| Elektra and... |
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One of the best ways to characterize a person is to analyze their relationships to others. Therefore, I will try to describe how Elektra gets along with the other characters in the series.
...Captain Nemo
To describe Elektra's relationship with Nemo as "complicated" would be a big understatement. After all, he's responsible for the annihilation of Thartessos and with that also for the death of Elektra's family. Of course he didn't have a choice since Gargoyle would otherwise have put up a reign of terror over the whole world. Elektra knows this and she herself is the most fanatical enemy of New Atlantis. For only with her and Nemo sacrificing everything for this aim is she able to justify before herself the fact that she now helps the man who killed her parents and her brother. Because of this, her whole world collapses when she has to believe that Nemo is destracted from this aim by his daughter Nadia.
In addition to this, Nemo also practically became Elektra's father at that time. When she grew up, she fell in love with him, even though it can't be clearly decided how much of her feelings are still those of a daughter for her father. She keeps them to herself (or subordinates them to their mission) anyway, but that doesn't make it easier for her to suffer Grandis competing with her as a woman and Nadia as Nemo's daughter. If you take this emotional chaos into account, it's not at all difficult to understand why Elektra finally cracks under the emotional strain and tries first to kill Nemo and then herself.
The attempt to analyze Nemo's feelings for Elektra or Nadia is futile since he never shows any emotions. It is not improbable that he actually discarded all feelings in order to be able to fight New Atlantis more effectively. It seems however that he feels guilty because he involved Elektra in this fight on top of taking away her family. Apparently, this is already his strongest emotion, he doesn't show any feelings for Nadia.
...Gargoyle
Sadly enough, Gargoyle is the second most important person in Elektra's life. Actually she has literally built her life around the desire for revenge. She is perfectly willing to sacrifice her life for this goal and has probably never even lost a thought about what will become of herself afterwards. One of the reasons for this fanaticism is of course the loss of her family. But even more important is that the quest for revenge is also the only way she knows to be near Nemo and get attention from him. Probably because of this (and the fact that her memories of the tragedy of Thartessos are everything but recent) Elektra's hatred of Gargoyle is more of an academic nature. She does want to kill him, but it's not the "tear the still-beating heart out of his body" kind of hatred.
Gargoyle on the other hand probably doesn't even know of Elektra's existence, and if he does he couldn't care less. To him, she and everyone else of the Nautilus crew are just underlings of his archenemy Nemo.
...Nadia
In the beginning, Nadia spontaneously dislikes Elektra. After all, she belongs to the Nautilus, which only exists to kill people. What is more important, however, is that Jean, because of his great interest in the technologies of the submarine, spends most of his time with Elektra (showering her with questions), and neglects Nadia in the process. This makes her mightyly jealous! In this feeling she is even encouraged by Grandis (who has her own feud with Elektra). However, after a bath the both of them have together where Elektra tells Nadia about her own past (and gives her a few hints concerning Jean), their relationship eases up.
Nadia's presence on the other hand is a heavy burden for Elektra from the beginning on, since she has to fear losing even the little attention she gets from Nemo as his adopted daughter (a role she has put up with by now) to his real daughter. Elektra deserves great credit for not taking this out on Nadia (who is perfectly unaware of the whole business).
...Grandis
The clashes and vocal duels of these two young ladies are among the best and funniest scenes of the whole series. They are just unable to refrain from going for each others' throats on sight. The reason for this is obvious: They both have a heavy crush on captain Nemo.
To make matters worse, their characters are fundamentally different: Grandis acts completely spontaneous and emotional while Elektra maintains an iron self-control and alway acts rationally.
Of course Grandis' agressive wooing is almost unbearable for Elektra who always kept her feelings for Nemo a secret, since she herself finds it so difficult to show her affection. On top of all this, Grandis couldn't care less about rules and orders (especially those given by Elektra...) and continually challenges Elektra's authority as first mate of the Nautilus.
Grandis, on the other side, senses her rival's jealousy and hostility very clearly and seldom misses an opportunity for a sharp-tongued remark. Elektra herself is also not unskilled in the art of insults and ambiguities and pays back every word, with the highly comical results we all know.
...Jean
It is quite clear that Elektra somehow sees Jean as a substitute for her younger brother who died during the destruction of Thartessos by the Tower of Babel. She considers it to be her job to take care of his scientific education, but at the same time she wants to make him realize that despite the great possibilities of technology he must never forget the dangers and the ethical consequences that often come together with it.
Her priorities are actually exactly right here, since his almost boundless enthusiasm about the technologies of the Nautilus definitely needs to be toned down a bit. Jean sees Elektra mainly as a virtually unlimited source of fascinating new knowledge and readily accepts her as his mentor.
...Hanson
The poor guy has a heavy crush on Elektra. But since he is just as shy as she is, all of his timid attempts to win her attention stay unnoticed. Moreover, he himself isn't quite sure if his loyality to Grandis isn't stronger after all. Therefore he never gets farther than getting all starry-eyed over Elektra.
...Marie
Marie wants also to be useful aboard the Nautilus. After this results in her getting to "enjoy" Elektra's math lessons, her enthusiasm disappears really quickly, and she stays clear of "domina" Elektra in the future!
Actually, Elektra is pretty good as a teacher, but what is she to do in the face of laziness of this magnitude?
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