#ezra is the anti-anakin

[tarisilmarwen]

Jedi June: Non-attachment/Letting Go

@jedijune

Shhhhhh I'm not late.

[antianakin]

I'd love more exploration of Rex perhaps feeling like he got kind-of the short end of the stick in terms of Jedi. He LIKES Ahsoka, for sure, she's got a spirit he admires and she's tenacious and it's hard not to care for her. And Anakin is, well, powerful for sure and friendly enough, so for a while Rex thinks he came out pretty well with his Jedi.

But then he starts meeting other Jedi or working alongside other Jedi and he realizes how much more competent other Jedi often are, especially the more experienced ones. And while Anakin is friendly enough, he's seen a lot of the other clones have MUCH closer relationships to their Jedi and certainly none of THEM ask their captains or commanders to lie to superior officers about secret relationships or unsanctioned missions. He's a little surprised once when he notices pretty much every other Jedi remembers that the clones can't always keep up with the Jedi and will unhesitatingly adjust their battle strategy to accommodate it. He sees the way other young Padawans are being taught to do something similar, to really consider the lives of the clones when they're in battle as the higher priority rather than the success of the mission.

And Rex starts wondering what his life might be like if he had ended up with a different Jedi. He loves his men, he's proud of the work they do most of the time, and he doesn't DISLIKE the Jedi he ended up with, but sometimes he's kind-of jealous of some of his brothers and wishes he'd gotten their Jedi instead.

[jedimasterbailey]

WARNING! AHSOKA SHOW RANT DOWN BELOW! SPOILERS!

Furthermore, I’m going to be completely honest in this review so if you’re someone who truly enjoyed the show, you’re a Rebels stan, etc. then this post isn’t for you. Haters will be blocked immediately so take your negative energy elsewhere. You have been warned!

For everyone else, buckle up because I’ve got a lot to say and I’d love to hear your thoughts on this as well. All comments are welcome so long as they are respectful to everyone.

Okay, so now that the show is done for now. I’m going to be listing some major talking points. We’re there some aspects of the show that I enjoyed/appreciated? Absolutely! But overall, I’m leaving this show very disappointed, confused, and frustrated. The finale left me feeling empty and never have I personally been more silent after a Star Wars show. Now mind you I think this has a lot to do with the fact that I love Ahsoka’s character dearly as well as the Clone Wars and the prequels so there is bias here. Furthermore I am pretty indifferent with Rebels so going in knowing that the Ahsoka show wasn’t going to be…well about Ahsoka but rather a Rebels sequel, that already put a bad taste in my mouth and I was very nervous how this show was going to go and well…it was exactly what I expected from a Filoni/cheap Disney production. Without further ado, here’s a list of all my beef.

1.) Lack of a Coherent and Cohesive Story

So I’ve mentioned this in a previous post, but my main issue with Dave Feloni productions is that the story seems to be going all over the place and there’s a lot of moving parts that don’t necessarily meld well together. I often think to myself that Ahsoka is an example of a poorly written fanfiction brought to the screen. So the plot of the show initally was focused on Ahsoka bringing Ezra home. Okay, that’s simple, there’s many different ways we can make that cool and interesting but that’s not what happened here. We’re just filled with a ton of confusing information and we’re in for a very boring journey heading for a very anticlimactic and unsatisfying ending.

For starters, we the audience are informed that Ahsoka and Sabine had started an apprenticeship (which I have ALOT of issues with but that’s for another talking point) but they got into a tiff (which we never find out about and/or see) and now things are just depressing and weird between them. First of all, anyone who has seen Rebels KNOWS that Ahsoka and Sabine literally had very little to do with each other; I can’t recall a single conversation those two have had in the past, nor was it ever eluded to us that Sabine is Force sensitive.

Second we see that Hera and Sabine don’t have anything to do with each other for some reason? Which is weird considering all that’s happened and their history but okay suddenly Sabine, a grown ass 30+ year old woman is Ahsoka’s responsibility, which again why? We don’t get any background information, we’re just expected to accept and go with it.

Third, Ahsoka and Hyuang are reunited and working together immediately but again do we know how that became to be? No. We see none of that.

Fourth we are told that Morgan Elsbeth, a one off antagonist from the Mandalorian that Ahsoka fought is suddenly a Dathormirian woman even though she looks nothing like one besides her outfits in the show nor was that eluded to previously.

Fifth, we are introduced to these two new…I don’t even know what to call them “dark siders” “non Jedi” Shin and Baylan (who is apparently a former Jedi from the Clone Wars but did we see that or see how he knew Ahsoka and Anakin? No.) but we aren’t given any reason to care about them other than they’re in Ahsoka’s way of completing her mission. They end up being more like time fillers that anything else and end up walking away from the big conclusion. Like…why are they even in this show and why should we care?

