#but like we got a guy who's part of the imperial regime

[rotzaprachim]

new possible aspect of extended andor-erso family Dynamics include galen and lyra’s protracted awkward divorce (it starts to happen the moment that jyn is out of the house, either age, like, 6 or 18 you can decide) where galen for whom she’s like he only real human connection to the Outside World is like *this is Fine* *opens vodka bottle* meanwhile lyra keeps talking about living her Best Life. she’s actually finishing her geology master’s degree that got put on pause by galen, galen’s career, and jyn. she’s invested in a bunch of new-age hippy sweaters and scented candles and taken up hot yoga. she’s got the space!joy of sex and assorted manuals on the female orgasm sitting up on the bookshelf with all her baking books. she goes hillwalking for weeks at a time. she keeps bringing her collection of nubile younger lovers ‘round to family events and they are all her age or younger, which is to say, at least eleven years younger than galen 

[airyairyaucontraire]

Thoughts on The Mandalorian S303, "The Convert"

I forgot this was on last night and I hear it kind of sucks but I'm hoping it will at least not suck quite as bad as episode 3 of The Book of Boba Fett, which made me spit fire. (Am I still angry about it? Yes! At least, I am angry in a banked-fire way, ready to flare up again when given oxygen. It just made me furious that they would make such a wonderful episode depicting the Tuskens as fully-rounded people with a worthwhile, interesting culture and making a statement against colonialism, and then fridge them all. As if Boba didn't have a tragic fucking backstory already, HAVE YOU SEEN IT, IT'S CALLED ATTACK OF THE CLONES)

Anyway I gather it's time for the adventures of Din and Bo-Katan (hereinafter BK [Burger King Kryze]), but mostly not, as for some godforsaken reason a big part of this episode is given over to Dr Pershing, that wormy-looking guy with the big glasses (when have you ever seen someone in Star Wars who wears glasses? he's such an anomaly) who wanted to do mad science with Grogu's blood. Like he wasn't even a mad scientist with flair. Give me the fucking Herbert West of the Star Wars universe or stop wasting my time. I can't really imagine that this is going to feel like it was worth the budget. On we go, though.

Previously on The Mandalorian, there was Werner Herzog. There were mines. BK read a plaque and Din got dunked. BK had to haul his soggy ass out because he can't do anything without getting drowned or maimed.

I like how BK is just sitting there like "much to ponder" while Din gradually revives from DROWNING

how is that little stoup of water going to prove anything? Does it have a special flavour the Armourer is supposed to recognise, like Paeroa water? Mmm. Lemon and Paeroa.

okay, so he didn't see shit, only she knows there's a Mythosaur

Grogu trying to say "This is the Way" like the grown-ups is precious and I want him to do it again.

see the people making this show don't understand that we're in it for the infant developmental milestones

we don't give a shit about TIE interceptors

I am happy to see Din continuing his trandition of never sticking a landing unless Timothy Olyphant is there to see it and gaze at him adoringly

So Kalevala is another of those planets that basically looks like Craggy Island

R5 would like to go back to Tatooine please

I did enjoy the way Din swipped his head over to one side when BK told him "Go right," it reminded me of how I move my head in the car when a part of a song that I like is going to go off.

No! They're blowing up... BK's moping castle.

oh he's started calling her Bo now? seems a bit familiar but w/e

okay it's a big fancy city, I suppose Coruscant or some shit, and now it's the Dr Pershing show, giving a "I was just following orders" speech.

I still can't get over him wearing glasses.

what a wormy-looking little guy.

c'mon I don't want to talk about cloning if I don't get to see clones. Where is Rex? Give us Rex! Give us Temuera Morrison as multiple old-fart clones Tatiana Maslany-style!

Why are people still wearing the fascist-style uniforms, by the way?

and why are people being given serial numbers in place of their names? Are we being told the New Republic is dehumanising?

a mind flayer?

is it just a deep cynicism thing that they are making the New Republic look so awful and hollow and oppressive? As if leaders like Leia Organa and Mon Mothma really didn't have anything better to offer? Because if so I am fucking offended on their behalf

okay, so someone gave you Imperial cookies, again, why do we care? What reason do we really have to be interested in what happens to Dr Pershing? Is this supposed to connect up to something? But you know what? This The Mandalorian. It's not supposed to connect up. It's supposed to be about the leftover, out-of-the-way places and people to whom the changes of regime really didn't mean much - not because they didn't matter at all but because of the sheer distances involved. And Dr Pershing isn't someone who we genuinely know to have been morally conflicted about working for the Empire, like Galen Erso. He's just a wormy guy who tried to hurt Grogu!

"The ethics of cloning are complicated" - I was draining blood out of magic babies

I can't believe they are wasting an entire episode of precious time during which we could be having infant developmental milestones on this drip

I mean the actor is doing his best, but he doesn't have any special charisma. He was convincingly cast in the first place as a wormy little dweeb.

If his research is as important as he says for what? For cloning organs for life-saving transplants, the way he talked about with his mother? Or for draining magic babies' blood to try to make clone soldiers with Force talent?

WHY DO WE HAVE TO SPEND SO MUCH TIME ON THIS GUY

I CAME TO SEE A SHOW CALLED THE MANDALORIAN

ABOUT A MANDALORIAN

this is not a bold story-telling experiment this is boring

ugggghhhhhhhhhhhh

boooooooooooooooooooooo

if anyone had a right to hijack an episode of this show for himself it was Boba Fett, not this loser

I would rather just see 57 minutes or whatever of Boba Fett pottering around, doing maintenance on his armour and weapons, training his baby rancor, having a bit of lunch with Fennec and Cobb, taking an after-lunch nap, sitting down to try and bash out another chapter of that book he's been meaning to write...

this episode is so fucking long! It's not over yet and I think it's already longer than the season premiere!

hey so I'm not sure I've conveyed how little of a crap I give about Dr Pershing and this not-really-reformed space fascist gal

yeah you geniuses, trains do generally have an end

is all this fucking worth it to steal lab equipment

see this episode hasn't convinced me at all that what these two are trying to do is worthwile, or that they have a compelling reason (like fanaticism, even) for believing that it is. They keep saying it'll help the New Republic. How? With what?

oh GOD I don't CARE

you lost me, congratulations, you lost me

I have bought Lego sets of this show and you have lost me

there still isn't an official Cobb Vanth minifig, by the way, I've got a Peli Motto but no Cobb Vanth!

this is so bad

this is so weak

this is so boring

Anakin Skywalker didn't ruin his life and kill his wife and massacre Jedi kindergarteners so you could droop around being this fucking boring!

OH BIG FUCKING DEAL YOU BOTH HAVE NAMES

WE'VE ALL GOT NAMES

SOME OF US HAVE GOT CRAPPY NAMES LIKE GROGU

OR ELAN SLEAZEBAGGANO

OR SIO BIBBLE

I wonder how Elan Sleazebaggano's doing after going home and rethinking his life

GIVE US A WHOLE FUCKING EPISODE ABOUT ELAN SLEAZEBAGGANO WHY DON'T YOU

about his struggle to reform from dealing death sticks and make something of himself, trying to turn his life around right on the eve of a war that would change everything

so... she was playing him all the time? for what? what was the point of all the resources deployed here? just to test the loyalty of a totally unimportant cog in the machine?

I mean, why are they doing this whole fucking 1984/One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest shit? Do they think it's deep to be like "What if the New Republic... was actually Bad???"

he keeps saying he was just trying to help but help with what? What specific problem does the New Republic have that he hoped to be able to solve? No one ever articulated with what!!! it's all meaningless!!!

oh the callously bitten biscuit of villainy

what the FUCK did all of that MATTER

FUCKING FINALLY A MANDALORIAN

hi Paz you big fucking side of beef boy am I glad to see you and I don't even particularly like ya

get over here let us smack that ass

I'm sorry

"I have been to the Mines of Mandalore. We all thought it was going to be an arduous season-long quest but it was actually simple pimple. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. Really very anticlimactic."

remember when we thought IG-11 was coming back

I have a tube of WATER that could presumably have come from ANY PLANET WITH WATER but okay I guess it's proof

does it have some unique mineral profile? NOT THAT THEY WOULD EXPLAIN SOMETHING I'M INTERESTED IN

well BK you never actually wanted to be part of this and I don't think it matters at all to you but now you are I guess?

WOW THAT WAS A BAD EPISODE

THAT WAS VERY BAD

UTTERLY POINTLESS

NOT ACTIVELY GENOCIDAL LIKE EPISODE 3 OF TBOBF BUT STILL PRETTY FUCKING IRKSOME

[semi-imaginary-place]

more ffxvi liveblogging spoilers!

oh no clive is getting inspired by cid's ideals and believing in them. cid is so dead! one he has no more narrative worth and nothing more to teach clive its game over for him.

xvi is pulling a fe gaiden learn to live without the gods. learn to use agriculture to grow your own food. clive you fool you should absolutely be asking for more concrete proof and then look to get it independently verified that the mothercrystals are destroying the world before just taking someone's word.

ffxvi is really good at making sidequests that i don't want to do.

if moore and sabreque hate masterless branded so much than that arrangement with jill would have worked better than clive running around on his own.

i does bear saying that bearers in sabreque and rosaria at least, are slaves. to the bought, sold, and commanded as their masters see fit. like in rosaria any masterless bearer's ownership defaulted to the state.

there's something to be said about how... clique-y? or maybe just xenophobic everyone is. clive is soooo lucky that he's got friends of friends of friends who all want to help him and let him into the network. he's out here collecting pokemon badges and those badges really do make the difference between night and day. clive would have gotten no where without cid and his network or network of favors. part of it in probably everyone hates bearers but im starting to think most people hate outsiders in general. local politics (the tokens) are more powerful than bigotry against bearers,

wandering around sabreque, keeping the imperial armor could have come in handy.

"The way I understood it is that magic requires the user to draw upon ambient aether, either through a crystal or innately (Bearers/Dominants). Since the Deadlands are bereft of aether, there’s nothing to draw upon = no magic." (StickyBarb). Hmm that would mean all Dominants are Bearers, they simply aren't branded as such because Bearer is a political/class term and Dominants are too useful. Still doesn't quite explain Clive since no one knew he was Ifrit's Dominant.

why do i get the feeling this whole destroy the mothercrystal terrorist act is going to go poorly. wait that white on cid's arm is he turning to stone.

aetherflood/poisoning might not harm you dominants but what about torgal? more fuel to the magic dog fire i guess.

just like the ancient technology the only thing that can destroy the mother crystal is eikon power. the fallen, the mural at the phoenix gate sanctum apoca....thy??, the eikons, the wraiths, the mothercrystals, the game is telling us that it is all connected.

i was just thinking its rare that videogames have something beautiful be bad and that could be an interesting take. but also what if cid got it all wrong. what if the mothercrystals were channeling aether to seal something much worse and we just broke that seal. maybe whoever is trapped is trying to use clive. speculation on my part but theory crafting is half the fun

ok evil ancient civilization got sealed away by the mothercrystals and is trying to posses clive to get out. typhon fight was pretty cool best typhon yet.

how convenient that clive in unconscious when joshua shows up. joshua seriously on some main character quest to save the world. goes and seals the big bad evil inside himself. goddam. i'd say a normal person would get crushed by rubble but none of the other stuff killed him so who knows.

hmm i think you guys might have caused the collapse of a nation. with sabreque weakened dhalmek or woelod are just going to invade and i'll be more of the same. that plan of your only work if you destroy all of the mothercrystals in tandem thus maintaining the balance of power and political stability. when a regime collapse, even a corrupt bad one things usually get worse as local warlords and gangs move in. well actually dhalmek is a republic not a theocracy so at least there's that.

timeskip???

yup clive takes up cid's mantle

doing timeskips is fine but you have to make them count and so far im not convinced of either of the timeskips. it doesn't feel 13 years and it doesn't feel 5 years. i could have easily been 8 years and 2 years and would have been just as believable.

oh right sabreque took the crystal dominion. dhalmek's not going to be happy about that.

deus ex fortune 500 uncle. clive its rather rude to not visit your uncle for 18 years or at least let him know that you are alive and only show up when you need a favor. very rude.

mark of the guardians. sounds like a great way for the cops to identify you. wade is right though, old soldiers, its been 18 years. any of the original shields are at least in their 40s.

what annoys me is that even before the timeskip all the villagers were talking about how the imperials were coming after the bearers, all while hideout was talking about needing people. and well titan crushed the place but now its the exact same thing. there's a place for them to go so why doesn't clive talk with wade about getting these people out of rosaria.

CLIVE! YOU DIDN'T EVEN WRITE TO YOUR UNCLE.

hmm 20 years since rosaria fell. i stand by what i said earlier it doesn't feel that long. clive still feels more like 30 than 35

jill's killing the pope. hell yeah.

you'd think with the ifrit powers and the volcano aesthetic, clive would be resistant to heat and fire and lava

yeah its real fucking weird that jill didn't try and rescue these women she'd spent 13 years protecting. writer! why would you do this to her character. when introduced as shiva she reminded me of those bulls bounds in irons so strong that they no longer needed the physical ones. shiva could have killed the leadership at any time, she couldn't have killed all of them but she could have taken out a lot and she didn't because other's would have paid for her actions. that's her establishing character moment. but then the writers didn't do anything with that for 6 years.

what did joshua do? he raised his hand the lava went crazy and then a fire thing showed up to fight. wait no joshua took off the brown cloak, who was that.

oh he's still alive. go girl! go! kill him! kill him dead! woooooo!

mhmm the mothercrystals are definitely seals on ultima and for every one clive and jill break, a greater burden in placed on joshua who is using his body as a seal.

20 years and Anabella looks exactly the same. I'm surprised that son isn't older, like he looks 10. you're telling me Anabella didn't immediately jump the emperor but waited 9 years. I heard speculation at the beginning that Anabella isn't actually Clive's biological mother (well she's not an actual mother either) or that there's some sort of hereditary drama with the Rosfields given how much Clive doesn't look like Anabella and how much Joshua doesn't look like Elwin, and also how young Anabella looked when Clive was 15 but that could also just be the jrpg thing you can never tell. … did old man Elwin Rosfield have Clive out of wedlock? would help explain why Anabella hated him so much, why she says his bloodline in filthy, and why she said something along the lines of that he's the son of a whore.

oh right jill is from the north lands essentially taken as a political hostage so that her family and the other northerners don't attack rosaria. weird how this isn't addressed either. like you'd expect her to idk have opinions or something on the people that ripped her away from her family even if the archduke treated her well.

vivian where were at the beginning of the game

kupo? hugo! invasion of rosalith, is this the first time clive has been back to his hometown?

and of course jill has to play damsel. she coudl have fought harder than that. blow them up.

thats a point for the magic dog hypothesis

i might be slow on this but maybe clive can't summon ifrit because joshua sealed ultima and ifrit is tied to ultima. but clive also still has ifrit's combat abilities which is why i forgot he couldn't summon ifrit because he only couldn't use that power in cutscenes.

mythos. clive's head voice/ultima/hooded man also called him that. and i think that was the man from the opening round table. one of ... waloed's. a normal man would die of bloodloss from having his hands cut off but hugo is a dominant, but i dont think he's getting those back.

in and out eh i guess we wont be having any revolutionary or nationalist sentiments today.

