#if we see Ben as a father figure of Luke then he could be seen as Leia's dad by proxy. So there we have the parallel

[mystical-moonmagic]

The end of Thomas and Richard's friendship but make it Obi-Wan and Anakin at the end of Revenge of the Sith.

Thomas: You were my brother, Richard. I loved you

The way his voice would just break -

[phoenixyfriend]

Uncle Ben and Little Luke

AKA we combine several types of time travel for maximum Soft Chaos, let’s go

EDIT NOW THAT I’VE WRITTEN THIS UP: jfc this ended up much angstier than initially intended uhhhhhhhhhh sorry

So a common enough thing I’ve seen in time travel fics is characters getting de-aged when tossed back physically, to neither the age they should be in that time, nor the age they were from the time they left, but whatever is most convenient. This is usually de-aging OT Obi-Wan into his TCW self, for reasons relating to, chiefly, removing the damage of Tatooine absolutely destroying his body alongside PTSD-driven alcoholism, but also because fic writers are horny, and Ewan McGregor playing a late-thirties negotiator is on average more appealing to people than Alec Guinness playing a vaguely feral desert hermit.

So, here’s how it plays out:

We take Luke and Ben from some point in the OT. There are a variety of options depending on how angsty we want it to be. My first instinct is ‘right after Owen and Beru die’ but I want to have that sweet angst where Luke knows that his dad is Vader and that Obi-Wan was trying to convince him to kill his own father without telling him that.

We’ll go with shortly after Bespin, and then they end up significantly before TPM. The Obi-Wan of the timeline proper is, eh, let’s say eighteen. Not really ready to be a knight, but old enough that we don’t have to worry about “if we go save Shmi, do we somehow wipe out Anakin?” which is absolutely a worry. Anakin is a toddler, and is in no place to be evil, on account of being literally two years old. He can’t even explode people with his brain yet.

Now, Ben finds himself mid-thirties, as is traditional. He’s not upset at this, because his joints hurt so much less than they used to! His knees aren’t exactly teenage-perfect, but by the Force are they better than they were in the years before he died! His hair has color! He doesn’t have arthritis! And, goodness, no physical withdrawal symptoms! The psychological aspect is still there, but nonetheless, he’s in much better shape than he last remembers being.

Luke looks like he’s about six. He was recently twenty-two. This is not an upgrade. Ben keeps having to carry him. He can’t see over the counter when they enter a bar for information. He can’t enter the bar in the first place. He’s very annoyed by all of this.

Ben is not annoyed. Ben is having a lot of emotions, actually, but annoyance isn’t one of them. He didn’t get to help raise Luke the way he might have if Anakin hadn’t lost his shit, okay, he sees a small Luke and he wants to hug him and cry.

Luke would like to be able to purchase a speeder part without the lady at the stall asking him if he needs his “dad’s” permission.

Once they figure out when and where they are, they need to decide where and how to leave. There are general shenanigans to gamble their way into enough money to hire a ship. They are in the ass end of nowhere, but definitely not Tatooine. There appears to be a jungle. There appears to be a significant variety of man-eating creatures. There appears to be a temple to the Force of questionable origin. None of this is actually helpful, except for the moment they find a “baby’s first lightsaber” in the temple.

Luke only has one hand and, being a six-year-old, his body is growing too fast for him to bother with getting a wired-in prosthesis the way he could as an adult. He can get a more basic prosthesis, but nothing that attaches to the neurons. He’ll outgrow it too fast.

He’s tiny and he’s not used to doing things with just one hand. He uses the Force to do what one hand can't, and every time someone tries to tell him he's misusing the Force he whaps them with the empty sleeve.

So, you know, they find out what year it is. Ben has a breakdown. Luke is upset that he left behind his friends. Ben admits to him that Leia was his twin. Luke stares in horror because dude, she kissed him, you couldn’t have mentioned this earlier???

Ben points out that Beru and Owen were keeping Luke away from him for nineteen years, and then they had about three days of awkward travel to find Leia in the first place, and then Ben died. He didn’t have a whole lot of time to figure out how to tell him.

(This sparks an argument that lasts several days. All onlookers assume that Ben’s son is throwing a tantrum. He doesn’t correct them, even though this is a very valid reason to be upset, because the truth is much harder to explain.)

Sooooo they travel. Mostly, Ben plays Sabacc, cleans house, and pays their way towards Coruscant. Luke still really wants to learn to be a Proper Jedi, even though Ben is pretty sure that Luke would have... a lot of difference of opinion with the Temple, but sure. Coruscant. They can at least stop by, and see Qui-Gon, and Mace, and Quinlan, and Bant, and everyone else that’s still alive and not tragically deceased in the horror following the start of the Clone Wars and then the birth of the Empire, and Ben can have a nice sob over all his dead friends being alive again.

Ben is only barely holding it together while Luke is in the room with him at any given point. But it’s fine! It’s fine. He’s fine. All of his loved ones have come back to life! It’s great! HE’S FINE.

He is not fine.

Luke is also grieving all the people who haven’t been born yet, but he’s... significantly more okay than Ben is.

The closer they get to the Core, the more often people just assume Ben is Luke’s father, and then look shocked and uncomfortable when Luke flatly calls him by his name, and they just... compromise. This is the point at which Luke starts calling him “Uncle Ben.”

Ben cries in his bunk later that night. Luke overhears it and wonders how the HELL Ben is more unstable now, when there’s a chance to fix things and no Vader or Empire trying to kill or capture both of them, and all his friends are alive.

(Luke will later learn a lot about PTSD and realize this is actually a fairly normal situation, to process significant events and emotions only after gaining safety or catharsis.)

(Twenty years on a ball of sand with an alcohol addiction and debilitating fear of the man you raised as your own brother is not, in fact, safe or cathartic.)

At any rate, they’ve settled into that pattern by the time they reach the Inner Rim. The Inner Rim is the part of the galaxy at which they’ve collected enough money (and mental stability) to travel a little better, and to take a few more risks.

Risks like “manipulate people with those baby blues.”

Ben tells Luke that he’s a menace, after he pouts so cutely that he gets a free scarf added on to a purchase that Ben makes. Luke responds that Ben has no room to talk, since he flirted a free breakfast out of that one inn owner.

Also, Luke is currently physically six. That is objectively a situation that sucks. He deserves to use it for all it’s worth if he’s stuck like this.

“You know, if you keep wearing all-black and looking longingly at the velvet cape and Space Chanel boots, the temple is going to worry that you’re a darksider.”

“Uncle Ben... you told me, yesterday, that I sparkle so brightly in the Force that it’s almost blinding.”

“Yes, but the gloves--”

They don’t agree on this, but Ben relents. He does actually understand good fashion, unfortunately, and he’s not unaware of how much Leia taught Luke about such things.

Luke’s about forty years ahead of the curve, of course, but Skywalkers are prone to such things. It’s usually in regards to technology, granted, but...

They get to Coruscant. Ben is very obviously a Jedi. He knows all the right words and walks like a Soresu master and feels warm and comforting in the Force. They let him in with minimal questions. They note down “my first padawan left the order to have a child, but died shortly after; I consider Luke here to be my nephew, and have raised him as such,” and move on.

Luke is vaguely annoyed because he already had an uncle (and aunt) that raised him, but he admits that a person can have more than one uncle. He can live with this. Ben was more family to Anakin than Owen was, in some ways, so it’s kind of true. Luke is even working on feeling more childish affection for Ben instead of the complicated mess of emotions that come from being lied to about some very large and important subjects, and then seeing the person saying those lies have regular emotional breakdowns due to something as small as Luke saying he likes the curve of the hull on that freighter.

(Apparently he sounds just like his father did as a child. This is almost heartwarming.)

The thing is! The thing. The thing is, they almost make it to the Halls of Healing to get looked over for weird viruses, or Outer Rim Parasites, or whatever the hells needs to be happening. They almost make it without Ben having a flashback to dead younglings or brainwashed troopers or the declaration of a Sith Empire. They almost make it without incident.

Then Ben sees Qui-Gon, and freezes, and does not move again.

Luke cannot get him to restart.

People are staring.

They haven’t even made it to Medical, Uncle Ben, come on.

Young, local Obi-Wan comes over and asks if there’s something he can do to help. Or maybe this “Ben” knows Qui-Gon? Master Jinn doesn’t recognize Ben, but maybe Luke knows more?

Luke does know more, but what Luke actually says is “he probably needs a mind healer.”

(Ben will not appreciate this.)

(Ben is unfortunately standing in the middle of the hallway and completely unresponsive, and is unable to argue with this assertion.)

(Ben is pretty much proving this assertion entirely correct, actually.)

Obi-Wan is helpful, if a little bitchy in the manner of most late-teens individuals, and offers to help get Uncle Ben down to the Halls of Healing. It involves Obi-Wan gently pushing on Ben’s shoulders, and Qui-Gon offering to carry Luke so he can be in Ben’s sights (because Ben is a Mystery, and Qui-Gon is quite fond of those, so he wants to stay involved). Ben kind of just... shuffles on down.

There are medical tests. They ask about how Luke lost his hand. He refuses to talk about it. They ask how Ben got all his scars. Luke says he doesn’t know. They ask if he knows why Ben looks like he’s been through a war. Luke says it’s because he probably was.

They check for foreign viruses. They find evidence of thus-far-unpatented vaccinations. They ask Luke if he knows what he’s vaccinated for.

“How would I know? I’m six.”

They agree that this is a good excuse.

(It is not. He’s lying. They do not know this.)

They do some more tests. They find a lot of questionable medical bullshit in Ben’s body. Most of this is from the clone wars, but they don’t know this. Someone realizes they haven’t gotten a ping back from the Shadow Network regarding “do we have permission to pull the medical file of a Jedi that isn’t in the normal database? We’re assuming you know who he is, since we don’t.”

The Shadow Network does not know who Ben is.

The healers, of course, go “huh, that’s weird, but maybe the name he gave his nephew was fake. We can’t exactly ask ‘Ben’ for more details right now. We already had to sedate him. Let’s check the DNA!”

The DNA pulls up as Obi-Wan Kenobi.

The padawan who brought this guy in two hours ago.

“Huh, that’s weird. Let’s call in Kenobi and ask if he knows what’s going on.”

Obi-Wan absolutely does not know what’s going on.

They ask Luke.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he says, lying through his teeth and not even pretending otherwise.

“You’re not a very good liar,” teenage Obi-Wan tells him.

“I’m not trying to be,” Luke says. “Can you get Master Yoda? I feel like we’re going to need him.”

They normally wouldn’t get Yoda on the request of a six-year-old, but they also normally don’t have a catatonic thirty-something Jedi who looks like he’s been through a war popping up in the medical database as the pimply teenage padawan that broke his pinky trying to do a Badass Ataru Flip last week.

Or... whatever Luke i... is... oh dear.

“Young one,” Qui-Gon asks, while people whisper-shout behind him, not realizing he’s cutting the Correlian Knot and just asking the kid himself. “Do you know why your midichlorian count is so high? It’s almost unheard of.”

“Uncle Ben said my dad was the Chosen One,” Luke says, because he is capable of being a little shit and is actually really eager to let Ben deal with some of the fallout. He feels for the man, really, but he’s also tired of being the one to field every single question.

Also, the expressions that pass on Qui-Gon’s face are hilarious.

(Luke may or may not be more affected by his six-year-old brain than he would like to admit.)

“Thank you,” Qui-Gon says, sounding more than a little strangled about it.

It takes another three hours for Ben to wake up.

He listens to the questions. He hears what they say his ‘nephew’ said. He looks at Luke.

“Is this revenge for not telling you about Leia?”

“It’s not revenge,” Luke does not lie. “I just don’t know how to explain it.”

“It’s pretty easy to explain.”

“It’s not my secret.”

“This is revenge for the Leia thing.”

“No,” Luke says. “Revenge for the Leia thing was when I ate a live frog in front of you.”

This is the point at which someone interrupts and points out that they appear to be stalling.

“Oh, he is,” Luke tells them. He gestures at Ben. “I can’t tell you more, because it’s more his story than mine.”

“I’m afraid, Master, that I am very likely to have an emotional breakdown if I allow myself to consider the reality of this situation for longer than the fraction of a second I already have,” Ben reports, full of false cheer. “Suffice to say, I am far from stable and have only held out this far for Luke’s sake.”

“Can you explain why you have my DNA?” Obi-Wan asks, as the person who’s most concerningly involved in this situation.

“You can,” Ben says, smiling like there is absolutely nothing wrong in the slightest, ever. “I’m you, from the future. I actually died and spent a few years dead before coming back. I’m not sure why I’m younger than I was when I died, but I appreciate being able to put on my shoes without my knees attempting to mutiny.”

“He needs a mind healer,” Luke reiterates, in case the strained grin hasn’t made it clear. “So do I, but not as much.”

“I have felt literally every person in this Temple save for Luke and Yoda die,” Ben reports, looking a shade more manic than a few seconds earlier. “It’s very overwhelming to feel you all being alive again. I may be approaching a mental breakdown, and I’ve been rather strictly advised against using alcohol to treat my traumas again.”

Luke kicks him in the thigh. It’s not a very hard kick, because he is very small, and he does actually like Ben. “I’m not letting you turn into an old drunk again.”

After several seconds of silence, a healer quietly suggests that everyone clear the room, and asks if someone could fetch Master Yoda as the youngling requested.

(THIS IS ALMOST THREE THOUSAND WORDS. I started it less than two hours ago. Why am I like this.)

[ariainstars]

Why the Characterization of Kylo Ren / Ben Solo is Genius

Yeah, what else is new, you may wonder. 😊 We and many other people all have written about the topic for years.

But did anyone wonder why exactly Ben Solo is so extremely popular? Why so many fans love him, wished for him to find closure, why so many even identify with him? Thinking back, it borders on incredible.

We never see Ben as a child. We don’t see him interact with his family. We don’t hear Snoke whispering in his mind since before he was born. We may wonder how in the Galaxy the son of Han and Leia, the nephew of Luke Skywalker of all people could turn out to be the new terror of the galaxy - because apart from a few and sparse explanations in the novels and the comics (which were published when the sequel trilogy was already complete), what do we know? He was training with Luke to become a Jedi for years. One night Luke had a brief moment of panic and contemplated killing him in his sleep. Horrified and feeling betrayed, the young man ran away and adapted to his new, dark identity Kylo Ren.

And yet, despite the fact that Ben is largely a mystery, he is widely popular, many fans calling him the most interesting thing about the entire sequel trilogy.

Now compare this to Anakin, whom we see develop from day one. We know his background, see him as a child, see his family (biological mother Shmi and mentor / father figure Qui-Gon), see him being trained by Obi-Wan, falling in love with Padmé, being manipulated by Palpatine, let down by the Jedi, until his final tragic fall. And yet, when the prequels first hit theatres, they were disliked by many fans, and this dislike often focused on one detail: the characterization of Anakin before he became Darth Vader. Despite the fact that we practically know everything about Anakin, he is still not understood, even despised by many, although the prequels have aged well and now more fans like them better than they used to.

Kylo is as emotional as Anakin was, if not more. Anakin was handsome, which Kylo isn’t (all right, that’s debatable but he’s not the typical movie star). We get every opportunity to sympathize with Anakin and yet he is widely seen as a spoilt, whiny brat. Instead, Kylo Ren / Ben Solo is very often seen as the tragic figure he actually is.

I already wrote how great the casting was and that Adam Driver does the most he can only with his expressions. In both cases, the villain hardly ever gets the chance to speak his own point of view, we see him largely through other people’s eyes; and yet we feel with Ben Solo. Is it because he is the son and nephew of our heroes? I don’t think so, since they hardly interact with each other. We feel with him. He’s vulnerable and we sense that vulnerability. On an emotional level, we understand him and his conflict.

Ben Solo is also a genius reversal of the Darth Vader we knew in the original trilogy. The ruthless, terrifying man we get to know slowly turns out to be more human than we thought, and when his mask comes off we see that he’s physically broken, weak and terribly sad.

Though also imposing at first, Kylo Ren quickly loses the audience’s respect as a “villain” with his temper tantrums, his recoiling before Rey, his admiration for Vader, his youthful and inoffensive looks.

And yet, through the dumpster fire that is The Rise of Skywalker, the redemption arc and characterization of Ben Solo shines like a torch, even more so since the rest of the movie is almost forgettable.

Ben sheds the villain persona, makes up with his father, runs to save the girl he is bonded to only with a blaster in his hand, without armor or mask. And he’s terrifying. It’s now that he is Ben Solo, a hero, that he finally is really and absolutely impressive.

The Disney studios obviously knew that they couldn’t simply jump on the Star Wars band wagon or try to copy the classic movies or the prequels. They opted for doing something better. And they succeeded.

[bunfagam]

Why TLJ BETRAYS Luke Skywalker’s Core Character Trait While ROTJ Does Not:

The difference lies in the context:

Return of the Jedi has Luke make a fairly simple journey: At the start of the film we see that Luke has evolved into a self-sacrificing hero, shown to us by his mission to Jabba's Palace. During the duel on the Death Star II he is faced with temptation to not sacrifice himself: Simply kill Vader, then try to fight Palpatine. However, we see Luke struggle with that temptation, before ultimately discarding it figuratively by literally throwing away his weapon. A return to his earlier morals. His struggle with his ideals is part and parcel of the film's story. Luke defeating Vader and battering a defenseless person is being used to reinforce the story being told.

The Last Jedi has the audience be told through a voice over and a flash back that Luke had a bad dream about Ben, walked into Ben's hut, assumed Snoke had already turned Ben to evil, foresaw the evil Ben would do, and jumped straight to murdering Ben as a solution. Luke explains, in voiceover, how he felt bad, made wild assumptions, and convinced himself that he could kill Ben in his sleep to solve all the problems. Luke then tells us that this action directly led to Ben killing everyone and becoming evil. The scene serves purely to exposit how Ben became evil, and how Luke feels about it, in a prime example of telling the audience rather than showing the audience.

The former has a very clear arc, and the temptation to evil has an obvious goal and an effect on the character going forward. The latter has no clear arc, and the temptation to evil is retroactive storytelling to explain things we already know. The build up and payoff is where RotJ gets away with it, while TLJ doesn't. TLJ is relying on the audience making an assumption that Luke hasn't changed, and then subverting our expectations with no warning as a way to shock the audience without changing the character. RotJ shows us how Luke has changed, then subverting our expectations with no warning as a way to shock the audience and the character.

In short:

In one film, Luke acts one way, has a dramatic mistake, and is shocked by his own actions so much that he returns to the way he used to act.

In the other film, Luke acts one way, has a dramatic mistake, and reacts by totally abandoning the way he used to act and going to live on a farm.

RotJ's method is the final dramatic arc of the film we just watched, culminating in Luke's actions affecting his father and returning him to the Light.

TLJ's method is the final dramatic arc of a film we've never seen, explained as a flashback and voiceover in the film we watched, and culminating in explaining background information like it was a spoiler to a film that never existed.

[ispent5hrscreatingavalidblogname]

Easter egg

Standing there it's surreal,how could I have imagined this people ever being together in the same room without shouting the entire roof down throwing insults at each other that would make any child feel embarrassed sometimes it even comes down to the case of complete genocide and bloodbath on another level,but now this people are indeed shouting but they are also singing,and laughing and there might be a genocide I see uncle Ben hugging the life out of Walter,Uncle Ben is a huge man a compliment after 25yrs of working and running a timber company before an accident took that away from him,he has been bitter since but right now looking at his face and seeing the bright blush on his cheeks I Know he's stupidily drunk but he's also happy-he's happy,and Walter who is his niece.Walter is in his 30's,he lost his father some years back who was Uncle Ben's younger brother,he has always blamed Uncle Ben for it,he said he should have been there to protect his little brother,you may say this might have been childish but you can'not blame a child for that-everyone grieves in their own way,so they would always fight and hurt each other and keep apart when you could see in their eyes they needed each other far beyond spoken words,words that could never be spoken.

I turned and saw aunty Kimsy dancing and twirling around the room graciously the lemon light reflecting off her hair,she has always been depressed for some reason because of that she had fallen into the support of drugs as a result she has been a victim to cases of drug abuse....every corner I look someone,everyone has a smile on their face,a genuine smile.. talking dancing,stuffing food in their faces even the house help Mira has gotten her own share of the joy,my cousin Richie,Tommy,shalla uncle Finnese everyone,from here I could spot my Bestie Courtney talking with my lil bro Luke(he is a year younger than me),these guy's could never been seen together wow,they seem to be laughing and giving each other eyes....o.kay I probably should stop whatever is going on later,my bro and my bestie nah nah..and grandpa too am sure he's well into his 90's and his still showing grandma some moves-real classy,what they have is truly special being able to be with each other at such age,they are the only ones that never fight the happiest couple I've ever seen.....a figure struggling to climb the top of the parlour table catches my attention-its aunty Kimsy she's holding a glass of wine as she's shouting "everyone I love you,I love you Walter,I love you Whitney,I love you Richie,love you Judy,love you Paul love you Finnese" a huge smile on her face,we don't even have a Paul in the house! Looking at aunty Kimsy now her smile gleaming brightly on her face the shades of light bathing and enhancing all the features in her face-she takes the posture of an over dramatic opera singer and just there I see her for how she truly is-strong and beautiful

Our 5yrs old last born Daniel,doing is own share of jumping he's not overly happier than usual but he has always been an overactive and gleeful little runt so he's definitely in his zone right now...I was smiling at him when my eyes caught Mom and Dad arms around each other moving from side to a side with a slow rythem-dancing,they'v had a disagreement with each other lately at first I thought it was not something really serious but then things started getting really cold between them and I guess at some point I thought they were going to spli...No I should not think of that now i know everything is alright again..Today I turned 18,last year April 17,I turned 17 on a 17 crazy right? Now today am turning 18 on an Easter,and everyone is together again I guess it's a prayer I've been praying for so long what a blessing I've been given and even though it's something for just today something has already started growing in me filling up a sphere so perfectly that has been there for so long and even though if all this would be gone by the time I wake up,I will Carry this feeling this joy with me into tommorow and the day after and the day after that until it's ready to hatch and grow and spread touching everyone as much as possible because I know one day I'd have this forever.

