thetismcave

[thetismcave]

TriMax Vol. 5, Part 1: Vash Time

MY FAVORITE VOLUME LET’S FUCKING GOOOOOOOO

This is going to be especially interesting to talk about because from what I’ve read this is the volume where I’ve seen the most variety in interpretations. I’ll go over what I think is happening and why. I’ll be splitting my volume 5 thoughts into two posts, because I have So Fucking Many. This first one is just focused on Vash, the second will cover everything else. Because Vash is my blorbo and I have many thoughts. I am normal about this man and this franchise.

Keep reading

[thetismcave]

I saw this post today and thought about it (I also didn't want to rant on a post that is a year old... so... separate post)

The soul talk is from Conrad in Stampede, if I remember it right, and it is mostly basis for him to justify his eugenist views and his inhumane experimentations.

All plants are sentient and sapient. While they are individuals, they are also existing in a state of psychic linked hivemind, not quite dissimilar to Zazie the Beast (though they are one person with many bodies, while plants are many people with many bodies connected through another dimension).

Plants feel joy, hurt, fear. And humans who work with them seem to be aware of it, as seen in flashbacks in the manga. A plant engineer is shown at a last run and seen praying as the plant is killed. They know and they feel guilt.

Though, does the regular human know it? Or does the general public see them as generic producers? Kinda like people today forget that the bacon they get in the supermarket is from a once living being, a pig, that lived, breathed and oinked. And that disconnect invites greed, dehumanisation of the plants and the overusage of them. That disconnect invites waste, greed and cruelty towards plants.

A big difficulty in the coexistence between humans is -besides the dependency of humanity on plants as producers - that plants and humans cannot directly communicate. A plant cannot just say: No! She cannot decide to not produce. And that puts her in a position that is easily exploited.

Her wellbeing is in the hands of her caretakers. And the actions of those are dependent on their power (Are they independent or can someone pressure them for more food, more materials, more anything?), their education (were they taught by other plant engineers? If not, how do they avoid critical malfunctions killing more plants which worsens the pressure to produce on other plants) and environmental factors (98 put it pretty good. By destroying July without killing anyone, the people needed shelter elsewhere. The refugees put pressure on the system in place, which let to more plants dying and more humans dying as a result. No Man's Land/Gunsmoke is a system barely held in balance, if at all. Even a tiny shift in higher birthrates, a bad sandstorm, a malfunction, can topple everything.)

That's were independent plants like Knives, Vash, Tesla, Chronica and Domina come in. They are born from their sisters, who need their bulbs to live, as beings that can walk the surface and talk like the humans. Additionally to that, they need a caretaker like every baby does. That way, Independent plants are in the role of a bridge between the two species.

Independents are not only able to communicate with humans, they are also able to do the same with their sisters. Sadly… Knives and Vash SUCK at communicating. Finding the remains (are they just remains? That remains to be seen… (In Stampede)) of Tesla, traumatised the boys and their following path, while diverging radically from each other, is not one of peaceful, intertwined living.

Knives is scared as fuck that he will be murdered the same way as Tesla was. While he cares about his brother, this is mostly about himself. Knives does not listen. He does not listen to Vash and he really does not listen to his sisters. Knives does as Knives does and everyone else is in for the ride.

And by stranding humanity onto a planet without any ressources like he did, Knives also made it extremely difficult for humanity to be good. They are as desperate and as vicious as Knives is (thank you @duncanor for pointing that out). Knives put humanity into a situation that makes it easy for him to point at them and say: 'Look, they are all rabid beasts, killing and maiming each other. They need to die faster.'

Vash is grieving and feels guilty. He does listen, he smiles and then keeps on going the same way he was on before. Vash is put in a situation of having to listen to his sisters being overworked and dying, but he also sees humans desperatedly fighting for ressources and trying to live. So he does nothing to change the status quo, only barely patching one grievance to rush to the next one, while trying to find his brother. Because Vash needs everyone to live. His sisters AND humanity for which Rem died. And changing the system could destroy everything. So he focuses on patching things up and stopping his brother.

Tesla is dead, Domina and Chronica are still on Earth. I am sure the latter two would be entirely overwhelmed, too, in Vash' situation. How do you fix that massive ball of mismanagement, when humanity is barely scratching by? Yes, the Independent Plants exist, they are in a unique place to overcome the crack of communication between the species.

But how? No one gave Vash or Knives any instruction in how to do their part in this. We got from one line that the independents went through a similar uprising on earth, too. But we do not know how they overcame it to coexist.

So, NO ONE is in a position to truly fix this situation, since there are not many ressources beyond the plants and there are so many more humans just existing than the planet and plants could provide for. There… there is no answer.

THIS is no trolley problem… If you save the plants, humanity dies, but plants need humanity, too. This is a last ditch effort of two species to not die out. It is their extinction. Many dinosaurs survived the meteor and then died off in the next years, decades due to starvation, thirst or just not finding a mate.

