cienie-isengardu

[cienie-isengardu]

VETTE

Few people have seen as much of the galaxy as Vette and few have had as little control of their destiny. Born a slave on the occupied world of Ryloth, Vette was separated from her family at an early age and sold to a series of minor crime lords. When legendary pirate lord Nok Drayen utterly destroyed her latest owner's holdings, Vette and the other slaves were given their choice of freedom or joining up with Nok. Vette became a pirate, travelling the known worlds and learning to get in and out of places she wasn't allowed.

Years later Nok Drayen mysteriously and suddenly released all of his people from service. Vette was left on Nar Shaddaa where she joined up with other young, idealistic Twi'leks and used her criminal abilities to rob and ruin those who exploited Ryloth's cultural artifacts and people. An unquenchable spark, Vette is older than her years but far from mature, delighting in silly pranks and always ready to laugh at people who think too much of themselves.

[cienie-isengardu]

Anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising (1.08.1944)

[cienie-isengardu]

[cienie-isengardu]

Jewl'a Nightbringer

(transcript under cut)

There are a few bounty hunters who keep the worst of the galaxy's scum up at night. Of them, Jewl'a Nightbringer is the only one it is socially acceptable to admit being terrified of. Possessing a mean streak a light-year long and a draconian sense of retribution, Jewl'a ensures that whoever she's after has plenty of time to regret catching her attention.

Jewl'a's origins in the lower levels of Coruscant were acutely violent. Born in the wake of regular food riots and looting, she was the product of poverty and desperation during the Mandalorian blockade of the Hydian trade route. By all accounts, a girl orphaned in her teens should have been easy prey for the rampant criminal element growing in the depths of the city-world, but Jewl’a proved to be a born fighter, pure and simple. Instead of being cowed by the predators, she became one herself and met the gangs and slavers head on with a ruthlessness beyond anyone’s expectations.

Jewl'a spent years stalking the shadows of Coruscant, wreaking vengeance on anyone who'd crossed her, eventually lining her pockets with enough credits to take her hunts beyond the streets of her homeworld and cement her fearsome reputation across the galaxy. Eventually it would be the Mandalorians that catalyzed Jewl'a's rise to galactic infamy. Sponsored for the Great Hunt by an Exchange crime lord who had briefly been on her target list, Jewl'a's triumph in the contest was exceptional primarily for the cruelty of her kills -- there were no live captures. At her victory ceremony, Jewl'a made no attempt to disguise the contempt she harbored for the Mandalorians, choosing to lord her victory over them, in the face of hundreds of challenges for honor duels. The story spread like ignited starship fuel and reinforced the Mandalorians' respect for the new champion and the underworld's fear of her as well.

KEY FACTS

Homeworld: Coruscant

Public Record: Wanted in seven systems Thirty two citations for excessive force License to operate in Republic space: Revoked

Current Location Unknown

[cienie-isengardu]

You have a valid point here and I agree we could - and should - have much more diverse, unique aliens in the biological and cultural sense (and it is equally true even in regard to humans). But I would like to point out that Star Wars has in fact many species that do not follow “typical human” gender and sexuality, or don’t even look humanoid to begin with. The problem lies more in fact those species rarely are used in mainstream media like movies, TV or animated series or games so a great chunk of casual fans won’t ever hear about nor see them because mainstream media like the “sexy alien chick" and so  the boobs are added even to species that have no need of them from a biological standpoint. For example, female Falleens are described as “visually almost identical to males” in source material, but their bodies are drawn as typical sexy human female. I also think modern Star Wars especially suffers from this problem; it feels to me Disney isn’t too keen to include gender and sexual "otherness"[1] while a great number of such species comes from older source material, some introduced even before prequels (1999).

Hutts? Each member of their species have both female and male reproductive organs and change their gender at will. They can have a child by sex or get pregnant in asexual way - they are part of Star Wars since Original Trilogy.

Or the the hedonistic and pleasure seeking Zeltrons? Introduced in the original Marvel comics run (1977 - 1986) is always up for good fun and unashamed by their sexual drive

Dani: I'm not ashamed of my feelings for you... Rik Duel: Or any other humanoid male who comes your way… Chihdo: alone or in a group, so long as he’s still breathing.

(Looks like the female Zeltrons talking with C3P0 and R2D2 were interested in sex with droids)

Male Zeltron:Heck, everyone's glad to see the General... I am! Male Zeltron#2:Maybe... but don't go trying to kiss him...

Additionally,

"Zeltron courtesans, known as cafarel, fulfill any physical desire one may have, without limits."

So if you want an alien species where people of different gender and whatever sexuality are accepted and no one is kink-shamed so yeah, Zeltron are your people.

