Spoilers for all works set before the end of Fairy Tail are unmarked. Examples pertaining to 100 Years Quest can be spoiler tagged if deemed necessary.
Erza Scarlet
Voiced by: Sayaka Ohara (Japanese), Colleen Clinkenbeard (English)note
Portrayed by: Minami Tsukui (stage)
"I guess... A person isn't supposed to die for one's friends... One has to live for one's friends!!! Because that is the path that leads to a happy future..."
Fairy Tail's most powerful female wizard, Erza Scarlet is renowned throughout the kingdom as "Titania", the Queen of the Fairies. Using her magic, The Knight, she is able to "requip"—instantaneously exchange and equip—hundreds of different weapons and suits of armor that enhance her already tremendous strength and swordsmanship. She developed from a lowly slave at the Tower of Heaven to a legendary S-Class wizard with an abrasive and no-nonsense personality, which makes her well-suited as the guild's disciplinarian. Although Erza initially distrusts Fairy Tail's rowdy behavior, she eventually overcomes her personal demons and joins her friends in their wackiness thanks to their constant love and support. Her past has very personal ties to the Dragon Slayers.
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- 24-Hour Armor: Ever since she joined the guild. She describes it as a way to lock up her emotional troubles so she can act strong. Even after the source of most of the said troubles are dealt with by the end of the Tower of Heaven arc, she's still frequently seen in armor, though she occasionally just wears a white shirt with a tie.
- Absurdly Sharp Blade: All of her swords can cut through things they normally shouldn't.
- The Ace: She is known as the best female fighter in a guild known for their incredible strength and skill. Even Natsu is scared senseless by the prospect of being punished by her. She's accomplished many feats deemed impossible by most characters over the course of the series, usually with the simple explanation that "it's because she's Erza".
- Action Fashionista: Not only does her magic involve switching between magic armors depending on the situation, she even has her non-magical clothes tailored by a popular fashion brand. The (ordinary) armor she usually wears is also designed by the same brand- normally they don't do armor, but Erza asked nicely and she had big magic swords.
- The Aloner: Since her escape from the Tower of Heaven, Erza is a lonely girl who has a difficult relationship with her guildmates. Around the time of Phantom Lord's demise, she's willing to join in the guild's crazy antics from time to time.
- Ambiguously Bi: She's had a number of perverted moments, and they all involve other girls. She's looked through Lucy's underwear, an Omake shows that she considers a Skinship Grope an essential part of bathing for girls, and while groping Mirajane, after which she had already forcibly scrubbed Juvia. In the Christmas Episode, Erza's reign of terror during the "master" game in which Erza keeps forcing other members to strip naked, she initially expresses disappointment at seeing Gajeel strip as she wanted to a girl naked. Also, during the Grand Magical Games arc, Lucy mentions that Erza frequently climbs into her bed at night to sleep with her. Nonetheless, the only person she's showed romantic interest in is Jellal.
- Animal Motifs:
- Her Flight Armour is patterned off cats and has great speed at the cost of her defense, similar to the animal itself.
- Her Red Black Twin Blades have a Playboy Bunny theme.
- Anti-Magic: The Nakagami Armor can slice through magic spells and nullify them.
- Armor Is Useless: Downplayed. While her armors have many uses, she wins an increasing number of fights wearing the Sarashi and flame-print pants combo that's explicitly stated to provide no protection.
- Asskicking Leads to Leadership: She earned her S-Class rank through rigid training, discipline, and a heartbreaking past. She also briefly serves as seventh guild master in Makarov's absence due to her ability to put the rest of the guild in line with a simple Death Glare.
- Attending Your Own Funeral: After she attempts to sacrifice herself during the Tower of Heaven's destruction, she has a vision of her own potential funeral where her own friends are deep in mourning over her death. The depressing sight is so affecting to her that when Natsu saves her life, she promises to take better care of it.
- Awesomeness by Analysis: She doesn't like revealing her full power right away in a fight, and would rather just use about as much as she needs to just win. She ends up heavily wounded in some of her battles because she just tanks whatever her opponents throw at her until she has a good grasp of the best way to take them down.
- Badass in Distress: She winds up being taken hostage by Tartaros and once again tortured, this time by Kyôka's Agony Beam. She's quick to take sweet revenge once Natsu and Lisanna break her free.
- Badass Transplant: As if her immense strength and arsenal weren't enough, her artificial-eye protects her from any eye-based magic such as petrification and illusionry.
- Barefoot Captives: During her childhood enslavement, Erza and the other slaves went barefoot.
- Bare Midriffs Are Feminine: Is the picture of a Lady of War and many of her armours leave her midriff exposed.
- Battle Ballgown: Her Heaven's Wheel Armor has an armored hoop skirt.
- Beyond the Impossible: She does a lot of stuff that should be physically and/or magically impossible, but she does it anyway, "because she's Erza".
- Stabilize the Tower of Heaven and then escape from it after being absorbed by it? Yep. Though Downplayed, because she had some unspecified degree of help from Jellal.
- Awakening a Second Origin is supposed to cause tremendous pain. She wasn't affected at all.
- Defeat Kyôka from Tartarus without any of her senses? Sure.
- Intimidate Neinhart's Historias out-of-existence despite the fact that they don't have independent personas and have her theoretically helpless? Totally.
- BFS:
- Several of her outfits come with really big swords.
- In the Key to the Starry Keys arc, she receives a giant holy hammer from Jean-Luc Neville, who unearthed it as part of his excavation of the Infinity Clock part. In addition to being as big as she is and quite useful as both a bludgeon and impromptu shield, it also possesses holy properties that allow it to counteract the effects of the Infinity Clock's Real Nightmare and leave wounds of light on Cobra's scaled arms when he clashes with it.
