Sylvia Sherwood

"Stop waiting for easy answers to fall into your lap, Rookie. Use that head of yours to find them for yourself."

- Sylvia Sherwood in Chapter 63

Sylvia Sherwood (シルヴィア・シャーウッド), also known as Handler (管理官) or the Fullmetal Lady (鋼鉄の淑女), is a recurring character of the SPY X FAMILY series. She is Twilight's main contact at WISE.

Appearance
Sylvia is a tall woman with a slim figure and narrow blue eyes. She has wavy strawberry-blonde hair reaching the middle of her back. She is also sometimes seen having pink nail polish.

Though she disguises herself in public, she typically sports a pair of round framed glasses and a black wide-brimmed hat with a dark pink band. In her role as Handler, she most frequently wears a fitted black dress with a low-cut square neckline over a white collared shirt, along with a large black ribbon tied under the collar like a loose bow. The back of the dress is long, reaching below her knees, while the front reaches mid-thigh. She also wears fishnets over black stockings with matching pumps.

As Secretary Sherwood, she ties her hair in a ponytail. She wears a black coat over a white top and a black skirt.

Personality
Little has been revealed about Sylvia's personality. She is similar to Twilight in her commitment, skill, and logical approach to her endeavors. She is extremely dedicated to her given task; preserving peace between Westalis and Estonia by inserting Twilight into Donovan Desmond's inner circle. Like Twilight, she is willing to assist Anya's acquisition of Stella Stars by any means (including deception and espionage). Despite this, her plans for ensuring Operation STRIX's success - such as bribing Anya or creating scenarios where Anya can be framed positively - are dubious at best, and her suggestions for Operation STRIX can unnecessarily endanger the spies she manage.

She is deeply compassionate, and has a soft spot for children and animals. She demonstrates these strengths in allowing the Anya to keep Bond after the terrorist bombing incident, and placating the child's concerns about the welfare of the other bomb dogs. She has said that she once had a daughter around Anya's age, but it is unclear how or why Sylvia lost her.

Sylvia has an extreme hatred for war. This is evident in her words to the terrorist group when they planned on using bomb dogs to instigate a war based on nationalist pride and propaganda. Her anger and cold dismissive words decrying the atrocities and horrors of war seem to indicate that she suffered from a great deal of trauma incurred from the war.

Despite keeping an otherwise immaculate physical appearance in public, Sylvia's home is a complete mess. Compared to memories of her past, her home was previously well-kept and tidy. This slovenly state in her present is reflective of her traumatized state due to the loss of her partner and daughter during the war.

Abilities and Skills
Disguise: Sylvia can disguise herself pretty well, having repeatedly disguised herself to contact Twilight.

Handler: As a handler, Sylvia is the agency's main contact between them and the agents in Ostania and is responsible for managing them and their missions. Despite the strict surveillance of the nation's secret police, she manages to evade notice while competently handling her agents, even earning her the nickname "Fullmetal Lady."

Fighting Skills: Sylvia is shown to have abilities for fight and defense, as she quickly attacked and immobilized Pance Karmer with a belt when he tried to kill Jonas Wellman, though she later had some serious shoulder pain due to her age.

Weaknesses
Her age: Despite the fact that her age is unknown, it has been seen that it is a disadvantage for her, since after small battles she has pain and feels weak, even if they are for small occasions, normally having shoulder or back pain.

Chapter Appearances

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Anime Appearances

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Etymology

 * The name Sylvia means "wood/woods, forest/from the forest/of the forest" in Latin.
 * Sylvia's surname Sherwood is a habitational name from any of several places called with Old English scīr + wudu 'bright or clear (perhaps sparsely-grown) wood.'

Trivia

 * Sylvia's room is messy. After work, her appearance becomes slovenly.
 * The German Shepherd that attacked Loid was taken in by WISE and is currently under Sylvia's care.

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