#and implying that anakin learned the wrong lesson from that

[starlightandsunshine]

Alright 3rd and final Star Wars take of the day that is probably pretty lynchworthy:

Echo should have died/already been dead in the Bad Batch arc in s7. Sorry guys, I love Echo too, but the story would have worked better if he was already dead when they got there.

Like there's a lot of things that could have made this arc better in general that I'm not going to really get into here without touching on the character design or whitewashing and racism around the clones (which many much more qualified people have talked about way more eloquently than I ever could). Like the fact that this arc should have been a Cody&Rex arc rather than writing Cody out so early in or the weirdly dismissive way the writers treated the other characters in order to lift tbb up when they could have just. Not done that. Really very easily.

But specifically the Echo thing: as soon as Rex finds out the possibility that Echo might still be alive, he is immediately ready to jump in with both feet without looking, and Anakin cautions him that they might not find Echo alive and he needs to prepare himself for the possibility that they can't save him. This has huge overall narrative implications, because we, the viewers, know that in a few weeks time he is going to turn his back on the people who love and trust him and betray everything he's ever sworn to stand for bc he is worried about the possibility of not being able to save Padme.

Now Rex goes with tbb and Anakin on a rescue mission that might not be a rescue mission. Tbb are still being very dismissive of the "regs" and Rex, quite understandably, is not handling their attitudes very well.

They get there, it's a trap and so on and so forth, but here's the important part: they don't find Echo alive. The Techno Union found him after the Citadel arc and mined his brain for data through hand wavy star wars means and they had no need to preserve anything else or keep him alive after that.

The rescue mission is too late and they never had the chance to save Echo at all. And Rex breaks. He holds it together for long enough to complete the mission, they escape the Techno Union and protect the village, but once they get back on the ship and head back towards Anaxes, he just shatters. Full on sobbing on the floor devastated bc he was so sure he could save Echo. He was so hopeful that he could save this one person after everything. After Fives and Tup and Ahsoka walking away and Kadavo and Umbara he just wanted to be able to save one person that he cared about. And they were already way too late.

We can see Anakin faced with all of this and the shadow of his future actions that he will do so that he will not have to deal with his own potential grief. We can see the paralells between Rex doing everything in his power to have the possibility of saving his brother and Anakin taking extreme steps to have the possibility of saving his wife.

The shadow of RotS hangs over the entire arc and this then makes the scene with Admiral Trench hit so much harder. Because it's not just the warning of how far Anakin has already fallen, its the spectre of the future hanging over his shoulder in more ways than one, the way that throughout the arc you can see his resolve to never lose Padme hardening so he never has to face that grief.

On the other end of things, tbb are faced with Rex's very real and present grief for Echo and have to acknowledge the love and care that the other clones have for each other. They get to grow as characters and learn to respect the grief of the "regs" bc there is a shared kinship there, they do share more than they don't, and they are all horribly aware of just how easily it could have been them. The arc can end with them learning to respect the other clones and finding a closer kinship with them rather than returning to the status quo just with Echo as a member and they sort of like Rex now. Not only would that have made them more relatable as characters but could have set up a much better conflict for the future in their show rather than the weird thing with Crosshair that we did get and them still not really connecting with any of the other clones in a show centred on the clones.

Like, let the characters fail. Let them lose. Let them have succeeded in their mission without having it be a victory. Let it be bittersweet. S7 is already bittersweet. We know what is coming. We know how close it is. The shadow of it looms over every single interaction in this season. So don't shy away from it. Lean into the shadow of Anakin's choices, lean in to the paralells that you're writing in, let the events have meaning and impact and consequences like so much of the rest of the show.

[fanfic-obsessed]

Anakin Faces Consequences

Thank you @killjoypolitics for the submission

I love all your ideas! I was wondering if you had any ideas for a fix-it where the Jedi or Clones (somehow) prevent Order 66 from happening but Anakin still falls. How do you think the Jedi/Senate/public would respond to his attempted murder of the Jedi? Or the marriage? Or the murder of the Sand People? I’m just so curious as to how you think people would handle it! Do you think Anakin would be able to admit he was wrong and try and make up for what he did?

Hmm those are some intriguing questions. Reading them did give me some immediate ideas. Let’s explore them. 

I think, for this to work, we need to shift some behind the scenes for the Clone Wars. To start with Anakin’s…let's call them his less than stellar command decisions is noticed and noted, even if no one can do anything about them (because he is technically not doing anything wrong). It damages the trust the Clones, other Jedi, and even his own Padawan have in him.  These decisions include but are not limited to: Spending Clone lives to collect R2D2 (whose memory-properly wiped of sensitive information- is backed up to the central Jedi Temple databanks and had outright stated that it had no attachment to its current body), Anakin’s focus on Padme during the Blue Shadow virus, and his reaction to the Rako Hardeen arc (he was literally the only person in Obi Wan’s life to react poorly to finding out Obi Wan went undercover and faked his death, everyone else got Opspec). 

So by the time of the Wrong Jedi arc, no one is actually trusting Anakin with any more information than they absolutely need to. He kind of doesn’t notice because he wasn’t paying that much attention in the first place.  When the Senate demands Padawan Ahsoka Tano for the temple bombing, the Council calls her in to see them, without Anakin, and ‘We know you are innocent, we know this is a trap of some kind, would you be willing to go along to spring the trap and hopefully find who is framing you’ and Ahoska, being partially trained by Obi Wan, agrees.

No one tells Anakin. At the end of the Arc, Ahsoka agrees to continue undercover (as having left the Jedi) and working with the Shadows to figure out what is going on. So Ahsoka ‘leaves’ the Jedi, Anakin none the wiser. She also starts working much more closely with the Coruscant Guard (who had been aware that she was innocent and going along with things to spring the trap). 

This brings us to where Fives finds out about the chips, reports to Rex and Anakin, then is ‘killed’ (his death was faked and he was sent to join Ahsoka).  Anakin suppresses the report because he does not believe that his friend Palpatine could do anything like that. He orders Rex to ignore the report as well, specifically not to bring it up to the Jedi Council. But he does it in a way that still implies Anakin will be bringing it up to the appropriate authorities.  Rex does not trust Anakin, particularly not with anything that would make Palpatine look bad. However if Rex did an end run and went directly to the Jedi Council, it would be very obvious. So instead Rex reached out to Ahsoka with Fives report. 

Ahsoka, now working with the Shadows, gets the report and they are able to investigate the chips.  Though they cannot remove them, for fear that the wrong person will find out too early and activate the rest, they are able to quickly find and manufacture a way to neutralize the control portion of the chips. 

This brings us up to ROTS. To Order 66 and Anakin’s fall.  Anakin leads the march on the temple, and the 501st follow along (not sure where he was going with this), until Anakin strikes down a temple guard while ordering them to open fire. Had it been almost any other Battalion with almost any other Jedi, the Fallen Jedi would have been able to kill many more before he could be stopped.  But the 501st learned some difficult lessons from Pong Krell and Anakin was not gnarly as trusted as he thought.  Anakin is stunned.

Palpatine’s Empire as announced but without the control chips to make the clones kill the Jedi, Palpatine’s Empire lasts 3 days which end with Palpatine’s death. It takes another two weeks for everything to calm down enough to bring Anakin forward to face what he had done. 

Palpatine’s former supporters, the ones that are not outed and ousted during the transformation from Republic to Empire and back, flock to Anakin as the wronged party. Their spin is that Anakin was moving to protect the legal head of the government from an insurrection in the form of the Jedi. 

It gained no traction, because even though Palpatine’s Empire lasted 3 days, it was still enough to see how many of these people would react. Frankly, there were more than a few of those supporters (beings like Tarkin) whose support of Anakin did more harm to the cause than good. 

For many of the Jedi, Anakin’s actions didn’t really rate notice. Not above the horror of the chips, both from the view of ‘all of us would have died’ and ‘the clones would have been forced to kill us’.  Throughout the war Anakin had, mostly unconsciously, been distancing himself from the Jedi. A distance which grew as they realized he could not really be trusted. 

 For most there was sadness, of course, as more of his actions from the war and just before are revealed. But it was the sadness of an old friend going down the wrong path, not the betrayal of current family trying to hurt them.   Finding out Anakin had betrayed his oaths by marrying Padme and had committed murder was just one more thing that had happened. 

The public reaction was mixed. Many bought into ‘The Hero with No Fear’ mythos and could not believe he would attack the Jedi without reason, even after he admitted that his reason was Padme not anything the Jedi had done.  The scandal of it, though, keeps it in the public eye. And it is a seemingly unending  well of scandal for Anakin, Padme, and any number of their supporters.  Not the least of which is the news that Anakin murdered the Tuskans, but Padme’s forgiving him for it was legally binding (As she was acting as a Senator) so he could never be prosecuted for the murders, even if Tatooine and the Tuskens could make an official complaint about his behavior. That Anakin then married Padme made it even worse. 

I think, for Anakin himself, if he gets to the point of falling he would not be willing to admit he had done anything wrong. He seems like the kind of person who would double down and insist that he was right for his decisions.

[antianakin]

I'd actually even say that it's totally fine for characters like Yoda or Obi-Wan or Mace to be shown having flaws so long as it's left as a flaw FOR THOSE CHARACTERS rather than a flaw that's meant to be representative of the Jedi as a whole.

In TCW, Yoda has the whole Force Ghost arc and he has to literally fight his own dark side because he'd allowed himself to believe (a little) that he'd basically learned what he needed to learn about himself at this point in his life and he's reminded that it's ALWAYS a life-long journey, no matter how long that life is.

In ESB, Yoda is explicitly wrong about whether Luke should be trained or not and Obi-Wan has to convince him into it, showing that Yoda is a little stubborn sometimes. It doesn't mean the lessons he gives to Luke later can't be trusted obviously, just that he has a personal vice, same as anyone else might.

In TCW, Mace has a two parter storyline with Jar Jar where he has to learn how to trust Jar Jar and work with him even when Jar Jar is unorthodox and a little annoying, and Mace makes several mistakes along the way that he has to learn from. This same flaw is shown in the Zillo Beast arc where he nearly messes up a treaty with the dugs because he's not all that great at politics sometimes and it's Anakin who has to come up with a sneakier plan to try to save the Zillo Beast AND the treaty for fuel they need. Neither of these episodes try to paint Mace as a bad person, nor are they ever used to try to make any sort of sweeping statement about the Jedi as a whole (unlike the way TOTJ did with that one episode with Mace and Dooku). You could even argue that Mace mistrusting Anakin in ROTS is a flaw of his, that he doesn't have faith in Anakin the way he used to and the way Obi-Wan now does. Mace even admits to this when he tells Anakin that he's "earned his trust" after Anakin brings him the information about Palpatine being a Sith, and when Anakin shows up in Palpatine's office, Mace trusts Anakin enough to try to convince him not to listen to Palpatine. Mace is ultimately RIGHT that Anakin can't be trusted and he has understandable reasons for it in the moment, but his lack of faith before Anakin actually betrays them is still a flaw.

And Obi-Wan is originally introduced in ANH as a "Big Good" as you term it. He is THE Jedi, the first one we ever meet and the only one in that film at all. Obi-Wan is Vader's foil, the "good father" to Vader's "bad father" and that's a theme that continues all through the OT (and even in the PT although the "bad father" in that trilogy is Palpatine instead of Vader). And then in ESB, as mentioned earlier, it's OBI-WAN who convinces Yoda to train Luke, sort-of putting Obi-Wan in a place where he's almost a little wiser than Yoda, possibly due to Obi-Wan being dead now. We don't get given any sort of flaws for him until ROTJ where he admits that he took on Anakin out of arrogance, but that is represented as a PERSONAL failing of his and not even a flaw he really has anymore.