- Big Eater: The anime spotlights her love of cake to the extreme. For instance, when she buys 50 cakes to celebrate Wendy and Carla's membership in the guild, she says only two are for them and the rest are for herself.
- The Big Girl: Erza fills this role when she's not acting as The Leader of the team, being the most physically powerful and often stepping up to take down The Dragon of any Arc Villain.
- Black Knight: Her Purgatory Armor gives her the appearance of one, covered in Spikes of Doom, while her Black Wing Armor is a more streamlined and Stripperific version with wings.
- Blemished Beauty: She lost her right eye as a child while being tortured in the Tower of Heaven, so she had to get her missing eye replaced with an artificial one once she joined the Fairy Tail guild. She is still treated in the series as a Dude Magnet who is noted for her beauty.
- Blow You Away: Her Wind God Armor grants her wind-based powers.
- Braids of Action: Her Lightning Empress Armor and Armadura Fairy give her this style.
- Broken Ace: She is unmatched in strength, skill, and beauty in her guild. However, her past as a slave left her with many emotional issues that she never completely overcomes.
- Broken Bird: Her Dark and Troubled Past left her with such immense feelings of guilt and betrayal that, for a while, she trained to become a badass fighter. She gets over these issues after the Tower of Heaven's destruction, but every now and again, her past comes back to haunt her.
- Buxom Beauty Standard: She has an ample bust, which gets the attention of many men, such as Ichiya when he saw her in a bikini. Even Jellal isn't immune, for instance when they slid down a waterslide together and he couldn't help but get distracted by her breasts pressing against him.
- Can't Act Perverted Toward a Love Interest: She doesn't care about body modesty when around people, has no problem wearing skimpy outfits and showing no shame even if she's seen naked by her male teammates. But if her Love Interest Jellal sees her in an immodest state you can expect her to be unusually embarrassed and even have a Naked Freak-Out.
- Can't Bathe Without a Weapon: Due to how her Re-Equip magic works, Erza can instantly summon any weapon or armor she needs at an instant, even if she's Interrupted while bathing, which happened a lot as she does bathe quite often.
- Carry a Big Stick: Her Purgatory Armor wields a massive mace studded with spikes and blades.
- Chainmail Bikini: Her standard armor averts this, but most of her magical ones play it straight. She also has a literal chainmail bikini that she wears at the beach. This ended up biting her in the ass during her fight with Cobra during the Nirvana Arc, as she engaged him in her Flight Armor only to be blocked and allowing Cubellios to sink her fangs into Erza's bare arm and inject her deadly venom to put her out of the first part of the arc.
- Changing Clothes Is a Free Action: This is essentially what Ezra's Requip magic does, where said clothes (for the most part) are different forms of armor and various types of weaponry with different effect, which she can equip instantaneously depending on the situation. It thus makes the whole Running Gag about the amount of luggage she takes with her when traveling
all the funnier. - Character Development: At the beginning, Erza is a stony-faced disciplinarian who punishes both Natsu and Gray for their constant bickering and also herself whenever she slips into quirky behavior. When Gray calls her out for her abrasiveness, she becomes more laid-back and cheerful, like her guildmates.
- Childhood Friend Romance: Implied to have one with Jellal, whom she greatly admired as a child to the point of blushing when asked if she had a crush. While his betrayal cut her deeply to the point where she was willing to kill him, it's her love for him that allows his redemption. The ending leaves it ambiguous whether they get together, but there's enough to imply that things are looking up for them.
- Cleavage Window: The Nakagami Armor exposes most of her torso, as do many other of her armors.
- Clothes Make the Superman: Downplayed. She has a variety of armors available in her Hammerspace that she can equip instantly, which grant her a wide variety of special abilities. But she's pretty badass even without the special armors.
- Color Motifs: Red, being the color of her hair, which matches her personality, having a magenta magic aura and is one of the most passionate members of Fairy Tail underneath her calm exterior.
- Cool Sword: She has far too many of these to count. Some of them even have Elemental Powers.
- The Comically Serious: A lot of Erza's most hilarious moments involve her playing utterly absurd situations perfectly straight. Her deadpan seriousness makes it twice as funny when she goes along with whatever wackiness the rest of the guild is involved in.
- Conservation of Ninjutsu: When faced with over 100 enemies, she consistently comes out on top and always makes it look like child's play. Ironically, she says in supplemental material that challenging a 100-strong army was one of the harder challenges she'd faced.
- Cool Big Sis: She acts as a supportive and affection big-sister figure towards her guildmates in her age range, and this includes breaking up fights between her guild-siblings and ordering them around
- Covert Pervert: For such a serious and heroic character, she possesses her fair share of perverted outfits, even citing her Playboy Bunny costume as her favorite because of the ears, and is not above using her sex appeal to get what she wants. According to Levy, Erza also has a fondness for books that have "smut" content.
- Cracks in the Icy Façade: Ezra Scarlet is introduced as a stone-faced disciplinarian who a highly-trained badass that is often too serious during peaceful moments unlike the rest of her guild. She often would chastise her guild for goofing off and not taking things seriously, especially Natsu. This would also cause her to have a Lack of empathy, in which she takes everyone away from the village without understanding why it would be important for them to stay and protect them.
- It's later revealed that she a Broken Bird suffering from a traumatic Dark and Troubled Past that left her with such a massive amount of feelings of guilt and betrayal that for a long time, she became hardened and more closed off to everyone else. After, Gray calls her out for her lack of empathy, she begins to try and make an attempt to open up and be more light-hearted and understanding of others.
