He calls him a villain. A pretty lame insult, and not enough to get Romeo to fight. It is enough to get Mercutio to fight, however. Killing Mercutio does for Tybalt what no insult could do--it gets Romeo to fight him. Unfortunately it does for Tybalt in another sense altogether.
earlier in the play, romeo crashed a Capulet party. angry, Tybalt swore revenge with a sword fight. Romeo's friend mercutio ends up fighting Tybalt, and romeo attempts to intervene by stepping between them. Tybalt stabs mercutio, despite Romeos attempts to end the fight, and mercutio dies. Romeo and Tybalt then fight, and romeo kills Tybalt, and romeo is banished from Vienna. Merutio, romeo and Tybalt sword fight.
he died.. romeos
Mercutio does not "save Romeo" in the play by fighting Tybalt. Tybalt is about to walk away in contempt of the coward Romeo who will not fight him, and Mercutio gets involved, ostensibly to save Romeo's honour but basically just to get into a scrap. In the 1996 Baz Luhrman movie, the director has Tybalt beating Romeo when he will not fight, which does prompt Mercutio to join the fight. In that version Mercutio thinks that Tybalt will kill Romeo and that he needs to intervene to save his life. It's a more flattering read for Mercutio than what Shakespeare wrote.
He attempts to start a fight with Romeo and gets a strip torn off of him by Capulet. Exit Tybalt, fuming.
In the fight between mercuito and Tybalt: Tybalt comes into the court place and mercutio starts egging him on. Pretty soon they start fighting but its not a serious fight. Tybalt is really waiting to kill romeo because he is mad at him for going to the capulets party. Then romeo shows up and he doesnt want to kill Tybalt bc he is now married to Juliet and they are technicaly cousins. Tybalt doesnt know this and he is still fighting mercutio. Then romeo interferes to stop the fight but Tybalt accidentaly stabs mercutio when romeo gets in the way which kills mercutio. Then romeo goes to avenge mercutio and he ends of stabbing Tybalt, who then dies. Then romeo is banished to mantua by the prince.
Mercutio is looking for a fight anyway. He doesn't like Tybalt and sneers at him, calling him the "Prince of Cats". When Romeo does not respond to Tybalt's insults, Mercutio gets angry on Romeo's behalf, but it wasn't going to take much to get his sword out anyway.
Mercuito gets into a fight against Tybalt, and because by this point Romeo is married to Juliet (who is Tybalt's cousin) Romeo doesn't want Tybalt to be killed because it wpu;d upset Juliet, so Romeo steps between the fight against them both, and in the process lifts up Mercuito's arm, and Tybalt see's the oppitunity and stabs Mercuito under Romeo's arm.
Romeo gate-crashes the Capulet party with Mercution and the Montagues, and when Tybalt tells Lord Capulet that Romeo has come uninvited, he simply shrugs it off and tells Tybalt to ignore Romeo, because he wasn't causing any trouble. Therefore, Tybalt is angered by Romeo, and the fact that nobody else cares that he is there.
Nothing, really. Romeo reacts to Tybalt's actions on his own volition. Because he doesn't want to see his cousin and his friend fighting he tries to break up the fight. Because Tybalt killed Mercutio, Romeo wanted revenge on Tybalt. But Tybalt didn't make Romeo seek revenge; Romeo could have walked away from it all, and watched Tybalt be executed for his crime while he gets to spend the rest of his life with Juliet.
Romeo certainly conveys the idea that he is not interested in fighting Tybalt. That was the point of his speech and he gets the point across. I don't know how else you could judge effectiveness.
Mercutio and Tybalt are both key characters in 'Romeo and Juliet' and they both are killed in Act 3, Scene 1 of the play. At the beginning of the scene, Tybalt insults Romeo in an attempt to provoke a fight but Romeo responds calmly and it is Mercutio who then fights with Tybalt. Romeo tries to stop the fight and in the confusion, Mercutio is fatally stabbed by Tybalt and shortly dies. Fuelled with rage after his friend's death, Romeo then seeks Tybalt in order to kill him. They fight, resulting in Tybalt's death.
Tybalt actually did it in a kind of accident, he didn't see where his blade was going. Mercutio only died because he couldn't see Tybalt's blade because Romeo had jumped in between them to stop the fight. +Romeo jumps in the way. +Tybalt wants to keep fighting, so he thrusts his rapier in the gap between Romeo's arm and body. +Mercutio nor Tybalt saw the rapier, until it was too late and the rapier landed square in his chest.