ilovescarletwitch - Tumblr blog

[ilovescarletwitch]

I finished typing and now I feel I have to preface it with a: this is all a monologue about Jedi and Force and Lucas’ inability to show the good story he wants to tell - just a warning. This is in no way meant to contradict the other post with that quote floating around or argue against it - just my own rambling coming to a conclusion I keep struggling with when it comes to SW universe and the ways it makes no sense to me and how I feel deep in my bones that Lucas is a crap storyteller.

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I don’t know why, but for all the interesting concepts Lucas talks about, Anakin’s fall never sat well with me. In time I came to the conclusion I would respond better if the Jedi culture surrounding it wasn’t so contradictory to itself.

And if he wasn’t so heavily leaning on the concept of the ‘pure love’ that is unconditional and undemanding and ‘unselfish’. Tldr: that love does not exist outside of poetry and romance dramas and imagination. Like every other emotion humans feel, love is conditional.

Take the first trilogy - I got that. The Jedi were largely missing and there was not much lore-wise, but the vibe it gave was measured and peaceful and mindful, and all the things that stood against the Empire - that represented the Dark Side in a very concise way. It wasn’t too nuanced, so we could buy it in this very simple ‘princes kidnapped b ya dragon’ story. This is as good as Lucas gets.

But then the prequels happened and Jedi became this weird, extremely specific, but conflicting idea. They are not supposed to take sides in politics - except when they do. They are not supposed to kill - except when they do, with freaking relish. They are not supposed to love or hate or allow emotions dictate their ways - oh, except when they do. And they can have sex - just not sex with someone they want to settle down with (oh boy, is that a signifier of a story written by a guy or what?). All seems to be ‘except when they do, as long as it can be adequately justified to make them look good’.

And I do have an issue with the idea of ‘Anakin was too old to join, he was already attached to his mother’ which is, when you think about it, is insane. Learning to control your emotions and letting go of your wants, Buddhist way, fine.

Aiming to train children to not be attached to their parents? What? How young a child has to be for that attachment forms? How is a meditation and repeating mantras going to help a 5-year old who is missing their mom at the temple? How do you even expect to train a child out of missing their mom??? How is it NOT better to get an older child that can reason above the instinctual and hardwired need for their mother? 

But let’s say Anakin’s attachment to his mother was ‘selfish’ from the beginning - but, that’s the thing, was it? Was it really? They were slaves and she was his only family, okay, obviously that made his attachment stronger and more layered than, say, a normal middle-class Coruscanti kid who could love their mom without constant fear that any day they can be separated forever by someone who didn’t give a shit. In that sense, yes, Anakin was desperately attached to his mom and afraid of loosing her - there was fear in him. Right, I’m there with you, Yoda.

But the movies show us that the way Jedi seem to approach these hard subjects is by not approaching them at all - oh, well, we can’t take him in. He had a difficult childhood and there are issues attached, get him out of here.

In a galaxy full of races and issues and the Force being tied to any and all creatures in any and all circumstances - this was the hard line Jedi were drawing. In essence, either only accepting kids young enough to not remember their parents (and I see absolutely no issues whatsoever that could happen here, nope) or with childhoods perfect enough not to have any issues whatsoever. Anyone else? Adults that discovered Force when they were older? Kids like Anakin with hard childhoods? Creatures that were either culturally or chemically wired differently enough that the tight reins Jedi held over their emotions weren’t possible for them? Nope. Go away. You are a bad person in the making.

If you spend a moment contemplating, you will realise this is such a white privileged guy way to think about it. And if you stick your head into the microwave for a couple seconds, you can almost understand how Lucas thought this is something profound and mystical.

No that I think about it… I always thought Sith were freaking clowns - their philosophy makes no sense, their ‘rule of two’ is hilarious, everything about them is just so badly designed and thought out, and who would ever decide to join of that creepy cult of their own volition? It made no sense!

But, as an answer to the egalitarian and contradictory ways of the Jedi - Sith make all the sense to exist. And let’s forget about the Light and Dark (that I don’t believe exist above the ways of personal emotional expression that in time trains the Force around a person in certain ways - like a person can train their brain in and out of anxiety ofr example), but focusing strictly on philosophy - yeah, being a Sith makes sense when any other way is barred form someone by no fault of their own. And barred with an excuse they are a bad seed anyway. 

