[Bastion_Arcion]

Originally Posted by musouka

The EotW arc was a retcon in order to show exactly how Hayate learned many of the skills and tendencies that would later form the basis of his personality. Unless you think the girls love Hayate for his amazing art forgery detection skills, then, yes, part of the reason they love Hayate is what Athena taught him.

Yes, they love him for his fighting skills and for his butlering skills. Considering those are what we're shown that she spent most of her time teaching him. Not the personality that he notably didn't have while he was with Athena even at the end.

Oh wait, only one of the girls in his harem even know of his sword skills (Izumi) and only a few know of his butlering skills, though they do assume he's pretty good at such skills, being a butler of the Sanzenin. They also assume by the same token that he'd know 'finishing moves' though by his own words he doesn't.

Originally Posted by musouka

Hina doesn't know the full story, and was judging Athena based on a single aspect of what happened. Or would you agree that Hina is "violent and irrational" if another character said that based on what Hayate told them about her?

Given that that was clearly shown to be a significant memory of his, as his wording indicates, and not a 'one-of' case by the same token, this would be a logical conclusion, and rather accurately so.
Hina is violent, but irrational? I've only seen one case of her being so, and supposedly the sword was the cause of that (I have my doubts).
Punishing the one you care for and think loves you for showing affection to someone else is common everywhere.

Originally Posted by musouka

When Hina met Athena herself, she was obviously very fond of her and didn't think of her as a witch. On the contrary, she wanted to be closer friends with her.

Hina is the one who heard those words, got it confirmed that Athena was the one he had mentioned there, and yet shows no regret in those words.
'Witch' does not mean 'evil and I'd never associate with that person'. Notice that Hina has a significantly different personality than Athena, and that their friendship was broken off because of a name Hina wanted to use. Doesn't sound like it was a very strong friendship in the first place.

Originally Posted by musouka

Hayate had been around his brother for several years (I assume), but it took Athena's encouragement and "words" in order for him to turn around and help save Izumi. Hayate's bro might have been a good example, but Hayate himself wonders if he can live up to the example his brother set. Whereas, when Hayate was with Athena, he wanted to live up to the example she set, and saw the strength of mind he was gaining by being around her.

And Athena set the example of protecting someone else where? She's never shown interacting with anyone but Hayate, Ikuza or Machina, always on a one-on-one interaction and they all seem to be treated to be on the low side of the relationship.
It took Ikuza's words to make him want to go back after hurting Athena.

Originally Posted by musouka

Love is more than words.

It's a joke. Most of the girls that supposedly love Hayate have caused a similar, if not worse, level of pain to him, but only Athena gets tarred with the "abusive girlfriend" brush.

Most of what we're given of Hayate's relationship with Athena is her attacking him; kicking him in the stomach, attacking him with a lethal sword. A handful of 'neutral' scenes, her teaching him how to be a butler, and another handful of actual affection scenes, asking for a morning kiss. The other scenes are indeterminate.
As opposed to the other girls who's scenes with Hayate are overwhelmingly neutral at worse, while, as a group, the 'abusive' scenes are few and far between and typically no where near the lethal possibility Athena is shown to have.

Originally Posted by musouka

Oh really? I think you should check again.

I don't know about you, but I only see a dog leaping for the doll, which she's likely standing over, since she was fighting for before, and it's shown that she has it in the present, so it's likely that she picked it up after Hayate left as well. And given that all that's needed to turn it away is a call from it's master, it doesn't seem like it's all that interested in that either.