And it's a flaw that got retconned in TPM anyway since he doesn't take on Anakin out of arrogance at all. Both TPM and AOTC give Obi-Wan flaws that create his arcs in those films (learning to trust the will of the Force in TPM and learning to let go of his doubts/worry about Anakin and trust the will of the Force again in AOTC). And then of course the Kenobi show made him EXCEPTIONALLY flawed at the beginning as a part of his growth arc in that story. And in NONE OF THOSE THINGS are Obi-Wan's personal flaws used to condemn the Jedi as a whole or imply that he's overall a bad person himself simply because he has a flaw he has to overcome or learn from.

"Big Goods" are absolutely allowed to have flaws that they have to recognize and overcome, especially if they end up getting more centered in a story at some point (for example, Mace isn't shown with flaws during the PT because his character development isn't the point, but when TCW makes him a central character in an episode or two, it provides the opportunity to explore him more). It's what makes them interesting characters and not just an archetype. "Big Goods" can't necessarily have flaws ALL THE TIME or in every single story that gets told, they do often have to be the archetype of a "Big Good" in someone else's story, but even then there's often nuance if you choose to look for it.

This is what "Jedi critical" stuff still gets wrong for me. Even if people who are "Jedi critical" and not "anti Jedi" still claim that they like the Jedi and don't believe the worst of the Jedi, they'll often take one character's personal flaw and extrapolate it to the rest of the entire organization. "The Jedi got complacent." Okay, why do you say that? "Look at Jocasta and her comment about the map." Could this maybe just be a flaw of JOCASTA'S since Obi-Wan, another Jedi, immediately goes out to investigate it and is clearly reporting to the JEDI Council who know he's doing it? Why does JOCASTA get to represent the entire Jedi Order but somehow Obi-Wan does not and neither do the people he's reporting to? Why does the Jedi Order only ever get to be represented thematically by people's flaws, by people that fans choose to DISLIKE and any time a Jedi character does GOOD things, then it's just proof of the INDIVIDUAL being good?

It's a double standard and I'm happy to use individual cases of it to prove that there's a massive flaw in the entire "Jedi critical" community. Does that feel unfair? How unfortunate. Perhaps there's a lesson that can be learned from that.

@antianakin already said this in the reblogs of @jaydude1992 ,

but it really needs to be said in its own posts

Pro Jedi fans have no qualms about Jedi having flaws, we like it even, we want them to have flaws so they can grow

(to an extent of course, it does depend on the character, as characters such as Yoda, Mace and much of the council are not really meant to have flaws that they need to learn and grow from as they are meant to be archetypes, Big Goods as it were)

what we take issue with is when flaws (real or perceived) that are SPECIFIC and PERSONAL to INDIVIDUAL CHARACTERS, are taken and made into flaws of the entire Order/culture (and then used to justify mass murder in the name of forcing cultural change on the Jedi) because that misses the point, the Jedi as an Order/culture is not meant to be inherently flawed, it's an archetype, the Jedi as a concept represent wisdom, enlightenment, and good, it is the in universe way that people master and become their bests selves, it's is harmony and understanding how the universe works (if the Jedi Order was meant to be flawed and wrong, Lucas wouldn't have it's core beliefs and values be his own)

[graylinesspam]

Listen the kid literally nicknamed snips doesn't really need any lessons on how to be rude to someone but regardless I think she would have picked up a few quips and tricks from the men soooo

Ways Ahsoka mouths off and posture that she learned from her brothers&Obi-wan:

Purposefully calling someone the wrong name. This is highly offensive to the clones.

Sliding her goggles on while someone is trying to give her directions. In a way that lets them know she's ignoring them.

Randomly shifting to parade rest while someones telling a long story or carrying on a conversation she doesn't want to be in anymore. This is because parade rest is an at attention/waiting to be dismissed position. She's literally asking "can I go now?"

Being overly compliant in a "yes sir", " right away", "roger", kinda way. Just interrupting instruction to say this shit. " would that be all?", "at your service"

She has absolutely just turned the volume down on a transmission and pretended that they lost audio and couldn't complete the call. Anakin does this in his fighters.

She has adopted so many facial expressions. Shes got wolffe's 'kill me now' face down. And Cody's subtle resting bitch face. Obi-wan's condescendingly patient face that makes it clear you're wasting her time. And best of all Anakin's 'are you fucking kidding me' face.

She has absolutely just taken her saber off her belt and started dissasembling it instead of listening to someone talk. It serves the dual purpose of a threat and a dismissal. Especially since she has a second saber at the ready. She's seen Rex pull this many times with his dc-17s.

Randomly kicking her feet up, leaning back, and resting her chin on her hand seems to convey the exact level of 'please shut up' that Obi-wan has cultivated.

She has offered to fix someone tea then just left, presumably to get the tea, but never came back.

Even though the rudeness factor doesn't really translate she does a lot of complimenting people on how nice and clean their clothes are if she's decided to completely ignore their plan/ strategy. In other words implying they're unqualified or too pampered to be giving orders. Kinda a reference to shinys and non-clone officers who never get out to the front.

This one is inherited from way back because Qui-gon used to just shift into a meditation instead of listening to someone telling him what to do, Obi-wan has done the same shit and on one occasion so has Ahsoka.

She's quick with the "that's above my rank." Essentially 'I'm not paid enough for that.'

Or "I'll consult my master." When she doesn't want to do something. Like Anakin isn't going to make her but you can't tell her 'no don't ask your guardian for permission, just do it' cuz that's real skeevy.

"I already have my orders." And "I have a job to complete first." Are also good way of telling someone no:)

[skylariumrose]

Shmi Skywalker Lives!!!

Reasons why I say Shmi should live:

She is THE mom. Only one of two we really get in the continuity (Omera being the other one that comes to mind right now) And from a narrative point of view, at least from us the audience knowing, she seems fridged out. Which isn’t cool at all.

She is compassionate, intelligent, and level-headed, all the things Anakin can be when he gives himself a moment to think.

Didn’t really deserve it, like truly, wrong place wrong time and personally too many bad things happen in canon. So one nice thing please.

She would help with the freeing of other slaves on Tatooine and other affected planets. I have read excellent posts on Shmi getting into the Underground slave rebellion that must be on Tatooine and I totally agree. But I know she’s smart enough that she’d help expand the reach to help others, and what is a better hideout than the place a ton of crime takes place. (Which comes in later for my fic ;)

This is more Anakin centric, but if he learned to let go of her the proper way he‘d have a better chance of being a better person. Plus, if she lived you can’t tell me Anakin wouldn’t go to her with his problems instead of the Paplatine. And instead of saying things with no substance or placing blame on others she would use her mom judo to get Anakin to just stop and think, eventually leading to him adding ‘what would mom say’ to his mental bank of ‘what would Obi-Wan do’ and eventually get himself back to his state of normal.

Context for how Shmi is alive in BSWB:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/34073155/chapters/84761953

Since it’s very much implied that Anakin and Obi-Wan were away for a long enough time in the novelization, which means away from Palpatine’s influences, Anakin actually made the right decision to speak to Obi-Wan about his nightmares instead of waiting to go talk to Palpatine. Because expediency is the name of the game for Anakin and he does trust Obi-Wan.

So he tells Obi-Wan and he offers what he can, a listening ear and some insight, but not much more until he notices that Anakin’s nightmares aren’t going away with time. So while they’re out doing Jedi diplomacy before or around the time they go to Ansion, Obi-Wan takes them to Tatooine citing ‘we’re going training’ to the Council. If Shmi is hurt, they help her as Jedi do. If not, it will be a lesson in fear, attachments for Anakin, and to not trust so easily in these vision-dreams.

Either way it’s a win-win situation as it were.

So yes, Shmi has been injured, but they save her in more than enough time that there's no Tusken Raiders massacre as her health was a priority. Which I have things to say about the Tuskens, but I’ll need a longer post so I’ll keep it at I love the correct interpretation The Mandalorian gives them and keep it at that.

And as such I have transferred that rage elsewhere to a different arc and I’m proud of it. I mean it means Anakin will stumble big time (no dead kids though, which is a weird low bar) but his redemption was never going to be easy so 🤷🏾‍♀️

But it helps with the story I've planned out and its the only nice thing Anakin gets for awhile. You know beside his marriage (sorta 😅), which I have Anakin and Padme getting married on Tatooine for secrecy reasons and because Anakin is like ‘I met your family, you should meet mine’. At this time Shmi give Padme C-3PO as a gift because she’s a fancy senator who’ll needed him more and she’s already fluent is a few languages, plus it keeps with some continuity here.

So yeah these are the only nice things he has for a while as he works out why some of his choices are not the best. But Anakin deserves to know he has another home and this is also a show of Obi-Wan’s love for him, which he hasn’t completely figured out yet because he’s dense. I love him, but Anakin is very dense most of the time.

But before any real talking could take place about attachments, letting go, and of course how to better deal with precognitive dreams AOTC happens so everything is still an incomplete lesson that gets shelved.

[calltomuster]

Star Wars Fic Recs Take 5

[first fic rec list] [second fic rec list] [third fic rec list] [fourth fic rec list]

Hope you're having a lovely day, friends! Here, take some more fic recs to make it even better!

Infinite Sadness (what does your heart tell you?) by @the-last-kenobi (gen, one-shot, 12.5k words) This fic definitely lives up to its title, not just in what happens to Obi-Wan, but in the sheer, pervasive sadness and desperation and subtle despair that plagues him as he lives life after life over and over again, trying to make things better each time. But it's not a flashy despair, it's muted and ongoing and never over-the-top, and well, it's infinite sadness. I definitely think this fic is slept on, it's absolutely amazing and I highly encourage you to check it out.

How Qui-Gon Accidentally Adopted a Baby by @the-last-kenobi (gen, WIP, 18/? chapters, 26.6k words) Oh, did the first fic on this list make you sad? I have the perfect remedy: another fic by @the-last-kenobi! To say that this fic brings me immense joy is an understatement. This fic makes me smile when nothing else will. You get the premise from the title, and I'll admit it may look a little crack-fic-y based on that, but the sheer cuteness of this fic and the quality of the prose elevates it beyond anything else. I'm not even kidding, this fic makes me want to have kids, that's how adorable baby Obi-Wan is in this.

The When Duty Is Done series by thosenearandfarwars (Obi-Wan/Cody, incomplete, 14/? parts, 90k words) I recommended the first story in this series way back in my third fic rec list, and it's only gotten better since then. I really like this series because it imagines -- well, I don't want to just say an ideal post-ROTS universe, because that implies that things are just magically all better, but I think it's a realistic ideal post-ROTS universe. The Jedi Order reforms itself, the clones get reparations and the ability to govern themselves, Anakin doesn't join Palpatine, etc. Through it all is an absolutely wonderful story about two people and their love for each other. It's just lovely.

Fire to ash, present to past (who knows for tomorrow?) by blueberrywizard (Obi-Wan/Cody, one-shot, 11.6k words) One day, Qui-Gon's apprentice completely changes. Or at least, that's how it seems to Qui-Gon, who has no idea that his Padawan is actually now a much older version trapped in this young body. This fic is told from many different points of view and I really like the prose. Definitely one that sticks with you.

|nothing quite like this| by littlekaracan (gen, one-shot, 6.6k words) Don't read this unless you want to feel like your heart has been ripped to pieces. This fic is a piece of experimental fiction, framed as a class reading for Jedi students in the future who are learning about the Purge. It's just devastating, truly devastating. Even though it features no characters we'd be familiar with, you just get so drawn into the world of this Purge survivor, and hearing their experiences is brutal.