[borra-the-explorer]

^I'm glad you brought up that last point, because when Bryan Konietzko posted this letter confirming Korrasami after LoK's finale, I took most of it at face value despite generally not liking him or Mike Dante DiMartino any other time bc those of us who shipped KA had vindication that we weren't being delusional for those last two seasons, it was a pretty big step for lgbtq representation in a kid's cartoon at the time even if it had to be spelled out after the fact, and the bad faith criticisms (mixed in with legit ones) made me even more defensive of the ship. So much so that I missed the obvious problem with these showrunners in particular telling fans that "perhaps you were looking at it only through a hetero lens."

Bryke, my brothers in Christ...YOU GUYS MADE THE WORLD OF AVATAR THROUGH A HETERO LENS! And I don't just mean according to whatever rules Nickelodeon had in the 2000s and 2010s against unambiguous lgbtq rep--you'd still sacrifice Aang's character arc for him getting a serious girlfriend at twelve years-old, which could've been worse if everyone went with your original concept for Book 2 involving Aang and the teenage boy earthbender who eventually became Toph fighting over Katara, among many other characters getting paired up or at least showing blatant interest in the opposite sex by the series finale (they might have been going for a trans allegory with Smellerbee, but that's about it). Then you chose to double down on that by making nearly half of your sequel series about CW love triangle crap and the results of it, stagnating any strong bond between Korra and Asami regardless of when you started to take the idea of putting them together seriously. And then when we finally got to see Korrasami in a relationship via Turf Wars, you chose to make homophobia a part of the story as well.

Not that the Fire Nation having anti-gay laws during the 100 Years War doesn't make sense on a surface level: in an authoritarian regime more heterosexual unions = more babies that grow up to be cannon fodder for imperialism, but the panel's wording suggests Sozin just decided to ban same-sex relationships as soon as he became Fire Lord because, to quote Korra, he's "a jerk"...and that didn't bother Avatar Roku at all?! Nobody thought through the implications of this, and that's not even getting into the other three nations.

i just remembered the fire nation post-conquest was canonically homophobic

[useless-catalanfacts]

Hello I just wanted to say that I love your blog! I am Mexican, and I am very glad that there's places where minority languages are appreciated and not dismissed, and that are actually spoken by a lot of people. I think we should do that here. It's awesome to see a language thrive like that, being that the fascist regime tried to erase it and all.

Anyway, my question is about the history of the catalan language, as I am not very familiar with it, outside of the fact that there was a guy that didn't like it much and kinda tried to ban it. And I wanted to know if you knew anything about that and specifically about how the language recovered from that (if that is OK)

Anyway sorry if this is a bother much love <3

Thank you so much for your interest and your kind words ☺️

Here's three posts that will help you get a general view of what has been happening for centuries. It’s not only one dictator who banned it (though Franco’s persecution was particularly thorough and recent) but a longer process that was fuelled by Spanish imperialism, hatred towards the Catalan people, and the want to create a unified and homogenous Spain (that never existed in the first place) through the extermination of non-Spanish cultures, languages and identities.

Summing up Catalanophobia through the ages

Prohibitions of the Catalan language throughout history: 16th-19th centuries

Prohibitions of the Catalan language throughout history: 20th and 21st centuries (up to 2016, which is when I wrote the post)

You can find many more posts explaining particular situations in this blog's tag #catalanophobia. I don't "report" on nearly everything that happens (I'm not a news channel, I don't have that much time and it would be depressing lol) but I've commented on quite a few things.

About the second part of your question, the Catalan language was never lost nor close to extinction, in fact the moment where a lowest percentage of the Catalan population speaks Catalan is now. What happened is that, after the War of the Spanish Succession in which Spain (Castilla) militarily occupied the Catalan Countries and forbid the use of Catalan language, Catalan stopped being a prestigious language or a language used in official documents. The prestigious language then became Spanish, which means that the aristocracy would speak in Spanish, official documents were written only in Spanish, books were printed in Spanish, etc., but the huge majority of the population did not speak (and in many cases did not even understand much) Spanish.

That means that what later needed to be "recovered" was not the language itself, but its literary use and social role. That is, it needed to stop being seen as a language only "for the lower class to do their lower class things" -in contraposition to Spanish, the "important language for important matters"- and become, once more as it had been centuries ago, a language that can be used in all settings, including literature, science, government, etc.

This movement happened in the 19th century and is called Renaixença ("Rebirth"). It's contemporary to the Romanticism movement, so it can be seen as our version of it, with a more political/social role. This movement was centered on using the language in literary settings, as well as newspapers, learning about our history, and asking for cultural and linguistic rights. This is the moment when the first political Catalanist movement became well organized and active.

The decline in use of Catalan language started after the Renaixença had happened. It started to change with the introduction of mandatory schools, and by the 1920s many people (especially in urban areas) could speak Spanish, even though the everyday language was still Catalan. We got a huge immigration wave from Southern Spain in the 1920s that triplicated the population of Catalonia, and again in the 1960s Catalonia triplicated once again the population with people coming from Spain. Many of them integrated, many even risked being in danger by joining clandestine Catalan classes. But it was the time of the dictatorship, where many others were convinced Catalan was inferior or simply useless. With the political pressure and persecution, the social discrimination and the smaller amount of media available compared to Spanish, with time Spanish has imposed itself as the "cool" language that people want to associate themselves with because it's "better", "important", and "universal". A lot of Spanish imperialist propaganda is still believed, and most Catalan people have a lot of internalized Catalanophobia that makes us believe we can only be worthy if we abandon our language.

But luckily many people have fought a lot! Mobile clandestine libraries with books in Catalan, secret classes, field trips with safe people to speak to, the anti-fascist fight, and everyone who chose to speak it every day are what has kept it through the dictatorship's persecution.

The key to language survival is to have conscience and to use language in all settings, from speaking to your friends and family informally to teaching university classes in it or writing science and philosophy papers in it. And that's precisely some of the fights we're in rn: as an example on one side, because the Spanish judicial system keeps forcing schools to teach more in Spanish and less in Catalan; on the other, we're campaigning to have entertainment in Catalan, especially for children to grow up hearing that people they look up to can also speak their language, so we're trying to get streaming platforms to incorporate Catalan dubs.

(I'm talking about Spanish because the most part of the Catalan Countries are under Spanish rule, but the same applies with French instead of Spanish in Northern Catalonia).

[smallandangry24]

A Not-So-Brief Character Analysis of one Anakin Skywalker

TW for discussion of Imperialism, Nazis, and events paralleling sh00tings, brief mention of domestic violence and slavery.

Hello there, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of ranting about fascism on the internet (I know, you’re waiting with baited breath): Star Wars Edition, featuring a very beloved character -- Anakin Skywalker, Darth Vader.

Star Wars is many things -- found families. Hope. Rebellion. Democracy. The importance of standing up for what is right, and for those who do not have a voice, even if the world is against you. Holding others and yourself accountable. Corruption. Accidental baby acquisition. And the first space western among them. But at its conception, Star Wars drew a very hard line in the sand (I know, we don’t like sand, but bare with me) regarding a subject that was very relevant at the time, and I would argue still is: Imperialism, Fascism, Slavery, and Nazism.  

“But Mads”, you might ask “why would you get on the internet to rant about such things, probably bringing a very angry toxic fanbase out of the woodworks against you?” For a few reasons, one of them possibly being that I’m a fool. One of those reasons definitely being that sometimes, something needs to be said, regardless of opposition, and you need to be the one to say it, especially if no one else will (and what’s more Star Wars than that?). I hope you’ll find it in yourself to stay with me, but that’s beyond my control. So here it is:

Anakin is a tragedy, in many ways. 1. He could be anyone -- someone’s boyfriend, a brother, a best friend, a son, the guy sitting two tables down in a chili’s in the middle of nowhere Iowa (idk if y’all have Chili’s but roll with it). 2. He cared about his family. 3. He WAS manipulated in fear and put in a situation no child (yes, CHILD) should have ever been put in on the battlefield, nevermind his status as a slave. It is an ESSENTIAL part of his story, but not in the way I see interpreted by so many fans. There is a MESSAGE in his character... a great many!! Sure, he is a type of prodigal son, falling from grace but returning eventually for -- here’s where we disagree. Redemption. Can we call it that? Is he really redeemed? The Prodigal Son, at least in my interpretation, is not about redemption, but forgiveness and mercy -- given because the father, who I think the story is really about, is good -- not because that kindness is deserved (because in it’s context, the story is not about what is deserved, but I digress). Anakin, Vader, can be a story about how people cannot be summed up by good and evil, and instead are made by their choices, and that we have the power to change our choices every day, and that there can be redemption for some. 

But that’s not all there is, or even the biggest part of his character.

There are more messages. Monsters can be anyone, and if we don’t hold people accountable and learn from our past, history will come back to haunt us. My problem is that very few hold him accountable. Let’s go back to the roots. Star Wars isn’t exactly subtle. “The Empire,” “Storm troopers” (the name of Hitler’s private army), the concept of a nationalistic regime taking over under the power of a charming dictator bent on expansion by force, using propaganda to unite his people against a common enemy of a peaceful people who share a religion, etc. It’s about Nazis, and more than their well known atrocities -- about the importance of accountability, uniting in rebellion, how they can come to be, and, most importantly, punching them. 

Back to Anakin. He’s young, under the influence of the man who’s a parallel of Hitler, very stressed because he’s leading an army and just got put in charge of a child, probably needed more talking to regarding healthy levels of attachment and relationships, and he’s been put in a position of power. He’s also played by Hayden Christensen (who did a remarkable job -- this is not a criticism of his performance but an applause. The problem lies in how some interpret it), who, I’ve been reliably informed, is very cute. An increasingly common reaction is “oh it’s not his fault, poor baby,” or  WORSE, “It’s Obi-Wan’s/Padme’s/Ahsoka’s fault -- he/she should have paid more attention/proclaimed his/her love more.” 

*Is violently unimpressed*

Let’s also look at what he did!! *drumroll* He betrays all of his loved ones -- strangling his pregnant wife Padme, who tries to appeal to him numerous times while also stating her love, trying to kill his brother/father figure Obi-Wan, who’s last words prior were about how proud he is of Anakin, and proceeded to tell him he loved him and also tried to bring him to his senses multiple times while Anakin is ACTIVELY TRYING TO MURDER HIM, enslaves the clones, his friends, who fought for him, were willing to die for him, were already struggling with a lack of human rights, further betrayed by Anakin forcing them to turn on their family the Jedi and help him commit mass genocide, made worse by the fact that Anakin used to be a slave, and not only participates and initiates said genocide against his own people (but let’s also not forget the genocide and coverup of the one he committed against the native Tusken people), but cuts down the children who trust him and run to him for help. He his not only a parallel of naziim, but also domestic abusers, imperialists and, currently, school shooters. AND IT’S NOT JUST THESE CHOICES!!! There are more I’m probably forgetting, but it’s the fact that it’s not just ONE time. He makes the choice to be this person over. and over. AND OVER. AND OVER AGAIN. And for what?? To save Padme?? He just choked her out! And after she DIES, he KEEPS GOING. “He was too scared to return, the canonically thought about it,” WELL?? First of all, Obi-Wan was literally begging him to come back and secondly, even if he didn’t “return” he could have stopped, idk, actively hunting down and murdering people and supporting the Empire. Just throwing that out there. 

Yes, Palpatine chose him to manipulate. FOR A REASON: He knew Anakin was powerful enough to turn the tide of the war-- which would have just ended with the death of General Grievous -- in his favor, AND because such power would have been a threat to him. Anakin had the power to threaten Palpatine and the Empire at any time.... but instead, he repeatedly chose to use that power to undo everything he had sworn to protect, everything his friends had fought and died for. And for what purpose? Last time I checked, you don’t strangle people to say “I love you.”

That’s the tragedy of Anakin for me -- the repeated choice to fall, and that he could be any one of us if we allow it. Too often, we let him hide behind a mask and a new name. I get it -- I, too, am a sucker for transformation and cinematic symbolism. But Anakin’s transformation marks the solidification of his choices and the nature being revealed in him -- the corruption of hate and anger and obsession -- but it DOESN’T MAKE HIM A DIFFERENT PERSON. He can’t escape accountability for his actions by hiding behind a fancy new title. Are you a simp, or an apologist? I get it, he’s cute, and there’s an appeal to knowing someone would burn the world for you, but be careful of the line you tread -- with this character, it’s pretty thin.... and quite frankly, my ace ass doesn’t care how hot a Nazi is.

Today, I encountered a new perspective I’ve never seen before, regarding the line, “there’s still good in him.” Iconic, I know. And despite the above... ooops paragraphs, know that I AM A MASSIVE VADER FAN. His character is incredible and complex and (I knooooow) cool. Horribly so, but yes, you can’t deny the dramatics. And I’m an even bigger fan of redemption, hope, the idea that no matter what you’ve done, you can work to be better. I’ve struggled with Anakin -- I’ve wanted to say “YES, in the end, when he choses to overthrow Sidious, he is Redeemed!” .... but it never quite felt right. Today, I encountered the phrase “so what?” Okay, not literally, but someone might as well have written it on a brick and slapped it across my face. There was good in him. So what? He still chose to do those things. And he chose to do them over and over again. Does the fact that he was capable of good excuse the genocide? the slavery? the murder? Does it not make it worse? Do we owe forgiveness to someone who could have been a good man? Are we obligated to -- RESPONSIBLE for bending over backwards to convince someone to be good again? Even at the price of more innocent blood? Or is it HIS responsibility not to spill it in the first place?

The tragedy is in that he was good, once, if a person can be good, but he made those choices anyway. The tragedy is in that he could be anyone. The tragedy is that he is MANY someones today. The tragedy -- what makes a tragedy -- is that anywhere, in all of this mess, it could have been over. It could have been prevented. He could have stopped. The tragedy is that it didn’t need to happen, but it happened anyway.

Today I encountered “It was his choice.” Today, I saw written, “Don’t take that away from him.” 

[thiswaycomessomethingwicked]

Was Napoleon a tyrant? I don't necessarily think he was: at least, I believe he was a better alternative to the absolute monarchs he was fighting. But there are those who disagree. What are your thoughts on the subject?

This is a can of worms to be sure.

I mean....how are we defining the word tyrant? All monarchs are tyrants to someone. Monarchy, by its very nature, is tyrannical in one way, shape, or form, no matter who is at its head. Even in the more neutered forms we see now days with the British. The Queen still exerts a ridiculous amount of power, all things considered.

Napoleon was no better or worse than any other monarch in Europe at that time. Indeed, better than some, worse than others. Because you know, he was human!

-

This got VERY long. SO LONG. Choice excerpts from below the cut:

"'Power was encroaching with large strides behind the words order and stability,' as Thibaudeau put it."

"(And I suspect he was concerned about seeming too eager for power/setting up a monarchical system. Fouche: You're about as subtle as a canon going off right next door. Napoleon: Hush.)"

"Theeeeeen the little bastard (affectionate) became Emperor."

"Napoleon Vs. Jeff Bezos: fight! fight! fight! (I'm putting my money on Napoleon.)"

