#this means calling the jedi slave owners

[antianakin]

Love how people are SHOCKED when they come on a Pro Jedi blog and criticize the Jedi for particularly heinous bullshit and the Pro Jedi person gets defensive and upset in response.

Wow, no one could have seen that coming.

[gatorbites-imagines]

Padwan anakin x more dark side leaning reader?

Padawan Anakin Skywalker x dark side leaning male reader

Headcanons

Featuring my boy Jon Antilles, give it up for Jon Antilles everybody.

You had both been younglings with the jedi, and later Padawans. You had been older than Anakin by the time he joined the order, meaning you were just at the cusp of getting sent off to the other corpse if you didn’t get picked as a padawan.

You had never fit in much with the Jedi. You were too emotional, too quick to anger, and your grudges knew no ends. You still had a chip on your shoulder because Yoda decided to tease you when you were very small, if that said anything about your ability to hold grudges.

You were the child of two slaves, who had served under the worst of the worst. This meant you had been surrounded by darkness and hate since you started growing in your parents’ womb. You had overheard many of the older jedi wonder if that was the reason for your emotional state.

Anakin didn’t fit in much either, having joined so late and being the so called chosen one. Because of this, you two found comfort in each other.

Anakin was so excited about being a jedi, though he also feared living up to the potential. In your eyes he just switched one slave owner for the next, as that was how it felt to you. But he was young and bright, so you didn’t wanna rain on his parade.

But just before your 13th birthday, you were taken as a padawan of one of the lesser known and vaguer Jedi of the order, Jon Antilles. He was a person who followed the will of the force and not the order, and the force led him to you.

He would later tell you that he looked into your eyes and saw the fire raring within you, unable to be quelled and as a result, making you someone who would suffer under the pressure and expectations of the order.

Saying goodbye to Anakin was hard, as you two had found yourselves as the only true friend the other had. Many feared you because of your known anger and revenge seeking tendencies, and Anakin because of the heavy burden of the prophesy.

But as two former slaves, you also both knew that the galaxy was vast, and that you had to go where the currents took you. Anakin also understood, even though he still didn’t fully understand the order, that you didn’t belong within the temple and that you needed to spread your wings.

Before you left, you pressed a kiss to Anakin’s forehead and gave him a bracelet made out of a thick black cord. It chafed the skin but was sturdy enough to take anything that may hit it. It was the last keepsake you had of your parents, and it had been what kept you going for all this time, and now you wanted Anakin to have it.

So, with one last goodbye, and promises whispered in the language of slaves, you left with your new Master, who told you not to call him master but instead refer to him as your teacher.

Jon Antilles had seen the worst the galaxy had to offer, and had no wish to be referred to as master by someone who was once a slave.

Back at the temple Anakin would find himself crying silently and tearlessly in his room, mourning the loss of a friend, his only friend. Obi Wan would feel his grief in the force, and would go to comfort him, knowing what it is like to lose someone so dear to you.

This would most likely lead to their relationship being better in this universe, at least a little. As that one moment helped cement a deeper level of trust and understanding.

Anakin stayed with the order and became more and more skilled, a part of him waiting for the moment you two would reunite. The bracelet stayed around his wrist, though he moved it to some other part of his body to keep it hidden, and other jedi started mumbling comments about attachment.

You thrived under Antilles, as he didn’t follow the orders from the council, the order, or even the republic. He only seemed to care about where the force wanted him, and by extension you, to go.

Your teacher was a firm believer in the light, but he also saw that the dark existed, so when you for the first time grasped the dark side in a life-or-death situation, he didn’t punish you like you feared.

Using the dark side once means it’s always with you, but instead of shunning you, your teacher helps you find balance, at least to the best of your ability.

The dark side is hard to master, and maybe you never fully do. But you never give yourself too it completely, always holding a tight grasp on the light beside it, letting the two feed off of each other to keep you from going down an unforgivable path.

Your anger and grudges still persist, and there are times you end up being needlessly cruel, but you catch yourself before its too late. During these times your teachers help is necessary, until you master it on your own.

Because of the nomadic lifestyle of Antilles and you, you end up ready to go on your own much before most other Padawan. Life experiences matures a person, and Antilles trusts you to do what is right, even if he has caught you practicing lightning or sucking the life energy out of things.

So as Anakin still works hard to be a better padawan and to fit the tight mold the order places upon him, you explore the outer parts of the galaxy, running with bounty hunters and pirates alike.

One might think you would be discovered as a jedi one way or another, but thanks to your less and jedi personality, and preferences for other weapons, you are never figured out.

Your loyalty to the rules of the order are also very very loose, if not nonexistent. The many experiences you have out in the galaxy puts many things into perspective, and you make your own theories and ideas about how the force works, theories that struggle against the rules of the jedi.

During all this time, Anakin can’t seem to leave your mind. Hes always present somewhere in there, the thin thread of a bond between the two of you so skinny its barely there anymore after all this time. But every now and again, you like to give it a little tug, smiling to yourself when he tugs back.

You two meet again during one of Anakin’s missions with Obi Wan, a mission that’s taken them further away from the core than Anakin has been since he was taken in by the jedi.

It’s a mission involving a slave trader who’s somehow smuggling slaves in and out of the republic, and the two jedi were sent to check it out but not get involved, much to Anakin’s annoyance.

