Nicholas D. Wolfwood, his birthday is unkown as is apparently many things about him. I scratch my head at this, because as a writer I know everything about my characters; also as an anime watcher, I am able to find out everything down to what kind of underwear these characters wear. Okay, obviously I'm exaggerating a bit, but really, there are generally plenty of things written about anime characters. However, with the characters from Trigun, there's practically nothing. Sadly Vash, has even less than Nicholas does, but I have learned enough to talk about this wonderful hunk of man!

First I want to talk about why I stated that Nicholas fans should read this. Shortly before I watched the last seven episodes of the series, I found out that Nicholas dies three episodes from the end. This was after I had become as attatched to him as I ever was to Duo from Gundam Wing. When I heard this--my friend read it to me--I was so shocked that I felt sick to my stomach. I dreaded watching the episode, yet at the same time, I really wanted to because I wanted to know exactly how he died. So when I finally watched it I bawled, but at the same time I was thrilled because I found a way around it in my fanfiction--but I'm not going to tell you how, you just gotta read it when I post it :). Anyway, I'll eventually wrap back to this terrible incident. I'll start from the beginning.

Nicholas was most likely a happy child until at some point--I'm speculating here--perhaps when he was around five, his parents died--of course he may have been much younger, he may have never known them. He was apparently placed in an orphanage where he was adopted shortly afterwards--if he was five, if he was younger it wasn't until he was about five or six when he was adopted. The man who called himself Nicholas's guardian was not a good man, and from the impression they give you in the show, he liked little boys. :::shudder::: I'm thinking that Nicholas's guardian worked for a wealthy man who knew Chapel the Evergreen. Chapel exploited Nicholas's anger toward his guardian and gave him the gun which Nicholas used to kill his guaridan. Because of Nicholas's debt to Chapel, he convinced the seven year old to join him and be trained by him so that he would never be weak again. (reminds me of Shojurou in Rurouni Kenshin when Shishio took him in.) I think that it looked like Chapel programmed poor little Nicholas.

After ten years of training, Nicholas is released from Chapel--probably because he wanted to leave, I don't think that Nicholas ever wanted to fight with the Gung Ho Guns, just notice his reaction whenever he's mistaken for Chapel. Somehow, Nicholas gets enough money to set up an orphanage 100 iles outside of December. There he is happy for I'd say about one year. When he's eighteen he is approached by Chapel and taken to Knives. He's given the mission to go and find Vash. At this point he recieves the familiar cross gun. Nicholas leaves the kids at the orphanage--I'm assuming that he had help, most likely from a grandmotherly type. I believe it took Nicholas about one year to track down Vash, and then it was just sheer luck that the bus Vash was on was the one which picked him up out of the desert, or was he sitting out there knowing that Vash was headed that way and knew that Vash would help him?? hmmm....

The next logical thing to talk about would be his relationship with Vash. This is a very complicated relationship at first. They both know the other's lying, but not exactly what they're lying about. Thus begins their bizarre friendship. After pushing and shoving each other in a silent battle of wills that continues throughout the show, the two eventually become friends, until Zazie the Beast is shot and killed by Nicholas. Vash is angered because of what Nicholas said after he shot Zazie. It reminded him of what his brother Knives had said when he squished the spider to save the butterfly. Vash had come to believe that despite the fact that he was lying about something, Nicholas would never harm a child, and because he said almost exactly the same thing as Knives (it was something along the lines of if I hadn't shot him then you would be dead now) Vash at first believes that what Nicholas did was wrong. However, fearing for his life, and the others' lives, Nicholas did what he thought was right, but the question of whether or not it really was the right thing to do eats away at him over the next couple of days. This is when we come to the horrible episode. At any rate, I at first liked Legato, who is the one responsible for taking over Chapel's mind and forcing him to shoot Nicholas, but now I naturally don't like him--despite the fact that Toshihiko Seki does his voice. Legato killed Nicholas. I just won't stand for that. Just before he passes out, Nicholas begs for forgiveness, but then states that his sins were too heavy to deserve forgiveness. After pleading for forgiveness, Nicholas then began to panic stating that he couldn't die now, because he had too much to do. He has one last cigarette, and then passes out.

NOTE:  Nicholas always did what Chapel told him to do, because he most likely feared going against him. Chapel is also where Nicholas gained his wonderful cynical attitude toward life.
:)- Odd tidbit, I like Duo and Nicholas. Seki Toshihiko, who does the voice for Legato, also does Duo's voice. Erego, Duo killed Nicholas.--okay so only my friends'll find that humorous.
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