I think a tear started rolling down my face then because my Mom looked at me and called out and walking towards me "Lexa honey why are you crying dear" she knelt down a little and cleaned off the tear before they rolled down my cheek,an action that striked me as overly excessive I mean we are almost the same height! Everyone's attention now suddenly seems to be directed at me as they all came closer "Lexa are you okay" "what's wrong kid" "are you alright baby girl" my eyes scanned their faces and I saw nothing there other than genuine concern and care and sympathy-none of them have ever truly shown interest in how I felt and how I was actually doing before,the very thought of this sent more tears to my eyes and uncontrollable sorbs escape my lips "I'm really sorry...it's just I've never seen you all this happy before..you are always fighting and and arguing and being gloomy and it never ends sometimes..." I burst into some more tears making my dad hold me and hug me "oh my little girl" we stayed like that for some while before he pulled out and looked in my eyes and said "am sorry" and I knew then he was referring to him and mom.I heard aunty Kimsy's voice from one side "Honey we are sorry buh even though we are shit sometimes" dad eye's her definitely for the use of that language she sticks her tongue out at him this made me laugh... "and it seems everything is falling apart,maybe because of us but everything will always end up being fine and even though we are always at each others throat and it may even seem we intend to kill each other sometimes" she intentionally pauses and allows Uncle Ben who's hands where currently around Walters throat to stare at each and then everyone else,they both shrugged...geez "we will always pull ourselves at of the storm together...do you know why?" I shook my head "yes..maybe...no.." "because we are family" her shin raises a bit higher and I could see in her eyes she was remembering all the time my Mom stayed with her through those hard nights..nights she thought she wanted to die...nights she wanted to die..the help Uncle Ben has given her...the support this family has been to her to everyone and finally I could see clearly "we are family and we always stick together" uncle Ben shouts...."bring it in kiddo" oh hell am going to be crushed in his arms,but before I could escape that inevitable hug the entire family gangs in on me holds me in place and we all shared a hug together as the tears continues to roll down my face "I love yo'all" ...the hug continued for what seems like forever and I felt something inside me come alive,yeah you know that egg I was telling you about.....I think it had just hatched.

[dindyke]

Three Ways A Clan Is Torn Apart : 1301 words, din djarin/luke skywalker, canon compliant, major character death

The attack on Luke Skywalker's Jedi Academy by the newly formed Kylo Ren diverges at three points, three ways in which Din Djarin and Grogu lose and are reunited with the final member of their Clan of Three.

I.

Midnight finds the Mand'alor still in conference, with no clear end in sight. His advisors argue amongst themselves, and Din shifts in his seat, waiting for them to finish. His throat is coated with an acid he cannot seem to swallow down, and he can’t focus on the blabber.

When Grogu pushes the heavy doors open, guards flat on their asses behind his small body, the chatter is forgotten completely. Grogu speaks to them all through the Force.

Buir, we must leave. There is a disturbance on Yavin IV. I cannot sense the Children, he says.

He hears the end of a protest from Bo Katan and leaves the room in a hurry, hoping they will come to understand that if his family is in jeopardy, he must go. That is his Way.

“Your father? Can you sense him?” Din asks as they quickly make their way to their ship.

Faint. He is faint, is all Grogu says in return.

The trip to Yavin IV is silent, spare for their breathing. When they land, amongst the rubble and the smell of death, it suffocates them. Grogu places his small hands on every cold body, pushing energy through the Force until he sways and can no longer stand.

They didn’t find Luke. However, his X-Wing was missing, and neither his robes nor his corpse were anywhere to be found. Hope. That was their hope.

The two of them put out the fires and cleaned the dead as they waited for Leia and the families to arrive. To bury them here would be presumptuous. Many of the students had parents, siblings, who had come to visit frequently as Din had with Grogu in the earliest years.

When nothing was left to busy his hands with, Din sat at the edge of the smoldering temple, weeping into his knees. He couldn’t bear to think of what may have happened should Grogu not have traveled with him to Mandalore.

His exchange with Leia was brief, conveying what he’d seen, what he hadn’t. Her son was missing from the bodies as well… they could understand what this meant. She told him she’d felt it when he turned. She looked more devoid of joy than he had ever seen her.

As he and Grogu sped away to find her brother, he knew she gave a politician’s performance to the arriving families of the victims. Stoic and just warm enough to be inspiring, she could handle this in a way he never could, for his covert nor his citizens.

Tracking down a Jedi Master had been hard enough when Luke was a cocky young man, only barely caring to stay under the radar. A Jedi Master who didn’t want to be found would be even harder.

However, if Luke wanted to go missing, he had married the wrong man. Din was the Mand’alor, but he was a Bounty Hunter first, and he would never forget.

Determination in his heart, he set off, his son at his side, to regain their lost Clan Member.

“We’ll bring you home, cyar’ika.”

II.

Din Djarin wakes to an empty bed, the sheets cold although the air outside is scorching. He smells smoke. He dons his armor as quickly as he may have 30 years ago and rushes from his hut, finding Luke nowhere.

Children are screaming.

He runs through the stone and brick plaza, and when he sees the first body, he chokes on his breath. She’s already dead, a perfectly cauterized slice torn through her abdomen. She was one of their youngest.

He flings open each house, screaming for Luke and losing his hope with every child he sees slaughtered in their beds.

When he feels Grogu call to him through the Force, he nearly collapses. He’s at the temple. Din can’t run fast enough. More of the padawans lay motionless in the road, and he hopes to the Gods that someone better than him will protect them in the next world, as he has failed in this one.

The temple is aflame when he reaches it, two meek figures boldly lit in the dark night. Grogu, posed with his saber, and… and Ben.

It was Ben. Ben did this.

If he cares that Din is there, he doesn’t show it. He makes a move to approach Grogu (the kid must have got him good, he’s got a limp), but Din is there first.

He may no longer be Mand’alor, but Din has always been a fighter, a protector. And he’d damn himself a million times over before he lets a Sith touch his son.

As he had all his life, Din Djarin fights valiantly, with every tool in his arsenal and his family at the forefront of his mind.

When Luke wakes up, disoriented and bruised beneath the ruins of Ben’s hut, he finds everything he worked for gone. His students, his school, his legacy, and his order. In front of the ashes of the Jedi temple, lie his son and his husband. Even if he could have healed them from the brink of death, it was far too late.

III.

There were several points between Bo Katan finally mercy-challenging Din for the title of Mand’alor and the six years he had now spent with Luke in his self-inflicted exile where Din really believed he could change his husband’s mind.

He understands this shame. He’d failed to protect their students too. Some of those padawans had come from Mandalore. And they’d lost most of them. The few who survived were left in the hands of the Republic, now, or with their families.

Luke had called Leia and left immediately, with Din and Grogu hot on his trail. He hadn’t wanted them to come with him. He was undeserving, he was dangerous, he’d said. He had lost himself in his trauma and nearly destroyed one member of his family, what would stop him from destroying them? He’d holed himself away within a mountain, bringing down the cave opening to keep them out.

Din and Grogu sat outside, calling to him every once and a while. Grogu occasionally shifted a rock, but he didn’t open it. They both knew Luke needed to do that on his own. After a few days of punishing himself in the stale darkness, he came back out.

That first week on Ahch-To was hard. Luke didn’t talk much. He mostly paced, up and down the winding dirt pathways of the first Jedi temple. He talked to himself, cursed at the skies, and cried against the Seeing Stone.

By the second week, Luke allowed himself to sleep at his husband’s side. It was fitful and sparse, but it was familiar.

Din respected Luke’s wishes of anonymity. He sent brief messages to the others, keeping his location hidden but assuring them that he would bring Luke home soon.

A year passed, and those messages grew few and far between. By the third, they had stopped completely.

As he had learned from Luke and the ways of the Jedi how to embrace possibility, peace, the Force around all things, he had hoped that Luke learned some things from the Mandalorians too. How to get back up, even after you’ve been kicked. After you’ve failed. How to maintain your honor and your beliefs in spite of intense pain and loss.

Six years later, maybe that was a foolish thought. Luke was more than capable of pulling himself out of his pain, Din knew this. He’d seen him recover time and time again from his traumas and tribulations.

But six years later, Din finally understands that it was not a problem of ability, but a problem of will.

The only one punishing Luke was himself, and until he decides he no longer deserves to be guilty, no one was going to change his mind.

[sofiaaaaaaaa03]

hey, have you seen kenobi? what are your thoughts :00

hi i just finished and I decided to write down my thoughts while watching part one :) It's very sporadic and over the place but here it is

Awww padawans

Tai chi ??

I liked how we could see a bit of the stuff they were exposed to, from a bit of the lesson to the school itself as they ran through it

Its so big, you can only imagine the resources they have in there

Immediately when i saw the clones my heart dropped

The jedi master was so badass with it though i wish we could have seen more of her

The way the director panned the camera made me feel like I was there, running with the kiddos 

I felt so bad though

Like the kids were obviously distressed that their master died

But not as much as they should have been

You know that they knew that they would see their familiars die

Maybe even before their eyes

And they had to suck it up, and get to safety and run

Like wow, these kids are something else

ALSO ORDER 66????????? Hearing that made my heart drop even further

I liked how the next scene showed a bit of how there are jedi hiding in sort of plain sight and there were people still looking for them

The trio at the cantina were very badass though

Kenobi stealing is gold lol

Kenobi in a cage

Finally we get to see what the jawa’s saying lol

I knew right away that the jawa stole the processor board because it laughed the same way I laugh when I steal shit from my friends (jokingly)

Teeka. I like that name

Awwww he’s keeping watch other young luke. It’s so cute how luke was pretending to be on a speeder

It’s too dark for me to be able to tell if Nari is cute or not

It’s sad to see Ben admit defeat

He’s been through too much

It’s all he can do

The time of the jedi is over- MY HEART PLEASE OBI

YOUNG LEIA????????????

Once again my appreciation for the clothing of star wars is so big

I love it

Omg leia is a little bitch she’s running from her parents and going on adventures

I love her

Those three ladies are so fired though 

Justice for lola she shouldn’t have been deactivated

Mom’s taking it on the wrong person 

Once again kenobi is stealing absolute respect

Oh but he’s feeding it to the thing???

AWWWW HE’S BEEN GIVING THE TOYS TO LUKE I DIDN’T SEE THAT

Ouch Owen did not need to do that “like his father”

The lady knew exactly what she was doing, she knew he was the man to target I can’t explain it but she knew

I wonder why owen didn’t expose kenobi if he said that he didn’t want luke to be trained by him

I like the cousin’s color palette

C-3PO!!!!

Interesting how certain people don’t show respect for the droids

Love leia for it tho

Also her comeback was sick

HOLY SHIT SHE’S TALKING TO HIM WITH SMACK

HOLY SHIT

GO LEIA GO

MAKE THE BOY CRY

No don’t owe him an apology he doesn’t deserve it

Leia i’m sorry baby but this is not your future

And no, your planet will not be there 

;-;

I love her relationship with her father

He’s so loving

He better not die

LMAO not her running away again 

HOLY SHIT THEY’RE GANGING UP ON LEIA

NO

BABY RUN

But actually Vect’s voice is so nice to hear, i don’t know why but it itches my brain

SHIT

SHE’S BEEN KIDNAPPED

She’s as important as he is

Damn right she is

C’mon kenobi do your job

FUCK KENOBI NO YOU’RE THE ONE WHO HAS TO DO IT

Ok but side note what if there were muppets in star wars

And they never question that its a puppet because there’s all sorts of creatures in the-

Fuck

Someone’s hanging

FUCK

IS IT

NO

NARI DIED???????

It’s okay i couldn’t figure out if he was cute or not so my attachment isn’t as bad as it could have been

Holy shit the senator came to kenobi so that they could change his mind

What a dad

YAAAAY LOLA TO THE RESCUE

NO LOLA

THEY CAN’T INTRODUCE THE DROID ONLY TO KILL IT

FUCK

How did he

How did he just know where his lightsabers were

I’m sorry, like I don’t care if he wrote the coordinates down but I would have lost it

Not to mention its been ten years

There has to be LAYERS of sand and it should not have been that shallow

Okay nice touch showcasing the lightsaber

That was good

Overall i enjoyed the episode. I think it set things up in a great way and i like how it world builds around jedi life after order 66. I also like this because it gives an insight on kenobi’s relationship with Leia, as well as his connections to her family.

[laurenmm62017]

Jedi June: Day 5

5 Times Luke met Force Ghosts

Prompt: There is no death, there is the Force

This sort of ignores the whole “It takes years of study to learn to become a Force Ghost” thing but oh well.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/32046055

@jedijune

~1~

The first time he spoke to someone who was not really there was back on Tattooine. Luke was working on one of the vaporators at the edge of the farm, near the end of the day. He had been working on the damn thing for the better part of the day. One part failed just as another was fixed, but it seemed that Luke finally figured out what was wrong.

He straightened up and wiped a bit of sweat off his brow with a satisfied huff. At that moment, his eyes strayed over to the fence that marked the edge of the farm. Leaning against the electric fence was a Kel Dor, long robes flowing around them. As if that wasn’t strange enough, they were completely blue and translucent. What the kriff?

“Hey!” He shouted over, lowering his hand to his holster to make sure his blaster was there. You could never be too careful with Sand People roaming around. “What are you doing out here? Tosche Station is a long way from here.”

The Kel Dor chuckled, and stood up straight. “So you’re the Luke Skywalker that Ben keeps going on about. A pleasure, young one.”

“Ben? Ben Kenobi? What about him?”

Then, the Kel Dor walked straight through the kriffing fence. Luke’s eyebrows nearly shot off his head at that. He fumbled with his blaster a bit before turning the muzzle towards the… ghost is the only word he could think of. “What the hell??”

“Do not be afraid, young Luke. I mean you no harm. I was simply curious.”

“Y...you’re see through. And blue? What are you?” Luke was so confused.

“Simply a memory from a time past. May the Force be with you, Luke Skywalker. You will do great things. Just like your father before you.”

And just like that, he disappeared, leaving Luke confused and intrigued.

~2~

Luke doesn’t see another ghost until the aftermath of the Death Star explosion (the first one, as he will find out later). Luke had just climbed down from his X-Wing, adrenaline still flowing through his veins. He yanked his helmet off his head and looked hastily around for where the Falcon landed.

As he scanned the landing field, he caught a glimpse of translucent blue, and his mind flashes back to that time on the farm.

Luke weaved through the crowd of Rebel pilots and engineers and mechanics to the edge of the airfield, almost out of sight of everyone.

This figure was tall, much taller than Luke, with hair pulled back in a ponytail, and a mask that covered his eyes with some interesting markings on it. While the last ghost wore Jedi robes, this one was wearing typical Rebel Alliance attire. He was leaning casually against the hanger wall, watching wistfully as a modified Corellian freighter slowly came in for a landing.

“You don’t look much like a Jedi, sir.” Luke called out casually.

The man turned to him and smirked. “Neither do you. You look like a hero of the Rebellion.”

“Ehh, all I did was pull the trigger.”

“And blew up the Empire’s biggest weapon. Come on, kid. Don’t be so modest.”

“Alright, alright, thank you, Master…?”

“My name is Kanan Jarrus, Jedi Knight. I fought in the early days of the Rebellion, with my crew over there. Maybe you’ve seen them around base.”

Luke and Kanan observed this crew disembarking the Corellian freighter. A Twi’lek woman walked down the ramp holding what looked like a very small baby with bright green hair. A Mandalorian with colorful armor was chatting with an older man with a beard and bright white armor, followed by a ginger-haired man in standard Rebellion clothes and a big purple alien of whom Luke did not know the species of.

“That’s your crew? They seem... formidable.” He looked over this eclectic, mismatched crew, who seemed to know exactly where each other were as they walked towards the rest of the rebels. Luke stared at the crazy amount of modifications on top of this ship. There was almost as much as the Falcon, but this ship actually looked in much better condition. Don’t tell Han he thought that.

“They’re my family. I watch over them through the Force when I am able to. When this war is finally over, then I will feel comfortable with becoming one with the Force.”

Luke’s gaze focused back on this crew and contemplated the last few days. He went from a simple farm boy on Tattooine to hero of the Rebellion in an insanely short period of time. He met a Princess, an old Jedi, and two smugglers that he had become very close to. He really hoped they could become as close as Kanan’s crew appeared to be.

He turned back to Kanan, only to find that he disappeared.

~3~

Luke was recovering from his encounter with Darth Vader- his father when he met the next ghost.

Well, ghosts.

The doctor just left after making sure the stump of his arm wasn’t infected. It wasn’t, and what a relief it was for that small miracle. He was lying down with his eyes closed in a room between two empty beds.

Slowly, as the sedative the doctor gave him worked through his body, he began to sense two? Force signatures, sitting on the bed to his left. They were so melded and tangled together, he almost thought that it was one person.

He turned his head, and there sat two men. The first was wearing robes that looked similar to Old Ben’s robes. He was slightly too thin and his eyes didn’t quite connect with his own. The other was more built, had shoulder length hair, and was wearing a simple shirt and pants.

But Luke could see the way that their bodies were angled towards each other, the way the larger man had his arm on the other’s back, the way they seemed to unconsciously lean against each other.

“And who are you two?” He muttered, his brain still a bit fuzzy.

“My name is Chirrut. And this big softy is Baze.” The one who wore robes said, and gestured with his hand to the other man, whose frown deepened slightly at his introduction.

“Hi. I’m Luke.”

“You’ve been through so much, young one. The Force feels heavy around you. You faced a horrible creature and paid the price for your mistakes.” Chirrut declared, a bit too loudly, in Luke's opinion.

“Yeah, guess that’s what happens when I don’t listen to Master Yoda.”

“No.” Baze rumbled. “This sort of thing happens when you go into a situation you think you are ready for, but horribly overestimated yourself.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. I should have listened to Master Yoda. But if I had, Leia and Chewie…”

“There is no changing the past. All one can do is look to the future.” Chirrut smiled. “Besides, I don’t think you’re ready to give up yet. After all, the strongest stars have hearts of kyber.”

“What does that even mean?” Luke asked, furrowing his eyebrows.

“I still don’t know what you’re talking about.” Baze said, smiling very slightly.

“I’m disappointed, Baze. Do you not remember our time in the temple as Guardians?”

“I’m surprised you can remember something that happened so long ago, old man.”

“Such a shame. Baze Malbus was once the most devoted Guardian of us all!”

Luke smiled at them, letting their bickering to wash over him, then allowed the sedative to take hold of him.

~4~

The next time Luke saw a ghost was right before his turn in the plan to get Han back from Jabba's palace on Tattooine. He was at the outer edges of the Dune Sea, doing a bit of moving meditation to settle his nerves and center his focus. As his movements flowed smoother and smoother and he sank deeper into the Force, he could sense the Force coming together next to him in the form of a humanoid. Harsh, wild energy barely contained within, but already one with the Force. He could feel that this ghost was following the movements of his meditation with sharp precision and only a split second behind him.

He was winding down now, moving slower and slower, and finally settled in a kneeling position on the sand.

A beat of silence, then...

"You were trained by Obi-wan Kenobi, weren't you?" This ghost's voice was light, jovial, but his energy was dark, a shadow just out of sight.

"Yes. Him and Master Yoda. How could you tell?"

"I'd know Obi's style anywhere. We grew up together, after all."

Luke's eyes opened and looked across from him at this new ghost. He had dreadlocks that went slightly past his shoulders, a stripe of color across his nose and cheeks, and what looks like only the outside robe of standard Jedi robes? Interesting choice, Luke supposed.

"Obi-wan... I knew him as Old Ben, he lived out in the Jundland Wastes. Uncle Owen... he never trusted him, I guess. But I was always drawn to him, for some reason. Now I know it was because of the Force.” Luke smiled at the man. “You said you knew Ben?”

“Sure did, kid. But I knew him as Obi. We grew up in the Jedi Temple together. He was a cute little thing, always chasing after me and our group of friends. A lot happened to him at the start of his Padawan training, and it influenced him for the rest of his life, and therefore, the fate of the galaxy.” The man shook his head. “He was so full of anger when he was younger, but then he went to Naboo with his Master, that was the turning point for him. We could all feel it. Had the Jedi Order continued, I totally believed that he would have been the youngest Grand Master the galaxy had ever seen.”

“He was a bit distant, and I could tell there was a lot that he didn’t tell me before… he went to face Vader.”

“He was always like that. Never wanted to be a burden on others, so he kept everything close to his chest. He really only confided with Master Yoda. Or during the Clone Wars, he would spend a lot of time with his second in command.”

“A clone?”

“Yes, Commander Cody, highest ranking clone in the entire GAR. They were very close. Dunno what happened to him after the war.”

“May he be with the Force.”

“Yeah.”

There was a pause between the two.

“Hey, kid. Be careful, in there. Jabba is a lot smarter than his appearance would indicate.”

“Of course. How could he be the leader of an entire system if he wasn’t?”

“Heh, that’s true. Just don’t underestimate what he would do if he found you out.”

“He won’t.”

~5~

The last time he saw a ghost, or Force ghost, was during his exile on Ahch-To. He had lost track of time many cycles ago. The local population helped him acclimate to basically having nothing. They taught him how to fish, sterilize water, plant edible food, and build a shelter for himself. All of the books that he collected over the years were kept in an isolated part of the island that he rarely went to.

