#( . anakin has done nothing but love u cal

[skysaunter]

icb cal rebelled against his dad so hard that he unfollowed twice @tapalslegacy

[smhalltheurlsaretaken]

i just finsihed jedi fallen order for the first time and 🥺🥺🥺 the way that they handled cals story of working through grief broke my heart. plus seeing the impact that order 66 had on a child was so necessary. like the jedi didn’t deserve to die anymore than the night sisters did and i will never understand people who defend the empire. like newsflash literally torturing children until they are so indoctrinated that they are willing to hunt down and kill other children is wrong and there’s no defence or coming back from that (look @ u vader)

Cal screaming in pain and desperation after losing his Master is branded in my memory like Obi-Wan’s own scream on Naboo. It’s just so heartwrenching, and yes, such an important part of Order 66 that we hadn’t really gotten to see. 

I 100% agree that the Nightsisters didn’t deserve to be slaughtered either. But just for comparison, they routinely abducted the men of the Nightbrother tribes, killed the ones that were too weak for their tastes, magically brainwashed and enhanced the strong ones, and essentially raped the ones they deemed fit (or at least it’s implied in TCW - when Ventress goes to select a suitable assassin by having Nightbrothers go through trials until only one is left, the chief of the tribe thinks she’s taking Savage as a mate).

It’s just like with the Sand People. If the narrative makes it very clear that despite all the horrible stuff committed by some of them nothing would justify killing an entire tribe/people (especially not their vulnerable and innocent members like the children, but it even extends to the ones who actually did commit atrocities, because revenge and mass murder are always wrong), just how much more applicable is it to the Jedi? Again, this is NOT to say the Nightsisters ‘deserved more’ to die - they DIDN’T, that’s the entire point! NOBODY ‘deserves’ to have their entire family and culture brutally wiped out in a matter of hours, without warning and without the slightest mercy, and Fallen Order did a great job at showing that. 

And yes, I love how J:FO really showed the difference between the Jedi and the Empire in regards to how they trained Force-sensitive children. On the one hand, you have loving Masters like Jaro (and Depa) who sacrificed themselves (or tried to and failed, like Cere - which is just heartbreaking) to save their apprentices. They shielded them with their bodies, and were so instrumental to their Padawans later growing into amazing Jedi and amazing people that said Padawans were still carrying their Masters in their hearts years later and only found peace and wholeness when reclaiming their identities as Jedi (Cal and Caleb/Kanan).

On the other hand, you have the Empire, who tortures people until they fall to the Dark Side. I like to say that nothing justifies Falling - as in you’re always responsible for the choices you make - but honestly, children like Trilla are probably the one exception. 

I don’t think anybody would claim that Anakin redeemed himself completely through one single act of selflessness - not even Lucas (actually, he has said Vader coming back didn’t make up for a lifetime of evil - I’ll try to find the quote later). The point wasn’t that Anakin instantly got a clean record. He still died, and him getting to become a Force Ghost and being forgiven wasn’t owed to him - his story is about how even when there’s nothing you can do to take back the things you’ve done, you can still choose to stop in your tracks. You can choose to do good again, and you should, no matter how much of a monster you’ve become. It doesn’t erase the past, but you can’t cling to said past as an excuse not to do the right thing because you’re “too far gone.” Kinda like Cere has to let go of her guilt to move forward - except obviously it’s not nearly the degree of personal responsibility.