Gaia


Gaia
First Appearance:	It's Kind Of A Birthday Present 1.01
Played By:	Keisha Castle-Hughes
Gender:	Female
Age:	22 (false), 21 (actual)
Occupation:	Nurse (former)
God/Goddess:	Idun
Power:	Youthfulness
Relatives:	Bryn (adoptive father Leon (Half Brother) Tyr (Biological father's God name)
Residence:	Axl's flat, Auckland

Gaia is a hospital nurse in her first year after training, and she’s also Axl and Zeb’s flatmate – which is a good thing since there is at least one person in the flat who’s got their act together.

She is also the daughter of a Maori Goddess and the Norse God Tyr; Currently the living incarnation of Idun.

Biography

Early Life

Gaia was born to a Norse God and a Maori Goddess, though by Bryn's account, they were unfit to be parents, even by the low standards of Gods. When she was a baby, the unusually small Giant was sent to kill her in an attempt to stop the prophecy of Frigg and Odin's reunion. However, Bryn was unable to complete the task upon laying eyes on her, and hid her on Waiheke Island, pretending to be her father and sending word that he had killed her to the Giants. When Jacob arrived to follow up the task of killing her, he fell into a similar predicament but constantly lied about locating her. As she grew up, Bryn made arrangements to look after her, including changing her age slightly so that she would be just over a year older than she actually was. (Everything Starts With Gaia)

Season 1

After shopping for beer, Gaia watched as Axl was nearly run over by Stacey, and was clearly annoyed when Axl invited her to their party. While cleaning up afterwards, she gave Axl a hug for his 21st. When it was time to go to the party Mike and Valerie had organised, she surprised Axl with a nice dress, and commented on his strange sword. At the party she was saddened by Axl’s happiness with a pair of ladies Anders had brought with him, but took an opportunity to try dance with him before Zeb interrupted. When she tried to comfort Axl when he was upset later, she was disheartened when he went off with a woman who looked like another Anders had brought with him. (It's Kind Of A Birthday Present)

Season 2

Gaia returned to the old flat, and after Jacob had left after trying to find her there, asked Axl if she could move back in. (Frigg Magnet)

However her behavior was extremely and increasingly erratic, to Axl and Zeb's surprise, wanting to go out drinking, cursing more, and flirting with a complete stranger. Bryn arrived to try and take her back to Waiheke, though Axl eventually managed to convince him to back off. (Charlie Truman)

Later, as Gaia was rearranging furniture following a dream she'd had and quitting her job, Bryn and Jacob arrived without warning and demanded that Gaia flee with them, though she refused, sneaking out the window, but spraining her wrist. As she tried to start the car, Bryn, Jacob and Axl came bursting out of the house, claiming that a large man had walked in looking for her, and Gaia assumed that it was part of a drug-deal gone wrong on Bryn's part.

As they arrived at Mike's bar, Michele agreed to tend to her injury, and after Gaia explained that she had quit her job, Michele called Stacey and Ingrid over for a drinking party. Whilst chatting, Gaia said that she had been doing odd things lately (although she did not think she was being weird), which intrigued the three Goddesses. After smoking a joint Ingrid had offered, Axl arrived back and said that Bryn wanted to explain things. At Gaia favorite place, the beach, Bryn and Axl told her that she was to become the Goddess Frigg, though she burst out laughing in disbelief. (Everything Starts With Gaia)

Realising that she wasn't going to listen while she was stoned, Axl and Bryn took her home. The devastation, the arrival of a man named Derrick or Thor, who seemed to reinforce what they had been saying, and Axl's insistence made Gaia insecure, and fled the flat to Mike's bar. Asking to speak with Mike in private, Gaia told him her suspicion that Axl and Bryn were losing their minds, however Mike was able to convince her of the truth, and asked the Goddesses to ease her transition into her new reality. With Zeb's life on the line since he had been kidnapped by the Giant Eggther, Gaia agreed to go and try and save him since it was her Eggther wanted. However as the meeting wore on, Eggther gave up on trying to kill Gaia, even though she was at his mercy, after Zeb managed to convince him not to. Though the celebration at Mike's bar lightened everyone else's spirits, Gaia was afraid that because she and Axl were bound to be with one another, she would no longer have a free will. At that moment, a van pulled up and masked men kidnapped her and drove off. (Magical Fluffy Bunny World)

When Axl, Mike, Bryn and Michele found the assailants' home, they found Gaia having a pleasant cup of tea with Maori Gods while waiting for the Norse gods to arrive. Revealing a similar prophecy between Maui (Jerome) / Maui and Papatuanuku to that between Odin and Frigg, the Maori Gods told them that they believed Gaia to be Papatuanuku. While discussing the issue of Gaia's godly identity, the Maori Gods revealed that Bryn had first killed Gaia's parents - a fact he didn't deny. This angered Gaia, inducing her to run back to George's house that night. She was present to perform the Karanga for the Norse Gods at the Hui to formally discuss Gaia's role amongst the Gods. This is punctuated by Gaia's half-brother Leon pronouncing that Bryn return to Waiheke Island to produce hydroponic weed as utu for their mother's death. Gaia returned to the flat with Axl but they both left that night to deal with their individual divinity. (The House of Jerome)

However, during the ceremony that turned Gaia into a Goddess, it quickly came to be that she was now Idun, as Helen had been killed earlier. She presented herself to Anders / Bragi, oblivious to Axl and Jerome's dispair. (Does This Look Like Asgard?)

Personality

Considering her mother died when Gaia was born, and that she was brought up on Waiheke Island by her solo father Bryn, who is an organic vegetable grower who discovered, in mid-life, that he was gay, Gaia is a modern miracle of genetics, proving that common sense can overcome many obstacles.

Gaia is one of those people who, most of the time, gets what they want, not through tantrums and hand-bag tossing but through reason and quiet determination. She negotiated her freedom and passage off the island of Waiheke from an over-protective father who wanted her to live at home forever; she bargained her way into a flat with a guy who she thinks is pretty cool over the opposition of his best mate; and she gets on with life and work the best she can – even with a seemingly unrequited crush on the cool guy in question.

Gaia is a good chick. She holds the flat together. She tells the guys off when they’re being dicks. And she keeps her true feelings under wraps because, well, that’s the way she rolls.

Relationships

She has had a crush on Axl for a long time, attempting to show this at his 21st by offering to make the night 'special'. When he declined, apparently oblivious, she instead watched as Axl attempts relationships with other women. She eventually decided to find someone else and through her father met Jacob, whom she has had a brief fling with, however she couldn't stop caring about Axl and eventually decided to break it off. However when Axl admitted his feelings for her, the two made love, with the intention of breaking it off with their respective partners. Yet Axl's apparent reluctance to call off his marriage to Eva put Gaia off, not wanting to be 'the other woman', and decided to move with Jacob back to Waiheke.