• Source: Sonya Blade

Sonya Blade is a fictional character in the Mortal Kombat fighting game franchise by Midway Games and NetherRealm Studios. She debuted in the original 1992 game as the roster's sole female fighter, a military officer with the Special Forces. In the storyline of the games, Sonya becomes involved with the eponymous Mortal Kombat tournament through pursuit of her archenemy, the criminal leader Kano. She subsequently joins the warriors defending Earthrealm and establishes a government agency dedicated to battling otherworldly threats. The series' rebooted timeline also depicts her as the love interest to martial arts actor Johnny Cage and the mother of their daughter Cassie.
A mainstay of the franchise, Sonya has also appeared in various media outside of the games. Reception to the character has been generally positive, with respect to her role as one of Mortal Kombat's primary female fighters. Though, some of her outfits in the games have received criticism.




Appearances






= Mortal Kombat games

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Sonya Blade is one of the main heroes of the Mortal Kombat series. Hailing from Austin, Texas, she is a second-generation United States Special Forces officer who followed in the footsteps of her father, Major Herman Blade. Her impulsive personality is catalyzed by her superior and good friend Major Jackson "Jax" Briggs. Sonya also has a long-standing feud with the criminal leader Kano, who stands for everything she despises.
In the original Mortal Kombat (1992), Lieutenant Sonya Blade and her team pursue Kano, leader of the Black Dragon international crime organization. After he jumps aboard an old junk in order to escape capture, Sonya and her comrades follow him to a remote island where Shang Tsung's Mortal Kombat tournament was underway. Upon arrival, they are ambushed by Shang Tsung's personal guard and Sonya is forced to compete in order to spare her companions' lives. Shang Tsung, however, had no intention of fulfilling his end of the bargain and has her unit killed. After he is defeated by Shaolin monk Liu Kang in the final battle, Sonya teams up with movie star Johnny Cage and Kano to fight off the Shokan Prince Goro. During the battle, the island begins to crumble and she and Kano are sent to Outworld as Shang Tsung's prisoners to appease the Outworld emperor, Shao Kahn. However, Sonya is able to send a signal to Jax from Outworld and, during the events of Mortal Kombat II (1993), he travels there to find her. Jax makes contact with the other Earthrealm warriors and together they learn of Shao Kahn's scheme to invade Earth. Before and during their imprisonment meanwhile, Sonya and Kano are forced to put their differences aside and work together to survive in Outworld. She is later freed by Jax, who arrests Kano, but as soon as they pass through the portal to Earthrealm, Kano escapes and flees back to Outworld.
Sonya appears as one of a few selected Earthrealm warriors whose souls were not taken following Shao Kahn's invasion of Earth in Mortal Kombat 3 (1995). She re-encounters Kano on top of a skyscraper near his fortress and after a fight, hurls him off the roof to his apparent death. In Mortal Kombat 4 (1997), after her journey into Outworld and Shao Kahn's near destruction of Earth, Sonya becomes a member of the U.S. government's Outer World Investigation Agency (OIA). However, she continues to have conflicts with the Black Dragon, especially after its last known member, Jarek, fled to Edenia while Sonya was chasing him. This leads her and Jax to team up with Liu Kang and thunder god Raiden to free the realm from the fallen Elder God Shinnok's grasp and to prevent him from coming to Earth. After Shinnok's defeat, in which Jarek had reluctantly participated in to save himself, he tries to kill Sonya, but Jax intervenes and drops him off a cliff. After returning to Earthrealm, Jax and Sonya find the cyborg Cyrax malfunctioning in a desert. The two bring him back to OIA headquarters, where they are able to restore his humanity before helping him join the agency.
In Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance (2002), while on an assignment in the East, Sonya learns the OIA had been destroyed by an accomplice of the titular alliance of Shang Tsung and Quan Chi. Not long after, Raiden seeks out her aid against the Deadly Alliance and instructs her to meet with his other chosen warriors on Shang Tsung's abandoned island, where she develops a rivalry with Frost. To earn the right to pass into Outworld, each warrior has to defeat a representation of his or her adversary. To Sonya's surprise, hers is a stranger with a red dragon on his back. She is killed in battle against the Deadly Alliance's Tarkatan forces, but their victory is short-lived as the Dragon King Onaga reclaims Outworld and defeats them in turn. With his ability to raise the dead at will, he resurrects Sonya and her fallen comrades to serve as his slaves until their souls are freed by Liu Kang and Shao Kahn's enforcer Ermac during Mortal Kombat: Deception (2004).
