Trigun: The Fortunate Fall

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to my Trigun pages. I hope that you will enjoy your stay almost as much as you enjoyed the show itself.

Advisories: These pages are based solely on the anime until such a time as I acquire the manga. There are oodles of spoilers and lots of analysis.

Title

I took the title for this page from a bit of theology that became popular around about the 19th century, when a lot of philosophers who had a lot invested in the idea of independence and free will took a good long look at Genesis and thought, “Wow, Jehovah, what a capricious ass hole; that can’t be right.” They had to come up with some way to explain why a benevolent god would stage such an apparent put-up job as the whole don’t-eat-the-fruit-right-here-in-front-of-you affair. Their conclusion was that God meant for humans to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil so that he would have an excuse to chuck them out of a static and stultifying Eden and make them grow and exercise his greatest gift: free will. Thus, the Fall was Fortunate.

This idea seems, to me, to address one of the major themes of Trigun, the question of Eden or similar paradisiacal existence, and of choice and freedom. The clearest expression of this theme comes through the issue of when and how the characters mature.

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Growing Up is Hard to do

Vash, Knives, Wolfwood and Meryl all display a fairly childish approach to life at the beginning of the story. Meryl makes steady, gradual progress toward a more mature vision, while both Vash and Wolfwood have more dramatic moments of epiphany close to the end. Knives gets left rather up in the air, but I think the implication is that Vash is going to try and convey his realizations to his brother so that Knives can grow up too. More on that in Synthesis.

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Small Packages

To her credit, Meryl does show a firm grasp of adult professionalism right from Episode One. I have to say, if a bunch of scruffs in a bar made that milk joke to me I would rip out their livers with my bare hands and fry them for breakfast while they watched. Meryl just ignores them, as they well deserve. Despite her fanon nickname of PMS Queen, Meryl actually has good control of her temper under most circumstances. She’s a very serious young woman, however, and Vash’s clowning rubs her the wrong way. Meryl’s lingering immaturity is more subtle then, say, Vash’s whining.

She starts out very rigidly wedded to her preconceptions. She was sent out after a dangerous outlaw. Dangerous outlaws do not act like complete cornballs. Therefore, the tall blond in the red coat cannot possibly be a dangerous outlaw. Even after she sees a fair sample of his agility and aim in “Truth of Mistake”, she’s perfectly happy to take his word that it was all a fluke. Doing so keeps the world in the neat little boxes she likes. Even once she’s convinced she continues to treat him rather like an annoying little boy she’s been forced to babysit. Thus, I think, her surprise when Vash switches over to serious mode; it conflicts with the box she’s put him in.

In “Escape From Pain” however Meryl starts to show signs of a greater ability to accept complex answers rather than simple, surface ones. When Vash admits that the caravan master asked him for a kill, Meryl outs with a gun. After a few seconds, though, she draws back and demands that Vash tell her the full story. She knows that, whatever his reputation and skill, the person she’s been observing would not kill lightly or simply for money. She sees that something is odd and refrains from leaping to conclusions. “Vash the Stampede”, despite being one of that dread category the recap episode, does show Meryl putting in some serious contemplation time. By this point she seems to have a fairly solid understanding that Vash’s reputation is not the reality of him and also that his reputation is the only reality most people know.

The very next episode, of course, she backslides into conclusion jumping, though by the end of “Demon’s Eye” she does seems to have twigged that something odd is going on since she once again demands an explanation. She doesn’t demand it until after she’s clobbered Vash for apparently taking advantage of Dominique, but she does get there eventually. She has also fallen thoroughly out of professional mode and into girly romance mode, which seems to make her a lot less decisive. She does not, for instance, challenge Vash on his determination to go on alone which, professionally speaking, she should have. If anyone has believed the last eight or so episodes’ worth of protestations that she’s following Vash because it’s her job, they should be disabused of the notion here. I rather suspect that the violence of her reaction to the tableau of Vash and a blushing, unbuttoned Dominique owes something to jealousy.

Girly Romance Mode puts her into a holding pattern of chasing Vash without admitting why, which lasts until he kills Legato. At this point Meryl seems to find her old practicality in a new cause: dragging Vash back to the land of the living. In this cause she also seem to find a store of patience that she hasn’t shown before. Rather than a) running off half cocked or b) sitting around moping, Meryl manages to give Vash both space and support. We don’t see her badgering him, but we do see her doing small things to encourage him back to his old self–like mending the red coat. This, I think, is what finally breaks the chase-Vash pattern and allows her to simply wish him luck when he takes off to see Knives. I was so proud of her… at least up until the point where she came out with the line about how Vash will definitely be back, he wouldn’t keep a good woman like her waiting. At that point I gagged a bit.

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Survival Guilt

Vash and Wolfwood both have the same shape of problem, for most of the story–ironic, considering that they conflict sharply in the particulars. The point, though, is that both men have gone through their lives unquestioningly accepting the word of some childhood authority figure about the nature of life. For Vash that figure is Rem. In “Love and Peace” his explanation for why he didn’t shoot a threat when he could have is that he doesn’t like pain, but we get a deeper reason in “Between Wasteland and Sky” when Kaito bawls him out for shooting to disable when he’s so outnumbered by killers. Vash says that he made a promise and that if he kills even once “she” would be saddened. It is a vision of Rem that stops him from killing Monev. Most tellingly, to me, in the preview of “Live Through” Vash says “Rem… listen to me, Rem. I did a bad thing. I did a bad thing! Tell me, what should I do?”. He asks Rem to solve his moral dilemma, rather than try to do so himself. Once he wakes up again post-Legato he says that he needs to go to Rem, and that there had to be a way to save everyone because Rem said so. Again, he can’t reach a solution on his own. Indeed, his solution seems to be to let himself be killed, judging from his lack of readiness to dodge when faced with a vengeful man’s gun. Fortunately, Meryl saves his bacon and gives him time to have an epiphany.

