Assassin (Charles-Henri Sanson)
Henri assisted his father in a large number of executions during the French Revolution. He was himself the executor of Fouquier-Tinville, and, in 1820, of Louis Pierre Louvel, assassin of the Duc de Berry.
Assassin (Charles-Henri Sanson)
The only empress in Chinese history, known as Wu Zetian, but she preferred her title of Sacred Divine Empress Regnant when she ascended to the throne. Originally one of many concubines for Emperor Taizong of T'ang, she met with Taizong's son, Gaozong, and became his concubine after Taizong's death. She had his child but they quickly died. She blamed Empress Wang for murdering her child and had both her and the favorite concubine Consort Xiao overthrown. She then took the seat of Gaozong's empress. To consolidate power, she had any relative who had become hindrances and her political enemies assassinated. After Gaozong's death, she changed the name of the country to Zhou, took the throne for herself, and granted herself the title of Empress Regnant. She appears as an antagonist in Agartha and has a minor role in the third Halloween event, " Halloween Strike! Demonic Climb - Himeji Castle War". Affably Evil: She's rather friendly, aside from all the torture, and gives the protagonist multiple opportunities to work with her. She's quite confused when the protagonist calls her city the worst they've ever seen.
Affectionate Gesture to the Head: At Bond level four, she admits it's fine for the protagonist to give her headpats or sweet candy.
Age-Inappropriate Dress: Her outfit in her second and third ascensions does not look very appropriate for someone of her appearance.
A God Am I: She had a habit of rewriting historical texts to glorify herself, such as rewriting the Heart Sutra to declare herself equal to Buddha.
Ambition Is Evil: Her desire to have control and power motivated her to learn martial arts, statesmanship and everything else she could think of so she could claw her way to the top, but she also poisoned and strangled any rivals or inconveniences until she could get there. She even states in Agartha that the reason she appears in her child form is because this is the moment she swore to achieve the ambitions she would fulfill throughout her life and legend.
Balance Buff: Her first Rank-Up quest buffs Torture Technique A to Bone-Charred Peony A+, which boosts the Defense Down from 1020% to 2030% and adds both a one-time Buff Block for three turns and a 5001000HP Burn damage debuff for three turns as well.
Her interlude upgrades her Noble Phantasm, adding a buff removal effect as well as increasing its damage. Combined with her other skills, this buff lets her be an extremely powerful damage dealer who can stop enemy buffs and strip them to continue attacking with impunity.
Her second Rank-Up quest turns her Imperial Privilege skill into Wise Empress, which grants the entire party a 20% to 30% Critical Damage buff as well as a 10% NP Charge.
Beware the Silly Ones: She's a squeaky-voiced little girl obsessed with how great she is, but she also destroys the city of Ys pretty much singlehandedly.
Control Freak: She needs a perfectly orderly city with no crime or dissidence and is offended at the idea that the heavens had guaranteed her rise to the throne of ancient China. She scraped and clawed her way all the way to the top by herself with her need to be the one in power. On the other hand, she's quite willing to delegate work to her subordinates rather than keep a tight fist on everything herself, so long as the subordinates are competent.
Crapsaccharine World: The Nightless City in Agartha under her is effectively this if you're a man. Unlike Dahut's and Berserker of El Dorado's kingdoms, men have the ability to walk about without chains or being openly assaulted and they technically have rights as long as they follow the laws. However, they're still subservient to women in all things and lack many basic rights like free speech. The courts, while impartial when it comes to cases between two men, almost always rule in favor of a woman over a man when it comes up, no matter the grievance, and even hinting that you have problems with the system out loud is enough to get the Torturers to pop up and start dismembering you.
Cultural Translation: Due to her name being spoilers, her nickname in the Japanese version is Fuuya-chan (Nightless-chan). The NA version opted to change it to Nite-Brite instead.
Determinator: She schemed from an early age to become the emperor's favorite as a stepping stone to becoming empress herself, being willing to go to any length to do so. No matter how much the concubines of higher social standing mocked her, Wu continued to learn and master everything she could and pull every sring until she reached the top of the social hierarchy.
Enemy Summoner: She can summon Torturers to do the dirty work for her, something which isn't tied to any particular skill or her Noble Phantasm.
Faking the Dead: She gets squished by Megaros and her presence disappears, but apparently Mash forgot that she's an Assassin and all she has to do is hide if she doesn't want to be found. She returns later to use her Noble Phantasm to torture Phenex until it leaves since it cannot be killed.
Freudian Excuse: Two instances. She was shipped away to be the emperor's concubine when she was young and forced to backstab the other concubines to gain the emperor's favor. This is implied to be the reason she manifests in a child-like form: to relive her lost childhood.
Her constant need for perfection and being Wicked Cultured in many ways is partially due to being made fun of by other concubines for being a "country bumpkin" and constantly chided for any flaw she had, no matter how slight.
Glass Cannon: Her Balance Buff and her Interlude upgrade make her an extremely strong Servant for DPS when all the stars align. between the attack buffs on her Charisma of the Empress and her Imperial Privilege skill and the defense down on Torture Techniques, she can potentially have the single most damaging single-target Assassin Noble Phantasm in the game. But this power comes at the cost of a complete lack of hard defensive tools, with her only means of survivability being the defense buff on Imperial Privilege (which may or may not activate).
God Save Us from the Queen!: She's a conniving and manipulative tyrant who keeps her subjects in line under threat of horrendous torture and a secret police that kills anyone who speaks out against her.
Heroic Sacrifice: After already being badly or perhaps even mortally wounded much earlier, she goes all out with her Noble Phantasm to torture a demon pillar so badly that it's crippled and unable to do anything but blindly flail around. In this constant state of death and rebirth it can't interfere while Fergus brings down Laputa, ending the singularity.
