This blog is where video games meet perfumery. Two of my favorite hobbies coming together as I assign fragrances to characters I love, using perfumery as a way to analyze them.

There are many layers to a character: their writing and place in the story, their relationships with other characters, their actions, their symbolism. Fans often explore, analyze and expand on all of these elements. Even the fantasy of touching and tasting them is explored through fanfiction. But something is almost always missing from both: their smell.

I believe smell is a powerful storytelling tool. We notice it all the time, and we form prejudices on it. What a character smells like can say a lot about them, and someone's reaction to another person´s scent can say just as much, as seen in Parasite (2019), where smell becomes a silent weapon against the main characters. Perhaps it's a given that a lot of videogame characters would smell awful, as many of these fictional settings don't allow them to mantain regular showers or a ten step skincare routine. For the sake of this blog, going for realism isn't always the point, I choose to imagine their scent by assigning them perfumes that relate to them the most.

The perfumes I assign to the characters aren't necessarily what they would choose to wear, but what they would smell like. My interpretations mostly come from a character's design, personality, and the world they inhabit; as well as symbolic elements associated with them such as flowers, important locations, or defining events. The availability of the perfume also plays a role. I doubt there's a fragrance that smells exactly like a Lunar Tear, but if we observe its inspiration coming from lilies, surely there's one that comes close.

The world of niche perfumery has ventured into uncomfortable territory, producing hyperrealistic fragrances that can be unsettling, with rare notes such as metals, body fluids and even interpretations of crime scenes. I find all these perfumes interesting and artistic, and will not be afraid to incorporate them into my analysis.

This blog is not meant to encourage anyone to buy a fragrance, this is strictly a personal hobby. I’m well aware that perfumery, especially niche perfumery, is expensive and often difficult to access.

However, if you are interested in trying a perfume, I will always recommend to test first, preferably on your skin. We all have different skin chemistries, so a perfume won’t smell the same on everyone. Any notes I describe may be unnoticeable for you, just as notes listed by a brand may be unnoticeable to me. This doesn't mean there's something wrong, just that we may have untrained noses and haven't registered certain smells in our brain yet.

Scent is also very subjective, and these are merely ficticional characters with no autonomy. One could argue that a character would prefer woody scents and wear Santal 33 by Le Labo, and I would disagree. Not because the interpretation is wrong, but because I personally don't like that perfume, and argue that they would prefer vanilla/spicy scents and wear Lune Feline by Ateliers des Ors instead. There is no correct answer because ultimately, this is a matter of preference.

My first post goes to one of the most misunderstood characters in Final Fantasy XIII: Oerba Dia Vanille.

Vanille is a character that represents the wisdom and pride of her native land of Gran Pulse. Despite her cheerful façade, she snaps at others when they badmouth her homeland in front of her. Her character design is directly inspired from the Himba women of Namibia, an ethnic group whose way of life is built around nature and community. The women perform more labor-intensive work and their traditional clothing and hairstyles are designed for the arid climate they inhabit. I find this reference both cosmetic and telling of Vanille's character. This is further reinforced in the novel Fragments Before, where Snow recalls the survival skills he learned from Fang and Vanille during their time on Gran Pulse. Vanille specifically taught him the different medicinal properties of the flowers.

The monsters and creatures on Gran Pulse are massive and ruthless, requiring teamwork and patience to defeat them. Both Fang and Vanille have Saboteur as part of their primary roles, in which they cast negative status effects to weaken their enemies and take them down more easily. Fang ultimately excels in the Commando role (physical damage) while Vanille shines as a Saboteur, and is the best character to farm Adamantoise and Long Gui thanks to her Death spell. The Saboteur role reflects how Vanille is as a character, rather than confronting enemies head on like Fang would do, she works subtly in the background, gradually dealing emotional turmoil to the group.

All of this represents a character whose essence is deeply rooted in her homeland, something that can be translated into a scent profile that feels alive, organic and personal.

Soleil de Jeddah from Stéphane Humbert Lucas comes to mind. This perfume is what spending a day on Gran Pulse smells like. A sun shining harshly on a vast hillside with wild flowers. It's herbal, earthy and leathery, yet soft and bright.

A realistic chamomile note dominates the perfume. It's a rare note in perfumery, but here it's very unique and present during every phase of its development. The base feels like a dry steppe, smelling like roots and soft leather, the amber and vanilla notes adding warmth in the drydown. It's an opulent perfume, the notes blend beautifully and melts on the skin, lasting forever. It's a summer from your childhood in a bottle.

I chose this perfume not only because its scent embodies Vanille, but also because some of its notes are representative of her character. Chamomile and osmanthus are commonly used for their calming and medicinal properties, which references her knowledge in flowers and Medic role. The leather note references her fur pelt she uses as a skirt, probably sourced from an animal native to Gran Pulse, adding a subtle reference to her way of life.

The vanilla note is present but it isn't cloying in the way it's commonly used in perfumery. In this blend it adds a gentle warmth and softness to the harsh herbal and leather scent. It's easy to associate her name with this spice because of its popularity and sweetness, but I wanted to take a more grounded approach that strays from the idea of her smelling like pastries and instead represent something more natural.