Perhaps Dave Feloni has this big grand story in his mind but he’s so far up his own ass that none of us get to see this story. It’s like seeing a little kid play with their action figures and they’re super passionate about it but as a outsider you have no idea what’s going on. Now this isn’t good not only for the sake of good storytelling but it’s bad for business too.

Disney wants to make as much money off of Star Wars as they can. That’s extremely obvious. However here you have a show that isn’t going to pull in a casual Star Wars viewers (they would have to watch so much content to catch up on whose who and what is going on) nor is it really going to pull in fans of Clone Wars and Rebels because while they overlap, the fandoms are different and Feloni hasn’t done a good job melding those worlds together thus the divisive opinions on this show. This leaves for an incredibly small niche of people and honestly I think whatever toy sells they make from this show will do better than the actual ratings. I would be shocked if they greenlit for another season because I’m pretty done with this story as is many of the people who would be willing to watch.

All in all this is embarrassing how Feloni and the gang with all the money and resources can’t pull off a simple and epic show when there are thousands of unpaid fanfic writers that could pull off a much better story and build these beloved up characters, which leads into my next point.

2. The Characterizations of Ahsoka, Sabine, and Hera Are Bad

Now I have mentioned previously how much I love Ahsoka but damn it upon watching this show, she may as well be dead. Ahsoka has been given the Luke Skywalker treatment in that Ahsoka has been stripped of everything that made her lovable in Clone Wars and Rebels and is left as a sorry shell of who she once was. Her dialouge is hollow and lifeless not like the lively Ashley counterpart that made us all love Ahsoka in the first place. And no don’t give this “well she’s older now” bullshti excuse because Obi Wan Kenobi never lost his cheekiness and charisma as an old man, neither did Yoda, or Leia, etc. Just because you age doesn’t mean you have to be lifeless. Maturity does not equate to emotionless. Secondly for a woman whose well into her fifties and still acts very much like a Jedi Ahsoka’s views on the Jedi and their philosophy seem very warped and the audience is again left confused as to where she stands on the Jedi. I mentioned in a previous post how I couldn’t stand Ahsoka’s negativity towards the Jedi and how nobody seems to matter but Anakin (even though he’s put her through a ton of trauma and has tried to kill her as Vader) because it’s just so distasteful to the people who raised her and loved her that died by genocide no thanks to Anakin. Ahsoka has zero character development other than she seems to forgive Anakin for his wrongdoings despite the nonexistent apology. For a show that has her name on it, she sure is boring. Makes me miss Ashley and old Ahsoka even more.

As for Sabine I probably could write a whole thesis on how unlikeable she is but I’ll keep it short. One, I find it sick on Feloni’s part that he’s having a grown 30+ year old woman act like a teenager and be snarky with just about everyone. Ezra, who annoyed me immensely in Rebels, was WAY more mature and grounded. And again I’m sick and tired of the Mandalorian excuse of you getting to be an asshole because youre Mandalorian. Shut up. No one is above manners and decency. Sabine’s actions in this show have been far from Jedi like and thanks to her immaturity, she left Ahsoka for dead once and is indirectly responsible for the death of New Republic officers who were trying to stop this very dangerous mission that could possibly bring Thrawn and the Empire back ensuing more death and destruction of innocents. Ahsoka deserves to be angry with her for her words and actions, but of course Sabine gets a free pass and her bad behavior will continue to be enabled.

As for Hera…when did she become such a Karen? Just because you’re an officer doesn’t mean you get to abuse your power for your own personal agenda. That Senator was right about her. Finding Thrawn is a threat to the galaxy and using resources and putting lives at risk for it is a big deal. Hera was depicted as honorable and responsible in the Rebels series and I swear I was watching a different person on screen. Also she is a major Sabine enabler and that needs to stop. Sabine is grown and needs to grow up and fix her attitude.

3.) Anakin’s Role In the Show

Now don’t get me wrong, I love Hayden and I love Anakin, I have the dude tattooed on me for Force sake so don’t come at me for that, but I had some issues on how his character was used here. First, I’m tired of Ahsoka’s relevance to Anakin being the only defining trait about her. Second, I’m continuously annoyed by Anakin’s lack of accountability in these shows; he never once apologizes to Ahsoka for all that’s happened, he never once’s has a meaningful conversation with her; he just basically beats her down until she finally lets go of her past. Did I love the Clone Wars flashbacks! YES! They were my favorite part of the entire show and I want MORE of that; but I so wish Anakin could have been reflecting on his own actions with Ahsoka instead of being like “Is ThAt WhAt ThIs Is AbOuT?” Like come on 🙄

4.) Ahsoka’s “It’s Time To Move On” Line

Are you kidding me Ahsoka? There is still so much more to unpack with her past such as all the other relationships she’s had that completely changed her trajectory like BARRISS and REX and she could also be a mentor figure to Luke and Leia, etc. But nope the only thing that matters is getting over Anakin and all is well despite being stranded in another galaxy and Thrawn being unleashed back home. Like THIS IS NOT OKAY!

