The Curious Case of Krizalid's Fate

Hello everyone and welcome to another entry in my blog! If you aren't aware of who I am, I recommend reading my introductory blog where I talked about who I am, my interests and a little bit about my thoughts on KOFXV's upcoming DLC lineup. Today, however, we're going to be discussing something quite different as I'm going to go over the somewhat odd revelation that SNK have seemingly retconned the fate of the man in the above picture; Krizalid.

Before I delve deeper into that though, I want to go over who Krizalid is and the role he plays in The King of Fighters series. Krizalid is the final boss and main villain of The King of Fighters 99 and is a clone of NESTS saga hero K' (though he's at first said to be a clone of Orochi and overall series hero Kyo Kusanagi). 

Krizalid is a member and product of the NESTS criminal cartel and is ordered by his creators to host the 99 tournament in order to use the data produced by the competitors to unleash an army of Kyo clones on the world. 

However, after two sick boss fights his plan is (naturally) stopped by K' and crew where he is promptly betrayed by his NESTS handlers and disposed of after no longer serving them any purpose. 

NESTS remotely detonates the base where Krizalid hosted KOF which results in the poor man being crushed by the debris and rubble. While the rest of the competitors flee the crumbling base, Whip (another KOF99 newcomer) delves further into the base to find Krizalid who desperately clings to life.  

Krizalid for some reason calls Whip his sister and asks her why she abandoned him and the cartel. It's here where we get a shocking revelation; Whip used to work for NESTS alongside Krizalid where the two thought themselves as brother and sister. Whip however reveals to Krizalid that she isn't his sister and that NESTS planted him with the memories of someone else...

Krizalid is actually none other than K's clone, the opposite of what Krizalid was led to believe. Shocked and heartbroken at the revelations, Krizalid finally passes away as Whip thanks him for the real memories they shared as agents of NESTS. It's also worth noting here that the English translation of KOF99 is not good, with a lot of nuances and tone lost from the original. This scene here with Whip and Krizalid is by far the worst affected with the original dialogue being much softer and full of heartbreak compared to the insult-ridden translation we English speakers got. 

Once the dust has settled and the base is finished self-destructing, a clearly emotional Whip rejoins the Ikaris and Heidern enters the base where he confirms the death of Krizalid. Bear that last point in mind by the way, it's going to come up later. 

REMEMBER THIS OK?!

Flash-forward to The King of Fighters 2000 and Krizalid is all but a distant memory, as is the case with most bosses in the series. Krizalid is dead and the major players are continuing to hunt down NESTS and stop them. The only real mention Krizalid gets is in a conversation between Heidern and Clone Zero where C. Zero reveals that he was the one who destroyed the NESTS base in KOF99 and killed Krizalid. Outside of that, Krizalid's death is clearly in the past and the people who were important to him have moved on.

Then we get to The King of Fighters 2001 and things...get a bit messy. I'll skip over the game's story and jump straight to the sub-boss of the game; Zero who is revealed to be the REAL Zero and the loser guy with the Tom Selleck moustache no one liked was a dumb clone that no one cares about and please forget about him OK? 

The thing about Zero, however, is that he isn't alone. Behold, for absolutely no reason at all! Krizalid is back?! And he has Ron and Zero's lion Glaugan helping him too, but we're not talking about them.

So Krizalid is back, apparently revived by NESTS after stealing back his body from the Ikaris (or just having made a new clone of him depending on who you ask). Even though Whip is in the Hero team this time her and Krizalid get no real interaction in the game itself which is a huge missed opportunity, but this was Zero's fight and I just don't think they could have really interrupted it for a big emotional moment. It is what it is, sadly. 

Anyway, the Hero team split off and take on Zero and his friends; K' takes on Zero, Maxima takes on Glaugan, Lin takes on Ron and Whip takes on Krizalid. After the fight, Zero is the only left standing as Glaugan is killed and Ron escapes. Krizalid meets his own fate soon after at the hands of Whip who entangles him in her whip Voodoo and shoots him with her desert eagle. Again, we get nothing in the game that shows this and Whip killing him can easily be contested, but regardless Krizalid is dead as his only real alternate option is going down in the ship with Zero. 

And that was it for Krizalid in The King of Fighters until a faint glimmer of hope in a possible return came about from Verse's win quote in KOFXIV hinting that Krizalid's soul was trapped inside and is now free, possibly leading to his resurrection. 

So why have I spent most of this blog summing up Krizalid's story? Well, outside of just being a massive mark for the guy, I wanted to break it down in order to explain to you what it used to be. Because apparently, that's not what happened anymore. 

No, I'm not joking. Believe me, I wish I was. 

