Queen Sectonia

"Now then, hero of the lower world. You would risk your life for this land? You would stand against me, the ruler of the heavens? Very well... You will bow before the great Queen Sectonia! My beauty rivals the divine... And my power will crush all that you hold dear!"

- Queen Sectonia

Queen Sectonia is the main antagonist (secondary in Dededetour, behind Dark Meta Knight) and final boss of Kirby: Triple Deluxe. She is a decorated and prodigious wasp-like creature whose ambitions are rooted in egoism and beauty. She appears to be the mastermind behind the creation of Royal Road, the abduction of Floralia's inhabitants, and even (indirectly) King Dedede's abduction by Taranza early in the game. She attempted to take over Floralia and Planet Popstar so as to become their goddess, but was thwarted by Kirby.

Physical Appearance
Before the events of Kirby: Triple Deluxe, Queen Sectonia resembled Taranza. However, her tampering with magic led her to her altered, wasp-like appearance. Instead of black and yellow like real-world wasps, the color of Queen Sectonia's body is more robust, being a mix of vibrant indigoes and golds. She has pink antennae that resemble exaggerated eyelashes, while her large insect-like eyes are purple. She wears a crystalline blue and gold crown with a pink heart on its front. Around her neck is what appears to be a ruff and regal pink and purple cape collar adorned with red and blue hearts that clasps around her upper body at a pink heart covering her midsection. The area of her body that appears to be her waist is extremely thin, but her lower body (which could be a thorax) is as big as her upper body. Her four wings are a golden yellow color and have heart-shaped filigree throughout them. She wields twin magic scepters; one silver with a teal crystal, and one gold with a fuchsia crystal. Sectonia has white-gloved hands, but she is limbless, meaning she has no arms attached to them.

Her second form is a giant flower-like monster. Her five petals are bright pink with heart-shaped splashes of orange on the ends and blue surrounding the orange, and pink and purple designs closer to the flower's base. Sectonia's second form is similar to her first one, but the flower seems to replace her lower body, and her antennae are much longer. Her wings now float behind her flower body. She controls green vines in this form, that turn pink at the tips and have flowers on their ends that resemble her own flower form, except with four petals instead of five. The flowers have large black pupiled eyeballs in their center.

In Dededetour, Queen Sectonia DX takes on a red and purple color scheme. Her lower body consists of dark red and purple clothing that overlap each other. Her extremely thin waist is purple instead of dark blue. Her head is purple and the yellow area where her mouth and nose would be is now bright pink. Her chest also has a pink heart on it. Queen Sectonia DX has red eyelashes with yellow and red eyes. She also wears a green crown with a yellow crystal like object in the front with a red heart in the front. Her cape is curved on the outer edges taking the colors of red and purple with gold designs on the edges with a fluffy white collar. Her wings are red and jagged at the ends and has pink gloved hands rather than white.

Queen Sectonia's image is included on a flag that appears several times in Royal Road, heralding her appearance at the end of the level. The red-colored, gold-trimmed banner features a regal emblem that depicts Sectonia's head, wings and thorax flanked by two large double helixes of thorned vines, with a heart in between their tips. A white ribbon with a floral design runs beneath Sectonia's bust, and her twin scepters are crossed through the middle of the ribbon. The flag's striking appearance and dramatic use in Royal Road (a very large example must be inhaled with Hypernova for Kirby to progress) can be said to embody Sectonia's deep vanity, as well as her desire to be obeyed and worshiped by the inhabitants of Floralia and Popstar.

Personality
Proud and arrogant, Queen Sectonia is a cruel and despotic tyrant who rules over her subjects with an iron fist. She is very narcissistic and holds beauty as an important trait to be desired, even seeing it as a way to gain power and control.

She also styles herself as a goddess, and seeks to gain complete immortality at all costs, even if she had to fuse herself to the Dreamstalk to do it. Despite her elegant appearance, Queen Sectonia is power-hungry and manipulative, and had no qualms over using her servants, including her trusted assistant Taranza, as tools to achieve her goals.

However, Queen Sectonia wasn't always a villain; pause menu quotes littered all over the game imply that she was kind and fair in the past.

