Rereading Trimax vol. 11 with my bookclub has made me perceive all the hints dropped about Elendira's past with so much more clarity.
In vol. 9, we saw her visibly distressed by Vash's willingness to "throw his life away" for Wolfwood's sake. Now she says she doesn't like "nice men" because "they die too easily". She mocks Wolfwood's memory to Livio's face because Wolfwood was exactly that kind of man. Everything we know about Elendira is solidifying and coming to a head in this volume.
And then ... she does something really bizarre.
After Elendira thinks she has killed Livio, she sees a bunch of children gathered at the scene. She tells them to bury Livio because she's not about to, and because he "died" trying to protect them. Children! She's giving children the responsibility to bury a body just because he "died" for them.
This is undeniably odd behavior. Completely inappropriate for the situation, it makes no sense ... unless. Unless Elendira herself was once a child who suffered because a "nice man" died sacrificing himself for somebody else's sake.
She seems more accusatory of the kids rather than sympathetic. Sympathy would've made her actions more understandable, but she doesn't seem to relate to the kids' position as much as she ... Sort of strangely begrudges them for it ...?
This is why I believe Elendira was not the person for whom said "nice man" sacrificed himself in her past. I think of how much nonchalance and self-sufficiency Elendira projects, combined with her avid investment in competing with Legato to be Knives' most important servant. Her resentment towards Legato because Knives prioritized him by not giving him a number ...
It all reads like an old, deep-seated hurt that she's forced herself to internalize. Good people bite the dust, good people get screwed over. And even when they succeed in protecting their loved ones, Elendira is not one of the lucky few who gets protected. So she can never rely on such a person. Only on herself. She must look out for herself and her own goals before anything else. She has had to make herself strong and selfish, because she doesn't get to be protected! She doesn't get to be loved. She doesn't get to be a weak little girl, because not even as a child was she allowed to be one. She was not prioritized for protection and nurturing, not for nearly long enough — if ever.
Trigun Stargaze: a post-mortem (spoilers for Maximum and obviously for Stargaze)
I will orient my criticism through the lens of Stargaze's proposed vision, meaning that I will consider loneliness, connection, and understanding as the primary themes for this version of the story.
TL;DR:
Things I loved about Stragaze:
The humour
The way certain characters and relationships were recontextualized
The additional lore
The action scenes
The music
The cinematography
BUT many things that could have been fascinating ended up not being explored in a satisfying way (full list bellow)
And there is a non-negligible list of things I hated:
Inability to commit to stakes and create believable threats
Lack of internal consistency
Some overexplaining and unnecessary exposition by the characters
Can’t pick a lane between serious and power of friendship
Undermine half their own plot points
Now let’s dig in a little deeper. There are things I thought were well done in Stargaze:
In general, I found the fighting scenes well done and satisfying, especially when they displayed Vash’s sharpshooter skills.
A lot of the visuals were striking! Razlo walking under the setting sun, Vash pulling the trigger, the entire space battle, the fight between Vash and Knives, Vash’s eyes changing color as Tesla passes through him... all felt really beautiful and satisfying to me
The parallel between season 1 and season 2 were smart, especially Vash and Knives falling on July once to destroy it, and once to bring life back to it!
Wolfwood biting Razlo to get extra serum felt funny and coherent – I had not expected it but it works
The theme of plant loneliness is established in the first episode, with a plant shown dying on her own even without human exploitation. It is implied that Tesla degraded out of loneliness too, and that Rem assumed that as long as the twins stayed together, they would be fine.