Or the Devaronian species with characteristic gender dimorphism, where "males have completely hairless, red-tinted skin with a pair of dark horns growing from their heads while female are covered with a mat of thick fur ranging in color from white to brown, and they are hornless" among the most important differences.

And yet, the great number of female Devaronians introduced to lore lack the thick fur. Instead they have typical male traits, like red skin, two dark circles above the forehead, where the horns usually were in males or in rarer even full horns - while no one (narrative wise) undermines their womanhood.

(Though looking how hard it is to find typical female Devaronian, this may actually fall into "sexy alien chick" problem. I mean, wookiepedia doesn't even have any proper image added to the species entry).

Going with the source material and entries that have outright explained species' sexuality, gender, reproduction or differences in size (and mind you, there is a great chunk of entries that don't provide such details), here is a list of some aliens that may be an interest to those who want a wider range of biological and psychological variety:

women with no tits bc they lay eggs

Geonosis Queens

Sekct - all female, using parthenogenesis to reproduce (may also fit the category of not telling members of the same species apart?)

A bunch of species where the afab ones are larger, and species where they have "male" voices due to their size.

I have no idea about their voices as the guide did not provided that detailed information, but the Assigned Female at Birth larger than males are seen for example in Trianii species:

Krytollaks

also Raakans (entry below, in the category of different genders)

Unisex species where you just can't fucking tell like with some birds.

Well, not sure all of below fits in 100% to this, but how about:

M'shinni - all female humanoids that reproduce through a form of parthenogenesis & those who belong to the same family are almost identical

Shatras

"There are five distinct races of Shatras, though only the Shatras or those heavily educated in their physiology can distinguish the differences between them."

Dashade have different skin tones but otherwise no visual clues indicating gender:

Physical Description: The Dashade are a hairless reptillian species. Their height, beady, red-orange eyes, and prominent fangs reinforce their fearsome reputation. No visual clues indicate the gender of a Dashade. Their skin tones range from pitch black to dark gray, but green-skinned Dashade are not unheard of.

Species that don't have sex and/or gender at all.

ERGESH - asexual & no concept of gender:

Ergesh reproduce by a special ritual. Two Ergesh each produce a seed which has their respective genetic codes. Both seeds are planted together in a special swamp called the Shoolbloorp, or "Land of Beginnings". In 20 Ergeshui days, a young Ergesh grows up from the ground, self-aware and ready to join society. Being asexual beings, Ergesh have no concept of gender.

PROTEANS - genderless

While Proteans are genderless, they still pair off to reproduce. The two Proteans merge into a single entity that remains immobile for about one standard year. After that year, this ersatz boulder cracks open, revealing the original Protean pair, and a newborn, approximately 25 kilograms in mass.

Filordi - asexual, "reproduce while dying. A week after its "parent" has died, and infant Filordi crawls from the corpse".

Purlas - reproduction through fission:

Purlas reproduce through fission; they simply start retaining food energy to nourish a new Pulra growing within their bodies. They don't consciously decide when to reproduce; natural biochemical fluctuations and subtle changes in the environment dictate population levels.

Species and cultures that have more genders than you can comprehend.

Chalhuddan - 5 genders

Rakaans - unique 5 sexes, transit between them through life, depending on the need + female sex is physically the largest

Xi'Dex - to date cataloged 180 sexes + various ways of reproduction:

and

Xi'Dec in the Galaxy: Xi'Dec are rare in the galaxy, and, due to the diversity of their appearances, are even more rarely identified as such. Occasionally, small (10-20 member) family units will be encountered, but it is not clear whether these groups are touring the galaxy, or searching for new sexes to add to their family unit.

Also, a species with two opposite sexes, but having no traditional reproduction:

Bith

Codru-Ji - adults look like attractive humans with 4 arms, but are actually born as canines

or species in which males are treated as breeding stock at best

Legends Nightsisters of Dathomir saw all males as lesser and some clans attacked other to capture healthy male humans for breeding

Selonians - one fertile female, few fertile males treated at best as prize breeding stock and large number of sterile females

Intersex || hermaphroditic species (including species changing their sex/gender depending on the situation and not understanding how human genders/pronouns work)

(sorry, not sure about the proper terminology, or how outdated is the hermaphroditic term; I'm including it as was used in original text keeping in mind that most of the below entries comes from guides from 1990-2000)

Verpines

Ea

Berrite

Star Wars has also species that won't know their gender until reaching a certain age like Excargan

