The Spanish Flag in Street Fighter II:
A Vexillological and Sociocultural Analysis
1. OVERVIEW
Street Fighter II: The World Warrior and its derivatives needs no introduction. It was the videogame that redefined the fighting genre and revolutionized the videogame scene in general. All arcade fighting games after its release copied it, and its success made console gaming even more popular. It was, simply put, one of the most beloved videogame icons of the 90s.
The year Street Fighter II: The World Warrior was released was also quite a convoluted one: it was released on the 6th of February, 1991, months away from the collapse of the Soviet Union, which would end once and for all the Cold War, launching the world into a new era. The character of Zangief, for instance, was particularly affected due to the many references to the Soviet Union in the game. Afterwards making Zangief heavily associated to the USSR, the developers were forced to acknowledge the backstory even in later releases such as Street Fighter Alpha 2 and 3. Other characters like Fei Long from Hong Kong experienced this in substantially less important degrees.
Vega, on the other hand, was associated from the beginning with a country that no longer existed: Francoist Spain, easily seen by the depiction of the flag.
Let’s start by analyzing Vega. He’s most certainly an interesting case: a vain Barcelonan aristocrat with ninja and bullfighting skills, also a murderous psychopath who takes pleasure from vanquishing those he deems physically ugly, and who fights in a Flamenco cave-like tavern straight from Andalusia (named “El Mesón de la Taberna,” literally “the Inn of the Tavern,” for some odd reason). He’s the typical flamboyant character only a Japanese developer can come up with, with many stereotypes associated to its country of origin and a ton of comic book-like details that make the character, quite simply, larger than life, giving it a uniqueness and a popularity which have withstood the test of time.
In fact, Vega is an archetype of a character very common in Japanese manga and anime, the effeminate, long-haired and violent narcissist. It should also be noted that Vega shares many traits associated with Spain from abroad, such as exotic sex appeal, an obsession with red roses, bullfighter clothing, an aristocratic/nobleman background and a penchant for bloody combat with blades. These traits, though exaggerated so as to accommodate to Japanese trends, likings and perceptions, have at least a reason to be and can be manipulated according to the developer’s vision.
The flag, however, stands out the most in the design of the character. What are they trying to suggest? Street Fighter II clearly takes place in 1991, obvious through the Gorbachev reference in Zangief’s ending, so it can’t be that the game is set in the ‘70s or early ‘80s. So then, what does this mean? Is it an oversight? A suggestion that Vega is Francoist? We’ll analyze the renditions of the flag and the possible intentions behind its design: in all honesty, there’s more to this than it might appear at first sight.
2. THE SPANISH FLAG
The present flag of Spain, fully adopted on the 5th of October, 1981, is comprised of three horizontal stripes, colored red and yellow, and the center stripe is larger than the red ones. The coat of arms is located in the yellow stripe, off-centered toward the left.
The coat of arms, monarchist in nature, is a shield flanked by two pillars and surmounted by the Spanish Royal Crown. The shield depicts in four quarters, from left to right clockwise, the Kingdom of Castile, the Kingdom of Leon, the Crown of Aragon and the Kingdom of Navarre. At the center of the shield is the House of Bourbon coat of arms. At the bottom of the shield is the Kingdom of Granada.
The shield is flanked by two crowned columns, the Pillars of Hercules, which represent the Strait of Gibraltar, in Antiquity associated to the promontories comprising the strait. The crowned columns bear the motto of Spain, “Plus Ultra,” Latin for “Further Beyond.”
The flag was chosen in 1978 and adopted in 1981 with the new coat of arms, replacing the third 1977-1981 redesign of the Francoist flag (of which not many flags were made), closing the Transition period that Spain went through from 1977, after Franco’s death, to 1981, when the flag was finally replaced. In 1978 a new constitution was passed, which is the present one, and King Juan Carlos I passed the resolution that introduced what is now Spain’s flag.
The Spanish flag adopted after the Franco era is a subject of controversy up to this day, which sometimes Spanish players point out to foreigners. Putting it simply, Spain is a constitutional monarchy with the House of Bourbon as the ruling Heads of State. Needless to say, not everybody agrees with having monarchs. The House of Bourbon was extra-officially restored by Francisco Franco in 1969, when Juan Carlos, son of the exiled heir-apparent to the Spanish throne Juan of Bourbon, accepted Franco’s proposal of becoming his successor. Franco had designated Prince Juan Carlos in 1975 as the future King and ruler of Spain, his successor in keeping the fascist state alive, this being Franco’s wish.
