#for context: Ezra is an orphan Kanan adopted

[jessicas-pi]

Writing Prompt Ask Game!

Hera and Sabine

Literally anything. lol. You are so creative. In any time or au, Sabine points out the obvious to Hera, and Hera is the one who gets flustered.

Oh, fun fun fun! This one turned out longer and idk if it's quite what you were thinking of, but... it's what happened when I started writing? anyway, this is set in a modern AU!

“Hera, I am not blind!” Sabine said, shoving her bagel into her mouth. “You adore Kanan. Kanan adores you. You’re always together! Would you just stop beating around the bush and propose already?” Hera looked, frankly, flustered. “Sabine, you know Kanan and I are taking this slow—” “You practically live in each other’s houses! And you’ve been together for going on… six years? How slow are you going to take it?” Sabine demanded, loudly, but keeping her voice low enough that only about half the people at Panera heard them. “Consider: just get married already. There’s tax benefits, one rent to pay instead of two, and Ezra can stop dying of mortification every time he accidentally calls you mom.” “Sabine,” Hera insisted, giving her a look that said pipe down! “This is not a discussion we are having.” Sabine was not going to be deterred. Hera and Kanan were basically married already, and the only reason they weren’t actually married was because they both had generational trauma that made them afraid to truly commit. Sabine, being kind of an expert on generational trauma herself, was going to fix this problem. “Your anniversary is coming up this summer,” Sabine pointed out. “Why don’t you two go somewhere nice for a week? You can pop the question then.” Hera looked like she was going to object, so Sabine threw her hands in the air. “If you’re worried about where to put the kid while you're away, just leave him with Zeb. Or even at my house!” “Sabine—” Sabine clasped her hands together in a slightly-exaggerated way. “Please. Hera, I am actually offering to let a fifteen-year-old boy, and not just any fifteen-year-old boy, the world’s most insufferable fifteen-year-old boy, stay in my family’s home, where he would annoy the crap out of me, give me horrible secondhand embarrassment with every word he said to either of my parents, and Tristan would probably dare him to steal my diary or do some other unforgivable thing that would turn us into eternal mortal enemies. It would be a mess, and I am begging you to consider the option. I am that desperate for you and Kanan to just get this over with.” “Why?!” Because if Kanan and Hera weren’t honeymooning in less than three months, Sabine was going to owe a lot of money to Zeb, but she wasn't going to admit that.

[worldbecomefantasy]

Because this will probs get long, the details on who their kids are and for what ships, that’ll all be below the cut. Some will be super detailed, others are kinda just  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ they have kids I’m sure but I’ve never plotted that out. I just wanted to take some time and talk about my muses kids and spouses cause I love family man.

Muses with kiddos (in any verse)

Nyx

Cyrus

Khal

Levi

Drautos

Pine

Kanan

To be more specific to their canon verses though:

Cyrus

Levi

Kanan

Canon kiddos

Cyrus Zerrin has three kids, Cillian, Emi and Eli. Cillian is his by blood, after a few hookups with Ocean, another local to Galahd. He didn’t know about Cillian for several years though. Ocean kept him a secret, feeling like Cyrus wasn’t in a good place to be a father. After a few months of their relationship though, Cyrus ended it as he wanted to be a better person. He’d always been the bright-eyed, happy boy in town, and she missed seeing him like that. But the attack on Galahd took his happiness away. It wasn’t until her health was declining that she let Cyrus back into her life, and subsequently Cillian’s as well.

Cyrus of course felt deep regret that Ocean had to raise him for six years on her own, but he understood why she did that. He knew as well as anyone that right after Nyx and Libertus left, and he lost his sister and friends, that he wasn’t okay. He walked a dangerous path and too many times went down the wrong roads. So he doesn’t blame her for keeping Cillian from him, but it doesn’t make him regret his choices any less.

Cillian adjusted well, or as well as any six year old can be expected to. Ocean always spoke well of Cyrus, so Cillian had no problems with him. Their personalities were also more alike than anyone could have imagined. Physically Cillian took almost entirely after his mother, but his personality is a mirror of Cyrus. Always being kind, smiling, the epitome of sunshine. Even when darkness falls, when he’s nine, he maintains his smile.