She even had a very good friendship with Taranza, but after turning evil, she alienated him as well as her own people with her obsessions with beauty and power. As a result, any object bearing her image became symbols of fear. Queen Sectonia's corruption was to the extent that she unhesitatingly attempted to destroy Taranza over his failure to follow her orders, an act that later brought her undoing. It's implied that Taranza recognizes her as too far gone from the best friend he once knew because the corruption ran so deep, and believes it necessary that Kirby kill her so her madness can end.

It is stated that the Dimension Mirror was responsible for Queen Sectonia's tyrannical personality through her endless gazing into its mirror. Since the Dimension Mirror itself was corrupted by Dark Meta Knight during Dededetour, it is possible that its evil slowly corrupted Sectonia while she looked upon its surface.

The original Japanese pause menu quotes for Soul of Sectonia implies that Sectonia has become so utterly insane that she can't recognize her friends or herself anymore, and begs someone (presumably Kirby) to kill her so she can be at peace.

History
Long before the events of Kirby: Triple Deluxe, Sectonia and Taranza were merely friends living in Floralia. They were adept magic wielders, however, and eventually, Sectonia gained enough power to subsume the throne of Floralia and establish dominion. To ensure that nobody would challenge her rule, she imprisoned the People of the Sky and built an army of magically created minions to guard her palace.

In a last-ditch effort to save themselves, the People of the Sky devised a seed and sent it tumbling toward the land below, which so happened to be Dream Land. This seed was designed to grow into the Dreamstalk, and bring the hero of Dream Land up to Floralia to save its people.

Seeing this, Queen Sectonia ordered Taranza to go down there and preemptively kidnap the hero so they would not be a threat. Unfortunately, Taranza mistook King Dedede for the hero and took him instead, leaving Kirby to give chase.

Story
Queen Sectonia herself does not reveal herself until the end of the game, but her presence is implied long before; banners and other pieces bearing her image are littered across Royal Road, the game's final level. When Kirby finally catches up with Taranza at the end of Royal Road, the mage reveals that he is a servant of Queen Sectonia, and that he had abducted Dedede on her orders because he thought that Dream Land's self proclaimed king was the hero the Floralians had tried to summon with the Dreamstalk.

After Kirby defeats King Dedede, who Taranza promptly took control of after revealing his affiliation with Sectonia, Taranza realizes - to his horror—that Kirby is the hero, and quickly summons Sectonia while begging her to save him from Kirby.

Displeased by Taranza's failure to abduct Kirby, Sectonia immediately blasts Taranza with her scepter, launching him out of Royal Road and towards the horizon, before declaring herself to be 'ruler of the heavens' and proclaiming that she will 'crush everything Kirby holds dear' before attacking him.

Kirby gains the upper hand in the battle and defeats Sectonia. King Dedede regains consciousness and the two enjoy a short-lived celebration. As her powers begin to wane, Sectonia retreats and fuses with the Dreamstalk, placing herself at the heart of the flower and causing it to bloom in the process, transforms into a rainbow, flower-like form of herself known as "Flowered Sectonia". Vines begin to erupt from the Dreamstalk and ensnare the entirety of Popstar and Floralia. A swath of vines covered in parasitic flowers begin to cover the castle, trapping Kirby and Dedede inside.

As Kirby and Dedede panic, several People of the Sky arrive and provide them with a cannon-like device. with Dedede's assistance, Kirby uses the cannon to combat Sectonia's sentient vines. Once an opening in the vines is made, Dedede shoots Kirby through it and the latter ascends the Dreamstalk to confront Sectonia one last time in the skies above Popstar.

Queen Sectonia is bested a second time after a long battle, and Kirby again celebrates, but one of Sectonia's vines grabs Kirby by the foot and captures him. Before Sectonia can finish off the hero, however, Taranza reappears with Dedede in tow. He throws the king down to Kirby, who uses his hammer to smack Kirby free of the vine. Then, while Sectonia is recoiling from the blow, Dedede throws Kirby at Taranza, who tosses a Miracle Fruit at him. Kirby and the fruit collide mid-air granting him his Hypernova ability for the final time in the game.

The two clash once more and an enraged Sectonia then makes a last-ditch attempt to defeat Kirby by firing an enormous beam at him, but Kirby inhales it and sends it back at her, seemingly vaporizing her. The vines covering Popstar vanish, and all that remains of Queen Sectonia are flower petals that float throughout the sky as the heroes are returned to the surface. With Sectonia purged from the Dreamstalk, it blooms freely and beautifully in Dream Land.

