#it’s similar to why obi-wan and Anakin were doomed to fail

[gch1995]

I love Anidala in a tragic romance sort of way, but yeah, while Anakin had a reckless vicious streak in regards to enemies who fucked with him or those he cared about first and codependent side in regards to Padme that eventually became downright dangerously possessive and toxic when he went off the rails in RotS in his fear of losing her to a possible threat, Padme certainly wasn’t this perfect angel he idealized her as being either. I’m going to keep out stuff like the Clovis arc because I think it was a flanderdization of Anakin’s possessive flaw before he went dark.

In the movies, he was an anxious-avoidant, awkward, and naive late-teen to early twenties young adult who got attached to Padme too deeply and too quickly because she was the first person who was willing to let him talk to her about how he felt and his much his life as a Jedi sucked after enduring ten years of being emotionally/psychologically abused, isolated, neglected, and shut down by Obi-Wan, Yoda, the Jedi Council, and his peers in the Order for having valid individual needs and concerns, wanting to bond with them, and wanting stay in touch with his mother. Yeah, Palpatine was there, too, but he genuinely didn’t give any shits about Anakin, in spite of pretending to, and he was still a mentor/superior, not someone he could try to be partners and have a life with. Yes, he had an exceedingly vicious side in regards to his enemies, and he was codependent and clingy to those he got attached to. Internally, he sometimes had some feelings of jealousy over other people who tried to get close to her or others he cared about, but he also had those same issues with Obi-Wan, Ahsoka, and Luke when they sided with other people over him, or got ahead, at least in part, because they were lucky.

Nonetheless, in the movies, Anakin never laid a hand on Padme or anyone else he cared about before that scene on Mustafar when he was high on the dark side for the first time, half out of his mind, and under the wrong impression that she had deliberately brought Obi-Wan to Mustafar after he went dark to execute him for Yoda when Obi-Wan walked out of her ship ready to kill him right as she was telling Anakin she loved him, but she couldn’t support him when he was going down this dark path that negatively affected her and her people now too. I think it makes more sense that, while not innocent, the high of the dark side for the first time in someone who is already so emotionally/psychologically unstable and seriously struggling with suppressed emotions, gave Anakin this sense of false invincibility when he was strangling Padme in a blind paranoia and rage in that moment.

Like, he genuinely was so overconfident in his control over this new power in the heat of the moment that he thought he could strangle Padme for a second to let out his rage in the moment without causing any lasting or lethal damage. Granted, he didn’t because Obi-Wan telling him to drop her twice brought him back to his senses enough to realize what he was doing, so he dropped her before he could strangle her to death. Plus, the Republic and Jedi were doomed, no matter who Anakin chose at that point, anyway, but his decision to go dark and his reckless force choke definitely did contribute to Padme’s ultimate demise of death by broken heart syndrome/trauma.

However, he never laid a hand on Padme or openly disrespected her before in the movies. Nor do I really buy that he would be the type of guy to start using his fists to beat people to death for vengeance. That’s more of Luke’s heat of the moment type rage. If Anakin’s really pissed off at someone in the heat of the moment, he’ll just stab them to death with his lightsaber quickly, grab them with a force choke to intimidate them, get answers, shut them up, or kill them, and/or, as his master Obi-Wan taught him, sever one or more of the limbs off from the arteries of his victims to “teach them a lesson in accepting loss and suffering.”

That being said, yeah, in regards to Padme’s flaws, she’s not intentionally evil, and in comparison to Obi-Wan Kenobi and the Jedi Council, she actually is somewhat of a healthier relationship for Anakin than they are. At least, she doesn’t make him feel like garbage for having valid feelings of anger, desire, and fear altogether. At least, she let’s him talk to her about those feelings without constantly judging him as being “dangerous,” “evil,” or “inhuman” altogether. At least, she encouraged him to go and look for his mother when he sensed she was in danger and went with him to help keep him out of trouble with Obi-Wan and the Council for leaving his post, rather than giving him Obi-Wan’s and Yoda’s bullshit dismissals and platitudes of “Dreams pass in time” and “Rejoice in death,” even though they knew very well that there entirely was a real possibility that Anakin’s force visions of his loved ones being in danger could come true.

Padme is also rather arrogant, inconsiderate, hypocritical, and selfish in her willfully naive attitude in regards to harsh reality right in front of her in her fear of the unknown, and doesn’t treat serious issues that she sees in Anakin, the Republic, and the Jedi Order until she is negatively affected by them as a result. Much like Anakin, Obi-Wan, Yoda, and the Jedi Order, she wants to bring peace and harmony to the galaxy, but she’s so hyper-focused on achieving the end result of peace and harmony by holding on to security at all costs that she overlooks the fact that she actually has to be willing to let it go and take the risk of standing up for what’s right to achieve truly lasting peace and security, even when all the odds seem to be against her succeeding.

You can’t just keep pretending everything will be okay when you know they are not, only freak out when you and the people you care about are seriously negatively affected by those problems you continued to tell yourself would get better if you pretended they would, and then suddenly expect for the negative consequences of your denial of those serious issues to settle down and go away if you run away from them. Tragically, that is something that Padme does all through the prequels until the very end, not just in regards to Anakin’s flaws, but Obi-Wan’s flaws, the Jedi Order’s flaws, and the flaws of the overall Republic she serves as a whole.

In the Phantom Menace, at 14 years old, Padme goes to Tatooine, and is genuinely horrified to realize that slavery is a serious issue on this planet in the outer rims because the authorities of the Republic government she has served her whole life won’t do anything to help implement a proper legal system and ban slavery there. However, we never see her talking to her advisors about doing more to help them out, even though at least two of these slaves went out of their ways to risk their lives to protect her and her two weird military monk body guards without any thought of reward for themselves. I get that Padme is only one person and a 14 year old girl at this point, so it’s not really on her that the outer rims have been neglected by the Republic she’s serving, and I get that she couldn’t just save everyone on the outer rims by herself.

Padme at the very least owed it to Anakin and Shmi to try her best to protect them and free them from slavery, though, considering all the risks they took to protect her, Obi-Wan, and Qui-Gonn Jinn without any requests for a reward in return. Yet, she doesn’t do that because they aren’t her more pressing concern and she decides to believe that the authorities will take care of it, even though they haven’t in all this time.

Ten years later, Padme is a twenty-four year old senator of the Republic who falls for Anakin and faithfully serves her Republic. While she means well, we still see that she hasn’t done anything to try to mitigate the issue of slavery on Tatooine for Anakin’s mom or any of the other slaves because she still tells herself “the authorities will take care of it.”

While it absolutely is true that there was no real legal system on Tatooine to deal with crime in a fair and proper manner, and Padme had no authority to punish Anakin for committing voluntary mass manslaughter of the Tusken Raiders by putting him on trial for his crimes in court, or putting him in jail, Padme still sees that Anakin is visibly feeling simultaneously angry at the Tuskens for abducting and torturing his mother to death, angry with himself for not being able to save her life in time, deeply ashamed and guilty over not being able to save her, and deeply ashamed and guilty over being willing to take out his rage against other people who presented themselves as enemies and potential threats in such a horrifically merciless and vindictive manner. It is entirely valid for Anakin to be feeling very angry and hurt by the clan of Tusken Raiders for abducting and torturing his mother to death. He should be able to feel safe talking about it, and it is genuinely horrible and unfair that there was no proper legal system to charge and put a stop to the Tuskens for their crimes of terrorism against his mother and the people of his village.

That being said,most of the the Tuskens in that village were not blameless and helpless victims, this massacre Anakin committed went beyond just reasonable self-defense. He willingly killed a number of these Tusken Raiders when their guards were down, including the children who would have had nothing to do with his mother’s abduction and torture, in a personal desire for vengeance and excessive fear of the unknown. However, while Padme does help somewhat by comforting Anakin in that moment in AOTC, she also seems to overlook the fact that he’s not in a healthy state of mind or very happy being a Jedi at all.

Anakin seems to be sticking with it out of a sense of duty and obligation because one of them took him in from slavery, and he has nothing else in the Republic to fall back on for a job, never does she think to say. Throughout the entirety of AOTC, RotS, and TCW, his interactions with Padme make it clear that he is tired of living as a Jedi, but continues to stay with it, even after being knighted and marrying Padme, because he has no one else outside of the Republic or Jedi after his mother dies. His two closest relationships that offer him any form of security, aside from Palpatine, who is grooming him for evil, are with two people who are also deeply flawed to the point of selfishness and toxicity to Anakin himself in their enablement and/or perpetration of whatever corruption benefits and/or doesn’t affect them in their fear of the unknown, hypocritical morality, pride, willful denial, and repeated insistence that Anakin continue to bottle up his better instincts, personal issues, and true feelings to fit in to protect his reputation, to protect their reputations, to protect them, to protect himself, and to protect the galaxy, even when he tried to tell them that he was tired of keeping his relationship with Padme a secret, tired of being a Jedi, and tired of pretending to fit in and be someone he was not.

