Characters and People Who Inspired Suikoden

Ask questions about the personality and backstory of the multitude of characters in the Suikoden series.
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Hikaru
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Characters and People Who Inspired Suikoden

Post by Hikaru »

Greetings! So, we all know that Gensō Suikoden mixes the history, literature and folklore from both eastern and western cultures into the games, so that it can appealing for everybody and convey a greater feeling of unity.


Now my question is: how many history, folklore and literature-inspired characters can we see in the Gensō Suikoden series? And then, who are those characters?



Here are the probable safe assumptions :

Alhazred - Abdul Al'Hazred.
Babbage - Charles Babbage.
Borus - Sir Bors The Younger.
Crowley - Aleister Crowley.
Fuma - Fūma Kotarō.
Galahad - Sir Galahad.
Hanzo - Hattori Hanzō.
Kidd - Meitantei Konan.
Lucretia - Zhuge Liang.
Maximilliam - Don Quixote.
Mazus - Samuel McGregor Mathers.
Miklotov's sword (Dunceney) - Danceny.
Neclord - Count Dracula.
Oleg - Oleg (from Shadow of Memories).
Percival - Sir Percival.
Pesmerga and Yuber - Black Knight (from many sources inspired by the Arthurian literature).
Riou/Tao - Sun Wukong.
Sancho - Sancho Panza.
Sasuke - Sarutobi Sasuke.
Suikoden V - Elpihas Levi.
The Zexen Knights (as a whole) - The Knights of the Round Table.


Now some that can be more easily refuted:

Barbarossa Rugner - Frederick I (a Holy Roman Emperor).
Camus - Albert Camus / Armand-Gaston Camus (French philosopher / French revolutionist - named after one of them).
Griffith - Corkus (a character from the manga Berserk).
Kage - Hattori Hanzō (Japanese general - along with Hanzo).
Kasim Hazil - Muhammad bin Qasim (Arab General).
Luca Blight - Xiang Yu (Chinese general) .
Nabokov - Vladmir Nabokov (Russian writer - name only?).
Odessa - Mother Lü and Wang Cong'er / City of Odessa (Chinese rebel leaders / Ukrainian city).
Perrault - Charles Perrault / Gilles Perrault (French writer / French journalist).
Pesmerga - The Peshmerga (Kurdish armed warriors, "those who confront death").
Roland - Hruodland (chief paladin of Charlemagne).



Wolkendrache's topic about the inspirations and similarities with Shui Hu Zhuan:
http://www.suikosource.com/phpBB3/viewt ... 25&t=13766


What do you guys think? Agreements? Disagreements? Who else do you know or think is inspired by another character?
Last edited by Hikaru on Thu Oct 16, 2014 2:48 pm, edited 15 times in total.
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Hikaru
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Re: Characters and People Who Inspired Suikoden

Post by Hikaru »

Allow me to start the discussion myself.

About Riou, he has the emblematic headband that is commonly associated with Sun Wukong, and red and yellow are also some of the most common colors for the Monkey King, along with blue. He doesn't have the staff, but Jowy does. And wears blue. Maybe these are some evidences? Some images to illustrate the point:

http://www.muian.com/muian04/04yoshitoshi01025.jpg
http://www.writeups.org/img/fiche/3859a.jpg
http://imgkk.com/i/g40s.jpg
http://www.sothebys.com/content/dam/sot ... nkey_6.JPG
http://media.gamerevolution.com/images/ ... n-goku.jpg


About Griffith, some of his manners and a lot of his looks remind me of Corkus from the Band of the Hawk. Also, the leader of the group is called Griffith as well. Images:

http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb2010 ... fith01.gif
http://www.animecrave.com/_content/info ... corkus.jpg
http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb2013 ... lothes.png
http://stat.ameba.jp/user_images/201109 ... 727646.jpg

Oh, and I'm also hoping there's someone to say something about the characters from the novel and how they relate to some characters from the game.
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Re: Characters and People Who Inspired Suikoden

Post by Wolkendrache »

