Trigun Bookclub: makima-s-most-smile: Trigun Maximum Volume 2: Part 2

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Trigun Maximum Vol 2 Part 2

Someday I will catch up to the bookclub, but it is not today!

05: Desperado

Oh Gott, all of this. My heart bleeds. Saying that he has no right to hold these innocent kids while he smiles is just heartbreaking. Wolfwood is his own hardest judge. Did killing Rai-Dei and the argument after it trigger this nightmare? His feelings of inadequacy against his morals and how Vash seems to easily keep by them? This whole scene puts Wolfwood’s selfhate into perspective. It shows why he is doing this (for the kids), that he is a big brother to them, a caretaker and how much he judges himself for killing people.

Wolfwood looks like being at the end of his 20s and those kids maybe like 12 years max and they still recognise him.

And then Nightow juxtaposes that heartbreaking scene with this! Damn! Call that a rude awakening! How exhausted must Wolfwood have been to fall asleep while driving Angelina? Did he even sleep after their altercation? And why is Vash down? No, wait! It says that they took shifts driving Angelina! BTW Rip Angelina! Does that mean Wolfwood taught Vash how to drive? It at least looks like the direness of the situation finally dawned on Vash and neither of them wastes any minute with rest to get to Home as fast as possible! Even if Vash sucks at driving, he’s willing to learn to save his close ones. Nice detail! (It also reminds me of my recurring nightmares of being put behind the wheel due to some vague, dire threat all the while knowing that I cannot drive at all. But I push through!)

And while it is funny and I love the tonal whiplash I get from these quick changes, it sometimes takes a bit from the hard scenes for me. The nightmare had been so incredibly heart wrenching and now we are back to the sillies. We never really linger on the bad, we never get to process it, really, we never really draw conclusions from it. But it adds on. Because we never linger, even we only have the gift of hindsight. Also, while we, the reader, get to understand Wolfwood better, the other characters are denied the same and that is a massive letdown, at least for me. Does Vash know about Wolfwood’s nightmares? Do the girls know? If they know, did they ever try and talk about it? Or did they “just” draw conclusions from it? We don’t see that. But that is such an important part of their interpersonal relationships! Such things make and break it. That’s why I love so many fanfiction where those scenes are added! Stampede got the critique that it is too fast paced, but Trigun as a whole is. And that is one of the few downvotes I have to give the story.

And we get thrown back right into one of the main conflicts in the story. How far are you willing to go to protect your family?

What I like about this family from the start is that even being in a dire situation they do not turn away people in need. And not gonna lie, Wolfwood does not look trustworthy like this. But maybe his rundown look sold the whole “Help please!” Most people are inherently good or at least not evil. We meet many side characters on the way that drive that lesson down. For every Rodrick slaver there is a Lina, an old pair keeping care of the bio plant, there is a father allowing our protagonists rest.

How Nightow draws hands, especially how he draws Wolfwood smoking. Damn! Just DAYUMM!

And here we see one of the reasons why I like Wolfwood so much. He is constantly reflecting and trying to understand Vash. Even while Wolfwood is on Knives’ pay list, he still cares for Vash. It is Vash’s life on the line. And even if he hates it, Wolfwood cares about it. And this care threatens his own life.

This here is not only Wolfwood reflecting upon Vash’s inhuman ideals, he is also reflecting his own life and the worth of it. We don’t know what exactly Wolfwood lived through till now, but we got a pretty clear picture of Wolfwood being a victim that had to grow up in this world without any real protection. Wolfwood’s bitterness and cynicism don’t stem from nothing, it comes from being part of one of the most powerless groups in the whole world, a former orphan without any patron.

Wolfwood’s crisis here is less about Vash being a pacifist (by No-Man’s-Land definition), it is about Wolfwood’s strict morals, how he compares himself to Vash and about his position as his assigned gun-ho-gun. Wolfwood, by choosing his own life (even when taking into consideration that he does use his life to protect others) and thus taking lives from other people, can never be someone good. It goes against his moral code. His hands are bloodied and can never be clean. No redemption. He’s a lost cause. That’s why Wolfwood feels that Vash rubs it in, that’s why Wolfwood feels like Vash used him to kill Rai-Dei to keep his own hands clean. But more so he most likely will be forced to fight Vash to the death. Who should he choose? Himself and thus the orphanage or an inhuman being that is so much better than he could be. Again, Wolfwood is a lost cause.

What Wolfwood is unable to see is that he is so much closer to Vash than he thinks, just on a more human scale. Yes, he uses his role as the protector of the orphanage as his reason to survive even though he hates himself, but he still puts the life of others above his own. Without the orphanage, Wolfwood wouldn’t be, well, Wolfwood. Protection is such an ingrained part of him that he would cease without it.

“Makes me sick…” Is Wolfwood verbalising his inner turmoil. By now he is beyond anger, there is hurt and desperation. The damocles’ sword is hanging over him, the string will snap sooner or later and he has no one to confide in or even to take the sword down.

And here we have the dad being willing to die for his family. Is the dad naive to think he can do it alone? Yeah. But going in two wouldn’t be better. It’s a difficult situation and the family is completely alone in their community. There is no right answer! And the father is right with his perspective that not everyone can gamble with their lives easily.

The people are drenched with high percent alcohol and Vash lets the lighter drop! NO WAY THAT NO ONE DIED THERE! Vash! A pacifist you are!

And Wolfwood’s crisis deepens! While we saw Vash comically staggering through the conflict, Wolfwood saw him last barely conscious, in a really cruddy state and now he has to rescue Vash again after Vash went off to endanger himself and thus Wolfwood again. (Did Wolfwood kill the guy? More blood on Wolfwood’s hand on top of all of this!) It is not a far leap to step from anger to fear.

