trigun maximum chapter 40 opens in the past, with knives and vash living on the ship with rem. one year ago, vash and knives appeared spontaneously from an existing plant, and have been raised in isolation by rem ever since. rem is the only human awake with them, while the rest of humanity slumbers.

unlike the other trigun adaptations, vash and knives have somewhat different personalities from what we are used to. in contrast to his present energetic optimism, vash is a serious, often stone-faced child. conversely, knives is a very sweet, sensitive child, who worries about how he is perceived, and also sees people rather optimistically. briefly, other humans wake up, conrad discovers the two of them and confronts them.

knives comes away from this experience hopeful and excited about the things that plants and humans have in common. humans and plants share the same heart, and are therefore trustworthy, from his POV.

after a peaceful year being raised by rem, things change. the twins stumble upon the records and leftover corpse of tesla, a young plant child who was similarly born the way vash and knives were. however, in her case, she was experimented upon by the humans - incredibly violently and traumatically.

this is too much for vash and knives to process, all at once and on their own. the difference between humans and plants is made apparent to them by this display of inhumane cruelty to a plant, and so their sense of safety breaks down. knives responds by passing out. vash responds by becoming similarly catatonic, though still conscious. they have locked themselves within this portion of this ship, and it takes a panicked rem several days to get to them. by then, they have not eaten, and are on the verge of death.

vash tries to push rem away, but despite this, she manages to take the two of them to a medical ward to care for them. vash continues to deny care, refusing to eat, yelling and lashing out at rem. in response to the traumatic event, out of the fight/flight/freeze/fawn responses, vash turns to "fight." trauma responses are meant to be self-protective. in fight, this is the most obviously self-protective, in fighting back against perceived threats. his understanding of his safety with rem has been compromised, and so he tries to protect himself.

although trauma responses are meant to be self-protective, they often can be the site of re-traumatization, instead. vash is initiating conflict because he pre-emptively wants to defend himself from aggression from rem. however, rem does the exact right thing as a caretaker in the face of this: she does not escalate. she does reckon with his feelings - brushing them under the rug would be just as bad - but she continues to behave as the same caring person vash has always known her to be. this isn't magic - vash continues to protect himself and not accept care for a while. the trauma was too great for him to trust in the safety presented to him.

things escalate, and vash goes to stab rem. she catches the knife in her hand - not lying down and taking his violence, but also refusing to turn the violence back on him. this provides an opportunity for vash to externalize his anger and fear, feel the catharsis, and - ultimately see how it was futile. it didn't protect him. all it did was make him hurt someone he cared about. he had begun to treat her the exact way he was afraid humans would treat him and knives. therefore, it's proven to him that rem is not a threat, and he does not need to continue to fight.

ultimately, vash patches up rem. they reconcile, and she meets him warmly and earnestly again. as we can see throughout the rest of the series, this wisdom from her would go on to effect his mindset for the rest of his life.

but then:

knives.

knives has been unconscious for this entire time. while vash has already been undergoing varying stages of trauma recovery, knives has been down for the count. by the time he comes to, vash has seemingly reconciled with rem, a human, the enemy to their safety.

when pressed, knives states that he does not remember, choosing to instead make peace with the situation. it feels implied to me from his expressions that this is not true. even once he has been briefed on the events, he does not outwardly show how upset he is. rem asks after him, and he chooses to instead deflect, saying essentially "it is what it is," and not accepting her comfort meaningfully.

in both of these cases, knives is showing a few trauma responses. initially, his fainting was his nervous system freezing. then, he switched to fawn - he has determined that rem is unsafe and not to be trusted, so it is best to appease her for the time being to ensure his safety. i wonder if at first he thought vash was doing the same, only to realize he sincerely trusted in rem despite everything.

no trauma response is necessarily more "extreme" than another, but they do indicate how much agency the victim is operating from. "fight" has the highest agency - the victim is certain enough, subconsciously or otherwise, of their own ability to defend themselves should they act upon it. flight is next - having enough options to even run to allows one to run away from the danger. freeze is the response of the cornered animal; if one simply makes no false moves, then perhaps they can survive the moment. and then finally, fawning operates from the least agency. if one cannot escape the unsafe environment, cannot hide, cannot avoid notice, then one can grin and bear it as the new normal.

this also determines the potential re-traumatization - or lackthereof! rem not fighting back to the "fight" response from vash proves that she is not unsafe. but rem reacting positively to knives' fawning does not prove anything, it simply validates that his fawning is working, and therefore validating his fears in the first place, that he must appease in order to attain safety.

behind the scenes, knives is not doing well. he is actively self-harming, and slowly plotting to crash the ship. fawning keeps him safe by day, while at night, plotting his escape lets his psyche find solace in the visible exit.

so, why does this matter?

studies show that the number one most important thing that prevents the development of PTSD (or at least, lessens the severity of the impact of the symptoms), is immediate care after the trauma.

again, i'm not a professional psychologist, just a normie with trauma, so take this with a grain of salt, but: current best practices in after-trauma care consist of something called "psychological first-aid." this includes removal from the traumatic situation, stabilization, compassion, patience, etc. conversely, the other technique that was often practiced more broadly prior to the implementation of PFA is called "crisis debriefing." this entails recollection and discussion of the traumatic events in full. currently, it is not generally advised to do this first thing, as it poses a great risk of re-traumatization.

in vash's case, he got a shockingly effective roll-out of PFA. he had the time to ride through his trauma responses, while still experiencing the care and stability necessary to feel safe. conversely, the first thing knives was conscious for was a debriefing. it was good for him to know what happened, but it likely had adverse consequences, as seen in his actions thereafter.

(sidenote: i'm an armchair psychologist already in US medicine, so i can't pretend to be an expert at all in japanese perspectives on trauma treatment. but, when reading trimax, i was so blown away in nightow's portrayal of vash and knives' respective responses to their trauma, and the tragedy of knives' going unaddressed. particularly because, at least in western medicine, PFA wasn't practiced under that name in the US until 2006, from my quick-and-dirty, research, whereas these chapters came out in 2003. crazy!!)

it's not rem's fault - she did take care of knives, she did the best she could. it's also (initially, anyway), not necessarily knives' fault. that's the tragedy of it! if things had been a little different, it all could have been completely different.

is this a justification for knives to commit mass murder? lol, uh, obviously not. but it IS what makes him so compelling and heartbreaking to me. i see exactly how and why he made the decisions he made. for a character motivation that didn't show until rather late in the manga, and is in fact entirely different from the '98 one, i was amazed by how much it 180'd my opinion on knives. prior to it, i felt like he was a rather one-note shounen antagonist. now i think he's one of my favorite media villains of all time.

final bonus note: