#but the effects of those elements and the plot resolution is in “idk he dies and loses but also things kinda change from there”

[whatcannotbesaid-shallbewept]

Wicked is a piece of art with two best friends who are separated by their differing ideologies around the corrupt system (Elphaba is an idealist revolutionary, Glinda is a 'realist' working inside the system)

The story ends with them agreeing the Idealist Revolutionary's death will fix the plot

Code Geass is a piece of art with two best friends who are separated by their differing ideologies around the corrupt system (Lelouch is an idealist revolutionary, Suzaku is a 'realist' working inside the system)

The story ends with them agreeing the Idealist Revolutionary's death will fix the plot

Difference being that in Wicked, Glinda (the 'realist') is seen more in the right and in Code Geass, Lelouch (the 'revolutionary') is seen more in the right.

The context of the two planned deaths is very different - one is basically a cover up, to affirm the previous system while Oz still sees Elphaba as evil and the other is to subvert the system entirely

Wicked being affected by Bush era politics is well documented so the Realist being more in the right and the one who actually "gets stuff done" is a lot more reflective of that political mood. The writers thought change from inside the system was the correct way to go about things

Code Geass is a japanese story about Britain forcibly colonising and taking over Japan ... so the story ends with saying "go revolution" because obviously. The work from inside the system guy is clearly wrong (and I can't remember many times the narrative outwardly reinforces his worldview with any results)

Is this interesting

[pelikinesis]

just rewatched Trigun for the first time in probably 10 years or so?

Trigun is often extremely compelling, except when its writing becomes very bad, and by bad I mean dissatisfying in terms of internal logic.

production-wise, i get the sense that they blew the majority of the animation budget on the first two or so episodes, because they’re absolutely gorgeous, but in many of the later episodes they take a lot of shortcuts to the point where some scenes are basically slideshows.

writing-wise, there’s a number of really key moments that are intended to be emotional, but they’re so intent on discussing THEMES and making ON-BRAND CALLBACKS that characters start spouting dialogue in moments that are absolutely unfitting for the situations that were set-up, and a lot of the social issues in the later episodes is due to the fact that absolutely none of the main characters ever explain to anyone else, “Okay so there’s this guy named Knives, and he’s totally the reason why bad things happen around Vash”

and i’m not saying everything would be resolved because they’d be automatically believed, but everything Meryl and Vash say in lieu of that rightfully serve only to infuriate all the scared, misguided people precisely because they’re desperately asking for an explanation and instead they’re told some sanctimonious bullshit about how killing is bad, or so it sounds because it has not been explained to them that Vash is not who they think he is.

in hindsight, i mostly stuck around with this rewatch because of how good the first two episodes were, and the richness of the premise they promised. the idea of a pacifistic but extremely skilled gunman with a legendary reputation who is actually a dork IS interesting, especially when combined with the supporting cast. 

If someone pitched to me an RPG campaign idea set in some sci-fi wild west world where we’d be playing as insurance claims agents sent to make contact with an outlaw so fearsome he’s on the verge of being classified as a natural disaster or act of God, i’d tell them to sign me the fuck up. out of all the backgrounds for a supporting cast in this type of setting, that’s a very fresh one.

the way that all the drama in Vash’s backstory which took place aboard giant spaceships intended to colonize other planets effectively turns his past into that planet’s own Creation story in a way, and how this somewhat subtly casts himself and Knives as angels or demigods is actually way cooler to me now than i ever registered the first time I watched Trigun.

but i just don’t find that the whole Vash-Jesus-Job analogue exactly resonates. There’s no tension because Knives and the Gung-ho Guns are effectively all-powerful, and if they’d been even slightly more competent they’d have succeeded in their goals. But it’s also left completely unexplained why the most loyal of the Gung-ho Guns are loyal to the point of death to Knives, and at this point I’m actually just talking about Legato because the rest of them barely exist. but Legato, wow, what a hot mess of a plot device masquerading as a character. 

early on a question is raised: does Vash manage to get out of life-or-death scrapes with zero fatalities (though lots of property damage) due to dumb luck, or because he’s just that good? But the thing is, it’s never truly answered. Legato, in particular, is central to the least satisfying parts of the story. His powers are the most overtly supernatural and staggering in scope. It’s never explained why he has so little regard not only for the lives of other humans, but for his own life, allowing himself to be a total pawn to Knives despite probably being the most powerful character in the setting. Legato’s arc could have been used to help definitively answer the prior question, but it’s resolved in a different way that i’d call a swerve, but ultimately not a good swerve.

there are certain things i don’t mind not being explained, so long as the lack of information doesn’t turn into plot holes. So for example, i don’t really need to know what the Plants are. They’re humanoid and seemingly-sentient, and somehow provide all the resources humans need to survive on a desert planet. That’s fine. Not knowing how they work is fine. That mystery does not distract from the narrative’s comprehensibility.

