#This is why Doylist views are important btw

[shiroselia]

Also to put some context straight because I realise I might make it sound like Alex's writing Right Now is bad. It's not, it's been bad since Elizabeth's death.

It's not gross only because of the real world circumstances. Alex's writing is bad disregarding how the real world looks right now because turning your own character into a meme one-liner machine as soon as she's served her narrative high point in the story is just bad writing all around. (Not to say that she didn't have one-liners before but after Elizabeth's death it's been her Only narrative purpose.) And Alex being the (in-game context here, this is not true for Helena's canon where Anne has a broken family and Lisa is queer too, but I'm not giving SSE credit for what Helena has built and neither should you, because they're separate canons) only queer rep, working class rep, and character with an (actually shown) broken family dynamic makes everything about her flanderization gross no matter what. It reads incredibly fucking gross no matter what. Because it's really fucking interesting how SSE is so hellbent on turning their very (and only) marginalized character with some very real struggles into a fucking joke. The fact that we're currently in an economical recession and that SSE had the perfect opportunity to show a working class character having a very real struggle many young people (and also adults) face of hating their job and struggling with a system not made for them and also hates you and wants you to continue in your misery that often isn't your fault is just salt on the wound. (Which is another point, Alex is VERY easy to read as neurodivergent and the questline, as I've gotten informed, has some Really unfortunate "yikes you think Differently and not like everyone else?" dialogue that is already tired and unnecessary but is extra Yikes when you remember this.)

Alex's writing is bad because SSE refuse to treat her as a character, it's just even worse when you look at the real life circumstances.

Alex should not only be a character when certain people write her. Alex should not only be well-written when she's written by people who relate to her. She should be well-written all the time because some standard sense of character consistency is WRITING BASICS.

As I've been saying, calling it tone deaf doesn't even begin to cover it, but it is being nice about it.

[nildespirandum]

Hi, I have two asks for you, if you don't mind?

1) which one do you think is the "fundamental" Loki interview, if there is one?

2) why do you think Loki's character is so popular? He started out as the villain and now he is a sort of hero, and he started being perceived "positively" before the show came about. It cannot be the looks (other avengers are good looking).

Thank you,

@merak-dubhe thank you for the asks, and I absolutely don't mind.

For the first question, are you referring to interviews done with about the character done by Tom and other creators or something else? Sorry I can't give a proper answer.

But question two! I have so many thoughts.

From a Doylist perspective, my friend Mary said something once that I think is very useful to consider. She said that when there is a villain that seems inherently likeable or becomes incredibly popular its because they intentionally cast an actor who is deeply likeable and friendly. That no matter how talented they are that is somehow stamped on their charisma and will come out in the character no matter what. I think Tom's Loki has this quality.

Also, his looks do matter because in most of the movies the villains are not attractive or are othered in some key way. Making a bad guy handsome is never not an important choice.

That said, it is not the only or even primary reason for his popularity.

I think he is popular and beloved because, despite a large part of the fandom thinking Marvel hates him, we are supposed to like him. Even love him.

Boy you are going to be sorry your asked.

Going back to the first Thor movie, when we are first introduced to Loki we see him as helpless, as an infant in a terrible place (I am going to refer to pure canon here, not fanon), which immediately forces the audience to see him as something the opposite of villainous, as a pure innocent. The next time we see him he is a child, and by comparison to his brother who we know is meant to be our 'hero' he is calm and thoughtful and frankly a lot less annoying. This continues through the follow up to Thor's temper tantrum after his failed coronation. Over and over we see Loki as calm, as thoughtful, as not a villain.

Having a character start coded as a hero, or at very least as decent and thoughtful, means that switching to seeing them as a villain is not only harder, but that view is always stained with the memory of who they were. And one thing that we have been trained to believe by films and books for centuries is that if someone was once good it is their destiny to become good again.

Additionally, Loki's turn towards being a villain is not a heel-turn. It is a process we get to see. His discovery of his secret origin (which is often an event in the making of a heroic character), his stymied confrontation with Odin which not only does not give him answers but clearly causes him to feel guilt, his being given the throne which we are told he does not want but also needs to feel validated. That Tom is a fantastic actor and we can SEE how Loki feels throughout the movie makes it all but impossible to hate him or even entirely disagree with him until his attack on Jotunheim. Which, when it fails and he chooses to fall rather than let Odin saves him, we can see as an attempt to kill part of himself, let us see exactly how broken and twisted he has become by what he has learned about himself.