“You fear/hate/desire hence you can’t access the Force with us” = “Well fuck you, then, I will access the Force in my own way, using these exact emotions!”

Like, Sith are clowns, but Jedi suck in their own very special way and their fall was just waiting to happen.

I get a strange feeling that Lucas created Jedi as a class of a warrior monk in DnD and then scrambled to create their enemies out of the simplest contradictions. Light-dark. Love-Hate. Peace-Fear. Etc. But because Jedi were so simple - once they started to gain popularity and he had to expand their lore and layer on the philosophy, he hit a wall. Or rather, the bottom of the kiddy pool. Because a ‘warrior monk’ is not an a ‘good’ class, but he wanted them to be mostly warriors, but also a force of good in the galaxy, because Star Wars is the same simple story repeated again and again with a new set of characters (regardless of how much fake politics is thrown in to obscure that fact) so this whole universe is basically built on giving Jedi reasons to fight and kill, and adequately justifying them. And then the Dark Side had to catch up by being more ridiculously evil at every turn - accidentally unmasking the way Jedi philosophy falls apart under closer scrutiny.

So like, to make a full circle, the one thing the prequels did well was to show Anakin’s fall (and I am not gonna argue, it was effective and he is a villain of this story) but they also presented - I think against the creator’s intention - why it was pretty much inevitable. Not because Palpatine was there to whisper poison, or because Force itself strived for ‘balance’ (even though the latter is a hilarious idea I love to contemplate) - but because Jedi, as presented in the movies-media around them, as a philosophy and way of life is inherently contradictory and unsustainable from the point of being a, well, a breathing, thinking being.  The ‘selfish love’ argument would work so much better if it wasn’t presented with an example of a kid who was born a slave and the people who saw it as a strike against his character, and did very little to address the specific issues that could arise from that before it was too late. 

Would it fucking kill them to let go of their strict training routine and ensure that his specific emotional needs were met? That Shimi was, I don’t know, NOT A SLAVE. They seem to interfere into politics just fine when need arises - but not when it’s a sandy planet in the ass-end of the universe no one cares about. Then no, we can’t liberate one slave. That would be acting in self-interest - not in the interest of not allowing one of the strongest members of out order to fall into the ruin we have forseen form the beginning. 

It would work better is if Anakin’s ‘selfishness’ was presented as his inability to let Padme leave him for someone else/just leave him - not to be unwilling to let her die.  

Think about it for a moment - he wasn’t presented with the idea of Padme leaving him. With the idea of his mother not loving him anymore. He was firmly and, form his point of view, believably, presented with the idea of both of them DYING. Which actually happened to his mom, solidifying the fear in his mind.

Yes, he was not meant to go on a rampage and kill the ones who killed Shimi - but wasn’t he? The Jedi are not against killing. Only killing in self-interest I guess - when self-interest is not one’s life and their political affiliation or their ‘job’ at hand, that is. Revenge is a no-no, but a military retaliation is a yes-go. Can’t kill anyone who wronged me - but I can kill those who wronged a person who gives me orders. How does that work within a Jedi doctrine? 

How, in good conscience, can you present this scenario, George, and then try to spin it into this big philosophical bullcrap about unselfish love????  Jedi murdered people over political squabbles - but I guess that’s okay because they weren’t invested??? And that’s better?!?!? George! What the fuck! You are such a bloke my head hurts!

In case of Anakin, Jedi were essentially Elsa’s parents. I pretty much despise Elsa and the film she crawled out of, and I personally don’t like Anakin as a character either, so this is not stanning in any way, but their issues scream ‘I was raised by well-meaning idiots’ and shows the level of botched storytelling I just can’t reconcile.

Which, you know what? 

Luke, who spent years studying Jedi ways and taking them into himself? 

I can believe than this Luke would try to kill his nephew at the barest whiff of the Dark Premonition instead of helping him manage his motions in a somewhat healthy way - that seems to be exactly what a real Jedi would do, after all. 

[ilovescarletwitch]

Reblog so everyone can hear what they need.

[ilovescarletwitch]

The fact that Tolkien realized he’d created inconsistency for LotR with the first published version of The Hobbit and then retconned it with the in universe explanation of “Bilbo is a liar,” is never going to stop being both equal parts brilliant and funny.

