| “ | I hate going easy, whatever the task may be. | „ |
| ~ Gildarts Clive to Natsu Dragneel in Who Is the Lucky One? |
Gildarts Clive is a supporting protagonist in the anime/manga series Fairy Tail. He is one of the Fairy Tail Guild's S-Class Mages, the guild's Ace, its current most famous Mage, and was its Fifth Guild Master. He is also the father of Cana Alberona.
He is voiced by Kazuhiko Inue in the Japanese version of the anime, and by Jason Douglas in the English version of the anime.
Personality
Gildarts is a laid-back, easygoing man. He's also warmhearted and kind, and has great interest and faith in the new generation of Fairy Tail's Mages. He is well respected by the whole town and guild, with the citizens going as far as to literally rearrange the town's layout whenever he's around, creating a large, empty road for him to walk to the Guild, to prevent accidental damage.He also appears to be a bit absent-minded and oblivious, and apparently doesn't pay attention to what he's doing, such as not recognizing the guild or Mirajane. He also has a tendency to break through walls with his Crash Magic in order to pass, rather than simply using the door, something which prompted the inhabitants of Magnolia to create the town's rearranging process. However, Gildarts is not in any way unintelligent and has proven to be capable of considerably accurate predictions and strategies, as he used his knowledge of Natsu's desire to fight Erza to easily and correctly predict Natsu would chose E route and later on when he crashed the ground and used it as a cushion to nulify Natsu's attack, which visibly impresses Happy. Gildarts also displayed a huge amount of wisdom and philosophical abillity and intelligence, as he was able to effectively impart the knowledge that fear is not evil and it allows one to know their weakenesses and become kinder to Natsu. He even said that while he recognised Natsu to be powerful, even though Natsu could barely make him move 2 feet, he still sorely lacked that philosophy and thus is in desperate need of someone to knock it into his brain as in order to reach what Gildarts claims to be the summit of the path of magic. Even Makarov holds Gildarts's abillity to actually be quite intelligent at a high regard, as he decided to make Gildarts the next Master out of recognition of Gildarts's skill, power and wisdom.
When he enters a fight, he often points out that he is bad at and dislikes holding back, and Happy made it clear that Gildarts is well known for obliterating his opponents. Despite this, however, Gildarts proved to be not entirely uncaring of what he destroys and when fighting, Gildarts would often employ exclusively hand-to-hand combat while using Crash to destroy things other than humans, such as the ground or Magic attacks, showing that he prefers to avoid human casualties. Should he be pushed to the limit, or choose not to hold back, his Magic power would react similarly to Makarov's Giant Wrath, except it doesn't destroy everything around him in terms of intensity. His fighting spirit is similar to Natsu's, as he himself admitted, in that he respects his opponents, neither taking them too lightly nor overdoing. He also won't turn down a fight challenge offered to him, but he may ask to fight later after some urgent business is first dealt with.
In many ways, Gildarts appears to be somewhat of a lone wolf. He left the guild three years before the start of the series to take on a 100-year mission by himself. He also left the guild once he was declared the fifth master, passing on the mantle of leadership once again to Makarov, suggesting that he may feel uncomfortable with a leadership position, or at least disliking the added responsibility. Once the title of master was passed, Gildarts immediately left the guild again, stating that while Fairy Tail would become the number one guild in Fiore once more, it was not his job to do that.In addition, during the fight between Bluenote Stinger and himself, he had his guild mates leave the area so that he could fight Stinger one-on-one (although this was most likely done to keep the others alive, as they would have been caught in the fighting).
Gildarts is a womanizer, having been with at least 13 women since leaving his late wife 18 years ago.
History
Gildarts went out of the guild 3 years prior to the beginning of the series. He is rumored to have taken both a 10-year-job as well as a 100-year-job, which is classified above the SS rank jobs as the difficulty is ranked on how long it has been since someone completed one.On this quest, he met Acnologia and was quickly defeated, losing both his left arm and leg, plus an unspecified organ in the process. Years ago, Gildarts met and fell in love with a woman named Cornelia. Their relationship blossomed and the two eventually married each other. However, Gildarts was so fixated with his work that Cornelia left him 18 years prior to the beginning of the series, and he was unaware that she was carrying his.
Magic and Abilities
Crushing Evil, Spreading the Truth: Empyrean: Gildarts first breaks the spell cast by his foe, and then blows the enemy into the sky with a powerful punch imbued with magical energy. This technique was used to defeat Bluenote Stinger while battling on Tenrou Island.
Crash: Gildarts' signature Magic, Crash is an extremely powerful Caster Type Magic that smashes everything the user comes into contact with into pieces. It can even be used to both crack Magic into pieces, nullifying its effects, as well as to reduce the Magic's power and to deflect it. Even the most powerful spells are rendered useless when faced with this destructive and highly advanced Magic, which is seemingly difficult to control even for an extremely powerful individual like Gildarts himself.
Disassembly Magic (分開 Punkai): Is a Caster Type Magic that creates a net-like pattern which runs straight through whatever it touches, whether tangible or intangible. However, instead of being destroyed, the objects that are touched split apart and form numerous, smaller versions of the original. When used on a living organism, the recipient gets reduced into small, doll-like versions of themselves, complete with deadpan expressions. In this case, the process is reverted after some time, but Gildarts is also capable of revoking the spell to recreate the original person.
