Despite the interesting notion of introducing guns and therefore producing explicit form of violence, I feel like the end of Trigger is simultaneously merciless and pacifistic.
It is probable it’s trying to convey an anti-gun movement message while simultaneously hoping to prove violence is not the answer to your troubles. Both of these can be seen in Lee Do’s decisions and actions, especially in the last episode where he decided to leave Moon Baek and ran to save the crying kid who’s caught in the middle of cross fire. This very action was caught on camera, broadcasted, and essentially stopped the nurse to harm her bullies. Furthermore, along with the undeniable harm caused by the violence, it moved the people to turn in their received weapons, including the nurse.
Yet on the other hand, I’m not sure whether it finally addressed about the violence we witnessed and received on the daily basis: the bullying, the disrespect, the people in power washing off their sins and looked down on their victims. While the series was unwavering in showing its stance on firearms and how violence begets violence, it shied away from giving any clue on how to mitigate these more looked-over everyday violence; the very violence that allowed entrance to Moon Baek’s idea.
As mentioned before, this series was faithful in its stance: violence will reproduce violence. This was especially true when we get to look behind each of Lee Do and Moon Baek’s past: each of them were a victim of abuse in different ways; Lee Do became the only survivor of an intruder killing off his family, and Moon Baek was taken into a human organ trafficking chain. But Lee Do’s cycle ended when Cho Hyeon Sik (the station chief and perhaps his father figure after the incident) stepped in and protected him from actually killing off his family’s murderer when he was a child. Later on, he carried this on by not only saving the child in the crossfire, but also showing up to pick him up after school and having conversation ad they walk on.
On the other hand, Moon Baek continued to descend further. From being trafficked in the US, probably went in and out of the foster system, and murdered some gang members with a gun, and got ‘adopted’ into Jake’s gun organization, he became the one who inflicts and spreads the violence. In the end, the very weapon he deemed as a way for utopia brought him down, perhaps not only once but twice.
This is where I think the series showed how merciless it is, and its stance on pacifism. The last episode not only gave us the nurse turning in her gun without anymore mention of her workplace situation (perhaps she quitted? she did show up in a daily wear instead of her scrub), it also showed us how easily discarded Moon Baek was. There was, perhaps, no kindness for him until the very end (Jake’s decision to give him an eye was not kindness hahah).
Perhaps this is the downfall: being a true believer in its idealism and refusal to dig deeper on what is it that ignited violence in the first place. The end of this series fell rather flat and, dare I say, moralistic.
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What’re your thoughts on this series?
Yes I still like mbld but goddamn I wish they were in a MIU404 kinda universe instead of this one ugh
Happy Valentine's Day Matthew. Even though we're not together right now. I hope that soon we will be. I know we're having a rough time but I love you. The distance between us is temporary. We will be together soon!
