Lina
Gourry
Zelgadis
Amelia
Sylphiel
Xellos
Filia

Full Name: Lina Inverse
Also known as: Bandit-Killer
Dramata/Dragon Spooker
Enemy of All Who Live
"That flat-chested, brainless, breastless sorceress"
"The beautiful, genius sorceress Lina Inverse" (To herself)
Blood Type: A
Hometown: Zephelia
Accomplishments: Defeating every major demon in the show (except Gaav) - with some help, admittedly.
Specialty: Black Magic - Offensive
Shamanism - Fire Magic
Voice Actress:
Japanese - Hayashibara Megumi
English -
Lisa Ortiz (Series)
Cynthia Martinez (Movies)
Relatives: Luna Inverse (Sister)

Lina Inverse, the red-haired, small-breasted sorceress, is the main character of the show. Lina has quite a few amazing feats, such as the destruction of a piece of the Dark Lord Shabrunigdo, Darkstar, casting of the Giga Slave, etc. etc. etc.

Despite these accomplishments, Lina has, as all people do, a few weaknesses; chief among these is fear of her older sister, Luna Inverse. Nobody knows specifically why she's so utterly terrified of Luna, who is a waitress in Zephelia and Knight of Cephied, but it is known that Luna at least has one good reason to be a bit evil to Luna. When the two of them were growing up, Luna had a job working as a waitress (which, in fact, she still has). Deciding to make some money of her own to help out, Lina made "projections" of her sister taking a bath and made people pay to see them. Luna found out, and, well...considering Lina's temper, one can make a few assumptions as to Luna's reaction.

Another of Lina's weaknesses is slugs. In an episode in Next, Lina and co. are confronted by a group of gigantic slugs, and Lina latches onto Gourry and won't let go until they're gone. Pretty strange, in my opinion, that she can stand up to thousand-year-old dark lords without batting an eye, but she chickens out when faced with slugs.

People have paired Lina up with several different characters, but her only canonical romantic interest is Gourry. She's also commonly paired with Zelgadis, as well as Xellos. Of course, I'm sure fanfics have her paired with plenty of other people as well. If you ask me, people probably pair Lina up with Zel/Xel because they think they're the two coolest characters in the anime, and they find Gourry too boring for her. I won't deny that there is somekind of chemistry between Lina and both Z/Xels, but I really don't think that love enters into that equation.

As far as Lina's personality goes, she can have a pretty nasty temper. Unlike most people with bad tempers, however, the source of HER bad tempers is most likely fried to a crisp by a Fireball before long. Probably the most common reason Lina gets ticked off is because someone mentions her height/breast size, or lack thereof. That or someone interrupts her dinner. While Lina's short and petite, she can still out-eat pretty much anybody (barring Gourry, and that's just a maybe) stupid enough to cross her when she's eating.

The thing Lina's probably best at would be beating up bandits and stealing their treasure - that's simply what she does. Most people consider Lina to be greedy for one simple reason - she is. When she gets her hands on some kind of treasure, it won't leave her hands unless she's trading it for currency.

In my opinion, Lina Inverse is doubtlessly one of the coolest and most interesting anime women in existence. She doesn't have an ounce of cliche in her. The vast majority of female anime characters are somewhat wimpy, with the guys constantly taking care of them and protecting them, plus they have enormous, entirely impossible breasticles. Lina's the exact opposite of them (thank God). Admittedly, when she first met Gourry, she was pretending to be a damsel in distress, but that was an act, 100%. It's unbelievably refreshing to have a good, strong heroine who can take care of herself.

When Gourry first met Lina, he'd come across her when she as fighting a vengeful group of bandits from the gang she'd just robbed. Assuming that she was a "damsel in distress", he "saved" her from the group of bandits. Afterwards, Gourry treated her like a little girl (Gourry: "Hey, there's a town, little girl. Maybe I can get you some lollipops there!") for quite a while and insisted that he escort her to wherever she was going. It took a bit of convincing, but Lina reluctantly agreed to let him tag along with her.

Gourry later revealed that he was the wielder of the Sword of Light, which is a sword made of light, essentially - not that you could have guessed that on your own, of course. It's a magic sword that can cut through nearly anything, and is supposedly the only weapon that can cut through Zelgadis's skin (or so Zelgadis mentioned, towards the beginning of the first series; however, Gaav's sword in Next seemed to do quite a number on him, so one can only wonder). The Sword of Light once slew the great beast Zanaffar when it was wielded by an ancestor of Gourry's - he said he "thought [he] remembered something like that being told in [his] family a lot, but [he] never paid attention."

Gourry and Lina are arguably the primary canonical couple of Slayers. There is the possibility of Gourry and Sylphiel getting together, but it seems doubtful to me, especially when you consider that he's constantly bringing up Lina around Sylphiel. As usual, however, people keep pairing him up with other people, like Zelgadis (for just one example), even though there's really no basis for this.

