ZELAGDIS GRAYWORDS
Age: 18 or so.
Family: Unknown, except for Rezo, who is his Grandfather or something.
Occupation: ....Magic-user?
Powers/Abilities: he's very, very good at magic, for one thing. He can do a multitude of other things too, such as lockpicking, guitar-playing, sculpture, swordfighting, etc. Also, since his body is made out of rock, he makes a great bodysheild ^^
Weaknesses: The Sword of Light can really hurt him, he's not the friendliest of people, he can be pretty darn stubborn when he sets his mind to something, and has very low self-esteem.
Hobbies: Trying to find a cure for his body, and...um...guitar-playing?
Likes: Hanging around with Lina and co, Amelia (^^), swordfighting (I assume so, he sleeps with his sword for crying out loud!), gourmet food.
Hates: Xellos, his body, Rezo...um...that's all I can think of right now. ^^;;;
Quote o' the Moment: "Of course. It's that time of the month." (what does HE know about that time of the month?!)
At first, it seems like Zel is the bad guy in Slayers. After all, he's after the main character, he's mysterious, and he's got the henchmen, so why not? But when he goes and rescues Lina after capturing her, it becomes apparent that Zel's not the bad guy after all. Actually, the real bad guy in the series is a priest by the name of Rezo, who it turns out is actually a relative of his, and is also the one responsible for how his body looks.
Y'see, when Zelgadis was a young strapping lad, he spent all his time working out with a sword, trying ot get stronger and more powerful. Then Rezo came up to Zel and offered him oodles and oodles of power, if he'd serve him. Zelgadis promptly agreed, and Rezo turned him into a chimaera (part golem, part demon, part human. I think that's how the combo is...). Not exactly what he'd wanted. As a result, his body became stone, his hair became wire, and Zelgadis became really pissed. Understandibly, he didn't like Rezo much from then on.
Since he doesn't like his body at all, Zel's main goal in life is to get back to normal. In fact, he's just a wee bit obsessive about this. He's willing to do anything to get his human body back, including ditching his friends. Yes, he can be a bit of a jerk about the whole body thing, but we all have our bad moments, ne? And if you lie and say you have the means to turn him back, and he finds out you're lying, you are SO dead.
In terms of personality, think Piccolo Lite. He's just as dour and serious as Piccolo, but he cuts loose a lot more, and since he's the straight man in a comedy series, lots and lots of *slightly* embarrassing things happen to him, some of which include cross dressing, wearing a bunny suit, getting cannonballs bounced off his head, and even joining in on a really girly duet between Amelia and Lina. Also, he takes himself less seriously. In one instance, he gets used as an anchor for a ship, and when they finally pull him back up, he's actually perfectly fine, but he fakes being drowned so he can get mouth-to-mouth from his love interest Amelia. Of course, he gets some old guy instead of Amelia, and is thouroughly disgusted afterwards. Such as life.
The Piccolo Lite thing is the same in the physical sense as well, he's a lot less bulky than Piccolo, but at the same time, he's not a weakling. Not much can hurt you when your body is made of stone, after all. Whenever Zelgadis isn't around his friends, he pulls down his hood and masks most of his face so people won't see him.
This mostly has to do with his plummeting self-esteem. He thinks that due to his body, everybody thinks he's some kind of sideshow freak, and even states this once in a while. This is a bit odd, because in the episodes I've seen, nobody's actually called him anything like this. In fact, his friends actually like the way he looks, they think the blue skin and purple hair look cool. But it's probable that people might've made fun of him when he first got his body, and we don't know what his life was like before he got turned into a chimaera. And life as a chimaera must suck sometimes. If you try to give your friend a friendly pat on the back, you end up giving him a gigantic bruise for a week, and if you try to bang your head against a wall or table in frustration, your wire hair gets stuck in the wood.
Zel's love interest is Amelia Will Telsa de Seillune. I could go on forever about these two. I love this couple! I'll try to keep this relatively short, though. At first, she thought he looked kinda weird, and he thought she was pretty obnoxious, but as the story moves on, it becomes apparent that the two have developed feelings for each other. This relationship really works, mainly because they counterbalance each other out quite nicely. Amelia tones down Zelgadis' depressiveness, while he does the same for her inexhaustable sense of justice and hyper tendencies. She cheers him up when he's down, which is most of the time, and he brings her back down to earth when she gets in one of her "lets save the word and bring justice to the land" moods. They've got similar hairdo's, they both study the same kind of magic, their personalities match, and they're perfect together. That's about it in a nutshell.
I think part of the reason why I like Zelgadis so much is because he's so much like Piccolo, and yet at the same time, he's got a personality all his own. The first time I saw him, something inside me twanged, and I thought, okay, that guy is my favorite. Also, I've always had a thing for characters with pointy ears, and to top it off, Zelgadis is my favorite color!
ZELGADIS LINKS:
Zelgadis Takes Over the World!!
Isn't that an awesome name for a site? This place is awesome. I love the Zel chibis all over the place!! Lots of images, songs, etc.Zelgadis: I am a Rock, I am an Island...
This is where I got the awesome Zel music video. Go download it now to get a good idea of Zel's character, from cool to silly. Oh, wait, this description is supposed to be about the site... Well, it's great too!The Chimaera Kage
One of the best Zel shrines on the net, period. Just plain fantastic.All Zel, All the Time!
I like this page mostly because of the truckload of images ^^.