Luna

Here's another topic to explore. Although a Ceiphied Knight, Lina's terrifying sister, Luna, is not a sorceress. She is a swordswoman and part-time waitress who killed a plasma dragon with an ordinary kitchen knife. At least two reasons are given in the canon for Lina's cause for leaving: 1. Projecting Luna's image bathing for money 2. Luna told her to go explore the world.

According to one Slayers Special where Lina and Naga contested their domestic arts, Lina said Luna also made sure Lina had homemaking skills. Gee, not their mother?

Yes, I have noticed that, yet we have no information that Lina's mom is dead. I suspect she was absent a lot. the question is why.

In my fanfic "Slayers Future Perfect" I dabble in the idea that she and Lina's father started off life struggling to become successful merchants and so she had to travel with him a lot. I also speculated that they had no close relatives for some reason, so Luna had to be Lina's baby sitter, starting at far too young an age. So both girls had a rough go of growing up resulting in Lina fearing Luna.

Of course, in my fanfic, they got better...

It is also possible, and I have seen this in reality too, that a big sister can just assume she's as good as, or better than, mom, when it comes to knowing what's best for little sis, and inflicts herself on same.

But yeah, it's an interesting question...

I hear there's a few more random mentions of Luna in the Manga and Novels, but this is yet again one of the things we need more Slayers stuff to dabble into. There's just too big of a story that it would take 100 books to start hitting everything!

I don't think Lina's mom is dead. I think she's still alive because Lina's mentioned a few times that her both of her parents own a grocery store in Zephilia. Also in Slayers Special with Gourry's side story, Lina's father says (According to QP's translation) "I've quit smoking now. My wife and children dislike my smoking." I don't think that he would mention his wife not liking his smoking if she was dead.

Maybe Luna just taught Lina some houseworking skills because her mom was busy with the shop; or maybe like you said, Luna might've thought that she was better at it than their mother.

It could be that while the husband's away "being a traveling merchant/ fisher" (secret mercernary) that Lina's mother has to do all the work. Personally I think she's busy making whine that the kingdom is well known for and I've been toying with a notion that maybe she does side work as a town healer/ white mage sorta thing. So because their mother is SO busy Luna was STUCK with having to be responsible for her little overactive, mischevious sister. I'm thinking she might have been much more patient and mature than Lina but deep down she doesn't want anything to do with the enormous amounts of power inside of her so when Lina does something wrong she takes it out on her a little. Being Lina she probably deserved rash punishment but not THAT rash.

In one of my fanfics (for the anime version) I had Luna being the unknown source of Lina's fear of Slugs. Lina was looking at a frog in a pond, Luna snuck up behind her and pushed her into the pond. When Lina surfaced she was COVERED with slugs, Luna rushed to the house, came back with a canister of salt, tossed all of it on the slugs and all of them shrived/ fell off of Lina. Of course this is just my wild imagination and fanfic ponders so I'm probably off. CREATIVE but off

If Lina' and Luna's mom was away for only a short while healing, or is downstairs in the store, what stops Lina from tattling? Ot did she do that, and Luna was vindictive enough to get revenge anyway?

Actually, maybe she is. I have read that there is supposed to be a description from Kanzaka-sama, but I don't know where it is, that Lina fears slugs because when she was bad one time, I think when she was eight, Luna snuck out and filled her bed with slugs while Lina slept, so that she woke up covered in them. I just can't confirm if it's canon or not.

As far as I know whineries are usually in a separate building than a main house sometimes like a barn or something closer to it. The place where you store the whine afterwards in usually in an underground apartment much like a basement. Hey, wasn't there mention of her parents running a grocery store somewhere too?

I've heard they ran a general store, never heard about the winery. But, having raised kids, trust me, they can wait all day then assail you on getting home with "MOMMMMMM. (or daddddddd) LUNA HIT ME!!!!. And if they live upstairs and your store is down stairs, you'll hear every scream, bang, bump, shout, and impact as they go toe to toe for the world heavyweight cage fighter championship...

No, just being away from the kids a short distance won't explain it. Either Luna threatened Lina with worse than murder if she told, but if she was that scary Lina would never have dared the Shadow projection, or she had some other hold on her. And then there is the apparent raising of Lina that has to be figured in somehow.

I can only think of two explanations, neither of which is fully satisfactory. Either Lina's parents were not around very much at critical times, or Luna took it on herself to raise Lina whether her parents wanted it or not. If you go with the latter I also see it as most likely that Lina was a trouble making brat, probably motivated by jealousy over Luna's "gift", and who initiated most of the "exchanges" by doing something spiteful to Luna, who didn't tell her parents, but rather dealt with Lina herself, leaving mom and dad in the dark.

