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VITALS

NAME:	Deunan Knute
GENDER:	Female
SPECIES:	Human
DOB:	2105
AGE:	Thirty-three
OCCUPATION:	Hostage rescuer

Deunan Knute (デュナン・ナッツ, transliterated as Dyunan Nattsyu) is the lead character in both the Appleseed manga and anime franchises. Along with her partner Briareos Hecatonchires, she is one of ES.W.A.T.'s most important members. Known for a fiery personality, and a tendency to sometimes break rank, Deunan is still widely appreciated by her partners for her professionalism and acumen. Outside of the job she enjoys socializing with her colleagues and Bioroid relatives, is a wearer of Prada clothing, and is also a Moto-GP enthusiast, her personal mode of transport a high-end Coscom motorbike.

Although predominantly Caucasian, her family background consists of Scandinavian, French, and mixed Sudanese descendants. She was born in the State of California, near Los Angeles, in 2105, and is thirty-three years old during the events of Ex Machina.

BackgroundEdit

The daughter of Gilliam Knute, a bioscientist who invented the Bioroid race, and Carl Knute, a distinguished and decorated war veteran who later revolutionized the LAPD SWAT.

In various depictions, Deunan is revealed to have witnessed her mother's murder, however she had gone for long periods not remembering it (or remembering her mother at all) due to traumatic memory loss.

The circumstances of the murder's setting differ a bit based on the media. In the 2004 anime, Deunan's mother is shot unintentionally by a startled soldier when she happened to be holding a pistol and lunged forward. But she was only lunging forward to protect Deunan and get her out of the room with the soldiers. This happened in a closed computer laboratory.

In XIII], Deunan's mother's death is intentionally planned by a sniper rifle wielding assassin. It happens in an open area while the pair are walking down the street.

After her mother's death, Deunan Knute was trained from a young age by her father to be a superlative fighter and strategist.

In the early 2120s she joined her father's ranks and became a operative in the Special Weapons and Tactics arm of the force. It was here where she met with Briareos, another rising star, as well as a young (future Colonel) Hades, who held a high position until being expelled due to a misdemeanor.

Following the outbreak of World War III (or IV depending on whether you're following the manga or anime histories), both Deunan and Briareos were conscripted into the US Army, and served in the same platoon on the North African Front.

Following his supposed death, and the dissolution of the United States, she then led an independent band of mercenaries through the various battles that cropped up during the final months of the international conflict. It appears that she ended up in Europe or the Balkans just prior to being abducted by ES.W.A.T., and brought into the Olympian metropolis.

PersonalityEdit

Having spent much of her life dealing with intense battles and firefights, it's no surprise that Deunan is a specialist in weapons handling, explosive devices manipulations and hand-to-hand combat. She typically prefers weaponry from Seburo, especially automatic handguns like the Bobson Centennial Edition and submachine guns, though she has been known to use assault rifles if necessary, drawing on her experience from the US Army. It's notable

that Deunan's gun handling skill easily rivals that of both human male, and cybernetically enhanced male colleagues, including Briareos, who, despite his near superhuman marksmanship ability, is always reduced to a wingman position when in her company.

As a cunning strategist by nature, she unsurprisingly relishes wargames, and often succeeds in "wiping out" entire teams with ease, usually consisting of sixteen or more men. Even if handicapped with insufficient or inferior weapons than her adversaries at first, she will nearly always gain tactical supremacy within ten minutes, using traditional techniques such as the ambush (which will then provide her with her enemy's armaments), or moves that are strictly her own, like the inverted assault, which she uses to great success in both the 2004 and 2007 episodes. To see her in action, view the Media page for various trailers and other motion picture samples.

While exceedingly warm and friendly to close associates (Briareos, Hitomi and Yoshitune, for example), Deunan is characteristically aloof and antagonistic to others. In the past she has fearlessly sparred with ES.W.A.T. commander Lance, the Seven Elders, Col Hades and General Uranus, and holds an exclusive disdain for Nike. Although she refuses to get into fights in public, she will let off her steam in private, famously roundhouse kicking a locker door shut in Appleseed (2004) following an ultrication with Briareos.

A quick learner and perfectionist, she is also noted at being an excellent Landmate pilot, apparently one of the first females to ever master the imposing craft. Appropriately, she exhibits feminist traits and is ultra independent. Generally she likes her Landmates customized to specification, usually requesting unique cockpit configurations (to accommodate her lightweight build) and if possible, colour combinations, her favourite being dark fuchsia, as if to match her Coscom Moto-GP and rider's leathers.