--

tl;dr: a more or less benevolent emperor who had his faults and who was intimately aware, for better or worse, more than most monarchs, that the head is only tenuously attached to the body. (Skim to the bottom for my thoughts on the personal things i.e. how I interpret Napoleon's actions and brain)

But, more seriously, as with most absolute statements, I am opposed to calling him a tyrant because it is reductive and serves no purpose except to make broad sweeping political statements that I believe are far more about the person making the statement exemplifying their modern political, republican position (as in, actual republican-I-support-the-existence-of-republics not the gop) rather than expressing any sort of truth about the past. (wHaT iS tRuTh.)

For historical purposes, it can over-simplify the situation and lead to skewed interpretations of events because you're coming in with this word that has a lot of modern, 20th and 21st century baggage to it.

And, because these people are coming in with this big, bad word of tyrant as a label for Napoleon, it doesn't allow them to engage with the nuance and complexities of his reign.

Anyway.

Napoleon, as emperor, supported centralized power held in his own hands, with support from other governing bodies (senate, council of state etc.). However, Napoleon had a lot of influence in the structuring of these governing bodies and the subsequent appointments as a means to exert control over entities that would otherwise be able to act somewhat independent from him and impinge his power.

We see this consolidation of power beginning, obviously, under the consulate. 'Power was encroaching with large strides behind the words order and stability,' as Thibaudeau put it.

There was the whole theatre around the Tribunate offering to extend Napoleon's tenure as First Consul for another ten years as a means of thanks/showing gratitude for all he did for France (Fouche was like: fuck that, let's just make a statue of the guy). Napoleon played the part of Humble Servant of the Public and refused both statue and the ten year extension. (Very Julius Caesar: You all did see that on the Lupercal, I thrice presented him a kingly crown, which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition?)

In actuality, though, he was pissed because he wanted it extended for life.

This resulted in the Council of State deciding "independently" (i.e. Napoleon wasn't present but he sure as hell influenced that Council session) to hold a plebiscite in order to ask The People two key questions: 'Should Napoleon Bonaparte be consul for life?' and 'Should he have the right to designate his successor?'

Napoleon nixed the second question saying to Cambaceres, 'The testament of Louis XIV was not respected, so why should mine be? A dead man has nothing to say.' Which is to say, he knew people would vote for him to be Consul for life, but the prospect of him choosing a successor, a la the Roman Empire, and having that choice be without input from the people and respected upon his death? Less clear.

(And, I suspect he was concerned about seeming too eager for power/setting up a monarchical system.

Fouche: You're about as subtle as a canon going off right next door.

Napoleon: Hush.)

For the Plebiscite, there were around 3.56 million votes for Yes to the question of Napoleon as consul for life and only around 8,300 for No.

The turnout rate was 60% which is uhh...impressive! (To be fair, there was no real evidence of tampering with the vote. Unlike in subsequent Plebiscites, such as the results for Do We Make Him Emperor, which were absolutely doctored. But, considering the highest turnout ever seen in the French Revolution was around 30/35%, double that is certainly something.)

Lafayette was pissed with this. He kicked up a fuss in the Senate and wrote to Napoleon saying that his 'restorative dictatorship' had been well and fine for now but has Napoleon thought about restoring liberty? and that he was certain Napoleon, of all people, wouldn't want an 'arbitrary regime' to be installed!

Napoleon: Bold of you to assume that, Lafayette.

There were, at this time, some mumblings and grumblings about tyranny from the liberals and those still wanting to continue the experiment of the French Republic, to be sure. They increased as time went on and Napoleon's power continued to consolidate.

Theeeeeen the little bastard (affectionate) became Emperor.

Lafayette: WhAt Is tHiS??

Napoleon: Look into my face and tell me honestly that you are shocked.

--

His government, as Consul and as Emperor, was centralized and very top-down in how it operated. Little was done without Napoleon's input.

The seemingly democratic institutions that had propped him up into power were retained and Napoleon used them as a means to facilitate his rule. As noted earlier, Napoleon had a heavy hand in appointments and the processes in place to fill various offices. Nothing was really...independent of him and his influence.

Though, in terms of Image Building of Empire, Napoleon worked hard to try and maintain the façade of impartiality as emperor. That he was head of state, sure, but all state apparatuses operated independent of him.

(Why is Napoleon's hat so big? because it is full of lies supporting the imperial image making machine.)

That said, when it came to filling those offices, Napoleon focused on merit more than anything as he wanted his governing officials to be capable, hardworking and, above all else, loyal.

(A good quote from Napoleon in one of his more Eat the Rich moments of the consulate: 'One cannot treat wealth as a title of nobility. A rich man is often a layabout without merit. A rich merchant is often only so by virtue of the art of selling expensively or stealing.'

Napoleon Vs. Jeff Bezos: fight! fight! fight!

(I'm putting my money on Napoleon.) )

--

This is getting really long and I feel that I've not addressed anything in a useful manner, but am I going to stop? No.

--

Napoleon, himself, at least in 1803, did express some conflicted views about assuming an imperial title. To Roederer he said, 'So many great things have been achieved over the past three years under the title of consul. It should be kept.'

Cambaceres said to Napoleon that upon assuming an imperial title 'your position changes and places you at odds with yourself.' No longer are you merely a public servant, an upholder of the Republic's ideals. Now you are a man wearing a crown, trying to be the upholder of the Republic's ideals.

(nb: I feel that duality is something Napoleon never fully got a handle on. He would veer strongly into authoritarian monarch then have moments of Rousseau-ian Idealism.)

Napoleon was insistent that his rule be a parliamentary monarchy (keeping the governance framework implemented in the Constitution of Year VIII, if I am not mistaken. But don't quote me on that.) and that the French were not his subjects but his people.

So, the imperial government worked thus with the Legislative process divided between four bodies:

Council of State which would draw up legislative proposals,

Tribunate which could debate on legislation but not vote on it,

a legislative body which could vote on legislation but not discuss it, and

Senate which would consider whether the proposed legislation conformed to the Constitution.

The Senate and the Legislative body could, theoretically, curtail Napoleon’s freedom/power. However, considering the fact that he was involved in the appointment process of these offices, and the general rhythm of daily governance, how much power they were able to exert over him was limited.

(This is at his height! Of course, towards the end we see a shift in that. But that's largely tied up in his military defeats and the British banging the door knocker demanding to be let in. Also they brought with them some friends. You might have heard of them? Bourbons?)

The initial terms the Senate brought to Napoleon with their offer of accepting him as a hereditary monarch included, but weren't limited to:

liberty cannot be infringed

equality cannot be jeopardized

sovereignty of the people must be maintained

the laws of the nation are inviolable

all institutions were to be free from undue imperial influence (e.g. the press)

the nation should never be put into a position where it needs to behead the head of state. Again.

Napoleon was uh. Not best pleased with this and had a new version drafted up that included acknowledgement of the sovereignty of the people, but a lot of the other things (e.g. freedom of the press) were cut out.

Yet, Napoleon maintained certain parts of the French Revolution's values which were reflected more in the 1804 Code Napoleon and other legislative and legal pieces than in the initial terms of Senatorial acceptance of his imperial title.

Some of the things enshrined in the Code that were carry-over from the Revolution include, but aren't limited to, the abolition of feudalism, equality before the law, freedom of conscience (to practice their own religion), gave fixed title to those who had bought church and émigré lands during the 1790s, and the equality of taxation was maintained (tax those aristos and the church). Also, there was affirmation of the idea of careers being "open to talent" rather than an accident of birth (as touched on above).

The Freedom of Conscience clause in the Code was a further formalization of several Articles Napoleon amended onto the Concordat in 1802. The Articles guaranteed the principle of religious toleration and made the Protestant and Jewish churches similarly subject to state authority (alongside the Catholic).

These are just a brief summary of some of the more liberal/revolution-informed aspects of Napoleon's governing.

The non-liberal ones I believe we're all pretty familiar with: suppression of the free press, roll-back of rights for women (women are for babies!), reinstatement of slavery (which he later reversed circa 1810/12-ish), top-down Emperor-has-final-word approach to ruling (Napoleon was all about Authority From Above, Trust From Below) etc. etc.

At the end of this, I would say Napoleon's empire falls into that "benevolent monarch" situation. For a given value of "benevolent." As stated at the start, he was like most other monarchs in Europe at the time. Better than some, not as great about certain things as others.

--

Really, it all ties back to Order and Stability.

Napoleon's assent, and his approach to strong, centralized ruling, was a result of uncertainty and constant government change over ten years of revolution alongside the growing belief, by 1803, that a republic like the Romans or Greeks was not going to happen any time soon. Not without constant warfare and the forever looming threat of a Bourbon restoration.

In addition, Napoleon was doing imperial drag. (If that makes sense.) He was dialing the notch of Emperor up to 11 - being the most emperor of all emperors. So, state control was absolute because he couldn't show any signs of weakness - either in his own body, his familial body, or the body of state. The court protocols were intense and over-the-top at times because he had to prove he was not just a second son of a parvenu lawyer from the sticks. No! he was worthy of this pomp. He was worthy of imperial majesty. He was worthy of the crown and scepter.

Napoleon was not raised to be anything other than a military officer and a middle-class head of a family (would have been a MASTER at doing Sunday Dad Puttering About the House). When he dawned the mantel of power, particularly that of empire, he had to make it up as he went along. For such a self-conscious and proud man, this was difficult. He never wanted to misstep and be embarrassed - on a personal level, political or military.

At the same time, he was reared on Rousseau and Revolution so still had those values and ideals imbedded in him, and those fears and memories. Napoleon knew as well as any Frenchman that a monarch's head is easily removable should it become necessary. Therefore, he sometimes ran roughshod over the liberty to ensure security. For better or worse, that was the choice he made.

--

Napoleon was a flawed leader with a complex approach to governing that was focused on a centralization of power within him while, at the same time, trying to be the Successor of the Revolution, the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire. Layers! Like an onion.

His approach as emperor really was within the realm of normal-for-the-times when compared to most other monarchs on the European stage in 1800. He also granted liberties to his people that were unheard of in other countries.

I feel like all my Napoleonic ramblings end with the same message: Dude was nuanced. Dude was complex. Dude did good things and bad things. Dude helped people and hurt people. Dude contained multitudes. Because he was simply human, at the end of the day.

--

ANNNNNNND we are done.

Gods bless all y'all who made it this far.

Have my favourite picture of Napoleon at Tuileries as a prize.

hmm that beautiful heavy, handed symbolism.

[evilelitest2]

Please don't insult Tsar Nicholas II by comparing him to Stalin. Yes, Nicholas had commited many truly vile shit, but... he wasn't an evil person by heart, just an autistic boy who was unlucky to be born in the position of absolute power in the most corrupt and opressive country in Europe. Unlike him, Stalin wasn't born in absolute power. Stalin has many chances to stop going over Old Bolshevic's heads for absolute power and establishing personality cult of himself, but he didn't.

I mean...he killed a lot of Jews dude. Like his secret police wrote The Elders of Zion, one of his long term goals was to eliminate all the Jews in Russia (the imperial policy was 1/3rd of Jews would be converted, 1/3rd killed, and 1/3rd exiled). like there is a reason why I am not a fan of Tsar Nicholas II. My girlfriend's great grandfather had to flee the country because of the pogroms and then again later when he became an activist. In my mind, Nicholas and Stalin are basically two different flavors of horrible Russian autocrat.

Nicholas was certainly a nicer person than Stalin, he was a caring husband and a good father (in a time period when that was not normal) and he was a friendly affable guy to those around him. Meanwhile Stalin was just kinda a dick to everybody at every moment. But when judging a historical figure, how nice they are and how sweet they were personally doesn't really change their policies. Also like...Nicholas was born into the richest family in the world. Stalin was a disabled ethnic minority born into an abusive household in relative poverty, I'm not really sure why Nicholas being from a super privileged background makes him less of a monster? It's true I feel a lot more sorry for Nicholas than Stalin, since his son was a hemophiliac and his entire family is murdered (which for the record I don't consider acceptable) but if we are talkin about autocracy the fact that Nicholas is more likable shouldn't change the fact that again, killed a lot of Jews.

Now Nicholas II was born into power and personally didn't want to be Tsar but...he was given many many opportunities to give up some amount of power and he didn't. He clung to power in the face of the advice from almost anybody who wasn't an arch royalist super conservative. Even if we compare him to other conservative Monarchists at the time, Nicholas is so stubbornly unwilling to share power that it literally gets him killed. In the last two years of his reign he and his wife prefer to lose the war rather than accept aid from the Duma/Worker's Councils. After the disasters Russo-Japanese war (a war that he caused due to his incompetence and lost due to his incompetence) you have the 1905 revolution where after the death of thousand of people and the crippling of the Russian economy finally gets Russia Duma. And then Nikki's Black Hundreds brutally massacre thousands in order to make the Duma largely a puppet organization, and leads a series of nation-wide pogroms against Jews (who he blamed for all of his own mistakes). And what does he do with this absolute power he so furiously clung too? Help get his country into WWI and then does so badly in that war that his dynasty gets overthrown. And when you get into the details of the Russian Revolution, it becomes clear that Russia could have won WWI and the Romanovs could have kept power had Nikki been at all flexible. He is remarkable in that almost every decision he made as Tsar was the worse possible decision he could have made, it's like the platonic ideal of a bad monarch.

Nicholas was an absolute monarch with a brutal secret police and one of the richest men in the world. And under his administration labor conditions were some of the worse in the Industrialized world, political freedom was denied. None of this was for the good of the empire or anyone really other than himself and his rich friends, its just that Nicholas did it under the name of "tradition". Sure he inherited his horrible state whose national motto was "Orthodoxy, Autocracy, Nationality" but he was an absolute monarch, he could change it if he so choose. And he didn't, when he oversaw two failed wars, two famines, and two revolutions, at no point does he ever take responsibility for his actions and go "Hey maybe I should take steps to prevent the suffering of my people."

In many ways, that is Nicholas II's greatest crime, he would have been happier as a Constitutional Monarch, but because he was so damn stubbornly conservative he wouldn't even change when it was in his self-interest. All of this was avoidable, had he simply accepted the reforms his people so desperately wanted, he could spend more time with his family, not have to worry so much about his heir, and could leave the governance of the empire (which he sucked at) to people who like....were at all good at it. He would have been great as a Constitutional monarch, he could just sit around and be sweet and then hang out with his family, but instead he stubbornly clung unto power and blamed all of his mistakes on the Jews. All to defend a job he didn't even enjoy. It was all....so avoidable, almost everything under his reign didn't need to happen if he had simply accepted reforms rather than retreat into his little fantasy bubble of pure Russian peasants loving their little father the Tsar.

And again, his secret police wrote the Elders of Zion, which is in competition for "Book with the Highest Death Count in History." And this document was written because Nicholas didn't want to share power. A ton of his loyalists are going to end up working for the Nazis.

Now most of Stalin's crimes came out of malice and most of Nicholas' (again, except the violent racism) came out of incompetence, which does matter in terms of understanding their motives and why they were awful, and I don't think Nicholas enjoyed the amount of death he brought the way Stalin did...but like if your family starves to death it doesn't really matter if it was done because the ruler actively was doing it on purpose or was too fucking stupid to understand how a supply chain worked--you are still dead. And in the case of the Jews, Nicholas was intentionally murdering them by the thousands for its own sake. Stalin was also a racist anti-Semite but you don't have full pogroms under his reign until the last year of his reign (and the Doctor's Plot is no in no way comparable to any of Nikki's pogroms). Again, Nicholas loved and encouraged the "Black Hundreds" who were basically Russian fascists.