It was peaceful. But there was still a storm in his heart.

Luke stood on one of the higher cliffs on this small island, looking over the endless water. The waves roughly washed up the cliffs and he felt the sprays tickle his feet.

He wasn’t meditating; his head was too much of a mess for that.

Why didn’t he see it sooner? Why didn’t he sense it? If he were a better teacher, would he have been able to stop it?

“Luke, stop that train of thought this instant.”

He jumped and nearly fell from the cliff as a result. He turned around indignantly, ready to tell off whichever ghost had come unannounced to his exile, but paused when all he saw was blue and white lekku.

He slowly looked up to see a scowling and unimpressed face glaring down at him and they stepped back. Now he had a better view of this Force ghost.

A Torgruta, at least a head taller than him, wearing long flowing robes and patches of… stormtrooper armor? No, it was a little too angular for that. Clone trooper armor then. She had many decorative beads draped over her montrals and lekku and her face markings were very sharp and distinct.

“Well it’s true. What would you know of any of this?” He retorted back.

“Oh, you will find I know betrayal very well. After all, thousands of my children betrayed me.”

“…you’re talking about the clone troopers.”

“Indeed. My name is Jedi Master Shaak Ti, and during the war, I was stationed on Kamino, the home plant of the clones. I oversaw thousands of clones’ training, I gave them advice, I comforted them when their brothers were decommissioned. I fought with and for them all. But in the end, it was for naught. They executed almost all Jedi, even the youngest in the crèche and the eldest in the Halls of Healing.” He listened in awe.

“But I do not blame them. It was Palpatine who forced them to do this. Implanted a chip to control them with the right code words. They couldn’t control it, just as you could not control what happened with Ben Solo.”

“But I could have stopped this from happening, if only I had seen it!”

“What if’s and could have’s won’t change the past, Luke. All you can do now is look forward. What could you do in the future, if only you would forgive yourself.”

“I… I can’t go back. How can I face them? Leia, Han, Chewie? Their son Fell to the Dark side, because I wasn’t a good enough teacher.”

“Falling is a choice, Luke. Ben was manipulated by the Dark and Fell because of it. Not because you failed.”

“Heh. Sure, whatever you say.” He turned on his heel and began walking back down the hill to his hut.

He heard her sigh, and then felt her Force energy disperse.

[darkside-skyguy]

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My Top Posts in 2021

#5

If any non-Skywalker was going to claim the Skywalker name at the end of the saga, it should've been Ahsoka.

I don't think she actually would, as it's a kind of erasure of her own identity, but she is the natural heir to the legacy. She was Anakin's padawan and she knew Anakin better than anyone, even better than Padme or Obi-Wan, I would argue. She had the strongest, most pure connection to Anakin, and if anyone besides Luke or Leia or Ben was going to carry on the legacy that he started, it's her. Ashoka Tano Skywalker.

106 notes • Posted 2021-06-25 16:38:00 GMT

#4

Every movie in the PT >>>>>>>>>>>> The Rise of Skywalker

112 notes • Posted 2021-04-10 16:54:18 GMT

#3

Are you ever just going about your business and randomly remember that The Rise of Skywalker exists and your heart breaks into a million angry pieces all over again or is that just me

125 notes • Posted 2021-02-10 19:42:51 GMT

#2

Wait I’m having a thought….

OKAY so my biggest problem with the sequel trilogy as a whole is that it is too rooted in nostalgia to make any sense when it comes to the internal logic of the story. So, for example, Rey meets Han Solo, spends a total of a few hours (?) with him, and basically has a mental breakdown when he dies. Now, I’m not saying that her feelings are invalid because they are very valid (she saw him die! That’s traumatizing!) but the thing about Rey in this movie is that she is not operating solely as her own person here—she’s a stand in for us, the audience. We know Han Solo, we’ve known him for years, we love him and it was heartbreaking to watch him die, especially at the hands of his own son. The fervor of Rey’s anguish only truly makes sense in this context, that she is an avatar for the audience. Because within the bounds of the story, she has not truly had enough time to develop the kind of bond that we the audience have with Han and the other OT characters. We are never really allowed to view Rey as separate from ourselves, as her own character with her own worldview and relationships. As soon as she meets Han she’s starry eyed because we are starry eyed, she views him as a father figure because we view him that way. Not that it’s wrong that she sees him like that, but I wonder if she had met some other random bounty hunter, would she feel the same way? And after her abandonment on Jakku, would she really be so trusting of him? Of anyone? Yes, she’s looking for replacement parents, but I don’t know, I personally feel that it would take her some time to open up and warm up, after everything she’s been through. But the story demands that she love Han immediately and so she does. The story is dictating the characters here and not the other way around.

This is especially apparent in TFA when Rey runs to Leia at the end and hugs her. It’s such a sweet moment until you remember that Rey and Leia have literally never met, never seen each other before in their lives. They’re strangers. We find it sweet because we know and love Leia. Rey doesn’t. Again, the story demands this instant affection for OT characters from her because Rey was written to be a nostalgic vehicle and little more, at least in the beginning.

Which is why I appreciate her and Luke’s rocky relationship in TLJ, because it’s led by the characters and not the story. Suddenly a lot of the audience recoils because the way Rey sees Luke is not the way we see Luke. And then of course, TROS puts the nostalgia goggles back on and has Rey adopt the name Skywalker, when again, it’s because nostalgia demands that she fit into this narrative, not because she actually does.

tl;dr: Rey was created as an avatar for the audience’s nostalgia and not to be a character with her own agency within the story. The story pulls her around instead of her choices and feelings and actions affecting the story and it lets the whole trilogy down.

194 notes • Posted 2021-09-25 14:39:47 GMT

#1

I can’t believe a movie exists in which BEN AND REY ACTUALLY KISS and yet I STILL HATE THE MOVIE WITH ALL MY HEART

758 notes • Posted 2021-02-11 00:16:58 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[siennahrobek]

10 BBY

Luke had screeched so loud; it nearly blew everyone’s eardrums. The entire ship had rattled.

They had been on their little ship, some months after Kix had been sent away when Luke had awoken in the middle of the night, something stirring him in a way that he couldn’t quite sleep through. Annoyed, he had gotten up and searched for Ben, a little stuffed toy wrapped in his arms. He would like cuddle with Ben under his cloak, he always knew it was safe and warm there.

He hadn’t found Ben in the little space where the pullout bed usually was, so he reached out for the cockpit. The older man was sitting in the pilot seat. Usually, Luke would jump up into the copilot seat but…but somehow it was occupied.

Which was impossible.

They were in the middle of space. The ship hadn’t even made contact with a planet or another ship in days. There was absolutely no way that Luke hadn’t seen this man in their little ship before.

He had long hair, partially pulled back, with cloaks a bit similar to Ben’s. He was insanely tall, at the very least to Luke’s standards. His wore an expression Luke couldn’t quite decipher. But then he realized a few other things.

The man was blue.

The man was see through.

Luke screamed at the top of his lungs.

Ben jumped and spun around and upon seeing Luke, cursed. The light blue man just scowled at Ben which made Luke even more upset. He shouldn’t be angry at Ben. There were already too many mad at Ben for reasons he didn’t even know. Here this man was, on their ship, showing displeasure with Ben. That was incredibly rude.

“Luke!” Ben called as he leapt for the boy, immediately wrapping him up in his cloak. The screaming stopped at least, and Luke shoved his face into the older man’s side as tight as he could, everything else shrouded in the quiet and pleasant darkness that Ben’s robe provided.

“What is that?” Luke demanded in a muffled voice, keeping his face deep into the layers of cloth and cotton of Ben’s clothes.

Ben just sighed and shifted, opening his cloak so that Luke couldn’t see the other being, but Ben and Luke could see one another. He looked down at him, his eyes soft and patient. “You remember what I said about the Force and death?”

“There is no death, there is the Force,” Luke quoted perfectly. The pleasant trill from Ben’s pleased feeling ran down the boy’s spine, making him even happier with himself. He was a good student; Luke had vowed he always would be. He had studied everything Ben had given or told him as much as he possibly could. But if that was what Ben was bringing up, what did it mean? “Of course,” he nodded and then paused, not entirely sure if his next question was the correct one. His nose scrunched up. “Is he…is he the Force?”

That sounded wrong and weird.

Ben just laughed lightly, and Luke couldn’t help but brighten, a smiling forming on his face. He loved making Ben laugh, it was a rare enough occurrence without Luke’s help. Ben shook his head though as he spoke. “No, beacon, he’s not the Force. That is Master Qui-Gon Jinn,” he clarified, unwearyingly. “He was the teacher who taught me to be a jedi.”

“I thought that was Master Yoda,” Luke asked with no small amount of caution, shifting to bring his fingers to the edges of the cloak, pulling them back barely enough to peek through the entrance, looking at the ghost with a highly suspicious stare. The being, very tall, he noted, was watching Ben curiously with a raised eyebrow. But at Luke’s statement, he almost even looked offended.

“I had many teachers since I was very small,” Ben assured, keeping his gaze on Luke rather than the blue man in front of them. “But Master Jinn was my master for over ten years. It was more of a personal relationship, I would travel with him, we would do missions together, and he would teach me all he could about being a jedi and the Force.”

“That’s a long time,” Luke muttered, thinking about how little time he had been with Ben. Would he travel with Ben for over…what was it? Ten years? That seemed like a long time, longer than he was right now. He couldn’t imagine not being with Ben now. Would he have to leave Ben someday? Luke didn’t think he wanted to, not for a long time, if ever. “So, you and him, were like you and me?”

Ben hesitated. “A little.”

He wasn’t sure if he liked how Ben said that. “You said the Jedi were gone,” he accused, still keeping one eye on the blue man. “And why is he blue? Why can I see through him? People aren’t usually see through.”

“The Jedi…are gone,” he said, hesitating on his words. He bit his words and Luke knew that he was doing that sad thing where all he could feel was grief, even though Ben’s shields were unbreakable. It was just something Luke could feel. He didn’t even think Ben knew that he could. “Master Jinn, died and became one with the Force but he has an ability where he has been able to speak with me.”

Luke thought about this for a moment. Okay, that sounded a little weird but at least it was some kind of explanation. With what he knew about the Force, virtually anything was possible, even blue beings one could see through. “I’m ready to leave now,” he announced and straightened himself, letting go of the edges of Ben’s cloak.

Ben nodded and took away his cloak, wrapping it tightly around himself again as Luke shifted away from him and brushed off his clothes. Someone chuckled. Luke was pretty sure it was the ghost. He walked up to the ghost, staring up at him with a stern stare. Master Jinn met his gaze. “You’re in my seat.”

Behind him, he heard Ben choke on a snort.

The man looked down at him, somewhat amused but otherwise, Luke wasn’t entirely sure what he was thinking. He could figure this weird man out, for certain. And he would figure out what he wanted with Ben. Or him. Or anything. “My apologies, young one. Would you like me to move?” he asked, moving as if there was wind around the cockpit. His own cloak kind of blew around.

Okay then.

Luke just shrugged, carelessly. He didn’t need the seat. Perhaps he could learn more without drawing suspicion. “It’s fine I guess, for now,” he said and turned back towards Ben. He didn’t even pause before he climbed up onto the older man’s lap, tucking himself to his chest and under his chest.

Ben barely reacted, just steadied Luke so he was comfortable and draped his arms around him. Luke waited patiently for the conversation to begin again. Would they just continue to talk about what they were before he had come inside? He wanted to know, for sure.

The ghost master choked on…Luke wasn’t sure what he was choking on. He was a ghost.

“So…” Luke started before anyone else could try to jump in, eyeing Qui-Gon warily. If they weren’t going to talk about anything, Luke would have to make his own conversation. “You were Ben’s master. What can you tell me about him?”

Perhaps this was a good way to learn more about Ben from an outsider’s point of view. It wasn’t often he got to meet any of Ben’s friends or family. He had a feeling it would probably be a rare occurrence, if not a possibility he would ever get again. Ben always said he should take advantage of any opportunities for intelligence gathering. So, he would take advantage.

Master Jinn laughed. “So much, little one. So much.”

6 BBY

“Can you tell me about my mother, Ben?”

The question had even surprised Luke to an extent, but Ben answered anyways, with the consistency of his smooth calm voice that always made him feel like things would be alright. Luke had always been interested in his father, since he was a Jedi and Ben actually knew him well. Talks about his mother weren’t nearly as in depth but sometimes Ben would mention things, usually things that Luke did or said that reminded him of her. Luke’s own questions were usually fairly specific about her. For some reason, he was feeling more curious than usual. “She was a queen when she was a teenager, of an entire planet.”

“No way.”

A whole planet, when she was his age. That seemed impossible.

“Yes. And she saved her people at the time too. She later became a Senator in the Republic,” Ben nodded quietly. Between his education on Tatooine and the bit more extensive training and schooling that Ben gave him, Luke knew about the Republic, a government that, although not by any means perfect, was leagues better than what they had currently. Certainly, better than their current Empire. “Your mother was the representative of Naboo.”

He had heard of it before, although a bit vaguely. A small, beautiful planet full of water and grass and two species of beings native to there. The Gungans and the Naboo. There were intense differences and at one point, had been fairly at odds with one another. Ben said they could never go there. It was much too close to the core for one thing but there was an interest that the Empire’s leaders had in it that made visiting dangerous. It was a tad disappointing; Luke had always wanted to go to as many planets as he could. It would have been nice to visit his mother’s home planet. Even if he had never really known her.

“Was she good at it?”

“Quite,” Ben nodded, his expression calm and even. But Luke knew better. He knew talking about the past, about the people he used to know and care about was both beneficial and difficult. He would talk about it, if Luke asked, and sometimes he even liked speaking of it. But that didn’t make the memories any less difficult to bear and speak of. “She was persuasive and beautiful and passionate. She did her best to keep democracy alive. She would have loved you so very much.”

Luke knew, distantly, that he had never known her, that she had died giving birth to him. Should he feel guilty? For causing her to die?

“Did my father die after?”

“Right before actually,” Ben stiffened, the way he always did when he talked about the demise of Anakin Skywalker, Luke’s father. “He always tried to protect her, as much as he could. I am unsure how he would have barred her passing.”

“He loved her,” Luke mumbled, playing with his fingers.

Ben’s response was haunted in a way that only Luke could identify, something secretive and terrible and sad, like he knew something and would never tell anyone. That kind of faithfulness was something Luke inspired to have. But there was something about it, just, something. “He loved her more than anything else in the galaxy.”

For some reason, Luke didn’t like the sound of that. He wasn’t sure why. The way Ben said it, like Luke’s father would have burned the entire galaxy down for his lover seemed like it should be romantic, that kind of loyalty, but it rather made something sink in his chest, his heart shivering in the cold of the thought.

“Have you ever been in love?”

The question seemed to catch Ben off guard, as though he wasn’t entirely expecting that from the boy. Luke couldn’t imagine any of his stories about love would end happy and well, considering he had ended up alone with only Luke for company.

“Uh…yes,” he answered, tentatively. “A few times actually.”

Luke perked and leaned forward eagerly, his eyes shining in curiosity and the simple need to know more. “Can you tell me about them? They must be amazing for you to fall in love with them.”

Ben’s chuckle was light and a tad awkward. “They were amazing, some of the most remarkable and fiercest women I have ever met. They were strong and stunning in their own, induvial ways.”

The boy listened in rapt attention as Ben explained those that he had once loved. He always spoke of them rather fondly, so Luke imagined none of them had disliked him at the end of their courtships or whatever they did. He spoke of a young girl he wanted peace and fought with everything she had to achieve it. He told Luke about the Duchess of a planet, about her wit and tongue. About her snark and logic and passion, her drive for peace and her convictions for pacifism. Although it sounded nice, as peace always did, Luke had a hard time thinking that it would actually work. He told him about a Jedi friend that he used to hold hands under the lunch table with. Luke laughed at that; it sounded like something he would like to do with someone, something close and simple. It wasn’t anything too fancy, just friends that loved each other. He told Luke about her strength and own drive for justice. Her ability to do anything and her skills that surpassed his own. For some reason the conversation tapered off after that even though there had to be something else.

It would be several weeks afterwards that Luke would find the crystal. It wasn’t a kyber crystal, but it was very warm. It had fallen out of Ben’s cloak when he asked Luke to grab it for him. He picked it up and carried it with him on his way back to Ben. They had a few hours to spend on a planet and neither was about to waste it.

“Thank you, Luke,” Ben murmured as he took the cloak and put it on, easily. It was such a practiced motion, completely fluid. Luke hoped that one day he would be able to do that as well.

“This fell out, Ben,” he said, offering the crystal.

Ben stared at for a long moment and for a minute, Luke thought he would not even take it. But then his eyes softened, and Luke almost thought that he would start crying. He took the stone in his hand and curled his fingers around it for a second before opening them back up to looked at it. “You want to know what this is?” he asked, meeting Luke’s gaze with a faint smile. Something quiet and soft.

He just nodded in response. Of course, he did.

“It is a warming crystal,” Ben explained tenderly and gestured for Luke to touch it. The feeling was beautiful. He knew it was warm, but it was like with Ben’s presence, with his words, it changed into something that heated something other than physical, like it reached into his heart to give it a comfy hug. “One of my dearest friends gave it to me before she died.”

Luke’s heart sank. That was so sad; it was a beautiful gift. His next guess was one that didn’t feel completely out of the blue, it felt right when he said it. Ben didn’t talk about just anybody with that tone. That tone that was wistful and tender. For some reason, Luke felt like he knew who it had been. “Did you love her?”

“Yes.”

“Which one?” Luke had a quess.

“What do you mean?”

“Was is it the girl you liked as a teenager? The one you used to hold hands with?”

The older man’s curious and mildly surprised glance was somehow vaguely amused and impressed that he had somehow guessed correctly. “Why yes, Luke, you would be accurate. She is the one who gave it to me. Siri Tachi.”

“Were you in love with her?”

The boy was fairly certain he knew the answer.

There was a distant look in Ben’s eyes as he gave in to a miniature sigh. His voice was soft, knowing, but still hesitant all the same, like he wasn’t sure if he should have been admitting something like that out loud. “Once upon a time, perhaps.”

Luke wondered why life kept taking away the people Ben loved.

Would he end up being taken away from Ben too?

3 BBY

Meditation did not come completely easy to Luke.

Not like it seemed to come to Ben. He could slip into such a deep meditation Luke was nearly envious. Luke was better at some of the more physical things. He was very strong with the Force. His katas were practically flawless at this point and his footwork was really amazing, at least that was what Ben had said. Luke often wondered if he was on par with what padawans should be doing at his age. Ben’s footwork was impossible to match. But then again, Ben had many years over him when it came to practice and experience. Which, he supposed, included meditation.

Luke would never stop trying though.

It wasn’t like it was extremely hard. Over the years, Luke had gotten a bit of a hang of it. Once he actually got into a steady meditation, it actually had helped him a lot. He did it quite a bit during their travels through space, although it was even more difficult then due to the cold nature of hyperspace.

He had done some moving meditations as well, but Luke didn’t think that was the problem. It was just something he would have to work at. Not everything could come naturally to him, even he knew that. One could be talented at one aspect and need to work harder at another. It wasn’t that complicated.

It was still a little frustrating sometimes, when he would see Ben do it so easily.

And it took so much more time for Luke to get to a comfortable state.

He shouldn’t be too hard on himself, Luke knew. When he did get into it, time meant very little, and he could meditate for hours.

Every time he got out of it and so much time had passed, he felt like it was a win.

He felt like he was getting better.

After such a long flight that lasted literally weeks, Ben and Luke were on a new planet. There was a very small Imperial presence, quite easy to avoid and Ben claimed they could stay here for a bit of time. They had lost Vader in their long travel, taking several hyperspace jumps to shake him off their tail and Luke would relish the time he would have planet side.

And he was older now. Ben trusted him by himself. It wasn’t that Ben hadn’t trusted him before, even when he was younger, but it was more that he was protective and Force – sensitives were hunted down with extreme prejudice. It was extremely frustrating, but Luke tried really hard not to blame Ben. It wasn’t always easy, but after a few close calls, Luke had done his very best to stay with Ben and understand his protective nature.

Besides, he was all that was left.

Once they had settled in planet side, they took a few hours to meditate, practically savoring in the living force where life and nature were abundant in all things around them. It was certainly a breath of fresh air.

He had noted the ground beneath him and the sky above, the animals rustling in the grass. The breeze sweeping through his hair. Reaching further he could hear and feel the music from the city, the steps of the civilians, the chatter and joy.

At some point, Ben had just chuckled, bringing Luke out of the meditation. He handed him a saber, Luke’s father’s, and a handful of credits with the suggestion he take a walk around the city.

He wasn’t one to pass that opportunity up.

Luke walked through the market, a bit of change in his pocket and his father’s saber tucked securely in his robes in a secret compartment where it could not be seen or swiped. He looked around with a bright smile, greeting near every person he came across.

He did a little window shopping and talked with some of the native citizens. He got a meloorun which tastes absolutely delicious, he even got one for Ben. Ben had probably had one before, he realized, but who knew, maybe he liked them and would appreciate the gesture.

Honestly, he was not sure how he had gotten into the mess.

In the end, he knew he should not have done anything. He wasn’t supposed to attract attention to himself. Not to get into fights. Especially not with people of power. Because people of power were petty and threw that power and weight around in whatever way they could. He probably had made it worse by punching the guy.

And of course, in typical Luke fashion, too late, he realized his mistake. He had just punched out an Imperial officer.

“Oh kark,” Luke muttered as he backed off. Already he was getting glances and stares from those surrounding him. Stormtroopers – not clone troopers, Luke always checked – caught sight of him and, of course, ordered him to stop.

