branchandroot

You may have noticed that I didn’t mention either Milly or Rem while I was talking about characters growing up. This is because these two don’t. Either they don’t need to or they haven’t bothered to. I’m inclined toward the former. I think what these characters give us are representations of purity–purity so strong that it doesn’t need to grow up because it’s already reached balance and peace with itself.

The Assumed

Rem is the easiest, in some ways. We don’t see much of her, but what we do see is fairly consistent. We see her putting herself in the way of guns twice, once to save the Plant babies and again to save Knives. She’s clearly all about mercy, given that she wants to hear Steve’s side of things before he’s iced, that she looks so pleased when Vash tries to figure out some way to free the trapped butterfly and so shocked when Knives simply crushes the spider.

By the by, this section title is something of a joke. On the one hand, Rem’s assumptions about life are what shape and guide Our Codependent Hero (author tips hat to Shadowslash). On the other, I see Rem as a Mary figure in the biggest way (Mary was assumed into Heaven, rather than dying in a boring and mundane fashion). I have no idea whether the cult of Mary and all its theological accoutrements ever migrated to Japan, so I can’t say how deliberate this is, but Rem definitely strikes me as the intercessor in this story.

At any rate, Rem seems to be one of those rare souls who enjoy uncertainty. Her life embodies the Fortunate Fall. As she tells Vash, she had someone who was her “emotional support” and who helped her confront and rectify her past mistakes. Guy sounds like the Human Twelve-step Program. After he died she was thrown back on her own resources and understood that she would have to determine her own future. With time she appears to have come to take pride and joy in doing so, contemplating her “blank ticket” with happiness rather than trepidation.

Youngest Child

Milly offers a lot more in the way of contradictions, but she too seems to have the quality of serenity… in her own scatter-brained sort of way. I don’t think it’s entirely coincidental that she has food-on-the-brain syndrome in common with such heroines as Usagi (BSSM) and Miaka (FY). She has many of the same traits: she’s direct and straightforward; disconcertingly insightful at moments; very strong physically; endearingly or annoyingly feather-headed, depending on the viewer’s temperament. Like them, she is whole hearted.

What strikes me most about Milly is that she lives in the moment. Most of the episode previews, with their philosophical musings, have to do with being trapped in the past or with ways to move into the future. Milly doesn’t worry about such things. She sees what she sees, as when she understands that Vash didn’t want to shoot (3). She chooses her path without fuss and follows it without regret, as when she decides to go along with the two runaways in “Escape From Pain”. We see her belt Vash one when she believes that he shot Julius and Moore, but once she understands it was a ruse she forgets any grudge or resentment for the trick. Of course, we also don’t see her apologize. When harm comes to something she cares about she gets very angry, but she doesn’t stay that way. She says that she won’t forgive Vash for making Meryl cry, but she seems to have done so by the next time they meet. She is not someone who will ever be caught up in the cycle of revenge that seems to give rise to most of the tragedy in this story. She keeps a firm grasp on the essentials, for instance that Meryl mustn’t be allowed to throw her life away by chasing into Vash’s fight with Rai Dei, and lets the other chips fall as they will.

She can, however, be a conniving little beggar, as befits a youngest child. Twice she tries to put one over on Vash by crying at him. The first time, in “Lost July” when Milly tries to guilt him into taking responsibility for damage to his hotel room, he notes that she’s not really crying. The second time, he just gives in and pays Milly and Meryl’s bus fare to May. She also seems to get a certain amount of gleeful amusement out of tormenting poor Wolfwood in “Escape from Pain”. She isn’t perfect. Just pure. As Meryl says in “Vash the Stampede”, Milly is both devious and frank.

Milly is an adult, has an adult job and can make adult choices (for instance, sleeping with Wolfwood). But she doesn’t waste time worrying about acting like a grown-up. She just acts like herself.