*From Slayers: The Movie.

Zelgadis first appeared on the show as the enemy of Lina and Gourry. As I stated in Gourry's bio, Lina had just defeated a gang of bandits. As it turned out, one of Zelgadis's men, Zolf, was at the bandit's hideout when Lina attacked them. Zelgadis had sent Zolf to retrieve an item from the bandits, but Lina wound up with it instead. Zelgadis tried to buy the item (the Orihalcon statue) from her, but Lina didn't trust him, and gave him the most outrageous prices she possibly could have thought of to deter him. But he didn't give up on retrieving it, as Zelgadis needed the statue so he could kill Rezo the Red Priest (who, incidentally, is either his grandfather, great-grandfather, or both; that's never fully explained, leading some fans of the show to wonder about incest).

Zelgadis wanted to kill Rezo for revenge; Rezo had turned him into a chimera, which (contrary to Greek mythology, apparently) is a human-made creature that can be composed of two or more other creatures. Zelgadis, for example, is 1/3 rock golem, 1/3 demon, and 1/3 human. Because he's 1/3 rock golem, normal swords and other weapons can't break his skin, which really works to his advantage. Despite this advantage (as well as the fact that fangirls still attack him like rabid dogs, as well as Amelia's proclamation that he "looks cool that way"), Zelgadis wanted to kill Rezo for revenge.

After the whole deal with Rezo and Kopii/Copy Rezo (Rezo's clone, who returned to kill Lina and co. to prove he was better than Rezo), the thing he wanted most was a cure to turn him completely human. He's searched for a long time, looking primarily for the limitless knowledge of the Clair Bible (even though the one time he actually had access to the Clair Bible, he didn't ask Antie Aqua for his cure, strangely enough). He still hasn't found it.

Zelgadis is easily the most withdrawn, thoughtful character of the Slayers, if only because everyone else is so incredibly loud and gung-ho. At the beginning of Slayers Next, he constantly tells Lina, Gourry, and Amelia that he's searching for his cure, which he can do just fine by himself, and he doesn't need anybody else helping him/slowing him down/getting him sidetracked through countless filler episodes*/etc. (He's a bit of a grouch as well, if you hadn't guessed. ^_~) Zelgadis is quite a loner, and there are several occasions when he reminds everyone within earshot that he is not "Lina's lackey."

As far as couples go, I think the best person for Zelgadis would be Amelia, mainly because they seem to get along well (especially after the first season, when Amelia becomes far less annoying), and are constantly paired as a team in the show. Zelgadis might conceivably make a good couple with Lina, but I don't think so; they tend to get on eachothers' nerves quite a bit. Plus, that rips apart the two truly canon relationships. Of course, he's also constantly paired up with, well, everyone - Xellos and Gourry, for example, plus the countless self-insert Sues of fanfiction.

*I love the filler episodes, I really do. It's just that there's a hell of a lot of them, that's all ^_~

Amelia Wil Tesla Seyruun is daughter of Philionel el de Seyruun and princess of the White Magic Capital of Seyruun. When she was young, Amelia's mother was murdered (rumors say that she was stabbed and Naga, whose birth name is Gracia, witnessed the event. That's why Naga faints at the sight of blood). When she was young, Amelia always pretended to be a superhero, but because she was a princess, she always believed that she'd be a real hero when she grew up, and thus she became obsessed with the notion of justice. (I'm sure her father had a hand in that as well.)

In Amelia's first appearance, she somehow mistook Gourry for owning a pet store-I've never been able to figure out why (Lina wasn't with Gourry at the time. She was waiting for a "prince atop a white stallion" to come and sweep her off her feet or some such thing. Unfortunately for her, the prince turned out to be Amelia's father Phil, who she mistook for a bandit). Amelia tagged along with Gourry for a while, and eventually met Lina. Amelia originally looked upon Lina as a superhero and thus followed her around. She initially wanted to learn the Dragon Slave from Lina (after having seen it in action), but Lina was smart enough to know that that would result in a countryside pockmarked with Dragon Slave-sized craters.

In the first season, Amelia was unbelievably hyperactive and immature, not to mention silly and clumsy and obsessed with "justice." But she did grow up quite a bit throughout the span of the show; she was much calmer and less naive by TRY. So, it was weird when she suddenly became SUPER HYPER CRAZY FANGIRL AMELIA for Slayers Premium, wherein she was three times as loud as she ever was in the first season.

As for pairings involving Amelia, my opinion (once again) relies on canon. What can I say? Canon's my thing. I think she and Zelgadis are adorable together, and I love Amelia's ability to unwittingly make him blush. However, fanon constantly pairs up with Xellos, or (more frequently) sometimes no one, by people who don't like her or think she gets in the way of Lina/Zel.

