#tessla was the ugliness they kept hidden

[general-cyno]

Having a lot of feels and thoughts abt stamp Nai's relationship with Rem so here I go.

I know Nai's yandere brocon behavior tends to overshadow other parts of his character in the anime, but the idea that he hates Rem out of jealousy bc of Vash's love for her isn't really it imo or at the very least not entirely. Nai is... a very contradictory character and as a narrator he's unreliable as hell, his perception of events is deliberately distorted (from a narrative standpoint, I mean) and warped by trauma and the beliefs he clings to as a result of it.

As far as the childhood flashbacks in tristamp are concerned, there's no indication that Nai felt insecure or envious of Vash's relationship with Rem and they both interacted with her in equal measure (which I actually found interesting bc in the manga, we only see Rem talking to Vash abt the geraniums, in tristamp they're both present) previous to the discovery of Tessla, that is. And there's still mostly a blank space within the aftermath of Tessla and Nai causing the Fall that we know nothing about aside from that brief conversation between Vash and Nai in ep 11.

Albeit his personality as a kid is pretty different from his manga counterpart's, you can still see that Nai was happy with Vash and Rem in ship 5 and he even got all shy/flustered when she was affectionate towards them.

Idk but that doesn't look like a child who actively resents or fights his mother for his brother's attention. And curiously enough, while the piano (and the duet) is Nai's direct link to Vash, it is ironically his tie to Rem as well. It is imo perfectly framed here in these shots and dialogues from ep 11:

(Note how Nai avoids answering Vash's question here and deflects by bringing up the memory of Tessla.)

That's the piano Nai plays in ep 9 during the duet flashback, and here the three of them are framed directly in front of it AND the flowers. If the geraniums are used as a symbol of Vash's connection to Rem, you can probably see where I'm going here when the piano - which is mostly Nai's thing throughout the story - is shown this way. I have more to say abt this ep but I'll go back to that in a bit.

In ep 9 we get the most blatant lines from Nai depicting his possessiveness toward Vash and his resentment not for Luida as an individual, but what she represents - a Rem-like, human figure in Vash's life that keeps his brother from choosing Nai's side. Nai doesn't know Luida, and he very likely had no idea Vash was staying in ship 3 (Conrad himself was surprised to see her) so when he says you witch, how many times? how many times will you steal him from me? He's not seeing Luida - he's seeing Rem. Which is emphasized by the fact that, previous to that, Vash himself mentioned Rem by name when he retaliated against Nai and tried to stop him from his attempt to kill Luida.

"So that means he resents Rem bc she takes Vash away from him!" Yes... but that's not all of it. Imo, part of the betrayal Nai feels everytime Vash chooses humans over him is, in a way, an extension and amplified version of the betrayal he likely felt when Rem herself chose not to take his hand and escape with them during the fall. Whether him reaching out to her was genuine or not is up for interpretation, but considering that we never saw Knives in the manga do the same - to me, that's a very deliberate addition in tristamp's writing.

As for Nai feeling betrayed by Rem's choice... You have to understand that from Nai's pov, Rem hid the gruesome truth abt Tessla, and discovering her mutilated body probably put a lot of things into a very different perspective for him. Being registered on the same database as his Alive But Torn Apart Sister (with Vash's info ominously saved in the same folder as hers) who was kept in the same room as the ornamental flowers mixed up with Rem's insistance that Nai should pretend to act human/hide his powers from the other crewmembers in a hypothetical/future situation must've seemed extremely grim in retrospective, even if Rem was very likely doing that to keep him safe. Still, he offered his hand to her and Rem chose to stay and save humans instead. The same humans that had, from Nai's pov, hurt his sister and would've probably done the same to him and his brother.

Which brings me back to ep 11 and this bit in specific:

Read above then read this dialogue again, remember that Nai is (among other things) the king of projecting his issues onto Vash, and well. Shit starts making a lot of sense. Another thing that's worth noticing in this scene is that, throughout the memory manipulating, Nai wears just his bodysuit. It's only when confronted with the memory of Rem and erasing her from Vash's mind (killing her, again) that he hides behind the blade-cloak. Very interesting and deliberate visual choices.

Also important to point out that Nai's paradise free of pain, fear and humiliation is one that's a replica of the garden back on ship 5. Even after doing his best to erase Rem from Vash's memory, the safe and happy place that he desperately wants to go back to is that in which they both lived with her.

Despite his very ehem. questionable methods, I do think Nai is genuine in his wish to protect Vash and liberate their sisters and that yes, he does resent Rem or rather, what Rem represents when it comes to his relationship with Vash. Thing is, Nai tends to downplay his own feelings, bottling shit up and using Vash as conduit for hardcore projecting.

Imo, Nai doesn't resent Rem bc Vash loves her. He resents that her beliefs and her sacrifice for humanity's sake were imprinted so deeply into Vash's being that he keeps doing the same - choosing humanity over Nai, even to his own detriment. Nai keeps losing Rem and Vash to humanity again and again and he hates it, but the most tragic part of it is that it is pretty much a hell of his own making.