#Furthering his goals of destroying humanity AND Vash | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

nanomooselet · 4 months

Text

Elendira the Crimsonnail (II)

It's within your right to care not at all about any defence I mount of Elendira in Stampede. This is profoundly not my wheelhouse and I'm no fan of the creepy little girl archetype myself - but I think she's not going to stay as she is forever, and I think she serves a thematic purpose. Whether that justifies the new backstory for her is, of course, up to you.

Right. I'll need to start with the fact that in Stampede, Knives hates women. Oh, certainly Knives attacks and kills a lot of people - after all, his stated goal is the genocide of the human race - and many of his victims are men, since they typically make up the majority of fighting forces. But with them he's eliminating a threat. He's efficient about it. They're dead or at least incapacitated before they know anything. Think the Plant technicians, the MPs in July, the patrol officer outside Jeneora Rock.

It's when he targets women that he's hateful. Rosa's people didn't have to die like that. Knives drew it out for fun and let Rosa live with witnessing it. Similarly, he hated Luida so much he went for the throat bare-handed. He didn't get to Meryl, but Knives was so determined to harm her that it took Vash a few tries to redirect his attention while she fled. Let's also not forget that his abuse of Vash is centred around trying to destroy all influence Rem, a woman, had on his brother. Knives is openly contemptuous of human women in a way he simply isn't with men - Meryl is a "disgusting parasite", Luida a "witch".

You'd think championing Tesla and the dependent Plants (whom he refers to as female) would check him some - but it doesn't! Because they're defined by helplessness. They can't argue or tell him he's wrong, nor can they leave him or hurt him or take Vash from him. I'm sure he cares about them but, well, he cares about Vash too, and we know how that works out.

And thus of Knives's closest followers, only Elendira is afforded a place among their ranks. No others allowed. I have a feeling it'll be a little more gender-balanced once Legato steps in (he's got an entirely different flavour of hang-up), but that's for the future.

So why is Elendira the exception?

For a start, she's more directly attached to Dr. Conrad than Knives himself. Conrad seems to treat her as his companion or child, though she doesn't seem terribly fond of him or inclined to respect him. She is loyal to Knives, enough to recoil from Vash for being a "traitor".

In addition, she's Knives's partial clone. Knives is extremely self-absorbed, and she does look like he did as a boy. On a creepier note, she looks like Vash, too.

She's also not human. From what I can tell, rather she's a sort of an Independent/dependent Plant, a hybrid of their characteristics. Her body has proportions similar to the dependent Plants when they're unfurled, except on smaller scale and without the "petals" - large head, big eyes, long hands/feet, slender body - and, like them, she lacks sexual characteristics (so, she's arguably not a woman either - but put a pin in that). She can survive outside her case and doesn't need to eat or drink. However, her Gate seems too weak to afford her the toughness and regenerative abilities of the twins. Which probably explains why she reacted the way she did to a relatively minor cut.

I think her genetic makeup might be why she hasn't grown beyond "childhood". She isn't a child, she's a fully-developed adult. It's just that she's got the proportions of a fully-developed adult Plant, which look childish to a human. And might explain why she flat-out murders Roberto for being unable to look past that and see the threat she represents.

Anyway, I imagine, for Elendira, the problem is that the whole fact of her existence brings with it... expectations. The most obvious:

Elendira is almost certainly an attempt by Dr. Conrad to further his "atonement" by recreating Tesla to give her another chance at life. He probably treats her like one, anyway, even if not consciously. (Whether or not she has any part of Tesla integrated into her is an interesting question but not relevant - it's an emotional thing.)

Yet Tesla remains a silent victim. It's her tragedy. That's all she ever got to be and all that she will ever be. Elendira simply isn't Tesla - might even have come to resent Tesla, because this poor little girl no one ever got to know has overshadowed her entire life. She's a sibling El can never surpass. Forever perfect because she never got to be enough of a person to disappoint anyone. It's no wonder Elendira hates being pitied if it means being reminded that Tesla, born an Independent, is a standard she falls short of - but all the ways Tesla was superior didn't save her from the fate she suffered. She isn't Tesla. She can't be Tesla. She refuses to be.

And then there's this asshole.

(Vash is of course the perfect precious boy, but I'm talking from Elendira's perspective.)