His second child is a little girl, Emi, that he adopted just after the darkness fell and he went to Lestallum with Libertus. Emi is cute and sweet at first glance. She looks a little shy, but that’s expected from a four year old. What’s not so expected is how much trouble she gets into. Anything that she shouldn’t be getting into, she will find a way to get into. Rooms she shouldn’t be in, things she knows she shouldn’t be touching, whatever the case may be. She will get into trouble. That never changes as she grows up.

The third is Elias. He’s a close friend of Emi’s and when Cy takes in Emi she refuses to be parted from Elias. He’s a year older than her, but he’s the more timid one. He’s very unsure of himself as a young child, but as he grows up he gains more confidence. He’s a bit hotheaded, no doubt from growing up around Libertus, but he’s a good kid. He doesn’t mean to cause trouble- much unlike Emi.

~~~~~

Levi Valter is a husband, and a father of one little girl. Isabel is his eight year old daughter. She takes after her mother, being soft and sweet, but she’s always been a daddy’s girl regardless. She loves having him tell her bedtime stories, either made up, from story books, or real stories of his life. Her imagination runs wild, and he couldn’t be more proud. Levi loves her more than anything in the world, and he wants to treat her to anything she wants. He wants to be the parent to her that he never got.

~~~~~

Kanan has a very loose definition of family. He considers his crew his family, with Hera as his wife and the rest of them his children.

Zeb is older than him, technically speaking, but he still acts like a child. The 40 something year old Lasat goofs around and gets into trouble just as much as the 12 year old human on their crew act just the same.

Sabine is by far the most mature of the kids, but not without her own rebellious streak. That is what makes them stick together though, so Kanan doesn’t fault her for it. Just so long as she’s not painting anything that Hera will get upset about.

Ezra is the most like him, a young boy that’s lost and alone, and a fellow Jedi. Kanan could have let him go, never told him anything. But the Force didn’t allow that.

Finally Chopper even counts as one of the kids. Many people say he’s just a droid, that droids don’t count and are replaceable, but Kanan begs to differ.

Last of all is Jacen. The only of his kids that is by blood his family. Canonically he never knew Jacen, he died just before Hera found out she was pregnant. For the sake of this blog though, we ignore his death. As such, he did get to know Jacen, and he loves his son just as much as he loves the rest of the crew.

~~~~~

Non Canon Kiddos

Nyx Ulric. He’s not a man to have many kids, but across different verses he has many.

In a typical Before the Sunrise/Following the Moon verse he has one son. Elias. Rather than Libertus and Cyrus taking in both Emi and Eli, Nyx takes in Eli. It’s less stress on his best friends, and it keeps the kids close together. This happens after the darkness falls, and Nyx is based in Lestallum with Cyrus and Libertus. In this verse, Eli is the same kid that starts out very timid and grows into his confidence. The change is that rather than being hotheaded, he’s just reckless. Much like Nyx. There is also the variable of Nyx can be a single father, or he can be shipped with anyone still alive in the darkness, though traditionally he’s with @heartsurpluss’ Prompto.

Nyx with Luche. When shipped with Luche (specifically Jess‘ Looch) he has a daughter named Leila. Really the little girl belongs to Luche, she’s his biological daughter, but the mother isn’t in the picture. Nyx falls for Luche first, and meets her and falls just as in love with this tiny infant. He loves her so much. In canon, it’s rather tragic because she ends up an orphan, so we ignore canon. Before the Sunrise/Following the Moon though she gets her parents. Luche is horrifically scarred and has terrible self esteem, not thinking himself worthy of love or a family. Nyx does his best to combat that, not just because he loves Luche, but because he doesn’t want Leila growing up without her father. She needs a parent, and Nyx knows he won’t survive past the darkness, he knows she needs Luche.

Nyx with Prompto. Again, this is specific to Jess‘ portrayal. She has a verse for Prom where he had a daughter with Cindy. That daughter is named Anna. This is usually something that happens in a modern verse. Nyx is a middle school teacher and actually meets Anna before he meets Prom. She’s a little spitfire in his classroom, and he adores this kiddo. Then during a parent-teacher conference he meets Prompto and falls in love with him. Obviously it’s not an instant in love, but seeing this cute lil blonde single father stumble in is entirely too endearing.