If you watch “Rem Saverem” and “Live Through” back to back you may note that Meryl vs. Yokel and Rem vs. Rowan are very similar confrontations visually. Woman walks straight into gun with open arms and man doesn’t shoot her. Verbally, however, they’re quite different. The phrase they both use is “no one has the right to take the life of another”, and Meryl adds that everyone has a future. She says that “if we don’t stop the hate and sorrow some time we will never make any progress” and that humans weren’t born to steal. (Words of wisdom for border wars everywhere.) Rem adds that it’s never too late to repair mistakes and start over. The idea that seems to break Vash out of his suicidal despair over having killed Legato is that the cycle of death and revenge is not an absolute natural progression. It can be stopped. Possibly for the first time he really hears and understands the point that Rem kept making: not that we all have to go through life making no mistakes, but that we should and can learn from and make restitution for mistakes.

Vash is hung up on the violence of his past, the cycle of pain and revenge, for a long time. He’s been living the life of a gunman rather than, say, a bank teller or carnival clown because of Knives. He admits as much to Meryl in “Vash the Stampede” when she asks why he insists on living in such a dangerous way. He has not, he tells her, buried his past yet, and can’t live peacefully with it hanging over his head. Of course, his search for resolution just seems to pile on more pain and internal conflict, wherefore he tries to leave it behind (for two years until Knives sends Wolfwood to fetch him in for the last act). He drags along a lot of guilt for being the instrument of destruction for both July and Augusta, agreeing with Brad in “Flying Ship” that he is the more dangerous of the twins. I’m not sure whether he actually feels guilt for being, in effect, the gun that Knives fires in both cases. His anger at Knives seems rather to indicate that he blames his brother for them (as he should). It’s also possible that he feels guilt simply for continuing to carry such a dangerous and uncontrollable weapon as the catalyst in his revolver. I could see that causing a good deal of angst. He knows how destructive it can be, but perhaps can’t convince himself to get rid of it because he knows Knives still has his and thinks that nothing can counter the Angel Arm but another of the same. This particular dilemma might explain why he spends so much time fixated on the idea that only a shoot-out will resolve his confrontation with Knives. Especially considering that, when Wolfwood asks him if he wants revenge on Knives, he says he doesn’t know (23). In fact the shoot-out only gives him an opening for a true resolution.

Really, I would say Vash is stuck in a black and white world until he is forced to kill. At that point he has to deal with a dire mistake that he made himself and decide how to go on from there. Strange as it may seem, Legato did him a sort of favor by forcing him to fall and live on in a world of choice and judgment calls instead of the innocent absolutism Vash has clung to. “From now on I will search for my own words” he says to Rem’s memory at the end. I can almost hear Rem saying It’s about time, you big lug!

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Crossroads

Wolfwood has relied on the word of Chapel, whose lesson is to chose your goal and act unhesitatingly to achieve it, no matter what it takes. Note Wolfwood’s comment in “Escape From Pain” that Milly does so easily what he can’t, as she takes off after Julius and Moore. Milly acts without hesitation. Wolfwood agonizes more. This does not, however, seem to be because he actually doubts Chapel but rather because he doesn’t much like the things that he, under Chapel’s influence, sees as necessary. Note that even as late as “Paradise” Wolfwood still tries to grab hold of the apple Chapel holds, still playing Chapel’s game. Chapel is always faster because he doesn’t hesitate. At least, until Wolfwood finally decides Vash has gotten something right and chooses the “save everyone” motto to act on.

It takes him a while to get there, though. While he doesn’t like it, he does at least say that he thinks Vash’s death is a fair trade for the mother and son in May, and that Julius and Moore have no right to put their two lives before the lives of their entire caravan. When it comes to weighing innocent against innocent he sticks to straight moral arithmetic however unhappy it makes him. And it does seem to make him unhappy enough that he does not actually shoot either Vash or the two kids, though in the latter case he appears rather disgusted with himself for being so soft. He does seem perfectly happy to kill Rai Dei and Leonof, and would have added the thugs who kidnap Lina and Sheryl obaa-san if Vash hadn’t demanded he not. In “Hang Fire”, as he listens to Vash dealing with the crazed father who wants to shoot Slater, he repeats what we eventually learn is Chapel’s theory: humans have to act with a demon’s ruthlessness because limited powers cannot sustain the kind of mercy God can afford. At this point he still thinks Vash is being too much of the good guy, trying to protect a killer. His encounter with the shipspeople seems to change something, though. At least he’s certainly ticked off that Leonof misidentifies him as Chapel there.

That whole interlude seems to be a turning point for Wolfwood. One of the story’s more interesting moments, to me, is when Brad rushes in to find Wolfwood by the bodies of a few shipspeople and Wolfwood says it wasn’t him who killed them. Brad has a quick flash of Vash, asking for his trust despite Vash’s destructive potential. This was the culmination of a progression of images and ideas. 1) The preview speaks of home as a solid base from which a traveler can move. 2) When Wolfwood asks where the flying cup is going, Vash says that he’s off to visit the folks. 3) As Wolfwood stands musing in the corridor on a city full of technology that has been lost to the rest of the planet he thinks that he’s starting to see what drives Vash. That final juxtaposition of Vash and Wolfwood indicates to me that the experience of a city full of people who have never been driven so far down by want that they turn on each other has also given Wolfwood a new hope and motive. He still suggests ignoring the hostage Leonof takes, but in the next breath he admits that Vash’s way does succeed. And then, as they go in search of Gray and Hoppard, adds that he’s going to do it his way, and that Vash will be killed if he keeps trying to merely disable. Yet, he feels obliged to warn Gray that he will show no mercy, which he certainly didn’t do for Rai Dei, and says that Gray being a robot simplifies matters. When he goes after Leonof, who crashed the ship and killed the only person on it Wolfwood might actually respect, that’s one of the very few times we see Wolfwood truly enraged. Leonof’s life means nothing to him at that point. He’s see-sawing.

