With the recent explosion of Gundam Wing fansites on the internet, a trend has developed to villianize Relena Darlian Peacecraft, especially in fanfiction and in the form of hate shrines. Relena is the character most Gundam Wing fans love to hate, their reasonings being mostly because of either her "obsession" with Heero Yuy, or her "stupid" actions in the series.

Relena is not particularly one of my favorite characters in anime, and I do not think of her as one I even really like. However, I think she deserves more recognition and less hatred for her part in the series, because she does play a key part in Gundam Wing.

Like all of the other characters in the series, Relena does not have an easy childhood, growing up the daughter of a prime minister. From her early youth, she has always been in the spotlight, either in public affairs or even in her private life as a student. Her wealth and powerful social status attract all kinds of people towards her, and their attraction borders on obsession. Does Relena enjoy the attention? There is every indication in the series that she does not: from the kind but distant way she treats her friends at school to her hostility towards her father always taking her to different colonies. "Spoiled daughter?" she says at one point early on in the series. Yes, Relena knows what people think about her and is not misled by her seeming popularity. This in itself shows that she has a more mature personality than most girls her age.

What then, of the "stupid" things she does in the series, such as trying to stop Gundams from battling and getting into situations where it might have been better had she not intervened? Relena is a 15 year old girl thrust into a position in which even an experienced adult might have trouble functioning. In addition, her upbringing has led her to expect any wish she might have to be immediately fulfilled, and these two situations combined can explain her actions. When she tries to stop Wing Gundam by standing in front of it, she is perfectly aware of what she is doing. Through some combination of courage and simple ignorance, she believes that she can actually stop Heero from completing his mission, because she cares just as strongly about the things he wants to destroy as he cares to destroy them. Later on in the series, Relena finds that she can't always get everything she wants, but yet she continues on for what she believes in. That in itself deserves some admiration. How many 15 year old girls believe so strongly in something that they are willing to give their lives for it? Not many that I could name.

Now, the most common reason to hate Relena: she "stalks" Heero. This reason has been beyond overused in Gundam Wing fanfiction either for reasons to belittle Relena, make fun of her in parodies, kill her off, or pair Heero in yaoi pairings with any one of the male characters of the series. Is there reasoning behind this assumption?

Yes, I would agree that Relena is obsessed with Heero and she does, to a certain degree, "stalk him." However, Relena is obsessed not with Heero as a person, but Heero as an idea that she can attain. This is easily explained. Relena has no concept of strong feelings, such as love, outside either love of ideals or obsession. With her father as prime minister, she probably was exposed to some of his strong feelings on different principles and doctrines early in her life. And so obviously being cultivated to talk politics with the best of the politicians in her day, Relena holds the same strong feelings about her ideals as her father did. The other strong emotion she has been exposed to is obsession, from the media and from her peers. Thus, her emotions and experience spill over into her actions...including her actions towards Heero.

Finding an unknown boy dying on the beach would be a shock for anyone, but Relena, as both a political figure and a "spoiled rich girl," immediately feels a strong curiousity towards Heero. When he runs from her and from the paramedics, she is stunned. No one in her life has ever spurned her before, and that just makes Heero more intriguing. He is the only boy at her school who does not treat her as an object of obsession, but more as a real girl. He obviously doesn't care for her position or her money, and all that is very attractive for a girl such as Relena who is idealistic, frustrated with her life, and relatively naive. However, she also does not know how to approach her interest towards Heero. Obsession and strong emotion towards ideals make a sorry substitute for friendship or love, but following Heero around the globe and calling him to come kill her are the only ways she knows how to show her affection for him. Relena is not deranged or stupid, and she knows a lot about politics, but she does not know how to express her private emotions because she has never had a need to before she met Heero.

Heero then, is a combination of Relena's ideals and her obsession with finding someone to understand her. As a Gundam pilot, he becomes even more a part of her life, a barrier to the pacifist ideals she claims to hold. Yet it is mostly because of Heero that Relena's ideals waver. In Heero, she finds that soldiers are not all evil killers, and that sometimes war might be necessary. In shooting Lady Une and calling for Heero to kill Zechs, Relena IS being hypocritical, but only in a way that shows her innocence fading and her beginning to look at the world through the eyes of a woman rather than a sheltered girl.

Yes, Relena is a very stubborn girl, there are many times where she makes key mistakes, and she has a very narrow view of the world. But she is young, and she grows tremendously from the beginning of the series to the end. She is not one of the strongest characters of Gundam Wing, but it certainly doesn't deserve the villianization that she has received from fans. Any character with that amount of determination and courage to stand up for what she believes in deserves at least some respect, if not admiration, and Relena Peacecraft is such a character.