“Love is like a friendship caught on fire. In the beginning a flame, very pretty, often hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. As love grows older, our hearts mature and our love becomes as coals, deep-burning and unquenchable.”
~ Bruce Lee
Many people have a different concept of what makes or breaks an OTP. But the most objective views on what turns a relationship into something special, offer several consistent features that most unbiased readers/watchers can agree on.
Such elements would be meaningful behaviors, significant gestures, and emotional support.
This matches pretty well the definition of a Potent Bonding we were given before, which is a pairing with a high chance of developing into canon, supported by multiple logical arguments, a high degree of intimacy between characters, and significant/meaningful moments. This kind of pairing has a great deal of development and stress on their relationship.
However, many shippers still insist that all pairings and/or relationships are equal or even in strength and depth. If this claim were to be true, then why do fans classify pairings in terms of crack, semi-canon, and canon?
To answer this, let us go back to something we already considered, the GMG arc. We saw not only how they affected each other but also small details that reinforce how strong their connection became. As of previous arcs, Lisanna, the childhood friend of Natsu that many presumed dead for years, returned to her family and their guild.
Impressively enough, instead of actually seeking to spend time with her childhood friend and make up for the lost time, Natsu chose to stick closer to Lucy.
He was there for her when she got the news of her father’s death, he was there supporting and encouraging her during the GMG tournament, and he even tenderly comforted her future self. All of this happened despite the fact he could’ve easily chosen to further his bond with someone else from his own past
To put this in context, Natsu willingly chose to deepen his bond with Lucy instead of going back to someone from his past.
After the Tartaros arc, Natsu himself decided to rebuild the guild for the sake of Lucy’s happiness, he constantly reassured her they would get their guild back together, consistently providing Lucy with strength and support.
And as explained before in other analyses, the effect Lucy has on him is pretty noticeable as well. Several people already know Mashima is the man behind the Storyboard of the Dragon Cry movie, and what was his idea for some moments involving Natsu and Lucy. Natsu remembering his friends, and the last one he remembered, the person who stood out the most was Lucy…
…later we get a meaningful echo; Natsu question Lucy’s perspective on him and only after Lucy gives him a positive and sweet answer is that he lets himself collapse into her arms.
If you thought that wasn’t subtle at all, in omakes and special chapters things are far less subtle than this… the fact is, their intimacy and closeness only grow as they keep going through their adventures together.
This consistent bonding and the circumstances surrounding it make Natsu’s relationship with Lucy stand out from the rest.
On Natsu’s side we have some premises but none of them with such a consistent bonding or this degree of stress on their relationship throughout the story. So, if Natsu isn’t the reason why shippers claim all potential “pairings” hold the same strength, then we should take a look at Lucy’s side:
Lucy had been displaying this sort of attachment as well; we already mentioned that special chapter where Lucy casually states how is she bound to Natsu to the point she doesn’t often take missions without him. She finds it difficult going on adventures without Natsu by her side, let that fact sink in.
She finds comfort and strength in him, and her future self got her closure focusing on her connection to Natsu something that was passed to Lucy herself in the present. Even when she thought she was about to get blinded the last thing that crossed her mind before fading away into unconsciousness was Natsu.
In fact, we saw a similar moment in the past, after she was rescued by both Natsu and Gray. The one she mentioned in her dreams, the one she feels the strongest about turned out to be Natsu
The guild’s disbandment provided with a good contrast as well. When she found out Natsu and Happy were leaving to train, she tried her best to catch them up stating how lonely she would be without them. But when the rest of her guildmates went their separate ways, she didn’t react in the same emotional way. In fact, she could’ve easily left with any of her guildmates such as Gray or Levy, but at the end, she didn’t. And the narration gives us a clue as to why…
…the person she wanted to be with the most was Natsu
The effect all of this had in her was translated pretty well into her fight against Dimaria, she was fighting a lost battle against an overwhelming opponent way out of her league but she didn’t care as long as she got to save Natsu. She was even willing to strip naked and use her own body to warm up Natsu, a set up the story doesn’t use for other relationship that involves either of these characters
Also, she’s even more affectionate to Natsu when she gets drunk…
We could spend the whole day talking about Lucy’s feelings for Natsu, and how her affection for him kept growing drawing her closer to him. But when we go to shippers on Lucy’s side, we have several people relying on commonalities, a Freudian slip, a pat on the head, an apologize, in-story paranoid delusions, and some inconsequential pandering. All of this wrapped around hype, as the other character involved is cute/sexy and has a cool personality.
Thing is commonalities are not relevant to a relationship unless the story uses them to constantly build-up something between two characters; a pat on the head is not as impactful as actual emotional support; and a Freudian slip doesn’t worth much if it goes nowhere (unlike Natsu claiming Lucy is precious to him and backing up his words with actions).
These same shippers claim they could write entire essays on how their premises is a strong as a semi-canon or potent pairing.
But such perspective only encourages others to disregard the consistent bonding in NaLu, why?
Here’s an example, many people claim a “crack” is equal to NaLu to the point they could write lengthy analyses about how they’re evenly matched. But, one of the characters involved in that “crack” already has a significant other, promised to respond to the feelings of that person, and even claimed that girl as his…
When shippers claim NaLu is as strong as a “crack” that involves a character who responded to someone’s else feelings, then the message they end up delivering is not that of a potent NaLu bonding, but that of a relationship that will ultimately get overtaken by a more substantial choice. It’s like claiming that no NaLu moment makes the relationship stand out from the rest, there’s nothing special about it, no reason to call it “semi-canon” or “potent relationship” because something with much less substance and less plausibility can match its strength.
A similar principle can be applied to equalizing Sting, Laxus and/or Cobra relationship with Lucy to NaLu. But given there’s little to nothing (not even pandering) in Mashima’s work for such premises, the implications are even worst.
When we analyze the emotional connection between Natsu and Lucy we find such shippers uphold an extremely flawed, if not false argument.
The way Natsu and Lucy interact with each other, the way they care for each other, their emotional chemistry, the meaningful behaviors between them, and their significant moments, their consistent bonding, all of these elements combined make Potent Relationships, or semi-canon pairings, stand out from the rest.
That is why we can deem NaLu as a Potent Pairing; it stands out as a more substantial premise. One that will hopefully evolve into canon in the upcoming Fairy Tail sequel.
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