They end up splitting up, not wanting to be suspected, and Anakin has to wear something to cover his head to hide his Padawan braid.

In the end, Anakin finds the hideout of the Slave traders, and just as he’s about to report it back to Obi Wan, a figure swoops in and starts ransacking the place.

Anakin can only watch with shock as you tear through the slave traders, the darkness inside you purring at their spilled blood, as the light silently approves of the justice you act out. Its only after you’ve freed all the slaves and take your hood off that Anakin recognizes you.

One way or another he follows you and corners you, in the way Anakin does, eyes wide but sparkling at how much skill you had shown in there, many questions leaving him as he wants to know what you have been up too and how you got here.

Most jedi would probably have disapproved of you killing the slavers, but Anakin had never seen slavers as anyone worth living, not that he could share those thoughts with anybody.

But at some point, you end up taking the Jedi padawan back to the room you booked for the night, where you two spend the entire night talking about what’s happened since last time you met, the bond between you strengthening after so long apart.

After that, you two keep bumping into each other. You had a feeling the force was playing a role in this, and you swore you could hear it giggling in amusement a sit pushed you together with its chosen one again and again.

Whenever you were around, the mission always ended much faster, meaning Anakin could slip away and spend time with you before reporting back to Obi Wan.

During this time, the childish crush he had had on you all that time ago comes back with a vengeance. Even when he sees you use sith lightning for the first time, he can’t seem to feel anything by affection for you.

Anakin knows he should fear you, but even as your turned turn yellow for a second or two as you lean fully into the dark during a battle, he only seems able to find your beautiful.

When Anakin kisses you for the first time, neither of you truly know how to react. Anakin’s never been in a relationship, and you have never really been with anyone you truly had feelings for. But Anakin just couldn’t keep it to himself anymore, even as he knows it goes against everything the order has taught him.

If he truly were to follow the order, Anakin would have to report that you had fallen, even though you still used the light as much as you did the dark. After that he would have to stay away from you, lest you corrupt him. But he just can’t, so he stays, slipping you information so you know where his next mission goes, so you “accidentally” end up with a contract on that planet.

You settle on Coruscant for a while, which means Anakin can sneak out and spend time with you away from prying eyes.

The fact that you use the dark without succumbing to it ends up helping Anakin not fall when that time comes, but for now, you just help him get a better understanding of the force and how you have come to see it as an entity.

Obi Wan regularly wonders where Anakin goes, and worries to some degree, but he does realize that Anakin always feels lighter and more at peace when he returns from his outings, so he lets him have them to himself, hoping his Padawan would tell him if there was anything he needed to know.

As a result of your status, Anakin would start to think about leaving the order someday. Maybe not soon, but maybe one day he would like to leave with you and just go where the force takes you two.

He knows it’s a romantic fantasy, but Anakin can’t help but bask in it, even if he has to do it in secret. Being your partner just brings him more peace than any meditation ever has, and Anakin never wants to let you go.

[marvelstars]

So I was thinking about a post I saw a while ago and it made me realize that I believe it didn´t really occur to Anakin that Padme was too young as a 14 year old Queen because he was a 9 year old slave and already making adult decisions, like:

Sure, I will risk my life to give you the ship parts you need new friends.

I will sacrifice the pod I built with many sacrifices that I wanted to use to escape with my Mom once I got her and my slave chip out of her body with my self made slave chip detector.

I know exactly how to cheat on my owner, I have know him all my life actually and he loves gambling.

Sebulba, leave Jar Jar alone, you could kill me instead but then you would have to pay for me so go away.

I built a droid to help Mom around the house and I am also looking after grandma Jira here, fixing her things so the heat doesn´t get too much for her.

Do you need the droid army that is invading Naboo stopped? No problem, I will just destroy their main star chip and I didn´t even get out of place as Master Qui-Gon Sir asked me to.

Then Anakin became a padawan and was send to missions in which he had to use his lightsaber to get out of "negotiations"

So of course he defended Padme being a Queen at 14, to him her words about being happy for being relieved of so much responsibility sounded as if she thought she was doing a bad job with her planet, that´s why he told her he heard people were so pleased with her they wanted to keep her more time as their Queen. He thought she was selling herself short.

I believe the whole, "too young to be doing this" only beat Anakin in the face when he was send Ahsoka in the middle of a war zone.

I mean, he called her a "youngling" not even a padawan, he most definitely didn´t want to be training a 14 year old youngling in the middle of a war zone and he only accepted because he saw how sad Ahsoka looked when she thought he didn´t want her.

Ahsoka just had to invoke a little bit of tears and she already had him grapped around her little finger.

Anakin: Sure I am supposed to be your Jedi master and you should call me master but we are in the middle of a war zone, we both could die tomorrow, your situation sucks Snips and you are too young yet to notice it so of course you may call me skyguy to your heart content.

He is actually worse with Luke, honestly, it didn´t matter to him his little boy already destroyed the death star in ANH and his Master was calling for his head because he could become a Jedi and try to kill both of them, to Vader he was just "a boy"

In ESB Vader was at the parenting stage of thinking about Luke like, that´s my baby, nobody can touch him or his friends until I say so ok?