In The Afterman, Solitude by kanerallels (gen, one-shot, 2.2k words, Obi-Wan & Quinlan) Obi-Wan is in a cantina on Tatooine after ROTS and runs into Quinlan Vos. What follows reminds him that he's not alone in the galaxy, not like he thought he was. I really like the progression of this fic, how real it seems to the characters. Obi-Wan doesn't just immediately blurt out what happened, and Quinlan is much more subtle than he usually is in fic. I really enjoyed this one.

Ghost Company by existentialAF (Obi-Wan/Cody, one-shot, 2.2k words) Cody's chip gets removed and he makes it his mission to find Obi-Wan and help him in the way he couldn't when Order 66 went down. A fascinating and touching AU of what could have happened post-ROTS if things had gone a little differently. I'd absolutely love to see more in this 'verse but it is a one-shot so I'll be content with what we're given!

The Morning Star series by Kurenaino (4 parts, 1.7 million words, incomplete) I first read this series back in November of 2020 and it has lived in my head rent free ever since then. I'm not kidding, I have to limit myself to only rereading this every couple of months so that it doesn't become too much of a good thing -- and make no mistake, I do reread it every few months, all 1.7 million words of it. To make what is clearly a very long story short, this series charts Obi-Wan's fall to the Dark side post-Naboo and follows him throughout the entire Star Wars saga (TPM, AOTC, Clone Wars, ROTS, Rebels, etc.) I feel like that description doesn't do it justice, though. The sheer breadth of this series takes my breath away. It feels expansive in a way that no fic I've ever read before has, oscillating from large-scale politics to heart-pounding action to sweet and tender love, both romantic and familial. (Oh, and this might be obvious from the whole "Sith Obi-Wan" thing, but just a warning that in these stories, Obi-Wan does some absolutely despicable things, just because he can. Murder, rape, mind control, etc, so take care.) But though he's Sith, he's still got such a heart in him, just like the Obi-Wan we know and love, and you can't help but feel for him at times. And this might not be as much a selling point for you as it was for me, but this series has some absolutely fantastic Thrawn content. He's going toe-to-toe with Obi-Wan and it's glorious, a true match. I'm in the middle of my latest reread of this series, and truly it just makes me so happy. I never see anyone talking about this series and I'm sad it doesn't get the attention it deserves. It really only gets better and better the further into the series you get. Cannot recommend enough!!

There is no Ignorance, there is Knowledge by @sirikenobi12 (gen, one-shot, 4.1k words) A wonderful installment for Jedi June! This fic follows Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon, and then Obi-Wan and Anakin and Ahsoka, as they teach and learn lessons on what knowledge means to them. It was an unexpected tearjerker for me, there's one scene in particular that makes me tremble just thinking about it. I just love the way each relationship is portrayed here, and the care that is put into every word. Amazing!

Keeper of the Force by @pandora15 (gen, WIP, 19/20 chapters, 84.4k words) I can't believe I haven't put this on a rec list before, but since there's only the epilogue left, now is the perfect time. This fic starts out small-scale Obi-Wan whump (not saying that in a derogatory way, that's my exact favorite thing) and grows in size as it goes to eventually become a ROTS AU that is oh so good. It's touching, and inspiring, and lovely, and every time a new chapter posts I drop everything to read it. Can't believe the end of this ride is almost upon us!!

If you like any of these fics, please consider reblogging so they can get more exposure! And if you noticed I missed someone’s Tumblr account, or linked the wrong one, please let me know!

[raina-at]

Yes, Luke's love for Vader saved the galaxy.

But.

Neither Obi-Wan nor Yoda actually tell Luke he has to KILL Vader. They tell Luke he has to FACE him.

Because these are Luke's Jedi trials. He has to face what he fears most. He has to be tempted by the Dark side and actively choose the light for him to become a Jedi.

There's actually two conversations going on here. First, Yoda tells Luke he needs to confront Vader to be fully a Jedi, because he has to face his own fears. Yoda never tells Luke he has to kill Vader. He doesn't even imply it.

Now, Obi-Wan never tells Luke he has to kill Vader either. He says Luke has to FACE Vader. Obi-Wan does seem to think that Vader is irredeemable and must be killed to rid the universe from the empire, and of course that stems from his own guilt of failing to kill Anakin when he had the chance. Twice. Obi-Wan knows that Vader is DANGEROUS. He's a brutal killer. He slaughtered Jedi for decades, and who knows how many innocents. And Obi-Wan tried to reach Anakin and failed. So from his point of view, both the emperor and Vader must be destroyed for the empire to be defeated, and the thing is, he's not wrong. If Luke hadn't managed to turn Vader back, what would have happened? The emperor would have killed him. The end. Vader and the Emperor would have left the disintegrating Death Star and very likely the rebellion would have been lost. So Obi-Wan's point is that Luke must be prepared to kill Vader if he truly wants to defeat the empire and he can't turn him back.

Yes, Luke was sure that it was possible to turn Vader. He risked his life and would rather have died than give in to his own hatred and fear. That's his triumph.

But he could face down his fears and win over them and accept death rather than hate BECAUSE of his Jedi training. Because Yoda and Obi-Wan prepared him for what the emperor was going to do with him. They made him aware of his feelings, his anger, his fear. They showed him, in Vader, what he would become if he gave into his darkest impulses. That's what he defeated. And that's what turned Vader into Anakin again. Luke being the Jedi Anakin couldn't be. Because Anakin clung to life and love and literally slaughtered thousands of innocents because he was unable to let go of his personal desires. And Luke made the opposite choice. He'd rather die a Jedi than live a Sith. He let go. He stopped fighting, because the price he would have to pay for survival wasn't worth it.

So love, yes. But the Jedi version of love. A selfless love, not grasping at life. But understanding that sometimes you need to let everything you love go if the price of keeping it is too high. And that's the lesson Anakin never learned.

Anakin didn't do the things he did for love. He did them out of fear. He feared Padme's loss so much that he never stopped for one second to ask himself what Padme would want him to do. And when Padme was horrified at what he'd done, he almost killed her. That's not love. That's attachment. The selfish desire to have and to keep at any price.

So the point, in my opinion, isn't that the Jedi lessons about love and attachment were wrong. It's that Anakin didn't understand them, and Luke did.

I think there’s something rather strange going on with all the folks who insist that the Jedi Order in the PT was right and didn’t forbid love and Anakin should just have followed their teachings when the whole point of the prequels is that they are prequels. They come before the OT, and the OT proves the Jedi wrong. They literally do not make sense if they don’t do that.

Luke, in the original trilogy, gains his ultimate triumph, his ultimate victory, because he loved in defiance of the teachings of the old Order. He quite literally had the ghosts of the past telling him, explicitly and without ambiguity, that he has to put his love for his father aside and kill him, as is the duty of a Jedi. Luke has the weight of millennia of teachings weighing down on his shoulders, telling him they knew and know better than a young, inexperienced man barely out of his teenager years. That he should follow their teachings or be destroyed. That is an immense weight to carry, and many people would and explicitly have given in to it in-universe. What are your feelings and ideals in the face of such immense legacy, after all?

But Luke doesn’t give in.

He doesn’t bend.

He says “I may be young, and I may be new, but I believe to my heart and soul that love matters more than this legacy. Matters more than your teachings.” And he says this to the ghosts of his mentors. That is such a powerful moment and one I can’t believe George Lucas didn’t create deliberately for even a second. This young man, being told he has to kill or die trying for a system that is dead or dying itself, that couldn’t survive itself, and refusing to do so. He is the living refusing to continue the violence of a dead generation. He is the young man refusing the draft into a war the old generation started, saying “peace and love matters more than you being right.” He is the embodiment of breaking the cycle.

And the movies vindicate him.

The main villain vindicates him with his last dying breath.

Darth Vader, dying, says “You were right.” and admits he and his were wrong. The main antagonist, Luke’s nemesis, in the face of his son’s immense, defiant love, gives way and does the impossible: he comes back to the light and dies a Jedi. The very thing the old Order says was impossible.

They were wrong. They have to be. The narrative demands it, the movies don’t make sense without it.

The solution was never to continue the cycle of the old Order, or Luke would have failed there, would have failed when he said “I am a Jedi, like my father before me.” And claimed that defiant, deviant, condemned definition of being a Jedi over the one presented to him by the Grandmaster of the old Order. If the old Order was right, Luke would have to be wrong. Be wrong about love, be wrong about laying down the sword, be wrong about refusing to fight. He would have to be wrong.

But the old Order is dead, explicitly killed by a monster, in some part, of their own making. It’s members only existing as bones in the ground or ghosts speaking from beyond the grave. They did not deserve it, it should not have been inflicted on them, but the narrative is clear on this: “The old way is dead, and was dying for a long time before that. Long live the new.”

Luke is that new. Luke is the breaking of the cycle, the reforging of swords into ploughs, the extended hand. Luke says “I don’t care how much I was hurt, I refuse to hurt you back, and you don’t need to hurt me either.”

“We can end this together and choose love instead.”

And Darth Vader, killer of the Jedi, End of the Order, lays down his arms as well, and reaches back as Anakin, saying “You were right.”

It wasn’t Obi-Wan, Yoda, Mace, Qui-Gon, or even Ahsoka who achieved the ultimate victory in the end, following the tenants of the old Order. It was Luke. Young, inexperienced Luke, who saw that the age of legacy handed to him was only history, that the sword handed to him as his life was only a tool, and that the decrees of the dead were only advice. And he took it all, said “thank you for your experience, but I’ve got it from here,” and laid it all down to instead extend an open hand towards his enemy.

And his victory, his ultimate triumph, his vindication, was that he was proven right when his enemy reached back and became just another person. Just another person, just like him.

The Jedi did not deserve what happened to them, and they did not deserve to die. But the story is clear on this: the Jedi of old were wrong, and the Jedi of new, the Last Jedi, was right. No sword or death will ever end the rule of the sword or end the bloodshed. But love?

Love can ignite the stars.

[ooops-i-arted]

I know that considering (TCW-2008) refs/characters in this episode that it won’t be your fav but can you please share your child development thoughts for S02E05 please??

They may have been stuff I wasn’t fond of but there were so many cute Baby & Dad moments to make up for it!!

First of all, the puppeteers deserves ALL THE AWARDS for bringing Baby Yoda to life!  Not just making Baby “come alive” in general, but also that sort-of-awkward way children move when they don’t have complete confidence in their limbs yet.  The are doing a phenomenal job this season and I hope they are all safe and healthy and have all the chocolate they want.  Not only is it fantastic from a special effects perspective, it really highlights how far Baby has come now that he’s not stuck in a pod all day and implies that Din is trying to keep him active and physically healthy, and giving him opportunities to develop his muscles and muscle control.  (Just imagine them playing a makeshift game of chase through the Razor Crest!)

I absolutely loved Din saying “Hey, what did I tell you” because I have said those exact words in that exact tone SO MANY TIMES and also his Dad Voice is getting so much better!  Baby actually listens to him and understands that Din expects him to listen!  Of course he still wants the ball (and apparently takes it enough that Din has been practicing his Dad voice on that too, “What did I say about that” is another phrase I also use at work).

