The Mystery of the Brainwashed Blondes
Once upon a time, the internet used to be good, and if searching didn’t answer a given question, asking that question publicly could bring that answer to you. I did this a lot in a previous stint as a blogger, and it always warmed my heart to see how the world wide web could connect bored losers hyperfixated on pedantic nonsense. It’s how I’ve made some of my best friends, honestly.
Today, I’m happy to tell you that this still does work on the broken version of the internet that is both older and newer than the one we’re on today, because someone reached out to tell me he’d answered a question I had about an odd trend in 1990s fighting games: brainwashed blondes. It all began in my write up on the origins of Street Fighter II character names, where I mentioned that there is some evidence that Cammy’s name might have been Sarah early on. It’s not clear whether this was actually the case, but if it were, one motivation Capcom might have had for changing her name would be to minimize comparisons to Virtua Fighter’s Sarah Bryant. In addition to both being blondes, both characters debuted in 1993 — Cammy in Super Street Fighter II and Sarah in the first Virtua Fighter. And both have some form of memory erasure; Cammy is introduced as an amnesiac soldier with some unknown connection to Street Fighter II’s big bad, M. Bison, while Sarah’s backstory has her being kidnapped and brainwashed into the service of a criminal organization. If that weren’t a remarkable enough coincidence, 1994 saw the debut of Tekken, which featured yet another blonde fighter whose storyline would feature themes of mental manipulation: Nina Williams.
Surely, I thought, there has to be some connection between these oddly similar characters, but I couldn’t figure out what pop culture precedent they might all be riffing on.
Enter Lucian Gallacane, a YouTuber who more than answered my question but also introduced a fourth fighting gamer blonde that fits into this pattern: Sofia from Battle Arena Toshinden, another assassin whose storyline eventually incorporates elements of memory manipulation. His presentation of similarities and sources is very convincing, to the point that I’m happy to declare that this case is closed.
I’ll encourage you to watch his presentation, but there is, in fact, a history of this sort of character predating fighting games, and it’s drawing from the anime/manga Wounded Man, Battle Angel Alita, Sarah Connor from The Terminator and its sequel and the lead characters in both La Femme Nikita and its American remake, Point of No Return. Fascinating stuff, really, and exactly the kind of video game scholarship I’m happy to champion.
Most surprising, however? The notion that Cammy’s name might just come from the camouflage pattern she’s sporting on her legs, which I’m not sure I’d ever thought of before. (I couldn’t find the specific example used in the video, but the term cammies shows up in many issues of the magazine Soldier of Fortune, this being just one instance.) Yes, the Street Fighter games do eventually introduce an in-universe explanation for Cammy’s name involving Sakura and a cat, but the source of the original name might be as simple as this. It’s a real no duh moment.
I’m happy Lucian reached out, and anyone else putting together video game research on this level is welcome to send it my way. I’m happy to use this website to put some extra eyes on it.
I’m also moving my wanted list to the header, since it’s finally been bumped off the main page. The Cammy one will be noted as solved, with a link to this post. I’m genuinely stoked to see what other video game mysteries we can solve!