Dededetour
Queen Sectonia seemingly appears in the Dededetour sub-game, where she once again abducts Floralia's inhabitants and makes a second bid at world domination. Unlike the main mode, however, it is King Dedede who confronts a more powerful Sectonia - now labeled Queen Sectonia DX - in her fortress to stop her plans. In the ensuing battle, Dedede manages to beat Sectonia DX, seemingly destroying her in the process.

However, Sectonia's fourth defeat was far from the end of Dedede's quest: immediately after she is felled, the Dimension Mirror makes its surprise appearance and Dedede is forced to fight two more battles - first against a dark version of himself known as Shadow Dedede, and then against Dark Meta Knight, the real villain of the sub-game.

The True Arena
Queen Sectonia consumes four Miracle Fruits and transforms into a blue, orchid-esque form of herself known as Soul of Sectonia and fights Kirby as the penultimate battle of The True Arena. Soul of Sectonia is seemingly defeated after having her HP depleted, but she then stirs and rips herself out of the wilting Dreamstalk, engaging Kirby in a surprise final battle. When the final blow is dealt, Sectonia screams and explodes into a shower of blue petals, now permanently defeated.

Kirby: Planet Robobot
While the real Sectonia doesn't appear, a clone is created by Star Dream from remnants of flower petals after defeating her in Main Mode (or perhaps from Soul of Sectonia) to test Meta Knight during Meta Knightmare Returns. She retains most of her attacks in her first form, but the clone emphasizes her sword-based attacks such as her multi-stab and constant dives in and out of the background. When she is reduced to half-health, she will begin rapidly teleporting before attempting to strike her opponent from the back. She also can bring out her sceptres to slam the ground, sending out a crystal-like shockwave that can damage the player. The clone also cannot summon Antlers to aid her.

It is interesting to note that the heart print located at her chest is now broken, which resembles Star Dream's broken heart insignia.

When defeated, the clone transforms into a being resembling Taranza, showing that this was her original form prior to her current transformation.

Kirby: Star Allies
Though she does not physically appear in the game, Queen Sectonia makes a cameo appearance in Kirby Star Allies. Stone Kirby can transform into a statue featuring Sectonia in her original form alongside Taranza.

First Form
The first fight against Sectonia is divided into three distinct phases. In the first one, she attacks with relatively weak orbs from her green scepter, and will occasionally exchange her scepters for swords to perform melee attacks. One melee attack involves Sectonia slicing her swords twice, and then charging forward in a similar fashion to Galacta Knight, leaving a trail of stars behind her; another is a multi-stab attack similar to the one Kirby himself uses that launches Kirby at the end of the attack if he is caught in it; a third involves Sectonia flying from either the foreground or the background and trying to slice Kirby with her swords mid-flight. Sectonia may also teleport around while using her pink scepter to fire dark lightning at the floor of the room. She can also create a golden ring, which she'll try to ram into Kirby with. When she is done, Queen Sectonia will move to the background, expand the ring, and fire three of them at Kirby.



After a third of her health is gone, Sectonia will warp to the middle of the screen and produce a huge crystal in the background with her magic; she will then use her magic to throw Kirby onto the crystal, starting phase two. Here, Sectonia will initially attack from the foreground with yellow discs which are thrown in a sharp arc: Sectonia will first fire two sets of two discs, first from the left, then the right, then again from the left, and again from the right. When the discs disappear, Queen Sectonia will fire a single, six-disc set which will cover the whole floor of the crystal, going in this order: The middle discs first, followed by the fronts, followed by the backs. Sectonia can warp closer to the crystal and create white, green, and red Antlers to distract Kirby; when these are defeated, Sectonia will attack before summoning more Antlers. Sectonia still uses her powerful dark lightning attacks during this phase, swiftly repositioning herself after every strike rather than simply teleporting, and also retains her sword attacks from her first phase, which can potentially knock Kirby off the platform if he is struck by them. When another third of her health is gone, Sectonia will use her scepters to shatter the crystal, blasting Kirby back to the first battle arena for the final phase of the fight and potentially dealing a substantial amount of damage if Kirby was directly struck by the scepters. If he is struck by them, Kirby will automatically lose his ability with no way to reattain it.



