#(the jedi were good but existed as flawed individuals in a very flawed society)

[des8pudels8kern]

If I were to write a Star Wars fic (which I won’t, as working full-time does not leave me with enough mental energy to be properly actively fannish), it’d be an epic AU where Obi-Wan also falls down the shaft at the climax of his fight with Maul, is presumed dead, and then pops up during the Clone Wars as a mysterious agent of chaos whose initial goal is just to rattle and provoke the Jedi into shedding at least a bit of their apathy disguised as serenity and their superiority complex (so, Obi-Wan choosing to help an entire planet of children caught in a horrific war was bad and aggressive, deserving of first repudiation and then probation, but when Knights and Masters order enslaved sentients into battle it’s duty and necessary to uphold the values of the Republic and thus Order?). He’s bitter, he’s angry, and he wants to destroy the Order. Well, the Order as it is. All talk, so little regard for actual decency, and no infrastructure in place to protect the children under their care.

There’d be a semi-humorous scene where Cody (who is... compromised, okay, he knows it, but this evil fallen force user is just different from the other evil fallen force users, okay) comes across Obi-Wan, bleeding from a fresh gash on his head (”What happened to you? - Oh, nothing, dear one; I just tripped.”) one eye clenched shut where the blood is dribbling down, yada yada, they do their usual song and dance about no, you question your allegiance and join my side, and then.

What’s that?

Cody bends down and picks up the thing that’s caught his attention. It’s round, and not quite flat, and ye--- yellow. He narrows his eyes at the infuriating pain in the ass in front of him.

“Tripped, huh? Deliberately, I assume?”

The man’s gaze flits down to the coloured lens balancing on Cody’s finger now, the exact same shade as his one open eye.

“When you arrived, the light of your presence overwhelmed me and caused me to falter. It can be quite challenging when one has delved as far into the dark as I have,” the fucker tries to lie to Cody’s face, voice as serene as the calmest of Jedi Generals fresh out of meditation, and maybe Cody needs to reconsider how trustworthy anything spoken in that tone really is.

Cody throws the lens at him, and the offending item manages to land on his chest, where blood has soaked into the shirt, and sticks to the fabric, staring at him accusingly.

“What kind of nerf-brained idiot fakes being a Sith? The entire Order is after you!”

The nerf-brain winces, then sighs and droops. He rubs a hand through his suddenly tired-looking face. The blood from his apparently actually self-inflicted head-wound that was meant to disguise the missing lens is smeared all over his cheek now, which looks ridiculous and is somewhat worrisome because Cody is used to bloodshed and knows that it’s usually not a good sign when people forget that they are bleeding. It does match the bone-deep exhaustion etched in the other man’s features, though, now that his mask of flirtatious nonchalance has dropped.

“In my defence, I honestly did not expect it to go this far.” He spreads his hands and pulls a somewhat forced-looking version of his usual boyish grin. “I assumed I would get in two, maybe three strikes before the Order went on alert and I got caught. When they didn’t, I decided to... provide further motivation.”

His right eye is grey-blue, as fathomlessly deep as the waters of Kamino, and Cody wonders what can drive a man to pretend to be evil incarnate to catch the attention of an organisation of essentially super-powered sentients in the middle of a war.

Another trickle of blood from the absolutely needless head wound snakes its way down the side of the man’s face, making it clear that, whatever his motivation might be it’s not a healthy sense of self-preservation.

Maybe Cody can get him to take out the other lens, too, so he can check his eyes for signs of a concussion.

And get a closer look at the colour.

...At least now he’s not compromised by a Sith anymore?

[sullustangin]

Fearful Avoidant Attachment and the Single Spy

Caveat:  I’m not a counselor of any sort, and I’m applying labels to fictional characters.  Don’t take this too seriously.

This post has been kicking around in different forms in my prompt document for awhile.  I will start posting my Yavin fic this weekend.  A major element of this fic will be the dynamic between Theron and the playable character/love interest.  Their interactions will be informed by how I view his attachments. I’ve put some of this into the fic series already.

“Attachment” in the Star Wars universe is the idea, according to George Lucas, that Jedi should love everyone but not get attached.  “Attached” in this context is possession, greed, being willing to do things for individuals rather than the greater good, and ultimately the fear of loss.  Attachment is a negative concept in Jedi philosophy.

However, I would argue that while this philosophy is in the back of Theron’s head, Jedi attachment concepts are not what makes Theron’s personal life messy.  It’s the personal context surrounding that teaching and his life events that shape this.  So let’s look at real life attachment theory. 

In its most basic form, attachment theory is the idea that children need to develop a positive relationship with a caregiver to turn out ok. If the child is neglected, then they will have problems forming healthy attachments to others.   There’s a lot of caveats to this theory.  Some put the threshold of ‘must have positive relationship by x age’ to age 2 or age 5.  Others state that this is problematic, because if a child loses their caregiver and passes into the hands of a less affectionate or downright abusive caregiver, then their positive attachment formation by age x doesn’t count for much.

There are several different types of attachment that a person can have.  A secure attachment is what most healthy relationships are rooted in. People feel safe and secure within themselves and within the relationship. Jedi can be attached in this fashion, even if they don’t call it this; the Jedi have orderly boundaries and a clear understanding of what their associations entail. They have care systems for younglings and padawans, which were like pre-modern apprenticeships.   They are secure within themselves as Jedi and in their relationships outside the order.  They are at peace.