While they’re not responsible for Anakin’s actions, nor did they deserve what happened to them in response for refusing to encourage him to do better and stand up for himself by being honest and getting away from these broken systems before he completely lost his shit, Obi-Wan and Padme are also partially responsible for enabling and reinforcing Anakin’s decline in emotional/mental stability and his slave mindset by continuing to pressure him to keep following along with these systems that they knew were broken in their own arrogance, fear of the unknown, and selfishness I don’t think their intentions were malicious, or that they never truly loved Anakin at all, and I do get where their fears were coming from, especially with Padme. She got pregnant with Anakin’s kids by the time of Revenge of the Sith, she had to be the breadwinner, and she knew the Jedi Council wouldn’t hesitate to recruit their kids as Jedi if they found out about them. Obi-Wan really had nothing outside of the Jedi Order either. However, they definitely did not do their best to help Anakin or other people who they knew were suffering because of their system’s methods. Much like Anakin himself eventually became, they became too selfish to do that in their fear of taking that risk.

honestly I do think a Padmé who was actually principled and courageous would have been a fantastic character if they’d managed to write her that way but part of me really does love the mess of ‘I can fix him’ living-in-a-barbie-dreamhouse-fantasyland Padmé we actually end up with when all the pieces of her character that we actually got are cobbled together

[clonewarsarchives]

AHSOKA TANO A HERO FOR OUR TIME (#160, OCT 2015)

In her ongoing series on the Hero’s Journey in Star Wars, Tricia Barr examines how Ahsoka Tano’s arc in Star Wars: The Clone Wars reveals the evolution of mythological heroes.

In the Star Wars films, the principal protagonists progress through character arcs that define them as heroes. Luke Skywalker and his father, Anakin, follow mirrored versions of the Hero’s Journey, one triumphant and one tragic. Princess Leia, Padme, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Han Solo also grow and change across the saga. When Ahsoka Tano’s journey began in The Clone Wars, however, it wasn’t clear that her personal story would map out to a heroic arc. After Padme’s demise in Revenge of the Sith, fans wondered whether Anakin Skywalker’s new Padawan was doomed to a similar tragic fate. She might grow into a memorable heroine in her own right, or she could serve as a temporary, forgettable sidekick whose death could accelerate his ultimate fall to the dark side. For advocates of strong female characters and more diversity in storytelling, watching and critiquing The Clone Wars became an exercise in hope for the future of Star Wars. The next generation of fans would be introduced to the franchise by way of the animated television series and, just like the storytellers of our time, they would be influenced by nostalgia for their earliest adventures in the galaxy far, far away. Fortunately, Ahsoka Tano and The Clone Wars delivered on her potential.

THE POWER OF MYTH

If you asked a thousand fans what Star Wars means to them, likely you would hear a thousand different answers, and from their aggregate you might see the mosaic of what makes the franchise special to so many people. When writer and mythologist Joseph Campbell undertook the process of analyzing the Hero’s Journey, he similarly combed through hundreds of stories and parsed out the common strands among the mythic tales, seeking to uncover the storytelling architecture which gives them their weight. But why do heroic journeys seem to resonate more with an audience? And more importantly, what is behind their staying power? After the prequel trilogy filled in the missing pieces of Anakin Skywalker’s rise and fall, Star Wars confronted both of those questions within the context of its new animated television show.

One common thread in myths is that their stories provide a roadmap to how society is supposed to behave. On a basic level, myths delineate the divide between right and wrong. Beyond demarcating good versus evil, ancient myths reinforced the divine right of kings. Most heroes were supernaturally chosen or predestined champions, suggesting to the audience that the gods selected who could become a savior.

From the beginning, A New Hope worked within this concept. Once the “white knight” heroism of the original trilogy’s Jedi had been shaded by the prequel trilogy’s fall of the Republic, though, the mythic divide of good and evil was blurred with a muddled, compromised morality. The subsequently published books and comics then took that theme to its extremes. While some fans enjoyed the edgier, ethically ambiguous themes and characters, others in fandom often commented that the stories didn’t “feel like Star Wars.”

Into this uncertain era, Ahsoka Tano was introduced. She was the apprentice to a supernaturally powered Chosen One, who the audience knew was destined to fail, perhaps in some part because his entire Order had lost sight of their true purpose. Her mere existence seemed to run counter to the entrenched culture of continuity consistency that previously had predominated across the franchise.

THE PADAWAN’S PATH

Admittedly, I harbored mixed feelings about Ahsoka at first. Like many fans, I struggled with the fact that her existence did not factor into Revenge of the Sith, not even as a memory or off-hand mention in dialogue. The prequel trilogy drove home the point that those in closest orbit to Anakin Skywalker were doomed like space debris inside the event horizon of a black hole. I was very reluctant to become invested in her character for fear that she would be killed off just at the point I became fond of her. At the time The Clone Wars premiered, many fans felt the positive portrayals of female characters in the franchise had tapered off after high points with Queen Amidala in The Phantom Menace, Mara Jade in the Hand of Thrawn duology, and Jaina Solo through The New Jedi Order: Destiny’s Way. Still, Star Wars had always been about hope to me. Having often spoken up to ask for more and better female characters, I watched skeptically out of the corner of my critical eye. In its initial seasons, The Clone Wars’ meandering chronology and anthology format made it difficult to discern the show’s vision. It was most definitely defying some of the expectations of the existing fanbase, first by disregarding publishing continuity and second by bringing a female Jedi front and center. But Ashley Eckstein (the voice of Ahsoka) waded into the fandom with a positive attitude, while supervising director Dave Filoni handled press conferences and convention panels with poise worthy of a Jedi Master—even as fankids began standing up to ask if Ahsoka Tano was going to die.

The year 2009 proved exciting for female fans. The second season of The Clone Wars began to take a less disjointed approach to its storytelling and an arc began to emerge for Ahsoka Tano. Even better, it wasn’t just Ahsoka’s journey as a lone female in a sea of male characters; she developed friendships with Senator Amidala and fellow Padawan Barriss Offee, as well as an adversary in bounty hunter Aurra Sing.

At the same time Eckstein, correctly perceiving a dramatic lack in geek-themed apparel targeted at the female fan, launched Her Universe. In my article on Han Solo earlier this year, I expressed my caution in considering an actor when critiquing a character’s heroic journey; it was Eckstein’s role in shaping Ahsoka’s story that began to change my opinion on that matter. It is simply impossible to separate the actress from the importance of the character. Over the entire run of The Clone Wars, Ahsoka’s champions, Dave Filoni and Ashley Eckstein, took a novel approach to their relationship with fandom. After the prequel era, Filoni and Eckstein embraced The Clone Wars’ fandom, with Filoni remaining the Plo-Kool cat showrunner and Eckstein wooing fans one at a time through upbeat interviews and numerous personal appearances, not just at big events but also at smaller conventions. From the charismatic original trilogy cast to the Star Wars Rebels voice cast, it has become apparent that Star Wars characters shine their brightest when the actor or actress already embodies the qualities of that character. For an era such as the Clone Wars, steeped in pessimism and defeat, there needed to be a helpful portion of hope to come out the other side.

Considering Ahsoka’s future beyond Order 66 was not always guaranteed, it certainly suggests that the power of hopeful fans can play a role in heroic journeys, much in the way it has for other notable female characters of the past few years.

I have always been in the “Ahsoka lives” camp, though, if need be, Ahsoka would die. I don’t have a problem with that if the story demands it. I’ve always thought Ahsoka’s existence is tied to two things: A) if we can come up with a story that’s good enough that George says, “Okay, she can keep going,” and B) if fans like the character enough that we can all say, “Okay, she can keep going.” Those are two pretty important things.

—Dave Filoni interview with StarWars.com (2013)

A HEROINE’S PATH

As modern society has changed, so too has the role of myth and our perceptions and expectations for the values and themes modern myths should convey. At FANgirl Blog, editor B.J. Priester and I have been analyzing the Campbellian model and evaluating how it has evolved, particularly in light of many prominent and successful contemporary stories with female protagonists from Wonder Woman and Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Katniss Everdeen and Kamala Khan. Campbell created his model based on centuries of mythical lore, stories that had been commissioned by kings and written by men. When a student or a storyteller today poses the question of how a female character would be included in the Hero’s Journey model, there isn’t centuries’ worth of books or decades of comics and film to help guide the way. Some disagree on whether Campbell’s model is even applicable for a heroine in myth. Ahsoka Tano’s story borrows some key elements of the Campbellian model, such as a physical and emotional metamorphosis through her trials and tribulations, a spiritual death and rebirth on Mortis, and repeated conflict with several metaphorically paternal authority figures. In other aspects, though, her journey forges new directions, particularly in her drive to make a difference in the real world rather than striving for spiritual glorification.

Ahsoka Tano is far from ordinary, but over the course of her journey through The Clone Wars she rose above what appeared to be her preordained fate. Like heroic journeys of old, The Clone Wars created a story that, through the lens of its heroine, attempted to show its primary audience how it should behave, to listen to elders and mind those with more experience. But Ahsoka’s heroine’s journey also revealed a powerful lesson that is nearly impossible to impart to a child—which is that at some point they have to decide for themselves what is right and wrong.

“Eventually you have to face the fact that good and evil aren’t that clear-cut and the real issue is trying to understand the difference.” 

