ok, i was re-reading the Valentine fight, and spent like 10 minutes staring at the part where he doesn't pick up the gun trying to figure out what was happening. I finally realized the gun was merging with the loaded one he had brought in order to kill Johnny. For some reason I assumed that property only applied to living things, or was excluded from affecting the things valentine "possesses", same as his clothes.
I guess it makes sense though, perhaps since it is an item less intimately associated with him or mentally acknowledged as vestigial?
And regarding his speech... I really do think it was a brilliant moment of writing, despite generally disliking him as a character. I paid close attention to his words, and it is just so striking how hard he goes in and how much thought he gives to every aspect, only to at his core still be completely petty and greedy. He has entirely convinced himself of his own bullshit to an extent where he can completely throw away the entire foundation of his worldview and principles without batting an eye.
In terms of his specific politics and general insane disconnection from reality and humanity, he definitely resembles Trump, but an aspect of him that I think is overlooked are how he exposes the total inadequacy of wanting people like Trump to be exactly the same, except more intelligent and self-aware.
He is the "respectable" version of Trump. Someone the media would love, the people would adore, and who would be remembered as a true embodiment of America's spirit of freedom. And yet he is a whole-ass psychopath who literally, actually, without exaggeration, desires nothing more than for everyone who doesnt live under his rule to suffer.
Anyone who comes away from that final encounter thinking literally nothing but "man, it really goes to show things aren't so black and white" is imo well on their way to cultivating the same level of cognitive dissonance that man did.
However: I love how Johnny acts here. because he recognizes that Valentine truly is saying all the right things. While he is undoubtedly xenophobic, it is true that there is no such thing as a perfect utopia, and pain and misery will always exist. it is also true that the corpse could be a terrible power in the wrong hands, and used to increase the overall level of suffering in the world rather than redistributing that which exists naturally.
His arguments are perfect, his conviction is real, yet Johnny knows that nothing he's said thus far has any trace of humanity within it. if he were a force of nature, that speech would simply have been a technical breakdown of his function. but if he is a man, there must be some infinitesimal part of him that has no true purpose or conviction behind it. And for Valentine, that was his desire for revenge, and by extension his desire to destroy all that is Other in his mind.
Why else would he choose Dio to succeed him? a man whose naked greed and lust for power he knew would lead to a natural culling of those he considered undesirable, same as his own self-deceived path towards the same thing.
He truly is a villain of our modern world, and that is part of why I loathe him so much, though i think he is an excellent foil for more relatable and human characters.