Hidden Depths: Though extremely ambitious and ruthless, she is to some extent forcing herself. She wants to go out and play like a child or to laugh, have fun and eat candy, but knows that acting like a child would get in the way of her goals. So when she's disappearing after her Heroic Sacrifice, she puts aside her ambition and just asks for her head to be petted.
Historical Villain Upgrade: More recent archeological studies about her reign indicate that she wasn't the epitome of evil that her successors made her out to be. Under her reign, China was an economic powerhouse that received visiting dignitaries from as far as the Byzantine Empire. She also expanded the meritocracy, fought for women's right's (though this also helped legitimize her own reign), cut taxes, provided pensions, raised salaries for deserving officials, and turned over unused imperial lands to farmers. While she was ruthless to her political rivals as her penchant for torture shows, she was also a skilled and adept ruler who kept China peaceful and prosperous. But given that Heroic Spirits are colored by the stories about them, it's understandable that Wu would show her crueler side more openly as a Servant.
I Have Many Names: She has had numerous different names and titles, both during when she was alive and posthumously. One of her likes she talks about is changing names since she gets tired of them, and wants to change her title to something like Super Heroic Mega Empress.
Ma'am Shock: Yang Guifei advises you to not to call Wu "Nightless Nai Nainote grandmother" like she seemed to have done as Wu is Yang's grandmother-in-law, with Wu insisting to be called "Nightless Jie Jienote Big sister" while torturing her.
Master Poisoner: Her skillset revolves around this, with her Noble Phantasm dunking the enemy in a vase full of poisonous sludge.
The Nicknamer: When she was the Empress, she would get bored of doing the same thing or calling something the same thing over and over again so she would periodically change the names of things such as eras, ranks, cities and regions. As a Servant, she only gets around to calling the protagonist different names, though she tries to give Mash a nickname. She tends to give other Servants Chinese nicknames.
Noblewoman's Laugh: She does one for her Extra Attack as spears impale the enemy. During the story she also corrects herself at one point when she starts laughing like a little girl and not a famous empress.
Obliviously Evil: She sees nothing wrong with the brutal police state she's set up and honestly believes that it's completely honest, fair and sure to lead to the eradication of evil.
Off with His Head!: One of her attack animation involves her minions beheading a target with a giant saw.
Offing the Offspring: It's suggested that she not only took advantage of the death of her first child, but may have killed it herself to frame her rivals.
Older Than They Look: She appears in a child-like form with a voice to match despite having all of her memories of her time as an empress. She's strikingly beautiful and fairly busty as an adult.
One Degree of Separation: During her first Interlude, she and Xuanzang Sanzang talk about how they just missed each other even though she was Emperor Taizong's concubine when he asked Sanzang to go to Tianzhu to bring back the Heart Sutras. Once Sanzang returned, she was too focused on translating the sutras to notice the regime change.
Yang Guifei was the consort of her grandson, Emperor Xuanzong, making Yang her granddaughter-in-law. This becomes a plot point in Imaginary Scramble since learning of their relationship makes Yang willing to listen to her.
The Red Mage: After her various upgrades, Wu sits in a position where she can buff her party with various attack buffs, debuff the enemies with defense downs, Damage Over Time or just deny their buffs, all while being able to buff herself to do sufficient damage if she has to.
Royal "We": She refers to herself in plural form ("warawa") as an empress. The official English translation doesn't bother with this, however.
Stripperiffic: Looks like she took a page from Shuten's book. Her ascension outfits basically have her only wearing string panties and a "tube top bra" that looks more like a string under her robes and loincloth.
Sweet Tooth: At Bond level four, she admits it's fine for the protagonist to give her some sweeeeeeet candy now. Or headpats.
Torture Technician: She's a torturer famous for her gruesome punishment of enemies, which is also one of her skills. Her NP is the Kù Lì (torturer) manual book, which is said to have been written during her reign. It has guides on torture and interrogation for the purpose of "persuading criminals" into confessing. While this Noble Phantasm is deployed, she becomes the torturer and all who try to challenge her become the tortured.
Tsundere: In Agartha, she actually seems to like the protagonist and wants their approval, even if she won't admit it. This is probably for the simple reason that they were nice to her and patted her head, which she "graciously forgives." She can't admit normally that she wants to laugh and play like children her apparent age would, but when she's disappearing she allows them the honor of petting her again.
At Bond 5 her playable version goes one step further and starts talking about how she never ruled with a partner, and starts hinting that she wants the player to fill that role, only for her to get mad and call them an idiot over how dense they are.
Villain Respect: In her interlude, she mentions that she was impressed by the poetry of Luo Binwang, who offered a scathing account of her reign that vilified her in Chinese memory for millenia after their deaths. Rather than call for his head, she tried to recruit him into the imperial court, believing that his talents were too valuable to waste.
Weak, but Skilled: Almost literally - her HP is incredibly tiny, even compared to other Assassins at her rarity, and her attack is nothing to write home about, but her skills all last three turns and have 7-5 turn cooldowns, two of them help the entire group, and her Noble Phantasm does a huge amount of damage and further increases her crit strength if overcharged, making her great at killing bosses alongside other Quick-focused Servants.
Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: She's really afraid of cats, cat-like creatures like Fou and cat-like Servants like Tamamo Cat and Jaguar Warrior. This is because she believes in a curse from a consort whom she had executed that Zetian would get reborn as a mouse and get eaten by the reborn consort as a cat. She therefore prohibited cats in her imperial court. She tries to deny this when commenting on those two Servants, but it's pretty obvious how scared she is. She's also afraid of the ghosts of people she had killed and so moved her capital from Chang'an to Luoyang to get away from them.
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