Garr had a secret too, at least as far as Boba was concerned. Or at least, a mystery. The mystery was whether Garr was a boy or a girl. Boba had gone so long without figuring it out that now he was almost embarrassed to ask. But he knew enough not to let embarrassment hold him back. (That was part of wisdom, too.) “Garr,” he said one day as they were strolling down a long corridor, “do you mind if I ask you a question?” “Not at all,” Garr said. “As long as you don’t mind if I don’t answer.” “Fair enough,” said Boba, recognizing what he’d said when Garr had asked about his mother. “Are you a boy or a girl?” “Like, male or female?” “Yeah, you know.” “I don’t know, actually,” said Garr. “I mean, I know what you mean, but I don’t know yet whether I am male or female. On my planet, it’s not determined until age thirteen.” “Determined?” “Somewhere around our thirteenth birthday, our bodies change, and become one or the other. Until then, it’s sort of, you know, up in the air. ” “Cool,” said Boba. “I was just wondering.”

and shape-shifting species like Clawdite (Zam Wessel) (x)(x).

And let's not forget about Legends Mandalorians, whose language and culture did not care for gender at all. Something that, sadly, Disney decided to change.

I would happily look and add for more examples, but I hit the limit of allowed pictures. The list above is why I don't think Star Wars is boring and unimaginative as a whole, because over the years authors introduced many unique (sometimes fun, sometimes horror) species with a wide range of approaching the subject of gender and sex. And there is still plenty of species that weren't provided full details on anatomy/biology/psychology beyond the basic appearance and typical (stereotype) trait. The problem lies in Star Wars mainstream media that like hot alien chicks with big boobs over literally anything else, especially when said alien is a companion of main male human hero. And let's be real here, this is not a problem unique just to this one franchise.

Could Star Wars do better? Of course! But I will argue about the lack of imagination or attempt at doing something different. Especially as many guides were written with fans of RPG in mind, to supply them with needed data for their own adventures. In the Alien Encounters (1998), authors used few first pages to encourage and help fans - players and gamemasters alike - to create their own unique aliens, including this tip:

The other features of an intelligent species are likewise open to the imagination. […] You can take this opportunity to develop some of the biological and cultural details of the species. How do the aliens reproduce, for example? Are there more (or less) than two sexes?

(Isn't it ironic that almost three decades ago star wars official authors encourage fans to go wild with their ideas and have fun while providing a vast number of different and unique aliens, when in modern times female aliens on screen so often ends as the sexy lady and their alien traits are threw away for them to look as human as possible? Like Ahsoka who get human eyes in TCW or reptile species get boobs to look more pleasing for male viewers? Ironic and pretty sad).

SIDENOTES

[1] I won’t lie, I’m not that much up-to-date with Disney New Canon, so feel free to correct me. Disney introduced (or more like, allowed to introduce?) canonical human non-heterosexual characters like Doctor Aphra, Sana Starros and Magna Tolvan and even transgender clone trooper (though the way Sister was used/introduced in book was pretty disappointing, if you ask me) but I don’t remember any of their original alien species that were presented as differing from human gender/sex. Also, Disney introduced Omega, a female clone that in The Bad Batch is said to be a genetic pure copy of Jango Fett, that does not look like him at all with blond hair and lighter skin and being of different gender. So yeah, it doesn’t feel like Disney want dig too much into nuances of gender and sexuality.

[2] The majority of information come from Alien Encounters (1998), Galaxy Guide 4: Alien Races (1989 || second edition 1994), Galaxy Guide Aliens - Enemies and Allies (1995), Boba Fett: Crossfire (2002), The Essential Guide to Alien Species (2001), Star Wars Leia, Princess of Alderaan manga (2021), Galaxy at War (2009)

Star Wars really is so boring and not imaginative at all when it comes to gender and sexuality.

Walk with me for a sec: women with no tits bc they lay eggs. A bunch of species where the afab ones are larger, and species where they have "male" voices due to their size. Unisex species where you just can't fucking tell like with some birds. Species that don't have sex and/or gender at all. Species and cultures that have more genders than you can comprehend. You could transition and nobody would gaf because some species do that naturally, anyway. Homosexuality is uncontroversial since a human man sleeping with a human man is hardly weird when he could just as well be sleeping with a Wookiee instead. Or a Twi'lek. Or a Trandoshan.

The "rules" we're familiar with should become near obsolete in a multi-species universe if you think about it. There is SO MUCH and we're barely scratching the surface here!!

[cienie-isengardu]

Mummified bodies and their tattoos from the Pazyryk-5 (first photo), Pazyryk-2 (second photo, a), Ak-Alakha (second photo, b) i Vierh-Kaldhin (second photo, c) barrows - Scythian culture

[cienie-isengardu]

[cienie-isengardu]

Stack, Smoke and Annie - Sinners (2025)

[cienie-isengardu]

Wermis, I haven't been a boy for some years, and no one has ever rated me as dear—If there is another mind in this galaxy still capable of evoking the Force—not matter how weakly—it poses nearly as great a threat to the Empire—as wimpish incompetents like you!" [Star Wars (1977) #21]

[cienie-isengardu]

Smoke and Stack served in the army during the first world war, right?  What they wore on their necks then most likely was their military dogtags.