~~~~~

Khal is semi canon, but not totally. Her main ship is with Spencer, a fandomless oc played by- you guessed it- Jess. Spencer is an ICU nurse when they meet, but shortly after that transfers to NICU. He spends 8 years there, being best friends with Khal, but never anything more. They’re dating in everything but title. Khal refuses to admit her feelings until one day, he comes home from the NICU with a baby, because the baby’s parents couldn’t keep him and Spencer refused to let go of him. That day Khal just broke and admitted to herself, and to him, how she feels. Because she wanted to be Rory’s mother.

~~~~~

Drautos is not the type one expects to see as a family man, or even a married man. He is business first and he’s always been like this. But a lesser known fact is that he does want a family. He wants the family he missed out on having from his home being destroyed when he was 12. Because of this, I have a lot of verses with Jess about how he becomes a parent. For context, Jess- as you can likely tell by now- is a multimuse. She rps a lot of characters, including: Luche, Pelna, Axis, and Tredd. With each of these is an option for Drautos to be a parent.

Drautos with Luche. Luche has Leila, this is a fact established while discussing Nyx. Drautos is interesting in the image of a perfect family, because he doesn’t know how to actually have a family. He doesn’t know how to be a parent. But slowly he does genuinely fall in love with Luche, and with Leila. He will do anything to protect them, and when Insomnia falls his highest priority is ensuring that Leila is safe.

Drautos with Axis. Shortly after Axis’ youngest is born the mother died. This left Axis alone, and struggling to care for three children. What good commander would just stand by and watch this struggle? Certainly not Drautos. He takes the chance in helping Axis, and in return gets a family.

Drautos with Pelna. Pelna is a tiny baby glaive, and Drautos maybe just likes showing off how powerful he is to the young glaive. The fact that Pelna has a toddler son named Danny only helps. It’s a fun game until he realizes he’s in too deep.

Drautos with Tredd. Tredd has no kids of his own, but he wants them, and he’s something like an uncle to Axis’ kids. So even if he’s not presently capable of providing Drautos with that image of a family that he wants, he could one day. Particularly if by some miracle (known as RP meta because fuck canon) Drautos and Tredd are the only ones that make it out they’re left with Axis’ kids, Luche’s daughter, and Pelna’s son. So suddenly they went from none, to six.

~~~~~

Pine is the one that I was basically just like, she’ll be a shrug emoji. Cause @bygonesin​ and I have discussed that yes, her and Argent will certainly have kids, we’ve never really talked about how many or who they are though. But both of them come from large families so it stands to reason they’d have a large family of their own.

[narkinafive]

more essay updates, not much new content but filling out the structure a little bit. i can’t believe it’s only 1500 words right now. it feels simultaneously way too long and way too short

Few franchises can match the breadth of Star Wars, and fewer still can claim to be as iconic. Not only have the characters, dialogues, settings, and aesthetics been directly referenced and lovingly parodied across all genres, so too has John Williams’ music. Yet Williams’ music is perhaps most referenced, riffed on, and remixed within the franchise itself; it is difficult to find a piece of Star Wars media which does not contain any number of Williams’ leitmotifs, such as the bombastic “Main Title” fanfare, the sweeping majesty of the Force theme, or the foreboding, villainous “Imperial March.” Within the many, many Star Wars related properties, composers for the franchise’s “lower tier” [properties], i.e. any property outside of the nine-film “Skywalker Saga,” are presented with a difficult challenge: how does one emulate and reference Williams’ original, titanic score, keeping a coherent sonic aesthetic, without copying him directly, and allowing space for the composer’s own musical language?

The larger Star Wars chronology can be broken into three general eras: the Original Trilogy era (OT), which focuses on the time represented by the films A New Hope, Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, and Rogue One, the Sequel Trilogy era (ST), which is comprised of the films The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, and The Rise of Skywalker, as well as the TV series Star Wars: Resistance, and the Prequel Trilogy era (PT), as represented by the films The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith, and Solo, as well as the TV series The Clone Wars. Of these properties, Williams has obviously scored the lion’s share of the films; Rogue One’s soundtrack was composed by Michael Giacchino, Resistance by Michael Tavera, Solo by John Powell, and The Clone Wars by Kevin Kiner.

