Bayonetta

**Bayonetta** is the main protagonist of the *Bayonetta* games.

Bayonetta is one of the Umbra Witches, a magical European clan that existed hundreds of years ago to protect the world's sacred darkness. However, she was born at the center of conflict – her parents were an Umbra Witch, Rosa, and a Lumen Sage named Balder, and their union led to the destruction of both of their clans. In the midst of the Witch Hunts that put her life in danger, Bayonetta was sealed away without her memories for five hundred years. Her awakening and resultant desire to remember her identity starts the events of Bayonetta.

Like other witches, Bayonetta's powers are the result of a contract with a demon of Inferno, hers being Madama Butterfly, and her skills in combat are a mixture of magical gunplay and martial arts. Contrary to her bloody origin and training, though, Bayonetta is an outrageously carefree person who handles the angels sent after her with a mixture of playful sadism, camp, and sheer joy, all while remaining untouched by the carnage and ruin around her. While initially aloof to her allies and acquaintances, Bayonetta eventually warms up to them and displays fierce loyalty and protectiveness even in the worst of circumstances. Bayonetta also has an extremely soft spot for children, and will often provide care and support to her "little ones" in the midst of her quests.

In the AWA fics, Bayonetta is set to appear in a future AWA storyline.

## **Appearance**

Bayonetta is portrayed as a beautiful woman with a slender yet curvy figure much like the other Umbra Witches in her clan, having ample breasts, long legs, and a set of rather massive, round and bulbous buttocks. She has black hair wrapped into a beehive-like hairdo with a bang sweeping to the right, and gray eyes with a beauty mark located at the bottom of her left cheek, close to her lips. Her main attire is composed of a skin-tight suit made out of her hair that has a rose design on the abdomen with long white gloves, black and gray heels, thin gold chains, three small belts strapped on each arm, and a pair of gold, cat-shaped earrings. Her signature look is made from her glasses that have the design of butterfly wings close to the lenses. Bayonetta wears an Umbran Watch over her bust that contains a red jewel thought to be the Left Eye. Four metal symbols are attached to her hair, three of them in the shape of the crescent moon and the other is the symbol of the Umbra Witches. Bayonetta also has a red hair ribbon wrapped around her hairdo that extends down to her legs, covered in demonic language. At the end of the game, she wears a rosemary flower in her hair.

Because of her hair-based fighting techniques, Bayonetta's outfit becomes more revealing when she uses Wicked Weave techniques. Her suit's inner section remains running up the middle and back of her body and her hair drapes over her chest to cover it, but the rest of the suit and the sleeves of hair vanish and trail outwards from her head in a spiral of hair and gold chain used to summon the demonic limbs. When summoning full demons, the entire suit disappears and leaves behind her gloves, shoes and watch.

In the sequel, Bayonetta retains the use of a skin-tight black suit, though the designs of the previous suit have been radically altered. The gold chains have been removed and replaced with thinner silver ones and jagged patterns resembling roses and thorns are placed along her thighs and stomach. Her gloves have changed to include a dark blue colour on the palms with a Renaissance-style flair added onto each wrist. A similar flair is also around the collar on her neck. The backs of her legs feature a diamond pattern than run from her upper thighs down to her heels, which expose her skin from her buttocks to her lower legs and her shoes feature a new design of black and silver linings with silver figurines somewhat resembling Madama Butterfly-or another female figure-along the back. The former sleeves formed by her hair have now become a cloak that drapes over her shoulders and front with points on top of either shoulder. Both the cloak's medallion decorations and her earrings have changed to form a blue triangle-like pattern with hexagons. Her glasses are of a new design based upon the imagery of rosemary and her Umbran Watch now hangs from a chain on her chest from the collar. The biggest noticeable change to Bayonetta, however, is her hairstyle. As opposed to the beehive style in the first game, she now has her hair shorter similar to a pixie cut, resembling short bob. At E3 2014, director Yusuke Hashimoto confirmed that Bayonetta did not actually cut her hair, but was able to give it its current appearance along with her new outfit thanks to her magic being able to control its look.

The development team mentioned how Bayonetta's new suit was supposed to look like leather in a pre-release trailer, but the E3 2013 trailer confirmed that it is still spun out of her own hair when she uses her Wicked Weaves and summons Infernal Demons. The suit disappears in much the same way as the first gane, with the middle of the suit remaining whilst the rest of the hair forms in a spiral of black and silver chain. Though still revealing it all when summoning fully manifested demons, Bayonetta is able to retain her suit after such a summoning and is able to continue fighting with all of her previous look intact.