So he can recognize when someone was too young to be send to war, slavery or fight his Sith Master and he was right most of the time, except when it´s about himself and his perfect Queen Padme, they were veteran kids just doing their jobs.

Love him honestly :D

[foundfamilynonsense]

I’ve made this post before but y’know what? Jedi haters want to baselessly blame the Jedi for everything that goes on in their galaxy then I think I’m allowed to call Boba Fett a slave owner.

- Boba Fett has replaced Jabba the Hutt as crime boss of tatooine (or whatever the official title is)

- Tatooine is a known slave empire. It was completely out of the Republic’s control, and Jabba was actually the one who sold Anakin’s mom to Watto. In Return of the Jedi Jabba keeps Leia as a slave so we know nothing changed in Tatooine up until Jabba’s death.

- Boba makes a few changes to Tatooine, it’s true, his biggest thing is that he’s tired of putting his life on the line for asshole rich guys who wouldn’t do it themselves. Tired of being a bounty hunter and having nothing to fight for. But! Slavery is not brought up at all.

- those two pig guards worked for Jabba and beg Boba for mercy and he decides to let them work for him. I doubt they got paid under Jabba, because Jabba only paid bounty hunters, and they worked for him exclusively. There is nothing that suggests Boba pays them either.

But honestly. Tatooine is a very big planet and as of three-something years ago there were slaves. Slavery cannot be undone overnight, so Boba DOES run a slave empire.

He also definitely knows this, bc he was a bounty hunter for Jabba the Hutt and the slavery was not a secret. He saw Leia as Jabba’s slave.

We see his first few weeks as leader and he never mentions slaves. Which means he runs a slave empire. He owns slaves, because he owns everything. And since the show was about him making progressive changes and people getting angry and trying to take power from him, the fact he does not try to free the slaves is not just something that we can assume happened off screen, but something Boba decided not to do.

Boba Fett owns slaves and runs a slave empire. Your fav is problematic. But please tell me more about how the Jedi are morally reprehensible for not immediately freeing every slave in the galaxy through sheer force of will.

[clonehub]

"the Jedi aren't complicit in slavery!!" Girl they're using a slave army lmao. They may not be the buyers and formal owners (that would be the republic government, of which the Jedi work with but aren't actual members of, iirc) but the thing about systems of oppression is that you don't need to be at the top of it to support it.

The Republic is 100% at fault for buying millions of human beings, stripping them of all political, social, and material rights, and then sending them to fight and die in a war. The Jedi are definitely better than the commissioned officers who wouldn't have bothered to humanize the clones at all, but slavery is a material condition before an ideological or philosophical one. Are the Jedi in the right for calling the clones individual, sentient beings worthy of being treated as such? Yes! Does that mean they're off the hook for using slavery to fight other forms of oppression? No! Two wrongs don't make a right. Humanizing a slave and viewing them as a person worthy for dignity doesn't mean they're not still a slave or that the person doing the humanizing isn't still contributing to their oppression.

And listen I'm saying this as someone who loves the Jedi. I love seeing non-Coruscanti Temples, I'm always refreshing myself on what made Qui Gon's politics and ideas so different from the council's, I'm always reading what I can about Jedi philosophy and how much compassion is as much a part of their religion as meditation. When I look at how even the most upright members of the Order don't take a step back and say "something is deeply wrong here, and we can't justify it", I don't think "wow, every single Jedi is iredeemable and no better than the Hutts!" I think "something must have happened ideologically for one Jedi, a dozen, two hundred, thousands, to think there are times in which not only is a form of mass oppression at least partially justified, but they need to put off saying or doing anything about it because of a Bigger Threat." (It feels very much like the Illusion of Time)

Which makes me just wonder about Jedi politics and philosophy again. I don't go into this with anger or hatred, just pure curiosity and an interest in bridging that gap. The Acolyte might offer some insight into how the Jedi change enough to be okay with using a slave army to fight mass oppression and violence. The Jedi don't own the slave army, but they're complicit in it. I wonder about the Jedi who were against using the clones to fight a war.

(and no, this doesn't justify any of the atrocities they face later on as a people)

[virtie333]

Day 14 - Life Day Damerey Celebration

Prompt: Parents

Summary: Rey and Poe discuss having children.

Notes: Something a little different. I usually write Rey and Poe having a lot of babies, because I like to live vicariously through them. But what if that isn't what one of them wants?

AO3

It had been a long day, but as Rey settled into her bed next to Poe, she knew it wasn’t over, yet.

She had been thinking a lot of deep thoughts that day. One of her students, a young human boy named Relgan, had hurt himself while out hiking through the jungle around mid-morning. Instead of crying due to the pain or being scared of how badly he was hurt, Relgan had kept apologizing. Over and over again. Rey knew the young boy had been orphaned as a baby and had been raised by the owner of a maintenance shop on Anael. He had not been treated well by the man, and Rey had literally had to buy the child from the man in order to get him away from the slavery he’d known his whole life. Now he was in training to be a Jedi, and was doing well mentally, but he still did and said things that reminded Rey that he was not completely healed from a lifetime of trauma.

“Poe?” she said softly, hoping he wasn’t asleep already.

“Yeah?” He sounded alert.

“I was thinking… I’d like to adopt Relgan.”

Poe turned his head to look at her, his eyebrows high. “Adopt? You’re already his official guardian.”