When Smoke was preparing himself for the final fight against the KKK, he took off the mojo bag given to him by Annie - maybe so her magic could not protect him anymore or maybe as symbolic rejection of the idea that vampires were the worst creatures (as such warning came from Annie herself), if vampire Stack was hidding in juke joint and Smoke decided to protect his twin for the last time.

Though Smoke took off the mojo bag, he tied Stack’s dogtags to his right wrist. That way even if separate by death, Stack in symbolic way was still right beside Smoke to the last moments of his life, including the reunion with Annie and his baby girl.

[cienie-isengardu]

CLONE TRAITORS, DEFECTORS AND OTHER ABERRATIONS

Jason Fry: How exactly were the clones conditioned? Were they brainwashed to obey Order 66, or was their obedience primarily the product of military discipline and training? The subject is one of those third rails of Star Wars fandom, but seemed like a logical topic for Warfare to explore. I backed off, though, because a) by the time I got here the manuscript was clearly too long; and b) The Clone Wars TV show was exploring that topic in interesting and intriguing ways. I scratched the itch with this section, but it became a victim of spiraling word counts. The sentence about Fives was added for this feature, by the way – I had no advance knowledge there.

Erich Schoeneweiss: Had this been included in Jason’s manuscript it certainly would have made for an interesting discussion about whether to keep it or not.

As the Kaminoans would reluctantly admit, genetics is not a perfect science –aberrations in a clone’s gestational environment and random mutations sometimes produced clones with different physical features, or that were simply wired differently than their batchers. Most of the time, these physical differences were slight enough that they could be ignored – eye color proved particularly prone to variation – or severe enough that the aberrant clone was reconditioned early in its development.

But mental aberrations were harder to detect – and other defects were sometimes introduced by mistakes in the clones’ flash-training. While the vast majority of clones followed orders automatically, a few did not. As the Kaminoans’ own models predicted, the vast majority of these incidents involved ARC troopers and clone commandos, whose behavior had been manipulated minimally to preserve their independence and ability to improvise. But there were incidents involving rank-and-file clone troopers, too.

Some clones suffered from paranoid delusions in the heat of the battle. The Mad Clone of Kaikielius – as he was dubbed by HoloNet commenters – turned his weapons on his batchers during a recon mission and was found sitting docilely on an outcropping, surrounded by their bodies. Interrogated by Republic Intelligence, he insisted that the entire Kaikielius campaign was a training exercise and complimented the trainers for their increasingly fiendish challenges, admitting that he’d nearly been tricked by the decision to simulate commando droids wearing his batchers’ armor and even using familiar unit nicknames.

Other clones rejected the basics of their indoctrination. The clone sergeant nicknamed Slick conspired with the Separatists on Christophsis, severely complicating Republic efforts to retake the planet. Fives, a clone trooper admitted to the ARC training program, suffered an apparent paranoid breakdown and reportedly plotted to kill Chancellor Palpatine. The ARC trooper known as Spar was reconditioned for aberrant behavior on Kamino, but successfully resisted reprogramming and hid his true thoughts from his trainers. Spar also reported being able to recall fragments of Jango Fett’s own memories, a real but vanishingly rare phenomenon in cloning. He deserted from the Grand Army and became a bounty hunter serving the Separatists, eventually re-emerging as a Mandalorian leader.

Now and again clones – mostly ARCs and commandos — retained sufficient independence to make up their own minds about the conduct of the war, and either refused orders or fled the war altogether. Some clones refused to accept Order 66 — the 22nd Air Combat Wing’s Ion Team, for example, helped Roan Shryne and two other Jedi escape Republic forces on Murkhana. Kal Skirata’s Null Squad deserted en masse, as did other clone troopers he had trained. And some clone troopers survived encounters in which they were listed as MIA or KIA, taking the advantage to slip away to a quieter life. The story of one such clone, Cut Lawquane, emerged in the time of New Republic with the publication of Shaeeah Lawquane’s memoir of a Felucian childhood, entitled My Stepfather’s Face: A Soldier’s Secret.

And some clones became famous not for disobeying orders, but for bad luck. The clone trooper Able was marooned on the remote jungle world Lubang Minor in 21 BBY, encountered by rebel forces after the Battle of Yavin, and fought for the Alliance. A stranger story was that of the Lost Prophet, a holy man whose gnomic utterances attracted pilgrims to a mountain cave on the desert world of Du Mai. In 21 ABY, the journalist Cindel Towani offered compelling evidence that the Lost Prophet was a castaway who’d sustained head injuries in the crash of his ARC-170 during the final days of the war. Towani revealed that the advice he gave pilgrims consisted of scrambled bits of his Kaminoan conditioning and flash-training.

