There Is This One Troupe That Keeps Cropping Up With Stanley & Xeno That I Absolutely Love And I'm Living

There is this one troupe that keeps cropping up with Stanley & Xeno that I absolutely love and I'm living for it. It's that Xeno without Stanley is actually worse off whereas Stanley without Xeno is better.

They split ways after graduation and Stanley enlists. The military is harsh and stressful but not only does he survive; he thrives. In only a few years, he climbed the ranks. He commands a special unit and the whole unit puts their full faith in Stanley fucking Snyder. 

Xeno goes to school and is faced with not only immense stress and pressure to succeed, but he has to do all of it without his only support: Stanley. We can assume this based on the heavy parallels between him and Senku. Stanley is the equivalent of Senku’s full friend group since he’s the one who’s got great stamina, brute force, and talent in skill heavy tasks. Xeno finds kinship with Senku because he sees himself in the kid, except he didn’t have a mentor to guide him. Due to the heavy parallels we can also assume he had a situation like Senku where his parental figure wasn’t around much in his life. 

All that stress, a major lack of support, and finding himself trying to make up for the sudden hole left by Stanley who's shown to be a caretaker type to him? Xeno fucking cracks. He gets through school but he’s already changed. He’s got a malice that he brings with him to NASA and it only grows with the constant pressures placed on him by those who hold him back. Those cracks start to widen. His mentality falters and we see him go from the happier, innocent, science-loving doctor who started messaging with a talented boy to a man who’s ready to sell out the whole world in order to progress. 

The manga even alludes to this quick mental degeneration as the first few times he’s shown in the flashback chapter as being dressed in all white with a more relaxed demeanor.

The first panel that shows him touting the power of science is the first time in the flashback where he’s dressed in something black.

When it cuts to him giving the dictatorship speech we see him now dressed in a black coat entrenched in shadows. Even his eyebags get more and more noticeable during this change signifying the on-going stress in his life. 

What makes this the best troupe to me is that its importance hinges on one solid aspect of Stanley and Xeno’s relationship: Stanley needs Xeno. He can command his unit as needed but goes off of the orders given by Xeno. Xeno gets kidnapped? Stanley is the only one who actually cares enough to not only chase him halfway around the world but to conduct a full on operation just to save him. Even after he’s reanimated a second time, Stanley is *always* by Xeno’s side.

There’s something silently bittersweet about the whole situation. Xeno’s the only one who makes mention that *he* holds *Stanley* back and Stanley ignores it, opting instead to continue on his path.