Outside of her default appearances, Bayonetta can be played wearing alternate outfits that can be bought at The Gates of Hell. Some outfits are composed of Umbran Elegances which only appear when activated and when using the weapon related to the elegance. Other new costumes can be worn using the Super Mirror once that, and the individual costumes, are purchased. In the Wii U versions of both games, Bayonetta can even dress up as famous Nintendo characters Link, Samus Aran , Princess Peach, and Princess Daisy in new costumes.

## **Personality**

As a young child, she often looked up to her mother, Rosa, regarding her as a hero. As seen with her time displaced version of herself (that later overrides her history), she also maintained an attachment to her father, Balder. Initially described as a "cry baby" by her older counterpart, she followed her older self under the assumption of being her mother. Rosa, and throughout the journey, is inspired by her and gains confidence in herself to live up to being as good as her. She also developed a fixation of lollipops due to being entertained by Luka in an effort to calm her down. This confidence and pride later reflects in her life as a young adult, being a proud Umbra Witch despite being a black sheep in the clan. Because of her adventures with her older self under the assumption of her mother, she was able to reawaken her Left Eye of Darkness.

As an adult five hundred years later in the timeline, Bayonetta's personality can be described as nonchalant and is perceived as somewhat callous to others such as Luka, who believed her to be the killer of his father, Antonio Redgrave. Throughout the first game, she's shown to enjoy fighting angels in a playful yet brutal manner, maintaining her cool and even tends to attempt to banter with the more serious angels such as the Auditio and Infernal Demons. Often bantering, her wordplay leans towards the constant use of sexual lingo within a given situations to taunt and tease her enemies and friends alike. Bayonetta tends to enjoy using her sexuality as a means to an end in more instances than not, often using it to tease or intimidate the likes of Luka. Bayonetta tends to operate alone and prefers to do things by herself if going on a mission or adventure, and not get encumbered by other people, at least initially. She can also be construed as somewhat impatient, especially towards the more "talkative type" of enemy she encounters such as that of Temperantia and Father Balder.

However, Bayonetta has also shown genuine concern. It's witnessed that her amnesia troubled her for the last twenty years, having done her best to explain to Luka in the past that her father's death wasn't her fault and has been seen taking his venting of anger and frustration towards her to heart. She also becomes fiercely attached and protective of her younger self, unaware of the fact it is actually her as well as Loki. After rekindling her friendship with Jeanne, she was also shown to value her friendship and was willing to risk going down to Inferno to rescue her, placing the blame on herself for not foreseeing Gomorrah's attack to her in time.

She is also not immune to displaying outright anger and hatred, having done so for both her father and Alraune. Despite her close connection to her father, upon re-learning her memories concerning his supposed actions of starting the Witch Hunts, she denounced her father. In the animated movie, she goes even further and blames him for the death of her mother believing him to be responsible. However, her hatred dissipated for her father upon learning the truth of her mother's death at Loptr's hands and his sacrifice and corruption of his very body at the hands of the aforementioned being whom ascended as Aesir. Her hated of Alraune, due to her attempting to absorb Jeanne's soul and nearly sealing her fate in being trapped in Inferno, reached to the point of almost killing her outright out of revenge.

## **Abilities**

### **Physical**

Thanks to the special Umbran training she received from the Umbran Elder, Bayonetta has an unprecedented skill for the Bullet Arts and shows near mastery of a new weapon whenever she picks it up. Her combat skills are brutal and graceful. Bayonetta possesses superhuman speed and agility, being able to perform numerous acrobatic feats with ease. She also appears to be extremely perceptive, able to evade attacks from all directions through anticipating her enemy movements in battle. She also has immense superhuman strength and endurance.

Her superhuman strength gives her the ability to toss a satellite back at an aged Balder several times and headbutt an entire skyscraper thrown at her by the former as well as using only her lower body to redirect a even larger satellite at Aesir. She is also able to effortlessly lift the likes of a Belief and block and hold a thrusting attack from a Valiance. She also was able to physically toss back Fortitudo with the aid of her mother, Rosa. Along with her strength is her speed, capable of contending and keeping up with the likes of Balderduring his younger years in which she rivaled as well as fight on par with the Umbra Witch, Jeanne, whom was stated to be either just as strong as her or stronger. She also can lift a light post and physically overpower the likes of Alraune.