Kiner’s other work for Star Wars was the score of another TV series, Star Wars Rebels. Rebels occupies an interesting place within the greater Star Wars chronology, qualifying as a prequel due to taking place before the events of A New Hope, yet both aesthetically and narratively more aligned with the OT, rather than the PT. [Though Rebels is nominally a prequel, Kiner’s musical language sets it firmly within the OT era, with frequent sonic callbacks to Williams’ score, with each aesthetic connection serving not only to link the viewer to the OT era, but highlight the narrative differences between Rebels and the original films. This is particularly exemplified in the parallels and contrasts between the heroes of Rebels and the OT, Ezra Bridger, and Luke Skywalker.] -fixxx

From the outset, several parallels can be drawn between Ezra Bridger and Luke Skywalker: both are orphans from provincial areas of the galaxy, both are accidentally caught up in insurrectionist rebel activity against the Empire, and both discover that they can wield the powers of the Force. They are even roughly the same age, born within days of each other. Contrasts do abound, however. Ezra receives several years of Jedi training from a former Jedi, while Luke receives very little; Ezra is actively involved with the Rebel Alliance from the very beginning, while Luke has to be drawn into it due to personal tragedy; Ezra’s primary motif is connected to the twin moons of his home planet of Lothal - this, in contrast to the famous scene of Luke Skywalker gazing into the twin sunset of his planet of Tatooine; and so on. [more parallels]

Set five years before the events of A New Hope, the backdrop of Rebels depicts the formal declaration of the Galactic Alliance, the establishment of the famous rebel base on the planet of Yavin IV, and numerous references to the secret construction of the Death Star, alongside several integral character cameos, including Lando Calrissian, Princess Leia, and Obi-wan Kenobi, while the main thrust of the story centers on the crew of the Ghost, an early cell of the as-yet-undeclared Rebel Alliance, and the journey of its newest crew member, Ezra Bridger. Described by Dave Filoni, [title] and creator of Rebels, as a con artist, and Taylor Gray, the character’s actor, as a [street smart thief], Ezra happens upon the crew of the Ghost as they commit a minor act of terrorism against the Galactic Empire, stealing several crates of supplies. Rather than pick a side in the conflict, Ezra elects to steal a crate of the same supplies for himself, outrunning the comedically incompetent Imperial police force, and dodging the members of the Ghost crew as they try to get the supplies back, until Ezra is forced to seek refuge on the Ghost to escape the marginally more competent TIE figher pilots. After helping the crew in distributing the supplies - namely, food - to a nearby refugee camp, Ezra is convinced by the Ghost’s pilot and leader, Hera Syndulla, to assist in a rescue mission. Despite his initial capture and subsequent escape from Imperial custody, Ezra chooses to see the rescue mission through to the end, and witnesses the Ghost’s second-in-command, Kanan Jarrus, wield a lightsaber, revealing himself as a survivor of the presumed-distinct and quasi-legendary Jedi Order. Recognizing that Ezra has the same gift, Kanan offers to train him to wield the Force in order to continue fighting against the Empire, dispelling any notion that the Jedi are gone with a triumphant declaration, “Not all of us.” Filoni states [need src] that Ezra decides to join the Ghost not only to learn how to use a lightsaber, but because he is in need of a family, having lost his own parents at the age of seven, when they were arrested for their underground, anti-establishment radio broadcasts. Initially, Ezra joins the Rebellion not because it is the right thing to do, but because it is convenient to him at the time; the Ghost functions as a roof over his head, its crew members as a new set of parents and siblings, and its missions as a source of food and income, along with the added bonus of learning how to use an incredibly powerful, specialized weapon, despite the target it paints on his back. Part of Ezra’s journey over the course of Rebels is re-learning how to think beyond himself, and sacrificing himself for the greater good of everyone, and not just the good of his family and friends, but, as one would expect, at the very beginning of this story, he is far more selfish than selfless. It is halfway into the first season before Ezra begins to grok the Jedi lessons Kanan has attempted to teach him, beyond lifting rocks with his mind, as he [tearfully] admits his fears while in the middle of a vision quest (presided over by the disembodied voice of Master Yoda). Over the course of the show, Ezra has frequent, deep brushes with the “Dark Side” of the Force, becoming more inclined to hurt, [something], or even kill in the name of pragmatism and getting victories for the Rebel Alliance.