By the time “Alternative” rolls around, though, he has to weigh the life of a child, albeit one he knows is a killer, against Vash’s life and possibly Meryl’s. And where Wolfwood has previously been willing to kill the Gung Ho Guns without a wink of regret, this time the decision costs him. I’m inclined to think that only a guilty conscience could make him as mad as he is at Vash’s insistence that Zazie wasn’t going to shoot and at Vash’s statement of his goal (a place of peace and humanism with no war or theft). He certainly spends a fair bit of “Paradise” agonizing over a new conviction that he has not, in fact, chosen the right path. In the final analysis he acts to protect Vash, and all his annoying ideals, and in his final show-down with Chapel it’s Wolfwood who acts fastest and yet only shoots to disable. What marks this to me as his coming of age is that, when Chapel protests that Wolfwood is going to waste everything Chapel taught him, Wolfwood chirps back that he’s just applying it in his own way. This parallels the remarks with which Vash closes the story, both indicating a mature reliance on their own judgment.

And then, of course, there’s the apple. In a wonderful bit of Gordian knot-cutting Wolfwood traipses up to the wounded Chapel, plucks the apple out of his coat and chomps on it. The apple, of course, is popularly considered the fruit that grew on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (I so hope that was less of a mouthful in the original). Eating it marked humankind’s fall from innocence. In Wolfwood’s case, that innocence consisted of his unquestioning acceptance that sacrificing one life to save another is the only way to save anyone at all. At the end of “Paradise” he has gained the ability to judge without relying on such a limiting absolute. He has himself answered the questions he asked: what is right? is this enough?

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Brother’s Keeper

Strangely enough, I would say that Knives also took the word of an authority figure, in his case the “father” rather than the “mother”. Recall that the ship’s captain holds to the philosophy of the smallest sacrifice necessary to save as many as possible. Knives quotes that back at him just before he kills the man. (I find it interesting that this is the philosophy Wolfwood tries to hold to in “Quick Draw” and “Escape From Pain”.) I would say his most telling formative moment is The Haircut. We see him snipping his hair short while sitting in front of a computer screen full of butterfly pics and, presumably, stats. He says that “it’s all wrong”, which in the later context of the spider-butterfly incident I take as a comment on his discovery that it’s not possible to have a free lunch. Something must be consumed for another thing to live. At this point Vash finds him and is surprised (that Knives chose a different look? that Knives did it himself rather than wait for Rem?), and Knives says that it’s just “a little change of heart” without which they wouldn’t have any individuality. During this speech we see an apple on the console beside Knives, with a bite out of it.

Ah, the apple. On the one hand, the apple is the focus of an earlier conversation between Vash and Knives, in which they talk about eating plants (the green things) in order to survive. Knives wonders if he will be eaten in turn, and Vash reassures him that Rem says they won’t. This implies that there has been some reason to think they might be consumed, possibly in the same way that the other Plants (light bulb things) are. So the apple with a bite out of it says to me that Knives has accepted that consumption for survival is the natural and insuperable law of the universe and that he will have to work within that context. Thus his choice to kill the spider–it makes perfect sense given his new understanding of the world. On the other hand, and in yet another parallel with Wolfwood, that apple once again represents knowledge of good and evil. In this case, it is the start of the road that leads to sacrifices, rather than the end of it. It gives us an icon of Knives’ fall from the innocence that Vash retains.

The spider-butterfly incident is really just the culmination of this earlier decision. It’s right after the haircut that we see Knives shaming Steve (“is this how a responsible adult acts in front of children?”), saying whatever he says to Mary and Rowan that results in them framing Steve, and then contradicting Rem. Rem says that he shouldn’t be so quick to kill something and he mocks her, asking whether one should continue to deliberate in which case the butterfly will die in the meantime (shades of Chapel). Rem seems shocked and actually backs away from Knives. I’m inclined to think that it’s Rem’s reaction that spurs Vash to attack his brother. The shock of that attack seems to send Knives over the edge. Tellingly, he says “you don’t make sense to me, Vash”. The extremity of his response to this goes beyond childish to irrational, but the heart of his reasoning remains very childlike in its absolutism.

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Further Reading

For reflections on the story’s end, and what it means for Knives, move on to Synthesis. If, on the other hand, you have missed Milly and Rem, check Purity. If you’re in the mood for more rambling about symbolism look in on Culture. Questions addresses all the bits and pieces that don’t fit anywhere else in these pages, some serious and some silly. For those who wish to flee now links are just below. For those who wish to respond (blessings, blessings) my email link is at the bottom of the page; if you wish to respond violently, please stuff a sock in it.

Links

The seeker after general info will probably find her or his way to The Trigun Realm sooner or later; it’s a bit scattershot and notably un-grammatical, but there is a ton of information collected there.

Another possibility is The Trigun Machine, especially good for finding links though many other sections are very incomplete.

The best background info site I found is actually a Vash shrine. Go figure. Deus ex Machina is the place to go if you’re still trying to find out what the devil a Plant is. It also has very fine Vash material and reflections.

If, on the other hand, Wolfwood is your cup of tea, check out Angel Intersection and head for Cinders and Smoke. The Miscellaneous section also has some interesting essays.

Those who need manga translations need look no further than Make a Little Lightbulb in Your Soul and Eye of the Explosion. My everlasting gratitude to Sumire and Shadowslash, respectively. I’m especially fond of Shadowslash’s play-by-play for the visual action.

And those who did not get their pic fix here may head over to Up in Smoke, home of screencaptures galore. Very high quality. This site also houses some entertaining craziness, should you be in the mood for a bit.

Trigun: Purity

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.

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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.

Trigun: Synthesis

So what, I wondered the first two times I watched the end of Trigun, is Vash so happy about just before he heads off to confront Knives? And what the devil does he think he’s doing bringing that psychopath back with him? What on earth is it that he realizes, after Meryl faces down the yokel that wanted to shoot Vash, that leads him to believe so strongly that he can save his brother?

