#besides knives and rem. the way he truly just wants to be with them despite everything. for as long as possible

[firethekitty]

the purposeful framing of this panel (and this entire scene of showing all the people who vash has met throughout the story) implies that wolfwood was AS important to vash as rem was. they both have had the greatest impact on him, so much so that their existence changes vash’s entire sense of morality. and rem and wolfwood, besides knives, are the only two people who vash really allows himself to love? people he wants to be with for as long as possible—when he’s so used to running away, used to going out of his way to avoid getting close to anyone. and it's just like idk *throws up violently*

[animebw]

Binge-Watching: Trigun, Episodes 24-26

And so we reach the end! In which Knives is laid bare, Vash finally snaps, but everything is pulled back together again.

The Plant People

If there was one big question I had going into the finale of Trigun, it would be who exactly Vash the Stampede was. His origin has been a mystery ever since it was first revealed that he wasn’t exactly human, and that inhuman nature has been the primary locus of his endgame conflict with his brother Knives. Who Vash is matters to the show’s overall point. And if there’s one criticism I could levy against this otherwise superb finale, it’s that I wish it gave us a little more context into it. Yes, it’s revealed that Vash and his brother were plant people, presumably born from genetic engineering by Rem’s crew aboard the ship, which explains their bizarre aging cycle and Knives’ view of humanity as a lesser life form. To plants, animals must seem like tiny, insignificant lives that flicker out in a heartbeat. But I wish we got a better sense of why being plant people gives them some of the powers and abilities it does. What about being composed of foliage gives on the ability to synthesize with technology and manipulate or guide it as you see fit? Or fuse with compact WMDs that use your life energy as the source of their desolation? Yes, we’re playing with very out-there sci-fi conceits, so it was never gonna make perfect sense. Besides, I’ve always been a stickler for the idea that emotional logic is more important than mechanical logic most of the time, and that remains true here; the importance of Vash and Knives’ inhuman nature on their characters is very well felt. I just feel like it’s a liiiiiittle out of step with the more grounded Wild West setting that aims for a more tactile feel, one last remnant of this second half’s slight tendency to be too big and weird for its own good at times.

Still, that’s an incredible nitpick, and like I said above, it doesn’t keep the rest of this finale from being a truly worthy send-off for this show. The flashback that covers the first half of the final episode fills out pretty much every last piece of information you’d want it to, fleshing out the hows and whys of Vash’s journey to adulthood, the locations he visited, how he and Knives got those superweapons in the first place, and how their bitter rivalry spiraled past the point of reconciliation, climaxing with Knives killing Rem’s last surviving descendant, tearing one of Vash’s arms off, and forcing him to fire off the blast that tore the city of July to shreds. It’s communicated in rapid-fire montage that gets all the information across without ever feeling too fast or repetitive, because the show pulls a clever trick to keep it interesting; it makes it all about fleshing out Knives too, adding an extra level of engagement to what is mainly a excuse to spackle in the gaps in the greater plot. With the context it provides, we finally get a sense of who this guy is besides a dark rejection of everything Vash stands for. And it ends up revealing something truly critical: despite his bluster and anger and superiority complex, Knives is terrified.

That’s the eventual genius behind his character; Knives talks a big game, but deep down, he is just as terrified of dying as Vash is of killing. When Vash first shoots him, he can barely process the pain he’s feeling; he looks like he just stared into the abyss long enough for it to stare back at him. And his look of terror in the face of oncoming danger is a near constant, from when Vash turns his superweapon on him in the flashback to throughout their epic climactic duel (which, by the way, I’m a huge fan of the “two equally matched badasses mirror each other in combat” trope, and this was one of the best executions of it I’ve seen, so hats off), sweating bullets as they press their guns to each other’s faces, not sure which one is going to go off first.. Knives sees nothing wrong in bringing harm to those he considers lesser than him, but the thought of being harmed, or even killed, himself is something he can’t abide. He’s the direct inverse of Vash in that way; he can take as much abuse upon himself as he can, but threaten anyone else and he’ll completely lose his shit. That’s the power of their dichotomy in a nutshell. Knives only considers his own life worthy of protection; Vash considers everyone’s lives equally valuable. And the show doesn’t even have to spell that out. It just lets the information settle, secure in the knowledge that you’re smart enough to get it. Knives is the villain because he can only perceive of his life as having value; everyone else is expendable. And he wants to force Vash to agree with him, to accept that the petty, insignificant lives he considers himself equal to are nothing more than bugs to be crushed beneath his feet.

Breaking Point

And Jesus Fuck on a cracker, is it painful to watch him try. His entire goal over the course of this show has been to force Vash to the brink of his morals, to weigh him down with pain and despair until he finally sees no other out but to take a life with his own hands, breaking the code Rem instilled in him. He wants Vash to give up on what makes him Vash. And we see that pressure get to him more and more as time goes on, leeching into his goofy demeanor and poisoning it with sorrow. There’s a truly gut-wrenching moment at the start of episode 24 where Vash is being his usual goofy self and devouring donuts (”Bonjour, je t’aime!”), but as the sounds of the city swirl around him, a million happy lives that could be snuffed out in an instant just a swiftly as Wolfwood was, the tears start flowing unabated and refuse to stop. And he’s not the only one; Meryl and especially Millie are equally scarred by everything they’ve been through, despite their desperate attempts to pretend they’re fine. And Legatto presses that pain more and more, digging into Vash’s insecurities with every taunt, pinning the countless deaths Knives helped facilitate on his own head, trying to make him believe that his promise to Rem is already broken, that there’s no reason for him to start taking lives because he’s already got gallons of blood on his hands. He pushes and pushes and pushes until he finally reaches the breaking point.

