#me: trimax has a lot of different ideas and themes can we look at more of them-

[collieii]

i like how trigun handles the killing morality debate thing thru wolfwood and vash, when they said there's no easy right or wrong answer. obv vash is the pacifist and we root for him as the protag but when he starts arguing w ww about that stuff there's not really a clear "winner" imo. like they both have valid points over the other but they also concede to each other at different parts. like when vash admits that ww's methods on the seed ship helped save other people even if it meant killing someone else. and obv at the end when vash actually kills legato, he's put in a position similar to ww where he's forced to make a choice. still, there's a lot of praise for the resolve it takes vash to uphold his pacifism, emphasis on the fact that kindness is not naivety. it's not a descent or disillusion but a deliberate choice he made, not an easy one.

and when vash criticizes ww for being a coward, it hurts him bc he's right on some level. ww wants (or needs) to justify to himself making choices that he personally thinks are wrong. (the fact that he was forced into that life is a whole other thing that doesn't help lmao) i don't think vash ever calls ww selfish for wanting to protect himself, but he calls him out for advocating a philosophy he doesn't always agree with. ww coming to accept and eventually follow vash's way of life and refusal to kill isn't important bc it gives him moral superiority or absolves him, but bc he's finally being true to himself and his own values. he dies knowing that he's the person he wants to be, a big brother, not a murderer. obv im not saying anything crazy this is all right in the text but the way the debate is handled in a lot of other media can be tiring so i like when it's well executed lol

#trigun #trigun maximum #vash the stampede #nicholas d. wolfwood #trimax spoilers #me: trimax has a lot of different ideas and themes can we look at more of them- #also me: we are on a 24h vashwood lockdown!! #trigun meta #.lieii #this is one of many spiels i wrote to help myself w characterization for a fic #but maybe someone else will find it useful or interesting lol #.lieii txt

[anachronistic-falsehood]

Vash and Femininity: Trigun Stampede and its Themes of Bodily Autonomy, Exploitation, and Vague Gender Fuckery

alright sit the fuck down. we're gonna talk about THEMES

I was on Twitter- terrible idea usually, but a couple people I follow made some tweets that got me thinking about Trigun's overall themes, and here we are. So let's talk about some themes in Tristamp! And I'll take a couple looks at Trimax as well, just for fun :3

Let's look at how the showrunners utilize gender roles and exploitation of feminine characters to show how unhealthy Knives' obsession with his ideal of Vash is, and how horrific his exploitation of Vash and the Plants is.

Vash, from the beginning of Tristamp, is someone who cares about people's choices. When people kill others in front of him, he reiterates that whether someone lives or dies is not another person's choice to make. This is something he learned from Rem (a prominent female figure in his life). He refuses to kill people because that is not his choice to make. To kill someone is the ultimate removal of their bodily autonomy. They can no longer make any choices at all; they're dead.

Vash is also someone who has almost no choice in what path his life takes. He's constantly dragged around by outside forces, namely situations that are caused by Knives (which we'll get into later). Vash doesn't make things happen, things happen to Vash. The majority of events that occur are not his fault. He's pushed and pulled in a thousand different directions. His entire life is completely out of his control.

This can be seen as early on in his life as the Fall, something he had no control over and had no idea he even had a part in. Even later, in the ship with Luida and Brad, after he's been rescued from the desert, he's kept in handcuffs right up until he's shown to be of use to them and the Plant on their ship. After that, he could theoretically say "no, I don't want to go to other ships and heal their plants," but he doesn't. He's Vash. He's helpful and nurturing at his core, and these people have done so much for him just by letting him stay, so he'll do whatever they ask, no question.

This carries over into his adulthood. At Jeneora Rock, he goes to look at their Plant at one simple request, doesn't protest when he's dragged into a duel-- he doesn't take initiative unless someone's life is immediately at stake. He lets people tell him what to do and lets himself get dragged around by the wrist. He doesn't even pretend to have control over his life like Trimax Vash does, which I mean. Fair. Why pretend to have a grip on your existence when it's impossible to do anything without a gun pointed at your head?

Vash is a very passive character. He's nurturing, kind, gentle- he's a guy that fits a lot of very typical feminine character stereotypes. If you wrote this same story but made him a woman, I wouldn't bat an eye (but I would definitely be looking at it a lot more critically, what with the amount of stereotypically nurturing/motherly female characters in media already.)

This contrasts directly with Knives. He makes a decision and carries through no matter what stands in his way. He takes initiative. If Vash is a passive character, Knives is an active character. Wherever he goes, he leaves a lasting imprint. He makes shit happen! If outside forces make things happen to him, he'll go out of his way to make sure that particular force doesn't affect him again.

These two tweets I saw are what got me thinking about this originally. I just feel like here's a good place to put them as a segue into talking about episode 11.

Episode 11 is where a lot of this feminine imagery really just. Explodes in your face. IT'S RIGHT THERE. You can't dance around it if you try. And it kind of reaches a peak when the connection reaches 100%, the gate opens, and. well. THIS happens to the Plants.

Plants, in both Trimax and Tristamp, are almost always typically feminine-looking. Knives and Vash are the only two who are male or even masculine at all. Knives, as the most masculine out of all of them, is the one trying to take charge, and mould the world as he sees fit, to a degree that is detrimental to both him and everyone else. And Vash-- passive, feminine, kind and nurturing, whose Angel Arm in the manga always sprouts decidedly feminine-looking Plant parts-- is the one being exploited for Knives' plans. It's no mistake that they made the giant plant formation at the end of ep 11 look like a giant woman that almost resembles Rem.