Though how you explain away a bed full of slugs...

Lina's parents have indeed a grocery store. The wine thing came from the scene on Motion Picture, that's all. So that is fanon.

It could be possible, as PrincessK492 said, that mom was too busy with the shop to train Lina in domestic skills. She has to work all day, most probable, while Luna have just a part-time job. And it was Luna who accompanied Lina to Dilss when she was young (or younger, lol), and there she knew about LON.

Yeah, but you don't fear your big sister for teaching you domestic skills. And who taught Luna?

And Lina probably didn't fear Luna right off the bat, it was a learned response over the years. Plus, in Next, when she had to face the giant slug monsters Lina called out for her mommy, her daddy, and her sister to make them go away. Not Gourry, even though he was right beside her.

Besides, it doesn't appear that Lina's fear of Luna is simply craven fear of being beaten or something, I get the impression that she's afraid of failing her sister, or of failing to her sister. One wonders if Lina's wandering the world at her sister's suggetion implies Luna driving her out, or encouraging her to take wing. Though I don't know of too many parents that let 13 year olds head out into the world to make their way, that does sound more like a run-away sort of thing.

Disfunctional family?

The slugs thing is just an invention from the anime, Kanzaka denied that that idea came from him in an interview, so "it doesn't matter" if it doesn't match with Kanzaka's info of Lina. That could be called "oficial fanon" =/

How much anime have you seen, or videogames have you played? ^^u Most anime and videogames young main characters are arround 12-16 years =/ and specially in heroic fantasy, the characters are usually very young.

Well, you know that most people lears domestic skills just from watching their mothers, they don't have to "teach", just "do".

Well, Lina began his magic studies because she wanted to beat Luna in something. She couldn't match her in sword skill, so she decided on magic. And it was then were Luna encouraged her to learn more about the world. By the time Lina left home, she already knows the Dragon Slave, the most powerful spell on Black Magic (well, it's not 100% clear, but we can asume that, it's the most probable), so I don't think she could be afraid of failing anybody =/

And Lina has come back home twice already, at least. Once, in her travels, she found a magic sword and gave it as gift to her sister. And after the Rezo saga, she came back again and found "Spot" there (Gourry is not mentioned in this event, so even if he was there, I don't think it would be like the scene in novel 15, when it's Gourry who suggest to go visit Lina's home).

The slugs thing is just an invention from the anime, Kanzaka denied that that idea came from him in an interview, so "it doesn't matter" if it doesn't match with Kanzaka's info of Lina. That could be called "oficial fanon" =/

I must admit that for all my years of research I am still finding out things that Kanzaka didn't originally intend for Lina. I wonder, how much creative control did he have over the series?

Maybe we need to look at it like this. We have two alternate universes of Lina Inverse. One is the pure Kanzaka-sama world of the novels, and the other is the Kanzaka-sama inspired world of the Anime/Manga. If we do that, then we can divide our discussions, games, etc. into one world or the other.

How much anime have you seen, or videogames have you played? ^^u Most anime and videogames young main characters are arround 12-16 years =/ and specially in heroic fantasy, the characters are usually very young.

Actually I am aware of that. However, the animes or games often provides a reason why this has to be. Example, in "Kiki's Delivery Service" Kiki has to leave home at 13 for a year to develop her witchcraft because that is something witches have to do. It didn't matter if her mother liked it or not, she had to let her girl go. She had to do it herself as a girl too. So there was internal consistency with the story about why a 13 year old girl left home. There are also a lot of orphans making their way in the world, things like that (Riho in "Nightwalker"). And of course you get people like Usagi (Sailor Moon) or Sakura (CCS) who don't leave home to develope their powers, so it isn't some mandatory convention of the anime world that all 13 year olds MUST leave home...

There may be one, but I have not yet found a real reason given in the Slayers world for why Lina left. In fact, there are a lot of unanswered questions about Lina's early life. I do realise there is convention in some of these stories, but I am trying to see past the convention to what is supposedly going on. And as a father and a grandfather I can assure you, in our real world, 13 year old girls don't leave home for no reason. When they do go it is about 99% someone running away from what she thinks is abuse, unless I've been lied to about the statistics (It could happen, lies, damned lies, and statistics... ) So, I wonder why Lina left, and based on the knowlege at my disposal, it doesn't look too good, magical girl or not. But, I don't know everything, and I also do keep in the back of my mind some of this stuff has to do with the terget audience in Japan, that sort of thing...

