faint-taste-of-almonds - Tumblr blog

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kinder than man, athea davis

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Jason and Bruce are out late one night in Gotham as civilians. They get cornered by a mugger and Jason nearly pisses himself, he’s so amused. He teases the would-be mugger about their hand placement, even tries to goad the mugger into a fight because he’s Red Hood. He can disarm anyone in seconds. It doesn’t matter if you have a gun — he has two.

He’s Red Hood, and he has the literal Bat of Gotham standing behind him like a wall of muscle. They’re as close to invincible as humans get, in this town. And that kind of confidence scares off their would-be mugger.

But then Jason turns around, a smile stretching across his face, and Bruce is white. Bone white and so so quiet, eyes wide and trained on where the mugger had been standing.

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Padme was not a Witness

I will never join the “Padmé was stupid to go to Mustafar” parade—she had valid reason to believe in the possibility of Anakin’s redemption—but there’s something awful in the fact that she didn’t have to witness either of his massacres.

Obi-Wan and Yoda walk past the bodies of their people—of their people’s children. Bail Organa goes to the temple and sees a kid get shot down trying to escape (more clones than Anakin, but still).

Padme hears about the second massacre after sitting in her apartment while the Temple was on fire. She’s told about them in vague terms. “I killed them like animals,” “he killed younglings,” She has a touch of denial when she goes to Mustafar partly because of her belief in Anakin, but partly because—I think—the Tuskan Massacre was never fully real to her. She understands it intellectually of course, but violence on that scale is difficult to conceptualise without seeing it, especially if it’s easier to just let it go. If she’d seen the bodies? Or seen Anakin kill them? She watched that one refugee kid die slowly, not at all violently, when she was working with the refugee organisation, and it affected her for the rest of her life. It is not a lack of caring on Padmé’s part that’s the problem.

Imagine being Obi-Wan listening to Padme saying “there’s still good in him,” after walking through the Temple, seeing the lightsaber marks on knights and children alike—not even to mention seeing her get strangled. It sounds not only wild, but honestly deeply offensive on more levels than one (besides the obvious issues it’s another, “train the boy,” prioritise Anakin over everything moment, except this time Obi-wan’s entire world has been torn apart, rather than just losing his Master)

If Padmé had actually been a witness to Anakin’s violence? If it was made present and visceral to her?

I think her opinions and her actions would’ve been different.

Thematically, it is crucial that when Luke goes to the second Death Star, he is under no illusions about who Anakin is or what he’s done, and in his most desperate moment he chooses to ask Anakin for help anyway. Padmé goes to him still a bit in denial, still a bit convinced things can return to how they once were. When she starts to push at the illusion, Anakin accuses her of betraying him and strangles her to shut her up, attempting to preserve the illusion (the difference between Anakin’s state at the time of his confrontations with Padmé and Luke is a whole other, very important topic). In part, her illusion allows Anakin to believe he can preserve the past (to be clear—he is the only one responsible for the choice to strangle her; Padme being imperfect is not an excuse for domestic abuse).

Side note, but if anyone is not sufficiently freaked out by Anakin strangling Padmé, it's important to know that strangulation is one of the flashing red warnings that physical abuse is doing to turn deadly, very, very quickly.

Luke’s complete and honest knowledge of Anakin’s worst self means there is nothing for Anakin to lose except his son, exactly as he is. No illusions, no wonderful past, not even any good memories together. Just his son.

To me, that’s one of several reasons (both thematic and logistical) why Padmé’s plea fails where Luke’s succeeds. None of those reasons has anything to do with her being stupid to go in the first place.

