The narrative treatment between Vash and Knives
This is Knives’s story and y’all can’t convince me otherwise.
He didn’t just take Vash’s choice to kill Legato—he also took his choice to know. The choice to face the truth about Rem, and decide what to do with it.
In Trigun Maximum, Vash never tried to deny Knives that knowledge. Even when he briefly thought it might be better for him to remain unaware—since his mind had already blocked that memory—Vash still believed he had the right to know.
When the story was from Vash’s perspective, he gave Knives the chance to hear the truth from Rem, because that’s who Vash is at his core. He believes in choices and second chances. Because yes, Rem sinned—but she also tried to redeem herself with the twins and do right by them, at least in Vash’s eyes.
But because Trigun Stampede and Stargaze are more focused on Knives’s side of the story, the outcome is different.
Here, Knives takes control of everything. He decides what Vash should and shouldn’t know. He chooses to keep him in the dark, carries the burden alone, and shapes the narrative around his own suffering. And because of that, the story leans toward him—frames him as the tragic savior, the one who bore everything for over a century alone.
Knives tried to shoulder everything alone in the manga too, but my issue is the lack of balance between the two. Let me explain!
In the manga, both brothers carried their own burdens and their own sins. They were both, in their own way, the heroes of their own story. Their divergence came from how they responded to the same truth—not from one being denied half of it. They equally carried the knowledge and the weight of that trauma.
But here, Knives is given more narrative weight. His suffering is explored, emphasized, it even almost feels justified. Meanwhile, Vash is… softened.
Even when Vash has JuLai and the Fifth Moon sit heavy on his back, the narrative didn’t sit with it the same way it does with Knives.
And I understand where all of this is coming from. It comes from the idea that Vash is surrounded by people who love him, who are welling to share his burdens with him because he’s no longer alone. He has friends now who care for him and who forgave him. Unlike Knives who is alone. So the story compensates—it gives Knives more depth, more attention, more emotional focus.
But in doing so, it creates an imbalance. Because now, when you compare them, Vash’s suffering feels smaller. Lighter. The one who carries scars not only on his heart but on his body ends up feeling like he carries less, simply because his ignorance spared him from the other half of the truth.
And Vash saying “I didn’t even try to understand” doesn’t help at all.
It makes it feel like Vash’s life is lighter in comparison—that he spent his time as a happy-go-lucky guy who sometimes attracts trouble while wandering around helping others, but he keeps being kind and pure no matter what humans throw at him, while his brother has been planning and working for over a hundred years to build his own version of paradise.
It’s true that Vash’s side gets more screen time, but when it comes to narrative weight, Knives gets the better treatment. He’s the one with clear goals and a purpose that the narrative prefers. He’s the one with more conflict.
I can roll with the fact that this is a new direction and the studio is using the freedom that was given to them. I can accept a version that centers Knives more. But at least give me something balanced. It feels unfair for Vash at this point. He’s just there because he’s the only one who can stop Knives.
What made their story powerful in the first place… was that they stood on equal ground—and still chose different paths. But the equal ground in this show is just about the fact that they are both independent Plants.
And I know I’m not imagining things here or that I got things wrong, because this aligns with director Mutō vision. He focused more on Knives and wanted him to be more than just a villain, but I find Stampede more balanced than Stargaze.
That’s it for now and I’m keeping the rest for later!
