#or is ahsoka qui-gon in the sense that she did kind of die in that episode?

[totallynotobsessedwithfandoms]

I was rewatching the ahsoka vs maul fight in star wars rebels and I realized that little bits of duel of the fates plays in the score and I lost my mind I cannot believe I never realized that earlier lmfao

[marvelstars]

The fact fandom sees Obi-Wan as an uwu baby at 25 years old while also considering that Anakin should have got his feelings over his mother together at 9 show how bad it can get when we infantilize the characters to suit our vision of them imo.

At 25 Obi-Wan was a grown young adult when he started taking care of Anakin, in fact many people in real life marry and have children at that age, in light of that his hurt feelings and jealousy over Qui-Gon asking him to be knighted, which is supposed to be a good thing, a recognition of his skills, so he could take care of Anakin, show Qui-Gon was right in that Obi-Wan still had some maduration to go but that he was ready to be a Jedi Knight.

ObiWan defeating Maul sealed the deal for the council but it also presents a very problematic precedent, it wasn´t his emotional maturity and wiseness the thing that made Obi-Wan a knight but his dueling skills in his combat with Maul after his master was killed.

In Anakin´s case at 9 he was old to be introduced to the Jedi because he isn´t 4 or 5 but he is very young to be made a padawan, they usually start at 13 or 14 like Ahsoka did. So given Obi-Wan wish to train him to make a reality Qui-Gon´s dying wish, Anakin was made a padawan sooner than when he was supposed to be one, not because he was a kind child who worried about others and wanted to make a lasting change in the galaxy for the slaves, he was made a padawan because of his power potential and the Jedi Order didn´t try to make adecuations to the fact he was old enough to remember seeing slaves being blow up by their masters and the fact his mother was still a slave and in constant danger of this happening to her as well. Nothing of this was addressed with Anakin, he was told in no uncertain terms that his responsibility and compromise with the Jedi Order, which he made at 9, didn´t involve him thinking about his mother or seeing her ever again. Anakin obeyed this dictate until his mother was tortured killed and he had his first fall to the dark side by taking revenge on the tuskens for the murder of his mother.

Later at 19 he is made a Knight not because he had shown a grown in his control over the force or his own feelings but because he was an able soldier with leadership skills which served him well to survive a war in which the majority of the padawans of his generation were killed , at 20 he was made a Jedi master for Ahsoka during war time, he was responsible of teaching her how to be a Jedi while also making sure she didn´t die while also taking care of his troops and giving victories to the Republic all of which he did, even when his padawan was expelled, even when his men were killed for knowing too much like in Fives case and at 23 he was a general and one of the leading Jedi in the war, married to Padme with a child on the way, so Anakin was two years younger than Obi-Wan was when he was still a padawan and meet Anakin for the first time. Anakin fell to the darkside and became Vader when he was 23 years old, two years younger than padawan Obi-Wan.

So If I use the age argument it wasn´t Obi-Wan the one who got pushed into a situation he could not have managed on his own for his age but Anakin definitely was, because of his particular power and skills even if the popular take is that Obi-Wan was a baby at 25 taking care of an ungrateful, unstable almost teenager Anakin as a 9 year old, for many fans Anakin never was a child but he was, the fact he didn´t had an actual childhood is another thing.

But well if we take this in consideration then it makes all the sense in the world Yoda choose to let Anakin´s twins grow up with their families, train Luke when he was an adult and not make him a Knight at 23 if he didn´t deal with his inner conflict over his father but it was Luke´s choice of not wanting to fight or kill his father but rather ask him to come back to him, to the person he used to be, the thing that made the difference. Anakin came back to save his child from his master, himself and the Empire, he gave up his life to give Luke and Luke´s dreams a chance.

So while age certainly is a factor it isn´t everything when it´s about a character grow and choices imo.

[lauransoverthinking]

The other side of this scene

First Vader dies. Then Anakin dies.

Then Anakin learns how to bring himself back, and suddenly he has time. Time to apologize to Obi-wan. Time to get to know Luke and watch him do amazing things. His son is so amazing. His daughter is amazing too, but she doesn’t want a relationship (he hopes she will someday) so he respects that and doesn’t bother her.

This is honestly, the happiest he has ever been.

There are more ghosts than he expected. More relationships to mend. Apologies to make. Qui-gon has been very busy teaching everyone he was able to find, before they passed on.

He looks for her amongst the beings in their astral plane. But he cannot find her.

Qui-gon says there were too many lost the night Anakin marched on the temple. There were too many to find them all. He lays a hand on Anakin’s shoulder and says he is sorry, he never saw her.

From behind him, Anakin senses despair from Obi-wan.

But Anakin knows something they don’t.

“Masters,” The words catch in his throat. There are many crimes he committed. But this one. To have killed his own sister. They obviously know he is capable of such atrocities, he killed Obi-wan after all. But this will be different. He just knows it will be. “Ahsoka didn’t die that night. Vader. No. I killed her. Seven years ago. In a Sith temple.”

-

Obi-wan’s world spins. Which is an odd feeling when one’s world is just, the force.

Ahsoka had survived. Ahsoka had lived. Ahsoka had fought.

Anakin had killed Ahsoka.

Qui-gon looks down and shakes his head. “I’m sorry, I never saw her. I was not able to teach her.”

Ahsoka is gone.

He had always known it. He thought she died when she was 18. Killed by men she loved. He supposes that part is still true. She was killed by a man she loved. Was it always her destiny to be killed by a chosen brother? She survived the first time, so destiny tried again?

He had always known he would never see her again, but now he knows he could have. Knows Ben Kenobi could have seen her. Could have wrapped his arms around her.

This is… it is too much pain.

-

The masters all spend time with Luke. Guiding him. Helping him.

Once or twice, there is the whisper of a force presence in the periphery. They brush it off. It must be an echo of some kind. They feel no one here but Luke and his wards.

Once or twice, Luke mentions a story he shouldn’t know. Master Yoda playing with children in the room of a thousand fountains. The incomprehensible size and simple beauty of the archives at the temple.

The masters brush this off. Stories, passed along over time, by friends of the Jedi.

-

Time passes. The Jedi are lost again. The dark rises again. The dark falls again.

-

It comes on slowly. It isn’t a sudden supernova. It is as gradual as a sunrise. A light in the force, unshielding itself.

Obi-wan feels it too, but like Anakin, has absolutely no idea where it is coming from.

It is Luke who provides the answer. He smiles to himself as he says “Ahsoka always did have the most impressive shields. I wonder why she is finally lowering them.”

Questions about how Luke could possibly know this will wait (although there are many, many questions). She is alive. They can finally find her.

-

When Anakin and Obi-wan arrive, the reason for the drop in her shields is obvious. Their padawan is becoming one with the force.

She feels so tired. Their padawan has fought for too long and Obi-wan’s heart breaks for her. He got information about Fulcrum from everyone he found who knew anything. He knows he has only scratched the surface of what she has spent her life doing, but he knows he is so so proud of her. He is not surprised that such a life has exhausted her, but it breaks his heart just the same.

Distantly, he wonders is ghosts can cry. It’s not a question he has had to ask himself before, but he thinks this may be the thing that does it.

They ask her to come with them. Learn from them.

They sense her fear and at first assume it is fear of change. Her life is ending after all. It is understandable to be afraid of this change.

But then it becomes clearer. She is afraid of coming with them.

Anakin understands. He did try to kill her. He is the reason her life was as hard as it was (not that the life of a Jedi was ever easy, but what she has gone through… it’s so much worse). He knows she cannot trust him. He just hopes she can trust Obi-wan.

Obi-wan understands. He remembers her fear in the chamber of judgement. Her guardedness when the council asked her back. Her barbs the last time they saw one another. He knows she cannot trust him. He just hopes she can trust Anakin.

-

They are both wrong. She has always trusted them both. Trusts them to guide her and protect her as well as they can. It’s just that, trusting anything is so hard for her now.

She is afraid to hope. She is afraid to undertake this task and fail. Afraid to get close to having them back and have it ripped away.

Suddenly her nebulous status as a Jedi/not a Jedi seems to matter so much more than it has in decades.

-

They both feel it when she makes her decision.

They feel her fill the bonds that have slowly reawakened with all of her love and all of her trust.

They feel the determination that this will be something she gets to have.

Finally they hear her.

“I’m ready masters. Teach me.”

[padawanlost]

Hi, I dont read alot (of books) but I was just wondering, did Anakin/vader ever see people he helped/freed (during his time as a jedi) being oppressed by the empire. Did he feel pity or sorrow for them? Or had he totally unplugged from those emotions at that point ?

No. Anakin was to broken to feel sorry for anyone but himself. People have this idea of Vader being a sadistic monster who thrived on the suffering he caused but the truth is he was too lethargic to care. He didn’t stay with Palpatine out enjoyment or even loyalty. He stayed because he had nowhere else go, no one else to be with.

You killed her because, finally, when you could have saved her, when you could have gone away with her, when you could have been thinking about her, you were thinking about yourself … It is in this blazing moment that you finally understand the trap of the dark side, the final cruelty of the Sith— Because now your self is all you will ever have. And you rage and scream and reach through the Force to crush the *shadow* who has destroyed you, but you are so far less now than what you were, you are more than half machine, you are like a painter gone blind, a composer gone deaf, you can remember where the power was but the power you can touch is only a memory, and so with all your world-destroying fury it is only droids around you that implode, and equipment, and the table on which you were strapped shatters, and in the end, you cannot touch the shadow. In the end, you do not even want to. In the end, the shadow is all you have left. Because the shadow understands you, the shadow forgives you, the shadow gathers you unto itself— And within your furnace heart, you burn in your own flame. This is how it feels to be Anakin Skywalker. Forever … [Matthew Stover. Revenge of the Sith]

What Vader appeared to be  - no fucks given BAMF – were very different from what he truly was: Palpatine’s slave. Vader, once you get to know him, is not a scary monster. He’s a quite pathetic and hopeless man.

He wasn’t a sadistic control freak like Palpatine and he didn’t *enjoy* hurting people he didn’t feel deserve to be hurt but he was too damaged and broken to do anything about it. he kind of just went with it.

In one of the comics, he has to face the truth that the Empire is enslaving people and he is upset about it. but he does nothing because there's nothing left in him. for him to pity them, he’d have to empathize with them and that’s something he couldn’t afford to do. He was too trapped in his own private little hell to feel bad for people.

Again the smile or snarl from his Master. “You were a traitor, were you not, Lord Vader?” Vader’s breathing caught on the hook of sudden anger. “What did you say?”

 “To the Jedi. To Padmé. To Obi-Wan. To all those you loved.” His Master turned to look at him, his eyes reflecting the flames. 

Vader didn’t know the answer his Master wanted to hear, so he simply answered with the truth. “Yes.” [Paul S. Kemp. Lords of the Sith]

If he couldn’t even care enough to defend himself from his master abusive behavior, I doubt he’d ever care enough to pity a stranger.

When it comes to Vader’s apathetic, one of the best examples I can think of is his ‘relationship’ with Drua. In one of the books, Vader and Palpatine are stranded. They run into a girl and Vader saves her life:

“Come here, girl,” the Emperor said, putting the power of the Force into his command. Unable to resist, the girl walked out of the tree line until she stood, small and vulnerable, before him. With preternatural speed the Emperor drew, ignited, and slashed at the girl with his lightsaber, but Vader had sensed his Master’s intent and moved with greater speed, igniting his own blade and intercepting his Master’s blow before it could land. The girl, under the sway of the Emperor’s power, seemed scarcely to notice the danger. She simply stood there, staring vacantly, her face aglow in the red light of the crossed blades. The Emperor’s mouth twisted in a snarl, and Vader felt his power gathering. Behind Vader, Deez raised his rifle and aimed it at Vader’s back, but Vader stretched his free hand back and unleashed a blast of power that lifted the guardsman from his feet and flung him into the trees. Branches cracked audibly under the impact of Deez’s body. Vader and his Master stared at each other across the sizzling glow of their crossed blades. “Has it come to this?” his Master said. He sounded calm, almost resigned, but not at all surprised. The tone surprised Vader. “Forgive me, Master,” he said, and deactivated his blade. “I think the girl can be of use to us.” [Paul S. Kemp. Lords of the Sith]

The girl, Drua, takes them to very home and does everything she can to help them. After everything was said and done, Palpatine orders Vader to kill her and everyone in her village. And Vader does it. Not because he wants it. but because he’s too apathetic to care. Too trapped in his toxic relationship with Palpatine to see things for what they really were.

“There’s work for that yet, my friend,” the Emperor said, nodding at the hilt of Vader’s blade.

 “Master?”

 “The villagers, Lord Vader. Drua and her people. We can’t allow so many witnesses to live. I’ll wait for you here.” 

Vader looked from his Master to the dark mouth of the mine inside of which Drua and the rest of the villagers had fled. He felt the Emperor’s eyes on him, the intensity of the gaze, the weight of his expectations, and Vader knew that the day’s events had been only half about depleting a rebel movement before it could grow. They had also, as Vader had suspected, been about testing him, forcing him to face the ghosts of his past and exorcise them forever and fully. He saw that more clearly now; saw, too, that his Master was right to administer the test. It also explained why his Master had shown so little of his true power throughout the day. Perhaps he’d wanted Vader to rely on himself to overcome the challenges they’d faced. Or perhaps he’d wanted to seem weaker than he was, to draw out any treacherous ambitions Vader may have held. “I hear and I obey, Master,” Vader said. He ignited his lightsaber and strode toward the cave, his mind drifting back to another day, a day when he strode into the Jedi Temple filled with nothing but younglings. He’d slaughtered them then, and he would slaughter the Twi’leks now. His Master’s laughter followed him into the cave, and it lingered in his mind, louder even than the screams of the Twi’leks as they began to die by his blade. When it was done, he returned to his Master’s side. “Well done, old friend,” Darth Sidious said. He wiped his hands, as if to clean them of dirt. “And now let’s move on to more important things.” [Paul S. Kemp. Lords of the Sith]

The only time Vader cared enough to influence his behavior was with Luke. All the other times, there were a glimpse of something – of the old Anakin – like when he saw C3PO or even Ahsoka. But not enough for him empathize with people.

Qui-Gon had a interesting theory about this. He believed Anakin – to survive – had to bury that side of him so Vader could exist. An Anakin who cares cannot be Vader. He buried all the good things about Anakin.

“Master, is Darth Vader Anakin?”

“Yes,” Qui-Gon’s voice replied. “Although the Anakin you and I knew is imprisoned by the dark side. […]The core of Anakin that resides in Vader grasps that Tatooine is the source of nearly everything that causes him pain. Vader will never set foot on Tatooine, if only out of fear of reawakening Anakin.” [Ryder Windham. The Life and Legend of Obi-Wan Kenobi]

As terrible as life as Vader is, facing Anakin Skywalker’s decisions and living with them would be much, much harder. That’s why only when Luke demonstrated his unconditional love that Anakin allowed himself to reemerge.

Vader saw his son crying, and knew it must have been at the horror of the face the boy beheld. It intensified, momentarily, Vader’s own sense of anguish—to his crimes, now, he added guilt at the imagined repugnance of his appearance. But then this brought him to mind of the way he used to look—striking, and grand, with a wry tilt to his brow that hinted of invincibility and took in all of life with a wink. Yes, that was how he’d looked once. And this memory brought a wave of other memories with it. Memories of brotherhood, and home. His dear wife. The freedom of deep space. Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan, his friend … and how that friendship had turned. Turned, he knew not how—but got injected, nonetheless, with some uncaring virulence that festered, until … hold. These were memories he wanted none of, not now. Memories of molten lava, crawling up his back … no. This boy had pulled him from that pit—here, now, with this act. This boy was good. The boy was good, and the boy had come from him—so there must have been good in him, too. He smiled up again at his son, and for the first time, loved him. And for the first time in many long years, loved himself again, as well.  [James Kahn. Return of the Jedi]

Vader didn’t hate the world. He hated himself.

And because of that he bury everything that was remotely good and positive about himself as deep as he could. So his behavior, his lack of empathy wasn’t about him being sadistic. He was simply too broken and trapped in a deeply abusive relationship to care for the world around him.

[smhalltheurlsaretaken]

First I gotta say that I love you and your work, it's incredible and I enjoy every post✨

My brother said that Qui-Gon and Luke are grey jedi and that Luke has a red lightsaber as backup or something like that. And I'm looking at him with mad side eye and just wanted to ask your opinion on it?

❤️❤️❤️ Aaaaaw, so sweet!!!!

... Wait, Luke has a red lightsaber? *furious typing* Ah, yes. It’s in like three Legends books, and therefore worthless. 

Just kidding - but here lies the first problem. What continuity is your brother even working with? Because you cannot - and I will die on this hill even though it’s just basic common sense, cannot - attempt to reconcile the Legends EU and Lucas’ vision for Star Wars into one cohesive universe. The characters don’t work, the themes don’t work, the timelines don’t work, the ideas don’t work. 

Here is a bit of an explanation on why I believe that to be the case, and the quotes backing it up, but basically, Lucas, Filoni and LucasFilms all confirmed that the extended universe was not to be considered on par with the movies and TCW in any way. I’m not saying this to criticize the EU itself, or to say people don’t have a right to find it immensely entertaining/meaningful. I’m saying this to explain why you cannot take pieces of the EU (yes, even the old EU) to try and contextualize the movies - unless Lucas/somebody on the creative team of a piece of ‘higher’ canon expressly admitted to having taken something directly out of Legends.

Now, is there such a thing as a “Grey Jedi” in the movies, or TCW? No, there isn’t, but we’ll come back to that. 

The second problem is the very definition of Grey Jedi. Depending on who you ask, what decades-old Legends book you go on from, Grey Jedi are either individuals capable of using both the Dark and the Light, or simply rogue Jedi. 

Breaking it down case by case: I - Are Luke or Qui-Gon rogue Jedi? II - Do Luke or Qui-Gon use both the Light and the Dark?

I (A) - Qui-Gon is characterized as a bit of maverick, but he is by no means a complete outlier to the Jedi. I’ll just drop these two very interesting posts here and here that are a bit off-topic but make some great points about Qui-Gon loving the Order and definitely identifying as part of it.  We get many, many instances of the Council itself approving of him. They overrule Yoda’s vote to not have Anakin trained, they still assign Qui-Gon very important missions like the one to Naboo, and they don’t pull him out of said missions when Qui-Gon shows up with a random kid he claims to be the incarnation of the Force itself. That is indicative of a high degree of trust, to say the least - so you can say that he is ‘rogue’ in the sense that he used to eff off to wherever to do his own stuff, but he never claimed to be anything other than a Jedi, he never left the Jedi, and he never criticized the Order in the movies or TCW (yes, you can check - he never once directly says anything about them being wrong for not doing things his way; just that he will do what he feels he must.)

"Tu-Anh was something of a maverick. Much like my own master, Qui-Gon Jinn. She would disappear for long periods, conducting rogue investigations. Her activities often unknown to even the Council." ―Obi-Wan Kenobi, to Jen June on Tu-Ahn[src]   

So yeah, rogue somewhat, but still a Jedi Master, trusted to the point that they would have had him on the Council had he chilled a bit. 

He also never does anything in the movies that sets him apart as oh-so-different from his fellow Jedi. Arguing with the Council? Everybody does that. Anakin does, Obi-Wan does, Yoda does, Ahsoka does, the younglings do - they argue with Obi-Wan in the Ilum arc. Being compassionate/nice to people? Check out the Disappeared, two entire episodes that have Mace befriending Jar Jar Binks. Here’s a list of instances of the Council being incredibly nice. Here, here and here is Mace being kind and compassionate. Qui-Gon liking Anakin? Here’s the Council and Anakin bantering. Here’s Yoda caring about Anakin. 

Again, Qui-Gon wanted Anakin trained as a Jedi, and trusted his straight(er)-laced Jedi Padawan with it in the end. There is nothing in the movies or the show saying Qui-Gon was completely separate from the Order, or in radical opposition to them.

I (B) - Luke is the Order reborn, so he cannot be rogue, as the only thing he can measure himself against is himself. There is no longer a standard to be rogue in comparison to. Considering the state of the galaxy when he becomes a Jedi, Luke simply cannot function in the same way the Jedi who came before him did, but that doesn’t say anything about a rejection of the values of the PT Order. What it means to be a Jedi - being kind and compassionate, being in control of yourself, seeking peace before violence - is embodied by Luke. Furthermore, Luke loves Yoda and Obi-Wan - the quintessential Jedi characters - deeply, and finds much of his identity in being a Jedi. 

“I am a Jedi, like my father before me” would be a really weird line if Luke actually meant “but like, not a Jedi like those Jedi. I’m a me-Jedi. A not-like-them-Jedi.”

