Elinee
Elinee
February 28, 2021
The Book of Mana (Dengeki; August 27, 1993)
Secret of Mana’s own wicked witch, Elinee is the primary antagonist and plot accelerator at the beginning of the game. Despite this, Elinee barely has any official art in any version, and her past is a mystery, with a total absence in contemporary Japanese guides and not many establishing lines in the game’s script. She’s also a barefaced fairy tale trope—it doesn’t get more…Grimm than an evil witch.
The dwarf Elder informs us that Elinee used to be a good witch, but we don’t know what this goodness entailed. She’s very famous in the Gaia Lowlands, and just about everyone knows she’s up to something. Among other things, she’s capable of zombifying an entire kingdom, sealing off entrances to magical palaces, teleportation, and keeping a menagerie of very deadly (but also some very adorable) monsters for protection. We can assume that she went evil solely due to the tragic situation in her forest:
ELINEE: I’m sorry. Recently, the medicinal herbs that sprout in this forest have completely withered away. In exchange for preserving [my] magical power, I’ve stripped the will from the townspeople. I’ve been getting the medicinal herbs from Thanatos. From now on, I’ve returned to being a regular old lady, and I’ll just live a quiet life…
So despite opening an entire region of the world to the Empire’s influence, sending off Purim’s love, and attacking Randi with a mutated tiger…all is immediately forgiven. And that’s the last we hear of Elinee for the rest of the game, as the focus shifts entirely to the Empire.
Localization Notes
- Her Japanese name is a reference to Erinice of the Zoroastre opera, which is in line with the many French-influenced aspects of Secret of Mana.
- In Japanese, she literally says that she’s “deboned” the citizens of Pandora, implying that she’s taken their proverbial backbone.
- Spikey Tiger is the Tiger Chimera; Elinee refers to it as her “cute Tiger Chimera-chan.” A Japanese source says it’s a magical recreation (albeit corrupted) of an extinct saber tooth tiger.