[ilovescarletwitch]

I’m getting old. I saw a bad take and did not engage in discourse. lol

[ilovescarletwitch]

could you explain to me in your opinion what exactly saw padme in anakin to fall for him? in aotc it came like out of nowhere after three days knowing him, anakin then commited tusken genocide and padme was ready to forgive him despite her strong sense of justice, to me it just feels very off and diservicing to her, how wasnt that a deal breaker for her

i’ll gladly explain!! and i’ve spoken briefly about how i view padmé’s reaction to the tusken massacre before, but i’ll elaborate here too.

i think the key things to remember when looking at anidala from padmé’s perspective are a) love is by nature pretty irrational so you’re never gonna be able to fully rationalize padmé’s love for anakin, b) padmé is a deeply lonely person in a career that requires her to distance herself from others and sacrifice authenticity, c) padmé met anakin when he was an enslaved child and she was a teenaged queen dealing with an unprecedented crisis and he played a key role in solving that whilst showing her extreme kindness and selflessness, and d) as of the beginning of aotc, padmé has just narrowly escaped death and lost two of her devoted handmaidens who she also considered to be her friends. these are the big things informing her mindset and her perception of anakin throughout the film.

i think one thing that trips people up even before they go to tatooine is that anakin is just weird in aotc, but the thing is that that’s what made padmé fall for him. she’s been in politics since she was a child, and politics is a field that requires inauthenticity by default, and in padmé’s case that’s to an extreme degree because she spent her teen years putting on the queen amidala persona and the anonymous handmaiden persona, then the minute that was up she became a senator and senator amidala is not as dramatic a persona but it is one nonetheless because politics and diplomacy require that. her entire life since she was fourteen has been spent playing roles, surrounded by others also playing roles, and she’s a severe workaholic working under a sense of moral obligation so unlike some people in the same field might she doesn’t really have a life outside of this. and here comes anakin, who she’s already fond of because of the kindness he showed her and her people when he was a child, and he’s so unlike any of the people she’s surrounded by because he is earnest to a fault. he’s socially stunted, he’s abrasive and combative, he doesn’t give a shit about niceties or diplomacy, he says every weird thing he thinks before he even finishing thinking it, and can you imagine how refreshing that must be to someone whose entire social life is just her staff and fellow politicians who are all inauthentic by nature? and on top of how appealing that is on its own he’s also hot, and he still shows that he cares for her, and he gives her space to be authentic as well. he jokes with her, he speaks openly about his emotions and gives her room to do the same, he treats her like a person rather than a figurehead. it’s a perfect recipe for romance, really.

so it’s important to note that, for all these reasons, she was already in love with him before they even left naboo, and that informs all her actions throughout the last half of the film. it’s also important to note that she is carrying the guilt and grief of cordé and versé’s deaths on her shoulders as well as all the strange emotions that come with a near-death experience. and that’s the mindset she’s traveling to tatooine with, knowing that anakin might be on the verge of a monumental loss himself. and then the worst case scenario happens and she does see him grieving, and she understands to an extent what it’s like to experience a loss that feels like her fault. it’s the opening scene of the film! so she sees his volatile grief and that doesn’t scare her off because his vulnerability and depth of emotion are part of what drew her to him in the first place since she is someone who has long been denied access to such vulnerability. and all this gives her immense grounds to sympathize deeply with him by the time he confesses to the massacre.

i guess i kind of understand why people think her reaction to anakin’s confession is a bad character moment or a disservice or whatever, but it’s actually one of my favorite padmé moments for a lot of reasons. it makes sense to me that under the circumstances padmé would underreact to the crime being confessed. she has a strong sense of justice but she also loves anakin and understands what he’s feeling, she knows him and knows his immense capacity for goodness because she’s witnessed it, and above all she is an idealist. she is driven by immense compassion and that is something that can be misapplied and it isn’t inherently virtuous. she can look past anakin’s crime because she sympathizes deeply with the emotions that motivated it, and because she knows him well enough to know that he isn’t defined by this level of cruelty and she has no reason to believe he’ll make a habit out of it considering the remorse he’s expressing, and quite simply and selfishly because she loves him. it isn’t a morally upright moment for her but it doesn’t have to be because this streak of hypocrisy she has is really interesting and makes her feel more human than if she was just a paragon of virtue.