In Mortal Kombat: Armageddon (2006), Sonya returns to Earth after Onaga's defeat, with the intention of continuing her assault on both the Black and Red Dragon clans, only to be forced to focus on a newly established threat. In her absence, the Tekunin cyber ninja clan had grown powerful enough to disrupt Earth civilization and violated the laws of Mortal Kombat by engaging in illegal interdimensional alliances with unknown parties. Sonya succeeds in downing the Tekunin's flagship, helmed by their Grandmaster Sektor. She sent in a team led by Jax to hunt for survivors, but they mysteriously vanished. Fearing for Jax's safety, she tracks the signal of a homing beacon placed on Tekunin prisoner Taven, who escaped thanks to her intervention, and eventually confronts him in Arktika to interrogate him, only to be beaten. Sonya later fights alongside her friends in the Battle of Armageddon in Edenia, only to become one of its many casualties; torn apart by an unknown opponent.
Sonya appears as one of the warriors representing the Mortal Kombat universe in the non-canonical crossover game, Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe (2008). In the story mode, Sonya is investigating the dimensional imbalance caused by Shao Kahn and Darkseid's inadvertent fusion into Dark Kahn. After defeating Catwoman, Baraka, Captain Marvel, and Green Lantern, Sonya and Jax return to their base to use a teleportation machine in an attempt to reach the DC Universe. When she finds Jax with Green Lantern, Sonya once again challenges the latter, only to be defeated and imprisoned before she and Jax escape again. When Earthrealm's heroes and Outworld's villains join forces to fight invaders from the DC universe, Sonya reluctantly teams up with Kano to track a foreign energy signal, but they are confronted and defeated by the Joker and Deathstroke. When both sides meet for one last battle, Sonya once again fights Catwoman. In the end, she is knocked unconscious while Raiden and Superman defeat Dark Kahn and separate their universes.
In the Mortal Kombat reboot game (2011), an alternate-timeline retelling of the first three games, Sonya teams up with Jax in his mission to bring down the Black Dragon, succeeding in seizing many of their weapons caches. However, after their key informant, Kano, is discovered to be a high-powered member of the organization, Sonya and Jax focus solely on his capture following the deaths of many of their comrades in subsequent ambushes. This leads them to the Mortal Kombat tournament on Shang Tsung's uncharted island, where Jax is captured and imprisoned, forcing Sonya to participate in the tournament in order to spare his life; during which she unwillingly becomes acquainted with Johnny Cage after repeatedly rejecting his advances. Sonya soon encounters Shang Tsung himself, but Raiden, whom she had not met yet in this timeline, intervenes before she can fight him. He enables Sonya to free a wounded Jax, but Shang Tsung destroys their extraction transport and presents Kano to Sonya as a challenge. While she emerges victorious, she is forbidden to take him prisoner. Raiden reappears and heals Jax's injuries, causing Sonya to become aware of both his presence and her crucial role in defending Earthrealm alongside his chosen warriors. After Liu Kang's victory over Shang Tsung in the first tournament, Sonya is abducted and held captive in Outworld before being rescued by Jax, but after his arms are obliterated in a confrontation with Ermac, she transports him back to Earthrealm for medical attention; missing the second tournament entirely. Sonya and Jax reunite with the other Earthrealm warriors as they assemble to fight Shao Kahn's invasion of Earthrealm but most of them are massacred by his wife, Queen Sindel; leaving Sonya and Cage among the only survivors after the Kahn's demise and Raiden accidentally killing Liu Kang.
Sonya returns as a playable character in Mortal Kombat X (2015). Two years following Shao Kahn's death, Shinnok and his forces attack Earthrealm, but General Sonya Blade, along with Johnny and Kenshi, aid Raiden in imprisoning Shinnok in his own amulet. The two later track down Quan Chi, Shinnok's second-in-command, and defeat him; restoring Jax as well as Sub-Zero and Scorpion to normal. Over the following 25 years, Sonya and Johnny marry and have a daughter, Cassie Cage, but the two later divorce; allegedly due to Sonya frequently putting work before her family. However, after Cassie defeats Shinnok and saves Earthrealm, she, Sonya, and Johnny become a family again.
In Mortal Kombat 11 (2019), Sonya, Cassie, and Jax's daughter Jacqui lead a Special Forces strike team in storming the Netherrealm before they can attack Earthrealm. After being trapped under debris, Sonya sacrifices herself to ensure the mission's success and her allies' escape, devastating Johnny and Cassie. When the keeper of time Kronika causes temporal anomalies amidst her plot to reset time, younger versions of Sonya and Johnny are brought to the present. Upon learning of what happened to her older self, she is initially outraged that she had a child with Johnny and that Cassie apparently left her behind. Just as she learns her older self ordered Cassie to do so, she is captured by the present and past versions of Kano and forced to fight for the Black Dragon's entertainment before the Special Forces rescue her. During the ensuing fight, Sonya kills Kano's younger counterpart, erasing his present self from existence. Following this, she begins to warm up to her version of Johnny and reconciles with Cassie.
While Sonya is not playable in the base roster of Mortal Kombat 1, she does appear as an assist-based Kameo fighter. Multiple timeline variants of Sonya could also be seen during the final battle of the story mode, including an evil variant that possesses Kano's cybernetic eye.



