Reading this thread, and noting the anime references, I am reminded a bit of ol' Macross , which came to these shores as one of three anime in "Robotech".

Great show. One of its weak points is that if a named female character was introduced on the enemy side, you just knew she was going to be paired up romantically with someone. It was inevitable. In one case, Max & Miriya had a half-alien baby together about 2/3rds of the way through the show.

So it's not surprising that people approach OOTS from an anime perspective expect it to follow anime conventions, which is that any interesting enemy has to pair up with one of the good guys/girls and fight for the good guys. Ordinary bad guys / henchmen don't get special models; they make do with generic drawing , generic voices, and hardly ever get names.

There are, however, two problems.

1) Anime is not exactly known for its realistic depiction of human relationships in any event.

2) Rich is not an anime writer; he is a western author and is drawing on a different set of conventions.

One of which is that it is very, very, rare for soldiers on different sides of a generations-long war of genocide to spontaneously develop friendships or romantic feelings for one another. Oh, lust is quite common; anyone who's followed the trail of armies through history has noted the trail of mixed babies left in their wake, but genuine affection? That's another thing entirely.

Besides, Rich has already toyed with this dynamic when he briefly paired up Durkon and .. Hilda? Early member of the linear guild? It didn't work because, despite superficial attraction , their deep-seated world views and alignments were simply too cross-aligned to make it work.

Whatever else you can say about Rich, he does a pretty good job about dealing with relationships in a fairly mature way. So at this point it would be fortunate if O-chul and Oona could encounter each other peacefully and part as friends. That might be possible if the MITD is able to act as moderator/a common interest/common friend. But absent something like that, the most likely outcome of any contact is they'll kill each other for reals.

If O-chul was going to pair up with somebody, why would he ignore Lien? They share the same outlook on life, the same calling, both fighting the same enemy, both stuck in the middle of nowhere with no one else for company. Isn't that a better basis for a relationship than an enemy who would, literally, kill them as soon as look at them?

Respectfully,

Brian P.