And Vash, horrified, trapped, caught in an impossible situation with no escape... pulls the trigger.

I legitimately had no idea whether or not we were gonna reach the end of this show with Vash never taking a life. The way the show balanced its morality, I felt like it could have easily gone either way. But I wasn’t prepared to see it finally make that choice. Holy fucking shit, Vash killed someone. An irredeemable monster, perhaps, but still. He killed someone. With his own hands. He pulled the trigger and blew a hole right in Rem’s promise. The entire moral foundation he’s believed in all his life, shaken to the core. And it hurts. It hurts watching him make that choice. It hurts listening to him scream in the aftermath. It hurts watching him gasp out that there had to be another way, some way, any way other than bloodshed, any way to end the conflict without taking a life that he might have found if the pressure hadn’t forced him past the breaking point. How do you move on from that? How do you put your life back together when the very foundation that supported it since the beginning is shattered? How can Vash go on saying that it’s wrong to kill when he’s proven himself how incomplete that belief is? What the hell does he even do now?

The answer, it turns out, it shockingly simple.

He keeps on living on his own terms.

Life Carries On

Because even though Vash found himself in a situation where pulling the trigger was the only option that came to mind, even though he’s been forced to realize that sometimes, killing is the only option, it changes nothing about all the good he’s been able to do. Over the course of this show, he’s saved lost souls, vulnerable victims, dangerous criminals, mass murderers, and ordinary people of all shapes and stripes, from countless different menaces. He’s shown time and time again that the human spirit is stronger than the anger Knives attributes to it. Just like Wolfwood told him, the ability to make mistakes does not undo the ability to fix them. And Vash has proven that truth by fixing so many mistakes across this desert planet, mistakes that seemed unfixable to the people who made them, mistakes that all but doomed their perpetrators to suffering and darkness until a certain stubborn mophead showed up and refused to let them take any possible option but the best one. Humanity is not doomed because sometimes there really is no other choice but to fight. Life does not end at the very first moment of abject failure. It goes on. And when it goes on, it goes on leaving you stronger and surer for all that pain. Rem’s words haven’t lost their truth at all; all they’ve done is become Vash’s words now. Now he’s no longer carrying on the legacy of some far-off ideal he feels he can never break. Now, the only legacy he’s truly carrying is his own. And that legacy of courage and conviction, of salvation and kindness, even in the face of pain and suffering, is a legacy well worth carrying.

Because Rem’s light is no longer consigned to the past and memory. It exists now, here, in the actions Vash and his friends take every single day to enact their own kindness upon the world just as she enacted her kindness upon them. It exists in Millie’s refusal to let the loss of Wolfwood defeat her, shouldering his crucifix and carrying it with her with all the pain and joy his life brought her. It exists in Meryl literally repeating Rem’s words to save Vash from his self-imposed prison, not because she’s channeling some long-dead ideal, but because that ideal is one she’s come to believe in herself in a sequence that had me on the verge of tears for minutes on end. And in exists in Vash, making the final decision to spare the life of his brother, because as much damage as he’s caused, Vash refuses to believe that his life still isn’t worth trying to save. He’ll take care of him, just like Rem asked, but this time, he’ll do so for himself. Leving his red geranium cloak behind, Vash accepts the life that’s been given him not for Rem’s sake, but for his own. Because as hard as his life as been and as much pain as Knives and his gang have put him through, the joy and beauty of living a life dedicated to saving as many people as he can is the best thing that’s ever happened to him. And nothing, not Knives, not Legatto, not anyone, can ever take that away.

And so, Trigun ends on a note of absolute triumph. Vash has come into his own, Millie and Meryl remain amazing, and the gushing of water from the well promises that despite how hard life can be, it will always go on. It will always persevere and find reason to keep moving forward. Vash knows that truth now, and as long as the legend of the Humanoid Tornado continues to shine, he will keep carrying that torch as high as he possibly can. What a perfect, marvelous ending.

Odds and Ends

-”Don’t start brooding, Meryl, it’s a waste of time and energy!” Millie’s the fucking best.

-”Damn, my B flat!” Eternal musician mood. Get fucked, scrub.

-DID MILLIE SERIOUSLY JUST TOSS THAT GIANT BOULDER UP HOW EVEN

-”Maybe you should be the one to make the decisions now.” SECONDED

-I wonder if there’s anything to that cat, or if he’s just a random background gag?

-Meryl ringing Rem’s song against a celestial backdrop is EVERYTHING.

-”HOW LONG ARE YOU PLANNING TO DO THIS?” ship ship SHIP SHIP SHIP

-Cool detail how the final fight takes place beyond the edge of the desert. Really contributes to the whole theme of rebirth going on.

-God, the colors when this show goes full atmospheric tension are soooo goooood

Aw man, I’m gonna be sad bidding this show goodbye. Well, expect my closing thoughts in a bit, as well as what show will take its place!