Character design and gameplay

There were originally no plans for Sonya's inclusion in Mortal Kombat, which was supposed to feature only six characters, and she was added only when the president of Williams gave the development team an additional six weeks (adding to its already ten months of production) and told them to polish the game. At first, the additional character was actually Jax/Stryker; when the developers decided they need a "female fighter", Sonya was created and his story was applied to her. The early Mortal Kombat series' character designer and writer John Tobias said he created "characters like Liu Kang or Shang Tsung, who represented the more mystical sides of the story, and Johnny Cage, Sonya or Jax, who came from places grounded more in reality...[Sonya and Kitana] were both important pieces of the game's fiction and archetypal structure of characters. But, player demographic was primarily a hardcore male audience and so the look and design of our female characters pandered to them back then just as they do today."
Sonya was named after one of the sisters of co-designer Ed Boon, as confirmed in Tanya's biography card in the special edition of Mortal Kombat: Deception. The character was inspired by martial artist and actress Cynthia Rothrock, who claimed in a 2018 interview that following an unsuccessful attempt by Midway to hire her to play Sonya in the original game, the company included her likeness and moves in the game without her consent. Sonya was played by fitness instructor Elizabeth Malecki in the first game, but Malecki and several other Mortal Kombat actors later filed an unsuccessful lawsuit against Midway over unpaid royalties from the home versions of the game and the unauthorized use of her likeness in its sequel.

