Lilith is a fighting game character from the Darkstalkers series. She is a third of energy that was split from the succubus Morrigan. This excess energy was separated from her at birth by her father, Belial, to keep her from becoming too powerful. The separated energy formed a consciousness of its own and named itself Lilith.
Biography
Appearance
Lilith is a near color swap of Morrigan Aensland but with obvious changes. Her hair is shortened to neck-length and is either drawn as lavender, lilac or a bright purple. Her outer wings, leotard, shoes and eyes are all red. The inside of her wings are dark green but can be seen as brighter green in one art, presumably from lighting. Her tights are light blue with darker blue bat patterns and her gloves are the same color as the bats. The cut-out on her leotard is changed from a heart to a diamond. She is also a bit shorter than her.
Personality
Lilith is a bright, happy and energetic character. She is very innocent and naïve but is also violent and seems to have some sort of obsession with blood. She doesn't intend to be mean as her personality is meant to be a mix between innocence and cruelty. She simply sees many of her actions as "playing" and enjoys fighting people she sees as being able to satisfy her curiosity. It is unknown of how much of Jedah's plan she truly knew about and the meaning of his salvation, but she didn't like how Jedah "tried to chain her to the darkness again" and at some point knew he was lying to her. In her boss fight against the player as Felicia, she mentions that she is aware that everyone and the entire demon world will go away including herself. Which seems that even if she is aware that everyone and the world will "go away" and become one with the Fetus of God, that all she cares about is being able to experience what little life she has and being able to go back to a fuller state of being. This is a contrast to Morrigan's character who is a very seasoned succubus who is bored of her life, and could care less about living on until her and Lilith finally fused together. Once Lilith and Morrigan have fused together, their personalities co-exist and exist as one.
Concept
Originally during development, Lilith was intended to be the half-angel sister of Morrigan, with one of her conceptual names rumored to be Genevieve. She was going to be the older sister but Morrigan would constantly pick on her as a child. She had angelic wings on the top of her head and would always fold them "to hide them due to her being a darkstalker." There are currently two known concepts of angel Lilith, both being black and white sketches. The first one, looked just like Morrigan except she had angel wings on the top of her head and a different, shorter haircut and no sign of a pattern on her leggings. Instead of using wings to battle she would have used her hair instead and shaped them into weapons. According to Capcom the choice of hair attacks instead of wing attacks, as well as making her part angel, was simply done because they were trying to make her more different than Morrigan.
The second concept, looks similar to the previous one except she now has a halo, the wings on the back are angel wings instead of demon wings, a ballerina outfit and a tiara. Her fighting style was that she would use ballet moves and may have not been intentionally fighting but just trying to dance and beat up her opponents by accident. Some notes state that if she had wings on her back all the time that she'd look "too much like Honey from Fighting Vipers" and wondered if she should only have the wings shown when jumping. For some odd reason this second concept is one of the more commonly used ones when fans show off "Angel Lilith" and incorrectly state that this is the design Capcom was going to use for her, but Capcom has stated (and seen on the translated notes of the very design itself) that this design was never going to be used and was strictly conceptual. It has also incorrectly been stated by some people that Lilith was going to be full angel and never a demon but she was always going to be some sort of demon, all of her angel concepts were half-breeds.
There is a scrapped character who was going to be an assist character for Lilith. It was a cherub with the usual cute baby-like design for cherubs and had curly hair. The cherub held a lyre and would appear in some attacks for Lilith. There is also a bow and arrow right next to the cherub as well as a taller featureless humanoid figure which may or may not have been a transformation or some attack from the cherub. It can be assumed the bow and arrow would later inspire Lilith's "Mystic Arrow" move. The concept art currently is untranslated so many characteristics it may have had in the text remain unknown for non Japanese speakers.
The angel concept was scrapped because there were "too many angels in video games" according to Capcom. This statement seems odd from people in certain countries as there may seem to not be many angels in retro video games but this was most likely a statement from Japanese Capcom as at the time of the production of Vampire Savior, in Japan angels were commonly seen in many arcade games in Japan, such as in the shoot 'em up genre.
