| “ | I'm a water dragon. This is water. It's kind of my thing." -Sisu, to Raya | „ |
Sisudatu, or Sisu, is the deuteragonist of Raya and the Last Dragon. Sisu is a self-deprecating yet comedic water dragon, called upon by Raya to save humanity from a dark force known as the Druun. For most of the film, she was the last of her kind.
Background[]
Physical Appearance[]
Sisu is a long spindly looking dragon. She is blue in color with a darker shade on her back and a lighter shade on her stomach, arms, and face. She has short dorsal fins on her back and possesses white-bluish-violet hair as a mane and a small tuft of her at the end of her tail. She has two dark blue horns with swirls on top of her head and has a snout with sharp teeth. Additionally, Sisu has big purple eyes. She has two horns at the top of her head, patterned with an intricate design.
In her human form, Sisu resembles a young Southeastern Asian woman with long messy white-bluish-violet hair. She retains her purple eyes, but now has goofy looking teeth. She wears a blue, long sleeved robe with a design pattern on it and a white furry collar. She wears grey colored trousers that stop below the knees and blue soft shoes that reveal her ankles.
Personality[]
Sisu is a kind and fun-loving dragon who loves making wisecracks and speaks in slang. While she is a bit of a goofball, she still is able to recognize when something is of serious consequence and will drop everything to help. She is shown to be somewhat naive as she does not understand the current human customs such as credit, hot sauce and thinks that most things can be solved with getting someone a gift. However, the latter is her strong suit as she retains her belief that one can be trusted through cohesion and unity. That is to say that she is much more trusting of others. Although she is quirky, she is wise and intuitive, and able to give sound advice when required. She's brave, shown when she fearlessly fights the Fang armies' to defend Raya as well as approaching Namaari holding a weapon. despite the risk of her own life. She is loyal and open-minded, willing to give someone the benefit of the doubt for a chance to redeem themselves. A pure heart, she is forgiving, unable to hold a grudge towards anyone, even befriending Namaari after being revived by her siblings along with the rest of her kind, even though she accidentally killed her prior. She is shown to be optimistic and steadfastly holding on to hope for the future or for a greater outcome regardless of the situation even, and stated by Raya as Hopeful.
Appearances[]
Raya and the Last Dragon[]
Six years after the Dragon Gem broke, Raya comes to the end of a stream in a shipwreck where Sisu is most likely to be found. The young woman begins an incantation, resulting in the surrounding water beginning to form and then replenishing Sisu entirely. Awake, Sisu doesn't know where she is and accidentally pushes Raya when she hears her speak but doesn't see her due to the fog formed by her return. The fact that Raya was not petrified leaves Sisu thinking that she succeeded in her mission until Raya reveals to her that she has been dormant for a very long time and the Gem has been shattered, causing the return of the Druun and that no dragons were freed from petrification.
Raya suggests to a disgruntled Sisu to make another Gem but the strap reveals to be unable to do so, mostly recounting that she's not the best of the dragons through a depressing comparison of the groupmate who doesn't do much but gets the same grade as the ones who did all the work. She then picks up the piece of Gem that Raya had on her and finds out that she can use the power of her little sister Amba, meaning that she is still linked to the Dragon Gem and that by bringing all the other pieces together, the Druun will be able to be stopped.
Continuing to cross Tail Land, Raya and Sisu (who is in disguise as a human so she won't attract attention) arrive at the trapped hideout of the Tail Land leader where one of the fragments is kept. After narrowly escaping a crash, alone, Raya slips through rope traps before Sisu does it even faster, much to Raya's impression since she was used to seeing dragons in person. Sisu shows off a bit of it while rapping, but that only leaves Raya confused. Advancing further into the cave and dodging the explosive fart bugs, the duo find themselves in front of the leader's skeletons on the other side of a chasm.
Seeing the fragment in the skeletal hand, Sisu clings to Raya who tries to make them both pass to the other side with her hook but the lower body of the dragon stops the momentum because she did not have Understood Raya's intention, so she jumps up and the two narrowly falls on the platform. With another shard in her possession, Sisu gains the power from shapeshifting to human form. The next moment, the Princess of Fang Land, Namaari, arrives with her close guard and felines to confront Raya and Sisu until the Princess of Heart Land uses the last trap linked to the chieftess' skeleton to divorce long enough to get away with Sisu.