And Nicholas wasn't just a raging anti-Semite, he was also a white supremacist and a Russian nationalist. Despite being mostly Danish and German himself, with barely any Russian ancestry, Nicholas got super into the whole Russian supremacy thing, and his empire actively tried to wipe out the languages, cultures and religions of the ethnic minorities in his empire, most infamously in Poland, Ukraine, and Georgia. In fact, part of the traumatic childhood that probably made Stalin so bad was getting beaten for speaking Georgian (his native language) in school. And Nicholas' anti-Asian racism led to him buying whole hog into the Yellow Peril conspiracy theory, the original "White Genocide," which was a huge factor in the disastrous Russo-Japanese war (he regularly referred to the Japanese as "yellow monkeys").

Now Stalin did kill a lot more people than Nicholas over he course of his reign, that can't be denied, so at the end of the Day Stalin is worse than Nicholas in my mind. But not by much: Nicholas' regime would have killed more if he was competent enough to pull it off, and his stubborn stupidity in the face of an empire in desperate need of reform still killed millions of people. And what's more he never seemed to care. So getting up in arms about even comparing him to Stalin is ridiculous, revisionist, and probably a little bit classist, as well as implicitly counting the murder of Jews as less bad than the murder of Christians.

[rainydaydream-gal18]

Cal Kestis x Reader: Continued

(Author's Note: Oh wow, so I finally have a fic to publish! It's been a while since I've posted any Cal Kestis content. I hope my Star Wars crew enjoys it! I am currently working on a Hobbit fanfic as well, so stay tuned. Again, thank you for your patience and support. I've had some serious writer's block, and I'm glad to finally have something for you guys. Apologies, I need to fix the spacing and indentation since I am publishing on my phone right now. But for now, enjoy!)

    The forests of Kashyyk were dense, and the air was humid.  It was a great space for training, which is why you and your mentor-slash-boyfriend Cal Kestis were there.  Plus, he had made friends with the Wookies on his journey and liked to check up on them every now and then.  

   Focusing your energy, you launched yourself off a boulder towards the platform above.  You made the landing with ease, shooting your companion a pointed look.  Your skills were certainly improving.  Training more with Cal was paying off.

    Your victory was short-lived, though.  Moments after your feet met the platform, they slipped on the wet surface and caused you to stumble backwards.  You didn’t fall very far before a strong hand grasped yours, pulling you the rest of the way up until you were face-to-broad-chest with Cal.

    “Hey,” you said.

    He chuckled.  “Hey.”  

    BD-1, who had previously been resting on his shoulder, jumped off and gave a few amused beeps.

    You smiled at the droid before meeting Cal’s gaze again.“Thank you for that.  I wasn’t really looking to fall on my butt today.”

    He shook his head and took a step back.  “If you were focusing more instead of bragging  with your eyes….”

    “Oh, please.”  He was right, of course, but you waved his comment off.  Finally, you sighed and conceded, “alright, I’ll try and be more focused and less braggy.”

    At that, he chuckled again and kissed you on the forehead.  It was the strangest thing.  One moment, he was pulling away, and in the next moment you were locking lips.  It was gentle with passionate undertones.  His arms wrapped around you, and your hands rested on his shoulders.

    The sound of Wookie speech interrupted your moment.  You and Cal broke away abruptly and put a little distance between you.  The small patrol of Wookies weren’t fooled, though, and they eyed you both slyly.  One let out a smug phrase in their language, and you felt your cheeks grow warm.

    BD-1 let out beeps of laughter and jumped back up onto Cal’s shoulder.  He seemed to be blushing too, which was a rare but cute sight.

    “Hello there,” Cal greeted the patrol with the wave of his hand, recovering from the moment.

    The Wookies greeted him in response, and as they conversed, you took in the world around you.  It was very beautiful there.  Such a shame that the Imps were trying to take over and enslave the brave people who lived there.  You were careful not to allow bitterness and hate take hold, but it definitely created some unsettling feelings in you.  It is difficult to feel compassion and care for something and not get upset when it’s threatened.  However,  is it possible that your compassion could extend to all?  Of course you were opposed to what the Empire was doing, but perhaps there was room for compassion towards the individuals brought up in the regime, those who were sucked in out of fear or lack of purpose. How dark it must be for them.  There may be a way to reach them...

    Your train of thought was interrupted by Cal’s beckoning gesture.  You had been so deep in thought, not even realizing that you were beginning to wander.  You strided back towards the platform and leaped up to join the others, making sure to focus and not slip off this time.

    “The Wookies say they’re very happy to be working with us.  They’ve invited us back for a meal.”

    “Oh, that’s great,” you replied, smiling.  As exciting as it would be to dine with another culture, a part of you was nervous.  You weren’t exactly fluent in Wookie, nor were you familiar with their customs.

    As if sensing your feelings, which he probably did, Cal offered a soft smile.  “I’ve been catching up on my language skills, so don’t worry.  I can translate, and it’ll be a learning experience for us both.”

    You nodded, feeling more at ease.  Cal explained to the Wookies that he and you needed to check in with the rest of the Mantis crew because apparently they were invited as well.  You’d return to that spot in the forest shortly.

    As you parted ways with your allies for a short while, you sensed something was off.  There was a particularly dark feeling that was nagging you under the surface.

    “You feel that?” Cal asked, suddenly growing tense.

    “Yes,” you nodded.

    Suddenly a blast came out from nowhere, and you quickly activated your lightsaber to deflect it.  Cal activated his as well and got into a defensive stance, holding the blade close.

    A small squad of Imperial Troopers were nearby, you could feel it.  They were hidden away as they fired at you and your companion.

   Despite your ability to deflect these blasts, you were getting tired of them remaining safe while you and Cal were sitting ducks. You wanted this fight to end quickly.  So you paused your deflecting, drawing in a calm breath. You focused and pulled the opponents from their hiding places in the brush. They all came flying into the clearing at once, shouting. You held them in place for a moment. 

    When you opened your eyes, Cal was gazing at you with lips parted in amazement. You glanced around and realized the troopers had been knocked off their feet and were still recovering.

    You were just as surprised by your move as he was. With lightsaber in hand, you approached the closest trooper. The glowing blade hummed as you gave it a spin in your hand and aimed it at him.

   "Please, no!" The trooper begged. 

   "You are endangering these people. They've been through enough, don't you think?" You questioned, tone sharp.

   Cal grew uneasy beside you, but didn't intervene. He must have sensed that you meant this individual no harm.

  "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," the trooper continued.

  "We are all capable of darkness. So I want you to remember this moment the next time you are faced with a decision; the next time the Empire demands that you take a life or try to enslave it." Your tone grew softer as you knelt down. "I will keep fighting you if you choose to keep attacking, but I'm giving you the chance to walk away. Remember this moment, and think about what you'd want if you were in their place." 

   At that, you rose to your feet. Other troopers had gotten back on their feet as well and begun aiming blasters at you. The trooper in front of you held up his gloved hand as a sign for them to halt. 

  "We will say that the jedi were too strong and that we had to retreat," he informed them.

   One tried to protest. "But, sir-" 

   "Let's go," he insisted. "We don't belong here."

   And they left. They hurried away into the forest, and you turned to Cal. "We're fighters," you said, "but we're also supposed to value mercy and peace."

   "A very important lesson," he agreed. "I struggled with it for some time after order 66. But moving on doesn't mean I have to be okay with what happened. Perhaps, I can bring about more change with meaningful words and action rather than just a lightsaber, like what you just did."

    "Maybe it changed something for the better, maybe not." You shrugged. "I guess we'll find out."

    "Let's get back to the Mantis. We need to fill them in on everything and make it to dinner with the Wookies on time."

    "I really worked up an appetite there," you agreed. "Let's go."  He leaned in and planted a kiss on your lips.  "What was that for?"

   "Oh, no reason. You're just beautiful, is all."

   You rolled your eyes, smiling. 

[yourfriendlysummoner]

Analyses of Inspector Thauvin chapter 1: Harsh Glances, Proof of Worth

Noxus. A mighty and fearsome expanding Empire that is never satisfied of its hunger for more power and lands. This desire can be extinguished by the great Trifarian Legion, an unstoppable and dedicated army that spreads rampage on its path.

But, like every regime, Noxus has its weaknesses. There are threats from the inside that can ruin everything in a heartbeat with any tragic mistake the Grand General can make. And because he has foreseen it – like everything after all – he has taken his very drastic measures to combat the possible treason from faces that wear invisible masks…

~~~

“It’s him, step aside!” One of the guards whispered nervously to his companion to the sight of the new superweapon Swain hired for his mysterious plans and military success.

The soldiers stared with faces that betrayed their fear for the unknown, their teeth were almost showing in fear and instinct to put the tail between the legs.

A quiet, almost unnoticed scoff could be heard. It couldn’t remain hidden. It shouldn’t. They are Noxian soldiers that have seen so many battlefields that something like that shouldn’t bother their eyes so much…

“G- Grand General! Your weapon is here…”

“Excellent. Bring him in.”

“Move it!” The guard yelled with the most nervous voice he had ever heard, as he shoved his axe threateningly at his direction. The uniquely for the Noxian standards armed man tried to hold his mocking smile. The bloke was too desperate to show his rank superiority, and it was something utterly futile.

He held his smile for the very special moment of standing in front of the Grand General himself, in his own noble mansion.

“You must be Inspector Beau Thauvin.” Swain sounded very sophisticated as he asked.

“In flesh and bone, your weapon is here. At your mighty will, Grand General.” Inspector Thauvin is rarely the one that will talk big and fanfaring  words, its other people that will usually flatter him unnecessarily. But, this time he decided to allow a change.

“I cannot hide my enthusiasm that you honour us with your services, Inspector.” Indeed, Swain’s boring, merry impatience couldn’t hide deep behind his aged and refined facial features.

“I can see it…” Thauvin didn’t hesitate to intensify his remarkable unimpression in his aristocratic leader face. Risky, but that’s him, either you like it or not.

Swain shook his head and raised his brows in neutral shock the Inspector’s behaviour caused, but soon his expression changed dramatically to being more interested. He stroked his chin with a stoic face. “You have the privilege to determine when do you wish to start your work, since it is you–”

“Right now.” The robotic determination of his clear and silvery voice cut Swain’s easiness in pieces, along with his intendedly causal phrase.

Don’t try to be at ease with me, General!…

Jericho’s breathe was cut and hitched to the sharp suggestion, if you want, that the man voiced. He froze for several second clusters, but it was enough to get noticed by the sly agent’s eye.

He cleared his throat. “Very well,” He drowned his uneasiness. “You have to know, however, that my bidding is never built on a silky, straight road, Inspector…”

“If this really was a threat, m’ Lord, then I’m deeply sorry, because, for your information, I never apply for a task that is easy. I don’t play the dolls, and I seek to be effective to the common cause I eventually share with my employer.” His eyes were shining threatening bravery and fatal truth. His arms audaciously folded close to his chest, after his rudely bold words towards the very first man of Noxus…

Well, this wasn’t really wise of him to do. But he knows. He never lets uncalculated actions pass, and knowing his necessity and utility to Noxus, Swain would never had the guts to risk the Inspector’s safety for his pride.

“Whatever, Thauvin…” His sharp tone indicated his very restrained attempt to hide his lost patience. “Shall we move to the main reason you are here then?” Thauvin laughed so hard in his head with how hurt Swains good intention to be polite was, but outside he looked stern and imperious to the simplest and humblest way.

“That’s why I’m here, Grand General. Move on, then.”

Swain calmed his tension down with a deep breath before moving on to explaining his first mission as an agent of Noxus.

“Since you have lived by us for quite a while, you have probably heard of or seen with your eyes the occupied by deviant protesters north-eastern suburban territory.” Swain explained.

“Have heard of it.”

“It’s a pain in the arse the recent weeks!” Swain’s voice cracked with laughter. “Counsellor Darius’ Trifarian Legion is off to occupation missions, and my capital patrols are pretty inefficient against the savage brutes.” Noble opponents of the Trifarix are a bit more easily controlled in the Empire than openly protesting savage brutes.

“I understand.” That is all he had to say.

“Don’t you have anything to add?”

“Not really. Can I have some of your inefficient patrols?”

Swain raised an eyebrow.

~~~

“What is the plan, Inspector?” The patrol’s commander asked. These soldiers where more civilized than the guards of Swain’s mansion. Beau liked that.

He didn’t answer him immediately. He had to first spectate the situation by himself. That was exactly what he expected: an angered handful of folks gathered in a group, united like a fist and overly concentrated to their pitiful riot.

“Inspector?…” The soldier repeated, this time seemingly hesitating to do so, but impatient for an answer as well. Weak minds…

“The plan is the following: you go and trap them into a circle made of your unit’s men.”

“B- but, Inspector? Our unit can easily be decimated by these angry people! I- I mean, these treacherous dogs!!” His voice was so nervous in fear of having sounded more compassionate than he should be, he almost bit his tongue. Thauvin really has his time in that city, very fun idiots to work with. A shame he can’t show it, sacrificing his urge to laugh on their faces to professionalism.

“You didn’t let me finish.” The rudeness in his phrase didn’t drown in his sternness’ deep bottom. Instead, it floated on its surface, seemingly shaming the commander.

Beau broke the silence again, with his more defined explanations of his plan. “Your circle is going to both trap them and bamboozle them. Here I have a paralyzing detonator that will make them have some sweet dreams for a good while, allowing us to disarm them and send them to the justice they deserve without killing them. This is for the Grand General to decide. They are simple citizens after all. But: be careful not to stand too close to the area the detonator will affect, otherwise you’ll get electrocuted as well. Five feet are a good distance to keep from my target. Was I well understood?”

He always uses his charisma in leadership in his tone, combining it with his influencing and confident body language, while at the same time being extremely simple and direct, so he is easily understood. Perfect, as he always aims to achieve by practicing his profession.

And as he predicted, everyone said no more. A positive nod was enough to pass into action.

However, predictions always have their holes…

“I don’t think it will work.” A young man, at least in his early twenties, voiced with pure audacity and steadiness in his voice.

Thauvin looked at him with serious, half – closed eyes of caustic humiliation.

Silence. Many of the soldiers turned to each other with confusion and a chilling but suppressed fear.

“And who are you to determine it, o genius from nowhere?” He asked, faking suspicion in his tone.

“I’m Tommy Brant, sir! Co – commander of the Capital Patrol!” The boy stood straight with too much pride filling his lungs…

“Interesting… And how someone as young as you gained such a high rank in this armed force?”

“I—”

“He has just returned from the Tokogol fort, sir, one of the best soldiers that got this promotion as a reward!” A woman answered nervously instead of Brant. Her name was Myriam Cole, Captain of the Patrol.

“Hmm… Weird reward. Oh, and I was asking him not you.” His harsh glance made her look down to her feet in shame.

“Yes, sir…”

“What was I saying? Oh, yeah. You shouldn’t question me, Co – commander Brant. And you really can’t, since Commander Achim here takes my orders today.”

The young soldier prepared himself to talk back, but Thauvin’s collected voice was faster than his.