Though there may have been another reason he wants the ball this time - as a comfort item, like a child bringing their favorite stuffie to the first day of school.  Baby was there when the Armorer told Din to find Jedi to bring the Baby to.  He has been listening a lot when Din talks about finding Jedi to train him and give him to.  I think Baby is very, very aware of the fact that the end goal is to leave him with the Jedi and is very afraid of leaving his beloved father.  He would’ve had stable caretaker(s) at the Jedi Temple but in the last twenty years who knows what’s happened to him.  His subdued, don’t-draw-attention-to-myself behavior in Season 1 definitely makes me think he’s been neglected, bare minimum, and possibly abused.  Din not only treats him kindly but actually takes care of his needs, is kind to him, and is the most stable presence in his life.  Of course he’d be terrified to leave him!

I think that’s also why he doesn’t play ball with Ahsoka, so to speak.  We all know he can lift a mudhorn, a rock is no problem for him.  He could do it in a heartbeat.  But I think he understood that if he showed off for her, Ahsoka might take him away.  So he refused for that, and because it’s very common at that age to refuse to do something to regain control of a situation.  (That’s why you get kids enjoying telling you “No!” and the whole terrible twos thing.)  If he refuses, he stays in control of what’s happening.  But of course Din knows exactly how to tempt him with his favorite ball, and kids do want to please adults they like.  Anything to hear that sweet, sweet positive reinforcement.  So it wasn’t just the shiny ball that convinced Baby - it was the fact that Din was the one playing with him, and that Din so enthusiastically tells him good job.  (And Din is noticeably more into it when using the orb.  Maybe he and Baby have played with it before?  So it’s more natural to both of them.  And he was truly so proud of his boy!!  It was adorable.)

It’s the same with hearing his real name, which he presumably hasn’t heard in twenty years.  He responds when Ahsoka says it, but when Din says it?  He’s instantly turned around, ears perked all the way up in “happy” mode.  It’s special when Din says it, because Din is special to him.

Which then ties into the whole attachment thing.  Baby is very healthily attached to Din.  There’s a reason we stick kids with the same teacher for a year plus at a time, it’s because kids are comfortable with a regular person they can get to know, just like adults are.  To Baby, Ahsoka is just some orange stranger and Din is his dad.  Of course he is more attached to Din and has fears over losing him, especially if he’s been deprived of that for the last 20-odd years!  It’d be different if Din was sticking around to transition Baby somewhere new, or just dropping him off for lessons.  But leaving a parent permanently and abruptly after likely previous trauma?  That would be horrible for Baby.

And re: The Jedi + attachments Ahsoka (and Filoni) are wrong on that.  The Jedi do not forbid attachments, only letting your attachments rule you.  Ki-Adi-Mundi is married and so were others, and there are plenty of Padawan-Master relationships to see - for example, Obi-Wan was attached to Qui-Gon and clearly loved him and was devastated by his loss, but it’s only when he conquers his emotions and calms himself is he able to defeat Maul, and afterward is implied/shown to mourn Qui-Gon and handle his grief in a healthy way.  Anakin doesn’t fall because he’s attached to his loved ones.  He falls because he’s willing to commit murder and genocide over his attachments.  So “I can’t teach Grogu because he’s attached to you” is bullshit.  “I can’t teach Grogu because he is attached to you and needs to be safely transitioned into Jedi life in an environment that is comfortable and safe for him, with your help as his adoptive father, and I have no way to do that here and/or don’t feel comfortable doing that” is much more accurate.  (This is probably what would’ve happened if the Order was still around, anyway, and/or how he was actually taken in - the 3D TCW episode with the Jedi children shows the bounty hunters tricking the parents to kidnap the kids, implying that a real Jedi would work with the family to transition the children in a safe and healthy manner.  The Rodian even says the Jedi have already spoken to her iirc.)

Of course even if Grogu is unhealthily attached to Din (which he isn’t, imo, he behaves like a child at a normal level of attachment to a regular caretaker he loves) then ignoring it and not doing anything about it is equally bad.... as we’ve already seen when he got upset with Cara last season.  Baby must learn to control his powers so he doesn’t hurt himself or others, especially since he’s so young he doesn’t always have full control over his own emotions.  “Big” emotions can be a lot for a kid; a screaming meltdown is bad enough when the kid can’t yeet you with their mind.  I’ve been hit, kicked, bitten, scratched, had toys thrown at me, even been hit with heavy wooden blocks.  A Grogu out of control with his emotions and using the Force?  Terrifying.  Yes, his attachment to Din makes him more vulnerable to his fears and anger - we’ve seen him choke Cara and while he only held back the mudhorn, in theory he could’ve done more.  But that is just all the more reason to teach him control.  Ignore harmful behavior and it will only get worse, and Din isn’t really equipped to help him navigate that since Din doesn’t understand the Force and can’t understand what Grogu says.

(Also lol at “He doesn’t understand” “He does.”  You can 100% tell when kids understand you perfectly and are refusing to do it, even when a parent is making excuses for their darling. xD  Especially since kids will frequently act/react differently to their parents versus other caretakers.)

“He’s hidden his abilities to survive over the years” I call partial bullshit on that.  No, I don’t think Baby has done any long-term planning or had thoughts along the lines of “I’m being hunted and need to protect myself by pretending not to be a Force-user.”  But I think he has probably figured out people react a certain way when he does Force things and perhaps decided “I shouldn’t make things float because then people will grab me/I will get taken away/other consequence I don’t like will happen.”  That’s more in line with a toddler’s level of thinking/comprehension.  And it adds greater weight to him saving Din from the mudhorn - he didn’t know how Din would react to him using the Force, if Din would try and hurt him or lock him in the pod or whatever, but he still wanted to save Din.  Overall though I think Baby’s Force-use is in line with a toddler’s thoughts.  “I want X to happen, I can make that happen with the Force, so I will make X happen unless I’m more scared of [consequence] happening.”

So overall a pretty revealing episode for Baby/Grogu.  (I’m not used to the new name yet tbh.)  Although I’m worried about how many times it will take Din hearing it to realize that yes, you are this baby’s father, get that through your beskar-plated skull.

[padawanlost]

Are you familar with an idea that is going around fandom that Obi Wan and Yoda didn't actually want Luke to kill his father, just to face him and be prepared to kill him (in self defense) if he had to. It doesn't add up to me, considering the way Obi Wan responded when Luke said he could not do it. He didn't say "I hope you don't have to unless its absolutely necessary". Also, it implies that Obi Wan and Yoda believed Vader could be reasoned with, and just talked out of the Dark Side, or even knew Luke would redeem him. Allegedly there is an interview with Lucas in which he suggested the above (just for Luke to be prepared to kill) but I thought it seemed like he was being asked leading questions anyway. What are your thoughts on this?

Yeah, i’ve heard that ‘theory’ a few times but it’s hard to take it seriously when we have 6 movies and countless comics, books and books that point in the exact opposite direction. I mean, what does it mean when a fan says a character didn’t want Luke to kill Vader when said character actually says - out loud – ‘hey Luke, go kill Vader’?

Obi-Wan: You cannot escape your destiny. You must face Darth Vader again. Luke: I can't kill my own father. Obi-Wan: Then the Emperor has already won. You were our only hope.

If they don’t want Vader (and the Emperor) dead then why train Luke because he was the only one powerful enough to face him? It doesn’t add up.

As for the alleged evidence, my approach is hard, tangible evidence or death! LOL I’m kidding :P But I’ve been around long enough to learn to ask for the receipts when someone says you’re wrong because I’ve seen a book/comic/interview that proves I’m right but I don’t remember when I saw it, the original source, the context or know how to find it again -___-

And even if George had actually said that, it would have no influence over the actual events put on screen. The truth is, people are very *very* selective about what George quotes they want to use. People only agree with what he says when it’s convenient for their own views. There’s a legion of fans out there who work very hard to ignore everything George has said about Anakin, the Jedi Order and the politics of the prequels. But the same fans go on a frenzy when he says they accept.

George is an interesting source of context. Understanding where he was coming from helps understand why things work the way they do and what lessons he was trying to insert into his story. But to use George’s word as the ultimate judge of a character’s actions, even when it contradicts the movies is a bit too convenient for my taste.

George Lucas as a source of ‘canon’ is very unreliable. Personally, I find him a very useful source of context even he’s not the best provider of facts. Here’s an example: ROTS makes it canon that Padmé died of a broken heart in Polis Massa. But if you look hard enough you’ll find an interview of him explain Padmé’s journey to Alderaan and her subsequent death on the planet. It’s the whole who shot first issue. George, as a source of *facts*, is unreliable because he famously contradicts himself all the time.

The movies and the entire lore make very clear that Anakin and Padmé’s marriage was forbidden, but once a kid wrote a letter to George so he said marriage was no longer forbidden. Does that mean we should change everything about how we perceive Anakin and Padmé’s characters arc? Or does it mean we should just, you know, use some critical thinking and maybe a dose of common sense when interpreting these issues?

Besides, like so many new fans love to point out, George Lucas is no longer canon. So it’s kind of interesting how the same fans who dismiss countless source of information simply because they existed prior to Disney cling so desperately over something George *might* have said over 20 years ago.

[ariainstars]

Star Wars, the Last 20 Years or Can We Please Try to Stop the Blame Train?

I would like to touch a subject that’s starting to grate on my nerves a little.

Anyone here knows that I disliked The Rise of Skywalker heartily. And I’m not the only person here or elsewhere who tore it to shreds. But I am reading (again) over and over why and how JJ Abrams, Chris Terrio, Kathleen Kennedy and Co. made this mess. Instead of searching for culprits, this time I would like to point out a few things.

I. Star Wars Prequels

Jake Lloyd, Ahmed Best and Hayden Christensen had to endure awful harassment in their time: the audience largely vented their frustration on them because when the prequels hit theatres, they did not get the Star Wars they had wanted. Politics are a dry subject, and young Anakin and the Jedi Council were all too human to be liked by fans who expect coolness in a hero more than everything else; which is probably why Darth Maul is a huge favorite although we hardly learn anything about him and he says almost nothing. Ditto Obi-Wan although he is clearly not suited to train Anakin and it’s him who maims him and leaves him to burn in the lava. (Until I saw the film, I had always assumed Palpatine had tortured Anakin to push him to the Dark Side.) 

The prequels’ messages in general were not liked: the Jedi were not perfectly wise and cool wizards, the Old Republic was stagnant, Anakin was a hot-headed, frustrated young man desperate to save his wife and unborn children. The films do not want to excuse what he did; however they portray him not as a monster but as a human being who was under an almost unendurable pressure for years and years until he finally snapped.

These messages may not be “cool”, but they were realistic and most of all, humane. Portraying the Jedi as well as Anakin as powerful, flawless heroes and the old Republic as a just, prosperous and balanced place would have meant undermining a central theme of the original trilogy: the former generation could not have been all that powerful and wise, else the collapse of their world and the failure of their convictions would not have happened in the first place. It is a sore point, but still twenty years later Obi-Wan and Yoda denied that Vader was human and expected Luke to commit patricide. 