We are never given the luxury of just seeing Loki as a pure villain which means for many people watching the movies he never will be.

(BTW, this is also why I think Marvel fans who did not watch the first Thor movie before seeing The Avengers or go back and watch it afterwards are less likely to see Loki in this light. Though not all of them, clearly).

In The Avengers Loki is at his most purely villainous. He is responsible for destruction and death, he is at the head of an invading, highly other army, he does that eye thing, he brainwashes people. He should be completely hateable. But he isn't. Well, for some fans he is but not all.

I am not going to discuss the 'sexy dom bad man' aspect of his popularity because that is all very obvious. He's gorgeous, he's dressed to kill all of the time, he's witty, strong, making people kneel, etc. We all understand that.

Rather, there are subtle moments, mostly acting based rather than script based, that play into our belief that, like Thor, we believe another Loki still in there. Small pauses, dull effect when giving orders, tears. A sense that Loki is playing the villain to convince himself as much as us. That when it is revealed he is being controlled as much as controlling it doesn't come as a massive twist. It feels like a given. Also, and I think this is significant, he is vulnerable. At the beginning he looks sick, confused even for a few moments, later he needs help getting into the truck, when Thor tosses him into the woods he holds his back and looks exhausted. We see Loki get hurt time and again which actually aligns him with the heroes at the end of the movie, who are all scuffed and tired and hurting - other than Thor who is at his most godly in this film, and the Hulk, though we know Banner is going to feel it later.

Cutting this character out of time to be the main character in the Loki series means at this point he considers himself a villain which makes the shit he goes through make sense to Loki if not to the audience (I don't want to get into this here, because that is another discussion).

By Dark World (and everyone knows T: DW Loki is my favorite), we get Loki in full anti-hero mode. Having him walk into the movie in shackles, guarded, brought before an authority figure makes him likeable to many viewers. He is sassy, unbowed, and the only time we see him break character is when he is threatened with eternal imprisonment.

The movie is about him, not Thor. We open with him, and other than the post credit scene, we close with him. It is about Loki and in the US we don't make big budget movies about the bad guys.

Loki is given the best lines, the funniest moments, the best reveals, the most heroic death. I think there is no question we are meant to love him. And when he shows up at the end, sitting on that throne, considering the state we last saw Odin in, I cannot help but believe we are meant to love him at that moment. He is now purely the Trickster, not the villain.

I don't have as many thoughts on Ragnarok, because while I enjoyed it, the movie doesn't lend itself to much thought. It is all there on the page, and it defies you to find a deeper thought in its pretty head.

I am sure you are now deeply regretting this Ask. Sorry for going on and on. I have given a lot of thought (obsessive thought) to this and I am actually cutting myself off. I could go into how the costuming and styling of the character, even the choice of using pine green for his costume instead of the poisonous or kelly greens often used in the comics are part of hero coding instead of villain coding.

But I won't. I should spare you something.

Thank you again!

[jedimordsith]

You mentioned that you've come to have more empathy for Yoday but still wouldn't recommend him as a direct master for anyone. What were/are your biggest issues with him? There are several I could guess, and probably some I agree with, but I don't want to assume.

Ahahahaha. I’m in a ranty mood this week, so it’s a great time to tackle this ask! Here’s more than anyone ever wanted to know about my Yoda Feels. 

My problems with Yoda come down to a couple things. 

We have entirely different learning/teaching styles. 

I have zero tolerance for cryptic shavit when there’s *actual communication* that needs to happen. 

A lot of Yoda’s behaviors make sense when viewed in the context of the PT but I formed most of my opinions based on the OT before the PT was a Thing. 

I don’t agree with the approach Yoda took in swanning off to Dagobah post RotS. AT ALL. 

Different Learning/Teaching Styles

(In ESB) Yoda very much follows the Greek and Buddhist styles of teaching where masters ask questions that don’t necessarily have solid answers. This is a valid style and something @atamascolily consistently captures gorgeously in her fics. It also absolutely makes me want to stab people. 

I’m like Mara Jade: a task-oriented learner. I want to know what I’m supposed to learning/mastering, why, how I’ll demonstrate success, and what the checkpoints are along the way. Meandering philosophical debates as part of an ill-defined training process are maddening. As noted, as I get older I am more accepting of this as a legit style and just not for me; this makes Yoda more sympathetic as a character but not any less annoying. 