And then there is the last important part. What do the plants want? Knives does only what Knives wants, he has no idea what his sisters want. Humans also have no idea. And Vash… doesn't dare to disturb the status quo, because he wants to keep everyone alive.

From what we can gather in Trimax and interviews, plants like humans and they like producing things. And it is one of the few positive parts of Trimax' ending, plants and humans communicate. The plants share all the good and bad memories of humans with humanity and receive help from humanity. Plants see their future with humanity interlinked. They want humanity to survive, too, together.

[thetismcave]

A bit fucked up that Vash says this and Knives makes it his mission in life to do just that

[thetismcave]

guy who has the stigmata

[thetismcave]

for what comes next

[thetismcave]

[thetismcave]

It's actually so devastating watching vash's relationship with food go sour. He shouldn't need it but he does. Rem never made him feel shame for it, but it's still brought up enough that it starts making him uncomfortable. He's a plant who can't produce. He's a plant who consumes. Consuming in trigun is connected to autonomy, at least the way I've come to read it in Stampede. Sometimes, the only times that vash feels like he has control is when he chooses not to eat, when he can use it to punish himself for a perceived failure. The show is so clear in showing vash and his relationship with food, from being a child excited for birthday cake to going days without food because he shouldn't need it and he doesn't deserve it.

[thetismcave]

[thetismcave]

[thetismcave]

sketchbook doodles throughout the months that i cant be bothered to complete, sorry for the long post and shit quality

[thetismcave]

Shenanigans

[thetismcave]

Orange giving Nai the bible to read, having him read it multiple times and/or often, and having him believe it's 100% accurate world, human history is the funniest and most fitting shit

[thetismcave]

trigun stampede is a good show

[thetismcave]

feeling. genuinely a little uncomfortable with the amount of "knives would never do that!" i'm seeing in re stampede episode 11, especially from manga fans, given that, uh.

he already did?

this isn't something orange pulled out of nowhere, this is a very direct visual metaphor for a lot of knives' actions in the manga.

(cut for tristamp spoilers, trimax spoilers, discussions of sexual assault as per ep11 and the manga)

like, you're fully welcome to not read the plot point of "violation of bodily autonomy in a way that disastrously ruins their life and will have repercussions in all of their interpersonal relationships for years or decades to come" as an assault metaphor if you don't want to, but you can't discount that analysis either just because you don't like the implications.

the manga is certainly more subtle about it, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. knives' disregard for vash's and his sisters' consent is an extremely significant part of the themes and the core plot of trigun maximum. the fact that he forces his will on the dependent plants (the ones he rips from their bulbs and forcibly assimilates into himself, by the way, for the unaware) — just like he accuses humans of doing — is what eventually dooms his entire plan.

knives has always been like this. his plan, since the manga, has always been to use his sisters, because it's different when he does it, because he's right.

the fact that every single one of the angel arm and attempted fusing scenes are framed as knives forcing himself on vash, putting his hands on him and trying to meld their bodies together while vash screams for him to stop (though, hey, again, did people miss this? i can't read those scenes any other way) is almost secondary to the fact that, thematically, it is entirely coherent analysis to read trigun maximum in its entirety as a story about being a survivor. it's almost impossible not to read it that way. vash is a survivor — of what, you decide, but the trigun mangas are about him dragging himself back to his feet to defend himself when he's been beaten down by knives again and again and again.

i could go on. maybe i will eventually, about knives' treatment of vash and his treatment of his sisters, but that's not what this post is about.

this post is about how there's just. something so deeply disconcerting about watching people point to a scene in which, as mentioned, someone's bodily autonomy is violated in a violent and traumatizing way, and say 'no, no, that's not rape.'

because the thing that makes july a rape metaphor isn't the visual framing, or the dialogue, or the thematic parallels to the undeniable rape and assault that takes place elsewhere in the manga.

the thing that makes july a rape metaphor is the consequences. because of something that was done to him, inflicted on him, vash's life is ruined. he'll carry that trauma for the rest of his life. it'll affect every interpersonal relationship he attempts to have. he has to live with it. it's in his body now. and no one will ever believe him about it.

and knives knew that. he did it on purpose, and he didn't expect to suffer any consequences. he wanted to teach his brother a lesson.

...but if you say so, it's not rape. because knives wouldn't, would he?

[thetismcave]

Thinking about Vash’s plant markings lighting up when he was forming the angel arm

It’s interesting how in Stampede Vash willed the infamous angel arm, whereas he was triggered and forced in Trimax and 98 (during both the July and fifth moon incident iirc)

Yet it still ended the way it did in Trimax

Will think more about this when my head stops hurting

[thetismcave]

Pose studies & doodles..

[thetismcave]

another messy magma sketch