[cienie-isengardu]

A bit about Stack, Smoke and Annie [Sinners 2025]

Sinners (2025) has a lot of interesting relationships between well-crafted characters and meaningful scenes worth talking about. Among them one of my favorites is the little conflict between Annie, Stack and Smoke at the beginning of the party. I’m talking about the moment, when an old man didn’t have enough money to pay for his drink and offered plantation money for the missing 20 cents.

Up to this moment, Annie was introduced as a person putting the well-being of her community over her material gain - seen with the two little girls who came to her shop and paid with similar useless (as in, to spend in only one place/plantation) money. She ignored Smoke’s complaint and refused to take money he offered to trade for the useless one. 

But it is one thing to help a person in need and provide the necessary goods - presumably medicine? - and another to sell alcohol at less than the price when you know this won't refund the costs and Smoke will definitely be against it.

And I love this scene, because Annie did not immediately take the offered wooden coins, most likely debating with herself what to do (put the community above money or do her job as bartender), while Smoke was ready to sort this problem out. Except Stack was standing there, he witnessed all of it, he looked once at Smoke and immediately jumped in, giving the man the drink and solving the situation before any unpleasantness could happen.

Of course, Smoke called both Annie and his brother to discuss what just happened and to scold them both. This was the second argument he had with Annie about earning real money and charity, but this time he needed to argue also against Stack, who specifically noted that this older man “worked his ass off for them wooden nickels”, similarly how every person worked hard on plantation to have any money. Stack and Annie argued for the community; yes, some may not always be able to pay full price but for the juke joint to work, people must feel welcomed and Smoke should let them enjoy themselves, at least on the opening night.

Smoke then questioned his brother “When you was sellin’ ass out in Little Rock, you ever let a john pay with a goddamn promissory note?” to which Stack quickly responded “hell no” - confirming Smoke’s point about business. But once Annie glanced at him, he immediately added, “But, see, I wasn’t sellin’ ass in the Delta”, returning to her side of the argument and they both hold their ground in the following discussion. Ultimately, it was Smoke - the rational, materialistic one, who capitulated and brothers came back to their usual dynamic, symbolized by Stack providing Smoke a needed cigarette. 

(Of course, the matter of earning money came back at some point and was one of factors leading to the final tragedy, but for the time being, Stack and Annie’s empathy won).

I love this scene, because it adds to the dynamic between brothers and Annie - and if my memory serves me right, this was the only real argument the brothers had before vampires showed up and messed up everything. 

On one hand, we have the rationalism and materialism of Smoke rooted not in greed itself, but in desire to ensure safety for family and control over own life, as Smoke himself said: “I seen men die. Ways I didn't even know was possible. I ain't never saw no roots. No demons. No ghosts. No magic. Just power. And only money can get at."

On another note, there is Annie and Stack’s empathy to people who worked hard for the little money they have; to whom Stack promised a place just for them, to dance, drink and have fun in (relative) safe space. And what is double interesting to me about Annie and Stack in that scene, is how Annie previously talked about Smoke’s brother. She right away assumed that the juke joint was Stack’s idea (which in return adds much more to Stack’s general connection to music and Sammy, but that is a matter for another time). When arguing with Smoke if her magic work or not, Annie called Stack the “crazy brother”

I work every root my grandmama taught me to keep you and that crazy brother you're safe every day since you been gone.

which could indicate there was some dislike? resentment? on her part. Definitely not hate, for she used her skills and prayers to keep them both alive (albeit, how much it was for Stack’s sake and how much for Smoke we could argue), but as Stack is immediately connected to the very ambitious - and no less dangerous - idea of owning a juke joint, I do wonder if he was also the one that came up with the idea to go to war or to Chicago and in result, kept Smoke apart from Annie?

Anyway, I truly appreciate how Annie’s initial way to address Stack in her introduction scene did not reflect how she and Stack actually interacted. Because those two share an interesting empathy for their community and for it, they opposed Smoke’s cold business pragmatism.

And yes, once the vampires will come into picture there will be more important moments; moments that I think would not have the same impact without this argument. But the one additional scene worth to add to the relationship between Annie and Stack is the flashback when everyone was getting together to prepare the juke joint for its great opening. When Smoke and Annie arrived at the place, it was Stack that opened the car door for Annie and helped her get out, only to welcome her with a playful bow while taking the hat off. At first Annie’s face was serious, but there was a smile at Stack’s antics. Like even if she tried to stay stoic, she could not hide that seeing Stack - being together with both twins, her family - brought back the smile on her face. 