I can’t make this into a Luke meta, because it’d be too long, but I don’t get the idea that Luke could represent a rogue Jedi when, at the time of his creation, he was the one and only embodiment of an active Jedi Knight we got to see. Like, what were we supposed to compare him to to determine he was rogue/doing things ‘better’? 

Luke’s story is about becoming a Jedi and getting his father to become a Jedi again as well. That story makes little narrative sense if he’s supposed to be defined in opposition to the rest of the Jedi (that, at this point in time, we didn’t know) as instead of being defined as one. 

And again, the Jedi of old display just as much compassion and kindness as Qui-Gon or Luke.

-

II - No, Luke and Qui-Gon don’t use both the Dark Side and the Light, because that’s literally not how the Force works - and don’t take my word for it: here’s Lucas explaining it in details. You don’t get to do both. The Dark is selfishness. You can’t be selfish and selfless and the same time. You can’t crave power and holding innocent people’s lives as more important than even your own.

The words “light side” were never uttered in the movies and only really appear in the Mortis arc, and I dare anyone to claim they truly understand everything about it beyond “it’s a microcosm of the Galaxy/the whole Star Wars saga.” The Jedi never claim adherence to a “light side,” they say they seek balance. The idea that balance is 50% evil and 50% good is baffling to me and I blame the SWTOR video games and their in-game mechanics. (Look, if I pour 50% poison into my sugar when I’m making a cake, everybody is still dead in the end. And if I slaughter only half of the people I’ve got it for and forgive the other half, I’m still creating that many circles of hatred and revenge.)

-

Finally - if Luke or Qui-Gon were meant to be “Grey Jedi” Lucas would have called them that. It’s not the case. It’s not anywhere in the movies or TCW, hence, it’s not what he intended. They can be interpreted this way, but it’s still not what the movies where trying to say. 

[notes-from-sarah]

“Jedi Night”

Why Kanan’s Death Makes No Narrative Sense

A character’s death should mean something narratively, and Kanan’s just doesn’t. I went into Rebels knowing that Kanan would likely die at the end (his real name is literally Caleb Dume/Caleb the Doomed), and even spent some time trying to figure out how it would happen. When it did happen though, it felt like it didn’t mean anything. It wasn’t the result of many episodes of increasing tension between two major characters put in opposition to each other. It wasn’t the natural culmination of Kanan’s arc or the sensible final destination for his story. It made no narrative sense.

Let’s look at other examples of character deaths in the Star Wars franchise:

Qui-Gon dies at the hand of Darth Maul, a figure who had been set up as an antagonist who wants the opposite of everything Qui-Gon wants. Qui-Gon fights him once on Tatooine, then again on Naboo. When he dies it shows the power of the Dark Side, the might of the Sith and repositions Maul as an enemy for Obi-Wan. Within the framing of the movie it makes sense that Maul is the one to kill Qui-Gon, it would have been nonsensical if Nute Gunray had popped up last minute and shot him in the back.

Maul’s death gets retconned in The Clone Wars show and from that point on he becomes an antagonist to Obi-Wan throughout The Clone Wars and culminating in Rebels. When Obi-Wan finally kills Maul (again) it makes narrative sense. Since Maul killed Qui-Gon the two characters have been circling each other until they finally met the last time. It makes sense for him to die at Obi-Wan’s hand because they have been set in opposition to each other for almost three decades by that point. It makes sense. It would have been absurd for Rex to come out of nowhere and toss a grenade into Maul.

Obi-Wan dies at the hand of Darth Vader. His former pupil and someone he not only had a close relationship with, but also someone who - like Maul - had been circling him for decades. Vader killing Obi-Wan makes sense. It’s a culmination of the relationship between the two men and it is meaningful to each of their stories. Adding in the context of Revenge of the Sith, the conflict and betrayal is even more meaningful. It would have been silly for someone like Tarkin to take a pot-shot at Obi-Wan and finish him off.

So, now that we’ve established how previous character deaths were written to be narratively meaningful, let’s take a moment to look at the villains of Rebels.

Each season presents both new and old villains, but a concise list is as follows:

The Grand Inquisitor

Kallus

Darth Vader

Maul

Grand Admiral Thrawn

These are the primary villains of the show. Several have been positioned as narrative foes for Kanan. The Grand Inquisitor was Kanan’s foe in season one, they circled each other all season until eventually Kanan was able to defeat him at the end. It made narrative sense for Kanan to kill the Grand Inquisitor.

Kallus was set up as Zeb’s foe and throughout the first two seasons they clashed with each other until Kallus finally turned traitor and joined the Rebellion. It made narrative sense for them to be in conflict.

Darth Vader was this omnipotent threat that was set up against both Kanan and Ahsoka and at the end of season two he battles Ahsoka and (temporarily) kills her. It makes narrative sense.

From the end of season three, Kanan and Maul take on oppositional roles to each other as each tries to guide Ezra down differing paths. Kanan and Maul go head to head a number of times. Maul is Kanan’s foe.

Thrawn is Hera’s foe. They both spend a lot of time trying to out think each other throughout the third season and go head to head against each other a few different times. When Thrawn drives Hera and the rebels off of Atollon he’s won against her. They are each other’s foe this season much like Maul is Kanan’s foe.

And that brings us to Amanda Price.

I mean Arihnda Pryce.

She is a minor villain throughout the third and fourth seasons of Rebels. Much like the characters of Konstantine and List, she’s an Imperial functionary who does the bidding of others. She has no narrative foe, she wants bad things to happen because she’s bad and that’s pretty much it. She’s not a developed character who wants anything in particular, she’s just evil.

She also never directly opposes any of the Space Family throughout her run on the show. She just shows up in a ship or facility, says some evilish things, and goes on her way. She in no way drives the plot. She in no ways presents herself as a specific threat to any of the main cast. She in no way is Kanan’s specific foe.

Yet, she’s the one to kill him. Arihnda Pryce. Not Darth Vader. Not an Inquisitor. Not Maul. Not a new character that was actually established as a foe for Kanan. Arihnda Pryce. It makes no narrative sense. She is never circling him. He never goes against her directly in any situation (compared to Kallus and Zeb, or Kanan and Maul). She kills him, but it doesn’t prove anything about Imperial power, it doesn’t show anything about the might of the Sith, it doesn’t mean anything for her or Kanan personally. She just kind of comes out of nowhere and kills Kanan with an out of the blue decision to destroy the entire Imperial fuel supply on Lothal. Kanan dies because a minor character gives an impulsive command. That’s it.

It’s lazy.

It’s stupid.

It doesn’t make narrative sense.

For three seasons Rebels was able to pit interesting and powerful foes against Kanan, but when his story needed to end, they dredge up Arihnda Pryce to finish it. It’s not interesting. It’s not meaningful. It’s not impactful and it’s not good storytelling. If they had wanted Pryce to be the one to kill Kanan then they should have done the work and made her an actual foe for him. Kanan’s death, even for the purposes of saving his family, isn’t meaningful at all when it comes from the hands of a minor villain. Kanan deserved better than that. He deserved a foe who he had gone against multiple times. He deserved a foe that was actually powerful enough to kill him. He deserved a foe that defeated him in a non-stupid way.

Maybe someone like Vader?

He was said to have hunted down and killed all the Jedi, so far we’ve never actually seen him do that. After the second season he and the Inquisitors just drop out of the story never to be seen again even though no fewer than three Force sensitives are running amok in the galaxy at that point.

But I digress.

If they had to kill Kanan (which they didn’t) they should have given his death meaning and impact by making it come from someone that mattered to his story. Doing anything else is sloppy.

[ilonga]

Buried Alive

summary: 

Sometimes Anakin gets flashes of what’s going on. There are times were he can almost push through the fog and darkness and take control, if only for a second.

The first time it happened, he was terrified out of his mind.

He had no limbs. No limbs.

And there’s a. . . suit? And an Empire?

What had happened?

(au where Anakin is sorta trapped in his own mind as Vader, but can sometimes break free)

ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25634890

When he was younger, he used to think that the Chancellor’s office was a bit . . . suffocating, almost. Like the walls were pressing in on him, from time to time, or like he couldn’t breathe consistently, let alone think clearly. As the years passed and his visits with the Chancellor became more and more frequent, he thought about it less and less, and the strange feeling that seemed to accompany the office faded away entirely.

Or maybe it didn’t. Maybe it hadn’t, and Anakin had just pushed it aside, pretending it was nothing. Gotten used to it. Learned to ignore it. Because these were the Chancellor’s offices, and how could anything associated with this kindly old mentor be so cold? Surely, surely Anakin must be mistaken.

Now, twenty two years old with his thoughts echoing messily around him, he remembers what he’d said to Obi-wan the first time he visited the Chancellor.

It’s so cold in here, he’d said, and Obi-wan had given him a strange look because the Chancellor had already adjusted the temperature before their visit had begun, making the offices far warmer than usual to help the Tatooine child fit in (wasn’t that so thoughtful of him, why wasn’t Anakin more grateful? ).

It’s cold in here, yes, as the Chancellor reveals himself to be the Sith Lord who’d orchestrated the entire war and Anakin’s whole world implodes. But then the temperature drops to freezing. The world blurs before him and seems muffled, almost. He can’t think clearly, his thoughts are so slow. . . why can’t he think? Where is all of this darkness coming from, why can’t he breathe--he’s drowning, he’s being buried alive, he’s drowning, he’s drowning--

He doesn’t remember how he got out of there, stumbling his way to the Council Chambers--it’s all so hazy. He just knows one moment he was at the Chancellor’s, the next, warning Master Windu (who seems so far away, like he’s looking at him from the other end of his battlefield specs), and then he’s somehow. . . back? Again? In Palpatine’s offices? Why is he here? How did he get here?  

There’s a sharp burst of pain (but it isn’t his pain, no--what happened to Master Windu?) and suddenly every thought he’s ever had about the stifling, smothering atmosphere of the Chancellor’s office (he can’t think--) comes rushing back to him all at once, but maybe it’s not the offices, maybe it’s never been the offices. Maybe it was just the Chancellor, the Sith Lord, all along.

“What have I done?” is the last thing he manages to choke out (what have I done in every sense of the question)  (what is happening to me?), the last words that are his own for years and years to come.

The darkness in the Chancellor’s office buries him alive.

(Are those eyes yellow?)

* * * * *

Anakin doesn’t know where he is. There are seconds where he even forgets who he is. He’s floating in a vast expanse of space that’s also stifling and claustrophobic at the same time. He can’t understand it, can’t manage to wrap his head around what the hell is going on.

Where is Obi-wan? Where is Padme? Oh, force, what’s going to happen to Padme? What will happen to their child?

He’s alone, floating in darkness. He must have been trapped in here somehow, but the last thing he remembered were the Chancellor’s offices and Master Windu (and dead Jedi? Were there other Jedi there too?) .

And then suddenly there are screams, echoing around him all at once. Anakin doesn’t know who’s screaming. It could be him, for all he knows. But they sound. . . young. Young like Ahsoka was, when he first met her on Christophis.

Oh, force, Ahsoka! Is she alright? She was (where was she?) on. . . Mandalore (why?). . . fighting someone (who?), someone important. Is she safe? Or not? Is she dying as he’s trapped here, helpless? Is Padme dying too, alone and scared, in this very moment?

The screams stop. But it seems like barely seconds have passed before new ones take their place. (Who are they? Where are they coming from?)

There’s a voice, all of a sudden, one that sounds achingly familiar. He reaches for it blindly, hoping--

Padme’s face flashes before him, anguished and choking (no!), and Obi-wan’s there and his face is twisted in an expression of fierce, hopeless grief Anakin’s never seen before, not even when Qui-gon died and Obi-wan barely spoke for weeks. What’s happening? he almost manages to get his lips to form the words. What’s going on, where is everybody?

He almost gets the words out. Almost. But then the darkness comes flooding back and he’s buried again, their faces disappearing from view as rapidly as they came.

What is happening to him?

Was it Palpatine who did this to him?

His mind rebels almost instinctively at the thought. Palpatine, who cared about him? Who listened to him? Who was kind to him, since he was nine years old and afraid, a former slave in a world so foreign? Palpatine, who is. . . a Sith Lord. Palpatine, who’s been orchestrating a sham war for years. Palpatine, who’s responsible for every death in this wretched war, for the loss of every man in the 501st who’d died fighting. Palpatine, who’s indirectly responsible for what happened to Ahsoka, to everything Obi-wan has been through for the sake of the war, who’s responsible for all the pain and loss the Jedi faced as a whole for these past three years. Palpatine, who--

Who used him.

Who’s been using him since he was nine years old.

All of a sudden Anakin feels sick. Or as sick as he can, as a disembodied jumble of thoughts floating in an indecipherable crushing darkness.

So that’s why Palpatine showed interest in a nine year old former slave from a backwater desert planet. Not out of the kindness of his heart, not because he saw Anakin as worthwhile, special.

No. Because he wanted to use him all along.

He doesn’t have time to dwell on that, however, because now there’s pain. Incredible pain, the likes of which he could have never imagined before, not when he was a slave and faced beatings day by day, not when Dooku cut his arm off on Geonosis, not when he was being electrocuted, tortured, for the millionth time throughout the war. This pain is worse than all of that combined. It’s how he imagined Maul must have felt, when he was cut in half, if he was also set on fire by a vengeful custodian upon arriving at the bottom of the reactor pit. The pain builds, and builds, and builds.

He needs it to stop, he needs it stop, he can’t take it, he’d rather die than keep feeling this pain, let him die--

And then there is nothing.

* * * * *

When he wakes up (in a manner of speaking), he knows something is different. He can feel it. If he found his way back to his body somehow, he’s impossibly sure that it would be nothing like the one he left behind.

Well, there’s only one way to find out.

He pushes. He fights the darkness, tries to wade through the inky blackness surrounding him, tries to find his way out of this madness and regain control.

It doesn’t work.

He keeps pushing.

Every day (are there even days anymore? He certainly wouldn’t know) he pushes until he’s exhausted beyond belief and sinks into blessed nothingness. Sometimes he feels like he’s getting closer to an escape; other times, it feels like he could go on and on forever in this maze (this prison) and end up right where he started.

Years must be passing by, he thinks, as he tries to reach a new equilibrium. Sometimes, Anakin gets flashes of what’s going on. There are times were he can almost push through the fog and darkness and take control, if only for a second.

The first time it happened, he was terrified out of his mind.

He had no limbs. He had no limbs.  

And there’s a suit? And an Empire? What happened?

He’s buried again.

The second time, he realizes two crucial things.

Number one, he can’t feel the Jedi anymore.

Number two, his lightsaber is red.

He realizes with frightening clarity what must have happened. What Sidious must have made him do.

Is that what I am? he thinks bitterly. A puppet?

A slave? He tries not to think.

It seems that’s exactly what he is. Sidious’s puppet, with all his personality buried under mounds of Sith power to make for easy control.

He’s buried again.

Sidious must have noticed something that time, because it becomes all the more difficult to fight his way out. And he’s tired. He doesn’t know how many more years pass with him floating there, with no sense of direction, no sense of time, no sense of anything really.

He’s lonely. He wishes Obi-wan were here, or Padme, or Ahsoka. Hell, what he wouldn’t give for even one of Master Windu’s unimpressed glares.

No doubt any one of them would be doing so much better in this situation than he was. Obi-wan would have figured out what was happening to him in minutes, and broken free of it in even less. Padme would have never let Palpatine (Sidious) get to her in the first place. Ahsoka would have powered through the darkness and wrenched back control, permanently.

But it’s just him, and he’s weak. Too weak to protect himself, too weak to protect the ones he loved. Weak like the desert boy he thought he’d left behind with a detonator buried deep under his skin.

There’s no use in these kinds of thoughts, he knows. Don’t waste your water, his mother would say, Or your despair. They are precious, and you must save them for when you have finished the work you set out to do.

Work.

Next time he breaks free, he will get to work. He’ll do whatever he can to sabotage Palpatine’s (Sidious’s) rule.

The third time he breaks free, he wastes no time. He’s in his (Vader’s) chambers, luckily, and he has access to a datapad and to what he needs for slicing. He has access to coordinates, numbers, and all sorts of sensitive military information. And a list of who survived the transition from the Republic to the Empire.

. . . Padme’s dead.

. . . Ahsoka’s dead.

No. No.

He can’t let himself get distracted, not when he could sink back under any second. Don’t waste your water, or your despair. Despair. Despair is for later.

Alright. he thinks. Which of these survivors is most likely to be involved in an illicit rebellion?

Because of course there’s a rebellion against Palpatine; there was a rebellion against him even back when he was Chancellor and Anakin was blind to his true nature. They may have called themselves a Delegation, but they had seen what was coming, and they had been prepared to fight--

Oh. The Delegation of 2000.

Senator Organa.

He had always been a friend to the Jedi, even as public opinion and support declined. And he was a dear friend of Padme’s--she trusted him with her life.

In the span of two minutes, each feeling like more and more of a struggle, he manages to set up an untraceable, anonymous communication line straight to the Senator. Vader being unofficially near the top of the Imperial hierarchy does have its benefits.

The information is sent. The comm line is deleted. No trace of the communication is left from Anakin’s end. And the Senator will never know where the information came from. He imagines he’ll assume it came from an imperial defector.

Which he is, in a manner of speaking. Until he’s swallowed up again by the prison that is his own mind.

He managed it in three minutes total.

Now that his task is complete, the incessant pushing and stifling darkness is nigh unbearable. But he also realizes, for the first time, how much he truly hates this suit. The prosthetics are shoddy and clumsy at best, ridiculously heavy and difficult to maneuver. The life support is bulky and he can still feel age old burns, all over his body, that seem as though they’d never been treated at all. And worst of all is the respirator. Does the breathing sound it makes have to be so obnoxious?

How did all of this happen to him, anyway? He remembers the pain from what felt like forever ago--it’s no duller as a memory than it was a sensation. Clearly his limbs had been chopped off from what seemed to be a lightsaber (was it Palpatine, maybe? A punishment of some sort?) but what of the burns? Had he really been set on fire, or had he imagined the sensation? Had it been lava or something of the sort? (he swears he can remember the scent of Mustafar, even if he can’t recall actually being there; had something happened to him there?)

His flow of thoughts is interrupted by a steadily rising pressure in the back of his mind. It feels like-- Palpatine. He knows.

There’s a crushing, devastating weight on his mind, the phantom pull of a heavy anger he can nearly taste, then an almost audible snap.

Then nothing.

* * * * *

When he wakes up, it’s almost worse than the pain he had felt from being burned alive. He had been building up a resistance, able to fight through the darkness faster and faster each time, but now all of that is gone. He feels chained.

Before, he had felt lost and sluggish, buried and drowning. It was a terrible sensation. But now, he’s chained.

He fights back an instinctive bout of panic (never again, never again!) but it changes nothing.

Palpatine’s slave.

Nevertheless, he starts over.

He tries to build back up, bit by bit (it’s so much harder than before) , and he’s certain years are passing again (again, and again, Padme, my love, I’m so sorry).

Sometimes he’s vaguely aware of what’s happening outside. In his weaker moments, he wishes he wasn’t. (He’s doing a lot of killing)

He comes to a realization one day (or night, or week) about the deaths he’s been feeling (the deaths he’s been causing). They don’t feel like ordinary deaths. Not like those of any normal sentient being across the galaxy (hasn’t he felt enough of those, during the war).

They’re a bit. . . louder-- oh, force, he’s hunting down Jedi.

No. No.

How could he-how could he-use me against my own people like this-use me to kill my own people, my own people--like I’m some sort of trophy, like I’m a broken attack dog-I’m not his toy, I’m not his toy--

He doesn’t know how long it takes him to claw his way out of the downward spiral. Maybe days. (his own people, he’s hunting down and slaughtering his own people--it’s despicable--his own people)

So.

That’s why Palpatine was really interested in him. So he could have the pleasure of using the Jedi’s Chosen One against them, turning him into some kind of attack dog.

He’s never been so disgusted in his life.

Don’t waste your water.

Don’t waste your despair.

Save them for when you have finished your work.

He finally manages to break through again, weeks or months or maybe years later. He moves more quickly this time, compiling coordinates and military plans, setting up the anonymous, untraceable comm line, and sending it all straight to Senator Organa once again.

It only takes him a minute this time.

He slumps back, and the darkness consumes him.

* * * * *

The next time he wakes, it’s to a voice.

I was beginning to believe I knew who you were behind that mask. But it’s impossible. My master could never be as vile as you.

Is that. . . Ahsoka?

Then I will avenge his death.

Ahsoka, it is Ahsoka! (but how? She had died, the reports had confirmed it. Unless she had faked her death? Had she faked her death? Hardeens ran in the lineage, it seemed. How had she faked her death?).

For a moment there’s joy, unbridled, wild joy, shooting through him, but then he realizes.

No. No!

No, he can’t hurt Ahsoka, he can’t, he won’t (you can’t make me do this). He won’t. He shoves with everything he has, every last ounce of strength within him. He shoves forwards and pushes the darkness aside, trying to draw from a well of power within him just as he had on Mortis.