He did the reasonable thing instead – he ran.

Of course, they would follow him, that was the only thing they were trained to do and Luke just kind of hated it. They were the idiots that were doing wrong and he’s suddenly the bad guy for punching some jerk in the face.

Using a blaster to shoot back, Luke failed to realize the intricacies of the city and after a terrible tumble through a few market stands, he lost the blaster. That didn’t stop the stormtroopers from firing at him though.

They had hit a storekeeper in the shoulder.

He had little choice. He had no weapon, the stormtroopers aim was so awful, they would just hit innocent civilians around him, even if they were scrabbling to get out of the way. He tucked his hand in his clothes and pulled out his father’s saber. The crystal whined at him, as it usually did when he had to use it, but he ignited the blade and whirled it around to a Djem So opening stance to deflect oncoming blaster fire.

Moving through the crowds, trying to draw the stormtroopers away, he tried to deflect blaster fire, only to so often find himself accidently grazing passing and scrambling people with the saber blade, a curse and an apology accompanying each time.

He was intently relieved once he had finally reached the city limits where the people population had thinned to somewhere he could work with. There were only a few of them, so easy to take down. Taking a stance, he smirked and let them come to him.

Making quick work of the couple of storm troopers, Luke sighed and tucked away the saber again, cloaking himself and putting up the hood.

Ben was going to have a field day with him.

***

Ben, in fact, did have a field day with him.

He took the lecture as well as he could, knowing that some of it, in the end, had been some of his fault. He felt the worst telling him about accidently injuring the civilians, even though Ben seemed to know most of it.

In the end, Ben just raked a hand across his face with a small sigh and they boarded their ship. Luke had thought for sure they would leave, but Ben just went to another part of the planet, something with tall grass and even taller trees, spread out less than most of the forests Luke had seen.

“What are we doing here?” he asked hesitantly.

“Take the saber,” Ben just ordered and exited the ship.

Luke did what he was told and followed him. They walked for nearly an hour into the forested area until Ben finally stopped. As he did, he turned to face Luke. “What…. exactly are we doing here?” he asked, glancing around.

“These trees? Civilians,” Ben said, patting one of the small trunks.

Luke just shot him an unimpressed look.

Ben just put up a finger for a moment before reaching into his pocket and pulling out a piece of chalk. He then drew a face on the trunk of the tree. “There, this is a civilian.”

“This is weird,” Luke muttered under his breath.

“Our first exercise will be me and our friendly training bots, shooting at you,” Ben explained, pulling out several flying balls of pain from a bag. He didn’t think Ben had brought those awful little things with them.

Luke just groaned.

The first few hours weren’t so bad. The firing came from one side, like was being chased and Luke had to navigate the forest without touching the trees with his saber. It wasn’t a perfect simulation, as the trees didn’t actually move like civilians or other people would, but it was a start.

But then, as it grew darker and they continued to work, the exercise changed. While Ben was behind him with a blaster, the flying balls of pain were shooting from the front, a barrage of blaster shots, Luke found himself realizing not all of their shots were directed at him. Some of them were directed at the trees beside and behind him. Did he need to protect the civilians?

Luke leapt forward to deflect a shot that was meant for a nearby tree, shooting it back at the origin and making sure his saber didn’t even come close to grazing the bark. Behind him Ben’s shots no longer seemed to be aimed at him, but rather, all around and past him.

He didn’t ask questions.

It was nearly impossible to see by the time that Ben had finally called it off. After gathering what meager supplies they had, the two of them worked their way back to the ship and Ben told him to get some rest.

The exercise had confused Luke a little, but he found he had a lot more control and thought over the saber when he moved it. As he got into the ship, he grabbed his bag and was ready to head to his room. He stopped.

“Oh, Ben?”

The older man stopped and glanced over at him. “Yes?”

“I dunno if you like these but uh, I tried this today and I thought you might like one too,” Luke said, tossing the fruit over to him.

Ben smiled warmly as he looked down at the fruit. “I actually do like these, Luke. Thank you very much,” he added before turning to walk back out of the ship.

“Where are you going?”

The older man shrugged and didn’t stop. “It is a beautiful night. I’m going to sleep outside.”

Luke’s eyebrows scrunched up and he glanced at his room, tucked away in the corner of the ship. With a grin, he grabbed a pillow and blanket and ran off after him.

Present PAst

Umbara was even darker than Luke had originally anticipated.

He nearly regretted not keeping the helmet.

The Force was clear – this was it.

Luke felt both mildly prepared and completely hopeless when it came the next events. He had been in plenty of conflicts before, countless firefights with stormtroopers, pirates and smugglers alike. He had even fought a few droids but nothing like this. It was dark and cloudy, and he felt like he was constantly choking on smoke and hate and death.

Whether Ben had recognized it or not, whether Luke had recognized it or not, Ben had been preparing him for war.

It was like he knew.

Perhaps it wasn’t that too far off. One day, Luke had always known, that he and Ben would go to war. Whether it be the Alliance against the Empire or now, with the Republic against the Separatists, he knew he would fight in a conflict such as this.

The gunship he had gotten into, the one that brought him down had exploded soon after it had dropped them off, killing the pilot and gunner instantly. The deaths hit Luke harder than he would admit, forcing him to stumble on the hard ground below him. Upon steadying himself barely seconds later, he ignited his guardian’s saber, the bright blue light springing to life and casting a glow across his face.

He did his best to keep out of the way of the fire from the squad he was surrounded with; Waxer was the only one he specifically knew personally, but there were plenty of other soldiers around him that had come in any number of other gunships. He leapt to the front of one of the waves of troopers and took a Soresu stance, quickly spinning his blade to catch and redirect as many bolts as possible, that came near him and the others.

Never before had he realized how the lightsaber form would come in handy.

Luke would have to thank Ben a thousand times for all the practices where he had made him go through katas and defend against the little flying round ball of pain that would shoot at him constantly. Luke had spent more than just hours and hours doing those two things. He would spend just hours nearly every day going through katas. Fighting against the flying ball of pain every time he could, every time Ben shoved it in his face.

He had never been so grateful for that.

Because deflecting so many blaster bolts was so much easier when he didn’t have to think about it so much. His arm would reach on its own just to catch a shot, his legs would twist into something of a dance to get to the other end to protect a soldier. Most of his attention actually ended up being to make sure he didn’t accidently get too close to the troopers themselves.

Luke hadn’t realized it growing up, he wasn’t entirely sure if Ben had realized it either, but he had taught him how to fight alongside troops with blasters. Once upon a time, it was just to be wary of citizens and crowds but they way Ben had taught, it worked even better with those firing behind and around him.

Two sabers-width apart and behind, stay to the side, never fight head on so you could keep an eye on those behind you.

Strength surged through his legs and his torso and his arms. His legs would survive his arms in terms of strength while his torso would survive both. He kept this in mind as he danced through the troopers and the spikey plants of the terrain they were surrounded with. His eyes forward and back, barely moving his saber if he didn’t have to, thinking of the little tips and tricks Ben had said and taught him over the years.

If nothing else, Luke would always keep Ben’s teachings to heart.

There was nothing to be seen aside from the light of the blaster bolts coming at them, but Luke was rather lucky, able to reach out and just kind of know where they were. It helped with cannon fire, at the very least.

A couple of times he accidently found himself quite a bit further than the troops, taking down ships and cannons, not waiting for the soldiers. He ran along the ridge, swinging his saber with all his strength, slicing straight through one of the ships they used as cannon fire, the metal screeching as it broke apart and melted with the contact from the saber. The native that maned the canon shrieked even louder as they tried to escape his wrath.

It would take a few minutes for the troops to catch up. Luke didn’t remember exactly what he had said, but he would always distinctly remember the shrieking and scolding Waxer had laid out in his ear.

He felt a little bad for a moment; he was trying to protect them.

Although it had taken some time, it caught up to him. The feeling.

It was the death that had hit Luke harder than he was expecting. It was overwhelming.

Luke was quite a bit sensitive to the Force, just like his father before him, Ben had always said. They worked a lot on his shields over the years, trying to build them up as much as they could, to keep the overwhelming feelings out, but honestly, Luke hadn’t been expecting this. Logically, he knew, even when he got on the gunship before, there would be a terrible amount of death. He knew that. He thought he was prepared for it.

He wasn’t.

He wasn’t prepared at all.

He was choking on it.

It was affecting his performance, even he knew that. It was hard to concentrate on the task at hand when so many people were dying around him.

To his complete and utter relief, it wasn’t long after the choking feeling of the mortality around him started, that they pushed back the enemy forces into a most likely very temporary reprieve. But Luke would take what he could get. He sheathed his guardian’s saber and clipped it to his belt, sliding down the wall of one of the trenches, trying to catch his breath.

All he caught was the death milling around.

There were a few soldiers shuffling around him but the closest one, sitting next to him, had asked him if he was okay. Or at least, that was what Luke thought he said. His ears were buzzing a bit from all the explosions that had gone off. The explosions that were still going off.

“It’s…it’s the death,” he whispered to the soldier next to him, gagging as if that would help the feeling in his head, in his chest, in his heart, slowly coiling around him like an oily black darkness, trying to snuff out everything. “I just…I thought my shields were enough, I’ve been working on them so hard, I thought I would be okay but… but it’s just…so overwhelming,” he strangled out.

Luke barely recognized Waxer amongst the troopers that were around him. He and those few others stared at him before exchanging glances amongst themselves. They all seemed rather hesitant to speak. He couldn’t see anything and with his ears whirring, he couldn’t tell who had spoken next. “Are you…are you telling me you can feel it when someone dies?”

Tears were slipping from his eyes against his will and running silently down his cheeks, even they felt painful. He wanted Ben, just wanted Ben to help him. His chest hurt. His head hurt, he couldn’t quite get a hold of all of these feelings and emotions. He needed help. It was just all too much. He had always felt too much and it was so hard to do it by himself. “Yes,” he murmured, nearly inaudibly.

Something passed between the soldiers that Luke didn’t understand. It was a feeling, or, rather, an entire mob of feelings, intertwined and tangled within one another with a range that he couldn’t even begin to list.

“Can we do anything to help?” one of them asked, hesitantly.

“Aside from dying,” another grunted.

Luke tried to laugh but nothing really came out. Ben could help, he was probably the only one who could, but that wasn’t their fault. It wasn’t their fault that their general was in an unexplainable coma up in space, safe on his ship, surrounded by everyone else. It wasn’t their fault that their general wasn’t here to help and protect and plan with them. It wasn’t their fault that Luke decided he could play war and try to keep these men alive.

“I’ll be okay,” he assured but he himself wasn’t entirely sure if they bought that. No wonder Ben had liked these guys so much, they were smart, loyal, observant. “I just gotta strengthen my shields,” he explained and tried to sit up in an attempt for a quick meditation. It wouldn’t be much, it may barely help, but it was better than nothing at all. “I haven’t…I haven’t been around this much death at one time,” he grimaced.

Their expressions were sympathetic.

“I had been a baby when everything was gone, when the galaxy went to ruin,” the words came out of Luke in a stream he couldn’t quite stop. “I had been so used to Ben’s grief, as much as he tried to hide it, I thought I knew what it felt like. He had been through so much, felt so much death, I thought that since I was so close with him, so in tune with his feelings, I knew.” He shook his head. “I didn’t. Not at all.”

“Ben?” one of the troopers whispered quietly.

“General Kenobi,” another corrected. “That’s his padawan.”

Perhaps it was just a wishful moment, something he just wanted so bad, he didn’t correct him.

Because did he ever want to be that.

“We have a few minutes before the next wave hits,” Waxer said, crouching beside Luke, his brows scrunched up tightly in concern. There was a new type of apprehension and understanding in his expression, like Luke had given him some kind of secret. He didn’t know what kind it was. “You stay here, meditate or whatever you need to. I’ll let you know when it is time to move.”

Luke felt a little bad but was grateful for the gesture.

Swallowing down everything he felt, Luke kneeled on the ground, his hands on his legs as he took a deep breath, weaving his shields together like an indestructible tapestry, reaching out into the Force for anything, everything. For help, assistance, protection, knowledge, hope.

He could feel those around him, the soldiers slowly dying from mortal wounds, unable to be helped or healed. Luke shifted his presence to them and tried to visualize all those that he could, as if he was right next to them, holding their hands and whispering assurances as they passed into the Force. He couldn’t stop them from dying anymore, but he could ensure that they would not die alone.

No one should have to die alone.

Luke hadn’t completely known how long it had been before Waxer shook him out of his meditation, gently. They had to beat down this new wave of the native militia to clear out the forces from the main 212th’s forces attacking the capitol.

Dusting himself off, his guardian’s saber flew to his hand as he jumped from the trenches and ignited the blade.

“There is no death,” he recited like a mantra as he took a breath, narrowing his eyes and his determination curling up in his chest. “There is the Force.”

Something shifted in Luke’s style as he helped defend Waxer’s platoon from the attack. He kept note of his position at all times, as well as any of those around him and always tried to stay at the very least, in sight of Waxer himself, who was absolutely determined to get Luke through this.

Amusing, Luke had thought. He was doing the same thing.

The final wave had been mostly stragglers from the others, in a desperate attempt to come up on the rest of 212th with Cody in the lead towards the Capitol. But Waxer’s platoon was highly competent, as was much of the Republic’s military and it had Luke in somewhat of an awe.

The Empire’s stormtroopers had the numbers to virtually overwhelm anyone and sure, they were trained, but they were nothing like this. They had nothing on the clone troopers and for Luke, that was rather a sight to behold.

Upon utterly destroying the downed and grounded gunships of the Umbarans with his saber, they were guaranteed another reprieve as the enemy forces dwindled down to barely anything.

Luke met a few of them in the trenches, Waxer several meters away, talking on his commlink.

“Not bad kid,” one of the troopers – Duster – grinned at him, nudging Luke with his shoulder. “For your first time alongside the 212th.”

“Do you have any real battle experience?” another asked.

Luke shrugged. “Not with troopers like you guys. But Ben has been teaching me lots of things.”

“Ben…do you…you mean General Kenobi?”

The boy nodded. “Yes. It’s kind of a long story,” he admitted.

“You’ll have to let us know how you got tangled up with the General without any of the 212thknowing,” Wish added, clapping Luke on the back. He nearly fell into the muddy wall before him. Luke just laughed.

“When this is over, perhaps.”

“You did good, Luke,” Freefall agreed. “But I suppose we shouldn’t expect any less from General Kenobi’s padawan.”

Something stuck in Luke’s throat even though he knew there wasn’t anything there.

“We got new orders, boys,” Lieutenant Waxer said, trudging through the trenches from behind them. He had ended his call and from what Luke could tell, it hadn’t been a good one. He looked terribly sad, and it turned Luke’s stomach inside out. “We got some coordinates where the natives are coming up our backside.”

The orders went through the ranks as Waxer continued, his face twisting in grief and anger. “We are warned that they are dressed in trooper armor, hoping to surprise us.”

Fury flared up from the troopers as Luke glanced around, narrowing his eyes warily.

“That woulda been the 501st,” one of the troopers, Arrow, realized, lowly.

“They’re dead,” Wish mumbled.

Waxer just nodded silently. “There is nothing we can do for them now but make sure their sacrifice was not in vain. We take down those who desecrate their armor and protect the rest of the 212th. Understood?”

“Yes sir!” came a multitude of shouts.

And then, they were off towards the given coordinates.

Luke’s suspicion only grew from there. He didn’t take the lead per say but he was up there, in front, waiting and watching. Nothing about this scenario felt right. Waxer stayed close to him as the platoon creeped forward. His heart was pounding, harder and harder, anxiety rising.

They traveled a little further, closer to the coordinates.

Luke didn’t know who had started the firing, but it happened all at once. He watched for the briefest moment at the fire, the type and color. Then he reached out in the force, taking a deep breath, and keeping his free hand aloft.

Ragepanicfear.

Determinationangergreif.

This was it.

Those weren’t Umbarans.

“Stop!” Luke yelled at the top of his lungs, his blade swinging out just to show that he had one, using the Force to propel himself upward towards a ridge for a better view and vantage point. Perhaps…perhaps…

“Ceasfire! Ceasefire immediately!” Waxer shout out, lowering his own weapon as he relayed Luke’s order without question. His trust in him made Luke’s heart squeeze. He had been climbing the ridge towards him, probably having the same thought as the little jedi. Luke jumped in front of him as he got to the top, blocking a blaster bolt from the other side.

Waxer flinched.

The firing slowed to a stop. In the end, it had barely been a few minutes, but it was enough. Some were dead but Luke knew it could have been a lot worse. It could have been so much worse.

It probably had been, the first time around.

Waxer’s platoon had stepped back, leaning against some of the trees and each other for support, trying to make sense of what had just happened. Waxer and Luke glanced at one another, neither seemed to look particularly optimistic about the outcome.

They got down from the ridge, walking through the plants towards the opposing side. A few soldiers from the front lines on each side walked towards one another, shocked and terrified.

“Where is your leader?” Luke called out, looking around.

There wasn’t an answer.

“You heard him,” Waxer shouted out, his eyes narrowing into something that would not be questioned. “Where is your commanding officer?”

“Rex!”

The familiar jaig eyes and kama came through the forest as he took off his helmet. He did not seem particularly surprised at the sight of Luke, but he didn’t look very happy about it either. He walked towards them, the only emotion he showed was a shimmering anger. It wasn’t very obvious, but Luke could tell, he could feel it, no matter how much Rex tried to hide it.

“Tell me,” Luke asked, his voice low and irate. They all knew it wasn’t at them but that didn’t stop some of the 501st from wincing or glancing away. “Who gave you the order?”

“It was General Krell,” Captain Rex replied immediately, staring at Luke. His voice even sounded numb, if that was a thing one could hear. “He told us there were Umbarans that were disguised as troopers. We thought the 212th were dead.”

Luke’s eyes narrowed as he took a step back and stood taller. “General Krell is the traitor,” he murmured, crossing his arms. He couldn’t believe it. The first battle was the one that Boil had told him about, probably the exact one that Waxer would have lost his life. What were the odds of that? The Force, Luke knew, because of course. He shouldn’t have been surprised, there was a reason for everything. He just hadn’t quite thought of it.

“What?” Rex asked, his voice catching on the word. He didn’t sound particularly happy with Luke which the latter could understand. There was no warning from him, but Luke hadn’t actually known that this had been the invasion that involved the former jedi conspirator. “You suspected a traitor?”

“I knew Waxer had died on a dark planet due to a case of friendly fire on the word of a traitor,” Luke explained vaguely, not backing down from Rex’s stare. He had not known it was this one. Suspected, maybe. The Force had certainly given him warning of something, but it was just an alert of caution, something vague and unexplainable. Not something specific that Luke would know. It was just a bad feeling, a warning of some kind.

Waxer just paled as he realized what exactly had happened the first time around and how it had happened. He would have died if Luke hadn’t been there. Somewhere, he knew that he had, during the war. When Luke spoke, it seemed very obvious that many of them hadn’t survived and Waxer knew himself specifically because he wasn’t with Boil but he didn’t realize this had been the planet where it had happened the first time.

How close he would have come.

“I didn’t know who it was at first,” Luke admitted, finally looking down for a moment in thought. “But I believe it is fairly clear now. General Krell told you and us the same thing with the hopes of everyone just killing one another,” Luke said, his hand curling around the hilt of Kenobi’s saber tightly. Even though it was on his belt, clipped securely, his grip was so tight he nearly thought he would have cracked the metal of the saber. He had to think of a plan and think of it fast. They wouldn’t have a lot of time, he imagined. He didn’t know Krell, anything about him really, but Luke doubted he would be much of a match for a fully trained jedi.

He wasn’t even really a padawan.

“Why? Why would he do this?” one of the troopers surrounding them asked, desperation coating the sound of his voice. From the 501st, he realized, but Luke didn’t know who it was specifically.

That was a question, to be certain, Luke mused. Personally, at this point he cared very little about the why. He was a traitor, one that had inspired such regret and anger from Boil and Ben, Luke had very little interest in the reasons why a traitor betrayed them. Why he had sent forces to murder one another.

“What are you thinking, Luke,” Waxer nudged him gently.

Luke caught Rex’s gaze again, narrowing his eyes. He didn’t need to reach towards Rex’s mind for intentions to know what he was thinking. “He’s thinking the same thing, aren’t you captain?”

Everyone went to look at the captain as he narrowed his own eyes to match the young jedi. “That is highly treasonous,” Rex replied, his voice just a bit more than a mumble.

“But it is what must be done,” Luke affirmed with a nod and Rex seemed to agree silently, just exhaling quietly. “We will need to move quickly, I think.”

“Yes,” Rex approved. “We cannot allow General Krell to sabotage the rest of the invasion…if that is what you think his goal is.”

“I do,” Luke replied, his heart pounding. This was a lot bigger and a lot more dangerous than Luke had thought this whole scenario and battle would be. He had been anticipating battle droids and the local militia, definitive enemies. Not traitors, people they were supposed to trust.

They were supposed to be able to trust the Jedi.

The thought of Krell being a jedi, at any point in time, felt unfeasible.

“We still need Forces to continue to cover Commander Cody and the rest of the 212th’s back,” Waxer noted, glancing between the two, a bit anxious. “We can’t have any real Umbarans from sneaking up.”

“You and your platoon can continue your mission,” Luke suggested quietly. “I will be going with Rex and the 501stback to Krell to assist in the arrest.”

Waxer just stared at him, with a bit flat expression and no small amount of dead pan. “I’ll have Freefall lead them back,” he announced.