Well, let’s back up a bit.

As he struggles with whether or not to shoot Legato, Vash hears two voices: Wolfwood’s and Rem’s. In alternation, they say “Luck and persistence won’t work forever”, “As we journey we search, and think of ways to make everyone happy”, “Don’t force your way of life on others”, “No one has the right to take the life of another”, “Don’t tell me about your dreams in a world like this” and “If you turn around you will see the future”. Everything Wolfwood says applies well to the fact that Meryl and Milly are about to be killed or possibly raped by the men Legato is controlling. In a world like this, Vash’s luck has just run out and he can either let whatever happens to the women happen or he can pull the trigger. Rem’s aphorisms remind Vash that pulling the trigger would not be right. He does it anyway. It drives him mad for a bit.

Then comes the scene with the Yokel, wherein he insists that because he and his mob have lost friends and family in the wake of Vash’s troubles they have a right to hate him and to kill him. Vash, sunk in self-castigation and unable to distinguish between Knives and himself any more, makes no protest. Fortunately Meryl is there to do it for him. No one, she grits out, has the right to kill anyone else. Everyone has a future. And someone has to stop the cycle of revenge. Hearing Rem’s ideas enunciated by someone else galvanizes Vash.

Of course, once it’s over he wants to know how they could be so reckless, and Meryl justly says he’s the last one to talk. Milly, perspicacious as ever, points out that it’s exactly what Vash always does himself and suggests that it’s also what Wolfwood would have done. Vash suddenly looks enlightened, says “that’s it” and gives Meryl a big hug. Vash thinks that “people have different ways of thinking. Even if you make a mistake, if you realize it it’s always possible to fix it. Then if you turn around you will see the future. This wisdom must be realized for oneself.” After he puts himself all together and takes off to find Knives Vash thinks that he finally understands what Rem meant, that he won’t mistake it again. “Humans are survivors. So I will take care of him. I’ll take care of Knives.”

Looking at this rather scattershot bunch of ideas I think Vash had several different realizations. For one, he figured out that the world isn’t always black and white, that mistakes get made and what one does with them is fix them not roll over and die in despair. For another, I think that being protected for a change instead of being the protector triggered the idea that having someone stand by him and protect him might just be what Knives needs. Vash acted to protect his friends and won them over to his way of thinking. Meryl turned that around and her action to protect him drove the words that went with it home to him. The last shot we see is of Vash, toting Knives, smiling and waving to what I can only assume are Meryl and Milly. He will stay with Knives, now, rather than running from their differences. Last, I think Vash finally gets the fact that there’s more than one path to saving people. “People have different ways of thinking” he recalls, just after Milly mentions Wolfwood; that resonates with Wolfwood’s comment about not forcing one’s way of life on others. Everyone has to come to their own realizations, and I think it may have finally occurred to him that, twin or not, Knives must follow his own path to his own conclusions.

This, I believe, is the point that’s established by Vash taking Wolfwood’s cross along with him. Just as Wolfwood wound up agreeing with Vash’s agenda of saving everyone, Vash has moved closer to Wolfwood’s conviction that kindness won’t get you everywhere. Where Vash starts out berating Wolfwood for injuring so many at the Quick Draw contest, he ends by using Wolfwood’s gun to disrupt Knives’ Angel Arm long enough to shoot him through both legs and shoulders.

Ow.

Another thread of this coming-together theme is, I think, embodied in Vash and Knives themselves. As I mentioned on the main page, each of the brothers absorbs the philosophy of one of their “parents”. Vash takes after Rem and Knives after Joey. That difference in philosophy drives them apart, which implies that for them to come back together they have to reach some compromise between the two worldviews. Something that caught my attention, in their final confrontation, was the incredible similarity of their moves. In some ways, I think their motivations were equally similar. Their little mental conversation over the Angel Arms (second go) features Knives saying “I guess I can’t talk sense into you hm?” My first thought was that Knives has an interesting notion of “talking sense into”, considering that they had just been playing Russian Roulette with their guns pointed dead center of each other’s foreheads. But, in the end, Vash’s goal does seem to be talking sense into Knives and he does go about it by shooting him first. Their minds seem to be working on very similar tracks at this point. My second thought, after the ending credits had rolled, was say again?! wait, no, you just brought Knives back home to meet the ladies? But considering how utterly shocked and betrayed Knives looked the first time Vash shot him and the care he always showed Vash (bar the whole killing all humans conflict) it occurred to me that if Vash tried he probably could get Knives to curb himself for the sake of his brother’s love at that. Particularly seeing as Vash really looks to have taken a leaf from his brother’s book in the sense of go ahead and injure someone if that’s what it takes to stop them long enough to talk.

I think that, at the simplest level, Vash finally shows enough determination and, let’s admit it, ruthlessness, to gain Knives’ respect as well as care. Little touches like the blanket Vash finds draped over him after the night he moves to bash in Knives’ head and can’t quite do it indicate that Knives considered it his place to take care of Vash. (It also raises the question of just how asleep Knives was while Vash stood over him with a rock.) But he never told Vash what his plans were, just made them and assumed Vash would go along albeit with occasional protests. I think it takes Vash shooting him, not in a panic but quite deliberately, before Knives can accept Vash as his equal. To be that, Vash has had to accept certain of Knives’ qualities… notably, the will to survive. I think Vash’s comment that “Humans are survivors. So I will take care of him” may reflect a certain meeting of minds between he and Knives. Knives has always been a survivor, doing what he considers necessary to insure his and his brother’s safety. So one implication, here, is that much as he may deny it, Knives has a lot in common with humans. This may be the point at which Vash realizes that Knives is as human as he himself, vehement protests to the contrary aside. Knives is not a monster that Vash can do away with. On the flip side, Vash has always been the self-sacrificing one. After his go round with suicidal despair I think he realizes that if he wants to be human and not some kind of (dead) angelic icon he has to take some care for his own survival too.