MFW my story is randomly retconned for no reason

This idea of a retcon first came about the other day from NeoGeoNow's YouTube series on the lore of the KOF series that they've been releasing in the run-up to KOFXV. What makes this retrospective series different from the other run-of-the-mill 'I read the wiki and here's what I guess happened in KOF' videos that other people do (and I include myself in that), is that these videos are both supported and approved by SNK themselves. So what is said in these videos is officially what happens. 

Imagine my surprise then when I get to the part covering Krizalid in KOF99 and see that apparently, Krizalid SURVIVED KOF99. I honestly didn't believe this at first, I really thought the creator of the video just made an error. But no. I kept watching and learnt that not only did Krizalid survive KOF99, but he was also alive in KOF2001 up until the fight with Zero where he just...goes down with the ship I guess? I know, it sounds hard to believe. 

I kinda forgot about it however until I randomly found myself on the KOFXV portal on Famitsu's website. On there they had their own written retrospectives on the story of the series. Now, I unfortunately don't speak Japanese so I had to use machine translation to kinda gauge what was being said. That's when I discovered the above paragraph in the 2001 section. I already knew what the translation was saying, but still, I had to know for sure I wasn't just making a mistake. So I double checked. I TRIPLE checked. Here's my best approximation of what that paragraph says;

そこに現れたのはゼロだった――。

　前大会で死んだのは、じつはクローンのゼロ。今回姿を見せたゼロこそ真のオリジナルだった。ストライカーにはペットのグルガンと前々回の大会で、クローンゼロに殺されかけたところを救われたクリザリッド、そして麟が探し求めていた龍の姿が！

　“あのお方”に代わって強さが本物かどうか試してみようと、K´たちに闘いに挑んでくる。

　激しい戦いののち、エアシップは軌道上の要塞に到着。意味深な言葉を残し、ゼロは去っていく。この奥にいる“あのお方”とは？

And then Zero appeared.

　The one who died in the previous tournament was actually a clone of Zero. The Zero who showed up this time was the true original. Among the Strikers were his pet Glaugan, Krizalid who had been saved from death by the Clone Zero in the previous tournament, and the dragon that Lin had been searching for!

　They challenge K´ and the others to a battle to see if their strength is real on behalf of "the man".

　After a fierce battle, the airship arrives at the fortress in orbit. Zero leaves with meaningful words. Who is "the one" behind all this?

So yeah. Krizalid survived KOF99 (though they kind of imply someone 'saved' him? I'm not sure if they mean he saved himself from death), spent the time during the 2000 tournament doing nothing and then joined up with NESTS again just to go down on the ship with Zero. 

WHAT?! WHY?! FOR WHAT REASON?!

I'm so utterly baffled by this retcon lol. Like, I love Krizalid, OK? I won't deny it. He's my favourite SNK boss (hell probably my favourite fighting game boss period) and he's one of my favourite KOF characters. I think he's rad as hell but the thing that draws me to him the most is how tragic of a character he is. Krizalid gets a fucking rough deal in KOF. He's a clone made by a cartel that just wants to use him for world domination, he's given artificial memories and tricked into thinking they're his which leads him to developing the ONE loving relationship he's shown to have with Whip, who ended up leaving him upon discovering the truth. Then, upon having nothing left to give, NESTS betray him and send him to his death when it's already far too late for him to do anything with the knowledge he's been given. 

To add insult to injury, he's then resurrected/cloned against his will to serve NESTS once again where he potentially lets himself be mercy killed rather than keep living the life of a slave. It's fucking sad man, and it's the type of backstory and narrative that REALLY makes me want to see Krizalid come back and deal with these issues and form alliances with Whip and maybe even K' in order to fight back against NESTS.

And hell, that stuff could still easily happen, but what is Krizalid's journey now? He learns the truth about his memories and what NESTS did to him...and then does absolutely fuck all about it before going back to them anyway? And how did he even survive? He got crushed by rubble! And don't forget the explicit end screen for the Edit Team in 99 where the words 'KRIZALID'S DEATH IS CONFIRMED' show up on screen. 

I don't know, I'm just really confused by the change. Ultimately I don't think it'll matter too much. I think fans of the character (who I've discovered are a lot more than I thought there'd be since becoming more active on Twitter) will just carry on as if this retcon hasn't happened, which is probably the best thing to do. Krizalid's fate still ultimately ends up the same even if it's now done in a more convoluted way. At the end of the day, I just think this is such a needlessly funny change for a character that didn't really need one. I'd love to know why SNK decided to change this and not any of the other plotlines that could use retconning, but frankly I'd rather they just worked on bringing him back into the current storyline. 

That's it for today's blog! I wort an obscene amount about this character, but honestly? Krizalid deserves it. If you read this whole thing I greatly appreciate it, it really means a lot to me.

As always you can follow me on Twitter @ScotiaVIII and subscribe to my YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAMDzPBfA1kfURIqKlNuN2g. Hope you all have a great day and I'll see you in the next blog!