Ophelia Price
"A cold and cunning woman, Ophelia is the hand at work behind every situation. Those that join her find themselves curiously doing what she wants whether they planned to or not, and those that oppose her have a tendency to disappear. In a fight she is fast, quiet, and versatile. Unable to take large amounts of punishment or carry the more powerful weapons, she offsets this by using conventional firearms in conjunction with dark magic to maximize her offensive and defensive capabilities. No need to face dead-on what you can take out at 300 yards with a sniper rifle."
--Blood II: The Chosen Website
Ophelia Price is one of the four Chosen who acts as Caleb's love interest. Whether or not she loves him back is controversial throughout the series and is up for debate. She acted as Caleb's original gateway into the Cabal, after the death of her husband and son (at the hands of the Cabal, though Ophelia does not blame the cult for this but rather her husband).
Blood II reveals more about her personality, that she is a cold, cunning, manipulative, woman and prefers stealth to strength. She uses the Tesla Cannon and Sniper Rifle primarily. She and Caleb's relationship is tenuous, mostly consisting of back-and-forth jabs with no real affection ever being shown; though under the surface of this is left ambiguous. In Blood she is shown in brown pants and shirt with a green cape and has short flowing red hair. In Blood II she wears a leather jacket and pants and now has shorter red hair styled into spikes.
She is voiced by Lani Minella in Blood II: The Chosen (who also voiced Gabriella). She has a few vocals in the first cut scene of Blood, but is not identified in the cast, though she may be voiced by "Celeste". When left alone Ophelia will recite random verses from "The Dole of the King's Daughter: Breton" by Oscar Wilde and "The Truth the Dead Know" by Anne Sexton to herself.
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[edit] History
[edit] Early Years
Much of Ophelia's early life is unknown. Her British accent hints that she is a descendant of English immigrants or she was born in England and migrated to America later. She was probably born into a family of some wealth as she was able to enroll in college and join a sorority (Iota Eta Pi).
Ophelia's entrance into the Cabal came during her college years when a genius student created a reanimation serum. The Cabal sent zombies into the campus to take him and the serum. As zombies apparently want to do, they wandered to the "largest collection of defenseless and scantily clad women" - Ophelia's sorority house.
Observing the power that the Cabal wielded, Ophelia had an evil inspiration: ditch her education, family and associates and join the cult. After destroying all incriminating evidence against her, as she knew they would not take some "silly sorority girl", she presented herself to the cult and was accepted.
[edit] The Cabal
Ophelia was eventually married, either after or before joining the Cabal, and gave birth to a son. Her husband was also a member, but rescinded his membership. In response, the Cabal burned their homestead, killing him and their son. Ophelia was left insane and babbling incoherently about the cult in the remains of her homestead, though she did not blame them for her plight but rather was left in deep hatred of her late husband.
Caleb found Ophelia in the remains of her homestead, during his criminal wanderings. He was struck by her beauty but also the words in her insane ramblings. As he rehabilitated her, Caleb learned about the Cabal and their master Tchernobog and joined as well seeking power. It is implied that he and Ophelia became lovers. Eventually, the two rose through the ranks and, along with Ishmael and Gabriel, became members of the Chosen; Tchernobog's elite generals.
[edit] Betrayal and Death
Sometime between 1871 and 1928, Tchernobog summoned the four Chosen to the Hall of the Epiphany, Tchernobog's chamber. Instead of giving orders, as the Chosen thought, Tchernobog told them that they had failed him and that he disavowed them all. The four were stunned as Tchernobog sent his lieutenants to take the Chosen one by one.
Cheogh swoops down from the darkness and kidnapps Ophelia, causing Caleb to jump to her aid but fail to grab hold of her. Cheogh takes off and takes her to the Altar of Stone, where he crucifies her on a stone tablet. After Caleb was resurrected his first action was to find Ophelia and defeat Cheogh. After finding her nailed to the altar, Caleb cremates her body and destroys Cheogh's corpse with his Sawed-Off Shotgun.
