#love that this is the first time we actually see wolfwood kill someone too

[orcelito]

ok i watched episode 16 of trigun 98 and i have a Few Thoughts, but the biggest ones are:

HE PISSSED ON THE MOOOOOON

&

Is This Some Sort Of Twisted Christian Science?

no joke i had to pause the video for the twisted christian science thing bc i was laughing so fucking hard i was nearly choking. thanks, rai-dei

& of course the Moon Beam which was expected. what WASNT expected was the fact that Legato caused it instead of Knives. but knowing what happened in chapter 32 of trimax, it's not entirely out of the realm of the manga's canon either. but i Am sad about how we didnt get to see the #Looks both Vash and Knives served in the fifth moon incident in the manga. man.

interesting implications all around. im wondering where the Fuck knives is, bc we saw in the manga that he was regenerating, but now it's like. where tf is he, actually? we've only gotten snapshots of him so far. the briefest of thoughts. episode 16 and we're only just now getting direct confirmation that Vash is VERY not human (plus a confirmation that July was set 23 years ago in the anime, which is an added weirdness for new watchers who dont know about him being functionally immortal)

preview of the next episode shows that it's Backstory Episode. im done watching for today but im looking forward to seeing what the anime sets for that

[hypermoyashi]

Okay! Chapters 5-7 of Trimax have been read! I actually read them last night but was too sleepy to type up my thoughts, so hopefully I haven't forgotten everything. My first thought is no Meryl and Milly :( I think this is my first chunk of chapters without any appearances from the two of them, which has me biting at the cage of my enclosure, asking Nightow to let me see them rekjgnkjrengkjren

But! Onto chapter thoughts! These are the chapters in which we deal with the warring families and the hostage situation, and the man who wanted to kill to get revenge for his daughter. And one particular detail is that Wolfwood keeps emphasizing that people will fight for those they love, that anyone will resort to violence if it means protecting their loved ones. And it's coupled with Vash's very firm resolution to save the people in the scenario, despite not knowing them personally, and Doc's line of about Vash's concept of family being very different from most peoples.

And I think this is interesting, because it's kind of the foundation for a headcanon I have about Vash and his relationship with humanity. Yes, he loves and wants to protect humans because Rem gave her life to save them, and he wants to honor her sacrifice and preserve what she died protecting--but also. Here we get into meta/headcanon territory, so I'm going to stick it under a read more!

We know, from the fact that Vash refers to Dependents as his sisters, that Plants don't really have the same concept of "family" that humans do. I like to think that "family" to them is not about blood relation, but more a general concept that they are all connected and kin through their broad network/hivemind. They don't have traditional familiar units where parents raise children, nor do they apparently need a partner/spouse to produce offspring (since Plants isolated within tanks can become pregnant). So to them, every Plant falls under their definition of "family" since the traditional human notion of family doesn't really apply to them.

So it does make me wonder, if the Plant concept of "family" encompasses every single member of the species, Vash when accepted Rem as his mother... Was he also accepting the whole of humanity as his family, in line with the Plant concept of family rather than the human one?

Makes me wonder! But circling back to the text, at the very least, Vash will go to great lengths to save others, the same kind of lengths most people will only go to for loved ones. And Doc's line does imply that's because Vash loves all of humanity, so he just can't accept sitting back and watching people kill one another and doing nothing. Because at the end of the day, those are people he cares for, regardless of the heinous things they've done.

And I do think. In a way, he did save/help the man who lost his daughter. Speaking as someone who's had shit things done to them, sometimes... "Getting back" or "getting even" doesn't accomplish anything. You get angry, try to hurt back, to inflict the same pain that was done onto you, to have your pain understood--but by the end of it, you don't feel any better, and you've wasted so much time and effort on nothing but anger and vitriol. There's no taking back or undoing what's been done to you, or someone you loved, but... Sometimes, you can only move on, as best you can. And I think the line about the man being too kind to go through with it speaks to that. He was better off not taking revenge, because at least now the man who killed his daughter can rot in jail, while he can go on to heal and live his life.

And it's for those reasons that I can't ever really think of Vash's ideals as purely nonsense. Sometimes, kindness and moving on is the answer, and that is hard to do. Far harder than stooping to the level of those who hurt you. It's a type of kindness that is forged in pain and heartache, and it's just so Vash.

[deludedfantasy]

Trimax Vol 7 Ch 1-3

Sooooo, the first half of this volume might have destroyed me. I spent a lot of time staring into space between panels because the horrors were getting to me. Prepare for lots and lots of yelling. Here goes.

Ch 1

With a story like Trimax, I get incredibly nervous when an entire volume is named Happy Days. I know I am being lied to. 

The way the crew comes out of their pods really reads like people clawing their way out of coffins. Very ominous. 

Wow, this guy is rude. Rem hasn’t talked to anyone but Plant children in a whole year and the first thing that happens when the crew wakes up is that one of them harrasses her. Ugh. He could’ve stayed asleep for another three years if that’s how he was gonna be. 

Argh, there are way too many people in this chapter and I can’t tell who’s talking when the whole crew is together. 

I don’t know what to make of it, but Rem’s eyes are completely white when she lies to the crew. I know someone pointed out that Wolfwood’s eyes are white when he’s in an incredibly emotional state so I wonder if this is something similar?

Knives just messing around with the thrusters because he was curious. So not only do Independent plants grow quickly, they’re apparently incredibly smart. But also still kids because he absolutely messed something up.

Ah, young Conrad meeting the twins for the first time. I like that Tristamp made him a more important character because of what happened to Tesla. 

Knives is so concerned with what humans think of him! Having him be so drastically different as a child really makes you wonder what happened to make him hate humanity as much as he does. 

Oh no, baby Knives is crying! He just wants to be loved and accepted. Both of them love Rem so much too. Oh my god, I just wanna cry. This chapter is the sweetest, nicest one we’ve had in a while.

Pages that make me wanna sob because of dramatic irony. Little Knives is so hopeful…he’s so full of love and understanding and naivety. I don’t wanna watch it break.

Ohhhh. Now that I know what’s going on, this part makes a lot more sense to me. Knives and Vash think they see one of the people in cryo chambers awake, and they follow her. I think this is actually a telepathic Plant thing. Tesla is still alive, so she’s projecting herself into their minds and leading them to her. 

She shows up right after Knives’s revelation about working through their differences with humanity. I wonder how much she hears and is aware of, because it seems significant that she shows up then, like a vengeful ghost that wants to show him how wrong he is.

God, I hate reading the report notes. They’re so chilling and dehumanizing. They keep calling her a “subject” but what we see is a little girl. And she looks so small and scared. Man, I really shouldn’t be reading this late at night. I’ll be up all night thinking about this.

“Trouble over a question of ethics.” Well, that’s a fucking understatement! Question of goddamn ethics, you scanned her so often you gave her cancer! Because you were treating a living thing—no, a child—like an inanimate object that could take as much abuse as you threw at it. 

110 days is just over 3 months. I’m raging. How many times did they use radioactive scanning equipment on this little girl to give her tumors??? I had to get one CT scan done and they were extremely reluctant to do it because I was young and they weren’t sure it would show what was wrong with me. 

My brain is only capable of producing screaming noises right now. These last pages are brutal and gory and…yeah, really messed up. 

All the notes have to say is “Project is closed.” PROJECT??? PROJECT????? That was a little girl you experimented on so much that you basically killed her! I’m gonna throw my laptop out the window. 

I’ve come back a little calmer and actually, I can’t tell if she’s alive or not. In Tristamp, it seems like she was put into cryo sleep to preserve her while she was technically alive. But here, I can’t tell. Thing is, she wouldn’t be able to do her Plant telepathy otherwise. Hmmm.

Ch 2

Oh no no no no, little Vash’s dead eyed face is too much for me right now. He’s had his doubts about humans, sure, but this is too much for him to handle. This is the revelation of humanity’s evil that he’s far, far too young to be able to handle. 

Oh God, and he’s alone in there with Tesla’s dissected body because Knives fainted. He can’t look away, he’s never been able to look away, and all he can see now is how different he is from humanity. Right now, he doesn’t see any way they can reconcile their differences. 

This page, where Vash looks like he’s floating curled into a ball while tormented by those staring eyes, is a nice juxtaposition to a similar panel in the last volume. There, he was peacefully floating in zero-g and feeling safe. Here, is the exact opposite. Here, it’s the loss of his innocence. 

Vash is so angry. Rightfully so! What was done to Tesla was horrible and what proof does he have that the same won’t be done to him? Rem has been lying to him his whole life. He’s found out just how cruel the world is. It’s so easy to forget (and honestly not always easy to see) with adult Vash, but at heart, he is driven by anger. And I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing, because in his case, his kindness comes from that deep-seated anger. Remind me to write a longer post about that later. 

Still, it’s so interesting to see that anger and realize it’s always been in him, from the very beginning. 

But this is also the start of something worse—Vash’s suicidal ideation comes from here. He doesn’t see a point in living if the world would treat beings like him with such cruelty, forever leaving him marked as other and inhuman. He doesn’t want to live in a world of only humans. How does he become the man who will do anything in his power to defend humanity when all he has right now is fear and hatred? 

Vash refusing to eat because he just doesn’t see the point and doesn’t want to live—I see where Tristamp got Vash’s feelings about deserving to eat from. 

Oh my God??? OH MY GOD???? Vash was gonna stab himself. Like yes, I’ve read this before, and yes, I know he’s actively suicidal here, but just—this is the first time we’re seeing it exposed like this, the very depths of his despair. The past few pages, the way he’s been drawn, with his cheeks hollowed and his eyes without expression or emotion, it’s A Lot and I’m not okay. 

And Rem just fucking grabs the blade to stop him. She’s willing to hurt herself to keep him from dying. He learned all of this from her, every part of his ideology, and it wasn’t in abstraction. He saw it and, not only that, it was what Rem did to save him. He really becomes her continuation. 

Vash has this moment where he becomes very unhinged and actually sounds a bit like future Knives when he hurts Rem by pulling the blade away from her. He learns how powerful violence is, the relief and catharsis it can bring. But immediately after he has these thoughts, he sees how he hurt Rem and that snaps him back to himself, to the little boy he is who just loves his mother. 

He has her blood on his hands and that’s too much for him to take. She might be one of the humans that hurt Tesla, but he still loves her and it scares him to see her like that.  

He patches her up and gets something to eat….my heart is breaking. He’s just a little baby, why does this have to happen to him?

The blank ticket story is going to make me cry. There’s so much hope in it, especially when you consider the situation Rem had that dream in. She was depressed as hell, she’d lost someone she loved and probably didn’t see a point in going forward either. And it’s a reminder that there’s more to the world than evil and darkness. There’s kindness and goodness too and that’s what Vash needed to hear. 

I also think he needed to see Rem’s tears and remorse to remind him that he knows her. She might have made a mistake with Tesla but she never did anything to them. She’s trying to make up for it, with everything in her being she’s trying. 

Also, “If you hadn’t stopped me then, I never would have known that when you cry, Rem, you look like you’re laughing.” WOW, Vash you really picked up all your best and worst qualities from your mom, huh? You learn to do the same thing.