Sonya and Kano were the least popular characters of the first game and so the team decided to replace them, saving image memory space and time for the new characters. Producers said Sonya was "chucked out" from the game in favour of the palette swapped Kitana and Mileena as part of revamping the game, so it would better compete against Street Fighter II and its popular female character Chun-Li. Sonya and Kano were promptly dropped for the first sequel and appear in Mortal Kombat II only in one of the backgrounds, chained in Kahn's Arena. At the time, Tobias said: "We still wanted to include them in the story line, so we had them captured. I don't know where or when or in what form, but Sonya and Kano will be back." However, they both soon returned as playable characters in the very next game and Sonya proved to be one of the most popular of the Mortal Kombat characters. According to Midway's Mark Turmell, Sonya's Mortal Kombat 3 actress Kerri Hoskins "started getting phone calls from kids at home because we'd published her name." Hoskins, whose martial arts training consisted of "some Tang Soo Do and a past of WWF wrestling and gymnastics," said she was asked to join the cast of MK3 after establishing a working relationship at Midway with the producers of NBA Jam. She later also voiced Sonya for Mortal Kombat 4. Sonya's later voice actresses included Beth Melewski (MK:SM), Dana Lyn Baron (MKvsDCU, MK2011), Tricia Helfer (MKX), and Ronda Rousey (MK11). Her motion actor during the Deception-Annihilation era was Carlos Pesina.
The action-adventure spin-off game Mortal Kombat: Special Forces, which was eventually released in 2000 following delays, had been originally planned to star Sonya and to have both Jax and her (with a codename of "Panther") as playable characters, but Sonya's part was dropped again due to deadline issues exacerbated by Tobias's sudden departure from the company. For the abortive project with a working title of Mortal Kombat 8 (which was cancelled in favor of Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe), Sonya's look was considered to be "dramatically revamped" and she was to be given more character backstory, described as "the daughter of a Texas Ranger". The 2011's reboot's producer Shaun Himmerick wrote: "I love how we use Sonya in the game, I think it is really a great reference to MK and should be fun for the fans." NetherRealm Studios art director Steve Beran said: "When you look at the version of Sonya or Scorpion from the first Mortal Kombat, it's almost laughable how simple their costumes were. You have to give fans the recognizability of their favorite characters, but make it not look like Sonya's wearing a leotard and workout clothes" (as in the early games). Nevertheless, Sonya's original outfit did appear in Mortal Kombat X via downloadable content.
Sonya's original special move is the "Leg Grab", a handstand leg throw. Her signature Fatality is the "Kiss of Death" a finishing move that makes the defeated opponent burn alive into a charred skeleton. At 1.75 m (5 ft 9 in), Sonya is one of the tallest female characters and she stands out because of her long legs. For her initial appearance in the original Mortal Kombat game, SNES Force described her as having "the best jumping skills of any character — her air punch and flying kick work well against most opponents. Her force wave is excellent for long range battles giving her a good all round performance, though she is fairly weak." According to Nintendo Power, Sonya could be a "juggling demon" in Mortal Kombat Trilogy when in hands of an experienced player. Total 64 opined she "is a nifty little fighter" in Trilogy, whose only weakness is that her attacks are lacking power when compared to some of the other characters.




= Other media

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Live-action and animation

Kerri Hoskins played Sonya in the 1995-96 theatrical show Mortal Kombat: Live Tour, for which she underwent martial arts and gymnastics training. She explained in a 2010 interview that the show worked to emphasize getting young audiences into the martial arts, while she and the show's other actors would give motivational speeches to schoolchildren.

Bridgette Wilson-Sampras played Sonya in Mortal Kombat (1995) after the filmmakers' original choice, Cameron Diaz, injured her wrist during martial arts training and dropped out. Sonya is one of the three main protagonists alongside Johnny Cage and Liu Kang. Her backstory from the original game of pursuing her archenemy Kano to Shang Tsung's island and being forced to compete in the tournament is intact, and she fights and kills Kano in the competition. Wilson-Sampras performed her own stuntwork, and was given the nickname "RoboBabe" by director Paul Anderson. As she was a late addition to the production, her fight scene with Kano was the final one shot in order to give her adequate time to train. In Mortal Kombat: The Journey Begins, an animated prequel released four months prior to the film, Sonya (voiced by Jennifer Hale) is again one of the three main protagonists, to whom Raiden explains the history of the Mortal Kombat tournament.
Wilson was replaced by Sandra Hess for the 1997 sequel Mortal Kombat Annihilation. Kerri Hoskins had auditioned for the role but did not "make the last cut of three girls" due to having no acting experience. Sonya is devastated by the death of Johnny Cage, who is killed by evil Outworld emperor Shao Kahn at the film's start after he saves her life. She rescues her partner Jax, and they join her fellow Earth heroes in stopping Kahn's plans.
Australian actress Jessica McNamee played Sonya in the 2021 reboot film Mortal Kombat. She is depicted as a veteran who has spent years researching the Mortal Kombat tournament, while having captured the mercenary Kano (Josh Lawson). McNamee, who submitted multiple audition tapes in campaigning for the role, described the character as "the voice of reason" with a degree of "playfulness and lightness". Sonya's fight scene with Kano at the film's climax was a late addition that required two weeks to choreograph and shoot. McNamee reprised the role for the 2025 sequel Mortal Kombat 2.
Sonya was a main character in the animated series Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm (1996), and was voiced by Olivia d'Abo. She is again Jax's partner, and was given a signature catchphrase ("Kombat time!"). She appears in the animated films Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion's Revenge (2020) and Mortal Kombat Legends: Battle of the Realms (2021), voiced by Jennifer Carpenter.
In the short film Mortal Kombat: Rebirth (2010), Sonya (played by Jeri Ryan) is a lieutenant in the fictional Deacon City Police Department who makes a brief appearance during Jax's interrogation of Hanzo Hasashi. Ryan reprised the role for the first two episodes of the 2011 web series Mortal Kombat: Legacy, in which Sonya again works with Jax to bust the Black Dragon but her obsession with hunting down Kano leads to her capture, forcing Jax and Stryker to launch a rescue mission that ends with Kano escaping and Jax seriously injured.