so after that really crazy week? week and a half? geonosis happens, and this is padmé’s second super close brush with death in like a month, and her love confession comes in a moment right before what’s supposed to be an execution because of course you’re gonna grab life by the tits if you only have like five minutes of it left. and near-death experiences are very perspective shifting things, and she just had two super close together and anakin just had one right along with her and is about to be shipped off to the chronic near-death experience that is Fighting In A War, and she is very madly in love with him and he is the only person she can be herself around, and after all that and lifetime of repressing and sacrificing her entire self for public service she says fuck it and lets herself have this one selfish thing and marries him. and that’s really all of it, nothing was a dealbreaker because padmé really truly loves anakin and almost died twice and also almost lost him and he gives her something no one else ever could and she wants that. and after the whirlwind she just experienced she’s gonna take it.

and even with all this aside i think it’s important to give padmé as a character space to be irrational because she is, at the end of the day, a character, and not a real person or even an audience insert. and she’s a character in a shakespearean space opera on top of that, one where an exorbitant amount of guys cope by doing mass murder. her love interest is one of those guys and he’s also constantly off his rocker about everything all the time, so why can’t she be a bit off hers too, yanno? anakin and padmé’s relationship is almost transcendentally intense, and that just wouldn’t work if the intensity weren’t on both ends. and padmé loves just as intensely as anakin does, it’s just more focused and less outwardly fiery. and her moral oversights are part of that intensity.

[ilovescarletwitch]

for all the anakin/vader travels-back-in-time fics written so that anakin is once again not in time to save shmi’s life for whatever reason, just—

why?

Anakin gets to use time-travel to undo the horrible wrongs of the clone wars, of the temple massacre, of order 66, and sometimes in these fics specifically undoing his tusken massacre! All of these good jedi, good tuskens, good clones, good people who get to live due to the repentant, preventative actions of an anakin/vader fueled by hindsight, grief, and/or regret.

Except Shmi, who -as far as anyone in canon tells us, whether or not you read it as truth- was tortured to death for no more reason than marrying into and then maintaining a moisture farm?

Why can’t she live too?

[ilovescarletwitch]

I’m so sorry but in the nicest way possible do yall actually read books or just read words??? Cause I’ve been seeing that trend of people not understanding how “snarled” and “eyes darkened” and “eyes softened” etc. was used in a book and like…

Genuinely, do yall just not have imagination?? Or not understand figurative language??? Also eyes do literally darken and soften have you not lived a life??? How do you read with no imagination? Is this how you get through so many books in one month - you simply don’t take the time the understand the words as they are read?

[ilovescarletwitch]

Review of some anti-Tony comments from Ao3. Part 6

Let’s talk more about things from Part 1 today:

 “Tony was actively attacking someone from behind, who was just trying to leave.”

Eh? So how did that happen that he only attacked from behind ONCE? Semi-behind, to be exact - see my post with Part 1. Why Bucky tried to leave if he was innocent? Just like he did before with T’Challa. “Why did you run?”.

I’ll add the extension of that statement here so we could figure the whole thing out: “Steve was actively defending said person in any way, even if that meant attacking Tony from behind.

And before you get on me about how I'm being hypocritical - it's been done - it isn't the action that's being criticized, it's the WHY behind the action. Tony repeatedly attacked someone from behind who was only trying to flee the scene vs Steve repeatedly attacked someone from behind to protect his best friend from being killed. That's the difference between the two. You can't hold them to the same standard when their reasons for doing the same action are complete opposites. It isn't the action; it's the reasons BEHIND the action.”

Let’s think about the most appropriate thing Bucky could do in the scene instead. Well, first he could say “I’m sorry”. That would be a good start. Doesn’t matter if he was brainwashed or not – his hands were used. “Sorry” is always good in such situations. He didn’t do that.

Instead he raised his gun at Tony and was ready to fire at his face (CA:CW 2:03:15). Yes, Tony hit Cap there. But it was for a reason. And you simply don’t point a gun at a guy who just watched his parents die by your hands, if you are innocent and truly regret this. It was so wrong to attack him that it just showed Bucky’s position “there’s nothing to explain and nothing to apologies for”, if the best thing Bucky could do is to raise his gun and run. Low and cowardly.

But we should actually take a closer look at that scene (starting from 2:02:17), because it’s even more complicated if we watch the scene frame by frame.

