Characters/Qawool Towles

This character only appears in this timeline.

At the end of the second El-Hazard OAV series, Miz Mishtal finally achieves her dream of marrying Masamichi Fujisawa and retiring from her position as the Great Priestess of Water. Naturally, this leaves an opening for that particular job, and the one chosen to fill it is none other than Qawool Towles.

So, just who is this shiny new Water Priestess? Qawool Towles is the descendent of an unknown tribe of El-Hazard, and is quickly revealed to be mysterious in other ways, as well. She is something of a prodigy in the priesthood that the Great Priestesses belong to, having attained the position of Great Priestess at the young age of seventeen, making her the youngest in all of El-Hazard's known history. She received top marks at the seminary where she trained and her abilities are, as Miz herself puts it, flawless. Of course, Miz has good reason to extol Qawool's virtues since the LAST thing that she wants is for the girl to be rejected and for Miz to need to continue her employment until a new replacement is found...

As far as Qawool's personality goes, she is sweet, charming, and friendly. If the list ended there, she would be too good to be true, wouldn't she? However, she is far from faultless. While Qawool has mystical power to spare, she has almost no self-confidence. She constantly questions her own abilities and, indeed, seems almost bewildered at the fact that so much responsibility has been handed to her, so she constantly questions her worthiness. She is humble to a fault and instantly considers the opinions of those around her to be more important than her own. She is incredibly naive, as well, and will instantly trust anyone, even when there is a fair bit of evidence that the person she is placing trust in is undeserving.

While Qawool is a highly skilled priestess, her low confidence makes her reluctant to use her power except in the direst of emergencies. Only then, does the bravery and strength of character that she possesses deep within finally show itself. Additionally, her naivety tends to lead her into trouble again and again. These faults tend to land her in the "damsel in distress" role more often than one would expect of a girl of her talents.

So, if Qawool is a damsel in distress, then who is the brave knight who comes to her rescue? Why, Makoto Mizuhara, of course! In fact, Qawool's first contact with Makoto involves a rescue as the boy saves her from drowning in a river after her boat is assaulted by Bugrom. She quickly falls for the brave fellow and he seems quite taken with her as well. He begins finding himself thinking of her often and occasionally blushing when he does.

As time progresses, and Qawool joins Shayla-Shayla and Nanami Jinnai in the Makoto Sweepstakes, we find that Qawool has a very different way of expressing her feelings for Makoto. Unlike those two, who are barely able to admit their feelings to themselves, Qawool freely admits that she loves Makoto. Even more than that, Qawool feels no hostility at all toward the other two women trying to win Makoto's heart. In fact, she seems confused by their own hostility towards her. Her love is completely non-possessive and she seems to believe that all of them should be free to love Makoto, a prospect which would probably give the poor boy quite the nosebleed, if he wasn't so oblivious to the feelings of any of his suitors.

Nanami considers Qawool to be a rival for Makoto, but Qawool's overwhelming friendliness and cheerfulness keeps Nanami from considering her an enemy, as well. Nevertheless, Nanami is a bit intimidated by Qawool's openness with her feelings and that insecurity forces her to take a closer look at her own feelings. After all, what girl is more deserving of winning Makoto's heart? A girl who is open with her feelings, or a girl who pretends that those feelings don't even exist?

Shayla, on the other hand, is quick to decide that she hates Qawool, and tells it to anyone who'll listen, in spite of Qawool's repeated attempts to bury the hatchet and make friends. As time passes and Shayla begins to see and respect Qawool's inner strength, she warms to her slightly, but it would be a stretch to say that they ever become friends.

Qawool, while only having eyes for Makoto, has nonetheless attracted the attentions of Creteria's emperor, Dall Narcis. The man appears to have fallen head over heels for the girl, though, judging by his apparent personality, it is probably a shallow, purely physical attraction.

Parnasse Ralielle is another male in Qawool's life, but he is not a romantic suitor. In fact Qawool seems to be one of the few females that he never tries to hit on. Parnasse is Qawool's attendant and seems to view her with a great deal of respect.

Qawool has another rather notable weakness. She is deathly afraid of bugs, to the point where she completely loses her mind at the sight of one. During such a panic attack, she is prone to lashing out, usually at the bug in question, but just as often includes hapless bystanders in the bug's general area in the resulting carnage. The carnage is usually pretty significant as well, as, in addition to incredible adrenaline-powered strength, she frequently makes use of her priestess abilities to increase the damage inflicted. She, herself, has no idea why bugs terrify her so. She's been that way for as long as she can remember. One might expect that such a phobia would be a real handicap in a job such as hers, which could well involve fighting the Bugrom from time to time. However, her tendency to ATTACK the source of her fear rather than flee from it seems to keep this from being a problem.

Between her strange phobia, and her unknown origins, there seems to be much that is mysterious about Qawool. Many of these mysteries are never solved within the scope of the episodes in which Qawool appears, which gives her character a distinctly "unfinished" feel. In the end, Qawool is a "nice girl" in much the same way that Makoto is a "nice guy". It seems that her main purpose in the series is to provide a character for Makoto to care for and protect, now that Ifurita is gone. That, in addition to the girl's extreme wishy-washiness can lead a viewer to wish to strangle her in very short order. On the other hand, hating her is a bit like hating a cute puppy; she's cute and innocent and happy and cuddly and loyal and friendly. All in all, it's best to just accept her for what she is and breathe a big sigh of relief in knowing that Makoto is still destined for Ifurita instead.

Portions of this page originally belonged to The Wanderers' Guide to El-Hazard: The Magnificent world, co-authored by Jason Bertovich (Makoto) and Aaron Ziegler (Spanner). The original page is no longer available on-line.