What if they had lived ordinary lives

What if our favorite cyborgs had lived ordinary lives, who would they have been? what would they have done? what would they have become? I had often wondered this myself after watching or reading Gunslinger Girl, and now the question has been officially posed by Speranza.

As the daughter of a professor and a girl who loved to read, I am confident Claes would have become an academic.

Rico - still in a hospital bed, suffering.

Triela - never found in that Snuff Child Porn Werehouse, would be found dead afterwards.

On a happier note, Henrietta would probably have been a normal girl. Nothing more and nothing less than an average Italian. The same would be true for Angelica.

Of course, we know that if she hadn't gotten cancer, Petrushka would have been a ballet dancer of world class capability.

Assuming Beatrice's personality was natural and not created due to her conversion, she'd have become a government bureaucrat. I'm guessing Health & Safety.

ElfenMagix wrote:
Rico - still in a hospital bed, suffering.

Triela - never found in that Snuff Child Porn Werehouse, would be found dead afterwards.

That's true, though those were also reasons they became candidates for the program.

Personally I had always imgained that Rico would have been an athlete if she had not been born with CFS. My mental picture of Rico always seems to include a Soccer Jersey and ball.

As for Triela, I think she would have been a mentor or class president of some kind. Throughout the series she manages to find the best qualities in those around her.

Henriette, I think would have found her way into an artistic capacity, though music seemed difficult for her (new body) but she took to photography right away (though perhaps that's just her point and click conditioning:lol:)

I can certainly see Claes being a book worm even without Raballo's special conditioning.

I have trouble with Beatrice, and Angelica, I feel like their conditioning effected their personality to much. (along with their roles as supporting characters.)

Marie (Elise) would have probably grown up to be fantastic Jazz musician. After high school, she'd grab a backpack and her trumpet and set off to see the world.

Mainframe wrote:
As for Triela, I think she would have been a mentor or class president of some kind. Throughout the series she manages to find the best qualities in those around her.

It's also noted that Triela is Noth-african girl; probably Tunisia or Morocco...(which place her as 'Muslim' girl, whether it was her original religion or not  )
if she was never involved in human trafficking and snuff film, i bet she would become a teacher or something...

Kuroneko wrote:

Mainframe wrote:
As for Triela, I think she would have been a mentor or class president of some kind. Throughout the series she manages to find the best qualities in those around her.

It's also noted that Triela is Noth-african girl; probably Tunisia or Morocco...(which place her as 'Muslim' girl, whether it was her original religion or not  )
if she was never involved in human trafficking and snuff film, i bet she would become a teacher or something...

She was born in Tunisia  . Hilshire have said so in cannon


@Odon:

That just reminded me Triela's knack for language. Perhaps she would have been a language teacher or tutor in Tunisia.

That was a very visual scenario Odon, cool!

If lived had go on without the SWA taking the girls, and assuming the show events had happened as happened, Triela would be pretty much dead. Killed in one of those snuff films.

Henrietta on her side would had been a broken girl for her entire life. Remember the culprit chopped her, and i mean she was raped too (not sure here). 

Angelica would have been stuffed into a new family after her father has been thrown into prison. I don't know right now if she had a mother at this point or not.

Rico.... maybe in hospital for years, suffering from sideeffects of medication or what i rather think, killed by her parents with a cushion, due to the massive hospital bills.

Sorry for beeing so negative, I'm just realistic.



As for my OC Emilie, Iguess she would have become either a musician (pianist or opera singer)or a teacher giving piano and singing lessons.

Kara would have followed her parents into Astronomy.

I always considered Triela as being slated for something special had she never been kidnapped and grown up normally. For some reason I keep picturing her working with the UN or similar, possibly as a diplomat or crisis resolver, given her gift for langages and ability to get along with and manage people.

Rico... I can see the sporty thing, and Claes seems to fit acadamia: possibly a litterary role.

Petra was headed for the ballet, and I honestly have no idea for Angie.

As to Henrietta, this is going to sound horrible, but given her clingy and needy nature (not certain how much of that is a result of her conversion, but lets assume it's "inherited"), I can see her ending up in someone's trophy cabinet: something pretty and silly to hang off some manipulative man's arm...


As to Monty... I couldn't see her ever being happy in the daily grind. She would need something constantly changing to keep her mentally active, possibly with a lot of travel: maybe a roving correspondant, jetsetting business woman or, frankly, she could well have wound up in the DGSE.