Luke’s introduction to the Rebel Alliance is equally accidental, though arguably far more heroic. When his uncle and adoptive father Owen purchases a pair of droids for the farm, Luke discovers a secret message hidden within one of them: Princess Leia’s plea to a mysterious Obi-wan Kenobi for aid. Luke’s first instinct is to help her. [more]

These parallels are further underscored by their respective musical motifs. Consider Luke’s theme, the “Main Title” fanfare. [GL quote, SWO 2, 20 min in]. Comprised primarily of perfect intervals, the theme begins with an ascending major fifth, an opening salvo so famous that music students everywhere, yours truly included, use it to identify perfect fifths in other contexts. As Lucas notes, the principal instrumentation is in the brass section, immediately conferring an old-world heroic air to Luke. [SWO hero’s journey quote]. [insert sheet music here, recap] As a theme, it is punchy, energetic, deliberately and intrinsically tied up in the “Rebel Fanfare,” and generally underscores moments of onscreen heroism and valiant derring-do [explain] [example] [example] [example]

By contrast, while Ezra’s theme is also played by the horns, they are muted, thinner, ringing out more softly over shimmering, sustained strings. [insert sheet music here, recap] Ezra’s theme mostly serves to underscore the character’s moments of emotional reflection, rather than his superhuman action. [example] [example] [example]

[narkinafive]

more essay updates

what’s currently most interesting/annoying is how much context i give for each example. at what point am i just summarizing events? how much is too much or too little? is any of this even... relevant

anyhoot, under a cut, read and critique at your leisure my bros ❤❤❤❤❤❤🤟🤟🤟🤟💯💯💯

Few franchises can match the breadth of Star Wars, and fewer still can claim to be as iconic. Not only have the characters, dialogues, settings, and aesthetics been directly referenced and lovingly parodied across all genres, so too has John Williams’ music. Yet Williams’ music is perhaps most referenced, riffed on, and remixed within the franchise itself; it is difficult to find a piece of Star Wars media which does not contain any number of Williams’ leitmotifs, such as the bombastic “Main Title” fanfare, the sweeping majesty of the Force theme, or the foreboding, villainous “Imperial March.” Within the many, many Star Wars related properties, composers for the franchise’s “lower tier” [properties], i.e. any property outside of the nine-film “Skywalker Saga,” are presented with a difficult challenge: how does one emulate and reference Williams’ original, titanic score, keeping a coherent sonic aesthetic, without copying him directly, and allowing space for the composer’s own musical language? 

The larger Star Wars chronology can be broken into three general eras: the Original Trilogy era (OT), which focuses on the time represented by the films A New Hope, Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, and Rogue One, the Sequel Trilogy era (ST), which is comprised of the films The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, and The Rise of Skywalker, as well as the TV series Star Wars: Resistance, and the Prequel Trilogy era (PT), as represented by the films The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith, and Solo, as well as the TV series The Clone Wars. Of these properties, Williams has obviously scored the lion’s share of the films; Rogue One’s soundtrack was composed by Michael Giacchino, Resistance by Michael Tavera, Solo by John Powell, and The Clone Wars by Kevin Kiner. 

Kiner’s other work for Star Wars was the score of another TV series, Star Wars Rebels. Rebels occupies an interesting place within the greater Star Wars chronology, qualifying as a prequel due to taking place before the events of A New Hope, yet both aesthetically and narratively more aligned with the OT, rather than the PT. Though Rebels is nominally a prequel, Kiner’s musical language sets it firmly within the OT era, with frequent sonic callbacks to Williams’ score, with each aesthetic connection serving not only to link the viewer to the OT era, but also, through its absences and deviations, highlight the narrative differences between Rebels and the original films. This is particularly exemplified in the parallels and contrasts between the heroes of Rebels and the OT, Ezra Bridger, and Luke Skywalker.

