Trigun Bookclub: deludedfantasy: Trigun Maximum Volume 14: Chapter 1-5

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Original Tumblr Post: Trimax Volume 14 Ch 1-5

Trimax Volume 14 Ch 1-5

I briefly pop in from my vacation to bring you some thoughts on volume 14 because apparently nothing can stop the Trigun brainrot. Parts of this were written while incredibly jet lagged or on a train, so hopefully this makes sense.

Ch 1

Awww, sometimes Vash is a little too honest. And he forgets that he doesn’t look as old as he is. Also, what a throwback: full blond Vash with his original coat. The nostalgia is hitting hard.
The contradictions of Vash’s life and philosophy are spelled out so succinctly. He picked up a weapon of violence in the name of peace and he’s lived by that complicated word for so many years. And he did what it took to keep his own word. He covered himself in scars for it, doing things no rational person would do all in order to avoid harm.
The repetition of “That is how I lived my life” paired against the training montage and Vash shooting the coin case is so evocative. As is the past tense. He’s officially throwing that aside and making a choice. A choice to kill.
You know what I noticed? We haven’t seen Vash’s eyes once this chapter in the present, just the reflection of his glasses. He’s made his choice but he’s hiding behind a facade because the choice is killing him on the inside.
Vash is no longer playing Legato’s game but by destroying the coin case, he’s also given Legato a lot of power over him. I wonder if that was also on purpose?
Also, why is Legato suddenly saying he held Vash under control for 8 months? It definitely said 7 earlier in the manga.
Oh my god??? Vash slipped out of Legato’s control!!!! Truly, he’s so powerful when he’s not stuck in a hole for months on end. Also, spending that much time under Legato’s control let him learn it intimately and probably let him discover the weak spots so he could slip out of it he needed to later.
So Legato sees it too. That Vash has decided to set aside his ideals. And of course, Legato still wins because that’s what he wanted—to break Vash if he couldn’t kill him.
VASH WHAT THE HELL.
He’s destroying his left arm to get closer to Legato???? That is…at once a very Vash thing to do and not.
Knives’s approving smile from Legato’s memories is everything he wanted and it’s what Legato sees at the moment of his death. But part of me wonders how much of this is memory and how much is wishful thinking, Legato projecting his own wants and desires onto this memory.
I’m also obsessed with the brief glance we get of a child Elendira. Who is she? Where did Knives find her? Why did she follow him and why did he let her? She’s the only GHG we don’t get ANY backstory on. Not even a snippet. NIGHTOW I WANNA KNOW.
Argh!!! Vash gets so close but he hesitates! A hundred and fifty years of conditioning stay his hand at the last second. Even though he’s said he’s made his choice. But he was hiding from it too. His glasses have closed him off. He hasn’t faced the choice.
Well, he’s pissed Legato off and now he’s going to make him face it.
This is an eerie mirror of the “shoot” scene with Wolfwood. The way Legato holds the gun to his forehead, telling Vash to shoot. That scene almost works like foreshadowing. Wolfwood even said that his death would make it worthwhile if he knew Vash could make a decision like that. And well…the need for that has come to fruition.

I hate to say it, but Legato is right. Holding the gun to his head and not shooting is kinda cruel. That’s just letting someone feel all the fear, let it ramp up, instead of finishing it quickly.
And in the end, all Vash accomplished by hesitating is putting someone else’s life in danger.
With Livio’s life on the line, suddenly we see Vash’s eyes again. They’re a little wild and on edge. He can’t let his new friend die, the person Wolfwood sacrificed himself to save.
Legato knows exactly what he’s doing to torment Vash. He knows all of Vash’s weak points and he’s not afraid to use them.
I hate giving Legato any credit whatsoever but…he’s kinda right again. Look, Vash’s ideals are wonderful. He seeks to make the world a better place by not killing people. But the root of those ideals comes from something so twisted and idealized, it’s done nothing but cause him and the people around him harm and strife. His scars, his inability to connect with humanity despite his mission to protect them, it comes down to his downright saintly principles which force him to live a life that is removed from reality.
Sometimes, you have to make a choice, to kill, to do the hard thing. Because standing down isn’t an option. Standing down is the worse result. Vash’s ideals are beautiful but in the end, by keeping them, he is a dreaming saint. And saints don’t get to live. Saints are saints because they are martyred and completely inhuman. And does he really want to be inhuman?

