Volume 26: The Mist of Emptiness, Vanilla Ice.
The arc where we were introduced to Vanilla Ice, the stand user of Cream.
The first interaction between Vanilla Ice and the Stardust Crusaders was an immediate
fatality.
That alone was able to establish the group’s situation when matched up.
See, the group had been split up by having 2 groups of three.
The first group being taken away by Telence T. D'Arby, and the second group waiting for
the first group to come back.
First group being Jotaro, Joseph, and Kakyoin.
Second being Polnareff, Abdul, and Iggy.
Why wait for the first group to come back?
The loss of the number one, range, and the fear of the unknown.
Atum, the stand of Telence D’Arby, had enough strength to pull in Jotaro while he’s being
held by both Kakyoin and Joseph.
By disappearing in front of them, there are so many thoughts when it comes to the second
group.
We learn later on that D’Arby just wants to play some games at the cost of people’s
souls, but he’s not overpowering the first group with ridiculous strength or faster than
eyesight speed.
The second group had only been shown that the enemy stand user was stronger than all
three of group one and the ability to pull them into a black hole, and when you think
between the group members you have left, it goes back to what I said about multiple thoughts.
One of being to continue on into the mansion despite what was told to them.
So what do they do?
They act on further pursuing DIO.
Now the combination of Avdol and Iggy should be enough when it comes to detecting life.
It should easily detect any form of life including stands and stand energy.
Kenny G, the stand user that they had detected with the combination of Life Detector and
Iggy’s sense of smell.
They had easily dealt with Kenny G, so maybe there’s a possibility the future stand users
will be the same as him.
They don’t know, but that’s what highlights the whole situation.
The audience had seen Vanilla Ice before the Stardust Crusaders did, and the potential
of Vanilla Ice had seemed vague when first introducing him, but when his introduction
had ended, it solidified that the group is going to be in some deep trouble.
After the defeat of Kenny G, the group turns to more of a neutral mood and not as cautious
as they were when they first entered.
They are very much alert when it comes to detecting, but since they have a reliable
detection, they don’t have to be on their toes as much.
But all attention was drawn back to Avdol, this is where the art of the unknown begins.
After defeating Kenny G, the Life detector had gone back to normal with the flames not
reacting to anything.
But on his hand, someone had carved directly into the stone wall.
When you turn your heads, you will die.
So in this instance, what is there to do that would seem rational?
If I don’t turn around, will I still die?
If I turn around do I immediately fight?
What.
Is.
Behind.
Me.
What had seemed rational to Avdol was to turn around, despite the warning.
Would you turn around if something had told you that you would immediately die?
Well, the question varies to many because it depends on how someone views what they
don’t know.
Avdol had turned around and saw Vanilla Ice’s stand Cream, ready to attack.
In that instance, there was a lot to think about.
Highlight questions like, “What is that?
What does it do?”
and “Where did this even come from?”
When it came to Avdol the questions were more of, “How did Iggy or I not detect this stand?
How do I tell them in time?
What the hell is that?”
But after very quick thinking, putting Iggy and Polnareff ahead of himself was what he
had done.
Despite what he had said to both Iggy and Polnareff before they entered.
Which in the end, had been the fatal end to Avdol.
Now our view through Polnareff’s perspective begins exactly when Avdol had sent both Polnareff
and Iggy flying.
“Why did Avdol hit us?
Why are his arms on the ground?
Where is Avdol?”
This isn’t because Polnareff genuinely knowing if Avdol is dead or not, he knows he’s gone
when he sees the arms.
It’s more of just purposely not believing it, it’s the 5 stages of grief, but probably
excluding bargaining.
But following the rest of the arc through the eyes of Polnareff had really shown you
the feeling that him and Iggy shared when confronted by what they couldn’t understand.
By itself, the scene was enough to show you exactly what they were going through.
Iggy specifically when focusing on him had shown that he’s very much overwhelmed when
Vanilla Ice reveals himself inside of Cream.
Then that feeling of being trapped, because how exactly do you know if you’re ever in
the clear when you’re being pursued by something you can’t even see.
Moving further on in pages or in time in the anime, you notice that Polnareff and Iggy
try to cover each other as well as possible due to this invisible force that can wipe
them out from existence in an instant.
The feeling of being trapped because you don’t know where something is.
Piecing that together with the destructive yet silent power that Vanilla Ice has, is
a setup for misfortune.
Going back to when Polnareff had tried to strike at Cream, he revisits a feeling he
knows well in Part 3.
That feeling being a type of mourning, but at the same time containing regret, despair,
and rage.
All of this due to Vanilla Ice & Cream.
See, I believe that Vanilla Ice was one of the more better villains in part 3.
He’s the boss before the final boss, and getting past him means you’re going to have
a couple of casualties to understand what’s going on.
Especially since there was no information on Vanilla Ice before going in, and his whole
existence is a random factor.
At the same time, the Stardust Crusaders commonly go against stand users without knowing their
abilities until during the fight.
