This is, in my opinion, a cold-blooded killer’s confession to his last disciple. The captain has led his team through the war not with the goal of reaching a peaceful conclusion, but of wreaking havoc… and now he has nothing left. Everyone has left him, besides one naïve soldier. The captain thinks he can convince the soldier that the two of them are equally bad, but they are not. “The captain, he was dying, but the captain wasn’t hurt.” In other words, he has never once suffered during the war, because of his utter lack of compassion. Killing others leaves no emotional impact on him, and because of his rank, he hasn’t had to make any physical action to bring about those killings anyways. The soldier takes the insignia in acknowledgement that the captain held no true care for material things. He will try his best to follow that direction, only this time, altruistically. He now has nothing left to lose except for himself. The insignia stands for evil, yes, but it’s just a material thing. He’s not becoming the captain of anyone but himself, in both a literal and spiritual sense. He’s realizing and accepting his mistakes; what he was once a part of— because he knows that he is nothing like the man who led it.
This is, in my opinion, a cold-blooded killer’s confession to his last disciple. The captain has led his team through the war not with the goal of reaching a peaceful conclusion, but of wreaking havoc… and now he has nothing left. Everyone has left him, besides one naïve soldier. The captain thinks he can convince the soldier that the two of them are equally bad, but they are not. “The captain, he was dying, but the captain wasn’t hurt.” In other words, he has never once suffered during the war, because of his utter lack of compassion. Killing others leaves no emotional impact on him, and because of his rank, he hasn’t had to make any physical action to bring about those killings anyways. The soldier takes the insignia in acknowledgement that the captain held no true care for material things. He will try his best to follow that direction, only this time, altruistically. He now has nothing left to lose except for himself. The insignia stands for evil, yes, but it’s just a material thing. He’s not becoming the captain of anyone but himself, in both a literal and spiritual sense. He’s realizing and accepting his mistakes; what he was once a part of— because he knows that he is nothing like the man who led it.