Hikaru wrote:Oh, and I'm also hoping there's someone to say something about the characters from the novel and how they relate to some characters from the game.
As for characters, Suikoden 1 was especially close to the novel. I've made a brief comparison, but only for the heavenly stars:
http://www.suikosource.com/phpBB3/viewt ... 25&t=13766
"Within the four seas, all men are brothers" Shuihu Zhuan
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Hikaru
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Re: Characters and People Who Inspired Suikoden

Post by Hikaru »

Wolkendrache wrote:
Hikaru wrote:Oh, and I'm also hoping there's someone to say something about the characters from the novel and how they relate to some characters from the game.
As for characters, Suikoden 1 was especially close to the novel. I've made a brief comparison, but only for the heavenly stars:
http://www.suikosource.com/phpBB3/viewt ... 25&t=13766
Oh, I don't know why I haven't seen it before. That is very interesting, thank you! So I guess I'll be focusing on the inspirations from outside the novel. Anyway, I put it in the first post.
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Re: Characters and People Who Inspired Suikoden

Post by Raww Le Klueze »

Crowley is named after Aleister Crowley, just like Mazus is a mistranslation of Mathers, named after occultist Samuel McGregor Mathers.

Babbage is named after Charles Babbage, inventor of the first mechanical computer.

Miklotov's sword Dunceney is a mistranslation of Danceny, a character in Les liaisons dangereuses.
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Sasarai10
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Re: Characters and People Who Inspired Suikoden

Post by Sasarai10 »

How about Oleg?

"
The character design of Oleg is a small tribute to a character of the same from another Kawano Junko-produced game; Shadow of Memories (Shadow of Destiny in North America). That Oleg is a movie producer while Suikoden IV's Oleg invents the video camera.

"


http://gensopedia.theirstar.com/index.php?title=Oleg
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Re: Characters and People Who Inspired Suikoden

Post by Wolkendrache »

Odessa - Mother Lü and Wang Cong'er
Lucretia - Zhuge Liang
Hikaru wrote:Camus - Albert Camus (only named after him).
I'd rather say Armand-Gaston Camus, but that's still deep within the realm of speculation.
"Within the four seas, all men are brothers" Shuihu Zhuan
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Re: Characters and People Who Inspired Suikoden

Post by sticky-runes »

Grace O'Malley was a ballsy Irish pirate queen who fought off a lot of pirates and invaders. I reckon she could be the inspiration for some of the ladies in Suikoden 4.
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Re: Characters and People Who Inspired Suikoden

Post by Vextor »

Levi from Suikoden 5 is also named after the famous occultist, Elpihas Levi

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliphas_Levi
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Re: Characters and People Who Inspired Suikoden

Post by Antimatzist »

Alhazred is named after Abdul Al'Hazred, author of the Necronomicon, who later went insane.

... at least that's what H. P. Lovecraft tells us. ;)

There was a French journalist by the name Gilles Perrault.
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Re: Characters and People Who Inspired Suikoden

Post by BrucePrintscreen »

Antimatzist wrote:

There was a French journalist by the name Gilles Perrault.
Gilles Perrault is very obscure. I believe the character Perrault was named after Charles Perrault, who is very famous for writing many fairy tales.
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Re: Characters and People Who Inspired Suikoden

Post by Wolkendrache »

As for Odessa's name, there is a city in the Ukraine called Odessa, its name derives from greek Odessos. I don't know if it's related to Odysseus, but when I thought of this character who fought in the Trojan war along with Achilles, I came to believe that Odessa could be a made-up female form of Odysseus.
In any case I don't think that this was the inspiration for her name: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ODESSA
"Within the four seas, all men are brothers" Shuihu Zhuan
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Re: Characters and People Who Inspired Suikoden

Post by BrucePrintscreen »