“I know,” Rey said. “But I feel like if we adopt him, together, that will give him the sense of family that will help him heal even more. Sometimes I think he still sees himself as a slave, even if his current master, me, is good to him.”

“So, you want him to take the Dameron name?” he asked softly.

“If… if you don’t want that-“

“No!” Poe interrupted her. “I don’t mind at all. It would be an honor to call him our son.” He shrugged, giving her a grin. “I always figured we’d become parents someday.”

Rey bit her lip and frowned. Poe noticed. “What’s wrong?”

“About the parent thing,” she said. “Do you want children? Naturally?”

Poe looked at her for a long time, his expression serious. “I guess,” he started. “I never really thought about it. I mean, I guess I thought that, should I ever fall in love with a woman, I wouldn’t be opposed to us having babies together. But as my taste in partners back then was, shall we say ‘lacking uniformity,’ having babies naturally wasn’t always an option.” He paused. “Do you not want to have babies?”

Rey kept her eyes down, and she began picking nervously at a loose thread on the blanket covering them. “I did before,” she finally told him. She looked up, meeting his eyes. “Before I found out who I was.”

Poe shook his head. “Rey, you have nothing to worry about when it comes to your bloodline. You have far too much light in you to worry about your children.”

“Leia was all light, too,” she argued. “And look what happened to Ben!”

Poe reached over and gently stroked her cheek. “Those were extenuating circumstances, but I get it. I understand why you would be afraid.”

“So, you don’t mind that I don’t want children of my own?”

“Of course not,” he confirmed. “We can still be parents for Relgan, and however many other children you feel need a real family.”

She smiled at him, but she still felt sorrow deep inside. Poe seemed to sense it; for a man who could not use the Force, it sure seemed to use him sometimes.

“You can always change your mind, Rey,” he told her. “Just let me know.”

She nodded. “Thank you.” She scooched forward and snuggled up against him. “You are going to be an amazing dad.”

“I think we’re going to be amazing parents,” Poe added. “After we mess up a few hundred times, anyway.”

Rey giggled. “How do you know we’ll mess up?’

“Because good parents always mess up,” Poe told her. “But they learn. And they get better. And they never stop loving their kids or each other.”

“Sounds perfect,” Rey said, her eyes closed, a dreamy smile on her face as she drifted off to sleep.

[circle-around-again]

"Trezza bowed slightly and said, 'Greetings, Maul. You may call me Master Trezza.' Maul bowed deeply. 'I am honored, Master Trezza.'" (Windham, 72).

No one has explained to Maul the difference between Master/Owner and Master/Teacher. He likely assumes that Trezza is his new temporary slave owner, but he also doesn't know what 'slave owner' means.

For world-building purposes, Maul must have acted alarmingly deferential when in the presence of Trezza. Perhaps Trezza, or those who witnessed this, would begin to think that something strange was going on.

I also wonder if he ever learns the difference. Does he think Jedi masters rule their apprentices?

[updatebug]

Can you explain more about what you mean by Jedi culture being hard for Anakin to deal with as a former slave?

well I mean obviously there's the going from a place where your owners are called masters, to a place where your teachers are called masters.

Plus going from a place where your actions are controlled to a place where you are expected (to a certain degree) to confirm - I don't think that the Jedi are necessarily controlling but they are a religious order with certain cultural expectations (something of a uniform, the way they interact with the force, the letting go of attachments etc) that I can imagine that being something Anakin would struggle with.

I mean, I know people joke on here about Anakin misinterpreting the 'no attachment' thing as being no relationships when it's no possessive relationships but I mean I don't think having to hide a relationship would exactly be a new concept to him. Depending on when and where you're talking about slaves often weren't allowed to marry or were only allowed to marry with their master's permission - and even then it wasn't fully legal and the couple could still be split up and sold separately.

I am a film only watcher, I never got into the TVs shows, so I can't speak for what happened in them and in the films at least we don't know much about what Anakin's life as a slave so this is speculation. But I can see where there might be areas where there's a clash in what lessons he's learning, and what lessons the jedi think they are teaching him.

[nawilla]

You also have to remember the person reporting this Sith is . . . Qui-Gon. He's not exactly Mr. Accurate and Reliable and Based in Facts from what little we know of him.

Consider his report to the Council. He has come back from a mission to Naboo. Does he talk to the Council about the frankly concerning behavior of the Trade Federation and how they were not intimidated by his Jedi-ness and in fact tried to kill him to cover up their illegal invasion? Maybe. We don't see that part. He states he fought a Sith, with no evidence it was a Sith, just a Dark Force user. Maybe. He says they were trained in 'the Jedi Arts'. This could be a Fallen Jedi. This could be an insane Jedi. This could be a Dark Force user. This could be a lightsaber user with ambition. To call it a Sith is premature, and as a negotiator and diplomat, Qui-Gon should take care of the finer meanings of what he says, but he does not. He states what he feels, not what he knows. He doesn't actually say his attacker demonstrated any Force use and Obi-Wan can't exactly corroborate it.

The Council, used to his hyperbole and know-everything attitude, agrees this should be investigated, the actions are a threat. Prudent and serious.

