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iwritenarrativesandstuff · 1 year ago

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Trimax Thoughts Vol. 2 Pt. 2

Or, Wolfwood is a terrible liar and that's actually way more compelling than if he was good at it.

Wolfwood is quickly becoming one of my favourites in this series. I love a character with a good internal conflict who challenges the protagonist, and he's such a delightfully odd little critter of a man which makes him doubly enjoyable to me. He also causes me emotional damage, which kind of sealed the deal.

So, let's review what we know about his situation so far: He is, allegedly, a traveling priest, but his other job, the one he makes most of his money with, is some kind of dirty business (given the company of the Gung Ho Guns, it is likely as an assassin or a hired gun). Legato hired (?) him along with the rest of the GHG, and we know the fate of anyone who fails or tries to run. He knows this too - he can't leave. He's trapped. There was a two-year time-skip between Fifth Moon and his return in which he was searching for Vash, allegedly about the mass disappearances. We don't know fully what his current situation is, but given the GHG's continued orders, the recognition by Rai-Dei, and the way he knows way too much about Knives, it seems likely he is still stuck working for him - from here, it's still unclear what exactly his orders are, but it seems likely he is set up to betray or antagonize Vash later on.

This seems like it should be the set up for a character who has to lie constantly. Setting up smiles and earning the trust of their target. Their conflict about their mission vs their budding attachment being a deeply internalized struggle that slowly bubbles up to the surface as time goes on.

Wolfwood (kind of?) tries to do this, to be fair. But. He is so bad at it.

(Fair warning: this got LONG. I am sorry in advance.)

He is not a good liar. He doesn't even come up with a proper reason to explain his knowledge of Knives. He does not make any active effort to win Vash's trust. His internal conflict bleeds out of him to the surface almost right away and is glaringly obvious. He's just. So bad at not seeming suspicious. Here's the prime examples:

In his first appearance, he responds to Vash questioning how he makes money as a priest by practically admitting he has some kind of side job with a troubled and more serious expression than he's worn in the entire chapter (his eye is pale instead of dark here - take note of this btw this is important!). He doesn't even know Vash. Vash is some random stranger he just met on a bus. Why are you telling him this.

He reveals his giant cross is actually a giant gun with no lead up or warning whatsoever in front of a very startled Vash. He never explains why he is carrying around a giant cross-gun.

He says he's been looking for Vash for two years but the reason he gives is the mass disappearances, which only started six months ago.

He reveals that he knows way too much about Knives to not be associated with him in some way. Vash is obviously suspicious and asks about it, to which Wolfwood replies that he has a grudge against Knives and that he'd explain it later. ...he proceeds to never explain it.

Wolfwood gets annoyed when Vash says he's meeting with someone but it's a secret, to which Vash points out Wolfwood is hiding things too. Wolfwood just says "..." and. Does not deny this.

Wolfwood once again reveals he knows way too much about Knives. Vash is obviously suspicious by now and questions him again to which Wolfwood deflects in the most obvious way by changing the topic entirely and saying "Oh look a sandworm wow that's a big one!" Which. Does not fool Vash at all? That wouldn't fool anyone? You just made yourself more suspicious???????

Wolfwood and Rai-Dei clearly recognize each other. Vash is left looking between them in confusion while Wolfwood, once again, does not try to explain away anything - which would be a good thing to do, considering Rai-Dei is one of the Gung Ho Guns and he would probably want to... not imply any connection to them?

In short. What are you doing. What are you doing???

It's so funny to me because this is 100% an "I know/I know you know" kind of situation, and they could be playing mind games about this or leaning on that but instead they're just both blatantly ignoring the giant sandworm in the room. But it makes sense for these characters and is way more interesting in this case - after all, the core conflict so far revolves around second chances, and changing your life, and not killing so that people have a life to change. If Vash was unaware of the potential threat of Wolfwood, we could chalk a lot of his amicability with him up to ignorance, but we can't, because he isn't ignorant at all. This in turn makes Vash utterly confounding to Wolfwood, which makes his internal conflict not as much about the situation surrounding Vash, but about Vash himself, and what that may say about Wolfwood's own character.