—George Lucas (1983)

[jadoue1999]

Peter Maximoff’s complicated relationship with Star Wars

Summary: Peter didn't like Star Wars. But not because they were bad movies, no. It's because they somehow were very similar to his own life, and they also showed him what might have been, had his twin lived long enough. This is the story of Peter Maximoff, told through the many similarities between the original trilogy and his own life.

*All Star Wars quotes are in italics*

Peter doesn’t like Star Wars

Don’t get him wrong, the movies are great. The first movie had come out when he was 22 years old, and he had found it amazing. He had never seen anything like it before and had sneaked into the movie theater to rewatch it with his twin several times.

‘I need your help, Luke.’

It was almost ironic how his life resembled some parts of the movie. Both he and Wendy had some characteristics of Luke and Leia. He was the goofball, the one who had been recruited to break someone out of an impenetrable prison. Hell, Charles could be Obi-Wan, the old wizard with strange mind control powers (though he didn’t have them at the time), Hank was Chewbacca, the fierce beast who was loyal to his family, and then the claw guy, Logan, was Han Solo. The dark-haired man with a don’t-mess-with-me attitude that would shoot you down without hesitation. That made him Luke, the farm boy that was raised isolated, unaware of the true danger. Only difference was that Erik wasn’t Leia, no he was Vader. Wendy was Leia, the fierce, loud mouthed, badass princess that didn’t let anyone boss her around.

They had loved the first movie, but then tragedy struck. His twin’s powers were always unpredictable, always on the verge of lashing out. He had tried to help as much as he could, but just a few months after their 23rd birthday, it was too much for Wendy to bear. She lost control and died, taking half a block with her. Peter did his best to carry on, but their lost connection was all he could feel. The aching emptiness that had always been occupied by his twin sister. It took awhile, but he did eventually go see the second Star Wars. It was... a bittersweet experience to say the least.

Seeing the big bad Vader being related to Luke really did a number on him. All he could think about was the fact that he too was related to a literal terrorist. Someone who had hurt hundred of people and would probably not hesitate to hurt him as well. And then it was revealed that Luke and Leia shared a connection, where they could hear each other and feel each other, and it just overwhelmed him. Minus the kissing (ew, that was gross, why did they even include that?!) Luke and Leia’s relationship reminded him of his and Wendy’s.

That’s why he wasn’t surprised when they were revealed to be twins in the next movie.

Actually, he had been surprised, but more about the fact that his grief took over for a moment. Seeing Leia try to reason with Luke, telling him that nothing good would come out of chasing Vader, their father... that was a conversation that had really happened after their mom told them who exactly was Magneto. Peter had decided to chase Erik down the moment he had resurfaced.

‘I won't fail - I'm not afraid.’

‘Oh, you will be. You will be.’

His mom had warned him about Magneto, how nothing good came out of chasing ghosts, but he had to try. A confrontation with the Dark Lord of the Sith.

Cloud city The mansion was full of people, and the place was exploding. He saved them all (minus one), of course, because that’s what he did. Why be a speedster if you can’t save people from catastrophe?

‘Luke, don't - it's a trap!’

Yeah, it had been a trap, alright. But unlike Luke, he hadn’t had Leia to warn him. So, the carbon freezing chamber knock out gun had worked. That’s how he ended up captured by the government and woke up in a weird green room. The others, he could understand why they were taken, they seemed to know the man holding them, but why him? Peter was of no interest to them. Unless they knew he was related to Magneto and planned to use him as a bargaining chip, but it seemed unlikely.

Then, they were freed and, on their way to confront En Sabah Nur, or as Hank had described him, the blue god. He had told Raven about his relationship with Erik, and she promised him that she would make sure she would tell him.

‘There is no escape. Don't make me destroy you.’

The cold, cold eyes of Magneto were staring at him with something that seemed almost like interest. “And you?”

‘I am your father.’

It was right there, a perfect opportunity served on a silver platter. An opportunity to make Erik realize he wasn’t alone, that he had more family. Perhaps he’d turn back to the light side if he knew. “I’m your-“

But it was Wendy who was the brave one, she was the chosen one. She never would have hesitated. And he wasn’t his sister. “I’m here for my family too.”

It was all sad and tragic because his life was just like that. He could feel Raven’s eyes on him, she couldn’t understand why he hadn’t told him, but she couldn’t know about Wendy. It was his own painful secret.

With how similar his life was to Luke’s he wasn’t sure why he was even surprised when he got his hand cut off leg broken. Then, there he was, trying to hold on to consciousness as shock settled into his body.

‘Hear me! Leia!’

Oh, how he wished Wendy were here. She would have destroyed them. Peter would have done anything for his twin to answer, like Leia did with Luke. But she was dead, there was no one to answer him. Just the cobwebs of their broken connection and the burning pain of his leg. He didn’t really care what happened next, he was all too focused on getting his message to his long-lost sister. He didn’t really believe in a higher power, of some all-powerful entity that somehow watched over everyone. He did, however, believe in Wendy, his strong, beautiful, powerful sister.

‘I would have preferred her too’

The blue God’s voice resonated in his head, catching him off guard. No one had ever reached in his mind like that, Wendy only could because of their connection.

‘If you will not turn to the dark side, then perhaps she will.’

Would his father have tried recruiting Wendy for his brotherhood? Yeah, definitely. She would have been the true last hope. A daughter to be proud about. One with abilities beyond anything anyone had ever seen. One that truly would have saved everyone, hell, she would have prevented the mansion from exploding and never would have been captured in the first place. The blue god looked at him with disdain in his eyes and Peter knew it didn’t mean anything good. He tried to crawl away, but in his current position, that did absolutely nothing.

‘It is pointless to resist, my son.’

En Sabah Nur grabbed him by the hair and tugged, holding him painfully upright and vulnerable. He’d always hated staying still, he was always too full of energy, always eager to chase after the next distraction.

Peter looked up at his father, trying to see if he would do anything, but he saw nothing but indifference. Magneto didn’t care about him. He was an insignificant mutant, a face amongst a thousand others. Soon to be counted amongst the hundred of corpses that Erik had seen in his life.

‘Now, young Skywalker...you will die.’

The god pulled his head back sharply, exposing his throat. “End him.”

One of his horsemen was approaching him with a sharp sword. Peter was slightly thankful that it wasn’t his dad that was chosen to be his executioner. His powers had kicked in, trying to give him an opportunity to escape. But it only made his imminent doom even worse.

Then, he didn’t die, and the hope of seeing his twin again was brushed aside for another near-death situation. As it turned out, Raven was a great person when the son of her friend was in danger.

En Sabah Nur let him go too quickly to focus on the blue mutant. He gasped and writhed as he fell to the ground as electricity pain coursed through his body. The blue god didn’t care about him, he continued calling for Charles, calling for his true target.

‘Father! Help me!’

He should cry out like Luke did, there was no way Magneto would act if he didn’t. Then again, he didn’t have a clue who he was. It was doubtful he remembered him from the Pentagon, it had been nearly 10 years and Erik had had a whole other family since. He was just the nameless idiot that got a big head and tried to take on a god and got defeated like a loser.

In the end, they were all fine, just a little shaken. Erik gave him a weird look, either he pitied him, or he was wondering what he had wanted to tell him. But Peter was on the verge of passing out, there was no way he could hold a conversation at the moment. They came back to the mansion and Peter decided to stay, maybe getting out of his isolation wouldn’t be so bad.

So, even if his life was similar to Star Wars, in its turns and tragedy, it wasn’t even close to how the trilogy ended. The scruffy Han never came back, Obi-wan wasn’t next to a redeemed Anakin (he just left all together) and Leia wasn’t at his side anymore. A happy ending wasn’t something that happened in real life. Everything he wanted resolved wasn’t wrapped neatly into a bow. He still had his loads of daddy issues caused by a father who didn’t know was a father and Wendy, his amazing long gone twin still wasn’t at his side. Peter figured that some good would eventually come to him, it couldn’t be all bad, right?

‘This is our most desperate hour.’

He had faith in that, so, when he was woken up by a burning sensation in his chest, he did his best to understand. The pain was so familiar, it was grief. But not his grief, no, this came from the connection he shared with his twin.

“Wanda?” he called out. Using her real name because she was calling to him. Because she needed him. Because she was somewhere all alone.

“I had a brother, his name was… Pietro.”

It was painful for her to talk about him, so he made sure to let her know through their bond that he was there for her, she just had to reach out. Wanda was confused to feel him, but her scarlet magic soon opened a portal. It might be a trap, there was no way to be certain, but Peter trusted his sister. He took and deep breath and ran into the portal without hesitation. She was alone and she was suffering, it was his job as her twin to help her.

‘Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope.’