In the final analysis, if Vash wants to protect Knives he has to break the both of them out of their cycle of hurt-revenge. If he wants to do that, he will have to overcome Knives’ conviction that he’s the twin that knows best. To do that, he’s going to have to defeat Knives. He does. So who, in the end, is the more dangerous and more ruthless? The very fact that Vash leaves the gun and coat behind make me think that Vash might be becoming more dangerous than ever before. It’s his past that he leaves: the gun that has the catalyst for the Angel Arm, which he no longer needs if he’s got Knives (similarly disarmed) under his eye and (seeing as he won) under his control; the coat whose color encoded determination for someone else’s sake. Now he has a chance to be determined for his own sake. Vash has won against his past and can now turn his very formidable drive and focus to any other ends he pleases. Be afraid.

Be very afraid.

Knives, honey, I think you’re in for a bit of a shock when you wake up.

Trigun: Culture

This page presents my somewhat randomly collected observations on the culture of Gunsmoke and the ways of its denizens.

Religion

Wolfwood being the striking sort of man he is, this was one of the things that struck me the most. Besides, religion is always a rich source of imagery and symbolism.

We have very few indications of just what kinds of religion Gunsmoke harbors. Wolfwood and Chapel are the only two clergy we see. Well, I’m assuming Chapel is, in fact, a clergyman, despite the fact that this is never stated. He’s definitely Wolfwood’s teacher, and Wolfwood purports to be an actual minister attached to an actual church (9). Going by clothing, Wolfwood looks like a particularly laid-back Protestant minister of some division; the dark suit fits, although the bare chest is presumably non-regulation. Chapel, on the other hand, looks to my eye like nothing so much as a slightly funky New England Puritan, with the tall hat, tail coat and sober suit underneath. On the other hand, part of Wolfwood’s stock in trade is selling confessional time. Leaving aside the smashing impropriety of charging for this service, in any present day sect at all, the institution of confession is limited to Catholicism and close off-shoots like the Anglican and Lutheran churches. On yet another hand, Wolfwood does say to Vash that this is not part of his church’s practice, but rather a business venture he has taken up to bring in cash. On yet another hand, making a total of four, Wolfwood does imply, at the very end, that confession itself is part of his church’s practice: despite his profession, he says, he’s never made a confession.

My conclusion, after ruminating on this issue, is that religion in this story was tailored to be recognizably Christian in as non-denominational a manner as possible. This, I think, may explain why the word used for Wolfwood is bokushi; that is the term that can be used for any Christian clergyman. Shisai or shinpu would indicate a specifically Catholic priest. Bokushi can indicate a pastor or minister, Protestant style, or a clergyman of undefined or unknown denomination. Wolfwood is most definitely of unknown denomination, and I think the writers wanted to keep it that way, Catholic flavor notwithstanding. Ken notes that anime Christians in general may often have a Catholic flavor purely because Catholicism is the easiest denomination to distinguish visually.

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Language

This is a great show for playing Track the Pronouns with. Vash is the most confusing on that score. His “you” pronouns are reasonably easy to understand. His default is kimi, occasionally sliding into omae when he’s upset and teme or kisama when he’s really pissed. While he’s in Alex-mode, hiding out, he uses anta. His “I”s, though, are a lot more inconsistent. He slips between boku and ore but I can’t make out a solid basis for the shifts. He tends to use boku when he’s in clown mode and ore when he’s in gunman mode, but more subtly he seems to favor ore when thinking about his own destructive potential and boku when he’s uncertain or ashamed of himself. The overlap between those two makes it hard to predict which he’ll use. Wolfwood is more consistent and more varied at the same time. He generally uses ware (which seems to be a dialectical peculiarity) or ore for his “I”, which mixes strangely with his default “you”: anta. I hesitate to call anta his real default, however, since he slips into omae whenever he’s not paying attention or is under pressure. In addition, he calls Vash anta most of the time in the first half of the story, but has shifted almost exclusively to omae when they meet again in “Goodbye for Now”. He uses anata (not anta, but anata) while trying to pry Vash out of his depression and during their confrontation in “Alternative”. This only applies to Vash, everyone else gets the same pattern as before.

Quick Reference: “you” anata (most polite, generally feminine, especially as an endearment to a spouse), anta (polite, ungendered but often feminine, suitable for use by a minister or priest), kimi (polite, generally masculine), omae (familiar, masculine, a bit rough, suitable for drinking buddies), teme or kisama (impolite, masculine, downright contemptuous). “I” boku (very polite, generally masculine, self-effacing when used by a grown man), ore (masculine, a bit rough, suitable for gunmen). I have no idea what valence ware has, being completely unfamiliar with Kansai dialect.

I’ve read a number of people who don’t like Meryl’s high femme speech pattern, but something strikes me about that character using that mode. The most feminine and polite of forms encode a denigration of the speaker and an exaltation of the spoken-to. Besides being coded as feminine, the self-denigrating forms are also coded as upper class. In a way it’s a kind of boasting: I’m so much higher than you that that you are no threat or challenge, and in order to make us all harmoniously comfortable I will mendaciously brush off my own ability and accomplishment.That is the manner in which I would read Meryl’s speech.

Interesting, no, that the character whose speech patterns most closely resemble Vash’s is Legato? The pair of them remind me irresistibly of Kenshin and Soujirou (RK). I’ll say it again, no one who’s that polite all the time can be quite sane. Unremitting enryo is always a sign that something is very not right; if one has to hold back all the time, there must be something very significant being held back.

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Gendered Violence

While considering the ‘shipper battles over this show I started to think about just how these characters interact with each other and something occurred to me. The assumptions in the world of Trigun about how gender affects violence are so ironclad that it’s hard to compare male-male relationships or female-female relationships with male-female ones at all, let alone rank them based on likelihood.

