Denize is a female Gummi Wyrm, eastern dragon and a recurring character from the 2012 mobile match-3 game Candy Crush Saga. She is among numerous notable residents of the game's setting, the Candy Kingdom, and is known to live at a lake full of lemonade, aptly called Lemonade Lake.
Appearance[]
Denize is a pink female anthropomorphic eastern dragon. Her bipedal gait, combined with her long, serpentine body, allow her to maintain a fairly imposing stature, becoming among the tallest citizens of the Candy Kingdom. Her long head mostly comprises two huge jagged crocodilian jaws, with her otherwise small flat head resting above the top jaw. Two long, thin barbels also hang from the front of the upper jaw, below a large nose. She has a flat purple tongue seated deep in her lower jaw. Two ear-like neck frills stick out from the back of her head, similar to that of frilled lizards. Numerous dark spikes stud her long spine, but stop before the pointed tip of her tail.
She is extremely anthropomorphic to the point where her bipedal gait is enforced by gaunt arms that end with four-fingered hands, with every one except the thumbs being clawed, presumably making it awkward for her to crawl on fours like certain other dragons. Conversely, her legs are very sturdy and tough to allow her to stand and walk well on dry land. Despite the characteristics of these limbs, which are similar in proportion to that of a Tyrannosaurus rex, she is known to be a very good swimmer, and is more often than not seen floating and swimming rather than standing and walking.
Though there are no official sources confirming her size, she is surmised to stand about the height of a fully-grown reticulated giraffe at nearly 20 feet tall (7 meters) from head to toe when her body is bent into a S-shape, stretch out to be slightly longer than a reticulated python with a snout-to-tail length of 35 feet (10.6 meters), and bear a weight of 700 pounds (317 kilograms) on an empty stomach and uterus, ballooning to three-quarters of a ton (0.68 metric tons) after a huge meal.
According to a trivia note that may randomly appear upon starting up Candy Crush Saga, Denize is 200 years old.
History[]
Denize first appears in the third episode of the game, titled "Lemonade Lake". The main protagonist, Tiffi, stops by the titular lake, only to discover it to be nearly empty, with Denize sitting in a puddle, saddened that the lemonade is nearly gone. Noting that the spigot that usually supplies lemonade to the lake was broken, Tiffi fixes it so that the lake could be filled with lemonade again for Denize to swim and float in.
Denize appears in several other episodes throughout the game as a friendly citizen of the Candy Kingdom. Later on, she sires several children, including a daughter named Didi, whom players could feed in certain events in the game.
Skills and abilities[]
Denize is a good swimmer, and is also known to be good at dancing and skating, whether it be ice skating or rollerblading. She also has experience playing with stringed musical instruments, and like many other dragons, can breathe fire from out of her mouth. She relies on a diet of zongzi to generate a remarkable level of stamina, allowing her to reach a top swimming speed of approximately 100 knots.
Continuity issue[]
Denize was originally an unidentified male dragon in early versions of the game, with the game's website at the time referring to the her with male pronouns and being unable to breathe fire due to drinking too much lemonade from the lake. In 2013, at the end of the game's 25th episode, Fudge Islands, she was later shown to be able to breathe fire. In 2015, the game's social media team retconned her as female and gave her the name Denize. As some images of her in the game showed that she had children, two possible theories, neither which have been confirmed by the game's story team, were proposed to explain how she had them.
- One theory assumes that Denize was a single mother who raised all her children singlehandedly. There is some biological basis in this idea, particularly due to how some reptiles like pythons can exhibit parthogenesis. This also entails that drinking lemonade does not permanently disable her ability to breathe fire.
- The alternate theory is that the male dragon seen in early versions of the game is a completely separate character, who particularly becomes Denize's husband, whom she mates with to lay eggs and have children. Were this to be true, this also entails the following:
- Her species is not sexually dimorphic, as both characters appear visually identical.
- Her husband is permanently unable to breathe fire from drinking too much lemonade, while she herself can breathe fire because she avoided doing the same.
- She would debut in the game's 25th episode, Fudge Islands, and her husband is last seen in the 15th episode, Sweet Surprise, released just months since his initial appearance.
In the absence of any official efforts to resolve this continuity issue, this article assumes that Denize was retconned female and is a single mother.