[padawanlost]

Sorry to keep ranting about this, but here's another page in the Jedi Council's book of hypocrisy: In Legends, it's said that Ki Adi Mundi was pretty powerful even by Jedi standards and had problems controlling said power when he was a kid. What's more is that they accepted him even though he was about 4 years too old to start his training. So tell me why the Council welcomes Mundi with open arms into the order while completely alienating Anakin for this same reason? (1/2)

Like just take away the whole “Anakin’s emotions put him over to the Dark Side” BS and you’ll see that the other two arguments against Anakin are that he’s A: too old, and B: too powerful. (2/2)            

Rant away, my friend. Look at me, I really can’t judge anyone for ranting about SW lol

The short answer is that many EU writers do this with their favs/OCs. They all have a background somehow similar to Anakin’s. They arrive at the Temple older than most, they remember their families, they have been traumatized by poverty and/slavery, they are the best fighters, the most powerful Jedi, etc. Whether it was intentional or not, this ended up making the Jedi Order look incredibly biased against Anakin. Judging by the Council’s introduction in TPM and how they treated Anakin, I’m inclined to believe it was, at least partially, done on purpose.

I mean, we could dismiss it as inconsistent writing, but the fact this theme resurfaces again and again all over the EU makes it hard to brush the whole thing off as a mistake. Especially when the same character is later described as this:

Like Anakin, I was well past infancy when I began my training at the Jedi Temple. There was much concern about whether I was too old to learn the ways of the Force, that my Cerean childhood might cloud my judgments, but … I am not certain of how to express myself. My mind tells me I should feel empathy for Anakin, but my instinct tells me something else. [Ki-Adi-Mundi in Ryder’s Windham’s Jedi vs. Sith: The Essential Guide to the Force]

What disturbs me most of all is Anakin Skywalker himself. It is not in my nature to make assumptions about anyone based on appearance, and yet I find it almost alarming that the boy looks so entirely unremarkable. If I didn’t know better, I would have dismissed him as a harmless raga-muffin. [Ki-Adi-Mundi in Ryder’s Windham’s Jedi vs. Sith: The Essential Guide to the Force]

This is tells me it’s more than an inconsistency, it’s a deliberate attempt to show the Council’s shortsightedness that would later doom them all. They refused Anakin after everything they went through because as the years went by they lost track of what was really important. They became so attached to their code and their rules they were blinded by the fact a 9 years old child in desperate need of help was standing in front at them. It also helps the audience understand why Luke & Leia succeeded where Anakin, Yoda and Obi-wan failed. Your upbringing matter. How you are raised, how you are treated and what you are taught matters. A 900 years old man telling a bunch of adults to beware of a child doomed the galaxy, a 20 years old man who refused to give up on his father saved it. which, of course, take us back to the indoctrination issue. When you are raised to believe in the infallible wisdom of your master obey it without question, your experiences won’t matter as much. Mundi had similar exercise but after a lifetime being told Yoda knew better, of course his initial reaction to Anakin would mimic Yoda’s.

So, in the end, it’s not that the Jedi Council were bad people, they were simply raised to ignore their own experiences in favor of Yoda’s. I’m sure that with a different upbringing they would’ve been accepting of Anakin and even relate to his difficulties.

[norcumii]

For shits and giggles and I honestly couldn’t tell you why, I started listening to the Clone Wars movie commentary, by Filoni and...others?

Putting aside that at least 50% of it is some form of “ALL HAIL GEORGE,” which...yeah. Fine, whatever – there’s been an interesting thread I’m trying to chase down mentally. So, er, late night musings ahead.

They keep talking about how they tossed this line into the editing, or how George is all about tweaking the story in the editing room – and how that’s all about building the final vision. How in order to get a good laugh, in this bit the droid suddenly has the intellectual/philosophical context to ask “Whhhyyyy?” as its being tossed off a cliff to its doom and that was all added several editing rounds in.

And this has been bugging me. Not just because it’s cheap humor and might be good for a startled guffaw but not once one steps back and looks at the picture because ouch, that’s...pretty ugly. Also, this is COMPLETELY ignoring my instincts to snort and be bitchy about George Lucas’ ego and Marcia Lucas saving the OT in the editing room.  

See, my first instinct is to be cautiously approving of this approach. You write a fic, you edit, you edit some more, you get a beta and you tweak depending on their suggestions, and then you post. That’s what these people are talking about, right?

But if that were the case, then why do I spend so much time bitching about how Star Wars NEVER follows through on story lines, and they never spend a fraction of the time we do trying to figure out logistics and political folderol, and – there’s got to be something I’m missing.

I had to step back and look at my usual fonts of inspiration, Aaron Sorkin and Greg Weisman – the latter in particular given how he got tapped for Rebels.

Sorkin is a masterclass pantser. I have no idea what his process is, aside from procrastinating and getting quality scripts in JUUUUST under the wire (or often after that fact). Greg’s more a note-card, organizational type. Not much useful comparing those to what sounds like “George Lucas has An Idea, we try to execute it with our spin, and then Lucas comes in and has more suggestions. If all else fails we pull all-nighters and then wing it for George.”

They’ve mentioned cutting some things, and altering others, so it’s not just a matter of these people just add to things, whereas I know the other two have talked about cutting extraneous stuff a lot. So it’s not something vague about keep cutting the fat.

Something about that notion tweaked a thought, though. The Lucas approach here seems to be taking a storyline, then going in and brushing it up – and the focus seems to be on how to buff up moments. “We have a segment here, how do we give it more punch? Ok, add a joke. How do we buff up the next segment? Apply changes to that thing.” Add in the mantra they keep repeating in the commentary, about how it always has to be new, how for instance if you have a Rancor scene, it can’t just be a rehash or similar to the classic Return of the Jedi rancor scene, it has to have a new twist.

(….OH. And a belated realization that this is one of the things they DIDN’T do for the sequel trilogy, as compared to the prequels! Episode 7 was a rehash, but there wasn’t enough new angles, whereas the prequels were taking the same structure but putting in new scenarios. Maybe? Something for me to chew on later.)

Anyway. What all this does is take a storyline, and focus on those moments.

That DOESN’T look to the greater plot.

Greg approaches a season as a storyline. He has his tiers and tentpost episodes, but it all builds along an arc. Sorkin also has season long plots and themes.

Consequences. The Clone Wars never deals with consequences. They’re so busy punching up a scene they never look to what precedes or follows it, so there’s never any fall out for things other than in a broad, hand-wavy way –

oooooh.

They got so caught up in the theory about this week’s adventure in the Flash Gordon-esque production that they never looked to the overall plot. Like how in soap operas characters would get horrible diseases, need to get organs removed (multiple times) and the like – it’s so tied up in Teh Drama of the moment that there’s never someone going around saying “yeah, uh, this character used to have a kid we might want to remember that.”

So while there’s attempts to show Anakin being disillusioned with the Jedi – see the entire Rako fiasco – there never feels like any actual BUILD there, just moments of “why would you DO that you beTRAYed me Obi-Wan!” without the context we the fans labor so hard to structure. Sure, we can see how Obi-Wan reacts in the few seconds of screentime at the beginning of that arc – hunched over in the Council chamber, with the body language of someone who’s been browbeaten and argued into a fucked up and patently absurd scheme – but we never get more than hints that this is something he never wanted to do.

And then it never gets mentioned again. We can build consequences beyond “and then one day Anakin Falls and becomes Vader!” – I wholeheartedly believe that Rex (one of the most identifiable clones out there) wore Jaig eyes on the Onderon mission entirely as a message to SOMEONE about how he might have to be clandestine, but he’s not about to abandon his identity – but it’s all speculation and personal perspectives.

All the long term consequences are drowned out in the minutia of the moment. Filoni mentioned early on about how the clones check their wounded and call for medics to drive home that these are people, not cannon fodder – while unironically using them as cannon fodder. The only times they’re not used that way is when the deaths are furthering someone’s – usually Rex’s – particular storyline. The bit about a clone calling for a medic is great for a moment, but the followthrough is never pursued unless a different moment might be richer for it and someone on staff happens to remember.

It occurred to me that this is also part of my problems with Avatar the Last Airbender. Look, I’m fascinated by the meta worldbuilding, and some of the themes, but when there’s regular breaks in the dramatic tension by yet another snot joke, I do not have patience for it. I don’t like storytelling that feels the need to step back and jam in humor on the regular every [X] minutes because otherwise executives are worried that the kids will stop caring. And maybe that’s not what’s going on, but if it rubs me that way I’m disinclined to sit through hours and fucking hours of it without an enthusiastic guide.

However, that does explain Lucasfilms’ obsession with Filoni. He seems to thrive on that sort of storybuilding. Take a segment. See how to punch it up. Move on to the next segment.

This, right here, IS one of my problems with Rebels, that was so painful but intermittent through season one. It’s even worse in later seasons – none of which Greg worked on, which. Yeah. Fuck, I am going to have to do that watch through at some point. I mean, throughout Rebels, I could see the worldbuilding and structure, but then it’d get yanked off into left field by this week’s inane gag or absurdist moment or random ass THING they need to cover because oh yeah, they’re trying for an overarching plot and should probably include the thing before it’s immediately relevant.

Back to Clone Wars. I think the problem was too much inspection of segments, and people didn’t often step back and say “where is this storyline going?” Getting too caught up in the moment to check if the scene or gag moved the overall plot and themes along. They got so concerned about doing everything with a fresh new twist they never came back to points, never raised up old elements to say “look how far we’ve come” or “here is how that thing affected people and the plot.”

It’s funny, how something with so much scope can get hamstrung by all the fiddly little details.