Knives wakes up with a dead-eyed look and then says he doesn’t remember anything. Yeahhhh, no, I don’t think so.

Ch 3

The chapter titles in this volume are going to be the death of me. I don’t know if I can handle reading something called “King of Loneliness” after that last chapter. Send help, I’m doing it anyway.  

“She hung her head low.” What happened weighs on Rem so much and you just know she ended up taking care of Knives and Vash as some kind of penance. I don’t think she expected to love them as much as she did by the end. But she also never intended on telling them any of this and just forging ahead with them into the new world, disappearing without ever having to face up to what she did.

I can’t blame her though. Is there a good way to tell a child a truth like that? But it would have been better if she’d told them all of this rather than Vash and Knives finding out on their own. Much like it would’ve been better if Vash was honest about who he was and what his mission was with Meryl, Milly, and Wolfwood from earlier on. Hiding things from the people you love rarely ends well. 

“There’s so much we have to do to make sure it never happens again.” Now that’s what I call foreshadowing and dramatic irony. We all know what Knives means by that. 

But Vash knows something’s wrong with Knives. And we see it too. This is the first time in these chapters his face is obscured in shadows, just like it was when we were first introduced to this younger version of him volumes ago. This is the first moment where Vash feels like he doesn’t know his brother. 

Knives is losing it. He’s painting himself in his own blood as he no doubt plans the Big Fall. His descent into fear and darkness here is masterfully done and so unsettling. 

The juxtaposition of these pages too, with his fearful face covered in blood and tears and the triumph as he watches the ships fall from the sky. This was an act of evil, yes, but it was driven by fear and helplessness. 

Knives claims all his decision making as rational, but these last few pages have shown that to be untrue. Certainly, there was logic behind it, but most of it was driven by emotion. 

Ohhhhh, I finally understand this bit! Knives merges with the Plant! He asks her for help and shows what he’s feeling, his anger at humanity and, ultimately, his plans. Last volume, he realized he doesn’t have the power to achieve his goals alone and this is how he plans to fix that. 

At the beginning of this chapter, I thought the King of Loneliness was going to be Vash, but really, it’s Knives. He pushed everyone away and destroyed the colony fleet. He pushes away the Gung Ho Guns and merges with the Plants to achieve his goals. Ultimately, he is still a scared lonely boy who never processed the terrible things he witnessed and learned. His trust was broken so completely, he never recovered.

[hikennosabo]

#tristampparty day 5, episode 5: child of blessing

day 5 of @tristampparty let's gooooo

our radio djs today are... show hayami!!! (aka original wolfwood) and masaya onosaka again! i'm OBSESSED with casting hayami as the religious radio dj, i love these cameos so much and clearly there was a lot of thought put into where the cameos would be. very very cool

one thing i really think is interesting about trigun - every version of trigun - is the fact that god and religion (christianity) have such a presence but there is never confirmation one way or the other about the existence of god.

who is Missionary Michael

"newly"... we know they've been around for a while, though... and roberto's the guy with Information and Knowledge so i don't think he would make a mistake timeline-wise... EoM had an established presence in (or, more like an iron grip on) windmill village, so it's not like they were operating in complete secret until recently or anything like that. soooo, new relative to what?

wind... typhoon... is this anything

wait no i'm cooking. rollo was born on a windless day -> vash met rollo when he was a baby, the photo is taken -> rollo, as we see in the flashback at the beginning of the episode, prays for wind, implying that there hasn't been any wind in a long time -> rollo runs away, meets vash again, vash makes a promise he can't keep -> rollo gets turned into monev the gale... GALE... WIND... -> vash returns, "reunites" with rollo -> monev gets killed -> the wind blows again

TYPHOON, GALE, IS THIS ANYTHING??? I DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M COOKING HERE

this is when wolfwood notices that monev is a product of EoM... that's all he needs to know to decide what must be done.

vash has no idea about EoM or the experiments or the village sacrificing children, BUT if he hadn't brought rollo back to the village... maybe none of this would have happened. or it could've ultimately played out the same. maybe rollo would have been found by someone else. or maybe he would have died out there in the desert. but still. another thing for vash to feel guilty about even though it wasn't really his fault.

savior complex bouncing between him and knives like a ping pong ball

i love the phrasing. he's not god. he's a man. as much as he positions himself as a god, he's still... very human. as loathe as he would be to admit that.

*looks at previous screenshot* i'm seeing a pattern here.

as much as i don't like elendira ii, i think we should consider also giving little fangs to elendira i.

SPEAKING OF CHARACTERS I DON'T LIKE. tristamp conrad is so unbelievably cruel, what the hell. don't get me wrong he's still not GOOD in the manga and he DOES bear responsibility for, y'know, resurrecting knives and all... and generally being too little too late in taking action against knives... but THIS conrad is just so. ugh. why did they do him like this...

so the timeline would be...

20 years ago, the village was destroyed. assuming he was in the lab for 5 years (in other words, he was not let out and could have not wrecked the town during that time), would mean 25 years ago, rollo was taken and became monev. we don't know exactly how old he was at the time, let's say he was 10 for the sake of keeping it even. so ~35 years ago the photo with vash was taken, give or take.

we also don't know how many children were taken before rollo, or how often. but it was an established practice in the village which no one questioned. how long has this been going on exactly?

also just wanted to note that roberto notices the EoM banner in the house. i think that's a detail that gets forgotten because meryl finds the photo of vash right after... but remember that roberto is the one who tells us what EoM is (or rather, what their cover story is) in the first place...

... i don't need to say anything.

actually no there is something i want to say. right after this, monev loses one of his gun... arm... gloves...? uncovering his hand underneath. and also his mask turns off. and we see his face. in other words, there's still a human under there.

OKAY HERE'S THE TALLY I REALLY WANTED TO DO!!!!

wolfwood vial count: 1

wolfwood drinking a vial right before shooting monev... revealing/reinforcing his own "inhumanity" (to the audience? to himself?) right before mercy killing a fellow EoM victim...

i wonder what vash would have done had wolfwood not killed rollo. like. what was the plan. was there a plan? (probably not...) like, had rollo lived, he wouldn't have been able to live a normal life no matter how you look at it, right? wolfwood's mercy kill seems to have been not just the right call, but perhaps the only call...?

vash asking him to wake up... foreshadowing perhaps. maybe foreshadowing livio not actually dying from a gunshot wound to the head, unlike monev. or maybe foreshadowing the words vash might say when... no. i shan't.

speaking of livio... this is gonna come back next episode.

yeah, a lot of what wolfwood says about monev can be applied to himself and livio both. really makes you think.

god i love that the village lights up after everything is over. it makes me think... i don't know what to make of this. like. the reason why the village kept sacrificing children to EoM was because they believed sacrifices would bring blessings. and we know the village was struggling due to a lack of wind. so was EoM preventing the wind from blowing somehow?? there's no way, right??? how would they even do that...? and why would they continue to prevent the wind from blowing in a place that got destroyed 20 years ago?? so this brings me back to the beginning of this post... does god actually exist in this universe?? did god make the wind blow??? and why now? i... i don't know!!! i don't know, man!!!

i do like the way orange adapted monev. or... adapted isn't the right word. they reimagined him from the ground up. they made him more intertwined with vash, used him as a vehicle to introduce EoM, tied him into wolfwood and vash's clash of ideals... and the episode itself is tight, self-contained. and very tragic.

we don't actually know that much about the original monev... he was imprisoned, he has a line about "the man i thought was my father"... i don't remember anything else. the main reason why the monev fight in 98/trimax is memorable is because it contains vash's diablo moment, and it's the first time we really see him seriously consider killing someone. but here, this version of monev... well, we get the opposite. vash wants to avoid killing monev - rollo - at all costs. makes me wonder if we'll get a diablo moment from vash in season 2...

there's probably more to say but i'm tired and my brain isn't working at full capacity lol i need to go to bed. see you tomorrow for episode 6!

[hellsingmongrel]

Trimax and possible Tristamp spoilers?

I’ve been thinking about the way they incorporated Meryl into the JuLai storyline in Stampede, and I’m beginning to wonder if that was their way of getting JuLai and Meryl’s kidnapping from Trimax out in one shot.  It has similar storybeats, including her finally seeing Vash going full Eldritch Angel when he rescues her.

I’m honestly not really sure how I feel about that, if it is what they’re doing.  I mean it makes sense, in that it will be helping condense the story down so that they can fit the important storybeats into the show, but in doing so, they would be losing the really fascinating character growth we saw between the two of them in the manga.  That event was a huge deal for Meryl, it absolutely terrified her and she was scared of him for a long time.  It was a whole subplot that wasn’t verbally addressed much by the two of them, but was absolutely shown in their interactions and the way she went from terrified, feeling guilty about that terror, and finally being able to overcome it and be there for him when he needed her support the most.  It was just so.  Good.  It helped show that while the reader might see his transformations and be like “Oh man, that looks cool!” it was actually legitimately horrifying for everyone involved, even those who were closest to him.

His transformations are scary, he doesn’t like it, Meryl doesn’t like it, Wolfwood doesn’t like it.  Nobody knows how to deal with it when it happens.  It’s a whole thing, so many people, Vash included, are just terrified of that power and what he’s capable of and how inhuman he looks and sometimes acts when he’s completely lost in his own head.  It’s an important part of the message of learning to accept yourself and live with yourself regardless of your failings, and of not judging people by what they appear to be, but instead to measure their worth by their actions, instead.  Learning to love those around you, learning to forgive yourself, etc.

IDK.  I can see where they would want to take this shortcut, and I’ve loved pretty much everything else they’ve done with the show, so I want to give them the benefit of the doubt and say they’ll handle it well.  I just think we’d be losing an important element of the story if they reduced the tension that existed between them because of Meryl’s trauma to the way the events in JuLai went down in episodes 10-12.  I think it could have an even better impact in Stampede, even, if they did have that tension now, because until now, she’s only ever seen him be soft spoken, sweet, gentle, only raising a hand to harm others when he absolutely had to and absolutely never losing control or killing someone.  He’s so much softer than Vash is when we first encounter him in Trimax, so to have him go from that extremely gentle soul to someone who’s so lost, has so much power, and is pushed so far over the edge that he’s reduced to this:

And at the same time, when he shields her with his wings earlier in this event, there’s a moment when she’s linked into his mind and seeing his memories.  I feel like that’s something that’s important, too, and damn if it didn’t take me rereading through the manga to find that page to realize what had happened.  (Though tbf, a lot of the action in the series is like that; you have to interpret the visuals, it doesn’t hold your hand and narrate what’s going on, so sometimes it takes multiple, multiple rereadings to figure out what exactly you’re seeing.  It’s both good and bad, tbh.  Nightow is showing the reader a lot of respect in expecting them to not need to be told what is happening, but there are still some times when a little tiny bit of direction might have been useful.  :’D)

All of that, plus just giving the viewer their first glimpse into the fact that even when he’s not being controlled by his brother, Vash can still go full Plant mode, can absolutely lose control and become a being that is a threat to everyone around him unless he manages to regain his senses, would be a very, very important scene to lose.  So honestly, I really hope they don’t condense the story the way it seems they might have, or that they find a way of showing these important beats in another way.  Vash’s Big Badass Moment in episode 12 was fuckin’ amazing, don’t get me wrong!  I was screaming and cheering him on from my couch the entire episode!  But it’s not the full story and there’s a lot that would be lost if that was all they took from this part of the story in Trimax.

