| Even a “playboy” needs somebody to love. For your perusal, the women of Gaea from the hat trick of princesses to the catgirls and their chances of having to pick long, blond hairs out of their bed. |
| My pick? Duh. If the length of her pro column compared to the other ladies didn’t give it away, maybe the fact that I’m writing a big-ass prequel starring her and Allen might be a clue. Obviously, my pick is Eries. He needs a woman like her to sort through all his issues. She deserves a reward for sticking by him for so damn long. She’s seen him have an affair with her older sister, flirt with her younger sister and propose to a girl from the Mystic Moon. She doesn’t have any “Gallant Swordsman” delusions about him. She knows him for who he is. And she’s still around. That’s commitment. (Or a need to be committed, your choice.) |
| PROS: She *is* the mother of his child. Romantics and welfare reformers agree - they should be together just for that. Plus, he was so deeply in love with her that years after the fact, Allen’s still hung up on her. She must have loved him equally as well. Why else would she be telling Chid stories that glorified him so? CONS: Uh, she’s dead. That’s kind of a big one. But given the tendencies of ghosts on Gaea to drop in on the living and offer up plot points and other forms of exposition, it’s not an insurmountable obstacle. She could stop by one evening after Allen and Leon’s ghost were through with their father/son chat. Just as long as she doesn’t bring Mahad with her. That would be sooo awkward. Which brings up con #2 - she’s married and happily at that. On her deathbed, she confesses to Mahad that’s she fallen in love with him. Guess she didn’t share Allen’s “I’ll never love again” attitude. Do I even need to get into the whole princesses and knights thing and King Aston’s apparent dislike of Allen? |
| PROS: They’re certainly an aesthetically pleasing couple, aren’t they? You just know they’d produce genetically perfect children (come on, she’s looks just like Marlene and Chid could not be any cuter). He’s fond of her, if not in love with her, and is protective of her. She believes she’s in love with him. CONS: Where to start this huge list? First, copy Eries’ list of cons and scratch out the ‘And Millerna’ part. Second, I used the word ‘believes’ when I said she loved him for a reason. She’s got a giant crush on him for sure, but I don’t see the emotions running much deeper than that. She doesn’t know him all that well for one thing. She’s clueless about his affair with Marlene and dismisses the possibility that Allen might have feelings for Hitomi (“He’s out of your league” as she so bitchily tells Hitomi). I love her reaction to Allen’s confession that Chid is his son - she puts her hands over her ears and screams “I don’t want to hear.” ’Course not, she might actually have to deal with Allen as a human being with flaws then. (To her credit, she does mature enough that by the laundry-hanging scene with Hitomi she admits, “You can't do anything about what someone did before you met them.”) Given that he was stationed at the Castello while she was in Palas, how would she have really gotten to know him anyway? Third, there’s Dryden. Though he gave her his ring back, I think Asturian divorce laws are a wee bit more complicated than that. Dryden does love her (enough to let her go, at that) and honestly, he’s a better match for her. Millerna does have her moments in the series, but they’re usually at the urging of others (Moleman telling her to operate) or with the assistance of others (her sidekick Gaddes during the jailbreak and operation). She needs a partner who will challenge her, who will support her when she’s made up her mind to do something. Really, who’s more likely to stay up late helping her study for her medical exams - Dryden or Allen? |
| PROS: He opens up readily to her, telling her things after just meeting her that he’s never discussed with his crew that he’s served with for some time. As he repeatedly says, being with her “makes (his) heart feel at ease.” He cared about her enough to propose and Hitomi spends half the series with a serious crush on him. CONS: You mean besides the guy in the red shirt? While I can picture a lasting friendship between Allen and Hitomi, there’s just not that bond she has with Van. As for the proposal, that pesky Fate Alteration may have been responsible for it, not his true feelings. And, like Millerna, Hitomi’s feelings towards him are of the crush nature and not seriously romantic (hence her refusal of said proposal). Plus, long distance relationships can be such a bitch. |
| PROS: Heh, heh. Seriously, let me think of something here… Give me a minute… Okay, they’re the castoffs in the Van/Hitomi romance. If you’re the type that likes to pair people up so everything all nice and neat, that might count for something. And…. Crap, there is no and. CONS: You mean besides the guy in the red shirt? Anyway, I really looked for a scene which showed just the two of them. I really did. Couldn’t find one, though. Do they even talk to each other during the series? I can’t recall a single conversation. I think the closest moment they had together was when he stole her nail file. In short, they don’t really even know each other; they’re associates more than friends. Additional cons are the age thing (I can handle him and a fifteen-year old. A thirteen-year old? Ewwwwww.) and the species thing. |
| PROS: Uh, there are two of them? Guys tend to go for that sort of thing? Jeez, this is harder than coming up with something for Merle. CONS: They’re dead. They’re in love with Folken. They’re catgirls. They’re dead catgirls glomping on Folken in the afterlife. |
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| Marlene Aston |
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| Eries Aston |
| PROS: While nothing is ever explicitly stated, there are enough hints dropped (her knowledge of his and Marlene’s past, the frank way she speaks to him, both graveyard scenes) that you can infer the two have a past together - and a fairly deep one at that. It’s almost become a cliché that A x E fanatics point to the fact that he entrusted Celena to her, but it is a huge deal. This is his sister, his Holy Grail that he’s been wanting to find for ten years. He not only asks Eries to look after her, he says “you’re the only one I can trust her to.” One of the things I love about Eries is that she can be a bitch when she has to be. Part of that is calling Allen on his substantial amount of emotional crap. None of the other Esca women come close to being as blunt as she is. Though she wimps out in the end and runs off crying, the scene in which she tells him to back off from Millerna shows not only can she read what his problems are, she doesn’t gloss over them and try to put a nice spin on them like Hitomi does. In short, she can take him on. And this may just be the over-obsessive delusions of a fangirl, but I do think there’s something more than friendship there. The first time we see Eries is at that hysterical dinner party (Aston being snarky, Hitomi getting wasted, Millerna drooling and Eries at her passive-aggressive best, what’s not to love?). Her name is mentioned but she isn’t shown then. No, that comes after Aston has made his snide “being too beautiful is a sin” crack and Allen has mumbled a “yes, sire” in response. Then Allen looks directly at Eries. She doesn’t speak; her name isn’t given to clarify who she is. It’s just a shot of her from Allen’s perspective after a very loaded statement has been made. It’s a weird introduction and therefore (at least I think it is) a significant one. And Eries’ feelings for Allen are not in doubt at all. She’s so deeply in love with him that she refuses to marry anyone else and in effect, gives up the throne for him (Escaflowne Compendium). CONS: See Marlene. And Millerna. A man can only climb a family tree so many times. And again, there’s the ‘her royalty, him not’ thing and the father-in-law from hell. |
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| Millerna Aston |
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| Hitomi Kanzaki |
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| Merle |
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| Naria & Eriya |
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