| 1 | A list of characters that appear in ''Spice and Wolf'' and the various tropes associated with each. Characters specific to ''Wolf and Parchment'' should go on that series's subpage. |
| 2 | ---- |
| 3 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 4 | |
| 5 | !! Protagonists |
| 6 | |
| 7 | [[folder:Kraft Lawrence]] |
| 8 | [[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/kraft_lawrence.jpg]] |
| 9 | ->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/JunFukuyama (Japanese), Creator/JMichaelTatum (English), Juan Carlos Román (Latin American Spanish) |
| 10 | |
| 11 | A traveling merchant. After finding Holo in his cart, he agrees to allow her to travel with him to her home, Yoitsu. |
| 12 | ---- |
| 13 | * AboveTheInfluence: When Holo [[spoiler: finds out that her home has been destroyed]], and has [[HeroicBSOD an appropriate breakdown]], she makes it clear that she doesn't want to be alone and that she'd be much happier if Lawrence would mate with her and give her a child. Immediately afterwards, without him saying anything, she realizes that he's not going to take advantage of the situation, because he's a gentleman (but also because she's clearly not in her right mind). |
| 14 | * AchillesHeel: Holo notes that his business savvy fails him around women because he can't tell when they're lying to him. |
| 15 | * AintTooProudToBeg: When a bad business deal with the Latparron Trading Company puts him deep in debt to the Lemerio Trading Company and he only has two days to pay back the money he owes, Lawrence is reduced to begging for money from his business contacts and fellow merchants. All of whom -- even one who owes Lawrence a debt -- scornfully refuse him due to Holo's presence, thinking he'd been wasting his money on her. |
| 16 | * AlmightyJanitor: Lawrence ends up running rings around entire companies, forging business agreements between nobles and company executives, and standing up to the all-encompassing Church. The things Lawrence has done could have meant the difference between life and death for entire cities. And yet, Lawrence is nothing more than a "lowly traveling-salesman." Due to odd circumstances, Lawrence ends up flying under the radar all the time since to get noticed or respected at all in the business world requires some sort of power play, while Lawrence usually uses what means he gains to get the hell out of Dodge and see Holo on her way to Yoitz. |
| 17 | * AmazonChaser: |
| 18 | ** Despite Holo's insistence that he likes women who are 'weak and vulnerable', he falls for the one who gives him no end of grief and can turn into a CanisMajor. |
| 19 | ** He later admits to himself that he could have fallen in love with Eve, an equally resourceful and dangerous woman who has nearly gotten him killed before. Much like Holo, it is her mixture of awe-inspiring capabilities and personal vulnerabilities that they reveal to Lawrence that drags him in. |
| 20 | ** After speaking with a clever and confident barmaid in Lenos, he starts to wonder if he HasAType. |
| 21 | * AntiHero: He isn't willfully unfair or cruel to those that are fair in return, but a merchant's got to make ends meet too, and expresses little if any guilt over exploiting as much as he can to whomever does the same to him. |
| 22 | * BabiesEverAfter: At the end of the first light novel series, he [[spoiler:is married to Holo and has a daughter named Myuri]]. |
| 23 | * BewareTheNiceOnes: Lawrence is unwaveringly polite, easy-going, and approachable. Double-cross him however, and he'll use these same traits to mask his true intentions while [[PragmaticHero ruthlessly extorting as much profit as humanly possible.]] |
| 24 | * CharacterDevelopment: Under Holo's influence, Lawrence has slowly but surely grown to take bigger risks, becoming more confident in his abilities, and rediscover genuine warmth for others by finding more to life than earning money. |
| 25 | * CharlesAtlasSuperpower: A downplayed example but the light novels state that traveling merchants are in great physical condition because they're constantly traveling and carrying heavy loads. |
| 26 | * TheChessmaster: In the 9th and 10th books, Lawrence relays his belief that this is a weak spot with him, compared to his zest for {{Indy Ploy}}s, since all his experience is in small scale one on one deals, compared with some younger merchants brought up into business management. He outdoes them regardless, [[ThePowerOfFriendship once Holo and Col do some footwork]]. |
| 27 | * ChickMagnet: He draws the attention of at least one girl ''besides'' Holo in ''nearly every arc''. |
| 28 | * ConspicuousConsumption: Averted. The knife he carries with him is made of silver, but he did not buy it to show off his wealth. It's easier to carry a knife made of silver than a bag with the same amount of silver, and the former is more useful in everyday life than the later. Also, [[SilverHasMysticPowers silver is supposedly effective against evil spirits]] so if he meets one, he's ready. |
| 29 | * CrazyJealousGuy: The idea of losing Holo to another man is one of the few things that truly get under his skin. |
| 30 | ** When Holo offhandedly mentions one or two previous lovers, he immediately feels irrational dislike for these men that he has never met, and who haven't shared Holo's company in a long time. |
| 31 | ** He felt so threatened by Amarty that he challenged the kid to a merchant's duel. |
| 32 | * CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: It's never really highlighted, but art in the novels, (anime and manga less so) show him to be a pretty big dude. Every single physical confrontation he gets into ends very quickly but he'd rather solve his problems with deals. |
| 33 | * CurtainsMatchTheWindow: He has grey hair because he leads a stressful life. |
| 34 | %%* DeathGlare: Season 2, Episode 4. |
| 35 | * DistressedDude: More often than not. Holo makes fun of him for having to save him instead of the reverse. |
| 36 | * DivineDate: His girlfriend is a wolf deity. |
| 37 | * DoomMagnet: Following his encounter with Holo he can never seem to get out of trouble or dangerous situations. Holo lampshades it. |
| 38 | * DudeNotFunny: InUniverse: He gets upset when Holo starts making jokes about wolves eating humans and snaps at her to stop it since he's seen it before. A depressed-looking Holo eventually responds that wolves basically fear humans and also fail to understand them, leaving them unsure of how to behave around them. |
| 39 | * EveryoneHasStandards: Profit or no profit, he declares a merchant always honours their contracts and fulfils them. |
| 40 | * FailureIsTheOnlyOption: Sometimes played straight due to barely breaking even in some of his deals. More invoked than anything, since he and Holo both want to remain traveling together as long as they can. |
| 41 | * FearIsTheAppropriateResponse: Is petrified when he first sees Holo's true form. It nearly costs him their friendship. |
| 42 | * {{Greed}}: A flaw he's all too aware of. More than once he's gotten the attention of companies and merchants alike after overestimating the odds. This bites him particularly hard in Volume 3, where he's tricked into buying large amounts of weapons and armor on-credit -- with the Latparron Trading Company failing to mention that the market for those items has tanked. His debt is transferred to the almost-bankrupt Lemerio Trading Company, and he's left with only two days to repay the debt or be sold into slavery. |
| 43 | * GuileHero: Uses his business skills and connections to solve many problems. Almost all problems, as a matter of fact, and it's a point of pride for him. |
| 44 | * HeroicSelfDeprecation: He has zero self-esteem and quite possibly a lot less than that. One of his biggest flaws is that he can be discouraged by anything he might perceive is out of his league. At which point Holo is likely to at times literally bite some sense into him. |
| 45 | * HonorBeforeReason: Played with. He never deliberately cheats anyone but he will gleefully blackmail someone that he catches trying to cheat ''him''. He normally avoids smuggling because there's too much risk, not because of a sense of fair play or morality. Ultimately played straight: "I want to make sure we can still live with ourselves at the end of the day!" [[spoiler: Lumerio trading company tried to kill him during a deal and the only reason he didn't run off with all their investment in the deal is because they would go bankrupt.]] |
| 46 | * IGaveMyWord: "I am merchant; my word is my bond." Justified in that a dishonest merchant will go out of business or get beaten to death. |
| 47 | * IgnoreTheFanservice: Lawrence barely reacts to Holo's ShamelessFanserviceGirl tendencies, true to his pragmatic nature. |
| 48 | * IKissYourHand: This is how he teases Holo. The gentlemanly nature of the act makes her blush. |