Freefall looked accepting but a tad confused. Luke opened his mouth…

“And before you say a word,” Waxer put up his hand to stop Luke from speaking. “Don’t think for a second, I’m going to let you go without me. Pretty sure General Kenobi would have my head if I left his padawan commander alone to fight off a jedi general traitor,” he said, furrowing his brows but his lips played in some kind of vague amusement.

Luke just rolled his eyes. A few of the others around them looked at him with a bit new interest.

“I’ll go tell some of the men,” Captain Rex muttered after giving them a few weird looks before he jogged away, to where most of his troopers were trying to calm themselves out of the ordeal that had nearly just occurred. The few already around them, listening, were already ready to obey.

“Didn’t realize General Kenobi had a padawan,” one of the 501st troopers said, with a bit of a raised eyebrow as he gave Luke a look as if he was sizing him up. Luke wondered how he did measure up with what they knew about their own leaders and the jedi they knew.

“He always seems to have his hands full with General Skywalker and Commander Tano.”

“I…I’m not really a padawan,” Luke pointed out, uncomfortably, keeping close with Waxer and the couple of 212ththat stayed with them. “It is bit complicated, though.”

Most of Waxer’s platoon, under Freefall’s command, left the area to hold the ridge a bit back, covering Commander Cody and the bulk of the 212th’s flank. The majority of the 501st present that had been sent with them to fight in the conflict that ended up being a friendly fire incident, were sent back and told to stay outside of the base, keep with the others that had stayed behind, and not do anything until orders were given. They were warned of conflict that would almost definitely arise. No one was given much information aside from that.

No one was entirely certain how this would pan out.

As Luke, Captain Rex, and Lieutenant Waxer, alongside several other troopers, made their way back to the airbase that the 501st had claimed, Luke mulled over possible plans. Rex and Waxer were talking amongst one another as well, making their own. He didn’t think that either of them thought it would be easy, but things were rarely simple.

“What kind of saber does he have?” Luke asked suddenly.

The two leaders glanced at him, cutting off their conversation. Luke felt a little bad for interrupting them. “He’s got two…. or four, depending on how he uses it. There are four but you can put two together to make a double ended staff,” Rex reported. “At least, that is what it looks like.”

Luke nodded, reaching up to shake a hand through his hair. Man, he wished Ben was here. He could probably kick this guy’s ass easy. “Even if we surprise him, overwhelm him, even if we have enough, he will probably flee,” he noted.

“He will most likely be stationed in the tower, where the communications are,” one of the troopers said, firmly. The others nodded in agreement. They were getting close, Luke could see the top of the tower now, even through the shrouded darkness and plants.

“The only way in or out is through the elevator,” Rex recounted, putting his helmet on again. “It’s not a very big room, we can probably get a dozen or so troopers in there. I’d like to get Jesse and Fives’ help in the arrest as well, it’s on our way up.”

“If he can’t get through the door, he could go through the window,” Waxer pointed out, pointing up to the tower. It did indeed have a large window that made up at least a third of the outside. “Jedi can do huge jumps from incredibly heights; he could make it. I’ve seen General Kenobi do some pretty insane leaps.”

“We could lose him in the forest,” Rex frowned as he mulled this thought over. “It’s dark and hard to see, if he wanted to escape, we wouldn’t be able to find him. He could pick us off.”

“Not if we use it to our advantage,” Luke replied, trying to think back to what things he had seen during the battle before. Even without the local militia and their cannons having tried to kill them, the native plants to the planet were nearly just as deadly. “You’ve seen those disgusting carnivorous plants that are just kind of, lying around?”

Everyone nodded, grimly. Rex seemed to get the idea. “We rumble any one of them up and if Krell gets close, boom, he’s at the very least unconscious.”

“Precisely,” Luke snapped his fingers.

“Do you think he will get away from us? From the building?” Waxer asked.

“I think it is a possibility for certain,” Luke nodded. “Ben has told me a lot of things over the years and taught me a lot of plans and strategies and tips on the behavior of opponents. Even some of the most hardcore and sadistic individuals will retreat if surprised or outnumbered too much, even if they have an extreme advantage. In this case, his four sabers.”

“Do you think you can beat him?” a trooper asked, slowing down a little.

Luke sighed but shook his head. “No. I don’t think I could beat him in single combat,” he admitted, although a bit reluctantly. No one ever really wanted to admit their faults or inabilities in any case, but Luke would not be a fool. “Don’t get me wrong, even on the chance of sounding cocky, I’m actually pretty good with a saber. But Krell probably has years and a lot more experience on me. I’ll be an asset, but I don’t think I can beat him.”

It wasn’t very comforting.

They made their way back to the base and those who had volunteered had marched with them into the building. On their way up, Rex had gotten Jesse and Fives out of prison, giving them back their armor and weapons. A bit surprised by the new Jedi, and a bit suspicious, Rex gave them a quick rundown of not only the General but Luke as well.

The whole, time travel bit had people staring at him like he had two heads, as it was fairly hard to believe, but Luke just shrugged it off. Everyone involved had a lot of questions, since Waxer and Rex were the only ones who knew about it and Luke assured that plenty of questions would be answered later, if they survived this, of course.

As they came up, Luke kept Ben’s saber in his hand tightly, although not yet ignited, ready to burst out the instant there was a wrong move made by their opponent.

“General Krell, you are being relieved of duty,” Rex announced as he walked in, Waxer on one side and Luke on the other. The troopers they had come with quickly circled the besalisk, readying their weapons to fire at a moment’s notice.

Krell began to turn, folding his hands behind his back, casually. The gesture really rubbed Luke the wrong way; this whole being’s presence rubbed him the wrong way really. How casual he was being, like he saw this coming. It was possible, Luke supposed, but it didn’t aggravate him any less. “It’s treason then,” the low voice nearly chuckled.

“Surrender, General,” Rex added, unholstering his double pistols to point at the besalisk. Waxer already had his out and Luke had his guardian’s saber in hand, still not quite yet lit.

“You’re committing mutiny, captain,” the former jedi pointed out with a sly smile.

“Explain your actions,” Rex demanded but Krell’s attention turned elsewhere his eyes sweeping over the three of them. He seemed rather at ease for someone who had over a dozen blasters pointed directly at him, reading to fire. Luke hated the way he just brushed everyone else off like they were nothing to concern himself with.

“Ah, Kenobi’s new little padawan,” Krell crooned, mockingly with a menacing, sly grin. “I heard about you.”

“The captain told you to explain your actions,” Luke snapped, his lip curling and his foot stepping forward into a steady stance. He didn’t know exactly how Krell knew about him; Luke hadn’t even been around for more than a day, spending a couple hours on the Resolute, a few more on the Negotiator and the rest in battle, where he knewCommander Cody did not know that he was. He didn’t really think anyone had informed Krell about his existence, much less his presence on the planet.

“I figured it must have been someone elseto figure it out,” Krell shrugged his shoulders, his top arms rolling with them. His tone was so dismissive. “Creatures bred in some laboratory; they would never figure something like that out.”

That was literally one of the most ridiculous things Luke had ever heard.

“Surrender, General,” Luke demanded, gesturing to him with the hand that held Kenobi’s lightsaber. Krell glanced at it with ridge raised, curiously. He had something planned, something up his sleeve, Luke realized but his mouth continued where his brain told him something else. “You are under arrest for crimes against the Republic.”

It sounded so good; Luke had thought, he sounded so confident and sure of himself. And for the briefest of moments, he thought that perhaps Krell would have done the right then. He seemed to hesitate, like as if just knowing that Luke was training under General Kenobi, that would mean something.

He wondered if it did.

Luke almost hadn’t seen the blow coming. The only reason he had noticed it and hadn’t been cut down immediately was because Krell had taken the time to Force push the majority of the clones into the wall and ignite his sabers. Two, Luke had noted, double-ended.

The clones shouted and grunted as they hit the walls, luckily a force that didn’t kill or terribly injure them on impact.

Kenobi’s saber ignited and blocked Krell’s initial blow on mere instinct and he couldn’t be more grateful for it. Luke wasn’t quite physically strong enough for a blow like this, even though he knew the Force was helping with the push back. The pressure had shifted Luke’s feet back, sliding across the floor a bit, blue and green illuminating both of their faces.

Augh, his breath was awful.

Blasters had come up and began firing at the former general, so Krell had to move at least one of his sabers to block them, giving Luke a little more leeway. The boy ducked underneath one, slashing at the being’s side. He didn’t know if he hit a mark or not, but Luke just had to get away to regain himself.

Krell gutted through one of the soldiers and cut the head off another as he spun around, his eyes gleaming at Luke in some kind of weird interest and anticipation.

Luke had a bad feeling about this.

But just like he suspected, Krell crashed into the window and leapt from the building down to the forest below. They didn’t even take a moment to look down, rather glancing at one another as they all made their way down to the floor of the building.

By the time they had gotten there, the firefight had ceased and General Krell had disappeared into the nature of the dark planet. Luke had reignited the saber once they had run out, just in case, but were stopped by another trooper, one without a helmet and an odd tattoo covering some of his face.

“Dogma,” someone muttered. “Lower your weapon.”

Luke kept his guardian’s saber aloft and in front of him.

“I…I can’t do that. I’m doing my duty!” Dogma shouted, although his voice wavered. “You are all traitors!”

Luke stepped forward; Waxer reached out to stop him, but it was a half gesture. “Look, Dogma, is it? My name is Luke and I…I am a jedi. I…work with General Kenobi, and Krell? He is a traitor. He just killed dozens of your brothers, and we have to get through to him now,” he insisted, his voice stronger than he had ever heard it.

It didn’t really seem to change Dogma’s mind or anything, but it did give a few soldiers to tackle him into the ground.

“Put him in the brig,” Rex ordered as the rest of them continued their chase into the Umbaran forests.

The birds screamed in the mist darkness, calling out cries in a fairly consistent manner. The troopers had spread out in a grid, trying to find the wayward General. Luke followed closely with Waxer and Rex, alongside several other troopers, his saber in hand but not ignited. No need to attract any unwanted attention unless necessary.

“Anyone got anything?” Rex asked into his commlink.

“Ah negative, Captain,” a voice called through the comm on the captain’s vambrace. “We lost him,” the voice added with a bit of a resigned sigh. There was a pause. “Wait…”

Screams filtered through the communication device as the soldiers cried out in pain and death.

Luke stiffened as the trooper called out for them to hurry. Picking up their pace, they came to some cover where Rex put his fingers to a switch on his helmet to look through a filter for getting a better visual. “He’s coming,” he warned.

The soldiers quickly got into positions, readying their weapons for fire.

“I was using you,” Krell laughed, his voice echoing through the mist.

“Get him!” Rex yelled, spinning around towards the voice but it was coming from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. It was impossible to know where he was. Luke gritted his teeth; it was hard to concentrate in the Force, to find him with so much going on.

“You have all been my pawns and continue to be so,” Krell called out with some sort of tone of sick glee. “I can and you fell for it, continue to fall for it. You are so completely inferior.”

Jesse snarled.

“You’re a jedi!” Fives snapped, shooting up at the air where he thought the General may have been. Nothing happed.

But then.

Krell jumped down from out of nowhere and spun his blades around, slicing through several troopers. Shots were fired and he deflected them back at the original shooters. Luke desperately tried to batter them away from their targets.

“I am no longer naïve enough to be a jedi,” he announced, straightening himself and easily deflecting blasters as he moved through the forest. “A new power is rising, and I have foreseen it.”

Luke had found his opening as Krell rolled across the ground, temporarily putting his sabers away. He got a graze in before the besalisk reignited his own sabers and blocked. Luke’s soresu came in handy as he blocked a barrage of relentless blows.

“The Jedi are going to lose this war and the Republic will be ripped apart from the inside.”

Luke’s eyes widened. How did he know? How did he know?

Krell used this distraction to throw Luke off with a laugh. Waxer and a few troopers fired ceaselessly, to give Luke enough time to get up and regain himself.

“You’re a Separatist,” Rex snapped as he fired upon the former general.

Krell batted the blaster bolts back at him. Luke jumped in front to deflect them away, vaulting back into close combat with the four armed being.

“You’re working for Dooku,” Luke guessed.

It was a long shot, but Luke had heard plenty about the former Jedi who became a Sith Lord during the Clone Wars. And if there was one thing that Luke did know about Count Dooku, it was it seemed that he had a lot of underlings and apprentices during the course of the nearly four years of the war.

It was a guess, but it wasn’t a bad one.

Turned out, he wasn’t far off.

“Not yet,” Krell grinned as Luke spun around, trying to lead him away from the troopers. Rex was listening to someone in his commlink as the others around him were trying to fire at Krell without hitting Luke.

The two of them were stuck in a whirling of blades that made it very difficult, Luke barely keeping himself from being torn to shreds. He kept getting forced back and back.

He spared a glance at Rex who pointed towards a small, bumpy field behind him. A lone trooper stood amongst the lumps, waiting. Okay, so they had a plan then. Shouldn’t be too hard, to let Krell push him back like this. He was doing it anyways.

“You really think that Dooku is going to take someone like you to be his next apprentice?” Luke barely afforded the snort as he nearly got himself decapitated by Krell’s blade. “Can’t imagine he would want anything to do with you.”

Krell’s grin just widened into something fearsome and sinister. “I was going to drive the Republic from this planet, true,” he admitted, pushing at Luke harder and harder. His hands were sweaty, keeping a hand on his guardian’s saber was a bit difficult but the grips had certainly helped.

Luke ducked, nearly falling completely to the ground at one of Krell’s slashes. He rolled as the other one came down for his head. It gave him a moment to stand again. Using that moment and the Force, he pushed Krell back as much as he could into the field.

And ended up being pushed as well.

He hoped the troopers knew what they were doing. Luke really didn’t want to get eaten by this thing.

“But really, everyone knows about the Count’s interest in Kenobi,” Krell hissed, nearing his ear. Man, this guy’s breath was truly, truly something awful. Luke fought the urge to gag. “I wonder how interested he would be in Kenobi’s new pet.”

Oh kark.

The moment was a poor one and Luke felt rather embarrassed that it had happened. Krell force pushed him several meters, right into the poor soldier standing in the field. He and the trooper fell to the ground in a heap of a tangled mess of armor and limbs, failing to get themselves free of one another, both mouths full of quiet curses.

Krell laughed again and took a few more steps forward.

And the troopers’ plan worked.

The lumps were the carnivorous creatures and the soldiers had been steadily driving Krell towards that lone trooper, who knew exactly what was there.

Luke thought it had worked. It almost did. The carnivorous plant waved the former jedi around, splitting one of his sabers and then eating it. The besalisk fended off the barrage of shots from the other troopers wildly with a growl. Luke swung forcefully and cut off the arm of the plant, so it dropped Krell. He hit the ground hard, his saber flying several meters away.

Surrounded by a few troopers who had their blasters pointed at him, Luke stood with them, over the defeated besalisk. He was hemmed in, he had no weapon, there was no way out.

“Surrender Krell,” Luke hissed.

Something gleamed in Krell’s eyes.

Wrong. This felt very wrong.

Luke glanced around, trying to figure out and understand what was happening. “On guard!” he shouted out moments before the shooting started. The shooting hadn’t been from the 501st.

Luke cursed loudly and waved the saber around to deflect the shots, reaching out with the Force. There was nothing there. That meant only one thing.

“DROIDS!” he shouted at the top of his lungs, letting his voice carrying through the wind, carry through the Force. How had they gotten here? The Republic was fighting the local militias, he hadn’t known or even thought they would have droid backup. They didn’t have a plan for this. “Back to the airbase! Retreat!”

He almost felt bad for giving orders, it wasn’t his place. But he knew Rex and Waxer would say the same. They had been trying to create a trap for Krell, not the newest Separatists surprise.

Krell let out a laugh and kicked out at Luke, shoving him to the ground, before jumping up and running away, picking up his lightsaber as he went.

He hadn’t known where they had been, but suddenly Rex and Waxer, with a few others, were at his side. “How did droids get here?” Rex snarled as he shot into the dark. A few of them had came into eye contact but were quickly put down.

Luke would forever marvel at the competency of the clone troopers. It really made him miss Boil.

“Krell must have called them,” one of the 501st suggested, although a bit uncertainly, letting off a few shots.

“He is a traitor,” Waxer agreed with a growl. “He would have to betray us for someone. He did say he wanted to be Dooku’s newest lackey.”

“I’m going after Krell,” Luke announced, his eyes flaring up in anger and determination.

“You said it yourself, you can’t take him,” Rex argued, trying to hold Luke back. The boy tore himself from the grip, deflecting a few more shots from the enemy.

“I have to try. He’ll will get even more people killed, I have to stop him,” Luke insisted with a growl before throwing himself back towards the air base with an enormous leap.

“He’s like both our generals and our jedi commander put together!” Rex groaned and spun around. “Sergeant Appo, can you hold them off?”

“Scanners and scouts say there are barely any in numbers, we should be fine sir,” Appo nodded, letting out a few rounds from his blaster, although his tone was laced in a bit of confusion at the situation. “Go get the little commander!” It seemed rather odd, such a small force of droids, but at the moment, they hadn’t questioned it. Rex, Waxer and several others started to run back towards the air base to chase Luke.

Luke used all of his Soresu training just to fend off the barrage of blows against Krell; he had at least lost one staff in the Umbaran monster after it had nearly eaten the both of them but that didn’t mean he was any easier to fight. Krell had years on him, years of experience and some of that, with war. He had gotten away with a few Aratu flips and blows, even sliding into his favorite Djem So moves.

The young blonde had caught up to Krell as they got back to the base. Luke had more endurance and youthful strength but Krell’s own strength, the kind one got from years of practice and experience, far outweighed his own.

Their blows were furious and painful, putting a strain on Luke limbs and muscles. He got thrown around more times than he would like to admit.

He had to play it smart. Get the high ground, find weak points, use simple moves for endurance, to keep yourself afloat while your opponent tired himself out. He had to be able to utilize some of these things.

Luke backflipped away from Krell’s upcoming saber, blocking a glancing blow with the swing of his own. He twisted away which gave him a second’s reprieve.

With a quick glance, just leapt straight up in the air, only turning enough to land on top of one of the Umbaran’s ships that they had confiscated.

Just as he had suspected, Krell jumped up right after him. Twisting in the air, Luke took a breath and hit the besalisk’s throat wattle with his foot. It wasn’t much but it was enough to push the being back. Without hesitation, Luke leapt down and swung as hard as he could, slicing cleanly through one of the besalik’s arms.

The former general howled and fell off the edge of the ship, bouncing off of one of the wings and to the ground. Luke jumped down as Krell struggled to get up, blood practically pouring through the stump of what was left of his limb.

Krell may have had much experience, but losing a limb, that was not something you fought with. Definitely not immediately after losing it. The blood loss alone was enough to slow opponents down to a near halt.

“You are under arrest,” Luke snarled, pointing his guardian’s saber directly at him. “Surrender, now.”

“Never!” Krell hissed and came at him again. Luke prepared to swing…

Only to feel something hit his back.

He fell away to the side and saw only darkness.

Okay, so essentially, Krell learned about Luke and told Dooku. Initially, he thought he could take the planet and that would be enough but then he thought that Luke might be good leverage or something for Dooku. Dooku, being himself and preferring Kenobi, is intrigued by this new apprentice that he has heard or seen nothing about.

Dooku comes to the planet with some reinforcements to catch Luke and his forces off guard. Much of the 501st survived but are in the forests, fighting off a small thing of droids. Luke has a few boys wth him but Dooku takes them with him for leverage and eventually, to be sold to Zygerrians.

[saphira-approves]

Don’t Compare My Boy To K*l* R*n: In This Essay I Will—

okAY I’m talking about it

So I can’t find the post right now, but a few days ago I saw a post on my dash comparing Murtagh of the Inheritance Cycle to Kylo Ren of Star Wars, citing parallels for their similarities.

Since we all know this blog is really just a poorly-disguised Murtagh stan blog, I decided I’d share my thoughts on this comparison. I’ll be discussing character backgrounds, character roles, character motives, and character actions.

Part One: Character Backgrounds

Murtagh and Kylo Ren are both descendants of the “previous generation.” Their mothers were both prominent rebels, their fathers were both considered handsome and rogueish, and both sets of parents eventually separated. But that’s about where the similarities end.

Kylo Ren’s—or rather, Ben Solo’s—parents loved each other and loved their son. They may have been flawed in the way they showed it, but then again, the only account we hear of Ben’s childhood (as I recall, anyway, and I’m not rewatching those movies just for a tumblr post) is Ben’s, after he’d been groomed and manipulated by Snoke for many, many years. Han Solo died believing he was helping his son; Leia Organa died saving her son; at the very least, they both loved him enough, even while he was serving the Dark Side, to give up their lives for him. 

Murtagh’s parents, on the other hand, were a mess. From Murtagh’s account of their relationship, Morzan didn’t care much about Selena except for her usefulness as a weapon; he was happy to manipulate her and her emotions, but I highly doubt he actually loved her. He certainly didn’t give a damn about Murtagh, throwing a sword at his own three-year-old son. Selena, meanwhile, although she obviously loved Morzan at first, loved Murtagh even more, and clearly recognized that Morzan didn’t care for her the way she had once cared for him—when she recognized an opportunity to work against him, she took it. 

Kylo Ren despised both of his parents, but that hatred seemed hollow, shallow—it had no real reason. They led busy lives, perhaps didn’t make enough time for him, but their actions revealed that they did, truly, love him despite his mistakes, and Kylo’s loathing reveals itself to truly be the manifestation of a spoiled child’s anger, magnified tenfold. Murtagh, conversely, had very good reasons for his complicated view of his parents: he loved his mother, but she was kept from him (and him from her), and she died—possibly in front of him, though he never says, and, unbeknownst to him until much later, having just hidden his brother in Carvahall. There was no love lost between him and Morzan, who was in the best case just an angry drunk, worst case—and more likely—an abusive father, and the only thing Murtagh ever expected to receive from him as inheritance was his sword (which is by itself another whole post in the making). 

