Jane
Clift
OPPOSITES ATTRACT!
Good/evil, open/secretive, temperamental yet kind/cheerful but selfish... As opposite as any two people can be. In Slayers, all of the
couples are based on contrast. Basically, the Slayers couples are more
compatible because of their differences. The fiery and intelligent sorceress
Lina who can easily get out of control is tempered by the easy-going, if not
exactly bright, swordsman Gourry (though I believe he is smarter than he
appears.). The shy, depressed, chimera Zelgadis whose motives tend to be a bit
selfish needs the ever cheerful princess Amelia to bring him out of his shell.
Needs her to give him acceptance for who he is, and
force him to think about others and see the good in the world rather than
sulking in self pity. In the same way, Xelloss and
Filia are perfect compliments for each other. They will probably never agree
completely since they come from such opposite perspectives, but their
differences can serve to make them stronger. (Ophelia's wrote another good essay on this topic.)
THEY FIGHT LIKE MARRIED COUPLES
If they are going to fight like a married couple then don't
you think they ought to get married? Just because they are fighting doesn't
mean they hate each other. In fact, there are many couples out there who
express their affections by arguing. This may not be the most ideal sort of
relationship, in this case, it is downright terrifying the damage that they can
do, but there are very few ideal relationships in the world.
MACE-SAMA + MASOCHIST DEMON!
What more could you ask for!?! A masochist and a large, blunt
weapon. Xelloss, as a mazoku,
enjoys negative emotions, and Filia is an easy target to provoke her anger. He
certainly appreciates her destructive potential, going so far as to compliment
her after she destroys a town. But even that only makes her angrier and she
tries to kill him. Which leads to another point: Who else could even survive a
long term relationship with Filia? Gourry can handle Lina's
abuse, but Filia is much stronger and easily loses control of her temper.
Zelgadis might survive with his stone body, but he certainly didn't appreciate
the beating he got when Filia made him do a ping-pong immitation.
But Xelloss can easily dodge her attacks, and even if
he does get hit, it won't do much damage. He might even enjoy it...
XELLOS IS ALWAYS ON FILIA'S MIND
Episode 5 is a perfect example of this. The entire episode Filia simply can't
stop thinking about him. When he shows up during her fight with Lina, Filia
immediately forgets everyone else to focus on blaming Xelloss.
After she fled she was so focused on his wordds she
allowed herself to be captured. In prison, Filia continued to rage at Xelloss instead of looking for ways to escape. This
continued until the end of the episode when his taunting was what set her free.
Ahhh, so romantic... (¬_¬ whatever...)
FILIA IS THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN MAKE XELLOS MAD
In addition to Xelloss making Filia mad, she is the
ONLY person who can make him angry in return. There are some interesting essays
at Royal Colors that discuss how the higher level mazoku
do indeed feel emotions but over time it becomes hard to find anything to stimulates them. Well Filia certainly can get Xelloss worked up! Even to the point of yelling and
twitching in annoyance!
IN ADDITION TO THE FIGHTING SCENES, THEY DO HAVE A FEW TENDER MOMENTS
First is the scene when Xelloss offers to help
against Almace at the
Next is the ever-cited scene when he saves her from the falling rocks only to
drop her on Valgarv. People argue that he couldn't
let one of Lina's friends die, but why not? Especially since he has just offered to kill Lina herself.
After that Xelloss is badly wounded and Filia comes
to his aid. Lina may have ordered her to help Xelloss,
but Filia is stubborn enough she is not easily bossed around. And no-one told
her to hold Xelloss so close to her chest (...heart? hehe.
Much later Xelloss takes Filia hostage and threatens
to kill her if Saichuro doesn't co-operate. Xelloss is such a skilled manipulator he should have known
what kind of threat would work. But he was wrong and Saichuro
refused. Why would Xelloss so grossly overestimate
Filia's importance to others unless she is that important to himself?
At this point Xelloss lets her go, instead of keeping
his threat. Xelloss is not the type to bluff. Unless
he has some other motive for wanting her alive...
Finally I cite the scene where they are fighting Darkstar
and Xelloss and Filia must combine their powers. When
Filia finally agrees to it Xelloss gently teases her
(In the dub version he even says "That's the dragon I love.") and
Filia smiles back at him. That is quite a little smile to give someone you
hate!
THEY BOTH LIKE TEA!
It is good for a couple to have some common interests! Filia is downright
obsessed with tea. But Xelloss has a thing for it
too. During Next he regularly eats and drinks in order to keep the appearance
of being human. Even so, he doesn't stop drinking tea when his true self was
revealed. I believe tea is the only thing he eats or drinks during Try. I can
just see these two having a peaceful tea party together...
Xelloss: Ahhh, Filia, you
certainly can make nice tea...
Filia: Really? *blushes* Thank you!
Xelloss: ...for a dragon.
Filia: What Was That!!!!!!!! *reaches for mace*
Xelloss: I was just thinking how odd it is that such
a violent dragon can pretend to be so innocent and peaceful when drinking tea.
We really do have a lot in common... *hit over the head with Mace-Sama*
THEY AREN'T REALLY AS DIFFERENT AS THEY SEEM
They have a lot of things in common aside from their
favorite beverage. They seem to even think in the same way. Just look at the
marriage ball episode where they both reply with exactly the same line when
they are paired together! And they do seem Awfully
upset by this. They deny the pairing with a vehemence to be expected of someone
who refuses to acknowledge the truth. (see Esther's explaination on this at Love Archives: Filia/Xelloss She goes into much more details)
THEY CAN BEGIN THE BRING THE MAZOKU AND RYUZOKU TOGETHER
Ok. This will probably never happen. But you never know. In Try there are quite
a few references to combining mazoku and ryuzoku power. In fact the whole plot with Valgarv and Darkstar questions
the reasons for the conflict between light and darkness. It asks the question
of whether a new world could be founded where such conflict wouldn't be neccessary. Of course the characters don't like the idea of
destroying the world to attain that goal. But the question remains. Is the
fighting really neccessary? Is there some better way
to attain that new peace?
THEY LOOK GOOD TOGETHER
This isn't as silly as it sounds! When animators
design characters they generally keep things like this
in mind. These two definitely go well together! This is reaffirmed by all the pencilboards, commercial break scenes, and other promotinal materials showing them together. Their dominant
colors are complimentary because they are exact opposites on the color wheel:
Purple/Yellow, Black/White. This is also a good reflection of the characters
themselves and how they are opposite, but complimentary
THEY'RE SO CUTE WHEN THEY FIGHT
You know how that goes when the little boy who picks
on a girl in school really has a crush on her. Well Xelloss
and Filia certainly like teasing each other. And they are so darn FUNNY when
they fight!
THEY'RE ABOUT THE RIGHT AGE
Not only are they both far older than the other characters, but their expected
life-spans are much longer as well. Since they both live practically forever,
they will have plenty of time to get used to each other ...and even fall in
love ^-^