Gourry Gabriev - Plot Overview

Plot Overview

Gourry is first seen when Lina is having a conflict with the surviving members of the Dragon's Fangs (she had previously decimated most of their band, killing their leader, and took a fair chunk of their treasure for herself). Believing Lina to be a "babe, a luscious damsel in distress", Gourry steps in and warns the bandits to leave her alone or else they'll have to deal with him in what Lina calls a "battle of the cliché men" (in the original Japanese language version). The bandits decide to attack him instead and a violent fight breaks loose, with Gourry demolishing the bandits and sending one running away without any clothes on. When Gourry discovers that Lina is not the beautiful maiden he had thought but merely a small, under developed teenager - he actually thinks she's a little girl - he displays a vain, shallow streak of disappointment, much to the embarrassment and humiliation of Lina, who wasn't even in any danger, given her powers as a sorceress. This superficiality is a stark contrast to the behavior Gourry displays throughout the rest of the series, in which he is basically a nice guy, albeit a ridiculously dense and tactless one. Assuming that Lina is a lost little girl, he offers to escort her home when her real objective is to get to Atlas City, but she plays along with his misconception and, upon hearing that her goal is to reach Atlas City, he vows to escort her there at any cost. Along the way Gourry shifts gears into the more familiar nice guy persona that would define him for the remainder of the series.

Gourry remains Lina's closest, most consistent companion throughout the series, traveling with her even when their other two friends, Zelgadis and Amelia, are off somewhere else. Though Lina once claimed she only let him tag along because she wanted his family heirloom, the legendary Sword of Light, they continued to travel together long after the weapon was no longer in Gourry's possession, with Lina instead saying she stayed with him so she could help FIND him a new sword. Despite her frustrations with Gourry's seemingly apparent lack of mental agility, among his other habits such as making frequent blunt observation about Lina's less-than-favorable traits (which usually results in Lina abusing him with objects and nasty spells), Lina eventually falls in love with him, and he apparently falls in love with her. Despite this, their relationship never blossoms fully within either the manga, light novels or the anime. However this lack of a developing relationship is partly because Lina, as a zesty, whimsical but not fully emotionally matured teenager, is not adept at expressing affectionate or romantic feelings. Instead, their relationship is referred to and makes presence in the series through slightly more subtle ways other than blatant public affection. The two have proven to be a highly effective combo in battle, and often can sense what the other is thinking. They actually shared a kiss at the end of Slayers Next when Gourry came to rescue Lina from the Lord of Nightmares, but they didn't remember it afterwards. In Evolution-R, a fish man named Toppi, inquires "You love Lina, don't you?" out loud to Gourry. While Lina stumbles through a denial in embarrassment, Gourry doesn't vocalize a denial at all—the closest to a confession present in the anime to date. At the end of the original novel series when Gourry asks Lina to visit back her hometown in Zephillia, Lina thinks that he's proposing to her and that's the reason he wants to visit her family.