Immense Durability and Endurance: Gildarts has proven himself to be incredolously durable, as he was shown taking the full brunt of Natsu's Crimson Lotus: Exploding Flame Blade (which was used to defeat an internally and externally weakened Laxus) and only take two steps backwards afterward, emerging completely unscathed. He withstood a brutal beat down from Bluenote while powerless due to Azuma's taking down Tenrou's tree with only few injuries and soon fought back upon regaining his strength and soon defeated him with no hinderance to his prowess. Later on, when Gildarts was punched by Byro repeatedly, he took absolutely no damage from them and proceeded to swiftly knock him down. He also emerged from his fight with God Serena unfazed. A true testament to Gildart's enormous durabillity and endurance was the fact he survived having his left arm, left leg, and an unspecified organ taken away from him by Acnologia, and is the only known human to survive an attack from the self proclaimed Dragon King and live to tell the tale, showing a profoundly natural abillity to tolerate and survive immense levels of physical damage.
Immense Strength: Gildarts is shown to be incredolously strong, as when Natsu attempted to attack him, he casually threw him crashing into the ceiling with one hand. When Natsu was a child and challenged Gildarts, Gildarts was able to effortlessly send him flying each and every time with a casual touch and effortlessly beat him to a pulp. In his fight with Natsu now as an adult, Gildarts still displayed a vast superiority in strength, able to pummel him to the point that Happy estatically said that Gildarts was simply using Natsu as a punching bag with no effort and Gildarts even went as far as to easily parry Natsu's fire enhanced blows. His strength is so fast that he is easily capable of overcoming the vastly powerful pinning influence of Bluenote Stinger's gravitational field, allowing him to perfectly move and attack, a remarkable feat as Natsu, a potential S-Class Mage known for his physical prowess, wasn't even able to stand, which displays just how much stronger Gildarts is than Natsu. When they pitted their strength, Gildarts not only matched but also pushed Bluenote back, a clash that created an enormous shock wave which destroyed the surrounding area in a wide radius. His body strength even allowed him to, albeit with considerable difficulty, resist Bluenote's Black Hole, which had immense attractive force capable of attracting everything in a wide area towards itself, subsequently sucking it up. Later on, he knocked out Natsu, although Natsu was weakened from fighting Hades, with a single blow while still not having fully recovered from his fight with Bluenote. Gildarts's enormous raw physical strength allowed him to, while greatly holding back, easily clash with Byro Cracy, an individual with sufficient raw strength as to effortlessly pummel Natsu. Upon stopping to hold back, Gildarts easily overpowered Byro, even going as far as to easily break his staff with a single punch while silmutaneously punching him to a wall with enough force to decimate it and eventuallu culminating with Gildarts bringing Byro to his knees with a single blow. When angered after seeing Natsu get swallowed by a dinosaur, he was able to destroy not only the dinosaur, but also a vast portion of the landscape with a single punch. He destroyed the entire Kardia Cathedral when attacking August with a single punch.
Immense Magic Power: As the strongest mage of the Fairy Tail Guild, Gildarts has an incredolous amount of massive Magic Power, with even Erza Scarlet noting him to be far stronger than herself. When exerted, Gildarts' Magic Power is white in color. Gildarts can exert his magical power into an extremely powerful aura that easily brought someone as powerful as Natsu Dragneel to his knees and utterly terrify him to the point of quickly admitting defeat. Gildarts also matched and eventually defeated the likes of Bluenote Stinger, the second strongest Grimoire Heart member, and was so powerful that Makarov considered Gildarts to be the only Fairy Tail mage to be able to suceed him, even compared to Erza, Mirajene, and Laxus, strongly implying that Gildarts surpasses even Makarov. The timeskip appears to have considerably improved Gildart's power, as he managed to casually defeat the Histoire of God Serena, the strongest wizard in Ishigar who had easily defeated the other Four Gods of Ishigar and Jura, and even fight against August, the General of Spriggan 12, and eventually overwhelm him alongside Cana, both terrifyingly powerful mages, a testament to his overwhelming magical power.
Master Hand to Hand Combatant: Gildarts is an unarmed fighter of extradionary skill, among the greatest fighters in the series. Displays of Gildarts's tremondous skill was he effortlessly defeated Natsu as a child without Natsu landing a single punch. In his fight with a determined and now adult Natsu, Gildarts quite easily had the upper hand with his hand-to-hand skills alone without moving a single step. Later on, he fought evenly with and eventually defeated Grimoire Heart's second strongest fighter Bluenote Stinger, an extremely proficient hand-to-hand fighter in his own right. While he only stalemated Byro in their first confrontation, Gildarts reveals himself to be holding back considerably in their second fight and for the first half of said fight, while initially defensive against one of the top 5 fighters in Fiore, once Gildarts gets serious, he easily defeated the master martial artist with only few punches, even destroying his staff with a single punch. The timeskip likely greatly improved Gildart's skill as he managed to easily fight with God Serena while maintaining a slight advantage and holding back, although God Serena was not at full power, and quickly defeated him, as well as tore through many Berserker soldiers on his own, whereas even Erza was overwhelmed.
Gallery
 Heroes
| |
|---|---|
|
Dragons Legal Guilds Sabertooth Lamia Scale Blue Pegasus Mermaid Heel Edolas Fairy Tail Independent Guild Fiore Kingdom Teams Shadow Gear Team Lyon Thunder God Tribe The Trimens Allied Forces‡ Edolas Shadow Gear Team Tenrou‡ Twin Dragons of Sabertooth Team Sabertooth‡ Team Lamia Scale‡ Team Blue Pegasus‡ Team Mermaid Heel‡ Team Fairy Tail A‡ Team Fairy Tail B‡ Team Fairy Tail‡ Exceeds Celestial Spirits Others | |