| 49 | * ImplausibleHairColor: It wouldn't be unusual for a man in his fifties to have ''gray'' hair, but Lawrence is in his twenties (though some people in real life do have this). By all accounts, he's had a stressful life -- though the fact that [[spoiler:his daughter inherits his grey hair]] indicates it's his natural color. |
| 50 | * IndyPloy: Lawrence's single greatest strength is the ability to get on the ground and adapt to situations, by his own estimation. |
| 51 | * InterspeciesRomance: Lawrence is a human and while Holo usually looks like a young girl, she's actually a giant wolf. |
| 52 | * IntrepidMerchant: A one-man traveling business is dangerous, what with the risk of being robbed by bandits, attacked by wild animals, and tricked into making bad business deals by merchant guilds due to being out of the loop while traveling. |
| 53 | * JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Before meeting Holo, he leaned heavily on the jerk side, as outside of business interactions he's never really had any lifelong connections to maintain. The heart of gold part comes off more as they grew closer to each other. |
| 54 | * MayflyDecemberRomance: Lawrence is a 25-year-old human who falls in love [[spoiler:and eventually marries]] a centuries-old wolf goddess. |
| 55 | * MistressAndServantBoy: He sometimes feels Holo acts like a spoiled princess that he has to clean up after, such as when she drinks herself stupid and he has to help her back to the inn, fold her clothes etc. |
| 56 | * MrExposition: Is easily half the reason why the setting's merchant life is so [[ShownTheirWork minutely detailed.]] |
| 57 | * MuggleInMageCustody: Holo sees herself as his mistress, believing that she is entitled to ordering him around due to her status as a goddess. The real dynamic between them is more complicated, since Holo is not well adapted to how the world has changed over thousands of years. |
| 58 | * NiceGuy: Played with in that he is extremely pragmatic and occasionally ruthless. On a personal level, though, he is never anything but well-mannered and kind, and he truly hopes no one is actually harmed by his work. |
| 59 | * NonActionGuy: He's not weak by any means, but is much more effective in outsmarting than outfighting his opponents. Holo is initially disappointed in Lawrence for being this, but doesn't object when he points out that things worked out nevertheless. As time goes on though there have been a couple aversions out of necessity, and he does carry a dagger at all times. Early on, he gets stabbed while defending her, then knocks out the stabber. |
| 60 | * NoSocialSkills: Downplayed in the anime, but in the light novels, he's forgotten how to make and hold onto real, non-business related friends, literally forgetting how to interact on a personal level with people by the beginning of the series. Lawrence is later shown to have worked non-stop for the last seven years, his single-mindedness completely disassociating him from most aspects of normal life. He's [[StepfordSmiler created a salesman persona that he defaults to in all situations, sales related or not.]] On the plus side, it's made him an incredibly tactical thinker lacking bias, giving him good judgment and clear sight. He starts to break out of these habits if only because he can't otherwise express frustration at how many times Holo pisses him off so goddamn much. |
| 61 | * OhCrap: Gets at least a few of these in each novel when he realizes he's been outsmarted. It's one of the few reliable ways to see him visibly surprised. |
| 62 | * OneHeadTaller: He's about a head taller than Holo, his traveling companion and de-facto girlfriend. |
| 63 | * PermaStubble: His facial growth is perpetually a few days without a shave, yet a couple weeks from becoming a full-on beard. It's so [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin permanent]] that in episode 7 of season 2 there's a scene where he specifically leaves to shave and comes back looking ''exactly the same''. |
| 64 | * ProtagonistTitle: in a roundabout way; At the end of one arc, Lawrence buys some pepper to sell. He then gets related a story about a merchant getting eaten by {{Satan}} because he was seasoned with the spices that brought his wealth. Afterwards, Marheit makes that TitleDrop listed under him when Lawrence and Holo begin their journey anew. |
| 65 | * SpannerInTheWorks: The 9th book is one long {{Deconstruction}} of the trope as Lawrence struggles to pull himself out of the machinations of his very powerful boss and his very powerful boss' very powerful opponent, Eve. [[spoiler: He does it though, and he impresses them both.]] |
| 66 | * StepfordSmiler: Type A. He's effective at the 'merchant's smile' as the books put it, which is calculated to look friendly yet show none of his true feelings. To the extent that it became his default response to every social interaction. He's steadily forced away from this mentality thanks to Holo, though he still finds it useful when dealing in business. |
| 67 | * WhatTheHellHero: Chewed Holo out for shredding the clothes she borrowed from him when she first transformed into her [[CanisMajor true form]] to save him. It's implied that he was trying to make light of how terrified he was of her because he knew of her FreakinessShame. |
| 68 | %%* WorthyOpponent: To Eve. |
| 69 | * XanatosSpeedChess: Lawrence outdoes ''everybody'' in this regard. His ability to think quickly and in great complexity is matched only by his skill in selecting simple solutions to multiple problems. What he requires are possibilities and a wider context, though, and he is limited when he can only plan ahead. |
| 70 | * YoungerThanHeLooks: He's 25, not that you'd know it looking at him. |
| 71 | [[/folder]] |
| 72 | |
| 73 | [[folder:Holo]] |
| 74 | [[quoteright:337:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/holo_infobox.jpg]] |
| 75 | ->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/AmiKoshimizu (Japanese), Creator/BrinaPalencia (English), Dayana Santiaguillo (Latin American Spanish) |
| 76 | |
| 77 | A wolf spirit who hides in wheat. After watching over a town for several hundred years she leaves after they develop new agricultural methods and convert to a new religion, considering herself no longer needed. |
| 78 | ---- |
| 79 | * AdorableFluffyTail: Holo's luxurious, fluffy tail is her pride and joy. Lawrence will often try to coax her into laying it over his lap on colder days, too. |
| 80 | * TheAgeless: The harvest deity has been around so long, before man even used currency, seeing Kingdoms rise and fall, she can't even remember any details of her life with her wolf pack in Yoitsu, nor can recount all of the Pagan stories about her. |
| 81 | * AintTooProudToBeg: She reluctantly gets down on her knees to plead safe passage from a young male wolf deity in the forests of Ruvinheigen, well out of eyesight of Lawrence. Needless to say, when the Remerio Trading Company betrays them for their troubles, Holo is thoroughly ''pissed off''. |
| 82 | * AndNowYouMustMarryMe: [[spoiler: A non-villainous example. Realizing Lawrence is driven to help others while endangering himself, yet also helplessly consumed by the desire to make a profit [[TheGamblingAddict even when there's none to be had]], she forces Lawrence's hand in Nyohhira. He'll ''never'' achieve his dream of owning a shop in a reasonable timeframe if he keeps this up, so the wise wolf forces him to make an unbreakable contract with her, one of marriage and a happy peaceful life.]] |
| 83 | * AntiquatedLinguistics: Her speech is rather old-fashioned; for example, she addresses Lawrence with the [[UsefulNotes/JapanesePronouns archaic pronoun]] "onushi". In the light novel English translations and dub, Holo uses a mild form that doesn't use contractions. |
| 84 | * BabiesEverAfter: At the end of the first light novel series, [[spoiler:she is married to Lawrence and has a daughter named Myuri]]. |
| 85 | * BadHabits: She commonly disguises herself as a nun so she can hide her ears with a hood and also provide a reason for traveling with Lawrence. She can definitely ''look'' the part, but that's it. |
| 86 | * BarbieDollAnatomy: She spends an appreciable amount of time naked, but in the 2008 anime she's not shown having anything resembling naughty bits. Averted in the manga, where her nipples are shown. This is also averted in the 2024 reboot anime, where Holo has the GodivaHair treatment regarding her nipples and her genitalia is either conveniently censored or out of frame |
| 87 | * BeenThereShapedHistory: She's old enough to have met several historical figures reputed as legendary heroes, at one point recalling having utterly humiliated a paladin later renowned as a monster-slaying saint. |