Literature

Sonya is a featured character in the 1994-95 Malibu Comics-licensed Mortal Kombat comic series, first appearing with the original game's characters in the six-issue miniseries Blood & Thunder (1994). In the second six-issue miniseries, Battlewave (1995), Sonya learns of a brutal attack on Jax and enlists Cage's help in her investigation. She is brainwashed by Reptile into marrying Shao Kahn until the Earth warriors disrupt the ceremony. In the 1995 two-issue miniseries U.S. Special Forces, she and Jax work to capture an original Black Dragon character named Rojack. Her family dynamic with Johnny Cage and their daughter Cassie Cage is featured in DC Comics' 2015 Mortal Kombat X comic series set before the events of the game.
Sonya appears in the novelizations of the first Mortal Kombat film and Mortal Kombat Annihilation. In Jeff Rovin's non-canon novel Mortal Kombat (1995), which is set prior to the tournament of the original 1992 game, Sonya works undercover as a Black Dragon operative in her attempt to apprehend Kano.




= Merchandise and promotion

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Malecki appeared dressed as Sonya on GamesMaster to promote the first game in 1992. Hoskins dressed as Sonya from Mortal Kombat 3 for a workout video featured in Threshold Entertainment's The Ultimate Guide to Mortal Kombat CD-ROM release in 1995 as and as Sonya from Mortal Kombat 4 for the E3 1998 trade show.
Action figures of Sonya were released by Hasbro (1994), Toy Island (1996), Infinite Concepts (1999), and Palisades Toys (2000). A 1/6 scale limited-edition statue of Sonya in her primary outfit from MK2011 was released in the Mortal Kombat Enchanted Warriors line by Syco Collectibles in 2012; another, larger statue in her alternate costume was released in 2013. To promoted MK11, Ronda Rousey shows up in her Sonya Blade gear against Ruby Riot at WWE Elimination Chamber.