“With my signal! Ready!…”

The anticipation and worry about failure had filled their hearts. This was probably the riskiest strategy they had ever faced in their lives. Some even though that the Grand General was very desperate to hire such a mad guy to lead them, but obviously kept them for themselves, a thought that should never be revealed for their sake…

Nevertheless, they tried their best to have bodies and minds alarmed for the signal and therefore the action.

Foreheads wet in sweat, breathes hitched, weapons grasped in fists…

But most importantly…

“Go!”

And the mission started. The soldiers ran as fast as possible, choosing paths behind buildings to go unnoticed by the crowd in the square of the north–eastern suburbs.

Thauvin used his long-range binoculars to spectate. He let a small, crooked smirk on his lips, in approval of their clever action. At this rate, no one would get fatally hurt. They weren’t that stupid then…

Enough about the police though. He had to think about his own part as well. The easy stuff. He used his Hextech jet boots to reach the target faster. He jumped on a balcony with the boost of his jets, so he could have a better view of the situation.

He reactivated his binoculars, this time on sniper mode. With the help of his precise rifle, designed by himself to be foolproof like a preying vulture, he would shoot his detonator at the protesters.

Meanwhile, down there the nervous Patrol Unit soldiers were ponting their axes and swords at the people they had trapped – that seemed to be the case. The angry citizens yelled at them, cursed Noxus, demanded more rights and freedom, threatened to attack them and even spat on their faces.

Brant wiped spit from his eye and yelled for order nervously. Some others, more brutal and experienced went farther than just a harmless threat, even on unarmed protesters.

“I should make this quick or it will turn to be a tragedy. I won’t tolerate  making a bad name of myself…” Beau’s voice sounded quite at ease, despite the pressuring time that threatened his plan tremendously…

He just stood there, placing his feet steadily on the narrow surface of the balcony’s railing, and aimed with concentration at the rioters…

Steady….

The situation was about to worsen at the square. Someone could be heard warning that he’d light a fire to burn the statue of some forgotten warlord very few speak of nowadays. This wasn’t good, Thauvin thought. He had to act quickly, so that he wouldn’t lose his unit to a bunch of random people that disliked their country…

His earpiece was unfortunately connected to the commanders, to be able to have control of the situation in all the possible senses. “What takes you so long, Inspector!?!”

“Shut the hell up and let me concentrate, do your job, Commander!”

“Whatever, be quick, they are trying to-“

“Much better.” He smiled at himself for deactivating the earpiece and turned to his target with the greatest focus possible. Let’s end this quick…

It all depended on a press of his trigger, lucky for them, it had to be his.

One last deep breath and the missile went to find its target on the ground. The force that was created by the shot threw Thauvin inside the balcony, causing him to reflexively backflip and accidentally break the window with his heavy equipment.

He swore under his breath as he shook his head to ease the bodily shock. As he turned his head to witness the damage he caused, he faced a scared woman in her nightdress and facemask.  

“M’ lady? Don’t worry about this mess, I’m paying for it. Oh, almost forgot this.” He pressed a button on his modified ATLAS glove and a bright blue light could be seen from the square, accompanied by a considerably loud noise.

He smirked. “Finally, I started getting bored of this.”

“H- he… Actually did this…” The Commander said in his relieved breath, and almost passed out of shock.

The other soldiers cheered and thanked the gods for surviving this craze. But the three in command still quietly questioned Thauvin’s method, even after observing the paralysing detonator electrocute the protesters that fainted right away in front of their eyes.

However, some reckless and ignorant soldiers were affected as well, as a result of not keeping the right distance like the Inspector warned… “His crazy plans will kill us all! Imagine going on the first mission with someone so popular of his kind and getting blasted men in the process!” Commander Achim exclaimed at Cole and Brant.

“I honestly don’t understand what the Grand General had in his mind when he hired that madman…” Brant touched his chin. His gaze on the ground betrayed his insecurities.

“Whatever he is up to, we must

“Whatever he is up to, we must remain quiet. Any reckless move and we lose our power. Both of you, remember that you are not on top of this anymore.” Cole’s voice sounded sharp and plain, indicating that she was completely serious and plain, indicating that she was very serious.