Her physical skills, combined with her magic, makes her capable of defeating countless hordes of forces from Paradiso and Inferno. She also manages to hold her own against opponents that overpower her such as the likes of Loptr (and him as the ascended and reborn Aesir) and Jubileus, The Creator, which, in order to be truly defeated, required the aid of another.

### **Magic**

As an Umbra Witch, Bayonetta possess varying powerful magics that assist her in her daily life and allows her to fight against even the most powerful of beings.

#### **Dark Arts & Magic Techniques**

* **Umbran Climax & Serious Mode**: Techniques that allow Bayonetta to enter into an ascended state of power. Both techniques allow her to continually manifest the limbs of various infernal demons and increase her damage output. In Umbran Climax, she also gains the capability to perform "Infernal Weaves" and even recover her health while in that state.
* **Witch Time**: Bayonetta is capable of using Witch Time to slow down time around her, allowing her to move at extremely high speeds. This Dark Art is capable of allowing her of countering the likes of Light Speedused by a sage. Furthermore, she is able to "stack" over Witch Time to counter another witch and even a angel.
* **Beast Within**: A magic technique that allows transformation into various animals.
	+ Panther Within
	+ Crow Within
	+ Bat Within
	+ Snake Within

* **Witch Walk**: Bayonetta can use the Witch Walk technique, allowing her the power to defy gravity and walk on any vertical or horizontal surface during a full moon or on select devices created by Lord Aesir.
* **Wicked Weaves**: Using her hair as a conduit, Bayonetta can use Wicked Weaves to summon forth various demons and also summon forth their limbs to attack.
* **Infernal Weaves**: An even more powerful variant used during Umbran Climax. At the end of her combos using Wicked Weaves, Bayonetta summons a full demon for a large area-of-effect finisher.
* Infernal Kiss: This allows her to indirectly to control various machines at will. Such as in Bayonetta 2, when she blew a kiss at the Cessna like small plane that contains Enzo while on her way to Fimbleventr before jumping off. Despite Enzo's fumbling, the small plane actually made it all the way to the city she live in and was only destroyed by angels. This is in contrast with direct control, in which she can shove her middle finger through any machine key holes to take control, such as Enzo's car or even the witches' power walkers.

#### **Torture Attacks**

Bayonetta is capable of using special attacks which can deal massive damage to most forces of Paradiso and Inferno. By chanting in Enochian, she can summon various objects to potentially finish her enemies.

#### **Summoning**

As an Umbra Witch, Bayonetta is capable of summoning various demons. Each summon is usually evoked via dancing and speaking in Enochian although they can also manifest via chanting during Infernal Weaves.

Lone Summons
* **Gomorrah** **- AVAVAGO ("Increase the thunders")**
* **Malphas** - A GRA ORS (Moon of Darkness)
* **Hekatoncheir** - AFAA TADAAG NEPTA (Sword of Dust)
* **Scolopendra** - TELOC VOVIM (Dragon of death)
* **Phantasmaraneae** - IASTA SA PIADPH (Framed in the depths of my jaws)
* **Labolas** - ARGEDCO (Invoke)
* **Baal** - EX FA (Vomit power)
* **Hydra** - CANILU (Blood)
* **Diomedes** - SUNDENNA (Name of evil spirit)
* **Carnage** - SOL-PHECTAHE (Listen)

Her most powerful summon and the demon in which she possess a pact with is Madama Butterfly (PDEE BARMA - "Itself itself"). This demoness granted Bayonetta additional, enormous power and greater wisdom.[5]

Team Summons
Queen Sheba - TELOC VOVIM A GRAA ORS TABA ORD AVAVAGO (The Fallen One cast down, let her be governed by that which thunders)
* Requires Jeanne's support.
* Omne - AGRAA ORS TABA ORD AVAVAGO (The moon of darkness... let her be governed by that which thunders): Requires Balder's support.

### **Left Eye of Darkness**

Formerly, Bayonetta possessed one of the powers of the former Lord Aesir known as the "Left Eye of Darkness". Despite having possessed a formidable power, Bayonetta has rarely ever used it to her volition. After awakening the Left Eye, she was (unwittingly) surrounded by an aura that made her untouchable to others with the exception of Balder, whom possessed the Right Eye of Light. According to comments from Loptr, the Left Eye of Darkness makes it possible for her to see through deception by looking through time.

