#How his approach to knighthood is more a portrayal of a knight than a knight and so how is a little chimerical

[fragmentedblade]

Goodness, apparently Argenti's One and Only is named in Chinese after Rocinante, which is so fitting for him, especially with Himeko's words about him in mind

[roselightfairy]

This is rambling and may not have a point in the end, but one thing that I think about a lot in relation to Qui-Gon's portrayal in old and new canon is the different approaches to him as a teacher.

Qui-Gon's identity as a teacher is probably the most important and significant thing about him, regardless of which canon you're looking at - because that's what he's put into the story to be. It's the archetype he fits into, but it's also the thing that shapes his most significant relationships in the movies - and it's the tantalizing void left behind when he dies: what he may or may not have left unfinished with Obi-Wan, what he could or could not have been with Anakin. And it's explained as the reason any of the other characters are able to become Force ghosts at all - because he taught them. It's also the reason I'm obsessed with him, but let's not focus on that. As such, it makes sense that that's the part of his identity that most canonical work about him would focus on.

I have long since outed myself as a New Star Wars Fan with no authorial loyalty except to Claudia Gray, so I can't provide any in-depth analysis of the Legends/EU content or timeline; I only know it from fanon. But I'm not really thinking as much about what kind of a teacher he is portrayed as, or his various student-related traumas, as I am about his relationship to teaching - in the sense of how much of his life he has devoted to it.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that in the EU timeline, teaching is something he's been doing almost as long as he's been a Jedi Knight? Obi-Wan is his third apprentice in that, and it seems like he's been doing it for a significant portion of his life. (He is also older in that canon, but then, he'd have to be in order to fit that all in; apprenticeships are not generally short. Even if they're not complete.) In Master and Apprentice, though, Obi-Wan is his first apprentice, and he took him on when he was 36. Which is . . . I mean, I know Obi-Wan was young when he took on Anakin, but this does mean that Qui-Gon waited at least ten years and possibly more into his knighthood before taking on a student. I don't know enough about what the Jedi trajectory tends to be with this sort of thing, but most of our focus characters in the media I've seen take apprentices pretty young. Both Anakin and Obi-Wan, of course; Mace Windu is either the same age as or younger than Qui-Gon and Depa is a Council member; Quinlan is Obi-Wan's contemporary and trained Aayla, who is Anakin's generation. So it seems like it might be either unusual or at least very deliberate to wait that length of time before taking on a student.

But in both universes, teaching is clearly something Qui-Gon cares deeply about, wants to do well, and has bound up a lot of his self into. So I think it's pretty interesting to look at the different trajectories that imagine him where he is in TPM - the older canon, which sort of portrays him as A Teacher, in that it's almost his lifelong calling. (Even when he tries to get out of it, it keeps coming back to him!) In new canon, though, it feels a lot more like a very deliberate choice - like he must have made the call, at age 36, that now was the right time and this the right person to try with. Which means that his lessons would have been learned alongside Obi-Wan but with an element of almost . . . self-determination? I don't mean to suggest that teaching young isn't also a deliberate choice, but it feels like EU Qui-Gon tended often to fall into teaching, while new canon Qui-Gon went into it very intentionally at a specific point in his life. Which might suggest new ways of understanding how he related to Anakin - to having this new student kind of fall into his life. What kind of deliberation was going on in his mind among all of that? If Anakin would have been his fourth apprentice, it feels more like a practiced pattern of behavior that is almost instinctive; if Anakin would have been his second, it feels - different. A little more abrupt, a little more of a break in a pattern - or maybe just an indication of an incredibly strong feeling.

Anyway, I told you I had no point to this, no real conclusion, but I love him and I love thinking about him and his relationship to teaching, so here are my rambling thoughts, if they are interesting to anyone!