Ahsoka? Ahsoka!

There she is, standing right before him--so he was right, years had passed, maybe fifteen years from the looks of it? She’s gotten so tall now, and her lightsabers, they’re white. A brilliant, blinding white. She’s all grown up now, his Snips, all grown up and protecting the rebels. Is it even possible to feel this much pride? They’re almost the same height--he’s been so lonely, for so long. Can she help him, maybe? The two of them could handle anything together, back in the Clone Wars. Maybe she can help him figure out exactly what’s happened to him, help him fight it off. Maybe. . .

I won’t leave y--she’s saying something but it’s drowned out suddenly, with a rushing in his ears and a wave rising from within to drown him. Ahsoka? Ahsoka! No!

Ahsoka?

She’s gone.

Don’t waste your water--don’t waste your water--don’t waste your despair, don’t--

He. . .

He despairs.

* * * * *

He doesn’t know how long it takes to pull himself back together this time (Ahsoka, no, Ahsoka. He promised her he’d never let anything hurt her, he promised her he could never let her die, and now she’s dead. At his own hands.) but it’s almost certainly been years.

He’s beginning to doubt he’ll ever break free. Not permanently.

He considers, briefly, trying to rid the galaxy of Vader in a. . . different manner. It’s not like his deprived half life is one particularly enjoyable or worth living anyway. The only thing keeping him going had been the hope that he’d wrench back control for good one day, but now. . .

It seems like it’ll never happen. And while he’s waiting, trapped, for the next couple of minutes he’s able to snatch, Vader is out there, hurting people (hurting his people), killing people, tearing planets and families apart.

Enslaving people.

That sends him down another spiral of deep loathing and disgust, though whether it’s directed at himself or Palpatine, he’s not sure.

Maybe he could rid the galaxy of Vader, permanently. It would be so easy (his lightsaber ignited at the wrong angle, a push of the wrong buttons for his life support, light damage to his respirator).

The next time he breaks free, he tries. But he realizes, then, that Palpatine must have foreseen this, because somehow the suit and prosthetics won’t let him. As soon as the intent crosses his mind, the prosthetics won’t move the way he wants them to, the buttons won’t respond, and the respirator will stubbornly force air in and out of his lungs at a desperate pace.

It seems they’ve been built to keep him alive at any cost. To protect him (ha, protect) against even himself.

His abhorrent red lightsaber isn’t even useful for this one thing.

He feels sick again. So even the choice of whether to live or die has been stripped away from him?

Slave, slave, slave. Palpatine’s slave.

With a tremendous effort, Anakin wrenches himself away from the thoughts.

Don’t waste your water.

Don’t waste your despair.

So.

It seems the only way forward is to keep going as he’s been going. Break free for a few minutes, compile sensitive information, and send as much of it to the rebellion and Senator Organa as he can.

He’s hit by another wave of deep loathing. This time, it’s definitely directed at Palpatine.

Life continues (this is his life now. He hates it). More information is sent, in staggering intervals. For the most part, Palpatine doesn’t seem to sense his duplicity. Maybe he thinks that after what happened with Ahsoka, Anakin is no longer someone (something) he needs to worry about. The information does, however, seem to be making some difference for the rebels. Every time he wakes up, there are more reports of sabotage, failed battles on the Empire’s part, people gone missing (liberated) , places fighting back (protecting themselves) against imperial rule. Most likely, the schematics have been the most useful information the rebels have acquired. He knows enemy schematics were definitely the most useful resource to have access to back in the Clone Wars.

He feels a bit of pride at the thought. It’s easier to manage his reality when he has tangible proof of making a difference. The pride is always accompanied by guilt, of course, his constant companion, but it’s there.

He is helping. He is making a difference. A little. At the very least, the rebels now know how to fight back. The Empire is developing new weapons every day, but with their schematics, the rebels have a chance at defending against them, and exploiting their weaknesses. At protecting the planets that would otherwise be terrorized.

He should have known not to get too comfortable.

* * * * *

The Death Star. DS-1 orbital station. Death Star. Star of Death?

The name sounds inappropriately comical, as if it had been named by a Temple youngling with an overdramatic flair.

Death Star? What kind of a silly name was that? Certainly not one that embodied the sheer horror, the sheer monstrosity, the almost sacrilegious nature of this terrifying, depraved creation.

Built to destroy planets.

Sometimes Anakin thinks he’s reached a limit for how horrified he can be, by his reality, by Palpatine’s actions, by this new Empire and the evil it inflicts on his people.

He’s wrong, every time.

A weapon to destroy planets?  

Yes, he’d fought in the Clone Wars. Yes, he’d been one of the more ruthless generals. Yes, he understands the value of might and power and displays of strength.

And, yes, he’s been guilty of slaughter in cold blood before.

But this?

This horrifies him straight to his core. Forget everything he was as a Jedi, this goes against everything he’s ever believed in as a person . Yes, this horrifies the Jedi in him. But it also horrifies the nine-year-old slave in him (the masters blow us up if we’re disobedient), the Clone Wars General in him (our objective is to protect the people), the Senator’s husband in him (democracy isn’t perfect, but it protects us from tyranny), the Negotiator’s padawan in him (compassion is central to the heart of a Jedi), the master to Ahsoka in him (I want to help my people), the parts of him that are and will always be Shmi’s son (the biggest problem in this galaxy is that no one helps each other. Remember that, my son). It’s unjustifiable, in every sense of the word. It’s everything he ever thought he was fighting against in the Clone Wars, as a Jedi.

They’re building a battle station that destroys planets. That could kill millions, billions, with the press of a button.

How can anyone involved in this project live with themselves? Are the people of the Empire so drunk on power that they’d do anything for another taste of it? Kill billions of innocents?

(After murdering the Sandpeople, he couldn’t sleep for weeks in horror at what he’d done. How can these Moffs condone this with satisfied smiles and a prideful shrug of their shoulders? How?)

It’s revolting.

He has to get information to the Rebellion, somehow. There has to be a weakness, there has to be something they can do.

There has to be some way they can fight this.

Otherwise. . .

He doesn’t want to think about it. The next time he wakes up, he’ll find the schematics, find a way to get them to the Rebellion, or, if not the Rebellion, Senator Organa and other planetary leaders. He’ll try to find a weakness.

* * * * *

Slipping the Death Star schematics to the rebels (he couldn’t even send it to the Senator, this time) ends up being much more difficult than he had expected. In the end, all he manages to do is make sure a copy is available somewhere, and less guarded than it should be. He doesn’t even manage to take a look at the plans himself.

Oh, force, there better be a weakness in this Sith-damned monstrosity.

Usually he won’t be pushing so hard right after breaking free for a time, but he’s desperate to find out what happened to the plans and whether they were successful. So he pushes and fights in a way that would have probably had Obi-wan shaking his head and heaving a long-suffering sigh, but it does pay off. To an extent.

There’s a young woman with dark hair and eyes holding herself in a way that sharply reminds him of Padme. He can’t hear what she’s saying, but the pure disdain on her face is clear enough to read, and he feels an unexpected sense of kinship and satisfaction at her courage. Her posture might mimic Padme’s I’m-a-Galactic-Senator-and-I’m-smarter-than-you stance, but something in her face abruptly reminds him of himself. Her brows are raised, lips twisted in a darkly amused scowl, eyes darkened with copious amounts of both scorn and determination. Contempt practically radiates off her set shoulders. He imagines that was how he looked facing down Grievous for the first time, snapping out a disdainful “shorter than I expected” at the notorious Jedi-killer.

She fades away abruptly, but the image stays with him.

She feels. . . important somehow. He wracks his brain and tries to remember who she is, if he’s met her before--no doubt Vader has, but it seems he’s never been able to push through when in her presence.

She looked about twenty some years old, and now that he’s not focused on how suddenly she had dredged up memories of Padme (that pain is never going to go away, is it?) he realizes her hair and dress were done in an Alderaanian style. Something niggles at the back of his mind--

Oh. The third time he had broken free, he had spent most of those precious minutes perusing the Holonet to find out what had happened to his friends. One of those headlines, that he had spared but a passing glance, had to do with Senator Bail Organa and Queen Breha’s newly adopted daughter.

The young woman had been Leia Organa. Princess of Alderaan. And she had a spine of steel to match Bail’s, it seemed, although she certainly didn’t seem to favor his subtlety (a decision Anakin of all people could definitely respect). Another pang of sorrow shoots through him; Leia had been one of the names he and Padme had considered for their child (though Padme had been insistent it was a boy while he was convinced it was going to be a girl). That name had been one of the few things on Tatooine one could consider beautiful, and even then, it was a name meaning mighty, fierce. Everything he would have wanted his daughter to be.

Everything, it seems, that Princess Leia of Alderaan is, although the name no doubt means something different on Alderaan.

He can respect that, even as he’s hit by another wave of sorrow for his unborn child. According to the funeral reports he had read, Padme had died still pregnant, due to complications from a “traitorous Jedi attack”. It’s so blatantly a lie he has to wonder if anyone believed it at all. Of course, this means that either Palpatine had his still-pregnant wife killed. . . or he had Vader do it.

He clings to the idea that this Princess is carrying on Padme’s legacy somehow, as far fetched as it is. It brings him a small measure of comfort.

The next flash he gets is. . . far less comforting.

There’s a sudden aggressive explosion in his mind and suddenly he’s lost himself, trying to block himself off from so much pain, so much death, so much suffering, but none of it’s his own. He’s feeling the pain of thousands, millions, maybe billions all at once. Amongst the echoes of pain and pure terror, he notes rather deliriously that, for once, he’s glad not to be in control of his own body. Had he been in control, Vader would have dropped to his knees right then and there in front of the viewport, and not even the respirator could have made him keep breathing (or maybe that would have been a good thing). It’s like a rising wave on Kamino, ready to drown him in a way not even the darkness in his own mind can, and then suddenly there’s an intangible tearing and they’re all ripped out of existence and silenced, leaving excruciating, gaping holes in his awareness.

It’s so overwhelming that a physical reaction somehow gets through to Vader even though he’s not pushing for it; his whole body tenses, his legs nearly buckle despite being mechanical, his respirator slows as it tries to accommodate the changes in breathing and heart rate, and his hand digs into Leia’s shoulder where it’s resting--

Wait. Leia.

Alderaan.

He looks to the viewport and--

Alderaan’s. . . gone?

No. No. It can’t be.

A whole planet, gone just like that?

Impossible. The Death Star may have been built for this but surely the Moffs would never--how could anyone actually go through with it? They could never, no sane person could see this through, it’s--impossible, he must be seeing things wrong. His vision is unreliable, has been unreliable for the past twenty years, at the best of times, so why should it be showing him the truth now? Just because they viewport is filled with debris--it means nothing, they could never--

All those people. . .

Their pain, their terror. . .

No. No. It can’t be, it would never--a planet? Gone? A whole planet? A peaceful one, no less? All those people--the people--

No, no, no, no, no--Bail! What about Bail, what about Breha, what about--Leia, what about Leia?

How could they?

It doesn’t feel real. It can’t be real.

A planet can’t have been destroyed.

Millions can’t have been slaughtered with the simple press of a button.

Bail--Senator Organa can’t be dead (but you felt his death, didn’t you?). Queen Breha, she can’t be dead (Padme had always felt close to her; two monarchs of pivotal planets).

Leia.

Leia can’t be orphaned, twice over.

Oh, Leia.

I’m so sorry, he thinks, almost as dead to the world as he had been twenty years ago, I failed, I should have been able to stop them. I should have tried harder.

All he’s ever done is fail, it seems.

Some Chosen One.

He wishes suddenly that he’d never been born. Never given Palpatine the opportunity for such an effective attack dog, never given him the opportunity to tear the Jedi apart from the inside and build the Empire from his ashes. Maybe without Vader at his side, none of this would have happened. Palpatine would have been found out sooner with no Jedi listening to his honeyed lies, the Jedi would have defeated him without Vader’s interference, so many wouldn’t have died.

His mother wouldn’t have had to raise a child she’d never asked for, a child who she then never heard from again until she died and he was too late to save her. Obi-wan would have never been burdened with him so young, Ahsoka would have never died trusting that he’d never hurt her, Padme wouldn’t have died without an unborn child to look after.

Your water, he suddenly hears the lilting cadence of his mother’s voice, you’re wasting your water.

Ani, my son, you must save your water, and your despair, for when your work is finished.

How, he wants to ask, how can I go on? Every time I try to fix things, it just gets worse and worse. How can I continue my work when it seems like my work is doing nothing?

You continue your work, his mother’s voice says, firmer this time, until you’ve finished your work, or until you can work no longer.

Until you’re dead, she doesn’t say.

I miss you, he’d say to her, if she was truly real, I miss you. I need you.

Shhh, my son. I am always with you.

It could be entirely a product of his imagination, but his spirit feels lighter all the same.

Alderaan will be avenged, he vows Leia, knowing there’s no way she can possibly hear him, Your father will be avenged. Your mother will be avenged.

If it comes down to it, I’ll find a way to tear this station apart myself.

Somehow.

* * * * *

There’s something big going on, he can feel it, (that presence feel so familiar) and he’s trying to push through out of the darkness (I can’t take another Ahsoka, please, no) and then the darkness multiplies (there’s something Palpatine doesn’t want him to see--) and he’s being buried, he’s being suffocated, he can’t breathe (not that he usually can anyways), but he can’t and the moment passes, and he’s left floating aimlessly in the blank infinity slowly consuming him.

The next time he wakes up, it’s to Obi-wan Kenobi’s lightsaber lying in his chambers.

He feels sick to his stomach.

Or at least what’s left of it.

Oh, Anakin, says Obi-wan’s crisply accented voice from somewhere lightyears away, you’ll be the death of me someday.

I didn’t want you to be right, master. Anakin thinks blankly, But you always did like being right.

He’s numb.

So numb.

When his mother died, he had raged. Raged and raged and raged at the world around him until he had very nearly torn it apart. He’d felt such anger he was sure he would never feel anything else again.

When Padme had died, he had felt sorrow. Deep, bone-crushing sorrow, for her, for their unborn child, for everything she fought for and the legacy she’d never be able to leave behind.

When Ahsoka had died, he had felt guilt. So much guilt it was unbearable, the sharp edges of broken promises and words never said, the jagged pain of so much that he should have done for her but would never be able to.

But Obi-wan’s death seems to have taken away his ability to feel anything at all, ever again.

What is the galaxy, without Obi-wan Kenobi?

Who am I, Anakin Skywalker, without Obi-wan Kenobi?

Nothing. They were nothing, there was nothing left in this galaxy, nothing--

Why didn’t you kill me, Master? he thinks blankly, an edge of hysteria creeping in on his thoughts, Why didn’t you kill me--you were my Master, you taught me how to fight, you knew me better than anyone in this galaxy--why couldn’t you kill me?

How could you let me kill you?

Distantly, he realizes Obi-wan would have probably been his last hope for an escape from this misery. If there was anyone in the galaxy who could have defeated Vader (who could have beaten Anakin), it was him. But it seems he was wrong. He’s still alive, and Obi-wan is dead.

How can he be alive when Obi-wan is dead? It seems fundamentally against the laws of this universe; hadn’t they agreed without words that when they went out, they’d go out together?

Once, he would have been thrilled to finally be able to beat his master (mentor, friend, best friend, brother?) in a duel.

Once, Obi-wan would have said that it was every master’s wish for their student to grow to be better than him.

Somewhere, buried in some remote, faraway corner of his mind, a part of him is laughing at the irony. For the first time, Anakin Skywalker well and truly feels as empty as the darkness surrounding him.

He descends into apathy.

* * * * *

He feels it when the Death Star is destroyed, but he can’t find it in him to be triumphant. There’s a passing sense of relief, but nothing more. Was this the price? Obi-wan’s life for the destruction of this mechanical monstrosity? (he doesn’t even know what Obi-wan looked like when he died; he’ll always be immortalised in his memory as he had looked in those final days of the Clone Wars)

It doesn’t seem worth it.

Rationally, he knows he shouldn’t be thinking like this. To trade one life for millions would be a heinous act in every sense of the word. If he had made a trade right here and now, to bring Obi-wan back in exchange for the Death Star, Obi-wan would have murdered Anakin himself (or let one of his disappointed stares do the trick; those always made Anakin want to crawl under a rock and never see the light of day again), and not even Vader’s apparently ridiculously overpowered combat skills could have stopped him.

Rationally, he knows this. But he doesn’t much care.

He would have made the trade anyways.

He can’t bring himself to be horrified at his train of thought anymore either; he just notes them as impassionately as he programmed C3PO to do, back when he was still building him on Tatooine. So some hotshot pilot managed to destroy the station; wonderful. Allegedly the Princess was able to escape too, which is also good, he supposes.

The sense of relief is faint and somewhat dispassionate. He would say he’s happy she’s alive, but it seems like the ability to be happy on any level has been completely sucked out of him.

The darkness around him ebbs and flows, pushing and pulling at the pieces left of his consciousness as if it realizes it could probably pull him apart for good and he’d offer little resistance. He imagines he can feel the threads of Palpatine’s presence woven through it, delighting in the fact that after so many years, his perfect little puppet is finally broken.

He can’t even summon the usual loathing at the thought of the man’s name.

Perfect little puppet.

Finally broken.

* * * * *

He subsists on spite now.

It’s the only thing that keeps him halfheartedly pushing and hoping to break through. He hasn’t managed it yet, and he doesn’t quite know what he’ll do when (if) he does. Senator Organa is dead. Clearly the Rebellion lives on--the destruction of the Death Star proves that--but who would he even send the information to? Leia, maybe? Surely her father has taught her a thing or two. Maybe she’ll know what to do with it.

Before Obi-wan’s . . . death, (and for a moment there he had almost convinced himself Obi-wan had somehow managed to pull another Hardeen, but the absence of the man’s presence of the force, which he hadn’t realized was there until he lost it, had forced him to face the truth rather painfully) he had been fueled by spite, to an extent. But he had also been fueled by hope, of a better future for the others out there if not for him, and fueled by love too, for the people still out there that he was fighting for.

Now it’s just spite. And halfhearted spite, at that.

(he didn’t realize it before, but he had never known how it felt to be completely devoid of hope until now)

But he keeps fighting nevertheless. And every time he feels the threads of Palpatine’s presence try to constrain him, he pushes harder.

Go to hell, he thinks at them as loudly as he can whenever he encounters them.

Always so mature, my young padawan, his internal Obi-wan voice says in response.

There is no response from whatever force powers Palpatine has set on monitoring him.

He keeps clawing forward. It’s a strange half reality he lives in; he’s never been able to get used to it, no matter how many years have passed. His thoughts are almost permanently hazy and difficult to hold on to, and his senses are partially there and partially deadened. Sometimes he can convince himself that he’s physically there, mechno arm (well, arms. and legs.) and all, in some metaphysical dimension where all he can see is darkness and all he can hear is silence. Other times, it just feels as if he’s asleep (asleep but will never wake up). This makes trying to push his way out. . . an interesting experience to say the least.

(Obi-wan would have been fascinated.)

(Obi-wan would have also never found himself in this situation to begin with.)

Sometimes, it feels like he’s swimming for a surface he rarely reaches. Other times, like he’s trying to claw his way out of a muddy grave. The last time he broke free, it felt like a shadowy maze churning and twisting until he finally stumbled his way towards an exit.

Every now and then, he hears echoes of what he assumes are the voices of people around him. They can last anywhere from seconds to hours. If he’s lucky, he’ll even see flashes or visions of his surroundings to accompany them. (An icy planet, a dilapidated rust-bucket of a ship speeding into hyperspace, a helmeted bounty hunter with a significant resemblance to Jango Fett)

Sometimes they’re interesting, but most of the time it’s just the voices of egoistical Moffs, Admirals, and Captains, who seem, rather rationally, to be frightened of him. He swears he’s heard the name Skywalker recently though, which is strange. He’s the only Skywalker of enough renown to be discussed by the Empire (Padme had never taken his name in any capacity, so it couldn’t be her), but in the Empire, talk of Jedi seems to be looked on unfavorably, to say the least. Officially speaking, Anakin Skywalker is dead, and Imperial personnel don’t seem like the types to reminisce about the past on the job. (he’s also positive that, with the exception of Palpatine, few if any are aware of the fact that Darth Vader and Anakin Skywalker share the same body)

A voice filters in, then, interrupting his flow of thoughts. He recognizes Vader’s mechanical tones (and isn’t it strange to hear “himself” speak without feeling his mouth move), and a youthful voice that responds with increasing anger.

You murdered my father!

Ah, he thinks with a touch of sympathy, I’m afraid Vader does a lot of that sort of thing.

He misses what Vader says next, but it’s no doubt some kind of taunt. He wonders who this kid is, and finds himself hoping he makes it out of here alive (not many who face down Vader do).