The two men nodded with clear dysphoria, but as much as they hated to admit it, she was right…

~~~

Swain was more than pleased to observe on his balcony all of the protester’s hands bound with cuffs behind their backs and lead in a line to jail by the Patrol Unit. He lowered his telescope and smiled at Thauvin that stood at attention behind him. “Congratulations, Inspector!

“You promised difficulty.” He faked serious disappointment to bluff, once again interrupting his sentence.

The Grand General almost held his breath. Then a sigh followed. “Not your level, I suppose…” His husky voice was quiet. “Never mind, you won’t get away with so relaxing missions, I assure you… Dismissed…”

Thauvin nodded and left his quarters with his hands clasped behind his back. He surely expected something actually difficult, but kept that day’s event in the back of his head nonetheless…

[randomnameless]

BL run, Hubbie’s dead and Edel ascended to a winged... thing, being. It looks weird and made me think about a creepy angel and a weird... horror thing.

Is she still going on a “Eww dragons” leitmotiv to continue the war ?

I don’t understand why all those claims of “Rhea created a church to venerate her mother” are still around, given how Seteth and Flayn’s mom met in a church way before Seiros became a saint and the Church of Seiros was established.

So either the previous god worshipped in those churches was Jesus of Arkansas, or it was Sothis herself (because those puny humans worship higher beings who shared their technology/magic with them). We don’t have any clue about another deity-like being in Fodlan, so I suppose Sothis was the one venerated in this pre-Seiros church.

Anyways... I forgot but Linhardt died in the Manu prologue, i didn’t feel a thing as exposed earlier because all of the BE students can choose to rebel (as seen in SS) but they don’t.

Here, Petra died and there’s one thing I don’t understand with her : she’s most likely aware that she’s a political hostage, but she loves her country and wants to be a good ruler.

So... she must side with Edel as her vassal, but then, in SS, she doesn’t because she doesn’t agree with the Empire’s “eww dragon” propaganda and their imperialistic means/goals.

But in CF, and here, I felt as if Petra endorsed 100% Edel’s continental war plan which is, uh, weird because :

- her own country was subjugated, her parents died due to the war and she’s an hostage

- she’s willing to let the same thing happen to the other states in Fodlan? (jokes on her though, since the Kingdom of faerghus never existed, Dimitri’s cousin (his uncle’s child?) won’t be used as a hostage but as wyvern food)

The “but if she sides with us Briggid will be attacked” argument doesn’t stand because when she does, Hubbie comes in quite late (only in a paralogue) to draft the Briggid guys into the Imperial forces - they weren’t enroled in the imperial forces during the timeskip ? 5 fucking years? even wonder france managed to draft our ultra-marine randoms earlier during WW1 so if wonder france can do it everyone can

Ultimately Petra makes her last stand in Enbarr to protect the capital, while supporting Edel’s goals so off she goes. Gilbert (lel) killed her with his Hauteclaire (on that point, the Archanea Regalia is noted to have been used in the War of Heroes - i know it’s an easter egg, but it’s funny).

I didn’t understand if House Varley’s reinforcments were the winged beasts, the assassins or the ninjas... It doesn’t really matter, because bar the ninjas, those reinforcements are really creepy! What is going on in House Varley?!

Note that Bernie’s dad, who’s hated in a good part of the fandom, used to be the minister of religion or something like that, but he opposed Edel and was placed under house arrest, when Bernie’s mom supports Edel’s regime.

Bernie’s worried about hurting her mom (if they fight in Enbarr she might be a casualty) but... of course the minister of religion would be opposed to the war against the church - and given how Edel uses beasts as a staple of her army - who on Naga can support the war? Bernie’s mom most likely doesn’t know what those beasts are (her friendly neighbour Stacey?) but if “eww dragons” is a reason enough to fight against the church, “eww monsters” should be a reason enough to get the fuck out of here.

Hubert’s last lines were... disappointing. I grew fond of him in CF because he was playable, but, again double standard, i can’t understand why Catherine “the zealot” receives so much flak for being so devoted to her lord when Hubert’s escaping the wave of flak scot-free.

I know Hubert is more then Edel’s evil chancelor sidekick, just like Catherine is more than Rhea’s matches but jeez

Speaking of Catherine, BL route doesn’t explore her character more than SS did, there’s just this tidbit with her still alive and kickin’ dad and that’s it...

Interesting to note though, that contrary to the Silver Snow version of this chapter, here we don’t have to save random civilians. So Edel must have evacuated them earlier (but then we’ve seen Claude do it so why couldn’t they spare a line for Edel?) or the “kill/use civilians as meatshield” is exclusive to the Black Eagles route.

Dimitri went to talk to Edel, it went nowhere but the grudge Edel has against the Church and the Goddess who didn’t answer her prayers when she needed them wasn’t tackled on the other routes.

To Edel, she wasn’t strong to begin with, she started off weak and became strong. To Dimitri, you can’t become strong by trampling the weak like Edel does.

The line about Dimitri not understanding what the commoners want made me smile, not because he lived with them during his exile years, but because the same argument can be opposed to Edel, and if Dorothea is the sole representative of “The Commoners” then it sucks for them :p also Edel can’t understand what the commoners want since they turned into biological monsters...

That convo would have been better if it happened before the time-skip and before Flamey’s stuff, but it didn’t.

Ultimately I think I got the goal of that converstation, if Edel talked or had been more open with Dimitri about her issues/problems, then they could have worked together. OTOH, even in the pre-timeskip, Edel already wrote him as irrelevant and was dead-set on her goal so it wasn’t possible.

The only time-frame where I can see the two of them working together would be before Edel returns to the Empire, but that would require rewritting the plot way too much (if they told nuncle Arry to fig off and if Edel remained in the Kingdom? but then if Lambert allowed this it would be seen as kidnapping a foreign heir and Ionus would have started a war, I guess.)

Time to kill Myson (I wonder if the FE16 verion of Hel summons illusions of naked women like FE5) and end this route.

[codetrainwreck]

Britannian History Lessons

I have no idea who translated these. They were extras with the season one DVDs.

The Origin of Britannia Part 1

Lelouch: So here's the first session. Suzaku: You haven't changed, Lelouch. I don't think people will understand what this session is for. Lelouch: I don't need those who don't understand. You can only learn if you're prepared to learn! Suzaku: I'm not sure about those Zero-influenced lines... Oh, but you were always easily influenced as a child. You used to imitate superheroes. Lelouch: Stop talking about something so long ago! Suzaku: But aren't we talking about history today? We have to talk about long ago. Lelouch: Urgh... being a smart aleck? I'm leaving. Suzaku: Sorry, so sorry. I'm ready to learn, Professor Lelouch. Lelouch: Good. Then tell me. Do you know when Britannia was formed? Suzaku: Of course. This year is 2017 of the Imperial Calendar, so it was 2017 years ago. Lelouch: Wrong. Suzaku: What? But the Imperial Calendar — "a.t.b." means "Ascension Throne Britannia," meaning "the year Britannia assumed the throne," right? Lelouch: It seems you did your homework. I'm impressed. Suzaku: It's common knowledge. Besides, I was tested during the Honorary Britannian appointment. Lelouch: Then, the grounds of the ascension? Suzaku: Um... I think it was triggered when Julius Caesar tried to invade... Lelouch: That's right. And one of the Celtic tribal kings who resisted is said to be the ancestor of the Britannian Royal Family. He gained freedom from Rome and was coronated — although it was more like becoming a chieftan — that year is the first year of the Imperial Calendar. Now, what's the name of this king? Suzaku: Um......... I give up. Lelouch: Hey, Suzaku! You don't have this simple information!? It's on the next test! Suzaku: Well, I was busy, so... Lelouch: Then look it up by the next time we meet. Got it?

The Origin of Britannia Part 2

Lelouch: So Suzaku, I'm assuming you did your homework. Suzaku: Of course, Lelouch. Here. Lelouch: Alwin I, eh? Yes, you're correct. You pass! Suzaku: But people won't understand what we're talking about just from this! Lelouch: I, Lelouch, order you. If you want to know, buy the first volume of the DVD! Suzaku: You're so easily influenced. Anyway... Alwin I is known to be the ancestor of the Britannian Royal Family. He gained freedom from Rome and became the first chieftan, and that year is the year Britannia was formed. I'm right, aren't I? Lelouch: For now, yes. Then can you tell me who was the Emperor of Rome at the time? Suzaku: ... I give up. Lelouch: It was Augustus. Remember that. Now, this Alwin I is only a figure from a legend and there is no proof that he existed. The history of the Empire, the "Britannia Chronology," indicates that he really existed, but this chronology was created when the Holy Empire of Britannia was founded. So when they founded the empire is when they stuck on the legacy of the Royal Family's blood as an afterthought to assure their ascension. It's common in kingship and imperialism. Suzaku: So when am I supposed to recognize when Britannia was founded? Lelouch: I guess you can regard Britannia's beginnings to be when the descendents of the Tudor family line who went to the New World ended and the Duke of Britannia started the imperial regime. The Imperial Calendar was established then too. It extended back in history and set the first year as a thousand and a couple hundred years ago. Suzaku: I see. Lelouch: Now, do you know when that year was? And who was the emperor who was coronated? Suzaku: Imperial Calendar 1813. The Emperor was Ricardo van Britannia I. Lelouch: Correct. It looks like you studied hard. Suzaku: Yeah. Cecile helped me too. Lelouch: Cecile? Who's that? Suzaku: My superior of the department I'm in. Lelouch: A woman, eh? You're good at debauching as always. Suzaku: Debauch... that's not true! Lelouch: You were always good at getting older women to like you. Suzaku: I'm not doing it on purpose! Besides, why are you bringing up the past like that? Lelouch: Huh? You said it first. That we're discussing "history." Suzaku: Urgh...

The Virgin Queen Elizabeth

Milly: What are you two doing? Suzaku: Oh, hello. I'm learing Britannian history from Lelouch. Milly: I see. But if it's history, you should ask me. You know that my character's description is "has a great knowledge in history and will cooly observe the changing world with Zero's presence." Lelouch: That description is way old. There's no hint of it anywhere. Milly: Oh, Lelouch. You are so cheeky. Don't you agree? Suzaku: Uh, um... I can't say much there (sweat). Milly: Oh well. Even without that in my description, I'm good at history. The Ashford family has nobility in its line, after all. Lelouch: Formerly, you mean. Milly: Oh, shush. Whose fault do you think that is? Lelouch: Urgh... (sweating heavily). Well, anyway. It's a good opportunity to ask the president if you have any questions, Suzaku. Suzaku: Let's see... then can you tell me about the era of absolute monarchism — about the Elizabeth I from the Tudor dynasty? She's called the Virgin Queen, but isn't it weird that she has a chld? Milly: That names comes from the fact that she was single for her whole life. There's her famous line, "I have already joined myself in marriage to a husband — my country." Suzaku: But she has a kid. Was it Henry IX? Milly: Yes. Bluntly speaking, it was an illegitimate child. Elizabeth I didn't marry, but she had many lovers. The Earl of Leicester, Earl of Essex and the Duke of Britannia are among the possible fathers. She switched between lovers all of her life. I'm a little jealous. Lelouch: So she was an Amazon. Like someone we know. Milly: What was that, Lelouch? What are you trying to say? Suzaku: I think he meant that you are similar to Elizabeth I. Lelouch: Hey, Suzaku, shut up! You idiot! Milly: I see. By the way, Vice President, did you finish the documents I asked for? Lelouch: No, I've been busy lately... I'll have it done by tomorrow's deadline. Milly: I changed my mind. I want it now. Lelouch: That's high-handed, President! Milly: Call me Queen!

Sakuradite and the Age of Exploration

Suzaku: Unh... Shirley: What's wrong, Suzaku? Are you constipated? Suzaku: Yeah, I feel so bloated... Hey, what are you making me say, Shirley? Shirley: Hee hee. I've been hanging around the President too long. But I'm surprised that you could kid around like that. Suzaku: Lelouch trains me well, doesn't he? Shirley: You guys are really close... I'm so jealous. So, why were you groaning? Suzaku: This. "In (a)'s 'Description of the World,' he describes a country known as Jipang, meaning Japan, and that it is a golden island. But it is foolish to think that this country was rich in gold; rather, it was rich in (b). At the time in Europe, research that was inspired by (c) led to the discovery of an energy source but there was not enough of it, and this hindered the progress. (a)'s 'Discovery of the World' moved the people to explore the world and eventually led to the discovery of the former United States, currently the conquered territory of Britannia." Shirley: Let's see... "Fill in the blanks. If you can." What is this? Why does this worksheet sound so condescending? Suzaku: Lelouch made it. All of his worksheets are like this. Shirley: Oh, Lulu... (laugh) So the answer to "a" is "Marco Polo," b is "Sakuradite," and c is "alchemy." Suzaku: Wow, you're good in history! Shirley: No, I'm ot. But I'm good with minerals and geosciences. My father is a geologist. He works in the bureau and he goes around investigating geological conditions. Suzaku: I see... Shirley: But this worksheet really shows Lulu's personality. Suzaku: Yeah, but I wish... it would show a little more love. Shirley: What are you talking about? It shows a ton of love! Lulu would never do this for anyone he didn't care for. I'm really jealous now. Suzaku: Why don't you tell him that you like him? Shirley: Well... huh!? How do you know that I... Suzaku: It's actually quite obvious. I think the only one who doesn't know is Lelouch. Shirley: I'll tell him myself eventually! So please don't tell him. Promise? Suzaku: Of course. Shirley: Thanks!

The Rebellion of Washington

Lelouch: ~~ ♪ C.C.: You're in an awfully good mood. Humming, eh? Lelouch: !! Oh, I didn't know you were there, C.C. C.C.: Why are you so flustered? ... Huh? What's that? Lelouch: It's none of your buisness. C.C.: Let's see... "Write the reason why the Rebellion of Washington in the Colonies ended in failure in 1770 a.t.b. in 1,200 words." Is this homework? But it's odd that you're making the worksheet... Lelouch: It's for Suzaku. Just go away! C.C.: The Rebellion of Washington... that was a long time ago. It's easy. It's because Ben betrayed the Continental Congress. Lelouch: Ben? C.C.: Oh, sorry, I mean Benjamin Franklin. Lelouch: Why can't you just call him the Earl of Franklin? Yes, it's true that Franklin went to France to ask Louis XVI to support their independence and failed. But that's not the main reason they lost, is it? C.C.: Well, Louis was willing to help. But when Ben went to France, he met the Duke of Britannia. And he was offered a title and some land in the Colonies, and fell for it. Ben is the type who prefers research to war... he was a kind man. No, too kind. If Ben had asked Louis for support, Louis would've given them an army and the Continental Army wouldn't have lost in Yorktown. And George — I mean, Washington — wouldn't have died and America wouldn't have become territorialized. Lelouch: The Duke of Britannia was involved!? That's not in any of the history materials! C.C.: But it's the truth. Lelouch: ... You talk as if you saw it happen. Could you have possibly...!? C.C.: I'm C.C. I know everything. For example, I can name the song you were just humming. Lelouch: !!!!! C.C.: Was it from 8 years ago? The special effects fighting show that aired on Sunday mornings in Japan. Lelouch: Okay! I got it! Shut up! Sheesh, you're such a... C.C.: You're still naive, Lelouch. You can't beat me in a thousand years. Lelouch: Do you mean figuratively? C.C.: Hee hee. Who knows?

The Humiliation at Edinburgh Lelouch: Good. Good. Damn. Good. Suzaku: Lelouch, can you stop correcting my worksheet out loud? Lelouch: No. Suzaku: Why not!? Lelouch: It's fun watching your reaction when you get something wrong. Suzaku: Lelouch, you're a sadist. Lelouch: Okay, 85%. You did pretty good. Suzaku: Because I have a good teacher. Lelouch: Hmph. Flattery won't get you anything! Suzaku: I'm not flattering you. I really think so. Thanks, Lelouch. Lelouch: ... Anyway, today's session... Suzaku: Um, we're at the end of the 1700s, when the citizens were starting a revolution. Lelouch: That's right. Ahem. At the end of the 1700s, all of Europe was facing rebellions that were triggered by the French Revolution. That was when Napoleon started gaining power, was crowned, and had a hold on almost all of Europe. He looked to expand to the British Isles, won the Battle of Trafalgar and held naval supremacy. He then took his 120,000 men and landed on British soil and thereafter advanced to London. The queen at that time, Elizabeth III, was chased to Edinburgh where she was captured by the citizens who supported Napoleon. She was forced to abolish the monarchy in a.t.b. 1807, which is known as the... Suzaku: "Humiliation at Edinburgh." Lelouch: Right. And the one who saved the queen is Ricardo van Britannia, the man who eventually founded the Britannia Empire. Suzaku: So his existence was important to history. Lelouch: Not so fast. That's why you're so naive. You forgot an important person. He will later be featured in many novels, plays and movies: Ricardo's right-hand man and best friend, and the strongest knight. He was the head of the Knights of the Round, the "Knight of One" — Sir Richart Hector. Suzaku: Oh! I think I've heard of him! I think I saw the movie, too. Lelouch: Then there's no problem. Without Richart, the escape from Edinburgh to the New World wouldn't have happened. Suzaku: I see... Lelouch: Then next we'll talk about the founding of the Britannia Empire. Make sure to study! Suzaku: Yes, Professor Lelouch.

The Formation of Britannia Nunnally: Oh, I didn't know you were here. Suzaku: Yeah. Lelouch was teaching me. Nunnally: When you're done, would you like to have dinner with us? They're preparing it now. Suzaku: Thanks, I'd love to. Lelouch: Then Suzaku, we'll move on to the formation of Britannia. Did you study for this? Suzaku: Leave it to me. So Elizabeth III and the aristocrats who followed her went to the New World and set up a capital on the East Coast. They started conquering America, but Elizabeth III died without leaving an heir. Lelouch: Yeah. And normally they would choose one from among the relatives, but Elizabeth appointed her lover, Ricardo van Britannia I, as the heir on her deathbed. And that is how the Holy Empire of Britannia came to be. Suzaku: It's an unbelievable story. She's known as the "Queen who lived an eventful life for love," right? She might've been nice as a lady, but I'm doubtful about her as a ruler. Lelouch: Woah! Stop, Suzaku! Suzaku: Huh? Nunnally: I see... you don't like Elizabeth III? You don't think she had what it took to be a ruler? Suzaku: Huh? What's going on? Why do I feel so cornered? Nunnally: I see... Excuse me, I must go. Suzaku: What happened? Did I say something? Lelouch: Nunnally is a fan of Elizabeth III. When she was younger, she read a highly innacurate story that depicted her as a tragic queen. Suzaku: Oh, I see. I'm sorry. I didn't know. Lelouch: Well, it's not anything new that you can't read the atmosphere. I'm glad you didn't bring up the theory that she assassinated Napoleon, because the damage would've been even more severe. Suzaku: You mean, the theory that Napoleon died on his way back to France after the loss at Waterloo because of poison in his food put in by Elizabeth's men? Lelouch: Yeah. "I will never forget this humiliation." It's a famous quote from her last testament. Nunnally: Lelouch! Suzaku! Dinner is ready. Lelouch: !! Oh, thanks, Nunnally. That was quick. Nunnally: I helped a little, that's why. Suzaku: Thanks. I thought you'd be mad. Nunnally: Of course not. It was I who invited you. "I will never forget." Suzaku:/Lelouch: ...!!! Nunnally: Please, eat up!

Arrival of the Black Ships Lelouch: So the democratic revolutions continued and the aristocrats from all over Europe, especially France, advocated the release of slaves and the war that started in the southern states became the Civil War. Any questions? Suzaku: None, I get it. Oh? I hear a knock. Come in! Kallen: Oh, Suzaku, Lelouch. What are you two doing? Suzaku: I'm having Lelouch teach me history. Lelouch: That's right. So if you don't need anything, you're in the way. Get out. Suzaku: You don't have to kick her out. I don't mind. Come on, let's continue. Lelouch: Sheesh, you're too nice. Fine, let's continue. Britannia worked on stabilizing the country while also looking at foreign opportunities, especially in the Pacific. And finally in 1853 they crossed the Pacific and arrived in Japan. Japan had an isolationist policy and realized that they'd fallen behind the rest of the world. "The denkisen awakens the Pacific slumber; just four cups and we cannot fall asleep." Are you familiar with this? Suzaku: Of course. I'm Japanese. Lelouch: Oh yeah. Well, it's obvious but this is a haiku describing the black ships of Britannia arriving at Japan. Suzaku:/Kallen: ...! Lelouch: What's wrong? Suzaku: Oh... just continue, Lelouch. Lelouch: ...? Fine. So the denkisen refers to the Britannian ships with outer rings that were operated with electric motors. It must be a phonetic equivalent. They should've written it with the kanji for "electric boats," but since Japan didn't have the technology for electricity, they used different kanji... Suzaku:/Kallen: ... Lelouch: Okay, if you gusy have something you want to say, just say it! Kallen: You're wrong, Lelouch. That's not a haiku but a parodied tanka. Lelouch: ...!! It's something similar! Kallen: No, it's not. And the denkisen actually refers to the expensive tea that was loaded on the boat. Green tea has a lot of caffeine, so the four cups making people not fall asleep is referring to the fact that a commotion was made with just four ships. Lelouch: What!? Is that true, Suzaku!? Suzaku: Umm. Sorry, Lelouch. Kallen is right. Lelouch: Urgh! Kallen: I'm sorry, Lelouch. You were enjoying your rolse as a professor, but I guess I ruined your day. Lelouch: Shut up, you. Perry ship!!