[mylordshesacactus]

Have you ever thought about the idea of Qui-Gon training Barriss? I feel like she'd have been a lot happier with him. He's so chill.

Because of…who we are as people…me and @alexkablob have had long discussions about how different Masters and their approaches might have affected Barriss.

The tl;dr here is that the best I can say is Qui-Gon wouldn’t be the worst option.

This is gonna get long, I apologize. You prompted me about Jedi apprenticeship AND the flaws of the Code in allowing Masters and Padawans to communicate effectively AND Barriss and Luminara’s specific relationship, anon, you asked for this.

So the central Thing here is Barriss Offee as a person. She’s extremely anxious, eager to please to the point where it becomes pathological, quiet, responsible, whip-smart, a healer, and she absolutely cannot improvise; if she has a plan she’ll execute it, but she cannot plan on the fly under pressure, this is consistent.

Keeping these things in mind:

Luminara is, frankly, the perfect match for her. They have a similar, methodical approach; Luminara is a strategic analyst for the Republic, and her skill for putting together strong, well-thought-out plans is perfectly in sync with Barriss’ own preference for advance planning and anxiety about winging it. Being paired with her allows Barriss to have the intellectual challenges she needs and the ability to pursue her talents; Luminara has total faith in Barriss’ proven abilities and doesn’t hesitate to provide her with praise for those abilities and opportunities to use them. She’s also a calm, gentle, soft-spoken individual with a profoundly reassuring aura who demonstrates throughout her (few) appearances that she greatly values the lives of those under her command. She has a sense of humor that’s very present without being loud or jocular in a way that would make Barriss uncomfortable (ie, Anakin) and she has the emotional intelligence to tease Barriss only very gently, never touching her insecurities, and to nudge her into making friends.

Now, some of these things inadvertently worsen Barriss’ issues. That confident “she can do it” attitude ends up placing far too much pressure on her; Luminara’s very competence and grace end up fermenting into Barriss’ feelings of inadequacy and desperation to not disappoint her master. But that’s….almost entirely because of the war. It’s the nature of the assignments, not their difficulty, that breaks her; and in a time of peace, with more access to her master and time to process, I think they would have been lessened.

Their downfall as a master-apprentice pair wasn’t that Barriss had the wrong Master. Luminara’s own issues, namely her devotion to the Code and her own pathological fear of giving into attachment, were what tripped them up. She loves Barriss so much but is so focused on not giving in to those emotions that she rarely if ever allows herself to act on them at all, even when she should–with the result that she keeps Barriss at arm’s length and they’re too formal with each other. She’s so afraid of becoming too close that she doesn’t let herself get close enough to notice that anything’s wrong, or to make sure Barriss realizes how deeply she’s loved–and on top of that, once the war starts Barriss and Luminara are almost never together. She’s separated from her Master when she needs her most, and that was the nail in the coffin.

Basically: Luminara didn’t give her those issues. And for the most part, when they were actually able to work together as master and apprentice, Luminara mitigated a lot of Barriss’ flaws while encouraging her strengths. The war found the pressure points in their bond and pushed until they snapped, but it would do that with ANY pairing.

So if anyone hasn’t already scrolled past this long rambling bit of nonsense, under the cut please enjoy a bullet-point list of our thoughts on how Barriss would fare under different Masters. 

Anakin:

Disaster.

Just….pure, unmitigated disaster. If they didn’t drive each other into a murderous rage they’d just dissolve into mutual anxiety attacks

He’s too impulsive and careless, she’s too hesitant and not nearly bold enough, he’s emotive and incapable of controlling his temper to the point he would genuinely scare her

They already don’t get along particularly well, there’s a reason Barriss is so spiteful toward him in TWJ; force her into a position where he has boundless authority over her and one of them is getting smothered to death in his sleep.

I say “he” because it would 100% be Anakin

Obi-Wan:

On the surface, this seems like it would be a much better match, maybe even ideal.

It is not

It is not remotely a good match

Here’s the thing people misunderstand all the time about Obi-Wan’s character: he and Anakin are very similar.

Obi-Wan is just as much of a cowboy Jedi as Anakin ever was; he’s impulsive, easily goaded, and frequently hypocritical about the Jedi Code, and he has all of Luminara’s flaws on top of that.

So now you have a version of Barriss whose master is equally unwilling to acknowledge his own emotions and equally incapable of showing or admitting to his padawan that he cares about her, but also is unpredictable, too controlling, swings between overprotective and seemingly uncaring, cares too much about what the Council will think of him, rarely if ever explains why he gives certain commands or thinks certain things, and occasionally loses his temper.

Above anything else, at least with Luminara, Barriss never has any uncertainty as to where she stands or what is expected of her.

Obi-Wan attempting to train Barriss would be better for exactly one person and that is Obi-Wan.

Plo Koon:

Not gonna lie, Barriss could do worse

Like, they’re not a good match, exactly? They have basically nothing in common. But I don’t think he’d do more harm than good.

Unfortunately “better than Anakin Skywalker” does not a training bond make.

Like Luminara, he has that steady and soothing presence that makes your heart rate settle just from being near him. He’s calm, he’s quiet, he’s deliberate. He values the lives of those around him. He’s firm but fair, and not so married to the Code that he lets it stop him from being kind.

In some ways, Plo would be very good for her. He is certainly not afraid of his own emotions; he’s very much from the “emotion, yet peace” school of Jedi philosophy, and we see him several times calmly, verbally assuring people he cares about of that care. That would do a world of good for Barriss’ inferiority complex. 

A model of “I can feel these things without that meaning I am doomed to fall, because feelings and actions are not the same thing, and I can control how I act” could also do a lot of good…in peacetime. 

In war, I think that model would fail as surely as Luminara’s attempts to do the same thing. We know she subscribes to this same philosophy, and the fact is that there was a war on and Barriss was as good as a Knight and the best model in the galaxy is no good if he’s not there. 

And ultimately, in a lot of other ways, Plo Koon would be a terrible match for Barriss. He’s…too much of a “take a deep breath and take your time” mentor, for someone like her who learns quickly and thoroughly and needs mental challenges and puzzles.

She’s also still a strategist and advance planner, and Plo is a mechanic and a fighter pilot. He’d either be too “don’t think just act, improvise, split-second decisions” or she would chafe and get frustrated, and frankly be bored to tears, with Plo’s slow and steady approach. Either too intense or not intense enough; they’re a bad combination, though I do think they’d get along very well as colleagues and friends. Just not an apprenticeship.

Like honestly the main issue here is that he’s too similar to Luminara in the ways that would let him function well with Barriss and she has a lot more of those qualities than he does.

Aayla Secura:

I mean…I guess?

Aayla’s a bit of a random choice I just like her. I really don’t think they’d get along well at all.

Barriss would certainly get the mental exercise she needs with Aayla, there’d be supply challenges and tactical lessons, and those clearly-worded expectations would be there as another positive, but…

Aayla’s a good Jedi, a good leader, she’d have made an excellent Master

Just not to Barriss Offee.

She’s a little too brisk, a little too hard around the edges. In short, a little too much of a soldier and a little too close to the “okay now get over it” school of Jedi philsophy to work well with someone as insecure and anxious as Barriss.

Shaak Ti:

Look, let’s be frank here. Luminara is Barriss’ master because she’s meant to be, it’s a universal constant. Anything else is just wrong.

But if Barriss were to have a different Master, my vote would be Shaak Ti.

Again, this is because in a lot of ways she’s similar to Luminara, and there’s a REASON Barriss is Luminara Unduli’s padawan.

Shaak Ti is soft-spoken and kind. Reassuring. She speaks calmly, doesn’t raise her voice except to be heard from a distance, protects and cares for those beneath her.

She’s gentle but firm when necessary; but also more focused on the spirit of the law than the letter. She’s reasonable. She knows when and how to bend rules in the interest of doing the right thing.

She’s a little more centered and self-accepting than Luminara; she trusts her instincts as well as her judgement, rather than desperately suppressing her emotions. She doesn’t let the people around her get away with hiding their thoughts, either.

She listens, and she thinks before she speaks or acts. That would be good, for Barriss Offee The Obsessive Planner.

But again, this isn’t an ideal pairing. While I’m sure Shaak Ti would find and encourage ways for Barriss to learn and grow–and apprenticing under a Council member often stationed on Kamino would be a fantastic opportunity to solve and learn logistics and interpersonal problems, and a great chance to train as a healer properly–I think she might be a little too centered.

Barriss’ insecurities aren’t going away. Her mind works quickly, she overthinks, she doubts. While Shaak Ti is a phenomenal listener, she’s also…imposing, even more than Luminara, and she doesn’t have as easy a sense of humor. She’s very regal, very focused.

A model that encourages Barriss to be more serious, to spend even more time inside her own head, is the last thing she needs.

Qui-Gon:

Literally the only thing you asked, anon, I’m deeply sorry.

I’m also sorry to say this but I think Qui-Gon Jinn would be a TERRIBLE master for Barriss “made of insecurities” Offee

Qui-Gon Jinn has the least chill of anyone in the galaxy.

Qui-Gon is, in fact, the kind of guy who drags a nine-year-old slave from Tatooine to a desert world, plops him in front of the Jedi Council, and openly says "this is the Chosen One, he will save us all, his name’s Anakin by the way.”

