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Reviews for Mazoku Love! The Unanswerable Question? (reposted)

By : tsutsuji
  • From ANON - Popcorn Oracle on June 07, 2006
    Totally facinating. I'm glad you posted this, even if it's not a fic or anything. You pretty much pulled off the Mazoku love thing in your stories and I got a pretty good feel of how and why you think of it the way you do, but it was really interesting to see it explained like this. I tend to "overanalyze" the details on this kind of thing too, and you made a really good arguement for it. I wish I was more into the Slayers fandom right now(Damn Persona 2...) so I'd have something to add... but yeah, I agree. ~
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  • From ANON - DQBunny on June 03, 2006
    This is really a wonderful essay and I'm glad that you've reposted it, because it's given me a chance to read it for the first time.

    I'm wondering if Xelloss is able to discern the ability to separate geninue love for a lust-induced crush. If so, this could be why he can put up with Martina. It's no secret that Martina is in lust over Xelloss, and then when she realizes that being with him really gets Lina's goat, this fuels that lust and adds to the competition factor between the two women. Xelloss can certainly thrive off the Lina vs. Martina factor alone!

    I'm thinking that Mazoku being able to love deeply in a romantic/pure manner is something that isn't common to Mazoku at all, the Lord of Nightmares included. I think they are capable, like you said, of feeling what we term familial love. But beyond that, I don't think they can handle it. I think this is why the Lord of Nightmares found Lina and Gourry to be so intriguing. Lina was willing to let herself be destroyed to ensure that Gourry could have a future. Gourry was willing to destroy himself to get Lina back. Xelloss told Lina afterward that the Lord of Nightmares was "capricious," which means she's given into sudden and unaccountable changes of behavior. Something about the depth of emotion that Lina and Gourry have for each other intrigued the LON enough to where she allowed them to come back.

    The novels take a different approach, from what I can tell - Lina again uses the Giga Slave when needled by Phibrizzo that he would kill Gourry first, but then after that, he doesn't wake up until after everything is over. In fact, Gourry is rescued by Lina, Zel, Sylphiel and Amelia prior to being trapped in the crystal. In that case, Lina didn't sacrifice herself, she just had the capacity to survive being possessed by the Lord of Nightmares (http://qp-diana.hp.infoseek.co.jp/Summary/S8.html). I have this book in Japanese, I just need to sit down and work up my Japanese enough to where I can begin translating it.

    Going back to the anime, Xelloss isn't really around when there is a lot of positive, geninue affection being expressed by the cast toward each other. All of the little intimate moments leading up to the finale of NEXT (Gourry telling Lina he wished she'd thought of his feelings before faking her own death, Gourry telling Lina that he would protect her for the rest of her life and she asks him if he has someone waiting for him, etc.) don't really have Xelloss involved. There's actually some emphasis placed on Xelloss being somewhere else. In the first example, Xelloss is on the ground with Prince Phil. There's another logical reason to that - he can't get involved in the fight against Mazenda and Kanzeil. The second example, he shows up right after when Gaav makes his appearance. During the interim of the Gaav fight - when Gourry grabs Lina and runs off with her, then gives her comfort after she's injured in the fight - Xelloss is mortally wounded himself and has fled the scene. My sequence here might be a bit off, my discs are still packed from a recent move.

    But, to counter that, Xelloss is among the group constantly and without problems in TRY - when it's no secret that Lina and Gourry love each other (though there's not much done about it then) and Amelia has a crush on Zelgadiss, which I do think is geninue love for him - though in a very "first crush" sort of manner. And he was fine with that. Although the love between Lina and Gourry isn't vocalized, it has to be there, and I'm sure Xelloss can pick up on it. Probably because at that time it hadn't flared into a physical relationship, it's easier to handle.

    In return, I also feel that Xelloss feels a degree of positive emotion towards Lina and I think there's definitely an infatuation there. Overall, I do think he considers her the closest thing to a friend that a Mazoku can have and I do see him toying around with taking things further if Gourry wasn't a factor. The flirty nature of the relationship between Lina and Xelloss is there in the novels, anime and manga, so it's a definite possibility.

    On the same level, I don't see any sort of relationship ever springing between Xelloss and Filia. There's a lot of teasing and flirting-type behavior there, but it's also what you see in the relationship between Lina and Xelloss. For the most part of TRY, I think Xelloss eggs on Filia because of what she is and because Filia allows herself to be goaded. She really doesn't gain any real respect in his eyes until the very end, when Filia finally stops whining and does her part to destroy Darkstar. Xelloss respected Lina from the beginning, because he knew what she had done to defeat Shabranigdu. He didn't respect Filia. I respect people who choose to ship Xelloss/Filia, but I don't see it happening. I see Lina/Xelloss happening before Filia/Xelloss. Your stories have Xel/Zel, which I also find a bit easier to buy than Xelloss/Filia. Then again, for me, Zel is a big question mark in the air because I'm still not quite convinced that he belongs with Amelia in the end. Walking away from the series (anime, manga - including Aqualord - and novels) the only couple I can really point to for sure and say "they are going to wind up together" is Lina/Gourry. Zel/Amelia would follow second, but only if a lot of things happened. Zel's not even a factor in Aqualord, whereas Amelia is a major player, creating another case against that pairing.

    Writing all of this down has me tempted to do an essay for myself about why certain couples would/would not work. Again, fantastic job!
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