Secret of Mana’s Mysterious Blue-Haired Girl
I sure wouldn’t have guessed that I’d be devoting two separate posts to two different video game heroines with blue hair in one month, but that’s exactly what’s happened. First there was Princess Prin Prin from Ghosts ’n Goblins, and now there’s a supporting character from Secret of Mana who’s actually more important to the overall series than you might expect. She goes by many names, but in the original English localization of Secret of Mana, she is Phanna.
Full translation forthcoming, but it’s contrasting the demure Phanna with the more outgoing Primm. (Image via.)
Phanna makes a series of appearances throughout Secret of Mana. Initially she’s Primm’s friend in the city of Pandora, but she ends up being abducted by Thanatos, the game’s big bad. As the game progresses, it becomes clear that Phanna was secretly in love with Dyluck — Primm’s boyfriend, who I discussed in more length than anyone has probably ever devoted to Dyluck in this post — and that Phanna’s jealousy allowed evil to creep into her heart. After being slapped around by Primm toward the end of the game, Phanna comes to her senses, apologizes and wishes the heroes success on their whole world-saving journey. The game’s ending sees her returning to her family in Pandora, if only briefly.
That, more or less, is the end of her, but if you want to get deep on Secret of Mana lore, this blue-haired girl is actually recurrent in the series mythos in a way that’s not readily apparent if you don’t do your homework.
In the original Japanese version of the game, her name is パメラ (Pamera), which you’d think would just be rendered in English as Pamela. That’s how you write Pamela Anderson’s first name in katakana, anyway. The original English localization didn’t do this, and though I have to admit I like the name Phanna and think it’s perfectly suited for a fantasy setting, it’s an odd choice considering that it’s very close to the name of Fanha, who’s one of the four generals flanking Emperor Vandole, the game’s central villain until Thanatos takes over. The two names look distinct when written out, but I think it’s odd to invent a name for a character that sounds so close to another one, especially with there being no apparent plot reason to tie these two together.
When Secret of Mana received a new English localization for the 2018 remake, another weird decision was made. Rather than just calling her Pamela, the game went with Pamaela, which is not just a creative spelling of the common name because it’s pronounced in the game to reflect the extra letter: “puh-MAY-la.” I couldn’t tell you why. Maybe it gives the character the aura of something more exotic, but she’s had this name in all subsequent versions of the game.
That said, the same character seems to exist in Sword of Mana, the 2003 remake of the first game in the series, Final Fantasy Adventure, that incorporates the aesthetic of 1999’s Legend of Mana as well as characters from both Secret of Mana and Legend of Mana. In my post on Dyluck, I mentioned that the version of him appearing in this game is named Durac, presumably because the localization team either didn’t realize that he was supposed to be Dyluck or didn’t like the original localization of the name. Either way, the character’s name in the Japanese versions of Secret of Mana and Sword of Mana are the same, ディラック (Dirakku), making it clear that they’re supposed to be the same character, localization notwithstanding.
In Sword of Mana, Durac is the prince of Lorimar, where all the subjects have been turned to ice because his father, the king, made a deal with the Vandole Empire. The only two spared this fate are the king himself and a seemingly middle-aged maid, Marley, who rebukes the king for causing this fate to befall the kingdom. Once the curse is lifted, the people of Lorimar are restored and Durac succeeds his father on the throne. We get an odd little scene between Durac and Marley, however, in which he mistakes her for someone named Pamela. This is the only mention of anyone named this in the entire game.
Say what you will about writing in video games, I think this is well-written tragedy. (Via this playthrough on YouTube.)
Just watching this scene play out, it might seem like Marley is correctly telling Dyluck that he’s mistaken and that she’s not the girl he’s remembering. After all, Marley doesn’t have that trademark blue hair. I think she’s lying, however. In Japanese, this character is named not Marley but Marie (マリー).
Now, remember that the Secret of Mana character’s name is rendered in katakana as パメラ. That probably seems far from the characters for Marie, but you just look at the second and third syllables of her name you’d get something like Mera (メラ), which is actually close enough to Marie — sound-wise, if not character-wise — that I wonder if the implication here is that this woman, who was not put into suspended animation with the rest of the kingdom, has aged to the point that she no longer recognizes herself as the young girl Durac remembers. As such, she’s dropped part of her original name in some kind of recognition of her being something different than what she used to be. And maybe that’s why she lies to him and says she’s not Pamela.
Or that’s a total overread, and I don’t know what I’m talking about. Still, it’s interesting to link this character, who otherwise does not recall the blue-haired girl at all, in this scene where it really seems like some important information is being withheld.
But that’s not all. In fact, Pamaela (or whatever her name is) gets her biggest callback so far in Visions of Mana. One of the party members is Palamena, a princess who story-wise and class-wise recalls Angela and Reisz from Trials of Mana. She is, however, also a blue-haired girl with a name that’s close enough to Pamaela’s that I immediately suspected that she could be a reference.
The sweetest squirrel-girl in video games (not verified).
I think I was proven correct because when she first interacts with your party, she’s actually posing as a man, in order to escape palace life and observe her kingdom’s subjects under the radar. The name she gives is Pamael, which is even closer to Pamaela’s name, to the point that I think she is, in fact, a more fully realized version of the Secret of Mana character, much in the way the game’s story sheds more light on the limited story Dyluck got in the original game. (Later, you find out that she had another male persona: Paem, a Robin Hood-style thief.)
Not a Blue Mage but a blue Red Mage. Blue-haired girl necessitates blue mustache, obviously.
