Yeah, part of the reason that I posted this was because I really can't see any other similarity.

And, upon getting comments, still think that the differences so very much outweigh the similarities, mostly because Fucking Nuts and Not Nuts is a fairly important line for me, and the Operative never struck me as crazy, just strong in how far he was willing to go for a belief that I (and Mal) considered flawed. But he clearly wasn't crazy, because he was able to access new information and change his mind when he realised that his previous outlook had serious flaws (a sinless world might be possible, but certainly not at the hands of the Alliance).