The next words out of his mouth is that he also found the Chosen One while on his little side quest. His evidence is lots of midichlorians, the most he's ever seen, and the mother, a slave, can't tell him who the father is. Are we to believe Qui-Gon is a midichlorian expert? Does he know what range his testing equipment is accurate for? Is he also an expert on prophecy, or does he just have surface understanding of it?

Could it be that the angry Force user chasing him as he tried to take the Super Force Sensitive kid off planet was the kid's father and there is a custody dispute with Shmi or her owner, because that makes a heck of a lot more sense than 'I met a Sith and the Chosen One on the same day after totally botching my diplomatic mission on Naboo.' Note how he's not considering that theory.

I didn't say it wasn't true, but I think the Council is probably used to Qui-Gon's tall tales, exaggerations, and self-importance.

i’ve never understood the idea that the jedi arrogantly refused to believe the dark side was rising in the prequels/clone wars. that is just… so blatantly not what we see

when qui-gon first brings it up in the phantom menace they don’t really believe it, sure, mostly because to their knowledge they haven’t seen a sith lord in a millennia, so it is a wild idea. this initial denial has consequences, sure, but it’s hardly the all-encompassing arrogance that people accuse them of.

and then at the end of the very same movie the question is literally posed OUT LOUD if they killed the master or apprentice- they know there’s another out there!!! the problem is they just don’t have the slightest idea on where to look first, especially with palpatine clouding their vision with the dark side.

then they also have a hard time believing initially that dooku is a sith- not because they don’t think there’s a sith around, but because they KNOW dooku, loved and trusted him even, and are having a hard time believing he’d do such terrible things. but once they see it for themselves, they do fully acknowledge that dooku is a sith and has fallen to the dark side.

the jedi KNOW by the end of tpm that the dark side is rising in power. they KNOW that there are sith around. they’re not denying anything, and are actively even working against it, but their vision is being intentionally clouded by a bad faith actor.

they are just struggling to put the pieces together and figure out the best way to handle it (while also dealing with every other problem the galaxy has that gets put on their shoulders and eventually a whole ass WAR), and unfortunately, once they figure it all out it’s too late.

[thefireflyreader]

I posted 2,003 times in 2022

That's 422 more posts than 2021!

20 posts created (1%)

1,983 posts reblogged (99%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@gffa

@pool--guy

@beardedmrbean

@alamogirl80

@agreekdemigod

I tagged 36 of my posts in 2022

#star wars - 18 posts

#commander cody - 15 posts

#codywan - 13 posts

#obi wan kenobi - 12 posts

#star wars the clone wars - 11 posts

#tcw - 8 posts

#captain rex - 5 posts

#clone oc - 5 posts

#codywan fic - 5 posts

#codywanbingo - 4 posts

Longest Tag: 119 characters

#like i know i know i’ve literally worked i know in the work place like. shit happens whatever we figure it out together

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

FINALLY A BINGO!

Codywan Fluff Bingo here!

I just realized that I didn't post the cards for this one or the last one, so I'll edit it later and add them. But it's like 1:45 am here and I have a busy day tomorrow and Saturday. But please enjoy!

@codywanbingo

8 notes - Posted September 2, 2022

#4

Final Fill! Bingo

Alright, here's the last one I'll be posting to the collection. Will continue my personal series with the other prompts eventually. This one is rated M.

RATED M.

@codywankissbingo @codywanbingo

See the full post

9 notes - Posted July 10, 2022

#3

Ant?!? I need to know more 🥺🤲

Oh! There's so little but so much. Ant likes bugs, especially ants. Because he was the "runt" of his batch, and then he learned that ants can lift between 10-50 times their body weight. So he wants to be like ants. He's a bit nerdy and quiet. At the end of the war, he is only 2 (physically four) years old. In fluffy timelines, he gets adopted by Cody and Obi-wan. I haven't decided what happens in less fluffy timelines.

9 notes - Posted July 21, 2022

#2

My First Codywan Kiss Bingo Fill

12 notes - Posted July 5, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

An Anakin Deep Dive

So this is going to be mostly things that are from canon/legends. I will mention headcanons that I have, but I'll admit they are headcanons. Might have spoilers for the Kenobi show. I'll see if after I finish typing this up that still applies. Reason for this post. Well, I feel like people talk very negatively about Anakin, which has only been made a bit worse by the Kenobi show. And I think people forget some things about him. Anakin's timeline:

Birth to 2: He was a slave with an abusive master. Now most people assume he doesn't remember this. However, there is a novel about Vader (I believe it's just called Vader) that actually implies he does remember some of this.

2-9: He was given to Watto. Or well won by Watto. Now Watto was not a horrible master by any means. However, Anakin was still a slave. He was not free. This next part is more speculation than canon/legends, but what are the chances Anakin knew how to read or write? He may have known basic math since Watto was a shop owner and he may have handled customers.

(Also I don't believe him when he says he's not afraid of the chip blowing him up. You're nine.)

9-18/19: He's a Padawan with Obi-wan. We don't know much about this time period. Because even the extend universe novels about him as a padawan happen shortly after he gets to the temple and right before he's knighted during the clone wars. However, expanding on the reading/writing thing mentioned earlier, if he knew to read/write, it was because Shmi taught him, but she was an slave from being a young girl (Age not specified), so there's a good chance she didn't know either. Either way, Anakin would have been miles behind his fellow peers within the Jedi Order. He was immediately accepted as a Padawan, which people may have been jealous of. Although, considering Obi-wan had just been knighted, this may not be as bad as if someone like Master Windu had taken him.