An insecure attachment has a flaw in it; something is wrong in how the person relates to themselves and others in relationships, platonic, romantic or otherwise.  One type is dismissive or avoidant; the attachments are actively avoided, so the person is often isolated and rejects others and their friendly overtures.  Another type is anxious or preoccupied; people tend to get very clingy or possessive with anyone they latch onto, which can cause the relationship to self-destruct (hi, Anakin).

Then there is fearful avoidant attachment, the label I think fits Theron Shan, our favorite high-quality spy and absolute emotional disaster.  In theory, Theron tries to avoid deep emotional attachments because he’s scared of being left behind or not having those attachments reciprocated. At the same time, he desperately wants those attachments and relationships, but the potential of failure makes him avoid or even sabotage the relationship.  That results in an on-going war between Theron and his feelings. To quote Psychalive, “the person [he wants] to go to for safety is the same person [he is] frightened to be close to. As a result, [he has] no organized strategy for getting [his] needs met by others.”

Why does Theron have attachment issues?

Some accuse Satele Shan or Jace Malcom of being “bad parents.”  There’s a problem with this premise: although there is a biological relationship, neither Satele nor Jace had a parent-child relationship with Theron. Jace didn’t even know Theron existed until the child was 26, so he couldn’t act in any capacity.  Satele gave Theron up to be raised by someone else; she opted out of the role of mother and did not talk to him as mother-and-son until Theron was 26.  There isn’t an abusive or neglectful relationship here because there isn’t a relationship, period.  Much like romantic relationships, it’s better to have no relationship than a bad one. Jace and Satele didn’t raise Theron.  They were strangers to him until he was an adult.  They were never his caretakers.  Who did Theron have attachments to?

Theron was raised by a Jedi named Ngani Zho, who had been Satele Shan’s master when she was a padawan. After Satele gave birth in a cave on some planet, Zho took the child and raised him as his own son.  This was irregular, honestly.  Jedi younglings that express some sort of control over the Force are typically put into a creche at the Jedi Temple; we’ve seen this in the Star Wars prequel films.  Guss Tuno references this in SWTOR, as he was chagrinned to be in class with a bunch of five-year-olds in bathrobes.  Theron was raised by Zho directly and they were constantly traveling, based upon comments we read in The Lost Suns comic and in the novel Annihilation. Theron never entered the creche because he never manifested signs he was Force-sensitive – not even a little like Guss.

Zho traveled with Theron until the boy was an adolescent. Then, Theron was told by Zho to travel to the Jedi Temple at Haashimut to receive more training; he could do no more for him.  The trip through a desert nearly killed the boy.  When Theron had recovered, it fell to Master Till’in to tell him he would not be a Jedi.  Ever.  

Instead of telling Theron or notifying Satele about the boy’s lack of Force aptitude, Zho sent him onward and then disappeared.  There is no indication that Zho told anyone where he was going or why.  When Theron met Zho again at age 23, the Master’s mind was scrambled and confused; he couldn’t give any answers to Theron about anything.  Was there a mission he had been set on?  Or did he just wander off on his own?

For storytelling purposes, it’s convenient to pair Zho’s departure with the aftermath of the Treaty of Coruscant.  In the year Theron turned 13 (3653 BBY), the Great Galactic War ended with the Treaty of Coruscant, wherein the Sith Empire enforced demands on the Republic.  The Sith won. Zho leaving could be tied to this (through a mission or quixotic urge), but the source material isn’t clear on the timing.  

Theron’s life suddenly became very uncertain.  His entire life had been built up to becoming a Jedi.  To some extent, even though he hadn’t done anything wrong, Theron probably felt like he was a failure.  We know he tried to fix this; in The Lost Suns, he acknowledged pursuing access to the Force through the Matukai Force tradition – being an ascetic. In Annihilation, he recalled and took particular umbrage at the “arrogance” of the Jedi – those that made him feel like any other path was second (or third or less)-best. This diminished over time, but the revelation about his lack of Force Sensitivity probably left Theron feeling very insecure about himself and who he was as an adolescent/young teen.

In terms of his relationships, Zho was gone with no forwarding address.  The man Theron called his father was no longer reachable, and for another ten years, there would be no closure as to what happened to him.  Zho had actively endangered Theron by sending him through a desert to Haashimut.  Did he gamble that the boy’s Force Sensitivity would manifest in a life-threatening crisis or something?  Who knows? Theron never went into the Jedi creche, so he didn’t have close peers or friends beyond pen pals at best.  Theron had not spoken to his bio parents at all to this point, and he probably didn’t know many (if any) non-Force Sensitive kids.  With his expulsion from Jedi society, Theron’s entire relationship network was gone.

This is important to understand -- Theron had been raised to not have attachments that would lead to selfishness or fear of loss, but he was raised to be able to love and care for others.  He lived in a structure that fostered good psychological attachments (secure attachments) to the order and to his fellow sentients without possessiveness or jealousy. Theron knew his mother gave him up. He knew one day Zho would give his care over to another Master.  He knew one day, he would leave the Temple to go out into the galaxy.   Theron knew how the galaxy worked and his role in it...

..and then it was torn away from him.  No more masters, no more knowledge of what came next, no way to ever work with his mother as a Jedi.  His life to that point had been an illusion -- he was never able to access the Force, and Zho knew it.  This left Theron as insecurely attached, as nothing that he anticipated for his life would ever happen, and he knew nobody that would accompany him into this new life. 