There are some specific scenes that felt meaningful to an attentive audience: Knives’ puppet using a sword cane as a first hint it’s not really him, Vash’s haircut scene as a way for him to reach the mindset of opposing Knives again, Meryl using the piano to talk to the plants, Knives warning Vash early on to let go of Rem’s memory... those are all things I enjoyed
On the subject of Knives, I really liked that they kept a body horror element, with him being regrown in a vat. I also adored that they made it explicit that he fused with Tesla long ago, with her eye being right on his heart at the end
I loved the exploration of Wolfwood’s reluctance to form a connection with Vash: he’s both very obviously pulled in, and struggling against that pull. The fact that he still ends up being a big simp was hilarious, though I liked that it didn’t prevent him from calling out Vash on July and on being too soft
Which is big talk coming from a guy who constantly carries candy around in case he needs to comfort a kid... I also liked that it echoed the scene with Zazie in season 1
I think that this adaptation positioning Vash as someone who refused to be a god is a very fun lens to use! It makes him extra Jesus coded hahah, stepping down from his role to be closer to humans. I love that he is also shown being willing to use his powers to protect people, despite rejecting them
I adored the dynamic they created between Milly, Meryl, and Zazie. All their scenes were super fun, and it ties strongly with them adding to Milly’s backstory. The concept of worm farmers is a cool bit of worldbuilding, and it recontextualizes the first impression we get of Milly: she sounds a bit silly and naive, but in truth she just knows stuff and is great at seeing through the other character’s facades.
Also the girls grilling Wolfwood about his hair turning white and whether he’s truly safe was a cute scene, a bit of an in-joke with the audience who at that point was not trusting he would really make it through
I love what they did with Hoppered: him almost killing Eriks with the razor, but chosing to bide his time, and purposefully creating a link to Vash in order to hurt him all the more. In a story focused on connection, I adore that they showed how these connections can also be weaponized.
Midvalley got a bit of Wolfwood’s arc but I’m not even mad about it, it makes his character more rounded and create an interesting rapport between the two! It was funny to turn him into a music teacher for the kids.
Legato’s reactions to Vash were interesting, with the added layer of him wanting Vash to go back to his “rightful” position as a god while also clearly having a blast torturing him. I want to put him under a microscope and study him lol. There is something so compelling to me about a character that makes himself into a tool without anyone asking
I really enjoyed his dynamic with Elendira as well, with the contrast in how they’re both dedicated to Knives yet their actions do not quite align with his own goals. Complex villains, my beloved.
On the topic of Elendira, while I do miss her manga version, I actually really like how unhinged kid Elendira is. The fact she is the one resonating with Vash rather than Knives directly is a great choice, because she is connected to them, despite Knives not acknowledging her.
The scene where she realizes she’s betrayed, with the contrast of Meryl remembering Roberto’s death but choosing to reach out instead of seeking revenge? *chef’s kiss*
I liked Ninelives’ redesign and how they were integrated to the theme of planthood as well!
Rem being explicitly showed as an accomplice was great
Overall, there were so many instances where they decided to add their own lore to the world or made changes that were fascinating! That’s what I wanted from this second season, a fresh take on the world and characters, with thought-through additions!
Unfortunately, for each of those they also introduced a bunch of things that they fumbled, to my infinite frustration...
Let's start off with some stuff left unresolved at the end of Stampede:
The plants from the lab still look pregnant. Conrad is a mad scientist he could have surely done something with that. Maybe more "half failed" experiments like ninelives.
Lina being there. Like damn guys just keep consistency between seasons please. They could at least have made her a hallucination Eriks is having, if they changed gears before the production of season 2.
Eriks not having his mechanical arm, but suddenly he has it in season 2. Again, a quick shot of Hoppered finding it could have bridged the gap and removed the inconsistency
Chronica is mentioned as an independent from earth but they dropped that plotline entirely ._. which is a shame because the treatment of independents doesn't look great in the fleet either. A fun reimagining would have been them rallying to Knives' cause and turning on the fleet, or them being key to communicate with plants
In Stargaze itself, there is a lot of things could have been explored in a more satisfying way:
Fifth moon looming over the planet like Tesla’s watchful eye. It’s a striking visual, but never exploited further. I wanted Tesla to have much more agency with the way they brought her to the front of the story
Jessica being given more importance is cool, but we have no context of what makes her special on Home. Why is she so close to Brad and Luida? Does she have parents? Was she in cold sleep, or was she born on No Man’s Land? I would have loved a quick flashback of her and a younger Vash, too
There was a very obvious parallel between Brad and Rem putting kids in escape pods, and that would have been a great way to up the tension. There was very little sense of danger to Emilio’s whole attack on Home. Even Jessica doesn’t seem in that much of a rush to go back.