| 88 | * BewareTheNiceOnes: The wolf god maybe benevolent towards humans in general, and a sweetheart in her human form, but get her proper mad and/or threaten Lawrence by pushing her to show [[CanisMajor her true form]] and there's [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge going to be Hell to pay]]. Among the animal deities only the [[BehemothBattle Moon Hunting Bear]] and [[KrakenAndLeviathan Great Sea Serpent Teuperovan]] outrank her. No army can overcome her. No city can withstand her. |
| 89 | * BigEater: Holo loves to glut herself on food and [[HardDrinkingPartyGirl alcoholic drinks]] at every opportunity, to the extent she's made herself sick with bellyaches and hangovers more than once. Lawrence [[LampshadeHanging notes]] at one point in the manga that [[JustifiedTrope it's all going into the giant wolf form's cavernous stomach]], and furthermore, [[FridgeBrilliance Holo's lupine instincts are to feast on any available food, no matter if she's actually hungry, to have a stockpile of fat for times of famine]]. |
| 90 | * BlackHoleBelly: Even in her human form she seems to have practically unlimited room in her stomach. The best demonstration of this is when she eats an entire roasted pig and her outward appearance doesn't change at all to reflect this. Likely has to do with the fact that her real stomach is (at least) several times bigger than her human form. |
| 91 | * CanisMajor: Her true form is a huge wolf roughly the size of three elephants. |
| 92 | * CatchPhrase: "I am Holo the wise wolf". |
| 93 | * TheChessmaster: As a wolf, she is naturally tactically minded, and she supports Lawrence with advice this way. She lacks Lawrence's almost encyclopedic knowledge of the world and is unfamiliar with many aspects of the human realm though, so her impact in that regard is blunted. |
| 94 | * ClingyJealousGirl: She is rather possessive of Lawrence. |
| 95 | ** While she doesn't like shepherds in general because they drive wolves away, she really doesn't like Nora, especially when Lawrence seemed to be getting a little too friendly with her. |
| 96 | ** She insists that he rub a cloth on himself in Lenos so that her scent covers him and will hopefully chase off a barmaid. |
| 97 | ** When Lawrence privately reflects that he could have fallen for Eve, he knows that Holo would be most upset to hear that; "tear his throat out" level upset. |
| 98 | * CuteLittleFangs: She's a wolf, and in her humanoid form her canine teeth sometimes protrude over her lips. |
| 99 | * CuteMonsterGirl: Whilst in what passes as human form for her, she still has wolf ears and a wolf's tail. |
| 100 | * DamselInDistress: Zigzagged all over the map; |
| 101 | ** Her relationship with Lawrence began when she escaped from Pasloe. The village's harvest festival includes locking someone "possessed" by her in a storehouse. |
| 102 | ** She likes to [[DiscussedTrope role play this to tease Lawrence]], knowing how often he fits the role instead. |
| 103 | ** In the first anime arc/first volume, Medio Trading Company captured her to [[IHaveYourWife use her as leverage against Lawrence.]] Though it was more like PlayAlongPrisoner because she was hoping for RescueRomance. |
| 104 | ** Inverted in the second arc, where Lawrence was in danger of bankruptcy. She saved him ''twice'', first with a money-making idea and then as a CanisMajor. |
| 105 | ** In the third arc, she told Amarty that she was captured by slave traders and Lawrence rescued her as a means of explaining why they traveled together. He thought she was a straight example and vowed to free her from ''Lawrence'' by paying her debt to him. |
| 106 | ** In the fourth novel about Tereo she invokes the part to make him act more gallant than usual. |
| 107 | * DeadpanSnarker: Makes fun of Lawrence's awkwardness and the oddities of humans. |
| 108 | * DespairEventHorizon: Crosses this when she discovers [[spoiler:Yoitsu was destroyed a long time ago, although she recovers after venting at Lawrence.]] |
| 109 | * {{Deuteragonist}}: She's the titular wolf, she's Lawrence's traveling companion, and, most importantly, the MythArc is her getting home. |
| 110 | * DivineDate: A wolf goddess who falls in love with a human man. |
| 111 | * ExpressiveEars: Her wolf ears twitch when she hears something interesting and sag when she is feeling sad. |
| 112 | * EyesAlwaysAverted |
| 113 | ** She tends to keep her eyes averted from new people and in negotiations, only directly looking at someone as a tactic to manipulate them (such as Lawrence's moneychanger friend) or after an arrangement of some sort has been reached. |
| 114 | ** The American covers of the light novels (except for the first one) curiously depict essentially the same scene as the Japanese covers, but with a more realistic art style and with Holo's head turned away. |
| 115 | * TheFogOfAges: She doesn't remember a lot of her early life before becoming the patron of Pasloe. She doesn't even remember where Yoitsu really is apart from a vague 'up north' nor the path she took to Pasloe in the first place. This is because she hasn't been there in centuries. She starts to avert it later as they find familiar places in the novels that help recall some of her memory. |
| 116 | * FoodGod: She served as a harvest goddess to a small town before deciding to travel with Lawrence. |
| 117 | * GiantEqualsInvincible: Subverted. Even in the [[EndOfAnAge bygone age of giant animal deities]], she wasn't TopGod, and as she explains to Lawrence, no army is a match for her, but there's only one of her, and she can't defend Nyohhira from attacking forces from multiple sides using siege machines ''all by herself''. |
| 118 | * AGodIAmNot: She hates being worshiped/feared as a goddess, though if pressed she'll admit however reluctantly she does technically fit the requirements of a PhysicalGod. |
| 119 | * GodivaHair: When she's naked, her hair just so happens to conveniently cover the offending locations. |
| 120 | * GoingCommando: She doesn't wear undergarments, likely because taking them off when she needs to transform would take too long. Plus, it would be hard to wear underwear in the first place when you have a wolf tail. |
| 121 | * GreenThumb: Downplayed example. As a harvest deity, she can increase stock yields on most years but unlike traditional examples she has no "superpowers" in this regard. In the light novels and manga, she demonstrates the limit of her abilities in this fashion, a minor miracle by getting harvested wheat to sprout fresh growth in seconds. |
| 122 | * GuileHero: As Holo is all too eager to smugly point out, the Wise Wolf is much more cunning than all the infant humans. |
| 123 | * HardDrinkingPartyGirl: Lawrence often complains that she drinks all their profits. She becomes much livelier when drunk. |
| 124 | * HatesBeingAlone: She's apparently been alone for many centuries by the time she meets Lawrence and the lack of companionship has left its mark on her, which is why Lawrence is taken aback when Holo [[spoiler:suggests they go their separate ways]] in the fourth arc of the anime. When she finds out about Yoitsu's potential destruction at the hands of the Moon Hunting Bear, this trope pushes her near the breaking point that in order to combat loneliness, and fearful the man she loves will [[WeAreAsMayflies pass away in the blink of an eye]], she hysterically asks Lawrence to impregnate her. |
| 125 | * HeadTurningBeauty: Aside from Lawrence, she attracts Amarti, a young boy, and one brewer remarks that her beauty is worth buying her so much alcohol. |
| 126 | * HimeCut: An unusual example in that she's the equivalent to a Caucasian. The bangs and sidetails get messed with in various ways as the series wears on, but it's still depicted as such in art about as much as she is naked. She certainly has the regal personality for it. |
| 127 | * IJustWantToBeLoved: In both light novel and manga, Holo [[HatesBeingAlone desires companionship from people above all]] and was tired of being neglected in Pasloe. Eventually the target of her affections comes in the form of a travelling merchant Lawrence whom she sensed right away was a kind and honest man. |
| 128 | * ImmortalImmaturity: She looks and usually acts like a girl in her teens despite being a harvest god hundreds of years old. |
| 129 | * InterspeciesRomance: Holo is a wolf goddess who takes the form of a young girl and she loves the human man Lawrence. |
| 130 | * IntriguedByHumanity: For a wolf deity who hunts where she pleases and none dare resist, she is ''astoundingly benign'' when it [[HumansAreSpecial comes to lowly people]]. At some point in the past she willingly left the company of her own pack of wolves and animal deities in Yoitsu, because she wanted to see how the fledgling humanity was shaping in the southlands, taking on a human form. Finding every part of their civilization, even the [[HumansAreMorons unnecessary complexities]] all fascinating. Moved by their struggle to survive, she remained in Pasloe to ensure that their town would have a plentiful harvest of wheat for many years. |
