Trigun spoilers!! (Maximum and Stampede)
Ok, I'm gonna talk about the whole *trying to get someone to shoot you to prove that they actually believe what they're saying* thing as its been presented so far in tristamp and compare it to trimax. It's not super comprehensive, mostly based on the scene with Vash and Wolfwood in vol 2 of maximum and episode 10 in stampede with Meryl, Roberto, and Conrad.
Ok, so I'm re-reading trimax while re-watching tristamp as my roomate watches it, and I noticed this. Here, Wolfwood says "If you really believe I'm wrong, pull the trigger." He wants Vash to shoot/kill him to prove his resolve.
Here, Conrad seems to ask Meryl and Roberto the same. If Meryl really thinks he's a monster who is killing and torturing, she should kill him in order to stop him. If she really believes that, she should kill him.
These are two instances of a character asking to be killed by a person who criticized them (in trimax for killing Rai-Dei, and in tristamp for torturing/experimenting on children), so that they can prove their resolve.
Of course these are different situations. Even in that panel, Wolfwood wants Vash to kill him so that Vash can do it again, to save himself in the future. Wolfwood wants Vash to be able to protect himself. He thinks that it would be just to die to teach Vash how to live. Whereas Conrad really doesn't want Meryl to shoot him. He even justifies himself, "But before you strike me down, know that you're eliminating a world of possibilities."
I think these similarities say more about Vash and Meryl's characterization in relation to each other than Wolfwood and Conrad. Vash responds like this:
He is actively refuting Wolfwood. No, he's obviously not going to shoot him, but he has an answer. On the next page he says "You... told me back then... that my face looked better with a real smile. If you could see yourself through my eyes now... you'd see a man forcing himself to play the devil while his own heart cries out." Vash sees through Wolfwood. He sees Wolfwood's concern and kind personality and how he tries to justify his actions and life experiences.
In comparison, Meryl in tristamp, also is obviously not going to shoot Conrad, but she doesn't seem to have an answer to that. She says "poor baby" about Elendira, but doesn't really respond to Conrad. (Granted, she might've had time to come up with one if Elendira didn't start attacking them. Or she might not have considered Conrad worth a response.) Interestingly, Roberto does have an answer.
I admit I am biased toward trimax over tristamp, but I do love how they work with Meryl's character in tristamp. In this way, we can see her contrasted with Vash's personality. She holds similar ideals to him, but Vash (as a 150-something year old) knows his ideals, and he knows what he believes, why he believes it, etc. Meryl, however is still learning. Roberto is teaching her.
This is a different perspective than Vash (again, they are talking to different people about different beliefs, but still). Vash responds by pulling at the fact that Wolfwood shouldn't want to die to better other people, but the fact that he does shows some good in him. He wants to be good (kind, helpful), but he expresses it in a way that makes it seem like he's being cruel. Vash points that out, that Wolfwood doesn't have to resort to this. However, Roberto doesn't point out the specific action of asking to be shot to prove a point but Conrad's hypocrisy. While Vash points out the action, Roberto points out the reasoning behind it.
Vash gets Wolfwood wanting to protect and help him, just not the action of getting him to shoot him. Roberto doesn't really acknowledge the asking to get shot part, but the fact that Conrad isn't and won't help anyone.
So yeah, I don't have a complete conclusion to what I think about this, but I thought it was interesting. I think it could be a cool insight into how Roberto influence's Meryl's worldview in tristamp and how it is both similar and differs from Vash.
Like, if tristamp Meryl was placed in Vash's shoes in this scene in the manga, Wolfwood asking her to shoot him to prove that killing is bad, how would she respond? Would she take a page out of Roberto's book and instead of pointing out what Vash does (You don't have to act cruel to get your kindness across), she might point out that killing him wouldn't make killing anyone else easier or some inconsistency with his logic.
Whereas Vash is more emotionally-focused (what feelings are here and where do they come from), Meryl is more logically-focused (the world doesn't work like that), which originates from Roberto? (And the purpose of it coming from Roberto is just to make it more obvious, there's a story to this part of her personality that we can see, so we are more aware?)
Let me know your thoughts, I could be totally wrong, I just got excited when I noticed the similarities in these scenes.
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of course there's something wonderful about being on a walk on a beautiful day and seeing the clouds and the sun or looking at the moon and admiring its gentle light and realizing how happy you are to be alive and living but it's so much more poignant when you're doing something so incredibly mundane like washing the dishes or putting your groceries away or even just flossing your teeth and you realize. hey. i'm alive. i'm alive at an age i never thought i would reach and there's some sort of incredible fragile beauty and impossible tenderness in the worth of living even when scrubbing at your plates... like, holy shit i made it, i'm happy to be alive and i never thought i would be, when for so long the mere concept of anything but that gaping maw of sadness was incomprehensible...but here i am. tidying up my desk, shaken by the fact that life is worth living and i can find little pockets of joy and beauty even in something so ordinary. anyways shout out to everyone who could never imagine a future, any future really, because everything was so futile but here we are. growing in it together in a place we never thought possible to reach.
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Holy fuck I'm shaking a lil in excitement
It's unheard of bros I actually managed to complete a personal side project
MY LENGTHY, EXTRA DETAILED, HOPEFULLY NOT TOO YAPPY OPEN SPECIES GUIDE IS FINALLY FUCKING FINISHED
Well technically not "finished" as the last thing I need to do are the NSFW facts (what their junk looks like, telling the world this species goes into rut casually, etc)
BUT
All the sfw-ish shit is complete, and all that's left to do is clean it up and add a warning page in the beginning stating which pages include nudity and gore because we got both folks
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