#hopefully this is sufficiently lesbian about meryl stryfe

[nanomooselet]

Episode Ten: Humanity

Toot toot! Emotional pain train leaving the station. No stops between here and the season finale.

I left off Meryl's kidnapping last ep because it feels more appropriate to discuss it here, because here's where we learn it wasn't actually part of the plan. Knives didn't order Zazie to abduct Meryl so she could be used as bait for Vash - Vash was already on his way. He's fully committed to confronting Knives over the Plants even though he'd really rather not. I don't blame him. I, too, would rather be anywhere but on the same planet as his brother, and I'm not the one who lost a limb to the fucker.

(...Sorry, Vash. I'm glad somebody loves him, but your brother is an asshole.)

Zazie is not loyal to Knives. Perhaps, confident in his superiority, Knives assumed that he could rely on a non-human collective entity, but Zazie isn't here to work for him. Zazie's just here for a good time! And incidentally to decide who to entrust with the fate of the world in whatever struggle ensues. Having already gone on at length about Zazie, I'll go with another thought: why did the weird bug do this, and why Meryl?

My initial, biased reaction would be not to trust Knives as far as I could throw the combined mass of the entire universe - regardless of what points he makes or doesn't make, he's not open to compromise with anyone. With Knives, you do it his way, you're forced to submit to his way, or it's a million knives for you. But I'm not Zazie.

Knives would probably be pretty appealing to open an alliance with purely on the strength that unlike humans, he doesn't eat - so he's not out there hunting and eating Worms. And if what he said about Earth is the truth, there's every chance we won't learn, using up No Man's Land as well. I won't defend us as a species on those grounds: yes, we're prone to forming power structures where a few on top benefit by hollowing out the rest. With our short lives experience is lost upon death, so it takes us time to learn or change.

Nevertheless there's one line Zazie has that ended any inclination I had towards thinking Knives is just morally outraged about the use of Plants in general: Meryl asks if the collection of red Plants is going to be used in a Last Run, and Zazie says something like, "It's better than letting them go to waste." If there's some way to read that which isn't "Knives will initiate the Last Run as long as the resultant energy surge benefits him and not humans," I can't find it. So my feeling is that Zazie is starting to detect the contradictions and logical errors in Knives's arguments, and noticing that despite his noble declarations he's not really interested in defending the rest of the universe. Knives really only cares about one thing.

So, says Zazie to Meryl, what do you think? Is Knives right? Will you chew up all the Plants, and our planet, and find another world to consume? Would we better off if you all came to an end right here?

So why Meryl? Why not one of the others? It can't be Vash; apart from the fact that he's not human, there's another reason (more on that for the finale). Wolfwood is too enmeshed in the Eye of Michael's bullshit to be trusted as an unbiased source and doesn't really like Zazie either. Same's true for any of the other individuals working for Knives. Roberto might work, but he's got a pretty rigid mindset - demonstrated by the fact that he fires on Zazie, taking them to be hostile. The people of Home are too secluded. Anyone else isn't in the position of having recently witnessed the contrast between life in the cities and on the edges of what passes for civilisation

Meryl, however, also has one thing arguably no other character on this show but Knives has.

Agency.

(With a couple of exceptions. Again, for the finale.)

Sounds odd, doesn't it? She's so tiny. She's not armed. No superpowers. Half the time she has to be hauled out of danger before she gets her dumb ass killed. She's ignorant of the world, naïve, even a little bit of a priss. All in all pretty silly. But she still has agency, because agency isn't just the capacity to commit violence or to be taken seriously; it's the ability to take action. It's the power to choose your course. Meryl was initially just pursuing the story for Bernadelli News, but every single one of the choices she made took her further away from that course. She was the one who chose to let Vash down when he was hanging in the desert, then because she was thirsty he led her to the diner. She misdirected the July police while she was at it, then lassoed Vash herself - laying a claim. At the diner she noticed the water was cloudy, so Rosa asked Vash to fix the water Plant. Then her outrage at (but fear of) the July police spurred Roberto into convincing them to duel. It was Meryl who wanted so badly to help Vash that Rosa gave her the bullet. Meryl came up with the plan to take down E.G. It was Meryl who tried and failed to help Tonis as Jeneora Rock fell. It's Meryl who drives the car, Meryl who damn near flattens Wolfwood, Meryl who nearly runs into the Worm that Monev killed and drew them to Rollo's village. Roberto keeps trying to convince her to just leave, to be safe, but over and over and over, Meryl is the one who demands that they stay.

And having observed them from the very start, Zazie has taken notice. And Zazie is intrigued. So Meryl's the one who gets to know the truth.

Unfortunately that means also learning truths you'd rather not learn, such as what this piece of shit's been up to.

I don't have much to say about Dr. Conrad, except that while I'm actually a little sceptical over whether he participated in [redacted], if your plan has, as step one, "Abduct poor and disabled children because otherwise they'll live purposeless lives," find a better plan.

And here's the other thing about having agency.

It means the consequences are yours to bear.

What's great about Roberto, though, is that despite being blatantly doomed to die from the moment he stepped into the show, he still had a character arc. He went from grumbling over Meryl's principles to making his own moral stand (which I just typed as Meryl stand, appropriately enough) by cutting right through Conrad's delusions and telling him exactly what he really is. At the heart of this evil, Roberto de Niro had no interest in excuses or garbage about the big picture. Conrad kidnapped and tortured children. He doesn't get to claim the moral high ground.

And with that, Roberto bows out with astonishing grace: absolving Meryl for his death, telling her this wasn't her fault and joking to the last. And along with her signature derringer, as Wolfwood guides Vash to the point of no return (still trying to justify himself, but also to push Vash to make the choice Wolfwood knows Vash would never make with his brother) Roberto gives Meryl one final gift. She still has a choice. She can run, if she wants. But she won't.

Also, Knives is still a fucking drama queen, if we needed the reminder.