Not that I wanted Jessica to die, but I feel that if Hoppered had actually killed someone and failed to force Vash to kill him, it would have made the parallel scene of Legato threatening Wolfwood to force Vash to shoot so much more satisfying.
Emilio’s backstory was interesting, particularly in showing some humans were willing to follow Knives without being coerced, and I like that they removed the random woman getting fridged, but it makes little sense that he later turns around saying that only Knives really saw him. Plus if he’s not from Home, how did Vash know him??? And how did he live that long? Has he been using cold sleep on and off?
The puppets turning into people Vash know was really chilling and interesting and they... immediately stop. I wish they had been there throughout the fight, surprising him and making him hesitate over and over. It would have made the reunion with Wolfwood more tense too, rather than him being a puppet just being treated as a joke
... How exactly did Knives have magic balls that make puppets to give to Emilio? Are they supposed to do things Knives generated with his gate? If so, are the other gung ho "tools" also gifts from Knives? Come on. I wanna know.
Knives being treated as a being from a higher dimension by the gung ho is interesting, and it could have highlighted that even among his followers, he’s alone – especially with how his wishes for plants were ignored in order to resuscitate him – and yet they do nothing at all with this.
Why tell us Knives might kill them out of rage for using plants to graft him, and then there's literally 0 consequences when he actually wakes up 😭
The Tesla dream sequence. It's unclear if it's Knives' memories merging with hers, or if Rem really replayed her life beat by beat when the twins were born... Or is it that Knives, having absorbed Tesla, takes up her loneliness for himself? There would have been something to dig into, there. Tesla dying from the horrible treatment of humans, sure, but also being lonely, and so when the next independents are born, they are born as a pair, in the hopes they will never be alone? It would be cool to lean into this
Why is everyone so understanding of Luida leaving Vash "in peace"? It is so weird with the general theme of loneliness and connection, like it would make sense for Luida to lie to Meryl about Vash whereabouts if she didn't know her, but in this context, it feels off. It would have made way more sense if they hadn’t known where he was all this time (for example Hoppered finding his arm and reactivating the tracker just before the Home attack)
Why show that Midvalley joined 5 years ago if he was not mentioned in the first season? It leaves a gap, a question of why did Knives collect knives, and it's never really answered. Why did the media only report plant theft if all along Midvalley was murdering random humans for Knives? Why can he be redeemed so easily by people being nice to him when he was already a murderer before Knives coerced him to join?
Vash keeps saying he wants to protect everyone, but it amounts to nothing: he does not actually do it, and is not shown dealing with the falloff of failing to protect people, either. It would have build up a lot of tension for when Legato threatens Wolfwood’s life if they had...
Absolutely underwhelming use of the fight between Wolfwood and Ninelives. Also why do they bring up the serum and its depleting supply when it end up never actually being an issue in any shape or form. I wonder if they planned to kill Wolfwood and only changed their minds last minute... or if it’s just one more example of them not following through any kind of threat
Why is Wolfwood barely reacting to the information that the darkening hair means the twins will die. It feels like a setup for him noticing Vash using his power on the bullets later, except it never happens
If they could just make Home fly again, why didn't they do it earlier? As a matter of fact, why pretend this season it cannot move, when in Stampede it literally comes pick Vash up near the orphanage?