External to all this, the Republic Theron was raised to serve was on the losing end of war.  How the galaxy worked, as far as Theron knew to that point, was going to change.  After Till’in told Theron the truth, all we know is that he spent some time in Haashimut before going elsewhere. We the viewer have no idea what happened to Theron from adolescence until he was 16, when he entered SIS per Annihilation.  This may be a canon math/timing error, or it could be reasonable; Theron might have been able to get permission to join a government organization at 16.  If Theron was in foster care or a ward of the state or something else, whoever was involved didn’t make an impact worthy of mention thus far in SWTOR canon.

Theron described Zho in The Lost Suns as “never reliable.”  That was a 23-year-old looking back.  Yet, he referred to him as his father in Annihilation three years later, and even eight years later in SWTOR: KotFE, he mentions that “Master Zho would be proud.”  This seems contradictory.  Additionally, in both The Lost Suns and Annihilation, SIS Director Marcus Trant expressed concern about Theron and his issues.  Theron was a workaholic.  Being a workaholic is actually a sign of having attachment issues; a person attaches themselves to work, not people   Theron expressed desires to run away, go on vacation, and do new stuff… but he never did these things – couldn’t get away from the job.

Attachment theory states that a child has difficulty with attachments if they are abused or somehow neglected by their caretaker. The desert march definitely strikes me as falling into one of those categories, but again, Zho’s logic isn’t readily offered up to the viewer, nor are many details about Theron’s life as a traveling youngling.  That all said, Zho’s traumatic departure probably caused attachment issues that had no other herald.

Why do the labels “fearful” and “avoidant” fit Theron?

Theron Shan as the player met him in Forged Alliance SWTOR was a professional.  Flirting was ignored, mildly acknowledged, or, rarely, fully reciprocated. There was no physical contact between Theron and his asset. This doesn’t seem off or irregular until his romance is compared to that of Lana Beniko. She didn’t have the same issues expressing affection for her asset on Imp side; she touched their face and gave them a hug by the time the spies went under deep cover after Rakata Prime. Even if the player did not romance Lana, Lana herself was keen to make a team and bust open the conspiracy; she wasn’t as willing to go it alone.  

Avoidant people tend to refrain from contact, and they like being independent.  They don’t do well in teams.  Sound familiar?  Fearful avoidants also have the concern that they will fail their partner or that their partner will fail them.  If the player was Imp side, Theron was a jerk well into the Rishi storyline.  Eventually, Theron did come around.  His dialogue and follow-up letter reflect the fact that he actually did want these connections and attachments.  He enjoyed the time he had with the player.  

This is particularly pronounced if Theron was romanced by the player on Rishi and Yavin; first physical contact occurred on Rishi with a kiss.  If the player was Pubside, the fade-to-black and his comments on Yavin indicate they had sex.  Those episodes of affection, paired with the Pub post-Yavin letter and dialogue, really emphasize the connection that was formed.  Interestingly, Theron did not get a fade-to-black with the Imperial player. One might argue that he knew they were going to leave him, and so he couldn’t –wouldn’t—get attached.

…. And then Ziost happened. Theron refused to ask for help. He didn’t want to depend on that attachment.  He was distant on Ziost, regardless of how far the relationship went, and if Pubside, he declined a drink afterwards.

Whatever transpired between Ziost and the Eternal Fleet Incident, it’s clear that a romanced Theron and the player never defined their relationship.  There were certain boundaries that never were crossed.  He’d “like to think” the player is dreaming of him, but he didn’t want to presume.  Even after Theron got into a romantic relationship on Odessen, he still struggled with his ability to be attached, as evidence by his letters and expressions of affection and concern throughout the KotFE/KotET expansions.  

One might argue that the traitor element of the Nathema Conspiracy was partially caused by Theron’s attachment issues: his independent streak, his inability to ask for help, his lack of faith in others to do the job right (not telling anyone the truth), his lack of faith in himself (his willingness to understand why the player might dump/exile him). If romanced, he gave one of his Holonet messages the subject line “I love you,” but even then, he did not clue the player into his self-made mission.  Certainly, the Nathema Conspiracy happens because of Theron’s desperate desire to save the galaxy and the player at any cost – including the relationship itself and his life.

For those who let Theron live, the attachment issues have faded as Theron has gotten engaged/married and/or reformed a relationship with his bio parents… or the writers have moved on from Lana and Theron as companions.  Regardless, we have to keep in mind that Theron is closing in on 40, and he has grown as a character since he first appeared in Star Wars media at age 23 (baby and adolescent only in flashbacks).  His issues with his relationships, the Jedi, the Republic, and his bio parents have changed over the course of 17 years.  In the last story patch, people who have romanced Theron received letters from both Theron and his mother about how good the player is for him, and it’s very satisfying to see how far he has come.

How does this label of ‘fearful avoidant’ manifest in your fanworks?

Since not everyone is into fic, I’ll drop this behind a cut. 

Basically, my version of Theron wants love but is terrified of all the feelings and closeness that come with it.  When people get close, he draws away, but still wants them to be close.  Theron has had good relationships, but if it gets too serious, he runs.  That’s the case for his last major relationship prior to my oc; his Mirialan girlfriend was drawing a tattoo to mark their relationship, and she wanted him to meet the parents. Theron noped out of there pretty hard by taking a long mission off Coruscant and sort of forgetting to tell her.  There are several times where he takes a big step with Eva (my oc)– disclosure, physical intimacy, caring for her or letting her care for him – and then he just doesn’t contact her for the next few days.  He dives into work to avoid her.  Toward the end of their initial relationship, that will turn into weeks and months.  He is freaked out when he does things with her that are intimate, sexual or not.  He has a lot of fear that he will be left again, so he leaves first. 