Also, I personally think it's really fun to see how silly they are together in spite of all of this looming over them. Disagreeing on something so major as life and death coupled with Wolfwood's obvious suspiciousness - they really probably... shouldn't get along?

It's not a completely unfounded dynamic though. They met once, before Wolfwood knew that he was going to be made an enemy to Vash, and they clicked. Very easily. It was a brief meeting but it was impactful enough that Vash immediately recognizes him two years later.

And Wolfwood's eyes are dark when speaking with him.

Ok! Now I get to delve into the entire reason I wanted to make this post in the first place - it ties in firmly with Wolfwood being not great at lying or hiding his intentions.

Tristamp Vash voice: "You can see it in his eyes."

No. Seriously. The manga does some really interesting things with shading to draw attention to specific parts of a panel, such as shadowing entire faces to display rage or indicate "something to be afraid of", shading things in gray to emphasize them in the scene... and in Wolfwood's case, making his dark eyes look pale to indicate his emotional state, in what I have now taken to calling the "Wolfwood pale eyes of distress". I use distress to specifically encapsulate emotions like fear, desperation, feeling trapped, and internal conflict - strong, negative emotions that become more overwhelming the less control he has over a potentially threatening situation. Here's some examples:

So, yeah, his eyes are extremely expressive. Not only is he not a great liar, but his eyes pretty much always complement what he's feeling or saying - they give him away. Small wonder he's typically wearing sunglasses when interacting with people. Wolfwood appears to be somewhat aware of his eyes being giveaways... but I think he may have misinterpreted what exactly they reveal. He seems to think they reveal his darkness; the "devil" he's had to become. I can think of no other explanation for why his eyes are firmly shut in the nightmare sequence as soon as the kids run up to him.

^ This caused me immense pain btw. Not only is he keeping his eyes shut in front of the kids, he keeps that smile fixed on his face - the panel on the side is clearly internal. So he's... doubly hiding himself. He doesn't want to scare them, or for him to see the "monster" he's become so he smiles and acts like everything's fine even though he's pained. Hm. Sounds like... someone else we know...

However, what Vash sees is not some devil.

The ending of the Rai-Dei fight is when the budding conflict between Vash and Wolfwood reaches a breaking point. Interestingly, Wolfwood starts this fight without his glasses, but puts them on somewhere between Rai-Dei mentioning the Gung Ho Guns know where Vash's home is and Wolfwood deciding to interfere - which really means aiming to kill Rai-Dei. It's interesting he should take the time to put them back on like that. It doesn't really matter though, because we see his eyes anyways as he shoots Rai-Dei dead.

Ah yes. The eyes of a man completely unaffected and not at all bothered by the act of killing. Note the paleness again. They're like that all the way through this scene. The glasses do manage to cover his eyes in the next bit where he proceeds to shoot Rai-Dei again three more times. Hard to read his expression here but I'm assuming he went somewhat blank. He mentions later that he shoots twice in the head, twice in the heart - this was probably a "finishing of the job"; he's on autopilot - and so he doesn't actually react at first when Vash punches the glasses right off his face.

My actual reaction when I read this: OH???????

The glasses are off now. His cover is gone. And Wolfwood goes "to hell with it" and all but reveals that he's probably going to be a future threat to Vash.