Alfisti wrote:
As to Henrietta, this is going to sound horrible, but given her clingy and needy nature (not certain how much of that is a result of her conversion, but lets assume it's "inherited"), I can see her ending up in someone's trophy cabinet: something pretty and silly to hang off some manipulative man's arm...

That description of Henrietta suddenly reminded me of the trophy wife from Lord of War film. Willfully ignorant to the source of her husband's money as long as her artistic whims are fulfilled.

Mainframe wrote:

Alfisti wrote:
As to Henrietta, this is going to sound horrible, but given her clingy and needy nature (not certain how much of that is a result of her conversion, but lets assume it's "inherited"), I can see her ending up in someone's trophy cabinet: something pretty and silly to hang off some manipulative man's arm...

That description of Henrietta suddenly reminded me of the trophy wife from Lord of War film. Willfully ignorant to the source of her husband's money as long as her artistic whims are fulfilled.

Considering that Henrietta's family was attacked and killed as they violated and mutilated her, she would try to kill herself again at the hospital. Or be called 'Stumpy' at the orphanage.

I was under the impression we were assuming that the premise was that the terrible things that brought the girls to the Agency never happened.

Otherwise, they all either end up in a hospital or a grave so they could never live an ordinary life.

Kiskaloo wrote:I was under the impression we were assuming that the premise was that the terrible things that brought the girls to the Agency never happened.

Rico was born with her condition, to deny that would deny the person she is. Her personality and the events she would live out would be so different that she would unrecognizable. The same applies to all the others.

It would be as if 'What if the SWA never existed.' The situation as to why that brought them to the SWA does not change as far as I see it, because these are events outside of the SWA's control. Unless somebody is actually stating that the SWA was involved in these events in order to get the girls in the first place.

Kiskaloo wrote:Otherwise, they all either end up in a hospital or a grave so they could never live an ordinary life.

 So grave that some of them would have been dead like Elizabetta.

ElfenMagix wrote:

Kiskaloo wrote:I was under the impression we were assuming that the premise was that the terrible things that brought the girls to the Agency never happened.

Rico was born with her condition, to deny that would deny the person she is. Her personality and the events she would live out would be so different that she would unrecognizable. The same applies to all the others.

Under such a premise this thread would be pointless since the girls would all be dead or hospitalized and could therefore never have lived an "ordinary life".

As such, I have to assume that the premise Mainframe intended assumed that Rico would have been born without CFS; Henrietta's family would not have been murdered; Triela would not have been kidnapped and taken to Amsterdam to be part of a snuff film; Kara's family was not at Atocha station in Madrid on 11 March 2004; Monique didn't trip; etc, allowing them to be normal girls who could live a normal life.

I would certainly have to agree with the choices other people have posited for the canon characters, so there is really nothing I can add.

As for Shelby Mercer (the girl now known as Allison), if she hadn't had the collision that took her family from her, I imagine her racing career would have likely continued with all the struggles that came with it--balancing schoolwork and her races, fighting to win and get noticed by sponsors, perhaps even get the attention of the McLaren Young Driver Development Programme or something similar. 

I would like to imagine her quest to become the first female Formula 1 WDC winner would be her ultimate struggle.

ElfenMagix wrote:

Mainframe wrote:

Alfisti wrote:
As to Henrietta, this is going to sound horrible, but given her clingy and needy nature (not certain how much of that is a result of her conversion, but lets assume it's "inherited"), I can see her ending up in someone's trophy cabinet: something pretty and silly to hang off some manipulative man's arm...

That description of Henrietta suddenly reminded me of the trophy wife from Lord of War film. Willfully ignorant to the source of her husband's money as long as her artistic whims are fulfilled.

Considering that Henrietta's family was attacked and killed as they violated and mutilated her, she would try to kill herself again at the hospital. Or be called 'Stumpy' at the orphanage.

Admittedly (as you noted later) Rico is problematic as her condition, both pre-SWA and as a cyborg, is indeed pivitol to her character.

However, for the other girls, it is resonably easy to trace their lives back to the point at which everything went tits-up and ask (assuming we hold to the theory that at least part of the girls' personalities is carried over from their "donor") "what if this had not happened". So what if the people who assulted 'Etta's family had chosen the house next door, or if Angelica's father had not wound up in financial strife... what if Petra had never contracted bone cancer or if Triela had never been kidnapped... what then?

And, just for fun, why not include Rico?

Otherwise, as Kisk noted: there's not a whole lot of point in the thread because the answer simply becomes "life sucked and they died"... which is probably more realistic and in line with the GsG universe, but kind of cuts the fun speculation short.