Why set it up so it's Conrad creating Razlo, and then do nothing with that? Like how did Wolfwood never know about it, if this all happened while he was in the eye of Michael? Why have Livio be the one there on the sandsteamer if the narrative is that EoM created Razlo to be the assassin? Why include chapel at all if it's to kill him off screen before the events of the show anyway? They could have merged his character into Conrad, just like they merged the professor into Luida...
In the car Vash is 100% thinking that he will sacrifice himself anyway and the others do pick up on his weird vibe!! and then nothing happens. Same for the scene where we see Vash preparing bullets and his hair turning black – I adore this bit but come on. Come on. You can't prime Vash as planning to sacrifice himself and not have that being called out later on?? The finale should have had Wolfwood punch him for trying to kill himself to save everyone.
Why have the kids sing the plant song there??? How do they even know it? Did Vash actually gave it to them when he handed them the blank tickets? Was that a metaphor for him giving them a connection to the plants???? Did Midvalley just teach it to the kids as a big fuck you to Knives?
We finally see Wolfwood and Vash fight together 😭 it’s so late and kills the impact of it because we never see any of that in the rest of the series, even though it was so prominent in the manga
I wish the relationship between Ninelives and Elendira had been highlighted a bit more as a factor of her deffection tbh, like they're shown as being close (maybe even considering themselves siblings?) and she does comment on Knives abandoning Ninelives later but I feel like it should have been her breaking point...
It really feels like the face on Legato's weapon is a cadaver... Did they mean to have his backstory and ran out of time??
I really wish it had actually been Vash killing Legato, but i even without that, they should have discussed the consequences later :/ He did pull the trigger. Wolfwood witnessed him breaking his oath for his sake. How is that never addressed? It should have been a central part of the narrative.
The Seed ships blossoming is such a cool visual and smart play on their names and on the plant lore and yet... they do nothing with it. Again. We don’t even know what happens to the plants after – if they all fucked off into space, how are the ships still operating?
There was plainly enough content to explore a third season, tbh. We were robbed. Orange does have some new exciting takes but so much of it was sliced down into irrelevance :(
And of course there were things I absolutely hated about Stargaze. Points where we leave the realm of missed opportunity and step firmly into utter bullshit:
Jessica’s design. While her character grew on me super fast, her mix of hairstyles felt weirder the more I saw it. I wish they had just picked one hairstyle and stuck to it lol.
Resonance is so poorly handled. We see Vash playing the piano as if to connect to Knives, and in the first season he immediately knew where to find Knives both times he was looking for him. Why has he all of a sudden forgotten how it works, until Meryl gives him the idea? It’s dumb.
The overexposition of so many things that were very easy to pick up. Trust your audience instead of spelling out every little detail that you already implied twice.
The pile of gutted cold sleep cells without a single dead body in view. Pick a lane. Either have a darker story, or stop putting in things that can have no harmless explanation.
Several times they’re trying to set up tension only to defuse it within 5 minutes super easily. It makes everything underwhelming and not worth treating seriously
It is implied that the plants in the piano room reply to knives and help him destroy the satellites (the tree lights up and there are feathers everywhere, like when Meryl reaches out later...) but then later on they say the plants did not agree with Knives? It’s disappointing to remove what little agency they had in a story, and feels like it makes plants into innocent victims rather than complex entities willing to cause harm to protect themselves.
Vash not even shooting Legato in the leg like come on. Do something. Anything.
Everyone being chill with Wolfwood being on the ark is so stupid 😭 like i know you wrote yourselves in a corner but how are they chill with this.
Knives outright ordering Legato to torture Vash is so shit tbh. Doesn't even make sense within Stargaze, if the point is that the twins can't communicate, having one torture the other is just stupid. Like even Knives can't credibly think he can both protect Vash and physically torture him??? What???
Why is Knives never called out on his treatment of the plants ffs. Its not even miscommunication at this point, he's plainly using them... Maybe the fact that they sing while being grafted could be argued to be consent but frankly that's paper thin, and the whole scene makes it seem like Elendira is realizing the hypocrisy... When in retrospect I think she wanted to ask if she was among Knives' brethren.
