Sheeva

Sheeva is a fictional character in the Mortal Kombat fighting game series. Like Goro and Kintaro, she is a species of a half-human and half-dragon in the Mortal Kombat universe called the Shokan. But unlike them, she debuts as a playable character.

In video games
Sheeva belongs to the ancient race of the Shokan, described as a subterranean people living in Outworld. Like all of her race, she possesses a tall, muscular build, red eyes, and four arms. When Shao Kahn resurrected Sindel as the first step in his invasion of earth, he appointed Sheeva to be her personal protector. Sheeva became distrustful, however, when Kahn appointed the centaur Motaro to lead his Extermination Squads into battle. She 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 joins her fellow shokans in fighting Kahn’s warriors. The Shokans are far outnumbered, and cannot hope to win, but when Shao Kahn is defeated by Earth’s warriors and recalls his troops from all fronts, Sheeva takes this opportunity to get revenge on her nemesis, Motaro. Days later, she learns that Motaro has 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 Sonya. He gets imprisoned. Some time later, Sheeva arrives to the palace. The Shokan warrior kills Motaro outside of Kano's cell. She was on her way to assassinate Shao Kahn as well when Kano offered his assistance if Sheeva let him out of his cage. Kano and Sheeva proceeded to the throne room of Shao Kahn. When they arrived at the door, Kano suggested that he go in first to distract the Emperor. Kano would give the signal for Sheeva to enter and slay the preoccupied Shao Kahn. But Kano betrayed Sheeva and informed Shao Kahn of her assassination plot. When Kano called her in, Shao Kahn thrust a sword through her chest from behind.

In Mortal Kombat: Armageddon it is possible that Sheeva has escaped from the Netherealm somehow, this is unknown how though as it was never confirmed. In Armegeddon's Konquest mode, Sheeva is seen in the Netherealm along with Kintaro, Havik, and a legion of demons all apparently working in an attempt to overthrow Shinnok's rule at his spire. However, Shinnok later reveals that they were only apparitions created as a test for Taven, thus making it clear that it was not the real Sheeva. In Sheeva's Armageddon ending, she defeats Blaze and is met by the Elder Gods. She becomes the Goddess of Destruction, destroying realms using a Kamidogu; she then recreates the realms however she sees fit, but exactly what they are remade into is never revealed.

Design and gameplay
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. 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. 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.

In other media
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.

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.

Reception
Though reception for Sheeva has been relatively positive, she was ranked as seventh goofiest Mortal Kombat character by Topless Robot in 2011. Also in 2011, Wirtualna Polska featured her among the top ten villainesses in gaming, as "an attraction for connoisseurs of unusual beauty and even more unusual quantities of the various parts of the body." In 2012, UGO.com ranked her as the 28th top Mortal Kombat character. In 2010, IGN ranked her "Manly Forearms" from MK3 as the third best Fatality, but Game Informer listed her as one of the characters they did not want for MK2011, stating that "despite a somewhat cool ground-pound move, she was an addition to the series that never really served a purpose or did anything particularly noteworthy." Sheeva was also featured on several other lists of the best, and sometimes worst, finishing moves in the Mortal Kombat series by various publications. In 2011, she placed third on the lists of both the best ("Skin Rip" in MK3) and the worst ("Jackhammer" in MK3) Fatalities by GameRant. In 2012, GameFront ranked her "Stripped Down" Fatality from Mortal Kombat 2011 as the third best in the series, while her "Stripped Down" was included on the list of the best Fatalities in MK2011 by 1UP.com, and her other Fatality was also ranked as the ninth best in this game by Paste.