And it really felt good to see them all together, alive and happy, even if just for this short moment. Kudos to actors and to the movie for such interesting characters and relationship between them.

[cienie-isengardu]

Some Theories on Sareena and Ashrah's Lore in MK1 (2/3)

[This post was supposed to be part 3. However, as it was easier to write than part 2, which will take me longer to finalize than expected, I am publishing it first.] In part 1, it was theorized, based on elements from MK1 lore, that Sareena was probably a cambion, i.e., a half-demon, half-human being. However, when it comes to Ashrah, the few details she reveals about her own past do not seem to indicate that she had any human characteristics, even remotely, in her appearance. The following is more headcanon than theory, but I wanted to give my take on Ashrah's true form. TW: references to s*icide.

Ashrah: I am Ashrah, demon of the Netherrealm. Johnny: Demon? You look human, mostly. [...] Ashrah: I appear nearly human because I've purged most evil from my soul. When I'm done, the last vestiges of my demonic form will fade away.

Johnny: It's hard to believe there's a demon inside there. Ashrah: My true face would horrify you, Cage.

While Sareena's true demon form remains humanoid, probably due to the fact that she may well be a cambion, the mystery remains as to what type of demon Ashrah was before her transformation, it being implied in the two very slim clues the game gives us that, unlike her sister, she was unlikely to have had any human characteristics.

Her wings, although they appear to be those of an angel or a unicorn, to better mark her evolution towards redemption and transcendence and thus show the contrast with demons wings, still remind me of the wings of a bird instead, and why not—especially with her feathers as sharp as claws that she throws at her opponents to stab them in one of her fatalities—of harpies, creatures of Greek mythology that are half-woman and half-bird:

But, since Ashrah didn't really seem to have human features before, I prefer to think that she was in every way just a sheer monstrosity, and that her face was nothing but a hideous abomination, especially since that's what she seems to be implying to Johnny.

And what reinforces my headcanon that she could have been some kind of demonic vulture inspired by the harpy is a funny coincidence. In MK1, Ashrah's first appearance takes place in the Living Forest, where the trees are inhabited by the wise and noble souls of once-honored Outworlders. Then, Quan Chi sucks out these souls via his Soul Stealer, and the Forest becomes ruined and cursed. Interestingly enough, this brings to mind Canto XIII of Dante's Inferno:

William Blake, The Wood of the Self-Murderers: The Harpies and the S*icides, c. 1824–1827 That's not all: in Greek mythology, harpies were also instruments of divine retribution, tormenting mortals who dared to offend the gods, or bringing the dead to Tartarus, where eternal punishment awaited the souls of those who had shown themselves to be impious and wicked during their lifetime:

And indeed, Ashrah, armed with Datusha, presents herself as a kind of divine agent, who has made it her mission to eliminate her former demon "compatriots", since they are cruel and untamable creatures embodying absolute evil and risking, through their primal savagery, to spread the chaos and malice of the Netherrealm into other peaceful realms and profanate, as a consequence, the cosmic order of Fire God Liu Kang. Thus, Ashrah believes herself to be the messenger of Heaven, where the Elder Gods reside in Mortal Kombat, charged with carrying out the metaphysical vengeance of Good against Evil. Two of her special moves are even called God's Wrath and Heaven's Beacon! Actually, in Greek mythology, divine retribution is symbolized more specifically by a goddess: Nemesis, whose sword was one of her many attributes:

And, surprisingly, the depictions of Ashrah with wings spread and kriss ready to perform a Fatality on her opponent is similar to the painting representing Nemesis pursuing and about to strike down a murderer by Alfred Rethel (1837):

And what's remarkable is that both women are wearing the same colors, white and yellow! Nemesis even radiates light, just like Ashrah in the second picture, where, just like Nemesis, she wears a headgear and holds her sword in her right hand. Her other hand, in a position almost identical to Nemesis's, could just as well be holding an hourglass, just like the goddes. Finally, note that they each have one leg bent while hovering above the ground. [As a side note, hubris and nemesis are two key concepts in ancient Greek thought—if not one of the very foundations of this civilization—, which I had applied in an essay on Bi-Han to explain his destiny in MK1, shortly before the release of Khaos Reigns which, sadly, finished destroying his lore and nullified everything I had written about him, given how worse than bad NRS/WB are at creating good stories and character development—and for those who might be interested.]

But getting back to harpies; they were also described as hungry creatures, their faces bearing the marks of starvation and unrelenting voracity. And isn't Ashrah hungry herself? Hungry to purify herself and finally earn her redemption? And, to satisfy this hunger that assails and obsesses her, she steals lives arbitrarily, because bloodshed is the only way, she thinks, to achieve her goal, and thus be satiated.