However, Juan Carlos, now King Juan Carlos I, made a deal with all the political parties of the era after Franco’s death in 1975 with the purpose of restoring democracy, ending Franco’s fascist state and make the new nation a constitutional monarchy. This period, called the Spanish Transition to Democracy, is the subject of criticism due to all the parties betraying their beliefs to some degree in order to forgive and forget, bury the past in the sands of the times and, putting it simply, go along with it. Everything was done assuming that unburying past hatreds, remnants from the Civil War, would be detrimental to peace and stability. The Transition, through a pact named “the Pact of Forgetting,” protected Francoist collaborators, their positions, their wealth, and in general terms, made them virtually untouchable in terms of past crimes or otherwise to the eyes of the new monarchist Spanish State.
The Pact of Forgetting is also a common phenomenon in Latin America, where many pro-US right-wing dictatorships sprung up and were defended by the US in the fight against global communism. After the dictatorships were toppled, many military figures associated with disappearances and murders were simply protected from retroactive legal punishment. In Spain, Franco was forgiven for his pro-Axis WWII stance and dictatorial regime merely due to the changing nature of the times, which now dictated that the US benefitted from an anti-communist ally in Europe. That’s how the Franco regime survived. Today, had it not been for Franco, there wouldn’t be a ruling monarchy.
Thus, the Spanish flag in present use is mainly associated with the monarchists and the right-wingers, and people who use this flag are seen as such by anti-monarchists, who prefer the use of the tricolor flag with a republican coat of arms and a purple stripe at the bottom instead of a red one. Left-wingers and republicans and anti-monarchists in general feel represented by this flag, and loathe the use of the post-Transition flag due to all the connotations mentioned above. The fact that the bicolor flag instead of the tricolor flag was used is a clear sign of Franco’s legacy, and a reminder that he won the war and reinstituted the monarchy.
Flags can obviously be a sensitive subject for people, especially if they’re represented incorrectly. I believe nonetheless that audiences at the time weren’t too bothered with flag depictions: not only was this game oriented toward kids and teenagers, but let’s face it, it was extremely unlikely anyone would care whether countries depicted in the game, such as the USSR, still existed in 1992, or that Hong Kong ceased being a British colony in 1997. It was even less likely that they cared about what the new Russian or Hong Kong flags looked like.
It didn’t help that the game was released in an extremely delicate year regarding the international community. Since 1989 the entire Eastern bloc was fragmenting and rebelling against communist rule, creating many new states with redesigned flags. The USSR, by the end of the year the game was released in, ceased existing, bringing an end to the Cold War and redrawing almost half the world map.
Needless to say, nobody at the time believed such a thing like the USSR collapsing would be possible, not even after many republics had seceded. Thus, the game created an awkward situation for itself, featuring a clearly inspired Cold War-era stereotype of a Soviet Russian nicknamed the “Red Cyclone” who even wears red clothing to be absolutely irrelevant culturally in the post-Cold War era period, where Russia was striving to attain a new identity disassociated from its Soviet legacy. Today, Zangief is hardly associated to the new Russia due to the character’s Cold War archetypes and strong Soviet characterization, in terms of country flag and his stage, a Soviet industrial factory which features the Hammer and Sickle extensively across the floor. A classic game such as SFII has too much relevance and popularity for Zangief to be forgotten as a Soviet character in favor of a Russian one.
The fact that there haven’t been attempts to make Zangief more Russian than Soviet in later releases says it all, as the character is featured in ambiguous Russian stages and the flag quirk has been mostly removed in modern games. Characters such as Necro and Twelve from Street Fighter III have notable Russian stages and are represented by the Russian Federation flag, yet by this time the franchise was leaving behind its “World Warrior” gimmick and focusing on less nationalistic displays perhaps due to the exaggerate political correctness of the modern era and thus avoid uncomfortable legal situations.
Hong Kong, another country featured in the game, experienced a similar event to the USSR: in 1997 it ceased being a British colony and adopted a new flag without the Union Jack in it. Since the handover of Hong Kong was made to the People’s Republic of China, a Turbo version of Street Fighter II displays Hong Kong using the PRC flag, something unnecessary, seeing as the game still takes place in 1991 and in its fictional canon, flags don’t need to be updated to meet contemporary realities.
With Spain, however, something unnecessary and quite strange was done with the flag, and it was choosing the flag of when Spain was under the fascist rule of Francisco Franco. The dead giveaway for it is, aside from the eagle-shaped emblem, the color black, inexistent in the post-Franco coat of arms, and immediately associated with Spaniards to the Franco era. By the time of the release of the game, Spain had been using the new flag for a decade, making this choice completely erroneous, aside from too specific to be mistaken for the current flag, which they obviously modeled in further releases.
The flag of Spain in all the derivatives of Street Fighter II underwent several redesigns in its arcade versions and home consoles as well. In the home versions, technical limitations already warranted a redesign, but the arcade versions are the interesting part, since they actually changed not only the details in the flag, but the flag itself.