| 131 | * JerkWithAHeartOfGold: She has an incredibly good heart and she'll help just about anyone who requests it, but she is very cruel, she likes to be cruel, and she will purposefully try to humiliate and make people suffer if she feels they are worthy in some way. It's a roundabout version of encouragement on her part, and it's described as being a fusion of her hyper-aggressive Alpha-wolf mentality and her affinity as a Goddess for appraising and testing her followers. She's unapologetic about it and won't let up, though. |
| 132 | * JustEatHim: |
| 133 | ** She swallows one of the Medio Trading Company's hired thugs to protect Lawrence, although [[SubvertedTrope she later vomits him back up]], and was about to eat Yarei/Chloe before Lawrence begged her to stop. She doesn't like to talk about it, but there are implications she's really eaten people in the past, and she has made threats to eat people who annoy her or threaten Lawrence. |
| 134 | ** When the Lemerio Trading Company betrays Lawrence to seize the profits of the gold-smuggling plan for themselves, Holo invokes this by grabbing the company's enforcers in her jaws and making it look like she swallowed them. Lawrence uses the threat of her eating people to force the truth out of Marten Liebert and strongarm Hans Lemerio into absolving his debt. |
| 135 | ** Considered (but rejected) as a rather final solution to Eve Bolan's troubles with a certain sea creature. |
| 136 | * LargeHam: When she role-plays, she ''really'' gets into it. |
| 137 | * LittleBitBeastly: Holo's guise of a human girl is spoiled by the fact she retains her lupine ears and tail. Unlike [[spoiler:her half-human daughter Myuri]] she cannot hide them for brief periods to completely pass as a human, forcing her to cover them with a headcloth or hood and a long skirt or waist wrap to avoid exposure. Oddly, other wolf characters who appear in the series, such as the siblings Aram and Selim, do not have these features in their human forms, suggesting that it is a consequence of Horo's great age and power as an ancient wisewolf making her lupine features intrude even onto her human guise. |
| 138 | * LivingLieDetector: Thanks to her wolf ears she can detect lies, and she takes pride in this. |
| 139 | * LongHairIsFeminine: Holo's hair is long and beautiful. Lawrence (privately) admits that he has a weakness for such hair; not only is it visually appealing but often a sign of high status. |
| 140 | * LongLived: It's stated that Holo isn't immortal, but her lifespan is way, way beyond that of humans. Considering she's at least several hundred years old yet looks like she's in her mid-teens, it's safe to say it's on the order of millennia. |
| 141 | * LoopholeAbuse: How she with up traveling with Lawrence in the first place. During the harvest festival at the village she originally helped, she has to possess the wheat, leaping from one bushel to the next, until she finally possesses the one who reaped the last part of the harvest. However, she's able to possess any wheat, not just what grew in the fields she tended. To escape from the field, she leaps into the bundle that Lawrence had brought in from another location. |
| 142 | * MagneticGirlfriend: In Season Two, Holo deliberately rubs her scent on Lawrence to "mark" him as her companion and chase a bar girl away. As said girl explains, it backfires. Now that he has Holo's scent on him and has admitted that she's his "companion", he is instantly [[ChickMagnet more desirable than usual]]. |
| 143 | * ManicPixieDreamGirl: Downplayed; Holo is less manic than other examples, but she still enriches the life of the once single-minded Lawrence while still maintaining her own identity and having her own issues to deal with. |
| 144 | * MasterOfTheMixedMessage: Lawrence has trouble figuring out where he stands with her from day to day. This slowly fades over the course of the novels, as Lawrence has a better time keeping up with her eccentric behavior. |
| 145 | * MayflyDecemberRomance: If later books are to be believed, Holo fell pretty hard for Lawrence rather early in the series, with Lawrence beginning to reciprocate later. Because Holo's keenly aware she'll outlive Lawrence, she fears becoming too attached and acts very {{Tsundere}} towards him. Lawrence thinks it's immature and unwise given how close they are as friends if nothing else, but he goes along with it because he feels pushing this issue is one of the few things that could truly jeopardize their relationship. He's not going to touch something like that with a ten-foot pole. |
| 146 | * MurderIsTheBestSolution: When Lawrence is gravely threatened, Holo is quite willing to take her wolf form, grab the offenders, and leave it up to Lawrence whether or not she bites. |
| 147 | * NakedFirstImpression: She's stark naked when Lawrence first meets her human form, hiding in the furs of his cart. |
| 148 | * NakedOnArrival: Introduced in her human form with no clothes on. She's a wolf, after all. Her true form has fur, and is far too big for clothes. |
| 149 | * NeverLearnedToRead: Says in volume three that she tried to learn once, but decided to quit, as reading was never needed to hunt prey. Of course this quickly [[SubvertedTrope turns out to be a lie]] -- Holo can read just fine, and was hoping to surprise Lawrence with this later. Unfortunately, [[TearJerker it doesn't quite work out like that]]. |
| 150 | * NobleWolf: Proudly calls herself a "wise wolf", and she was a village's patron deity for a while. |
| 151 | * NotSoAboveItAll: She sometimes will recite to Lawrence over and again "I am Holo! The wise wolf!" before immediately doing something immature or unbecoming for a deity. |
| 152 | * TheOjou: Lawrence often comments (privately) that she acts like a noblewoman with her haughty demeanor or wrinkling her nose at the practical and economical clothes of a second-hand shop. These and other traits enable her to convince others that she really is the daughter of nobility. |
| 153 | * PhysicalGod: In the northern lands, a "god" is defined as "anything beyond a human's capacity to engage" and indeed there is no human force that can match Holo's true form in the field. However even by the standards of most of the other animal folk that appear in the series Holo stands out as exceptionally powerful, with abilities (such as her power over wheat) that can truly only be described as "godlike". |
| 154 | * ReallySevenHundredYearsOld: Holo's human form is explicitly described in every adaptation as that of a ''fifteen'' year old girl in every sense of the word, but she is a centuries-old wolf goddess. |
| 155 | * RedEyesTakeWarning: No one else in this setting has red eyes except the wolf goddess. |
| 156 | * RescueRomance: Holo allows herself to be captured by the Medio Trading Company's thugs so as to play the damel in distress, hoping Lawrence would come rescue her. Discovering that Lawrence was unable to fulfill this fantasy for her was a big disappointment. |
| 157 | * ResortToPouting: For a harvest deity who is [[Really700YearsOld much older than she looks]], Holo is prone to using pouting as a tactic against Lawrence on many occasions, usually to him relenting and giving in to her whims. The fact that she can accompany her pout with [[LittleBitBeastly drooping dog ears and an angrily swishing tail]] probably enhances the effect for her. |
| 158 | * RoaringRampageOfRevenge: Is not shy about resorting to her wolf form if Lawrence is in danger or has been hurt, as Yarai/Chloe and Liebert found out. When Lawrence was betrayed by Hans Lemerio and had been left for dead, she threatened to destroy the city in which Lemerio's guild was based in retribution. [[spoiler:She would have gone after Eve for betraying and attacking Lawrence as well, but he talked her out of it.]] |
| 159 | * TheRoleplayer: Holo definitely likes her roleplaying. |
| 160 | ** A bashful and innocent maiden for flirting with Weiz and Amarti. |
| 161 | ** A mysterious mentor for Klass. |
| 162 | ** She would ''like'' to play a "milky little princess" but Lawrence's refusal to play the part of "brave knight" spoiled her fun in that case. |
| 163 | ** She even ropes others into it, such as leading Lawrence into what he ''should'' say as a romantic bard would, or arranging a dramatic LadyAndKnight performance for Klass and Ayeres complete with a terrifying monster. |
| 164 | * SecretTestOfCharacter: Implied to be doing this to Lawrence in the novels, to make him a better person. It's fully possible it's a convenient justification for her cruel sense of humor, it's [[ShapeshiftingTrickster a bit hard to tell with her.]] |
| 165 | * ShamelessFanserviceGirl: Since Holo is a wolf, she isn't worried about clothing on a fundamental level and isn't all that shy about doffing her clothing entirely if she thinks the occasion calls for it. |