- Dark Is Not Evil: Her Black Wing Armor and Purgatory Armor are dark and frightening-looking suits of armor, but she only ever dons them to protect her friends.
- Death Glare: She is the reigning queen of this trope in the entire series. Once she's pissed, you can bet the person she directs her gaze towards will have an Oh, Crap! before they eat the dirt in short order. She even manages to scare ghosts of her past enemies back into oblivion with a single glance, reminding them why they feared her in life.
- Death In All Directions: Her Circle Sword: Blumenblatt ability sends her swords flying in all directions.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: Erza starts out as Fairy Tail's resident Iron Lady who's rather annoyed with her guildmates' destructive and rowdy antics, but especially with Natsu's. After Gray calls her out on her abrasiveness as well as her Lack of Empathy regarding the Galuna Island's villagers, she decides to take steps to lighten up and become a nicer person. Around the time of the Tower of Heaven's destruction, she's thawed out, and as the series progresses she starts to goof off like her teammates more and more.
- Determinator: She takes this to its highest logical extreme and beyond. She nearly gets her body destroyed on so many accounts, it's ridiculous, and yet she always finds the drive to come out on top in the end, relying on nothing but sheer willpower.
- Distress Ball: Despite being one of Fairy Tail's most badass Action Girls, she often drops the ball whenever Jellal gets involved, originally because he was a villain and a part of her desperately wanted to still save him despite knowing he could and would manipulate those feelings to his own benefit.
- Ditzy Genius: Much like Natsu, she's an absolutely brilliant fighter, but has No Social Skills whatsoever.
- Doomed Hometown: Her hometown of Rosemary Village was destroyed by Zeref cultists before she was enslaved.
- Doorstop Baby: Her mother left her on the doorstep of a church in Rosemary Village.
- The Dragon Slayer: Her Dragon Slayer Sword: Belserion is enchanted with Dragon Slayer magic, giving it increased effectiveness against both Dragons and Dragon Slayers.
- The Dreaded: She is one of the good guys and a loyal comrade to all Fairy Tail members, but the simple announcement of her return from a mission is enough for everyone to have a Mass "Oh, Crap!". She is also a very well-known wizard throughout the entire country, and almost everyone is very much scared of picking a fight with her.
- Drill Sergeant Nasty: Pre-Character Development, she had the habit of acting like a tough disciplinarian towards her rowdy guildmates, to the point Lucy thinks she's some part of an official guild disciplinary committee when they first meet. She eased up on this after her Character Development, though she still takes training very seriously.
- Dual Wielding: She can wield two BFS's simultaneously during her fights. She even quadruple wields using her feet.
- Early Installment Character-Design Difference: Erza's first appearance in the manga started her off with a prominent forehead with her hair swept back and a generic suit of armor. Later, she was redesigned to have a more distinctly feminine and stylish appearance, with the part in her hair curving and covering more of her forehead, and bangs swept over her artificial eye (though the first anime adaptation keeps both her eyes visible more often; the second adaptation onward embraces the manga-accurate one-eye bangs more often), and changing to her Heart Kreuz Armor- a suit of armor with a more unique and womanly build in mind and distinctive to Erza as her standard Requip. The anime started Erza off with the Heart Kreuz look from the onset and never showed her in her basic armor, though the OVA of Fairy Hills reveals she has quite the collection of armors she is fond of and the one that got Adapted Out is likely among the lot.
- Elegant Gothic Lolita: This outfit is her trump card during the Miss Fairy Tail contest.
- Elemental Weapon: Some of her suits equip her with elemental weapons.
- Establishing Character Moment: She's introduced walking into the guild while casually carrying the horn of a huge monster that she slayed by herself, all while the other guildmembers act terrified by her sudden return due to her harsh disciplinarian reputation.
- Et Tu, Brute?: As a child, Erza gets betrayed by the brainwashed Jellal by the time she escapes the Tower of Heaven. To twist the knife further, she started the rebellion to save him.
- Even the Girls Want Her: She has quite the following of female admirers in addition to her male ones. She even goes into Attractive Bent-Gender territory while playing a prince in a play, making the women in the audience comment on how handsome she is.
- Eye Scream: She lost her right eye while she was tortured at the Tower of Heaven.
- Family of Choice: Having grown up without parents, she sees Fairy Tail as her true family. Upon the revelation that she's the daughter of Irene Belserion, one of their most ruthless enemies from the Alvarez Empire, she firmly states that her only parent is Makarov, who has been there for her all her life. Even after coming to learn that her mother didn't truly despise her, it's too late for Erza to reconsider.
- Fashionable Asymmetry: Her default armor from the Village of the Sun arc onward has only one shoulder plate. This is to expose and accentuate her Fairy Tail guild mark, which is otherwise hidden.
- Fiery Redhead: She has a fiery and passionate personality and can get angered easily, especially by her guildmates' antics. She was actually quite timid as a child, though, even when not facing the cult that enslaved her.
- Fragile Speedster: Her Flight Armor greatly increases her speed but leaves her with no defenses.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: Almost everyone in Fairy Tail is initially frightened by her abrasiveness and strictness to the rules, even when no one asks her to. After Gray calls her out for this behavior, she becomes friendlier, considerate, and willing to help others.
- Girlish Pigtails: She wears her hair in pigtails when wearing her Flame Empress Armor and Armadura Fairy.
- Glass Cannon: Her Clear Heart Clothing forgoes all defense in-favor of speed and strength but leaves her highly vulnerable. Her Heaven's Wheel Armor is a lesser example, too.
- Godiva Hair: In many of her fanservice scenes, her hair covers anything too important.