There are three things we know Anakin is good at: flying, mechanics, and sparring. However, sparring is the only one of those things Obi-wan trained him in.

19: He marries Padme and is immediately thrown into the Clone Wars.

19-22/23: Clone Wars, where some events were made to directly affects Anakin's relationship with his friends.

Umbara: Rex was either supposed to die or lose trust in Anakin. Anakin was pulled away by the Chancellor for reasons we don't know and nothing seemed to happen that would warrant him leaving the 501st.

Wrong Jedi: Ahsoka leaves the Order, because they kicked her out because she was accused of something she didn't do. There really wasn't much of an apology from the Jedi in terms of that, so double whammy. Ahsoka leaves, so Anakin loses some of his support and he is mad at the Jedi.

Hardeen: Name one reason it had to be Obi-wan that went undercover. The bounty hunter needed to have esteem by killing someone well known? Okay, and? It's literally Vos's job to do this kind of undercover work. Also, there was no reason Anakin couldn't have been informed after the mission started, because he would need the raw emotions. Also why was he allowed to go after "Hardeen?"

22/23: Anakin fell to the Dark side, partially due to manipulation from Palpatine, the Jedi mishandling him at times, and his own struggles with his emotions.

My main point is that people seem to forget about the trauma Anakin went through and also that he was only 22 maybe 23 when he fell to the dark side. He wasn't an adult who had his life together. He was at war while still a teenage. Yes, 19 while considered an adult is still a teenager. His brain wasn't even fully developed when he fell. My dad likes to tell me all the time that the frontal cortex, where processing consequences happens, doesn't fully develop until you're 26.

He was mishandled a bit by the Jedi. It felt, at times, that the Jedi were treating him as if he had been in the temple his whole life, especially in ROTS, where he speaks to Yoda about his nightmares of losing Padme. He goes to ask for help and is basically told to let it go. Also, in the few novels about Anakin's time as Obi-wan's padawan, he continuously struggles with Obi-wan's teaching style. And to me, it boils down to a difference in love language. Anakin seems to thrive off words of affirmation, and maybe a little bit of touch, while Obi-wan seems to use and react better to acts of service. Obi-wan tends to show Anakin he is proud of him or that he loves him, when Anakin needs him to tell him. (And I can go on another long rant about why Obi-wan is the way he is. Specifically how Qui-Gon screwed him up.)

17 notes - Posted June 21, 2022

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[antianakin]

Not sure if you answered this already but what’s your opinion about the chips in the clones? Lazy writing or missed potential about free will and self expression?

This is a little vague, so I'm going to try to answer this as best I can and then you can let me now how well I did. I'm assuming you're asking me about the general concept of the chips as an explanation for why the clones turned on the Jedi during Order 66 rather than how the chips as a plot device has been handled in a specific piece of media or just over the years in general.

The original concept for why the clones turned on the Jedi was that they were only semi sentient, from what I can tell. In AOTC, Obi-Wan is told that the clones have been genetically modified to "make them less independent than the original host. As a result they are totally obedient, taking any order without question." So they didn't exactly have free will and self expression prior to the chip being introduced at all. Cody seems friendly with Obi-Wan, he has his own specific armor design, and both he and Oddball earlier do have names that Obi-Wan calls them by, but the amount of actual free will and self expression they have is VERY limited. Cody's friendliness only extends until he's given an order to kill Obi-Wan and then it immediately goes away because he doesn't have enough independence to consider if it makes sense or if it's morally wrong. So I'm not sure I'd count this original canon implication about the clones as HAVING a lot of free will and self expression in the clones at all.

The alternative explanation for Order 66 that seems to have existed prior to TCW (and maybe even was the original plan for TCW before they came up with the chips) was that the clones DID have free will and self expression and that they hated the Jedi because they saw the Jedi as the people keeping them enslaved, so they turned on them in Order 66 willingly and the friendliness they showed to the Jedi was all an act. Personally, I don't think this makes a lot of sense for NUMEROUS reasons. One, it doesn't jive with the line from the Kaminoans about how they are less independent and totally obedient due to genetic modifications. Two, it doesn't make sense to me that they'd intentionally show Cody and Obi-Wan being quite friendly if we're supposed to understand that the clones hate the Jedi; it would've been just as easy to have Cody be more professional and Obi-Wan more distant when they interacted with each other. Three, it doesn't make any sense that the intended message would be that the Jedi had genuinely enslaved the clones given that the Jedi are very clearly represented as the good guys here; obviously Lucas created a somewhat morally sticky situation with the clones in general that doesn't really get explored, but that doesn't mean we are intended to see the Jedi as slave owners.

What you get from the introduction of the chips is sort-of a marriage of both concepts. The clones CAN'T resist the order when it comes in and it's something that IS built in genetically, but they also DO have self expression and free will outside of that one moment. Cody and Obi-Wan's friendliness towards each other is REAL and Cody only turns on Obi-Wan because he's mind controlled into it. This allows for the clones to have personalities that are explored a lot more in other media and to build up this extra tragedy in the relationship between the clones and the Jedi without turning the clones into flesh droids or the Jedi into villains. The introduction of the chip also allows for the clones to have a future afterwards, there's a narrative to be told with them post-Order 66 as the chips are either removed or stop working and they have to start realizing what they did and dealing with the implications of it all. We're seeing some of that happen in TBB with Rex and Echo spearheading this entire operation to try to help clones escape the Empire.