Part Two: Character Roles

Both Murtagh and Kylo Ren played the role of foil to the protagonists of their stories. 

Murtagh and Eragon were very similar in many ways; I’ve mentioned before the many “subtle” hints Paolini gives to their true relationship (”a pair of matched blades” and “brothers in arms” come to mind off the top of my head). Their differences clearly highlight their different upbringings: Eragon thinks in the moment, with his heart and his compassion, while Murtagh thinks ahead, makes plans and contingencies—this difference is most clearly seen when Murtagh kills Torkenbrand and Eragon's strong moral code makes him protest, even though killing the slaver was, objectively, the best course of action they could take. Yet Murtagh is not only Eragon’s foil in action, but also his foil symbolically: they are both sons of Selena, which binds them, and yet the sons of opposing fathers, which others unwittingly use to pit them against each other (yes, this is also a whole other post in the making. like i said, poorly-disguised murtagh stan blog). Murtagh’s foilness to Eragon is deeply interwoven into their friendship and their parallels, showing up in many subtle and unsubtle moments throughout the series.

Kylo Ren’s foil status, on the other hand, is… complicated in a different way. For one thing, he’s not just a foil to Rey, he’s also a foil to Finn—in fact, I’d argue he’s more foil to Finn, and more just a complete opposite to Rey. He’s the experience to Rey’s raw talent, he shifts toward the Light while Rey shifts toward the Dark, but with Finn, their stories of pulling away from the Empire could have been fantastic foil stories. Wasted opportunity. And I’m so mad about it but this isn’t a star wars blog so—

Part Three: Character Motives

Of course, both Murtagh and Kylo Ren’s motives change over the course of their own stories, so we’ll be looking at what they are and how they change.

Kylo Ren starts his story in TFA as a ruthless, power-hungry fanboy who cherry-picked his history lessons and simply ignored the fact that his oh-so-esteemed Darth Grandvader was actually redeemed in the end because Luke refused to give up on whatever scrap of good was left in him and I hate hate hate hate hate Luke’s sequel characterization UGH and so Kylo is “emulating” a false image of what he thinks Vader was: the power, the presence, the mask and modulator aesthetic, the “I’m on the Dark Side because it’s fun, and I get to do whatever I want consequence-free.” Which… no! So, at first, what does Kylo want? Power! Sure, he’s serving Palpatine’s Smeagol puppet Snoke, but eventually he’s gonna be the most powerful person in the galaxy. …well, but then eventually starts getting a little boring, so in TLJ Kylo ups his timetable, tries to get Rey on his side after torturing her for information (OF HIS OWN VOLITION! BECAUSE HE’S A JERK! He did not CARE about even trying to convince her at first, he asked the few questions necessary to justify meeting her resistance with a Force mind-rape), and then when she doesn’t join him on the Dark Side he fights her, again and again and again until he nearly DIES, and then HIS MOTHER DIES TO SAVE HIS UNGRATEFUL ASS, so now Kylo’s priorities switch from “power” to… uh… what, again? Redemption? By… how? Sacrificing his life for Rey?

Oh, now he remembers how his Darth Grandvader history lesson ended.

he’s still a copycat though

Murtagh’s motives, conversely, actually make sense for his situation. When we meet him, he has in the last few months run away from Urû’baen and lost his mentor and father-figure. His two priorities: keep himself and his horse alive, and see what the deal is with the new Dragon Rider he’s heard so much about. He meets Eragon and Saphira by saving their lives from the Ra’zac, and he’s there when Brom dies, and Eragon loses his own mentor. Having just recently gone through that pain himself, Murtagh gets attached, and joins Eragon on his adventure/vengeance quest against the Ra’zac. Murtagh doesn’t reveal his parentage, but he and Eragon find that they have a lot of similarities and get very close, sparring and bantering and becoming “a set of matched blades” and “brothers-in-arms” and other such friendly roles that are not-so-subtle hints at their true relationship, and even when they fight—notably when Murtagh doesn’t want to go to the Varden, because they might kill him, which would be actively violating his first priority of staying alive—Murtagh still agrees to help Eragon because he’s a nice f*cking person okay. And then, through shenanigans, Murtagh ends up getting kidnapped, assumed dead by his few new friends, and then 

TORTURED AND MIND-RAPED FOR AT LEAST THREE OR FOUR MONTHS.

And Murtagh’s will never broke! Not until Galbatorix gave him a dragon egg, and that dragon egg hatched into Thorn, and Thorn bonded with Murtagh, and Galbatorix threatened Thorn.

Murtagh fought Galbatorix until Thorn’s well-being was put into danger. 

After that, Murtagh’s priorities are skewed; he’s forcibly sworn to Galbatorix’s will, which sucks, but he’s also given fantastic power, which is great; but he and Thorn still get tortured as punishment for messing up, which also sucks. And then Nasuada, someone Murtagh actually likes, is captured and brought to Urû’baen, and Murtagh tries to hide his face behind the silver mask when Galbatorix forces him to torture Nasuada (physically, because Galbatorix never forces Murtagh to attack Nasuada’s mind) because he doesn’t want to torture his friend. In fact, he does everything in his ability to help her. And in the end, he cares about her so much that he realizes hang on a minute, I would actually put SOMEONE ELSE’S health and well-being over my own, which means something in me has fundamentally changed, WHICH MEANS I CAN DEFY GALBATORIX, and so what does he do? He gets rid of Galbatorix’s wards and lets Eragon finish him off. He gives up the Eldunarí to Eragon and Saphira, which were a huge source of his power, because in the end, he’s not a power-hungry maniac, he’s a nice person that shitty things happened to.

(And if Murtagh is a nice person that shitty things happened to, then Kylo Ren is a shitty person that nice things happened to)

Part Four: Character Actions

If you don’t believe me, then perhaps we’ll let actions speak louder than words.

Kylo Ren: In his first appearance, he orders his troops to kill an entire settlement. From there, he tortures Poe for information, obsessively pursues the protagonists who have the key to Luke’s location, becomes obsessed with Rey, who seems Force-sensitive, attempts to torture Rey the same way he tortured Poe, kills his own father even as his father apologizes and tries to help him, chases Finn and Rey (again) into a snowstorm on a planet that’s imploding in on itself because of a lightsaber; and then he’s chasing the Resistance—including his own mother—across the galaxy, killing Snoke and calling himself Supreme Leader (yeah, totally something a secret good guy would do), cornering the Resistance on Crait with the threat of DEATH. STAR. TECH. (miniaturized, but like. what’s the miniature of a planet-killer???? half a planet killer??????), and then ALLYING HIMSELF with PALPATINE (the stupid crusty meatsack didn’t even have to groom this one, he got a new apprentice for FREE), while also PLANNING TO DOUBLECROSS… PALPATINE… and continuing to chase Rey across the galaxy, trying to get her to join the Dark Side, and he only stops when his mother gives up her life to save his. 

His mother… who, just recently, he THREATENED WITH DEATH STAR TECH. 

All this to say, his “redemption” arc is hollow and stupid. Dying while doing “good” is not redemption, it’s a cop-out. Vader was ruthless not because he took pleasure from killing, but because it was efficient; he was redeemed because he found out he had been lied to, manipulated, used, and abused. Kylo Ren was fully aware of his situation, an abuser himself who took pleasure in his power and in killing people; and he was not redeemed by a kumbayah force-life-transfer BS or for turning on Palpatine, WHICH HE WAS PLANNING TO DO ANYWAY. 

Murtagh: Helps Eragon, helps Eragon even when he could get captured or tortured or killed, helps Eragon even though he’s surrounded by people who would suffer no regret over killing him, helps Eragon even though he will get tortured for it later, helps Nasuada because he doesn’t want to torture his friend (let me repeat, he DOESN’T. WANT. to TORTURE. his FRIEND. And he even ends up sneaking into her cell, AT RISK OF PUNISHMENT WHICH WOULD INVOLVE TORTURE, to talk to her and heal at least some of her wounds, and give her a way to tell reality from illusion when Galbatorix does try to force his way into her head), helps Eragon kill Galbatorix in the final battle, helps a little girl he’s only just met and gives her an enchanted fork, because why not, and only waits to rejoin Eragon and Saphira because he recognizes his own need to heal, to take time for himself and Thorn, and later, if FWW is anything to go by, probably to redeem himself by helping people, and fighting whatever threat he’s hearing rumors about in the north. Murtagh doesn’t take pleasure in hurting people, and he goes out of his way to do good things, even at risk to himself, as much as he’d hate to admit it.

Murtagh is hardly perfect; on the one hand, I fully agree with his decision to kill Torkenbrand because what else were you gonna do with him, Eragon, but on the other, yes, he’s flawed. Notably, there’s the moment of him killing Hrothgar, which I’ve discussed, his anger issues, his potential alcohol issues, and his general tendency to put himself first (which… yes, but also, he really doesn’t). Best thing about this, though, his his enormous potential for change, because we’ve already seen him change! And it saved the whole war! One tiny thing, one small moment of self reflection and realization—he changed himself, without any outside influence except for finding someone to care about. 

TL;DR Don’t insult my boy Murtagh. Come back when Kylo Ren gets some actual character development.

[ariainstars]

Ben Solo - A Sad Star Wars Story

Warning: longer post. (And possibly, a few unpopular opinions.)

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For a start: I’m not here to say I like how the sequels ended with Episode IX, in particular the way they handled their protagonist.

It sucked, to say the least.

I am writing this because looking back now, I can hardly imagine how the authors could have wrapped up the sequel trilogy with the happy ending we expected.

Let’s start with that word: happy. Honestly, did anyone want Ben to be “happy” with what Rey has become? I did expect her to fall down the rabbit hole. We repeatedly have witnessed how aggressive and judgmental she is; and by all logic, she had to meet her own Dark Side in order to realize that she has no right to judge the man she first knew as Kylo Ren. The moment I heard Palpatine’s evil laugh in the first trailer, I figured he had come to pursue Rey, not him. Unfortunately, her moment of shock was short and she hardly learned from it; if anything, since Luke sent her right back into the battle. This scene may have been what fanbros expected from Luke, but honestly, it was ridiculous. It did not fit to The Last Jedi’s Luke and it did not do Rey any favor.

And: had Ben emerged victoriously, found his happy ending, how would the title “The Rise of Skywalker” be justified? He is a Skywalker by blood, but in fact he is a Solo.

  Wrapping Up the Saga

The sequels were received with mixed feelings from the start. Fans of old were angry at The Force Awakens since it seemed to say that history was repeating itself; that the heroes or the original trilogy had brought down the Empire but not managed to preserve peace. We saw them separated from one another as they once had been, disillusioned and worn out. Not the mention the wasp’s nest that was raised by The Last Jedi! If the Prequel Trilogy dismantled the illusion that the Jedi were perfect, the Sequel Trilogy definitively does the same with the Skywalker family. Both messages are clear for everyone to see, provided one is ready and willing to see them.

If Star Wars is a tale with a moral - and given its approach and the fact that it was handed over by Lucas to Disney of all studios it is - then the authors are trying since the 80ies to teach our minds to a compassionate approach on both villains and heroes. One of the main reasons why many fans dislike the prequels is that they expected to see the Jedi and Anakin / Vader being cool; they felt let down by witnessing the Jedi’s narrow-mindedness and Anakin’s strong emotionality. The affronted reactions to The Last Jedi were on the same line of thought. The prequels showed that the Jedi were not the good guys, and for the observant viewer this is already clear enough in the original trilogy. But it was only with The Last Jedi that the elephant in the room was finally approached.

Through Rey, The Rise of Skywalker makes clear that wanting to be a Jedi does not entail actual heroism but the conviction of being a hero. And Rey’s dyad in the Force, the tragic figure of Ben Solo, warns about the dangers coming from a child and teenager no one believed in as a person because everybody only saw his powerful potential.

The Jedi’s Failure

Neither Luke nor Anakin nor Rey needed the Jedi in order to become heroes. They already were good-hearted, brave and idealistic when we first met them. The Jedi ways did not make any of them happy; they learned to use their powers and employed them for short-lived “victories”, but they never found lasting peace.

Not a few fans have wondered how Luke Skywalker, who believed in his father despite all, could give up on his nephew that fatal night (even if it was only a moment of panic). Simply put: as strong and mature as he is by the time of Return of the Jedi, Luke suffers from a father trauma, and he desperately wishes for Vader to become Anakin again, his father, who used to be a hero. When he asks Vader to leave and come with him, it is not out of pure idealism but also a personal request. But Luke did not need his nephew. The moment he had at the temple was a personal issue, it had little to do with Ben’s strength in the Force or his status as Luke’s model student: Luke was afraid that Ben would be the end of everything he loved. Luke, Leia and Han were thrown together by a trauma bonding; Ben had no place with them because he hadn’t been through the same.

The actual tragedy in Ben Solo’s life was the bitter realization, over and over, that he was not needed by anyone (except for being abused, e.g. by Snoke). Ben desired Rey even before he had met her because she was powerful but unexperienced, and he hoped to find sense and belonging by protecting and instructing her. No wonder Rey’s rejection in the Throne Room drove him out of his mind with rage: it was another confirmation of what he had experienced all his life - that people can do without him. So he decided, bitterly and sullenly, that he could do without others as well. But over and over, he had to realize that he could not escape his want for connection. He kept hunting for Rey; and he was very conflicted both when it came to his father and his uncle, letting on that he did have an emotional connection with both of them although he didn’t want to accept it.

Ben’s tragedy was that he did not want to be special at all, and that contrarily to his uncle and grandfather he was aware of it. Ben simply wanted to belong somewhere.

It is an intrinsic part of the saga that a hero is never a hero “because he is superior to others for… reasons”: Star Wars does not bow to that cliché. Some people are born with the capacity to tap into the Force, but not all of the saga’s heroes have it. The morally good qualities a person has, the right decisions they make are not inborn but passed on, learned, communicated. In A New Hope Luke was saved by Han, to whom he had offered companionship and set an example by trying to save Leia. In Return of the Jedi Vader was won over by his son’s loyalty and sacrifice. For an average action film hero, this kind of attitude or outcome of his adventures would be unacceptable: a hero is expected to be triumphant, not saved by someone else. And I know enough fans who don’t understand Luke and prefer Han or Vader to him, who are both cooler and more predictable.

In film, where characters need to be introduced to the audience within the scope of minutes, narratives are applied in a way that the general audience gets them quickly. The downside is that this goes at the expense of nuances. Fans don’t like to see Anakin being passionate and stormy because as Darth Vader he was coded as brutal but cool; they don’t get Obi-Wan’s many mistakes because he was coded as a hero, or Yoda’s arrogance due to his status as a wise old mentor. The sequels brought this dichotomy to a new level coding Rey as the heroine although she has a bad attitude and comes from bad blood, and Ben Solo as the villain when his attitude is conflicted at worst, and who is the offspring of the original story’s heroes. The difference lies in their intentions - hers are good, his are bad. This is interesting because it makes us, the audience, question ourselves as to how and why we believe we can tell good from evil.

You could probably say into a megaphone that the Jedi are not the good guys who always win, that the Force is not a superpower belonging only to the Jedi and that there is no simple Dark and Light but that the Force needs balance: some viewers will never get it. I guess everybody feels the saga’s subtext on a subconscious level; but woe betide if someone like Rian Johnson brings it up to the surface for everyone to see.

  Narrative Key

One of the main reasons why The Last Jedi is so divisive is, I think, that its major theme connecting all of the others is communication. While the prequels told much about miscommunication or lack thereof, Episode VIII is packed full of beautiful examples of what happens when people actually manage to communicate; and even when they do not, they learn from their misunderstanding one another (e.g. Poe with Admiral Holdo).

It is a common but major mistake not to question the narrative key to a story. Many Star Wars fans believe the story is simply about the good guys defeating the bad guys, so they overlook the deeper themes of the saga and respond with outrage when the authors try to humanize their heroes, bringing them down from their alleged pedestal. It is e.g. helpful to know Joseph Campbell’s monomyth theory; to consider that a film saga is not the same as a TV show and that therefore if the characters go through changes these must be significant from one instalment to the next due to the time limitations; to watch a few films by Akira Kurosawa, in particular The Hidden Fortress, to understand the significance of a major event seen through different eyes; or consider the prequels’ parallels with legends, classic literature, or the Bible - Lucifer’s fall, Romeo and Juliet, the tales of King Arthur. Star Wars is a conglomeration of many narratives, from Western films to the Japanese to French fairy tales to Greek mythology to Shakespearean drama. Who approaches these films expecting mere “action” is bound to be disappointed. It is understandable, however, that if you are used to certain kinds of stories, you will assume that every story should basically follow the same lines, and you will have difficulties accepting anything that is different, or believe it’s just badly made.

I still remember the (sometimes vicious) quarrels I followed in an online forum a few years ago about a Japanese mecha anime who some fans by hook or crook wanted to fit into the structure of a French novel. Of course, those two narratives don’t fit together: no wonder most of the other fans didn’t accept that kind of interpretation.

The Phantom of the Opera’s film version of 2004 was largely a failure both with regard to quality and audience appreciation because it made a tacky Byronic romance of a story that actually is a mystery thriller, probably expecting that it would be more appealing that way. What the filmmakers accomplished was making the story flat and the characters annoying by stripping them of the drama behind the original story.

Filming Rebecca’s film version from 1940 Hitchcock managed the transition excellently maintaining the storyline of the original novel; but Daphne duMaurier’s book is a coming-of-age story, and who expects a crime thriller may feel irritated by the narrators’ meandering and detailed inner monologue.

Game of Thrones also could not culminate in “all’s well that ends well”. The last season was not well-made, but I think now that was not the whole reason behind the audience’s disappointment. The show always was very crude and included loads of horrific events; even the worst victims of the war, who seemed to have a justification for their actions and seemed well-meaning, at times did terrible things. It would be a misfit to apply a happy ending to a “sex and violence” narrative as with another martial epic, like Aeneid and Iliad. Who waits for happy endings ought to avoid this kind of story from the start. (Yes, I know, I should listen to my own advice - had I imagined how depressing Rogue One is, Star Wars fan or not, I would probably have skipped it.)

Stories of this kind can be dissatisfying because as an audience, we follow our heroes’ adventures, sometimes for years, and we usually want to see them to find their happiness in the end. But in all honesty: we should have imagined.

That is why I think it was naïve to believe that the sequel trilogy would lead Ben to a happy ending with Rey. I have read more than one fanfiction which irritated me at first, until I realized that they were told on the lines of Fifty Shades of Grey, or Pride and Prejudice. That may work well for a fanfiction, but Star Wars is not a mere romance. Even if there was a hint of the overture to Romeo and Juliet during the abduction: couples based on that trope are not destined to end well. I myself was hoping for a happy ending due to the fact that the saga’s rights were in the hands of Disney of all production companies; and giving that the Skywalker family is one of the most famous in pop culture, I was certain they wouldn’t wipe them out. However I was not quite sure how they would do that and make it convincing, and I was wary when it came to the assumption (which many Reylo’s took for granted) that the love between Rey and Ben would be strong enough to save the galaxy and give them a happy ever after.

When a guy is introduced by murdering a defenseless old man, letting an entire village be wiped out with practiced ease, going on with torturing another guy both physically and mentally and climaxing with the horrible crime of patricide, one can hardly expect a happy ever after for him; even less since so very little was explained in terms of his childhood and adolescence. Some viewers identified with Ben Solo and saw his abandonment and abuse issues; many others didn’t, and none of the sequel films really thematized them. That he made peace with his parents and died to save the girl he loved is sufficient for a convincing redemption arc, not to offer him a happy closure.

  The Trope That Comes Closest

There were a lot of speculations with regard to the trope Ben (Kylo) and Rey were actually modelled on. Romeo and Juliet, Hades and Persephone, Pride and Prejudice or Beauty and the Beast, and there were probably more. Rian Johnson is known for loving The Phantom of the Opera more than any other musical. I don’t think that’s coincidental.

- The phantom is disfigured by birth, Ben is extremely powerful by birth; and Ben also gets disfigured by Rey during their duel. (Vader’s sunken, charred face under the mask was, for a long time, how I imagined the phantom unmasked by the way.) - The phantom is highly intelligent and has huge musical talent. Ben was born with a strong power in the Force. - Both wear masks and look much less threatening without them. They also wear a cloak, and black clothes. - The phantom had committed terrible crimes both to protect himself and to punish a world which would not accept him. Sounds familiar? - In the musical we do not get to know how he became a ruthless monster in the first place. Ditto. - The phantom dies (or disappears, in the musical) because only the girl knew that he was lonely and unhappy and that he still had goodness inside him. She had forgiven him, but the rest of the world wouldn’t have believed her or forgiven him.

Both Kylo Ren and the Phantom are creatures who are at the same time terrible and wonderful. The normal world, populated by average people, cannot accept them because they are both too fascinating and too terrifying. In order to find lasting fulfilment, Ben ought to have found back to humanness. The phantom couldn’t due to his disfigurement and his criminal past; and though Ben loses the scar on his face, the Cain’s mark of the patricide he committed, his deed and his former status as Supreme Leader of the First Order never would have been forgotten.

“Yet in his eyes all the sadness of the world Those pleading eyes that both threaten and adore…” Christine in The Phantom of the Opera (on the rooftop)

  Heroes: Dynamic and Static Characters

A general rule of storytelling is differentiating between dynamic and static (also called “impact”) characters. A static character is like an anchor for others: while they live through crises, learning and maturing, this character always remains his old self and always stands for the same values. He may be misunderstood, opposed and belittled, he may lose the battle, but never the war; and after having helped others through their troubles, he usually is on his own. (Cue: cowboy riding into the sunset.)