Wolkendrache wrote:As for Odessa's name, there is a city in the Ukraine called Odessa, its name derives from greek Odessos. I don't know if it's related to Odysseus, but when I thought of this character who fought in the Trojan war along with Achilles, I came to believe that Odessa could be a made-up female form of Odysseus.
In any case I don't think that this was the inspiration for her name: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ODESSA
I think her name comes from the city of Odessa because of the role this city played in Russian revolutions, making it an appropriate name for a revolutionary leader.
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Re: Characters and People Who Inspired Suikoden

Post by Antimatzist »

BrucePrintscreen wrote:
Antimatzist wrote:

There was a French journalist by the name Gilles Perrault.
Gilles Perrault is very obscure. I believe the character Perrault was named after Charles Perrault, who is very famous for writing many fairy tales.
It could be both, I guess, he doesn't share any similar outward apperance with either.
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Re: Characters and People Who Inspired Suikoden

Post by Hikaru »

Raww Le Klueze wrote:Crowley is named after Aleister Crowley, just like Mazus is a mistranslation of Mathers, named after occultist Samuel McGregor Mathers.

Babbage is named after Charles Babbage, inventor of the first mechanical computer.

Miklotov's sword Dunceney is a mistranslation of Danceny, a character in Les liaisons dangereuses.
Awesome, added those to the list. Thank you.
Sasarai10 wrote:How about Oleg?

"
The character design of Oleg is a small tribute to a character of the same from another Kawano Junko-produced game; Shadow of Memories (Shadow of Destiny in North America). That Oleg is a movie producer while Suikoden IV's Oleg invents the video camera.

"


http://gensopedia.theirstar.com/index.php?title=Oleg

Oh, that's unexpected. And I did play SoM some years ago. Nice one.
Wolkendrache wrote:Odessa - Mother Lü and Wang Cong'er
Lucretia - Zhuge Liang
Hikaru wrote:Camus - Albert Camus (only named after him).
I'd rather say Armand-Gaston Camus, but that's still deep within the realm of speculation.
Interesting... How certain are you about Lü and Wang? I didn't know them before, so I can't really tell. Lucretia really seems to resemble Zhuge Liang. Actually, I'd say the same about Shu in terms of behaviour...
Thanks!

sticky-runes wrote:Grace O'Malley was a ballsy Irish pirate queen who fought off a lot of pirates and invaders. I reckon she could be the inspiration for some of the ladies in Suikoden 4.
Hmm, that would make sense since...at least as far as I know, there weren't many famous female pirates. Did you notice anything in particular with any character that resembles this O'Malley more closely?
Vextor wrote:Levi from Suikoden 5 is also named after the famous occultist, Elpihas Levi

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliphas_Levi
Aha. Added it to the list, thanks.
BrucePrintscreen wrote:
Wolkendrache wrote:As for Odessa's name, there is a city in the Ukraine called Odessa, its name derives from greek Odessos. I don't know if it's related to Odysseus, but when I thought of this character who fought in the Trojan war along with Achilles, I came to believe that Odessa could be a made-up female form of Odysseus.
In any case I don't think that this was the inspiration for her name: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ODESSA
I think her name comes from the city of Odessa because of the role this city played in Russian revolutions, making it an appropriate name for a revolutionary leader.
Thanks again for the info, Wolken. And Bruce, would you be kind to tell us more about the role of Odessa in those revolutions? Anyway, I'll add it to the speculative list.
Antimatzist wrote:
BrucePrintscreen wrote:
Antimatzist wrote:
Alhazred is named after Abdul Al'Hazred, author of the Necronomicon, who later went insane.

... at least that's what H. P. Lovecraft tells us. ;)

There was a French journalist by the name Gilles Perrault
Gilles Perrault is very obscure. I believe the character Perrault was named after Charles Perrault, who is very famous for writing many fairy tales.
It could be both, I guess, he doesn't share any similar outward apperance with either.
Very well remembered. There is also an Alhazred in "The Lamp of Alhazred", by Lovecraft's friend August Derleth. Do you know if that is the same Alhazred? Anyway, added to the main list!

I don't really remember much about Suikoden IV's Perrault, but since he's a journalist, maybe Gilles isn't out of question. I'll add both names to the list.
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