The root assumption is that women don’t like violence, however good at it they may be. Consider Dominique. Now, I’ll admit, her own overconfidence does her in; if she had simply shot Vash the first time she had a chance instead of toying with him… well it would have been a much shorter series. But after Vash figures out her advantage he makes a comment that would have sent me, for instance, diving back into the fight thirsting for blood: “Don’t clean away people, clean the house of the man you love. Me for example. Just kidding!” Dominique just stands there, covered in blushing confusion. I gagged extensively over the implication that his sexist-pig joke struck some kind of chord in her, but there it is. To Vash’s credit, he does seem surprised that Dominique is just standing there instead of hauling off and socking him one for it (fortunately, Meryl makes up for this lack). The point is, Vash doesn’t make any attempt to recuperate any of the male GHGs sent against him, with the exception of Zazie who is a child. He assumes that the woman and the child will be receptive to the idea of putting violence aside. Meryl’s office buddy, Karen, puts it in a nutshell: “I know you’re good at what you do, but if you keep risking your life you’ll never achieve womanly happiness” (19). And there’s no doubt that Meryl can, indeed, kick ass up one side and down the other. Consider that she disarms all the sheriff’s goons in “Love and Peace” by shooting the guns out of their hands. But Vash never ever, not even once, assumes that she will back him up in a fight or asks her to after that episode, not even the lower-stakes fights before the GHG’s start emerging from the woodwork.

He makes that assumption about Wolfwood freely. Even though he admits that he doesn’t quite know who (or perhaps what) Wolfwood is (20), Vash accepts his backup in a fight without even thinking. He tries to keep Wolfwood from killing, but not from fighting. He makes no attempt to send him out of danger, as he does twice with Meryl. (In all justice, this may well have to do with skill levels; Vash tries to send Brad out of danger along with Jessica but doesn’t say word one about Wolfwood taking off to hunt down one of the invading GHGs.)

Most of the difference between Vash’s interactions with Wolfwood and Meryl I attribute to circumstances more than anything else. Vash shows more pain to Wolfwood (“Everyone who touches me dies” [22]), but Wolfwood prods him in a way Meryl refrains from (“[Your smile] is so empty it hurts to look at [9]“). He tells Meryl all about Knives, which he never spills to Wolfwood, but then Meryl asks and Wolfwood doesn’t. The issue of violence is, to me, the one really telling difference, and also the one that makes the relationships incommensurable. Vash reacts to Wolfwood with camaraderie and to Meryl with companionability.

Much the same holds true of Wolfwood in relation to Vash and Milly. Because violence is such a major issue for Wolfwood to grapple with over the course of the story, Vash gains a certain degree of primacy. In “Escape from Pain” when Milly enthuses that Wolfwood followed the runaways after all, he growls that he was infected by her nosiness and then thinks “I think I actually caught it from him”. Not because there is any qualitative or quantitative difference in Vash and Milly’s inclinations to mercy; note that it’s at the end of this episode that Wolfwood thinks “you’re just like her” about Vash. Rather, because violence and its contretemps are a masculine province here. Vash is the one Wolfwood identifies with, thus his parting words that “whenever I look at you I’m reminded of everything I hate about myself. It hurts.” When Wolfwood contemplates violence, his thoughts automatically gravitate toward Vash.

In “Alternative” and “Paradise” we get the flip side of this assumption: that women are especially good at nurturing while men, however good at it they may be, just can’t do it as naturally. Thus, after Wolfwood shoots Zazie, it’s Milly who arrives bearing sandwiches and coffee and comfort, admitting freely that she doesn’t know how to reconcile the fact that both Wolfwood and Vash have valid points about the whole affair, while Vash curls up in his covers not knowing what he should do or say. That whole progression really struck me, visually. We see Vash and then Milly curled up in almost identical positions in their respective beds, one agonizing and the other asleep. Then the shot of Milly pans to the window where Wolfwood stands, shirtless and smoking a cigarette. (Momentary pause while the author fans herself. Vash has the classically Grecian body, all sleekly muscular and perfectly proportioned, but this shot of Wolfwood never fails to make me salivate. Wolfwood has character; I bet he’d be a lot of fun in bed.) At first, I thought this scene was a visual vote all for Milly, because Wolfwood is facing toward her, into the room. On second viewing, though, I noticed that he is looking out the window, all narrow eyed and not post-coital at all, despite Milly’s efforts. So, again, we have two strong relationships running on parallel tracks. Milly has gotten Wolfwood back on his feet, and now he’s thinking about tomorrow and what he will do about Vash.

And, again, aside from this crucial distinction Wolfwood’s relationships with them are very alike. His joking around with Vash has a greater tendency to get physical and degenerate into wrestling matches as in “Hang Fire” and “Flying Ship”, where his joking with Milly is verbal as in their banter about sextuplets. Modal differences aside, though, the grinning looks much the same.

Milly and Meryl’s relationship with each other brings out the “women nurture” assumption so clearly that I’m a bit surprised there isn’t more fic that slashes them. In “Escape from Pain”, when Milly thinks Vash has shot the runaways, she flees to Meryl’s arms for comfort, not Wolfwood’s. In “Fifth Moon” when they are recalled from Vash-chasing, Meryl abandons her usual reserve and flings herself reciprocally into Milly’s arms. It’s for Milly’s sake that she stays behind after Vash explains about Knives and takes off yet again, or at least that is the responsibility that Vash invokes for her as he walks out. It is for Meryl’s sake that Milly pulls herself most of the way together and says they should go after Vash. Much as the men rely on each other for backup in a fight without a second thought, Meryl and Milly rely on each other for emotional support without hesitation. They never once assume that either of the men will or can help in that way, despite Wolfwood’s proven care for the vulnerable or Vash’s repeated gentle perceptiveness toward others.