Next concept was one that looked just like the current version of Lilith, pitch scenario writer/planner Haruo Murata. The only difference was that it was either going to be a male or an hermaphrodite demon and the feathers on the outfit were meant to be connected to the gloves/sleeves and not the leotard. This concept of Lilith incorrectly gets called "incubus Lilith" by some people but incubi and succubi are entirely different species in Darkstalkers with completely different physical characteristics and this design is clearly meant to, at the very least, be imitating the look of the succubus Morrigan. As of now, there has been no other confirmation on the species of what this concept was meant to be outside of simply being a demon.[1]
Finally, some of the last known concept art of Lilith was a picture of her original outfit for her Gloomy Puppet Show attack. Instead of making her opponents dance, Lilith herself would dance and the opponent would be struck in awe. Eventually Lilith would get annoyed or displeased at the opponent and then torture them as her reaction. This outfit would eventually become one of the ones used in her win poses, when she shakes the tambourine.
Story
Belial, the ruler of all Makai and Morrigan's adoptive father, foresaw that Makai would be exposed to the crisis of perishing soon. Someone with great power would be needed to maintain the unbalanced world of Makai. Using his near omnipotent foresight, he predicted that one which such power would not be born in the family of Aensland for another 1,200 years. Knowing this, he personally selected Morrigan as his immediate heir.
Morrigan was a very special succubus; she was born as an "S class" noble. But at that time, a struggle for power had already started between the noble houses. Numerous battles had occurred in various locations. It was unacceptable for a Succubus child to be given such rights to power. To complicate matters further, Morrigan had no way to control the enormous powers that she held within herself. If she were to be left unguided, she would destroy herself and the land around her. Thus, Belial decided to split her powers and isolate them in order to protect her. Morrigan's soul was split into two, one of the halves was isolated in a negative space that Belial had specifically created.
Lilith's Darkstalkers 3 Ending
Ending from Darkstalkers 3
Belial intended to return the sealed off portion to Morrigan when she was able to control her powers but died before he could. The sealed-off power had begun to have its own will. She (Lilith) had begun to recognize herself roughly a decade after the sealing process. As Lilith found out about Makai, her feelings grew. These feelings were different from normal emotions like admiration and jealousy, they were closer to a primitive instinct to return home...
In Darkstalkers 3, the demon Jedah releases Lilith and gives her a body -- that of a smaller, more cheerful succubus. In return, Lilith was to lure Morrigan and the other Darkstalkers to him. Lilith seems to enjoy her life until she realizes that she is not the "original" -- she is only a part of another person. She discovers that she often becomes transparent and realizes she has limited time to find her "soul mate", in order to continue her existence. Morrigan also feels that Lilith is a part of her, but she does not feel she needs Lilith as badly as Lilith needs her. Jedah realizes this, and he manipulates Lilith to meet Morrigan so he can use them both to extend his power. However, Lilith knows that Jedah is lying to her. Lilith is only absorbed by Morrigan in Morrigan's ending leaving Morrigan, like Lilith, with a more cheerful personality and a new view on the world. In Lilith's ending, she seems to fail to reach Morrigan's unconscious body in time and appears to fade from existence seconds before Morrigan wakes up, though Morrigan again seems to feel something has changed within her, meaning that Lilith actually succeeded in returning.
Gameplay
Powers and abilities
As she is derived from Morrigan, she shares similar attacks with Morrigan but with some different executions as well. For example, her Soul Flash is a projectile attack like Morrigan's Soul Fist but instead of a large blast, she summons a smaller shining green bat with hearts resonating around its body that only travels for a short distance. She does have attacks unique from Morrigan, such as her Mystic Arrow where she tosses her enemies across the stage with her wings in the manner of a bow and arrow. She can also have her bats attack in a swarm. She shares Morrigan's ability to transform her clothes into whatever she wants to wear at the moment.
Moveset
Her list of moves can be seen here.
Other appearances
Outside of the Darkstalkers games, Lilith appears alongside Morrigan in Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes, where she is seen helping her in battle during her Silhouette Blade hyper combo (as well as appears in her entry, taunt and one win pose and as a secret character, having mind-swapped with Morrigan) and Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars during her Darkness Illusion hyper combo.
She appears in Felicia's ending in Capcom Fighting Evolution, and she is also included in Namco x Capcom and Cross Edge.
Trivia
- Lilith's name comes from a figure in Mesopotamian and Judaic mythology. Accounts and interpretations generally depict her as a primordial demon.