The kid’s face suddenly flashes before him-- blond hair like Anakin used to have, back when the sun was constantly bleaching it on Tatooine, and blue eyes that do, come to think of it, also match Anakin’s own shade, to an extent. Something in the kid’s face reminds of Leia, however. He doesn’t know what. Maybe this kid is a Tatooine native? If so, he feels even more sympathy for him--to grow up in the most desolate corner of the galaxy, lose his father, and now face Vader? He can’t be more than twenty from the looks of it, with a bright and shining presence in the force, and--

Oh. Oh, that smarts.

The kid’s had his right hand cut off at the wrist, and his face looks to have taken a beating as well. He’s barely hanging off the air shaft Vader has cornered him on to. If Anakin could feel his own limbs at all, he’s sure they’d be throbbing in sympathy. He’d lost his first limb to Dooku at around this kid’s age.

Now the kid’s yelling something about impossibility and lies, and Vader says something that Anakin again doesn’t catch in return. The kid’s face screws up and--No, wait!

He’s gone. The kid jumped.

Congratulations, Anakin thinks bitterly at the presence controlling his body. You’ve added another twenty-something year old to your kill list. Are you proud?

He wonders vaguely what Vader had told him that had been so terrible that had the kid jumping off the air shaft to commit suicide---no, wait. He doesn’t know the kid, doesn’t even know his name, but he can still feel that presence (that’s strange. Why?).

He doesn’t know how he managed it, but the kid survived.

Well. That’s something, at least.

* * * * *

He manages to break free for the first time in what must have been a few years, for a couple of minutes, after the strange encounter on Bespin.

He’s. . .

Well.

He’s solved the Skywalker mystery.

Luke Skywalker. Native Tatooinian. Prodigiously talented pilot, made the shot that blew the Death Star into pieces. Poster boy of the rebellion. There are whispers of him being a Jedi. And he has a bounty on his head, for a number of credits so high Anakin can barely believe his eyes. A bounty. . . placed by Darth Vader himself.

“Yes, yes,” Padme says, laughing and swatting at him playfully, “Leia is a lovely name for a girl. But if it’s a boy--and my motherly intuition says it’s a boy--”

“I’m telling you, it’s a girl,” Anakin says, unable to keep the joy out of his voice. He’s almost deliriously happy; there might be a war going on, the Republic and the Jedi might be falling apart day by day, but he and Padme are going to have a child. A child! “My mystical Jedi senses say so.”

“Your mystical Jedi senses--”

“And I’m telling you right now, she’s going to have lovely brown hair and eyes just like her mother, I can see it now.”

“Flatterer.” She takes a deep breath. “If it’s a boy, I like the name Luke.”

“Luke,” he says, turning the name over on his tongue. It’s a beautiful name; light and airy. It reminds him of his mother’s singing in the evenings, when he was young and her lullabies were the only thing that would soothe him. “Is it a Naboo name?”

Padme nods, biting her lip and looking off to the side. It seems she’s thought a lot about this. “Yes. It means light.” she looks up at him almost shyly. Clearly the name has wormed its way into her heart. “Do you like it?”

“I love it.” he says truthfully, “Luke.” He smirks up at her again. “It’s going to be a girl, though.”

“Oh, shut it, you.” Her gaze turns distant. “I want him to be a Skywalker.”

“A. . . Skywalker? You want her to take my name?” He’s genuinely baffled. His name? A Tatooine slave’s name? He would love for his mother’s name to be carried on, sure, but Padme’s last names, both of them, carry so much more prestige.

“Amidala is the last name of a persona. A politician. It’s not real. And Naberrie is a name I haven’t called my own for years. But Skywalker. . . Well. We can honor your mother. And it’s a beautiful name. Wouldn’t you want your child to walk the stars?”

He can feel tears building, somewhere in the corner of his eyes. Padme might be the one that’s pregnant, but it seems that he’s the one who’s been getting emotional these past few days. He chokes out a laugh. “In the running to become a poet, Senator Amidala?”

She lets out an uncharacteristic snort at that. “If only pretty words worked as well on my fellow Senators as well as they did on you.”

They’re slowly heading towards the door; neither wants to let the other go but they both know he has to head back to the Temple soon. This is one of the softer, quieter moments that they’ve shared, that they’ve gotten so few of throughout the war. He turns to look at her.

“Luke Skywalker.” he says. “It’s beautiful.”  

Luke Skywalker. . . is the boy who confronted Vader just a few weeks ago.

Luke Skywalker. . . is his son.

He has a son.

For at least a few minutes, blank shock is all he feels. He barely notices himself sinking back under into oblivion and losing control of his body once more; it pales in significance.

A son. A son.

Oddly enough, the first thought that makes it past his shell shocked state is that Padme had been right.

Motherly intuition. . . And I had been so sure it was going to be a girl. he thinks, rather joyfully. Guess you were right. You were right.

You were right.

The next thoughts that worm their way past him are of a more confused variety. He had been so sure Padme had died--no, he knows Padme is dead. He can feel it (it’ll never stop hurting). But the child had somehow survived? How? Palpatine would have never let the child live; he would have seen Luke as too much of a threat. And Padme had died just days after Palpatine had started puppeting him.

So she had died in childbirth, then? Just like in his dreams?

And she must have kept Luke a secret. Protecting her family till her very last breath.

Her bravery had been passed down to their son, it seemed. (He had clung to the idea of Princess Leia carrying on Padme’s legacy somehow, but it seems that had been unnecessary. She had Luke, they had Luke, their son, their actual son, to carry on her legacy, to keep bits and pieces of Padme alive in a universe that would be so lacking without them. He wonders if perhaps Luke and the Princess know each other, in the rebellion. He imagines they’d be good friends)

Facing Vader. . .

Or maybe Luke just sported Anakin’s own reckless streak.

He wonders, vaguely, if Obi-wan had known before he died. Obi-wan had certainly known about him and Padme. Maybe he had known about Luke as well? Maybe he had even been the one to teach Luke, the reason Luke had been able to hold off Vader as long as he did.

On second thought, he realizes how cuttingly painful that would have been for Obi-wan to go through. The son of his dead close friend and other close friend turned supposedly-mass-murdering traitor?  That. . . would have hurt. As much as he wishes the two could have met, he also hopes Obi-wan was spared from such pain.

His son. His son.

And twice the pilot he ever was already, it seemed.

“You know,” he had once said to Padme, “some would say my piloting skills are dashing.”

His internal Obi-wan voice and Padme’s own response had been eerily in sync for once, replying, “Anyone who’s ever gotten in a ship before with you would know otherwise.”

Ha. Ha! Take that, “Emperor”. he thinks loudly at those threads of Palpatine’s presence, as maturely as he usually does, My son blew up your Death Star. My son. My son blew up your Death Star. Ha!

He doesn’t deserve to be proud of Luke, he knows it, but he’s proud anyways. So ridiculously proud.

And he was brave. So brave. To take on Vader and not blink an eye? To lose a hand (and, oh, that just got so much worse), and push himself off an air shaft without blinking? To survive that fall?

That’s a Skywalker move if anything.

To take on Vader. . .

Oh. Oh. Oh.

“You murdered my father.”

“No, that’s impossible!”

Oh.

So Luke had also. . . been under the impression that Vader and Anakin Skywalker. . were two entirely separate entities (he had thought Vader had murdered Anakin? Well, he supposes that’s true, from a certain point of view.).

Vader hadn’t been taunting him, like Anakin had originally assumed.

Vader had told him the truth.

Well. Force damn it.

I’m sorry, Luke.

To whatever force-damned twisted powers were controlling him, he thinks, You couldn’t have at least name dropped his mother into the conversation? He should know he has at least one parent he can be proud of.

That. . . that must have been painful for him.

The wild, uninhibited joyfulness that had overtaken him ebbs away, bit by bit. He’s still happy, happier than he’s been in a long time, and in complete and utter awe (of his son. His son), but reality is slowly setting back in .

Luke--his son-- had just faced down Vader. Which meant Palpatine inevitably knew about him by now, if he hadn’t before.

He was a target. For Palpatine.

Suddenly Anakin’s horrified beyond belief. An involuntary shudder overtakes him, almost reaches Vader. He cannot allow Palpatine to get his hands on Luke. Never.

Look what Palpatine had done to Anakin. What despicable things did he have in mind for Luke, given the chance?

Would he bury Luke, too? Suffocate him until he had none of his personality left? No control over his own body? Would he cripple Luke and murder his loved ones until he had no one left?

Turn him into his slave?

No. Never. Never. Luke was born free, and he’ll stay that way. Anakin will make sure of it.

Palpatine’s presence has been growing stronger, in the back of his mind. Either it’s a precaution due to the discovery of Luke, or (more likely) he’s been spending more time in closer proximity to Palpatine recently (that’s worrying) .

He hopes Luke will do the smart thing and stay away.

*****

Luke’s a Skywalker.

And it shows.

Why did he have to inherit my recklessness and sheer stupidity, Padme? he thinks half-hysterically, hyper aware of Palpatine’s suffocating nearby presence. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he hears his mother’s tinkling laughter. He has a newfound appreciation for how difficult it must have been to deal with a child as reckless as him, the sheer terror she must have felt when he threw himself into life-threatening situations. What is he doing here? Why is he here? What is he doing?

Is he out of his mind?

Despite his overwhelming terror for Luke, his son’s (his son!) presence can’t help but be reassuring, unfailingly bright and steady and pulsing at the edge of his awareness. It’s a powerful, powerful presence; he can finally understand why Obi-wan so often complained about Anakin’s own presence being so loud. His son seems to have inherited it.

The presence also feels incredibly close; could Luke be right next to him, right now?

Oh, please no. The last time Luke had been in close proximity to Vader had. . . not gone well. Oh, force, please let Luke keep his remaining limbs.

Palpatine’s presence is growing heavier and heavier in his mind when he begins to hear the echoes.

I know there is good in you. The Emperor hasn’t driven it from you fully.

That’s Luke, he realizes resignedly. Luke’s next to him, to Vader, because of course he is. Of course he doesn’t think about the danger, about what Palpatine would give to get his hands on him, about what Palpatine would do to him, given the chance. Of course Luke’s going on a fool crusade to try and reach Vader’s conscience, not realizing that he has none. Vader’s not real! he wishes he could shout. He’s a puppet, he’s a parasite, there’s no ‘good’ in him, there’s nothing in him to begin with! Just the Emperor’s shadowy powers strung together with chains.

He starts trying to shove his way out, now, (and couldn’t Luke have tried this damnable crusade when Vader was further away from Palpatine, doesn't he know how much more difficult it is to break free when Palpatine’s so close), and the darkness around him convulses and writhes, wrapping around him and trying to pull him under.  

Come with me.

You don’t know, he thinks, wishing Luke could hear him, You don’t know his powers, you have no idea what he’s capable of--get out of here while you still can, before he forces you to call him your master too, before he forces you to obey his every command--

I will not turn. . . and you’ll be forced to kill me.

The world around him coalesces into chains and jagged edges, digging into the cracks of what’s left of his mind. He can see it now, ending this way. Him forced to kill his own son, Palpatine deriving his twisted satisfaction from watching Anakin break completely and utterly. Or, worse, Palpatine twisting Luke’s mind until there’s nothing of him left, then forcing one of them to kill the other.

You won’t do this. I feel the conflict within you.

You feel me, not conflict in Vader. Me! he again tries to shout, struggling against the increasing constraints and heavy pressure of Palpatine in his mind. And if I couldn’t escape to stop Obi-wan’s fate, or Ahsoka’s, or Padme’s, why would you believe I could do it for you? It’s too late for me, go, go--

My father is truly dead.

Yes, he thinks with relief, yes, you finally understand, now run, escape while you still can, but Luke’s presence isn’t dimming, or vanishing, it’s remaining constant and steady while Palpatine’s only grows. Luke’s still there. He’s not leaving. Which means that they’re heading towards Palpatine after all.

Welcome, young Skywalker, he hears, in the drawling tone of the Chancellor’s voice (no, no, the Sith Lord, Sidious. The Emperor, Palpatine.) and he blanks out in sheer terror. The voice brings back with it flashes of things both horrible and wonderful, of better times and of the reminder that all along, Palpatine had been manipulating him, playing him, grooming him to become the perfect puppet--

Vader twitches.

He’s barely pulled himself back together when he hears the harsh, grating voice speak again.

It is unavoidable. It is your destiny. You, like your father, are now mine!

No, he thinks desperately, bile rising in the back of where his throat would be, if he could still feel it, no, he’s not yours, he’ll never be yours, he doesn’t belong to anybody, I don’t belong to you!

He’s shoving and tearing at the edges of his mind, trying to find a way out, he has to help Luke somehow, force damn it, he can’t let this happen--

The hum of lightsabers echoes around him as he tries to claw his way out. His surroundings are an endless maze, then a crushing tide, then the thousands of chains of the slaves of Tatooine. A dirt-filled grave one second, the haze and fog of endless blaster fire the next, then he’s dragging his way towards a trickle of light shining through the cracks above an endless system of caverns. The sound of the sabers grows deafening, or maybe it’s just his fear of where they’ll hit next that has them feeling so loud. The echoes grow louder too, and now he’s seeing flashes to accompany them.

I will not fight you, father, Luke says, standing proud and tall at the edge of his vision. An exchange of blows, then he’s performed a flip reminiscent of Anakin’s own fighting style, back in the Clone Wars, landing neatly on a catwalk overhead.

The flash dissipates as a low buzz of anger from Palpatine floods into his awareness, but the echoes continue.

I can feel the good in you, the conflict.

Not this again, Luke, he’d groan if he could, You’re putting far too much faith in me, you know.

You couldn’t bring yourself to kill me before, and I don’t believe you’ll destroy me now.

Why is he taunting him? Anakin thinks desperately at an imaginary Obi-wan in his head, who would sigh and mouth ‘karma’ if he was real. Is he out of his mind?

He continues pushing forward, catching another flash of Luke ducking numbly out of the way of an attack and disappearing from sight. Well, he’s certainly gotten better.

I will not fight you.

Vader must have responded with an exceptionally cruel taunt here, because there’s a sudden drastic change in Luke’s emotions. A faint worry shifts to frenzied anger and terror, so strong that Anakin actually catches snippets of thoughts.

Sister?

He. . . what?

What?

What?

A . . . sister? Luke has a sister?

“Leia,” says Padme, somewhere far away, “it’s a beautiful name for a girl. It’s Tatooinian?”

“Yes,” he says, slowly, imagining a clever, sharp-tongued girl with Padme’s hair and eyes,  “probably about the only beautiful thing Tatooine can call its own. It means fierce.”

“If we ever have a daughter, that’s exactly what I’d want her to be. Fierce and mighty like her father. But,” she says, grinning mischievously once more, “it’s going to be a boy.”

We. . . were both right, Padme, he thinks, in deep shock for the second time this year, There were two.

He suddenly knows, inexplicably, deep in his bones, that Leia Organa, Princess of Alderaan, General of the Rebellion, is his daughter.

Oh. That makes so much sense.

There’s a sharp, sudden pain around the area his wrist would be, but he can barely acknowledge it, so lost in his haze.

Leia, Leia, Leia. She’s our daughter, she’s our daughter, Padme, she’s our daughter. . . He’s mentally reviewing all he knows about Leia (admittedly not much, not enough, he should know so much more), going back over the memories of their meeting (so she is carrying on your legacy after all, Padme, your brilliance lives on in her), comparing all the bits and pieces of Leia to the bits and pieces he’s learned about Luke, to all he knows about Padme, even, a little, to what he knows of himself.

She does have your hair and eyes, and your sharp tongue, and your boundless drive to hold the galaxy together by the skin of your teeth. . . she has my temper, though, I think. And--oh, she’s a General, isn’t she? And that attack on the Death Star. . . that was her plan, wasn’t it? That--that definitely seems like something I would do.

Honestly, Anakin, his internal Obi-wan voice starts again, with a fond exasperation, wasn’t two Skywalkers in the galaxy bad enough? Now there are three of you, and all three have inherited your penchant for recklessness. The galaxy won’t survive this.

He wonders if Obi-wan knew about Leia. He doesn’t know whether he’d want him to. (knowing about Luke would have been painful enough--add in Leia, who wears Padme’s face? It would have been heartbreaking).

Luke and Leia. . . so they knew they were twins, then. Had it been kept secret from them, too? Had Bail and Breha known when they adopted Leia--

His train of thoughts is interrupted by the sound of pained screams.

Luke’s screams.

No, no, no, Luke! he wrenches himself back to awareness, trying hard to break free, push, push, push--

Only now, at the end, do you understand.

Luke is at the foot of the stairs, writhing in pain as Palpatine’s lightning courses through him, each of his screams shrill and shuddering and a dagger through Anakin’s heart. Vader’s standing next to the Emperor, and--oh. Look at that. He’s lost another hand. This is getting ridiculous, honestly. What is it with Skywalkers and losing limbs? Palpatine is cackling as the lightning increases, but Anakin can feel the rage underneath--whatever Luke had said or done had considerably derailed Palpatine’s plans.

You have paid the price for your lack of vision, Palpatine says, furiously increasing the intensity of the lightning. Luke’s screams are hoarse and raspy; he’s just barely keeping from falling down the shaft in the room’s center.

Help me, father, he mouths, and Anakin continues his desperate crusade against Palpatine’s control, please, help me--

He fights, he fights, he fights, and it hurts so much more than he could have imagined to try and break free with Palpatine right next to him--he’s buried, again and again, but scrabbles his way back out, Luke’s presence beside him acting as the anchor he never had before--

It’s as if a veil has lifted. He’s done it, he’s broken free, he’s broken free.

He rushes forward, as quickly as he can, fighting a dual battle against Palpatine’s presence trying to drag him back under and against the constraints of his own body (his robotic limbs haven’t gotten any more maneuverable, and now he’s lacking a hand on top of that). He doesn’t have time to pull out a lightsaber, to try and access the force after so many years, to pull off any maneuver well-planned or strategic, he has only seconds and he has to act, now--

He grabs Palpatine from behind, hefting him over his head as the force lightning is redirected into his own body. It’s pain, pain, pain, every step is pain--

He blacks out.

When Anakin comes back to himself, Palpatine is sailing down the abyss (there’s an explosion as he hits the bottom), he’s collapsing at the edge of the shaft, and every molecule in what’s left of his husk of a body feels like it’s on fire, the tremors from the electricity still running through him (he always forgets how much being electrocuted hurts). He can barely feel Luke dragging him away from the edge; he’s too caught up in his physical pain and the absolutely incredible rush of being free, he’s free, he’s free--

Palpatine is dead.

He’s dead.

The Empire is finished.

Anakin is free.

He lets out a euphoric laugh, weak and rasping but thrilled to the bone all the same. It comes out as a burst of static through his respirator, and he feels Luke’s concern. His connection to the force hasn’t been so uninhibited, so unfiltered in years--he feels alive even as he feels his life slipping away with every shudder of his life support suit slowly shutting down.

Palpatine’s presence, for the first time in decades, is gone. He has control over his own body again, over his mind, over his mouth and his words--

“Luke,” he says, the words flowing from his mouth like honey even as they come out as feeble gasps through the vocoder, “help me take off this mask,”

Luke looks shocked at his words (he can look at Luke, his son, his son, without having to spend all of his energy fighting for fragile glimpses), and so, so exhausted from the ordeal (he’s alive, he’s alive, Luke’s alive, and free, and will never have to call anyone, least of all Palpatine, his master) he just went through. It doesn’t stop Luke’s mouth from being set in a thin, determined line, even as his frame shakes. “But. . . you’ll die.”

Anakin huffs another weak laugh. He’ll die anyways; he can feel it. The life is draining from him breath by excruciating breath. But, at the very least, he’ll be able to die as free as he possibly can (he’s free, he’s free). He says as much to Luke, who hesitates for a long moment before reluctantly complying with his request.

The mask lifts.

(he’s free)

He’s looking at the world with his own eyes for the first time in over twenty years (without the red tinge of his mask there are so many colors, even in the unending Imperial gray of whatever shuttle they’re in). He’s looking into the face of his son with his own eyes for the first time (Luke has Anakin’s eyes and Padme’s smile, but his nose and jaw are all Shmi’s). With the respirator gone, each one his breaths are shallow gasps sending sharp spikes of pain through his chest. He can still feel the life support shutting down, quicker now that the mask is off, until he can’t move at all.

He’s never been in more pain.

He’s never been happier.

His vision won’t quite focus but he manages to turn to Luke anyways, trying for a smile that ends up rather watery. “Now, go, my son. . .” (his son, his son) “Leave me.”

He knows he’ll die here, alone, but he’ll be alright. He’s free of Palpatine’s chains for good, able to think and feel and look and hear for the first time in decades. These are some of his most joyful moments. He’ll be alright.