Also, when Luke asks honest and reasonable questions in ESB (like “why”) Yoda shuts him down flat and I’m extremely not okay with that. Luke is being genuine and respectful despite his own frustrations and as someone who is committing his life to the Jedi path he has both a right and a need to know things. Demanding blind faith when there are or should be reasonable answers of some kind is Not Okay. 

Just Communicate Dammit!

With Ben Kenobi and Bail Organa gone, Yoda was the only person around holding a lot of key information. Did he share that information? Nope. He wandered around being a cryptic little troll “because Luke wasn’t ready” despite knowing full well that his health was failing. He gave Luke none of the information he actually needed to make informed decisions and didn’t even freaking write anything down!!  

From a Doylist perspective, this is obviously largely because George Lucas et al hadn’t figured out any of the backstory yet. From a Watsonian perspective, this is unforgivable. 

If your time is short (as his time with Luke was destined to be no matter how things went), it is critically important to be clear and use your time well. Yoda just didn’t. 

Obnoxious Troll vs Grandpa Frog

The PT very much sets Yoda up as Grandpa Frog, a beloved grandfather figure who teaches the younglings regularly and who everyone understands as mischievous but loving. Viewed in that sense, a lot of how he treats Luke in ESB makes sense… but it doesn’t make it okay. 

The younglings at the Temple literally grew up around the Force and Yoda. Luke did not. Luke didn’t even know WTF the Force was until he was almost 20. He got like 24 hours of introduction to it before Ben died. Compliments of Palpatine and the Purge and the war, there is almost no information available to him between ANH and ESB except what he figures out himself. Yet Yoda treats him like a disappointment and a failure for not understanding the scope of the Force and having doubts about its power. 

Guess what? If Luke had grown up in the Temple, yeah, he’d be all about raising X-wings out of swamps. But he didn’t. He grew on repressed for his own safety on a farm in the middle of nowhere without a hint of a clue. 

Now, through the lens of the PT, I can see Luke being a frustrating student for Yoda. He’s used to getting younglings who have been exposed to and trained in the Force by a range of other Jedi. Starting with an older student suffering from a ton of trauma and without any of the basics that he has to train in less than a fraction of the time shaping a Jedi would normally take is a massive undertaking and he’s old and tired besides. The whole family history with Vader wouldn’t make it any easier. 

But you know what? Luke is young. He left his found family in the middle of a war and is undergoing hugely stressful training in the middle of a swamp so that he can shoulder even bigger burdens. Yoda has had 20 years of (mostly) downtime to deal with his own trauma and at least several hundred years of practice being a teacher and a leader. He’s the one in a position to improve things and accommodate and he doesn’t. I’m not okay with that. 

Let’s Talk About That Downtime BTW

Again, from a Doylist perspective, I get why Yoda was hanging out on Dagobah, why he used things like visions to communicate with people like Kanan, Ezra, etc. periodically, and why he was Luke’s mentor in ESB/RotJ. 

From a Watsonian view, though, I’m not freaking impressed. He was the Grandmaster. He was heartbroken over the Jedi and Padawans he couldn’t save. But what did he do for the remaining ones spread across the galaxy? Shavit, that’s what. Kanan, Cal Kestis, Feris Olan, all the Jedi/Padawans who got kidnapped and twisted into Inquisitors — they were on their freaking own while Yoda swanned off to Dagobah. 

Oh, sure, he’d pop up in a vision here or there or whatever, but he had a safe place. And, apparently, the ability to reach at least some of them some of the time (see: visions and his connections to people like Bail Organa). Do I think any of those people probably wanted to live on Dagobah? Not particularly. But I think they’d have appreciated the safety and the chance to reconnect with what remained of their Jedi family, even if only briefly. 

But no. Yoda hangs out, waiting for the day the twins are old enough to take on the responsibility to kill Vader/Palpatine and then… does nothing?! He just keeps hanging out even after both Luke and Leia have lost everything, lets them get all settled into the Rebellion without a word, and THEN has the nerve to be cranky and disgruntled when he actually does get one of them to train!! 

YOU MADE CHOICES YOU LITTLE FROG TROLL. DON’T TAKE THEM OUT ON THE PEOPLE YOU DENIED CHOICES FOR 20 YEARS. 

