Senua is the player character and protagonist of the Hellblade video game series which consists of the 2017 video game Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice that marks her first appearance, as well the sequel Senua's Saga: Hellblade II. She is presented as a Pict warrior who experiences disturbances and hallucinations due to an undiagnosed mental disorder. As a result of Senua's internal struggle with her delusional beliefs, she is determined to travel to the Norse afterlife realm Helheim with the notion of rescuing the soul of her lover from the Norse goddess Hela following his killing by Norsemen invaders, which occurred prior to the events of Senua's Sacrifice.
Created by a development team led by director Tameem Antoniades at British video game developer Ninja Theory, Senua was the product of extensive research efforts conducted by the team into various topics like Celtic history, Norse mythology, and mental disorders. Her appearance, in particular her facial war paint and braided hair clumped with lime, is based on a popular belief about the way Celtic warriors would have looked. Senua is played by Ninja Theory employee Melina Juergens, who was initially used as a stand-in for the character while the team were adjusting their motion capture techniques early in development. Encouraged by Antoniades to channel her own emotions into the context of Senua's struggle, Juergens became the team's final choice to portray the character even though she had no prior acting experience.
The character of Senua has been met with a very positive reception. Several critics considered the portrayal of the character's mental health condition as a landmark representation of people with mental health disorders in the video game medium. Juergens' debut acting performance as Senua has earned critical acclaim, and is credited by critics to be instrumental to the generally positive reception of Senua's Sacrifice.
Character development history Senua's name is derived from a misnomer for Senuna, a Celtic goddess previously lost to recorded history. The name was re-discovered at Ashwell End in Hertfordshire in the year 2002. The goddess' name was originally read incorrectly as "Senua". The team modeled Senua's character archetype as a warrior woman after historical accounts of the Iceni queen Boudica, who led an uprising against the invading Roman Empire in the first century AD.
Senua's mental disorder originally occupied a less central role to the story of Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice. During the team's research into Celtic culture and history, they discover that the Celts used the term "gelt" for a person who appeared to have been driven mad by a curse, grief, or the trauma of a battle, and that such individuals would often go on a self-imposed exile into the woods in search of penance, punishment and purgatory. The team saw this as an opportunity to develop Senua's backstory as a gelt who was stigmatized and isolated by her community due to her mental condition, and was eventually driven into exile. The Darkness, a malevolent entity which antagonizes Senua throughout the narrative of Senua's Sacrifice, is explained as the manifestation of the abuse and mistreatment she suffered at the hands of her father Zynbel during her youth.
Antoniades noted that mental trauma, or illness, is less noticeable than the suffering caused by physical trauma. Instead of relying on common tropes about mentally ill people in popular culture, Ninja Theory opted to consult mental health experts and non-profit advocacy groups to fully inform themselves about the true nature of psychosis and how it affects the minds of the mentally ill. Senua's struggle with the unruly voices in her head and her harrowing hallucinations is inspired by the experiences of a girl who resides at a "recovery college", an establishment which acts as both a health facility and an education institute for its patients. The team worked with a group of voice hearers to ensure that the auditory hallucinations experienced by Senua sound as realistic as possible. Senua's visual hallucinations, such as the flashbacks to her past or how several elements of a level appear brighter than they should be, were also based on descriptions from people with delusions.
Antoniades developed Senua's quest and trauma on the theory that the Norsemen would sacrifice the leaders of the tribes they had conquered to their gods, which motivates Senua to seek out Hela, the Norse goddess of death, in an attempt to bargain for the release of her lover Dillion's soul from Helheim. The narrative of Senua's Sacrifice was written in such a way that Senua must internalize and accept the logic and meaning behind a world that functions with a different set of rules from her perspective in order to complete her quest. One example of how this is integrated into the game is a puzzle mechanic where Senua must identify and match patterns from her surrounding environment, as she hears and sees things that other people do not. It is purposely left to ambiguity as to whether the things Senua sees are real or are in fact figments of her imagination. The resolution of Senua's story arc in Senua's Sacrifice is based on the insight the team gained from working with mental health experts, with the understanding that mentally ill individuals can learn to adapt to the hallucinations and delusional beliefs they experience, and that learning to live with them is part of their recovery process.