But Luke. . . Luke should go. Anakin’s getting that discordant feeling he gets under his skin whenever something’s about to blow; this station won’t be safe for long. And Luke shouldn’t have to witness him die, after all the pain he’s put Luke through. He should go.

He’s not leaving.

His mouth is moving, his face desperate and distressed--Anakin, with a tremendous effort, manages to focus on his voice. He isn’t even looking Luke in the eyes, anymore. He tries to lift them but finds that he can’t (he’s so tired). “I can’t leave you here.” Luke is saying, and Anakin wants to laugh, again, but he can’t anymore, “I’ve got to save you.”

Save him?

Save him?

Oh, Luke.

How can he not see it?

“You already have,” he says, fighting to drag out of each of his words. You already did save me, you saved me, you saved the galaxy--I’m free, the galaxy is free, you saved us-- “You were right about me.” Luke had been right, all along. There really had been enough of him in there to break free. He had thought the only way for it to end would have been with Palpatine still holding the strings, one or both of them dead, but Luke had been right. He had been able to break free. Luke had helped him break free.

Obi-wan laughs, somewhere far away. Anakin Skywalker, admitting someone else was right?

 “Tell your sister--” Oh, Leia, “you were right.”

You were right.

He’ll never get to speak to Leia as himself, but it’s alright. Luke is there, Luke will get to be with her for the rest of his life, he can tell her for him. He hopes she knows, deep in her bones, that all her parents love her.

Luke’s saying something again (Father, he thinks he hears), but focusing is. . . difficult. He tries to project his love, his joy, his pride, towards him now. Maybe he’s successful. The world around him fades to a blur of colors and buzz of noise.

Anakin’s free (free), his children are free, the galaxy is free.

He’s free.

He dies free.

* * * * *

“Hello, Anakin. I’ve missed you.”

[evabellasworld]

By the Stream

March Madness Challenge for @starwarsfandomfests

What happened, what’s wrong?

You’re sitting alone by the stream

The green grass is sprouting up

And the water splashes with the spring wind

I’m sure there was a promise

That even if you go, you won’t be gone forever

But every day you come to the stream

What are you thinking about?

Even if you go, you won’t be gone forever

Is that asking me not to forget you?

——————————————————————————————

Summary: Obi-Wan and Vanya were sitting beside the stream, not knowing what will become of the long-standing friendship that they built together.

——————————————————————————————

AO3 Link

Staring at the crystal-clear stream in front of her, Vanya was seated on a large rock, with stalks of yellow-orange daisies in her hands, with a smile on her face. Her surroundings were filled with wildflowers and polka-dotted mushrooms grown across the emerald field, along with the refreshing breeze in the air. The sun was shining on the blue sky as the puffy cloud above her glided, giving a sense of serenity inside her.

For months, the battles across the Outer Rims were bloodthirsty. Many of her troops were sacrificed in the battlefield as a price to pay for the Republic's victory. The fields that she was admiring were once soaked in blood and rotting corpses that painted across the bare valleys.

Trenches were dug deep and barbed wires were set up, marking each territory for both the Republic and the Separatists forces. Anyone who trespasses was either shot on sight or disappeared, never to be seen again. Vanya recalled assigning 35 clone troopers to gather intel from their enemies and so far, only 5 had survived.

Her heart aches as she laid on her bunk every single night, wondering whether the rest of her soldiers were still out there. It would be easier to think that the remaining 28 men and women were all dead, probably buried somewhere in the area. On the other hand, Vanya could not help but think that maybe, just maybe, they would return home to their brother’s and sister’s embrace.

Why did I even bother fighting this war in the first place? she thought, sniffing through the sweet scent of the flower. It’s not like we were protecting innocent people of the Republic in the first place.

She glanced at the stream again, only to notice the fishes that were swimming along together. For three years, she had been fighting a war that doesn’t seem to end anytime soon. Though her friends informed her that the Separatist were losing their grip on the Outer Rim, Vanya cannot be too sure about their statement.

In truth, nobody, including herself, had any idea when the Clone Wars would end. She was sure that the war would be over in a few months, but that few months became a year, before it turned into three excruciating years. If another year has passed, then she would be a forty-year-old woman, along with her longtime friends, Cinta Kaarim and Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Her former apprentice, on the other hand, would be a fourteen-year-old girl, the same age that Ahsoka became a commander of the 501st Legion. How time flies so fast, she laughed to herself. Just yesterday, Lira was the little girl who was always asking a lot of questions and talking endlessly and now, she’s blossoming into a teenager and soon, she’ll grow into a strong and brave woman.

The thought of her Padawan growing up made her shiver, realising the uncertain future for her and her twin sister, Eva. Will the girls have to grow up to finish the war for us? Vanya bit her fingernails. Will they survive, or will they die young?

That was the question that bounced around her head the moment they were assigned as Jedi Generals for the 101st Battalion, much to both her and Obi-Wan’s distress. As she watches an Eden green butterfly land on top of the flower, her lips curve downwards when it flees in fright, prompting her to turn around and figure out what startled the fragile creature.

Rather, she found Obi-Wan pacing towards her the entire time, making her cross her arms and gave him an icy glare. “You know, your tactics of scaring other people is starting to bore me,” Vanya remarked, as he let out an amusing chuckle.

“Well, in that case, I’ll have to find another way to grab your attention,” he teased, as he sat beside her and grinned, hoping to crack his stone-faced friend. “Besides, you seem to always be in your head all the time. Should I be worried or should I stay out of your internal conflicts?”

“What do you want?” she breathed, her lips stiffened.

“Well, you’ve been sitting alone by the stream,” he answered, his voice laced with concern. “What’s happened? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing really,” Vanya shook her head. “It’s just the thought of us not seeing each other again just pains me too much.”

“But even if you go, you won’t be gone forever,” Obi-Wan assured, placing his hands on her shoulder. “Besides, we promised that we would always have each other’s back, no matter what.”

“But what if I didn’t make it alive?” she pined. “The Outer Rim is currently in siege and right now, I can’t even guarantee if I’m able to make it back to the Jedi Temple.”

“Vanya, don’t say that. You will come back to the Temple once everything is over, and you will see Lira and Eva again, I promise.”

“How can you even be optimistic right now, when you’ve been seeing your own men die under your command? You’ve even lost Satine on Mandalore, and you lose sleep worrying about Anakin and Eva’s strained relationship with each other.”

Obi-Wan bobbed his head, his eyebrows drooped. “You’re right. It’s difficult to think positively, especially when both your apprentices are fighting with each other too frequently. It’s hard when Eva kept crying on how Anakin was saying nasty things to her and how he felt unfair when I called him out on his behaviour. But what can I do? Eva has been depressed for years, and I have to stay strong just for her sake. I can’t afford to break down in front of her, since she’s already been through a lot.”

“I’m sorry, Obi-Wan,” Vanya apologised profusely, her head hung low. “I didn’t mean to provoke you like that.”

“No, Vanya, there’s nothing to apologise for,” he let out a weak smile. “It’s just that I’ve been keeping to myself for too long, and I thought that it would be better if I just let it all out, you know.”

She nodded as she squeezed her nose and wiped her hands on her dress, shifting her focus to the gentle stream. “So, how’s Anakin?”

“The usual,” shrugged Obi-Wan. “You know, flying recklessly, almost getting himself for a billion times, yeah, those are the things that I have to deal with for more than ten years.”

“That bad, eh?” her nose crinkled.

“Well, he had a rough upbringing when he was around Eva’s age. He was enslaved until my master, Eva’s father, rescued him and made me his master as his death wish. Then, he had to watch his own mother die a decade later, and even till today, he blamed himself for not being able to save her from those Tusken Raiders.”

“That was sad,” Vanya sympathised. “But that doesn’t excuse him for hurting other people’s feelings, especially Eva. The girl’s only thirteen, and she’s already in a fragile state of mind.”

“That is true,” he acknowledged. “Ever since Ahsoka left, Anakin is back to his destructive behaviour. His possessiveness towards Padmé, his anger issues, says it all. I’ve tried talking to him, but you know him. He’s as stubborn as a mule.”

“The apple doesn’t seem to fall far from the tree,” she commented. “You were just as stubborn as him when you were still an apprentice to Master Qui-Gon Jinn.”

He snorted, before clearing his throat. “I could say the same for you and Master Plo Koon. You always insisted on flying, even if it was too dangerous.”

“Yup, and now, the cycle repeats with Lira. I have to admit, as jumpy as Lira is, she is one hell of a pilot.”

“It’s like you said, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” Obi-Wan repeated her words. “Master Plo was a pilot, you are a pilot, and now, Lira is following your footsteps into becoming a star pilot like the both of you.”

“And Anakin and Eva also have your piloting skills, though you hated flying so much.”

“Yeah, I had a bad experience with them,” he rubbed behind his neck, plucking a small, white daisy beside him. “You know the incident on Pijal. Even to this day, it still haunts me in my dreams.”

“I know, and I’m sorry that you had to go through that, really. No child should experience these kinds of horrors.”

“And we let a fourteen-year-old and two 10-year-olds fight in a barbaric war,” he exhaled. “I just hope that this war will end sooner. I miss the days when the only thing we had to worry about was maintaining peace in the Galactic Republic.”

She groaned in frustration. “God, I hate politics so much. It’s just too many red strings that prevent us from taking further action, you know. I don’t even know why the Jedi Council had to get involved in the first place.”

“I see where you’re coming from. Too many politicians, with a few exceptions, are corrupted. They would rather fill their pockets with credits than caring about the citizens instead. Honestly, I have a feeling that the Republic will crumble eventually. It’s too fragile to maintain its pillars.”

“True,” she relented as she got up from her seat, holding a bouquet with both hands. “Well, I should get going. The Council assigned me to another battle and I have to depart as soon as possible.”

He nodded and bowed. “Is that asking me not to forget you?”

“I guess so,” Vanya lifted her shoulders. “But like you said, I won’t be gone forever, and so will you.”

“Goodbye Vanya,” Obi-Wan gave his last wave at her. “I hope we’ll see each other again once the war is over.”

“I will, Obi-Wan,” she promised, before leaving him by the stream, where the grasses were sprouting up and the water splashes with the spring wind. Little did they know, this was their last conversation with each other before the end of the era.

[twilightofthe]

Which other tcw Arc`s do u think are not in character (like the Clovis arc)?

Oh dear I think I’ve genuinely made y’all think I hate TCW or something.

Nah, look, it’s. The Clone Wars is one of my favorite cartoons of all time and always will be. The way it expanded the SW universe and the Prequel universe in particular was astounding and its complex ideas and mythology and worldbuilding and additions to the established story were wonderful. I adored the new characters it introduced me to.

MOST of the movie characters? I LOVED what they did with them. They didn’t really alter Obi Wan’s character that much at all besides making him way more of a hoe lol. I’d say my only OOC critique of him in the show is that they lean on him too much as the only moral compass character which means his characterization and motives have a tendency to slide around a bit for different episodes that need him to behave differently to do the “right thing” in that particular circumstance, if that makes sense. There IS one particular arc where I feel Obi Wan acts out of character quite often, but I’m saying right now that that leads into an argument I don’t want to get into so I’m not saying 😇

(Ik I ranted a bit about Pads in the last post too but overall I think she’s pretty alright in TCW too! I like her solo plots and her ones bonding with other characters!!!!)

But anon’s question was if I think any other arcs are OOC like the Clovis arc, I’m gonna say yes solely in regards to Anakin being OPC as for any other characters it’s not that big an issue save for the one unnamed Obi Wan offender. While I think Anakin has some individual moments where he’s OOC peppered throughout the series, I’d say the only two arcs that are particularly guilty offenders besides the Clovis arcs are the Deception arc and the Kadavo arc.

Now, the dichotomy of these two arcs is funny to me because the Kadavo arc is unfortunately my least favorite arc in the entire series while— and now THIS is an unpopular opinion —the Deception arc is one of my favorite arcs in the series because I am so SO here for the Obi Wqn character study it is; I think he’s totally in character for it and I love watching what they do with him in it.

However, where they go right with Obi Wan in this, they drop the ball with Anakin unfortunately. Like Anakin’s plot throughout the arc is.... gah, ok so. Ani boy vowing to hunt down and murder the guy who killed Obi Wan in vengeful rage is in character for him, it is, I get that. But the fact that that Vengeful Silent Broodish Rage is literally the only reaction we get out of Anakin the entire fucking arc???? Nah. NAH.

I’m sorry, but if there is ONE universal constant we’ve seen in the movies, it’s that Anakin Skywalker loses his entire shit if he’s faced with losing someone he cares about. We saw it with Shmi. We saw it with Padmé. We saw how emotional he got before he went into Murder Mode, he was kind of a wreck, he CRIED.

Now, TCW has a number one rule and it is that Anakin Cannot show any “girly” emotions whatsoever, ESPECIALLY none of the Dreaded Tears. So they just skip right over the messy emotions part and just have him be silent and cold and Angry. Full of brutish violent anger. Acceptable emotions for an Alpha Male to have. When OBI WAN died.

And I’m sorry, if your logic for Anakin’s muted reaction is just that he doesn’t care about Obi Wan as much as he does about Shmi or Padmé, I gotta STRONGLY disagree. It doesn’t matter if their relationship is viewed through a romantic lease or not, I will die on the hill that they were one of The Most important people in each other’s whole life and their relationship defines the whole prequel trilogy.

So yeah, no, Deception bugs me because they don’t let Anakin mourn Obi Wan at all, only get angry, like we don’t even get a freaking reaction to his death, we just get him yelling his name when Obes falls and his kinda confused-distressed face when he finds Ahsoka crying over the body (and SHE is allowed to cry..........) and then just a flash forward to his brooding sulk at the funeral.

Now, I’m not asking for much, I’m really not. I don’t need him uncontrollably sobbing at the funeral or anything (they already have Satine for that and no I will NOT rant right now about how taking a female character and bringing her back once briefly just to be a man’s Fragile Weeping Widow and then again to be his Helpless Damsel who you then fridge to make him sad is Not Good Writing I’m already writing a whole-ass spitefic about that 🙃🙃🙃)

But ughhhh they could have let Anakin have just a BIT of softness, of upset for losing his fucking best friend. Like, just save Ahsoka the additional teenage trauma and have Obi Wan die in Anakin’s arms instead, hype up them Qui Gon parallels! Give him just like a single fucking tear, just ONE for a moment! Like what y’all did with Rex, remember? He’s still Manly(TM) for crying!!!!!! Maybe make Satine not be the only overly emotional person at the funeral and then afterwards have her and Anakin have a convo where he accuses her of not caring and we can see how she, unlike Anakin, knows how to let those she loves go.

So gah yeah Deception is OOC for Anakin because he doesn’t get to show emotions, and Kadavo...... ugh, so many other people have written very detailed pieces that summarize basically my exact opinions on why I don’t like the arc, but I think a huge part of that is how they downplay Anakin’s trauma as a past slave in favor of, once again, brash, cocky toxic masculinity.

Anakin the former slave would NOT be so easily comfortable and all jokey jokey with letting the sixteen year old in his care pretend to be sold into slavery and he definitely wouldn’t be cracking jokes about how he makes a better slave master. Like I mentioned before, he would Not be able to keep his cool around the slaver Queen so easily. He wouldn’t. This isn’t even just a question of whether his newfound flirting abilities are valid because I actually think they are so long as he doesn’t feel attraction himself, but the pure rage at her being a slaver who sees him as a sex slave would at Most mean he’d be able to barely be restricting himself from murdering her. He would not be that good at it with her specifically

And tbh I do think this arc has several issues so I don’t even quite know how I’d fix it. I know how I’d fix certain issues, but def not all of them.

So yeah agh, Anakin OOC in Deception and Kadavo, other characters are usually p fine. Clone Wars Good Show!!!!

[maulsscream]

(gif by lilkisara)

REUNIONS Maul x Ahsoka

I said I’d write it and I did! The last episode was absolutely amazing and put a lot of things in perspective. I love Maul and Ahsoka with all my heart. Their motives and final show down was perfect for the ending. Yes I wanted a team up but this creates a whole other layer of perfection added to their characters.

Short and sweet :3c

SUMMARY Rated G - 1,425 words

They meet again on Malachor by chance or fate, neither of them really knows. It’s been almost two decades and still, the ache is there.

                                   -------------------------

“You.”

Ahsoka was filled with anger. Had she not had Kanan and Ezra at her side, she wouldn’t have held herself back from killing the former Sith there and then. As she should have all those years ago when he had stolen the shuttle. By all accounts, he should have been dead. All those years later, Kenobi’s words echoed in her head. He was difficult to kill.

“You survived?”

Maul’s distorted smile grew wider as he turned around to face her, the Sith Inquisitors disappearing further into the temple. She had beaten all the odds that were stacked against her. Truth be told, Maul had assumed he had been the sole survivor of Order 66. It made sense really. He didn’t care enough to stick around to watch a ship be swallowed by a moon’s gravity. To his knowledge, she had been dead before they even reached the atmosphere.

When Maul had climbed up into the shuttle and escaped into hyperspace, he held no remorse towards his actions. After all, she had asked for chaos. His kind of chaos. She had asked him to play his role and Maul had taken his part to heart. He had followed orders. Good soldiers follow orders, do they not? Indirectly, she had sent him to march down that hallway and meet death. She hadn’t shown him any mercy or any kindness, so why should he have?

With a shout of rage, Ahsoka charged him like a fury, her lightsabers trailing behind her. She raised them up and they clashed in a blinding shock of light. It forced Maul to back up in a defensive stance, his leg extending back for balance. She pressed on, making him take a few more steps backwards. She slammed her blades into his double-edged lightsaber again with enough force that he stumbled backwards, taken by surprised at the speed and force of her action. His back bumped against the wall and he quickly brought the weapon up again to protect himself from another onslaught. She wanted to kill him, it was clear enough by the blazing look in her eyes and the way she wasn’t holding back. He had seen that grimace on her face once before. Ahsoka had been pushed beyond her breaking point by the mere sight of him.

The sheer force of her strikes spoke of all the resentment, ache and loss she had suffered over the years. Fair play. But Maul had suffered as well. The zabrak snarled, holding off the pressure of their weapons so that it wouldn’t cut his head clean off of his shoulders. He had suffered partial loss before but he doubted this was one he could recover from.

Their lightsabers locked with each other. It forced Maul in an awkward position, the buzzing of the weapons ringing in his ears and the white heat lapping at his throat. In the light of their blades, he could see tears forming in her eyes. She hadn’t been a Jedi for a long, long time. She was letting her emotions go through her freely, using them to fuel her. To Maul, it only made her more human.

“You should have died on that ship.”

Ahsoka said lowly through gritted teeth so that only he would here. Something about Maul made her ashamed. She hadn’t meant to snap in front of her companions. Thankfully, Kanan understood. After all, he had lived through the Clone Wars if only for a brief period. He had seen his master die in front of him just so that he might have a chance to escape. If there was bad blood between the former Sith and former Jedi, it would be settled here. No matter the outcome.

“So should you have, Lady Tano.”

Maul replied aggressively, using his robotic foot to kick her in the stomach and give himself more room to manoeuvre. When Ahsoka had raced him for the only way off the sinking Destroyer, he had finally seen her true colours. War had changed her. It had changed both of them, and yet her opinion of him hadn’t changed. He was a selfish, stubborn, and cruel half-droid scum.

“Well it wasn’t for a lack of trying on your part, was it? I gave you your freedom!”, Ahsoka shouted back, her chest heaving heavily and her voice breaking with emotion.

They stood apart in silence, weapons lowered at their sides while they sized each other up. Freedom? Surely she didn’t believe those words. Surely she was trying to save face in front of the others. There had been no motives other than her escape as to why she had let him out of his cell. Ahsoka Tano wanted her and her trooper friend to survive and live. If it meant sacrificing someone who she didn’t think deserved her mercy, so be it. Her plans had been to bring him to Coruscant for justice. But with no one left to assess his case, it had been easy for her to make a decision. No matter how wrong she knew it was deep inside. She had thought of Empress Sabine. Qui-gon. Finn Ertay. And all those nameless civilians he had killed. They weren’t just casualties, they were victims. They deserved justice for Maul’s crimes and she would be the hammer that brought it down upon him.

“How noble of you! You’re no different than your masters... Just as self-serving and delusional. What were your words again? I’m not rooting for you?”

She gave another cry as they charged each other and clashed. Their weapons were quickly discarded, flying across the dusty floor of the temple and at the Jedi’s feet. The pair of them tumbled onto the floor, kicking and punching to gain dominance. Maul gained the upper hand, locking her arms behind her back.

“I gave you countless opportunities to save yourself.”, he snarled down.

“You know I would never trust a Sith.”

