User blog:DeltaHorizon020/PE Proposal: The Swamp Witch

Time to propose another character because why not

What's The Work
Queen's Blade is a fanservice heavy fantasy anime that tells us the story about strong warrior women participating in a tournament known as "Queen's Blade" that happens every four years. Queen's Blade itself? Is actually a sacred tournament that if someone wins, one can be the Queen of the entire continent and this was planned by the gods themselves.

Now, the first anime focuses on a girl named Leina Vance, a runaway noble girl from the House of Vance who tries to travel across the continent in order to get much stronger as she wants to follow her mother's footstep and become more independent as she doesn't want to become a future heiress of the Vance household. In her journey, she made several friends such as Risty the noble bandit, Echidna the assassin, Nanael the Archangel, Tomoe the Shrine Maiden and so on.

However, while the girls are participating in the Queen's Blade tournament, there is an evil and resentful force that wants to stop the sacred tournaments so that she could rule the continent and spread more corruption and chaos in said continent. And the evil force? Is none other the "Swamp Witch".

Who is She/What Has She Done
Now, for those who don't know about Swamp Witch, she's basically the evil ruler and a witch of a swampy region (Title explains her after all) who tries to tamper the Queen's Blade tournament because it's a hindrance on her becoming the ruler of the continent given Swamp Witch's megalomaniacal desires and she also had a huge hatred towards living things in general.

Swamp Witch herself? Is actually a formless but intelligent being who needed a body so that she could gain her true power. Because of this, she attempts to bodyjack several people. However, most of the people that Swamp Witch bodyjacked can't withstand the enormous power that Swamp Witch had. As a result, she then set her sights to a demon queen known as Werbellia as she attempts to manipulate her under the pretense that she could conquer the continent.

At first, her attempt on bodyjacking Werbellia failed because of the latter's strong love on her husband, Pope Stefan. However, she obtained a treasure that is able to control Werbellia as a result. And even before that? It was also revealed that she banished Werbellia's husband, Pope Stephan, into the netherworld forever. In the meantime, while gaining new body, she actually resurrect several powerful women and they are none other than: Melona who is a liquid monster in shape of bunny girl who is also a shapshifter, Menace, the Egyptian-like Queen of Ancient Amara Kingdom and Airi, a maid ghost girl.

After she resurrected the three, she orders them to participate Queen's Blade so that she could sabotage the tournament. Now? Here's the thing, sabotaging Queen's Blade tournament would lead into horrific consequences because Queen's Blade itself was created to secure the peace on the continent and seal the chaos within it. If stopped, it would turn the continent into an entire wasteland and the continents will be ravaged by chaos again which would kill everyone in both continent and in heaven.

After her three minions failed to sabotage Queen's Blade, the Swamp Witch then tortures one of her minions, Melona, for her failures much to her amusement. When Menace defects from the Swamp Witch and reviving her kingdom for herself, The Swamp Witch then orders her two minions, Airi and Melona, to persuade Menace to come back. It fails predictably due to Menace's refusal to join and as a result, Airi and Melona ended up getting tortured again. She was seemingly defeated however when the Archangel Nanael was cast away from heaven and become a fallen angel and as a result, she obliterates everything in the swamp including Swamp Witch's castle.

But the horror doesn't end there...

Now, even if her territory is destroyed, it was soon revealed that the Swamp Witch cursed several of the female warriors from the previous Queen's Blade tournament with the worst one being an elf named Alleyne whose home and her kin got brutally purged by the Swamp Witch and Alleyne herself was unable to move from the forest that she lives. Other than Alleyne? There's also Risty who got cursed by not unable to eat and sleep during the "Beautiful Fighter Hunt", Tomoe who was blinded by the Swamp Witch when she returned to Hinomoto and the winner of the Queen's Blade, Leina.

And speaking of Leina herself...The Swamp Witch made her first full appearance as Werbellia in the Vanquished Queens OVAs Episode 3. Basically in that episode, when the protagonist, Leina, is captured by Captain Liliana and her subordinates (Captain Liliana is a pirate girl who got resurrected by the Swamp Witch to be her minion btw), The Swamp Witch made Leina as a slave by giving her a parasite that could subjugate her.

If the parasite color is white, it's on pain side but if it's black, it would turn into pleasure on serving her. It was also revealed that she also has another slaves that wore a maid costume who had a job to pleasure her just like Leina and was given the same parasite too. When Leina attempts to rebel against her, the Swamp Witch then resurrect Liliana's undead army so that they could be pitted against Leina in a gladiatoral tournament and at one point, Leina was gang-raped by said army. Despite she was winning at the end of the match, the Swamp Witch cursed Leina with severe narcolepsy which causes her sleeping more than 16 hours straight due to her vital force was drained during the battle.

However, The Swamp Witch's worst act despite still having a body with Werbellia? Is when Leina won the Queen's Blade and gave the Queen title towards her sister, Claudette, the Swamp Witch possess her and amplify her deeper grudges she has with the society she lives (Even though Claudette is seemingly getting out of her mind control, Swamp Witch intended this to happen given her routine on trying to cause several destruction across the land).