Sectonia's main attack here is to rapidly teleport towards the front of the screen, leaving after images behind her, before appearing next to Kirby and quickly slicing her swords; she tends to do this several times in a row. She retains the ability to summon Antlers, and often follows up on this by using her giant gold discs; these will destroy any Antlers caught in the disc's path. She can shoot more orbs out of the green topped scepter as well.

Eternal Dreamland
During this phase, Kirby does not fight Sectonia herself; rather, her flowers. Kirby is loaded into a cannon (manned by King Dedede) and must break through the vines of the Dreamstalk to reach Sectonia's second form. To do this, players must control the cannon using the Nintendo 3DS's gyro controls to fire Kirby at the flowers. The "fight" is broken up into three rounds; the first round has just one flower, the second has three, and the third has five. The flower(s) will open and close repeatedly before a short pause, after which one flower will open and begin to charge up power. The player must then fire Kirby at the open flower to defeat it. The player must be fast and accurate, because Kirby will take damage if he misses the flowers altogether, hits a closed flower, or is hit by an attack from a flower that was not hit before it finished charging up power. When these rounds are finished, an opening in the Dreamstalk's vines will be created, allowing the player to shoot Kirby through to the second form of Sectonia. This battle does not have a health meter, as it is not technically a boss. This second form of Queen Sectonia is known on the pause screen as "Sectonia Vine."

Second Form (First Round)
In this phase, Kirby battles Queen Sectonia on multiple sets of platforms. In this phase, in order to damage Sectonia, Kirby must attack the flower buds that she summons. The flower buds are able to transform into swords to attempt to slice Kirby, or spiked balls that Queen Sectonia eats and spits at Kirby as they bounce across the screen.

Sometimes, the buds will turn into blades, and try to spin into Kirby multiple times from the background and foreground. At other times, they will try to rapidly fire energy seeds at Kirby from the air. After dealing a certain amount of damage to her, Queen Sectonia will send Kirby flying upward and to a new set of platforms, which gets smaller as Kirby gets closer to her, and has gaps in certain areas. Eventually, after Kirby gets close enough to Queen Sectonia, she will summon 4 flower buds instead of 2. Now, the flowers start to fire more lasers at this point, and even try to smash Kirby into the screen from the background. The four flowers can create an electric barrier, surrounding Kirby.

After a few seconds have passed, the flowers close themselves in on Kirby. At a certain point, the four flower buds will team up with Queen Sectonia to fire a large laser at Kirby from the side of the arena three times at different angles. However, after Kirby seemingly "defeats" Queen Sectonia, one of her vines grabs and wraps around Kirby as Sectonia rises up, and attempts to finish off Kirby by squeezing him incredibly tightly.

However, King Dedede and Taranza appear to help Kirby, as Taranza throws Dedede at Kirby so he could free Kirby by striking him with his hammer. Taranza then throws a Miracle Fruit, while King Dedede throws Kirby, both of them to colliding, transforming Kirby into Hypernova Kirby, beginning the final phase.

Second Form (Second Round)
The final battle in normal mode pits Hypernova Kirby against Queen Sectonia and her four budded vines. The background then changes from night time to daytime in front of the sun, and the main platforms are all filled so Kirby won't fall through. Sectonia's main attack in this form is having one of her buds fire out a huge stream of coconut-esque missiles that Kirby must catch in his mouth, creating a large clump.

Sectonia will then fire a much larger, slower missile from her own body at Kirby, and the hero must fire the clump of smaller missiles at the larger one, causing them all to explode on impact with each other before they reach him. Sectonia's other attack is to send one of her vines' buds to try to swallow Kirby: but if Kirby evades this attack, which is done twice in a row as Sectonia's health gets lower, the bud is stunned and Kirby can inhale it to use it against Sectonia.

The remaining buds will form a shield around Sectonia as one is inhaled, and the player must use the gyroscope to aim and fire the bud at another to destroy them and take large chunks out of Sectonia's health bar, eventually destroying all the buds and leaving Sectonia vulnerable.

Once all four buds have been destroyed, Sectonia will rush to the right side of the screen and charges a huge beam at Kirby as a last-ditch attempt to defeat him. Kirby will inhale the beam, and the +Control Pad must be quickly pressed in a rotating pattern to ensure that Kirby inhales the entire blast.