From the outset, several parallels can be drawn between Ezra Bridger and Luke Skywalker: both are orphans from provincial areas of the galaxy, both are accidentally caught up in insurrectionist rebel activity against the Empire, and both discover that they can wield the powers of the Force. They are even roughly the same age, born within days of each other. Contrasts do abound, however. Ezra receives several years of Jedi training from a former Jedi, while Luke receives very little; Ezra is actively involved with the Rebel Alliance from the very beginning, while Luke has to be drawn into it due to personal tragedy; Ezra’s primary motif is connected to the twin moons of his home planet of Lothal - this, in contrast to the famous scene of Luke Skywalker gazing into the twin sunset of his planet of Tatooine; and so on. [more parallels]

Set five years before the events of A New Hope, the backdrop of Rebels depicts the formal declaration of the Galactic Alliance, the establishment of the famous rebel base on the planet of Yavin IV, and numerous references to the secret construction of the Death Star, alongside several integral character cameos, including Lando Calrissian, Princess Leia, and Obi-wan Kenobi, while the main thrust of the story centers on the crew of the Ghost, an early rebel cell, and the journey of its newest crew member, Ezra Bridger. Described by Dave Filoni, Executive Producer and creator of Rebels, as a con artist, and Taylor Gray, the character’s actor, as a [street smart thief], Ezra happens upon the crew of the Ghost as they commit a minor act of terrorism against the Galactic Empire, stealing several crates of supplies. Rather than pick a side in the conflict, Ezra elects to steal a crate of the same supplies for himself, outrunning the comedically incompetent Imperial police force, and dodging the members of the Ghost crew as they try to get the supplies back, until Ezra is forced to seek refuge on the Ghost to escape the marginally more competent TIE figher pilots. After helping the crew in distributing the supplies - namely, food - to a nearby refugee camp, Ezra is convinced by the Ghost’s pilot and leader, Hera Syndulla, to assist in a rescue mission. Despite his initial capture and subsequent escape from Imperial custody, Ezra chooses to see the rescue mission through to the end, and witnesses the Ghost’s second-in-command, Kanan Jarrus, wield a lightsaber, revealing himself as a survivor of the presumed-extinct and quasi-legendary Jedi Order. Recognizing that Ezra has the same gift as him, Kanan offers to train him to wield the Force in order to continue fighting against the Empire, dispelling any notion that the Jedi are gone with a triumphant declaration, “Not all of us.” 

Initially, Ezra joins the Rebellion not because it is the right thing to do, but because it is convenient to him at the time; the Ghost functions as a roof over his head, its crew members as a new set of parents and siblings, and its missions as a source of food and income, along with the added bonus of learning how to use an incredibly powerful, specialized weapon, despite the target it paints on his back. Filoni himself states [need src] that Ezra decides to join the Ghost not only to learn how to use a lightsaber, but because he is in need of a family, having lost his own parents at the age of seven, when they were arrested for their underground, anti-establishment radio broadcasts. Part of Ezra’s journey over the course of Rebels is re-learning how to think beyond himself, and sacrificing himself for the greater good of everyone, and not just the good of his family and friends--but, as one would expect, at the very beginning of his story, he is far more selfish than selfless. It is more than halfway into the first season before Ezra begins to truly comprehend the Jedi lessons Kanan has attempted to teach him, beyond lifting rocks with his mind, as he finally admits and begins to face his fears while in the middle of a vision quest (presided over by the disembodied voice of Master Yoda). 

Over the course of the series, Ezra has frequent, deep brushes with the “Dark Side” of the Force, becoming more inclined to fight, hurt, or even kill in the name of pragmatism and gaining victories for the Rebel Alliance. 