Furthermore, certain elements of her outfits evoke wings or feathers, an attribute in mythology not only of harpies, but also of Hermes, the messenger of the gods and their intermediary with mortals. Like harpies, he also has a psychopomp function, in that he, like them, guides the souls of the dead to the afterlife.

As such, the wings on his sandals and caduceus are reminiscent of the adornments on Ashrah's skins, especially her arm bracelets (on her Union of Light skin) or shoulder pads:

Another thing harpies and Hermes have in common is, of course, the supernatural speed with which they travel the world. Harpies were originally storm deities, and their names reflect this: Aello (Storm Swift), Ocypete (Swift Wing), and Podarge (Swift Foot).

Ashrah thus possesses, both in her appearance and in her inner being, as well as in the places she has traveled (the Netherrealm, the Living Forest, and Earthrealm; not to mention her aspiration to Heaven), traits reminiscent of harpies or Hermes, messengers of the gods and vectors of their implacable justice between worlds. This is why I like to imagine that her original form was that of a gruesome harpy-like creature albeit with few, if any, human features. Finally, however, talking about harpies made me think of sirens, who are also half-woman and half-bird creatures:

John William Waterhouse, Ulysses and the Sirens (1891) And, just as the sirens seduced the sailors with their alluring songs and the sailors, hypnotised and disoriented, ended up crashing their ships against the rocks and dying as a result, I like to think that Ashrah's frightening appearance concealed a voice of great beauty, whose pure and ethereal singing bewitched the poor, newly dead souls en route to the Netherrealm aboard Charon's ship, and thus enticed them to jump into the Sea of Blood, which MK11 tells us is bottomless. After which she would be forced by Quan Chi to do his bidding, before realizing that this was not what she wanted, and that her destiny laid elsewhere, in Earthrealm, halfway to Heaven, walking under the sun rather than rotting eternally in the deepest strata of Hell.

[cienie-isengardu]

The Jedi were already out of touch before and after the Ruusan reformation

Darth Bane trilogy focuses on the Sith, however it still features the Jedi as the other side of the conflict. On the surface, the Army of Light won the war against the Brotherhood of Darkness... except they didn't. The Brotherhood was tricked into suicide by Bane, the Jedi did nothing. Their stated goal of this war was to eradicate the Sith - but Bane survived and reformed the Sith. The Jedi failed their mission on Ruusan and they kept failing - on Tython their best team died in battle against Bane and Zannah, on Ambria they were tricked by Zannah's spell to believe Darovit was a Sith lord. In Dynasty of Evil a Jedi Knight is killed by Huntress/Cognus, his master doesn't notice Serra's lies too, so the Jedi don't even get involved with Sith business on Doan. They are already blind to the Sith machinations.

In Path of Destruction Bane has a political discussion with Republic soldiers in the bar. The soldiers try to convince him how the Jedi seek justice, preserve peace, defend the Republic and always help the weak and those in need. Bane points out that no Jedi ever came to Apatros to stop the injustice done against the exploited miners like him, whose work serves the Republic's war effort against the Sith. The Jedi and the Republic failed Apatros and so Bane joined the Sith.

Later on, the Jedi fail Zannah and her cousins. They recruit young orphaned children, then bring them untrained to the war zone. And they justify it by saying that if they didn't do this, the Sith would take the children and do the same thing. In the end, Zannah is abandoned and joins Bane, Bug dies and Darovit turns his back on the Jedi. All three of them are lost to the Jedi Order. The children are the weak, needing Jedi protection, however the Jedi didn't protect them but instead put them in deadly danger. Destroying the Sith was more important to them than saving the children.

The killing of Laa, an innocent, by the Jedi was another crime on their part. The Jedi were just indiscriminately killing all the bouncers after some of these emphatic aliens went crazy from all the death and pain caused by the Jedi-Sith war on their planet. Laa wasn't even afflicted, but still was shot. Even killing the sick bouncers was morally wrong, but the Jedi only cared about the negative impact of bouncers on their army. Before that they gladly received the bouncers' help with the wounded soldiers, but when the bouncers needed help in turn, the Jedi rather shot them and saved themselves the trouble of truly dealing with the issue.

The Jedi helped only human civillians by evacuating them from Ruusan's surface, but then left them on the planet destroyed by the war without any help with reconstruction. Jedi failures continue in Rule of Two, which is pointed out by Darovit. The Jedi come back to Ruusan, which is still suffering effects similar to a nuclear winter even 10 years after the war, only for the purpose of building a monument to remember the Army of Light. It's clearly a vanity project that no one who actually lives on Ruusan asked for. It doesn't help anyone, it's just forced by the Republic and the Jedi Knight Johun Othone on the people of Ruusan without their consent or knowledge. Only Darovit has the courage to oppose it and sabotage the construction site in order to send them away. Just how blind and out of touch are the Jedi? To be fair, Farfalla said the Jedi Council didn't approve the monument, but Johun, a Knight, doesn't see the problem with it. I don't think he's the only one.