All of this goes to show that the Jedi’s moral standard was flawed and their attitude not rooted in compassion and pacifism the way they claimed. In the end, what they cared about was winning, no matter the cost. In this, they were no better than the Sith.

~~~more under the cut~~~

II. Star Wars Sequels

J.J. Abrams, Kathleen Kennedy, Bob Iger and company were the ones who introduced the Star Wars sequel trilogy and with it its themes, characters, setting etc. to us in the first place: I think we should give them credit where it’s due. Rian Johnson made a very beautiful second chapter with The Last Jedi, but he did pick up where the others had left. 

Kelly Marie Tran made experiences similar to Jake Lloyds or Hayden Christensen’s when The Last Jedi was hit theatres. She was disliked for not being “Star-Wars-y” enough, chubby and lively instead of wiry and spitfire, and also taking a lot of screen time while many fans were impatiently waiting for some grand scenes from Luke and / or Leia. 

That Episode VIII, the central and most important one, was called “The Last Jedi” cannot be overstated. Luke was literally alone with the heavy task of rebuilding a religious order that was gone and destroyed long before he even learned about it, and at the same time he had to patch together his own family and atone for his father’s sins. This is a crushing burden for anyone to carry. It was important both for Rey and for the audience to meet Luke to see that he was a good man, but still just a man.

When Luke spoke openly to Rey about the failure of the Jedi Order, it was the first time he ever spoke about it that we know of; this wisdom he obviously acquired only after his nephew’s fall to the Dark Side. Luke has understood that the ways of the Jedi were wrong; but he does not know a better alternative. Force users are still born all over the galaxy, and they have to learn to use their powers - only how? Again, Luke is not to blame. How is he to know, when the Jedi of the Old Republic had lost sight of Balance in the Force for so long that they didn’t know what it actually meant anymore? 

Same goes for Leia, the princess without a realm, who tried to rebuild the Republic after the galaxy had been terrorized by the Empire and devastated by war for many years. She assuredly did her best, but she was only human. That she failed her son is of course shocking, but after the horror she had to endure at the hands of her own father it is not surprising that she would be terrified of her son possibly going the same way. Ben, like Anakin, was crushed under a legacy and responsibility that was by far too heavy for him. The tragedy of his life and the disruption - and in the end, obliteration - of his family was another proof for the failure of the ways of the Jedi. 

All of these lessons until now were not learned from. But let’s be honest: how many of us come from dysfunctional families? If we do, was getting away from them enough to heal the wounds of the past? Did we find out what to give our children on their way in life, or did we fail them because we had not elaborated the past enough to make way for a better future? Such problems are very common, and to heal them is complicated and takes time. A “happy ending” e.g. in form of finding a new family is not enough, on the contrary, it can lead to wanting to leave the past behind, leaving wounds unhealed that will fester their way through our lives again, sooner or later. Star Wars always was an allegory of the human mind, even if deeply cloaked in symbolism. The saga also abundantly takes inspiration from the Bible, and I think it’s not coincidentally said there that the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children. 

As fans, we would have wanted to see films that cemented the Jedi as guardians of the galaxy, with the Skywalker family right at the center. Which in itself is impossible because Jedi are supposed to remain unattached, making the mere idea of a Jedi having a family absurd. If the prequels told us that the Jedi were flawed, the sequels tore down the myth of the Skywalker family. And both trilogies showed that you can’t be a Skywalker and / or a Jedi / Force user and have attachments and a happy family of your own at the same time. At least, not until now. 

 III. Film production

Many fans of old complained because the sequel trilogy implied that the “happy ending” of the original trilogy’s heroes had not been so happy after all and that after having made peace for the galaxy, they had failed to keep it that way. Other viewers however liked the new trilogy and new characters right away and began to root for them. But they, too, jumped on the blame train when the trilogy had ended: expectations were not met, and now director, producers, script writers, cutters etc. are faulted all over again.

The first person coming up with the idea of Han’s and Leia’s only child turning to the Dark Side was Lucas himself. It always was a main theme of the saga that war separates people who actually belong together, like family, couples or close friends; that is not played for mere drama, but because it emphasizes the absurdity of war.

We as the audience do not know how production went - it is very possible that Lucas approved the general storyline, and there is always a whole team on board. It is not easy to purchase such a large and immensely popular franchise; it was to be expected that if things went not the way the audience expected, the Disney studios would be blamed harshly for having “ruined Star Wars”. With the prequels, at least Lucas was still at the helm; it was conceded that maybe he had lost his magic touch with storytelling, but certainly not that he was trying deliberately to ruin his own creation. And the fans who could not praise the Disney studios enough after The Last Jedi came out, now blame them over and over.

The Disney studios have long-term politics to consider and contracts to observe, and we don’t know their contents. We have every right to be disappointed, but I think it’s not fair to blame one or a particular group of persons who are trying their best to satisfy as many viewers as possible. If they simply wanted to satisfy the average dudebro who sees nothing but clichés, two-dimensional characters and Good against Evil - then why did they allow The Last Jedi to be produced in the first place? The studios obviously are aware that there are fans out there who are ready to look deeper in the saga’s themes, who wish to see the Force coming to Balance, who value family, friendship and love over “victory at any cost”, and who do not place the Jedi on some kind of pedestal.

In a sense, The Rise of Skywalker seems like a bow before The Last Jedi: the weakest chapter of the saga followed one of its strongest. Maybe the authors were aware that equaling or even topping what Rian Johnson had created would be next to impossible, so they patched up the open threads of The Force Awakens together with some fan service hoping to be out of the business as quickly as possible.

In retrospect, the infamous podcast with Charles Soule might also be tell-tale: Soule obviously is not elbows-deep in the saga and largely ignores its subtext. Since his The Rise of Kylo Ren comics are quite well-made, I assume that the general storyline did not stem from his own creativity and that he only carried out what he had been advised to do. The production of the whole sequel trilogy may have happened in a similar way. I am not excusing the poor choices of The Rise of Skywalker; merely considering that one or a few persons cannot be blamed in a studio that has thousands of creative minds on board.

I am still hoping for the next trilogy to finally bring Balance to the galaxy, and also into the fandom. Rian Johnson had negotiated the rights for the next trilogy along with The Last Jedi; I assume it is very possible that there was a clause about intellectual property saying that only he would continue Episode VIII’s topics, nobody else. This would at least be an explanation, given the embarrassing, jumbled mess that Episode IX was.

The overall title of the saga assuredly never wanted to inspire the audience to start online wars attacking the studios or the actors or other fans out of the conviction of being entitled to blame someone else’s worldview. The saga’s message is compassion. Both George Lucas and the Disney studios are telling us their story; the idea and the rights do not belong to us. Harping on “whose fault” it allegedly is won’t bring us anywhere; what we can do is make the studios understand that we’re not too stupid not to understand the subtext, the symbolism and metaphysics of the saga beyond the action story. If they listened to the Last Jedi haters, in all fairness they are bound to listen to us, too. 😊

  IV. Will Ben’s story continue?

My husband already warned me years ago that Ben most probably wouldn’t survive, or at least not get a happy ending. As Kylo Ren he had already been the head of a criminal organization for six years at the start of The Force Awakens, but all of that perhaps could still have been condoned within the scope of war. It was the very personal and intentional act of patricide, the killing of an unarmed, forgiving man, who turned him into a damned person. And after the deed, Ben was aware of it. He knew there was no way out for him, he had gone too far.

Many members of the audience did not understand that Kylo / Ben is not an out-and-out villain and that this narrative ultimately was about his redemption. Bringing him back to the Resistance after the Exegol battle alive and by Rey’s side would not have been accepted; how was Rey to explain everything when she hardly understood it herself? How would the audience have reacted to the former head of a criminal organization, a patricide, suddenly standing out as a hero? Remember how in Return of the Jedi Luke asked Vader to come away with him. Now suppose Vader had complied? It would have seemed (and been) sheer madness. Nobody would have believed neither father nor son that the terror of the galaxy had had a sudden turn of heart. Nobody knew that he was Luke’s father; Luke himself did not know Anakin’s backstory; nobody knew what had transpired between Luke and Vader so far. Yes, Ben was young and healthy, but he still had terrorized the galaxy for years and killed his own father. He knew himself that he was damned and could not go back to normality, as Vader did.

Rey was coded as the heroine: narratively, the sequel trilogy was her story. Ben couldn’t become the hero, with or without her, at the very last moment. She usurped power like her grandfather in his time, the Skywalker family was obliterated the way the Jedi were, she takes over another mantle (Skywalker) the way Palpatine did (becoming the Emperor). Balance in the Force never was truly in the cards, it was only vaguely hinted at in The Last Jedi by the Force mosaic in the Ahch-To temple. Balance is a complex and difficult subject; it would have been extremely difficult to develop it in the sequel trilogy together with introducing the new characters and giving the old ones closure.

However: if Ben is brought back in the next trilogy, his sacrifice for Rey will have been his atonement. If his role this time is not that of the villain but of the hero, it would reverse Anakin’s path and make clear that he no longer is the same man. Vader was redeemed, not rehabilitated. His grandson might still have the chance to go that way.

- Luke had promised Rey a third lesson, and it happened. He also had promised Ben to “see him around”, which has not taken place yet.

- On Tatooine, Rey watches the twin suns setting, same as Luke before he met the other half of his soul (his twin sister) again.

- The studios had said that the sequels would be “very much like the prequels”; the prequels were a tragedy where the Dark Side (Palpatine) won that was followed by a fairy tale where the Light Side won.

- The Skywalker saga is closed, so if Ben comes back it would be justified by his being a Solo, i.e. the story of his own family and not his grandfather’s.

- Given the parallels with Beauty and the Beast, the Beast died before the broken spell brought him back, making him a wholly new person - his past identity, purged and redeemed.

- George Lucas repeatedly said that the prequels and the classics belong together as one narrative, with Anakin Skywalker at its center. First news of the next trilogy came up with The Last Jedi. Since there are strong parallels between Ben and his grandfather, we may assume that this six-chapter instalment will be his; Anakin also was left for dead but came back with a wholly different role and name.

- When Anakin was reborn as Darth Vader, he “rose” slowly from the ground, clad in his black armor. Ben fell to the ground abruptly and shed his black clothes, disappearing. This could be another clue. (It was also already speculated that Leia’s body dissolved exactly in this moment because she gave her life-force to her son for him to have another chance to live. Both Han and Luke had done what they could to atone for their remorse towards Ben; this might be her turn.)

- Much as I love Luke Skywalker, I can understand that Lucas did not see him as the saga’s protagonist. The overall arch is not so much about Luke’s heroism than about Anakin’s redemption and atonement. It is unusual because we expect the story’s “hero” to be the one who kills the Bad Guy; and indeed Anakin is, because he kills Palpatine in the end, the twist being that technically he is also a villain though not the archvillain.

- Ben had promised Anakin he would finish what he started. Anakin had been meant to bring Balance to the Force, and he had started a family. Until now, Ben did neither.

- If Ben and Rey are a dyad, i.e. one soul in two bodies, then Rey is in urgent need of her soulmate for her future tasks. She has her friends of course, but none of them gets her the way he did.

So, I still see reason to hope for a continuation, and, hopefully, satisfying conclusion of The Last Jedi’s themes.

  Film production: on a side note…