Wolfwood takes the gun he just used to kill Rai-Dei, presses it into Vash's hand, aims it at his own head and tells Vash to shoot. Now, disregarding the fact that this is such a normal thing to do (sarcasm...), the intention here is pretty obvious. Wolfwood genuinely thinks that someone has to die for others to live, and because Vash won't kill, he believes he is the one who has to do so. If Vash would face threats with lethal intent, if he would dirty his own hands, then Wolfwood would trade his life - but they both know Vash won't shoot. However, I'm not sure if Wolfwood consciously realizes what he all but admitted here - pointing the gun at his own head, "so you won't hesitate to take out the next man who gets in your way"... they've both been dancing around the issue of Wolfwood's suspiciousness but here he might as well have said "I'm a threat. You know I'm probably a threat. Why don't you defend yourself? How can you be this naïve?" And all the while he's making full eye contact - probably expecting to have revealed that darkness within him. But Vash does not see Wolfwood as a devil. He sees him as playing the role of one. Vash is upset with Wolfwood here, but he's also upset for Wolfwood. Vash sees right through him to his inner conflict and pain, the same way Wolfwood saw through Vash to his pain.

Backtracking a bit.

Remember how I commented close to the beginning of this that Wolfwood's eyes are dark when he speaks with Vash again after two years? The way the conflict builds between them is really interesting too, because it doesn't really start as an argument (or at least, that's not how I took it).

I think I saw someone on here commenting on how funny it is that Wolfwood is expositing Plants to Vash, which is for the reader's benefit probably, but is still an interesting way to segue into the moral conflict that will characterize them in future.

Explaining the Plant and resulting conflict in straightforward terms. "We've had this talk already." Stating what he sees as simple truths of the world bluntly but not unkindly. Rapping on the door and wanting to finish the earlier conversation, and suddenly I realized "wait. wait."

He's. It's almost like he's trying to teach him. Like one would explain things to a child who doesn't yet understand the world's harsh realities. Which is so funny for so many reasons.

For one, Vash... plays along? Just because, I guess? Look at that intense look of concentration while Wolfwood educates him about what Plants do. He is being very attentive and listening really hard. Also, the next part too is just...

Vash, sniffling: "Why do things like this have to happen?" :'(

Hjdhfdjhb??? (Like he definitely is genuinely upset but it's not like he doesn't understand... the little pout after too...)

For another, I'm so fascinated that Wolfwood initially decides that Vash must just not understand the ways of the world because like. He's seen his scars before. He can see Vash's scars in this very scene. You can't chalk that up to naivete... but if it isn't that, then Wolfwood can't understand it, so he leans into this interpretation, despite having to know that it's wrong.

For as much as this sounds kind of condescending of him, I don't think he really intends it that way - he may think the pacifism is naïve, but he doesn't actually see Vash as a child. It may be somewhat automatic for him to approach it this way, because I'm assuming Wolfwood's positive interactions are mainly with children, and again, I don't think he's trying to start an argument here. He wants answers out of Vash, because Vash confuses him, and, after Fifth Moon, scares him too.

When he finds Vash again two years later, his eyes are dark, not pale. He's not scared of Vash in that scene, not the same way he was when he witnessed the Fifth Moon event. He greets him on fairly friendly terms and seems decently comfortable around him - enough to laugh at him, scold him, and share/fight over food. But there is still that moment of trepidation, where Wolfwood carefully brings up Fifth Moon and is clearly trying to gauge Vash's reaction. This is the random guy he met on a bus two years ago who seemed human enough. This is also the same guy he witnessed blow a crater into a moon, revealing himself to be something much more powerful and inhuman than he could understand. I believe a lot of this early questioning - the poking and prodding at Vash's morals, the watching to see what he'll do, is Wolfwood's attempt to reconcile these very conflicting views.

Unfortunately, instead of his questions and challenges clarifying things, they only muddy the waters further for him. Vash's actions, that kind of selfless-looking pacifism, is completely unexplainable by his current worldview - worse, the continued survival of Vash's pacifism directly conflicts with it. As Wolfwood's inner conflict is uncomfortably forced to the forefront of his mind where he spent his whole life repressing it, Vash becomes more unsettling to him, and the moral conflict, which started as an attempt to understand and question becomes confrontational. Vash's no-killing philosophy should not be possible to maintain, and Wolfwood responds by becoming more reactive and terrified.