Occupation of Japan

Lelouch: So this is the last session. Suzaku: You're as abrupt as usual. But isn't this a bad place to end this? Lelouch: What are you talking about? This is just as I planned. I can't talk about the a.t.b. 1900s because it's related to the main plot. I've been told not to say anything. Suzaku: Really? But this is the last DVD volume, isn't it? Lelouch: Urgh! It's the end but not the end! Anyway, here's the last session! We're going to skip to a.t.b. 2010!! Suzaku: You don't have to yell. Oh, 2010 is the year we first met. Lelouch: Yeah. At that time Japan took advantage of how the Chinese Federation and Britannia were on hostile terms and stayed neutral. They used the sakuradite card, manipulated the distribution, and created a three-way standoff between the Chinese Federation, the EU, and Britannia to enjoy economic prosperity. Suzaku: And no one thought that Britannia would break the balance using military force. Lelouch: That's right. The common assumption in international relations at the time was that it was taboo to attack Japan. Because once a fire started, all the other factions would follow suit and a full-scale war would break out. But the one who broke the rule... Suzaku: ... Was Charles zi Britannia. The 98th emperor of the Holy Empire of Britannia. And your father. Lelouch: That man's preparations were complete. As a blindside he sent all of the Knights of the Round to Africa and Inda, and the flagship ship, the Great Britannia, to the Indian Ocean; and while others were looking away from the Pacific he seized Japan quickly. The situation was practically decided in the first 24 hours, and by the time the Chinese Federation and EU tried to act, it was too late. And what happened after that... is not necessary to say, I guess. Suzaku: Yeah, you're right. Lelouch: Now starting tomorrow, I'll talk about the history of other countries. Don't forget to study. Suzaku: Huh!? But you said this is the last session. Lelouch: It's over as in what's going to be in the DVD booklets. Your class will continue. We're starting with the Chinese Federation. Suzaku: Why the Chinese Federation? Lelouch: "It's not the end of the story" is a hint. Suzaku: Sigh... I guess there's much more... Lelouch: Are you unhappy with that!? After all that I went through to teach you!? Suzaku: No, I'm very grateful, Professor. Lelouch: Very well. Then that's the end of today's session!

[alexanderpusheen]

so a bunch of people are talking about how the national library, the azhar library, and a cultural center in palestine has been destroyed, and worse, it was deliberately targeted for destruction by israel, and if you cared about the notre dame but not this then youre a piece of shit white supremacist etc etc

....okay.

first of all, i cannot find a single reliable source that the library has been destroyed. i found a tweet from the 6th, but no news articles. and google, as helpful as ever in aiding genocide, really wants me to read what israellycool has to say on the matter, as no matter how many different search terms i use, that shitty blog is either the first or one of the first results. no i will not link it, go find it for yourself if youre that curious, but im sure if you tried to fact check this at all you already saw that childish fascist screed already.

secondly, imperialists have always targeted centers of learning and information storage. massively important cultural artifacts for all of humanity were lost during the iraq war, and they were not ‘lost’ so much as the US deliberately rounded up librarians and intellectuals and murdered them and then bombed museums and libraries, a MASSIVE geneva convention violation. i remember hearing about that growing up just a few miles outside of NYC in a NJ suburb and i remember losing all sympathy for american soldiers who got themselves blown up in a war that was more about forcing a people to submit to US will than anything else. (yes, including oil.)

what is the point of all this?

i had very complicated feelings abt the notre dame fire, mostly because i hate france, i hate europeans, and i hate white people, but notre dame was not built using colonial money, and the very original building was connected to an antisemitic pogram but it had already happened hundreds of years before the present day notre dame construction. i saw some spicy takes like ‘well even if the notre dame wasnt funded by colonialism, everything in europe before the slave trade was made from jewish capital!’ which was like, oh, so we’re all medieval scholars now? bc thats not even a little bit goddamn true. 

and even if it were, there is something that truly angers me about all of these hot takes. because theyre not only false, but they look for some ‘us vs them’ justification for why we deserve to be free. no, mon frère, we deserve liberation simply because we do. it has nothing to do with inherent goodness.

the reason we dont like europe is because imperialism is objectively exploitative of the most vulnerable and marginalized. trying to look for this primordial evil in europe and a primordial good in other populations completely defeats the purpose of examining things through an anticolonial (or marxist) lens. we do not deserve liberation because we are Good, but because, as marx said, systems of oppression are not sustainable in the long term. you cannot fuck over billions of people forever. they will eventually demand something better than what we have. it doesnt mean each and every one of us is a good person, because what is good is highly relative, and denying or granting liberation based on goodness or good deeds is something a religion does, and liberation ideologies are not religions but means to an end.

i dont know if those libraries were destroyed recently. and if they werent, i dont know why people would lie about that. israels relentless campaign of terror over the past few weeks should be enough of a call to action, rather than some weak ‘a building was destroyed in a place no one cares about’ nonsense. i care about palestine because they are all my comrades in arms. they are my comrades, oppressed by the same system of oppression that oppresses millions of brazilians. those systems look different everywhere in order to adapt to the situation, of course, but they are the same, and thus, our struggle is the same. even if the palestinians had no history, had no libraries, had no culture, i would always be on their side because they are my comrades. we are one and the same, together, against imperialism and apartheid.

likewise, making a call to action, appealing to zionists who wept over the notre dame but not this important palestinian cultural landmark....listen. it is not the building itself. it never was. white supremacists latched onto the notre dame fire as a symbol of western civilization being taken over by THE OTHER (which i am very much a fucking part of!) and trying to get them to care about a building theyve never heard of that does not make up the western canon of Important Things is absolutely useless. theyll say ‘well hamas bombs palestinians’ and act like that was the most devastating proof against seeing palestinians are real people who deserve to live outside of an open air prison. is it true? who fucking cares. every palestinian could be a member of hamas, they could all be bomb making experts and love bombs and be really into just bombing everything including their own homes, and they would still deserve to live outside of israels apartheid regime. but you cant explain this to someone who is determined to view you as a Thing. you cannot.

i cried when the notre dame burned. by the logic of a lot of idiots on this site, i must be a white supremacist. sure, whatever. its extremely not true so you can say whatever you want. but the issue is that galvanizing others into action using buildings is never going to work. because it is and isnt about the buildings. i extremely dont care about white french people because like, why do i have to care about them. but i care deeply about palestinians and my solidarity will always lie with them, whether or not they have nice cultural things that i like. it doesnt really matter if i like palestinian culture and hate french culture. thats not the point. one gets to thrive because of the bounties imperialism has given it, while the other rots on the vine as a direct result of imperialism. i care about that.  and we can go into what it means to care and if caring as an individual (esp a colonized individual) matters very much at all in terms of political action but like.....this narrative of ‘you have to care only about the third world’ is funny to me because you guys just dont. you dont do it. youre very eager to use us when convenient, but you dont really. so ultimately, what does that mean? nothing i guess.

[ghostmartyr]

I love this chapter as long as I can completely ignore the real world implications behind Gabi and Kaya’s talk. The Jewish parallels were one thing, because at least the Marley Eldians were clearly the victims, but Gabi listing off imperial japan’s worst war crimes and the narrative framing her as being wrong for feeling bad about them left a really bad taste in my mouth. In the story context, she’s wrong. If you look at what isayama is saying about the real world through her... yikes.

So, I have never once taken a world history class in my life, and that’s where I’m left approaching this kind of thing. It makes it easier to let fiction be fiction, but obviously that leaves gaps. I’m not very knowledgeable about a lot of stuff I should be.

Starting with the fictional side, I will say that I don’t think Gabi is presented as being wrong for being upset over all the horrors of the Eldian Empire. Her target is wrong, but if there’s one thing the story has always been upfront about, it’s that genocide and war crimes are wrong.

That’s why you have the Restorationists clinging to the idea that their people never did such things. They invent their own history where the Eldians were the good guys and the rest of the world couldn’t handle it.

Again, that’s something that is vividly depicted as misguided, and it’s deeply connected to Grisha’s own ruin. The man who’s claiming Eldia could do no wrong is the man who abuses his son into becoming a fanatic capable of turning his parents in for the cause.

Paradis is not the Eldian Empire. Characters wanting it to be are painted as dangerous, and they are. Paradis, very specifically, is an island built by someone who wanted the Eldian Empire to be overthrown. Karl Fritz sought peace. He locks himself and his people away, and hands over the fate of the remnants to Marley to do with as they will, since they are the primary victims.

As part of this, Karl rewrites the memories of everyone he takes to his island, and murders the rest.

Comparing Paradis to the current Marley, you’ve got easily defined good guys and bad guys.

Paradis in a vacuum is fucking horrifying. It’s built on one ruler making executive decisions for thousands of people. He enforces those decisions by stealing their memories of the world and murdering anyone he might not be able to control. His closest associates are aware of this, and continue the program. For a hundred years, the people with the greatest chance to change things are forced to follow a dead man’s will.

After Wall Maria falls, twenty percent of their population is thrown to the wolves so that everyone else can live. They don’t call it a culling. They call it a mission to retake the wall.

Twelve-year-olds join the military because that’s when they are eligible, and it’s a mark of shame not to. During their training, it is a common occurrence for recruits to end up dead.

Before Uprising, the government is still fine telling its people lies to get rid of what they perceive as threats to their power. They frame an entire military branch to maintain the status quo. They express willingness to let even more of their own people die to keep themselves alive.

The new government is established with the hopes of doing better, but as we see in this very chapter, things are sliding. A regime that starts out with the intent of being honest with the people is putting soldiers in jail for telling those people the truth. They have offered their verbal consent to use their monarch as a breeding tool so that her children will be weapons of war.

Paradis is not all that great. Parts of it actively suck. The reason they’re generally cast as the heroes is because they are working to undo the cycles that created Paradis. The reason the story is so dark at the moment is that it looks like they’ve failed.

Then we take a look at Marley, and… oy.

Marley uses up Eldian bodies like gunpowder. From a very young age, every little Eldian is taught that they’re making up for the sins of their former Empire, and the roots of that Empire still exist on the devils’ island. In order to prove that they are not like them, they’re actively encouraged to become Warriors. Weapons of mass destruction that will expire in thirteen years.

For Eldian children in Marley, one of the greatest things you can wish for ends with being eaten alive. That is the grand dream. Laying down your life for the lie that your people will be recognized as good Eldians, not like the bad Eldians.

Very straightforward, very fucked up.

The initial snag in it is that Marley itself has taken over from the Eldian Empire. They do not have the range the Empire is said to, but they use the same tools. They don’t force people to have children, but Eldians in internment camps know that if their child becomes a Warrior they receive special treatment. They go to war with child soldiers as their primary weapons, and terrorize their enemies. They rob Eldians of their sentience and throw them to a battlefield they have no choice in entering.

For the majority of the story on Paradis, titans are a force of nature. They’re mindless eating machines. Much of the terror they inspire is linked to that. There is nothing there to negotiate with. There is nothing you can do to bargain or beg. When you come against a titan, you will die, and it will not care. It is an inhuman, indifferent monster.

The walls live in fear of them. Not actively until the fall of Wall Maria, but every part of their lives, as far as they’re aware, has been designed to hide them away from the titans.

Titans are a weapon of mass destruction by virtue of their size, but their greatest use is as a weapon of fear.

Marley utilizes that fear against their enemies and their own recruits. They have no qualms setting the monsters loose. They have no problem creating more of the monsters that symbolize the terror of the Eldian Empire. They have no compunctions about drilling the fear of becoming those monsters into every Eldian child so they won’t dare disobey an order or question their lives.

“Eldians spent thousands of years using the power of the titans to rule and oppress the world! They stole away the cultures of other peoples! They forced them to have children they didn’t want! They killed countless human beings!”

Those are the crimes of the Eldian Empire, for which Paradis is blamed.

Every single point is something that Marley is actively, presently, complicit in.

Marley has created a boogeyman in Paradis for their Eldian prisoners, and they’re attempting to translate that to the world at large. All these evil things? All this awfulness? The only cause of it is a dead Empire. Their sins were so great that it is just to continue punishing every bloodline connected to it.

Pay no attention to the present day. All that matters is what they did.

From a real world context, Paradis is… possibly a dodgy bit of wish fulfillment. It isn’t simply that a hundred years with no contact with the rest of the world has gone by; every person on the island is forcibly enslaved by their King’s revisionist history. Except for key figures in a corrupt cabinet, the citizens of Paradis have been supernaturally removed from the actions of the Eldian Empire.

The extensiveness of that removal means that Paradis is as close to a blameless victim as you can make out of a country. Even though the Empire Paradis is initially part of is definitely not.

In the real world, no, people do not have magical brainwashing powers. They still have corrupt officials invested in denying the truth of their nations’ past crimes and teaching that denial to citizens as gospel. There are atrocities that have been committed that countries would rather deny entirely than admit to being an agent of.

As I understand it (which is an understanding that is severely limited), the specific language Gabi uses is a red flag, because those are all the things Japan insists did not happen, and for very obvious reasons, that rightfully pisses off a lot of people.

Putting that justified outrage in the mouth of a child who has been abused and brainwashed into believing that the evil she is fighting for is really the good guys’ squad… I can see why that would be a concern to audience members. Especially the ones who remember the tweet from a few years back. There are some topics that are best received with caution.

The problem I have with drawing a direct line to the real world is that you have to cut the context almost clean off to get there.

No one except for the Restorationist cult thinks the Eldian Empire was a good thing (and the framing cuts them to pieces for it). Everything we’ve heard about it suggests that it’s better off not existing. Karl Fritz, who is perfectly fine committing mass brainwashing and genocide against his allies, designs the Eldian Empire’s downfall because it is just that awful. He is the highest moral standard of that era.

He’s a dick, in case I haven’t made that clear enough.

What the Eldian Empire is said to have done is probably accurate enough, but Paradis is another victim of its crimes, not a perpetrator denying its involvement. Again with the conceivably dodgy wish fulfillment, but as far as the story is concerned, Paradis has had nothing to do with the rest of the world for a hundred years.

Marley is claiming that crimes that took place a hundred years ago–crimes that Marley itself adopted, crimes that no living person (except maybe the Founding Titan) remembers–is reason enough to justify slaughtering all of them.

That’s the rhetoric Gabi has been indoctrinated with her entire life.

My world history is nonexistent, but I do know a thing or two about American history. The crimes Gabi shouts that Eldians are guilty of are crimes that every perpetrator of genocide in the world has been guilty of. It is not a particularly creative endeavor. The United States slaughtered Native Americans, poisoned them, raped them… honestly, it’d be faster to come up with human rights violations they didn’t check off.

The world Isayama has concocted is one where the people who are loudest about the evils of genocide are the ones currently committing it.

I do not know how loaded it is for a Japanese man to be using that language in such a way. The real world context is lost on me. However, the fictional context is on the up and up:

It is wrong that these things happen. Marley has weaponized that morality in its Eldian citizens. They believe in that wrongness so thoroughly that they’ve become blind to their participation in it.

The monsters aren’t titans. The machinations of evil don’t belong to a single bloodline. The monsters are humans.

I don’t think Isayama is always the most subtle of authors. Especially when it comes to darkness. Several people I know stopped watching the anime when its second season opened with Mike’s death. They felt it was gratuitous and unnecessary. Most of my complaints about the series follow that line. When he wants to make something obvious, he hammers it in.

Marleyan Eldians don’t just wear identifying markers in their internment camp, it’s a damn star.

Isayama borrowing from the real world to enhance the reality of his fiction is a tried practice, but when you’re writing a story about the evils of genocide, and your borrowings include some of the language discussions of real world genocide has brought about…

You have to work to keep the fiction as the primary consideration when someone is overly familiar with the reality it comes from. Otherwise that reality imposes itself on the fiction.

When the reality you’re borrowing from is at odds with its use in the fictional story… Congratulations, you have formed a mess, you should have maybe not done that. Most of the people upset about genocide nowadays are not perpetrating it or hysterically brainwashed. That role tends to go to the deniers.

The story is blunt enough about what it thinks of genocide that one of its common criticisms is that the antagonists are cartoonishly evil. Its morals and themes are not remotely subtle.

That doesn’t mean its application of language can’t be really stupid.

I don’t think there’s anything suspect about Kaya and Gabi’s conversation from a fictional perspective, and even from a meta perspective, it’s still being very clear about what it thinks of the harms done to children by evil, and what’s defined as evil unquestionably is.