| 166 | * ShapeshiftingLover: Her true form is a giant wolf, but she takes the form of a cute young girl because she's afraid of frightening off Lawrence when he sees her true form. This very nearly happens anyway, as Holo is forced to turn wolf to protect an injured Lawrence. Lawrence reacts badly to being approached by a giant wolf, which in turn only alienates Holo further. Lawrence comes to his senses quickly, though, and manages to salvage the relationship. From then on, Lawrence seems comfortable with both forms, having learned that Holo is the same regardless of appearance. |
| 167 | * SingleWomanSeeksGoodMan: Holo sometimes makes unfavorable remarks about Lawrence's soft-heartedness, but his kindness is probably the main thing he has going for him. That said, she does cultivate him to be more assertive and outgoing to an extent. She dislikes it when he holds back from risky business endeavors for her sake. |
| 168 | * SlasherSmile: In the manga, when Holo learns that Liebert and the Lemerio company have betrayed them and injured Lawrence she breaks out into a vicious grin, complete with GlowingEyesOfDoom, and says she'll kill everyone responsible, accompanied by an ImagineSpot of her eating Hans Lemerio. |
| 169 | * TheTease: |
| 170 | ** Loves to verbally (and occasionally physically) spar with Lawrence about their relationship. Although she can sometimes catch him flat-footed when she puts on the {{Moe}}, Lawrence becomes quite capable of giving as much as he gets as he gets used to her, sometimes even leaving the Wise Wolf flustered in the process. |
| 171 | ** One of the books describes a past encounter with an eleven-year-old boy (Klass), and she pulls this trope on him though words designed to make him blush. In this case, it was about playing TricksterMentor as much as it was her own fun. |
| 172 | * TheTell: A sign of her growing attraction to Lawrence in the OVA is that her tail starts to wag rapidly. Holo is somewhat confused about this reaction. Later on in the light novels, she gets annoyed how he checks her tail to divine her feelings instead of her face. |
| 173 | * TrademarkFavoriteFood: Apples; she once gorged herself on them. |
| 174 | * TricksterGirlfriend: Enjoys teaching Lawrence about human nature, often by showing off her skills in manipulation. Even when flirting with him, she speaks in indirect terms like "Women enjoy men's jealousy" and lets him figure out their personal subtext. |
| 175 | * TricksterMentor: She helps Klass become more courageous and thoughtful by teasing him mercilessly and deceiving him into owning a hero's mantle. |
| 176 | * {{Tsundere}}: She is often haughty and abrasive towards Lawrence but also shows kindness and sympathy. She is equally often abrasively affectionate. |
| 177 | * UnusualEars: She possesses wolf ears, which are very expressive. |
| 178 | * VanityIsFeminine: She spends much of her time in the wagon grooming her tail, and is exceptionally proud of the quality of her fur. In the first volume she asks Lawrence for a comb and in volume 2, oil. |
| 179 | * ViolentlyProtectiveGirlfriend: Attempting to harm Lawrence is an invitation for her to devour the offender. |
| 180 | [[/folder]] |
| 181 | |
| 182 | !! Supporting Characters |
| 183 | |
| 184 | [[folder:Yarei]] |
| 185 | [[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/yarei.png]] |
| 186 | ->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/TomokazuSugita (Japanese), Creator/AustinTindle (English) |
| 187 | A young man who lives in Pasloe and who later betrays Lawrence and Holo to the Medioh Company and the Church. He is replaced by Chloe in the 2008 anime. |
| 188 | ---- |
| 189 | * AdaptationExpansion: His character gets some depth in the second anime, serving a similar role to Chloe. |
| 190 | * AdaptedOut: He is replaced by Chloe in the 2008 anime. |
| 191 | * BitchInSheepsClothing: Seems quite nice when introduced but he's really quite ruthless. |
| 192 | * InVinoVeritas: The motive to his scheme comes out when he gets drunk with Lawrence in the second anime, though Lawrnce thinks nothing of it. |
| 193 | * ManipulativeBastard: Masterminded the silver coin plot along with the Medioh Company. |
| 194 | * OhCrap: When Holo is about to eat him he panics. |
| 195 | * RageAgainstTheHeavens: Tries to turn Holo over to the church because of her "capricious" nature in regards to aiding the harvest. |
| 196 | * ReasonYouSuckSpeech: Delivers one to Holo about how Pasloe no longer needs her due to advances in technology. |
| 197 | * WeCanRuleTogether: Tries this with Lawrence, and then tries to have him killed when he is refused. [[ViolentlyProtectiveGirlfriend Big mistake]]. |
| 198 | [[/folder]] |
| 199 | |
| 200 | [[folder:Chloe]] |
| 201 | [[quoteright:225:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/91496.jpg]] |
| 202 | ->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/KaoriNazuka (Japanese), Creator/JamieMarchi (English), Sara Garcia (Latin American Spanish) |
| 203 | |
| 204 | A young woman who lives in Pasloe. She's known Lawrence since she was a little girl and is following in his footsteps as a merchant. She was created for the 2008 anime and replaces Yarei as 'the friend from Pasloe'. |
| 205 | ---- |
| 206 | * BitchInSheepsClothing: Introduced as a NiceGirl, but she's really quite vicious. |
| 207 | * CanonForeigner: She originally appears in the 2008 anime, where she essentially replaced Yarei. |
| 208 | * CanonImmigrant: Included in the 2024 anime as an unnamed villager. |
| 209 | * TheChessmaster: In the 2008 anime, the silver devaluation plot was all ''her'' idea. |
| 210 | * ContinuityCameo: She makes a surprise appearance in the second anime as one of the villagers that chases after Yarei. |
| 211 | * FieryRedhead: Inverted. She's always cool as a cucumber. [[spoiler: Unless Holo transforms and mauls her henchmen, then she's hysteric (though not without good reason).]] |
| 212 | * GenderFlip: Plays the same role as Yarei from the light novel and manga. |
| 213 | * GirlishPigtails: A hint at her remaining immaturity is her pigtails. |
| 214 | * HotForTeacher: She's in love with the man who taught her everything she knows about the merchant industry. |
| 215 | * OhCrap: When Holo is about to eat her she panics. |
| 216 | * RageAgainstTheHeavens: Considering Holo was Pasloe's patron deity until the story began, a girl from Pasloe attempting to burn her can be seen as this. The attitude is foreshadowed when Lawrence muses whether Holo - if she was real - would feel heartbreak or lonely; Chloe is dismissive of the notion and states "How could a god feel either?". Later exclaims that she thinks ''all'' gods are cruel, even as [[spoiler:giant wolf Holo is bearing down on her after dealing with her henchmen; they would've been her (intended) last words did Lawrence not beg Holo to stop]]. |
| 217 | * SheIsAllGrownUp: Invoked in her attempt to convince Lawrence that she was no longer the little girl he knew. |
| 218 | * WeCanRuleTogether: How she attempted to lure Lawrence away from Holo in the first arc; 'We can open a shop together'. |
| 219 | [[/folder]] |
| 220 | |
| 221 | [[folder:Richten Marheit]] |
| 222 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/richten_marlheit_profile.png]] |
| 223 | -->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/HochuOtsuka (Japanese), Creator/ChristopherSabat (English) |
| 224 | |
| 225 | The man in charge of a branch of the Milone Trading Company in Pazzio. |
| 226 | -------- |
| 227 | * CrazyPrepared: When one is a branch in a foreign company, arson and theft are facts of life. One has to be prepared for anything, up to and including a wolf deity used as leverage against you. |
| 228 | * HonestCorporateExecutive: At the end of the first arc [[spoiler:he gives Lawrence 5% of a deal that is related to but separate from their official contract]] because it brought a large profit to Milone Trading Company and it wouldn't have been realized without Lawrence's help with the first deal. On the whole, he's a friendly guy. |
| 229 | * OnlyInItForTheMoney: His thought process can be boiled down to "How can this situation enrich Milone Trading Company". Lawrence had to throw in a legal threat to push him over the top in aiding with Holo's rescue. |
| 230 | * NervesOfSteel: The revelation that the girl his company did business with the other day is truly a wolf goddess surprised him momentarily, then it became one more factor in his calculations. By the time he saw her true form, it was just business. |
| 231 | * NothingPersonal: {{Reconstruction}}. He respects Lawrence and expresses sympathy for his situation [[note]] "if my wife were in danger, I, too, would likely find it difficult to calm myself." [[/note]] but refuses to help because he can't expose his company to risk simply for heroics. Lawrence, a merchant, understands completely and instead appeals to him from a business perspective instead of a personal one. |
