TV-Series
Description
Dian Rubens is a character who appears in both the original Spice & Wolf anime and its remake, Spice & Wolf: Merchant Meets the Wise Wolf. She is a reclusive alchemist and town chronicler residing in the walled slums of the trading town of Kumerson, a place where alchemists and other individuals viewed with suspicion by mainstream society live and work. Her life's work is the solitary task of gathering and compiling pagan tales, legends, and beliefs from the region, preserving them for posterity in the stacks of dusty books that fill her dim and cluttered home.
Physically, Dian is an attractive woman with long black hair, pale skin, and blue eyes, a clean appearance that contrasts with the messy state of her living quarters. Her name sounds masculine to many, a fact she is well aware of, and she often asks those who befriend her to call her Dianna. She almost always has a gentle smile on her face, which belies a deep, well-hidden sadness.
Dian's personality is defined by her wisdom, her loneliness, and a playful, meddlesome nature. She has a great fondness for old stories and legends, and she typically asks the few visitors she receives to share a tale in exchange for her knowledge. Despite her reclusive and sometimes secretive demeanor, she is not unkind, but rather seems to find amusement in the affairs of others, particularly the complex relationship between the merchant Kraft Lawrence and the wisewolf Holo. Her own painful history has given her a sympathetic perspective, and she subtly works to encourage connections between others, hoping they will succeed where she could not.
The secret at the heart of Dian Rubens is that she is not human. As Holo reveals, Dian is a pagan animal deity, an incarnation of a giant white stork spirit, much like Holo herself is a wolf. This explains her long life, which is the source of a deep personal tragedy. She once fell in love with a traveling priest and spent several years helping him build a church. However, the priest eventually noticed that she never aged and grew suspicious, forcing Dian to flee and leave her love behind. This loss likely informs her reclusive nature and her interest in the relationship between Lawrence and Holo.
In the story of Spice & Wolf, Dian plays a crucial role as a source of information and a hidden benefactor. Lawrence seeks her out for information about Holo's homeland of Yoitsu, which she provides by recounting the local legends. Later, during the pyrite speculation incident where a young merchant named Amati tries to win Holo away from Lawrence, Dian becomes a key player. Both Lawrence and Holo independently visit her for help, and she manipulates the situation from behind the scenes. By coordinating with Holo, she uses her stock of pyrite to ensure Lawrence fails in his own attempt to buy the ore, ultimately forcing the pair to confront their true feelings for each other and bringing them closer together. She maintains a friendly relationship with the merchant Gi Batos, who provides a passphrase for interesting visitors to gain an audience with her.
While Dian does not undergo dramatic personal change within the main story, her interactions with Lawrence and Holo have a lasting impact on her. In later events, she reveals that her encounter with the pair inspired her to become more sociable again, leading her to eventually leave her reclusive home in Kumerson and move to the town of Kerube.
As a non-human spirit, Dian possesses several notable supernatural abilities. Her primary ability is transformation, allowing her to shift from her human form into her true form of a massive bird. While she never fully transforms on screen, her home is filled with large feathers that support this ability. In her bird form, she is capable of flight and can carry a person or an object around the size of a human baby. Like Holo, she has lived for centuries, granting her a vast well of experience and knowledge about the world's pagan myths and forgotten histories.
Physically, Dian is an attractive woman with long black hair, pale skin, and blue eyes, a clean appearance that contrasts with the messy state of her living quarters. Her name sounds masculine to many, a fact she is well aware of, and she often asks those who befriend her to call her Dianna. She almost always has a gentle smile on her face, which belies a deep, well-hidden sadness.
Dian's personality is defined by her wisdom, her loneliness, and a playful, meddlesome nature. She has a great fondness for old stories and legends, and she typically asks the few visitors she receives to share a tale in exchange for her knowledge. Despite her reclusive and sometimes secretive demeanor, she is not unkind, but rather seems to find amusement in the affairs of others, particularly the complex relationship between the merchant Kraft Lawrence and the wisewolf Holo. Her own painful history has given her a sympathetic perspective, and she subtly works to encourage connections between others, hoping they will succeed where she could not.
The secret at the heart of Dian Rubens is that she is not human. As Holo reveals, Dian is a pagan animal deity, an incarnation of a giant white stork spirit, much like Holo herself is a wolf. This explains her long life, which is the source of a deep personal tragedy. She once fell in love with a traveling priest and spent several years helping him build a church. However, the priest eventually noticed that she never aged and grew suspicious, forcing Dian to flee and leave her love behind. This loss likely informs her reclusive nature and her interest in the relationship between Lawrence and Holo.
In the story of Spice & Wolf, Dian plays a crucial role as a source of information and a hidden benefactor. Lawrence seeks her out for information about Holo's homeland of Yoitsu, which she provides by recounting the local legends. Later, during the pyrite speculation incident where a young merchant named Amati tries to win Holo away from Lawrence, Dian becomes a key player. Both Lawrence and Holo independently visit her for help, and she manipulates the situation from behind the scenes. By coordinating with Holo, she uses her stock of pyrite to ensure Lawrence fails in his own attempt to buy the ore, ultimately forcing the pair to confront their true feelings for each other and bringing them closer together. She maintains a friendly relationship with the merchant Gi Batos, who provides a passphrase for interesting visitors to gain an audience with her.
While Dian does not undergo dramatic personal change within the main story, her interactions with Lawrence and Holo have a lasting impact on her. In later events, she reveals that her encounter with the pair inspired her to become more sociable again, leading her to eventually leave her reclusive home in Kumerson and move to the town of Kerube.
As a non-human spirit, Dian possesses several notable supernatural abilities. Her primary ability is transformation, allowing her to shift from her human form into her true form of a massive bird. While she never fully transforms on screen, her home is filled with large feathers that support this ability. In her bird form, she is capable of flight and can carry a person or an object around the size of a human baby. Like Holo, she has lived for centuries, granting her a vast well of experience and knowledge about the world's pagan myths and forgotten histories.