So Wolfwood will die of old age really soon. That is dropped there to set up his death, and once they do their nice gotcha moment they never mention it. Again. I hate it lmao
Why the fuck would Melanie bring the kids when confronting Razlo, seriously? Her whole character is supposed to be motherly and what not and she just immediately puts the kids at risk for no reason
Melanie saying Wolfwood came back when they needed him makes no sense in this iteration where he very much comes back when he needs them lmao. If they wanted to use that dialogue they could have put it after he convinces Vash to take in the kids in Home or something.
There is not a single fucking reason for Livio to consider Razlo a friend in this version, and I hate that they just magically have him erase Razlo. So much of his arc was removed and while I get wanting to play on the little brother angle, I feel this was poorly done on all fronts. There was nothing in this version of the fight that justifies Livio wanting to live like Wolfwood or anything.
Why are they doing the transfusion on the floor outside. Please. Put them on an environment. Why does the orphanage even have that. Why would more of Livio's blood even help, when that is what accelerated Wolfwood's aging in the first place?
I loathe the fake out. Like sorry but I do not think it's interesting. It truly felt like they were more interested in twisting expectations they created themselves than tell the story they wanted to tell. For one thing, I would have loved it if they had used the "alone no longer" line here because it would have tied neatly with the themes of the episode. For another, I wish the way he survived had any kind of internal consistency (see previous point)
Honestly I don't get why they use feather imagery for the blank ticket scene. It already makes little sense with the plant design in this iteration, but why is that scene even tied to the plants?
I hate the stupid fakeout of Luida refusing to help, it was super obvious why she didn't want the kids on the ship and really feels pointless when they immediately show her helping in the next scene lol
It feels so weirdly out of tune to have Wolfwood say Knives will want to be near Vash because they’re brothers like. We're talking about the man who wants to genocide humans, it is so strange to have the cynical human guy be all like "well he's a big brother though" (particularly because come on. They're fucking twins lmao) Really feels like they couldn’t decide on a tone for the show.
Legato getting the death of his manga assaulter is gross and possibly the one change in the whole show I find absolutely unforgivable. Fuck all the way off. Why would you even do that.
The flashback discussion of the plan kinda makes no sense? When is this supposed to happen? Livio doesn't have his jacket and is hurt like in the last scene we saw him in, but it shouldn't have been possible if that flashback is from before the fight?? Is that just a mistake?
Why is Knives plan just to make them all independent again, when it failed in season 1? Also if he's absorbed Vash, why isn’t it actually working this time? I beg you please have some internal consistency at least
Also I'm not a fan of Knives having known all along about Rem’s participation in Tesla’s death, while Vash was the poor protected innocent, it breaks their earlier conversation... And the fact Vash never knew about Rem is such a fundamental change of his personality. All that to not even have him discuss how he feels about Rem in light of that.
Knives being all "I didn't want anyone to suffer and cry, including you" would have hit different if he hadn't spent 5 months having Legato torture Vash xD
It irks me there's no trace of Eriks and Hoppered pic in the house at the end like come on, just leave it with the pic of rem and the twins.
In the first place, I hate that we get eriks 2.0. Why is he isolating himself again? Why is he wearing the same damn clothes and hairstyle (I know why, budget). Why do we have a do over of a scene that happens like 7 episodes ago for no reason lmao.
In the end, Stargaze is just such a mess. It would have been bad if it just had been shit, but it has so much potential and good bits that it’s just painful to see how bad they fumbled things. I’m pretty sure there’s been production drama behind the scenes, and I hate to see what we got when I think about what could have been :(
I really like how Meryl's trauma responses are depicted in Trimax Vol 6. It's so deliberate and moving, and so clearly unlike an unfortunately common misinterpretation I've seen from other readers — that Meryl is this rabbit-hearted woman just now realizing she's in over her head.