**Clothing**

* **Umbran Watch**: A gift from her mother on her birthday in which has her name and date of birth engraved on it. This watch also allows her to remain youthful and halt her aging.

**Weapon**

* **Handguns**: Standard handguns in which are unable to withstand the intensity of magic Bayonetta uses and by far the weakest of her weapons.
* **Scarborough Fair**: The main weapon used by Bayonetta during her battles against the forces of Paradiso to stop Balder. These weapons push her magic to the limit and along with an amazing rate of fire and stopping power, it allows her to utilize Wicked Weaves.
* **Onyx Roses**: A special shotgun in which contains the souls of fairies known to collect the Onyx Rose plant in Inferno. Each shell contains the cursed souls of fairies which can be fired.
* **Shuraba-**: A special, living katana that contains the souls of the demon god of war, Ashura. It can cut up the forces of Paradiso and Infeno as well as suck the souls of its victims.
* **Kulshedra**: A special whip that calls upon the power of the trapped soul of the ancient serpentine demon, Kulshedra, from a portal.
* **Durga**: Containing the soul of the eponymous demon with a thousand arms, this weapon allows Bayonetta to call upon the power of both fire and lightning.

## **Trivia**

* Bayonetta is voiced by Hellena Taylor in all of her English appearances and was initially the only voice for Bayonetta upon the first game's initial release in Japan. Hideki Kamiya explained in an interview that he wanted a British accented voice actor for Bayonetta, because witches were more of a European myth than Japanese. Bayonetta's Japanese voice actress for the Wii U version of *Bayonetta*, *Bloody Fate* and *Bayonetta 2* is Motoko Kusanagi from *Ghost In The Shell* and Hibana From *Kunoichi.*
	+ Comparing Bayonetta's face to Hellena's, one can notice there are some similarities between her face, especially the outline to her's. This is no surprise as many game characters share facial similarities to their voice actors/motion capture actors.
* Hellena Taylor says that she had problems in pronouncing the words for summoning demons because they were so weird but Kris Zimmerman-Salter (Voice director) helped her with pronunciation.
* In a scene during Chapter III of the first game, Bayonetta surfs on a wave of lava and says *"Dancin'-a-go-go, baby!"* which is a reference to *Viewtiful Joe*.
* Bayonetta's watch contains the numbers 14111219. It represents the year/month/date of Bayonetta's birthday, which is December 19, 1411.
* When playing as Jeanne in either game, the outfit that resembles Bayonetta's default look is referred to as a 'battle uniform' of the Umbra Witches. It can be assumed from this that Bayonetta's outfit is the usual outfit Umbra Witches would wear when in battle.
* The ribbons that Bayonetta initially wears in her hair read the word "BAYONETTA" in demonic script, which is supposed to hint where she got her modern alias from. According to Enzo in *Bloody Fate*, the name "Bayonetta" was given to her by Rodin. The ribbons were originally supposed to be the thing that bound the hands and feet of dead Witches in their resting places, as shown in the *Eyes of Bayonetta* artbook.
* Bayonetta's ability to weave her magic through her hair is a reference to an old European belief that women with long hair were more likely to be targeted by incubi, which later evolved into the idea that witches used their hair in magic.
* In his commentary for the first game, Hideki Kamiya calls Bayonetta's "Serious Mode" one of the first tested basic designs for the character that was rejected because the hair would cloak the figure. During playthroughs, developers realized that Bayonetta has a hard time fighting big bosses with her usual attacks and thus, Serious Mode was born, where every attack creates a Wicked Weave; the older character design was then reused to spice the scene up.
* When Bayonetta says the quote "Flock off feather face" and she also says "Flock off" in combos this is a reference to how the angels have feathers it could also be a reference to *Jurassic Park* where a characters uses the word "flock".
* When in Beast Within form, a trail of black roses and skull-headed flowers are left wherever Bayonetta runs. This is a reference to *Okami*, where, depending on how fast Amaterasu is running, grass or flowers bloom in an identical manner.
* In his commentary, Hideki Kamiya mentions that at some point in development a teenage version of Bayonetta was present in the game, linked to an older version of Magic Gauge - the Gauge used to replenish with time, and if the player would use up all the orbs, Bayonetta would morph into this teenage version of herself. When the way the Magic Gauge works was changed, teenage Bayonetta was dropped too.