BUT THEN. Who does Vash think of before he shoots, before he makes his final decision? Wolfwood! Perhaps the most human man of all. He certainly wasn’t a saint, but he wasn’t a sinner either, and he came to mean so much to Vash. His death hurt so much Vash couldn’t speak his name or think of his face. But now, for the first time in four volumes, we see him fully. Wolfwood, who killed to protect and died in order to save someone he loved, who also in the end, finally got to make his choice.
And now, so does Vash. And he does it for Wolfwood.

Ch 2

Does Livio even understand what’s happening? Because Elendira suddenly rose from the dead and went for his throat, and then she collapsed just as quickly. Does he know that it’s Legato? Does Livio know Vash killed Legato for him? This question haunts me daily.
You know what else haunts me? Vash’s face right afterwards. It’s so difficult to look at. For the first time in almost 2 chapters, we see his eyes and they are big and glassy. He has this terrible pained…smile, grimace? I’m not sure how to describe it.

Nor will it ever stop haunting me that Vash didn’t kill to protect himself or to get closer to Knives. He did it for Wolfwood, to honor his sacrifice, to save Livio. He took on Wolfwood’s ideals just like Wolfwood took on his. They changed each other…
I’m experiencing so many emotions, I don’t even know what to say. Vash is realizing how difficult killing really is and he wonders if it hurt Wolfwood this much too. Is he regretting calling him a coward? Vash didn’t understand Wolfwood or his motivations back then, but now he does, and he realizes what he said was so wrong. And knowing Vash, he probably wonders if calling him a hopeless coward was what set Wolfwood down the path to his death.
Also, did Livio find Vash somehow? I didn’t think they were close together at all.
I like that nothing is simple in Trigun. Technically, the Earth Fleet came to help, but they’re willing to do anything to stop Knives, including bombing and irradiating the planet and killing thousands of people in the process.
So Livio does know what Vash did for him? That’s gonna give him a lot of feelings and complexes to work through later…
The juxtaposition in this story always gets me. As Vash struggles with killing one person, the Earth Fleet easily decides to sacrifice millions in the name of peace. How can they, who are not part of this world, understand anything about it? How can they make that kind of decision not knowing anything about the people struggling and living on the planet’s surface? Killing is not the easy way out and it never was, as Vash has just intimately discovered.
Continuation of everyone telling Vash to stop carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders and actually ask for help! Will he do it? No, but saying it to his face is a good first step in getting him to understand.

Ch 3

Oh, this is one of my favorite parts of the manga. I remember this vividly from my first read. The first time the dependent Plants truly communicate with humanity.
The moment with the little girl just…oh my heart. For a moment, she saw the Plant’s memories but she also projected her own feelings. And that could have gone a lot of ways. People could’ve gotten scared or violent or taken advantage of a scared kid, but everyone’s immediate reaction is kindness. They help her find her mother. It just proves that humanity has a great capacity for goodness, especially when they can understand each other. Because every one of those adults has been a scared kid before and feeling those feelings again reminded them of that.
What they show is the history of humanity and Plants on No Man’s Land, the highs and lows, the good and the bad. The gratefulness of those first desperate people when they managed to get water from a Plant and the chaos and desperation that followed. How slowly towns and cities grew up around Plants.
Knives is experiencing all these memories in full. He might have to contend with the fact that the relationship between Plants and humanity isn’t so black and white. There is hurt and abuse for sure, but there is always kindness and gratefulness. One doesn’t negate the other, but it turns his strict worldview on its head. It should anyway.
People have warred and killed over Plants, but they’ve also venerated them, and taken care of them. They fixed them and cleaned their bulbs, had meaningful meetings there. And the Plants were always watching, remembering all their faces, and interestingly, there’s no malice or hatred for humanity in these memories. Despite how they sometimes waste the Plants’ gifts and abuse them, the Plants seem to care about humans in their own way.

