if mean, think about it: if you were a middle class American, would you rather believe your comfort were the product of blood-soaked global resource extraction, or your just reward for not saying "fuck" when there are kids around and only cheating on your spouse when you're drunk
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Idk dude I identify with Legato -- his skills at manipulation are so evolved he does not know who he is and just longs for death by a superior being.
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Legato doesn't have skill at manipulation. It's an unearned power, the result of literally a deal with the devil. Legato is Knives' pawn and he knows it. He longs for the release of death because his continued existence is an affront against free will.
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I don't think his powers came from Knives, though, he follows Knives because his powers don't work on plants. But agreed, he wants to die because he's neither human nor inhuman and his existence calls humanity into question.
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manga and anime differ here in significant ways. in the anime version Knives is responsible for Legato's powers by grafting Vash's amputed arm onto Legato and imbuing him with a fraction of the demigod-like power of the humanoid Plants.
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I see it as ultimately about something like environmentalism. What are our duties towards inferiors? Knives is the Nietzsche espie; Vash believes in harmony. Much of the tension has to do with the interplay between timeless ideals and time bound decision making in the real...
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... world. Hence Wolfwood and Chapel the Evergreen are not truly opposed -- rather, Chapel, like a father, wants to teach Wolfwood that you have to make time bound decisions, even if someone is left worse off. The clock is ticking! Wolfwood learns the lesson, but infects...
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I absolutely agree! But, Vash's attitude is basically that it's worthwhile to sacrifice yourself a little more in order to find a way to do the greater good. Delaying tactics are morally good because you can use that time to do things that seem impossible.
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That may be but he could have prevented a lot of death if he'd just crushed Knives's head when they were kids! His childishness is the source of his virtue but it caused evil.
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And in the end, he chose to 'save' Knives instead of killing him because he rejects the idea that you can't have both. He's almost always found a way to have both, simply because he considered it and valued it when others didn't, and that was worthwhile for him.
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A darker read on the show is that his power allows him to get away with dumb decisions, thus proving he is beyond conventional morality (Knives's thesis), and he elected a foolish and dangerous decision by letting Knives live.
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I think that's the correct and implied authorial reading actually. Meryl and Milly are literally there to inform Vash of the consequences of his decisions and how destructive they are on everyone else even if Vash seems immune to harm from mere humans.
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The reason I don't think that's the correct reading is that the ending reaffirms Vash's position. Vash's behavior is an extreme that's impossible for humans, sure, and he definitely does damage despite trying to minimize it, but he would do more if he was less careful.
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I wouldn't call Knives a nihilist. He has a clear moral system. He sees himself as a representative of a victim race (the plants), and he sees killing any human as justified because humans take energy that he considers the birthright of the plants.
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Knives justifies all human death on the grounds that "killing the spider to save the butterfly" is always justified. Vash has faith that there's always a way to save both and minimize suffering. Until Knives uses Legato to invent a pathological counterexample he's been right.
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Vash isn't a practical role model. He is inhumanly extreme. But, the theme of the show is that being a little more like Vash is probably better for the world. Because humans aren't able to be as extreme as him, we max out at Wolfwood level.
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(This is the point where I pull out Grant Morrison's thing on Superman. Basically, Vash is an unrealistic extreme of moral self-criticism, and because he's so extreme, he becomes useful as an archetype.)
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