2:01:33 – Tony is watching the video of his parents’ death. Steve looks at him with a very interesting expression. At him, not at the video. He already knows what’s going on there. He is looking at Tony for his reaction.

2:01:38 – focus on Bucky who looks a bit regretful, looking at the floor first, but then raising his eyes to Tony.

2:01:53 – Tony hears his father saying “Sergeant Barnes” and his mother calling “Howard!”. Tony glances at Bucky.

2:02:05 – Winter Soldier hits Howard in the head and kills him. Tony’s expression tells us he is enraged.

2:02:25 – Winter Soldier kills Maria, strangling her with his biological hand.

2:02:33 – video ends with Winter Soldier shooting at the camera. Tony is in shock. Steve is looking at him, saying nothing. He had enough time to say something.

2:02:40 – Tony turns to Bucky and makes a step towards him. Not putting his helmet on. He is not attacking yet. Most probably he just wanted to grab him by his jacket and ask some questions or something like that. What Bucky does? He raised his gun at him. We can see tears in his eyes. Why did he do that then?

2:02:42 – Steve says “No, Tony. Tony”. He says that to calm him down, and that would be a good start. But then he does some “stupid-ass decisions”, how Fury would put that.

2:02:45 – Tony turns to him. He is devastated. He just realized something. “Did you know?”. Steve’s eyes are shifting rapidly, and after a long pause (when he was thinking of what to say, I guess), he says “I didn’t know it was him”. By his behavior here we can infer that he is lying. Tony sees it “Don’t bullshit, me Rogers. Did you know?”. Steve looks Tony in the eyes and swallows hard. “Yes”.

Let’s make a digression to show Steve really knew that Bucky killed Tony’s parents.

CA:WS 1:04:50 – Zola is explaining how Hydra eliminated unwanted individuals. Chronicle footage shows Bucky with a sniper rifle and then next frame with news article about Starks’ death. Zola says “Accidents will happen”. Next few frames show Howard in the car in the same position Bucky left him in the CA:CW 2:02:10 scene.  Then Fury’s file is shown, “deceased” – another victim of the Winter Soldier. No need to be a genius to put two and two together. Especially when you don’t know that there were other Winter Soldiers yet. There were no other options – Steve and Nat knew that Howard was killed by Bucky from that exact moment. But let’s add more evidence, shall we?

CA:WS 2:05:28 – Natasha gives Bucky’s case files to Steve. Logic tells us that they should contain his targets. Including Howard and Maria.

CA:CW 2:15:52 – Steve’s letter says “I know I hurt you, Tony. I guess I thought by not telling you about your parents I was sparing you, but I can see now that I was really sparing myself. And I’m sorry…”

Conclusion is pretty clear, isn’t it?

Let’s get back to the pre-fight situation:

So Steve admitted that he knew who killed Tony’s parents (and his own old friend btw).

2:03:05 – Steve’s “Yes” hits Tony. Rogers is just looking at him there. No sorrow or regret in his eyes. Tony loses it.

He is the victim in this scene. He came to help and was betrayed again.

2:03:12 – he hits Rogers with back of his hand. Cap is thrown a couple of steps back.

2:03:15 - Tony puts his helmet on. Now he is going to attack.

Put yourself on his place and answer the question “wouldn’t you act the same way?”. If your answer is “nope, I wouldn’t” - try to pass a CAPTCHA, because you are most probably a robot.

Same moment – Bucky points his gun at Tony. He almost opens fire, but Tony shoots the gun with a repulsor, knocking the weapon out of Bucky's hands. Back to the beginning of this essay – why would you shoot at a victim? Tony, most probably, would just hit him couple of times using his hands, if he had not faced counter aggression.

 Bucky is not running here. He wasn’t trying to run until Steve told him to at 2:04:02. He is attacking Tony. Look at his face (2:03:17). This is not the face of regret or sorrow.

[ilovescarletwitch]

anger and fear are not “bad” emotions there is nothing such a “bad” emotions. Every emotion has a function and it’s there to helps us. Fear can save our lives and anger is something you naturally feel when someone does you wrong. The problem only starts when we’re using these emotions to hurt other people other than that they’re very natural and no one should be forced to not feel them

[ilovescarletwitch]

What finally pushes Wei Wuxian into a qi deviation isn’t the fact that Jiang Cheng showed up to hate-crime him and Lan Wangji, but the fact that Wei Wuxian showed up with the best of intentions—informing his dead guardians of his intentions to marry—just to be goaded into attacking their son in front of their tablets, the highest form of disrespect he could’ve performed in front of them. That Jiang Cheng could drag him down to such a level as to engage in something so disrespectful when Wei Wuxian showed up specifically to pay his respects is why it should not surprise anyone that Wei Wuxian’s last thoughts on Lotus Pier is that he wants to leave and never return:

It was only proper to show respect for the deceased. After all, they were at an ancestral hall.