Barriss feels crushing pressure to be Good Enough To Meet Her Master’s Expectations when her master is Luminara and the expectations are “fulfill this specific mission with minimal casualties and come home alive”. She does not need Qui-Gon Jinn in her life.

I don’t think his...near-dismissal of people around him worrying over the future, would be good for Barriss either? Like sure, on the one hand, someone gently telling her to focus on the present and embrace the Living Force is good. But Luminara did actually teach her how to meditate, and the problem here is that Barriss’ concerns are valid. 

There is a point at which “trust in the Force, a solution will present itself” is no longer acceptable advice, and that point is probably somewhere around Umbara.

In fact, far from his chill, the only argument I can think of in favor of pairing him with Barriss is his willingness to challenge the Council. Showing her that the Council can be wrong, and that she can disagree with authority without being a Sith? That could have been incredibly valuable.

However that only works if she otherwise feels connected to him, and I don’t...think she would. Qui-Gon is kind of incredibly insensitive for someone who constantly talks about being mindful of the present; the arrogance and detachment of the Jedi is kind of a major theme of TPM. I think her timidity would frustrate him more than inspire him to compassion, and I very much think his advice about her anxieties and insecurities would be that old Jedi mainstay “well stop being anxious” ie, You Must Trust In The Force.

Ultimately I really do think that Luminara is the best option for Barriss. That’s part of what makes the failure of their bond so tragic.

[emperor-uncarnate]

Old Ben: A Star Wars Story

Had some ideas for an Obi-Wan Kenobi movie I’d want to see... without Darth Maul in it. I’ve watched some Rebels and The Clone Wars but I’m gonna completely ignore them and most of the other expanded media (because let’s be real, Disney probably will too) and come up with a film synopsis that won’t end in just another lightsaber duel. I want a movie that’s gonna challenge Obi-Wan’s Jedi faith, and I think I came up with something that could be compelling. Read on and lemme know what you think: 

The film opens with the familiar sight of a Star Destroyer coming out of hyperspace above Tatooine. An Imperial shuttle descends from the capital ship’s hanger and makes its way down to Mos Eisley, flying over a bustling marketplace as it nears its landing site. Down in the streets we see an awestruck trio of human children watching the shuttle pass overhead: Luke, Biggs, and Camie. The kids are around nine or ten years old at this point and they’re enamored - albeit naively - with the Galactic Empire. Camie’s mother, who we’re going to tentatively name “Diane” (mostly because I imagine her played by Diane Lane and I don’t feel like coming up with Star-Warsy names for hypothetical characters), is looking after the children for the day while she shops. Luke and Biggs, who dream of someday becoming TIE Fighter pilots, decide to slip away from Diane’s supervision while she’s haggling with a trader and go check out the shuttle at the docks. The responsible Camie objects and threatens to tattle on them but best bros Luke and Biggs can’t be deterred. They sneak near the landed vessel and observe an Imperial officer trudging menacingly down its boarding ramp. The boys overhear the officer saying something about locating a fugitive of the Empire and something else about making a deal with some shady Tatooine locals.

As the officer departs, the boys try to get a better look at the shuttle and are caught by a few Stormtroopers. The soldiers mock them and push them around, intending to arrest or otherwise harm them, until Diane arrives. She puts herself at risk and tries to protect her daughter’s friends, frantically attempting to coax the Stormtroopers into looking the other way. She fails to sway the brutish Imperials, who care nothing for the innocence of curious children, and it seems like all of them are in deep trouble when a cloaked man arrives just in time. The not-so-mysterious figure drops his hood and we get our first look at a 47-year-old Obi-Wan Kenobi. Dude’s looking grizzled with a little more than a touch of grayed hair. One Jedi mind trick later, the group is able to safely walk away and the Stormtroopers have no memory of the event. Diane thanks their rescuer and takes Camie and Biggs home while Obi-Wan, introducing himself with a smile as “Ben,” offers to take Luke home himself. Luke doesn’t know Ben very well but he knows him enough to trust him, and so they leave Mos Eisley together.

Luke is left pretty confused by the encounter. His first experience with the Empire leads him to conclude they’re not as great as he’d first thought, and Ben’s refusal to explain how he threw off the Stormtroopers left Luke with even more questions. Remember, Luke has no idea what the Force is until it’s explained to him in A New Hope. Ben delivers Luke to Owen and Beru Lars, who are grateful for Ben’s interference. At this point, Luke’s Uncle Owen has little reason to dislike Ben and is overjoyed that his nephew was returned safely. 

Luke goes to his room while the adults chat (it’d be cool if little Luke was playing with the same T-16 Skyhopper toy he has later) and Ben gets to telling Owen and Beru what happened at the spaceport. He explains that the Galactic Emperor suspected Tatooine might be a possible hiding place for a Jedi named Obi-Wan and that the Empire would send a battalion to their Mos Eisley checkpoint every now and then to scope things out. Ben recounts that Obi-Wan was killed around the same time Anakin was, and he warns that Luke shouldn’t be allowed near larger settlements when the Empire is visiting (and the Empire’s presence in town was why Ben decided to keep tabs on Luke that day in the first place). According to Ben, the Empire doesn’t know Obi-Wan is dead so they’re still circling the galaxy hunting for any sign of him. Owen and Beru heed his warning but they have no idea that Ben is in fact Obi-Wan himself, and this later mirrors the way Luke is told Anakin and Vader are two separate people. 

Ben goes on to offer to train Luke in the ways of the Force, stating the boy is at the ideal age to do so, but a protective Owen is hesitant to the proposal. Beru, who is much more open to the idea, convinces Owen to consider it. Owen agrees to think about it, and Ben leaves them both to ponder young Luke’s future. He mounts his eopie, a creature you might recall from the prequels, and rides off into the treacherous Jundland Wastes where he’s made his home. Unbeknownst to Ben, however, he has a follower...

Say what you will about the green milk scene in The Last Jedi but I really enjoyed the montage of self-exiled Luke’s daily routine. I’d want to see something similar here, showing us how Ben survives as a hermit in the harsh wilds of the Dune Sea. And while he’s rustling up some grub made from desert flora and fauna (maybe actual grubs?), he’s interrupted by an attractive human woman. She approaches him as a lost traveller, asking if she can take shelter in his dusty little hut for the night. She’s a little too nosy and flirtatious for Ben to trust, however, and his Jedi instincts lead him to concoct a plan. He invites her to join him in his home and share his meal before in some way calling on his classic Kenobi cleverness to reveal her true identity. Turns out she’s a Clawdite changeling, much like the one he and Anakin pursued in Attack of the Clones, and Ben’s trickery causes her to revert to her natural reptilian form. Maybe he dupes her into eating something spicy or sour and that causes her to lose concentration and shapeshift back to her real self. Something along those lines.

Ben interrogates her and tries to find out who she is and why she was trying to deceive him. The Clawdite woman explains that she was also there at the spaceport keeping an eye on the Imperials when she saw what Ben did to save Diane and the children. The changeling, who we’ll name... wait for it... “Changeling,” recognized his Jedi mind trick. Coupled with her intel that the Empire was looking for one such runaway force-user, Changeling suspected he was the one they were after. Ben is frustrated and perturbed that someone finally caught on to his true identity and asks if her intention was to turn him in to the authorities. Changeling denies this, claiming she’s in trouble with the Empire and he’s the only one who can help her (but she doesn’t say “you’re my only hope” because repeating little lines like that just feels shoehorned half the time). She only shapeshifted and lied about who she was so she could get to talk with him over dinner and confirm that he wasn’t some kind of lunatic. 

Changeling gathered a great deal of information thanks to her latent transformative abilities, allowing her to spy on the Imperial officer Luke and Biggs listened in on earlier. Apparently, members of the Empire’s leadership were growing tired of sending teams all the way to the Outer Rim to look for signs of Kenobi. The Imperial High Command or the Grand Moffs or whoever would be in charge of that disagreed with Emperor Palpatine’s decision to continue searching Tatooine. They believed they were wasting resources on this insignificant desert planet because of the “baseless” inklings and hunches of their monarch. Palpatine still suspected Obi-Wan’s presence there but the Moffs and Admirals weren’t big believers in the Force, so they decided to compromise instead. The Empire was going to give the job of monitoring Tatooine to a crime syndicate they were in talks with in (the Empire and the crime syndicate definitely have to meet at a cantina called “Club Mola Ram” as a reverse reference to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom). The crime syndicate, which would be comparable to the one run by the Hutts, would be able to more thoroughly keep an eye out for any Jedi activity while the Empire could spend its time and resources on efforts they considered more important. 

In exchange, the Empire agreed to construct a massive slave-processing facility for the crime syndicate. Slavery, which was outlawed by the Republic, was making a return in popularity thanks to the general shittiness of the Empire. And, wouldn’t you know it, the Empire was planning on seizing land from a number of moisture farmers in order to build it. You might be wondering why the Empire wouldn’t just pick a barren, unowned patch of land since Tatooine’s really just chock full of barren, unowned patches of land. They picked the part of the desert Changeling lives in because A, it’s within range of where the crime syndicate operates, B, it’s already equipped with the moisture farming infrastructure required to maintain it, and C, they can just turn the existing residents there into their first batch of slaves. The Empire and the crime syndicate wouldn’t lose a wink sleep over that, but Changeling and the moisture farmers in her community would suffer greatly.