5.) The Cheap Ass Production of this Show

I’m not normally one to comment on production but it was so obvious in this show how many corners were cut. For one characters like Thrawn look god awful. Dude looking like a blue Elon Musk instead of an intimidating villain. The use of fog and the volume were very obvious and the places we went to were so boring minus the red leaves forest. The worlds of Star Wars used to be so cool and otherworldly but that’s not the case nowadays and it’s sad. Also why does Force ghost Anakin look better in the 2000’s than it does now? I prefer quality over quantity so I really wish Disney would quit churning out these cheaply made productions and have the audacity to rise their Disney plus subscriptions and not pay their people well.

6.) THE RACISM

I’m so fucking tired of this y’all! 🤬 of course make the Jewish actor in the shipyard be greedy and power hungry. Of course make the Asian Senator the asshole and not any of the white protagonists. The antisemitism and racism against POC is unacceptable to me and it should be unacceptable to you too.

Conclusion

I’m sure I’m missing some talking points but these are my biggest grips and as an Ahsoka fan I’m disappointed. Being a miserable Jedi not Jedi responsible for bringing a new evil into the galaxy but being content being stranded in another galaxy is not the future I believe Ahsoka deserves and I sincerely hope they don’t continue this story. It’s just bad all around. Except for the Loth cats… the Loth cats can stay. And Clone Wars flashbacks.

[myhateforcaffinekeepsmealive]

It’s so funny when fics about characters going back in time to the clone wars who are not Obi-wan, Luke, or Ashoka try to redeem Anakin. Like Cal Kestis is not gonna redeem Anakin the person who fucking caused the death of all his friends and helped the murder of one of his master and did murder the other. If you have change the character that much to feel your needs just maybe don’t use that character.

Also no other character besides the ones stated before Cal would ever try to redeem Anakin. Maybe Ezra but that’s big if. Leia would hate Anakin she feels no pity to the man who destroyed her planet and killed her parents. Also any clone would be down to kill Anakin especially 501st.

So yeah here’s my thoughts on the whole time travel to redeem Anakin trope.

[lesbianlothcats]

[just-prime]

Ahsoka is so slow I could cry. She was trained by Anakin and presumably Obi-wan and several other Jedi, and Rosario can hardly do an actual lightsaber twirl, let alone make me believe she could survive Ventress, Maul, Grievous, or Vader, survive order 66, or run in a way that looks fast. Bo-Katan moves faster, Shin moves faster, Sabine moves faster, Ezra moves faster, even Ewan's lazy twirls while walking around and not actively engaged in battle in the prequels were roughly as fast as Rosario's in an actual duel.

It's also canon that in this era, in a less prequels flashy version of standard Jedi abilities, a Jedi can leap SEVERAL feet. Luke in ROTJ- even GROGU can jump higher, while Rosario's feet are consistently glued to the ground. Her choreography and speed are so inconsistent with this established era and people keep writing it off and praising it as her fighting like a samurai now, even though it makes NO sense for her to, given who trained her. She isn't A New Hope Obi-wan, nor sad cave dwelling Obi-wan who hasn't stretched or lifted a weapon in a decade, and a 44 year old Jedi is still supposed to be in their prime.

I truly wonder if part of it is that they can't keep her lekku on properly if she does a flip, and they are shorter because they were meant to be more practical, but I'm really not seeing a character agile enough to need stunt modified lekku.

If they couldn't bring this to life in live action convincingly, it should have remained animated and each passing week demonstrates this more and more.

I'm sorry to anon into your inbox like this, but your post about the last episode has been so refreshing, and I've felt like I've been watching a completely different show than other people and don't know how they considered any of the actors ready. (Rosario has said she was training during filming). Thank you for your brutally honest take, you're spot on on all counts.

Couple of things.

A) I agree with everything you just said. Always feel free to come and rant into my asks.

B) I HAVE BEEN ANTI TINY LEKKU SINCE MANDO S2. It's laughable that we've seen cosplayers with more Rebels accurate headpieces. And of course everyone defends it with the 'it wouldn't be fair to the stunt person to have them try and do flips in that' and it's like NEWSFLASH Ahsoka isn't doing flips anyway!!! And sure, they probably stuck Rosario in a 5 week sword training class, but she's clearly not had to do any serious combat training given how clunky her fights are. And again, this was also a problem back in Mando s2, only she was in the middle of a foggy woods, so it was easier to hide the fact that she is incompetent when it comes to fight choreography.