Her words were seething with hatred. So that’s all he had ever been to her. A Sith. Even after the order had abandoned him, after his master had replaced him over and over, after he had lost his entire family to the Sith, that’s all he would ever add up to. This was how everyone saw him. A Sith. It made Maul’s blood boil, more so than usual. So be it. He would utilise the emotions swirling like a storm inside him just like his master had taught him. He would exact his revenge, as promised.

“You’ve made that quite clearly, padawan.”

Using the Force, Ahsoka shoved Maul off of her, holding him down onto the floor in front of her as she rose to her feet and dusted herself. She was in pain, both physically and emotionally. Seeing Maul only opened old wounds she was certain had healed.

“I’m tired of fighting... especially you.”

She whispered out of breath. Even if her eyes were focused on him, he could tell she was looking past him. The girl he had meet in the tunnels of Mandalore didn’t exist anymore. She had lived through and seen too much to have remained the same, unlike him. Maul took pride in his suffering, used it as both a shield and a weapon. Ahsoka ran away from it.

She had run all her life. From people, from her feelings, from who she’d become. She had lost sense of what it truly meant to be herself. To serve a purpose that wasn’t meddled and sullied by war and men. No more. She was free.

“Trust me, my Lady, so am I...”

There was truth in his voice, although Ahsoka wasn’t sure he had spoken at all. The question remained. If she didn’t want to fight him anymore but also didn’t trust him... why had she let him slip through her fingers? What had happened between the trooper and her? What had become of him? He must have meant a great deal to her.

Maul pulled himself up, one hand holding the structure behind him. He chuckled at the absurdity of his words which cued Ahsoka to do the same. It was an emotionless reaction to their display of force. There would never be trust between them, the mere thought of it was as ridicule as it had been before the Republic even fell.

“I could never trust a Sith.”, Ahsoka repeated.

“It’s a good thing I relinquished that title long ago then.”

In the corner of her eyes, she could see the smirk she had learnt to be wary of. What was he getting to?

[dexi-green]

Rise of Skywalker was good. Rant/Appreciation, spoilers ahead. Super long and rambling. This is all personal opinion, if you disliked it, thats fine. If you disagree, great.

First some quick points, then the longer stuff.

I loved Babu Frik and D-O

We finally got to see the Knights of Ren in action!

Also all those Star Destroyers?? Like those things are gotdamn huge... and that many of them? Actually scary honestly.

LANDO LANDO LANDO! LANDO AND CHEWIE IN THE FALCON!!

WEDGE!!!

CHEWIE GETS HIS MEDAL!!!

Also not gonna lie.. I wanted to see a gungan. Put some respect on Jar Jar. Or confirm the Darth Jar Jar theory you cowards.

We got to see a proper version of Rey’s version of Luke’s Dark Side cave vision (The TLJ one just wasn’t it for me. The mirrors..okay...)

Storm Troopers fly now... Did they steal stuff from some Mandalorians. Mandalorians are like..the only ones ever to have jet packs like that (that I’m aware of). Maybe the Mandalorian show will see some leftover imperials stealing Mandalorian armor, which they will replicate (obviously badly, because there stuff is no beskar).

I was so happy to see the interactions between Leia and Connix, because I just loved to see Billie with her mom <3 I’m so glad they gave her a role and just kept expanding it.

Hux... I love the back and forth between him and General Pryde, (I was hoping Richard E Grant would’ve played Thrawn but alas...) wondering who the mole is, and OF COURSE ITS HUX! Because he just wants to see Kylo lose. We love it.. I’m kinda sad he was taken out so quick, but it was good while it lasted.

How they tried to push Poe into some kind of.. not relationship, but not too subtlety trying to tell the audience, no he’s not gay, in like...just a bad writing way, like okay gosh, he’s straight (Also Poe was a drug runner...). That LGBTQ “representation” was trash, but definitely better than Endgame’s so-called representation.

I also wished we woulda got more (legacy) cameos, especially in the final battle when all the ships arrive. Maybe the Ghost Crew (I think you can see the ship though), or a character from the Mandalorian show (I was hoping for more tie-in’s in general (baby yoda), but The Mandalorian did sorta set up the force healing ability). My foolish soul was hoping for a super old old clone or a super old and scarred up Mace Windu, or just super old Ahsoka, but this film 100% confirmed no going back that they are totally dead with their voices amongst the other dead jedi :/ I can’t have everything and thats alright. I’m just glad they were in there in some capacity.

JJ has said that the thing Finn was going to tell Rey was that he was force sensitive (none of the good ships flew sadly imo) but that is still...amazing to me. I love it so much. Especially with that exchange between him and Han in TFA “We’ll use the force.” “That’s not how the force works.”. Hopefully he got or gets the chance to tell Rey because then she could train him and <3 Also I think that now makes it go back to no non-force sensitive people have used a lightsaber in the films (aside from Grievous). I loved the inclusion of Jannah and the other storm trooper deserters. Not only because of the kinship with Finn, but also... They are on a moon of Endor... So moon of the Endor system inhabitants, with slightly primitive techniques and tools and things come to help in the final battle? I love it. Putting some respeck on the Ewoks (also we see Ewoks?!?! Specifically Wickett <3) (Also I noticed a Fire, Water, Earth theme. The final battle in the prequels was in fire/lava. The final battle in the original trilogy was on the forest moon of endor, and while not the final battle, Kef Bir is the ocean moon of endor)

Palpatine doing what we all knew he was, using bodies to live through. I mean thats why he always had apprentices, just so he could skip over to them when his body got gross and weak, or at the very least work through them. I definitely wanna know more about the whole Snoke operation. We knew it was insane for some rando to be that powerful to be whispering and seducing Ben to the dark side from birth. And the cloning? like please, tell me more. I loved Palpatine’s exclamation of “Return of the Sith!” as an obvious nod to the films Return of the Jedi and Revenge of the Sith, but also the fact Return was going to be Revenge of the Jedi.

I LOVE LOVEDDDD the small scene of Luke training Leia. Yeah the CGI on their faces wasn’t the best but just being able to see it and knowing that he did go forward and train her as well as other students was everything to me. I’ve always wanted Leia’s force abilities to be more acknowledged outside of the comics, so you know I went crazy in the scene from TLJ (for multiple reasons). Leia training Rey?! Rey referring to her (and Luke) as her jedi masters?! we love to see it <3 Rey going back to Tatooine, back to the moisture farm (I could just hear Aunt Beru calling out for Luke (but also him calling for her and uncle owen when they got disintegrated..oop)). Calling herself a Skywalker, AND SEEING LUKE AND LEIA’S FORCE GHOST!! WE LOVE TO SEE IT (but hate it because it’s the end). THE TWIN SUNS AS THE SAGA ENDS WHERE IT BEGAN!!

The voices of the Jedi at the end?!? I cried. I mean there was Anakin, Obi-Wan (both old and young), Qui Gon, Mace Windu, Yoda, and Luke of course, but also Aaayla Secura, Luminara, Adi Gallia, KANAN JARRUS (who is voice by Freddie Prinze Jr. aka the best Fred Scooby Doo could ask for) , AHSOKA TANO!!! Nothing I want more than more Ahsoka <3 I would’ve loved to see them all show up as Force Ghosts at the end ala the ghosts of Harry’s family in Harry Potter Goblet of Fire/Deathly Hallows but I understand why they opted for voices only. Also no Ki-Adi-Mundi because while everyone was saying, “Rey, You can do it! We are with you!” he just woulda been like, “But...what about the droid attack on the wookiees?”

Han!! Han!! When he appeared to Kylo, after Leia pulled him back as much as she could, and Rey healed him and inched him further, and then of course, Han finished the job. Leia asked him to bring him back and he did in the end. The person he seemingly hated the most (maybe thats tied with Luke. I honestly would’ve liked to see some kinda of thing between Luke and Ben, some reconciliation). The famous Solo “I know” which we all know means I love you. like come onnnnn <3 AND Ben and Leia’s bodies becoming one with the force... but Leia only after Ben... like she was holding on, waiting for him <3 This really made me like Ben/Kylo a bit more, obviously the light side Ben more, because Kylo is actual trash imo.

I cried when Chewie cried for Leia. Her death was sad on it’s own, but Chewie just broke me. He had a happy family, then Ben went bad, Han and Leia split, and Luke left, then when he thinks everything is coming back together, He lost Han, then he lost Luke, now Leia? If you actually watch him he just collapses to the ground, throwing his arms, sobbing... AND HAVING TO SEE HIM IN SHACKLES!?!? And not like “oh we gotta trick these guards” but actually captured and shackled, After all the wookiees being captured and enslaved and he how he had to deal with that...come on man....

I cried when Luke pulled his X-wing out of the water. We all saw it submerged in TLJ, waiting for that moment when someone would do it. The fact that he does it, when he couldn’t back when it happened on Dagobah. It shows how much he’s grown, showed him stepping into Yoda’s role even more fully. He never got to leave that island in it, but Rey did. Plus Rey wearing his Rebel helmet like she wore the helmet in TFA?! Honestly... Two “nobodies” from nowhere sand planets who become the hope and saviors of the galaxy (you could include Anakin in that as well, but he just...kinda sparked the hope in Luke and was his savior so...indirectly the hope and savior).

The only thing I didn't like was the Ben and Rey kiss at the end but luckily it wasn't drawn out and he died right after. Cause you really expect me to believe that within the same movie of him pushing her to her limits and making her believe she killed a friend that she gone be like...oh but you still cute tho?  Also while re-watching everything and watching the prequels last month I remembered how Palpatine influenced the midichlorians/force to make Anakin in Shmi (it might not be canonized though, I’m not sure...). Obviously he’s not a biological father but...he is responsible...so that in a way makes him Kylo's grandfather in a sense. Rey is Sheev’s biological granddaughter so...big yikes. To me Kylo/Ben and Rey have a much better dynamic as brother and sister anyway.. I think a brother and sister bond suit them so much better. A rhyme of Luke and Leia, and the forged sibling bond between Obi-Wan and Anakin. It has pieces of both and would have been beautiful for it to play out that way. About Rey pulling her family in Ben Solo back to the light. I mean she even thought of Han, Leia, and Luke as parental figures... but luke and leia kissed so :/  guess just a family thing. 

Running themes in all of star wars is hope, family, and who you are. In this, the prequels were the darkest. They end in a family divided, hope seemingly lost, and giving into the worst parts of yourself. The original trilogy was about finding the hope in the darkest times, becoming more than you think of yourself, and that family can overcome anything together. This trilogy was about clinging onto hope that you can find and making it a beacon for others, becoming more than what you and others think of you, "subverting destiny", and the fact that family isn't blood, not always. Just because someone tells you you're a monster, just because you started to believe it, doesn't mean you are. Once you have hope you hold onto it with everything you have, no matter how many times you fail or slip.

Rey being a Palpatine isn't "the bad guys bloodline living while the good guys die out". It isn't about bloodlines. Sure Kylo and Vader's terrible deeds will live on in infamy, but so will the entire rebellion's. Instead of being like, "oh well by blood I'm a Palpatine so I gotta use that last name" she made a conscious choice to go by Skywalker, because of what the Skywalker family meant to her and the galaxy, so that their deeds live on and not Palpatine. He will become a bad memory, a scar on history, while Skywalker’s, the positive idea of them, will continue to live and spark hope year and years into the future. Her blood isn't tainted and her grandfathers nature isn't hers, if it was she really would be the empress on the sith throne after Palpatine's death. She would've took Kylo's hand and offers before. Its the same with Kylo. He succumbed to what Rey was actively fighting against. Its the idea its harder to be good than bad.

Palpatine's bloodline living on means nothing unless Rey decided to make it mean something. But she didn't. As far as I'm concerned the only thing the bloodline might've impacted is her connection to the force and how strong it was naturally (like Kylo because of Leia (maybe Han..debatable, i like to believe he’s a little force sensitive) and her and Luke's connection to it because of Anakin). Her parents also actively fought against Palpatine as far as we know, Luke and Leia fought against Vader like... To say oh your parent was like this so you are gonna turn out the same? Yikes. Also Finn and the other stormtrooper deserters? Literally brainwashed from such a young age to be killers but they said no? It seems like the theme was you can fight against your destiny or like Yoda said about the future being hard to see because its constantly moving so "destiny" is kinda just a trash idea, be who you are or the person you want to be, not what others tell you.

Also I see some people saying it destroyed Anakin's legacy, and I have to disagree. To the fan's Anakin's legacy was never killing Palpatine. Sure that was the action, but the act was saving Luke. It was coming back from the dark to the light to save his son and in a way, the rest of the galaxy, at least for a time, it was betraying his master. It was the why he did it, not the how. Not only did he save Luke's life, but he fueled Luke to go forward and continue down the path of hope and light as long as he could. Anakin's true legacy lives on in Luke and Leia and the Rebellion. Palpatine's return doesn't diminish Anakin's sacrifice. Because it wasn’t about just destroying Palpatine. Anakin/Vader's thoughts went to Padme and Luke, and the prophecy of bringing balance, he knew he had to do something. When Luke takes off his helmet when Anakin is dying he thinks, “The boy was good, and the boy had come from him–so there must have been good in him, too. He smiled up again at his son, and for the first time, loved him. And for the first time in many long years, loved himself again, as well.” (coming from the novelization of Return). As long as Luke lived, and Luke's legacy lives on, so does Anakin's and so does Anakin’s return to the light. Anakin's legacy and impact, the good and the bad, will continue. Maybe the people of that galaxy won't know of the person named Anakin compared to sith lord Darth Vader, but his impact will always be there.

Yeah they aren’t always the most perfectly written stories with the best effects and yadda yadda, I know there are some missteps and less then stellar things in this films, but they are here to entertain, and I’m entertained. There is probably so much I’m missing, and I really want to go see it again, and can’t wait till it’s out on DVD or streaming services... 

It was a beautiful film that did the best it could to end a saga thats bigger than anything ever, thats been going on for years, something that is unheard of and never been done. I just want to honor the history, the memory, and the work it all took. I just love these films so much. <3 Also, always remembering Carrie, Peter M. and Peter C., Christoper, and Kenny, and all other actors and crew who have passed who lent their time and effort to all of these films and this entire franchise <3 

[shadowsong26x]

EPIX/Rise of Skywalker Reaction Post

So, I got back from seeing EPIX this morning, and I figured I should get all my thoughts down!

Everything spoilery is behind a cut, and this post is also tagged with the spoiler tags I’ve listed here. If you want me to add any additional tags, let me know and I will to this and any future EPIX posts.

Okay, so, before I really get into this, I should mention two relevant contextual things that probably strongly impacted my feelings on this movie.

I’m not super-invested in the sequel trilogy. I love (most of) the characters, I’m not really into the story that’s being told with them.

Given where TLJ left us, I went into the theatre expecting something between A Trainwreck with Some Delightful Moments and A Delightful Trainwreck. Basically, it was going to be a Hot Mess and I knew it, but I was pretty sure there was going to be something to love, even if the film as a whole didn’t delight me (which, honestly, is even where I stand with TLJ, which remains my least favorite film of the series). And, you know what? I got exactly that. A Sometimes-Delightful Trainwreck. I’d say it’s even towards the upper end of that Delightfulness scale.

All right, moving on to actual thoughts. I’m trying to focus on the positive here, mostly because I did overall enjoy this movie, but I also had some Problems with it.

I’m gonna talk about Kylo Ren first, mostly because I want to get this out of the way. I will say that--when I first saw TFA, I thought I could be interested in this character. I thought they were gonna maybe go the burnt-out gifted kid route with him, which would be hella interesting to explore for the child of Heroes like Han and Leia, and the Legacy he had to live up to. Obviously, they didn’t, and while the direction they went is certainly topical, it’s not super engaging, at least to me. I know it is to some people, and far be it from me to harsh anyone’s squee, but he basically doesn’t do anything for me. I personally don’t find him particularly interesting or intimidating.

Basically, I don’t particularly care about Kylo Ren. (I don’t know if I’m quite at the point where, as my roommate puts it, I aggressively Do Not Care, but the Not Caring is definitely a thing.)

Anyway, that disclaimer aside--his arc was okay, I guess? I mean...I think my general feelings on the subject are not that it felt phoned-in, exactly, but that it was mostly there because the writers thought it should be there, rather than it flowing organically from the character(s) involved. It also felt rushed, but that goes back to a problem with the movie as a whole that I will get into later in this post. But, given that, the actual beats that were involved in said arc I thought were effectively done. The bit with Han in the wreckage, in particular, was nice.

As for that Kiss though.

...I mean. I’m actually kind of pleased that the end of the film left the romantic threads dangling? It gave me plenty of OT3 feels (though I felt like, especially in the first third or so, the film was leaning more towards Rey/Poe and Finn/Rose, but there was some later stuff that seemed to hint at the full OT3 with a question mark on where Rose stands.)

But I do have a problem with the fact that the only on-screen kiss between Major Characters was between Rey and Kylo Ren/Ben Solo. That being said, I can backfill/justify it in that...you know how some people headcanon that Luke’s initial crush on Leia was some sort of “There is a Connection Here that I Cannot Name and it’s probably supposed to be Romantic given our ages and genders and presumed lack of other relationship so let’s go with that?” Between something like that and the fact that he just gave up his life for her in a very literal way (side note: the Force has always been New Powers as the Plot Demands; but the healing thing was a) if not actually in a canon novel at least strongly implied and b) ALL OVER fanon so even if I had a problem with Random Force Powers suddenly occurring I wouldn’t have an issue with this one; the Force Diad thing was ~handwave plot device~ sure fine whatever). ...anyway, given all of that, I can backfill it to a way where I don’t hate it (i.e., if he’d lived, I don’t think it would’ve been followed up on very much/they would’ve settled into a non-romantic relationship of some kind, whatever that might’ve been). Except that it’s the only one, which kind of leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

Then again, he did immediately die, so...yeah, I can live with this. I don’t like it, and I don’t think I ever will like it, but I don’t hate it either and it’s not a dealbreaker for me.

Most of the other problems I have with this film come down to structure and pacing. In that, thanks to where TLJ left us, this move had to do so much to bring the story to any kind of cohesive end, and not enough time to do it in. Trying to squeeze too much plot into too small a space.

(I actually had the same problem with ROTS initially--although that was more due to the PT having pacing issues as its Primary Narrative Flaw; TPM was way too slow; AOTC actually had good internal pacing but couldn’t quite make up for it; and then ROTS was as a consequence of that really rushed. Meanwhile, with the ST, I feel like the writers are relying on “it’s all there in the manual” a little too much, so not really...trying as hard, if that makes sense? To make it all connect within the film, I mean, as opposed to depending on people going into other/outside/supplemental material to connect the dots (still not as bad as the Prisoner of Azkaban movie on that front, but it’s still Bad; and, like, all film versions of novels leave some stuff out, just look at the LOTR films; but POA left out a key plot point and that--is a rant for another post. Back to EPIX). It’ll be interesting to see what kind of deleted scenes come out, or if it’ll grow on me in future watchings. Not that it’ll ever become a favorite, I don’t think, but it might improve in my eyes.)

Anyway, basically, a lot of this felt rushed or like...introduced but not really addressed/wrapped up in any kind of satisfactory fashion? Kylo Ren’s arc in particular, as I’ve mentioned before, plus the Threepio stuff felt rushed and non-consequential, and also with Rey’s arc to an extent (it...again, all the beats worked for me/I thought it was fairly effective, but it really needed two movies to pay off as well as it could have). ...I mean, there are more plot threads I could probably mention here, but those are the three that stuck out the most.

Also, this movie needed More Rose :( I LOVE HER and she was barely here!!!!!

Another thing I would’ve liked to see is...okay, I really liked the Overlapping Voices bit, but it would’ve been nice to have more Presence from the ghosts? Like...there’s a bit at the end of season 1 of Sailor Moon where she’s in the Final Battle, the other four have died (or just been left behind, if you’re watching the English dub), and their ghosts show up and place their hands on hers and lend her their strength? A visual cue like that would’ve been great and helped the arc feel more complete. Especially since Palpatine had all of his predecessors/Sith ghosts backing him in a more visible fashion. But, then again, that’s a Personal Taste thing and while it would’ve, IMO, made that moment better, not having it doesn’t make it worse, if that makes sense?

(Also, the credits moved too fast for me to track, but I definitely saw Qui-Gon Jinn listed, though I don’t recall hearing him, and I definitely recognized Anakin/Hayden Christensen and Mace/Samuel L. Jackson and Obi-Wan/Ewan McGreggor (and Alec Guinness I’m pretty sure?) and obvs. Yoda/Frank Oz when actually listening, but I couldn’t identify the other voices--anyone have the full list? Was Ahsoka and/or Kanan and/or Ezra involved, or was it restricted to movie-only Jedi?)

But...yeah. Apart from the Kiss being very ....:/ for me, most of my identifiable problems with the film is stuff like this.

I think the other thing I want to talk about in detail is the Rey Palpatine reveal.