[kindaoptimisticsquirrel]

Trigun Bookclub Trimax Vol9 Part1

Vol01: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3  | Vol02: Part 1 | Part 2

Trimax: Vol01 Part 1 Vol01 Part 2 | Vol02 Part 1 Vol02 Part 2 | Vol 03 Part 1 | Vol03 Part2 | Vol04 Part1 | Vol04 Part2 | Vol05 | Vol06 | Vol07 | Vol08 Part1 | Vol08 Part2 | Vol09 Part1

Vol 9 recap start! It's late and I'm not having that many clever thoughts, so more just...reacting and saving cool panels :D

Chapter 1:

Aww Nico and Miss Melanie checking to see how Livio is doing. Nico's really got the big brother vibes.

Great catch, buddy!

Smiling and laughing little Wolfwood! This is killing me with so much cuteness. Also, love how he got his big Wolfwood nose as a kid too (I mean, of course he does, but then you never know, an author might make all kids look kinda similiar even unintentionally by giving them big kid eyes, small noses and such stuff...it's just nice to see distinct facial features drawn in different age states)

*** you for that evil trap, Chapel.

Livio not saying anything to that in that one panel is telling a lot actually. Now we know in what way he himself is tied to that orphanage...does he consider it a burden too? I wonder if Chapel struck a nerve with that sentence.

And just like that I knew I was gonna like Livio. Oooh he had it coming.

Hmm love this page. It really feels like the start of something.

Chapter 2:

So so proud of him...I read other bookclub posts about how Wolfwood symbolizes the humanity that CAN change and boy is that right.

I can only imagine Nightow having SO much fun drawing this!! :DD I have no idea but if I'd have to guess I'd say he was just waiting to draw a full page cool blockbuster scene of Wolfwood riding a motorcycle with an explosion in the backgrounds. Probably been wanting to do this since some volumes. And finally got his chance!! Cause there was no need to draw this so action-movie epic-like and he still did, hehe.

First of all, this page here looks so cool! Wolfwood is so shapey, but also the pose and composition...*mwah* Then in this fight we get to see just how good of a fighter Wolfwood actually is. Not that we didn't witness that before, but it was often together with Vash, or if alone, like with Ninelives, he was struggling quite a bit. But here to me it felt like we get this glimpse of a trained assassin he once was, fully in control of the situation, being fast and efficient (without killing).

Such badassery!!! I'm a big fan of how Livio, despite being fully indoctrined, still kinda protects the orphanage too! Well, maybe it's also because Chapel is prob sitting there too and they still need to use the orphanage as bait but STILL! I chose to believe that at this point some point inside Livio was still acting out of attachment to his old home.

Chapter 3:

Hey! That's not a nice thing to say boy! D: Also, she's obviously trying to reassure the kids so don't make them more scared by saying it won't do anything!

Oh fuck. The kids are talking about Nico here but this obviously applies to Vash, as well. Wolfwood can not rely on Vash now who is not around to help.

Also, may I say, what an utterly gorgeous drawing of Wolfwood and Livio.

RAZLOOOO

HMMMM Livio the Double FANG

And in that moment he thinks of that one moment where a person DID need him, where he saved someone :'(

These two pages look soooo cool. I never knew how ominous laundry cool look!

I do wonder...how did Razlo know about the Eye of Michael? Did he meet an informant some time, or overhear smth?

You're not going to kill your brother now, are you Wolfwood! (Not really brother but brother in heart, you know.)

Chapter 4:

Oh I misremembered, he DID mean to kill Livio? Or only momentarily put him out of order, knowing that he has SOME kind of regeneration abilities? I'm not quite sure now. What I do know is that Chapel has a creepy grin and I want that old man out of my face.

Ah hm maybe I should read at least the next page before rambling off. He really only wanted to incapacitate him. I'm relieved!

Rude! You didn't need to throw him through a suddenly spawned set of wood!

At this rate, Wolfwood must be riddled with bullets. Shot from behind, from the front, lost a HUGE amount of blood from his shoulder...

...and yet he's still going on. Oh my boy he's such an awesome character. (Also quick side note, love how Nightow draws hands)

Saving this because awesome pages. This is only the second time we're seeing these vials being used, right? Funny how quickly they became such an important plot device. (I wonder when Nightow planned them into the story...I'm guessing kinda late? Just wondering)

He must have really trusted on Livio blocking that thing!

Aww :(

Making a cut here! The rest will be done in a part 2 post, I don't want to get to the image limit in the middle of a chapter.

[lesbienbys]

so I recently just read all of the trigun manga in like 2 days bc I'm mentally ill (which I don't recommend bc my head hurt from crying all day) and it's literally changed my life. The characters, the themes, the story, everything was literally perfect and tailored for Me.

Spoilers for the whole manga series from here!

One of the first things that left me stunned about this series was the first two scenes in trigun of vash in his angel form. The panels are just so stunning and had me devouring the beautiful yet kind of fucked up concept. I love how the angel form isn't just *insert pretty angel wings* but is kind of all over the place and weird, but still really cool looking (for me anyways). Also the whole being a plant is SO dope and vash's hair getting darker as he uses his form more is just *grips table* I love.

What stood out to me and was the positive light in this series when shit got really heavy, was vash's connections with humans. You realize that he's been alone for 150+ years and many people who he connected with either died from non-natural causes or grew too old. And he's always left surviving on his own. And even if he has people who he connects with in the present (his home with his sensei or lina and her grandma) he doesn't stay for very long. With the exception of meryl, milly, and wolfwood who we see with him throughout the story. I personally would have liked to see a bit more from the girls, especially milly, but let me say I adore them so much. They are so swag.

Now let me get into wolfwood. This fuckin' guy has literally jumped to being my favorite fictional character of all time. 90% of the time when I cried it was because of this dude. I'm not good at explaining why I like certain characters, but his dynamic with vash just hit a certain way. The fact that he was able to click with someone like vash, who he both admires and dislikes because of his persistence with his ideals, is such a good way to show the difference in their characters. In the beginning wolfwood didn't care about shooting people if it meant he survived, and then near his death you can see him not taking the kill shots on his enemies. And one of my favorite things in media ever is seeing someone change because of another person. Also speaking of change, when wolfwood in the beginning is like "I don't think I'll ever change" when talking about murdering people and then later on vash is like "you can change" HDKFJSHD I'm in pain. How are they so good.

More on wolfwood, I think his death scene is one of the most beautiful death scenes ever. Like of course I didn't want him to die (tbh he had so many death flags that I was pretty prepared for it) but if I had to make him go out?? That's exactly how I would've done it. The confetti raining down, knowing that he saved his family, getting to finally treat vash to a drink even though the whole knives thing wasn't over yet.... like he got what he wanted! And I can't really complain about that because he deserved that (and so much more). But also wdym he died I just saw him in starbucks yesterday.

So yeah I think the connections that vash has with others is my favorite part of the series. The fact that he's more human than many actual humans. The way he loves humans with all his heart and believes in their existence. There's so much hope wrapped up in this funky little piece of media.

[yuhi-san]

Why do you always make additions that make me tear up??? That last line??

But yeah to all that.

I also think that while stampede vash is seen getting angry, the degree of rage trimax vash has is something yet to come (like with meryl who was so inexperienced but we got hints that this changed in the skip at the end)

Same for vashs alcoholism. Food may not have the same effect on his body but alcohol really is more poison than anything nutritious. Maybe he starts drinking (possibly gong back to it after years/decades?) To numb the pain. Or hell, if he is a miserable drunk, making himself even more miserable. (though i dont we will see the alcoholism in the anime. Showing drinking as a bad thing ratherthan haha drunk shenanigans seems like a bit of a taboo in shows? Instead they show vash struggle with selfcare and his questionable coping mechanism via what is clearly an eating disorder.)

And the thing about vash realizing too late how much his actions hurt those around him, the people that love him. I dont think the issue is vash thinking he isnt loved. He's not a fool. I dont even think it comes down to wheter or not e precives it as deserved for people to love him.

Vash is so old. He has been through it. Like everyone else on no mans land, he is a victim of circumstsnces. But some of the struggles and hardships are very much self-impose. But exactly because vash has been at it for so long he is sort of... stuck in both his way of life and how he sees the world (maybe on some subconscious level thats his nature as a plant, following a set routine)

(great example when in trimax he accuses wolfwood of being a coward and taking the easy way out after killing rai-dei, then acknowledges during the hospital yuri that wolfwood bloodying his hands saved a lot of people. To vash killing is never justified. But to wolfwood its what he needs to do to keep himself and the people around him alive.)

All that to say, at some point vash decided he can and he will (and has to) bear all the pain and horror so hopefully he will have to see less people suffer. Absorbing it, if you will. He is so focused on trying to spare other people from pain that he kinda forgets that, you know, the people that love him hate to see him hurting. Doesnt matter if he actually can or cannot take it, thats not the point.

Vash is full of self-loathing yet he knows he's loved. But while it pains him every time he can't prevent someone from being hurt or he fails to help, he never seems to think about how he puts wolfwood (and meryl sn everyone else) through the same thing all the time.

Vash is such a hypocrite, really. Everyone deserves another chance. And another. And another. No one is beyond salvation. He thinks that woolfwood is good and kind, despite the things he has done. But does he ever extend that grace to himself? Nope. No wonder wolfwood is always so pissed of about vash.

And wolfwood?

We know he was a great source of comfort at hopeland. He seems to struggle with it now. Maybe its a little because its different with kids. Maybe he no longer feels right, like himself, like he is supposed to be. instead he is all wrong and twisted and his hand too stained with blood to still hold children or offer any comfort. We see wolfwood being haunted by just that in his dreams early in trimax.

So he cannot offer comfort like he used to for many reasons. But he can still offer food, like he used to. Sharing something valuable in a world where resources are scares, probably especially for a shield growing up in a struggling orphanage. Sharing food is the only way of comforting someone he still has without it feeling wrong somehow.

So that’s what he does. And vash? he just brushes him off. Doesn’t eat. He’s not as easily swayed as he used to be, that very first time they met. For Vash it’s refusal, for many reasons. But to Wolfwood? It must feel not only like a waste but also like a failure. Like he himself was rejected.

We all know Wolfwood wont make it out alive. So I’m thinking, is he going to die wondering if Vash understood anything at all? If he ever got through to vash that he cared? Is he going to die not knowing if it (he) ever meant anything to vash?

And of course he did. More than anyone, maybe. But vash struggles to see how much him hurting hurts others.