Reception


Critical reaction to Sonya Blade has been positive, with commentators noting the character's sex appeal and toughness. Brazilian magazine SuperGamePower featured her in the article about the "muses" of video games, stating that "more realistic than Chun-Li and Cammy, Sonya has reigned" between 1993 and the introduction of Lara Croft in 1996. In 2016, Game Revolution included her among ten best female characters in video games, stating she had "stood the test of time." Hyper also reported a minor "controversy over the character Sonya Blade in the first Mortal Kombat. Some men complained they didn't want to kill her, and not just because they were fond of her big breasts and long legs - they just didn't feel they could hit a girl."
Sonya Blade and her actress Kerri Hoskins were both given the special award "Best Videogame Babe" by Game Players in 1995. UGO ranked her as the third "foxiest fighting female to be ever pixelated," stating that "in her early appearances, Sonya Blade wasn't quite as sexy as other women on this list, but her moveset more than made up for it." MSN included her among the 20 "hottest women in video game history", stating, "independent, tough, and willing to put herself on the line for her friends, Sonya Blade is the embodiment of the modern woman. Well, except for the part where she can sometimes rip your head off."
Game Rant included her on their 2011 list of ten "most awesome" Mortal Kombat characters, stating that "while not nearly as unique as some of the other kombatants on the list, Sonya Blade is integral to some of the more interesting story-threads in the Mortal Kombat universe", citing her pursuit of Kano. Sonya placed 18th in a 2013 Dorkly poll for top Mortal Kombat characters, noted as one "of the more grounded and strong-willed characters in MK history." In 2014, GamesRadar called her "Mortal Kombat's leading lady". Similarly, including her as the only female in his 2015 list of ten most iconic Mortal Kombat characters, GameRant's Jason Gallagher opined that Sonya, "with all due respect to Kitana, Jade, and Mileena, is still the most recognizable female character in franchise history today. She's played a large role in various ongoing storylines, and is one-half of the reason Cassie Cage exists today. The Special Forces crew has expanded greatly over the last two decades, but it was Sonya that started it all."
Sonya's fight with Kano in the first Mortal Kombat film was rated as the 19th best cinematic fight scene by UGO in 2010. Ranking this scene as the best in this film, UGO also commented that "Sonya Blade has always been sort of an also-ran character in the Mortal Kombat franchise, taking second place to the busty ninja sisters Kitana and Mileena. But the movies gave her a chance to shine." In 2011, Complex ranked Wilson's role as Sonya at 12th place on the list of "hottest women in video game movies", but with likeness factor of only 29% (as compared to Sonya's later appearance in the video game Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe). On the other hand, 1UP.com's Retronauts opined Wilson was miscast and not convincing in the role, and Leonard Pitts cited Sonya being captured and taken hostage in the first film as a prime example in his 1995 article alleging that "sexism still prevails in action movies."
Ash Kapriyelov, author of the document Representation of Women in Video Games, listed Sonya as an example of a "positive shift in representation of women," progressing from Mortal Kombat 9 to Mortal Kombat X, noting her MKX outfit as "very conservative and realistic," in contrast to her MK9 attire, which is far more revealing. Maria Carolina Fontanella, author of The female characters in the game Mortal Kombat: An aesthetic analysis from the stereotyped image of a woman, examine her design throughout the series. Regarding her Deadly Alliance costume, Fontanella states "Adding a short coat is not very effective when the character in question wears a white blouse, very short and tight to the body, that highlights your breasts and even has the straps of your panties showing above of the pants." For her aforementioned MK9 costume, Fontanella examines "Your panties are no longer showing, but your pants are low, almost showing her pelvis. The short blouse was exchanged for a kind of vest, which does nothing to protect her and is also extremely low-cut." GamesRadar author Lucas Sullivan commented "Sonya is just as important to the plot of MK9 as her primarily male counterparts, playing the role of a Special Forces agent caught up in a tournament that will determine the fate of Earthrealm itself. But the problem is that her practical disposition doesn't match up with her wildly unrealistic rendering," while also criticizing her MK9 costume, describing it as "probably the [game's] biggest offender" among the game's revealing female outfits, especially in regards to the cleavage area.
On the other hand, similar to some of the other female characters in MK11, Sonya has received some backlash for her design in the game. Princess Weekes from The Mary Sue countered this with stating "The impulse of some to blame "feminists" for ruining Sonya is really laughable because all it does is prove something that these same people want so desperately to disprove: They’re just sexist and don’t care about the actual characters," while arguing that she and other female characters still have "sexy" costumes in the game. Sonya also received backlash for being portrayed by Ronda Rousey in MK11, where Vice writer Danielle Riendeau described her performance as "terrible," and expressed "Sonya Blade made me excited that I could play as a girl in a fighting game. And in her first incarnation, she wasn’t a wildly sexualized adolescent fantasy."




See also


List of Mortal Kombat characters
Cammy White (Street Fighter) and Sarah Bryant (Virtua Fighter)
United States Army Special Forces in popular culture
Women warriors in literature and culture




References






External links


Media related to Sonya Blade at Wikimedia Commons

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