dying in an epic fight, etc. She doesn't want to survive at all prices either, but, if she has to die, she only wants her death to be not useless.
This is obvious in her story mode ending and before fighting Marie : “Even if I die today, my research will aid the labs for generations.” Then she wish to become the Skullgirl, in order to find out more about the Trinity (“I'm heading deeper into enemy lines”) and searching precious informations that would be useful to destroy them. And, before making this wish, she knew that the Skullheart would corrupt her over time, but she placed her trust in Painwheel, hoping she will be able to kill her when it will happen. She sacrified her life to save the world.
* Valentine doesn't have any friends and probably never had any. She is a hermit, a lone wolf, but she is not asocial at all, otherwise she would probably live alone in the wilds. She just prefers to act alone.
- The origins of her actual personality :
We only know she had a rough childhood and, in the Beowulf's story mode, we learn that she lived the Grand War.
She is most likely heartbroken, but not by a love affair (she probably never dated any guy), but probably by her family, by her legal guardians or by the death of someone close to her.
Or, maybe she lived some horrors on the battlefield during the Grand War and became like that after ? Maybe was she different and used to have friends in the past, but lost them all during the war ?
To summarize...
Here are the most important points of the analysis :
- “... she has zero interest in romance or dating.”,
- she is not really cold-hearted,
- she is not cruel,
- she is not really immoral, she has her own sense of moral and ethic,
- she lacks self-confidence,
- she sees everybody as a potential threat,
- she considers resistance to pain as a virtue...
- ...but she does not like to make others suffer, except maybe for revenge,
- according to eastern culture (which she is fond of) and Taoist philosophy, she does not search to be good or evil, she seeks balance,
- she thinks that, sometimes, the end justifies the means,
- she acts as she thinks of being the most fair,
- she probably thinks there is no fate, only experiences,
- she is a very solitary person but not asocial at all,
- she is a kind of rebel,
- she always step back before acting and talking,
- “she's a very straightforward person”,
- she is not interested in power, she just wants to destroy the Skullgirl and her masters only to save the world,
- she is not totally selfish,
- she wears masks as a shield to protect herself...
- ...but also (according to her ninja techniques) to distract or intimidate her opponents,
- she does not care at all about dying as a hero, she only cares about not dying needlessly,
- she is afraid of cruel people,
- she is heartbroken.
So, is Valentine like you thought she was ? Do you agree or disagree with this analysis ? Please, share your own speculations and opinions !
Voilà, I hope you enjoyed reading this !
If you want me to do others Skullgirls characters personality analysis and speculations, please tell me !
Oh, and tell me which character you want to see next too !
Here's a complete analysis of Valentine's personality I made just for you !
We'll explore the important sides of her true nature and try to discover why she is like that.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Just a few things before beginning :
First, I plan to make several analyses of this kind (but not only for Skullgirls characters, so I'll probably create a blog or something). So this is a kind of test, to see if it interests people.
Then, I'm french and I maybe made some grammatical errors. If you see some, please tell me ! I really want to perfect my english !
Why making analyzes ?
Cause I'm a very curious person, and I love analysing people, cultures, arts, but also exploring fictional characters, lores, etc, to understand things better.
Moreover, I really enjoy Skullgirls lore (and I would have loved to throw in my two cents !)
I've chosen to do Valentine first, because she's my favorite character, of course, but also because I think she's one of the most complex and interesting characters of Skullgirls, but also the most mysterious one, as “She keeps to herself, so much of her true nature and personality are unknown.” (source : http://skullgirls.com/characters/valentine/).
Everything you'll read in this post are my own speculations, this is just a fan theory.
I will use all official informations we actually know, and different aspects of the human personality, as a base to analyze Valentine (and for the other characters I'll possibly do). Despite the fact that she is my favorite Skullgirls character, I'll remain as objective as possible.
However, a real person's personality is waaay more complex than a fictional character's one (it is impossible to create a complete personality and psychology for a character), so this analysis will be pretty simple.
Sources : - Skullgirls wikia : http://skullgirls.wikia.com/wiki/Valentine
- Skullgirls official site : http://skullgirls.com/characters/valentine/
- Skullheart forums : http://skullheart.com/index.php?thr...-revealed-during-igg-reward-skype-calls.1828/
- Skullheart forums too : http://skullgirls.com/forums/index.php?threads/the-canon-info-thread-what-we-know.8/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now we're ready to operate !
1. Her "masks"
We all wear masks everyday and in every situations, even if we're not aware of it. Valentine too, but which ones and why ?
- Sexuality mask :
In many martial arts, it is considered that psychological impact (on your opponents) can totally change the course of a fight (or even a simple debate) ! So you can scare your opponents or use your charms to distract or disturb them (and I can personally tell you this is very useful).
So, basically, it was just a technique, but she uses it so often that we can now consider it became a part of her as a false personality trait, a mask. But why is she wearing it ?