But by the time it truly sinks in, it is already too late. Wolfwood is dead. And it’s only now with livio on his hands all of a sudden and not knowing what else to do than feed him. And he eats too. To reassure livio that it is alright, that despite wolfwoods death, there is no bad blood with them. And as they eat, it sinks in, slowly but oh so painful that it was never really about the food that vash may or may not need anymore. It was always about Wolfwood trying to reach out, trying to comfort vash in the only way he didn’t feel to tainted to. It was about Wolfwood worrying and caring and vash rejecting it over and over again.

There is still guilt after that. Eating is still hard. Its not what it used to be, probably wont ever again. Its difficult to get himself to eat sometimes when there is no longer the same you in it. Sometimes he still won’t but vash makes a point of eating when someone offers him stuff. and vash shares food, with livio, with meryl and milly and everyone else, remembering wolfwood and how he tried to reach out and offer the comfort he could.

and maybe one day, when he cries over spilled donuts

Thinking about Trimax vs Stampede Vash and how they introduced Stampede Wolfwood. They're going to be soooooo mean about his death. 😭

Like genuinely, I can tell they want to make us cry harder than we did in Trimax. Like when Wolfwood taught™ Vash it's important to eat and move on with your life(smile), even tho it's something they did naturally together in Trimax. No, here it's another of Wolfwood direct impact on Vash. Plus the cowboy Livio fit.. Come on..

They're trying to amplify volume 10!!! Someone help!! 😭😭😭😭😭

[severalspoons]

“Wolfwood Mood” quotes

To be updated as I find more.

God may judge you, but His sins outnumber your own. --  @afabbaeddel

“Cynic, n. A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.” ― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

“That's one of the remarkable things about life. It's never so bad that it can't get worse.” ― Bill Watterson

“An encouraged person will eventually get his drive from encouragement; he becomes more dependent. A person that never really receives encouragement learns to move out of spite; he becomes more independent.” ― Criss Jami, Killosophy

They're going to have to glue you back together, IN HELL! -- Demoman in Team Fortress 2

Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” ― Dylan Thomas, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

“Don’t explain your philosophy. Embody it.”- Epictetus

“When you love you wish to do things for. You wish to sacrifice for. You wish to serve.” ― Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms 

I survived because the fire inside me burned brighter than the fire around me. --Fallout New Vegas NPC

“We all have strength enough to endure the misfortunes of others.” ― Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Man can get used to anything, the scoundrel. --Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

“And what's strange, what would be marvelous, is not that God should really exist; the marvel is that such an idea, the idea of the necessity of God, could enter the head of such a savage, vicious beast as man.” ― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“To go wrong in one's own way is better than to go right in someone else's.” ― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

“The soul is healed by being with children.” ― Fyodor Dostoevsky

“People speak sometimes about the "bestial" cruelty of man, but that is terribly unjust and offensive to beasts, no animal could ever be so cruel as a man, so artfully, so artistically cruel.” ― Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“We sometimes encounter people, even perfect strangers, who begin to interest us at first sight, somehow suddenly, all at once, before a word has been spoken.” ― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment

“Much unhappiness has come into the world because of bewilderment and things left unsaid.” ― Fyodor Dostoevsky

“Killing myself was a matter of such indifference to me that I felt like waiting for a moment when it would make some difference.” ― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Dream Of A Ridiculous Man

“Destroy my desires, eradicate my ideals, show me something better, and I will follow you.” ― Fyodor Dostoevsky

“The whole work of man really seems to consist in nothing but proving to himself every minute that he is a man and not a piano key.” ― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground

“One man doesn't believe in god at all, while the other believes in him so thoroughly that he prays as he murders men!” ― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot

“Scratch any cynic and you will find a disappointed idealist.” ― George Carlin

“Real courage is when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.” ― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!” ― Hunter S. Thompson, The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967

“You only live twice: Once when you are born And once when you look death in the face” ― Ian Fleming, You Only Live Twice 

“There is no ideal world for you to wait around for. The world is always just what it is now, and it's up to you how you respond to it.” ― Isaac Marion, Warm Bodies

My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me.” ― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“Freedom is what we do with what is done to us.” ― Jean-Paul Sartre

“Better to die on one's feet than to live on one's knees.” ― Jean Paul Sartre 

“Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does. It is up to you to give [life] a meaning.” ― Jean-Paul Sartre

“There is no reality except in action.” ― Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism is a Humanism

“Life—the way it really is—is a battle not between good and bad, but between bad and worse.” ― Joseph Brodsky

“mankind is resilient: the atrocities that horrified us a week ago become acceptable tomorrow.” ― Joseph Heller

“Do you know what it means to be a survivor? It means that not only do you have to live through things, you have to live with them as well. The second part is much harder and sometimes it takes the rest of your life to learn how to do it. But at least you have the rest of your life…” ― Josephine Angelini, Firewalker

“Someone has to be stoic, for the sake of, in spite of, and in the face of all those who are, not. Someone, has to be serious. Someone has to choose to forgo choice, so that there is an option left for others to consider. Everyone can't be, someone.” ― Justin K. McFarlane Beau

“Loving someone always requires you to not love others.” ― Koushun Takami, Battle Royale

“Dignity is as essential to human life as water, food, and oxygen. The stubborn retention of it, even in the face of extreme physical hardship, can hold a man's soul in his body long past the point at which the body should have surrendered it.” ― Laura Hillenbrand, Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption

“We are not defined by the things we do in order to survive. We do not apologize for them,” she says quietly, eyes never leaving mine. “Maybe they have broken you, but you are a sharper weapon because of it. And it is time to strike.” ― Laura Sebastian, Ash Princess 

“People are petty, spiteful creatures. What they can't use, hurt, steal, or control, they'll usually destroy.” ― Lorna Reid, Darkwalkers

“Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.” ― Lucius Annaeus Seneca

“If someone puts their hands on you make sure they never put their hands on anybody else again.” ― Malcom X

“Think of it! We could have gone on longing for one another and pretending not to notice forever. This obsession with dignity can ruin your life if you let it.” ― Mary Ann Shaffer, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

“Does anything in nature despair except man? An animal with a foot caught in a trap does not seem to despair. It is too busy trying to survive. It is all closed in, to a kind of still, intense waiting. Is this a key? Keep busy with survival.” ― May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude 

"You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them." ― Maya Angelou, Letter to My Daughter

You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I'll rise.

--Maya Angelou

You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll rise.

--Maya Angelou  

“Somehow, even in the worst of times, the tiniest fragments of good survive. It was the grip in which one held those fragments that counted.” ― Melina Marchetta, Finnikin of the Rock

“Show me somebody who is always smiling, always cheerful, always optimistic, and I will show you somebody who hasn't the faintest idea what the heck is really going on.” ― Mike Royko

“Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers, but to be fearless in facing them. Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain, but for the heart to conquer it.” ― Rabindranath Tagore, Collected Poems and Plays of Rabindranath Tagore

“Survival," I said softly. "It's selfish, and it's dark, and we've always been a species willing to do anything to satisfy our needs.  ― Rachel Caine, Total Eclipse

“The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson  

“To have endured horrors, to have seen the worst of humanity and have your life made unrecognizable by it, to come out of all that honorable and brave— that was magical.” ― Ransom Riggs, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

“We'd stared into the face of Death, and Death blinked first. You'd think that would make us feel brave and invincible. It didn't.” ― Rick Yancey, The 5th Wave  

“I judge you unfortunate because you have never lived through misfortune. You have passed through life without an opponent—no one can ever know what you are capable of, not even you.” – Seneca

I will fight you in Hell upon a mound of bones. -- @shitmygaywifesays

“As long as there’s two people left on the planet, someone is gonna want someone dead.” -- Sniper, Team Fortress 2

"If God had wanted you to live, he would not have created me!” -- Soldier, Team Fortress 2

babies cry because they are alive and that is the saddest thing to be. — spencer madsen (@spencermadsen) December 15, 2011

Do you think God stays in heaven because He, too, lives in fear of what He’s created? --Spykids 2nd movie

“No one can tell what goes on in between the person you were and the person you become. No one can chart that blue and lonely section of hell. There are no maps of the change. You just come out the other side.  Or you don't.” -- Stephen King, The Stand

“The only thing that matters in the end is your own survival. It's what humans and cockroaches are best at.” ― Susan Ee, World After

If there was anything that depressed him more than his own cynicism, it was that quite often it still wasn’t as cynical as real life. --Terry Pratchett, Guards, Guards!

“I believe you find life such a problem because you think there are good people and bad people. You're wrong, of course. There are, always and only, the bad people, but some of them are on opposite sides.” ― Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards! 

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." -- Theodore Roosevelt 

I would rather die on my feet than live on my knees. --Unknown

if you stay alive for no other reason at all, please do it for spite. -- Unknown

Hell is empty, and all the devils are here. -- Unknown Tumblr post

“Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.” ― William Goldman, The Princess Bride 

“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.” ― William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

...I WILL FACE GOD AND WALK BACKWARDS INTO HELL— wint ( @dril ) May 22, 2012

#Yes I will put Shakespeare side by side with Dril #fight me

[theironweasel]

My Problem with the ending to the Trigun Anime compared to Avatar’s Endings

SPOILERS! Obviously!

Ok, so I spent most of the day yesterday watching all of Trigun and before I get into this I want to make something clear, I like Trigun, hell through most of the last third I was ready to love it. The episodes Paradise and Sin were especially good, getting me to cry quite a bit. However, I found the ending to the series to be unsatisfying and I felt the best way to explain why would be to compare it to the endings of both Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra which have similar endings.

So at the end of Trigun, Vash confronts his genocidal brother Knives but decides in the end not to kill him. And then he declares that while he will always love his mother figure Rem, he is going to live by his own words instead of following hers, even though he seems to still be doing that by not killing Knives (Yeah that confused me a lot.) And presumably, he takes Knives back to try and rehabilitate him. Look, I understand and appreciate the idea of killing being wrong because it robs a person of a chance to change. However, this ties into the other big problem I have with the show, Knives isn’t a very interesting villain. So let’s compare this to both Avatar series.

So let’s start with ATLA. While Ozai is also a one-note villain, I do feel that Ozai is a stronger character because of his slightly more restrained and logical motivations (slightly being the key word) as well as the acting skills of Mark Hamill. However, either way in each case we are not supposed to feel a ton of sympathy for either of these characters, however, the difference lies in the reasons why the protagonists choose to spare the villain. With Vash, it comes from the fact that he believes that everyone deserves the chance to change. Aang outright admits that Ozai is horrible and probably will never change, instead, his primary reason for not killing Ozai is that it would be betraying his own belief in the sacredness of life which made him feel like he was not being himself, the very thing that led Zuko down his dark path, and even more important it would be betraying the most core principal of Airbender philosophy, and if he did this it would mean that in effect the Fire Nation would have succeeded in wiping out the Air Nation by forcing their last survivor to betray their culture. However, it is important to note that when he believes that he has exhausted all possibilities he states he is willing to kill. We will never know whether he actually would have been able to do it but at least he is willing to accept the possibility.