C) "If they couldn't bring this to life in live action convincingly, it should have remained animated" Exactly. This is why every passing day I am increasingly pissed that this show killed and ate the animated Rebels sequel series that was in fucking development. Everything about this show, from Ahsoka, to Hera (hell, even TBoBF cameos like Cad Banes) prove that Disney is not willing to shell out for a decent makeup and/or CG designer. No shade to the artists that are currently working on it, they are doing their jobs to the best of their abilities. What I mean is they didn't have anyone on set that was in a high enough positions to say 'Hey, have any of you heard of contouring?' Like, just looking at the alien makeup of the OT...which somehow holds up better than state of the art Disney budget makeup. It's just fucking embarrassing at this point. There is no reason everyone should look as flat as they do, but it's no surprise that they do when mary elizabeth winstead is celebrating that her makeup only took an hour. Sure, it's understandable that you don't want to be sitting in the makeup chair every morning of hours on end, but in the end you are an actor who signed up to play an alien...Suck it up buttercup.

D) I totally understand how hard it is to be not liking this show right now. The amount of people who've told me that "well, clearly it's just not made for you" after I point out a simple fact that a character is out of character is painful. Looking at twitter after each episode as everyone seems to think Filoni is creating the second coming is painful. Because it really does feel like we're watching a different show than them.

Okay, I think I covered everything. Thank you again for your kind words and your wonderful rant!!!

[thecleverqueer]

I don’t know. Maybe I mis-read the story, but I felt like the Ahsoka series wasn’t necessarily anti-Jedi. It felt more like Ahsoka finally accepted that she could actually be a Jedi after years of her believing that she was unworthy of doing that, and thereby giving her the right to pass on what she learned.

To preface, I do think her lineage had a problem with following rules. Obviously. Even Yoda broke rules when he went off on his trippy force adventure with Qui-Gon in the sixth season of TCW. It wasn’t that they all went against the Jedi teachings (save Anakin… which I won’t get into right now; I would possibly even argue for Dooku, but he was misguided and definitely did not go about anything in the right way), they just didn’t follow protocol. Most of them at least embraced Jedi philosophy (once again, save Anakin). They often broke rules and protocol loudly, but I can appreciate that as someone who hates the status quo and stringent rules. I say this to partially explain why Ahsoka often butted heads with Huyang about Jedi protocol. It’s not Jedi critical on a philosophical level as much as it is critiquing the protocols.

Now with that being said, let me talk about Ahsoka... Particularly, where Ahsoka was in her series and how that changes by the end of it:

Ahsoka struggled with the fact that she’d been trained as a soldier. Jedi were not soldiers; they were peace keepers. Ahsoka says as much to Rex on the Venator right before Order 66 was executed. She was incredibly torn by this. Ultimately, I believe it’s what caused her to leave the order in the first place. She listened to the words Barriss said, and agreed wholeheartedly. She couldn’t be part of the order as she was not a Jedi, but a warrior. It’s not that she didn’t want to be a Jedi, she DID want to be a Jedi. She just felt as if she no longer knew how to do that, or perhaps, couldn’t do that based on what she’d been doing.

It’s the main thing that she is stuck on when she had her flashbacks with Anakin in the World-Between-Worlds dream state. She struggled with her past. She was unable to reconcile the actions that she was forced to take during the war with her Jedi training that specifically told her not to do that. She mentioned that it wasn’t what she trained for, and by the time she was fighting the Siege of Mandalore, she only saw herself as a fighter. And, it’s something you saw in her character at the beginning of her series. She’s quick to draw her blades and come at you. She does not hesitate to fight Baylon at the reflex point on Seetos. It had unbalanced her, and that’s why she lost the fight.

Anakin basically told her that she’s more than just a warrior. All of the knowledge that came before him, the wisdom of Yoda, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan, lived on through her. She was part of a legacy. Still, she struggled because of what Anakin became, and was hesitant to share the knowledge that she possessed in fear of planting dark seeds. It’s why he told her that she lacked conviction. In Rebels, Ahsoka was trying to convince everyone including herself that she was not a Jedi, and it was a culmination of all of her trauma. This was the moment that she must live (and let it go of said trauma), or die and literally drown with it.

In the end, Ahsoka chose to live, and the white robes weren’t the only thing about her that had changed. In her second battle with Baylon, she’s not as quick to draw her blades. She’s more worried about finding Ezra and Sabine. It’s not that she was completely unwilling to fight, but the fight wasn’t what it is all about. She mentioned this to Sabine as well when she told her that “being a Jedi is more than just wielding a lightsaber.” Ahsoka released the trauma, and embraced her Jedi past. It was not explicitly stated, but it definitely felt implied.

