Return to Presentation Details

Cleo de Nile

Fandom.com

Monster High

Cleo de Nile is a 2010-introduced and all-around character. She is a mummy, though born human, and a student at Monster High. As royalty, Cleo is unsurprisingly the queen of the student body, though few know her confidence is not as solid as she makes it seem to be. Cleo has a difficult relation with both her father, Ramses, who demands the best of and for her, and her older sister, Nefera, who cannot handle Cleo having any successes over her and as such regularly works to sabotage Cleo's efforts and undermine her self-esteem. Her mother, Dedyet, is the only immediate kin she is on good terms with, but circumstances separated Dedyet from the family for millennia. Had it not been for the support of her friends from the Fear Squad, the loyalty of her BFF Ghoulia, and the comfort of her boyfriend Deuce's embrace, Cleo's crown would have been crushed a long time ago. Cleo is aware she is lucky to have found people around her that allow her to flourish and while not always the most tactful, she is very protective of her crew.
Cleo was a princess of Egypt over 5,800 years ago and raised with the knowledge she'd never be queen of her home, as that honor would befall her older sister Nefera, yet consequently with freedom to pursue her own interests. One event highlighting the difference in the sisters' upbringing was when delegation from a far-off country arrived and gifted Nefera a corpse flower that was claimed to be a rare treasure only fit for a future queen. The flower became one of Nefera's most precious possessions, while Cleo instinctively developed acrimony for it.
Life would not remain kind to the De Niles as trouble was brewing within the kingdom. Cleo's own uncle sought to overthrow Ramses de Nile and found loyal followers among Ramses's own trusted advisers. The day the traitors committed their coup d'état had been perfectly planned to remove the royal family before anyone knew what hit them. The chief adviser led Ramses and his daughters to underground quarters prepared to house them if they came under attack. The plan was for them to be wrapped up in magic cloth that would sustain them until the guards dealt with the danger. Despite that the queen had yet to join them, Ramses de Nile already had the family wrapped with a magic cloth that would keep them safe while their loyal followers would deal with the usurper. They didn't know that they had no loyal followers left and that the magic cloth was meant to keep them asleep forever.
Nonetheless, they woke up after 1,300 years, only to find the queen still missing and themselves trapped within the hiding spot. As Ramses began to spend his days looking for an exit, Cleo pessimistically enjoyed the luxuries of their prison, but Nefera was hit badly by both the loss of her mother and her future and spent most of her time talking to her corpse flower, that she'd taken with her. An earthquake eventually damaged the prison enough to create a hole, allowing sunlight in.
As the family rejoiced, the corpse flower awakened from her slumber and introduced herself as Amanita Nightshade. She explained what truly happened during the coup d'état, revealed that the family had been asleep for 1,300 years, and elaborated that they now no longer fit the human world but must find their place in monster society. When a caravan passed by, the De Niles' shouting was not enough to draw attention, but Amanita was thin enough to get through the gap and promised to return with help. She never did, and the family eventually got out on their own.
About 4,500 years later, the family has relocated to New Salem, Boonighted States of Scaremerica. Though the throne of old is gone, the family has access to a large collection of magical artifacts that only works for them and over 10,000 servants, most of which apparently ushabti. Cleo has easily adapted to her monster life, enjoying the riches of her temple and enjoying the life of a high-schooler at Monster High, the prestiged school of the Boo World, eventually finding interest Clawd Wolf, the co-captain of the basketball team, only to later dump him for his co-captain Deuce Gorgon, where she found love, that made her ascend in the social pyramid, making people realize that she was also a princess, making her incredibly popular, enough to join the fearleading squad led by her sister, that, because of this, elected her for captain when she graduated. Since then, she's been either famous for her success and status or infamous for her less-than-kind personality.
Cleo is extremely royal, so she expects everyone to treat her like it. Usually, her attitude is selfish, arrogant, and sassy; she can't be entirely blamed for her behavior because it's shown that she was raised to be like this. She is extremely competitive with other ghouls, especially Toralei Stripe. But deep down, Cleo's a very caring, kind, and thoughtful ghoul who cares about her friends.
