history
For a timeline, see this post. Some dates don't match up very well to history/canon (it's both, sob), but that's the writers of Blood+'s fault, not mine. They got the dates of major world wars wrong.........
Diva's story starts just a little bit before she was born. A French scientist with a great love of Lamark's Philosophie Zoologique discovered a mummified corpse buried in Iceland. The corpse, however, was not human. It was more bat-like, and seemed to be pregnant. The scientist, Joel Goldschmidt, had transformed his chateau into an establishment called the "Zoo," in a small town near Bordeaux, and brought the corpse there. With his assistant, Amshel Goldsmith, they named the mummy "SAYA" and began to experiment on the life form. They cut open its stomach and found two cocoons inside, but were unable to cut those open until a knife cut Amshel's hand and blood began to drip on the cocoons. They realized that these cocoons were reacting to the blood and coming back to life, so over a period of a few months, they fed them blood until they hatched.
So on August 4th, 1833, two baby girls were born. They were approximately two months old, and they were twins. One of these infants was named Saya after its mother, and the other was unnamed. After all, even though they looked human, they were not--they were to be experiments. Saya was the control and would be raised normally as Joel's daughter, and the unnamed infant would be raised in isolation in one of the abandoned towers of the estate to be experimented on.
Obviously, it's no surprise that Diva is as messed up as she is. The unnamed child was given minimal sustenance to prevent her from breaking free from the tower, and was experimented on in the dazzling and torturous way of 19th century medicine. We never explicitly see what kind of experiments we're talking, but the glimpses always involve lots of blood, so there's a hint. The point was, they weren't nice. However, Amshel took care of her basic needs, and grew fond of her over the years without aging. Somehow. Fuck this show.
In 1863, Saya ceases aging, looking to be in her mid to late teens. She also finds the tower and realizes someone is locked in there. They become friends (sort of), and Saya names the girl Diva. Some time in the 1870s, Joel confronts his mortality, realizing that he will die long before Saya, so he starts to research their reproductive abilities. Several servants are bought and brought to the household for Saya, but she rejects all of them until she meets a 12 year old boy named Haji, who she grows fond of. This boy will be Diva's groom when he matures, and Amshel will be Saya's, but Saya is unaware of this plan. Haji grows up with Saya at his side, and they fall in love, but in 1883, Saya goes full retard.
Oh, wait, you mean sending your beau to climb a cliff for a goddamn flower is a bad idea? Someone should have sent her the memo.
Being facetious aside, on Joel's 72nd birthday, Saya releases Diva from the tower, since she wants her to sing for Joel's birthday. But instead of escorting Diva safely out of the tower, she goes and runs off with Haji and makes him fall of a cliff and die. I'm not even kidding. But she doesn't want him to die, so she feeds Haji her blood, which turns him into a Chevalier. A Chevalier is a human that drinks Chiropteran blood, and gains the abilities of a Chiropteran, but they are bound to their Queen psychologically--think extreme loyalty! Diva, on the other hand, follows her sister's lead and kills people too! Or, massacres them, whatever. This is presumably out of revenge for all of the torture she suffered at Joel's hands, since he dies pretty terribly, but she kills everyone at the party as well and manages to set the place on fire somehow. Yes, she set a stone castle on fire. I don't know either.
Within this year, humans infused with Diva's blood begin to appear and attack humans. These creatures are unlike the Queens or their Chevalier, since they are monstrous and attack anyone blindly. To combat these creatures, an organization called Red Shield is established by Joel's grandchildren, and they start their world adventure of catering to Saya and tracking down Diva. Also Amshel becomes Diva's Chevalier somewhere in this gap of time before Diva...goes to sleep I guess. There's a big time problem here. I go with Diva going to sleep in 1885, which is another feature of Chiropteran biology. Presumably after they create Chevalier, the Queens must hibernate for thirty years with a three year waking period. idk either
But with that in mind, Diva wakes up in 1915 and heads on over to Russia with Amshel. There they meet Grigori Rasputin, and he becomes her Chevalier as well. In 1916, Saya also wakes up, but to the rumors of Chiroptera in the Russian capitol. So she goes to investigate with Haji and finds that Rasputin is experimenting on some of the noblemen to create Chiroptera--to share Diva's gift with them, as he says. Amshel is out selling arms and planting seeds of revolution, and Diva is in the Russian palace with Rasputin, disguised as Anastasia. She gets along well with Rasputin's patient Alexei, but in a fit of jealousy/rage, kills him and kicks Rasputin to the curb. Amshel returns to the palace to collect Diva and run away from the revolution that he's helped to start, but before he can do that, Diva makes Alexei into a Chevalier.
It's pretty short lived, though, since Amshel is a possessive asshole. He shoots Rasputin a lot and leaves him to drown in the river, then sends Alexei off to fight Saya as a distraction, where he dies. Amshel and Diva leave the capitol together. There's a weird bit of canon here, since the timeline contradicts itself like four different ways. Canon says that:
- Diva woke up in 1918
- Solomon Goldsmith became her Chevalier in 1918
- Karl Fei-Ong also became a Chevalier around this time
- Diva went to sleep in 1918.