Majority of the time that gets them hurt and instances where they could be close to death,
yet there was never a villain to put a nail in the coffin.
Vanilla Ice was the first to do so off of his first attack on the group, which is a
lot to say about his rank versus Dio’s other lackeys.
Vanilla Ice still very much follows under Dio like a servant and there is no equal ground
between the two.
The only way Vanilla Ice could look at Dio is if he’s looking up, meaning that he puts
Dio on the large pedestal.
At this point not being a pedestal, but possibly a tower of some sorts.
Yet the combination of the two is art.
Dio and Vanilla Ice, originally the combination of Time and Space.
Araki had stated manipulation of space and or time gives a villain that property of being
ridiculously strong.
Imagine if Dio and Vanilla Ice had worked together when the Stardust Crusaders had came
into Dio’s home.
Dio grouping them up in stopped time to be right in front of Cream.
Now for that to working there would have to be timing and other tidbits, but regardless
the combination of those to would deadly.
Vanilla Ice alone could’ve taken out 3 of the Stardust Crusaders, but that didn’t
happen because Vanilla Ice wanted to set some sort of mood and positioning.
Where he would be in the position to say “You guys had lost as soon as you entered”.
So how exactly do you lose a character like this in the process of making one of the most
best fights in the part?
You lose him due to madness.
See once you know the unknown, then it isn’t the unknown.
And once you know something, you know for the most part what’s going on with it.
The problems, how to exploit it, how it works, the tricks behind it’s process or power.
Once you remove Vanilla Ice out of his shell which in this case would be Cream, you just
have another follower of Dio.
Notice that when Vanilla Ice starts showing his true colors, Polnareff starts to read
Vanilla Ice.
Catching his paths, the pattern of how he destroys things, the timing so he knows when
to strike.
It all comes to fruition when you start to know what you didn’t.
Although it did seem that Polnareff had lost when it came to the final moments of him and
Iggy versus Vanilla Ice.
Even though Iggy was suppose to be out of commission, he does save the day.
My issue on it being that Iggy didn’t save the day though, my grip is how Cream works.
Both Vanilla Ice and Cream can’t see when devouring everything so basically what Cream
had done with the spiral was a physical interpretation of the process of elimination.
It’s not here or there, but if I go all the way around to the last dot, I’m going
to find it.
In the midst of that, you have Polnareff actually going through the stages of grief that I had
mentioned.
Except his bargaining was replaced with optimism in a sense.
His best case scenario being that his friends would end up saving him and taking care of
this whole mess.
So you get his denial from the loss of his friend, the anger / fear caused by the unknown
power of cream, his optimism when getting his chances of survival literally spiraling
down, and well…
I wouldn’t consider it to be depression in his case.
At the same time, I wouldn’t say he’s putting on a front either when saying he’s
going to be saving Iggy and all.
He came to acceptance pretty quick, which is the last step.
He believed that Iggy had to be the one to tell the others about what had happened, somehow.
I’m not even sure exactly how he would do that being a dog.
Explaining how Cream works by barking seems like a pretty difficult task, but regardless
he put that trust into Iggy.
Iggy used said trust and redirected it back towards Polnareff, which had ended up in a
second loss of a member.
It’s sad, Polnareff had accepted death and said good-bye to Iggy, yet it was Iggy to
meet his fate.
But in the last moments, now you have Vanilla Ice out of his shell and Polnareff with more
resolve than ever.
Then the final fight had seemed one sided due to Polnareff’s flurry of attacks with
ease and Vanilla Ice repetitively coming back, but it never seemed that Vanilla Ice could
pull the win off anyways.
So what had happened?
Did Vanilla Ice thought less and less when compared to when he was first shown?
Yes, it’s very easy to say that Vanilla Ice had changed in some ways.
But that’s not why he lost.
Vanilla Ice had lost due to him turning into a vampire for one, but the biggest reason
is because he lost the unknown factor.
See, you can’t remove a key factor of something because then that specific thing is no longer
the same anymore.
Imagine removing stealth from a ninja, speed from a runner, the secrets of a secret agent.
Anything!
Anything has a key trait that defines it, and when you remove that trait then it’s
nowhere near the same.
Vanilla Ice had became massively exploitable and weak, even when being compared to someone
who could barely get up.
Vanilla Ice was a character that had power in the darkness of the unknown.
But, it was all over as soon as Polnareff had shown him the light.
Or well, pushed him towards the light.
Thank you guys so much for watching.
I had been wanting to do a character/stand analysis for a while, but I wasn’t ok with
just looking at the stand.
I believe there’s a lot to characters and stands and I would love to go over any possible
connection that would fit best with the video.
If you guys made it this far, thank you again.
I would love to know if you guys enjoy these longer videos, I would do these more if they’re
very much requested for.
I appreciate all the support on the last video and I would love to know if you guys did enjoy
this video by leaving a like and commenting if you guys want another one of these.
You can also put what character or stand you want me to talk about!
Or you could even just put a part and I could just pick a stand from that part.
I’ll see you guys in the next one, until then…
Peace out, and God Speed.