Gabi isn’t wrong to hate the evil in the world. She’s been lied to about where it is. She has a stronger connection to the Eldian Empire than the people of Paradis, but she doesn’t hate herself or her fellow Marleyan Eldians. Just Paradis.

All present day Eldians are victims of the Eldian Empire and Marley. Paradis comes to be from the last Eldian Empire King ripping away their agency, and Marley makes sure every Eldian under their watch knows to hate themselves, and that the world never forgets to hate their abilities.

The story is very anti-genocide. It’s very supportive of the victims. The conversation might have shades of a reality that doesn’t belong to those messages, but the overwhelming feel is that these are children, and because some people thought genocide was a gr9 strategic aim, they’re all horrifically traumatized.

So they help each other.

Falco offers Kaya closure. Kaya offers them a way to make it back home. They’ve been too hurt to want anything but healing, so when they see someone in need of it, they reach out a hand.

I don’t know much about the real world, but… the victories in this series are achieved when people embrace their idealism, and try to be better than what came before them. That isn’t a story I have a problem with.

[reekierevelator]

The Time Has Come

John Maclean (1879 – 1923) reviews his life as he prepares to address the horde of a hundred thousand people which has gathered on Glasgow Green to hear him speak after his release from Peterhead Prison.

            So here I am again.  Back on the speakers’ platform; fingers twitching and mind racing.

In a few minutes I’m expected to give a rabble-rousing speech to the thousands upon thousands of people staring up at me, despite the fact that until yesterday I was languishing in the sewer called Peterhead Jail, despite the fact I’d been on hunger strike for eight months.  But I’ll manage it.  I will do it, just as I did it after prison the last time, 1916. For even now that the war is over there are still too many who don’t understand, who aren’t yet class conscious, who can’t see through the fog of capitalism. I will do it because however weak I am today, I am no longer being force-fed twice daily through rubber tubes.

I can hardly believe it’s only 1919.  The trial seems such a long time ago.  But it was really only a year ago.  I was fit and robust then.  I conducted my own defence.  I spoke from the dock for an hour and a half, logically rebutting in turn each of the trumped up charges they laid against me. Defence of the Realm Act indeed. Then as now I said I wished no harm to any human being; that all my actions were entirely humanitarian in nature.  But they insisted I was a threat to society, that I should be keen to kill my fellow workers in other countries, that I should be more patriotic. Patriotism - the last refuge of those scoundrels; Dr Johnson was right.  And maybe it’s true that I did try to undermine their war effort, their drive to slaughter millions. I tried, just as my friends Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxembourg did in Germany.  I was convicted of sedition, of trying to bring down the state, and sentenced to five years in the Peterhead hellhole. But now that the war has ended, I’m not such a threat, and in response to public clamour they set me free.     

 Was it all worth it?  I suppose I should be grateful to have avoided the fate of my Edinburgh friend. James wanted to bring trade unionism and socialism to another part of the United Kingdom, the Ireland of his father and forefathers. Connolly was brought up among those Irish immigrants crammed into the caves under the arches of the city’s South Bridge. After fighting for workers’ rights against the Dublin lock-out he founded his Citizens’ Army. And in 1916, for his trouble, he ended up severely wounded, dragged up against a wall in Dublin Castle, and shot dead by soldiers. But I’m sure this country will find that’s not the end of the Irish story. Maybe that’s something Maybe that’s what I should tell them.

I still have my friends in Glasgow - Jimmy Maxton, Guy Aldred, and Willie Gallacher Jimmy’s the clever one.  One day someone will probably write a doctoral thesis on Maxton’s thinking and end up as Prime Minister.  And Guy, like me, he’s seen his fair share of courtrooms.  America saw its way to amend its constitution with a Bill of Rights in 1791. But poor old Britain had to wait for Guy to be repeatedly arrested on this very Glasgow Green, for making speeches and gathering crowds, before the courts eventually agreed that public free speech, public meetings, and public processions really ought to be part of everyone’s civil liberties.  And Willie, he’s seen the inside of prisons too, Willie still guides the unions, leading the Shop Stewards Movement on the Clyde. But he’s left his syndicalism behind, thrown in his lot with Lenin and Trotsky and founded the Communist Party of Great Britain.  One of these days I can see him in Parliament, a Communist MP.

Looking at this huge crowd of people eagerly waiting to hear me speak I know many campaigned relentlessly for my release from prison.  And now they expect a victorious call to arms, a vibrant, revolutionary speech, all fire and brimstone. They want to greet a Scottish Lenin at the Central Station rather than the Finland Station. But the prison regime has exhausted me and destroyed my body.  And it wasn’t as if I hadn’t known hardship before, growing up in the poverty in Pollockshaws where my Gaelic speaking parents had landed up after being forced off their Highland land.  In school they called me a lad o’ pairts, a clever wee boy. The Free Kirk arranged for me to be trained as a teacher.  And after that I went on to Glasgow University and took my MA in Economics. But it was the terrible housing, poverty, and illness I saw all around me that drove me to a proper understanding of economics from a socialist perspective. It’s seventy years since Engels, in Manchester but writing in German, found himself forced to describe the awful condition of the working class. And fifty since Marx wrote about the Highland Clearances.  Yet sometimes it’s hard to see that very much has changed.

Of course, when I started to speak in public about the need for reform, the need to redress the terrible ills of society, I was sacked from my teaching job. Then they barred me from teaching in schools altogether.  Nothing daunted, I founded the Scottish Labour College to teach people about socialist economics. I espoused the co-operative movement. I got the Renfrewshire Co-op to push local school boards into providing facilities for adult education, economics education. During the war I did what I could to support Mary Barbour and the women’s fight against the rent increases, imposed by absentee landlords while their conscripted husbands were away fighting in France.  Aye, one of these days they’ll put up a statue to that wonderful woman.

And now Willie Gallacher and the Clydeside workers have decided they have to strike again. Trying to reduce working hours to a forty hour week.  And it’s not that they want the same pay for fewer hours. They’ll take a bit less pay.  All they want is to make some room in the yards to give jobs to all the unemployed demobbed soldiers. But in Parliament they fear an uprising, a Glasgow Soviet, a Soviet Scotland. Churchill’s tanks are even now being marshalled in the Gallowgate. Thousands of English troops are arriving by train. Meanwhile, the Scottish troops are confined to barracks in Maryhill.  And if Willie speaks to them at Maryhill he knows the troops will come out for him. Revolution is in the air.  But I’ve told him, that kind of battle – workers in khaki killing other workers in khaki – that’s not for me, not what I want to see. If there are to be tanks on Sauchiehall Street they must be faced down without bloodshed. But can I convince this heaving crowd of that?

Like me, most of the people here couldn’t see what the so-called ‘war to end wars’ was all about, why everyone had to starve or die because of it.  Just one imperial power slaughtering the workers of another imperial power as they tried to gain a bigger slice of the cake, the wealth of the exploited colonies, for the benefit of their own capitalist classes.

The Russian workers couldn’t understand it either.  We all cheered when they abandoned the war in 1917 and overthrew their government.  I well remember chairing the Third All-Russian Congress of Soviets.  And then Lenin appointed me Bolshevik Consul in Scotland.  I hear they’ve even named a street after me in St Petersburg, or Leningrad as they’re calling it nowadays.  There’s even been talk of carving my name on the Kremlin’s walls. But what do those things matter – his ribbon, star, and a’ that?

I’m thirty-nine and feeling nearer ninety.  The force-feeding when I went on hunger strike in prison didn’t help. Some even say they tried to poison me. Now they tell me pneumonia is setting in – that I’ll probably be dead in a year or two.  People might remember me for a while, before I’m eclipsed by others; Scottish people better able to fight for socialism and independence, people who understand the true nature of Scotland.  If my funeral attracts as big a crowd as the one before me now it will be the biggest funeral Glasgow has ever seen.  Maybe I’ll be a footnote in some socialist history of Scotland, or someone might write a song, a poem, or a play about me.  My dear wee daughter Nan says she’ll write a book about me.  A hundred years from now will anyone read that passionate speech I made from the dock? Will that speech’s prediction – of another world war twenty years from now - prove true or false?  Will the egalitarian principles I've lived and fought for ever really be able to establish themselves in an independent Scotland?  Marx said capitalism forces companies to compete, to exploit resources and labour, and the devil take the hindmost. The losers are taken over, merged, or eliminated altogether, whatever the cost to the workers. Eventually there will be huge companies, but there won’t be many. I suspect, as Marx predicted, that companies will become global, capitalists billionaires, and the gap between rich and poor will only widen. Could an independent socialist Scotland really stand in their way?

Ach, so I lost my safe middle-class teaching career, I lost my health. I gained a prison record. Have all those things really been for nothing? - But good grief, what kind of self-serving question is that for me to be asking myself?

Oh dear, the Convener is nodding towards me now.   It’s time to get up on the old hind legs and give this multitude some eloquent words to chew over.  Maybe their reaction will provide the answer to some of the questions tickling my brain.

[teagrl]

You knew it. Cranky listing of thoughts on Allegiance. Extremely long.

-Why fanfic has not referred to that that inflatable mannequin thing Mara used in Allegiance is beyond me. That shit is hilarious.

-Mara is 18 in Allegiance which is several months after Yavin. The text says her tenure as Hand has been short, the first chapter at least makes a point of Mara being inexperienced (but practiced). This is good fodder for extrapolation. 

-There’s a mention of being taught by professional thieves. Obviously the Emperor had them executed after they taught Mara the text doesn’t say this, but it’s canon in my head.

-Another good moment for extrapolating:

-”Thank you,” Mara said, feeling the warmth of his approval flow through her

[...]

”The Emperor held out his hand to her. “Go,” he said

Mara stepped forward and took his outstretched had, feeling a fresh wave of warmth and strength flow into her, then stepped back again.”

Reminds me of this moment in Sleight of Hand:

The eyes glittered again, and Mara felt the warmth of his approval fill her mind. 

Speaking of Sleight of Hand, the absolutely most interesting part of that story for me is this one line:

Frowning slightly with concentration, trying to ignore the noisy clutter of all the other minds in the room, she drew on the Emperor’s power within her and focused on the figure in the armored suit. 

I have basically around 30K based on this line as it stands. 

Sleight of Hand also has this intro of Mara:

She was the Emperor’s Hand, with powers in the Force that had been trained, nurtured, and strengthened by the Emperor himself...

Which takes us back to Allegiance with:

But Mara was the Emperor’s Hand, recruited and trained personally by him [...]

-After so much reading about the Imperial Palace and the Jedi Temple, I like thinking that the Emperor’s library is actually the Jedi Archives. Cue scream. Awesome.

-On this reread I kind of loved Mara thinking *sigh* why can’t I get the message through to Vader that we’re on the same side and like would kind of appreciate reading about them doing a mission together where (a)Mara finds how uh blunt force Vader can be firsthand  and (b) they end up with a grudging respect for one another or rather Vader ends up thinking Mara isn’t a TOTAL waste of space. Totally cliche, but I want it. We kind of end like that here, but ehhh they don’t interact meaningfully.

-”Loyalty was, after all, one of the Emperor’s greatest qualities; loyalty to all that were loyal to him.” Cue scream. This is good. I like this.

-”That would be an extremely bad idea,” she warned Birtraub. “The penalties for assaulting an Imperial agent are fairly gruesome.” Not that we know in Allegiance, but thanks to other EU works, AND HOW.

-”Mara felt her lip twist. The Emperor had often warned her that she was far too young for most people to take her threats seriously.”

-”Mara wrinkled her nose in disgust. ISB was a necessary evil, she knew, though to her mind there was too much evil and not enough necessity in the mix. Her own limited experience had found them to be generally arrogant, heavy-handed, and overly proud of their elite status.”

Omg lolololololololforever.

But yeah, I think everyone hates ISB. (About the stormtroopers given to her --”Knowing ISB, it was more likely Somoril had picked a pair of expendables.”)

-I am annoyed at Mara offering the pirate a blanket pardon in exchange for his cooperation. BLANKET PARDON. The true Imperial thing to do would be to offer it, get what you want, and betray him in the end. Because he’s a pirate. End of story. It’s ridiculously ooc for a high ranking Imperial to not to do that. In the end Tannis gets killed so the narrative never goes there. But that’s one of the milquetoast moments in Allegiance. Know your fucking Empire, man.

-”A girl who gets those orders,” Somoril corrected. “She’s barely had time to finish her training, let along build up any field experience.” 

-”Mara’s training had included a basic overview of starship operation, but most of that had been geared to military craft.”

-Oh hey, I guess either Mara always found the name Celina striking or Zahn fucked up his own continuity again, because she uses that a year before the Jabba’s thing where Melina Carniss stops her (she will later go by Celina Marniss).

-”The result was a dinner conversation made up almost entirely of chitchat, the sort Mara had heard at formal and informal dinners all across the galaxy. It made for an interesting contrast with the pirates’ casually blistering language.”

I think of Mara’s own potty mouth later on. 

-Ohhhh:

“Mara could remember the first time she’d done something like this, discussing matters that weren’t real with someone who was firmly convinced they were. In those early days the procedure had felt eerie and surrealistic, almost as if Mara herself were the one with the warped sense of reality. Now it was simply one more tool in her arsenal.”

DING. Spectacular. It’s too bad we’re never truly shown this. I think of that marvelous scene in Vader and the Ghost Prison, where Moff Tratcha tells the inmates the Empire offers clean deaths, right after we know he just beat a prisoner to death.

-”The Force was Mara’s servant and no matter how twisty or tangled the tunnels might be, she would have no trouble tracking Caldra through them.”

I don’t need to point to the inversion, do I?

-It makes 0 sense that people would know “the Emperor’s Hand,” in the Fringes/Outer Rim given how inexperienced Mara is at this stage. The only thing that makes it plausible is the existence of other agents going by that moniker before Mara herself took the post.

-Mara trying to save the pirate is some bullshit. Her carrying him through the Force is bullshit. Aaaaaaa it makes no sense with her training at all. It’s just there because Zahn wants her to be a good guy. Drives me craaaaazy. You can find other ways of highlighting “goodness” but saving a bloodsucking, civilian-killing pirate JUST BECAUSE is not it, considering she straight up murders all his other comrades, and he’s only cooperating with her because SHE MADE HIM, and she’s known him for like A FUCKING DAY. There is seriously no fucking in-universe reason in any universe she should bust her ass trying to save him. NONE.

-”It was impossible-- the Empire;s attention was completely absorbed with the Rebellion and domestic instability and alien unrest. By direct order from the Emperor himself, pirates and other raiders had been reclassified as a local and system enforcement problem.”

-”The Emperor had little patience with memorials, Mara knew, with extra contempt for the practice of saying words over the fallen. Mara said a few words anyway, half remembered ones from her childhood, before consigning Tannis’ body to the emptiness of space.”

Where the fuck do I even begin with this clusterfuck? 1) TANNIS IS A NOBODY. He and Mara have no connection and given Mara’s attitude towards criminals that connection doesn’t make sense. Not to mention there is no TIME to develop rapport between them. Every time she dealt with him it has been to pump him for information or to use him strategically. So her mourning him as a person seems unrealistic and has no basis in what we saw.

2) Furthermore, I call bullshit on memorials. The Emperor might tell her on the sly as a “between you and I” thing, but a regime supports itself also honoring its martyrs (those who fall to safeguard Order and peace). This is part of the propaganda machine and at this stage of her life given how much Mara believes in the Empire, it simply doesn’t make sense for the Emperor to let her in on it how empty memorials are, ultimately. 

Also Tannis is a motherfucking PIRATE. AAAAAAAAAARGHHHHH. Don’t conflate this. It’s not conflatable! It makes no senseeeeeee. There needs to be a HUGE difference between memorials for the honored fallen and the death a criminal ultimately deserves (in accordance to the either with or against us mentality of the Empire) for disrupting society!!!!

Also Mara was what? 4-5 at the time she came to the palace? What is she recalling? Earlier stuff from palace caretakers? I mean in theory you can make this work. But you have to go through gymnastics because on the face of it, it doesn’t match up with imperial culture.

-I’m not even going to say anything about Mara doing a healing trance at this stage in her life other than Did Not Do the Reading.

Fic writers, there you go if you forgot something five chapters ago. You didn’t forget something you wrote a published trilogy ago.

-After reading much more on Vader, the “confrontation” with Mara seems utterly ridiculous “see my fave” fan service. I don’t mind fan service, but it’s kind of low hanging fruit.

-Mara crash lands quite a bit, huh.

-This is how you fanservice:

-”I’m an Imperial agent,” she snapped back. “Level K012; recognition code Hapspir Barrini. We’ve got a bandit in that AT-ST.”

LaRone felt his mouth drop open. But years of training instantly took over. “Understood, ma’am,” he said. “Orders?”

-But then it gets ruined by underscoring how Mara is Not Like Other Imperials. How she values the lives of stormtroopers and the narrative belabors the point until it’s tiresome (she prefers using names, which is kind of dumb considering how attached she is to her own designation of Emperor’s Hand -- again, it doesn’t add up). How she thinks to fill the stormtroopers in about the mission past directives. If you think it through it becomes clear this is a doylist/out of universe add on, it doesn’t really hold water with consistency in-universe. Zahn just wants to have it both ways. It’s an ethically dubious thing because it leads to that kind of the Empire Was Not All Bad apologia. Get the fuck out with that shit. 

You can write good people serving in the Empire without taking a right into Empire apologia. Claudia Gray did it in Lost Stars!

-”Ordering the slaughter of civilians is against everything the Empire stands for. If it’s true, I promise you someone is going to suffer for it.”

LaRone looked sideways at Marcross. The other grimaced in silent agreement. For all her strength and competence, this Emperor’s Hand had an awfully naive view of what the Empire actually stood for. 

But she would learn.

Actually she doesn’t. Mara’s history with the empire is relegated to personal tragedy. The actual systematic horror of the Empire isn’t explored anywhere with relation to her and her awareness of it. Yes, the personal is political, but Zahn never writes Mara confronting herself as an agent of that in any meaningful manner. In Survivor’s Quest, it’s particularly appalling that Mara sees herself as a survivor of the Empire, as in a victim of it. There’s no doubting that, but to overemphasize that as the EU has done in order to whitewash Mara into Luke’s dream girl that has the problematic effect of clouding that she was COMPLICIT however ignorant her complicity was.

We like our women being victims of their circumstance, more than we can bear witnessing their complicity in toxic frameworks.

That idea makes me so mad, it resulted in 100K+ of fic.

-”Besides a few days ago I was ready to offer a complete pardon to a man who’d done more against the Empire and its citizens than any of you could possibly do.”

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA THIS MAKES NO SENSE IT’S SO STUPID AND POORLY THOUGHT OUT AND CLEARLY ALL ABOUT WHAT THE WRITER WANTS AND NOT WHAT A CHARACTER WOULD DO IN THE CONTEXT OF THEIR ENVIRONMENT WITHIN THEIR UNIVERSE.

It’s safe. It’s trite. 

Consistency. What the fuck is it even.