Spice and Wolf/Characters
A list of characters from the Light Novel, Anime, and Manga series Spice and Wolf.
Kraft Lawrence
A traveling merchant. After finding Holo in his cart, he agrees to allow her to travel with him to her home, Yoitsu.
Tropes associated with Lawrence:
- Chessmaster
- Chick Magnet: Seems to draw the attention of at least one girl besides Holo in nearly every arc.
- Curtains Match the Window
- Death Glare: Season 2, Episode 4.
- Dude in Distress: More often than not. Holo makes fun of him for having to save him instead of the reverse.
- Gray Eyes
- Guile Hero: Uses his business skills and connections to solve many problems.
- Happily Married: To Holo at the end.
- Hot Dad: At the end.
- Intrepid Merchant
- Nice Guy
- Non-Action Guy: 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.
- Perma-Stubble
- Pre-Ass-Kicking One-Liner:
Lawrence: Before you ask forgiveness, you should repent for how you live!
- You Gotta Have Gray Hair: Wouldn't be unusual for a man in his fifties, but Lawrence is in his twenties.
Holo
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.
Tropes associated with Holo:
- Big Badass Wolf
- Big Eater: Not as much as some others though.
- Bottle Fairy
- Chessmaster
- Clingy Jealous Girl: 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.
- Cute Little Fangs
- Cute Monster Girl
- Does Not Like Shoes: Not always, but she does go barefoot a lot.
- Guile Hero
- Happily Married: To Lawrence at the end.
- Hime Cut: Holo. An unusual example in that she's the equivalent to a Caucasian. It gets 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 personality for it.
- Hot Mom: At the end.
- Innocent Fanservice Girl: 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. Lawrence is generally collected and chivalrous about it, true to his pragmatic nature.
- Legal Jailbait: Holo's human form is explicitly described in every adaptation as that of a fifteen year old girl in every sense of the word.
- Living Lie Detector
- Little Bit Beastly: Holo, with her ears and tail. Later they meet a lady who is a bird goddess, to similar effect.
- Magnetic Girlfriend: 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 and now that he has Holo's scent on him and has admitted that she's his "companion", he is instantly more desirable than usual.
- Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Holo is a well-written example of one, though less manic than other examples. She enriches the life of the once single-minded Lawrence while still maintaining her own identity.
- Master of the Mixed Message
- Nice Hat
- Rapunzel Hair
- Really Seven Hundred Years Old: Looks like a cute young wolf girl, but has the shrewdness and cunning of a person with several hundred years of existence.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning
- The Tease: Loves to verbally spar with Lawrence about their relationship. Although she can sometimes catch him flat-footed when she puts on the Moe Moe, Lawrence becomes quite capable of giving as much as he gets as he gets used to her.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Apples.
- Tsundere: Yes.
- Unusual Ears: She possesses wolf ears, which are very expressive.
- Violently Protective Girlfriend
- The Woobie
Norah Arendt
A shepherdess Lawrence and Holo meet on the way to Lubinhegin.
Tropes associated with Nora
- All of the Other Reindeer: 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.
- Alternative Character Interpretation: There is some ambiguity over how naive and innocent she really is.
- Beware the Nice Ones: She may look like a weak shepherd girl, but even Holo admits there is much more to her than meets the eye.
- Brown Eyes
- Does Not Like Shoes
- Hair of Gold
- Luminescent Blush: Practically her default expression in the manga.
- Moe
- Saintly Church: One of the few sympathetic members. In the manga, her first meeting with Lawrence and Holo indicates that shepherds are something like low-ranking clergy, permitted to invoke blessings upon travelers.
Dianna Rubens
A keeper of old tales that Lawrence and Holo meet in Kamersun.
Tropes associated with Dianna
- Alchemy: She can create pyrite at least.
- Dark Is Not Evil: She wears all black, could be accused of being a witch, lives in a dark and unpleasant area of town, but is actually quite nice.
- Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Subverted, see above.
- Grandma, What Massive Hotness You Have!
- Rapunzel Hair
- Really Seven Hundred Years Old
- Tall, Dark and Bishoujo
- Spell My Name with an "S": Is it Diana, Dianna, or Deanna? Nobody agrees.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: Actually a bird goddess.
Fermi Amarti
A young merchant our merchant couple meet in Kamersun.
Tropes associated with Amarti
- Blue Eyes
- Hair of Gold
- Improbable Age
- Intrepid Merchant
- Knight in Shining Armor: What he thinks he is.
- Love At First Sight
- Romantic False Lead: He competed with Lawrence for Holo's affections
Abe/Eve Boland
A merchant Holo and Lawrence meet in the port city of Lenos (in the manga, Kerube instead). She pulls the two into a money-making scheme but betrays Lawrence and takes the money herself.
Tropes associated with Eve
- Bifauxnen
- Fan Nickname: Sheik.
- 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 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.
- Rebellious Princess: The daughter of a nobleman, but ran off.
Tote Col
A boy Lawrence and Holo rescued from some difficulty while journeying down the Roam River from Lenos to Kerube. He appears in the light novels and manga, but not the anime (perhaps if there's a third season). The three of them develop something of a family dynamic -- Holo seems undecided whether she feels more like a mother or an older sister to Col -- and he's apparently still with the main characters into the final volume of the light novels.
Tropes associated with Col
- Corrupt Church: In the sense that witnessing the Church's corrupt power prompted Col's actions:
Col was a bright lad. He realized the absurd power that came with wearing the robes of a high-ranking priest--the power to control human lives at will. He would study Church law and eat into its power structures. That was how Col intended to protect his village.
- Innocent Prodigy: He's very bright, but also naive; his trouble at the time they met was that he'd been tricked into buying a (badly) forged document and tried to use it to collect cash. He needed the money because he'd exhausted his funds and been put out of the school where he'd been studying.
- Luminescent Blush
- Puppy Dog Eyes: Lawrence thinks Col's tear-filled look is more powerfully persuasive than any spoken plea for help.
- Starving Student: When Lawrence and Holo meet him, he's run out of money and can't even be a student anymore, but it's clear he was this as long as he still had enough for tuition.
- You Gotta Have Gray Hair: On the cover of manga volume 8, his hair is just slightly darker a gray than Lawrence's. He looks like he's maybe twelve or thirteen at the most.