So, up until this movie, I was actually in my corner flying my tiny but determined Rey Kenobi flag, and the more I think about it, the more I like Rey Palpatine for some of the same reasons? Like...I don’t remember everything I’d thought through about Rey Kenobi, but it had to do with the cyclical nature of Star Wars, and bringing it back where it started--and we get that with Rey Palpatine, in a nice arc, healing some of the damage her grandfather did, both to this family and to the galaxy as a whole.

That being said--those of you who know me and my fic projects know I’ve been writing a child (daughter) for Palpatine for quite some time now, and I have no intention of stopping, lol. Am I going to take this/Lavinia’s (presumably) half-brother into account in future projects? ...probably not. But I am looking forward to/hoping we get a novel or something about him and Rey’s mother. Because that is actually a story I’m interested in--why canon!Palpatine chose to have a kid, and how said kid managed to break away and got to this point. [...y’know, I actually think Rey Kenobi’s background/thread of descent would be less interesting to me? Since I subscribe to the idea that a) Korkie Kryze is Obi-Wan’s biological son; and b) Obi-Wan had many Friends With Benefits throughout the galaxy and figuring out exactly which one Rey descends from carries less weight for me.]

...okay, I think that’s all the Detaily Bits I want to get into, so here are some bullet points of things that really stuck out to me, in no particular order:

Bawled like a baby re: everything involving Carrie Fisher. Just...yeah. Miss you Space Mommy.

LANDO! I loved his entrance, I loved him adopting Jannah at the end, I loved all of it.

Chewie’s fake-out death was also actually pretty good/well-handled. I mean. First Boom happens and I’m like DDDDDDD: but then I remember how people reacted to his death in Legends and I’m like would they really do it and then DELIGHT.

HUX. Okay. I never really cared about this dude before, and honestly I still don’t really care about this dude but at the same time, those of you who know me know I have a Thing for double-agents and defectors and I LOVE THIS WHOLE ENTIRE PLOT THREAD. I LOVE THIS SHITHEAD TURNING TRAITOR FOR THE MOST VENAL REASONS AND STILL BEING A BAD GUY/EVIL/AN UNREPENTANT JACKASS. THIS WAS PERFECT.

(Also Finn shooting him in the leg instead of the arm as requested was DELIGHTFUL)

SPEAKING OF DELIGHTFUL gotta love Zombie Skeev Palpatine Unliving His Best Afterlife. Was he as Delightful as he is in ROTS or ROTJ? No. Did I still enjoy every minute of his scenery-chewing nonsense? You bet your ass. So happy, Ian McDiarmid looked like he was having tons of fun and honestly what more could I have asked for?

The whole scene on Ahch-To was just *chef’s kiss.* Use of Yoda’s theme with the rising X-Wing, Luke being snarky and kind and beautiful, him emerging from the fire with the saber...just loved it.

LEIA HAD JEDI TRAINING AND HER OWN LIGHTSABER. BB!MARK HAMILL AND BB!CARRIE FISHER’S FACES.

LEIA TRAINING REY. REY CALLING HER ‘MASTER.’

USING THE BOND TO ARM KYLO REN okay like I said I have Mixed Feelings about the arc as a whole but that moment was SO COOL.

Poe’s ex-girlfriend was pretty great, ngl.

JANNAH AND EX-STORMTROOPERS YESSSSSSSS

HINTS OF/SHREDS OF EVIDENCE FOR FORCE-SENSITIVE FINN GIVE THEM TO ME NOW.

D-0 was pretty cute!

All of the Badass Finn.

Also that MOMENT where Finn runs up to Poe like “I NEED TO TELL YOU A THING” and Poe is all “I NEED YOU TO FIGHT WITH ME” and Finn just interrupts himself to thank Poe and they have that “General” “General” moment and it’s SO CUTE I’m love it.

The entire thing at the Lars farm at the end. Just. Burying the lightsabers, seeing the twins’ ghosts, claiming the Skywalker name, Rey having her own saber now. This movie was a Hot Mess but it definitely ended on a high note.

...that’s pretty much what I have for right now. I will probably have more thoughts after discussing it with other people/seeing it again (because I will be seeing it again). But overall...do I like it? Well, it’s Star Wars, which I love and which frankly always has some Super Dumb and/or Frustrating Stuff, and the things I disliked weren’t bad enough to Ruin It for me, so yes, I liked it. Is it my favorite Star Wars/good for a Star Wars movie? ...not really, no. It did have some gorgeous moments, but it doesn’t really hang together. Like the rest of the ST, it relies way too much on It’s All There In The Manual and, between that and the fact that TLJ didn’t do the work necessary to set it up, the movie felt rushed and a little bit...I don’t want to say hollow, maybe shallow is a better word? I mean, I know this is Star Wars and It’s Not That Deep (but the ground is soft and I’m ready to dig or however the quote goes), but this felt particularly shallow even for Star Wars. Like...cotton candy, fairly good/tasty but a little bit prone to melting away and with very little substance holding it together. On that level, I’d actually probably rank it around Solo (which, let me say, I really like)--so, better than TLJ, but still A Hot Mess of a movie. But I enjoyed myself, and I think overall my feelings are middling-to-positive on it. Even if...honestly, even like less than four hours after the movie ending, I’m already forgetting like half the plot points...? Like I said. Cotton Candy.

What did/do you guys think?

[ace-beef]

Jedi Cats AU

Y’all ready for this shit? An AU where Obi Wan Kenobi has to look after some cats while he’s doing Jedi Stuff. These four cats are: Anakin, Qui Gon, Padme, and Ahsoka. 

It’s kinda like a modern au at the same time, purely because I’m thinking of the dumb shit that cats do in this day and age… but like,, the Jedi order still out there doin’ Jedi things…

For now it’s just the Jedi but I may also make a post containing information about Palpatine’s cats. If I do any more posts for this au I’ll just use the tag ‘jedi cats au’

Anyway, the details are under the cut, enjoy! 

Obi Wan Kenobi  - himb human  -  he’s very tired from looking after these troublesome cats while being a Jedi - “I’m sorry Master Windu I must rush home and attend to some important business” *rushes home and finds Anakin staring out the window into the back garden meowing angrily at Dooku* “*sigh* Anakin...” - if the mission isn’t going to be that dangerous but requires him to be gone for a while, then he’ll bring the cats with him - “Master Kenobi, do you really have to bring all them with you?”  *with Anakin clawing his way up Obi Wan’s leg and Qui Gon prowling across his shoulders* “yes, Master Windu”  - constantly has to stop his cats from fighting with his neighbour’s cats (especially after Qui Gon got a nasty clawing from Maul one time): Dooku, Grievous and Maul, even though Obi Wan isn’t particularly fond of those cats himself - said neighbour is a seemingly friendly old man called Palpatine, who all of Obi Wan’s cats seem to like, especially Anakin - he’s so tired,, blease let himb rest - will often fall asleep on the sofa by accident, and then will wake up to find Qui Gon in his lap and Anakin on his face, while Padme and Ahsoka are on the sofa and pressed up against his legs - “Anakin nO” - often looks to both Qui Gon and Padme to help with the other two - have I told you how tired this man is? 

Anakin Skywalker  - he a black cat, v slim and slender, has a slight bit of extra fur around his face, yellow eyes - you may only pet him when he wants to be petted, if you try and pet him when he does not wish to be touched you sHaLL fAcE tHe CLaWs oF dEaTH fOuL hUMaN - touch the tumby and YOU WILL DIE - try and touch the toe beans and YOU WILL DIE - very rarely purrs, except for when in the presence of Obi Wan, the only human who can pet him almost 24/7 - will always obey Qui Gon, will listen to Obi Wan most of the time, proteccs Padme and Ahsoka constantly  - quite playful, give him a droid toy and/or a lightsaber toy and he enters the Silly Zone - is the kind of cat that will stare at you straight in the eyes as he quickly pushes something breakable off the table - is very territorial and hates it when there are any other cats in the back garden, especially the neighbour’s cats  - although he actually likes the neighbour human Palpatine quite a lot, although Palpatine is not privileged enough for extra Anakin pets like Obi Wan is - a very loud cat, meows constantly and loudly, as well as hissing at those he doesn’t like and doing that fuckin ‘mmmmrrrrrrrooowwwwwowooww’ aggression noise  - is also a very active cat, is constantly running around the house and often goes for walks in the neighbourhood, mostly to get into scraps with other cats (this is how he got a scar over his right eye) - “Mrow!” “Anakin no it’s not time for food yet” “mrrrOW!” *sigh* “Anakin what did I say about arguing back?” “mrrOOWW!” “Anakin!”  - when he’s not running around being a nuisance, he’s cuddling up with Padme - often takes Ahsoka out with him on his adventures - when Obi Wan takes them on missions with him, Anakin is somehow more mischievous and disobedient than he normally is - will absolutely bring Obi Wan ‘presents’, all the time - a sharp and pointy boi who is also a fuckin dumbass

Qui Gon Jinn  - one of those cats with the super long fur, mega soft fur, soft green eyes, clearly used to be a brown tabby cat but has turned more grey with his age, a slender cat but himb big because he tol - old and wise cat that always has this knowing look in his eyes - do not be fooled by his calm appearance, he will fuck u up if he wants to - you may touch the tumby, but only if you are Obi Wan, otherwise you will die - try and touch the toe beans and you will die, unless you are Obi Wan, then you’re allowed to - will break shit and mess shit up when nobody's looking, then act like he didn’t do anything when they discover the mess… this mess is often blamed on Ahsoka or Anakin  - having said that, he is also the kind of cat that will slowly push something off of the table while remaining eye contact the whole time; he doesn’t do this with Obi Wan though, Obi Wan must not see his crimes - when is brought on missions with Obi Wan, will also be more mischievous than normal, but Obi Wan never knows this - “Master Kenobi! One of your cats broke something again!” “Oh no, really? I bet it was Anakin, hey Anakin!” “Is Anakin this grey-brown fluffy one?” “No? That’s Qui Gon, he would never break anything” “well he just did” “what?” - all of the other cats respect him greatly, even Palpatine’s cats  - he must protecc his human at all costs, as well as the other cats, Obi Wan can’t help but feel slightly flattered at the fact that one of his cats is so willing to protect him - he may be a cat but Himb Still Dad - a calm and relaxed cat, likes to lounge in the sun, and will make that little ‘mrrrp?’ noise whenever he is awoken - not really that playful, will just sit and watch the human do silly shit in an attempt to try and play with him - most of the time he is relatively quiet, gently purrs when he is petted - himb soft and smart

Padme Amidala  - a pretty, white cat with piercing blue eyes, she very elegant - will allow most people to pet her, unless she knows that they’re Not Nice and will therefore take a swipe at them (this is the same for the tummby and the toe beans)  - Obi Wan and Anakin want her to stay inside as like,, an indoor cat, but she wiLL nOt bE cOnFiNEd - most of the time the noises she makes are relatively soft and quiet, unless she’s fuckin angry then she’s loud and constantly making noise - you can tell when her and Anakin are having a spat because there’s a constant stream of very loud angry cat noises that drown out some slightly fearful loud cat noises - overall is a very well behaved cat, respects Obi Wan and doesn’t break anything - when encountering Palpatine’s cats, she doesn’t make any noise, she just glares at them (which is somehow more scary and intimidating than Anakin’s constant stream of aggressive noises) - she probably won’t, but everyone knows that she has the power to kill them at any moment - is the best behaved out of all of the cats  - her fur is somehow constantly clean and perfectly groomed, Obi Wan doesn’t groom her more often than the other cats and whenever her and Anakin go out together, Anakin always comes back dirty with his fur in a mess but Padme will still be pristine - if Obi Wan takes her on a mission with him (which he doesn’t really want to do but sometimes he has no other choice) she is on her best behaviour, she’ll snoop around if she has the chance to but she won’t actually cause any trouble, unlike Anakin and Qui Gon - only plays when she’s in the mood, doesn’t go quite as crazy as Anakin does, but she can get quite into playtime - she soft and elegant but has the potential to be sharp and pointy

Ahsoka Tano  - the smallest of the cats, a bright ginger tabby cat with a white tummy and white paws, bright green eyes - she’s also the youngest of the cats, still has a vague kitten look about her - highly energetic and literally will not stop moving, constantly goes outside, often with Anakin - will let most people pet her, but only if she’s in the mood to be petted - do not underestimate this tiny kit, she may be inexperienced but she can and will fuck you up… although on occasion she does have to be rescued by Anakin or Qui Gon - Ahsoka: gets into a fight with Palpatine’s cats and takes on more than she can handle Qui Gon: feels his dad cat sense tingling and goes to rescue her, must protecc the smol at all costs - is the same as Anakin when it comes to territory, and will do the same shit as him if she sees any unwelcome cats in the back garden, except she’ll also claw at the window - very impatient with everything *insert let me in meme here* - she breaks shit, but most of the time it is actually accidental, she very rarely causes destruction on purpose - if taken on one of Obi Wan’s missions she’ll try her best to be behaved but she just can’t help but get into trouble - has a lot of respect for Obi Wan and the other cats, but much like Anakin she can’t help but not follow the rules sometimes - fuckin’ LOVES to be played with, she’s down for that shit anytime and will often enter the Silly Zone - has a loud and high pitched meow, will make noises frequently, so much so that Obi Wan sometimes just has to put his face in his hands and focus on drowning her constant meowing out - she must ZOOM at 3am most nights and will not stop until she has no more energy left - a very sharp and pointy smol that is not to be underestimated

[gffa]

do you have any ObiWan recs? Because I l've read ReEntry and all of akathecentimetre's but I'm at a loss for other good prequel based ones

Oh, dear anon, you don’t know what kind of paralysis this gave me for a good solid minute, because I HAVE SO VERY MANY, HOW CAN I POSSIBLY NOT GIVE YOU LITERALLY 200 RECS?  There are so so many good prequels writers out there LET ME YELL AT YOU ABOUT SOME QUALITY FIC.✦Fire and Ice by Yesac is the fic that really got me into prequels fic and is an incredible story about the duel on Mustafar going differently, where Anakin wins and basically takes Obi-Wan and Padme hostage, while he’s this unstable font of power, who actually has to learn some really hard lessons before he can really start to earn his way back to the side of good.  It has some of the best Obi-Wan characterization in any fic I’ve read, the balance of his care for Anakin versus staying true to his morals and the sheer solidity of who he is is *kisses fingers* perfection.✦ starbird by imaginarykat is one of the best characterizations for Obi-Wan I’ve ever read.  wicked thing tends to be more popular (and is also wonderful) but for my money, starbird is the one that really helped me get Obi-Wan as a character, in addition to having some of the most sharply hilarious moments ever.  You really feel the weight of Obi-Wan’s presence and character in this one.✦ Equinox by lilyconrad is gorgeous all the way around!  Even if Sith!Obi-Wan isn’t usually your thing, I would gently encourage giving this one a shot anyway, because it’s not really about Obi-Wan falling into darkness, it’s about Obi-Wan, but it’s not actually Obi-Wan himself, and it’s complicated, but it gets at the heart of the character, while still showing how much of the light he is.  It’s a deliciously lush gothic horror story + his relationship with Anakin that explores who they both are and has some truly stellar smut.  I love all of Lily’s stuff, she writes a lot of Obi-Wan’s character, so you can pick up anything by her!✦ Cataclasm by dendral is amazing as well, it’s a story where Obi-Wan is whammied with some extra Force visions and so he has to walk away from everything he knows to go do some Force-related shit, but he remains so very much himself (and such a Jedi, in such a beautifully told way) and there’s worldbuilding and plot and it’s just gorgeous. someday when i’m gone away we’ll be all okay is also stellar and made me cry the kind of tears where my throat hurt from the lump in it and yet it’s perfect for the characters.  (It’s deathfic, but worth it, imo!)✦ I really love panharmonium’s fics as well, who hasn’t written much, but always has such clear affection for the world and the characters!  The Mathematics of Repair is probably my favorite, it’s sparkling and wonderful just-post-TPM early days of Obi-Wan & Anakin’s relationship!✦ The Living Force; Parables for Padawans by gloriousclio is this really stunning fairy tale-like exploration of Obi-Wan and the Jedi, not just feelings but beautiful wordcraft, too.✦ Smitty has written three STELLAR fics about Obi-Wan and Anakin’s early days and what’s amazing to me is that they were written in NINETEEN-NINETY-NINE and yet utterly NAILED their dynamic! The House That Obi-Wan Built + Sofa, So Good + House of Cards.  The hilariously written snark + underlying care is spot on to their dynamic.✦ In all the World by Ammar is an amazing combination of the early days of Obi-Wan and Anakin’s relationship, worldbuilding, AND case fic!  I remember thinking that this could have been a novel published by Star Wars itself and I would have still been impressed at all the things it absolutely nailed right and built up!✦ Supreme Chancellor Kenobi by stonefreeak is another amazing series where it’s not just about Obi-Wan, but he’s a central figure in it!  And even when she writes other characters she does an incredible job with them, like, the Quinlan piece is one of the best I’ve ever read for him!  Basically it’s exactly what it sounds like–Obi-Wan finds himself suddenly elected to the position of Supreme Chancellor, which means everyone now has breathing room to actually FIX THINGS since Palpatine can’t make them worse, but also it’s HILARIOUS because he kind of really hates it, no matter how good he is at it!✦ The Dark Path Lit by Sun and Stars by A_Delicate_Fury is a gorgeous time travel fic that does an amazing job with his character.  There are small moments with Luke that just floored me with how many feelings they gave me, but also the fic just nails everything it wants to do.  Plot!  Characterization!  Keeping me on the edge of my seat!  Action scenes!✦ Soldier, Poet, King by Glare is a fave because I’m weak for Soft Sith stuff in fandom, especially when there’s such a charm to the writing of his and Anakin’s relationship.  I still remember these great scenes of Anakin’s mental landscape form and how Obi-Wan interacted with him, that sense of all that power and Obi-Wan’s hand metaphorically on the back of his neck, their dynamic is so good.  Plus plot!  \:D/✦ I love everything by Ripki, but you can start with The Atlas of Our Ruin, which is a time-travel fic that forces Obi-Wan and Anakin to really tear into all the difficult stuff from their pasts and spill everything out everywhere, in an attempt to lance the wounds.  It’s a gorgeous look at both their characters and the relationship between them, it’s SO TASTY to read and ouchy-but-cathartic in the best way.✦ The Journey of the Lights by Pandora151 is more time travel fic (this fandom is really good at them) that just consumed me while I was reading it, where Qui-Gon is dumped forward into the future and it winds up forcing some things to come to a head early, and there’s a lot of Obi-Wan having to juggle a lot of different relationships and difficulties, and it’s SO GOOD.✦ Remedial Jedi Theology by MarbleGlove is the kind of Legends-based (instead of Canon-based) fic that I love to see, because it’s so THOUGHTFUL about the Jedi and their philosophy/theology, as well as some really stellar Obi-Wan characterization.  He’s going through A Lot in this fic, but he faces all of it and himself and his growing understanding of everything (because we never stop growing and understanding) with such cleverness and skill.  There’s some quality Mace moments in the fic as well and some great Anakin stuff, but it’s at its heart an Obi-Wan fic and it was a joy to read.✦ Seed by belldreams is one of my favorites for how much heavy lifting it does with Obi-Wan and balancing his feelings with being a Jedi.  There’s such good, thoughtful characterization here, where he really has to look at himself and he really thinks things through, there’s such a solidity to his character here that is SPOT ON.  Also, FUCK OR DIE FIC, we were blessed by this one.  (Upfall also has some really quality Obi-Wan thoughts, too!)✦ In All But Name by Mirror and Image is one I read early on in fandom, so I can’t speak to how well it would hold up for me re: the relationship with the Jedi (I suspect not as well as my fond memories would suggest) but that’s a personal quibble and the point is that it’s really good Obi-Wan focus and it’s all about him beginning to train Anakin on Naboo instead of going to the Jedi Temple, there’s a whole lot of focus on children’s education, because that’s what the authors teach as well, so this one totally engrossed me.  I remember Coalesced Matter was a good Dooku & Obi-Wan & Anakin fic, too!✦ In fairness, I haven’t read Reprise by Elfpen yet (I’m hoarding it) but I’ve enjoyed the other fic I’ve read from this author, so I feel confidence giving this a rec.  Plus, it’s all my favorite things, like TIME TRAVELING OBI-WAN.  :D✦ The Exchange by MissLearn is another one I loved, where it’s centered on the Obi-Wan & Anakin relationship, as they exchange places in time and that forces a lot of things to come out, but it gives me SUCH FEELINGS and the characters around them were written wonderfully and UGH SO GOOD.✦ Shadows of the Future bystormqueen873 is one I haven’t read since the very early days of my reading, so I can’t say how it would hold up, but I remember being utterly IN LOVE with this story and how much it fixed.  One of the things that it really did well was building up to the big reveal of Obi-Wan’s time traveling, that the fic really knew how to ratchet up to that moment so that, when it finally happened, I had SO MANY FEELINGS about it.  Plus, lots and lots of warm-hearted, fluffy slice-of-life moments as everything gets fixed!✦ I like all of anecdotalist’s fics, but starting with Clarity is probably best, it’s a nice long fic that fixes a lot of what goes wrong during ROTS and just utterly engrossed me.  Plot!  Action scenes!  Anakin being a disaster, but listening to people who actually want to help him!  Though, The Fallout of Anakin Skywalker’s Knighting will always have a special place in my heart for making me cry over feelings about Obi-Wan.✦ Tano and Kenobi by Fireflyfish is time traveling Ahsoka this time, who becomes Obi-Wan’s Master and everything starts slowly shifting towards the right (or sometimes just straight up blowing over to the right) and it’s a DELIGHT to see their dynamic, to see Ahsoka really growing into the role of being a Master, to see Obi-Wan’s relationship with her grow.✦ The Hand Dealt by not paranoid enough is one I read awhile back, but it’s a Canon Divergent fic, where things go a little differently on Tatooine and it’s sort of a mix between a slow burn and just being about the early days of his relationship with Anakin, and I remember it being REALLY GOOD.✦ I like everything of Valairy Scot’s that I’ve read, she’s another Legends writer that really is a lot of fun, and I’d say start with A Good Place To Die.  It’s pretty much an entire novel of Obi-Wan whump + recovery, which it REALLY embraces and is super satisfying if you’re into that sort of thing!  Plus, man, Anakin is SPOT ON in this fic, for how deeply he cares, how brilliant he is, but also what a disaster he is when he can’t get out of his own head.  I also remember really liking Our Honored Dead.✦ I also like wreckageofstars’ stuff as well!  Echoes of Mortis is an ensemble piece, but it’s satisfying for his character and has great plot and action and things diverging from canon in a fascinating way!  Also a HILARIOUSLY GREAT read is Obi-Wan and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad (Life) Day which is just as funny as promised.I AM MISSING SO MANY GOOD OBI-WAN FICS, BUT THIS WILL GET YOU STARTED.  I LOVE OBI-WAN KENOBI AND I LOVE THIS FANDOM FOR PROVIDING ME WITH GOOD STUFF.