When Street Fighter II was released, the current Spain flag had been in use for years, enough for people globally to realize the inconsistency, especially Spanish players of enough age. Knowing that, one question must be asked: why did the SFII developers use the Francoist flag, specifically, the 1945-1977 design?
The answer is not known, and has baffled the few people who noticed this. The Street Fighter Wiki acknowledges the fact that the Francoist flag is the one used in SFII, but the reason why remains unknown.
Putting it simply, the motive for the use of the Franco flag could be that the developers did a lazy search on the Flag of Spain or perhaps they grew up associating Spain with that flag, and thus used it. It’s noticeable enough that they redesigned the flag in later editions, so this means they indeed realized their mistake. Yet, it must also be noted that the Francoist flag was carried over not only to the 1993 Genesis/Mega Drive and SNES ports, but to a later arcade edition, namely, the 1992 SFII: Champion Edition. It wasn’t until the 1993 update titled Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers that this was changed. This version uses the variant flag of the present flag, without the coat of arms. This was used in further versions, and the Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix from 2008, is the only rendition of SFII to use the present monarchist post-transition flag.
Without further ado, let’s look at the flags from each rendition.
3. EVOLUTION OF THE FLAG IN STREET FIGHTER II
3.1. Street Fighter II: The World Warrior / Champion Edition
The first release of Street Fighter II was known was The World Warrior, released in 1991. Its select screen was also carried over to its improved version, Champion Edition. The flag featured is completely the same. As can be seen, the flag is clearly the 1945-1977 Francoist flag:
As can be seen, the eagle (known as the Eagle of Saint John, previously used in 1492 by the Catholic Monarchs) is oversized so that it occupies most of the yellow stripe and some of the red stripes, like in the 1945-1977 flag, its size fits this design, and the whiteness next to the wings, representing the Pillars of Hercules, fits perfectly with the 1945 design, as the columns are quite separated from the wings and measure two thirds of the overall wing height, unlike the 1938-1945 and 1977-1981 designs:
As can be seen above, the Pillars of Hercules in the 1938-1945 flag are almost as tall as the wings, while in the 1977-1981 flag they’re almost half their size and are next to the shield and in front of the wings, not beside them. The sun, with the head of the eagle covering it, is also quite visible in the digital rendition of SFII, something the 1938-1945 and 1977-1981 designs do not display as prominently, thus establishing it the 1945-1977 flag as the one which in all likelihood they used as basis for Vega’s flag. Needless to say, this rendition is the most well-known flag of Spain in the 20th century, in conjunction with the current monarchist flag. Thus, it’s quite probable that the Japanese designers settled for the flag they associated with Spain from a young age.
3.2. Street Fighter II: Champion Edition and Turbo – Genesis/Mega Drive and SNES Versions
The 1993 console versions of SFII had to redesign the flag due to understandable technical limitations, but they ended up doing something even worse. They based this design clearly on an already incorrect flag, which is a modern rendition used by football hooligans and neo-fascist parties within Spain. Although this version is less detailed due to the console limitations, what gives it away is the fact that the eagle is placed at the center of the flag:
The Francoist flag variant pictured above has the following inconsistencies:
- The coat-of-arms was offset to the hoist, as happens with the current flag. Only Spanish military colors and rank flags —both square— have a centered coat-of-arms.
- The scroll around the eagle's neck should be fully red, not a Spanish bicolor.
- The "Pillars of Hercules" should be at the sides of the eagle, not lying on its wings; the left (dexter) one should have an imperial crown, the right (sinister) an open royal crown.
- The eagle should be "membered gules" i.e. have red claws, instead of black.
- The ribbons around the "Pillars of Hercules" should be red instead of yellow.
- Smaller coat of arms, only slightly exceeding the size of the yellow stripe.
- The red ribbons holding the yoke and the arrows seem to be incorrectly depicted.
"It is also incorrect to say that that was also the 1976-1981 flag, since a slightly different coat of arms was adopted in 1977 (by the way, the date of Juan Carlos I's accession to the throne was 22nd November 1975 and not 1976)."
(Note: I corrected several mistakes from this source, such as claiming that the ribbon with the motto is a Spanish tricolor, which is not the case: it’s a Spanish bicolor. The author seems to have meant three colored stripes, not three colors. The three colors, with the purple one at the bottom stripe, is associated to republicanism.)
All these inconsistencies point out the problems with this depiction of the flag in real life, making it an even stranger choice for the game. In all probability, the developers must have chosen this rendition for the console versions due to simplicity, and the eagle being centered is probably merely a coincidence, not a direct reference to this incorrect though widely-distributed flag.