Vash wants people to make their own choices and keep their autonomy when it comes to their bodies and lives. Knives is the exact opposite. He wants all Plants to become independent and he uses Vash to achieve that goal, without asking what Vash wants or even knowing what the Plants themselves would prefer. He exploits Vash for the soul purpose of trying to make these Plants have Independent Plant babies. He's completely incapable of seeing that his choices are not for the greater good! He thinks he's saving them, but none of his actions are for the good of anyone but himself. He’s just violating them for his own gain.

They're really leaning into gender roles for these guys, but in a way that screams "HEY, LOOK AT THIS! ISN'T IT FUCKED UP? LOOK AT HOW FUCKED UP THAT IS. LOOK AT THIS, AND BE UNCOMFORTABLE, AND KNOW THAT IT IS FUCKED UP."

Because it is! It's so extremely fucked up. They're using this imagery and these roles, something that makes most of us intrinsically uncomfortable, to drive home how unhealthy Knives relationship with his ideal of Vash is. That's the point. We're supposed to be uncomfortable with this.

Now of course there's some nuance to it. Like, you could see Knives as somewhat of a feminine and/or queer-coded figure as well, ESPECIALLY if you look at some of his panels in the manga, which could in turn lead to themes about infighting and control within marginalized communities, but that might be something for another post. :3

And there's definitely different ways you could take this! Vash, with all this feminine imagery, could be either transfem or transmasc coded, depending on what way you'd rather see it, which could lead into themes of how people outside the norm constantly face a lack of bodily autonomy and are exploited for purposes outside their boundaries. We could also look at Wolfwood and his lack of choice over joining the Eye of Michael and becoming the Punisher, and how masculine men (particularly men of colour) are often forced into violent roles against their will. If we look at Trimax, the exact same could be said for Livio/Razlo and people with disorders such as DID/OSDD.

There are many different ways you could spin these themes, some of which I don't feel personally qualified to discuss. If anyone who is qualified to talk about Wolfwood or Livio/Razlo or even other characters related to these themes, then god PLEASE add onto this post or make a post and tag me or something. I would love to read it!

Anyway, in conclusion: Vash is a feminine figure constantly taken advantage of and exploited and and he's so incredibly trans/nonbinary-coded that it drives me insane. Thank you

#whiskeys word soup #trigun #trigun stampede #HI. HELLO. THIS DRIVES ME INSANE PLEASE READ THIS #and seriously if anyone wants to make a post about wolfwood or livio/razlo or any other character exploring these themes of bodily autonomy #on GOD. lemme know i wanna read it #well aware that some of this is probably me digging too deep for things that aren’t there but still!!! fun to look at #what is media analysis other than putting on ur queer glasses and picking out trans allegories within stories #it’s been a while since I’ve made a full analysis essay kinda post!! this is how i normally format them bc it’s easier for me to read

[eilwen]

And they say romance is dead.

Joking aside, Vol. 8 further solidifies my appreciation for Meryl.

Hopefully I can put my long-winded thoughts into concise words when it comes to writing women/female characters and why I loved Meryl in the manga even when she's absent for a chunk it from Vol. 7 onward.

Good 'women/female writing', to me, is not just having more lines, more screen presence or more visibility because you can easily write a character that ticks all of those boxes and still be a shell, still be poorly written, still be misused and still fall into numerous stereotypes. Though we are seeing more female characters onscreen/on paper these days, there are still traps of 'women written by men usually for men or what they think a woman wants' with some variations (and of course some women can also find difficulty in writing women). Then there are times when women characters who are so incredible or powerful, they come off as unbelievable, as if writing a woman character is sometimes treated similarly to handling glass. Some writers are afraid to write women well, believing that it’s 'safer' to have the character be amazing and flawless than forgotten or absent (which can be problematic in a different way).

I love manga-Meryl because I know Meryl's arc, faults, growth, struggles etc.... Nightow really puts her through the ringer. We don't see her much in the later volumes once things get heavy since she's not the series' protagonist, but we learn that she has a full journey post-Colnago. Eventually she, as a person who is not super-powered in the way other characters are, assists Vash in the best way she can.

Vash is a plant, the Humanoid Typhoon, all these other labels, but he calls himself a simple gunman. So, when Meryl is the one to make sure that he has a gun despite everything she had experienced... ah, I had a lot of feelings.

Vol. 8, Ch. 3. ... God damn.

One of the best things Nightow did in Trimax was to write Meryl with doubt and fear and break her away from Vash in Vol. 6, because having a woman follow and care for a man blindly is frankly boring and adds little depth to a friendship or a relationship.

(This praise also extends to how Nightow writes Luida - but those are thoughts for some other time.)

I am also considering Meryl as one representation for humanity in Trigun Maximum's narrative. She is the ordinary person who has been unwillingly forced to witness devastation, destruction, loss etc. and is expected to continue after that. That is a difficult thing to overcome... and then to grapple with the idea of assisting that same force... I imagine that this is a very difficult responsibility. There are war films (good and bad films, from a range of nations) that touch on this theme of responsibility.

I'd like to think that real courage is understanding and overcoming a fear instead of having none.

And then in Vol. 8, Meryl does a small act. She asks someone else to help - something that Marlon later tells Vash to do (let his friends help him, I mean). Without grandeur. Kind of anti-epic. However, this small act is extraordinarily powerful because without that gun, Vash is unable to proceed.

We sometimes view power in such a black and white way when power can be asking someone else for help, trusting someone else, and not have it be about you.

Vol. 8, Ch. 5. A Marlon panel is always a good panel.

I love how Nightow illustrates this. In these panels, Vash is hearing Marlon talk about a 'guest'. Marlon never mentions Meryl's name. We know it's Meryl because we know what the back of Meryl's head looks like (and her legs, haha) but Vash is not seeing what we are seeing.

And yet, Vash knows.

#trigun maximum #trimax vol 8 #trigunbookclub #meryl stryfe #idle thoughts #typed this too quickly so might edit later