Sheeva

Sheeva belongs to the ancient race of the Shokan, a subterranean people living in Outworld. Like all of her race, she possesses a tall, muscular build, red eyes, four arms with three fingers on each totaling 12 fingers, and two toes on each foot. However special to her only is the horns on her head. In Mortal Kombat 3 (1995), when the Outworld emperor Shao Kahn resurrected the Edenian queen Sindel as the first step in his invasion of Earthrealm, he appointed Sheeva to be her personal protector. She became distrustful, however, when the Kahn appointed the centaur Motaro to lead his Extermination Squads into battle. Sheeva saw this as an insult, as the Shokan and Centaurs have long been mortal enemies. She served the emperor in Earthrealm, but when she returned to Outworld, she was shocked to learn that Shao Kahn had betrayed the Shokans and had launched an offensive against them. She joined her fellow Shokans in fighting the Kahn’s warriors. The Shokans were far outnumbered, but when Shao Kahn is defeated by Earth’s warriors and recalled his troops, Sheeva takes this opportunity to get revenge on Motaro. Days later, she learned that Motaro had nursed his Earthrealm ally, Kano, back to health. Although Motaro had rescued Kano, it was merely to imprison him so he could later face the wrath of Shao Kahn for his failure to defeat the Earthrealm warrior Sonya Blade. Some time later, Sheeva attempted to kill Motaro and Shao Kahn, freeing Kano to help her with the latter after he offered his assistance. They proceeded to the palace, but Kano betrayed Sheeva, informing Shao Kahn of the attempt on his life, which lead to him killing Sheeva.

In Mortal Kombat: Armageddon's' (2006) Konquest mode, an illusion of Sheeva is seen in the Netherealm within a legion of demons all attempting to overthrow fallen Elder God Shinnok's rule as part of a test for Edenian demigod Taven. In Sheeva's non-canonical Armageddon ending, she defeats the elemental Blaze and is met by the Elder Gods. She becomes the Goddess of Destruction, destroying realms using a Kamidogu before recreating the realms however she saw fit.[1]

Sheeva returns in the rebooted continuity of Mortal Kombat (2011). In the Story Mode, she serves as Shao Kahn's bodyguard and jailer. She fights several kombatants in the game and loses to them all. In her non-canonical ending, she goes to the thunder god Raiden for help in protecting her people from Shao Kahn's followers, fearing that the Shokan will be targets after she defeated him. Raiden shows her mercy and relocates her and her people to Earthrealm, where they make the continent of Australia their new home while Sheeva becomes a ruler.

Sheeva returns as ally in Mortal Kombat 11, initially as a non-playable character before later becoming a DLC character. She is first seen when a past iteration of Edenian princess Kitana tried to convince her to aid Kotal Kahn against the revived Shao Kahn. Sheeva, however, is hesitant to get involved unless victory is assured; stating she will join only if Baraka and his Tarkatans can be persuaded to join as well. After Kitana achieves this, Sheeva accompanies her in storming the Koliseum to prevent Kotal's execution. Later, Sheeva becomes one of Kitana's primary lieutenants after the now-crippled Kotal appoints the latter the new Kahn.[2] Sheeva joins the alliance in the final battle against the keeper of time Kronika's army in the Netherrealm while Kitana and her allies proceed to Kronika's keep.[3] In the DLC expansion, Aftermath, Sheeva plays a more significant role, aiding a time-traveling sorcerer Shang Tsung in retrieving Kronika's Crown of Souls so Fire God Liu Kang can restore history. After he exploits her blood oath to Sindel, Sheeva assists in reviving her so she can join them as well.[4] After learning of Sindel's treachery however, Sheeva attempted to stop her, only to be defeated.[5]

Sheeva, whose name was derived from Shiva, a Hindu deity of destruction, was introduced into the series due to fan requests for a playable version of Goro.[6] She was not included among the selectable fighters in the SNES and Sega Genesis version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 due to memory constraints, though she appeared as a glitch character in the SNES version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Sheeva's blood was green in MK3 through Mortal Kombat Trilogy (although if this was done simply because she was a Shokan, it made little sense, seeing as both Goro and Kintaro had red blood in previous games). She was the first character to have this particular blood color (not counting the censored Japanese version of Mortal Kombat II, in which all characters had green blood). Her blood color was changed to red in Armageddon.

Until the release of MK: Armageddon, Sheeva had not appeared as a playable character since MK Trilogy, nor did she have had any substantial cameos; only her corpse was found in the Netherealm in Mortal Kombat: Deception's Konquest mode and is seen running through the graveyard in the game's Krypt, in which almost all MK characters had cameos. Her fate after MK Trilogy was revealed in the text from Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance's Konquest mode. In Armageddon's arcade mode, Sheeva sometimes appeared as a sub-boss before the final fight with Blaze. She is the only Shokan character that can perform aerial combos, and the only Shokan character that can be thrown by normal characters in the game. While she has Goro's offensive moves, she is female so that she would be smaller in size and therefore the same height as the other fighters.

Sheeva appears in Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, played by Marjean Holden. The shooting script included a lengthy fight scene with Raiden that was omitted during filming; instead, she was simply crushed by a falling cage in Kahn's throne room. Her only action sequence was a brief quarrel with Motaro, though the film did acknowledge that she was once Sindel's personal protector. In a 2001 interview with fansite Total Mortal Kombat, Holden expressed her displeasure at the filmmakers' treatment of her character. In the shooting script and novelization, Sheeva met her demise in an extensive fight scene with newly mortal Raiden, but the scene was never filmed and her screen time was scant in the finished print, with Raiden instead fighting two Raptors and Sheeva's death simply coming from a falling cage. "Here was a character, that was one of the most popular [in] the video game...and they killed her without even so much as a fight! Something I was not happy about at all. That was one of the reasons I wanted to do the role, was for the sheer fact that there were really great fights in the movie for this character, and they all got cut out."[7]

Sheeva has a small role in the animated series Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm, in which she harbored a long-standing animosity toward Raiden. She was voiced by Dawnn Lewis.

In the 2015 Mortal Kombat X prequel comic miniseries produced by DC Comics, Sheeva is crowned by Kintaro as the current leader of the Shokan in a peaceful treaty with Kotal Kahn, following the death of previous rule King Gorbak. Sheeva mourned Kintaro's death when a possessed Sonya Blade killed him in battle.