So overall I think that the chips being introduced allows for MORE free will and self expression in the clones than usual, it keeps the Jedi from being labeled slavers and villains, and it brings in a lot of extra complexity and nuance to the entire situation that I personally quite enjoy.

[marvelstars]

"All slaves have a transmitter placed inside their bodies somewhere." "I've been working on a scanner to try and locate mine, but no luck." "Any attempt to escape…" "And they blow you up. Poof!"

―Shmi and Anakin Skywalker

One of the things that always get my attention in the phantom menace is how easily the people who would take care of Anakin from his 9 years to a young adult could ignore so easily the way his upbringing would affect him but if you see TPM movie, you get why.

Shmi and Anakin are living in horrorific circunstances, they know their owners, Gardulla and Watto can blow them up anytime they want with all legality on Tatooine so what´s left to them to stay not only sane but also kind under such circunstances is to keep what Viktor Emil Frankl called "mental/emotional freedom" they may not be owners of their own bodies but they are owners of their own mind and they can choose to be kind in their circunstances because they "WANT TO BE KIND" not because some code tells them they have to be kind or compassionate.

This is a family who has personally seen slaves being blown up, from kids, to women to adults of any age, a family who lived inside Gardulla´s the Hutt palace, you only need to remember ROTJ to understand this is a mother who had to explain to anakin what sex was from a very young age so he could tell her if someone wanted to take advantage of him that way even if she could not stop them from taking advantage of her Son.

QUI-GON: You should be proud of your son. He gives without any thought of reward.

SHMI: Well he knows nothing of greed.

So when the Jedi came to Tatooine, given the stories both Shmi and Anakin heard about them, most notably the story about them freeing slaves from the former Sith Empire some thousands of years ago, they didn´t expect much but at least they expected the problem to be recognized but Qui-Gon has to explain to them that they are on Tatooine on accident and that they are not here to free slaves and when you get to Coruscant you learn that the Jedi are mostly concerned to what happens in the Senate to put much attention to what happens in the wider galaxy.

So we get in an scenario where Anakin is send to the Temple by his mother to give him a chance of a normal life but the world in which he gets to doesn´t even have the lenses to begin to understand his pov and not only that, they expect him to adapt himself to them, not the other way around.

You think? I don´t know Yoda, If I were a 9 year old who still has a ticking bomb inside my body(Qui-Gon didnt had time to get him to an infirmary), who had to leave behind my mother in such circunstances and who now is surrounded by adults called masters, who can read my mind, you know, the only thing left free for a slave like Anakin, I guess I would be pretty afraid too and not because I am falling to the darkside but because it´s a normal human reaction but Jedi are just not that empatethic in this version of the Order right?

So what we get is that Anakin gets to live in a place with people who certainly have good intentions, who see themselves as the guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy but who mostly believe this means doing what the Senate tells them to do, they are completely unable and unwilling to even begin to understand Anakin, most of them, even Yoda have too sheltered lives to begin to understand where Anakin is coming from and it shows painfully as part of the tragedy, because where they see Anakin, they see pain/anger/hate and where Anakin sees them, he sees ignorance and lack of empathy that he at times sees as cruelty but both sides try to make it work, acting as if that´s not what they see on each other.

So even if Obi-Wan did his best to understand Anakin he´s still too sheltered to understand him they way his mother did, he believes Anakin having a problem with food snacks is a sign of him being greedy /asking for special treatment instead of being a sign of someone who has been starved before as punishment and a natural reaction is to keep food and insects around so he doesn´t die of hunger, Obi-Wan is just disgusted by it.

But you know someone who certainly grew up as sheltered as the members of the jedi order, as part of a noble house in a mid rim planet but who has plenty of life experiences and isn´t so set in his ways that he can recognize the signs Anakin is showing for all to see? who has travelled to Tatooine and many other worlds as part of his Sith training? Palpatine, this is why he allowed Anakin to stay in the Jedi Order, he knew he would just grow up bitter and resentful of them because they were just too set in their own ways to try to understand and that for him, was just preparation for him to be turned into a Sith. He can be the one adult who understands where Anakin is coming from and he doesn´t even need to lie.

So when I see this character seen in the fandom as someone spoiled (lol) who gave Obi-Wan a hard time every chance he got, I wish Lucas had been more direct in telling this part of the story because there´s just so much of this tragedy lost in translation that isn´t even funny.

But you know who also had the means to get to Anakin and completely understand what the hell happened, who was from the same world? Who knew how to get to him in his own language despite years of being submerged in the darkside? Yes, his Son Luke, so I guess this is how the story rhymes.

[mysticaltora8276]

Yes, that is blatantly obvious… in fact, she even said as much that she only watched the part where Obi-Wan discovered the clones and pretty much anytime when the clone showed up and cheered when the Jedi victims of the genocide were murdered. Because she has the emotional understanding of a pin about Star Wars. She seemed to think that they were part of the ruling elite” equivalent to slave owners in the American south, which if you know anything about Star Wars, you know that is blatantly untrue.