In LOK Kuvira is decidedly more human than either Ozai or Knives, while some of her actions put her close to the edge of redeemability she never quite crosses the line because her actions always come from a desire to do what is right for her country due to the emotional trauma of being abandoned by her parents and seeing Suyin, someone she trusted as family do the same thing to her country. With Knives, it never comes off as though he is traumatized by the abuse he suffers, instead, it comes across as Knives uses this as an excuse to deem all of Humanity as “garbage” even though the others treat him with love and kindness. In both of these cases, the Hero seeks to redeem the villain, but with Knives, we never get the indication that he has any humanity to save and in Kuvira’s case there is also a clearly pragmatic reason to do this. If Kuvira were killed it’s likely that her army would have rampaged out of control, therefore the safest and most efficient way to end the conflict is to get Kuvira to recognize the harm she has caused and surrender.

Finally, there are several aspects in both cases that are not true with Knives. First, while both of these Avatar villains are physically powerful, their primary power is political, so if they survive there isn’t an immediate threat to human life the same way that there is with Knives, who has the ability and desire to wipe out all of Humanity. This makes Vash's decision to take Knives alive all the more confounding, there is no way the law could keep him contained and it's hard to see Vash being more successful at this given the insane powers and intelligence Knives has. Simply put this guy is too dangerous to be kept alive with out somehow depowering him. While a ton of time is spent talking about how Vash won't kill because he believes it is wrong to kill because it is robbing a person of a future where they could change. However, there isn't really much attention given to the fact that Knives is destroying hundreds of peoples' futures and wants to scale this up to the complete extinction of humanity. Divorced from "Punishment" "Justice" "Revenge" or any other concepts, when does the risk simply become too great. Additionally, the show never seems to consider the reality that maybe some people can't change. This is something that LoK addresses in its first season when Tarrlok kills himself and Noatak because he believes that neither of them can actually change and will stay stuck in the cycle of violence.

So how would I change things? Well, I know that some people take issue with the penultimate episode as it can come off as naive and even a bit self-righteous, but I'll defend most of it as Vash has been living with his code for over 100 years and he never really blames others for acting differently. However, I think there could have been a more realistic and mature revelation on Vash's part, by coming to a Euthyphro conclusion. Look up that Socratic dialogue for more info. Essentially what I mean is that I think the understanding Vash should have come to is that what separates himself from Knives or even Wolfwood is that he tries everything in his power to not kill and when he does he recognizes it as an imperfect solution and not something good or even excusable. But I do think he should come to terms with the idea that it may sometimes be a necessary evil. To be honest I feel the place where Wolfwood ends up makes more sense, as he only decides to stand by a pacifist ideal when the only person at risk is himself. I think this is an issue that is never really addressed: when does a choice to stick with a strict pacifist ideal conflict with the risk to other people. As much as someone doesn't have the right to end someone's future, does someone have the right to risk others futures through inaction?

I just wish there was at least a bit more self-reflection on the philosophy that is going on and maybe some more buildup to the ultimate conclusion. However, I still feel this was a pretty damn good show all things considered and I’ll probably regard Vash, Wolfwood, and even Milly as some of my favorite characters I’ve ever seen and there are many aspects I regard highly from the emotional intensity of the last third of the show down to that frightening noise that plays whenever the villains do something messed up. So, I will always have fond memories of this show, even if I felt the ending was a bit of a letdown.

[avoresmith]

i care about trigun a lot

There was a request for my thoughts on Trigun, so sure, let's do this.

Friends I fucking love Trigun.

I think way way way way more people are familiar with the Trigun anime over the manga. And while I think the anime is a fine adaption and I have a soft spot for it cuz I sure did watch it over and over as a child, you kinda need to forget about it while I talk about the Trigun manga, because the anime was adapted fairly early in the manga and thus completely missed the main narrative threads that make me love Trigun so damn much.

Also I can't talk about any of it without spoilers so uh. If you just want to go read the manga without me spoiling it, go for it. But stop reading now cuz we're gonna talk about Vash, Knives, Wolfwood, their motivations and overarching stories.

Also I haven't reread Trigun in about five years so some of my opinions may be different if I had, but I HAVE read it like seven times so I feel pretty comfortable talking from memory here.

CUT FOR HELLA LONG:

So basically. Here is the thing.

Here is what you need to understand.

Vash and Knives are twin brothers who are Plants. Plants are super powerful batteries of basically nuclear energy that humanity literally created to power their civilization. Only they are a living, sapient, hive minded, naturally highly empathic race. Plants can FEEL THE EMOTIONS OF HUMANS AND OTHER PLANTS and share those feelings across a network. Their entire species was created expressly for the purpose of being used up and eventually dying inside of a glass ball that they never leave, because humanity uses them to generate power until they die.

(Also with the exception of Knives and Vash, basically all Plants are female because lol sexism, anyway.)

Plants look like this.

Knives and Vash are Two Anomalies who were born onto a generation space ship with the ability to basically look like humans and survive outside of the little glass balls plants are usually kept in. They are both geniuses who are taking college level science classes after being alive for like a year. They are pure and love the human who found them, the ever unforgettable Rem.

One day they find out that they had an older sister, Tesla (GOD I JUST. GOT THAT... ), who was found by some OTHER humans. Those humans cut her open and experimented on her until she died and then stuck her in a test tube because as scientists, their response to a species humanity had created abruptly evolving to be more human was "SHIT, weird! Better rip her open and see if we can figure out what's going on with the plants".

Oh also, Rem was around for that?? She didn't like it but you know, Tesla still was subjected to inhuman experiments for a year until she died. lol!

So the very first time Vash and Knives have an opportunity to meet anyone Like Them it's by finding her dismembered corpse in a tube and learning that their mother figure had not STOPPED the horrible treatment of her, and that she died horribly. And oh, they're now about the same age Tesla was when she croaked so really, ideal for renewing experiments!

Anyway, the reason I say you gotta abandon the anime for this is because none of this is in the anime. In the anime Knives is a born sociopath who believes plants are inherently better than humans and it only makes sense to exterminate humanity, creatures without any value, who are using plants for batteries. Kill the spider to save the butterfly.

In manga, Knives and Vash are both deeply empathic genius children who all at once suffered a massive trauma of realizing their place in a universe dominated by humanity. An entire species which created THEIR entire species expressly to power their civilization. Whose response to those creatures evolving to become more like them, to be able to express themselves in a way humans can understand, is to cut them open again and again and again until they die.

Vash is actually the one so angry and afraid that he stabs and nearly kills Rem. Knives goes into a feelings coma. Vash regrets his actions and saves Rem's life, and listens to her sincere apologies and advice on how to navigate an uncertain and unfair universe. Knives pretends to have forgotten the whole thing.

So, Vash's response to the trauma was to immediately try to kill the most immediate threat, then realizes that felt really fucking bad.

Knives' response is to plan out a way to systematically wipe out every human (and admittedly, a lot of plants) who frightens him. So he crashes the generation ships into a barren planet unable to support human life. Tens of millions die.

The ones who live do so because they have plants. Plants that fell off the ship become oases of life on a planet that otherwise doesn't have water, flora, or much natural wildlife. The plants can power devices that will produce water, food, light, communications. The bare essentials needed for humans to simply hang on until, hopefully, humans from some other corner of the galaxy arrive and rescue them.

So this is the situation in which Knives and Vash wage the battle that is the Trigun and Trigun Maximum manga. Humanity will straight up completely die without plants, but plants will and are straight up completely dying by having their lives used as batteries to support humanity. Knives wants to save his own kind and has no sympathy for a species that can only live via consuming what he loves, and Vash values humanity to a straight up cripplingly unhealthy extent, unable to sacrifice a even a single human life because he's emotionally tied the lives of all humanity to the death of his surrogate mother. But in doing so, he passively enables and supports the deaths and sacrifices of all plants, including himself, including his brother.

Knives fucking loves Vash, and is sincerely distressed by the fact that, as the manga progresses, Vash is dying. He's reaching the end of his life as all plants eventually do, having expended his massive amounts of power to help humans survive. During a conflict where Vash shows up to stop Knives from killing people, Knives screams at him to stop using his power, and when Vash won't, tries to incorporate him into Knives' self so that he won't fucking die.

Knives also grows.

He admits that when was literally one year old he did something pretty rash in crashing the generation ships, as it costed the lives of many of his siblings. Throughout the rest of the manga he's older and really only has fucks to give for plants.

He kills millions more humans, but he doesn't wage war on them, he just shows up in their towns, liberates his sisters, and ollies.

Humans then begin to die, starving, withering, turning to cannibalism in an environment they are not able to survive unless they're leeching off the life of someone else.

The final last stand of the manga isn't 'Knives is here and is going to shoot all the humans and take the plants' it's 'Knives is here and is gonna take the plants and go'.

Charmingly, when all of what is left of humanity looks up and tries to shoot at the looming space ship of plant bodies, their bullets fall back down and injure themselves.

Told from a different perspective, Knives could easily be the hero of the manga. Which to me is one of my favorite types of villain. An easy way to turn it on it's head would be 'What if humans were the ones living and dying in glass bulbs, their personhood, suffering, agency never acknowledged, held captive by a species of inhuman beings that only view them as sources of power, and--' OH WAIT, THAT'S THE PLOT OF THE MATRIX. LOL.

So both Vash and Knives have completely understandable motivations, and in fact are both causing great harm in response to great harm. They both choose the side they empathize with more, and view the losses incurred by Not Their Side of Choice as acceptable sacrifices. Vash may FEEL WORSE about it than Knives does, but make no mistake. Most of humanity doesn't even realize plants have feelings. Vash not only knows but makes no effort to tell them. He looks at the situation and decides to sacrifice the small numbers of his own species remaining to forestall the deaths of the rest of humanity. Because Rem loved humans, and she died because of plants.

Vash and Knives are also both crazy as fuck.

And people know that about Knives because he's The Villain but since Vash's insanity tends to appear in ways that are empathic and caring, it's easy to write him off as just Too Good For This World.

But the level of power that Knives and Vash possess is, to a human perspective, basically divine. The pain Vash can endure, the forgiveness he can express, is inhuman. It is Unsubtly Godly.

Here is another thing about the manga I like that the anime doesn't really express.

In both iterations, Wolfwood dies because he tries to Be Like Vash. In the anime, Vash has a moment of Bitter Humanity and angrily doesn't realize what has happened. He lets Wolfwood die alone.

In the manga, Vash is fully aware that Wolfwood has chosen to sacrifice his life to save someone else, and Vash can't stop him because this is in fact what Vash believes in. He can be miserable about it but he can only support it, because for the first time throughout their entire caustic friendship, Wolfwood has fully admitted Vash has changed him, that he wants to save a life no matter the risks, no matter how much lethal force may be deserved. He will dedicate every ounce of his considerable strength to saving the soul of an unfeeling murderer who has taken hundreds of lives.

Humans can't live like Vash does, and the attempt to do so regularly kills them. It doesn't invalidate their choices by any means. Wolfwood's death in the manga can fuck me up with a single panel to this day. But humans who try to live Vash's way of life have a way of ending up dead.