Another sign of the Order's complacency is that Zannah is able to impersonate a Jedi padawan and walk around the Archives and no Jedi notices anything wrong with her. Only Darovit sees her.

The Ruusan reformation disbanded the Army of Light and put the Jedi Order under the oversight by the Chancellor and the Senate. The aim of those changes was to transition the Jedi from warriors to peacekeepers and to make them accountable to the Republic's citizens. The Jedi were viewed as instigators of wars in which many innocents suffered (true, as shown on Ruusan) so the reform was necessary to repair their image and justify their continued existence when the Sith were presumably gone for good.

However, after the reform the Jedi still keep failing the weak they were supposed to protect. In Dynasty of Evil it's well illustrated on Doan. It's a horribly exploited mining world like Apatros, but the Jedi Knight Medd Tandar only comes into contact with rebelling miners to get a Sith artifact they found. He's legally unable to help them, he must stay neutral and can only mediate with the royal family. 20 years after the Ruusan reformation there's a galactic peace but the Jedi Order is unable to seek justice or protect the weak. It is beholden to the strong, the upper classes that still keep oppressing and persecuting the common people. What's worse, the Knight acknowledges the miners' plight, but he feels bored and annoyed when they present their case to him. He doesn't actually care about them, he just wants to grab the artifact and get out without causing any political trouble for himself and the Order. He lacks compassion.

Master Obba is another one out of touch as he lectures Lucia, a veteran Sith soldier, about the Sith army of "desperate, foolish people". He's so self-absorbed that he doesn't notice her reaction to his words about her and her old comrades. He doesn't care who he's talking to, why she asks those questions and what she feels. Moreover, his words show that he doesn't understand or belittles the prevailing issues that caused normal people to join the Sith army.

The last symptom of the Jedi Order's problems is their initiative to find the dangerous Sith artifacts and gather them in the Jedi Temple. The book shows that such objects have a corrupting influence on anyone nearby. However, the Jedi gather them in their own headquarters and expect no one will be affected by it? That's so arrogant of them. Set Harth became a Dark Jedi undoubtedly because he was often handling such artifacts. Perhaps Medd and master Obba's uncaring attitudes were also influenced by their close contact with these Sith relics. One can only wonder about the adverse effects on many other unknowing Jedi, living and learning in the Temple and the Order as a whole from the centuries of keeping these artifacts around.

The picture of the Jedi Order painted in the trilogy isn't pretty. Their inability to fulfill their mission and protect the weak and innocent both creates the Sith and allows them to get away from justice. The Jedi faults that ultimately contributed to their downfall in PT are already present a thousand years in the past. The Ruusan reformation addressed the need to position the Jedi within the structures of the Republic and make them accountable, but it doesn't serve their actual mission, instead becoming an obstacle that's impossible to overcome. The Jedi aren't legally allowed to help those in real need, even if they wanted to. The false victory at Ruusan caused the Jedi to stop evolving as they became complacent and convinced of their own perfection. They don't take any steps to correct their wrongs other than disbanding the army, instead they double down on what they were doing previously in desperation caused by the war (like training only children). While the Sith focus on increasing their personal power and influence over the galaxy, the Jedi flounder and don't seem to do anything to improve themselves. They are blind to their own self-centered attitude and don't see what's right under their noses - both their enemies and the people who need help.

The problems of the Jedi Order started before even Yoda was born. They weren't evil, however they made certain compromises that caused them to become ineffective - just as ineffective as the Senate in the late Republic years. As warriors they became obsessed with destroying the Sith instead of helping the weak. As peacekeepers, despite having good intentions, they can't act on them. The Jedi's many failures only show how hard it is to be good, to pursue the ideals, how easy it is to be misled by pride and arrogance, to lose track of the true goal. In the end, being evil, a Sith is much easier than being a Jedi who is bound to make mistakes and get lost while looking for the right path among many options. The war damaged the Jedi Order and they didn't make necessary changes for peacetime. Instead they chose to believe they won because they achieved perfection and there's nothing to change.

[cienie-isengardu]

Leia: Thanks for the cover, young lady. You're very brave to help me. Tammi: It was fun! I understand 'cause sometimes I get in trouble too! Only... aren't you scared with stormtroopers and everybody chasing you? Leia: Very. But sometimes-- when you believe in something enough-- you do it anyway." Tammi: E-even if everyone else says you can't...? That it's impossible...? Leia: Maybe especially then. - Star Wars (1977) #30

[cienie-isengardu]