Similarly, the next bit of her awake time is fucked up. We know that Diva's Chevalier worked with the Nazi party and that Diva was awake during this time. How do we know this? Martin Bormann was briefly one of her Chevalier. So again, I ignore canon making zero sense and go with these dates.
In 1942, Diva awakens again, and Martin Bormann becomes her next Chevalier. We have no idea what Diva does during this time, so I have my own head canon, but this is supposed to be a straight up (sort of) canon write up, so I'll ignore that. In 1945, James Ironside, an African American pilot, becomes Diva's Chevalier. Martin, however, is killed by Solomon on Amshel's orders, and as World War II ends, Diva goes to sleep again.
In 1971, Diva wakes up again, this time in Vietnam during the ending years of the Vietnam War. Karl becomes her Chevalier in this time, and Saya goes to sleep in this year. However, in 1972, Chiroptera are sighted around Vietnam, and Red Shield attempts to wake Saya up early by injecting Haji's blood into her. This causes her to wake up and go into berserker mode, killing both Chiroptera and humans. Essentially, anything in the way. She cuts off one of Karl's arms and disfigures Haji before going back into hibernation. Saya and Haji disappear. Diva goes to sleep in 1974.
And this is all pre-series!
In 2004, Saya wakes up in Okinawa, Japan. She is "raised" by a former American soldier, George Miyagusuku, who promised David's (a Red Shield agent in the series) father to take care of Saya. Saya remembers nothing about her long life, or that she's anything but human, so she lives a peaceful life as a Japanese schoolgirl for a year, though quietly under the surveillance of David. In 2005, Haji appears to Saya as Chiroptera begin to appear in her area. They fight some of them, but Saya is eventually forced to kill George to prevent him from turning into a Chiroptera. Her two brothers, Kai and Riku, want to follow her on her quest to remember the past and help her, but she rejects them. They follow her anyways to Vietnam, where she enrolls in a private school that Red Shield is suspicious of.
There, she meets both Karl and Solomon, and she follows them throughout Vietnam to try and find Diva. They keep Saya away from Diva, who is still sleeping, and Saya and company track them to Russia. There, Saya meets Amshel, who basically crushes all of her hopes and dreams like a true dick. A++, Amshel. Diva wakes up.
She's taken to France, and Saya and Haji follow her there on a hint from Amshel, where they go to the Zoo. Saya ends up remembering a lot of things, and confronts Solomon, who has met her there. Diva went back to the tower and began to sang, luring Saya's younger brother Riku up to the top. She ends up drinking his blood to the brink of death, and she and Saya share their beef, and fight for a little bit, but Saya pussies out because she doesn't drink enough blood, and Diva trolls her about it. She and Solomon leave the Zoo together, and to save Riku, Saya makes him into a Chevalier.
Diva doesn't forget Riku, and grows more and more infatuated with him to the point that she convinces Karl to go with her to the cruise ship that Red Shield is currently located at. They invade the ship and fight/kill a lot of dudes, but Diva ends up cornering him. And then does the nasty with him. Diva rapes and kills Riku, trolls Saya some more, then gets out of there with Karl.
ONE YEAR LATER
Saya is angsty and still whiny. Surprise surprise. Diva actually goes through character development! Woo!!
Diva's Chevalier have solidified their ties with the American government, since they plan to use the American military as a way to turn like everyone in the world into Chiroptera for some reason. Diva doesn't really give two shits, and just changes her physical appearance to look more like Riku and fucks with people mercilessly. Part of their plan is to get Diva to sing her kawaii desu opera song for the world, which somehow turns the people that hear it into Chiroptera. This show is such bullshit, ugh.
Anyways, one of the side plots so far has been how Solomon has become hopelessly infatuated with Saya, which pisses Diva off. Solomon tries to bargain with Diva to not kill Saya, but she essentially tells him to fuck off and die, and disowns him. Not long after this, it's finally confirmed that Diva is pregnant with Riku's children--two twin girls.
So right away, she trolls both Kai and Saya about this, and tries to get Kai to become her Chevalier, not understanding why he would think that's a bad idea, uh, ever. Oh, and at this point, Karl is dead and Diva has disowned James. Solomon attempts to kill her to save Saya, but is unable, so she almost kills him for good measure. But we're getting really close to the shitty climax, so within like three episodes, both Solomon and James kick the bucket, leaving Amshel and the mysterious Chevalier Nathan, who is heavily implied to not be Diva's Chevalier at all (the implication is that he's her mother's Chevalier).
Diva has grown disinterested in her Chevalier and killing Saya in favor of her children, which she cares for very deeply. But in the opera performance that will kill everyone ever, she fearlessly faces Saya anyways, revealing that all she wanted from the world was someone to love her and to have the kind of normal life that Saya always had.
But fuck sympathy, she and Saya stab each other through the gut.
In the biggest plot hole/deus ex machina ever, Diva dies and Saya lives, leaving Saya to whine about her pitiful existence more before going to sleep. Oh, and the rape babies live.
SO NOTHING WAS SOLVED AT ALL, YAY!!