Theron also sets up a lot of rules and boundaries that the partner has to dance around to get in.  After 300,000 words, I just completed a slow burn with the Rishi kiss, because Theron wouldn’t get involved with Eva until after the op to expose the conspiracy was over.  There will be more rules once they get to Yavin.  

When I was doing research on this, I read a clinical study that found that people with avoidant attachment issues are particularly fastidious about safe sex.  They don’t want attachments to their lovers in the form of a disease or a child.  Anxious attachments tend to eschew this and take the risk so they can be bound to someone. This is part of why I gave Theron a male birth control implant, but there will also be reference to his back-up (condoms) and back-up back-up (PreP) to ensure there aren’t any adverse consequences for him.

Theron is often alone, but that doesn’t make him lonely by default.  In part, that might be due to his avoidance of attachments.  Dude can pick up people at a bar and get laid. Theron isn’t adverse to sex, just intimacy.  He can find someone to hook up, but that doesn’t mean there is anything beyond sex attached to it.  Theron can and does get dates, and he can have relationships ... but that doesn’t mean he can make a healthy connection to the other person.  I think his issues are more emotional/internal than they are caused by not getting enough physical contact or affection from others.  People want to love him.  People reach out to him to be friends or have a relationship.  He just doesn’t want it; he avoids it.  I imagine that this is partly the case with Jace and his SIS coworkers.

The last fearful avoidant feature I’ll give Theron in my series is the tendency to idealize relationships after they’re dead and over. When the relationship is no longer available, it is held up and made glorious, partially to enable the person not to pursue a different relationship; it’ll never be as good, so why try?  This also calls in the tendency for fearful avoidants to fear not only screwing up the relationship themselves, but that others won’t live up to their expectations. Theron is a mess after the Eternal Fleet incident and never moves on from Eva.  It’s reasonable when he thinks she’s alive, but for a good two years, he thinks she’s dead… and he can’t.  With anyone else.

Unlike the game, I eventually send Theron to a therapist to deal with the fearful avoidant attachment issues.  I figure if I’m going to give a fictional character a real-world label, I need to give him a real-world solution that might work.

[him-e]

this might be a dumb comparison but would you consider star wars/skywalkers in general to be kind of like a greek tragedy? or at least inspired by greek tragedies? i just really love mythology and would like to think there’s some sort of connection in some way. thank you! :)

Definitely! Star Wars relies heavily on archetypes and psychological motifs, and many of them come from Greek and Latin literature. In the original trilogy, taken in isolation, you see more echoes of arthurian myths and classic fairytale elements than tragedy. It’s when you think of the three trilogies as a whole, particularly in terms of Anakin’s arc, his rise and fall and redemption and the repetition of the cycle with Ben’s fall just a generation later, that the Greek tragedy vibes become evident.

To put it in very simple terms, Greek tragedy typically revolves around a good/average man who has one “fatal” flaw (usually an error in judgment or hubris). Because of this, but also because of the crucial role played in the genre by the inevitability of fate and the cosmic order dwarfing humanity, fragile and powerless even at its best and at the mercy of much bigger and incomprehensible forces, the hero is bound to fall. And one fundamental aspect of tragedy is that the audience knows he’s going to fall, and watching the events unravel to the inevitable gut wrenching conclusion is cathartic. (see how the whole prequels experience is built on the premise that you know exactly how it’s going to end.) (also, side note, catharsis is a major reason why even today we need fiction, including “dark” fiction.) 

The fall of the hero often takes the form of a heavily immoral act, a horrific crime against the aforementioned cosmic order that the hero performs either in good faith, as a result of his hubris, anger or passion, or because he feels he has to—be it accidentally killing your father and sleeping with your mother, sacrificing your own daughter to the gods, punishing your asshole ex husband by killing your own children, or choking your pregnant wife who has come to confront you after you slaughtered a temple of younglings. As monstrous as the act can be, the audience can’t help but sympathize with the fallen hero, because it’s clear he’s motivated by a desire to do the right thing (or to fix some wrong), he loves fiercely and intensely, he is (at least in part) a victim of circumstances, and the pain and punishment inflicted on him and everyone who he loves and who loves him is disproportionate. What happens to the protagonist is a metaphor of the fragility of human condition, in which sometimes a minor mistake or an unforeseeable chain of events leads to catastrophic consequences. Individual responsibility matters, but it’s always portrayed in tension with the cruel irony of a blind, irrational fate who tears good people and bad people down alike, which it often succumbs to, or is proven to be eventually irrelevant.

You can see how Anakin is in this sense the quintessential tragic hero. A good man raised in humble conditions but destined to be royalty, to be the hope of a galaxy, the fulfillment of a long awaited prophecy, who rises to a state of quasi-kingship (becoming a Jedi master, marrying a former queen), but remains ultimately a slave—to his own passions and fears, to destiny (as personified by Palpatineworking slowly to corrupt him), to the will of the gods (the Force), to the trappings and limitations of a corrupt society (the Jedi order and the republic). His one fatal flaw, loving Padmé, backfires and turns him into the very cause of her death. 