| 232 | * ReasonableAuthorityFigure: He initially refuses to aid Lawrence in Holo's rescue because there is no advantage for his company. Later, when ThePlan goes south, he sends more men to rescue them again. |
| 233 | * ShipperOnDeck: He is the first person in the series to ship Lawrence[=/=]Holo. He thinks they're already married because Lawrence isn't treating her like a mere "traveling companion". |
| 234 | * TitleDrop: "Spice and Wolf seems fitting enough to me." |
| 235 | [[/folder]] |
| 236 | |
| 237 | [[folder:Nora Arendt]] |
| 238 | [[quoteright:225:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/55714.jpg]] |
| 239 | ->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/MaiNakahara (Japanese), Creator/LeahClark (English), Ilse Santillan (Latin American Spanish) |
| 240 | |
| 241 | A shepherdess Lawrence and Holo meet on the way to Lubinhegin. |
| 242 | ----- |
| 243 | * AllOfTheOtherReindeer: She is feared by the other townsfolk due to her being a shepherd and successful despite being forced ever further afield. The better she is at her job, the worse it gets. |
| 244 | * BadassAdorable: Lawrence comments on how frail she appears, but she regularly travels through a forest that ''knights'' are afraid to enter. She also stares down Holo's wolf form without flinching. |
| 245 | * BewareTheNiceOnes: She may look like a weak shepherd girl, but Holo admits there is much more to her than meets the eye. |
| 246 | * BitchInSheepsClothing: Invoked, as she really is a NiceGirl but Holo [[DiscussedTrope discusses with Lawrence]] that she's either a "bold sheep" or "a different animal entirely" that wears a sheep's skin. |
| 247 | * GoodShepherd: Puns aside, she used to work at a convent caring for the poor. She's still very devout. |
| 248 | * InnocentBlueEyes: She's sweet and shy but Holo insists otherwise. |
| 249 | * LuminescentBlush: Blushes are practically her default expression in the manga, and Holo delights in teasing her with lewd jokes and innuendos. |
| 250 | * MistreatmentInducedBetrayal: In the light novel and manga, she commits herself to Lawrence's gold-smuggling plot when Lawrence spells it out to her that the Church that she works for is plotting to accuse her of witchcraft and have her executed. |
| 251 | * NervesOfSteel: Even when facing down an elephant-sized wolf-goddess, Nora maintains her cool while Liebert panics and flees. Her composure only breaks when Enik tries to attack Holo and she leaps after her dog to grab him. |
| 252 | * SaintlyChurch: One of the few sympathetic members. In the anime, the Church isn't being malicious (for once); the business they give her is charity on their part, and they just can't find safe or rewarding work for her. This is averted in the novels and manga, where the charity claim is an excuse to keep her from being noticed while providing just enough income to keep her loyal, and let them keep her close while they collect enough "evidence" to accuse her of witchcraft and burn her at the stake. |
| 253 | * UnwittingPawn: Nora never realized that the Church where she lived and worked was sabotaging her attempts to become a seamstress and plotting to have her [[BurnTheWitch burnt at the stake for witchcraft]] until Lawrence spelled it out to her. |
| 254 | * YoungEntrepreneur: What she wants to do is hang up her shepherding staff and open a tailor's shop, specifically selling dresses. Such an undertaking requires significant start-up capital [[spoiler:and is her reason for taking part in the gold-smuggling scheme in Lubinhegin.]] |
| 255 | * WorthyOpponent: Holo, speaking as a wolf, thinks of her as such. If she weren't acting as a traveling merchant she said she would kill Nora before she became a better shepherd than she already was. |
| 256 | [[/folder]] |
| 257 | |
| 258 | [[folder:Hans Lemerio]] |
| 259 | ->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/HozumiGouda (Japanese), Creator/KentWilliams (English) |
| 260 | The head of the Lemerio Trading Company, a borderline-bankrupt merchant guild in Lubinhegin. He assumes Lawrence's debt from the Latparron Trading Company and gives him two days to repay it, later agreeing to Lawrence's gold-smuggling scheme while plotting to betray him to keep the profits for himself. |
| 261 | ---- |
| 262 | * ArcVillain: He's the villain of the second volume, with his floundering trading company assuming Lawrence's debt from a botched trading deal and threatening to sell him into slavery unless he repays them in only a few days time. When Lawrence proposes to smuggle gold with the help of the local shepherdess Nora Arendt, he agrees to this but plots to take all the profits for himself by sending a pair of enforcers to assassinate Lawrence and planning to have Nora accused of witchcraft upon her return. |
| 263 | * NothingPersonal: When confronted over his plot to have Lawrence killed, he initially protests ignorance. After Holo threatens to use her teeth as a guillotine unless he tells the truth, he admits he masterminded it out of desperation to save his business from bankruptcy. |
| 264 | * OhCrap: When Holo transforms into her giant wolf form in his office and threatens to bite his head off unless he cops to his role in the scheme to assassinate Lawrence, he's panicked by having her fangs inches away from his throat. |
| 265 | * ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Invoked on his part, he initially agrees to Lawrence's gold-smuggling plot instead of just having him beaten to a pulp and sold into slavery. However, it's later revealed that he intended to betray Lawrence and Nora all along -- sending a pair of enforcers to kill the former in the forest, and having the latter charged with witchcraft upon returning to Lubinhegin. |
| 266 | * SlasherSmile: When he tricks Lawrence into revealing his identity, he sports an unsettling grin. |
| 267 | [[/folder]] |
| 268 | |
| 269 | [[folder:Marten Liebert]] |
| 270 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/martin_liebert.jpg]] |
| 271 | ->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/KenyuHoriuchi (Japanese), Creator/ChuckHuber (English), Samuel Oseguera (Latin American Spanish) |
| 272 | |
| 273 | A merchant working for Hans Lemerio. He was sent to accompany Lawrence and Nora in the gold smuggling plot, and secretly involved in the scheme to betray them. |
| 274 | ---- |
| 275 | * BeardOfEvil: He has a goatee which is a visual tip pointing towards his incoming betrayal. |
| 276 | * NothingPersonal: His betrayal of Lawrence and planned betrayal of Nora were nothing persona on his or the Lemerio Trading Company's part, and done out of desperation to save the guild from bankruptcy. Unfortunately for him, they made it personal on Holo's part, and she almost bites him to pieces in retribution. |
| 277 | * OhCrap: When Holo grabs him in her wolf form and threatens to eat him, he panics and spills the plot. |
| 278 | * OnlyInItForTheMoney: He was only involved to secure the funds to get the Lemerio Company out of the red, and getting chewed on by a wolf goddess was ''not'' in his contract. |
| 279 | * PunchClockVillain: He was against betraying Lawrence, only doing so because Lemerio told him it was the only way to save their company from bankruptcy. |
| 280 | [[/folder]] |
| 281 | |
| 282 | [[folder:Diana Rubens]] |
| 283 | [[quoteright:225:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dianna_rubens.png]] |
| 284 | ->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/AkenoWatanabe (Japanese), Creator/ColleenClinkenbeard (English) |
| 285 | |
| 286 | An keeper of old tales that Lawrence and Holo meet in Kamersun. |
| 287 | ---- |
| 288 | * DarkIsNotEvil: She wears all black, could be accused of being a witch, and lives in a dark and unpleasant area of town, but is actually quite nice. |
| 289 | %%* EeriePaleSkinnedBrunette: |
| 290 | * TheFace: She represents the Alchemist's Quarter to the rest of the city, arranging deals and such. |
| 291 | * IntriguedByHumanity: [[spoiler: Diana is like many deities who now live among humans in secret after the destruction of Yoitz and gathers stories of romance. Every love story between a mortal and an animal deity has ended in tragedy.]] Hence why she's particularly intrigued by Lawrence and Holo's unwavering love toward each other. |
| 292 | * ReallySevenHundredYearsOld: She is a [[spoiler:centuries-old goddess like Holo]]. |
| 293 | * VoluntaryShapeshifting: She is [[spoiler:actually a bird goddess.]] |
| 294 | [[/folder]] |
| 295 | |
| 296 | [[folder:Fermi Amarty]] |
| 297 | [[quoteright:230:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/amarti.jpg]] |
| 298 | ->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/SaekoChiba (Japanese), Ryan Reynolds (English) |
| 299 | |
| 300 | A young merchant our merchant couple meet in Kamersun. |