[edit] Resurrection
At some point in the year 2028, Ophelia is resurrected by unknown means although Ishmael says that "she was the first to come through". It is likely however that the tears in between the realities had something to do with her and the others Chosen's return to the land of the living. She is held by the Cabal in the Temple of Poon in CabalCo headquarters. Once Caleb arrives and finds Ophelia tied to the altar, she attempts to seduce Caleb into assisting her, before Gideon arrives and spirits her away through another rift.
After Caleb catches up with Gideon, Ophelia appears on the rooftop, inexplicably free, and calls Caleb a "dumb bastard" for following Gideon in. They eventually reunite in Reality Beta after the defeat of The Ancient One.
[edit] The Nightmare Levels
During their journey back home, the four Chosen stop at a campfire and tell ghost stories. Ophelia, nonplussed by Caleb's disappearance, tells of her time in Iota Eta Pi during the Cabal attack.
[edit] Relationship with Caleb
Ophelia's affection to Caleb is debatable to say the least. Very little of the relationship is explored in the canon media, the only acknowledgement of them as lovers is in the Blood readme file. In fact, the Blood II instruction manual describes her as "resurrected into a world with no future and full of disgust over the undead creature that she has become, Ophelia is desperately searching for a way out. She'll do whatever it takes to escape from a world gone mad, a body she no longer knows, and the love of a man she's grown to despise" and other background material hints that one of Caleb's motivations in Blood II is to win Ophelia back, though this never really appears in the game.
She does share the other Chosen's frustration over Caleb's stubbornness about accepting that he needs to seal the rifts, but this does not equal hatred, and is annoyed when he follows Gideon through the rifts. However, once it is all over her annoyances with him are mooted, though what remains is unclear. She does not seem to mind being trapped with him in the other world. In The Nightmare Levels, during her story she says, "Don't tell Caleb though, he would never forgive me", and, when meeting him at the end, says "Umm.. you are having a bad dream... Caleb, dear" hinting at some secret affections, or at very least a fear of Caleb turning against her.
Likely, their relationship is based on a tenuous bond of the hardships they went through - Ophelia's insanity, her involvement with the Cabal and subsequent condemnation, and being resurrected over a century later. It is known that the two were lovers back when they where serving Tchernobog, however it is unknown how this has survived through death, time and battle.
[edit] Development
Ophelia's design was one of many aspects of the Blood II development in which Monolith Productions reached out to the community. Eric Kohler explained a case of this: "based on the what you folks had to say on the blood forum about the picture of ophelia, i tweaked her design a bit. no i didn't give her 38DD's or long hair. i did however change her clothes some so they would be more recognizable. no more space suit (actually, a motorcycle racing suit)...now she has a leather racing jacket, chaps, and boots. i think she looks pretty good...and i'll be interested to hear what you all think when we can release a picture of her."
He also in another plan update stated some of his motivations towards the design of the character, and other female characters: "so i've been thinking about breasts lately. i know your first thought is...eric, why have you been thinking about breasts, and more importantly, why are you telling me about it? well, i answer, the last few weeks i have been designing some of the characters in blood2, and several of them are, obviously, female. i've been looking around at the females in other games and comics and what do you think i found? every single one of them looks like some silicon injected, lypo sunctioned, fake baked, frankentitty bimbo! what, might i ask, is the deal? why are all of these characters cookie cutter dipshits? really, is there something i am missing. i know both the gaming and comic industries are mostly aimed at young males, but don't those young males find it a little boring and insulting that the creators of these various products think they can toss a gravity defying rack on the body of a 13 year old girl and you'll run right out and buy it?!? i for one would rather see women in games that have real CHARACTER, not just the same barbi face, body and boobs with different color hair and skin tight outfit. i would love to see a story (comic, game,movie...whatever) with a female lead that truly kicked ass. now Zena's gettin' close, and sharon stone in The Quick an the Dead had potential (although she screwed it up), but as of yet i haven't seen one lean, mean, crazy in the head action oriented ass kicker character that also happens to have breasts. i wanna see a chick who really knows how to use the guns she totes around, doesn't do her martial arts moves in stilleto heels, and snickers with glee as she blows your friggin' head off. if anybody else wants to see this in a game, drop me line, or just wait for blood2...he he he"
