First, I'd like to apologise if this thread is already banned.
I haven't gotten any message saying so yet, so if it is, I'm unaware.
It's not my fault! ^_^

First, my two copper fartlings on the Dragon Slave/Dragu Slave/etc.
debate.

In the manga, Dragon Slave is written do-ra-gu su-re-i-bu in katakana.
How the kanji form could be romanjised, I have no clue. 

However, doragu sureibu would suggest that the transliterated form is
dragu slave or dragu slebu (which makes absolutely no sense.. ^_^)
so, according to the manga, the name of the spell is Dragu Slave.
This is also quite close to how it's pronounced in the anime.
The first word is either 'dragu' or 'dragon' or something in between,
and the second is without a doubt 'slave'.

In my opinion, the right way to write it is 'Dragon Slave', since that
'dragu' would be, IMHO just, the Japanese way of saying 'dragon' in English.


Now, about the spell itself.

In episode 9 of Slayers, Lina says (or at least so it is in the subtitles)
that Dragon Slave gets its power from negative emotions, such as hate, anger
or envy. She also says that Shabranigdo gets power from these same emotions.
The subtitles lead us to believe that Shabranigdo and Dragon Slave have
the same source of power, but Dragon Slave doesn't get power from Shabranigdo.
This is not, however, clearly stated.

I have also heard that in Slayers NEXT it is stated that Dragon Slave indeed
does get power from Shabranigdo. But this is second hand information and
shouldn't
be trusted.

Dragon/Dragu Slave and Rand & co: The way they pronounce the first word of the
spell in Slayers is pretty close to 'dragon', so whether or not Lina & co. speak
the language of Randland, people there would know that the name of the spell
is Dragon Slave. (unless they speak some completely different language there
that Jordan just translated to English for our convenience. ^_^)


Lina & co. source of magical power in Slayers and True Source.

Note. These are all my theories. I might be completely wrong here.

It seems that Black Magic gets power from negative emotions (as stated in
episode 9 of Slayers), White from positive (this is second hand information)
and Shamanism from mind and Astral Plane.(also second hand information)
Black Magic might also get power from the Mazoku (Monsters) and White from
Gods. 

So, it seems that emotions and the mind hold a great power in the world
of Slayers. While users of Black Magic (ie. Lina, Naga and maybe Amelia)
seem to have a shorter temper than other people (ie. Zel, Shiefel, Gourry)
they don't seem to be too controlled by their negative emotions. Thus, the
negative and positive emotions of all people could both create some kind of
field of power, or mana, in the world of Slayers and magic users would get
their power from this. Similarly, shamans might draw power from the astral
plane.

Now, no matter what the case is, people in the world of Slayers can't use
Black Magic if they don't have negative emotions. For example Shiefel (the
other dark-haired girl in the Slayer opening animation) is powerful
enough to cast a Dragon Slave, but can't use it unless she's really mad.

Anyway, the point is that the source of magic in the world of Slayers is
completely different from the True Source of Randland, and the Slayers
characters might be able to use their own power sources there.
And that would really confuse things. ^_^

And, no Astral Plane isn't the True Source, since you can travel in Astral
Plane.


Last, about the fortcoming Slayers releases.

In April, Software Sculptors is going to release Slayers vol 5. But, unlike
some people have said, it DOES NOT contain the first episodes of Slayers NEXT.
Slayers vols. 5-8 will contain the latter half of first Slayers TV-series.
To my knowledge Software Sculptors doesn't yet have rights to Slayers NEXT.
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The Martian.
Jussi.Nikander@alien.nixu.fi
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"Curses! Foiled again!"
	-Skuld