06: Home Sweet Home

And we start with a bang.

Wolfwood! The whole scene! The motion! But the white clothes and the white background! Wolfwood all in white an innocent kid in this cruel world. This is beautiful. In a really sad way.

Was this on an assassination mission? Or before that? Since he is wearing a suit and says he already stained his hands in blood, I assume the first option. I think ‘98 gave Wolfwood the backstory that he had to kill his father and went from there to the training, but here we don’t get such. We only get the hint that he either has been abandoned at birth or had been on the street for a while -> being born in a ditch. Even as a kid, he had no hope for a future… And worse, he didn’t want to live, he “just” didn’t want to die. That is a very important difference. High Functioning depression, your name is Wolfwood!

Not gonna lie, the house around the anchor holding the ropeway to Home looks like it is seconds away from breaking away into the void.

Ah, yes, their married, but divorced banter being a gateway to Wolfwood trying to understand Vash better, again. And maybe try to be understood, too. (And get some kind of absolution.)

I think it is interesting to see that Wolfwood prepared himself for the talk. He waits, oversees the scenery, puts on his sunglasses and then he sits down and has the talk he does not want to have with Vash. Wolfwood says so much about himself here, while he puts a divider between Vash and himself. He sets a boundary between them. My life comes first, your ideals after that. I will play by your rules as long as I can, but my point to stop playing is different than yours. I cannot be like you. Moreso, he hides behind his glasses. He has put on his serious face. He doesn’t let Vash near him, while being incredibly vulnerable towards Vash. As another user pointed out, Wolfwood’s eyes are shown as bright when he is emotional.

But he says more. He didn’t choose this lifestyle. He does not want this. He has charges he takes care of, and that’s why he has to protect himself, too. He doesn’t kill with anger or ill will. He prays for the other’s soul! His way of killing is direct and leaves no room to suffer relentlessly. Fuck, it could be read as mercyful. By changing to Vash’s lifestyle, he would endanger everything he cares for! But he wishes he could! Wolfwood cares so much. And he plays the devil because he protects others from going down the same path. If he didn’t have anyone to protect, he may be able to go as far as Vash does. But Wolfwood has no agency in this. It is a warning about Wolfwood’s reason why he travels with Vash, but also a cry for help. Wolfwood is fragile, he is mortal, he will die. From Wolfwood’s perspective, Vash is on a completely different plane of existence. He is only human, after all. But it does not read as dehumanising Vash, but putting himself down, at least for me.

And that honesty reaches Vash. Vash reciprocates with his own vulnerability. That he doesn’t know the right answer to all of this and that this whole moral dilemma is too big for him to find a solution. It goes against Wolfwood’s perspective of Vash being a higher being. But, sadly, they get interrupted. I would have liked to be a fly on the wall if this talk went further.

I love how small Vash and Wolfwood are against the structures of Home. It gives you a feeling of dire foreboding. Especially paired with Vash reflecting upon his own values and past, how everything comes back to Knives. And with that his internal conflict of Kill Knives or not? Because that is undoubtedly there.

And all of that falls from us when the doors open and we walk into the garden together. Everyone is alive. The threat didn’t come to fruition.

Except! JINKS! ALL ARE DEAD! Leonof has the “eternal suffering”-part of his mission really down to the T.

He wasn’t there for 12 years, but please don’t put it in those kinds of words… I know it is meant to be read as funny and reassuring, but… Well, Leonof controls them and he is not really of sound mind. It also, again, makes Vash feel less human than these people. Vash is an outlier and the world moves on without him.

07. Darkness

Yeah, puppet master. Vash showing real emotions is… well, he is a real person and those are people who he cares about. You don’t care about them, because in your mind you made everything a stage play. Nothing is real for you. And that’s why you can vivisect people, which adds another level of horror and torture to the whole scene. A good death is dying for Leonof’s art? For the person dying, surely not. For Leonof? Yeah, that way his stage play comes the closest to reality.

As so often, Wolfwood acts first. He attacks his fellow gun-ho-gun and judges his behaviour. Dunno, Wolfy, in comparison to him you are not even close to devillike. But why would Leonof answer with “That’s my line!”. Maybe because Wolfwood seems to be betraying the gung-ho-guns or maybe because Leonof assumes that Wolfwood will get Vash’s trust to then stab him in the back, adding the pain of betrayal to injury. Their goal is to make Vash experience eternal suffering, isn’t it?

Ah, yes, the not really explained psychological aura-projection/emotional projection from the independent plants. Vash is torn apart by emotions and his inhumanity shows. He is unable to control himself. How exactly? We can’t tell much more than that he releases a horrific presence. It may even be physical, if we take his coat billowing as wind taking up. It could also be that his coat is considered a part of him and it moves because of that. The other two don’t go through grief, they don’t cry, they are just scared by/of Vash. So, though Vash’s emotions cause the aura, I don’t think he shares his emotions with them. Sure, grief could be described as darkness beyond imagination, but Wolfwood has experienced near-death… uh… experiences himself, so he should be able to describe it. But Wolfwood also describes it as Vash’s mind bleeding out. So who knows? The readers? Nah. Nightow? I don’t think so.

And, damn, that bloody tear. Great way to show the level of hurt. We will never get to see it again.

I… really have problems reading that scene. What are they saying without words? Take care of that one, will ya? Don’t kill them? But whatever is really said, Wolfwood’s curse reads to me that whatever Vash just asked him to do, Wolfwood will do. But he will curse and grumble while doing so. Combat bestie goals *wipes away tear*

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