...

Jiang Cheng was exactly who Wei WuXian had wanted to avoid; the last person he wanted to be seen by. Now that Jiang Cheng had found him, he knew he probably couldn’t escape fast enough without having harsh words flung his way. Wei WuXian didn’t want to start any unnecessary conflict, so he said, “I didn’t bring HanGuang-Jun anywhere that contained the Lotus Pier’s secrets. I’m just here to offer a few incense sticks to Uncle Jiang and Madam Yu. We are just leaving.”

—Chapt. 87: Core (Part 9), boat-full-of-lotus-pods

He turned to Jiang Cheng and said, “Jiang Cheng, listen to yourself. Do you even hear what you’re saying? Don’t forget who you are. You’re the leader of a sect. To insult a fellow cultivator from one of the Four Great Sects in front of Uncle Jiang and everyone’s memorial tablets. Where are your manners?”

...

All three of them had weapons out in front of the ancestral hall now. Jiang Cheng’s eyes were bloodshot as he snarled, “Fine! If you want a fight, then let’s fight! You think I’m afraid of you two?!” But just a few strikes later, Wei WuXian remembered, startled, that they stood before the ancestral hall of the Yunmeng Jiang Sect. He had only just knelt and prayed in front of Uncle Jiang and Madam Yu for their protection a few moments ago. And now he was attacking their son with Lan WangJi right under their nose! As if a bucket of cold water had just been dumped over him, suddenly, spots appeared in front of Wei WuXian’s eyes and his vision darkened.

...

Wei WuXian did not answer him. Instead, he said, “Lan Zhan...... Let’s go.” Immediately. And never come back.

—Chapt. 88: Core (Part 10), boat-full-of-lotus-pods

Tellingly enough, Jiang Cheng does not hold the same sense of shame in the fact that he instigated a physical fight in the resting place of his ancestors nor that his intentions weren't to maintain decorum when he followed wangxian into the ancestral hall to begin with. In fact, he is fueled by rage to the point of irrationality before he even steps foot into the ancestral hall, so much so that he cannot even accept wangxian disengaging from the fight and attempting to leave on their own:

All the signs pointed to the same conclusion—there was now something more between Wei WuXian and Lan WangJi. Unable to make himself turn away or step forward to speak to them, Jiang Cheng had concealed himself and followed after them, reinterpreting their every exchange and gesture through a coloured lens. Feelings of disbelief, strangeness, and slight, mild disgust had momentarily been enough to overcome Jiang Cheng’s hatred. It was only when Wei WuXian had brought Lan WangJi into the ancestral hall that Jiang Cheng’s anger reawakened. The repressed, overwhelming rage consumed his rationality and manners.

...

Lan WangJi harbored no more desire to continue the fight with Jiang Cheng. Wordlessly, he pulled Wei WuXian onto his back and turned to leave. Jiang Cheng was plagued by alarm and suspicion. He was alarmed by the terrifying sight of blood suddenly oozing out of Wei WuXian’s qiqiao. Yet he was suspicious of whether the man was faking it for an excuse to run away. After all, it was a prank that Wei WuXian had pulled quite often in the past. At the sight of the two men leaving, Jiang Cheng called, “Stop!”

—Chapt. 88: Core (Part 10), boat-full-of-lotus-pods

[ilovescarletwitch]

I bet octopuses think bones are horrific. I bet all their cosmic horror stories involve rigid-limbs and hinged joints.

[ilovescarletwitch]

Was Wen Ning so special as a corpse because he regained his consciousness, or was he special as a corpse because Wei Wuxian was able to return his consciousness?

[ilovescarletwitch]

Clone troopers & the movie “Soldier” (1998)

I’ve talked a lot about why I hate the chip-in-brain storyline of New Canon but today I want to present an old film that is probably forgotten as it was made 20+ years ago but one that presents my point of view well. I watched the Soldier (1998) as a kid, so naturally what Attack of the Clones did not explain about the life of clone troopers my mind filled in, drawing inspiration from this film.