Luke’s introduction to the Rebel Alliance is equally accidental, though arguably far more heroic. When his uncle and adoptive father Owen purchases a pair of droids for the farm, Luke discovers a secret message hidden within one of them: Princess Leia’s plea to a mysterious Obi-wan Kenobi for aid. Luke’s first instinct is to help her, seeking out the reclusive loner Ben Kenobi for more information.  [more]

These parallels are further underscored by their respective musical motifs. Consider Luke’s theme, the “Main Title” fanfare. [GL quote, SWO 2, 20 min in]. Comprised primarily of perfect intervals, the theme begins with an ascending fifth, an opening salvo so famous that music students everywhere, yours truly included, use it to identify perfect fifths in other contexts. As Lucas notes, the principal instrumentation is in the brass section, immediately conferring an old-world heroic air to Luke. [SWO hero’s journey quote]. [insert sheet music here, recap] As a theme, it is punchy, energetic, deliberately and intrinsically tied up in the “Rebel Fanfare,” and generally underscores moments of onscreen heroism and valiant derring-do. [explain] [example] [example] [example]

By contrast, while Ezra’s theme is also played by the horns, they are muted, thinner, ringing out more softly over shimmering, sustained strings. [insert sheet music here, recap] Ezra’s theme mostly serves to underscore the character’s moments of emotional reflection, rather than his superhuman action. The first iteration of Ezra’s theme, in contrast to the above, plays as Ezra observes the crew of the Ghost handing food supplies from afar. His whole worldview has clearly been shaken; rather than abscond with the supplies stolen from Imperials--supplies that, Ezra’s presence notwithstanding, were difficult to steal--the crew of the Ghost chooses to give most of them away (though a crate of weapons is sold to a shady businessman for income). Ezra’s first instinct had been to sell them himself, to any number of the black market dealers with which he has become familiar growing up. Of the many confusing aspects of this situation, one thing which must be puzzling him is why the crew had even offered him refuge on their ship. Surely if they were like any other thief or smuggler, they would have left him behind to be killed by the TIE Fighter pilot, either as a punishment for stealing the crates in the first place, or simply to get him out of the way. (Later, he will be even more shocked that they turn around to rescue him from an Imperial Star Destroyer, one of the Empire’s largest and most heavily guarded space vessels, despite having accidentally left him behind earlier in their haste to escape.) Now, however, this emotional confusion, coupled with a handy tug from the Force, compels him to sneak aboard the Ghost and snoop, where he stumbles on Kanan’s lightsaber and holocron, a treasure trove of Jedi information that only Jedi can open, which he promptly steals. 

Ezra was born on “Empire Day,” the day that the Clone Wars were ended and the Galactic Empire was declared by Palpatine, formerly Senator, then Chancellor, and now Emperor. (It was that same day that the Emperor launched his assault on the Jedi Order, wiping nearly all of them out in one overwhelming blow. It has been theorized that this mass slaughter resonated throughout the Force, causing unborn Force sensitive children to panic and induce early labor in the mother. Incidentally, Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa were born two days later.) For Ezra, Empire Day comes with its own baggage--this day is also the anniversary of his parents’ arrest for treason, which left him homeless and alone. This Empire Day, however, Ezra is not alone, but instead has joined up with a rebel cell determined to cause some mayhem and headaches for the Imperial occupiers. With Imperials distracted by preparations for a local parade, and their search for a particular Imperial data-worker named Tseebo, Ezra and the rebels happily ruin the parade, and, while hiding in the abandoned apartment which used to be Ezra’s childhood home, discover Tseebo already there. Tseebo was, by Ezra’s admission, a friend of his parents, though Ezra himself wants nothing to do with Tseebo now, who “went to work for the Empire, after they took my parents away.” (While it is left intentionally vague, there is a distinct possibility that Tseebo had a hand in his parents’ arrest and imprisonment.) In the years since, Tseebo had allowed himself to be implanted with cybernetic enhancements in order to increase his productivity, before downloading several caches of Imperial secrets, and attempting to flee. With all of the information in his head, Tseebo is little more than catatonic, able to walk and spout random information, but not truly understanding what is going on around him--until some turbulence aboard the Ghost appears to knock him back into consciousness. Seeing and recognizing Ezra, and perhaps knowing that he has a limited amount of time, Tseebo frantically tries to tell Ezra that he knows what happened to his parents, who had been presumed dead all this time.

Unfortunately, Tseebo cannot remain lucid for long, and Ezra must go and lure the pursuing Imperials off of their tail, in order to get Tseebo to Hera’s rebel operative, the mysterious Fulcrum.