Joining Tuk Tuk, a chase begins and ends when Raya has the idea of submerging her mount in the water because Fang's felines hate water. The trio then boards The Shrimporium, a restaurant boat run by an eccentric young boy named Boun, who serves as both cook and captain. Raya pays the kid to take them to Talon but seeing the slow movement of the boat, Sisu jumps into the water, regains her true form and clings to the hull before using her tail to quickly move the boat, narrowly escaping Namaari and her minions. After the escape, Sisu swims peacefully in the water, surrounded by seaweed and fish. When she rises to the surface, the wrist strap is told by Raya not to show herself in her true form in the presence of someone else, although Sisu doesn't see the problem until Raya implied that people would do anything to capture her. Sisu relents and resumes her human form after sarcastically noting that Raya should learn to trust. Boun then serves food for the duo but before Sisu starts tasting, Raya's paranoid suggests that the food is stocked. Sisu eats it anyway before burning her throat with the dynamic sauce.
In the evening, the boat runs alongside a mangrove swamp where the Druun prowl on the shore because they cannot cross the water. When Boun questions what the vile creature really is, Sisu explains that the Druun was born out of discord between humans and has existed forever, hidden in the shadows, waiting for the moment of weakness to attack. and that he is the complete opposite of dragons. Boun reveals that the Druun took his family away, something Sisu also experienced. Sharing the same sorrow, Sisu, Boun, then Raya places flowers in the water, in memory of those they have lost. Talon Land then looms on the horizon.
Landing on the shore, Raya decides to go find the local chief alone while Sisu stays on the boat. Sisu disagrees and starts over with her ideas of giving a gift as a sign of peace, just to fall on deaf ears. After Raya leaves, Sisu chooses to proceed with her idea and suggest by Boun, she takes several credit items as gifts. Unfortunately, traders start asking for money because they don't trust foreign people to keep their pledges. As the situation escalates, She is pulled out of trouble by an old woman. Sisu thanks her rescuer who takes her to see the chief who apparently lives outside the city but this turns out to be an ambush, the old lady being in fact Talon's vicious new chief. Having the choice between giving the information on the fragments or being left to the Druun, Sisu is almost doomed until the sudden arrival of Raya who pulls her out of trouble, taking the fragment in the same time and the two quickly return to the boat. Recovering from the event, Sisu found it hard to believe how bad the old woman was before she befriended the baby pickpocket and the Ongis that Raya recently recruited, having her cheek pulled.
As the gang approach Spine Land, Sisu sits thoughtfully at the front of the boat. When Raya comes to see her after calming the kid and her monkeys, Sisu expresses her astonishment at the way humans have used lies as a weapon. Raya claims that since the world is broken there is no more trust but Sisu retorts that the world is mostly broken because she does not trust anyone. Once again, Raya and Sisu begin to voice their really divergent opinion which concludes with the human saying that Kumandra is just a fairy tale. When the boat is in sight of shore, Sisu take a dish and quickly makes it to the land with the intention of doing it her way and not Raya's.
Arriving in front of the Spine village and followed by Raya confused about her plan, Sisu tells her that she is going to prove that the princess is wrong about trust and that for that she is going to offer the dish as proof of the trust granted. As soon as she knocks with the handle, a bag closes on her and Raya, making her notice her temerity too late. They are then taken tied up in a hut by Tong, a big and menacing warrior who guards the fragment of Spine. The mood takes a rather bizarre turn when Tong begins to croak twisted on his warlike grandeur causing fear until the rest of the gang disembark, immobilize the colossus, and free Sisu and Raya. Their luck unfortunately runs out when Namaari and her Fang army arrive at the village gate to demand the shard and Raya. Tong being the sole survivor of Druun's latest attack, and as they are outnumbered, Raya hands the satchel of the fragments to Sisu while she acts as a diversion to allow their escape.
Fleeing during the skirmish between Raya and Namaari, Sisu gives up on fleeing when she sees Raya lose the advantage against her rival and finally find herself on the ground. Refusing to drop her, Sisu regains her true form before attacking the Fang Army with her fog blast. Rid of the minions, she approaches Namaari while grumbling on her but hardly she looks at her in the teary eyes of the princess Fang that she begins to calm down, apparently seeing something in her before running away with the gang, leaving Namaari in shock.