What I like about the Trigun manga is that it asks you to empathize with and pity Vash, to celebrate his triumphs, to love him. But it doesn't really ask you to be like him. Or at least it acknowledges that if you choose to do so, it comes with a heavy price. You can't save everyone with love and peace, but there may be something admirable in trying.

[sebastiano-merlino]

I've just published a new post on https://mylittleblackbird.com/2017/10/16/trigun-my-review-of-the-anime/

Trigun - my review of the Anime

This is going to be an article full of feels… so many feels!

Trigun is one of my favorite animes. This is the result of a combination of factors that can be summarized up into:

Awesome setting

Compelling theme

Incredibly well-designed characters

Great ability to inflict emotions on the audience.

I’d like to talk about them in order and, don’t worry, as usual, I will mark the sections containing spoilers.

Before we get into the meaty part, I am going to refer to the 1998 Anime series, not the Manga (that I read way too many years ago) nor the “Trigun: Badlands Rumble”, the movie from 2010 that I’ve yet to watch.

Trigun is an adaptation by the director Satoshi Nishimura (studio Madhouse) of the homonymous manga written by Yasuhiro Nightow. It is a Space Western story and follows the adventures of Vash the Stampede for a brief amount of time while trying to show us his philosophy and how this is impacting his and other’s lives. As the story progresses, more is discovered about Vash’s mysterious past and origins.

The setting

The story takes place on Gunsmoke (No Man’s Land) a desert planet in a far away galaxy. The human race has left planet earth because of unknown reasons and now finds itself on this deserted planet. Here humanity struggles to survive to the lack of natural resources. This caused a de-evolution into a society similar to that of the first explorers of the American’s west. Gunmen battles on the streets while sheriffs struggle to avoid the violence to spread.

One of the main resources of energy (and even water and food) are Plants. These mysterious systems are heavily relied on by humanity that builds cities surrounding them.

The theme of Trigun

I guess the simplest way to explain the theme of this series is to show you a short clip that summarizes it.

Simply put: can we save everybody? Can we subvert the idea and perhaps the natural order of “kill or be killed”?

This short video is a haunting one. I find this scene incredible from a writing standpoint – Rem (the woman) and her reaction when she sees Knives killing the spider (0:17) and the single shot of the two brothers (1:14), so similar and yet so different. So close and distant at the same time.

This theme is the main focal point of the entire series. The thing that hurts the most is that I am not even sure Vash is right here. We see him struggling for the whole duration of the story not to kill anyone. Protecting the good without harming the evil.

At first sight, this looks like the author wanted to create a perfect hero. I think there is a better read though. Vash keeps fighting without even knowing if there is a meaning in it. He doesn’t know if there will be an end. We watch him struggling to do the right thing without even believing it is actually the right thing. Is he just being a hypocrite? Will he not just make the spider die anyhow by continuously saving the butterfly?

I don’t know. The author doesn’t seem to know either and the anime doesn’t claim to give you an answer. It just leaves you with the pain of the question.

This draws quite an imperfect hero who is probably just lying to himself while trying to do what he thinks is the right thing and being punished for it.

The characters

Trigun displays an incredible cast of characters. Protagonists and antagonists are compelling and because of this, the series received overall praise during the past twenty years.

The main protagonist is Vash the Stampede. He is a mysterious man, arguably the best marksman on the planet. He has a massive bounty on his head for having destroyed an entire city on his own. Because of this hunters are always behind his back. For the same reason, Meryl Stryfe and Milly Thompson, two Bernardelli Insurance Society employees, follow him to prevent him and who want to kill him from causing excessive damage.

Vash the Stampede

Vash is a pacifist. He has the goal to protect everyone he meets without harming anyone. Not even the evilest of villains. Because of this, he suffers incredible pain and losses. Many times while watching I struggled because of the emotional pain inflicted to the character. As discussed in the previous chapter, Vash has a naive and simple view of life. He keeps himself in sync with it by thinking of his mentor Rem Saverem (the woman in the video above). She taught Vash while still young and acted as a mother to him and his brother Knives. During this period, she explains a philosophy of peace and non-violence that remains with Vash forever.

Another important character is Nicholas Wolfwood. A priest and yet another mysterious gunman. He has a bleaker and more practical view of life and how to deal with evil. It is hard to talk about Wolfwood without making any spoiler, but he is what Vash would have probably ended-up being if not for Rem. They become closer and closer during the series and it makes it for an important subplot of the series to watch the growth of both characters as they influence each other.

The big bad of the series is Millions Knives. He is Vash’s brother. Knives’ philosophy is completely opposite to Vash’s. He looks at life in a more black and white way. Evil exists and must be eradicated. We must protect innocents and destroy who harms them. Sad to say, but in his view, humanity is the evil to eliminate.

The perpetrator of most of Knives’ actions is Legato Bluesummers, an emotionless nihilist. He continuously puts Vash in “kill or be killed” situations through the use of a group of outlaws, the Gun-oh-guns.

Trigun and the ability to convey emotions (Contains Spoilers)

Despite having often a humoristic tone, Trigun seems to have made a mission of making you cry. This especially in the last few episodes.

We see an example of this ability when Wolfwood dies. This happens on two fronts: the death itself and the way the others cope with it. We are used to seeing heroic characters dying in a stoic manner. Maybe even happy to have achieved their goals. This is not the case for Wolfwood. He has just saved Vash and saved the lives of the people he loves. Despite this, he cries while dying and re-affirms he doesn’t want to die. He finds it unjust and even blames God for having created an unfair world in which he has to die immediately after having found love and friendship.

This also continues after. Milly, Wolfwood’s lover at this point in the series, has to deal with his death. It is excruciating to see the scene in which she cries and laugh at the same time while claiming she is fine. Similarly, we follow Vash, while he separates from the girls and travels to another village. He is apparently joyful while buying some donuts (his favorite food). He sits down and starts eating them just to break into tears one moment after, consumed by the guilt of having convinced Wolfwood not to kill. Because of this, the man has paid with his own life.

A second example is when Legato forces Vash to kill him. The scene itself is powerful.

I consider this one of the greatest defeats for a hero I have ever seen in almost any media. Vash has lost. He has killed someone and, even worse, this happens to him after his best friend has been killed for following his ideas.

The aftermath is again devastating. Vash goes through the crisis. Unable to cope with what he has done, he thinks of himself as a killer. We hear him screaming in pain behind closed doors while Meryl and Milly are unable to do anything that can help him.

Does Trigun have any defect? (Contains Spoilers)

Well… nothing is perfect, right?

I am not here to talk about the relatively poor animation and generally flat drawing, but I can see some problems in the story too.

The Anime doesn’t really help us understand some of the things that happen. One example is Legato and his strong motivation. He almost appears surreally insane. Why such a devotion to Knives’ cause? (I know, the manga explains it but, we are not talking about that here).

Similarly, the story never goes deep on what Plants really are. We understand that Vash and Knives are Plants – this is why they hold such power. We never understand where Plants come from and why only the two brothers, amongst all the Plants we see, have human form.

There is also some waste of time. Whereas the first few episodes might be useful to establish the setting and Vash’s famous “fake smile”, this section of the Anime goes on for a bit too long. I would have preferred a shorter intro to the anime and I think it represents a risk of abandonment for the story to have such a long and undertoned introduction.

  This is my review of one of my favorite animes. Let me know what you think in the comments and if you like my work here feel free to subscribe to my mailing list.

[kindaoptimisticsquirrel]

Trigun Bookclub Trimax Vol8 Part1

Vol01: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3  | Vol02: Part 1 | Part 2

Trimax: Vol01 Part 1 Vol01 Part 2 | Vol02 Part 1 Vol02 Part 2 |

Vol 03 Part 1 | Vol03 Part2 | Vol04 Part1 | Vol04 Part2 | Vol05 |

Vol06 | Vol07 | Vol08 Part1

As a warning, I will start babbling about Vashwood in this volume (though not really in this part yet) and then probably in all volumes to come, too. Obviously because I love the pairing but also because their relationship is so important and impactful, and this volume marks such an important milestone.

What I really like in Vash and the talk between him and Knives at the start of Chapter 1 is, that Vash also acknowledges the pain and abuse that humans have inflicted upon the Plants. He totally understands Knive's anger and why he acts that way, but the kind sides of the humans that Vash was witness to as well, Knives never got the chance to learn. And if you'd try to show kindness to him now, he wouldn't appreciate or even see it.

Not the face of someone who's happy to be back with his old crew obviously. (Sometimes some drawings of Wolfwood make him look so much less bulky and more fragile and like the tiny Wolfwood, like here on the right...maybe because we can't see these huge shoulders. I like that!)

Still trying to live by Vash's and now his ideals, even though there's no way these soldiers are gonna get back out of this alive anyway...and how he stubbornly doesn't answer Chapel...(Meanwhile Livio is thinking "Nice! Free banquet! *continues to slaughter the men*)

Oh my boy you've come such a long way :'(

The whole rest of the talk between Knives and Vash at the end of ch1 was a great character insight, and next to what lots of other people already said I wouldn't know what to add to that. So I'm just choosing to save these panels here, sums it up pretty nicely and we get to see the two brothers in a nice comparison!

Chapter 2:

Please take my boy out of this situation. He clearly doesn't want to be there. (the way Wolfwood looks so much not-in-control of the situation....oh man)

Make a pirouette, and I'll give you a 10/10 for this jump, Knives.

If some had not been aware until now, at this point at the latest everybody will have noticed that Nightow doesn't fuck around with depicting some traumatic and cruel stuff. (And boy does he know how to do it)

There are so many awesome pages in these later volumes that I'm basically just copying whole pages in these posts here but HOLY COW doesn't this look epic.

And the whole time, Vash is unable to do anything. At least he's giving Legato a hard time, too.

That above panel damn. And look how it's killing Wolfwood internally. He's seeing all those evil deeds done by the arc, helping alongside Chapel now too, probably, and then he's already got the guild of bringing Vash here to get him trapped....all just because he wants to save his home and the kids there but BOY is it killing him inside. It sucks when you have to be the bad guy to save the ones you care about.

Also, the turn the story takes at this point, with everything falling into chaos so quickly...it's gotten very quickly so much darker now. I do like dark stories too so I was enjoying this with anticipation how it could get resolved when I read this for the first time. Still, very tough stuff to digest.

And then, of course, omg these girls appear again!!! You go!!! However you managed to survive, you're looking well. I'm also glad Luida is still here too ♥

Chapter 3:

If I'm ever in need for a mechanic and had to choose from the Trigun cast you know I'd go for Brad. Look how crafty he looks with that..drill...thingy. Leaking faucets, here's your mortal enemy!

THANK YOU Luida. Yes, Vash has dangerous powers, but he's also Vash and you all owe him so much!! Not letting some fear prevent you from trusting in him!

Wolfwood awoooing at the moon, just like his name says. Also, this was the scene where the plants memories are being shown, and I love that we actually get to see something from their view! The way it's done, with only same-size panels from the same view is also the perfect way to make that clear.