This resulted on Claudette becoming The Caligula who wages war against the outsiders of the capital of the continent, Gynos. One of the survivors of the war is revealed to be Anelotte who is the last of the Kreutz clan who got brutally purged under Queen Claudette's regime. And sure, in Gynos, people were treated decently but there are still signs of oppression of the lower class in there. Claudette's rule however, was made magnitudes worse when Swamp Witch ordered Melona to disguise as Ymir, the Iron Strategist and one of the participants of Queen's Blade tournament, and becoming the advisor to the Queen. On a side note, she also resurrect a pirate captain named Liliana because why not? She wanted to have more minion, although in the end, Liliana rebels a bit because of her pirate lifestyle who loves to raze several cities to get some treasure (Luckily the casualties were zero iirc but still...)

Oh! And if I didn't forget, in her spare time, she hosts a tournament called "Beautiful Fighter Hunt" where slaves and monsters fight against each other and the nobles are cheering during the fight. One of the slave who fights in the tournament was Branwen, who is revealed to be the descendant of the Noble Beings of the continent. Despite the anime arc being aborted however, in the illustrated stories, when she was almost defeated, she attempts to bodyjack Werbellia's real daughter, Anelotte and Aldra, as a last resort. However, they managed to defeat Swamp Witch once and for all and liberate their mother, Werbellia. Unfortunately, the Swamp Witch is still at large and still planning to ruin the continent for her own gains. Though while she won't possess Werbellia anymore, she will return as a fighter so yeah...

Freudian Excuse/Mitigating Factors
Now I'll admit this is a rather tricky one. The Swamp Witch if you only count her appearance in the anime counterpart, she can be a hard sell given that she doesn't speak in most of the appearances and was portrayed as an unseen force you could argue that she's a bit of a GDV in the animated adaptations even if she does display a bit of an intelligence and despite her seemingly unseen force appearance, I might give her a leeway because her face appears as a fire like humanoid who doesn't speak but at one scene where she tortures Melona in one of QB OVAs, she smiles sadistically and her minion does understand her to a certain degree.

However, I'm using some supplementary materials that correlates to the canonicity of Queen's Blade such as the Illustrated Stories where she plays some major role and said material does giving The Swamp Witch a bit of a personality so I'm going to give a leeway here. And heck, I think she has a quote from the supplementary materials and one of them is this: "All of you over there, sacrifice yourselves. I'm creating a world without the living." so yeah, take that as you will. It also helps that she also appears in the Vanquished Queens OVA which gives her a lot of personality that took her out from GDV territory.

Aside from that... Yes multiples zero. She treated her minions as well, mere minions and has no hesitation to torture one of them if they failed, and while Claudette is seemingly independent from her clutches, she doesn't care anyway as she intended to cause massive wars on the continent so that she could sow the seeds of chaos and does display a rather manipulative personality if you use supplementary materials as an info so take that as you will.

Oh yeah, Werbellia's hot though, ngl. :3 Great design and all

And before getting into my verdict, I need to address something: Yes, Queen's Blade itself is a fanservice heavy anime. However, I should note that it still manages to tell a decent and engaging story and despite occasional fanservices, the story itself balanced the amount of the fanservice a bit so take that as you will...

Heinous Standard
Now, the Queen's Blade series, despite being a fanservice series. Is a bit dark with several corrupt nobles and then the previous queen? Aldra herself was a little bit of a Caligula because of her being manipulated by a fallen angel named Delmore who is responsible of the nun massacre on Hinomoto because of Aldra's passion on searching her sister and some petrifications of her own subjects. Oh and given this is also fanservice series, there are some rapists in there. Ah yeah! Did I forgot what Captain Liliana has done too regarding her razing and plundering lifestyle? Sure, there are no casualties but yea...That and Melona as Fake Ymir also commit some horrific acts on experimenting an innocent girl and execute her master's orders to sow the seeds of the destruction across the continent. There's also several torturers too like Dogura who tortures several women for a long time until they submit to him or in one of the OVA where an assassin tortured an innocent girl by amplifying her pain with a drug. So yeah...The heinous standard is pretty high

However, I might say The Swamp Witch sticks out a bit. Attempted Omnicide+Starting a war+Genocide against a race (Although you could argue its offscreen but yea...)+Sowing the seeds of destruction+Slavery+Pitting Innocent Girl against an Undead Army+A Complicit Rapist+Torturing her subordinates+Possessing a ruler and make her regime magnitudes worse+Gladiatoral Tournaments+Mass bodyjacking+Giving Horrific Curses Towards Other People...Your call

Final Verdict
Admittedly yeah, The Swamp Witch is a rather tricky candidate to propose and I can understand if you have a hard time on deciding her as a CM. Yes, if you only count her appearance in Anime adaptation only, she would be a no. But I think the supplementary materials like novels or OVAs that are tie in to the canon definitely helps a bit on her qualification especially that her personality was developed in there. However, I can still see if people downvoted her and I understand that circumstances.

So yeah...In my books, she's a hearty keeper. She does have a page and here's the page in question