I’ve begun to watch the latest season of Trigun (Trigun Stargaze, to be precise) and while there’s still more to watch before I share my thoughts on it, it did kind of jiggle something loose when I started watching it last weekend. You see, I first watched Trigun about fifteen years ago and it quickly became my favorite anime. A cheerful, happy protagonist (Vash the Stampede) who endured endless suffering but still managed to get out there every day and crow about love and peace? That was what I aspired to be for quite a while. It was easy to admire his dedication to not killing anyone, his ability to endure in the face of unspeakable pain, and his willingness to sacrifice himself in order to save others. After all, that aligned him with the vision of myself I’d been raised to hold and it fed into the still-unhealthy parts of said vision that I carried forward into my adulthood. It was easy to take his side as he preached against killing, as he tried to redeem his ally (Nicholos D. Wolfwood) who would kill as he thought he must, and just as easy to mourn but celebrate Wolfwood’s death at the end of the first anime (the one from the late 90s) because Wolfwood ultimately chose the path of nonviolence and self-sacrifice. These days, it is much less easy. These days, after decades of self-sacrifice and burning myself up (and out) to keep others warm, I find my perspective has shifted. I still appreciate Vash and his optimision, I still appreciate his commitment to protection, but I can’t really align myself with it any more. I like what he does, I like the way that he is perhaps the least gun-using gunslinger in this western-adjacent anime of the last few years. But I find myself on Wolfwood’s side more and more now. Sometimes, no matter what you want, no matter how much you sacrifice, no matter how strongly you will it, some one needs to be stopped and you won’t be able to redeem them.

Because that was the thing. Vash’s self-sacrifice was always an act of redemption for his foes or the people he was protecting, in both the original anime and the manga. He would, by refusing to engage in the brutal mathematics that so many believed the world demanded, show his foes that another way was possible. Death was not the only resolution. Sure, many of those people wound up dying at the hands of his other enemies, at their own hands, or at Wolfwood’s hands, but it was only after they’d gone through a change of heart. The same change of heart that eventually came for Wolfwood. In the original anime, it gets him killed without redeeming someone. In the manga, it gets him killed but still redeems someone else. It’s a very fraught thing, considering that Wolfwood is the primary voice for the “reasonable” argument against Vash’s desire for peace without killing. He engages in the same kind of sacrifice that Vash does and it claims his life, a thing he is happy to do because he came around to Vash’s way of thinking. And then beyond this little duo, we have the less reasonable arguments, espoused by the nigh-genocidal foes who would kill all of humanity in order to bring peace. Each side of this argument wants to live in peace, to bring peace to their conflict-ravaged world, and yet their methods are all so different.

These days, I can’t find it in myself to fault Wolfwood’s logic. After all, even as Vash brings Wolfwood over to his way of thinking, there is always a situation not long after that proves Wolfwood correct as well. Sometimes, someone can only be stopped by killing them. A person so powerful that mercy cannot be deployed without risk to their potential victims. Someone who is so ideologically corrupted by their choices that their course cannot be righted. And Vash finds himself in a position where he must kill or let all of his work to save the people of his world be for nothing. Where he must kill or let even greater amounts of death fall on his conscience for failing to act when he could have prevented it. Because that’s true. Some people cannot be saved. Some people have no desire to change and aren’t lashing out in pain because the cruelties of life have overwhelmed their ability to find another way. Some poeple are just awful, cruel, and their only desire is to make others suffer. What’s interesting about the manga is that it doesn’t really come down one way or another. It leaves the ultimate decision about whose choice of action is correct up to you. The original anime, on the other hand, makes it clear that mercy is the correct choice, despite everything that happens. Which is probably why I’m more drawn to the manga these days, than the original anime, and why I’m so invested in Trigun Stampede and Stargaze. The modern show seems to be focusing on this question, of which method (Wolfwood’s or Vash’s) is correct as it shows examples of both of them being wrong as well as both of them being right. It highlights the bitter cruelty of Wolfwood’s choices and the danger that comes from Vash’s, all while never letting the characters resolve this conflict one way or another as someone else always shows up to interrupt their conversations when it comes up.

I wish I could still embrace the naive peace and love of Vash the stampede. I mean, I’m certainly not about to go around killing people I think deserve it. But I can’t say that I entirely agree with him any more than I can say I entirely agree with Wolfwood. After all, so many people who joined ICE in recent years have done so because they are destitute and have no other options. And yet so many more of them joined for a chance to live out cruel fantasies spawned by the unchecked propagandized violence of games like Call of Duty (it’s genuinely kind of disgusting how much violent, war-based video games like COD get referenced as inspirations or fantasies by these would-be murderers). You can’t really come up with a blanket policy to handle that stuff (though I will say that eventually even those pulled in by economic factors lose the right to distinguish themselves from their hate-mongering, violent allies and while I know where I’d draw the line for that, I’m not going to tell you where to draw it for yourself). All you can do is take it on a case by case basis. But I know where I’m leaning by default and it is no longer the side that would sacrifice the self so that someone who committed multiple atrocities could be redeemed. I just can’t believe in the rightness of that any more. Which is why I’m curious to see how Stargaze plays out. I want to see where this adaption of this story falls: what course of action it suggests. There’s a lot of room for nuance here, after all. And just as much room for a clear, stark statement.