Ben isn’t surprised that the Empire would stoop to that, but he does question why Changeling’s first impulse wasn’t to bring him in. If she captured Ben and handed him over, the Empire wouldn’t need to hire the crime syndicate and it wouldn’t need to build the “slave station” on her land. Ben is comforted to learn that Changeling, unlike most people at the time, is a supporter of the Jedi. She knows they’re the good guys, and she thought the right thing to do would be to tell Ben and at least try to work together with him. 

Ben reluctantly refuses. He can’t risk himself as one of the last Jedi and he certainly can’t risk Luke, and he assures Changeling that he absolutely cannot get involved. Still trying to protect himself and the Jedi legacy, Ben denies the allegation that he’s a Jedi and continues to pretend he’s just some aging vagabond. He apologizes to her and it’s clear that he has to resist his desire to help people because he thinks it’s for the greater good. Changeling states her disappointment that he wasn’t more willing to help, and it is at that moment Ben realizes the two of them aren’t alone. He steps outside his hut to find it is surrounded by armed moisture farmers. They’re kind of a pathetic band of desperate people, obviously unsuited to be threatening anyone. Maybe one of them isn’t even holding his blaster correctly. Ben can clearly see they’re not really fighters but after a short bout (not involving any lightsabers or Force abilities because Ben’s still denying he’s a Jedi at all) the scene ends with him being stunned and taken captive anyway. 

Ben awakens in an unfamiliar little house and slowly recognizes who was making sure he was alright while he was unconscious: Diane. Despite his grogginess, you can tell Ben’s happy to see her. He learns she and Camie also live on the endangered land before meeting a number of other farmers from their sector. So now we have Ben, Diane, Camie, Changeling, and room for a few other aliens or droids in their little crew. This is where the merchandise team has some real action figure opportunity. We’re going to name them “Huey, Dewey, and Louie” because Disney joke and also because they ultimately don’t matter much beyond comic relief or having cool/useful abilities. I’m not above throwing a few characters like this into a movie just to spice things up. Anyway, Ben learns that the half-dozen or so farmers he’s with are the only ones who know about him being there, although he still won’t admit he’s a Jedi. Changeling feels as if she isn’t left with much choice, so she finally sticks Ben with an ultimatum: help them stop the deal between the Empire and the syndicate or get knocked out again and be handed over to them against his will. Diane is a little taken aback by Changeling’s threat, protesting and claiming that the deal has already been struck and the Empire’s construction crews are already gathering in Mos Eisley. The way she says it, it seems like the slave facility is going to be built either way.

While Diane, Changeling, and the other farmers squabble, Ben quietly slips away and tries to escape them. But as he reaches his exit, he comes face to face with someone who had apparently been eavesdropping on the whole group. Ben is met with the violent screech-grunting of a Tusken Raider trying to assault him. Still avoiding the use of his fantastic Jedi abilities, Ben ducks and dodges as the enraged Sand Person swings wildly at him with his traditional gaderffii weapon. The other farmers hear all the commotion and run outside to meet them, trying to stop the fight, but Ben urges them to stay back for their own safety. He fights the Tusken Raider with his bare hands until he has no choice but to Force push his adversary away. The Tusken lands on his back while the onlooking farmers finally see proof Ben is indeed a Jedi, but the fight’s not over yet. “Tusk,” as I’m going to lazily name him, leaps to his feet and whips out a blaster, forcing Ben to finally ignite his blue lightsaber for the first time in the movie. He deflects the blaster bolts and Tusken, either in his native language or otherwise, reveals his motive:

Almost fifteen years earlier, Tusk’s people were murdered by a rampaging Jedi. He was just a Sand... Child (is “Sand Child” a thing? I don’t know how this works) at the time and was the only survivor. The one who murdered everyone else in his entire village, of course, was Anakin Skywalker during Attack of the Clones. The Tusken Raiders of other villages came to fear or worship Anakin as some kind of demon, but Tusk’s own village was wiped out and he subsequently grew up among the spacefarers and merchants of Anchorhead. The orphaned Sand Child grew into a Sand Man and eventually found a place as a farmhand on one of the threatened moisture farms, but his hatred for the Jedi who slaughtered his people never faded.

Tusk still had the image of a robed man with a blue lightsaber burned into his mind and suddenly there was one right in front of him. After he tells his tale in a little flashback, he angrily asks Ben if he was the one who did it all those years ago. Ben didn’t kill the Tusken Raiders, of course, but he knows Anakin did (somebody told him about it, but I’ll get to that). Still feeling guilty for failing Anakin ten years earlier, so to does Ben feel responsible for the deaths of Tusk’s people. And now here’s the kicker... Tusk senses Ben’s guilt with the Force. Tusk has no idea what the Force is and he thinks what he’s picking up is just his ancestors or something helping him seek the truth, but he can actually sense the shame Ben feels and that convinces him Ben is the murderer. Believing he’d found his chance at revenge, Tusk lashes out again with his gaderffii stick, forcing Ben to block with his lightsaber. That’s when we learn what Tusk has made his ceremonial weapon out of: cortosis. It hasn’t showed up in the films yet, but cortosis is a metal that can short out a lightsaber if it comes in contact with its energy blade. Ben’s lightsaber is extinguished and he can’t turn it back on right away, catching him by surprise and nearly costing him his life. But thanks to his Force powers and the help of Huey, Dewey, and/or Louie, Ben incapacitates Tusk and he’s locked up in some kind of storage unit as a makeshift jail cell. 

The jig is up for Ben, who is at last revealed to actually be the Jedi they thought he was. He assures the rest of the group that he didn’t kill all those Sand People, and they choose to believe him since he made no attempt to kill Tusk in the skirmish earlier. Ben learns from the farmers that Tusk is known to be hot-headed and aggressive at times but is also considered a decent member of their farming community. The other farmers seem to know he has a troubled past involving Jedi and they knew it wouldn’t be a good idea to have him meet Ben, so they excluded him from their meeting. They didn’t expect Tusk to show up at their door like that, and Ben wonders if it was Tusk’s Force-sensitivity that guided him there. The farmers thank Ben for refraining from utterly slicing and dicing Tusk and Ben finally agrees to help them with their Empire problem.

Ben is staying with the moisture farmers for the night but he just can’t manage to catch some sleep. Troubled and uncertain, Ben is visited by the ghost of his former master, Qui-Gon Jinn (and you know it’s gotta be Liam Neeson reprising the role). The spectral Jedi Master sought to console his doubtful former apprentice, who was reflecting on all the pain and destruction Anakin and Darth Vader had dealt to the galaxy (there would definitely be some echoes to Force ghost Yoda visiting Luke in The Last Jedi here). Even ten years later, Ben still wonders where he went so wrong with his padawan that Palpatine could so effectively turn him to the dark side. Also, were you wondering how Ben knew about what Anakin did to the Sand People? Anakin wouldn’t have told Obi-Wan about that, but it’s mentioned in this scene that Qui-Gon’s ghost told Ben what Anakin did before the events of the film. Continuity! Anyway, Qui-Gon tries to reassure Ben and give him some words of wisdom and encouragement just before Diane unexpectedly arrives. 

Qui-Gon’s spirit disappears and Diane says she came by because she saw the eerie glow of the ghost and wanted to investigate. She sees Ben can’t sleep and offers to make him some tea, or whatever they drink there, and the two stay up into the night talking. Diane eventually asks Ben about Luke and he momentarily lets his guard down to regale the story of his old friend Anakin Skywalker. Remember the story Ben tells nineteen-year-old Luke in A New Hope? She gets that same altered story but you can more obviously discern Ben’s censoring himself. He can barely keep the lie going but the subject of their conversation veers towards the celibacy of Jedi and how Luke came to be. During the conversation we learn that Camie’s father is no longer in Diane’s life and it leads Ben to question his sacred vows what with the Jedi Order as a thing of the past. Diane feels some type of way about Ben and they both know it, but he sees this as a test of his faith. Ben excuses himself before either one of them can make a move and says goodnight, finally getting a little sleep before he wakes up and learns...

...Tusk is gone. Guy somehow flew the coop in the middle of the night, hopping on his wooly Bantha steed and peacing the fuck out. The farmers kind of panic for a moment, realizing that he very well could’ve set off towards the Empire to report Ben. They figured Tusk would do that in an effort to simultaneously save their land and have his revenge, but perhaps Tusk overlooked the fact that the Imperials would kill them all for harboring a fugitive. They determine what time during the night Tusk must’ve left, and they realize that his slow-moving Bantha gave them a chance to head him off in time. Ben, Huey, and company board a landspeeder and go forth at blazing speeds across the desert with Dewey using his alien/droid abilities to track the Bantha (whatever those abilities may be). Take note - the farmers did have a ship at their disposal but Changeling said she had to stay behind and make repairs before they could fly it. Diane and Camie stay at the farm with her, leaving Ben and his inexperienced farmer companions to go out into the Dune Sea.