Ben’s fall is also deeply tragic, as it’s the result of a twofold lapse in judgment: Luke’s (who falls for a second prey of his own darkness and briefly considers executing his nephew for the greater good) and Ben’s himself (who mistakes this one second of weakness for a truly murderous intent, and violentlyretaliates, and never stops acting on the false assumption that his uncle was really going to kill him).

Hubris and madness are two other crucial themes in greek tragedy and I can see the dark side as a fascinating space opera portrayal of both. And then, vengeance, and family—and even more relevant to star wars, the cycle of violence-pain-revenge. The original crime opens a wound in the cosmic order (you could also say: the Force becomes unbalanced) that spreads like a cancer dooming multiple generationsand is only really healed when there is a genuine will to step out of this cycle. 

This is imo the key to understand the three trilogies in their entirety, and what they’re trying to do with the sequel trilogy in particular. Many people struggle with Ben’s fall because he “had everything”—i.e. was born in a time of peace, from a loving family of revered rebellion heroes, with unique force powers and someone to teach him how to use them, etc.—so his turning to the dark side is thrice as hard to swallow. Was he a bad seed from the start? Or did he just infuriatingly squander all he had? Other people complain that the new trilogy is built on a nihilistic concept, that evil always come back cyclically one way or another, that victory is never complete, that the heroes are bound to make the same mistakes over and over again, or that everyone is inevitably destined to be corrupted and lose hope (see the discourse re: Luke in TLJ).

Both miss the point, in my opinion. The way I see it, it all ties back to Anakin’s original crime—his tragic, blood-soaked fall to the dark side, order 66, and most importantly Padmé’s death—and how that crime was a cosmic wound that tore the balance of the universe apart and was never fully healed. So it reverberates across the galaxy, onto his progeny, and his progeny’s progeny (Ben).

Luke did begin to make things right—by choosing to reject violence he gave Vader the chance to sacrifice himself to to kill the emperor and save his son, which earned him his redemption. And…it’s a good way to end a story if you want it to end there, but if you want the story to continue, then you have to face the fact that it’s only a partial, and in many ways convenient solution to a much larger problem. Vader’s redemption did nothing to eradicate the deep-seated political views of those who were still loyal to the Empire and fighting for a dictatorship in the moment when Palpatine was killed. It wasn’t enough for Luke and Leia to actually embrace their lineage and come out as Vader’s children, if Bloodline is to be believed. It wasn’t enough to shield little Ben from Snoke’s attentions—in fact, Anakin’s blood is exactly what put a big ol’ target on Ben’s back, with nothing of his grandfather’s post-redemption wisdom to keep him on the right track, only the myth of his legacy, a myth that as we’ve sadly seen can be easily misconstrued and exploited and that Leia and Luke never properly explained to Ben either. Anakin just died, and if that single sacrifice was enough to save his soul, it actually didn’t do much to fix the countless wrongs he contributed to create during the two decades he served the Empire as lord Vader. The galaxy bled because of him. And he just died and left his children to clean up his mess. Lucas’ original idea that Vader’s redemption brought balance to the Force is a good happily ever after, but only if you don’t really plan to deal with the consequences.

More on a thematic level, RotJ represents a perfect fairytale ending on almost all fronts but it leaves a question unanswered: was Anakin wrong to love Padmé? Is romantic love wrong? Aside from Han and Leia—whose marriage didn’t end well anyway—romantic love comes out of this narrative as a tragically negative force. Specifically, romantic love for a Jedi. If you consider the first six films, the logical conclusion is that the Jedi were right, after all, to forbid romantic attachments, because look at the mess Anakin made. Anakin destroyed himself and Padmé. It was only Luke’s familial love that made him come back to the light—Luke, the eternal celibate Jedi. Familial love is good, romantic love is poisonous. The narrative absolutely implies this reading.

So although RotJ’s ending fixes everything on a superficial level, the wound keeps festering underneath, there are still many things that weren’t made right, and this is why only a few years later Luke is still so haunted by the darkness and still so afraid that a new Vader is possible that he actually considers killing his nephew for a split second. This is why the ashes of the old Empire don’t die out, but instead give birth to a new tyrannical power; and why Leia cannot be free to live her life in peace with her family, but still feels committed to a rebellion that never ceased to have reasons to exist, even after the Emperor’s death.The gods (the Force) aren’t satisfied, if you will, so they keep punishing this family. The original evil has not been completely exorcised. Love, personified by Padmé’s unacceptable, unnatural death, hasn’t been vindicated. The balance is not restored. And Ben falls.

The sequel trilogy is set to heal this wound, for real, this time. It’s also why it has a much darker tone (despite the superficial humor) than the original trilogy. It’s not impossible for a tragedy to have a happy ending, but the resolution must have the same tone, the same gravity of the premise. The prequels are a tragedy, and the original trilogy is essentially a fairytale, a hero’s journey—they’re basically two different genres, and Vader’s last minute redemption seems (and is) inadequate once you’ve seen all three movies of his very detailed and nuanced fall to the Dark Side.

We’re watching, through Ben, the tortured redemption arc that should have been written for Vader if this story had followed a chronologically and stylistically linear narrative. Through Ben and Rey, we’re watching a reconciliation of the Dark and the Light side, whose unresolved conflict, worsened by the repressive puritanical policy of the Jedi order, originated the schism in Anakin’s soul. And we’ll also (hopefully) get the answer to that question I said earlier, and see the redemption of romantic love.

