The Sphinx (The Adventures of Puss in Boots)

This article contains MAJOR spoilers for The Adventures of Puss in Boots.

The Sphinx is the guardian of the Hourglass, an ancient and powerful artifact kept isolated in the great desert. All of those seeking to take the Hourglass must answer all five of the Sphinx's riddles. If someone gives the wrong answer to the fifth riddle the Sphinx eats them. Such has been her task for, in her words, 'a gazillion years' which is likely an exaggeration.

Biography

Background

The Sphinx was born a twin to Calista. The two sisters use to be rather close with Calista having given The Sphinx her tattoos. However as their parents kept telling the other to be like the other their differences became more extreme and a division grew between them. The Sphinx kept with the tradition of riddles and got a job as guardian of the Hourglass in a magnificent structure (that now lies in ruins) and thus was deemed the more civilized. Calista got a job guarding the Forest of Fountains and abandoned riddles, instead obliterating all intruders when not asleep under a tree atop a hill she found and thus was deemed the more savage. As time past on the structure around The Sphinx deteriorated, memory of her became less, those who hired her past away, and all she had left to motivate her was knowledge that she's better than her sister.

The Adventures of Puss in boots

Her life had been changed the day a cat in shoes climbed the stairs to the hourglass to answer her riddles. In one of her demotivated moods she expressed a dislike that such is the only reason anyone comes and told him the rules. She will give him five riddles and if he gets the fifth one wrong she'll eat him. She gives him the first riddle and he answered wrong in such a way that she felt insulted- like he wasn't even trying. Feeling such she used her magic to send him back to where he was when he started the journey to her. He came back, again answering the second wrong, and again the third, and again the fourth. When he returned the fifth time she expressed that she really doesn't want to eat him because he's a cat and that would be awkward to her. She tried to dissuade him from answering the fifth but he insisted on hearing it. She let him know that she's going to very upset if he tastes bad and tells him the riddle. As all the times before he gets it wrong. Rather than lay down and be consumed Puss in Boots draws his blade and she expresses disgust- as every looser tries to fight her. She over powers and takes hold of him and he tries to use his eyes to charm her. She tells him to stop because she's eaten thousands, his efforts aren't going to work. He still tries and she puts him down and hits her head on a pillar in frustration. She tells him that she's been guarding the hour glass for so long and is so weary of the job that she just wants someone to finally get the riddles right so she can go off and do something people actually appreciate. Like helping people. Puss tells her that her problem is that she can't ask an easy riddle. Being agitated by that comment she insists that she can ask easy riddles and Puss tells her to prove it. Ask a riddle even he can answer and if she proves him wrong about her she'll just have to keep doing what she's been doing but if he's right she has to let him take the hour glass. Such is the riddling challenge posed by Puss. The Sphinx agrees and asks him a riddle, even giving him hints, and he still gets it wrong. At first she's disappointed that he's right about her being unable to ask easy riddles but such emotion fades when Puss tells her that he needs her to take him to San Lorenzo so the hour glass may be used to save orphans there. By the time she arrives and the magic is done she's- happy. The night after being introduced to the townsfolk Sphinx gets around to guarding the town from thieves and makes quite an impression on the people of San Lorenzo.

Sphinx of San Lorenzo

After the night in which she used her banishing magic to combat thieves who had entered the city of San Lorenzo Sphinx was given a station outside of the city where she again resumed asking riddles rather than instigating a fight. She also began to sleep long hours as felines tend to do. For the days that followed a number of thieves either snuck past her or managed to answer her riddles to gain entry. The most notable individual to have answered her five riddles was the Bandit King El Mocho who then proceeded to enter with his band of thieves. One of whom would comment that riddles aren't really the best security system. -you can help this wiki by expanding this-

The Senior Puss Squad

The Sphinx, along with other former adversaries given a new direction in life by Puss in Boots, became a member of the Senior Puss Squad formed by Puss in Boots.

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The End

When the Great Mage Sino returned to San Lorenzo he would of passed Sphinx and she would have likely learned that he, Puss, and Dulcinia where returning to San Lorenzo in search of a powerful relic to turn back time and prevent the Portal to the Netherworld from opening. She would have been at her post when the world shattered and was destroyed. She did not make it to the safety of Sino's magic bubble that protected the city from such a doom.

The Reset

When the Great Mage Sino did turn back time he chose not to go to the moment when the Portal was opened but to the moment when the events leading up to that began- the moment Puss arrived in San Lorenzo. Those who had survived the end of the world would one by one return to that point in time and gradually loose memory of what had happened. Sphinx having not survived did not even have that experience. Her life was reset to how it was before she ever met Puss for such is how she was in that moment of time. Watching an hourglass, unsatisfied with her job, and her only motivator being a sense of superiority over her sister.

Character Planning and Development

The Sphinx in The Adventures of Puss in Boots draws inspiration from The Sphinx of the Greek tradition in regards to asking riddles and devouring people. Though unlike her inspiration, who protected the road to Thebes, the Sphinx from The Adventures of Puss in Boots asks five riddles instead of one and protects a magical hourglass. The appearance of the character is a nod to the Sphinx breed of cat and is closer to older Egyptian depictions of the Sphinx prior to a particular pharaoh having his face carved into a particularly notable structure of the same name. These depictions of winged lions where still common in lower Egypt and the lands of Nubia and the realm of Ethiopia. The Adventures of Puss in Boots character was created by Doug Michael Langdale who previously worked on Dreamwork's animated adaptation of Cleopatra in Space as it's showrunner. Doug Langdale also created The Sphinx's sister Calista who was first introduced in S1E6 "Fountains" thus introducing that relationship to the character. It was however the writer Julia Yorks who expanded Calista and The Sphinx's history through the S4E10 episode "Small Changes" where in Calista had been the one to give The Sphinx her tattoos and for the strife between the twin sisters having been from both parents insisting they be more 'like your sister'. One of the tattoos The Sphinx has is also established as referencing the Obelisk of Night which Calista had seen at some point but doesn't remember where. This tattooing would have taken place while the two sisters where still young and prior to either of them having settled into their roles as Guardians of the Hourglass and the Fountains. The reveal that the Obelisk is in San Lorenzo is at times thought to indicate that Calista had visited back when the city had a tourist industry (so prior to the Great Mage Sino putting a protective spell over the city), had seen the Obelisk of Night before it was moved to San Lorenzo, or happened to have seen one of the souvenirs of the Obelisk with such souvenirs having once been sold in San Lorenzo (before the protective spell was cast) according to Angus the Sheep in S4E12. Most of The Sphinx's character was governed by Julia Yorks' writing from Seasons three to six.