If not inhaled in time, the beam deals heavy damage to Kirby (about 1/3 of his HP) and sends Kirby bouncing around the screen before Sectonia fires another beam; when the beam is fully inhaled, Kirby will also inhale Sectonia's petals, some of the platforms under him, and even Sectonia's now-depleted health bar, and then fires the beam back at her, defeating her for the third time and ending the main mode.

Dededetour
Queen Sectonia DX's attacks are similar to those of the original queen, but a number of new or altered attacks are present. During the first phase of the battle, Sectonia surrounds herself with a magical golden ring and chases Dedede around the room with it at the start of the fight. This is similar to the original queen's golden ring attack when she fought Kirby. When she is done, she will move to the background and begin firing the same larger magical rings as she did in the first battle, although here she adds a fourth set of two at the end of the attack which hit the top and bottom of the screen.

Queen Sectonia DX retains the sword melee attacks used in the first battle with Kirby, but they are tweaked a bit to be more intimidating. For the first attack, instead of charging in a straight line and stopping at the opposite side of the screen, Sectonia DX charges off the screen going at a slightly upward angle. For the multi-stab attack, instead of stopping after she lashes her swords out, Sectonia DX will turn around and perform the attack again. She moves much faster during this attack. For the last one, Sectonia DX charges from the foreground and background four times in row with no pauses in between.

The second phase of the fight plays similarly to the original battle, but Sectonia will now summon a larger number of assorted Antlers and, instead of waiting for them to be KO'd, will immediately resume the assault with her own attacks. Her first such attack is inevitably her disc attack, in which she will now throw two sets of four discs rather than two sets of two as in the original fight. The discs, like before, are fired first from the left, then from the right, then again from the left, and again from the right. For the six disc set she fires them in the opposite order: Rear first, front second, and the centers last. The discs will instantly KO any Antlers struck by them.

Phase three also plays similarly to the original, but changes to the battle are still to be found. As before, Queen Sectonia will teleport towards the foreground to try to hit Dedede/Kirby with her swords; however, she may 'fake' trying to hit Kirby/Dedede before teleporting closer to the player and striking; Sectonia may do this several times before actually trying to hit the player; but she will only laugh before swinging her swords. After doing this several times, Sectonia will summon five assorted Antlers, use her large ring attack (which often defeats the Antlers mere seconds after they are summoned) and repeats this strategy until she is defeated.

Quotes
"Pitiful, Taranza... I have no use for a fool who cannot follow orders."

- Queen Sectonia

"Bah...Aha... I...see. I expected as much from the hero chosen by the Dreamstalk. But I wonder... How will you handle this? You see, true beauty...is control. The Dreamstalk has guided you thus far. But its bloom will be your doom! Floralia, Dream Land, and this entire planet! You should all feel honored. You will serve as my sustenance... for eternity!"

- Queen Sectonia

Related Quotes
"Data was collected from traces of a giant flower the invaders stumbled upon. Cloning it produced the insect queen. Its data contains elements of creatures spanning a period of 1,000 years."

- VS Sectonia Clone

"Next up is one whose swordplay resembles a beautiful dance... Let us bring back the most powerful queen from the void. Experience her royal presence and unparalleled fighting skills."

- Star Dream

"Sectonia has unleashed her terrible beauty! She has combined her form with that of the Dreamstalk, and, in her madness, seeks rulership of not only Floralia, but all of Popstar! Grant unto the wicked queen the eternal beauty sleep she so desires!"

- VS Queen Sectonia Flower

"Sectonia and Taranza were once good friends, but Sectonia became obsessed with vanity and delusions of grandeur. It wasn't long before her heart went evil, turning her into the power-hungry monarch she is today."

- VS Sectonia DX

"The evil queen who bewitched Taranza is motivated by beauty and world domination. She seized control of Floralia and oppressed the People of the Sky with her cruelty. It's time to face the true mastermind behind the curtain!"

- VS Queen Sectonia

"Sectonia's parasitic species survives by leeching power from other life-forms until they're weak enough to be controlled. The People of the Sky and King Dedede decided to fight back in an effort to save the Planet Popstar from the evil queen."