[sullustangin]

Okay, strange question for Theron. I hat does he believe in. Beyond duty and doing things for the greater good.

That’s a good question! It’s going to get long, so some of this is beyond a cut. 

Theron was raised as a Jedi until adolescence - his belief system is rooted in the existence of the Force.  It exists in all living things, and some people can access and use it, while others cannot. The Jedi are the good guys.  He was also raised as a citizen of the Republic.  He believes in the Galactic Constitution, which bars slavery and grants all sentients certain rights.  The Republic is a representative government with elections and enfranchised people choosing their leaders. 

Duty and the Greater Good

“Duty” and "The Greater Good” concept have to be defined with Theron, because he is not a lawful character.  He’s a neutral, leaning chaotic character in D&D terms.  Lawful characters go by whatever society approves of; chaotic characters have their own internal compass.  Neutral considers both.  A great example of this is when Director Trant of SIS and Jace Malcom the Supreme Commander of Pub forces tell him to get the job done and basically ignore the fact that two planets full of people are going to be sacrificed to do it.  Lawful characters do as the authority says.....and Theron decides to go rogue and disobey with a Jedi in order to at least save the second planet. His “greater good” is a lower death count, rather than guaranteed Republic victory. I would argue that Theron interprets his duty as belonging to a larger galaxy rather than exclusively the Republic and its political/military objectives; he is pro-Republic, no doubt about it, but there are limits. He’s also pro-Jedi, but there are limits -- some of them can be real asses.   I discuss his alignment further here.

Going into Forged Alliances in SWTOR, we have a man who works for the Republic and endorses the ideals of the Galactic Constitution.  He knows the Republic is not perfect.  He does believe the Jedi are “right,” but he does have some issues with their attitudes toward non-Force users.  They are not perfect. We get some very vehement statements in Annihilation about Theron’s experience with the Jedi after he was found not to be Force sensitive:  the arrogance of the Jedi, how they looked down on non-Force users. He even applied this metric to Satele in their first real conversation with each other.  I discuss this more here.  This doesn’t make him anti-Jedi, but he doesn’t view them with the same rose-colored glasses he did as a youngling. Individuals aside, he follows the Light Side of the Force.  

The Dark Side decisions that a Pub can make to please Theron in Forged Alliances/Shadow of Revan involve deceiving the Empire -- first, by destroying the Revanite cyborgs on Rakata Prime; second, by setting up perimeters around the Yavin base that track Imp movements just a little bit closer.  The blowing up of cyborgs rather than fighting them is to prevent Lana and the Empire from scavenging them later.  It’s not about killing them -- they as individuals are already dead.  You have to kill them to get to the next room anyway.  It’s just a matter of whether you give the Republic an edge by not permitting the Empire the opportunity.  It’s a chess match.  On Yavin, it’s about the Republic having more information than the Empire here as well.  These aren’t traps or weapons that would hurt Imps -- it’s just about having more information.  That is his duty to the Republic as an SIS agent while still supporting a cross-factional alliance to defeat a shared “Greater Bad.”  So while dishonest and Dark Side and ‘anti-Jedi’, Theron still does things in support of a government that has the Galactic Constitution while doing no direct physical harm to the Sith Empire’s operatives (a rather Light Side-y solution).

What else does Theron believe in, besides all that?

Theron believes – most of all and with the most optimism --  in the future. We saw that at the end of Lost Suns.  We see that when he chooses to save civilians on a planet he’s never met.  We even see it in his Dark Side decisions in-game; he anticipates that the war will resume against the Empire, and he wants the Republic (and its Constitution) to have the best odds winning.  I believe that Theron would rather have a rough life himself and save others in the future from the same work and suffering he’s gone through.  Does he do it like a Jedi? Nope.  He isn’t honest or honorable all the time, but he draws the line of sacrificing innocents or excessive for a cause.  Does he do it like a traditional agent of the Republic, taking orders without question?  Good Lord, no.  Trant complains about that all the time in Lost Suns and Annihilation.  Theron is Trant’s best agent, but half the time, Trant wants to throw him out a window or down a trash compactor because he doesn’t do things by the book. 

I discuss in that alignment post how beat up Theron gets because he does things that are “right” in his mind, but not protocol. Theron fights for a brighter future.  Based upon what he’s willing to do personally to ensure that happens, his life comes second to those yet to be born and a better galaxy for them.  Call it Jedi virtue, call it a zealous belief in the Galactic Constitution -- Theron does it (and he meets his end that way in the Nathema Conspiracy, if the player chooses that path).  This is also partially why he doesn’t have an SIS partner. Theron might be assigned to another agent, but he wants to do all the work himself, his own way.  Trant has learned it is pointless to assign Theron a partner because the partner is left out and doesn’t even know when Theron gallivants off.  His risk, his way.  

So to be very specific, Theron believes in the future for others, not necessarily himself.  Theron has a certain lack of selfishness paired with stubbornness that makes him put himself in danger because he believes there is some greater cause; he, the individual, doesn’t matter as much.  We see this in other SIS agents -- they’d die in the line of duty without much of a second thought. I read about Lana’s early experience in the Talay initiative, and the SIS agents she encountered were particularly devout.  