(There are some wonderful fanfics out there that show Padmé actually making her disapproval about the Tuskan massacre—both despite and because of her love—actively known during their marriage, and I think that interpretation of her is a stronger character than ROTS gives us, and more in line with what we’re shown in the first movie)

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(possibly) hot take: force sensitivity isn't a hereditary trait, nor should it really be. the skywalkers are the exception, not the norm. and they're only the exception because, you know, anakin's dad was literally the force. he was literally force jesus. he's literally half the force. i cannot emphasize enough how much he cannot be used as an example for normal force sensitivity

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luke skywalker is kind of an outlier in terms of male protagonists considering his core character trait is sacrifice. he wants to leave tatooine so bad it makes him look stupid. and yet, despite yearly arguments with uncle owen he stays. until there’s nothing left to stay for. he chases after the breadcrumb trail that might leave him just an inch closer to the idea of his father with a desperation bordering on stupidity. and he abandons it the second his friends are in danger. at great personal cost. he gives up what he wants over and over without even thinking about it. idk it’s just fascinating

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Bail Organa is barely in "Revenge of the Sith" and he's such a badass in those few moments that it's wonderful. The Jedi have been declared traitors? Better go pick some Jedi Council members up personally and smuggle them onto Coruscant to destroy the trap beacon. Yoda tries to assassinate the new Emperor? Bail Organa is waiting solo outside in the getaway speeder, giving free taxi rides for people trying to kill dictators. Anakin Skywalker has turned to the Dark Side and killed Padmé? Better adopt and raise Darth Vader's daughter with unconditional love. And after this movie is over, Bail is apparently going to go right back to work in the Imperial Senate while helping to found the Rebellion, because this superspy does not fucking blink.

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I fully understand that the preponderance of evidence is that George Lucas put absolutely zero thought into what Naboo’s culture was actually supposed to look like outside of what we see on screen, but as far as unintentionally effective worldbuilding goes, establishing that Naboo a. has a tradition of electing literal children as figurehead rulers of its planetary government, and b. apparently also has a tradition of assassinating these children with sufficient frequency that dressing up a bunch of other children as decoy targets has become standard operating procedure by the time of Padmé Amidala’s reign suggests that maybe the fact that this random backwater is a breeding ground for Sith Lords isn’t as unlikely as it initially appears.

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yes there's a lot of things to criticize about Star Wars but one thing i will always love it for is being so unabashedly tragic

i'm sure it's been said before, but one of the main things i think powers the SW fandom (fics in particular) is the (in)evitability of it all

time travel fix-its are one of the most popular sub-categories of fics that i've seen (for the prequels at least) but i see it much more rarely in other fandoms. i know each fandom has their own niches that they dig into but star wars fic writers took one look at this decades long story of people who were doomed from the start and said 'not in my house bitch'

and i'm never tired of it, because there's so many places where just one different action could have changed the story entirely, but didn't

was it over the moment Palpatine succeeded in feeding Anakin's fears and his distrust toward the Jedi? the moment the Sith gained control of the senate? what about when the war started, when the Jedi were made generals of men designed to be their executioners? what about when Dooku left the order? when Qui-Gon Jinn died, leaving barely-knighted Obi Wan Kenobi to raise a child he had no idea how to care for? when the Jedi massacred the Mandalorians at Galidraan, leaving Jango Fett primed (hah) for revenge? when Palpatine, and thus the Sith, first gained influence? when the Jedi were tied to the Republic, all the way back at the Ruusan Reformation?

there are so many little moments that turn into this huge web of cause and effect when you take a step back. and in canon, these characters are dooming themselves while we watch, but what reason do they have to do anything different? they don't know they're in a tragedy - its dramatic irony at its goddamn finest

but there's this thing about decisions: for it to be a choice, there has to be another option. and our heroes make their mistakes because that's what they do, while we aren't privy to that other option, leaving that little what-if. it's a favorite human pastime, to think about what might have been.

we start at episode 4, though, fourty or so years after what you could arguably call the start, and find ourselves watching the dominoes fall in place throughout 1, 2, and 3.

and we can hate the choices, hate the tragedy, hate what happened to our beloved characters, but we knew. we had the luxury of knowing.

it's a love story, it's political intrique, it's sci-fi at its finest, and they were dead from the start.

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yeah this is basically what my mind looks like at all times

it's nice to know my constants will always be there when I come back, with a ton of new fics to destroy me :')

i feel like being in a fandom long-term has a very specific repetitive cycle that kind of looks like this