I think it is because she feels constantly threatened (we'll see why just after) and so, she is always ready to defend herself.
- Cold-hearted mask :
On the Skullgirls official site, we can also read that she dislikes weak people.
There are people who hates to show their emotions to the others and to themselves. Why ? Because, for these persons, these are signs of weakness. Being cold and condescending is like an armor and showing emotions are like breaches that can be exploited by the others.
This is typical of people who do much of the strength and don't like weak people. They know they have weaknesses, but don't want to see it, because it is a thing they don't like in themselves. In consequence, they repress their emotions and show their strength to intimidate, hoping that the others will believe they are invulnerable.
It can be concluded that Valentine doesn't assume who she really is and hides behind a cold/invulnerable woman mask.
Also, Valentine seems to trust nobody, except maybe the Last Hope members (but probably not totally) before they were killed, and considers everybody else as a potential threat.
So, she also wears the mask of the cold-hearted woman because she feels constantly threatened.
All of this clearly shows a lack of self-confidence (concerning her “sentimental being", not her physical abilities, nor her “job”) and this is the reason (but probably not the only one) of why she feels constantly threatened and sees everybody as a potential threat.
- Cruel mask :
- In Val's story mode, she clearly says she considers Painwheel as a failure.
- She's very fond of experimentations and doesn't seem to care about the suffering she can cause to her "subjects", and even seems to love that.
Actually, I think that she only seems to place the blame on Painwheel, but deep down inside of her, Valentine doesn't blame this one, but herself, for having failed to train Painwheel correctly. Of course, according to the first quote of this paragraph and according to what I've said before, Valentine will never admit to it.
Moreover, I agree with the hypothesis that Val has been forced (most likely by Brain Drain) to work on the Painwheel project.
She considers strength and resistance to pain as a virtue (we know she hates weak people) but I think that even her considers there are ethical boundaries to the pain she can cause to another person, and that there are limits to the pain a human can support. She probably hated making Painwheel suffer so much. After all, Painwheel was just an innocent schoolgirl...
So, she doesn't have pleasure to hurt people, but shows the opposite only to scare her opponents. The only case where she could have pleasure to hurt would be for revenge against those who dare getting in her way.
But then, what about her, apparently morbid, fascination for Ms. Fortune (in the story mode of this one) ?...
Well, you have to admit that, biologically, Ms. Fortune is quite interesting, no ? So ok, we know that what maintains her alive is the Life Gem, but not Valentine. For her, this is an entire mystery to unravel ! If such a thing happened in real life, don't you think tons of scientists from all around the world are gonna want to study her ?
I think Valentine never really planed to hurt Ms. Fortune, this was just her cruel mask, but she is still (scientifically) interested by the mystery she represents.
So, Valentine is not cruel. And, to be honest, I even think that she is afraid of cruel people, which could explain why she wears a cruel mask. It is probably a bit like Batman and his fear of bats (in the Nolan's trilogy).
To conclude, Valentine wears three main masks for different situations : The cold-hearted mask to protect herself, and the sexuality and cruel masks (linked to the cold-hearted one) to distract or scare her (potential) opponents.
2. Her vision of good and evil
So ok, Valentine is not really cruel, nor a cold-hearted person, but she still seems to be immoral and unethical.
- Balance :
On the Skullgirls official site, we can read that she likes eastern culture.
Valentine is fond of eastern culture, so she perhaps follows the Skullgirls universe equivalent of the Taoist philosophy, which is based on a dynamic vision of the Yin and Yang.
To summarize, the yin and yang represents a vision of the duality where the two opposites are complementary and inseparable. Good can't exist without evil, this is like two sides of the same coin. When you do something good, something evil happen too, and vice versa : if you do something evil, something good happen too.
For example : You offer a gift to someone you love, just to make her/him happy, without expecting something in return. This is a good act, but it can have some unexpected consequences : maybe someone else (who sees you giving the gift to this person) can be jealous. This is not entirely your fault, but you still have a part of responsibility because, if you had not given the gift to the first person, the second one would not have been jealous.
Another (more direct) example : You offer a gift to a person you offended in the past, to make up for that. You see this as a good and sincere act, but the person can see this as if you just tried to buy her/him, just by interest.
It questions entirely our vision of reality, right ? But this is another subject...
The goal of life, of people who follow the Taoist philosophy, is to work endlessly on themselves (and on their acts) to keep balance in everything.
I think she does not really care about acting only good or only evil. She act as she thinks of being the most fair. So ok, most of the time, fairness requires to do good but, some rare times, it requires to do evil. Val probably just thinks that, sometimes, the end justifies the means.
So, Valentine wants to destroy the Skullgirl and her masters just to save the world, but it may require to do bad things and eventually to sacrifice some lives, even if she doesn't like that (but, once again, she will never admit to it).