Early in the volume, Meryl is shown suffering from nightmares about the events of the previous volume. A common symptom of post-traumatic stress, which is most likely what's affecting Meryl; we haven't seen her having nightmares before.
It's completely understandable that they would start now. Within only a few hours, Meryl was kidnapped, saw Zazie torn to pieces, had Vash's memories of July projected into her own mind, fell down an elevator shaft, was almost crushed by a building, saw Midvalley shot and Legato desecrating his corpse, AND the whole time Vash was screaming nonstop while undergoing this eldritch transformation on top of her so she can't run or hide. Who wouldn't be shaken after that?
And yet, when Meryl is in a calmer state of mind in this volume, we see her moved to tears by the admiration she still feels for Vash:
She remembers the events of July with sympathy for Vash's suffering. She doesn't blame him for the destruction, but instead wonders how it must have affected him. And she cheers him on.
Seeing Vash's Plant form hasn't altered her opinion of him for the worse, either. There is a character close to Vash who thinks of him as a monster in this volume — but it's not Meryl, it's Wolfwood. Meryl isn't actually scared of Vash's inhuman nature. Instead, it's quite clear that she's being triggered by a sight she associates with the most traumatizing day of her life so far. Something completely outside of her control.
It's also important to note that, by this point in the story, readers have been shown that Meryl isn't an easily frightened person by nature. She boldly rushes into dangerous situations and successfully resolves them. Think of her and Milly's teamwork deescalating the steamer hijacking, or her calm and bravery in Bravo, Girls!
Gun to her head, and this woman's got a neutral look on her face while thinking about Vash's smile. Proving that, no, it's not true that a woman can't thrive in a dangerous environment. Meryl loves the adventure and risk, she says as much herself. She loves Vash.
So when we see her breakdown after he morphs, and her reaction when he tries to touch her, we know something is really wrong. Meryl isn't herself. Compounded with the aforementioned nightmares, it's all too obvious what's happening.
In my opinion, all this makes Colorless Expression even sadder than if Meryl was an easily frightened woman, or if learning more about Vash had turned her against him. Meryl's trauma is setting off Vash's trauma and vice versa, and there's not much either of them can do about it except suffer.
It's extra painful because Vash knows Meryl is physically attracted to him. He believed his scars aren't attractive for a woman, and she loudly told him otherwise:
Perhaps he thought that if his scars, which he considers so ugly, are appealing to Meryl, then maybe she won't be repelled by his Plant features, either. So he reaches out. And she flinches away.
She's not all there. Her trauma is making her see horrors from the past where she should be seeing the man she loves, admires and desires.
Meryl can't help it. And Vash can't fix it. All he can do is leave, and try to hold in his tears.
Hello, I have a lot to say about the Stargaze soundtrack.
Behold, my (not so brief) discussion of the experimental sounds used in the Stargaze soundtrack & how they emphasize onscreen plot points/possibly allude to scrapped scenes
ch1 is a lil intro, the rest is a bulleted list to read while listening
i only have the first half of album 1 written up so far, but i do have notes for the rest! however, cleaning them up took a lot longer than i thought it would, so i can’t commit to that unless there’s someone out there would actually like to read them ahaha
We keep discussing a feminist reading of Trigun over in the bookclub ... so how could I NOT mention that time Nightow took a break from space western action to write a whole chapter about misogyny in the workplace?
Here we see Meryl's experience disregarded even though she and Milly are the only employees who have confirmed firsthand experience with Vash:
Her version of events (which we, the readers, know is accurate!) doesn't coincide with her male superiors' expectations, and she's shown a bit of emotional involvement in the situation when chatting with her coworkers ... and that's all it takes to discredit her.
Also, just look at the violent way this man delivers the message! It's as if his position of authority makes him feel entitled to lash out at her, smacking her papers right out of her arms.
