With Spirit being a serial dater, what kind of exes does he have? What were his breakups like? If he was attracted to Jean for his stability, what else was he attracted to in his partners? And who is this Warriors-like exe? 👀
Ooooooh boy. Strap in because I am ready to info-dump so much about Spirit's horrendous love life.
Spirit's serial dating didn't start until a couple of years after he returned back to New Hyrule. His relationship with Zelda had a slow, painful death. He lashed out at her a lot because he felt like he wasn't being heard. Zelda was upset that he betrayed her trust while feeling terrible that she was making his pain about herself. When Zelda had to start thinking about political marriages, Spirit finally decided to put them both out of their miseries and end things.
They're still friends. Spirit still loved her. But the moment the relationship ended, Zelda seemed to brighten up and become her old self again. She was so much happier, and that hurt.
Spirit tried moving on too, but he really couldn't get over Zelda. This was also around the time that his lashing out and moodiness was starting to reap consequences. Alfonzo fired him. A lot of his friends lost contact. He was gaining a reputation for being hard to work with. He was as famous as ever, and no one liked him.
He didn't set out to date a lot. There were plenty of people who wanted to date the famous Link Macaryll, so he was never short of options. He was looking for a partner, but in the sense that a partner was going to fix him. He felt abandoned. Unlovable. He just wanted to find someone who would stay by him.
If you asked him what his ideal partner was like, he list generic traits like humor or kindness. In reality, his ideal partner was someone who liked him. He would mold himself to be whatever they wanted so that they would stay and never abandon him.
But of course, that's a terrible foundation for a relationship. Nothing progressed past the first date because it was so obvious that Spirit didn't really like the people he was going out with. This was a chore, and he didn't really enjoy himself. It hurt every time he was refused a second date.
Jean was probably the first person he dated because he actually liked them.
At this point, Spirit had been weaving in and out of Jean's life. Spirit was friends with Linebeck, who was friends with Jean. They ended up getting drinks together sometimes. They probably first met on the day of Jean's accident, the one that led to his leg being amputated. They got closer after Linebeck and Spirit opened their own garage in Trading Post, with Jean being one of the first employees. This is where they started to become friends, albeit with the occasional discomfort whenever they realized that Spirit was Jean's boss.
Before Spirit dated Jean, he was in a pretty terrible situationship with a character I have not named yet (vote now on your phones).
This character was the son set to inherit his father's lucrative trading company. Until he did, he captained a prominent trading vessel. In New Hyrule, job titles are used in place of names when possible (ie: engineer) (somewhere in CTB, Spirit has a line about being used to just being called the engineer vs his name...). So this character is often just referred to as the Captain.
So when Spirit meets this handsome asshole called the Captain, he's first more than a little weary. But the Captain loved the hunt, and pursed him endlessly. And, well, Spirit wanted to be loved. That this guy resembled Warriors quickly went from disquieting to kinda attractive.
They never officially dated, but they did hook up and spend a lot of time together. That the Captain was a terrible person and was terrible to Spirit was an added bonus. Spirit liked how familiar it was. A part of him wanted to bring some part of his experiences in the war to New Hyrule so that people would understand him. Another part was so lost as to why his life wasn't fixing itself the way he wanted to that he wanted a problem he knew how to cope with. He even insisted on calling him by his job title as much as he could, because he wanted to be fighting Warriors again.
Everyone who knew Spirit was worried about him, but no one could get through to him. Zelda, Niko, Linebeck-- they all tried to sit Spirit down and gently tell him that he needed to cut this guy off, but Spirit would only dig his heels in deeper.
Which takes us back to Jean. One thing about Jean is that he never looked down at Spirit. For all his intelligence, Spirit was infamously terrible with people. When it came to social cues, his friends and family tended to get a little condescending about it. Not Jean. After a couple of months of this bullshit and reaching his breaking point, he sat Spirit down and talked to him about it.
Jean wasn't condescending, so Spirit didn't throw his defenses up. Jean's questions forced Spirit to actually reflect, and he had a moment when he realized that he didn't want to put himself through this anymore. Finally, he cut off the Captain.
That was a turning point. They became closer friends and, after a few weeks, Spirit realized he had a crush. He tried to hide it, but wasn't too subtle. Jean tried to ignore him for as long as possible, but Spirit eventually did ask him out. Jean ended up agreeing, and they dated for six months.
As a character, Jean is the pinnacle of stability. He's calm and even headed. He wasn't prone to getting upset. He was thoughtful, hardworking, and a grade A older brother. He's the type who asked a lot of questions before making a judgement, which gelled well of Spirit's irrational behavior-- by asking Spirit why he was upset, he would accidentally deescalate. If he had a flaw, it's that he's not the most romantic guy. Rituals like buying flowers and going out to dinner seemed a bit pointless to him. He'd rather stay at home and not waste the money. But over all, he was a real catch.
Spirit wasn't used to stability. He couldn't shake the feeling that everything was going to go wrong again. Jean was going to hurt him because everyone hurt him. Subconsciously, he believed that if everything was going to go wrong anyway, he might as well do it himself; he'd rather be the problem than be another victim.
On top of that, Spirit was a terrible person to get into a disagreement with. Everything had to turn into a high stakes argument. He was defensive, and often got mean when he was upset.
They lasted six months. Jean couldn't handle Spirit anymore. He broke up as gently as he could, but Spirit was still crushed. He had half the idea to apologize and try to win Jean back, but Jean started dating someone else-- someone a little older and as steady as Jean was.
Spirit was only 2-3 months out from the break up when he was pulled back into Warriors's era. It's still fairly fresh, and he was in the middle of lapsing back into his worst self when he wound up in the Temple of Souls.
Bonus Facts:
Spirit realized he liked Jean when he saw Jean playing with his younger siblings on the beach. Was watching him build sandcastles and was like "aw, fuck"
Jean got Spirit to quit smoking, which lasted up until Spirit ended up in Warriors's era
Jean didn't have a crush on Spirit when they started dating, but Linebeck swore that Jean was so bothered by the whole Captain thing because he was a little jealous (Jean's reoccuring complaint was that Spirit deserved better)
Linebeck didn't know they started dating until a couple of weeks in. Then he sat them both down and did a joint shovel talk that amounted to: a) Jean if you hurt Link, I will kill you, b) Link if you hurt Jean, I will kill you, c) Jean if your boss takes advantage of you I will stop it, d) Link if your love affair endangers this business I will kill you
Spirit liked that Jean was older, both because he felt better understood and that Jean was someone who he could depend on to take care of him; but Spirit was also constantly anxious that Jean thought he was immature
The last straw in the Captain situationship was Spirit getting a black eye
Spirit probably met the Captain at a royal function, while he was moonlighting as Zelda's guard
Zelda didn't know anything about the Jean relationship until it was over; Spirit didn't trust her after how badly she reacted to the Captain stuff
Even when he was with Jean, Spirit never really got over Zelda; while he does sincerely love her, she also symbolizes a point in his life when he was sincerely happy that he aches to go back to
