In the world of video game villainy and tyranny, there are those who walk the line between monster and damaged soul. Characters who, with nothing else to live for, turn their life into a weapon, lashing back at the world that dealt it a cruel hand at the game of life. Even amongst these select few bosses, there are those who retain some ounce of humanity. Despite their rage, their pain and the terrible crimes they commit we still hold out hope that they can be saved or redeemed; that our empathy might somehow sway them back to the right path.
For me, there is only one such character; Helena Dolph Jackson aka Fortune, the Queen of Dead Cell. Lady Luck herself. Helena makes her first appearance in Hideo Kojima’s 2001 PlayStation 2 title Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and would later make an appearance for Versus Battle as well.
How can you defeat a boss who defies probability? Her very being forces the world around her to bend and warp; bullets spiral out of control, missiles deflect and explosives go dud just by her being in the area.
How can you win?
You can’t! Fortune blocks all forms of attack you have at your disposal; your guns will misfire and your grenades and smoke bombs won’t explode. Luck is firmly on her side throughout all of your encounters and she’s not just packing probability manipulation; Fortune is also equipped with a deadly prototype 
railgun capable of mass destruction, as well as a holstered Beretta handgun, both of which she is highly skilled with. Her main choice of weapon is the railgun, despite it being an early model. Fortune’s luck prevents her from ever being harmed by it, something no other person could survive should they attempt to use it.
From the story’s perspective we see and learn a lot about what kind of person Fortune is. She is pushed too far and yearns for the embrace of death. This is something no one has been able to give her and if they can’t put her out of her misery then they deserve to die, sparing no survivors.
Your first actual encounter with Fortune in combat is in a storage room aboard ‘Big Shell’ and from the get-go it’s obvious that this isn’t a fight you’re going to win. All you can do to keep from being blown to pieces is run, hide and keep moving. Ammo and other items will appear throughout the fight but it’s useless as she uses this to bait you into stepping into the line of attack. So you can only dodge and dive out of her line of fire until she’s called away and you receive a transmission about ‘Fatman’.
Of all the bosses in the game, Fortune is the only one you cannot even attempt to defeat and that works on two levels – her ability to deflect incoming attacks is the first and the second because she’s truly not a villain at heart. She’s a good person pushed too far. She’s taken too many knocks and defeats from life. After her father is murdered by a man she believes to be Solid Snake, her mother commits suicide as she is unable to bear the loss of her husband. Shortly after all of that her husband is arrested and charged with embezzling federal funds and dies in prison. All of this loss and death is only increased when she loses her unborn child. The pain and suffering too much to carry on her own, Helena enlists in the hopes of either learning the skills needed to take down the man she deems responsible or, more morbidly, with hope that she will be killed in battle.
Unlike previous bosses and villains, this piece has discussed the other side of Fortune who doesn’t want to rule the world. She doesn’t want to see it ablaze and society crumbling around her – she simply wants to die. She is unable to do so and the distance between her and the ones she lost seems to grow further with every passing moment. This sentiment is only echoed in the lonely saxophone solo that accompanies her appearances throughout the game, a slow lament that lingers long after the music has finished.
While you never raise a weapon to her, Fortune forces you as a player to stop and to empathise, to look at the world from her perspective. She has done awful things, taken so many lives and that doesn’t excuse her but it does humanise her to an extent. You’re not fighting a cybernetically enhanced assassin, a ghoulish vampire or weapon of mass destruction; you’re facing a woman, a human being pushed too far who is now pushing back.
For those of you who haven’t seen or played Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, I advise you to not watch the clip below but to experience it for yourself. For those of you who have, remember once more that Lady Luck is real but she’s never fully on your side…
Editor-in-Chief, part-time super villain and hoarder of cats. If you can’t find me writing, I’m probably in the kitchen!