[olderthannetfic]

Anti-ish thoughts are bleeding dangerously into real life. I’m at uni doing a Star Wars: the Clone Wars marathon with my friends and out of curiosity we decided to count the episodes that passed the Bechdel test. This got us onto the topic of sexist media, and my friends were complaining so hard about how female characters are sidelined and treats as subordinate by the source, and. while structurally that may be true to some extent, so is a lot of old media. The original Star Wars is also sexist but people enjoy it too! This devolved into such a toxic debate because they think it’s “not progressive enough for it’s time” but this was fifteen years ago. I don’t think it’s fair to hold it up to ultra-modern standards.

Especially because this is the show with AHSOKA TANO in it (one of the characters with the richest and most complex character development arcs). They were basing this impression of sexism on the fact that Anakin and Obi-Wan (Ahsoka’s seniors both literally and in the hierarchy) constantly talk over her in the episode about Ahsoka learning to take orders and not be reckless in a war. Like, sure it looks bad on the surface, but the power dynamics aren’t because Ahsoka’s a woman— Anakin respects the hell out of the other female Jedi Masters— but because Ahsoka is a *child* in a war endangering herself by not listening to authority, and she’s also Anakin’s student. By Jedi standards she has to.

Plus, in Rebels, the exact same power dynamic of Master and Student executed here plays out with Kanan and Ezra: Ezra being frustrated and confused at why he’s constantly on a leash and being reprimanded for his recklessness. It’s the literal same— he’s a student and he needs to listen to what his master says— but it’s two guys. These were shows released nearly contemporary with each other.

Anyway, this ended up with one of them suggesting they slap the historical “this may have socially unacceptable attitudes depicted in it” warning people put on historical movies. Or, even worse: “why don’t they just remove the sexist bits?” (How do you *define* “sexist bits”?) it’s so baffling to me.

Anyway they still watch it with us just to shit on the female representation every episode. We did hate-watch some shows together, like Loki S2, but this time they’re hate-watching something other people are *trying to enjoy*. Idk, I feel like it’s an asshole move— you can have a calm discussion about the structural biases of any show but like, if people enjoy it, can you not shit on it in our faces using that kind of argument? Aaaaaa.

--

Feeling superior by nitpicking is a time-honored tradition, especially among college students, I'm afraid.

[solsilverpine]

Good omens au for the wip game!

this one is more in the ideas stage then a few of my others but i kept accidentally writing Kalluzeb with a very season 2 Aziraphel and crowley vibes and this idea wouldn't leave. These are my notes i have on it so far.

The empire is heaven (since they have strict rules and blindly follow palpy) The rebellion is the underworld but they are mostly just trying to mind their own business. Zeb is Crowley, Kallus is Aziraphel (but like a little more of an arse) Luke is Adam and Ezra is Warlock Hera and Kanan are anathema and Newt The them are Leia, Han and Lando Artoo is the hell hound obviously Sabine is essentially Beelzebub and really should learn to knock. Ezra tags along for the main journey. Anakin is Lucifer but no ones scene him in years so he’s presumed dead (he’s actually been raising luke and leia with padame in the middle of nowhere and is 100 percent aware that hell is keeping an eye on the wrong kid) Obi-wan is a stand in for lucifer and has been running hell for years, trying to hide the fact that Anakin is MIA. He’s kinda salty about it. Thrawn is gabrial but doesn’t want to be. Eli is a messenger for both heaven and hell but doesn’t want to be. Pryce is Michel, but without the rank to back it up. Tarkin is here, I presume. Probably metattron or something. Hondo will presumably make an aperance, even though I have not invited him to this party.

Plot Starts the same as the book where the antichrist is handed to Zeb who takes it to the satanic church. As they arrive a blonde man that zeb gets the feeling he’s met before is outside, but after he does the hand off and relays the encounter to Kallus he can’t recall anything notable about said man.

The two of them decide to co parent the anti christ with Zeb as a gardener and kallus as a nanny. If Ezra’s parents assume their a couple not denying them is good for their cover.

The events follow the plot of the show, but also happen entirely different due to certain characters acting like their rebels counterparts. Like Ezra. Ezra will still be a lil snoop, getting involved in everyone's business. He’s extra sassy because Kallus did not teach him manners.

[is-that-sand-in-my-waffles]

A couple people have asked me to expand on my "Ezra Bridger is a foil to Anakin Skywalker" comment, so here goes:

(Please remember that all of this is just my opinion and based on how I personally see these characters. This post is rather critical of Anakin Skywalker and I am TERRIFIED to post it because of how strongly people feel about Anakin as a character. I'm going to outright say that I will NOT be blaming his fall on the Jedi Order. If you are anti-Jedi, please just keep scrolling.)

A foil is a character whose purpose in the narrative is to contrast with another character, usually, a character who contrasts with the protagonist, in order to better highlight or differentiate certain qualities of the protagonist.