In the Nineties, Kirk Wise and Gary Trousdale were the directors both of Beauty and the Beast and Atlantis: two more different stories are hardly imaginable with regard to everything - drawing style, setting, characters, development, music etc. This outcome can’t have been only due to the director’s choices, there must have been a wholly different idea behind both films right from the beginning. Just saying.

[crispyjenkins]

Hi! I love all your writing! I was wondering if you could do an Obikin au where anakin instead of staying on the transport in aotc jumps after padme and forces Obi-Wan to duel Dooku alone and Obi-Wan falls and becomes Dookus apprentice? With no anidala please?!

(ahhh i’m glad you like my stuff! i’m having a lot of fun and working really hard on everything, it’s so flattering to feel like it’s paid off (ノ*´◡`)

this one was a lil difficult ‘cause i have so much trouble imagining a good reason for obi-wan to fall? because something integral to my interpretation of his character is that he’s always been able to pull himself back from that edge, has always returned to the light.

but you managed to find the ONE spot where i think he had a good enough reason to leave the order. so he’s not a sith in this, but he’s certainly not a jedi anymore. angst!)

 His last conversation with Yoda ringing in his head, Anakin dodges Obi-Wan’s ‘saber just in time to miss losing an ear.

  “Master, was it my fault?”

  Obi-Wan had cut his hair since Geonosis, no longer long enough for Anakin to imagine running his fingers through, and he gets distracted by the look of it whipping in the wind, allowing Obi-Wan to press the advantage, to switch forms as easy as breathing and corral Anakin towards the shattered window. Distantly, Anakin can hear Palpatine’s secretary calling the Coruscant Guard, but he knows no one will get there in time to help. Not when Obi-Wan knows every move he can make.

  “Dwell on what-ifs, we cannot. Among us would Master Obi-Wan still be, if at his side you had fought? Perhaps, hrm. But to the future, not the past, our duty is.”

  Force, had it actually been three years since they had last sparred? The Separatists had taken special care to ensure Anakin never ended up opposite Obi-Wan on the battlefield, that it was Dooku, that is was Ventress, that it was Grievous on one very memorable occasion, and he can’t help but think that it had been in lead up to this. To facing his old master in the Supreme Chancellor’s Rotunda office with as much broken transparisteel between them as unsaid words.

  And Obi-Wan will not look him in the eye, keeps them downcast or closed, but can still meet Anakin blow for blow effortlessly. Wait, had he always fought left-handed? 

  “Was it worth it? Was I... Was I worth it, Ani?”

  “I don’t know anymore.”

  The Force screams at him, Anakin scrambling to jump over the red ‘saber that looks so wrong in Obi-Wan’s hand, and he’s barely back on his feet when Obi-Wan lands a shattering kick to his chest, knocking him right out the remains of the window onto the balcony. He manages to roll out of it, but not get his ‘saber up in time to block as Obi-Wan leaps out the window after him, clipping Anakin’s shoulder far too close to his throat before breaking away again.

  Clapping his free hand over the sizzling hole in his tabards, Anakin swings wildly and pushes Obi-Wan back another few feet. His old master skids with the force of his blow, and Maker, he doesn’t even look winded—

  Blue, blue eyes that had once rocked him to sleep, had once driven to madness, had once been the last thing Anakin had seen of him before his duel with Dooku, meet his own, Obi-Wan’s hood knocked back about his shoulders and Anakin would raze the city to the ground to relieve even half the pain he sees in them. This man isn’t a Sith, Anakin realises, he’s barely even a darksider, if Anakin can just reach him—

  “You have to let me go, Anakin.”

  He blinks, Obi-Wan’s last kick catching up to him all at once and knocking the breath out of him, as he realises the distance between them had never been greater.

  “I will kill Palpatine, there is nothing to be done to stop me,” Obi-Wan continues softly, dropping his gaze away, and Oh Force, Anakin had not prepared himself to hear his soft lilting accent again, not after so long. “Master Dooku knows far less than he would like to believe, and I can no longer stand aside as Sidious continues to accumulate power.”

  “Obi-Wan, what—” He has to take a deep breath to try and sort through his thoughts, but just ends up more disoriented than before. “You can’t just kill the Supreme Chancellor! He’s the only reason we’re winning the war against your Separatists!”

  Obi-Wan’s expression goes sour, darkness fluctuating in the Force between them, and for the first time, Anakin fears this man. “Oh, he certainly has hands on both sides of the conflict. Palpatine is not your friend, Anakin: he means for you to Fall and for you to turn.”

  “What, like you did?”

  Anakin flinches as Obi-Wan’s ‘saber stops right at his throat, can hardly look up and face the rage Obi-Wan had kept bridled for thirty five years before it became too much. Had Anakin had a hand in that, too?

  “High General Yoda, we found blood in the hangar, but General Kenobi is still missing. We have to assume the Count kidnapped him, or he went willingly.”

  “Obi-Wan would never go willingly, how could you imply—”

  “Calm you must, padawan Skywalker. Giving up on Master Kenobi we are not.”

  “The leader of the Separatists and the leader of the Republic are one in the same, padawan,” Obi-Wan says, almost too soft to be heard over the wind. “And I would see him destroyed, break every code and lesson I ever learned, before I would let him destroy you.”

  And Anakin knows he means it, knows he would do anything to keep Anakin safe. The knowledge just makes it worse.

   “Obi-Wan,” he pleads, taking a tiny step forward, closer to the ‘saber, and Obi-Wan takes a tiny step back to keep it from touching him. “This isn’t you, you can’t— You were the perfect Jedi, Master! They sent you because they were sure you would never Fall!”

  “And I would Fall again, become this again, take the actions the Jedi cannot over and over, to ensure that they never have to make the same choice.” With a flick of his arm, Obi-Wan powers down his lightsaber and steps even further away. A pained little smile comes to his lips as he reaches to pull his hood back up, the lights from inside bouncing off his hand almost like... metal. Anakin feels sick. “I’m sorry I missed your knighting, you’ll have to add that to the list of other promises I’ve broken. Do not cross me again, Anakin. This is out of your hands.”

  “Wait, Obi-Wan—”

  Obi-Wan turns and sprints for the other end of the balcony, throwing himself over the railing like a lunatic, and Anakin can’t follow fast enough to stop him. A speeder roars underneath the balcony, swallowing Obi-Wan in a flutter of black robes and more of those unsaid words, before the whole vehicle dives straight down in a maneuver that almost makes Anakin jealous. Something tugs in the Force, stretching like a rubber band between them, until the speeder disappears into the Coruscant traffic and the band between them snaps. 

[spell-cleaver]

Vader watched the blonde mop of the boy float in the bacta tank. He was stable and would recover. It was time then to think of the future. Time to remove those who'd pose a danger to the boy ruling supreme.

Previous parts linked on the masterpost here!

Vader watched the blond mop of the boy float in the bacta tank. He was stable and would recover. It was time then to think of the future. Time to remove those who’d pose a danger to the boy ruling supreme.

The woman next to him was small, and delicate, and looked incredibly like Padmé. That did not mean he didn’t want to wrap his hands around her neck and squeeze.

“You said,” he growled, “that you could protect him.”

“Those were your men they were impersonating, Lord Vader,” Sabé shot back immediately. “If you are incapable of preventing infiltrations into the Five-Oh-First—”

“It was under your command—”

“I’m not convinced,” Sabé said cuttingly, “that you didn’t send that attack yourself to justify storming back here and steamrolling all of my measures for Luke’s peace of mind again.”

Vader froze.

Sabé glared at him. Then she glanced down, face twisting, her hand reaching for her neck—

“How dare you,” Vader ground out, “imply that I would ever endanger the boy like that.”

Sabé took a step back but kept close to the bacta tank, pressing a hand to it to steady herself. She tried to say something, but all that came out were quiet squeaks.

But Vader’s gaze followed the line of her hand, and, as Luke drifted in the bacta, his hand brushed against the glass against hers.

Vader let go. Static burst from his vocoder.

Sabé gasped, cheeks flushed a bright red, but her gaze was violent. “Look—” she tried, voice hoarse and cracking, then jabbed a finger at Luke. “Look at that boy’s scars. There are hundreds of them, all over his back and arms and shoulder, his legs; every non-lethal inch of him.”

Vader, despite himself, looked.

She wasn’t wrong.

There was a long, jagged scar from Luke’s first lightsaber lesson, where Vader had sought to show him just how weak and insignificant he was by gouging his saber in a shallow channel down his back, careful to miss any important bones. There was a starburst of scar tissue on his shoulder from where he’d failed to deflect three live detonators at once and Vader had only bothered catching the ones that would have killed him. And aside from those, there were so many smaller burns, cuts and injuries that Palpatine had always ensured the best medical care for, so they healed fully and no longer pained Luke, but painted a bloody history over his skin.

“I told you before,” Sabé hissed. “I think I am perfectly justified in believing that he is not safe with you.”

Vader… couldn’t deny that.

“I have no intention of hurting him,” he reiterated.

“Why in all the stars should I trust that?”

Vader didn’t answer. He just turned to face Luke in the bacta tank head on, and placed his hand to the glass, his fingers spread.

And then he made a decision.

“Because he is my son.”

She stiffened.

Stared.

Vader, ignoring her, continued, “I sent a Noghri warrior to assassinate Tarkin. They are reliable, and will get the job done, but I did not want to leave my son vulnerable. There are many others who would seize the throne from their child-emperor, so I stayed in Coruscant’s orbit, until a premonition from the Force informed me that I was needed.”

Sabé was still staring.

She said, “Anakin?”

He tensed. “I no longer recognise that name.”

“You recognise his son,” she snapped. “What— how long have you known? Did—” She trailed off, gesturing to all of Luke’s scars again, and Vader set his jaw.

“I did not know then,” he got out.

“When?”

“When I killed the Emperor.”

She fell silent at that—at the second admission in as many minutes. Her dark gaze, inexorably, was drawn back to Luke.

“So you killed him,” she said slowly, “because you found out what he’d done to Luke—who Luke was to you?”

Vader hooked his thumbs into his belt.

That was a convenient lie to tell—if she thought it had been paternal protectiveness that led to this situation, she might be more inclined to trust him with Luke. Trust him not to hurt her lady’s child.

But if she dug any deeper into how he’d learned—found out that Palpatine was dead for Vader’s ambition, and Vader’s ambition alone—the lie would fall apart.

So he stayed silent, and let her judge what she thought to be true herself.

She let out a breath, idly rubbing her throat again. Bruises stained her pale skin there, and Vader thought that he’d need to make sure she got medical attention; his son would not be happy if he woke up to find the only person he trusted had been murdered.

They both watched Luke in silence, his two—very different, very distant—protectors standing watch. Then she asked, “What happened to you, Anakin?”

He knew that insisting she call him any other name would be fruitless. But he couldn’t help stiffening every time she didn’t.

Instead, he both answered her question and didn’t answer it at all:

“My wife died,” he said. “I will not allow my son to die as well.”

Her eyes flicked between them, but she nodded.

“You’ll stand watch while I…” she gestured to her neck, then the door to the medical office, “right?”

He nodded silently.

Her footsteps padded out of the room quietly. When the door closed, a hush fell, and the rasp of his breathing was the only sound.

Send me the first sentence of a scene from this AU and I’ll continue it!

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[kiingocreative]

Did you know we have an upcoming storytelling book? Visit https://kiingo.com and sign up for the newsletter to stay updated!

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In many ways the main character of a story acts as a proxy for the audience. When the main character feels pain, the audience feels pain. When the main character succeeds, the audience feels happy. This same basic concept applies to how the audience learns the central message (i.e. theme) in a story. When the main character learns their lesson, the audience typically understands the lesson they're meant to understand as well. For this reason, it's important to consider the lesson your main character will learn.

In most cases, a character will learn a lesson about how they've been living life incorrectly and how they need to change their behavior to live a happier life. This is the process of moral growth. It's the completion of a positive character arc. It's when Woody learns that he must share Andy's love, when Marlin learns that he needs to let Nemo live his own life, and when Mr. Incredible learns that he needs to be a hero for his family. When the character learns the lesson, the audience does as well.

Of course, not all characters learn their lesson. Some characters simply don't grow. In these stories, it's important to consider the lesson that the character *should* have learned. We want to make it clear to the audience that the character failed to learn their lesson, and in most cases we want to imply that they'll continued to be constrained by their demons and immoral behavior until the moment that they come to the correct realization. In these stories, we want to make it clear to the audience what the lesson *should* have been.