Well, you know that most people lears domestic skills just from watching their mothers, they don't have to "teach", just "do".

Sorry, as a father of 2 daughters, now fully grown and quite capably domestic, and as someone who actually knows how to help around the house, I can assure you, just watching does NOT teach you much of anything. especially when you are a little kid there are ever so many whys...

But I can see a situation where Luna might have had the benefit of her mother's time but not Lina. I hadn't thought of it earlier, but, what if there was a war? Dad's at the front, mom's trying to keep it all together, and Luna just has to help with Lina, being too young to run off and be the Knight of Ceiphied hero of Zephielia she wants to be? So, we have a lot of stress in society, a lot of private fears about "What if dad desn't come home? What if we lose?" that sort of thing?

After the war the family dynamic has changed, dad's a bit of a stranger dealing with the horror he saw on the battle field, and mom might not be able to just go back to being mom. Lina and Luna are in some sort of a sibling power struggle, and this leads to Lina being uber motivated to be better than her sister, possibly with an eye to being the real saviour of Zephielia next time, rather than mean old Luna? Then, around age 13, so definitely not the shadow projection episode, something happens that makes Lina think she'll never be as good as Luna? Given her breast size hang up, I suggest puberty. No growth spurt, so Luna is taller, no swelling breasts, so Luna is more "feminine", I could see Lina being devastated. 13 year olds can misinterpret a lot...

Well, Lina began his magic studies because she wanted to beat Luna in something. She couldn't match her in sword skill, so she decided on magic. And it was then were Luna encouraged her to learn more about the world. By the time Lina left home, she already knows the Dragon Slave, the most powerful spell on Black Magic (well, it's not 100% clear, but we can asume that, it's the most probable), so I don't think she could be afraid of failing anybody =/

Yeah, but, learning a lot of magic and learning about the world are not the same thing. I think Luna helped Lina realise that no matter what, for some reason Luna's life was bound up in Zephielia, so if Lina wanted to be her own person she would have to find her life out in the world. I don't think Luna nessessarily drove Lina off, but at the same time I think Lina had reached the point where she just couldn't take being around her sister any more because she felt like a failure and was depressed, or something along those lines. Even so, I don't see mom and dad sanctioning her leaving home at 13 unless a better reason than any I have suggested is found.

And Lina has come back home twice already, at least. Once, in her travels, she found a magic sword and gave it as gift to her sister. And after the Rezo saga, she came back again and found "Spot" there (Gourry is not mentioned in this event, so even if he was there, I don't think it would be like the scene in novel 15, when it's Gourry who suggest to go visit Lina's home).

Yep, but again, some of this might be conflict between the different versions. We still need to know why Lina would build a tomb for herself and howl "Sister forgive me!" like she does in Try, or we need to find a way to exclude that, since Try is definitely the least Kanzakaish of the three anime. Still, no one says that when she went home she wasn't afraid of her sister. But I think it isn't her sister herself Lina fears, it is failing her sister, or failing to her sister. In the Try episode you could say that Lina realised Luna was sending her on a mission and paniced that she couldn't do it and Luna would be upset with her. That maybe what she was asking for forgiveness for, her assumed future failure, before she even found out what was up. But she got it out of her system and went and kicked Darkstar's butt after all. Still, this isn't a normal reaction between siblings, so the question remains, what's driving it?

Besides anime convention that is...

I think there is a difference on Lina's take on Luna between the novels and anime too. In the novels Lina mentions her as being more patient than her and so far whatever else she mentioned of her sounded more like high respect and authority figure. Of course some young people do have problems with authority, act out, get caught and then get punished. Being frowned apon by someone you highly respect and look up to can be as harsh as physical punishement.

The anime version points to more of a sibling rivarly. It sounds to me like Lina purposesly got under Luna's skin to get a reaction or purposely did things she knew was wrong to try and get away with it... but she didn't. Being as stubborn as she is she never got the hint until many bruises and punishments later. By then, Luna was beyond the breaking point. Ya know Karma can kick major butt sometimes. This could also explain the possibilty that Luna had something to do with Lina's fear of Slugs without her knowing it. If Lina knew it she wouldn't have shouted for her sister when that Giant Slug scene took place.

That's just the way I see it as. Does Lina even mention her parents in the novels?

A Ni-san Quest?

Yeah, she does. She only mentions them every once in a while though, and she doesn't talk about them for that long. I think all that she mentions is the fact that her parents are merchants and run a grocery store, they live in Zephilia, and that her dad used to be a mercenary and that her mom used to be a sorceress.

I know she mentions them, but I might be confusing a few of the things that she says with some things that Kanzaka-san has said.