What’s more, when she first bumps into the main party, the way she’s dressed somewhat recalls the costume of a standard Final Fantasy-style Red Mage, just recolored blue. I think this could be a reference to the fact that in Final Fantasy Adventure, the hero encounters a mysterious man who temporarily joins up and who looks and dresses like Red Mage — it’s just that given the fact that it’s a Game Boy game, you can’t see what color he is. Eventually, it’s revealed that this apparent friend is actually Julius, the game’s big bad. (In the 2016 remake Adventures of Mana, the mysterious man is in fact wearing red.) In Visions of Mana, Palamena’s fire elemental class, Masquer, seems to be a combo of a Red Mage outfit and something someone might wear to a masquerade ball, partial mask and everything. I think this is another indication that Palamena’s introduction is a callback to the original game, what with the disguise element added to traditional Red Mage garb.
A double video game allusion.
In my big post on Birdo, I confessed to being that guy who’s always rooting for the underdog female character. I am very much that, and this post is very much a result of this tendency. However, I’m not the only one carrying a torch for characters who have otherwise been forgotten. The people who make these games remember them too, and I’ll always be happy to happen across a little tribute here or there that helps these less famous characters live on.
Miscellaneous Notes
The Secret of Mana Redux page offers a little more insight into Phanna/Pamaela’s motivations, if you’re curious.
This post seems as good a place as any to write about the villains of Secret of Mana. In short, I’m not sure why any of them get the names they get aside from Thanatos, but hopefully in posting something here, a reader can point me toward a possible origin I’ve missed.
Early on, the game’s central villain seems to be Emperor Vandole, whose empire is responsible for most of the bad things befalling the world. He is flanked by four generals — shitennou (四天王) or “four heavenly kings” to use the original Japanese term. These are Thanatos, Geshtar, Sheex and Fanha.
The Secret of Mana villains per the 2018 remake. Left to right: Geshtar, Fanha, Vandole, Sheex and Thanatos, along with the bigger, badder boss forms in back.
Thanatos (タナトス or Tanatosu) is easy. The Greek Θάνατος means both “death” and “corpse,” and in Greek mythology, Thanatos was the personification of death. Considering how central death and sacrifice are to these games, as stated in my Dyluck piece, this makes sense, as does the fact that Thanatos’ “real” form is that of the Dark Lich. (This Wiki of Mana page conjunctions that the character may also be influenced by the Suel Lich from Dungeons & Dragons.)
Vandole (ヴァンドール or Vandor) I’m less clear on. I’d guess it’s close to vandal (ヴァンダル), though more in the sense of the Germanic people than graffiti. But it was at least significant enough to the people at Square back in the day that it appears twice; it’s also the name of the villainous empire in Final Fantasy Adventure, though there is no singular character with that name in that first game.
Geshtar (ゲシュタール or Geshutāru) is the green-haired lackey the heroes fight in the form of a recurring boss called the Mech Rider, but what’s more interesting to me about him is that his name is very close to the localized name for the evil emperor in Final Fantasy VI: Geshtahl. That might just be a coincidence, however, because the katakana for his name are ガストラ, which would be transliterated as something like Gasutora, Gastora or Gastra, all of which seem to hint at something digestive system-related. For all I know, the rendering of Geshtar’s name in the English Secret of Mana might have influenced how Geshtahl’s name came to be in the English Final Fantasy VI. Still, it’s interesting that Geshtahl ends up being a very similar character to Vandole; both are seeming big bads who end up getting overthrown by their underling — Kefka in Final Fantasy VI and Thanatos in Secret of Mana. But that’s a whole trope unto itself, maybe most familiar to people from Star Wars.
Sheex (シーク or Shīku) is the least important of the bad guys. What’s interesting about him, I suppose, is that his Japanese name is identical to that of Zelda’s alterego, Sheik, though I don’t suppose there’s much of either character, design- or story-wise, to explain that name. He probably deserves some kind of nod for having a boss form with one of the stranger names in a video game: Aegagropilon, presumably from his resemblance to the species of green algae that grows in ball form. In the Japanese version of the game, this boss is just called Mega Xorn, in reference to the Dungeons and Dragons enemy.
And finally that leaves us with the aforementioned Fanha, whose name is written in katakana as ファウナッハ, which is pronounced differently than Phanna’s name would be. That name would be pronounced to rhyme with “mana,” whereas Fanha’s name would be pronounced more like the word fauna, though with a little more going on in the last syllable. The English approximation is rendered sometimes as Faunahha but also one one suggested translation is Faunach, an Irish word meaning “wandering” that’s best known today from the traditional song “An Spailpín Fánach,” or “the wandering laborer. I’ve got nothing on this one. Suggestions?
That said, there’s a tenuous connection between Fanha and Phanna/Pamaela in Sword of Mana. In Secret of Mana, when Fanha fights the heroes, she takes the form of a four-armed snake woman that in the English localization is called Hexas and that in the original Japanese is called a ラミアンナーガ or Lamian Naga, the lamia and naga both being snake-tailed humanoids. Uniquely among the Secret of Mana bosses, this one recurs in the form of a summon in Trials of Mana that both the hero Reisz and the villain Belladonna can use. A similarly multi-armed snake lady boss exists in both Final Fantasy Adventure and its remake, Sword of Mana. And in Sword of Mana, she’s the boss who must be defeated in order to relieve Lorimar of its ice curse, thus prompting the short-lived reunion between Dyluck/Durac and Marley/Marie/Phanna/Pamela/Pamaela. (God, this girl has got a lot of names.) For what it’s worth, I have no idea where the original Secret of Mana localization got the name Hexas.