And finally, we might have a character who adopts an *incorrect* belief. These characters learn a lesson but it's the wrong one. This is the story of the corruption arc. A character may have started with moral purity but may have been tempted or corrupted over the course of the story (as with Anakin Skywalker in the prequels). It's also possible that the character started from a place of moral weakness but learned an additional incorrect lesson. These are the stories where villains are born. It's a tale of moral decay.

By focusing on the lesson that a character learns (or *should* have learned), we point the audience to the central message of the story. We convey the theme through the story's character arc and the associated self-revelation (or lack thereof). What does your character learn?

[frumfrumfroo]

1-As far as I can tell, the anti-legacy argument from TLJ is drawn from some of the following points: Luke, when facing Ben on Crait, isn't compassionate towards him like he was with Vader, but cruel/mocking, and he names Rey as the "last Jedi" and bearer of his legacy, which people interpret as him writing off Ben as a lost cause, only seeing him as an enemy/worth contempt, and holding up Rey as the true legacy; since Kylo was fundamentally wrong about Rey being “a nobody” which means that Rey

2-choosing to go back to her friends was also proof of the fact that she was right at the beginning of the movie, she was right not to trust him, to believe in Luke, and to wait for her parents, and didn’t have to let go of anything as he demanded; Rey leaves the Throne Room with both halves of the legacy saber means she’s the true legacy, as is Leia telling her “we have everything we need” after she said “my son is gone”; broom boy hammers in the point of the movie that it’s not about where            

3-you come from, anyone can be a hero…and part of that message is the older Skywalker generation embracing these other, “worthy” heroes as their legacies (Rey as the Jedi, Poe as the Resistance) and rejecting Kylo, because it doesn’t matter if he’s related to them, he chose to be evil, they can’t help him, no more Vader-like “getting a redemption chance just because he’s a Skywalker relative” situations. This is what I could gather from reading several anti-legacy articles/metas around the web.          

In response to this post where anon argues the Skywalkers aren’t essential to the Skywalker saga. Thanks for gathering.

1. Except that Luke has a sit down with his despairing sister where he reassures Leia that ‘no one is ever really gone’ re: SPECIFICALLY BEN. They are talking about Ben here, it is not ambiguous or debatable, so Luke explicitly believes that Ben can still be saved. Just not by him. We’re being told to expect a different kind of redemption than Vader’s, it’s not going to work the same way. Which is a good thing.

And when Luke actually speaks to Ben, he acknowledges that he is at fault for this situation and apologises to him. Are they trying to argue this apology isn’t sincere? That Luke is such a massive asshole that he’s mocking the nephew he traumatised? That Luke’s TLJ arc wasn’t about accepting his failure but about learning he should have gone through with murdering an innocent family member in his sleep and should stop feeling guilty about it? Because that would be the necessary implication if he is to be read as cruel and mocking in that scene. Does the narrative blame Ben and paint him as a bad seed who was inflicted on an innocent family? Is he Damien? Of fucking course not. Don’t be ridiculous. Sea cucumbers know he’s meant to be sympathetic.

2. I’m already tired. Okay, as I have made many bitter sarcastic posts about already, Rey’s character arc cannot be a circle. If she was right all along about everything, she doesn’t need to grow and is already fully actualised before we even meet her. But this is a coming of age story, this is a mythic journey about confronting the world and responsibility and the power of the individual to make moral choices. This is a fairy tale about how to become an ethical adult. A protagonist who doesn’t change and doesn’t need to learn anything is a fucking category error in this kind of story.

As previously mentioned, Leia was wrong in saying ‘my son is gone’ and the film is not subtle in telling us that. Rey cannot be the ‘true legacy’ because the narrative importance of the legacy is entirely about the burden it has been to the people who carry it. The whole reason this is an actual sequel and an actual continuation of the same story is because we’re dragging up unresolved trauma around Anakin’s fall, because this is all part of the same question, because Ben was only a target and vulnerable to Snoke because of who he is. Star Wars is personal, always, it’s about individuals and the individual struggles are then a metaphor for the universal. Rey ‘carrying on the legacy’ is meaningless. What is the legacy if it is not both the weight of Anakin’s sins and the deathless hope of Anakin’s redemption and reclamation? Rey alone, supposedly having nothing to do with Big Bad Ben, has nothing whatsoever to do with the legacy.

The point of the Skywalkers is to ask a question about choice and destiny. Ben’s fatalism comes directly from how Leia chose to handle (or not handle) the Skywalker legacy. Han and Ben’s broken relationship is implied to come from it. Luke’s biggest failure and the impetus of Ben’s final fall was his lapse into believing in it. But the problem in the galaxy is not the Skywalkers, the problem is and has always been people making selfish choices. Evil is a choice and not a destiny. Anakin had a choice, Luke had a choice, Ben has a choice.

That is the positive and regenerative part of Anakin’s legacy which needs to be carried forward: that it’s never too late, that there is always a choice. This is what Luke did in saving his father, he extended the grace of unconditional love and reminded Anakin what it was like, he convinced Anakin there was a choice. He demonstrated willing absolute selflessness and showed it was possible, destroying Anakin’s illusions and justifications about inevitability and the inescapable necessity of power and selfishness. Ben has not yet realised this truth (well, maybe, maybe he’s getting there on the floor at the end), but there’s a whole film left to go. He will be faced with this dilemma again.

Rey the Infallible waiting to be informed of her rightness and handed adoption into heroism and importance as a reward for not making choices and avoiding the world has nothing to say about any of this. That is empty. That is totally inappropriate.

What makes her the hero is her compassion and she will be rewarded for that, for her faith and patience, not for never failing, not for not being wrong. Never failing or being wrong is not an heroic attribute anyone has ever had in Star Wars, but love and compassion are never wrong. Literally never. Love will always be vindicated.

3. And, yeah, I think I covered that. Luke and Leia sweeping Ben under the carpet as not their fault or their problem and getting shiny new kids is both proven not to work (not accepting and understanding what created Vader worked out so well) and is a morally abhorrent message at odds with the soul of the saga. The point of Broom Boy is that the galaxy is big and people are inspired, that hope is alive in the most desperate places; it’s a meta commentary about stories and heroes and why we have them, tying in to Luke’s identity crisis and Yoda’s lesson. It doesn’t mean this story is now no longer about the thing it has always been about. All of those themes tie right the fuck back to choices and mistakes and the double-edged sword of legacy.

[sethnakht]

more than a little on the slow side today, so haven’t read any commentary yet. but here are some raw thoughts on vader #25.

Difficult to know where to start, as the issue was overlaid with symbols and yet also rather stolidly straightforward. Perhaps as a beginning: I was expecting Soule to play things straight and hoping to be gloriously wrong about it. He played things straight. 

My working theory going into the comic, written in response to @micelle in the middle of the night a few days ago:

I personally would not be surprised if that moment of projection on Padmé’s ship - you know, where Vader sees the mask engraved into Little Ani’s flesh in a reverse of Luke’s cave adventure, marking the start of a theme of this arc, the engraving of a mask onto various bodies - were the key to it all, that is, if what he’s after is the opportunity to kill himself (a reverse Momin so to speak). (or change himself. the comic has been so focused on his selfishness, on mirrors of the self - I could picture him strolling past nodes of past moments in the “world between worlds” and peering into the highlights of his wretched life as he decides whether to save Shmi, interfere with Padmé, prevent himself from leaving Tatooine, etc)

Some of this prediction played out - Vader does indeed stroll past moments in his own life, starting with pregnant!Shmi and himself as little Ani. You could argue too that the end result of it all is that he the part of him who still thinks of himself as an Anakin to be Saved is killed, for the present moment, in a reverse Momin of sorts. Things were a little more complex than I had imagined them, however. The plane upon which Vader finds himself resembles some combination of the subjective landscape of his own dark-side-fueled meditations and the objective landscape of Mustafar. As in his meditations, the sky is filled with lightning and he himself is a burning, burnt husk with dead white space where his cybernetic limbs complete him. As on Mustafar, he walks the ground, and where lava would be is the dark, roiling sea over which he floated in meditation; memories having to do with himself are presented in circles of lava, corresponding to his own burning state.

There seem to be two different possible modes of interaction with this world, objective and subjective. On the one hand, Vader walks past nodes that objectively reflect his own life back at him as would a film, much like what Ezra and Ahsoka encountered in the World Between Worlds; it is in such a lava-encased node that he foresees his own confrontation with Ahsoka (!!). Were he to interact with these nodes as Ezra considered doing with Kanan, then he could potentially change the past or the future. But Vader does not interact with these nodes, he simply walks past them. Nor does he seem to make much of the voices from his own past, from the future (Kylo!) echoing around him. Instead, he interacts with subjective projections of the people he loves - Shmi, the Jedi, Palpatine, Obi-Wan, Padmé. I say subjective projections, as these are all people who matter to him and all people who play into his self-narrative, and thus also mirrors of the self to a degree, but suspect the status of these projections is about as complex as the vision Luke has in the Dagobah cave: what Vader sees is what he brings with him, but also what the Dark Side would have him see. Thus, he sees Shmi with Palpatine behind her as though to suggest that his origins are in the Dark Side, that he has always been “unnatural” and destined to serve. (This is also what Momin’s pretty speeches would imply, that this plane is a place controlled by the Dark Side; this is partly what I mean by Soule playing things straight.)

There’s a way in which I got what I wanted - Vader doesn’t - can’t, of course - consider changing the actual past, but he does interact with his own past in a very revealing manner. That is, he doesn’t hesitate to kill the Jedi again (no Younglings, however!), presumably because he thinks they are keeping him from Padmé (standing atop the tower that transforms before his eyes from his newly constructed Sith tower into the Jedi temple). He also doesn’t lift a finger to prevent Palpatine from killing Obi-Wan (which is possibly the most !! moment of this entire sequence for me - does he not want to fight Obi-Wan himself, or think he isn’t strong enough? is this the lesson he thinks he has learned, is this the way he wishes things had gone ...?). In a departure from the past that speaks hugely to the mistakes he thinks he made, he then turns on Palpatine instead of choosing to kneel and serve as he had, shooting Palpatine down with lightning, killing his father figure with the very method Palpatine will eventually use to try and kill his son (and successfully uses to kill Vader). By the time Vader reaches the top of the tower, he seems to have recovered a positive sense of self again. Everything has gone right, just as he imagined it, it would seem, and it is as Anakin Skywalker that he speaks to Padmé with words later echoed by Luke - “come with me”. But does he want to save them both, or just himself? Padmé, for her part, seems to be nothing more than a reflection of his own self, than a reflection of what he chose instead of her - she quotes his own words back to him, chokes herself as he had once choked her, and then is rendered apart by (red, suggesting a dark side vision?) lightning in yet another foreshadowing of Vader’s eventual death. “Not again!” he says, in what has to be the funniest line of this comic. In other words, I don’t think for a moment that we actually saw Padmé here, not in the way that we see Luke, who shows up next in a massive blue column of light. Luke seems to spring from a source outside of the self - his appearance brings light back into the empty, desolate landscape that Vader had emptied of all light from within, and it’s an unanticipated appearance, too powerful for Vader to control, driving Vader back into his body, into the prone position he assumed the last time he was struck by lightning to foreshadow his own death in this comic (#18).