Superman stands for peace and justice, Jack Sparrow for freedom, Peter Pan for the innocence of childhood, Paddington for faith in people’s goodness. No wonder they are so popular: it is familiar and reassuring to follow the adventures of someone who is always like a rock in a storm. Static characters are in essence childlike, two-dimensional; which is probably why our child self easily gets attached to them and may be outraged at the idea of them changing, or maybe (gasp) being wrong about something.

But George Lucas developed his saga along the lines of personal growth, and by exploring its themes: thankfully, otherwise it would have become as boring and repetitive as so many other franchises. To continue a story you can either make it dynamic, or press the repeat button over and over. The Skywalker men with their strong emotionality may be unusual heroes, but much more interesting than other, “cooler” guys whose actions are more or less foreseeable. So, I can understand the Disney studio’s choices. On the other hand, it is not surprising when fans of old get angry when their supposedly unalterably perfect heroes make mistakes: everybody wants to know that some things (or persons) never change. Even if on the long run, change might be for the better.

I think one of the sequels’ most important messages was that the Skywalker-Organa-Solo family failed their heir precisely because their mindset did not change. Ben grew up in another world than they did; obsolete political structures, dictatorship or rebellions did not matter to him. But his family wanted him to adhere to the ideals that had gotten them through the war against the Empire, discouraging him from searching and finding his own place in the world, a world that now was very different both from the old Republic and the Empire.

Whether a static or dynamic character is more relatable to the audience is a personal matter. Many fans adore Darth Vader, Leia and Han Solo etc. precisely for the fact that basically they always remain their old selves. Padmé also is a favorite, probably due to the fact that she does not change considerably. Anakin changes a lot, which is perceived as a sign of weakness. Some fans may relate more to Luke, who undergoes serious trials and emerges from them stronger and wiser, far away from the greenhorn he was in A New Hope. And yet Luke’s final decision to throw his weapon away before Palpatine is often perceived as weird to this day. It’s not “heroic”.

The outraged fans who ranted at Luke’s portrayal in The Last Jedi did not realize that Luke was doing something both Obi-Wan and Yoda, or the other Jedi for that matter, never had done: he took responsibility for his actions. In this context Ben was the audience’s self-insert, he was as appalled at Luke’s misstep as we were. Such a blow is enough to send someone on a lonely island to meditate about his mistakes for years, convinced that the world is better without him.

But for the action film audience, that is not acceptable. If you have a light sabre and the Force (an alleged superpower), what do you need responsibility for? You can’t do wrong if you’re the hero, right? Luke also was the only character from the original trilogy who underwent character growth, which makes it all the more ironic that the many, many critics who tear the sequels to pieces are fuming at how Luke could be so “defiled”. Luke grew beyond the person he had been in A New Hope; these fans obviously did not. Which is why the studios thought they had to produce The Rise of Skywalker in order to “appease” them and to give them the Luke Skywalker they wanted.

  Where Does the Galaxy Go From Here?

A conversation between my husband and me, about a year before The Rise of Skywalker came out.

Me: “I hope Ben Solo will survive at the end of the trilogy.” Him: “I do hope that, too. But they won’t give him a happy ending.” Me: “Why?” Him: “He killed his own father.”

I hate to admit it, but he was right. I’m not aware what ethics code is under use in the film industry now, but in any case, the horrible crime of patricide was done; even if it was under coercion, the son traumatized by it, and it ultimately brought him back to redemption. You can’t make a patricide, the former right hand and for a time leader of a terrorist organization a hero and give him a happy ending; in particular when you are Disney of all film studios. (Not to mention that he killed Han Solo, a very popular character.) And from exchanges with other viewers I am aware that many do not understand how Ben killed Han under Snoke’s coercion, and the implications that led him to kill Snoke: they believe he simply did it because it’s something an evil, power-hungry person will do.

Ben dying without anyone knowing that he was not a villain at heart and worse, leaving the fates of the galaxy in the hands of a young woman whom we often saw giving in to evil influences again and again within the scope of minutes was a dangerous turn. If he was but “a child in a mask”, Rey is a child who believes to be a Jedi. How is Rey supposed to be a heroine, with the other half of her soul gone? She and Ben fitted together perfectly because she had the good intentions but a violent attitude, while his intentions were bad but his attitude desperately conflicted because inherently good. Rey came from evil blood but was kind-hearted because she believed in her parent’s love. Ben was the heir of a family of heroes but did not feel loved by them, which made him lonely and bitter. What good is Rey on her own, even more so when at the end of Episode IX she deliberately leaves her friends and goes to a literal desert? The little girl inside of her is still starving for connection, and neither being a Jedi nor a “Skywalker” will appease her. She had to meet Luke to realize that he was a good man but still just a man; a lesson she didn’t quite internalize yet. The sequel trilogy wasn’t her story because her personality hardly developed. It was Ben who went through hell and back.

Films (and film sagas) have a determined length and as a film studio you need time to explore all themes, which in Star Wars are quite complex. The worst mistake I found with Episode IX was that it broke the Campbellian monomyth in favor of a Marvel type B-movie to appease the fans of old who had hated The Last Jedi. Which is understandable from their point of view, but went at the expense of quality. The Rise of Skywalker may have quenched the fire a little, but as a film, it’s frankly forgettable, and compared to the other films from the saga, I doubt that it will age well. Had the sequel trilogy continued Rian Johnson’s approach instead of putting a band-aid on The Last Jedi, it would have been good enough to make a cultural impact the way the classics did. If the sequel trilogy was meant to follow The Hero’s Journey, no one completed it: Ben died and Rey went into exile, and no one brought any kind of elixir or salvation into the world.

All of this is not to say that I have grown to like The Rise of Skywalker and that I am not disappointed about the ending, or no longer sad about Ben Solo’s death. I hope that the next trilogy will give him a second chance: I am still convinced that his ultimate fate should have been to bring lasting Balance to the Force. If I am wrong and his existence practically cancelled the past without improving anything, the whole saga loses its sense. I think that by now he atoned more than enough for his sins.

When I learned that Rian Johnson had negotiated his own trilogy after The Last Jedi, I remember wondering what it would be about. After all, almost everything had been said about the Skywalker saga, hadn’t it?

It hadn’t. I had naively assumed that like with Episodes III and VI, the final revelations were preserved for Episode IX. By now it seems to me like The Rise of Skywalker is meant as an appetizer for the next sequel. It can’t be that the studios unlearned how to make good films in so short a time after The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, also considering that everything else they made about Star Wars in between (Rogue One, Solo, The Mandalorian) is solid work and not by a long shot as flat as Episode IX.

The studios assuredly will keep their secrets as long as they can. The Mandalorian was met with huge expectations, yet nobody knew about Baby Yoda before the first episode was aired. Due to their depth and love for details, Star Wars films can be watched and discussed over and over, and the message regarding the necessity of Balance is still widely unknown or not accepted by the fans. If this is supposed to be not only an entertaining but also an educational tale, authors must give new fans room to get to know the saga, and old fans time to let the new ideas sink in. Lucas and his collaborators have taken decades trying to teach us that morals are not black and white. But still when The Last Jedi came out, the message was utterly hated.

Whatever Johnson’s trilogy will be about, it can’t be a part of the Skywalker saga any more: they are all dead. Even if Ben is brought back somehow, he is a Solo, so this time it would be the story of his own family. The Skywalker saga was basically Anakin’s, and by reconciling with a Palpatine and giving his life to save the woman he loved his grandson ultimately made up for his sins. The Last Jedi was a bold move; but what are “bold moves” supposed to be good for if they are not followed through? Apart from the fact that the sequels weren’t even exactly bold but drawing sums from what we already could see in original trilogy and prequels about the Jedi and the old Republic.

  Family Is the Key

Star Wars is a family tale. It is for families and it is about families. One of the most frustrating things about The Rise of Skywalker was, for me, that the “new” heroes didn’t make any kind of home or family of their own; and a Star Wars film or series never works without a father figure at its heart. I am sure Ben Solo was ultimately meant to be a father figure; the sequels couldn’t work without even giving him the chance to be one. Anakin and Luke both founded a family - one through marriage, the other befriending many different people. The third generation did not even get a chance either way.

“I believe that you are redeemed by your children.” George Lucas

In Star Wars, children always have to pay for their parent’s sins, and only they can make them atone. Which makes it all the more tragic that Ben is not a father; by this logic, only his child could have saved him, or an adopted one. On seeing the enslaved children of Canto Bight, of whom one is Force-sensitive, I was convinced that the sequels would be the children’s trilogy. (I might have accepted Ben dying had he saved and left them with Rey, who also is an abandoned child and so would have found a meaningful task.)

What the galaxy needs most are not heroes but people. Heroes exist to save desperate situations; lasting peace can only be made by normal people. With Luke becoming a hero in the original trilogy and Anakin a villain in the prequels, I was expecting Ben to find back to humanness. Since we have another trilogy to look forward to, I do still hope Ben will get another chance and this time he will find his happiness; but I also believe that he will have a long way to go before that. By the end of The Rise of Skywalker he is a hero, but in order to be happy he would need to learn how to be fully human, realigning both sides of his personality and healing the gap between them (the way Anakin couldn’t). And you don’t learn how to embrace your humanness quickly after having lost it within the scope of years and years. Ben wanted Rey because she was the only person in the galaxy with whom he could be completely honest. But being human also entails bonding with other people, not only with one’s significant other.

Ben tried to pull off the “bad guy” role and failed because it’s not in his nature. A lot of fans see him as a loser, because whether good or evil, a male protagonist is supposed to be always unfazed. The gentle, nurturing and emphatic personality that comes out in Ben when he is balanced is not that of a warmonger but of a peacekeeper: I see nothing inacceptable or emasculating in that. Unfortunately, who has Luke, Anakin or Han as blueprints for “real” men, won’t accept someone like Ben Solo. I hope that in time, he will be more appreciated, and that his life story will be a warning both for the audience and for the saga itself, i.e. that it is more to the point not to punish a criminal but to prevent him from becoming that way in the first place. Which brings us again to the topic of children and a better way to raise them, Force-sensitive or not.

Rey and Ben both are children with unhealed wounds. Their brief moment of harmony during the Force connection on Ahch-To was so powerful because both were speaking to each other’s inner child: Ben saying to Rey that she was not alone, Rey offering Ben an understanding he had not known before. Padmé also always saw in Anakin the good little boy she had first met; one of the reasons of the unbalance in their relationship was that he felt powerless to do something for her in return.

I think that the sequel trilogy of the Skywalkers wanted to tell us is that even if you save the whole galaxy, it’s not sufficient if afterwards you can’t support and protect your own offspring. When we met Han, Leia and Luke again, their personalities were pretty much as we left them; their mistake in handling Ben can’t have been something they actually did to him, the blunder must lie somewhere in their attitude. All three of them were traumatized by cruelly losing or never having known a healthy family life, so we must assume that after the war against the Empire, they tried to build a new world that would fit to their needs. But if adults build a home, they must do so thinking first and foremost not of themselves but of the ones who need it more than them. Children shape the future, not a victory of “good” over “evil”. And I find it interesting that the codebreaker DJ, who had such a pragmatic view of war, was also someone we met on Canto Bight, like the children. He was a traitor, but as everyone in the saga, even he had a point when he said that ultimately, wars are useless because they always flare up again.

“Good, bad, made-up words. You blow them up today, they blow you up tomorrow.” DJ in The Last Jedi

The last scene of The Last Jedi showed us a Force-sensitive boy sweeping an open space before looking up at the sky and dreaming about being a Jedi. I still believe that this scene’s meaning was “Clear the stage, it’s time for us - the children.”

The Jedi, respectively Force-sensitive creatures, must find new and better ways if they want to be advocates for peace and justice. No institution can claim to have a moral standard if it does not protect, nurture and encourage their most vulnerable and needful members, i.e. the children. Watching the prequels it is shocking to follow how the intelligent, brave and affectionate child Anakin could become the most hated man in the galaxy, crushed in the powerplay between the “good but narrow-minded guys” and the “bad but not always wrong” guys. Both his and his grandson’s dark fate could have been avoided, had it not been for the Jedi mentality based upon the conviction of having the right to destroy everything that does not (or does not seem) to line up with them.

The Star Wars saga told us over and over that power is not what it takes. The Jedi lost the Clone Wars; Vader was a lonely, bitter guy (not to mention Palpatine); Kylo had all the power his grandfather never had and it did him no good. Anakin, Han and Ben all were loved most by their women when they were at their weakest. And this brings me back to what I stated above: stories can be interpreted in different ways, but what about the message the author actually wanted to convey? If I am not getting it all wrong, it’s that compassion and not power is the key to everything good.

Episode VII and IX mirror one another, only VIII hints at a possible balance. Star Wars has a cyclical narrative; Anakin / Vader had his happiest moments and successes in his youth, while his grandson in his own youth hit rock bottom and committed his worst sins. If Kylo Ren’s destiny, as per Adam Driver’s words, is supposed to be the opposite of Darth Vader’s, how can The Rise of Skywalker really be the ultimate ending for him?

  P.S. What do you think, could baby Yoda and Ben meet? Then Obi-Wan and Yoda would be together again in a new way. P.P.S I would also like to see the Force, for once. I’m sure it’s not black and white at all. How about a rainbow? (Does anyone have Rian Johnson’s e-mail…? 😊) P. P.P.S. On the other hand, if the next film starts with Rey being pregnant and not knowing how, I might be sick… ☹

[spell-cleaver]

Luke was still recovering, not yet permitted to leave his bed following what had happened with Palpatine; so one morning, Ahsoka decided to visit him. A bright smile lit up his face at the sight of her. "You know, he...he still won't tell me anything," said the Emperor. "My father. About who he was. You...would you be able to...?" His voice trailed off uncertainly. But Ahsoka smiled. "Of course, Luke," she said. "What would you like to know?"

Previous parts on the masterpost here!

Luke was still recovering, not yet permitted to leave his bed following what had happened with Palpatine; so one morning, Ahsoka decided to visit him. A bright smile lit up his face at the sight of her.

"You know, he...he still won't tell me anything," said the Emperor. Vader had visited several times while Luke was bedridden, but he was as reluctant to talk as ever. "My father. About who he was. You...would you be able to...?"

His voice trailed off uncertainly. But Ahsoka smiled.

"Of course, Luke," she said. "What would you like to know?"

He paused, before he could even formulate a question, then said, "The good."

He knew so much bad. He knew some of the good now, too, at the heart of it.

But if his father had once been the heroic Anakin Skywalker, he wanted to hear the good.

She smiled. "He was a brilliant master," she said. "He was nice, patient—alright," she wrinkled her nose at his sceptical look, while Luke laughed, and she tapped her knee, "he wasn't extremely patient. But he made sure to teach me everything he knew, he supported me always, and one time when I was captured by Trandoshans... I survived because of his training. When I left the Jedi Order, I survived because of his training. And even when I didn't need him, anymore, he was still there for me."

Luke stared at her. She wasn't looking at him, anymore; she was looking at something in the distance, in the distant past.

"He was always passionate. And his relationship with Padmé... he was always far more intense about her than anyone else I'd seen him with; I probably should've guessed about the two of them earlier. But he cared deeply about his friends—the clones, Rex, Cody... He was a great warrior, famous the holonet over, but that was what surprised people: how kind he was. He looked out for us until the end."

Luke didn't think he was ready to ask what had happened in the end, because, "His relationship with Ben...?"

Ahsoka smiled. "They were both like fathers to me. Or uncles. Or bickering older brothers—the Jedi didn't need specific terms for that sort of mentor figure, so I can't pin it down for you, I'm afraid. But I loved them and they loved me, and they loved each other greatly. They looked out for each other. They were the team."

She didn't volunteer what had happened.

Luke didn't ask.

Instead, he dug deeper—

"I heard he was from Tatooine?" He'd heard that he was from Tatooine, too, according to Nova. He was from Tatooine, had been raised there for a few months by— "That... that he had a stepbrother there?"

Ahsoka pinched her lips. "Old sins cast long shadows," she murmured. "I don't know the details of what it was like for him, living on Tatooine."

"He met my mother there."

"And Obi-Wan. They knew what his early life was like, but I didn't meet him until ten years later."

Luke frowned, hugging his bantha tighter to him—he wondered, now that he thought about it, whether there was a reason that Nova had given him a bantha for Tatooine, and a shaak for Naboo. "So I'll have to ask Father himself about that?" He... already knew that he likely wouldn't get answers, there.

Ahsoka tilted her head. "You could," she admitted. "Or you could ask someone else about your father. It never hurts to get a more even view of a person."

Luke frowned. "Who should I ask? Ben's gone."

Ahsoka just pulled out a comlink. "He doesn't have to be here to answer a few questions, does he?"

Luke's face split in a smile, and he laughed lightly. "No," he supposed, "no, he doesn't."

Ahsoka punched in a frequency and then it answered almost immediately, Ben's blue head and shoulders projected just above Ahsoka's palm.

"Ahsoka," Ben said, warmly but stiffly. "Has Vader changed his mind? What's the situation—"

Ahsoka just handed the comlink to Luke, who met Ben's eye.

"—oh."

"I... wanted to ask." Luke gnawed on his bottom lip. "You knew my father for years, ever since he lived on Tatooine. I wanted to ask you about his life on Tatooine, or what you know about it—is it a sensitive subject? I... I really want to know, I grew up on Tatooine for a while, but he's never answered any questions before and I don't want to upset him." And he wanted to know! His father would forgive him that, right?

Ben relaxed. "Ah, I understand. That is fair enough, little one." He folded his hands in his lap. "I didn't see Anakin on Tatooine. I was travelling with your mother when we had to land there for emergency repairs and she, my master—Qui-Gon Jinn—and a Gungan who was travelling with us as well went out to investigate the area. When they returned, it was with a nine year old boy whose strength in the Force was overwhelming. He was the kindest boy I had ever met—until I met you, of course," he added generously, and Luke flushed, "—and when Qui-Gon regrettably died, I took it upon myself to train him.

"But Anakin's childhood was... difficult. He and his mother were sold to Gardulla the Hutt, then she lost them to a Toydarian named Watto, and then Qui-Gon managed to free him but not his mother, and the separation haunts him to this day, I have no doubt. He—"

"Wait," Luke said. "Sold?"

Ben nodded. "They were not kind masters."

Master.

Sold.

Luke... Luke knew what that meant.

But how? How had his father, who'd willingly served Palpatine, who was the most powerful person in the galaxy—

He'd been a slave?

Beginning | Previous | Next

[justmyimagination92]

Why Kylo Ren/Ben Solo and Theon Greyjoy are similar, beautifully grey and real characters that represent overcoming abuse and manipulation and it makes no sense to love one but hate the other, a thread:

*Disclaimer* I have only watched the GoT series & SW movies, I have not read the books or comics for either series but I have done research into both so anything I’m pulling that’s not from the movies or show has been taken from research/information I have gathered from others who have used these sources for their own opinions/arguments/statements as well as from a GoT class I took my senior year of college

Life of Mental/Physical Abuse:

They both had mentally abusive upbringings which is obvious to say has a huge effect on your development and how you perceive the world around you. Theon was the youngest of 4, known to cling more to his mother and not care as much about the ironborn mentality of piracy and raiding as his older brothers did. He was constantly tormented and bullied by them for it as well as feeling neglected by his father for “showing weakness” which made him feel like he didn’t belong and wasn’t accepted in his home. He was then sent off to be Ned Stark’s ward (prisoner) and would be executed if Balon tried to rebel against the throne again. This knowledge is constantly hanging over his head and threatening him even though he makes the best of the situation, especially by finding a brother in Robb. The North and most of the Stark family don’t accept him despite his best efforts in trying to do his best while also missing the Iron Islands and not being able to fulfill his right as the heir to the salt throne

Ben has been mentally abused since he was in his mother’s womb. Palpatine has been in his head since he was conceived, trying to seduce him to the dark because he knew the power Ben would possess from his family. Now were his parents abusive towards him like Balon, Maron, and Rodrik were to Theon? No. But they were afraid of who he could become which definitely drove him towards becoming what they were afraid of to begin with. He felt isolated and alone. Aside from questioning why his parents were afraid of him with no explanation (making him feel like he was some sort of monster), Han was gone the majority of his upbringing and Leia was building the New Republic. He was often left with droids to watch him, further developing his isolation. There’s also apparently an instance where a droid fantasized about killing him and how they’d be able to cover it up? Eventually, L&H sent him off to be trained by Luke due to their growing fear of him becoming like Vader, but he didn’t know because they never told him Vader was his grandfather. He ended up finding out later on when it was announced at a senate meeting that was broadcasted on the holonet. (Keep in mind he’s consistently being mentally tormented and tempted by the dark but fighting it off)

Loss of Identity:

I think you can argue that Theon and Ben have struggled with their identity their entire lives. Before Theon was taken to Winterfell he already felt like he didn’t belong. Then he does his duty as Ned’s ward, placing him in the midst of the rest of the Starks and trying to figure out his place without stepping out of line but also wanting to fit in as best as he can. After Ned dies and he’s at war with Robb he is able to return home to persuade Balon in lending his fleet to help Robb. Balon refuses and now Theon is stuck in deciding if he should help Robb or win over his father and take back his place as a Greyjoy. He leads an attack at Winterfell, betraying his loyalty to Robb, killing two farm boys that all of Westeros believes is Brand and Rickon, which leads to him getting overthrown by the Boltons taking Winterfell back, putting him in the hands of Ramsay who tortures him mentally, physically, and spiritually to the point where he takes on the persona of Reek and truly believes that’s who he is, who he was meant to be and who he deserves to be

Ben has also had this lifelong struggle. He’s tried to follow what his parents have taught him while fighting everything going on in his head. He looked up to his dad and wanted to be a pilot like him despite Han being gone a majority of the time. Not to mention just the pressure he faced with being Han & Leia’s son as well as Luke Skywalker’s nephew. But he could sense and sometimes hear his parents discuss their fear of who he is/who he will be. He was under the impression that they thought he was or could become some sort of monster and gave him no explanation on why they would think that and then was sent off to train with Luke (when there’s no real indication that he wanted that, he just voiced how he wanted to be a pilot) Luke could sense the same darkness in him as H&L but instead of helping him and having a conversation about it he decided to sneak into Ben’s tent one night and kill him before his fears came true. Ben awoke to his own uncle standing over him with an ignited lightsaber about to strike him down. Yes, Luke regretted it the minute he ignited it but it was too late, Ben was awake and betrayed. What he didn’t do (but the galaxy thought he did) was destroy the Jedi temple and the rest of the padawans, a higher power (most likely Palpatine) did and Ben was upset about it and he didn’t want them all to die. He felt like he had nowhere else to go and succumbed to the voice that had been tormenting him for 23 years (but in a way was the only consistent thing in his life) and went to Snoke. He felt unwanted, untrusted, and doomed to become this awful being everyone around him thought he would. He took on the persona Kylo Ren and allowed Snoke to continue to torture him mentally and now physically and spiritually to ultimately turn him into Snoke's chess piece to take over the galaxy

Path of bad decisions driven by the need to please their abuser who gives false hope of a home:

Parts of this are redundant but they both have made some terrible decisions that were heavily influenced by the manipulation of their abusers and a need for a sense of acceptance and belonging. Theon wanted to please Balon and later Ramsay, Kylo wanted to please Snoke and his grandfather (who we later find out was all Palpatine). The majority of deaths that Kylo is blamed for were under Snoke’s orders and Kylo was either unaware they were happening or tried to prevent them and resort to other solutions to get whatever it is they wanted. He killed his father because he was convinced it would make him stronger and reach his potential on “who he’s destined to be” when really it tore him apart and destroyed him, 

similarly to how Theon felt after he killed those farm boys and saw what his actions had created for Winterfell and Westeros 

Acceptance of “who they truly are” through self-hatred and regret:

Through this they come to terms with their actions and the destruction that has followed from those actions. They believe they deserve the pain and suffering they’ve had their whole lives. Theon is constantly saying how Theon is dead, he’s Reek and he deserves to be. Ben states how Ben is dead, he’s only Kylo now and that he deserves to be seen as a monster.  