It's so infuriating to see Meryl be treated this way, but clearly she's used to it:
We know that Meryl has a TEMPER. That's her nature. But in this situation, all she does is stick her tongue out; clearly, things like this have happened to her far too often. Still, she doesn't let this snub ruin her mood — which, ironically, shows the audience just how professional she is. Her attitude is certainly better suited to the workplace than her male superior's! But even that isn't enough to prevent her being insulted and losing work opportunities that she wants.
Anyway, the narrative later confirms it was Meryl who was in the right here. Not only does the big strong military man the company sent in her place turns out to be a conman, she's also able to see right through him (unlike her male bosses):
Together with Milly she goes on to make short work of this guy, handling the dangerous situation with precision and calm even when he puts a gun to her head. This serves to refute an opinion voiced by Meryl's female coworker earlier on:
Thus, the narrative's stance is that preferring predictable, low-risk work is an individual personality trait rather than a tendency of the female sex in general. Meryl just happens to be a uniquely valuable employee. She would stand out for her courage and efficiency even if she wasn't a woman, because being a woman doesn't make one less OR more likely to succeed at this kind of work. Though one could argue that Meryl does manage to use men's prejudices to her advantage sometimes: it's a possibility that Keele fell for her plan partially because he was underestimating her just like her bosses do. Look how convinced he seems to be that he holds all the power here:
David and Goliath-esque framing, right? Meryl looks so nonchalant too, even though readers know she isn't totally fearless. It's giving auraaaa
Finally... let me just conclude by saying this shit is really crazy:
They KNEW Meryl knows her shit! All along, the higher-ups have been aware of Meryl's skills AND her experience, and EVEN SO they still preferred to let a completely random man take a crack at it first. Petition to kill Meryl's bosses
My post about Wolfwood's first words in the manga made me want to analyze some of the other characters' first lines. So, these are Vash's:
The bandits he's talking to have just attacked him and think that they've killed him. They've just reassured the café staff that they'll fix any property damages with the bounty money they're about to receive. And there goes Vash: cheekily acknowledging the good that he perceives in humans, even when they're his enemies!
Now to compare Knives'...
TECHNICALLY the first time we see Knives saying anything, it's in Vash's flashback: he's laughing his ass off about Rem exploding. (At this point, readers know that she had been some sort of caretaker figure for them.) Knives mentions that he "was going to spare her", but she turned out to be "just as flawed" as all other humans.
However. The first thing he says when he's actually present in the current timeline... is this:
So, in both cases, Knives is reacting to the flaws he perceives in the humans that are — or have been — close to him. What a parallel.
Part of why I love Trimax so much is how it reframes Vash's relationship with Rem and deepens his reasoning on why he doesn't kill people.
In 98 anime his motivation for that is largely centered around grief. If he kills a person, then the last thing of Rem he has would be lost. And the way Rem didn't even talk to him directly about her personal convictions back in his childhood, Vash saw her pacify a violent crew member (presented as a rather unpleasant guy in fact) and internalised it as the ultimate essence of her.
In Trimax the flashback goes quite differently. There's no violent crew members present - the source of violence in that scene is Vash himself, and I think this shift of perspective is vital to understand the entire framework of the manga. Rem talks directly to him, and the final decision on whether he would actually commit murder is ultimately left to him. And then he doesn't. And him and Rem actually talk, have a heart to heart, Rem explains to him her own trauma and motivation for joining the SEEDS crew. It is very raw, intimate, and Vash comes out of it with an understanding of why killing a person is wrong - because all that interiority, all that potential to live again, it will be lost forever if a death occurs. And having been the one who lashed out, attacked another person (and himself!) out of his own anger, fear and grief, he also gains a perspective on how violence is perpetuated between people. His pacifism in Trimax is no longer about Rem, but about his own experience with facing violence and perpetuating it in turn.