It's believed that, despite the availability of computerized, real-time vocal translators, Deunan is naturally multilingual to some extent. In the manga, she's depicted as speaking French at certain times, and can be seen playfully using the affirmation "oui," even during purely English conversations in The Promethean Challenge. Also in that volume, she wears a tanktop emblazoned with the word "etrange" (strange). Other characters wear clothes featuring random phrases ("knowledge society" a common one) inscribed upon them, but all are in English.

HistoryEdit

OVAEdit

2004 filmEdit

Ex MachinaEdit

XIIIEdit

Appleseed XIII opens up with Deunan and Briareos together. It is unknown when these events take place relative to other films or the manga just yet.

HealthEdit

Following integration into Olympus, Deunan distinctly appears to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, as she experiences frequent nightmares and flashbacks to the past. Three years later, during the events of Ex Machina, she has shaken the traumas of her past and appears relatively stable with the present. Even meeting Tereus, a cloned version of Briareos in his former human appearance, does not unsettle her significantly.

Although highly athletic, it's notable that Deunan's resting heart rate of 68 BPM, even under heavy sedation (as seen on an ECG during the 2004 movie), suggests she isn't in ideal shape, or may have a minor cardiac disorder. For a female of her age and build, it should really be ten beats lower, nearer to 55-58 beats per minute. Interestingly, in the manga, she exhibits a tendency to black out under intensive gravitational forces, which might also point towards a circulatory issue.

It appears that while having a taste for alcohol, she tolerates it poorly. In Ex Machina, after consuming less than one litre of what appears to be Japanese Kirin beer (based on the bottle label), an ordinary ratio 5% alcoholic beverage, she quickly gets inebriated, though only her reflexes are affected, and not her speech or mental clarity. Ordinarily, she prefers wine, particularly Chateau Montaigne's Sauvignon Blanc, or a (seemingly fictional) variety called Cordon Chantefleur.

According to the Appleseed Databook (a.k.a Appleseed ID), she is trained to be ambidextrous. In the original manga, she was temporarily blinded in one eye in Volume 4, due to a training accident, and for a time had to wear a vision-augmenting eye-patch, similar to the heads up display she employs in Ex Machina. As depicted in the Appleseed Hypernotes, she also sometimes uses implants embedded in her vascular system to augment her immune system, and also to ward off the effects of poisoning. The implants also have the ability to wake her from a state of unconsciousness, using powerful stimulants.

Info, pleaseEdit

Links and Trivia Edit

Deunan Knute's character could be seen as a much-stylized contemporary of Annika Lofquist, another fictional female counterterrorist of northern-European descent, who appears in most of the earlier releases of Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six. Her bio can be seen on the Rainbow Six Wikia.

Reviewers have sometimes likened her character in the Appleseed saga to that of Mel Gibson's in the Lethal Weapon franchise; a mostly professional law enforcer with a crazy fringe and some reckless tendencies.

In the music video for Russian fashion model Lina Ohta's pop single "Puzzle-Riddle," Deunan Knute appears a few times, and is overdubbed by Ohta's vocals. This isn't surprising, since "Puzzle-Riddle" (dubiously assembled English lyrics and all) was featured as the closing theme for Ex Machina. Fashion fans will want to check out the video, as Deunan is seen wearing one of the two outfits designed by Miucca Prada.

The often seen image of Deunan in Briareos' arms (see right), is actually a CGI reproduction of a Shirow Masamune colour scketch from the eighties, that was featured as the cover of The Promethean Challenge (see image). Not to be mistaken as a damsel-in-distress pose, Deunan relies on Briareos for rapid transportation in this manner, as he can jump great distances from building to building (almost like Superman) while carrying both her and his own weapons. However, when he leaps, he creates a G-force of nearly 7, which has caused her to black out at times.

A highly detailed one-sixth scale action figure of Deunan Knute (and others) was released by Hot Toys in 2007. Her Bobson automatic pistol, signed by one of the Seburo company founders, is also available in resin as a static replica. See the Adult Collectables page for more info.

Her first name, Deunan, is Scottish, and in that country it's a distant (and feminized) derivative of the name Adam (see reference). Child naming website babycenter.com places the popularity rank of the name in the United States at 12,205 as of 2008, a decline from 11,554 the previous year. Her surname, Knute, on the other hand, is ultimately Scandinavian in descent, and is also considered to be highly uncommon in the US.

In the original manga, she also uses Colt M1911 handguns.

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Deunan Knute

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