* In both games, you can never see Bayonetta without her glasses. In one of the cutscenes in the first game before fighting Temperantia, she does take them off, but her face remains off-camera. In his commentary, Hideki Kamiya mentions that one of the developers once said: "For Bayonetta, her glasses are like her underwear: never let yourself be seen without them". Ironically, Cereza was seen without her glasses.
* If Bayonetta shoots idly at a wall, she will start writing her initials and hearts with the bullets.
* When Bayonetta draws on Luka's face with the lipstick in the first game, she draws the circle similar to that of Amaterasu from *Okami* on his forehead, along with whiskers and an animal’s mouth.
* Bayonetta's ability to transform into a crow and a panther are similar to a concept in *Okami* that had Amaterasu transforming into a dolphin and a falcon—although, unlike *Bayonetta*, the idea did not appear in the final version of *Okami*.
* Bayonetta shares similarities with Samus Aran (Zero suit Samus) from the Metriod series. Both characters are the protagonists of their series, they're beautiful, athletic women who wear skin-tight bodysuits, possess gun-like weapons, went through a difficult past relating to their family, and each have a beauty mark on the right of their lips. Fans currently still compare Bayonetta with Zero Suit Samus.
* Bayonetta was going to be included in the Sega crossover kart-racing game *Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed* as a playable character, but according to a forum post from the developers, she was scrapped because the developers had trouble trying to keep her in-character without the ESRB/PEGI rating potentially going up.
* Jubileus, The Creator roughly resembles Bayonetta, especially regarding Jubileus' wearing eyewear similar to Bayonetta's butterfly glasses, a similar hairdo and something similar to her Umbran Watch on her chest. According to Hideki Kamiya in the official artbook commentary, this design was intentional as Jubileus, Bayonetta and Queen Sheba are supposed to represent the most powerful beings in their respective dimensions.
* Bayonetta's intolerance of crying babies and cockroaches is referenced in *The Wonderful 101*, when one of the later bosses calls the titular superheroes "crying baby cockroaches".
* When questioned if Bayonetta and Jeanne were blood related, Hideki Kamiya stated that they are not related by blood but are just of the same clan. He elaborated that Bayonetta is of English descent whilst Jeanne is French.
* Bayonetta's long taunt in *Bayonetta 2* is a reference to Hideki Kamiya, who frequently responds to questions asked of him on Twitter with "Ask your mom."
* When Hideki Kamiya was asked about the relationship between Bayonetta and Luka, he simply stated: "She teases Luka; like a toy, but will never commit, he'd die long before her."
* According to the other-media appearances, Bayonetta's weight is 4.67 Umbran Witch Weight and her stature is 11.951 Umbran Witch Height.
* Bayonetta colors in the first two games are just like Sonic and Shadow from the Sonic the hedgehog series the first game colors having red & black like Shadow and the second game having blue colors much like Sonic.
* Before Bayonetta fights Aesir she said the line "Let's rock" it could be a possible reference to the movie *Aliens*where someone in the film said this line.
* Bayonetta makes several references to the novel "Alice in Wonderland" that was written by author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson in both games: repeatedly calling Luka "Cheshire", which is also the name of Cereza's stuffed doll, and calling herself "An innocent little girl lost in Wonderland, suffering at the hand of the queen's trumped-up troops" to Loki in their first introduction.
* Although there has been changes in the timeline, it does not seem have affected any of her relationship or history with other characters.
* As a running joke through out both games, during the game intro, Bayonetta would be forced to use regular firearms before getting her magical guns (Scarborough Fair and Love is Blue) and complain when said firearms break under the stress. Another gag is between her and Luka, where Luka would come to her "rescue" without realizing she is in Purgatorio, which would therefore cause him to fail and then slam into a wall.
* In the Japanese version of *Super Smash Bros. 4*, if the player picks Bayonetta's "A Witch With No Memories" costume, she will speak English, but in her *Bayonetta 2* outfit, she will speak Japanese. This reflects how Japanese dubbing wasn't put in the original *Bayonetta*, and was exclusive to *Bayonetta 2*.
* A running joke is that Bayonetta has a team with Jeanne, Luka, Rodin, Enzo as they are always seen in the end and the team is nicknamed "Team Bayonetta".