- Gold-Colored Superiority: Her Requips are accompanied by a golden aura, and she is one of Fairy Tail's most powerful mages.
- Good Is Not Soft: Erza is a Knight in Shining Armor who holds the ideals of Fairy Tail to heart, and will gladly extend a helping hand even to a former enemy to put them on the right path. However, in combat she will not hesitate to beat her foes down in order to protect her loved ones, and while she usually refrains from killing she's indicated she would cross that line if there is no other choice.
- Hammerspace: Her magic is this in a nutshell, allowing her to switch out any weapon or suit of armor on the fly as the situation demands it. It also doubles as a Hyperspace Wardrobe since it contains not only her armor, but ordinary clothes as well.
- Handy Feet: Erza sometimes disregards footwear to swing swords between her toes to either multiply her wielding abilities, pull a crazy acrobatic move, or to block an opponent's attacks if she's endangered while on her back.
- Happily Adopted: She grew up to be a well-adjusted young woman under Makarov's parentage. Given how her real mother abandoned her shortly after her birth, Erza lucked out with Makarov.
- Heartbroken Badass: Her relationship with Jellal is very complicated, and circumstances always seem to prevent them from getting together. Hilariously lampshaded by Happy when he draws a broken heart in the sand after Jellal rejects her.
- Heroes Prefer Swords: Despite the sheer number of weapons she has, she focuses almost exclusively on swordplay.
- Heroic BSoD:
- She undergoes this in her backstory when she's forced to leave her allies behind after enduring enough of being tortured in the Tower of Heaven. To twist the knife further, Jellal was manipulated by Ultear. She does snap out of it around the time of the Tower of Heaven's destruction, however.
- She falls into a much shorter one when Jellal kills Simon.
- In 100 Years Quest, she suffers a major one after Kyria uses her magic to cut her strength and mentality. As a result, Erza becomes a coward, self conscious and unable to fight back. All she can do is beg Kyria to spare her life. Luckily, her Magical Eye eventually lets her throw off the effects, though it takes several hours.
- Heroic Sacrifice: A deconstructed example of this trope occurs when she attempts to rescue Natsu at the cost of her own life during the Tower of Heaven's destruction. While dreaming of her own potential funeral, the sight of all her friends still miserable over her death causes her to realize that there's hardly anything heroic about rescuing them if it means deeming their lives more valuable than one's own. Afterwards, she vows to never sacrifice herself senselessly again.
- Heroic Self-Deprecation: Following her slave revolt in the Tower of Heaven, Erza blames herself for leaving her friends behind.
- Hidden Buxom: She has the largest breasts in the series but her armor usually hides her true bust size.
- Hiding Behind Your Bangs: Not as often as normal, but in the 2014 anime and later chapters of the manga, her hair usually covers her right eye. Hiro Mashima explained that she's still insecure about her artificial eye despite it looking and functioning just like her left one, and her face is simply easier to draw when about half of it is obscured.
- Hypocritical Humor: Erza regularly admonishes her friends for their overly destructive recklessness, even when she herself is no more cautious than they are.
- The Illegible: It's mentioned a few times that Erza is infamous for her terrible writing. At one point, she wrote a complimentary letter to a guild she felt indebted to, and they responded by coming after her, armed to the teeth. In the anime, it's even said that her writing is so bad, it almost made the reader pass out.
- Impossibly Cool Clothes: Each of her armors come with a distinct look and unique abilities.
- Infinity +1 Sword: The Nakagami Armor, which allows her to break the laws of magic, although the sheer amount of magic that it drains from the user keeps her from using it until she activates her Second Origin.
- Instant Armor: Erza's specializes in "Requip" magic, a brand of magic focuses on instantly equipping herself with customized armors and weapons. This requires her being an Action Fashionista who has over 100 different types of outfits that she keeps stored in Hammerspace, from Powered Armor to normal clothing that she can instantly equip. Best exemplified during the "Phantom Lord" arc, where Erza's Shower of Angst is interrupted by an attack on the guild, and she rushes out in a Modesty Towel. When she catches sight of the villain responsible, she rushes into combat while flinging away the towel and instantly conjuring some combat armor into her body from nothing.
- Iron Lady: In her early appearances, she takes everything seriously and hardly ever cracking a smile. However, she slowly but surely defrosts over time.
- It's All My Fault: She blames herself for failing to rescue her friends from the Tower of Heaven when she led a slave revolt. And she's not exactly wrong.
- Jack of All Trades: Thanks to her armors, Erza is one of the most versatile fighters in the series and can adapt to just about any opponent. Played for Laughs outside of combat, as she seems to consider herself talented in a wide range of aptitudes, including baking, nurse work, and acting, though lacks much skill in many of those fields (not that most people have the heart to tell her that).
- Jeanne d'Archétype: In her backstory, she led a slave revolt in the Tower of Heaven to rescue Jellal when she was only 10, rallying others behind her when she awakened her magic. The chapter title focusing on it even references Jeanne d'Arc by name.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Her initial stoicism makes Erza come off as a cold, uncaring jerk. Combined with her severe trust issues, most of Fairy Tail's guild members and other characters she interacts with have a difficult relationship with her. However, she is at heart a loving and very friendly person, as shown with her attempts to stop Phantom Lord from holding Lucy ransom and her later participation in the guild's wackier hijinks.
- Justice Will Prevail: She cites this as one of her primary reasons for joining Fairy Tail, inspired by the stories of her guild's heroism from Rob, her grandfather figure from the Tower of Heaven.
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- Katanas Are Just Better: She uses them with her Clear Heart Clothing, and her most powerful sword is the Demon Blade Benizakura, which pours all her magic power into offense while requiring her to discard all defense including armor.
