Fortnite's New Level Up Pack Is A Reference To a Brutal, Real-Life Ancient Murder

gamespot.com:

Let's just say that Captain Hypatia's arms and legs aren't separated from her torso in the Armored style because it looks cool.

By Phil Owen on

Fortnite dropped its latest Level Up Pack this week, and it's a bit of an unusual one. The skin that comes in this season's pack is called Captain Hypatia--she's a starship captain. Like all the skins in the Level Up Packs, Hypatia's got an alternate «Armored» style that is very different from its main style. This alt style takes this pretty standard lady here and turns her into an extremely dope cyborg, with arms and legs that are not physically attached to her torso but are held on by some kind of red energy. See below.

That arms-and-legs thing is particularly interesting when you take it in conjunction with her name. There's only been one truly notable person with the name Hypatia in all of history: a Greek philosopher and astronomer who lived in Alexandria, Egypt in the late 4th and early 5th Centuries, and the first female mathematician that we have significant historical records about. That's the main reason she's famous-- but the second biggest reason for her fame is the way she was brutally murdered and literally torn limb from limb by a mob of Christians.

There have been other things called Hypatia in the 1600 years since Hypatia of Alexandria was alive. Pretty much all of them are named after this woman, though, and the ones that aren't are almost certainly named after things that were named for Hypatia of Alexandria. This fact has probably helped maintain her legacy, because there just haven't been any other Hypatias who were famous and could have stolen her name's thunder.

The story goes that for most of Hypatia's time, there was a measure of peace between the