We don't outright hear how Knives talks about Vash to his followers, but Elendira gives us a hint. She calls him a traitor and won't allow him to even touch her. We know Knives is obsessed with his twin to the exclusion of anything or anyone else (ask Legato) - and I suspect he sought replacement in his followers… but you know how it is when you're around someone who's really hung up over an ex? (Again whether it's romantic or not really doesn't matter, he's Very Normal etc.) Knives hates every single choice his brother's ever made but it's painfully obvious that he'll never love anyone else. For Elendira, that's another sibling setting a standard she'll never reach in a game she didn't sign up to play. She isn't Vash. She can't be Vash. She refuses to merely be a replacement for Vash, who hurt Lord Knives so deeply.

So fuck all that, right?

Given the scanty details we've been given, I can easily imagine her deciding she won't play anymore. She won't be Tesla. She won't be Vash. Instead, she'll carve out her own identity. Tesla didn't get to grow up, so Elendira's an adult and nobody's victim. Vash is a sentimental idiot, so she's the woman who kills without pity.

I can also easily imagine her going to Dr. Conrad and leaning on him to make improvements after the Punisher defeated her. She already wears lipstick and colours her nails, along with wearing a pink dress - experimenting with her presentation - and uses very adult, aggressively femme body language and articulation.

In short, I get the feeling Elendira dislikes her look as much as the fans do. And she's going to try and remedy it at the earliest opportunity.

@ultraviolet-cello

Part I

And one more important detail.

#trigun stampede #trigun meta #tristampparty #elendira the crimsonnail #she's claudia in interview with a vampire basically #unlike poor claudia elendira has options #what a fantastically horrible little family unit #neat how knives tells vash he pities him after elendira reacted to being pitied with homicide

57 notes · View notes

avitus-ostrander · 1 year

Text

On Knives and Plants

I see a lot of people saying that Knives does not care about plants. That he treats them like things and takes away their agency.

Firstly, what agency?

Did they choose to be put in tanks and used for their ability to create? When they’re dying, do they say to someone “hey, I’m about to die. Please force me to use up all of my energy in one last, painful burst if it will make your lives better.”?

Could Knives go about things better? Of course. There are areas where one can say he is objectively in the wrong - that he is objectively doing something selfish. But when it comes to plants, I disagree.

I’ve seen people say all he cares about in Stampede is reaching the higher dimension. Why, though? What purpose does that serve if not to ultimately help the plants? He wants them all to be independent, like him.

In Stampede, Conrad says the plants are soulless husks. That that’s the difference between Vash and Knives and other plants. He says their true being is located elsewhere and their physical forms are just a window between those worlds.

If Knives feels this way, does it not stand to reason that he feels this because that is what he was taught?

Conrad also says that in order to give the plants souls, they must connect to the core.

Knives doesn’t need the core to help himself. If everything he does is selfish, there is no reason to include the plants at all.

If he considered himself better than them - if he thought they were soulless husks - he could just kill them. He doesn’t need their power in order to wipe out what remains of humanity. He can do that on his own. He made the ships crash without the help of plants. He destroyed Jeneora Rock using his own abilities.

He doesn’t even need to expend the kind of power he did at Jeneora Rock if he wants to kill humans. Knives could go from town to town, destroying these ‘inferior’ plants and leaving the people behind to suffer and die.

He doesn’t do that. He brings the plants with him. In Stampede, the red ones are to further his goals.

One could argue that is selfish.

Is it worse, however, than humans doing it? Knives is one of them. He believes he is using the last of their energy for something that will ultimately benefit all plants. The plants cannot fully articulate their will. Knives has to interpret it. He sees them suffering and it hurts him and he wants that to stop.

One could argue that he only does this to ease his own pain.

He is almost certainly projecting, to a degree. He knows how he would feel in that position. He is scared of what it means when he sees how little humans value the lives of plants.

I don’t think that means he doesn’t care about them. I don’t think it means he doesn’t feel for them.

Re-l makes some very good points about his behavior toward plants in the manga in this post. https://www.tumblr.com/re-l/713763378777227264/idk-i-guess-the-comparisons-between-tristamp-and?source=share

I agree with most of that. (Except where it concerns his behavior in Stampede, for the reasons I’ve mentioned above).

However, I will get into the manga myself a little bit here.

Knives lives his whole life in service of one goal. He says himself (Trimax vol. 8, ch. 2) that his only purpose is to save the imprisoned plants. He doesn’t say his goal is to destroy humanity. He just says that is an acceptable side effect of his actions.

When the plants ultimately abandon him, he says he’ll keep fighting, but only shortly after that he wishes for Vash to kill him. (Trimax vol. 14, ch. 7)

I’ve seen people complain about how he handles the dead plants in Stampede. In the manga, he and Vash both acknowledge that humans throw away plant corpses like garbage. (Trimax vol. 8, ch. 1) Many human funeral rites are designed to give peace to the living, but Knives is not going to find peace in using human rituals for dead plants.