I’m Not Entirely Without Compassion, I Swear

*sigh* I have seen a lot of Yoda meta in recent years that makes me appreciate Yoda for what he was during the PT. He really *was* everybody’s loving Grandpa who worked for centuries to love on the Jedi, protect them, and take care of them well. He legit wanted all of them to be happy and safe… and his suffering when the Purge happened must have been unimaginable. Like Luke and Leia, he lost everything. 

Unlike the twins, he didn’t get to rebuild or find a new family. While I believe what we have in the EU suggests he found peace and solace and a new home of Dagobah that was genuinely soothing to his wounded soul, he was alone and (whether he was or not) he did feel mostly helpless to do anything for his few scattered Jedi grandchildren who remained and suffered across the galaxy. He did face decisions in which there *weren’t* good, clear-cut answers. 

I think if I’d met him first in the PT or meta I might have liked him better. But I still wouldn’t ever recc him as a Master for any character I like because I can’t imagine learning under him being an experience I would ever wish on anyone simply based on my own vehement loathing for his personal teaching style. I know there are people in the world who would thrive on that approach and I like to think I’ve got a good imagination, but I simply can’t conceptualize it as a positive, productive experience. 

*As an end note, if you DO like Yoda or want to like him better please go read @atamascolily‘s fics, seriously. You’ll love them!

[nicnacsnonsense]

From a Doylist standpoint, yes, I agree that Stede’s horrified reaction is meant to cue us as the audience to view this as a horrifying thing, with Ed’s obvious discomfort helping to direct our horror toward Calico Jack for the way he’s discussing it rather than toward Ed for having done it.

On the Watsonian side I think Ed’s discomfort is a combination of worry about Stede’s reaction to the story and just discomfort with this story in general (and I love the idea that the fire might be an accident, btw; I could go in a whole separate tangent about that). Stede meanwhile is definitely experiencing some degree of horror at what sounds like especially senseless and cruel violence, directed both at Jack for his glee in the telling of it and at Ed for having committed it. But I think for the most part he move past that pretty quickly and it’s not the main reason why Stede is upset here.

Stede is already feeling super insecure at this point. He doesn’t realize he’s in love with Ed yet, but he knows their relationship is very special and important to him. And then here comes Calico Jack, who shared this history with Ed and the two of them have an connection that Stede is not a part of and feels he cannot compete with (though my poor baby sure does try). So here’s Stede already feeling closed out and like his relationship with Ed is being threatened, and then Jack just casually mentions a time where Ed brutally murdered a whole lot of people. To which Stede responds “I thought you’d given up the killing.”

He says it as “given up the killing” because he trying to be tactful and not break any confidences with Jack sitting right there, but what Stede must be referring to here is he thought Ed hadn’t ever killed anyone since his father. The two of them had shared that really intimate moment where they declared their feelings for each other (platonically, but friendship can still be a very important and powerful feeling) and Ed was vulnerable with Stede and shared something very personal that he’d presumably never told anyone else before.

And then here comes Jack, just off-handedly telling a story that blows that whole moment out of the water. That special connection Stede thought he had with Ed wasn’t real because that vulnerable secret was just some lie. And so Stede has to be sitting there wondering if that was a lie, then what else was a lie. Was any of it even true?

Saw your post on anti-creampuffing Stede and you’re right and should say it. Was wondering if you have additional thoughts on when Stede appears to be disappointed in Ed when Jack recounts how he set fire to a ship full of people (despite the fact that Stede did pretty much the same thing two episodes prior)?

Anon, I am SO GRATEFUL to you for asking this, because it's a bit of meta I've been thinking about for A WHILE. There seems to be some fandom consensus about ALL of these events that make no f-ing sense to me (disclaimer: am ADHD neurodivergent?) BUT!

(I tried to keep this short but failed miserably, I just have a lot of thoughts about this bit of discourse, ok?)

1) I have no idea where everyone got the notion that Stede killed everyone on board the French party ship??? Yes there are some fires on board, but we SEE Abshir escape in a life boat with the other servants and people jumping to safety (it's not the Titanic, the Caribbean is warm guys, no one is going to freeze to death in the water). Stede humiliated those people and probably disabled the ship but I didn't see any evidence that everyone on board died?? (Doylist note: it was a comedy beat, I don't think we were supposed to see Stede's muppet-y destruction of the party ship as the same as a ship being burned to the waterline in a grimdark pirate naval battle, ie no one died, guys, at least no one of any importance)

2) I have no idea where everyone got the idea Stede was disappointed in Ed because of the story Calico Jack told about the burning ship?? I went back and watched it a few times just to make sure and here's my take:

Yes, Stede is freaked out by the story in the moment. It's a pretty hair-raising story. Stede is the moral compass of the show and he's relaying to us that this story is horrifying and we shouldn't be numb to that horror. But the horror we're being asked to feel isn't directed at Ed who committed the action, it's being directed at Calico Jack for laughing about it. In the muppet-y world of OFMD, being cruel is morally a greater sin than being a pirate doing pirate stuff.