Unfortunately, a patrolling group of crime syndicate thugs catch them out in the open desert. A whole squadron of enemy speeders give chase, and I’m totally picturing Star War’s version of Mad Max: Fury Road. Imagine someone throwing Ben a blaster and asking “you ever use one of these before?” to which he casually replies “oh, once or twice.” Ben fights valiantly without using his Force powers until his landspeeder, driven expertly by Louie, is about to get wrecked. I’m imagining Ben would pull off some crazy maneuver with the Force, demonstrating the true mastery of his powers he’s refined over his years in solitude. He gets his lightsaber going too and it’d be quite the spectacle. I’d pay some seriously good money to see a scene like that, I dunno about you guys. I also wouldn’t say no to a scene where Ben hijacks one of the syndicate speeder bikes a la Luke in Return of the Jedi and I’m not going to pretend I don’t remember this awesome clip (I said I was gonna ignore Star Wars: The Clone Wars, never said anything about Star Wars: Clone Wars). Watch the clip, it’s great and Obi-Wan does the thing from Akira.

The chase scene ends with them entering a canyon, maybe even the same one from The Phantom Menace’s Boonta-Eve Classic if you want to throw in an extra easter egg. The criminals are killed or otherwise ejected from the chase one at a time until there are none left, you know how it goes. You see one of the syndicate thugs sending a signal to the Empire before it’s all over, letting them know Kenobi is located and is working with people from the farm. Ben on his stolen speeder bike and Huey, Dewey, and Louie in their landspeeder finally reach the wandering Bantha and are surprised to see it’s alone. Tusk’s not riding it, and that’s when Ben’s Jedi-sense gets tingling... Tusk’s not riding his Bantha because Tusk never left the farm. 

Tusk sent his Bantha off alone, which would normally be a pretty serious offense in Tusken Raider culture. Sand People are bonded to their faithful Banthas for life, but Tusk sent his away so he could avenge his village and exact what he believed to be justice. He waited until Changeling had repaired her ship and taken off so he could kidnap Diane and Camie, knowing he could only do so if the other people in their group were led elsewhere. It was never his intention to go to the Empire because he desires to kill Ben himself.

Ben freaks when he realizes this and turns his bike around, zooming back towards the farm. Our trio of aliens/droids/whatever tries to go with him in their landspeeder but, conveniently, it breaks down and they have to wait for Changeling to swoop in for pickup with their ship. Ben makes it back to the farm and finds it empty. He discovers Tusk left a small tracking device behind for Ben to use, and so he immediately hops back on his bike and follows it despite knowing it’ll most likely be a trap. After Ben has left the farm again, Changeling and everyone on their ship make it back there too but they’re only inside for a few minutes before they hear the howls of incoming TIE Fighters. Their airspace is surrounded by several TIEs while that Imperial officer from earlier flies in on his shuttle. A platoon of Stromtroopers march out with the officer, who commands Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi exit the farmhouse. Little do they know, the real Ben is closing in on Tusk somewhere else entirely. Changeling decides to do something heroic, shapeshifting into Ben and making a daring escape. Diane’s farmhouse sustains heavy damage in the process but Changeling narrowly makes it to her ship, making sure to be seen in her Ben form and provoking the Imperial forces into chasing her. She pilots her small freighter away from the planet, drawing the Empire off the farm. Changeling thinks she can string them along and somehow make it back alive but she’s outnumbered and cannot escape them. Her ship is blown to smithereens, close enough to the planet’s atmosphere that the onlooking Huey, Dewey, and Louie see the explosion in the distance and cry alien/droid/duck tears. Sad time, but it leads the Empire to at long last confirm the fatality of the legendary Obi-Wan Kenobi. 

Meanwhile, the tracking device leads actual Ben to this craggy, desolate wasteland. He finds Tusk, who is waiting for him at the edge of a cave along with an ensnared Diane and Camie. Classic “you killed the people I love so now I’m gonna kill the people you love” situation. Ben tries to ease Tusk into standing down and giving up the innocent woman and her child, even offering up his own lightsaber for their safe return. The enraged Tusken Raider rejects the lightsaber before the desperate Jedi Master also offers to train him in the Force. Ben levitates his lightsaber into Tusk’s hands, promising he’d find peace in learning the ways of the Force, but Tusk is hell-bent on revenge and won’t give up. He goes against Tusken Raider culture yet again, this time removing his head coverings and baring his face (gross) and his dark side-tainted eyes. Now consumed by the dark side of the Force, Tusk roars into the cave and receives a roar in return from what sounds like a large creature. Ben suddenly regrets giving up his lightsaber just as a titanic Krayt Dragon, a monstrous reptilian behemoth native to Tatooine, emerges from the cave. The beast is about to chow down on Diane but Ben uses the Force to demand its attention. He keeps the ravenous dragon focused on him while he evades its many attacks (including its acidic venom) until he finally is able to use enough Force mojo to pacify it. 

Just when the hulking, hundred-meter lizard is calming down, a furious Tusk leaps into the fray, disrupting Ben’s attempt to placate it. This turns into a chaotic three-way battle between Ben, Tusk, and the overwhelmingly strong Krayt Dragon. Though already exhausted, Ben manages to get his lightsaber back but is careful not to let it connect with Tusk’s cortosis gaderffii stick. This proves to be challenging, pushing Ben’s middle-aged agility to its limits. The old Jedi Master eventually falters when his lightsaber is fizzled out by the brittle cortosis weapon and he drops it, leaving him open to be swatted away by the dragon’s whip-like tail. Then the monster disarms and pins Tusk down, ready to bite his fucking face off, when Ben uses the Force to lift the gaderffii and send the sharp end of it through the beast’s skull like a missile. The beast is instantly killed and collapses but an injured Ben can barely stand or defend himself anymore. 

Tusk picks up Ben’s lightsaber just as the cortosis’ disabling effect wears off and he turns it back on. Sure looks like Tusk is about to finish Ben with his own weapon, but instead he slashes at the Krayt Dragon’s side and makes a deep gash. Tusk reaches into the dead wyrm’s guts and retrieves a dazzling, almost luminous pearl. He hands it and the lightsaber back to Ben and expresses his newfound understanding. During the whole battle, there was no point at which Ben tried to kill Tusk, and Ben even saved Tusk from certain death in the end. It was then that the remorseful Tusken Raider could sense the truth, and that his opponent was innocent. Ben apologizes despite being vindicated, telling Tusk is was his failure as a mentor that led to the tragedy of his village. He kind of vents his guilt to Tusk, who turns around and reveals a glob of acid venom burning through his back, slowly killing him. With his dying breaths, Tusk forgives Ben and voices his regret for sending his Bantha away and for going against the traditions of his people. He urges Ben not to make that same mistake, not for anything, and he ultimately helps Ben reaffirm his faith in the Jedi. Quelling the dark side within Tusk makes Ben think of redeeming Vader and how possible or not that might be.

Everyone regroups and they mourn Changeling’s sacrifice. The Empire believes Obi-Wan has been eliminated so they pack up and leave Tatooine, forsaking their deal with the crime syndicate, which is left in shambles after losing so many thugs in the desert chase. Tusk’s Bantha, who was spiritually linked to Tusk, is found to have died right when his master did. Spooky. Ben gives the valuable Krayt Dragon pearl to Diane, Huey, Dewey, and Louie so they can sell it and use the profits for their farms. The farmers explain that slaying a Krayt Dragon and claiming its pearl are actual rites of passage for young Tusken men, so Ben and Tusk inadvertently completed that ritual in a sense. Anyway, the farmers consider hiring some enforcers of their own to stave off the remnants of the syndicate and decide to pay to rebuild Diane’s farmhouse. Owen Lars later comes to learn that Ben was responsible for the destruction of Diane’s property, not believing the explanation that it was actually Changeling posing as him (and it was really the TIE Fighters’ faults anyway). Owen refuses to allow such a dangerous individual around his nephew or the Lars family farm and so Luke doesn’t really see Ben again for another decade. And by the time they meet again in A New Hope, Ben’s perfected his Krayt Dragon call... I think?

At last, Ben is ready to say his goodbyes to Diane. She’s not upset with him about her farm, but she’s more upset that Tusk would so spontaneously give in to the dark side. Ben explains how quickly revenge can turn someone Force-sensitive to the path of violence, and it wasn’t so surprising someone who’d vowed revenge for all those years could succumb to it. “Revenge, anger, ...and attachment.” With that, she understands what Ben is having difficulty saying: they simply cannot be together. She agrees with him, expressing her newfound fear and misunderstanding of the Force and its vast influence. Diane says she can see how difficult it would’ve been to watch Anakin go through that, and she wishes one day Ben can do for Anakin what he did for Tusk. Diane kisses him... nothing intense, more of a “thank you” than anything else. I think she’d feel kind of sorry for him that she can see he’s such a noble person and he’s so devoted to his values but he won’t allow himself what would likely make him happy. With that somber gesture, Ben tells her his true name is Obi-Wan, gets back on his speeder bike, and goes back to his hut. The end! Can’t believe you made it this far. In my head this was gonna be one page tops but whoops I guess its nine. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