Super neat way to show how all these different memories and plant consciousnesses (?) are breaking him apart

Please look at our queen in all her murderous glory.

oh god oh god oh god (I'm reading this for the 12234th time but still)

oh god OH YES

[severalspoons]

Liveblog: Rewatching Trigun, Episode 16 (Fasten your seatbelts and get ready for tragedy)

The more serious and the deeper the episodes get, the harder it becomes to write about them. I feel like I can’t just shitpost any more, I have to say something profound.

-- Yep, there’s Legato eating something soft and sweet again. Pudding this time? ::Ooh, imagine an AU where Vash adopts baby!Legato and Legato and Milly eat pudding together::

-- There’s Midvalley with two groupies. Yep, I knew he was the playboy of the Gung Ho Guns. 

-- “It’s a simple formula. The greater the tragedy, the greater the emotional effect.”  Legato fancies himself a...playwright? Director? 

-- “Walk your own path. Yes, I’ll make it my mission to follow someone else’s path to the end of the earth!” 0.0

-- Poor little guy.

He dances into the bar in the same way Vash danced into that hostage situation in an earlier episode. Except that as far as I know, this guy isn’t pretending. Who knows how he’s survived so long in Gunsmoke.  

-- Vash, there’s a whole desert you could talk to yourself in, you know. You don’t have to talk to yourself in front of an entire barfull of people you don’t even fully see.

-- Legato’s eyes are the part you’re worried about?

-- “That nihilistic jerk” fits Legato well, ngl.

-- You know Vash is preoccupied when he has no idea where he is or who’s around. Thinking back to last episode where he was so perfectly focused, this is concerning. 

Or, maybe it’s not that he has perfect control over his consciousness in every situation, but only when he’s narrowing his attention to a tiny point. Last episode it was pain, this time it’s worrying about fighting Legato. 

Or maybe I’m overthinking a goofy scene that probably only exists in the anime.

-- “It’s time for my daily massacre!” Yessss.

-- Vash is apparently vain about his hair. Well, he had to have some faults other than “too good, too pure for this world” and accidentally blowing up July.*

-- Nothing says “terrifying murderer on a killing spree” like holding up your arm bent at a weird angle, amirite?

-- Poor Dominique. She deserved better.

-- I’m kind of surprised this is the first time anyone’s been killed for failing to defeat Vash. Or maybe this is just the first time he’s been forced to acknowledge it, and had to fight on those terms.

-- I don’t really get E.G. Mine’s powers, and what those round carapace-looking devices sticking out the sides of his armor are supposed to do. I almost wish we had more of a chance to see him in action. Almost, because he doesn’t seem very interesting. 

Honestly if I were their leader,I wouldn’t have hired most of the Gung Ho Guns, but that’s just me.

-- There’s Rai-Dei, bringing a sword to a gunfight. I wish I knew more about bushido, and the Art of War, and what sorts of states of mind actual warriors look for in battle. Because from what little knowledge I have, Rai-Dei takes all of that, mixes it with bloodlust, and perverts it. 

-- I know Legato thought seeing the two Gung Ho Guns squabbling would be entertaining, but honestly, it’s an uneven fight and not a very interesting one. Normally, I like seeing bad guys fighting each other, but I’ll make an exception for this scene.

-- Rai-Dei talks like a Sith trying to recruit someone to the dark side, encouraging Vash to get angry.

-- Rai-Dei creeps me out. He seems to almost get off on Vash’s anger and be way, way too curious what he sees at what appears to be the moment before death. 

-- It’s kind of disappointing that this creep is the one who corners Vash so much he needs his angel arm to escape. Honestly, I didn’t even see him do anything special that should give Vash difficulty. I think his lethality lay less in his actual fighting, and more in the fact that he would be condemned to die if Vash won. Vash had to slow down the fight and look for an alternative way to end it, which put him at a disadvantage.

-- Sorry, I’m going to complain about the art again. And give some spoilers for the manga.

I don’t like how the angel arm looks in the anime. It was distracting. Where were the feathers??? I want to feel uncomfortable because Vash is struggling to contain the thing and could potentially destroy the city, not because of the way the thing looks and moves.

-- Least realistic convincing mushroom-cloud-like blast ever. What was up with the slow motion, jerky stop-and-start animation they did here?

-- Legato is having way too much fun right now. He just acted like a cat licking its paw, like “mmm, delicious destruction and guilt.”  

I think Legato might be the only character who is not in the least unnerved by Vash suddenly unleashing a blast of energy big enough to blow up the moon.

-- Well, OK, Wolfwood doesn’t seem unnerved. Just disappointed. Well, I’m disappointed that he thinks Vash would deliberately choose this “path.” Come on, surely he knows Vash better than that. 

-- Seeing all of the people Vash has helped listening to the rumors about Augusta and struggling to reconcile them with the kind, gentle person they knew...what a gut punch. And somehow it’s worse seeing their first moment of bewilderment, but not how they ultimately make sense of it all. 

-- There’s a lot to unpack here about moral responsibility for actions you commit, but can’t control. The show and Vash himself clearly state that he’s responsible.  It agree. While he doesn’t seem able to control the angel arm once it’s emerged, he still has the choice to find a way to prevent it from emerging, or bring it under control. And however involuntary it may have been, he still blew up the city, and everyone still has to live with the consequences. His intentions are irrelevant to the people left homeless. And he still has to live with the chance that it could happen again.

Yet I’m aware that holding yourself responsible for things you can’t control is an unhealthy behavior that therapists try to stop you from doing. And for good reason--it’s a sure way to develop depression and irrational excessive self-hatred (and is a symptom of OCPD, I believe?). And I think Vash holds himself responsible for a lot. I mean, his mission is to make people more loving and peaceful--yet other people’s feelings and actions aren’t under his control. Is he holding himself too responsible?

Is Vash right to blame himself for blowing up July and Augusta? Am I right to hold him responsible? I’m not sure.

 -- One last observation: this major turning point in the story, and the biggest low so far, happens exactly halfway through the story. Just where it’s “supposed” to be.

*Looks like a cinnamon roll, is sometimes a cinnamon roll, could still actually kill you.

[severalspoons]

Long Rambling Trigun Meta Discussion 2

I *hate* the reply function in Tumblr. As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t function. It doesn’t even open up a findable page so I can respond, and I can’t directly answer the reply. That’s why I reblog.

So, here’s the next best thing:

tiggymalvern

I don't recall anything like that fic you mention from either canon. It's a lovely idea, if only I could imagine Vash and Knives stopping arguing with each other for long enough to do it.

This fic I’m remembering was surprisingly hard to find, and now I’m wondering if it’s from FF.net rather than AO3. Will share once I find it!

The twins argue while doing it, IIRC, and have very different approaches. Luckily for the humans, in this fic the engineer likes the plant and takes care of it well, given how little is actually known about how to do so post-crash. Even so, Knives almost kills the engineer, but Vash stops him and leaves behind a little journal full of advice and encouragement. 

IMO, I feel like this is something Vash would be motivated to do more than Knives:

-- to repair his relationship with Knives

-- because he feels responsible for the people Rem saved

-- because he wants the bulb plants to be safe and happy

(listed in the order I thought of them)

But Knives would see this as slight progress towards Vash seeing things his way, so he’d go with it. What do you think?

tiggymalvern

I've never been entirely clear on the manga ending myself, and I think Nightow left it somewhat ambiguous deliberately. Vash and Knives are fighting, and then the earth forces attack them both, Livia intevenes and Vash and Knives fly off and

six months later we find Vash in hiding with the people who saved him, because Knives convinced them to, and then Knives plants an apple tree to help feed the peopl looking after Vash, and then he vanishes...

I assume he chose not to stay with humans and just went off somewhere, but it's left open

Interesting! Yeah, I got the sense it was supposed to be deliberately ambiguous, too. 

Many people say that Knives died giving his last energy to save Vash, to the point where I thought that was canon. 

No matter what happened with Knives and the tree, I have questions. If Knives planted the tree before dying or disappearing or whatever, I’d want to know where he got the apple seeds, and if providing the energy to make that tree survive on Gunsmoke killed him. If he turned into a tree (which I thought was the canon, but maybe not?), how? I can see why you didn’t interpret Knives as turning into a tree.

All I know for sure is, if Knives were dying, he’d want to do it on his own terms. Ideally in a way that would express his point and make an impression on Vash. I was going to say that creating a tree doesn’t seem like Knives’ style, but then I thought about the apple tree scenes in the anime. However that tree came to be, Vash would most likely associate it with happier times on the ship. Maybe he’d be fucked up enough to see it as a gesture of love. 

Maybe it was the closest thing to a gesture of love someone as manipulative and self-absorbed as Knives could manage...

tiggymalvern  Knives really is a person with no middle ground. When he believed Rem's teachings, he believed them wholeheartedly, that everything would turn out fine and people just needed to be given a chance. When he rejected those teachings and decided it was all just rubbish, he went maximum speed to the other extreme. Reject ALL humans, not just the individuals who had proven that they suck. And reject as in eradicate, not just avoid... 

I love Knives’ all-or-nothing way of being. Maybe because I know and love so many people with a little streak of that. And it’s so believable. Reminds me of a quote I read somewhere about how a misanthrope is a disillusioned idealist.

Knives thinks in utilitarian terms (”the greatest good for the greatest number with the least possible sacrifice”) as a kid for the few short scenes before he turns evil. He also seems to think in terms of groups rather than individuals (”humans,” “spiders,” “butterflies”). It saves him the grief Vash goes through at coming to know and lose so many people, but it also helps him justify a racist ideology. I love that about him, actually. If I were to write a Knives redemption fic, a key arc would be helping him learn to see others as individuals. I have a few paragraphs of something like that written...

Kids definitely need wonder and to see the beauty in the world, but it's also a good idea to mention the possibility of weird strangers offering candy that are best avoided. For these bizarre new non-human children, those warnings would have been extra pertinent, and maybe would have reduced the shock of what came after. Knives is definitely more mature than Vash in those flashbacks. Like you say, he wants to discuss issues with Vash, and Vash just parrots Rem. 

Agree.

I have a theory. Earth, in Trigunverse, seems a lot like our world, only worse.

I’ve seen a lot of people’s sense of wonder, beauty, fun, and curiosity squished. I was the weirdo in preschool, among other four year olds, for being too much like that. Maybe on Trigun Earth, a bleak place to begin with, that’s the norm. (And destroying people’s wonder/curiosity/etc. leads to depression and the ennui of modern life, but that’s another essay).

Some people, like those who run Waldorf schools, overreact by going to the opposite extreme. The worst, most ideologically rigid ones, deliberately wait to teach kids to read so they can explore the world unmediated by words a little longer. (And will even discourage kids who learn to read early, grr). Waldorf philosophy assumes young kids are basically sensing, feeling, and imagining beings, rather than thinking ones. 

I get the sense that Rem is one of these sorts. She was squashed and made to feel worthless for the way she saw the world. Maybe that’s part of the reason she was so depressed and needed Alex’s help. She’s raising the twins the way she wished she had been raised.

That sort of parenting wasn’t appropriate for a plant, of course. But no one had raised independent plants to adulthood before. No one knew what was appropriate. No one knew how to teach them about danger (or how not to). 