That said, this is also the episode where Ed's emotional journey is coming to the conclusion that Stede would reject him if he knew who he was and what he'd done in the past. (An interestingly misplaced fear given Stede states that Ed's past is Ed's business and I think it applies to the ship too, guys.) It's actually very skillfully done that Stede's facial expression is a bit ambiguous here because we need to both believe that Ed is reasonable for thinking Stede is rejecting him AND that Stede is actually much more horrified on Ed's behalf than he is at the event (which was my initial read of the scene the first time I watched it).

On that note, Ed looks absolutely miserable that Jack is telling that story to Stede. Miserable and embarrassed. He is not crowing over those deaths. I actually got the very distinct impression (based on admittedly no evidence but Ed's immediate discomfort) that the ship burning was an accident. I can easily picture a situation where Ed thought the crew had abandoned ship and burnt it only to discover too late they'd taken shelter in the hold. In a manner similar to Stede's "murder" of Badminton, "Blackbeard" would have no choice but to take credit for those deaths as if he'd done it on purpose, which would help spread his legend as a brutal pirate, but Ed takes emotional shelter in the notion that "the fire killed those men, not me" even if that appears to be cold comfort to him.

It's only the fandom that's making a big deal out of either burning ship? Stede never brings up the burning ship again? Like most things pirate-y (especially when it comes to Ed), Stede had an initial moment of genteel alarm, then in his own typical bonkers manner he shrugged and just accepted it without further qualms. Stede gives Ed more shit about the turtle fighting the crab than he does about that ship.

IMO? Stede is much more repulsed by Jack telling that story than he is by what Ed did in the story. Stede literally does not give a shit at almost any point in the show about pirate brutality, only about people being mean. Jack pisses Stede right the fuck off, but Ed never could.

[beatrice-otter]