3.3. Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers
The 1993 update titled Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers featured a redesign map in comparison to Champion Edition and the home consoles. This time, the flag of Spain is modeled correctly, with an emblem similar to the current Spanish coat of arms, and most importantly, without any traces of black eagles.
Although the coat of arms appears to be highly accurate, with the Spanish Royal Crown, the shield and the Pillars of Hercules with even blue bases alluding to the waves, the coat of arms is greatly exaggerated in size, similar to the Francoist eagle in terms of taking up most of the yellow stripe and some of the red stripes. Otherwise, this is the most correct depiction of the ‘90s iterations.
The Genesis version of The New Challengers features also the accurate flag from the arcade version, yet obviously simplified due to technical limitations of the console. As can be seen below, the coat of arms in this version even has the waves at the base of the Pillars of Hercules, and what seems to be a white dot at the center of the shield perhaps alluding to the House of Bourbon emblem in the coat of arms:
3.4. Super Street Fighter II: Turbo
The 1994 arcade update was titled Super Street Fighter II: Turbo, and this time it took a step back in terms of depicting the flag accurately. While the flag is technically correct (it’s the civil variant of the state flag) it’s incorrect in terms of usage, since the official state flag would be used to represent Spain at an international level. Otherwise, the design it’s pretty self-explanatory, a civil flag without the coat of arms and having the three stripes of the traditional monarchist bicolor variant, red and yellow:
3.5. Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix
In 2008, Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix was released on the major consoles of the time, the PS3 and the Xbox 360. This version has the most accurate depiction of the flag yet, although this version shouldn’t count because of the superior hardware of these consoles, able to depict small details in such flags with great accuracy.
4. CONCLUSIONS
Surely enough, it’s inexcusable that the Japanese developers could make such an oversight with the Spanish flag when designing the game. With the multiple references to contemporary politics, such as Mikhail Gorbachev’s appearance in Zangief’s ending, not to mention the attempt at updating the Hong Kong flag after its historical handover, the choice for the Francoist flag seems even more enigmatic, as it’s a well-known Western European flag, and it should have been by 1991 in international circles.
It’s also astonishing seeing how not many Spanish players seemed to mind or notice the Francoist flag in the first releases. As was explained earlier, the flag is strongly associated currently with neo-fascist and far-right political movements, and needless to say has extremely negative connotations. Simply put, the Francoist flag in the games is recognizable enough even despite the technical limitations in rendering it at the time. I showed the variations of the flag to Spaniards and they all expressed amazement, identifying it instantly as the flag of Franco and also showing surprise at how it even made it in a 1991 game to begin with.
The fact that the black eagle was removed from later updates says a lot, and shows that the developers either noticed the mistake or new teams –more well-versed in flags of the world– redesigned these aspects altogether. Favoring the current royal coat of arms and then removing the emblem altogether is also an enigmatic choice. It seems they noticed the inconsistency and opted to redesign the flag, but why did they go through so many strange design choices with such a well-known flag? Couldn’t they open up a map and check it? Or did they do exactly that and checked an outdated source? Whatever the reason may be, I doubt we’ll ever know what exactly resulted in this major oversight.
Despite everything, it’s details like these what make Vega’s character much more interesting and mysterious, not to mention ambiguous: according to the official backstory, Vega was born in 1967, ten years before the Transition, so he was educated in the Francoist tradition of national-Catholicism like so many children of his generation. If Vega is a Catalonian aristocrat and nobleman, not to mention a villain ready to work for a dictator bent on world domination, does that mean he or his family were Franco supporters like so many upper-class Spaniards of the time? Was his bullfighting obsession, a cultural element associated with traditionalist and Francoist Spain, product of the times or his family’s sympathy toward the traditional conservative values Franco embodied? Did he or his family benefit enough from Francoism, like so many did, thus explaining his well-off position? Does he support a dictator like Bison because of Franco’s death and the Transition to democracy, and his villainy is the result of being robbed of his ideology and identity with Francoism?
It’s clear enough that Vega was designed, just like Lawrence Blood of Fatal Fury II or Miguel from Tekken, with nothing but Spanish stereotypes in mind. However, well past that kind of one-dimensional treatment and in this era of character depth we’re experiencing, it would be amazing to have a more detailed backstory on Vega during the Francoist period. But as interesting as that would be, it cannot be denied it’d be absolutely controversial, forever changing our perception of him (whether he supported, loathed or was neutral to Francoism; but in all likelihood, judging by his social position, murderous character, penchant for illegal fights and support of Bison, he was an apolitical psychopath, perhaps, with traces of embedded Francoism since childhood).
Whatever his connection to Francoism, it cannot be denied that the flag makes the player inadvertently think about that period of Spain and Vega’s connection to a reality that Spain was still recovering from in the ‘90s. All in all, quite an interesting aspect to analyze from this iconic franchise.