- Experiences :
This is obvious that for Valentine, nothing is a fate (maybe not even death), nothing is fundamentally grave, and so, everything you live is an experience. For her, there are good and bad experiences, but what matters is that it is still experiences.
So, of course, most of you (and people in general) will probably not share her vision of life, and I can understand that, this is not a common thing in our actual occidental societies after all. This (and the fact that she wears cold and cruel masks) is also why she is seen as having no morality.
We can conclude that she is not really immoral, but rather a kind of rebel or, at least, she sees herself like that. And, to me, it seems to be perfectly logical !
Now, you're probably wondering : “But she loves only medical experiments, no ?”
According to the second quote, and to my own opinion, I would say no. Of course Valentine loves medical science, but she also simply loves to learn all sorts of things trough experiences. She seems to consider many things as experiments, even her fights, but probably uses medical vocabulary only to scare her opponents.
To conclude, Valentine is just a rebel and has a moral, but which is kind of different of what we are used to. So, she has her own sense of moral and ethic.
3. Valentine's real personality
Up to there, I have mainly exposed what she was not. Here, we will see who I think she really is, and why.
- Who really is Valentine ?
- On the Skullgirls official site, we can read that she likes careful planning.
- “ “ , we can also read that she dislikes sentimentality.
- “ “ , we can also read that she loves studying things from afar.
* One of the only official infos we have concerning Val's real personality is that she is very straightforward. So, she is a simple person, she is honest, frank, direct, sincere, straight and even open.
According to that, I think she is not interested in power, otherwise we would know it, no ?
* I think that what she really wants, is to destroy the Trinity becauseshe's afraid of cruel people, and also because she simply wants to save the world. So, Valentine is not totally selfish. After all, that's (most likely) one of the reasons of why she joined the Anti-Skullgirls labs !
And concerning the weapons she took to the Last Hope members, this is probably more a sentimental act than a selfish one, given that they were the persons to whom she was closest (but not friend with, apparently). But she will never admit that it is a sentimental act, since she hates sentimentality.
* For me, “studying things from afar” means that she is a person who always step back before acting. She seems to think before acting and talking, and she carefully plan her actions. She is not the kind of charging ahead like Beowulf does.
* And so, Valentine does not care about heroism and dying in an epic fight, etc. She doesn't want to survive at all prices either, but, if she has to die, she only wants her death to be not useless.
This is obvious in her story mode ending and before fighting Marie : “Even if I die today, my research will aid the labs for generations.” Then she wish to become the Skullgirl, in order to find out more about the Trinity (“I'm heading deeper into enemy lines”) and searching precious informations that would be useful to destroy them. And, before making this wish, she knew that the Skullheart would corrupt her over time, but she placed her trust in Painwheel, hoping she will be able to kill her when it will happen. She sacrified her life to save the world.
* Valentine doesn't have any friends and probably never had any. She is a hermit, a lone wolf, but she is not asocial at all, otherwise she would probably live alone in the wilds. She just prefers to act alone.
- The origins of her actual personality :
Well actually, this is very difficult to determine the origins of her actual personality, because we have really few informations about Valentine's past.
We only know she had a rough childhood and, in the Beowulf's story mode, we learn that she lived the Grand War.
She is most likely heartbroken, but not by a love affair (she probably never dated any guy), but probably by her family, by her legal guardians or by the death of someone close to her.
Or, maybe she lived some horrors on the battlefield during the Grand War and became like that after ? Maybe was she different and used to have friends in the past, but lost them all during the war ?
To summarize...
Here are the most important points of the analysis :
- “... she has zero interest in romance or dating.”,
- she is not really cold-hearted,
- she is not cruel,
- she is not really immoral, she has her own sense of moral and ethic,
- she lacks self-confidence,
- she sees everybody as a potential threat,
- she considers resistance to pain as a virtue...
- ...but she does not like to make others suffer, except maybe for revenge,
- according to eastern culture (which she is fond of) and Taoist philosophy, she does not search to be good or evil, she seeks balance,
- she thinks that, sometimes, the end justifies the means,
- she acts as she thinks of being the most fair,
- she probably thinks there is no fate, only experiences,
- she is a very solitary person but not asocial at all,
- she is a kind of rebel,
- she always step back before acting and talking,
- “she's a very straightforward person”,
- she is not interested in power, she just wants to destroy the Skullgirl and her masters only to save the world,
- she is not totally selfish,
- she wears masks as a shield to protect herself...
- ...but also (according to her ninja techniques) to distract or intimidate her opponents,
- she does not care at all about dying as a hero, she only cares about not dying needlessly,
- she is afraid of cruel people,
- she is heartbroken.
So, is Valentine like you thought she was ? Do you agree or disagree with this analysis ? Please, share your own speculations and opinions !
Voilà, I hope you enjoyed reading this !
If you want me to do others Skullgirls characters personality analysis and speculations, please tell me !
Oh, and tell me which character you want to see next too !
