The Complete G Lore Primer

Most of the stuff I’ve written here I’ve already written about in past theories. However, as all of my previous theories are in separate posts, I’ve decided to condense all of my previous G theories into one handy guide for the purpose of convenience. I call this the Complete G Lore Primer, and within it is all of the information I have found that ties everything together regarding the mysteries behind G.

Let’s start with the very first one. https://manestreet.home.blog/2019/02/20/the-truth-about-g-and-q/

In “The Truth About G and Q?”, I began my theory with an analysis posted by user Beartacule on Reddit, which you can find here. https://www.reddit.com/r/StreetFighter/comments/96swe1/g_and_q_theory_and_lore_from_4chan/

While the analysis states that G is symbolic of “The Fallen Man” (and showed that he ended up becoming Q), I immediately dismissed this idea as while the in-game, canon evidence wasn’t overt, it was prevalent enough that I was pointed in a completely different direction than the one the original writer was going. The analysis, while deep and certainly spot-on, fails to take into account the actual evidence presented in the game, choosing instead to offer the reasoning as to why Rashid and Menat were chosen as his rivals.

This isn’t to say the writer is wrong, as the sheer amount of evidence on G tells me that Capcom had every plan to go deep with this one character. So why create G when there are dozens of characters that Capcom could build around? Simple: the lore for those other characters are already established. Capcom recognized that with G as the “Man of Mystery”, they have plenty of room to pretty much do whatever they want. Granted, small background details can be added to expand on the lore (for example, the existence of Suzaku Castle in game lead me to believe that Ryu is the reincarnated Maiden of Matsue, which Capcom certainly was thinking of doing but, due to game constraints, couldn’t expand on this), but with G, they can write the story they want to write, without relegating everything into separate lore tomes or as eye candy in the background stages.

Beartacule’s post and the evidence in-game tells me that Capcom DID have this Jungian idea in mind, even though it wouldn’t have any relevance on the plot. Why? Because G is The Fool and the wild card – anything goes with him. Rashid and Menat play their respective parts as a way to keep up the mystery. In other words, it’s a misdirect, and Capcom is toying with the fans intentionally. I’ll come back to this idea later.

Returning to my first theory, there were several things I pointed out:

1) In G’s concept art, there is a man and woman wearing a mask (who I later determined to be Ed and Falke https://manestreet.home.blog/2019/02/20/the-future-of-ed-and-falke/ ), suggesting that G is some kind of cult leader, likely leading an army of Q’s to do his bidding. As I wrote, “As stated in the Street Fighter wiki as well as in Q’s ending in SFIII, Q has appeared all over the world within hours whenever natural disasters have occured. Since neither G nor Q appear to have teleportation powers, it only makes sense that there are multiple Q’s all over the world.”

2) In Q’s ending in Street Fighter III, we see the words “ROBODEKA-Q” on a newspaper clipping. “Robodeka” is a compound of the words “robot” and “detective”, suggesting that Q is a type of detective, or rather, a spy for G.

3) G as the manipulator of Q becomes more obvious as it was stated on Capcom’s CFN website that the design of Q “was to make it “feel like it was being manipulated behind the scenes.” Further more, G’s trailer music, “President of the World”, states that “G wants to conquer the world” and that he “self-appointed himself as President of the World “so you wouldn’t have to think for yourself.”” He can also control/become the voices of the people he controls, like if they give an interview to someone.

4) When G gives handshakes to people around the world, he seals their fates, as the handshake is symbolic of a deal being made. G makes a one-sided deal: join me. Once the unfortunate person “shakes the hand of the President”, they belong to G. Why? Because G is the Devil, and has the same powers as the President of Hell, Glasya-Labolas.

In my second theory, I highlighted the potentially Cajun roots of G, stating he was from New Orleans, a place known for its voodoo. The most interesting thing was that G shared some traits with Baron Samedi. https://manestreet.home.blog/2019/02/20/dr-g-the-night-tripper/

Baron Samedi is a loa, a god of voodoo, who deals with death and resurrection. While the two appear to be opposite in personality, they share both the top hat and, potentially, the ability to raise the dead. How can we prove that G is a necromancer? One VERY cryptic win quote that G gives to Kage: “Death is not power! It is not to be feared! You are not power! Power is me!”