Game director and lead writer Tameem Antoniades indicated that the upcoming sequel, Senua's Saga: Hellblade II, builds on the first game's personal insight into psychosis to show "how madness and suffering shapes myths, gods, and religion". In a preview trailer, Senua is depicted with the persona of a fierce warrior, a departure from her quiet and shy personality sighted in Senua's Sacrifice.
Design Senua's in-game model in Senua's Sacrifice is built from a combination of facial scans and motion capture technology. Her facial scans were produced from proprietary technology developed by a Serbian company, 3Lateral, and is based on the likeness of German freelance photographer and video editor Melina Juergens, who also portrays the character through performance capture and voice acting. The scanned results, described as "an order of magnitude higher" than Ninja Theory's prior projects which employed performance capture, is capable of capturing significant detail of the model's face, down to the cracks of makeup and when the nose wrinkles. Senua's visage is based on what the historical Picts were envisioned to look like, as they were a tribal culture that used to paint themselves in war paint using woad, and were thus named as such by the Romans due to their distinctive face-painting practices. Antoniades conceded that surviving records from the time of the Picts are sparse, and their actual painted designs have been lost to history. As a result, a creative decision was made to keep Senua's face paint simple, that is within the bounds of something that she would be able to self-apply to herself. The team made patterns on paper using paint and scanned it into the game, though the resulting scans still contain finger marks and other distinctive smears made by team members. Senua's hair is designed to match historical accounts of Picts who put lime on their hair to clump it up, which gives it a striking dreadlock-like look. The team decorated her hair with a variety of small stones and beads: this was for the sake of art design as opposed to historical accuracy, as they serve a flourishing purpose by holding her hair together and brightening up the darkness of her character model.
Senua's clothing, designed with consideration for her personality and mental condition, provides significant insight into her past. Her headpiece represents a physical reminder of her internal struggle, with the idea that she wears it as a "kind of protector" due to the voices that intrude into her head. Antoniades noted that the Celts from Senua's time period were in fact skilled craftsmen in spite of their reputation as a "barbarian" culture; her jewelry is designed to be "incredibly ornate", and her furred collar made from wolf fur. Her brooch is a warrior pin which resembles a miniature sword, symbolically representing her warrior status conferred to her by Dillion. According to Antoniades, the brooches were originally Celtic pins favored by women from Senua's era, but were later appropriated by the Vikings who took a liking to them, and would later become a common cultural motif in cultural or media depictions of Vikings. The brooch's design evokes the triquetra symbol which are a recurring feature in Celtic symbology, though the team lacked context as to the deeper meaning behind the symbolism as very few Celtic writings survive to the present day. Antoniades suggested from his team's research that it is "variously described as infinity", or that it originally had another meaning which became lost in time while Christianity eventually appropriated Celtic and Pagan symbolism to develop its doctrine of the Trinity.
As a warrior, Senua carries a sword which she uses to battle her opponents, though Senua's Sacrifice featured extended sequences which did not involve any combat sequences and she loses her sword at a certain point of the game's story. With regards to the mystical sword which replaces her lost weapon and which Senua recognizes as the legendary Gramr, Antoniades explained to Game Informer that it is not in fact important or significant to the story. Ninja Theory explained in a 2015 developer diary that the game's titular hell is the manifestation of Senua's mental illness, though Antoniades later commented that he thought of Senua herself as the eponymous "Hellblade". Another item carried by Senua throughout Senua's Sacrifice is a sack which contains Dillion's severed head, which she believes contains the soul of the departed; from Senua's perspective, the head appears to suck in breath through the sack on occasion. She also carries a mirror, which is based on a real Celtic mirror, and is made from polished iron which renders ambiguous reflections. Mirrors were believed to be magical during Senua's era and were important instruments used by druids, high-ranking religious leaders in ancient Celtic cultures, to see into the underworld.
Senua is redesigned for the upcoming sequel, Senua's Saga: Hellblade II. Tom McInerney is the makeup artist responsible for the character's new look, which includes a different combination of face paint colours as well as mystical rune-like markings drawn on Juergen's face.
Portrayal