When thinking later, he straight up says he's never seen someone put other's lives above their own. He nearly died as a child and the only thing that saved him was raw survival instinct. He's had to fend for himself. No one came to help. No wonder he doesn't have much hope. He thinks that to be human is to eventually succumb to the harshness of the world and to join that never ending cycle of violence (no matter how much he hates it) - notably though, he's not like Knives, who believes that humans are born bad. Rather, he seems to believe that people become corrupted, are forced to become "devils", over time and due to the inhospitable world they have to struggle to survive in. If he really believed humans were inherently bad, he wouldn't try to hide his eyes and bloodied hands from the kids (innocent!). It's why he can recognize Rai-Dei and the rest of the GHG as human, even when it's claimed they have given up their humanity. To Wolfwood, that in itself is just a part of being human.

Funnily enough, it is Vash's kindness surviving against all odds that cements him as something inhuman in Wolfwood's mind. And not only does seeing Vash as something not-human bring back some of the terror he felt during the Fifth Moon Incident, but it also puts Wolfwood in a very uncomfortable position of having the necessity of his darker actions be called into question. Vash is now threatening. And Wolfwood starts to respond to that threat in the way that is most natural for him.

There's some extra complications here too though - Wolfwood definitely cares about Vash too, at least to some extent. Their first meeting had none of this baggage, and Wolfwood expresses some worry about Vash's smiles not being genuine. They fall into a pretty natural, easy dynamic after one meeting and a two-year gap. He also shows a level of protectiveness really early on - that was the purpose of my funny little counter I did on a previous thoughts post, but let's look at this particular instance right here:

Return of pale eyes Wolfwood, who is genuinely concerned and pissed off. At first I assumed that Wolfwood was running to go after the still-present threat of Keele but the next time we see them, Vash is getting patched up and Wolfwood is standing in the room with him - the part where Wolfwood is running there is him trying to get medical help. This is not even bringing up the part after where he pulls out the tobasco sauce. (As an addition, it's also the last time he calls him "Vash" instead of "needle-noggin" - endearing nickname, or an attempt to distance himself? Who knows. Not Wolfwood, I'm sure.)

I do wonder if Wolfwood focused on some of the commonalities between them at first to attempt to bridge the gap between his conflicting images of Vash - I am not sure whether he's... well... self-aware enough to recognize that he also hides pain behind a smile and a pair of glasses, but they both sure are in uncomfortable positions of being wielded as weapons by Knives. The panel where Wolfwood tells Vash Knives is on the move again while he is superimposed directly below the spike jutting out of Knives' chest drives me insane. The threat of death looming over him like that. He’s trapped. Then there's the witnessing of the Fifth Moon incident, in which Vash's arm was quite literally hijacked and control taken away from him. Now, I understand this is mostly my assumption here but I don't think it's entirely unfounded - Wolfwood's expression when he watches this is a bit more detailed than the rest of the GHG, who mostly look shocked or scared - he looks that way too but there's also a furrowing of the brow that complicates the expression. Vash is screaming. Wolfwood's previous lamenting of the cycle of violence he's trapped in happens on the heels of realizing he'll be working against Vash. And when he finds him again, he's certainly wary, but not accusatory. I do think, terrified as he was by the implications of what Vash and Knives are and that sheer level of power, he does understand that Vash was being used and not in control of himself. I expect this is probably why he took the "grudge against Knives" angle - he recognizes Vash's anger and says "me too" - drawing a line of commonality between them.

But as the gap widens and Vash demonstrates clear differences that are unexplainable or otherwise threatening to Wolfwood, he becomes more discomforted and antagonistic as a result.