- Two of Lilith's moves contrast Morrigan's moves in their title. While Morrigan has Shadow Blade and Darkness Illusion, both having to deal with the "dark", Lilith has the same two moves only they're titled Shining Blade and Luminous Illusion, both dealing with the theme of "light." It has been assumed that Lilith's light themes are a callback to her angel concept.
- During Demitri's Midnight Bliss, Lilith will transform into a version of herself wearing baggy pajamas while holding a pillow.
- During Anakaris' Pharaoh's Curse, Lilith transforms into a small bat with a red bow on her head.
- Lilith only appeared in Vampire Savior (Darkstalkers 3) and Vampire Savior 2. The new characters including Lilith herself were mostly removed from Vampire Hunter 2 due to it being a semi-remake of Night Warriors but their residual data remains most notably Lilith, who unlike the other removed characters still has her sprites and animations in the game's data and can be played as via hacking. The game can be beaten without error using Lilith though she lacks voices and her Showtime move will instead play random music tracks when buttons are pressed.
- Contrary to popular belief, Lilith is not canonically meant to be a succubus, being only classified as "?" in the official Japanese source materials. She is only "officially" depicted as a succubus in media outside of the canon or in some translations but she is more accurately described as an anthropomorphized fragment of power/a soul that was once the energy of a succubus and mimics a succubus. "?" is most likely a simplification of her actual type being unusual or Capcom not knowing how else to describe her.
- Despite being commonly known as Lilith Aensland, Lilith's last name is not "Aensland" as her name is only Lilith.
- Despite her goal of being "complete", Lilith and Morrigan never become complete. One reason for this is the part of the soul that was in Belial had been lost so their soul can't return to 100%.
- Given how Lilith seems aware of the fate of everyone in the demon world "going away" and becoming one with the Shintai, it seems like she is ironically less concerned with being "complete" and more concerned with finding and fusing with her original body before everyone is 'destined' to become one with the Fetus of God. It is ambiguous if Lilith ever knew that Morrigan's soul will never be complete on its own, but the mass amount of souls fused together would make their own soul more than complete, perhaps even surpass their own and fill up the void from Belial's demise. Capcom has stated that Jedah would target Morrigan (who is canonically fused with Lilith by the end) eventually.
- While in many cases Lilith is often considered to just be female, she was made with the idea of having an ambiguous gender once she gained the androgynous design she now has today. While she mimics a female character as a clone, her gender is not actually set in stone and she can alter herself through shapeshifting. When Vampire Savior was released her gender was even labeled as "unknown" but once people came to see her mostly as female she would later just be called a female.
- This is a bit similar to how Poison was made with the intent of being a trans woman, but later on Capcom would change her gender to being "up to interpretation" because of many debacles and rumors on her gender. However, Lilith is a character with less gender debates (although they still exist) with not many realizing she was even made with the intention of having ambiguous gender. Mainly due to Lilith being a clone fighter of a female character and the misconception of her being a succubus, a solely female species both in Darkstalkers and out, makes her seen as undebatably female for many people. Some people were aware Lilith was meant to be an androgynous character but not aware of her own gender being ambiguous. There is also a fraction of people who were under the impression Lilith was a male. Adding to the comparisons, Poison's own clone fighter, Roxy, is a character with much less consistent gender with Capcom not being certain whether to make her cis or trans and her debates are not as much as talked about as Poison's due to being a less popular color swap.
- Lilith's demeanor and obsession with blood seems to be a callback to Morrigan's scrapped concept of being a cute vampire.
- As she was split from her when she was just born, she is often seen as the innocence or happiness Morrigan lost over the years and once fused with her again, in Morrigan's ending, she has a brighter look on life.
- Lilith's voice actor, Hiroko Konishi, previously voiced another androgynous fighting game character, Bridget from Guilty Gear.
- While Lilith can be seen as being born in multiple instances, she personally views the Majigen as her birthplace.
- To list the multiple instances; Lilith firstly starts out as a part of a complete newborn Morrigan but wasn't "Lilith" yet > then she would be split from Morrigan into 1/3 of a fragment sealed in a pocket dimension > roughly a decade after that split, Lilith does gain sentience and Morrigan's "heart" (figuratively or literally is unknown) is said to be what tapped into her conscious, as time would go on her primal feelings of wanting to go home would grow > after many years she would finally gain a physical body from Jedah Dohma in the Majigen > and in a way she would finally be "reborn" as now co-existing part of Morrigan's personality, powers and soul that returned to her.
Gallery
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