| 301 | ---- |
| 302 | * HairOfGoldHeartOfGold: He thinks he's a KnightInShiningArmor and lives up to this standard. |
| 303 | * HeroAntagonist: Opposes Lawrence out of compassion and infatuation, not to mention not knowing all the facts. He's still a good person. |
| 304 | * ImprobableAge: He's a teenager and more successful than merchants with years more experience. |
| 305 | * InconsistentSpelling: His last name is spelled Amati in the light novels' English translation. |
| 306 | * IntrepidMerchant: Like Lawrence, he's a one-man business. |
| 307 | * HopelessSuitor: Holo played with Amarty's affections to get Lawrence a chance to make money, and berates Lawrence for not trusting her more. |
| 308 | * KnightInShiningArmor: What he thinks he is, and he's determined to rescue Fair Lady Holo from her debt. |
| 309 | * LadyAndKnight: He thinks he is just the White Knight to serve and protect Bright Lady Holo, who is darker than she presents herself to him. |
| 310 | * LoveAtFirstSight: When he saw Holo, one could hear the 'Hallelujah's going off in his head. Naturally, she had fun charming him with her TheIngenue act. |
| 311 | * RomanticFalseLead: He competed with Lawrance for Holo's affections. |
| 312 | [[/folder]] |
| 313 | |
| 314 | [[folder:Fleur "Eve" Bolan]] |
| 315 | [[quoteright:229:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/eve_boland.jpg]] |
| 316 | ->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/RomiPark (Japanese), Creator/StephanieYoung (English) |
| 317 | |
| 318 | A merchant Holo and Lawrence meet in the port city of Lenos. She pulls the two into a money-making scheme. She makes reappearances in the later novels, acting as a reoccurring rival to the group. |
| 319 | ---- |
| 320 | * BadassInDistress: She is a formidable merchant and capable with a dagger in combat, but she spends most of the Town of Strife arc locked up and perpetually at risk of being killed by her guard/jailer. |
| 321 | * {{Bifauxnen}}: She has everyone convinced she's a guy. |
| 322 | * DeathSeeker: |
| 323 | ** The plan she hatches with Lawrence in Lenos is suicidal because [[spoiler:it will bring the full wrath of the local church. Lawrence suspects this is the point.]] |
| 324 | ** In the following book, she [[spoiler: blocks up a river with wrecked boats in order to make sure she arrives at the next town before any other merchants, and thus lock up the best prices for herself.]] This is similarly suicidal because it will enrage ''every single person'' who relies on this river to make a living. |
| 325 | ** During the Town of Strife two-part story, someone actually does try to kill her for her schemes [[spoiler: because she may-or-may-not be participating in a coup within Lawrence's merchant guild.]] It is implied that this person's protection is why she hasn't been killed so far. |
| 326 | * {{Foil}}: Contrasts with Lawrence by being a similar lonely, goal-driven traveling merchant -- but she doesn't have a partner like Holo for company and clearly feels bitter about it. While Lawrence learns to value his relationship as more than profit, Eve's drive for success becomes obsessive and dangerous. Also, similarly to Holo, she has to cloak her identity, though because she's a woman rather than a pagan deity. |
| 327 | * MuggingTheMonster: Indirectly: after she tries to [[spoiler:kill Lawrence and then robs him of his share of their Lenos fur deal, he has to talk Holo out of going CanisMajor and hunting her down.]] |
| 328 | * OddlySmallOrganization: The "Bolan Trading Company" is basically just her, by herself, and any one she can convince to work with her on one-off jobs. |
| 329 | * OneWomanArmy: It's not clear at first, but she runs a rather large trading company. The catch is, she's the only person in it. Using a network of contacts that she's somehow skillfully centered on herself [[spoiler: as well as lingering connections due to her own noble blood]], on her own she is able to bring to bear the full resources and political and economic clout of a small nation at will. She just needs time to write a letter or two, and representatives of other companies nearby to manipulate to do her bidding. Unfortunately, this also means that the entire company can be stalled fairly easily if she's caught in a bad situation on a personal level (when she first meets Lawrence, she is also in a certain financial situation that for a few finicky reasons her many connections can't get her out of). |
| 330 | * PetTheDog: She may have betrayed him, but Lawrence admits he can't say he wouldn't have done the same if given the chance. It's a sign of her respect that Eve leaves him a deed to the inn, ensuring him enough money to stay in the game. |
| 331 | * RebelliousPrincess: The daughter of a nobleman, but ran off. [[spoiler:She was in fact married off, and after the husband was killed either by her or his own hand after financial ruin, she stole some money and remade herself as a merchant.]] |
| 332 | * SpellMyNameWithAnS: Due to being a {{Bifauxnen}} and the different pronunciation, some assumed she went by the more masculine "Abe" as a merchant. |
| 333 | * WholesomeCrossdresser: She pretends to be a man because no one would take her seriously "in a frilly pink dress and make up." |
| 334 | %%* WorthyOpponent: To Lawrence. |
| 335 | [[/folder]] |
| 336 | |
| 337 | [[folder:Tote Col]] |
| 338 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/zbfmwbayluf21b.jpg]] |
| 339 | |
| 340 | Introduced in the sixth book (immediately after the anime ends), Col is a traveling student fallen on hard times. Col reaches out to Lawrence in desperation, and to his surprise is taken on board by him and Holo. Col intends to study church law so that he may climb to a position from which he may defend his and other pagan villages. He joins Holo and Lawrence in their travels. |
| 341 | |
| 342 | In ''Wolf and Parchment'', the now grown-up Tote works as Lawrence and Holo's assistant at the Spice and Wolf bathhouse. Learning of a movement to reform the CorruptChurch, Tote sets out to become a religious reformer only to discover that Lawrence and Holo's teenage daughter Myuri has stowed away with him. |
| 343 | ---- |
| 344 | * TheApprentice: He initially joins Lawrence and Holo's company by pretending to be Lawrence's apprentice in merchantcraft. He quickly impresses Lawrence so much that Lawrence has to make a continuous mental effort ''not'' to convince him to be this for real, because he it would take him off the path of his true ambition. |
| 345 | * DeliberatelyCuteChild: Lawrence teaches him that the proper way for a student of his age to beg for food is to exploit his cuteness for all its worth, and if possible to bring in another, younger, kid to amplify the effect. He makes a irresistibly cute beggar in Lenos and certainly brings in a few bucks to help out. |
| 346 | * GoodShepherd: Tote desires to become one for the monotheistic religion that usurped the worship of beast-gods like Holo. However, he acknowledges that the Church is corrupt and in ''Wolf and Parchment'' has been tasked with reforming it with acts like translating the Bible so that commoners can read it. |
| 347 | * HappilyAdopted: After the events of ''Spice and Wolf'', he is more-or-less adopted by Lawrence and Holo, living with them and working at their bathhouse while helping look after and educate their daughter. |
| 348 | * LikeBrotherAndSister: In ''Wolf and Parchment'', the now grown-up Tote has this relationship with Myuri -- Kraft and Holo's daughter -- because he is essentially her older-brother-by-adoption. This is despite her crush on him. |
| 349 | * ShipperOnDeck: He assumes that Lawrence and Holo are lovers, which isn't unreasonable, but he gets really confused when they don't actually do anything with each other except flirt (they're in the middle of a weird MasochismTango because Holo's too scared to confront the fact that they won't be together forever). The poor kid tries so hard to help save what he sees as a sinking marriage. |
| 350 | * UndyingLoyalty: He cares more for Lawrence than he does for Holo. Which is saying something, because Holo has Col whipped even worse than she does Lawrence. |
| 351 | * TheWatson: One of the first things he does is get some coin-shipping info dropped on him for the reader but its later a plot point that he uses this info to uncover something of a conspiracy on the side. His role is mostly to do intel gathering, since as a profession, students are sort of like professional beggars-cum-conmen (though Col kind of sucks at that before he meets Lawrence) and he's ideally placed for that sort of thing. He's also the resident church expert. |
| 352 | * WideEyedIdealist: In an interesting twist, Col isn't so much as naive as he is inexperienced (he never figured out how to beg properly as a student, so his relatively harsh life has jaded him just a little). It's Lawrence's kindness that opens him up to the realities of altruism, and he encourages Lawrence to be that way whenever he can. |