- Kimono Fanservice: Her Robe of Yuen adds a bit of Japanese flavor to her arsenal.
- Kissing Discretion Shot: She leans in for a silhouetted kiss with Jellal after the Time Skip, leaving it up to the reader to imagine if they did it or not. However, the anime (which censors kissing and intimacy about as much as it does blood and violence due to it being aired in a morning timeslot) blatantly interprets it as an Almost Kiss.
- Lack of Empathy: She can be unsympathetic when her guildmates struggle to follow the rules. For example, when she discovers Lucy, Happy and Gray on Galuna Island, she decides to take them and Natsu back to Fairy Tail without any concern for the islanders' situation. This immediately comes back hard on Erza when Gray calls her out on her abrasiveness and strictness.
- Lady of War: She has an air of dignity and has been shown to be able to fight cooly and collectedly with her weapons and fashionable Battle Ballgowns. She's even called "Titania", Queen of the Fairies.
- Lamarck Was Right: Erza's mother, Irene, is one of the strongest female wizards to have ever walked the face of Earth-land. Also, while it's never stated as a reason Erza inherited her massive power, she spent 400 years in stasis within Irene's womb while her mother was trapped in the form of a dragon, which would go a long way explaining her inhumanly massive level of strength and endurance.
- The Leader: In a similar vein to Natsu, Erza is also one of the people who frankly leads the team, which makes sense considering her S-Class rank. After the second Time Skip, she even briefly fills in the role of guild master for Makarov during his disappearance.
- Leotard of Power: Some of her outfits are very form-fitting.
- Light Feminine and Dark Feminine: The Dark to Lucy's Light Feminine. Though she is tomboyish, she is also feminine with a womanly grace and few desires.
- Lightning Bruiser: Her Black Wing Armor increases her speed and strength, making her more powerful overall. Her Armadura Fairy fits into this as well.
- Like Brother and Sister: She sees Natsu and Gray as two annoying but beloved younger brothers. It's this loving relationship that snaps them out of trying to fight each other to the death in the Alvarez Empire arc.
- Like Mother, Like Daughter: Irene's flashbacks show that Erza has inherited her kindness and unbending resolve from her mother (at least before her Face–Heel Turn), while luckily not inheriting anything from her father, who was a self-absorbed Jerkass. They are also both The Dreaded of their respective groups, as their comrades are terrified of just the idea of pissing them off.
- Long Hair Is Feminine: Has long hair that she takes great pride in, and despite her badassery is quite feminine.
- Lost Food Grievance: Get between her and her pastries and she'll make you will rue the day you ever met her.
- Lots of Luggage: She never goes anywhere without a whole wagon load full of bulging suitcases.
- Made a Slave: Her Dark and Troubled Past shows that she was enslaved by dark wizards and forced to build the Tower of Heaven when she was only 9 years old in an ultimately meaningless effort to resurrect Zeref.
- Made of Iron: Erza has been put through physical punishment no ordinary human being can survive, let alone walk away from. Yet whether she has multiple broken bones, or she's rendered totally blind, deaf and beyond, she can not only muster the strength to keep fighting, but she usually wins.
- Magical Eye: Her artificial eye allows her to weaken or outright nullify the effects of any ability that involves visual contact used against her, allowing her to do things like recover from Evergreen's own Magical Eye or see through Midnight's illusions. It also works on Kyria's Mind Rape.
- Magic Knight: Her magic is literally called "The Knight", and it gives her access to a vast arsenal of magical armors and weapons.
- Making a Splash: Her Sea Empress Armor gives her extra aquatic aptitude. She also possesses a sword with a blade made of water.
- Mama Bear: Harm one of her True Companions in front of her, especially Lucy and Natsu, and you're dead.
- Marshmallow Hell: Played With; she will sometimes attempt to clasp people to her (ample) bosom as a gesture of affection, but tends to forget she's wearing steel plate armor.
- Master of the Levitating Blades: Erza has two sets of armor that grant her this ability. Her Heaven's Wheel Armor can summon numerous swords to spin around her in a circle before being launched at her opponent. Her Ataraxia Armor has "wings" made of floating swords which she can command to move across the battlefield swiftly or use to form a barrier to block attacks.
- Master Swordswoman: It comes with being an experienced fighter, which lets her fight one-on-one with a Master Swordsman in their own right.
- Maybe Ever After: While the series ends without a definitive answer, Erza and Jellal are left with the chance of being together as Jellal is now free to live his life without the weight of his crimes holding him back. Erza is seen brushing her hair with a smile, waiting patiently for the day when they'll see each other again.
- Meaningful Name: Her surname, Scarlet, matches her hair color. In this case, it was actually given to her by Jellal because of her hair.
- Metallic Motifs: Is a Magic Knight that uses a wide array of weapons and armours, as well as a very strong and sharp fighter.
- Mighty Glacier:
- Her Giant's Armor gives her a massive increase in strength, but reduces her speed.
- Her Thousand Arms Armor provides her four fully-controllable artificial metal arms alongside her natural two that gives her multiple angles to swing six swords from alongside a decent strength boost, but by her own admission the armor is heavy and weighs her movement speed down, so until she uses it to fight and overpower Youko's four-armed One-Winged Angel, she admits that she only really used it for the Magnolia Harvest Festival Parade.
- Mind over Matter: She has a telekinetic control over her weapons, weapons, which is best shown when she uses the Heaven's Wheel armor but can be done without it. Her first-ever use of magic involved picking up the fallen weapons and tools on the battleground of her Slave Liberation and throwing them at the slavers. As shown during her fight with Misaki in 100 Years Quest, this control also extends to her armors, allowing her to move her limbs even if she's otherwise physically disabled by magically moving the armor as she wears it.