Sylphiel comes off as rather silly and brainless, but she is somewhat intelligent - I think. It's hard to tell, really. She's a tiny bit obsessed with Gourry, having fallen in love with him after he somehow managed to accidentally defeat a powerful demon that was threatening her hometown of Sairaag. (I have no idea how one defeats a powerful demon on accident, but, well, that's what I've heard.) Gourry, on the other hand, only remembered Sylphiel's name because she's a good cook.

All the same, Sylphiel is head-over-heels in love with Gourry, and desperately wants to be his girlfriend (probably wife, as well). After seeing him with Lina, she even went so far as to learn the Dragon Slave because she didn't think she could compare to Lina otherwise. (She was right, as far as I'm concerned.)

The fact that Sylphiel could learn the strongest black magic spell without any prior training in black magic just goes to show how powerful Sylphiel's magic is. It's rather strange that she can't manage any other sort of destructive magic, though. Her attempt at casting Flare Arrow resulted in a Flare Carrot (don't ask me how), which was entirely unhelpful under the circumstances. It might've been nice if they'd been trapped on a desert island, though (like those old Gilligan's Island/Slayers fics I haven't read in years...), because at least they'd have something to eat then.

In spite of her (very amusing) failure at Shamanistic magic, Sylphiel is still very, very powerful. She's as powerful with white magic as it's possible for a human to be; she can cast Resurrection, which is a very high-level white magic spell. Also, Sylphiel's Recovery spell is very powerful itself.

Shortly after she was introduced into the storyline (towards the end of the first season), Sylphiel's hometown went kablooey thanks to Copy Rezo. This was mostly so someone would put some angst into the plot, which she did rather well, I think. It was rather sad the way her dad kicked the bucket - and even sadder when he showed up again as Phibrizzo's toy in the second season.

As far as pairings involving Sylphiel go, the only person that I could see her being paired with is Gourry. That said, I just don't think it could ever happen, because Lina and Gourry aren't parting ways any time soon. Personally, I don't think she should have a significant other anyway - at least, not until she grows a goddamn backbone.

Xellos basically exists just to piss everybody off. That is his life's work - well, that and following the orders of his demon master, Zelas Metallium. Xellos acts as both Zelas's priest and general (interesting combination, I know) and is probably as powerful as Zelas herself. He's so powerful that, during the War of the Monster's Fall (about one thousand years prior to the show), he nearly wiped out the entire race of golden dragons with just a wave of his hand.

Although it's never mentioned in the show, I've heard it said that Xellos was actually created by Zelas; apparently, monsters can spawn asexually, rather like bacteria. But for whatever reason, Xellos wound up working for Hellmaster Phibrizzo for a fair amount of time during NEXT.

Nobody in the show really trusts him (especially since finding out he's a monster; surprisingly, Gourry was the first to guess), but they let him hang around because, first of all, they couldn't get rid of him if they tried. Plus, as Lina pointed out once, he can be useful on occasion, and when he isn't, she can always use him as a punching bag. (Xellos tolerates this. I'm not entirely sure why, considering that he's an extraordinarily powerful monster, but I suspect he's a bit of a masochist.)

Because Xellos is weird and relatively difficult to understand, he's paired up with everyone. And yes, I do mean everyone. Lina, Amelia, Zelgadis, Gourry...Cynthia Martinez and Crispin Freeman (VAs for Lina and Zelgadis, respectively) even discussed pairing Xellos up with Naga in the commentary for Slayers Premium. The closest thing he has to a canon pairing is Filia, really. Personally, I'm not exactly in favor of them as a couple, but I like seeing them close to eachother, because explosions and funny stuff happens.

Full Name: Filia ul Copt
Sex: Female
Blood Type: Unknown/Not Applicable?
Hometown: Unknown
Accomplishments: Unknown
Specialty: Dragon Lore
Voice Actress:
Kuwashima Houko (Japanese)
Tara Jayne (English)
Relatives: Unknown

Filia is a Gold Dragon who lives outside of the boundary that, before the end of NEXT, separated the part of the world Lina and co. live in from the rest of their planet. At the beginning of TRY, she's a priestess of the Fire Dragon King, and she was sent into the part of the world that was formerly isolated by the barrier to get help from the most powerful human in the world. A prophecy told that a human would save the world from the resurrection of the demon Darkstar, and so the first choice was Luna Inverse, Lina's sister, but she turned down the offer, and so the job went to Lina.

Filia tries to be dignified and demure, but she has a very short temper, so that doesn't really work out for her. Also, despite the fact that she looks older than most of the other characters, Filia is rather immature (Her mantra is "They're all so mean to me"), probably because she actually is very young in comparison to other dragons.

Xellos knows how to toy with her short fuse better than anyone else, partially because he infuriates her simply by existing, due to that whole "nearly annihilating the Gold Dragon race" thing. Strangely enough, Filia can usually annoy him as well - not a simple feat.