She can work well with others if they share a common goal, in which case she becomes the de facto leader of the ghouls. She's a highly effective organizer and a leader who will deviate between acting selfishly and selflessly, depending on her mood, which is easy to alter, as she is a tad tempered when fueled, and violent if upset. Additionally, she is stubborn and will only follow her rules if she feels like it, and she lacks when it comes to learning from her mistakes, making the same mistakes of dodging responsibility and attempting to control others. It doesn't help she has access to limited amounts of magic through her magical amulets. In the webisode series of Monster High, Cleo is mainly known as the Queen Bee at school, having self-proclaimed popularity which is not untrue despite being self-proclaimed. Despite Cleo's personality overall, one of her true personality traits is that she is kindhearted deep down with a true heart of gold, which is much more than what can be said about her sister Nefera, who, when asked about best friends in her profile bio, only said she "rule[s] alone". Cleo also solely goes by the name Cleo in the Monster High without the adding of the family name "de Nile" to not raise suspicion to her name resembling the Egyptian name Cleopatra and having a name that has to do with the river, the Nile, which is what her surname is based on. Though her full name is never actually said, as in, "Cleo de Nile", it is hinted at, especially when Brett Redding, calls her "Queen of de-Nile" as a pun on the river Nile and the word "denial", and her father is referred to as "Ram de Nile" in the beginning of the second book.
Cleo de Nile is in the possession of black and brown hair with fringed bangs, which is commonly enhanced with golden highlights, although she also picks blue, teal, and/or purple as additional colors. Her hair is mostly adorned with a golden headband with sky blue jewels. She favors her hair to be long and hang loose, but she isn't hesitant to switch it up with a shoulder-length haircut. Sometimes, her hair is in a ponytail when it is long. She has tan skin and blue eyes, always surrounded by thick black winged eyeliner, and wears a gem on her right cheek that is blue in most of her ensembles (it was red in Scaris). She also has golden dangling earrings. While Cleo can get creative with her look, there is one fashion rule she can't break: she always has to have at least one piece of burial wrapping on her, lest she disappears into dust. Cleo's Facebook profile Cleo de Nile's Gloom and Bloom diary Fortunately for her, she is allowed to apply the burial wrapping in whatever way suits her. Sometimes, she wears an entire jumpsuit with limb warmers made of the material. At other times, the burial wrappings are worked into a simple waist wrap easily forgotten among the rest of the look. In "Frights Camera Action", however, no wrap is visible. Cleo's standard colors of choice to dress in are shades of yellow, including gold, which is her favorite color, and anything in the range blue-to-teal. She has also experimented with purple and red, but those are limited to specific periods. While not dress-shy, Cleo prefers to step into a pair of pants, usually as part of the aforementioned jumpsuit. As part of an Ancient Egyptian Royal Family, Cleo commonly works large gems into her look, as well as scarabs, lotuses, snakes, and triangles (pyramids).
Glass Breaking Scream: Cleo can break glass with a single scream, as shown in multiple webisodes.
Snake Charming: Like her sister Nefera de Nile, Cleo can also charm snakes.
Scarab Beetle Charming: It's assumed that she can also charm scarab beetles.
Immortality: Like most undeads she is immortal.
Cleo lives with her father, and older sister, Nefera de Nile. Holt Hyde's 'Basic' diary Her dad's name is Ramses de Nile, and he's an antiques dealer. Cleo and Nefera's mother is Dedyet de Nile. Through circumstances, she was left behind when the De Nile family went into hiding. The family reunites later according to Hexiciah Steam's and Robecca Steam's diary, though it is unknown what happens to her after. In The Ghoul Next Door, Nefertiti is said to be the girls' aunt.
Cleo mentions having an older sister called Nefera de Nile, who's out of the country with their father. Clawd's 'School's Out' diary also mentions Nefera being the previous fear squad captain. Clawd Wolf's 'School's Out' diary Nefera is said to be a model in Cleo's 'School's Out' diary.Cleo de Nile's 'School's Out' diary Based on both the 'School's Out' diaries and the cartoon, Cleo and Nefera don't get along very well.
As one of the most popular students at Monster High, Cleo enjoys a vast list of followers, Unearthed Day but her selection of close friends is modest and can at its most extreme be brought back to two: Ghoulia Yelps and Deuce Gorgon. The latter is her boyfriend, while the former is Cleo's sole confidante. The two met when Cleo reached out to her in a time of need and they've been inseparable since. An Amazing Friendship They make for an odd couple, Cleo being popular and Ghoulia being regularly disregarded like zombies often are. Even Cleo is not always aware of her treatment of Ghoulia, taking her as a personal assistant and gateway to an easy grade, but Ghoulia knows she means well and is among the very few people Cleo will readily apologize to when she realizes her errors.