- Mini-Mecha: In the "Welcome to Fairy Hills" omake and OVA, she is shown to own a massive suit of armor that effectively functions as one. However, she never uses it on account of it being Awesome, but Impractical.
- Mix-and-Match Weapon: As shown during the Pandemonium royale, she can Requip the weapons of different armor sets to her current armor to use their magical properties together.
- Ms. Fanservice: She's beautiful, has large breasts, frequently dons Stripperiffic outfits, and has no reservations about being naked.
- Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Her Thousand Armed Armor has two extra pairs of arms that move when Erza channels her magic into them, allowing her to overwhelm her opponents by using an impressive six swords at once. This armor is most suitable for close-range attacks and hitting a large number of enemies. However, she admits that it's cumbersome and a festive armor.
- Multiform Balance: Each and every one of her armors has a quality that counterbalances the other (one maxes her offensive power while another maxes defense, for example).
- Multi-Melee Master: Thanks to her numerous weapons, she is skilled with practically any bladed weapon.
- Mundane Utility: Her requipping ability also extends to her ordinary clothes, such as pajamas.
- Muscles Are Meaningless: She shows to have incredible physical strength, but has a pretty slender body that has little muscle tone.
- My Greatest Failure: Her failure to rescue Jellal and her friends from the Tower of Heaven motivates her to become a Fairy Tail wizard. Erza has not forgiven herself whatsoever for it, at least until the tower's destruction.
- Mythical Motifs:
- Fairies, being a member of Fairy Tail and having the nickname Titania.
- Heaven's Wheel has an angel motif, being silver metal, feathered wings for flight, and feather-shaped swords.
- Black Wing Armour brings demons to mind, being dark in colour and having bat like wings.
- Flame Empress Armour has a dragon motif, wielding fire and having a draconic appearance.
- Giant Armour has giants, reflecting it's great strength at the cost of mobility.
- The Sea Empress Armour brings a sea monster to mind, wielding water magic.
- The Armadura Fairy Armour continues her own fairy motif, being bright pink and reminiscent of the creature her guild is named after.
- Naked Apron: Her Seduction Armor isn't even armor at all, but only Erza in her panties, stockings, and an apron to cover her boobs.
- Named by the Adaptation: The name of her hakama outfit, Clear Heart Clothing, is only given in video games.
- Naughty Nurse Outfit: She is mentioned in the manga to have a nurse outfit in the Sirius Island arc, which is shown in full in the anime.
- Navel-Deep Neckline: A few of Erza's armor and clothing sets have plunging necklines, such as the Sea Empress Armor, the Nakagami Armor, and the Thousand Arms Armor.
- Nobody Touches the Hair: She's very attached to her hair, by virtue of it being a trait Jellal liked in her. When Misaki uses her magic to cut Erza's hair down to a bob, she's left enraged.
- Normally, I Would Be Dead Now: Literally, no matter what manner of deadly attack she faces—whether she takes the brunt of Phantom Lord's Jupiter cannon, gets blown up at point blank by Azuma, has her sense of pain cranked up to the max by Kyôka, or getting most of her bones broken by Irene—she always gets up and continues to fight out.
- No Sneak Attacks: A heroic variation in 100 Year's Quest, where she notes she can't bring herself to attack Kyria while she's sleeping despite being absolutely livid after recovering from the Dragon Eater's Mind Rape. Kyria herself mocks her for not taking advantage of it later, though Erza fires back with a Slasher Smile it wouldn't be nearly as satisfying to kick her ass while she was asleep.
- Not Afraid to Die: When she decides to confront Jellal at the Tower of Heaven, she fully expects and is prepared not to walk away alive, and doesn't care so long as her friends are safe in the end. After having a vision of her own funeral and seeing how utterly miserable her friends would be, however, she learns not to throw her own life away so readily.
- No Social Skills: She goes far beyond socially awkward; at one point, when she's interrogating people for information, she headbutts them when they don't answer immediately. However, this is but one of several character features she has that don't endure.
- Not So Above It All: Despite generally having a more serious personality at the beginning of the series, Erza is more than willing to join in on the guild's wackier hijinks later on, such as barrel surfing in the Grand Magic Games arc.
- One-Woman Army: Due to both her immense strength and her variety of armors, she's capable of wiping the floor with anyone. No better is this demonstrated than in the Grand Magic Games' "Pandemonium" challenge, which entails everyone taking turns to take on as many of 100 monsters as they can, one of which is so strong that even Wizard Saints aren't guaranteed victory over it. She defeats them all single-handedly.
- Only One Name: "Erza" is the only name she was given at birth, and thus the only one she has known all her life. Her surname "Scarlet" was decided on by Jellal, who was stricken by her scarlet hair.
- Only Sane Man: Erza zig-zags this trope. She disciplines the boys a lot of the time as the guild's resident Drill Sergeant Nasty, but she'll occasionally get this turned on its head when she shows herself to be Not So Above It All.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: The team only really start to realize just how much of an effect the events of the Tower of Heaven Arc is having on Erza when her stoic Iron Lady face cracks as she explains her history with the tower, the slaves, and Jellal. For Natsu in particular, it's seeing her so emotionally vulnerable during the climactic battle with Jellal and her tearful Heroic BSoD at Simon's death that sends him into full-on Unstoppable Rage in Dragon Force.
