Awesome / Spice and Wolf

• Each time Holo's true form makes an appearance, something awesome (and terrifying) is about to happen:
  • Curbstomping the thugs during the Silver Devaluation arc.
  • The showdown during the Bankruptcy arc.
    • Both times proceeded with some chilling actions as a harbinger for what's to come. The first time, Holo calmly interrupts Lawrence's last stand and drinks blood from his arm. The second time, Holo gives a speech showing that she takes the harm done to Lawrence very personally, and if he didn't forbid it she'd be eating very well soon. Both involve death glares and copious amounts of tranquil fury.
  • In the "Rising Sun" arc, a mercenary company that Lawrence was trying to negotiate with betray the ceasefire, jam a knife into his leg, and try to take him prisoner. Unfortunately for the mercenaries, Holo was ready for this, and she is not happy. Yet rather than charge the soldiers head on, she starts pulling trees from the ground like weeds and chucks several tons of pine at the soldiers from half a mile away. She then uses all the powdered snow that was thrown into the air by her impromptu artillery barrage to close in on the scattered and panicking troops without being seen, showing astonishing stealth for something so big. The only thing worse than a massive wolf that can destroy you with ease is one that is smart about it.
• When Holo spots a mercenary captain carrying a massive wolf's claw, she wastes no time in demanding where he got it from. The mercenary, taken aback, draws his sword and holds it to her throat in one swift movement. Holo doesn't even flinch, and makes it abundantly clear that she is not going to let the matter drop. Without revealing her true form, or giving any hint of her divine origins, she stares down a grizzled solder of fortune as a short petite maiden... and it's the man who eventually relents.
• Lawrence out-gambitting others also tends to be awesome, as does the occasional times he gets physical:
  • Talking the Milone Trading Company into assisting with Holo's rescue.
    • Narrowly dodged a knife slash, punched out one guy after Holo bit said guy's arm, got stabbed by another, then turned around and knocked him out despite this wound, and threw in a Bond One-Liner too. He may avoid violence whenever possible, but he's perfectly capable when it comes to that.
  • Twisting the arm of a crooked merchant (who tried to cheat him) into a better deal.
  • The conclusion of the bankruptcy arc where he succeeds in voiding his debt and then names the terms of a new deal with his former debtor. And before that, when their betrayer companion reveals everything, saying Lawrence would understand since he's a merchant, said man punches him in the face with the statement "I am nothing like you!"
  • In the Pyrite arc, Lawrence crashes a miniature economy to win back his girlfriend. More impressive is Holo managing both him and Amarti to achieve the outcome she wanted. Lawrence's self-doubt made it harder for her because he missed certain cues.
• Nora's reaction to seeing Holo's Canis Major form is the same as any mundane wolf; point her staff and shout "Enek, go!"
• Lawrence's finest hour comes at the very end of the original series, at the climax of the Coin of the Sun arc. All story long, Lawrence has been feeling overwhelmed and insignificant while caught up in the machinations of a trading company powerful enough to bring nations to their knees, a mere pawn in a plot that may plunge the entire Northlands into devastating war, completely outclassed by the master merchants scheming around him and incapable of contributing anything more than looking after a rabbit. He even ends up in a minor Heroic BSoD when faced with the reality that the power of money, which he has lived his life as a merchant by, is capable of subsuming honor and even buying the lives of entire nations of people. But at the very climax, right when the envoy from the rogue elements of the Debau company seems to have bought the support of the townsfolk who are sheltering our heroes from their enemies, forcing the capitulation which will lead to doom, Lawrence has a "Eureka!" Moment to end all eureka moments, seeing in a mere scrap of paper what even the genius merchant Hilde hadn't grasped- the dishonest means by which their opponents had acquired seemingly limitless capital to throw around, and how he can turn this against them. Silencing the crowd with a wolf howl from Holo and shouting to them until his injuries drive him to collapse and the eloquent Holo takes over for him, Lawrence's words (combined with a timely bluff) turns the people against the envoy, securing the heroes the time they need to be victorious, and saving an entire country from being plunged into a needless, greed-motivated war.