Walrus

In TriStamp Vash is the one who runs. The one who is being pursued and is terrified of Knives.

Just such an interesting reversal of the dynamic between the brothers.

oh, god, anon. i think about it often. it drives me up the wall. the reversal of their predator/prey dynamic is what has me so conflicted about my general shipping dynamic preferences. who's chasing who? and why are they chasing, why are they running? it's so interesting how tristamp vash rejects his brother outright, takes the loneliness on the chin, but trimax vash's loneliness destroys him and defines him to the point where he's begging his brother to stay with him despite it all. like. that's unhinged. i love adaptational differences so fucking much.

but i also think they're thematically consistent, in a way? there is always that loneliness, always that fundamental rejection of each other, and always, always, that sense of responsibility. vash hunts knives down in every universe because knives is his brother, his burden. his to deal with and his to save or kill. i think a lot of his final battle with knives in trimax where he pauses mid-duel to the death to shoot out chronica's gun. not only is it a decisive choice to save his brother, to choose pacifism at the eleventh hour, butyou could also interpret it as vash crying, don't interfere. he's mine. with all the baggage that sort of declaration comes with.

But that doesn’t satisfy you at all, does it? Because you want him to love you more than anyone else, than everything else; for him to love you as selfishly as you love him. There’s no use in a guardian angel, not for you. You’ve never cared about that. You just want your brother.

There’s only one problem, Knives. Your brother’s heart has always been a little too big for his chest. It’s a chronic condition, you know. Terminal. Only gets worse with time, and if you’re really unlucky? It’ll kill him.

Will you operate? It’ll be a life-saving surgery if you could make his heart fit again. Then maybe it would stop bleeding all over the ground. You’d like that, if Vash would just stop. If he would just listen to you. If he would put himself first for once. And if that means going under the knife, then it’s not the biggest sacrifice he’s ever made, has it?

Just cut away everything that’s bleeding, everything that makes him bleed. The cancerous tumors rotting his heart away. You’re doing it for him, because you love your brother more than anything, love him enough to hurt him if it means he’ll be saved. You’ll save him, Knives.

*cracks knuckles*

It's time to put my music degree and 20+ years of performing to fandom use. I'm gonna deep-dive into a music analysis of "Duet" and the care Orange put into animating musicianship.

Let's first look at the animation!

Nai and Vash are both correctly playing the notes heard and in the correct form. Here's an interview with Trigun Stampede's composer, Tatsuya Kato!

Kato:

"For Knives - There are multiple scenes in this anime where Knives is playing the piano. In those piano scenes we had an actual pianist play the piano, and filmed them using multiple cameras to create the motion data. His piece combines his beautiful frailty with his huge ambitions and powers. His touching yet fierce impression is expressed through the duality of the minimal music that uses both orchestral and digital sounds quite boldly. Also, the melody of the plants’ song is based on Knives’ theme motif, which allows it to make the son an epic expression of tragedy and destiny."

-- from the Bernardelli Times Extra of the Trigun Stampede BluRay

Let's look at the score for "Duet."

The piece is composed in a minor, starting with Nai on the treble clef staves. The tone is hopeful in its theme despite the minor key, and we get a prelude to the plant theme.

When Vash joins in on the bass clef staves, the tempo is more than doubled and we hear an "agitation" in Nai's lines. Vash is also a few octaves below Nai, miles away in pitch. Sound like their story?

Looking at Vash's upper staff--while Nai is "on" the beat, Vash is off the beat (see highlighted figure). Their melodic lines are also ascending & descending away from each other in contrary motion. The rhythmic figures &melodic movement is causing the dissonance you hear.

This continues throughout the piece, each of the brother's hands becoming their voices and ideals clashing. That auditory dissonance created in the music showcases their struggle. Nai's part is more frantic and urgent, whereas Vash is holding steady with the bass line chords.

I like to think of Vash's sustained bass line as a motif to the steadfastness of his beliefs and ideals. Being true to himself.

"I'm Vash the Stampede."

As the piece goes on, both right hands of the brothers swap the rhythmic dissonance. Nai now on the off beats and Vash on the beat. Nai's repetitive figure on the subdivided 8th notes holds that tension, while his left hand is having the argument with Vash's right hand.

What's also interesting is that while sitting side-by-side for the duet, the hands closest to each other are the ones having the "conversation." There's a small parallel octave moment where they are as close as can be, physically & musically.

The outside hands are the dissonance.

Something else to note on the swapping of beat placement--the twins are both changing the meter within the meter from common to duple with the figures & subdivision.

It all comes to a head with an accelerando & both brothers playing forte.

(Brahms Symphony No. 1 anyone?)

During the climax of the piece, Nai is reduced down to the triplet moving line. It's frantic and desperate. Like fear and running.

(Check out Shubert's "Erlkönig" to learn more about these types of motifs.)

Meanwhile, Vash is pounding out the bass line and the plant theme.

"Duet" comes to an abrupt end with no tonal resolution; ending on the dominant chord. The sudden ending is also breaking up the phrasing, leaving the listener jarred and expecting more. Unresolved. And that's truly where we're at with Trigun Stampede.

My interpretation of "Duet" is that it's much like a tone poem, telling the story of two brothers. Vash and Nai's story isn't finished, and I'm guessing that "Duet" is an unfinished piece as well.

My personal predictions is that, if Tatsuya Kato is the composer for Trigun Stargaze, we're going to hear "Duet" become a complete musical composition that resolves the story and conflict between two brothers.

If you'd like to learn play "Duet" and analyze the score, here's a pretty good transcription on MuseScore:

A bunch of people asked me to make Roxas and Axel after I posted the Sora and Riku piece, and since I love these two as well, I had to do it! Hope you like it!

episode 44-49 of bnha drawings!

loved this arc so much and there were so many cute bakugou scenes i was rejoicing. I love the character progression so far as well, it just has me so excited to see where all of these characters go in the future