But the show is very blatantly one wherein the fate of all humanity always falls on Vash’s shoulders, which is a bit too egoistic a story for my tastes--yet this wouldn’t be a problem if it were done well. i don’t think it is, though, not in its totality anyways.

Legato isn’t the only problem, he just happens to be the biggest problem. Legato isn’t so much a character as he is a plot device, a deus ex machina--not one that *resolves* the problems caused by the plot, but rather *creates* the problem that the plot requires so that the story arrives at the resolution the author wants.

Legato was the *facade* of an interesting character--an immensely powerful psychic with no regard for human life who also enjoyed eating sweets in his spare time. He can mind control hundreds if not thousands of people at once. Cool. Why can he do that, and what does he want? The answers to those two questions respectively are, (1) because shut up, that’s why, and (2) because he wants everything Knives wants because of reasons.

and that second part is infuriating, because in failing to address this, the writers miss an opportunity for exposition that would enrich not only Legato but also Knives as characters, at the same time. *how* did Knives convince Legato and also the saxophone guy to do his bidding loyally until death? Why is it that Legato is absolutely devoted to Knives, whereas Saxophone Guy shows some bitterness as they meet their ends to fulfill Knives’ plan? How has Knives secured their loyalty despite hating humans so much? See, those would have made for interesting moments, if they weren’t absolutely shunted off to the side in favor of varied scenes of Vash coughing up blood as he spouts his beliefs in a way that’s usually out-of-context for his audience.

Now, in other fighting superpower anime, i would normally expect a character such as Legato to be defeated once the protagonist figures out a weakness or limitation in his psychic powers and adopts a strategy to target that vulnerability. In a good fighting superpower anime, i might expect that a powerful psychic might have some vulnerability based on a psychological issue or two. that’s intuitive, and would not only be satisfying for the protagonist’s development to figure all that out, it would simultaneously provide an opportunity for deeper characterization of said psychic villain.

the swerve that instead Vash wins by losing, that is, by finally being forced into a situation where he has to (temporarily) violate his own moral code and shooting Legato dead was somewhat dramatic but only because of the buildup. Actually, one thing I unreservedly applaud Trigun about is the restraint they demonstrated in having Vash not even fire a gun for like the first five or six episodes which, in a 26~ episode show is quite an investment. It also spent even more time building  up like 24-25 episodes of Vash not killing anyone, and then suddenly he did. But that’s the only reason it was remotely dramatic. Legato was an enigma and and obstacle but ended up being an empty contrivance, which was disappointing.

in many early episodes, it was very clearly laid out what the villain and guest protagonists’ motives were and why they had them. the writer(s) clearly knew how to do that even within the span of a single mostly self-contained episode. and that makes the bundles of unanswered questions that Legato’s role in the story and also his existence altogether raise that much more grating on my suspension of disbelief.

As soon as Legato’s whole dilemma was resolved, i couldn’t really engage with the story anymore, save to watch the last few episodes for the sake of doing so, and also out of curiosity for where the writers were going with everything. but i was no longer invested in the characters, because at some point they started saying and doing things in a manner meant to tie a bow on the themes the writers had been harping on the whole series, but not in a way that demonstrated any internal consistency or believability as far as the characters themselves.

Vash and Meryl never tell anyone who Knives is because the writers need Vash to forever be a falsely-accused and persecuted Christ analogue. it’s so freaking transparent, and that’s one of a number of similarly unsatisfying elements to Trigun, and it’s a darned shame. because so much of the show is interesting and promising, but it doesn’t really have the follow-through. idk maybe the manga explains everything.

Finally, there’s no good reason why Knives didn’t just kill Meryl and Milly after Legato died. I’m not saying this because I wanted their characters dead or anything. I’m saying it because if Knives’ whole motivation is to hurt Vash, and if Knives thinks of humans like cockroaches, then why wouldn’t he kill Meryl and Milly not long after Vash breaks his own code against killing just to save them? Why not drive that final nail in the coffin just to spite Vash? 

All we know about Knives is that he’s Vash, but evil, he wants to wipe out humanity because he thinks they are inferior to them, and he wants to break Vash emotionally. Everything he does is motivated by spite towards Vash, and misanthropy, so killing Meryl and Milly while Vash is sulking over the abstract notion of taking a human life due to killing Legato would be the final insult to injury and would be 100% consistent with everything we know about Knives.

And this is why I couldn’t stay engaged with Trigun. Vash only adheres to his beliefs because the villains don’t do everything that’s within their power to break him. I’m not saying I wanted a grimdark downer ending. I’m saying that the only reason Trigun doesn’t have one is because the writers wanted a good ending, which clashed with everything they set up. Vash’s reaffirmation of his beliefs simply isn’t earned, not in my book, because the only reason they remain intact is because of either laziness or neglect on the part of Knives or the writers.