Could he have come up with something better than decorating his piano room with them? Maybe. But I believe it is unfair to say he is wholly selfish there.

Look at how he reacts during the Last Run.

Here is a close-up of Knives’ expression in this scene. He looks like he is about to cry before he redirects that into anger.

And here is what he is seeing as he makes that face.

He reaches out to the plants. He demands that Conrad save them.

When the plants die, Knives falls to his knees. He isn’t attacking anyone yet. He doesn’t care about how he is perceived or about trying to act strong. He is truly devastated. It isn’t until Vash shows up that he composes himself. And it isn’t until Vash does not react to the plight of the plants that he becomes violent.

Plants are, arguably, the only thing Knives cares about in a way that is not twisted and selfish. He is willing to die for them.

He gives everything for them, in every iteration of Trigun.

#Millions Knives #Trigun #Trigun spoilers #It just hurts me to see people twist this genuine dedication and emotion into something disgusting and evil #He does not treat the people around him well #He does not treat his brother well #But I do not believe it was ever his intention to be cruel to plants #Even if no one reads this or agrees - I just needed to say it

47 notes · View notes

deludedfantasy · 8 months

Text

Trimax Vol 13 Ch 1-4

I'm leaving on vacation this week, so I want to get my thoughts out before I go. Unfortunately, I'll be too busy to really participate in volume 14 next week, but I'll be reading along and reading what everyone else has to say. But without further ado, part 1 of my thoughts on volume 13!

Ch 1

Legato is back on his killing Vash bullshit. He is so devoted to Knives that he would go against what he wants to give him what he thinks he deserves. There are so many levels of mental gymnastics going on here, I kinda can’t keep up.

Chronica is so past the point of caring about anything except her own revenge. Civilians in the city beneath her? Who cares! She just wants to destroy Knives. I wonder if it’s about more than the fact that he killed Domina, if there’s something about the fact that he’s an Independent that’s causing so much damage and giving Independents a bad name that’s driving her to act like this.

Of all the human villains Vash has faced, Legato is truly the most powerful, the one who he would have the hardest time standing against regardless of his morals. How do you fight a guy who can control your entire body? How do you fight someone who is so obsessed with killing you, he’d do anything to achieve it?

This conversation between Knives and Legato is interesting. Let’s see if I can get my thoughts about it straight. Legato still wants to kill Vash for whatever he did to Knives, even though Knives doesn’t want that and seems to want Vash’s death to be at his own hands. Legato desperately wants to prove to Knives how loyal he is—and Knives flat out tells him he doesn’t care.

That’s such a blow. And I imagine it would only motivate Legato more, to prove that he is worthy, that he can hold Vash and defeat him, to make himself worthy in the eyes of his god, his truest love, whatever Knives is to him.

Knives is so cruel to him. What a thing to say to someone who has only ever followed you and done what you asked of them. It makes you feel bad for Legato.

I personally have never been able to decide if Knives really cares about Legato or views him as a useful tool. Or if it’s a combination of the two, hampered by his ideology which doesn’t allow him to care about humans or see them as anything other than lowly parasites. This conversation just muddies the waters even more for me. He’s so dismissive of him and his powers whereas at other times he’s shown, at least in his actions, that he cares about Legato and his survival.

Then Legato also says, “His beliefs against my loyalty.” Which knowing what I know actually feels like a bit of foreshadowing…

Watching Vash fight Legato’s powers is so devastating. And I thought seeing him purposefully push himself closer to death was bad. This is just…a lot.

Add on Legato’s commentary to it and I feel like I’m chewing on glass. It’s been said over and over again lately, but something about Legato pointing it out and the blank look on Vash’s face fills me with indescribable emotions.

Vash is pushing so hard because he doesn’t want to live anymore. He doesn’t care about the pain or staying alive. Sure, he has a goal to accomplish, but what happens after that doesn’t matter, so he’ll push past the normal limits to do what he has to do.

What a strange moment of connection too, when Legato sees his own face reflected in Vash’s. They are enemies but they recognize this in each other. Usually, it’s painted as a bad thing when a villain says to a hero, “You’re just like me.” It’s certainly not good, but I don’t know. There’s no real moral judgment here. It’s just Legato realizing that Vash is more human than he originally thought. At least that’s the way I see it.

Finally, the reveal of the coins and what they do! It’s…a tool to let Legato have a “fair” final battle with Vash? Vash certainly doesn’t sound happy about that.