It all boils over after the Rai-Dei fight. At first, Wolfwood doesn't interfere in the fight because a) he knows Vash is competent, and b) he's a jerk sometimes and clearly thought him having a gunfight against a swordsman was funny. But that changes when it's revealed the GHG have located and are going to target Vash's home. The sunglasses get slipped back on. That's the point at which Wolfwood starts to go for his gun. Vash has turned deadly serious, and has told Rai-Dei to get out of his way, and Wolfwood probably assumed that this would be the exception to the rule - that's what he keeps saying, after all, that people will kill to defend those they love.

Instead, Vash tells Wolfwood to stay out of it, knowing he is intending to shoot Rai-Dei, and I do think that's the moment the conflict went from disagreement to actual anger.

What Wolfwood is not seeing is that Vash doesn't kill to defend the memory of someone he loved. That's not information Wolfwood is privy to, so while they are both protective people, the way they go about protecting is entirely different, and it's been there since the beginning.

This is a really cute scene, first of all. He's good with those kids. He crouches down to their level, splits the coins up evenly between them. It's kind of like saying "we're in this together"... and it's notably very different from what Vash does - that distance he maintains, and the way he probably would've given everything. Wolfwood keeps some for himself. As he puts it, for the sake of the orphanage kids, he has to stay alive, and that means prioritizing some lives above others, something that Vash refuses to do. But I think Wolfwood misunderstands that Vash sacrifices so much not because he "isn't human and therefore can", but because doggedly pursuing Rem's ideals and protecting humanity from Knives is just about the only thing keeping him going. Wolfwood doesn’t understand that Vash needs to believe that kindness exists in people’s hearts because he cannot understand how one could go on living otherwise.

Neither of them really have lives of their own, nor do they value themselves much. But they both continue to survive out of dedication to the paths they’ve chosen. Wolfwood kills to save the living - specifically, the kids and now Vash (it also assures he has a reason to keep fighting for his own survival - he can’t protect them if he’s dead). Vash refuses to kill to preserve the memory of someone who has died, Rem (again, this assures his survival, at least to a certain point - he can’t stop Knives if he’s dead). There’s something really interesting in that contrast, that leads them both to a “better me than them” mentality - Wolfwood the role of the weapon and Vash the role of the shield. But either way, this is, I think, why it’s hard for them to understand where the other is coming from at times, even though they see each other’s pain so clearly. These are worldviews they stick to stubbornly, born out of trauma; their respective ways of processing their continued survival from all that has happened to them.

Wolfwood is afraid to die, but he also has no hope for himself. While deeply conflicted by his actions, he has to believe there is necessity to them. So when Vash is confronting him, telling him he’s been crying out against the role he’s taken on this entire time, it shakes him, because he’s pushed all that down for so long, and it’s true. And I think he wants to believe that Vash’s sentiment is possible, but to him it just seems like false hope, even if he doesn’t want to be hurting people either. But if Vash is right, then that is even more distressing. It means that maybe he didn’t have to become a “devil”. That justifying the use of lethal force by necessity was never a justification at all. He goes from sinner with a cause to just a sinner. In that sense, him taking his own gun and putting it in Vash’s hand, aiming it at his own head and telling him to shoot if he really thinks he’s wrong… it reads as a punishment.

Not a bit of this would’ve been as effective if we were left to wonder about the characters’ intentions. Wolfwood being a bad liar, or really, not bothering to lie much, is interesting character wise and focuses the conflict on his and Vash’s internal persons and motives, rather than the external situation. I find it works much better to highlight Trigun’s themes that have cropped up so far.

Ok. I’m going to stop here because this is very long. Holy shit sorry. I just really like his character a lot and I’m excited to see where this conflict goes. They both raise some really good points that are difficult to reconcile.

I hope this actually made sense lol. We’ll see if it holds up when I get further into the manga.

#yes this is the post that i deleted by pressing ctrl z like a moron. do you understand my pain.#oh well i actually think it turned out better this time around so. maybe it's fine actually.#it’s still horrifically long. It just. Kept going…#trigun #trigunbookclub #trigun meta #trimax #nicholas d. wolfwood #storyrambles #<- ugh I need to stop.

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