Trigun Symbolism

SarahtheBoring · Post by **SarahtheBoring** » Sun Jun 13, 2004 9:57 pm

btw. Now that my resting heart rate is back to normal. I don't think it's so much "love thy enemy" as "love everyone." Rem's philosophy was based in making your own way in life, personal freedom, and free will, some of which are not terribly Christian ideals ("not my will but Thine").

I think equating the whole thing down to "A=B" is overly simplistic and does a great injustice to the series, but I seem to be writing into a vacuum here, so I won't pursue that point any further.

Escaflowne22 · Post by **Escaflowne22** » Mon Jun 14, 2004 7:49 am

Good post sarah , i enjoyed the read, going to class now though, i'll post more on it later.

HeartbreakerByZep · Post by **HeartbreakerByZep** » Mon Jun 14, 2004 12:07 pm

Anything that uses symbols to express a thought can be considered symbolism.

Forgive me if I don't know how to express "actual thought."

derek_t · Post by **derek_t** » Mon Jun 14, 2004 10:45 pm

SarahtheBoring wrote:btw. Now that my resting heart rate is back to normal. I don't think it's so much "love thy enemy" as "love everyone." Rem's philosophy was based in making your own way in life, personal freedom, and free will, some of which are not terribly Christian ideals ("not my will but Thine").

I think equating the whole thing down to "A=B" is overly simplistic and does a great injustice to the series, but I seem to be writing into a vacuum here, so I won't pursue that point any further.

What do you think love thy enemy means, its easy to love those that love us back. Its those that do us harm (or we believe do us harm no matter how unfounded the believe is) we want to destory. Knives want to destroy humanity for misusing the plants (I'm oversimplying the sentence becuase I don't want to write a damm novel, yes I know there more to it because of his physche, but in essense that is the reason). Wolfwood want to protect those he cares about, and in doing so kills those who threaten them. Vash starts off (well episode 13) wanting to destroy Knives and get vengence. He changes him mind and decides to, I believe his quote is "take care of Knives". This seems to me like love thy enemy.

Maybe its not the point to the story, but it is a message in it, don't tell me that unless its the point every other message has no meaning in a story.

SarahtheBoring · Post by **SarahtheBoring** » Tue Jun 15, 2004 7:04 pm

(HBZ, sorry about that dig - I was just disappointed that what could be a really interesting discussion was mostly one-liners until then. I'll retract my snark.)

derek - Yeah, I can see that, and I'm glad to see the line interpreted as I understand it, too. (hooray.) And put that way, yeah, I can see some reflection of that. Most people would expect him to kill Knives because of what he threatened to do and all the deaths he's caused - heck, I kind of expected him to kill Knives when I first saw it. Yet he didn't. Because the idea is that everyone is valuable. This isn't the same thing, but understanding why it makes sense not to kill him does connect to "love your enemy" - it's easy to say GET THE BAD GUY!, and those who can see past that can also understand the idea of love thy enemy.

But I don't know if that's the message that was intended. I guess it could be there without being mentioned, but the focus was always that all life is valuable. That isn't quite the same thing as "love thy enemy," which is more like "prove how forgiving and wonderful you are by being nice to absolutely everyone." The speech was about proving how much better you are than the heathens by doing difficult things. If someone slaps you, give him your other cheek; if he takes your coat, give him your shirt as well etc. Take the difficult road, thus proving you're a more virtuous person than everybody else. This, I think, is a different focus than the "everyone is valuable" idea, which ends up in a similar place from a different starting point.

I don't know if Vash ever wanted vengeance. He seemed undecided through most of this time. He was looking for Knives, but I don't remember his ever talking about destroying him.

And yeah, I think you can draw a lot of conclusions from one story, I just don't see the same message in it. Everyone can draw their own opinion, that's what's fun about ambiguity. 8)

derek_t · Post by **derek_t** » Wed Jun 16, 2004 8:36 am

On the vengence ideal. I'm think Vash has rationalized it as "protecting those he cares about" the same Wolfwood has. And while Vash never does say "I'm going to destory Knives" he does point his angel arm right at him in the flashback (I certain the intent wasn't to just hurt him but to hope his angel arm could kill him).

chabols · Post by **chabols** » Wed Jun 16, 2004 9:19 am

derek_t wrote:On the vengence ideal. I'm think Vash has rationalized it as "protecting those he cares about" the same Wolfwood has. And while Vash never does say "I'm going to destory Knives" he does point his angel arm right at him in the flashback (I certain the intent wasn't to just hurt him but to hope his angel arm could kill him).

no i don't belive that vash inded to kill knives with the angle arm at july, i think since vash had no idea what the angel are was or did at that time it was more a way of telling knives to stop controling his arm. Although this is just my take on that situation i very well could be wrong.

HeartbreakerByZep · Post by **HeartbreakerByZep** » Wed Jun 16, 2004 12:03 pm

SarahtheBoring wrote:(HBZ, sorry about that dig - I was just disappointed that what could be a really interesting discussion was mostly one-liners until then. I'll retract my snark.)

Apology accepted. I have a big ego