Ch 2

Oh, Vash is angry about this. All those deaths, all those people’s lives sacrificed, just for Legato to play this little game with Vash? What a cruel waste of life that spits in the face of everything Vash believes in.

Legato, what the actual fuck. He just…puts Vash’s gun in his mouth??? What a move though, what a way to prove himself right. That Vash won’t shoot him even when he can put the gun straight into his mouth.

Okay, I have no idea what’s happening here other than Legato executing some incredibly complicated maneuver and Vash still not shooting him because he’s Vash. But also how does he not crack his teeth doing all of that and keeping Vash’s gun in his mouth for the majority of it?

Livio and Elendira have the best fight banter. I’m living for it.

It’s nice to see Livio be confident about something, even if it’s his own fighting prowess. He’s been so anxious and unsure up to now, it’s great to see him really go for something.

Livio, why are you being so cute right now? You’re in the middle of battle!

Meanwhile, the Earth fleet secretly descends to the planet’s surface. I wonder what they’re planning?

Ch 3

Where in the world did Legato get his giant Iron Maiden mace from? Like, where has he been hiding it this entire time? I know I won’t get an answer because Nightow plays by the rule of cool, but it’s just so funny.

I don’t know why I’m even surprised by Legato at this point. Licking Vash’s blood from the floor? Okay, why not!

So Vash and Legato both want to die, but it’s in very different ways. Vash doesn’t see a place for himself in the world anymore and he can’t see a future beyond this battle. Meanwhile, Legato almost wants to die to prove a point—the ultimate representation of his loyalty to Knives. He’ll die trying to kill Vash the Stampede for him, because his life doesn’t matter, only Knives’s mission. I don’t really know what to make of it, other than it makes Legato a very dangerous person for Vash to be fighting right now. Because nothing will make him stop.

“Tell me, if it were not for you, would he have accepted me?” → Is Legato implying that he’s been trying to act as a replacement Vash for Knives? The trusted brother and confidant Knives supposedly always wanted Vash to be and Legato has desperately been trying to fill that role for years? No wonder Legato hates Vash so much.

Livio, sweetheart, I love you so much. Runs around mid fight to get his hat and cloak back like he’s Indiana Jones, makes the cutest little face when he gets them back. They’re so important to him. He literally just got them and he’s unwilling to let them go! They’re the symbol of the new man he’s trying to become. Truly, he’s stronger with them.

Ch 4

There’s something about Elendira’s new outfit that reminds me of a skeleton. Or more of an exoskeleton. It’s so strange and we’ve never seen her in it before. Who is this mysterious woman and what is she going to do now?

She’s moving so much faster and she’s suddenly smoking? These are some new and unknown powers for her.

These poor soldiers are not having a good night at all. Imagine a giant ship just appearing in front of you while the world is ending. I’d be pretty freaked out too.

But can we trust these new people from the Earth Fleet? Because so far, the Earth Fleet hasn’t done much to help and Chronica has kind of given up helping humanity in favor of revenge.

As Vance is explaining the situation to Luida and co, I suddenly realized that most people had no idea what was going on or what the Ark was. Or who Knives is! One day, a strange ship just appeared on the horizon, looking like nothing they’d ever seen before, and started destroying everything in sight. That makes the past 7 months even worse.

Now, not only is Knives actively a threat, he’s holding so much power he could literally destroy the planet. One being was never meant to have so much power and it seems like it’s inevitable that he’s going to lose control of it.

Can’t get over this description of Vash or Luida’s face when she realizes who Vance is talking about. “For some reason his hair always stands on end.” He does that on purpose because he likes it, Vance. That’s literally it.

But I wonder how the Earth Fleet knows about him. And how they think he can help that isn’t just fighting Knives.

I think the award for most ridiculous gun in Trigun should go to Legato’s oversized Iron Maiden mace. Because what even. How is that a gun. Why is that a gun. Nightow, I have so many questions.

Wait, did Vash’s coat turn black too? Like in episode 12 of Stampede? He’s using up so much of his power that it isn’t just changing his hair color but the color of his clothing. Or is this just Nightow being symbolic and the coat is still red?

Elendira says something about removing her restraints and now I’m wondering if that skeleton suit is her actual body. And who were the other two people she removed her restraints for? Part of me wonders if one of them was Knives and that’s how they met? Elendira, I have so many questions about where you come from and what your powers are.

And Razlo makes an appearance! We haven’t seen him for a while. I wonder if that’s what Elendira senses here. Though I wonder how she even feels him. Sometimes, the theories about Elendira being part Plant in Trimax feel very correct because of things like this.

#trigunbookclub #trigun

15 notes · View notes