Growing up as a neurodivergent person in the Dark Ages, the only kid with allergies and sensory processing problems, etc., I understand all too well how badly things can go when even the most loving parents just don’t know what to do, and can’t find helpful information anywhere. Where helpful information isn’t just hard to find, but it doesn’t exist yet. 

So as critical as I’m being of Rem, I sympathize with her. She really didn’t have much to go on but her own knowledge and experience, and she bravely did the best she could.

Vash isn't thinking for himself yet, but he's a kid, so that's allowable. It does make it harder for Knives, though, who feels he has to be responsible for them both. 

You know, Knives does feel responsible for them both, and I hadn’t thought much about it and about the implications of that. No wonder he was so frustrated and furious. There’s definitely a sense of “something is deeply unfair and wrong” for a child trying to raise not only themselves, but their younger sibling(s).  Perhaps that’s part of the reason I saw Knives as caring about Vash, in his toxic, screwed up way. 

Plant biology is MASSIVELY confusing, and the more you try to piece it together, the more your head hurts LOL. But I think that's almost the point? ...Leaving the readers struggling to figure out the plants is the human perspective.

What do you think about the anime being so much from a human pov, especially considering that the most important characters in it are not?

Wolfwood is the support Vash needs to learn to control his plant powers among other things, the powers that have terrified Vash for so long that he ignored them. But Wolfwood isn't scared of them - or rather, he is, but not scared enough to abandon Vash because of them. He knows all about Vash, he knows all about July and the hole in the moon, he's seen Vash transform into some weird crazy thing with feathers, and Wolfwood still stays. Wolfwood lets Vash know that Vash's mistakes can be forgiven, and Vash is still a worthwhile person despite them. And because Wolfwood believes it, Vash can start to believe it. 

Between how well you put this and the dynamic itself, I’m...blown away and don’t know what to say. 

– “Vash, take care of Knives.” This breaks my heart because so far … he hasn’t. First he follows Knives around. Then abandons him. Then attacks him. I really do think Vash was trying. He followed Knives around for so long while being so angry with him for what he'd done, and yes, part of that was because he didn't want to be alone himself, but part of it was him trying to follow Rem's advice. 

Yeah, true, he did try at first. I undervalued it because by the time the series starts, that was far into the past and Vash probably doesn’t even remember it, but still.

In the manga, Rem specifically says, 'Vash, don't leave Knives alone,' because I think she recognises that Knives is prone to extremes and needs a balance. 

See, that instruction makes so much more sense. And I think the plants would have agreed. (Well, of course they would. They’re a collective consciousness, after all).

Rem probably also knew it’s bad for anyone’s health or sanity to be alone, and an emotionally unstable twin plant even more so. Knives would be in a solitary confinement of his own making.

Vash tried and tried to get Knives to change; he spent so much effort trying to explain why genocide wasn't the answer. But Vash failed, and eventually he recognised that he was always going to fail. So he left Knives, because he needed a life that wasn't that failure. He needed to do something to compensate for Knives. He took upon himself the responsibility of not only protecting the humans from Knives, but protecting the humans from the worst in themselves, which Knives' actions brought to the surface. And that is one hell of a lot to take on, and not a recipe for a happy life.

Yeah, that’s...a heroic life, but not a happy one. In a way, it seems almost as doomed as trying to change Knives. 

[severalspoons]

Liveblog: Rewatching Trigun, Episode 17 part 2

Ugh, I just want to talk about Episode 18 already.

We pick up with Rem and the Captain talking. 

-- Rem has a very breathy voice.

-- Rem: “Because they’re angels...maybe we should pay attention to them...they may even guide us through our dream.” If only it turned out that way. I wonder how literally she believes that?

-- This scene with Vash and Knives in the zero-gravity room is so touching. 

Knives sounds genuinely concerned about Vash.

“Are you crying again?” Apparently Vash cries a lot. Color me not surprised. Knives cares anyway.

Steve has been telling Vash he’s not human, and probably that he’s a monster who shouldn’t even be here. What if everyone else feels that way about him and Knives, too? he worries. Worst of all, what if Rem feels that way?

I don’t know if Steve deliberately mistreated them differently, but they certainly reacted differently. He hit Vash where it hurt by telling him he didn’t belong. He beat up on Knives, which Knives could tolerate better. I think putting up with Steve’s abuse is the sort of “small sacrifice” Knives is talking about. :(

-- It fascinates me that Vash is the one who’s afraid and suspicious of humans, even though he desperately wants to belong. Knives is the one encouraging him that it will be possible to get along with people. He even empathizes with their perspective: “to these people we’re just uninvited guests. We only need to be patient a while.”

-- Vash asks whether Rem feels the same way as Steve. Baby, nothing could be further from the truth. You’re Rem’s favorite. Can’t you feel how much she loves you? 

-- Knives starts a conversation about the tree they’re lying under, but not really. He’s speaking in metaphors. I do this myself when I want to get across a complicated set of ideas and emotions quickly. It’s a great way to compact your message and add sensory examples so the listener can feel what you’re saying. And it’s perfect for bridging the gap between his train of thought and Vash’s feelings. Knives does the same thing in the more famous conversation about spiders and butterflies. 

“Rem said it’s because they’re strong...they concentrate all their energy on growing.” 

This is dreamy, mythological, fairy tale thinking. Rem, instead of giving them information about the world, is describing it poetically and helping them see it with wonder. I think Vash will return to this perspective on days when he wonders why he’s bothering trying to save people. (The way I go to Pinterest and look at photos of nature and the sky and people doing kind things until I feel like it’s worth living again). 

-- “Rem said...according to Rem...” I bet this conversation is frustrating for Knives. Knives is asking Vash what he thinks, and all he gets is secondhand Rem.

-- “Plants are strong, but we eat their fruit.” “We need to in order to live.” Does Vash know what sort of plant Knives is really talking about?

-- “Do you think I’ll be eaten some day?” ::heart breaks: 

Will they be drained for power the way the bulb plants are? Or experimented on? It’s a reasonable question.

It’s interesting. Although Vash is the one being told he’s not human, Knives is the one aligning his identity with plants. Or at least, trying it out during this conversation.

-- “So then, why am I here?” 

Knives is having a huge (and perfectly understandable) existential crisis. And no one seems to have good answers for him. Even Vash doesn’t seem to get it.

I don’t think telling him he’s an angel sent to Earth to help the crew would help him much. Either it’ll sound like more fluffy poetic nonsense to him, or it will feel like a huge burden. I mean, just listen to former “Indigo children,” whose parents may have legitimately believed their kids were sent to save the world. Instead, they became a hot mess.

-- They had umbilical cords? Don’t plants reproduce by budding? Weren’t Vash and Knives found after they dropped off and fell to the ground? IDK, plant biology is confusing to begin with and the anime certainly doesn’t help.

-- Cut to a bunch of scary looking men with laser guns. Rem throws herself between them and the babies and you see the lasers all over her torso. They could have shot her. She could have died trying to save the plant babies. Holy ****. (And she wasn’t even feeling guilty about Tessla in the anime. She was just a good person). 

-- That fucking apple. I’m sorry, but I hate this kind of symbolism. It never says much, it feels like an exercise or a treasure hunt, and it reminds me of high school English class.

Smooth transition to the other side of the tree where Rem is giving Vash a haircut. Of course Vash goes first. Rem gives Vash his iconic sticking-up haircut for the first time. 

-- Um, it’s kind of weird to give your kid the same haircut as a man you loved. (What sort of relationship did they have in the anime, anyway?) 

Also, you never noticed he was handsome before because he’s a kid. He looks like the equivalent of an 8 or 9 year old here. 

-- “He was my emotional support. Thanks to him, I was able to face my mistakes without judgment. I learned to make them right again. Then I lost him and realized I would have to do it alone. But I wasn’t afraid to make mistakes any more. I believed I could point myself in the right direction without looking back.”

I just got run over by a truck of feels. Because Vash takes the same journey. 

And I’m pretty sure Wolfwood does for Vash what Alex did for Rem. 

It all begins next episode.

-- Knives’ haircut looks curved like butterfly wings. (And he’s way better at cutting hair than a kid with no experience should be).

-- Knives’ voice sounds villainous. “Just a little change of heart, that’s all.”

-- There already was individuality, even without the haircut. I guess Knives has just accepted it. “A philosopher and a mama’s boy.” That about sums it up, unfortunately.

-- Love how Knives tells Steve off, even though he makes a supervillain face immediately after.

-- Static. There’s that sound you hear every time Legato appears. The static of evil.

-- The famous spider & butterfly scene. Vash has both hands up, probably considering removing both of spider and butterfly from the web and moving them to separate places. Not sure what he’s waiting for.

They first have the argument they keep playing out for the next 150 years.

“Unless the spider caught the butterfly, it would die of starvation anyway.” Knives is right -- about butterflies and spiders. About the natural order. (That’s one reason I, personally, have an existential crisis every time I watch a nature documentary. For some reason, there’s always organisms eating other organisms alive on those channels. ::shudders::) The best argument I can give is that the metaphor doesn’t apply to people and plants, or doesn’t have to. The only reason a situation even resembling that happens on Gunsmoke is because Knives crashes all the ships onto a planet without resources.

Rem: “it’s not right to make that choice so easily.” Honestly? I think that’s a less convincing argument. Especially to someone who’s agnostic or atheist. Because who should choose? Or are you just leaving it up to random chance?

-- “What would you rather have us do, just stand there and think about it?”

Vash attacks Knives for the first time. 

Rem finally realizes there’s something wrong. She looks troubled.

-- WTF happened to Rowan’s mind? What’s broken? Is Knives controlling his mind or body somehow?

-- Rem models self-sacrifice. I still don’t understand why, but she seemed to truly believe that Rowan, who was willing to kill a crew member he actually loved, wouldn’t do the same to her. The Captain models the sensible choice given the information he had, and throws Rowan out the airlock. Well, maybe not so sensible, because Rem could have been flung out into space to die, too.

Wonder how Rem would feel if she knew that Vash spent his life doing the same thing, getting increasingly scarred in the process?

-- “Vash, take care of Knives.” 

This breaks my heart because so far ... he hasn’t.  First he follows Knives around. Then abandons him. Then attacks him.

 Doesn’t that bother him, given how faithfully he follows Rem in everything else?

I think Rem says nothing to Knives, because she has nothing good to say to him then.

-- It still bothers me that Knives got so flat out cruel down to the maniacal laugh so quickly and offscreen. It’s still a big jump from the last time we saw him talk. Seriously, look at this:

Everything he does in the anime would have made sense if they had just added a little bit more from the manga.

-- So Knives, is Rem’s self sacrifice still stupid if she corrected the course of all the ships and saved so many lives? After all, she took action quickly, and did the greatest good for the greatest number--the rational thing. You should have understood what she was doing.

-- No, Vash, Rem didn’t mean “take care of him” as in “Kill him.” You know that.

...You know I’m getting way too invested in a series when I start talking to the characters as if they can hear me. It’s about as sensible as yelling at the horror movie character not to go into that dark room alone.