For Theron, that duty isn’t just to Republic or SIS -- it’s for the better future of the galaxy as well.  We can also use this as part of an argument that suggests why Theron isn’t shown romantically involved with anyone unless he gets with the player.  Theron thinks it would be nice if he survived to see this great future he wants for the galaxy and the Republic, but he understands he may not live to see it. That’s not fatalism or pessimism however.  He knows what Jedi did during the Fall of Coruscant.  He was always told by Ngani Zho that he was so loved by his mother that she had to give him up, so she wouldn’t have divided loyalties when it came to the good of the Republic.  His personal happiness doesn’t rank very high here; it is virtuous and right for individuals to make choices that cost themselves something rather than others. Theron doesn’t like to be selfish.

During KotFE Theron leaves the Republic after they’ve accepted the political fiction that Saresh is out of office.  Everyone knows she’s pulling the strings and promoting constant warfare against the Sith Empire, while bending the knee to Zakuul the entire time.  They are oppressed, but she gets to have her little wars.  Theron joins the Alliance because it is resisting an oppressive power that the Saresh doesn’t seem interested in throwing off and that the Empire can’t seem to throw off.  In KotFE, you have Theron as a companion.  He does NOT accept Republic memorabilia in order to raise influence -- I don’t think that’s an oversight, since Lana takes Imp memorabilia with enthusiasm.  Theron believes in the Galactic Constitution and all of its principles – but the Republic is failing to do that right now by tolerating Zakuul and their systems of slavery. If you recruit Bowdaar, you do so by Fight Club or “Eternal Championship” or whatever, and it runs off slaves and people owned by others.  This was what Theron worked against during his career in SIS prior to the whole Korriban thing….and now the Republic tolerates Zakuul’s use of it, as long as Saresh has her little wars with the Empire.

By KotFE, Theron no longer believes in his duty to the Republic, but in the Galactic Constitution. Now that the Jedi are gone, he doesn’t believe in them as much as the broader, greater good that the Republic never fully reached for due to its conflict with the Sith Empire.

This also brings us to the idea that Theron believes in the player.  When all the things he valued in the Republic and SIS went to dust, he went to the Alliance, knowing that a key element was the rescue of the player from carbonite.  Somehow, he thought this person – this key figure that he had worked with previously – would be able to head an Alliance that would save the galaxy one last time from the Sith Emperor.  

With KotET, the player can decide whether they are a peacekeeper Alliance or a new Empire. Theron supports the player and doesn’t make any move to leave or go back to the Republic, regardless of the decision (a flaw in writing, in my personal opinion, but it is what it is).  This is the game’s mechanic, but we may also interpret this as Theron’s belief in truth:  we are what we say we are.  A benevolent empire may not have elections, but it has a greater good in mind.   The Republic claims to support all of these ideals in its constitution…but it doesn’t under Saresh.  Even with a more brutal Eternal Empire, there is truth in advertising.  We are doing this, that’s the way it is.  We’re not hiding behind some Constitution that’s pushed to the wayside in favor of continued war with the Sith Empire. I know this is spinning the wheels hard to try to make it work, but Theron has to have rationale for staying, and it’s not provided in game. In Onslaught, we see a return of Theron’s temper; players who permitted high casualties on Corellia had Theron stomp out on them in anger.  That is consistent with what we’ve seen previously, but the writing had made him somewhat of a sycophant to the player character for awhile; it was a good surprise for character development, bad if you were romancing Theron since you don’t get a smooch off him for that ending.  

Now, if you go all Light Side for Theron, then it’s more easily explicable as to why he stays with the player – the Alliance does what the Republic will not, and he rather be in a place that does what the Republic should be doing, rather than be in a Republic that’s all talk and no action. He’s happy to return home to the Republic, if you make that choice in Onslaught.  He’s also accepting of remaining independent.  He only expresses concern with an Imperial alliance because he doesn’t want his home ground to dust....and all the people in it.  All those little individual futures that we as Alliance commander can control -- and if we’re working to make them better, that coincides with Theron’s own beliefs.

Does Theron Shan believe in love?

The virtue of love, in the sense that one cares for the good of others and the galaxy, is approved of by Jedi.  The idea of having someone, of bonding to someone and wanting to maintain that relationship – and the associated fear of losing that relationship – can lead to the Dark Side.  Now, Theron may not buy into that as much as he did when he was a kid, but it might stick in the back of his mind, since unless the player romances him, he remains single.   He’s also devoted to his ideals and his work, his duties. He’s a self-admitted workaholic -- that sort of kicks romance and personal love down the ladder of priorities. 

On the other hand, Theron hasn’t been treated well by ‘love.’ Ngani Zho loved him… and left him without telling him the truth.  Zho also told Theron all the time that his mother Satele loved him so much that she had to give him up….and we have yet to see her ever admit that to him, face-to-face. We can argue that the latest patch, Echoes of Oblivion, points toward that happening, but even then, she only indicates that to player, not to Theron himself.  We saw Jace Malcom’s rejected paternal overtures in Annihilation and then alienation from Theron during Iokath.  Player choices decide whether that relationship is recoverable or not.

In an unromanced game, Theron is alone, but not necessarily lonely.  We can view this as sort of a holdover from his Jedi youth and as his adult life as a spy – love is a good thing in the galaxy but attachment is not, given the risks he takes.  There is no suggestion that he’s romantically involved with another NPC, unlike other games or even the Lana/Koth thing -- which is ultimately left up to player interpretation as to what exactly that was. 

This next bit is more subjective, because it’s how I’ve interpreted the Theron romance to this point on neutral/Light-leaning characters, specifically a smuggler.  I think prior to the playable character, Theron believes in love, but once again, not for him personally.  If the player romances him, it’s a whole different bantha wrangle.