Ezra, like Anakin, had a difficult early life. He survived on the streets from the age of SEVEN. That's practically a baby (this is NOT devaluing Anakin's trauma - being a slave for 9 years clearly left a mark on him, understandably). Both of them struggled to open up to the people that offered them a new home (but both imprinted HARD on the first available potential father-figure - no shame there, Anakin, Qui-Gon is also my dad).

They both were separated from (and later lost) their biological parent(s). They both became padawans at an older than average age. And most importantly, they both struggled with the pull toward the Dark.

The obvious contrast here is simply that Anakin fell while Ezra managed to not to (even though he did come dangerously close), but a deeper contrast is in the reason why Ezra was able to not fall.

I believe that Ezra was able to pull away from the Dark because of the lessons he learned while with his adopted family and because of his gift for and desire to connect with other living beings.

As far as I know, Anakin did not have any close friends besides his master, his wife, and his padawan. And Rex. Of these, the only person he was generally open and honest with was Padme, who knew about his attack on the Tuskens and of course about their marriage. While Anakin appears to be friendly with the other Jedi at points throughout his life, he doesn't form any close friendships with them (the Jedi are allowed to be friends! They're just not allowed to prioritize their friends over the good of others).

Anakin chose to keep his secrets and he chose to not pursue friendship within his community. His support system was flawed because he chose not to engage, even when others reached out to him (Obi-Wan actually does ask Anakin how he is feeling on multiple occasions and Anakin usually deflects).

His main issue is that the love he has for these people is possessive in nature. They're HIS, and he has a difficult time letting them go or letting them make their own decisions.

And, most importantly, he wants to have it all. He wants to be a Jedi AND he wants to be married. Everyone else in the Order has made the decision, has understood that its not both/and, its either/or, for the sake of the greater good. Anakin shows countless times over the course of the Clone Wars that he will chose Padme over everything else, every single time, and that is directly contradictory to his duty as a Jedi. But he's Anakin Skywalker and he WILL have it all, no matter the cost.

Ezra, on the other hand, had the Ghost crew - people who challenged him, loved him, and encouraged him to be open about his past and his feelings (you know, the same thing that Anakin's friends tried to do for him!). But the support system wouldn't have worked if Ezra hadn't taken those steps and connected to them. Emotionally speaking, he was very close with his family and, over the course of 4 seasons, built up a network of friends to supplement it.

Like Anakin, Ezra feared losing those he loved. That's why he nearly fell! The holocron preyed on his desire for power specifically to protect his family! It was only through trusting Kanan and his teachings (and seeing where using the Dark would lead) that Ezra was able to understand that the Dark Side leads only to suffering, pain, and being wholly, entirely alone (Maul was a walking billboard for that).

Like Anakin, he had difficulty letting people go - he needed Ahsoka's counsel to let Kanan go- but in the end he succeeds where Anakin failed because he understood the principle of unselfish love.

In the end, Ezra shot himself off to who knows where on a ship full of his enemies because understood that he COULDN'T have it all - he couldn't save his planet and his family and still be with them.

TLDR; Ezra is a foil to Anakin because he was able to connect with others and put his duty as a Jedi above his personal attachments.

Sorry of this was kind of rambling and all over the place! This is why I usually communicate my Star Wars feelings exclusively in memes and shitposts.

(One last note - To be fair to Anakin, Ezra didn't have the devil himself, Old Sheevy whispering in his ear for ten years, driving a wedge between master and apprentice, and validating every toxic thought he'd ever had. I promise that I don't hate Anakin! I love him very much but he makes some very bad life decisions)

[jedi-enthusiast]

Your Obi-Wan Antichrist jokes make me wonder if your fic Obi-Wan is pulling some Chosen One power over here. Just a stray 1:30 am thought.

Ok, I know you probably weren't looking for an in-depth answer, but it's now 2:30 am for me and I've been looking for an excuse to ramble about my fic so-

In my fic, prophecies are like visions in the fact that they can be correct and can be helpful, but they're also unreliable and can mean something wildly different than whatever was assumed.

Like in Rebels when Ezra got a vision of the one guy whose name I can't remember that was some "anti-Empire radio host" and assumed, from what he saw in the vision, that he was one of the good guys and helped out his parents...but then it turned out that he was actually working for the Empire and was implied to have turned his parents in.

So, pair that with the fact that 1. we never hear the actual wording of the prophecy or who/where it came from, and 2. when Qui-Gon does his whole spiel about how Anakin is "the child of the prophecy" everyone looks at him like he's lost his fucking marbles and...yeah.

So, while Qui-Gon, and maybe some others, assumed that Anakin was "the Chosen One" or that there was a Chosen One, that doesn't necessarily mean it's true.