Are you looking for the Watsonian reason (the reason from internal story logic) or the Doylist reason (the reason the writer/director chose to do it that way)? Because there are reasons both ways. First, let's talk the Doylistic reason. And that is that A New Hope is not about Bail. He doesn't even get mentioned. Nor does Queen Breha, his wife (who is the actual planetary ruler, btw; Bail was the Senator before Leia, and he's still one of the leaders of the Rebel Alliance, but he's not the planetary ruler). Having him or Queen Breha do that negotiating would have taken the movie in a different direction and added characters and complexity that would have dragged it down and changed it from a fantasy-in-space to more of a political thriller. And taken the spotlight off of Leia, Luke, and Han, the three main characters. On a Watsonian level, there are actually a number of differences between Alderaan's situation and Cloud City's. First and foremost, Alderaan matters. It's big and powerful. People care about it. And up to this point, the Empire has mostly been going after smaller targets. The places (important) people don't really care about. Now, Alderaan's importance is exactly why Tarkin chose it, but Bail and Breha don't know that. It would be far more likely, from their point of view, for this to be some sort of bluff. In which case, the smart thing to do is bluster, pretend ignorance, and hope to hold out long enough for the Rebellion to figure out the weakness and destroy the thing. If they say "oh, yeah, we know all about the Rebellion, here's your target!" what do you think happens to them and Alderaan? Nothing good! At that point, the Empire can justify anything it does to Alderaan as legitimate retribution for their treason. If they keep their cool, on the other hand, the Empire has a much harder case to make, and they've got a lot more wiggle room. Even if Bail and Breha seriously thought that Tarkin would destroy the planet, they almost certainly assumed that it would take more time. More negotiating. Not "I'm destroying it on the first half-transparent excuse I can find as soon as I find it!" I betcha they were frantically destroying records on Alderaan, sanitizing information and trying to figure out political strategies, not realizing that none of that mattered because Tarkin came there intending to destroy a major planet just to show he could. Cloud City, otoh, is small. Nobody cares about it besides the people who live there. Even before Alderaan, if the Empire cared to smite it, nobody would have blinked. Second, Alderaan was a target of the Empire because of its connection to the Rebellion. They capture Princess Leia, Alderaan becomes an immediate place of interest. The Empire wants to get rid of the Rebellion. Even if Bail gives up every other Rebel cell and base he knows about, the Empire would STILL know that Alderaan had rebels on it! They would still take action! There's no possible intelligence Bail could give them that would make it worth their while to just ... forget about the fact that Alderaan is run by rebels. Alderaan just got caught red-handed; Alderaan needs to be made an example of. (It's just that Bail probably didn't believe that the example would be "the complete destruction of the planet.") If you're not running a short ticking clock down to destruction, again, the best thing to do is bluff. You can always confess later; you can't take back the confession. Cloud City, by contrast, just happens to be in the way. Vader doesn't care what happens to Cloud City one way or the other; he doesn't even care about Han, Leia, and Chewie. He just cares about getting his paws on Luke. So Lando actually has a great bargaining position. Vader wants one thing (Luke), which will be marginally easier to get with Lando's help; Lando wants one thing (the protection of his people), which he depends on Vader's good graces to secure. He can save his people (and get Han out of the line of fire) by throwing Luke under the bus. And then Vader will go away because, see point one, nobody cares about Cloud city, and Vader only cares about it in ESB because it's where he happens to catch up to the Rebels who can call Luke for him. Agreeing to spare Cloud City loses him nothing, and gets him an easier setup for his trap. And that's all Vader (or any Imperial) wants out of Cloud City. Boom! Done! Third, Bail is a committed Rebel. Lando is a complete outsider. Bail has chosen his allegiance, and it is twofold: to Alderaan, and to the Rebellion (or, as he puts it, "the Alliance to Restore the Republic."). Even if he completely, totally, and utterly gave up everything he knows and gave the Empire enough information to track down and destroy the entire Rebellion, that probably still wouldn't be enough to stop the Empire from massive reprisals against Alderaan. It wouldn't save his planet. Betraying one of his allegiances would not save the other. Lando? Lando has no larger political affiliation. Lando's allegiance is to Cloud City, full stop. He doesn't have to worry about betraying his people and his cause; he just has to worry about getting the Empire through there and out of there as quick as possible. By handing over Luke, he is not betraying anyone he has any care for or allegiance to; and as for Han and Chewie (the two he actually cares about), the deal was that they would stay on Cloud City, remember? And even Princess Leia! Lando isn't trading "all of the Rebellion" for his city; he's not trading massive tactical information which could cripple the Rebellion for his city; he's trading ONE REBEL for his city. That's not a bad trade. Fourth, let's assume Bail did cop to everything and turn information and himself over to buy Alderaan's survival. What happens next? Why, the Empire has a weapon that can destroy entire planets, and the only people with a hope in hell of stopping that thing just got eliminated! In the long run, it's probably better for the galaxy that Alderaan was wiped out but the Rebellion got the plans and destroyed the Death Star, than Alderaan saved and the Death Star still at large. Because if it wasn't Alderaan, it would have been some other planet. The whole point of a weapon is to use it. This isn't the Cold War, with two sides with equivalent weapons; this is one side with an overwhelming force that they can use to devastating effect, if you don't destroy it first. If the Rebellion can't destroy the Death Star, the galaxy is doomed forever. Bail knows this. And if he saved Alderaan by giving up the Rebellion, Alderaan would then have to exist in a galaxy ruled by the kind of people who like to destroy planets and can do so at will. That's a long-term sword hanging right over their head. Cloud City? What are the consequences of selling out one Rebel to save it? Well, the consequences are pretty dire for that one Rebel. But not that big for the galaxy as a whole, or at least, Lando had no reason to believe they would be. Cloud City will have no long-term consequences, either; neither will Lando. Fifth, Bail copping to everything would require also throwing Leia under the bus. Her one hope of survival (he probably thinks) is using her threadbare excuse of being on some sort of diplomatic mission that has nothing to do with the Rebellion. Tarkin might hesitate to destroy Alderaan (or at least Bail probably thought he would), but not to torture and kill one politician. If Bail folds, Leia is toast. And he loves his daughter dearly. In the end, I bet he probably would have been willing to sacrifice her to save Alderaan, but not as a first option on a few minutes' notice. Lando had never even heard of Luke before Vader showed up. The only people in the whole mess (besides his citizens) he has any connection to are Han and Chewie ... and if he throws the dude he's never heard of before under the bus, he can save the people he actually knows and cares about.