This constant subscription to assumptions that are so obviously wrong weirds me a bit. I can’t for the life of me tell whether we’re supposed to think that the assumptions are disproven, or are supposed to believe in them so strongly ourselves that we never question them either. My cynicism inclines me toward the latter, while I take comfort in the subversive subtext anyway.

Trigun: Questions

These are some of the questions that occurred to me as I watched; some get better answers than others. I don’t know how frequently asked they may be, but figured I might as well benefit my readers with my research efforts.

1. That is a .45?!

Based on the sound and the amount of damage it does, I would have taken it for a significantly larger caliber (even taking into account the standard damage-exaggeration of cinematography everywhere). It took a bit of mousing around on the web before I found out that “.45 Long Colt” is a specific caliber of its own, apparently a rather powerful one (longer cartridge equals more explosive). I could not find any references to a rifled revolver that takes this caliber, but a knowledgable party told me that most all modern revolvers are rifled (thanks to Mark). The dropped barrel definitely makes it a custom model, though it does somewhat resemble the Anaconda. See Colts for yourself.

2. Why does Leonof think Wolfwood is Chapel? He isn’t Chapel in the anime, that’s only the manga which doesn’t have a tall guy with creepy glasses at all, right?

I think the untangling clue here is that Leonof says that they’ve never met but he recognizes Wolfwood’s looks. Tall guy, dark suit, huge cross/gun. From a verbal description, they would be easy to confuse. Recall that, earlier in the same episode, Leonof mentions to Legato that there’s a minister in black with Vash and he suspects that this is… and Legato cuts him off. Even if it is, Legato tells him, his job is still the same. This was the point when I decided that the GHGs were being sent out to die; they’re told to kill Vash, and yet Vash has an extremely highly skilled gunman watching over him. In fact, I suspect that Wolfwood knows the whole story himself, since at the end of “Out of Time” while lying in the sand staring at the sky he sighs “This is killing me” and adds “eternal suffering, hm?” If he wasn’t told from the start that the GHGs would be coming, I think he realizes it then.

3. Why Chapel the Evergreen?

Most of the GHGs have fairly self-evident nicknames. This one is a lot more obscure. One guess I have is that it’s a really bad pun: evergreen -> holly -> holy. I almost hope that isn’t it, because that’s just awful. Another possibility is a play on the idea of eternal life (spiritually speaking). That might make sense of the rather peculiar little snippet where Wolfwood shoots Chapel off the roof of a building, coffins rain down with the debris and Chapel pops up out of one. It could be a toss-off reference to the whole resurrection thing, of which evergreen can be a symbol.

4. So how old are these people, anyway?

We only have solid figures for Vash and Knives: about 130. Meryl is somewhere in her twenties, from what Milly blurts out. Since Milly is holding up two fingers while she says this, 22 seems like a good guess. Milly we have no indications for; my guess would be early twenties. She is working a professional job, after all. Wolfwood we have only tangential indications on. He says that he was seven when he first shot a man, and Chapel says that he spent ten years training him. Problem there is, we see flashbacks of Chapel teaching Nicholas-chan to shoot when he looks no more than seven still. Wolfwood has got to be more than seventeen; I’m sorry, but no seventeen year old has crow’s feet. I’m a bit inclined to think that the figure ten years was a mis-script, meant to be twenty. I could believe twenty-seven.

5. Who the heck is Legato talking to in “Flying Ship” when he says “Had you behaved you might have lived to see Doomsday. But I’m pleased, for now I can fulfill another of my master’s wishes”?

He’s just been talking to Leonof about Vash and the minister in black, but the remark doesn’t seem to fit them. I think he’s talking about the shipspeople. Certainly, bringing down a ship that’s still flying would make Knives a very happy camper.

6. Is Wolfwood on Knives’ payroll from the very start?

I waffled over this a bit. Wolfwood’s comment when he first sees the caliber (no pun intended) of Vash’s shooting, that “it’s what one would expect [from VtS]” (that is, sasuga) could be taken to mean he’s been looking for Vash or simply that Vash lives up to his widespread reputation. I tend to think the latter, since Wolfwood remarked when they first met that Vash is nothing like he pictured him. The thing is, in “Paradise” Wolfwood identifies his orders re Vash as “to protect him, to guide him”, and he doesn’t look to be doing much of either in the first half. He doesn’t start consistently covering Vash’s back or alluding to his upcoming meeting with Knives until after the two year hiatus. So I think not.

Now, it is possible that the shadowy figure the mayor of May is talking to in “Quick Draw” and the shoes of the person we see overlooking the mayor’s table while Wolfwood demands the prize money belongs to either Chapel or Legato. But we still don’t know whether those individuals would be looking in on how Wolfwood’s doing his job or just trying to find Vash. Given that Wolfwood leaves Vash an episode later, the second seems more likely. Here’s my supposition. Chapel or Legato or whoever it is finds Vash, notes that Wolfwood seems to be friendly with him and reports both back to Knives. Thereupon, Knives comes up with the idea of having Wolfwood guide and guard Vash. Chapel, most likely, is dispatched with the commission for Wolfwood who starts out to find Vash again; this would explain why he seems to be listening for news of Vash later in the first half and why he’s heading for Augusta just in time for the fireworks. After that, of course, Vash vanishes and it takes two years to find him, cue second half.

7. Just what is Vash wearing under his coat?

We don’t get a really clear view until the end, once when he doffs the coat to decoy Caine and again when he leaves it behind to carry Knives off. There appear to be two layers. One, the dark blue or gray, looks to be tight fitting pants and sleeveless top; we see him in just the pants at the end of “Live Through” while he’s shaving, so I’d guess at two pieces. The next layer looks like body armor. Leather possibly, it’s the right shade of brown. There seem to be boots, shin guards, tight chaps-style leggings, a chest-and-back piece, and what could either be long gloves or short gloves and armlets. Strapped on over all this are metal-looking guards for left shoulder and elbow, and knees, and of course the gun belt, so perhaps I should call it three layers. All the leather seems to cinch tight with multiple straps: left wrist, forearm and two at the biceps, three across the ribs, three for the shin-guard, plus the instep-and-heel affair that holds the guard down to the boot. No wonder Nightow gets questions about how long it takes Vash to dress in the morning! The arms do seem to be asymmetrical, the prosthetic having all the straps while the right arm looks more like a long glove.