Ch 4

It’s terrible that the Earth Fleet cares more about stopping Knives than saving the people of the planet. They’re really scared of Independents, and sure, Knives is more powerful than they’ve ever seen, but they took the nuclear option very quickly. It makes you question what Earth’s relationship with Independents is really like.
Vash’s hair it completely black now. He’s used up most of his power. He’s done and at his lowest point here. And now he’s haunted by everyone he’s lost, everyone he couldn’t save, whether they were friends or enemies.
It says something that he’s faced first with Legato, his first kill, but right behind him it’s Wolfwood, and he’s smiling. I can’t figure out what it means, but there’s something to it, like Wolfwood is the one who makes what he did okay.
But still, he feels like he’s alone with all of this, that this is his endless burden. And makes me so sad because he’s not! He’s been told that over and over, but it’s like he’s not hearing it.
What kind of victory is it to destroy an entire planet to defeat Knives? It’s certainly a sin like the Fleet commander says. Asking God for His blessing is certainly a decision in this case, one almost bordering on blasphemy, asking God for His blessing to commit a sin.
Of course, Knives is so powerful he keeps that from happening. But he’s become so inhuman to get that powerful. It’s been happening for ages, but I feel like he’s reached his peak now. Just look at him.

Vance loses hope when he sees the Fleet go down, but when Meryl and Milly see they’re still alive, they get right back to work. I love them so much. Life on No Man’s Land is hard but it’s also what makes them so resilient. They make their own hope and they’re used to working for the hard times. As long as they’re still alive, they’re not done.
Say it, Meryl! Despite Vash’s efforts, he can’t do it alone. The only way to succeed is by working together. Not just humans working together, but humans and Plants together as well.
Whoa, what did Vash do? Also where is he? Meryl and Milly found him but where did they put him? Did they just dump him somewhere while they kept working on making contact with the dependent Plants?

Ch 5

“What’s there left to see?” → Coming from Vash, that thought is so hopeless. It means he’s given up on Rem’s promise of a blank ticket, the very core of his ideals. It’s fitting then, that this chapter is called, Ticket to the Future.
Ok, I see, they put him on the floor in the room they’re working in. I’m happy he at least heard Meryl’s conviction to stand with him even if he probably doesn’t believe it wholeheartedly.
He wants to keep going even though he feels like he can’t. Some small part of him doesn’t want to die.
Vash hears the Plants! That’s why he shoots up like that. And they can hear him too.
I wonder what Knives plan is for after he’s done destroying humanity. Is it to find another planet for Plants to live on their own, away from the influence of humanity?
That’s an insane plan, but that’s Vash for you. His face in this section makes me think he isn’t planning on surviving this either. He’s broken his ideals, he’s lost the future he saw for a moment, he doesn’t think there’s anything left for him to see. But to his dying breath, he’ll fight to make sure humanity at least has a future.

Something about the way Knives screams, “Don’t touch me!” really gets to me. Vash is connecting to the dependent Plants, not him, but since Knives is fused with them, he thinks of them as himself. The thing is…I still don’t think they’re him. He’s taken away their autonomy and made them himself, but they are their own separate beings and in the pursuit of his mission, he’s forgotten that.
Oh, wait, Knives is actually trying to do that now to keep Vash from winning. He’s planning on fully incorporating the Dependents so they have no will of their own at all anymore. Which goes counter to his whole point of giving Plants freedom but when has Knives been anything but the world’s biggest hypocrite in the name of assuaging his own fears?
Vash’s beliefs have kept him going for 150 years. It’s what kept him alive and allowed him to do good. It’s sad that he never lived his life truly for himself, but there’s also something beautiful in him believing so strongly in the Plants and their own will, their power to make their own decision, whatever it might be. It’s a stark contrast to Knives, who isn’t even pretending to give them any choice anymore.
In their own way, Vash and Knives are trying to be saviors and saints. Vash for humanity and Plants and Knives just for Plants. While I think Vash goes about it in such a way that hurts him more than helps him, you can’t say that his efforts have been for nothing, that he hasn’t accomplished any good. He’s definitely saved people and Plants, unlike Knives who claims to do those things, but is really fulfilling his own selfish goals and acting out of fear rather than benevolence or actual belief.
But suddenly, somewhere, Vash has found some hope again. He wants to take that blank ticket for himself. He wants to make a better future and see what that world looks like. The only thing is I can’t figure out what caused this change of heart after he’s spent nearly four volumes now being passively suicidal. My best guess is that connecting with the Plants like that gave him some perspective and reminded him of everything he’d dedicated his life to, everything he’d been fighting for.

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