Take that as you will <3

[monathedefiant]

i know i'm not the only one bothered that ezra's new saber doesn't have the blaster function. then again i'm bothered by a lot of things in this show. namely:

the anti jedi messages

ahsoka sugar coating anakin's everything

sabine as a jedi

sabine facing zero consequences for essentially burning the world for ezra

the cutaway from hera and ezra hugging

the lack of captain rex (that 5 second cameo was NOT enough for me)

the lack of any plo koon references (seriously? not even a mention of him as her finder)

the lack of obi-wan references (probably cuz that would've wrecked the show's desperate attempts to make anakin look like a saint)

the lack of respect for jedi culture

the lack of references to the 501st

the so-called character development

everyone but thrawn being an ineffective villain

the death of morgan elsbeth right when she gained great villain potential

[antianakin]

All Star Wars things I tend to enjoy most seem to have at least an underlying theme of "this hero is a hero because they succeed at doing the emotional work that Anakin Skywalker intrinsically fails at doing."

[ooops-i-arted]

renewing my "anti ahsoka" club membership on a monthly basis now because i'm beyond done with her stans getting pandered to especially at the expense of other jedi. and i'm one of those people that didn't mind her much in tcw even though i really think she maybe should have been the apprentice of plo koon or literally anyone else instead of anakin. but it's apparent to many people that she's outlived her narrative purpose and is there just so filoni can make live action fanfic.

like i was watching the disney gallery episodes for Both bobf and mando and everytime filoni feels the need to go into his "isn't ahsoka so amazing and powerful, she trained under anakin" spiel i fast forward through that shit, like we Get It filoni you want to worship your precious darling! he even describes working on her show as a "religious experience" and wants her to be this enlightened force goddess, aka the Daughter reincarnated. if he's already like this when she's a mostly redundant cameo, can you imagine how insufferable he is going to be in the behind the scenes episodes for her own show?

just scenes of badly recreated togruta cosplay with mediocre acting, parodying better made samurai films. maybe a trapper wolf cameo thrown in somewhere. who wants to sit through episodes of that shit? not me.

I am so glad you pointed out the TCW thing because I've often thought the show would be MUCH stronger with a tighter focus on Ahsoka as another Jedi's apprentice and just occasional cameos or episodes featuring the Main Characters like Anakin, Obi-Wan, Padme, Mace, Yoda, etc. More like Rebels. It could've been really cool to see the Clone Wars through a young apprentice's perspective since the main films we usually see it through the eyes of the higher ups. (That's what I liked about Rebels the most - it's not just Leia and Luke and Han who deal with the big picture, but we got a tighter focus on fighters on the front line, and new characters to fall in love with.) (Also one of the biggest reasons I hate TCW is how they warped Anakin especially but also Obi-Wan ooc, those are NOT my boys, and a focus on Ahsoka would've mitigated that and kept Filoni away from them.)

I don't begrudge any fan their love for a character, and Ahsoka has undeniably widened the playing field for female characters in Star Wars, but Filoni, please: variety!! She doesn't have to be in everything!! I'm tired of watching a show for something else and then suddenly it's TCW 2.0 Featuring The Super Specialist Jedi-But-Not-A-Jedi-Because-She's-BETTER Ahsoka. Mandalorian S2 E5 spent more time on her than Din and Grogu!! She completely took over the Rebels season 2 finale!! Filoni invented time travel in the Star Wars universe to save her from Vader and had Ezra save her over his father figure. What the fuck??? I mean, I can write endless fanfic about Cara Dune bc no one is paying me for it and I owe no one anything. He's helping lead an entire franchise and for god's sake can we PLEASE have something besides Ahsoka, Order 66, and Man Adopts Child? (And stop acting like Ahsoka is the third member of the prequel trio. IT'S PADME.)

I'm not gonna lie, I hope the show flops hard. I'm not proud of that, I'm still torn because don't want that to affect Rebels characters, and I do hope the Ahsoka fans like it, but I wish Filoni would get a reality check as vengeance for ripping apart Zahn's Trilogy for pieces and rebuilding it around Ahsoka and for handing Din's set up arc in The Mandalorian to Yet Another Fucking TCW Character. Or at least that Lucasfilm stops licking his butthole and lets him greenlight what's basically his own fanfiction.

Don't even get me fucking started on the Daughter and the Mortis arc. That was when I quit TCW when I tried to watch it all. THAT'S NOT HOW THE FORCE WORKS. (Also doesn't Anakin like resurrect her with the Force or something? The power he was trying to get in RotS when it's pretty explicit it isn't a thing and Palpatine was lying to him to mainpulate him? Filoni broke canon just so precious widdle Ahsoka won't die? Are you shitting me???)

