Risky Boots

Risky Boots is the primary antagonist of the Shantae series.

Risky is the archenemy of Shantae and is known throughout Sequin Land for her love of wealth, power, and all shiny things. Risky is an unchallenged and self-proclaimed 'Queen of the Seven Seas', and will caution and toll anyone who thinks otherwise. She commands an endless army of Tinkerbats who follow her orders without question.

Appearance
Risky Boots wears a large pirate hat, with a skull symbol, which keeps her long growing hair in (her hair is actually just as long as Shantae's, which is revealed when she disguises herself as a half-genie during the course of Shantae and also later during the final fight at the end of the same game, when Shantae deals her sufficient damage to make her outfit fall apart). She has a purple necklace with a gold pendant around her neck, a top that looks like the upper half of a skull, deep purple pants lined with a white rim that looks like a jaw bone, a belt which holds her scimitar and pistol. It is revealed in The Pirate's Curse that the skull pieces on her outfit are actually the skull of the Pirate Master, Risky's former captain.

Personality
Risky Boots has shown to be cruel and cunning to her enemies, specially Shantae, this is evidenced by the fact she constantly attacks Scuttle Town and tried more than one time to enslave Shantae and all the genies for her own benefit. Aside from that, Risky is also greedy when it comes to treasure, priceless artifacts, and money in general given her role as pirate.

Risky holds an intense grudge against Shantae since the first time she was defeated by her and even has shown to dislike her and anything/anyone too "goody-goody" or law abiding, demonstrating her dislike for good things and preferring to stay evil instead. Despite this, she has shown to have some respect for her since battling with the Pirate Master for the fate of the world, although at the end Risky made a point with Shantae that both should take different paths as Risky is happy as long as she can be captain and promised that they'll be still enemies as such.

Risky also likes to gloat and make herself known for her actions, even if these implicate destruction and chaos, the most known being the constant attack on Scuttle Town and its inhabitants. She is also sneaky and deceptive and has no problem with having to lie or manipulate others to get her way, just like she did back disguised as genie she tricked Shantae into collecting one of the stones for her only for Risky to capture Shantae and take the stones from her. Risky Boots can get very violent and even sadistic when she's enraged, one of her most sadist moments was in the first game threatening to slice up Shantae for destroying the Tinker Tank, and after being defeated by her, she decided to escape and let Shantae die on the ruins.

Although in recent games she has shown to have more calm and morality in contrast to her first and second appearances, this doesn't stop however of keep doing misdeeds through Sequin Land, going as far as punishing her own crew when they don't obey her or if they try to defy her in anyway as evidenced in Pirate's Queen Quest, where she punished the Tinkerbats for invading a remote island without her and later on the same happened at the end after their failure at making the Dynamo work correctly, although taking in consideration it was Risky all along the narrator of Pirate's Queen Quest it's presumed she actually didn't punish them at all.

Abilities
Though she prefers to leave combat to her machines and Tinkerbats, Risky Boots has proven to be a powerful fighter (as proven at the end of the first game). In combat, Risky's main weapon is a large pirate's scimitar that she can rapidly slash with or throw like a boomerang, and she also carries a flintlock pistol that fires bullets. Risky can also dash around in mid-air for dive-bombing attacks and perform a brutal slide-kick when on the ground. She is also able to perform various acrobatic feats akin to parkour, which seems to suggest superhuman levels of athleticism. She also appears to have a high level of endurance for a human, as she is able to take many hits from Shantae's magic, and still have enough energy to escape almost unscratched from her final fight with Shantae in the first game. Risky is also highly intelligent and surprisingly effective with technology, being able to conceive grandiose machines for her Tinkerbats to build and to operate them quite effectively.

Despite her deadly proficiency in the first game, Risky claims to be completely defenseless without her sword and pistol; in Pirate's Curse she was unable to combat a single Cacklebat, even with her kicking moves. Whether she truly felt defenseless or whether she simply feared of becoming possessed herself is unclear.

Trivia

 * Risky is similar to Captain Syrup, the antagonist of the Wario series, a sub-series of the Super Mariofranchise by Nintendo. Both are female pirates who are refereed to as the most "dangerous pirate" and "the pirate queen", and have both used the power of a genie in a final boss fight.
 * According to Hypno Baron in Pirate Queen's Quest, Risky Boots is "a creature POSSESSED of DARK MAGIC". Whether this references the Pirate Master's influence or not remains unknown.