I'd like to think that she acts instead of thinking.
Segue into a completely different fandom that I think is relevant to this topic. One of the things that I really, really loved about Trigun was the juxtaposition of Vash and Wolfwood. Both men want a better world, but have very different outlooks on how to bring that world about. Vash has enough power and enough compassion that he wants everyone to live, and he thinks that the world can be made better. Wolfwood isn't as strong, and he feels his mortality very acutely, and he knows that he has very specific, defenseless people -- orphans -- to lookout for. And if one day he doesn't move fast enough, he will die, and then the orphans will die, too. So he can't think; he has to act on instinct all the time, and draw first, and shoot to kill. And he recognizes this makes him a bad man -- but, he hopes, for all the right reasons.
And I wonder if Fang is relevantly similar to Wolfwood. The obvious parallel with the orphanage aside, I think she's realistic in a way that no one else in the party is, except maybe Sazh. Even Lightning lets herself be convinced by Snow and Hope; or at least she loses herself in the action of the moment. I think your second excerpt posted below -- which I was just about to comment on, but will comment here, instead -- really gets at that. Fang admits Ragnorak is inevitable. No one else will, and she feels like she has to bear the weight of that alone. Because everything is not going to be okay, and someone will need to fall.
In Fang's mind, there's no happy ending. And so maybe... maybe she turns on Vanille as a mercy killing. She knows Vanille doesn't want to be Ragnorak again, and anyways, she's not going to let Vanille carry that burden.
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Segue into a completely different fandom that I think is relevant to this topic. One of the things that I really, really loved about Trigun was the juxtaposition of Vash and Wolfwood. Both men want a better world, but have very different outlooks on how to bring that world about. Vash has enough power and enough compassion that he wants everyone to live, and he thinks that the world can be made better. Wolfwood isn't as strong, and he feels his mortality very acutely, and he knows that he has very specific, defenseless people -- orphans -- to lookout for. And if one day he doesn't move fast enough, he will die, and then the orphans will die, too. So he can't think; he has to act on instinct all the time, and draw first, and shoot to kill. And he recognizes this makes him a bad man -- but, he hopes, for all the right reasons.
And I wonder if Fang is relevantly similar to Wolfwood. The obvious parallel with the orphanage aside, I think she's realistic in a way that no one else in the party is, except maybe Sazh. Even Lightning lets herself be convinced by Snow and Hope; or at least she loses herself in the action of the moment. I think your second excerpt posted below -- which I was just about to comment on, but will comment here, instead -- really gets at that. Fang admits Ragnorak is inevitable. No one else will, and she feels like she has to bear the weight of that alone. Because everything is not going to be okay, and someone will need to fall.
In Fang's mind, there's no happy ending. And so maybe... maybe she turns on Vanille as a mercy killing. She knows Vanille doesn't want to be Ragnorak again, and anyways, she's not going to let Vanille carry that burden.