8. Does Vash use hair gel?

Of course there’s no canon answer to this, but I’m inclined to think not. Rem remarks on the amount of body his hair has when she first cuts it, and even when wet or grown out long it has a fair bit of stand-up-ness. It’s perfectly possible to do that with body-ful hair with only a bit of water and a comb.

9. How should we romanize Vash’s post-fifth-moon pseudonym?

My subtitles render it as Ericks. I’m more inclined to go with Alex. That is the name Rem mentions when she’s talking about her lost love; it seems like a natural choice for Vash to make if he’s trying to give up his guns and live a peaceful life.

10. What is the name of that town where Knives leaves his name on the monument?

It sounds remarkably like Carcasses. Karukasasu, to be more precise. There is a certain gruesome symmetry to the idea.

11. Why do so many people refer to Vash’s gun as “upside down”?

Keeping in mind that I’m not an authority on firearms (the noise makes me jumpier than a cat in a vacuum factory), after examining some gun schematics I concluded that this is a serious misnomer. It’s true that the barrel lines up with the bottom of the cylinder rather than the top, as is usual, but this is not because a standard barrel has been flipped over. Rather, the barrel was moved down to make room for a completely non-standard addition: the catalyst for the Angel Arm. If you want an adjective to tack on between Vash’s and revolver the best you can probably get is custom. Possibly strange.

12. What is it that Vash actually says at the end of “Rem Saverem” and “Live On”, about Knives?

My subtitles translate it as “I will take care of him”, which has a nice double entendre since that is the last request Rem made. After numerous listenings, and taking into account the rather compressed pronunciations characteristic of Vash, I think it might actually be yakusoku, that is “promise”. There are several occasions where Vash refers to promises he made to Rem, and this would explain why the translators chose the translation they did. The last thing Rem said was to take care of Knives, and Vash recalls that moment when reaffirming his promise.

13. Does Wolfwood believe?

Well, now, there’s a question. He certainly directs enough remarks toward God during his death scene to lead one to believe that he does. On the other hand, it’s historically notable that many people who go through their lives as unbelievers suddenly get religion on the edge of death. We never actually see him performing any ministering functions. We have no idea who ordained him or where (not that Gunsmoke strikes me as the sort of place well supplied with seminaries). We hear him wish someone the company and support of God three times: Vash just before they go to take down the sentinel factory; the girls and Vash as they all get off the bus; and Chapel after Wolfwood has won their duel. In the first instance Vash asks if blessings really work and Wolfwood tells him that’s entirely up to them. That’s the kind of answer that inclines me to think Wolfwood might be of Jesuit background. It could be a statement that God doesn’t exist, and therefore won’t help, or that God only helps those who give it their all. The subtlety of Wolfwood’s answer to Vash is actually precisely what makes me think Wolfwood really does have some measure of belief: that’s the kind of answer a theologian gives. With the whole gang it seems rather like a reminder, to Vash or to himself, of the little adventure just past and not really a comment on devotion at all. It causes Meryl to remark that he’s weird, which I take as her reaction to his off-the-cuff and jaunty manner of delivering what is normally a more solemn blessing. With Chapel, his blessing reads more as a farewell; if (and this is pure speculation) Chapel was the one who trained and ordained Wolfwood, then blessing him seems like a declaration of equality. Something along the lines of I’m as much a reverend authority as you are now. I would say that, if Wolfwood is assuming that authority, he probably does take it seriously. So I would say that yes, Wolfwood does believe. I would even say he has a fair degree of devotion, but that’s a gut feeling based on little besides the familiarity and intensity with which he addresses God in “Paradise”.

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0. Why did I write these pages?

For the first two episodes I wanted nothing more than to knock Vash’s head against the nearest wall. Repeatedly. Bloody hell, but the man annoyed me! Anime has raised my tolerance for utter dipsticks, but not that far. Fortunately things started to sober up just enough to keep me from giving up. Still, this story does not have most of the features guaranteed to hook me: the villains are neat but not as in depth as I prefer; the girls are spunky but don’t get as much ass-kicking time as I prefer; the artwork is good but not a patch on Cowboy Bebop, for instance; ditto the music; the hero inspired me with a greater desire to beat his head in than Usagi or Miaka ever managed; the seiyuu gave a fine performance, but there was a lot of disjuncture from the visuals.

I suppose Trigun has just enough in the way of interesting symbolism (gotta love them apples) to keep me around long enough to appreciate the moral dilemma. Although I, personally, am with Wolfwood all the way, the balance between the cold logic of the overall situation (Knives’ purview) and ethical action in individual situations (Vash’s specialty) does fascinate me. Knives knows that everyone has to draw a line somewhere; the most pacifist of beings must eat in order to live. He makes a conscious and deliberate decision to draw the line around he and Vash, presumably based on the knowledge that humans do consume Plants in order to survive. Vash seems to draw his line at sentience, even accepting those people who want to do him personal harm inside his sphere of kinship. (Of course, he didn’t want Wolfwood to kill the sandworms which were presumably non-sentient, but Vash certainly isn’t a vegitarian, so the real line is a bit fuzzy.) They both have very valid points. Yes, if one frees all the butterflies the spiders will starve. And also yes, if one kills the thugs one operates on their level and perpetuates the cycle of violence. I liked the fact that Vash did manage to reach some kind of compromise that did not involve either killing Knives or letting him keep running loose.

Though I was ticked off that Wolfwood had to die. I appreciate beautiful endings as much as the next person, but watching him try to keep working things out would have been so much fun. *pouts mightily at the writers and producer*