[thewhills]

STARWARS.COM: “The Gathering,” in which young Jedi have to find their lightsaber crystals, and the depiction of lightsaber construction.

DAVE FILONI: “The Gathering” really, I think, was George’s effort to clarify the way he felt Jedi got their lightsabers, and he felt that it was something that happened when they were very young. He definitely threw us all a curve when told us that the crystals don’t have a color until the Jedi actually have them. And then I thought that that was really interesting. That’s one of those things that only comes from George, when you’re going to the mind of the Star Wars encyclopedia. It makes sense, because if an average person goes in that cave, there’s tons of ice and tons of crystals and you can’t tell the difference between them. It’s almost like a defense mechanism. But when a Jedi is in tune with one, the one that calls to them, they can find it. And then when they have it, it basically will make a blade when it’s bent a certain color. I thought that was one of the nice revelations there.

I also liked that it was a very spiritual thing. The threat in that cave is basically only what you take with you, which is exactly what Yoda tells Luke. It makes sense for these very young children.

It’s come up since then. I’ve been asked, “So what do Jedi do if they lose their lightsaber later?” Well, A) they’re not supposed to lose their lightsaber, but B) there are enough lightsabers that have gone from fallen Jedi over the many, many, many years, that they actually have lightsaber crystals at the Temple. So they don’t have to actually go all the way back out to Illum to get one, and because it’s a fallen Jedi they can actually use that crystal and it will work for them.

The whole attunement and everything is just a special moment for them as a child to get in tune with the Force. It’s not so much being in tune with your lightsaber. That’s a big thing that we all make a mistake on, is that we get very attached to our lightsabers. [Laughs] “Oh my gosh, I have to have one.” But remember, they’re Jedi. A lightsaber is just a thing. It’s not Excalibur, it’s not like an ultimately super-special thing. It is to us, because we make it a symbol when we watch the movie and Luke is given his father’s lightsaber. That lightsaber is a little more meaningful because it was his father’s. But you notice when Luke loses it…

STARWARS.COM: He doesn’t freak out.

DAVE FILONI: He doesn’t go on some journey down in Cloud City to go get his lightsaber, and he doesn’t even super-lament the fact that he lost his lightsaber. I mean, we were probably more upset as kids that he lost his lightsaber. [Laughs] All those things kind of came up in our telling of the tale of lightsabers, and George had a lot of thoughts about that. It all comes back to selfish versus selflessness. That’s always a key thing when dealing with Jedi and Sith, and I think that’s expressed in “The Gathering.” (x)

STARWARS.COM: That whole scene, where Maul is cradling Savage as he dies, and later when he’s begging for his life, he reminded me a lot of the Son from the Mortis arc.

DAVE FILONI: Oh, sure.

STARWARS.COM: Was that intentional? Or is it just that the Son represents the dark side and so there is going to be a correlation there?

DAVE FILONI: I think it’s all of the above. I think part of it is that Sam [Witwer] plays both of them, so there’s a natural resonance between the two characters. But part of the reason why, when it came down to it, that I wanted Sam to play Maul was because he had played the Son. And I wanted this concept, which is a very far-out concept, that there were echoes of everything that happened on Mortis happening throughout the show. And that Maul is an echo of the Son and some of the evil the Son was talking about which echoes in our galaxy. There were certain things that Sam and I did vocally that we wanted to be specifically like the Son. When we first find Maul, you can even hear Maul muttering some of the same dialogue that the Son actually says on Mortis. So there’s definitely a connection between those two characters, because they’re both connected to the dark side of the Force.

[…]

STARWARS.COM: When Maul came back, I thought, “This is foreshadowing for what’s going to happen to Anakin.” Right down to his mechanical legs. He keeps himself alive through hate and becomes this twisted thing. And I thought it was successful just on those grounds.

DAVE FILONI: Thanks. It’s a thing about Sith. They’re afraid to die. Fear attracts the fearful. Because for them it’s the end; if they die, it’s all over. There is nothing for them beyond their existence, because their power is all wrapped up in their life, in their existence. Once that’s gone, they believe they lose all their power and everything goes away. They don’t live on after death like Jedi learn to, eventually. Jedi believe you become part of the cosmic Force and your existence goes into that, but you don’t maintain your consciousness. That’s something that Qui-Gon learns, and that idea is developed and Yoda eventually learns it by communing with Qui-Gon, and then he passes it on. But that’s the big difference. There’s such a big fear of death because they try to hold onto life. And I think that’s why they’re willing to basically mutilate themselves and live these cybernetic half-human lives. Grievous is an echoing of that. They’re taken over by the machine and they’re subtracted from nature. And if having midi-chlorians in your blood is part of what makes you [feel] the Force, these are beings that are suddenly subtracted from that. 

STARWARS.COM: I wanted to talk about Ahsoka. My feeling is, if it wasn’t clear before then it definitely is after the four-part finale, that she’s the main character of The Clone Wars. It’s really about her journey and her growth, and her leaving the Jedi Order symbolizes a lot about what the war has done to the Jedi. Was where she ends up at the end of Season Five always the intended path for her?

DAVE FILONI: [...] Her ultimate point is that the Jedi are aware of Anakin’s shortcomings. They’re not naive to it. Yoda, in particular, talks to Obi-Wan and they give him this Padawan, saying, “Knowing Anakin as we do, he will not want this girl to be around. He’ll resist it. But if and when she wins him over, he will bond with her like everything else he does. Like R2-D2, like Obi-Wan, like Padmé. But this girl will be different, because he’ll basically raise her. She’ll be trained by him, and he will see in the long run that she overcomes her fears and she becomes a Jedi, and she does not need him. But she respects him and they become equals, and Anakin needs to learn this so he can let go.” And Yoda knows this is critical for Anakin. If you look at her episodes, as early as when she rescues Plo Koon from the Malevolence, and she’s learning from Anakin how to disobey orders but still be creative within following orders. And then she has a big failing when she goes to Ryloth and all these pilots die, in a way, because of her error, and she has to overcome her fear that she’s going to let them down again. She’s learning. Then we see a big, critical episode arc where Anakin and Luminara kind of compare Padawans, Barriss and Ahsoka. And that arc, I think, really set an interesting tone for ourselves and for the fans. We were trying to illustrate the difference between the way Anakin is raising his Padawan, and how much he cares about her, and the way Luminara raises her Padawan. Not that Luminara is indifferent, but that Luminara is detached. It’s not that she doesn’t care, but she’s not attached to her emotionally.

And at the end of the day, one of the questions that I guess I pose is, is that really a good thing? Is Anakin’s way of being so compassionate wrong? Because on a certain level, you have to accept that the Jedi lose the Clone War. So there is something that they’re doing that’s wrong. There’s something they’re doing that doesn’t work and that the dark side is exploiting. If anything, it’s Luke’s overwhelming compassion and love for his father that in the end overthrows the Emperor because it’s something that he doesn’t understand. So as far back as Anakin, there is a seed of an idea of love and compassion, which admittedly in Attack of the Clones, the Jedi say they’re lacking because they’ve become arrogant and very sure of themselves. As Ahsoka gets older, her first big challenge comes when she’s abducted by Trandoshans and put an island [to be hunted for sport]. Anakin is put in a position where he can’t help her, and he obsesses over trying to find her, and there’s nothing he can do. But she survives anyway, and at the end of that she says, “I was only able to do this because of your teachings. Because the other Padawans I was with, boy, they were completely messed up. They were cracking.” So again we see this comparison of where Ahsoka is at because of Anakin, and where these other Padawans, which represent the other Jedi, are at. When you get to the finale [of that arc], once you see her pretty much taking on the role of a mentor and teaching these younglings to survive, you see Ahsoka doing more things on her own and you notice Anakin’s not around.

Then at the beginning of the last arc [of Season Five], she basically saves Anakin the way Anakin would’ve always saved her in the past. And Anakin’s unconscious, he’s like, “What happened?” She says, “I saved your life, don’t worry about it.” It’s fun and he laughs about it then, and he’s not embarrassed by it. They’re a team. So we get them to that moment and then we put a ton of pressure on it. And through the whole trial, Anakin is the only one that stays 100 percent in her court. I think Plo Koon stays 75-80 percent of the way in her court because he says, “I don’t believe she could’ve fallen so low.” In Obi-Wan we really see the Jedi because he is compromised. Obi-Wan doesn’t believe Ahsoka is guilty of these crimes, but he has a very hard time arguing politically that the Jedi Council shouldn’t do what they do to her. He trusts in the Force, which is what they love to say when they don’t know what they’re doing, and they expel her. He can’t argue the logic. He doesn’t like Tarkin’s logic [but he can’t argue] that they can’t try her within the Jedi because the public, which we show in this episode arc, who are losing faith in the Jedi, would cry foul ball. “How can you put her on trial? Of course you’ll find her innocent. She’s a Jedi and you’re a Jedi.” So they expose themselves, and we see how they’re exposed. All of these things that are wrapped up in Ahsoka’s story, which ultimately make her realize what the audience realizes. “I love the Jedi Order. They’re very important to me, I’ve always respected them. But there’s something wrong here, and I need to walk away from it to assess it.” It all feeds into Revenge of the Sith when the chancellor says, “The Jedi have just made an attempt on my life.” When you see these four episodes, I think you have a better understanding of how he gets away with all of that, because you see how compromised the Jedi Council is. And these episodes aren’t just meant to get Ahsoka on her way, but they’re meant to explain in more detail the scene [in Revenge of the Sith] where Yoda, Mace, and Ki-Adi-Mundi are discussing arresting the chancellor, and what a gamble that’s going to be for them. Because you see that to the average Coruscant citizen who’s not impressed with this war or the Jedi anymore, they’ll see it as treason. It’s probably the arc that connects to the movies the most and has the most impact. I think that’s why it works on so many levels for me and is one of my favorite arcs, because it’s such a companion piece to the films. (x)

[sl-walker]

I tend to take a really holistic view of character understanding.  I think that’s why I jump between storylines the way I do; there’s something I’m supposed to be learning over here that I can’t learn over there.  Like, I’m writing three different main timelines, and all three of them are different, even starring the same characters largely.  And even though these are all different iterations of these characters, what I learn in one timeline gives me a depth of understanding and a platform in another.

Plus, there’s something really fascinating about changing a variable and seeing how differently it plays out.  Like-- GoT:A Maul never slaughtered the Orsis cadets, so his kill-count is exceptionally low.  In most of my timelines, I don’t acknowledge that bit in Darth Plagueis that had him in gladiatorial matches because I don’t know why Sidious would ever risk him being caught, though I have no trouble seeing Sidious risking him being killed.  But in GoT:A, that’s the catalyst for getting Maul out of Sidious’s control; still, I am reasonably sure he can count the number of people he’s ended the lives of on two hands and not use up all his fingers to do it.  And all of those situations, unlike Orsis, were kill or be killed, as well. (So was that, but they weren’t the threat to him.)  So, he’s ultimately-- softer.  A lot softer in some ways.  He’s not the same level of ruthlessly pragmatic.  He’s more capable of altruism, though he’s still not universally altruistic.  But of the three, he’s the only one who would be willing to sacrifice his life for an ideal instead of something more concrete, though even he is much more grounded in loyalty to people and places than in a philosophy.

But he would intrinsically be willing to lay down his life for Alderaan by his middle twenties, for example, and never think himself poorer for that, whereas WM!Maul, who got the full suite of canonical brainwashing, is only selectively willing to sacrifice for a very small number of people -- Obi-Wan, Vokara Che and Bail Organa, as of the end of SIOF, though as time goes on and he bonds with others, he adds to that list; Breha, his Blackbirds, likely eventually Ahsoka, and eventually Savage.  But even then, WM!Maul is incredibly selective about what he’s willing to die for and that never actually changes.

TF Maul exists somewhere between the two.  He did go through the massacre at Orsis, did kill a whole lot of people, but it was before Sidious got those final hooks into him -- his trials -- and so when he gets his wings, he’s not so blindly brainwashed that the terror of them being cut off fails to override his loyalty and sense of no way out, and so he bolts.  And honestly, he bolts like a teenager does; he doesn’t plan it, he just panics and runs and once he’s run, he realizes right quick that going back will probably mean the end of his life in some gruesome manner and so he kind of almost traps himself into leaving.  Out of options, he runs to the Jedi because they’re the only ones strong enough to protect him.

Out of the three, though, he was the only one who chose his own rescue.  And that changes a lot about how he interacts; yeah, he might have trapped himself into said rescue, but he did run to the Jedi on the ridiculously convoluted thinking that if they were weak because of compassion, then that weakness would save him, which is paradoxical, but he was a very hurt and terrorized sixteen year old, so there you go.  Any which way, he’s too messed up to even start to function outside of a structured environment, so between his own choice to be there and the detangling of his brainwashed thought patterns, he gets a lot of remedial socialization in a fairly short period of time and responds to it because he chose that.  And honestly, he’s still young enough there that even if he thinks he’s a monster, he hasn’t had his ability to feel lonely and isolated broken from him, so he’s a lot more receptive to gestures of friendship.  He’s a lot quicker to figure out that his prior isolation was by design and to then go forth and defy that design.  And, too, he’s a kid who’s never in his life had a genuine caretaker, and now he has a couple adults -- Qui-Gon and Vokara -- who are old enough and stable enough and with enough authority to keep him in line and show him the right way to deal with things.  Like, you’d think punishing the kid by making him babysit little kids is mean, but it was exactly what he needed; not only to ‘pay’ for body-dropping Quin and underage drinking, just to satisfy his own fucked up mental wiring, but to learn that he does have boundaries that he’s supposed to stay inside of, healthy sensible boundaries, and also Qui-Gon’s reasoning for sending him to the creche to work was perfect.

Like legit, @shadowmaat hit a gold mine of brilliance with Archix Clan and then Vos Encounter.  That punishment was brilliance.  It was designed to impart a lesson or several, in a gentle manner, and oddly I think that did more good for Maul than almost anything else could have.  The rules were clearly defined, the punishment was in line with them, he got to show just how naturally good -- if unrefined -- he is at being a teacher himself, and the sheer level of patience he’s capable of. He gets trusted with the safety of a whole bunch of children and even when he makes mistakes, their trust and innocence means so much to him that he has a fairly infinite fuse with them.  That’s how, not terribly long later, he can forgive Vos, even if not forget.  And really, it’s this that settles a lot of things in his head: He answers to Master Jinn, and if he gets in trouble, he’s supposed to think things through and ask for help if he needs it, because like, that’s exactly what role he was filling in here or there for the crechelings.  LOL!  So, by Gambit, he defers to his elders and calls for Obi-Wan and even though it’s all initially hard on him, emotionally, he copes and leans on his support network and does pretty amazingly well for what he started like.  And these are all the foundations that, in three or four years, will lead to him poking his big brother and rough housing and being the genuinely delightful young adult he often turns into when you put him in the right circumstances.

Whereas, in three or four years, WM!Maul was a hardened assassin and a mental disaster.  Everything he was came down to his blade and his skill and his ability to kill.  He managed to hang onto some things which were sign of how lonely he actually was -- I’ve gone over them before -- but his entire concept of self-worth was so tied to being Sidious’s apprentice, because this was the only way any of the abuse and manipulation and awfulness made sense.

I’ve always maintained that Maul was an understandable crazy before Lotho Minor.  He reacted to life exactly how you would expect a thinking, feeling, reasoning person to if you stuck them in those same circumstances.  He tried to make sense of his own abuse through any lens that kept an identity intact for him, including internalizing it as something he required.  He tried to find ways to avoid more of it, all while telling himself it was making him stronger.  He was slavishly, painfully loyal to Sidious.  He was insecure and desperate for any approval, because that was his only compensation in life; he also regularly, narratively, beat himself up pretty badly for wanting even that.  Sidious had that boy so twisted up that Maul could and did abuse himself when his Master wasn’t around to do it for him for the audacity to want approval.

That’s something I -- and I have a feeling a bunch of you -- get, too.  That internalized self-hatred, where the voice in your head tells you that wanting even basic acknowledgment of your accomplishments and even existence is wanting too much.  It being somehow a burden.  That you should be above needing such things and that if you’re not, that makes you bad, that makes you a failure.

GoT:A Maul has some of that; even after years of having a wonderful family and a beautiful world, when something hurts him enough, he has to refight that war all over again, between the part of him that’s prone to self-abuse and the part of him that knows better.  And he’s the one who got out earliest, though one can make a solid argument that his time in prison shattered him further.  Taking Flight Maul has internalized the hell out of it, enough that when Qui-Gon is holding up a mirror and asking him if he would judge Issa the same as he does himself, in the same circumstances, everything in him is fighting that because she’s good and he’s not and has never been.

Both of them, though, struggle so hard because they’re still capable of fighting their conditioning in a more overt way; they’re more capable of realizing it’s even there and then fighting it.  It’s hard, and there are a lot of psychological meltdowns involved; there’s a lot of time and work that goes into it.

WM!Maul, though, actually doesn’t.  He’s the one who survived Theed and was canon right up to immediately after that battle, and even ten years later, he’s only starting to grasp boundaries.  He’s only starting to figure out who he is and what his purpose is.  And man, he’s exhausted.  The other two both had periods where you could feel how achingly tired they were while writing them, where they were shaking off the brutality they’d survived.  WM!Maul is the same way, in terms of being just-- worn out, but you can’t call ten years of stagnation rest.  Because it wasn’t.  The closest he comes is in And in between the moon and you, and that’s mostly because he has a support network and quiet and he doesn’t have to hide his relationship.  Even then, he doesn’t get enough time there.  Of the three, he’s the one still due a reckoning in that regard and eventually it does come; of the three, too, he’s the one with the deepest scars and the least number of strategies to cope with them.  The one who still suffers serious PTSD blackouts and occasionally panic-attacks, the one who struggles so hard with words and expressing himself.  He’s tough, make no doubts about that, but he’s been walking wounded for a long time and unfortunately, it takes more than a loving Jedi and a best friend (and eventually eleven -- then twelve -- brothers) to do something about that.

I suppose all this rambling has a point.  LOL!  I’m not sure why I’m all up in GoT:A right now, except that it helps me learn something about the other two that I need to know.  Some of it, in GoT:A, is figuring out who Breha is; she isn’t a main in WM, so learning about her means understanding her in a context where she is.  Some of it, though, is also figuring out more of Maul and Bail, too; what it is in them that responds to one another the way they do, because even if they’re lovers in one timeline and best friends in the other, they’re still dear to each other regardless of how it manifests, and how important that is can’t be stated enough.  That friendship is life-changing for both of them.

Anyway.  My rambling.  I unabashedly love questions and deep thoughts on anything I do, so feel free.  Please.  (I might beg, even.)