[buckybarnesss]

agree with you when it comes to misogyny in the fandom (and in general lol) and shipping etc and I wanted to dump this here because it's been bugging me and I have nobody to talk to about it irl that hasn't heard me muttering about it before but why do people seem so anti-romance in general? I see 'Star Wars doesn't need romance or a love story' all the time and I can't help but feel like it falls into the misogyny category a little because romance is seen as something inherently feminine or 'for the girls' ig so people think it's an unnecessary addition to a plot but it can actually affect a character and how they act/think etc so much whether that's for good or bad, hope that makes sense?

obviously not every character needs a great romantic love and Din-doesn't-need-or-want-love enjoyers do your thing but even in the first season he clearly considers Omera and seems open to the idea at least, so people being against Bo just doesn't make sense to me? has she done bad things? well yeah but what character hasn't in Star Wars? and even if it's not Bo I still see it thrown around that Star Wars doesn't need a love story but why? what's wrong with romantic love? there are other shows that they're making/have made that yeah shoehorning in a romance would've made no sense (i.e. Kenobi, I mean I've not watched it but I can't imagine a love story working in that) but the Mandalorian hasn't set itself up to be a show like that?

I hope this has made sense but I basically wanted to air that out and it just came to me reading your answers to other questions that it's probably at least a little misogyny that plays a part in that anti-romance feeling going around or that makes sense in my head anyway

(also Jyn and Cassian soulmates truther here so if people wanna beef about them pls consider not doing that or I'll cry, they're basically built to be perfect for each other so???)

i wanted to publish this before tonight's episode (i just woke up for work 😂).

i agree. it's always when there is some prospect of romance for these kinds of female characters that the "we don't need romance" brigade comes out. like, there's nothing inherently wrong with romance nor is there anything wrong with not wanting romance. it's preference. but c'mon it's not star wars even has a lot of it on screen for major characters. at least healthy relationships or ones that don't end in untimely death.

i can name the actual romances on one hand probably and further discussion is going under a read more out of sake for length and because some minor spoilers for clone wars and rebels.

padme amidala and anakin skywalker ends in tragedy, the eradication of the jedi order and the fall of the republic. anakin turns into darth vader.

hera syndulla and kanan jarrus again ends in tragedy. he sacrifices himself to save hera, sabine and ezra.

bail and breha oranga perish in the destruction of alderaan.

obi-wan kenobi and satine kryze never officially get together as she's dutchess of mandalore and he's a jedi knight. she's murdered by maul to spite him.

vel sartha and cinta kaz external circumstances and cinta's devotion to The Cause of the Rebellion put them on shaky ground.

han solo and leia organa are depicted as a kind of volatile relationship and we never actually really see them be a couple on screen besides some crumbs. by the sequels they are separated.

cassian andor and jyn erso dead before they could really have a relationship.

galen and lyra erso ends in lyra being murdered in front of galen.

owen and beru lars seem to be a relatively normal married couple but than they get brutally murdered by the empire so.

so where's the over abundance of romantic relationships in star wars?

i'd like one couple in star wars that doesn't end in a tragic demise or a "casualties: everyone in the local vicinity" type of scenario.

besides a "strong female character" doesn't have be devoid of romance.

allison argent still says it best "can't i be strong and go to prom?"

[deathbysneezing152]

hear me out. what if clone wars tlou au. but like. instead of zombies and a one planet setting and all that, it’s the clone’s order 66 going haywire and they just start going after Anything that is force sensitive.

so it’s still star wars stuff it’s just not a zombie apocalypse, but the clones are around and they’re still Hella anti any force wielded, not just the jedi. order 66 goes wrong, just starts going after and force sensitive things. they develop some system to track traces of the force in any creature, they attack them and they deem themselves the rulers of the galaxy. anakin goes with ahsoka to the siege of mandalore instead of going on the mission fo rescue the chancellor, and the chancellor didn’t foresee this happening. obi wan rescues him but doesn’t kill dooku cause he’s not a freak, and the jedi council is zoning in on palpatines evilness so he decides “fuck it if i’m going down i’m taking hall with me, “ issues order 66. windu kills palpatine but is killed by clones soon after, yoda escapes with a few stray padawans and younglings, padme is killed in the crossfire. anakin however is fighting for his and ahsokas lives leaving mandalore, along side rex and some droids, however they’re overwhelmed ahsoka gets hit in the crossfire trying to save anakin and passes. rex has to drag anakin away, they escape(anakin takes ahsokas sabers) and they receive obi wans message for the jedi to go into hiding. 15 years later he finds ezra, and when he found out ezra was Super force sensitive, Rex makes anakin promise to get him to yodas secret little jedi band while rex goes off and tries to disable the chip in some of the clones. anakin only sets off because he hasn’t gotten a transmission from obi wan in a while and he needs to make sure he hasn’t lost obi too.

i don’t quite have any concrete plans on who some of the other characters would be, and some stuff Couldmt happen the way the last of us plays out because of the way infected play into that story but this has been in my mind for a while.