Love is difficult. Being mutually attached is difficult for Theron, because most normal people want a certain back-and-forth, a certain amount of information sharing before they really commit.  Theron can’t give as much as they can.  Hook-ups are physically satisfying, but emotionally lacking.  

I know some authors have him as a someone who slept around a lot, while others have him as a serial monogamist.  Many just don’t discuss the idea of him being with anyone else besides their playable character.  I’ve written him as someone who can get hook-ups, can do a relationship or two seriously, but also has long spats of celibacy mixed in because he’s busy working. The greater good isn’t going to happen by itself, so Theron works at the cost of his personal relationships.  Because of being a spy and the issue of his parentage, he can’t disclose his work routine or why he’s come back with a new scar – it’s easier to let the relationship fall to the wayside than explain. Where are his parents? Who are his parents?  Easier to let the relationship go than explain.  

Theron is a consummate professional.  Even in the era of KotFE/KotET, Miot and Koth refer to him as ‘stiff’ or ‘stuffy’ and not knowing when to “not work.”  His duties come before his personal desires.  This is why we have to get through all of Rishi before we even get to kiss Theron, plus another few weeks/months on Yavin before they playable character and Theron hook up.  However, if we take a look at the player’s path from Korriban or Manaan (Pub and Imp side encounters with Theron), it’s a courtship over the course of a half-year or more.  There are a lot of headcanon explanations for this, ranging from playable character inexperience, demisexuality, “behind the scenes” action that emphatically states that they were hooking up long before we saw them, and so on.  

I took what I saw on screen to be a signal of Theron’s professionalism -- no time for lovin’ until the job is done -- but also his attachment issues. I’ll do another post on this later, but I’m writing him with the label “fearful avoidant attachment” in mind.  Basically, Theron wants to be attached to someone, desperately, but he is terrified of it.  I don’t blame Satele for this one – this is all about Theron not only being ditched by Ngani Zho, but also then being dismissed from the Jedi Order because he wasn’t even Force sensitive to begin with.  Suddenly, the father he knew and the way of life he thought he was going to follow til the day he died – gone.  Now he has to integrate with ‘normal people life’ where you’re supposed to do the personal life attachment stuff that Jedi frowned upon.  In my fan fic, Theron confesses that SIS and his duty to the Republic – more accurately, to the future – take the place of the Jedi order. He attaches himself to that more readily than individuals.  

The playable character changes Theron; he says that in his “I’m back at SIS” letter.  He’s more open to teamwork and reaching out to Satele.  Again, fans have run with this, including having Theron in a relationship with the player until the Eternal Fleet incident, having them just hook-up and leave it at that (particularly if Imperial), or something in between.  Ziost marks a time where Theron is both relieved and embarrassed the player is there to catch him when he falls.  The last we see of Theron in-game Pubside prior to Popsicle Time, he says he won’t hesitate to reach out (unlike what he did this time).  

Then we get the “For When You Wake Up” letter.  It reveals that Theron is in love, whether or not he wants to openly acknowledge it yet. He doesn’t send a letter to an unromanced player stating that the fact they’re still alive is “the thing that keeps [him] going.”  And he’s also worried, nervous, or even scared that the feelings are not mutual -- “I don’t want to presume.”  

The Theron romance starts in KotFE the night of his arrival. The kiss can be a tentative “let’s try this,” and then dating starts.  I took it as “let’s go back to my place” and a full-blown committed relationship starts between Theron and my smuggler.  There are other interpretation in between.  Any way a person shakes it,  Theron had been holding on to his Yavin hook-up for five years in his heart.  Based upon letters you get throughout these two expansion pacs, Theron still has workaholic tendencies.  He still struggles with the writing of words and expressing love publicly – but he is attached, and painfully so, as we see in Chapter 12, when the player goes on an impromptu camping trip with Marr and Satele.  In my interpretation of all of that, love is still difficult – but not because of the reasons Theron had prior to Eternal Fleet, when he was fully committed to SIS and the Republic.  It’s because in order to save the galaxy from the Sith Emperor, the player may have to be sacrificed for the greater good.  Theron can’t step into their shoes on this one; he can’t take their place.  

After the main KotET chapters, we see the Traitor arc and all of its flaws – but also the consistency of Theron’s character, if we remember how he believes in a better future, even if he doesn’t get to live to see it.  That does include potentially sacrificing his romantic relationship with the player and possibly his life as well.  If the player chooses to kick Theron out of the Alliance, the question of where he goes next is valid – he won’t go back to the Republic, and he’s not an Imperial. Where is Theron Shan, in those player universes?

If Theron (and his romance) survives to Echoes of Oblivion, we see a letter that is downright gleefully sweet.  His mother isn’t dead, and it’s because of you that he has a chance to try to make something of that relationship…again.  I’ve expressed my skepticism about this, since this is the exact set-up we had prior to Eternal Fleet, and then Satele ghosted Theron.  We’ll see; I may be a bit of a cynic or an angstmonger.  The point is, the way the romance is written to this point, Theron is happily in love with his partner/spouse. Love is for him, after all. 

Even without the romance, a living Theron in the Alliance (or whatever it is now) in Echoes of Oblivion is one that has attachments to friends and potentially family again.  There is a future -- and he’s in it.  That may have been more than what Theron was anticipating when we first met him at 23, nearly 17(!) years ago.