So, for all that Vader hasn’t learned all that much from his own history, he was, apparently, after salvation - through Padmé, with Padmé, if only with a Padmé who reflected his narrative in a way that all previous subjective projections had. (Possibly that desire for salvation also allows for the light to enter his mental picture, even to overwhelm him or the Dark underpinnings of the vision in the very end.) He never considers doing anything with the nodes of the past - he stays fixated on what is incarnated before him. Which is of a piece of him, and his self-centeredness in this comic from the very beginning. The message might thus be interpreted as: Anakin chose himself, chose one path, and despite regrets he would make essentially the same choice all over again, and that choice leaves him on the one hand miserable and lonely and empty and blinded and on the other also creates the crack that will eventually motivate his self-sacrifice for Luke.

It’s all very consistent ... perhaps a bit too consistent for me, as someone who flirts constantly with depression and takes particular enjoyment in subversive fiction. One of the things this comic has consistently done is treat Vader as though his physical condition were of secondary importance, placing the stress instead on his continued and persistent character features, on his meditative sessions, on his presence in the Force; this finale was very much in that vein, spirit over body. Camuncoli and his team have produced incredible visuals to bring that mental landscape to life; I’ve really enjoyed seeing how much they’ve been able to make of basic elemental symbols, of empty plains and dark oceans. And there is something to be said for this mind-over-body philosophy, as Vader himself might well think that this is what the Dark Side has finally allowed him to accomplish - though it’s rather at odds with Vader seeking out Padmé and engaging all of his attachments.

It’s hard to bring out certain paradoxes in his self-understanding without considering the body, let’s put it that way. I suppose what I’m saying is that I’ll always feel there was an opportunity missed. Vader watching Padmé throw herself to her death, then start choking herself, thereby transforming into a corpse in front of his eyes, only to become incinerated by lightning - well, I mean, it’s a fantastic image. I do like that you could read her “suicide” as a rejection of him and his choices, even as you can also read it as a sign from the Dark Side. Like ... I like it, don’t get me wrong. Compare his passive spectatorship to the kill-switch moment in the 2015 run, however, to that brain-addled, deranged, yet horrifyingly logical mental slaughterfest where he kills himself, Obi-Wan, and Padmé to regain agency over his own body, and ... I find it hard not to prefer the messiness of that to the rather clean symbolism in Soule.

Anyway, as a tie-in connecting the PT with Rebels, this comic certainly offers context for understanding where he is mentally. As a take on how Vader becomes Vader, who is never just his mind to me, but a mind trapped in a machine, it satisfied me less. 

Am I glad I read it? A thousand times yes, because of the conversations it has generated here. Boundless thanks especially to @glompcat, @gffa, @thewillowbends, @micelle, @songofthestars and @sith-shame-shack for the immeasurable pleasure of your company along this readerly journey - it’s been an education - and a joy - I shall not long forget. 😍

[elizas-writing]

How I Would Fix The Last Jedi

So it’s been a while since The Last Jedi premiered and with the initial hype and anger settling down, more people are looking at it through a proper critical lens. The more posts I see critiquing The Last Jedi, the more I’m starting to realize it’s got a lot more problems than I thought. Don’t get me wrong, I still like it and found certain elements the best of the franchise, but perhaps I focused a little too much on being positive just to drown out all the anger (which to be fair, most of it was unwarranted to begin with). And thankfully now that most of the more pissy fanboys quieted down, I can post this in peace.

This film’s biggest problem was the lack of a good editor to keep the pacing consistent and allot the right amount of character development for everyone. So I’ll be addressing some of the major concerns with The Last Jedi and analyzing where and how problems could be fixed.

1. Leia’s Fate

Given Carrie Fisher’s death, some fans were anticipating Leia would possibly be killed off during The Last Jedi. But since she’s still alive at the very end, now they’re going to have to find a way to do that off screen unless they have enough spare footage from The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi to fill the gaps. To be totally fair with how much they filmed with Carrie, this was probably the best they could do without reshooting most of the film and pushing back the release date. Plus, this is the last time we’ll get to see her--- let me have Super Leia in Space. I think the only way they could work around this would be to record lines mentioning her depleting health given how long she was in space, even with using the Force to save herself. It’d at least give some foreshadowing that maybe she won’t make it to see the Rebellion win and drive our main heroes to follow in her footsteps.

2. No Memorial for Han Solo?

Yes, more than two years passed and the shock of Han Solo’s death faded for the fans, but for the characters, only mere hours passed. Leia lost her husband, Chewie lost a best friend, Rey lost a father figure, and Luke lost a brother-in-law. They should still be torn up about this, especially Luke given all his guilt on failing his nephew. It’s really hard to believe that there wasn’t even so much as a memorial for one of the greatest heroes of the Rebellion. Imagine how much more gut-wrenching the opening would be if they were caught off guard while mourning Han.

 I want more of Rey depressed and angry that the one father figure she’s known was offed by his own son without mercy. I want more of Luke’s guilt eating him which increases his reluctance towards training cause he doesn’t know if this will happen again and who else he’ll lose. Han’s death should still have a massive impact on the story and where the Resistance will go without a legendary fighter with such a special spark you won’t find anywhere else in the galaxy.

3. Admiral Holdo’s Reckless Shit

It’s really hard to gauge if I actually like Admiral Holdo because the film is back-and-forth between pulling the rug from under us with the character drama and forgetting the high stakes of their present situations. I get that Poe is hot-headed and needs to learn patience, but c’mon, you’re losing precious ships and lives the longer you stall and don’t just tell this trigger-happy nut what’s going on. She has no reason to be so secretive, and it’s just plain irresponsible given the small size of the Resistance. There’s no effort on her end as a leader to work together with some people, and unfairly talks down to them like children. And I know Leia does this too with Poe when she demoted him, but they have a quasi-mother/son dynamic where it works because they were working together longer than Poe has with Holdo. They might as well be strangers for almost two hours.

I definitely don’t hate Holdo as much as the rest of the fandom does, but we need more of her side with nuance on the divide and finding balance between fighting and self-preservation, especially as she leads in place of Leia and the two were close friends for decades. But you don’t get that connection and how much the Resistance means to her mere minutes before she dies. She comes off way too heartless than necessary for this side-plot. And it sucks because it’s a fascinating struggle between action and self-preservation in regards to rebellion and knowing when to do what to make actual progress, but it’s buried too deep in the subtext underneath the needless bickering between Holdo and Poe. Just show what she’s up to from the get-go, validate her reasoning, and allow her to be a likable character so her major sacrifice actually feels earned and not a last minute sympathy grab for Poe to learn a lesson.

4. What was Benicio del Toro’s Character Again?

Oh yeah, DJ.... I legit had to Google to remember the character’s two-letter name. And if that’s not enough to say he has no purpose in this movie, I don’t know what is. I get that he’s supposed to parallel Lando Calrissian when he tricks Han Solo back in Empire Strikes Back. But while Lando still had screentime afterwards to double-cross the Empire and join the Rebellion anyway, DJ just freaking disappears, and it’s never addressed what happens to him after turning in Finn and Rose. Honestly, if you wrote him out of the movie, it wouldn’t make much of a difference. And it sucks, because this side plot had great themes going on with war profiteering and the apathy towards both the Resistance and the First Order so long as one has something to gain from their deals.

If you’re going to parallel Lando’s arc from Empire, don’t cut it short when it’s getting good and have DJ consider the consequences of his actions, regardless if he joins the Resistance or not. Set up some foreshadowing for the next movie where DJ is completely working for the First Order or the Resistance and realizes how much picking a side does matter with rising authoritarianism. It has great potential for whether or not he’s redeemed with how long his apathy will take hold so long as he makes a quick buck.

Or better yet, just entirely replace DJ with an older Lando who lost his sense of hope with the rise of the First Order and hides away on Canto Bight waiting for age to catch up to him, living in blissful ignorance while the rest of the galaxy crumbles. He’s the decoder Finn and Rose were looking for all along and this was Maz’s way to coerce Lando back into the Rebellion. Much like Luke, Lando is reluctant to fight and see any hope, but upon hearing of Han’s death and Leia’s condition, regret eats him for all the years he spent away from his closest friends and just wasting his life on gambling and drinking. He finally agrees to help Finn and Rose, but they only get so far before getting caught by the First Order, just barely escaping with their lives and reuniting with the rest of the Resistance for the film’s climax.

5. Finn Overcoming Stormtrooper Past

I think this deleted scene speaks for itself on all the missed opportunity in developing Finn. That’s not to say he’s totally devoid of screentime as it’s still fun to see him with Rose exploring Canto Bight and getting caught up in their own misadventures. But many were hoping this would be the perfect time to explore his traumatic past and how Stormtroopers work in this world. Maybe he’d try to go back, save them from the brainwashing and help them realize they’re just senselessly murdering innocent people for nothing.

Holdo even has a line where she refers to Finn as a Stormtrooper almost in disgust, so you’d think there would be more time to show his change over to the Resistance and proving himself not just as a powerful ally, but someone who is more than their past. Someone who can finally break the cycle of children being taken away from their families to become disposable soldiers. But his battle with Phasma comes and goes so quickly and doesn’t leave as big of an impact as it should, and much like Force Awakens it feels like they’re playing great cards far too early. This deleted scene works so much better when you see the gears turning in the Stormtroopers when they realize their leader is just a massive coward, and it ends perfectly with Finn proudly calling himself “rebel scum.” It’s still beyond me why this scene was scrapped. They either needed to keep this  in or have Phasma survive and make a grand final battle for Episode IX.

I want that spark of rebellion to ignite in the Stormtroopers where they realize “wait, what the hell are we even fighting for?” and dismantle the First Order from the inside out by Episode IX. It’d make a great parallel to the prequels and Order 66 but completely recontextualized in a story of rebellion and redemption. Throw in some of the Resistance saving children from growing up into soldiers, tragically epic scenes of sacrifice, and boom, there’s a climax of Episode IX practically writing itself.

6. Shut up Ben Solo-Organa

Now, I like Kylo Ren as a villain-- he’s similar to Anakin Skywalker’s whininess in the prequels except made legitimately terrifying with the fragile toxic masculinity of wanting to be stronger and powerful by any means necessary. However, I can’t do the woobifying, both from large sects of the fandom and Rian Johnson. I would be a lot more forgiving of his character development in The Last Jedi if Johnson made Kylo Ren’s intents more clear without implying any romance between him and Rey-- fucking really (and sorry, not sorry, the only thing I ship Kylo with is a swift kick in the ass).

I get that we need temptations of the dark side as part of the classic Star Wars story, and I love the twist on it where Kylo turning to the dark side was ultimately his choice and not because Luke failed him-- especially as killing Snoke didn’t flip him back to the light like when Vader killed the Emperor. But the heart of that particular recontextualization should be on the student-teacher relationship between Rey and Luke and not Kylo Ren sniveling like an infant. It walks a thin line of making Kylo Ren almost too sympathetic and forgetting how he ended up with the First Order to begin with. I don’t care how many puppy dog faces he makes; as shown by the end of the film, he’s not ready for redemption, if it will ever be in his grasp. His excess screentime of what we already know undermines Rey and Luke’s relationship which should be the focus of the former’s arc in The Last Jedi. But unfortunately, it isn’t as strong as it was with Luke and Yoda or Obi-wan and Anakin because the film has to juggle with a dozen other plotlines and characters.

Hopefully with J.J Abrams back in the directing chair, maybe he can steer the focus back on the films and what the fans really want. Granted, I don’t think The Last Jedi deserved nearly the level of vitriol it got within the last year, but even I couldn’t ignore some of the major problems and missed opportunities to get its themes across.

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