- The Paragon: Her status as the Action Girl of Fairy Tail plus her iron-clad yet empathetic personality inspires not only the members of her guild to strive for something greater and better than themselves, but also does the same of onlookers and even some of her enemies when they Heel–Face Turn. Ironically, Erza herself views Natsu as her Paragon who inspires her to keep going when even she starts to buckle under the strain.
- Performance Anxiety: Ironically, despite considering herself a master thespian, she suffers from stage fright and botches her lines every time she's given a stage role.
- Perpetual Frowner: When she's introduced, she often seen with a stony face.
- Phrase Catcher: Whenever Erza does something that seems impossible or outlandish, yet she does it anyway, she's usually met with one of two explanations: "It's because she's Erza," or "That's Erza for you."
- Playboy Bunny: She has gone on record saying that her favorite requip is her bunny girl outfit.
- Playing with Fire: Her Flame Empress Armor allows her to wield and defend against fire, making it essential while sparring with Natsu.
- Potty Failure: She wets herself during the Cold-Blooded Torture scene in Chapter 365, although this is not depicted in the anime.
- Powered Armor: Each of her armors enhances various attributes such as her strength, speed, and durability, along with an array of Elemental Powers and other gimmicks.
- Razor Wings: Her Ataraxia Armor has this appearance, with six blades set up behind her that resemble wings she can telekinetically control at will. They're so impressive, they can even harm her foes without making direct contact.
- Really 700 Years Old: Played With. She is confirmed 19 years old by the start of the series, but was actually conceived 400 years ago during the time of the Dragon King Festival, only being born in the present day because Irene's transformation into a dragon ended up suspending her gestation for centuries.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: She has a very reasonable judgment and is perfectly willing to listen to her fellow guildmates, even if she has trust issues.
- Red Baron: She is frequently called "Titania", the Queen of the Fairies (based on Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream), by admirers and enemies alike. While discussing her title, she says that she doesn't know who gave it to her in the first place, nor does she particularly care using it.
- Redhead In Green: The Sea Empress Armor is green and she has red hair.
- Redheads Are Ravishing: Erza is a redheaded beauty with a fantastic body whose magic usually involves Stripperiffic outfits. Jellal gave her the surname Scarlet because he loves her beautiful red hair.
- Samurai Ponytail: When using her Clear Heart Clothing, Erza bounds her hair into a samurai-style ponytail.
- Sarashi: She wears one in the style of a tube top as part of her Clear Heart Clothing, along with a flame-patterned hakama, trading out defense for pure offense.
- Screams Like a Little Girl: Erza lets out an adorably shrill squeak whenever she is startled, which humorously contradicts her usual commanding and stoic speaking voice.
- Serious Business: Erza takes everything seriously, even things that shouldn't be taken seriously. Just to give an example of how messed up she is, she threatens to kill her guildmates when they ruin her strawberry cake.
- Shameless Fanservice Girl: Erza has no problems bathing out in the open with other people, or walking around naked, even in the snow. So much so that on two OVA episodes that featured nude bathing, Erza completely shatters the trend that anime girls tend towards of getting angry at the boys when they (intentionally or not) peek at the girls, but rather tends towards 'inviting them in', much to the frustration of the other girls. The only time she ever expresses embarrassment over nudity is when she runs into Jellal while she's walking on the street stark naked.
- Shed Armor, Gain Speed: In situations where her armors can't defend or help her she can equip herself with light clothing "armors" that allow her to become much faster and nimbler.
- Shipper on Deck: She seems to ship Gray and Juvia. She is the first to address Gray on how to deal with Juvia. During one of the Omake, she encourages Juvia to get Gray a present for their 413 anniversary.
- Ship Tease: She gets a ton of it with Jellal, which isn't helped at all by their mutual Unresolved Sexual Tension caused by their temporary relationship as mortal enemies, and him becoming a wanted fugitive later on, which becomes the primary factor why they can't be an Official Couple. While the series ends with them on a Maybe Ever After, it is very heavily suggested to be on the "yes" end of the spectrum.
- Shock and Awe: Her Lightning Empress Armor gives her electrical powers.
- Single-Target Sexuality: She has been in love with Jellal since she was a child, and in spite of all that he has done, her feelings for him haven't changed and she's never shown interest in anyone besides him.
- Single Woman Seeks Good Man: It was Jellal's undying idealism and sense of justice that sparked her attraction to him when they were child slaves. It falls upon her to remind Jellal of that whenever he falters in his path to redemption.
- Spider People: Like the rest of the girls, she's turned into a yokai by Youko, specifically a jorougumo
, and her entire lower body takes on the form of a colossal spider; fortunately, Wendy is able to quickly turn her back to normal. - Spirited Competitor: She loves a good competition and joins every one with the intent to win. Her Friendly Rivalry with Natsu stems from this as well.
- Star-Crossed Lovers: She and Jellal are frequently kept apart due to her being a dignified member of an official guild, and him being a wanted criminal who forms an illegal guild.
- Star Power: Her Celestial Armor exclusive to Fairy Tail: Dragon Cry allows her to use Jellal's Signature Move, Grand Chariot, which strikes opponents with seven beams of light at the force of a meteor.
- The Stoic: Despite being proven to be Not So Stoic later on, she maintains her calm and collective demeanor no matter how serious the situation is.
- Stone Wall: Her Adamantine Armor is this, being purely defensive, but powerful enough to tank a Wave-Motion Gun capable of wiping out entire towns.
- Storm of Blades: Her Heaven's Wheel Armor main offense is summoning and firing multiple swords at once. With enough time to set it up, she's been able to fire up to 200 at once.