| 353 | [[/folder]] |
| 354 | |
| 355 | [[folder:Lagh Piasky]] |
| 356 | |
| 357 | The [[OneShotCharacter Merchant-of-the-Day]] of Book 10. He is a crafty yet congenial and kindhearted traveling merchant for the Ruvik Alliance. He primarily focuses on colony creation, and as such is leading the alliance's plans to set up villages on territory they're trying to wrest from the abbey of Brondel. He helps Lawrence and co. with their plans to get into the abbey and discover the truth of the wolf god bones kept within. |
| 358 | ---- |
| 359 | * AlwaysSomeoneBetter: Admitted explicitly by Lawrence, and subtly indicated that Holo considered it as well, to be in every way superior to Lawrence. Both are traveling merchants with a kindhearted streak beneath their opportunistic pursuit of profit, but while Lawrence is often barely scraping by helping Holo and Col, Piasky is helping entire peoples find new homes and lives frequently and has the trust of the most powerful trading alliance in the world. He's a better merchant and has been driven to higher heights by his kindness. Both wonder what would have happened if Holo had met him first. |
| 360 | * {{Foil}}: As stated in AlwaysSomeoneBetter, he's essentially a more successful version of Lawrence. Both are traveling merchants, but he's managed to make it much higher in the world. Aside from some brief self consciousness at his inability to measure up, there's no drama from it, and Lawrence and he get along very well. |
| 361 | * NiceGuy: Much like Lawrence, his merchanting goals are directed towards helping others. Namely, leading the way for the founding of markets, towns, and villages for people displaced by warfare and the loss of their previous homes. It's what drives him, and ultimately the Ruvik Alliance as a whole, so desperately to negotiate with the Brondel Abbey, despite the abbey being so intractable that they would have otherwise given up long ago. |
| 362 | [[/folder]] |
| 363 | |
| 364 | [[folder:Huskins, the Shepard]] |
| 365 | |
| 366 | A stoic, elderly Shepard that heads the group of Shepars for the Brondel Abbey. Lawrence, Holo, and Col end up staying at his headquarters during their visit to the abbey. |
| 367 | ---- |
| 368 | * {{Determinator}}: Huskins has spent [[spoiler: untold centuries on the Earth, suffered untold indignities, and made near unthinkable changes to himself]], all to see the abbey and his home protected. |
| 369 | * {{Foil}}: To [[spoiler: Holo. She states she would have fought and died against the Moon Hunting Bear if she had met it, whereas Huskins did see it and fled with no regrets. This is symbolized by their existences as Wolf and Sheep spirits: Holo is ferocious and fights even in the face of doom, whereas Huskins is timid but highly stubborn in the goals he does pursue. Holo questions his determination when he says he fled, but is easily countered by his reply showing he did whatever it took to find a new home.]] |
| 370 | * ImAHumanitarian: A light and twisted version, so to speak. [[spoiler: To fully assume his human persona, he began eating meat. Left unsaid is that this is primarily ''sheep'' meat. Holo vomits when confronted with this fact, and Lawrence suspects its because she had briefly considered whether she too would have been able to eat wolves to survive.]] |
| 371 | * TheReveal: Lawrence notices the heavy footsteps of what he believes to be a thief in the night during a tremendous blizzard. [[spoiler: It is Hushkins, in half-human half-sheep form, making his way back to the abbey after discovering a letter of taxation that will doom the abbey.]] |
| 372 | * SpoileredRotten: Huskins is pretty much just a stoic old shepard before TheReveal. All that can really be said is that he stubbornly protects the abbey. [[spoiler: Of course, readers of the series up until he appears probably figured it out before hand, given the stories of a mythical sheep in the area and a mysterious shepard]] |
| 373 | * TimeAbyss: Even compared to [[spoiler:Holo, Huskins is ancient and is even wiser and more worldly than Holo, putting her off her balance in every conversation they have. Where she displays pride at her conversation triumphs, he merely displays a deep, aged kindness.]] |
| 374 | * TheUnfettered: Huskins has only one goal: protecting the home he has made at Brondel Abbey. [[spoiler: Literally. He built the place as a sanctuary for himself and his fellow spirits in a world increasing dominated by humans.]] He is unusually kind about it, having none of the usual moral quandaries usually raised by this trait. Nevertheless, his defining trait is his stubbornness in defending the abbey from ruin. |
| 375 | [[/folder]] |
| 376 | |
| 377 | [[folder:Myuri (Spoilers)]] |
| 378 | [[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/myuri.png]] |
| 379 | ->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/AimiTanaka (Japanese), Creator/EmiLo (English) |
| 380 | |
| 381 | Kraft and Holo's daughter, and one of the two leads of ''Wolf and Parchment''. Inspired by the story of her parents' meeting, she stows away with her father's former apprentice, Tote Col, when he departs to become a religious reformer. |
| 382 | ---- |
| 383 | * AdaptationalEarlyAppearance: In the 2024 anime, Myuri appears in the very first scene where Holo finally decides to tell her the story of how she met her father Kraft. |
| 384 | * CanisMajor: Her true wolf form while much smaller than her mother's, is still bigger than any wolf found in the wild. She is large enough to carry Col with ease. |
| 385 | * ClingyJealousGirl: She is ''very'' jealous of the attentions of Col, on a mission to reform the CorruptChurch even when a woman from a brothel unsuccessfully tries to entice him. |
| 386 | * DirtyKid: Despite only being around 13 years old, she enjoys drinking alcohol, has no issue wandering around her parents' bathhouse almost-completely naked, and teasingly invites Tote Col to sleep with her. She's also considered old enough for Lawrence to begin looking for an ArrangedMarriage for her. |
| 387 | * FriendlessBackground: Myuri had a very sheltered upbringing due to her mother and father concerned she lacked the wisdom to hide her true wolf form from people. Because of this, she is completely [[PrecociousCrush infatuated with Col]]. |
| 388 | * GenerationXerox: She is a divine wolf -- or at least a demigoddess -- who stows away with a travelling human she has a crush on, just like her mother did. In her initial appearance as a baby, she even had Holo's hair color. |
| 389 | * HalfHumanHybrid: Myuri is half human and half wolf-goddess, but mostly takes after her mother in terms of what she's capable of. |
| 390 | * HybridPower: While Myuri's wolf form is much smaller and weaker than Holo's (although this may simply be because of her youth) she has an extremely useful ability her mother does not: she can fully conceal her wolf ears and tail when she's in human form, so she doesn't need to constantly wear a hat and waist-concealing skirt or wrap like Holo does when going among humans. They do still have a tendency to pop out on their own when she gets too excited, though. |
| 391 | * LethalChef: Holo has forbidden Myuri from using any fire-based cooking implements on the threat of having her tail shaved, as she has a tendency to set things on fire. |
| 392 | * LittleBitBeastly: Like her mother, she mostly takes on the form of a human girl with wolf ears and a tail. Oddly, she's capable of hiding her animal features as long as she doesn't get distracted or excited, something her mother is incapable of doing, presumably because of her human heritage. |
| 393 | * MysticalWhiteHair: Unlike her mother, who can pass for being human with her brown hair, Myuri has silvery-white hair like her father's. |
| 394 | * PrecociousCrush: She has a massive crush on her father's former apprentice, Tote Col, who is around twice her age and has been living with her family since she was a baby. To her dismay, he only sees her as a little sister. |
| 395 | * StrongFamilyResemblance: She looks like her mother Holo with her father Kraft's hair color. |
| 396 | * TheTease: Like her mother, she is extremely mischievous and likes getting Tote flustered, such as when she invites him to sleep with her. |
| 397 | * TomboyWithAGirlyStreak: Myuri is a mischievous and tough girl who enjoys getting into trouble and isn't afraid to get a few cuts and bruises in the name of having fun. Once she starts travelling with Tote, however, she becomes more particular about her appearance. |
| 398 | * WhiteWolvesAreSpecial: Because of the hair she inherited from her father, Myuri's wolf form has white fur rather than her mother's more conventional brown. |
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