So here’s the million dollar question: is he stating that death is not to be feared or that power is not to be feared? If we assume that death is not to be feared, then we can assume that G can indeed bring people back to life. In fact, I stated in a separate theory that the Q we knew was Nash. Nash was completely obliterated at the end of A Shadow Falls. https://manestreet.home.blog/2019/02/20/who-is-q/

However, if G turns out to be a Baron Samedi-type, it would actually fulfill another idea that fans have had for years: Dorai, Chun-Li’s father, can also be Q ALONG with Nash! In other words, both Nash and Dorai are Q!
G also has some crossover symbolism with Necalli as well, which I expand on here: https://manestreet.home.blog/2019/02/20/g-q-and-necalli-connections-and-symbolism/

With help from Twitter user @tintecinabrio, some more things became clear to me, particularly the idea that G, through his Q army, is likely reshaping the earth by creating natural disasters. Is there proof of this? Yes, in Q’s concept art. https://game.capcom.com/cfn/sfv/column/130020

One of the original ideas was to give Q a supersonic projectile attack they dubbed “Kamaitachi”, based off of a Japanese yokai that produced cutting winds. It’s possible that this is the attack that Q would use to create natural disasters in order to reshape Earth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamaitachi

On Q’s concept art page, Capcom themselves come out and say that by revealing their ideas behind Q, the mystery got more complex. As I stated before, this is INTENTIONAL. Capcom knows what they’re doing with G and Q. They’re building the mystery around them, throwing out little things left and right to screw with people, and one of the ways they did it was the April Fool’s shooter game. https://manestreet.home.blog/2019/03/31/g-the-april-fool/

While the game was an homage to Capcom’s 1940 series of shooting games, several things within the game were revealed to me, primarily G’s thoughts on the “citizens of Earth”: he’s out to kill everyone. The most telling part of the entire game? The congratulations screen, where he shakes your hand at the end. Your hand is an unnatural blue color. He’s turning you, the player, into a Q!

This left me with one final task: figuring out the truth behind Q’s mask. I pointed out that there was only one person in Street Fighter who could possibly create the mask at this point: Marz. Her disappearance at the end of Street Fighter 5’s Cinematic Story Mode leaves open a huge loose end that can be tied very neatly into G’s story, and also reveal that she was The Fool all along. https://manestreet.home.blog/2019/05/26/g-is-not-the-fool/

There’s also a very distinct possibility that Marz herself becomes a Q, although admittedly I believe she’ll end up becoming a reluctant partner for G, teaming up as Earth and Marz. (Get it?)

Speaking of Earth, there is one other person who has the ability to communicate with the planet: Elena. I pointed out on Twitter that because she’s already “one with Earth”, she’s immune to G’s powers – G’s powers are indeed Earth-based, as both his magma powers and the rotating image of the earth on his body prove this. Elena, though, made the choice to follow G in G’s ending, unlike Dan and Hakan who are fully controlled by him. Why would Elena follow G? Simple: she’s naive (do I have to point out that she hugged AKUMA of all people???). https://twitter.com/StevenManeVox/status/1130903989212655616

Tintecinabrio also pointed out something to me recently: Glasya-Labolas is connected to the Eight of Wands tarot card in the Thoth deck. As I was scanning through the information I was sent, I came across a very particular detail: the Eight of Wands was associated with a demon named Gaap, who, like Glasya-Labolas, had very similar traits – the power to make people love or hate him and the power to make people invisible, for example. He one-ups Glasya-Labola on two cases, though. One, he has necromancy powers. Two, he is associated with gold and silver. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaap

While the Street Fighter tarot cards are based on the Rider-Waite deck, the Thoth deck has many of the same cards, including The Fool, and The Fool’s image in the Thoth deck has horns. https://www.gaia.com/wp-content/uploads/the-fools-522×432.jpg

This not only strongly suggests that G is indeed a devil, but could also be why G wears a top hat and takes great pains to keep it on – he’s hiding his horns (granted, his character design art shows neither horns nor an Illuminati gem under his hat, but it’s likely this was simply unnecessary for the developers to implement either one into his character design at this point in the lore).

Finally, there’s one last thing to point out. G is stated to be very fond of bedrock baths, also known as ganban’yoku. Ganban’yoku is a spa treatment where a person lays on a heated slab of rock and uses it much as a sauna. I discovered a place online called Spa World in Osaka, Japan that dealt in different types of spa treatments, and in one of the spa rooms is this: https://goo.gl/maps/FvR6sGpzFfHik77y9 That is a glowing Earth in the middle of the room, with the night sky above it. I can’t identify the constellations, but I believe they possibly hold a clue to G’s background. Adding the idea that G likes ganban’yoku tells me they were at least partially inspired by this room. Moreso, it is in the Turkish bath room, which makes some sense as to why Hakan is in G’s ending.

In other words, G is a case of art imitating life.