Once again on the water, the gang (now including Tong) are angry that Raya was keeping Sisu's true identity from them. The dragon eases the tension by declaring that she and Raya are going to fix the world and bring everyone back. All the others having lost someone to the Druun, they beg the duo to join their quest, Tong even giving them his shard as goodwill. Sisu then takes the shard and recovers the power to summon rain, allowing her to happily soar through the air for the first time in centuries. Some time later, the group arrives in Fang's territory and begins to devise their plan to retrieve the last fragment of the Dragon Gem with Sisu continuing to suggest a peaceful method to approach Namaari for her to deliver the fragment to them as she is convinced that there is good in it. In front of the skepticism of the others, especially that of Raya which infuriates her more than anything. She then makes rain fall to take Raya into the air.
The dragon and the human quickly arrive at Heart Land where Sisu shows Raya where her petrified siblings lie, exactly where the Dragon Gem was shattered. To make her friend better understand why she believes so much in trust, Sisu recounts the tragic event dating back 500 years, when her siblings entrusted her with the Gem before being petrified and until the end she trusted them as they trusted her. While explaining that that same confidence has given her a power she never would have suspected, Sisu is sure there is still hope for Namaari, something Raya finds it hard to believe is possible until Sisu only tells her that if she puts her trust in her rival, she can see her father again and see her dream of reforming Kumandra come true. After a stop in front of the statue of Benja, Raya's father, the princess ends up agreeing to the dragon's plan once Sisu repeats Benja's words of taking the first step even before to be ready.
After dark, Raya sends the four Talon thieves to send a message to Namaari. Once the gang is complete, they share a good meal while expressing how much they look forward to seeing their family again. Sisu and Raya learn to their shock from Tong that the little girl's name is Noi since her name was written on her. The next moment, Namaari sends a fireworks rocket as a sign that she wants to come and meet them. At dawn, Raya and Sisu meet Namaari who has come with her fragment of the Gem to the edge of the cliff overlooking Fang Palace. Unfortunately, Namaari pulls out a crossbow with the intention of bringing back all of the shards and Sisu with her. The rest of the gang arrive as reinforcements, having suspected that trusting someone from Fang Land was sheer madness. Not giving up on Namaari, Sisu convinces Raya to let her handle this and begins advancing towards Princess Fang despite still aiming her weapon at her. Kindly, Sisu expresses her certainty that Namaari doesn't want to hurt anyone and that she just wants to build a better world like them. Believing that Namaari will shoot, Raya attacks with her grappling hook but this results in Sisu being accidentally shot in the heart and falling into the river under the horrified eyes of her friends. With her disappearance, the water in turn disappears, leaving no defense against the Druun.
Sisu's death fills Raya with such intense anger that she sets off to confront Namaari at the palace in a fight to the death. Eventually losing the duel, Namaari tearfully expresses that she never meant to harm anyone and acknowledges being partly responsible for what happened to Sisu, just as she judges that Raya is also responsible for it because she did not trust Sisu until the end. Ultimately as the gang pushes back the Druun had all the pieces and the end seemed near, Raya chose to trust Namaari by giving her the Heart fragment and urged others to do the same before being petrified by the abject creature. One by one, the others go the same, leaving only Namaari reconstituting the Dragon Gem and then being also petrified. This final act of trust succeeds in not only destroying the Druun but also restoring everyone to normal, including the dragons who by using their power manage to revive Sisu. Joyfully reunited with all her friends, Sisu later attends Kumandra's reunification before going off with her fellows, the world finally repaired and once again a happy place.
Trivia[]
- Sisu is voiced by Awkwafina.
- Sisu was always intended to die in the film, but there was debate regarding whether she and the other dragons should return. The decision to revive Sisu was largely the work of producer Osnat Shurer.
- Sisu exhibits traits of compulsive gift-giving, otherwise known as co-dependent gift-giving. Throughout the film she believes that all of Raya's problems can be solved by giving Namaari a gift.
- The species of dragon Sisu is modeled after is inspired by the Nāga divine or semi serpent beings in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism.
- Sisu's name is a Finnish word meaning courage, guts, grit, and determination which reflects the traits of her character.
- Sisu is shown to have multiple parallels to Disney's Aladdin character, The Genie in debut and personality.
- During production while the film was called Dragon Empire, Sisu was a male known as Katsu and more Chinese dragon in appearance.
- Sisu's character is based after her voice actress Awkwafina comparable to Dragonheart's Draco.
- Sisu is the only dragon in the film who lacks a distinctive magic.
- As stated by Raya's World; Sisu, as a human, never walks in a straight line.
External Links[]
- Sisu at the Disney Wiki
Gallery[]