- VS Queen Sectonia Flower Buds

Etymology
Sectonia is likely derived from "insect," referring to her wasp-like appearance. Interestingly, "insect" is in turn derived from the Latin verb secare meaning "to cut." This, although unlikely, may be an intentional reference to Sectonia's prominent use of swords in battle.

Canonicity
Queen Sectonia's relevance in Main Mode is her only canon occurrence. Her clone form is also non-canon, as it only appears in Meta Knightmare Returns, which is a non-canon adventure.

Trivia

 * Kirby: Triple Deluxe ' s levels' first letters form an acronym when put together in order: "F-L-O-W-E-R." This is a reference to Queen Sectonia's form after combining with the Dreamstalk, which is a giant flower-like creature. If one includes Eternal Dreamland, the acronym spells "F-L-O-W-E-R-E-D," which is similar to the acronym used in Kirby's Return to Dream Land, "C-R-O-W-N-E-D."
 * The name of the second battle theme is "Moonstruck Blossom".
 * According to director Shinya Kumazaki, Sectonia's tyrannical personality stemmed from excessive gazing into the Dimension Mirror.
 * Kumazaki also stated that Sectonia used to look much different before obtaining the Dimension Mirror from Taranza. In Kirby: Planet Robobot after defeating her Clone, there is a brief moment where one could see an idea of what her real form looks like before the transformation; in it she looks very similar to Taranza.
 * Because of this, Queen Sectonia is the third final boss to have a standard form with an alternate personality in the series, the first being Marx, and the second being Magolor. What makes this an interesting case is that her transformation into her bee-esque form is never seen in-game as it is only implied through other means.
 * Queen Sectonia is the second female final boss in a Kirby game; succeeding Drawcia from Kirby: Canvas Curse.
 * Sectonia is the second villain to engage Kirby in a surprise final battle at the end of The True Arena sub-game in a "Soul" form, the first being Marx Soul from Kirby Super Star Ultra.
 * With no fewer than four themes played during the battles against her, Sectonia is tied with the Star Dream for the second most amount of boss themes in one game in the Kirby series; this is only topped by Star Dream Soul OS, which has two more music themes due to a new phase in the boss battle.
 * Soul of Sectonia is the fourth boss to carry the name 'Soul,' but the first to have "Soul of" at the start.
 * Queen Sectonia's theme is a major contrast from other villains and final bosses from the Kirby series: whereas other bosses, such as Magolor Soul and Necrodeus, are little more than symbols of death and destruction, Queen Sectonia has elements of bees and flowers, both of which signify birth and rejuvenation, and is visibly more elegant than most prior villains in the series.
 * There is a keychain of Queen Sectonia—meaning it is a sprite, despite the model not appearing in any past installments. This is also done with Taranza, Yin-Yarn, and Magolor.
 * Her keychain is acquired by collecting all of the Sun Stones in the game; therefore it is possible to see Queen Sectonia before she is actually revealed in the game by collecting her keychain before playing the final level.
 * Queen Sectonia's black lightning attack resembles Dark Matter's attack from Kirby's Dream Land 3.
 * Queen Sectonia is one of the final bosses known to laugh during their fight, the others being Marx, Marx Soul, Drawcia, and Necrodeus.
 * Her laugh in her first form is also notable in that it is more of a feminine laugh, rather than an ominous cackle like prior final bosses. However, her soul form does utter a more traditional, distorted cackle.
 * Oddly, Sectonia's large, flower-esque forms utter shrill roars instead of laughing.
 * Queen Sectonia's vine attack is very similar to Capamari's tentacle attack.
 * Queen Sectonia's laugh is noticeably quieter in the European version.
 * Queen Sectonia's flowers in her second form resemble Para Matter from Kirby: Canvas Curse.
 * The crystal Queen Sectonia creates mid-battle resembles the crystal floor Kirby stands on while fighting Dark Nebula in Kirby: Squeak Squad.
 * A part of Queen Sectonia's first form's battle theme ("Sullied Grace") is a remix of 02's battle theme.
 * Queen Sectonia is voiced by Makiko Ohmoto.
 * Queen Sectonia's name is a portmanteau of the English words "insect" and "near", creating the idea that she is "almost an insect, but not quite."
 * Before Kirby: Planet Robobot ' s release, it was stated that Sectonia resembled her insect subjects, and that she altered her appearance to make herself more beautiful using magic.