- Strong and Skilled: Is an S-Class wizard who possesses immense magical and physical power. She uses said power along with the many, many, many weapons and armours her Requip Magic gives to devastating effect, offering her an absurd array of powers in combat, all of which she she shows masterful control of. Even outside of her absurd skill with her weapons, she repeatedly shows herself to have a knack for deducing the mechanics of her opponents magic and develop a workaround, letting her triumph against seemingly unbeatable opponents.
- Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Even though Erza is serious and stoic, she's still a loving and loyal friend.
- Sultry Bangs: She tends to hide her artificial eye behind her bangs due to being insecure about it, but it also has the effect of enhancing her sex appeal. Notably she's drawn with an eye covered by bangs more consistently when she's wearing her more fanservice-oriented and revealing armors, such as her "Seduction Armor" and "Clear Heart Clothing".
- Summon to Hand: Her magic allows her to immediately summon any weapon she has stored in Hammerspace.
- Sweet Tooth: A major one, with strawberry cakes being her favorite; damage her cake in particular is an easy way to earn her ire.
- Swiss-Army Hero: Thanks to the large amount of armor and weapons she can summon at will, Erza is a highly versatile fighter.
- Sword Beam: She has this with her Photon Slicer ability of her Morning Star Armor. Her Armadura Fairy Armor can also do something similar.
T-Y
- Team Mom: She behaves like her teammates' disciplinary mother, but strongly cares for them as her family.
- Technicolor Blade: Several of her swords are different colors.
- Tomboyish Ponytail: A few of her armors give her a ponytailed hairstyle, particularly her Black Wing Armor and Clear Heart Clothing.
- Tomboy with a Girly Streak: She's a tomboyish fighter, but she still loves cute dresses, outfits and jewelry.
- Took a Level in Badass: A lowly slave of the Tower of Heaven eventually becomes a respected and powerful S-Class Fairy Tail member who's quite capable of even beating up Jellal's cronies.
- Took a Level in Cheerfulness: She starts out as a rather calm and collective member of Fairy Tail who is still weighed down by the regret of being unable to save her past friends. By the time Gray calls her out on her abrasiveness in Galuna Island, she starts showing off her warmer, sillier personality more frequently.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: When she becomes enslaved in the Tower of Heaven, she's quite a friendly girl who will go out of her way to help people, even taking Kagura Mikazuchi's place when the Zeref cultists appear in their hometown. However, by the time she escapes the Tower of Heaven, her years of being tortured cause her to harden; she becomes an abrasive, stoic and apathetic jerk, though as Gray later points out, she's actually still a good person.
- Took a Level in Kindness: By the end of the Galuna Island arc, Erza has become a lot more friendlier, considerate and willing to help others. Among other things, she helps stop Phantom Lord from holding Lucy ransom and helps Minerva overcome her personal demons.
- Town Girls: The Butch. Erza is a tough swordswoman and prefers wearing armors, in contrast to the girlier girls of her team, Lucy and Wendy.
- Trademark Favorite Food: She absolutely loves strawberry cake, and can often be seen eating it when she's relaxing. Heaven forbid you ruin it while she's eating.
- Tranquil Fury: In contrast to her other guildmates and especially Natsu, she tends to give a silent, chilling Death Glare every time she gets significantly pissed.
- Trauma Conga Line: She was abandoned by Irene Belserion in a village, was enslaved and forced to work in the Tower of Heaven when she was eleven years old, suffered the loss of an eye, and watched Jellal turn on her as she escaped.
- Traumatic Superpower Awakening: The first time she ever used magic was after watching her Parental Substitute Rob pull a Heroic Sacrifice for her sake and disintegrate before her eyes. This prompted her to telekinetically lift an assortment of scattered weapons and tools on the battlefield and slaughter all the slavers, with a long endless deranged scream.
- Tsurime Eyes: Her eyes are slanted upwards to reflect her serious, aloof, badass nature.
- Unable to Cry: Downplayed. She cannot cry in her artificial right eye due to a defect; she claims that it's because she already cried half of her tears out at the Tower of Heaven. At the end of that arc, however, she manages to cry out of both eyes.
- Unlimited Wardrobe: Erza has an uncountable number of armor sets for any situation you can possibly think of, and a number of outfits that have no combat utility whatsoever.
- Unpleasant Parent Reveal: She is furious at the revelation that Irene is not only her biological mother but also a despicable person at heart. Her stance softens when she learns the truth about Irene's past and her choice to kill herself to protect Erza.
- Unresolved Sexual Tension: There's a notable tension between her and Jellal after the first Time Skip. The ending implies they will resolve it eventually.
- Used to Be a Sweet Kid: While she's still a compassionate girl who's willing to help others, she showed it more often as a child. Her past as a slave hardened her, unfortunately.
- Vapor Wear: Several of her armors don't have a bra. This is evident when the armor is broken. Her Clear Heart garbs wrap her buxom in sarashi bandages, but battle damage can cause it to become unfurled or tattered.
- Victoria's Secret Compartment: Apparently, there's enough room in her cleavage to hide Happy, Carla, and Lily.
- Walking Armory: Erza is skilled enough to use any kind of weapons, that's why the list below is so long.
- The Worf Barrage: Starting from her fight with Ikaruga in the Tower of Heaven arc, several of her fights will involve her armors getting smashed only seconds after she summons them.
- World's Best Warrior: She's not only the strongest woman in the Fairy Tail guild, she's one of the strongest members. However she does have many other people that have surpassed her in terms of pure magic power and physical ability.
- Wrestler of Beasts: During the The Grand Magic Games, Erza participates in an event called Pandemonium which has her fighting and defeating 100 powerful monsters all by herself.
- You Are in Command Now: She temporarily assumes the mantle of Guild Master when Makarov disappears.