Needing help to be pulled back to their true selves:

Their inner conflict is clear through both of their journeys and it’s clear that others can see that. They need help to be pulled in the right direction and reminded that they’re not the person they think they are. Yara comes for Theon when everyone else has given up on him. He’s her brother and regardless of what he’s done she still cares for him and believes in him. However, even the love of his sister can’t persuade him or break the abusive turmoil he’s been suffering and he stays with Ramsay as Reek. 

Then Sansa comes, someone he has grown up with and cares for. She learns the truth that he didn’t kill Bran and Rickon. She knows who Theon really is and she brings him back, she needs him back and gives him the strength to do it. 

Similarly, we see Han trying to bring Ben back in TFA, and like with Yara and Theon, it doesn’t work. He believes Ben is dead, that his family gave up on him and he did too so he can only be Kylo now. And as we see later on, the act of killing Han only made it worse and caused a deeper pain and regret to Ben as well as the conflict on where he lies in the force. In TLJ we see this and how Kylo seems to be chipping away from coming to terms with everything he’s done. 

(I would also like to point out that in TLJ Ben couldn’t kill his mother and it’s stated that had he noticed quick enough he would’ve stopped the blasters from hitting the bridge) He gets a connection with Rey, who at first wants nothing to do with him and sees him as the monster he thinks he is. But similarly to Sansa, she finds out the story Luke told her about him destroying the Jedi Temple was a lie and from then on they’re able to console in one another and understand the pain and isolation they’ve both felt their whole lives. 

When Luke refuses to go back and help Rey and the resistance she takes it upon herself to go and fight to bring Ben back to the light because she can see that he’s still there.

Taking a stand against their abusers, specifically to help save someone they love:

They both go against their abusers and take a huge leap towards taking back their true selves. Theon wants to help Sansa and she gives him a few chances too, for example with the candle but he ends up telling Ramsay. However when Ramsay is gone Sansa is crossed by Miranda and even though he’s still filled with fear and conflict, he throws Miranda off the ledge to save Sansa and finally defies his tormentor and everything that he’s done.

Kylo retrieves Rey when she lands on the capital ship and takes her to see Snoke. In the elevator they both state how they’ve had a vision of seeing them by each other’s sides. Kylo takes it as Rey joining him in the dark but Rey sees it as him reclaiming who he was supposed to be and even refers to him as Ben which he responds to. 

(for the majority of knowing him she called him Kylo, monster, etc but since they touched hands and she saw the conflict she now sees him as a real person and more importantly Ben) Snoke wants Kylo to kill her in order to reach is full potential since killing Han only made him question the path he was going down even more. However, he tricks Snoke and instead kills him instead of Rey, destroying his abuser and saving Rey who is the only one he’s ever been able to connect to.

Reclaiming their identity:

Even though they have someone in their corner, believing in them and helping them to come back to who they are, it takes time. Theon stays with Sansa until they cross paths with Brienne and Podrick and knows she’ll be safe with them. He then heads back to the Iron Islands to join Yara and help her however he can. He still feels as though he’s Reek and doesn’t deserve any redemption or to be trusted/loved. 

Overtime those who still believe in him and given time to heal he reclaims himself as Theon Greyjoy, not even the one from before, but a better and stronger man because it’s who he chooses and wants to be. He saves Yara from Euron and goes back to Winterfell to help fight against the dead. He protects Bran at the Weirwood tree bringing it back and trying to rewrite his wrong when he took Winterfell from Bran and caused him to abandon his home. Even though Arya is the one to ultimately save Bran by killing the Night King, she wouldn’t have been able to without Theon and his sacrifice.

Now Kylo’s is a little different and his journey back to Ben takes a few more steps. Killing Snoke was supposed to be him reclaiming himself and finally getting rid of the demons that have been haunting him his entire life. But now we’re aware that Palpatine created Snoke and was the one who has been in his head the whole time so really those voices are still there, abusing and tormenting him to do what they want. Except now he has something more to fight for. He knows Rey believes in him and they have a bond, a force dyad, that hasn’t been seen for centuries. We don’t get to see much of how Supreme Leader Kylo Ren deals with First Order affairs but I would assume it would be different from how Snoke handled it considering (as stated earlier) Kylo tried to get what they needed in the easiest way, preventing as much unnecessary harm or death. (I also would like to point out that at the beginning of TROS we see Kylo in Mustafar and all of the people he’s killing are Vader cultists so they were bad beings) He then travels to Palpatine who reveals it’s been him all along in his head and Kylo threatens to kill him, but then palp shows his army he’s been creating, how it could be Kylo’s, and reveals who Rey truly is. Palp wants him to kill her and he tricks him into thinking he will when really he chases her around to tell her this information as well as see if it’s true and to prevent her from getting killed. They fight a lot but it’s always Rey initiating it and Ben defending himself when he needs to. He gets distracted during one of their fights because Leia is reaching out to him and in the process, Rey stabs him with his own lightsaber (death of Kylo Ren) but ends up healing him and tells him that she did want him, the real him

He then has a vision of Han and basically reenacts what happened in TFA but has it play out how he wished it did the first time. He is now truly Ben Solo and goes to Exogal to help Rey and defeat Palpatine. After Rey kills Palpatine she dies and Ben comes back (he was thrown down deep pit) and transfers his life force to her to save her. Like the situation with Theon, if Ben wasn’t there Rey wouldn’t have been able to defeat Palpatine and save the galaxy.

Only got to live in peace with themselves for like 2 minutes:

They both get complex, intriguing, and beautiful arcs of redemption that represent realistic struggles of life and grey morality that people face throughout their lives. But they both end with a terrible message that the only way to fully redeem yourself from past mistakes, bad decisions (even if it was influenced by a life of mental/physical abuse) is to sacrifice yourself.

Theon sacrificed himself to save Bran and the fate of Westeros and was only able to be at peace with himself for about the last 20 seconds of his life because Bran forgave him, told him he was a good man and confirmed the type of person Theon really is and always wanted to be.

he deserved to feel this way for a MUCH longer time and continue to heal and grow and live a life that gave him much more peace and happiness (preferably with Sansa 😏) but instead he only gets to feel good about himself for the first time in his life and have it only last for a moment.

Once Rey defeated Palpatine it’s safe to say that the voices stopped in Ben’s head. There’s no more tormenting, persuading, or taunting. He climbs out of the pit to find Rey dead (his literal other half) and channels the rest of his energy to bring her back and it works. Similar to Bran, Rey confirms her joy and acceptance of Ben being back 

and he would’ve been fully content with that, but Rey kisses him and he smiles for the first fucking time we’ve ever seen. His mind is at peace, Rey is alive in his arms and for the first time he is truly happy. And then he DIES. 

Who knows what would’ve happened to him and how the resistance would’ve reacted, but he deserved the opportunity to atone for the mistakes he made, live life with a clear mind, as well as continue to be the other half of Rey that brought balance to the force and galaxy.

Bonus:

They both deserve to be with the only person that fully understands them and their pain and can grow, heal, and live in peace together.

[writing-red]

23

Pairing: Poe Dameron x Skywalker!Reader

A/N: Two fics in one month? Inconceivable

Summary: This takes place during the Rise of Skywalker around when Leia dies. Her niece is on base when she dies, and Poe returns from Endor to find her in mourning.

Request: SkywalkerReader! Reacting to Leia’s death and Poe comforting her?

Word Count: 1.5k

Warnings: I cried while writing this, so that doesn’t exactly bode well

* * *

Y/n Skywalker, the only daughter of The Last Jedi. 

When her cousin destroyed the Jedi Temple, and her father left, her Aunt Leia took her in; she was 16. However, Leia had been acting as Y/n's mother figure for as long as she could remember, as her mom had died in childbirth, and Luke had never felt as if he could take care of Y/n on his own. In fact, at the Battle of Crait, when her father's figure appeared, he offered more attention to the resistance soldiers than to her.

Leia had both raised her and trained her in the ways of the Jedi. She meant the world to Y/n. Leia was the reason that Y/n never turned to the dark side.

So when somebody came into the makeshift base hospital on Ajan Kloss where you were on bed rest by her order, waiting for a leg wound to heal, bearing the news of her aunt's death, you threw a Kylo Ren sized fit. Same tree, similar apple, right?

“Colonel Skywalker? Are you awake?”

“I am now,” You sat up and immediately, dread washed over you. You could feel the loss of Leia in the universe, you could sense her death, yet still, you asked...

“What happened?” “The General- Your aunt, she’s dead.”

You couldn’t feel the burns and deep cuts on your leg any longer; you couldn’t feel anything. Suddenly to the poor captain in front of you, you looked strikingly akin to your cousin. You rose out of the bed and approached him.

“Did no one think to retrieve me before she departed?” “Y/n-”

“Colonel.” “Colonel, I can’t explain it, it has something to do with the force. But she just walked away and all of a sudden-” “Leave.” “I’m sorry? Colonel-” “I said leave.”

Unlike your cousin, you didn’t need to yell or make some sort of flash of anger to scare somebody; it merely took a look and the right tone. However, this wasn’t something you felt equipped to handle. First came your uncle’s death, then your fathers, both of which you were prepared for in some sense. But Leia’s? You should have been able to say goodbye, you could have helped, you could have done something, but nobody came to get you. You needed her, you didn’t know who you were without her around to help you. After who knows how much time brooding you stormed out into the woods of Ajan Closs.

Your mind was flashing with visions of a planet or a moon you hadn’t seen before, an ocean, some sort of star destroyer, of Rey, of Ben, and of your grandfather. Your face was streaming with tears you weren’t even aware of. You couldn’t feel. You were so angry, with yourself, with your aunt, and your cousin. You felt the grief and pain as the last piece of family you had was ripped away from you. The anger was over taking you and you could only imagine that this was how Ben felt on that fateful night.

You had been fighting this darkness for who knows how long. It has been eating away at you. From the visions, to Kylo Rens appearances to her at night trying to pull you to the dark side.

Unbeknownst after making your way to some clearing, you started taking down trees, throwing rocks, stopping rain, and starting it back up again. You were taking out your anger on the nature that lied before you. It was its own poor luck for being there. You fought the elements for what could have easily been hours, and eventually, you dropped cold in a ring of fire.

* * *

You awoke in a bed that wasn’t yours, not one in the hospital but in one of the residential buildings on the base. Everything hurt; it desperately reminded you of training. 

“Y/n?” 

It was Poe’s voice that called your name as your eyes fluttered open.

You were choked by tears when you saw his face. You could see the pain that engulfed him not only from the news but at the sight of you.

You were sure that you looked worse than how he had left you which was saying something.

He was sitting in a little chair next to the bed, his bed, that you were lying on.

“Y/n. Chewie, Finn, and I found you in the woods after we landed, you were in this clearing, and you were, or, are really banged up. What happened? Was there some sort of invasion?” You knew he was asking to give you a reason to explain, of course there was no invasion he would have already heard.

“Poe, I don’t know what I’m gonna do with her gone.” You didn’t know what else to say. You had neither the will nor the energy to ignore what you were going through. This wasn’t the same as your father's death; this was far worse. 

“Does it make it worse or better to say I don’t know?” He asked with kind eyes.

He stood and gestured for you to sit up. He proceeded to sit so that you could lay your head on his lap.

“Both?”

He gave you a little chuckle.

“It’s not easy, I know, but you have to know that the last thing she wants is for you to destroy yourself.”

“Of course, but how? She’s the thing that kept me together Poe.” “We’ve got each other, that’s how. You aren’t alone, Y/n, you’ve got Rey, Finn, me. We don’t give up on this because she’s dead. And even then, you know better than anyone she isn’t really dead. She lives on in the force.”

“Poe, since when were you such a strong believer in the force?” “Since you showed me. Y/n no matter what happens, I am here for you.”

“And, what happens if I turn into Ben? Without her here to guide me, to keep me from turning away from the light.”

You had been dreading this day ever since the day your father tried to kill your cousin, your twenty-third birthday. It was Ben Solo’s twenty-third birthday the day he became Kylo Ren, the day your grandfather and the darkness took over. Not only was today your twenty-third but it was three days after Ben’s. Leia knew you worried for this day, and she always reassured you that you were strong in the light and that you wouldn’t stray.

“What I did last night in that clearing, I didn’t know I possessed such darkness.”

“That wasn’t darkness that was suffering.” “Ben was suffering and look at what he did. The people he murdered-” “But you’re here right now, aren’t you? In my arms. You aren’t with the First Order or on Exegol with the Sith. You are here, Y/n,” He saw a look on your face he had seen many times since getting to know you. “You aren’t your family. Not Darth Vader, Kylo Ren, or even Luke. Y/n, you may be a Skywalker, but you make your own legacy.”

“Kiss me, Dameron,” you said and angled yourself up so that he could fulfill your request, which he did.

You both shared your mourning and pain in that kiss. Not knowing what was to come with Leia gone, but reminding each other that no matter what, you would be able to find peace in one another’s arms.

“Leia always knew this day would come, she’s prepared you in every way she knew how.” You nodded. “Do you really think I can do this Poe? Be a Jedi Master, fight?”

“Y/n do you think I can lead?”

“Of course Poe, you’ll make a great General.” You were a little confused by his change of topic. “Why do you think that?” He asked as you sat up.

“Well Leia chose you for a reason didn’t she? She trained you, and, oh,” It may have taken you a moment but you realized what he was doing.

“Exactly, and Y/n you’ll always have me. No matter what. And hey, I expect the same from you,” He said in an attempt to lighten the mood which you took as an opportunity.

“You know the General gets a bigger room?” You said, referencing the one you were both in now. “And I’m not sure you’ll know what to do with all that space.”

“What are you insinuating Miss Jedi?” “Well its not as if there’s a Jedi Counsel around to chide me for being with the man I love, Mr General”

“Love?” “More than anything in the whole galaxy.” Poe leaned over to give you another kiss, he twisted to meet your lips. It was passionate, filled with love. It unraveled the knot in your stomach and dispelled the darkness you thought was overtaking you. Your nostrils were filled with Poe’s musk, oil from working in the hangar, leather, and cedarwood. You were in love with this man and you knew that as long as you had him you would be alright.

[frumfrumfroo]

Thankfully the story around this movie is shaping up to specifically be about JJ’s terrible storytelling and the way this movie betrayed The Last Jedi, so I feel like the long term conversation around it is going to be more like “Hey remember when Lucasfilm fucked up a completely good trilogy in the last movie?” instead of the ROTJ discussion where people just accept the retcons as canon now. Because frankly the Luke/Leia sibling reveal was as foreshadowed as and made more sense than Reypatine

Yeah, that’s what I think too. It’s still going to be accepted by a lot of people, unfortunately.

The sibling reveal ass-pull is the worst thing about the OT, it instantly shrank the universe and will always feel disjointed (I don’t remember seeing any part of the OT for the first time, it’s been on a loop since i was born- I still don’t naturally think of Luke and Leia as twins even though I’ve always known they supposedly are), but it doesn’t break the story, it doesn’t destroy anyone’s character arc. It leaves Leia hanging as far as resolution with Anakin, but that wasn’t something she needed until the retcon. They do at least acknowledge that it’s missing and try to address it (’tell your sister you were right’).

Whereas this Reypatine Skyusurper shit defeats the entire ST narrative. And no, it is not about found family.

1. Rey's whole problem she needed to grow out of was her delusion about her long lost family who totally loved her and living in a shitty desert by herself with their imagined ghosts instead of getting off her ass and having a life of her own, she needed to stop looking for parents in every authority figure she met, she needed to accept her past and move on and forge her own identity. That was her entire character arc and the whole thematic basis of TLJ was confronting her with it. With this ‘um actually’, the story now says she was right to sit around in a graveyard waiting for her parental daydream to come true and to have a ready-made identity handed to her on a silver platter with no character development or hard work necessary on her part whatsoever. She's back in the fucking desert on a dead planet with a delusion family of ghosts, but now the ghosts are literal. Her love is entirely barren.

2. Rey is a grown ass adult who ‘adopted’ herself into a dead family. They didn't adopt her. This is infantilising and creepy. She doesn't need a mummy and daddy, she needed to grow up and be her own person and start her own family. Now she never will, she's completely subsumed any stirrings of her own identity she started to have. Ben was the only person who pushed her towards adulthood and actualisation, without him she settles back into her bad coping mechanisms surrounded by enablers who don't know or understand her well enough to help. This is a horror film on at least three levels- Rey as the cuckoo changeling who steals the place of the true child, the Skywalkers as a cursed family of sociopaths who are haunting this bystander now that they’ve wiped themselves out, and Rey as mental patient who retreats completely from the real world into her fantasy.

3. Good Victim/Bad Victim replacement child bullshit. All of the Skywalkers and Han are such gaping fucking assholes they reject Ben but love Rey for the SAME reasons. Because she's just inherently better than him and there's nothing he can do to be worthy. There's no moment in his life he could have done something differently to be accepted, he's just a garbage child no one wants. He was doomed from conception. He dared to be traumatised by being preyed on, abandoned, and betrayed, so he doesn’t deserve to live.

4. Terrio said in an interview that the 'original sin' of SW was separating the twins. So adoption is bad, actually. Never mind that Luke and Leia were separated for their protection and both went to loving homes where they were raised well by good parents. They didn't get to grow up together on Tatooine so that's terrible?? And he says they were never reunited there so we all wanted that. a) No we didn't, Chris, everyone hated Tatooine and no one wanted to live there, Luke says 'if there's a bright centre to the universe you're on the planet that it's furthest from', Anakin was a slave there, his mother was murdered there, it's a DEAD PLANET where BAD THINGS HAPPEN and every character wanted to escape from it b) Have you seen RotJ? Because Luke and Leia were together on Tatooine in the movie, my dude. Leia got to be a slave there for a while too. How fun for her to get in on the family tradition.

5. You made it 100% about bloodlines, Chris. This disingenuous bullshit that it's about rejecting that is the most hollow fucking nonsense I've ever heard.

Rey’s power came from her bloodline, her ‘darkness’ is biologically inherited and isn’t her fault and disappears with no effort from her, you turned the Skywalker name into a fucking superhero mantle and had all the legacy characters anoint her as their heir because she was just born worthy. You made her ‘heir of all the Jedi’ and they’re her ‘chosen ancestors’. Hey, dumbass, the Jedi don’t have heirs. Anyone can have the Force, anyone can be a hero without the Force- you have destroyed that by making Force sensitivity the sign of the elect. F/nn shouldn’t be Force sensitive and making all the defected stormtroopers Force sensitive robs the characters of agency. You have rewritten a story about the deathless hope offered by the eternal possibility of choosing differently into a story about predestination.

This was never about ‘the Palpatines’ vs the Skywalkers. The Emperor was just one evil guy whose backstory and bloodline were irrelevant, he stands in for all selfishness and callous ambition, for the temptation to choose power and control over love. It’s a personal story about individuals and individual struggles- how to be an ethical adult. Lineage didn’t fucking matter, it was so important that Vader was Luke’s father because of the personal relationship it gave them, because of how it challenged Luke and his worldview. The connection it gave them which would radically redefine the stakes and ultimately give the OT its meaning. Rey has no connection to Palpatine and being related to him does nothing but implode any meaning her character ever had.