The story is simple one, but varies greatly from other movie action, as there is no great ideology or strong moral sense behind our main hero, just a life-long training that made him equally a great soldier and traumatized, vulnerable man. A man that slowly rediscover his humanity by interacting with people who see him as a human being.

Greatly important was the opening sequence, in which we have an actual look into the stages of training that shaped our main hero, the sergeant Todd. And so we have: 

Year Zero (1996)

Babies are chosen for the military secret project.

Year Five

We can see 5 years old children sitting in “classroom” (all silent and so un-childly obedient) while voice is telling them repeatedly:

A soldier does not speak until spoken to by a superior officer. A soldier shows no mercy. Mercy is weakness. Weakness is death. The Forces are his family. He is most happy when following orders. A soldier lives to kill. A soldier needs no friend or family. War is his friend. The Forces are his family.

while the  kids are forced to watch how three dogs sicced on a boar kill the wild animal.

The one kid that turned his head is forced to watch by the “trainer”

The kids and their reactions are  observed by the military personnel. 

YEAR EIGHT

The children silently sit in the classroom solving the intelligence test while still watched and judged by military personnel. 

On the wall we can see alphabet letters, for example:

O - obey

N - nuke 

M - murder 

S-shoot

Known Chem/Bio (weapon) Which gives a pretty good idea what the children are taught there, at the 8. years old. How to kill and obey.

YEAR TWELVE

We see children running in silence - the one kid that is not physically fit to keep up with the group is killed. The children (and the viewers) can hear the shooting noise. None of the kids stop or panic, they keep running without a world or looking back.

YEAR SIXTEEN

We see the young cadets on the shooting range. They are shooting at the “enemy” while some “targets” are presented as civilians / unarmed women.

Then we are shown a “woman with child” and enemy hiding behind her.

One cadet hesitated but the main hero (cadet Todd) shot without a second thought, as killing civilians to kill the enemy was an acceptable loss.

YEAR SEVENTEEN - end of training

the cadets are tattooed with their name & number on the face and

in the YEAR THIRTY-EIGHT

They are already either veterans of many fights or killed on the mission. We as viewers are literally shown how those men came from one military conflict to another without any word or mercy for enemy and poor civilians who were unlucky to be in the way)

Those soldiers don’t know peace, when they aren’t fighting they are “between wars”.

No talking, no fun, all silent and disciplined ready for another control with no real personal belongings or space.

And once the military can provide a much better, physically stronger and easier to “breed” soldiers by using clones, Todd is discarded like some kind of trash. 

Another interesting thing that the movie did is the contrast between Todd on the battlefield (an effective soldier) and Todd between civilians (alerted, not speaking unless spoken to). He barely speaks to people who take him into their house, and when he does, it is a very spartan style of speech - short and to the point. When asked what it feels to be soldier, the movie provided this dialogue:

Sandra: Sergeant Todd what’s it like? What’s it like being a soldier? Todd (not answering):  Sandra: What do you think about? You must think about something. Todd (not answering):  Sandra: What about feelings, then? You must feel something. Todd: Fear.  Sandra: “Fear?’” Todd: Fear and discipline. Sandra: Now? Todd: Always.

And in all honesty, I prefer to see clone troopers similar to sergeant Todd - as very good soldiers but also traumatized men that rediscover their humanity after years of dehumanization rather than dealing with the TCW/Disney’s nonsense of chip-in-brain as excuse for Order 66.

[ilovescarletwitch]

for all the anakin/vader travels-back-in-time fics written so that anakin is once again not in time to save shmi’s life for whatever reason, just—

why?

Anakin gets to use time-travel to undo the horrible wrongs of the clone wars, of the temple massacre, of order 66, and sometimes in these fics specifically undoing his tusken massacre! All of these good jedi, good tuskens, good clones, good people who get to live due to the repentant, preventative actions of an anakin/vader fueled by hindsight, grief, and/or regret.

Except Shmi, who -as far as anyone in canon tells us, whether or not you read it as truth- was tortured to death for no more reason than marrying into and then maintaining a moisture farm?

Why can’t she live too?

[ilovescarletwitch]

[ilovescarletwitch]

[ilovescarletwitch]