And if I may add something to my dislike of the book series, I also like to put out that she absolutely positively without any doubt LOATHED Obi-Wan. I mean seriously every single time she had to write a character interacting with Obi-Wan Kenobi she purposely had them use his last name like they were Darth Maul on a hate trip. Even when she was writing from the point of view of Anakin Skywalker…. Anakin Skywalker. The same guy who literally worshiped the ground he walked on and called him a father, even as he was being a typical idiot with anger management issues, and other issues, but we’ve already gone into that on other posts.

But anyways, when some bright spark decided to have her literally *sigh* write the novelization of the Star Wars clone wars movie. She decided to pull the whole “the Separatists are a legitimate government.” Which would be fine if she were actually pointing out the separatist that were trying to do something good not Ventress you know the person working directly for a dark order of the Sith you know the bad guys! See what I mean about just ignorant about Star Wars and his blatantly projecting her ignorance as she’s knowledgeable?

In either case that rant aside, the point is is that every time she wrote from a character that got near Obi-Wan Kenobi she had them exclusively referring to him by his last name treating him like crap when he would most of the time do nothing wrong at all, just be his typical self, which is charming and kind and the pinnacle of what a true Jedi should be and anybody who tries to hurt my Star Wars cinnamon roll will face my wrath. Thank you very much.

So yeah, I can imagine I’m not a fan of her work and from what I’ve heard from people that have read her work and halo franchise. It’s not exclusively Star Wars thing evidently she has a bad tendency of coming into peoples franchises and imposing her viewpoint on the characters when they don’t make any sense in universe and then, wonder why everybody has an absolute loathing for her work

Did I happen to mention that I do not like the Republic commando book series? Now the thing that I dislike aside for the obvious prejudice and racism and misogyny and ableism that permeates the book is the fact that it’s just so misinformed. And the thing is is that the author is intentionally misinformed. Now this could’ve been an interesting story of someone with a radically Stupid world view would mind you in universe, but a different world nonetheless coming into contact with people who have a different world for you and could’ve been good with someone who just has a weird viewpoint and an unreliable narrator. But nope. We’re supposed to take this guy seriously and take his word as gospel, even though he is demonstratively wrong. And what’s worse is that the author constantly dismisses his emotional abuse as “being a good father.“ I don’t wanna know what kind of relationship the author had with her father because if that’s the kind of relationship that she and her father had that abusive. And what’s also infuriating about this is the fact that there are moments tiny moments where it’s almost like her characters become self aware of how messed up it is, but they aren’t given enough screen time or they instantly shut down by non-arguments. So it’s almost like a part of the author is aware that this viewpoint is messed up, but refuses to let it go because it interferes with her fantasy. Again, if this was written by an unreliable narrator, it would’ve been interesting. If a bit infuriating from a project Jedi perspective. As is? It is a mess of prejudices, misinformation, and propaganda on the part of the author. Short, this would be good material for the imperials to use as propaganda.

[americankimchi]

people are so dumb about the jedi being actually the bad guys like the last film of the original trilogy is literally called return of the JEDI

every time i see the words "the jedi are evil" followed by paragraphs explaining why, how, and when the jedi were cruel and absolutely deserved what they got i just sit there thinking abt the scene where palpatine turns to anakin and asks him if he's heard about the tragedy of darth plagueis the wise. like y'all really would sit there and let this man manipulate you just like that! really defending the whole "sith have a point" thing and conveniently forgetting that they are the ones committing the atrocities that you think the jedi reacted problematically to!

palpatine: i am going to create a situation that is so fucking untenable that the jedi who have sworn to uphold the ideals of peace and the sanctity of life have no choice but to participate in a war that will wear them down physically, mentally, and spiritually in an attempt to destroy them via their need to help relieve the suffering of others. i commit war crimes for breakfast.

the jedi: we have to take command of the clones because if we dont the senate will see these individuals as expendable cannon fodder and that is unacceptable. even if we are at risk of falling due to the constant bombardment of pain and death we feel in the force around and within us we have to keep fighting because choosing not to participate means tacitly approving of the slaughter of billions

people who watched one (1) youtube video saying that jedi are evil: omg look at the jedi fighting in a war!! hypocrites!!! slave owners!!!!! they deserved to die!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[phoenixyfriend]

soulmate au: 2 or 27 for rexwalker? (or rexanidala)

soulmate au prompts

2. the one where you have your soulmate’s name written on your body.

27. the one where you can transfer any injuries/pain your soulmate has onto yourself.

Once again featuring Marginally Less Terrible Jango, Hopeless Romantic Anakin, and Significantly More Awkward Rex.

Word Count: 5.9k

-----

Anakin doesn’t have a soulmate until he’s ten years old.

He’s already been at the Temple for half a year by then, and heard enough about how not having a soul mark is a good thing, for a Jedi. It means fewer temptations away from the duties they’ve all agreed to take on. There are people with names on their bodies, including Obi-Wan, who has two, but everyone agrees that while friendship with one’s soulmate is fine, especially if that soulmate is a fellow Jedi, it cannot be allowed to become too deep.

“I don’t understand,” Anakin admits to Obi-Wan, one night when he finds Obi-Wan looking at the name that wraps around his upper thigh, the one in the unfamiliar alphabet and cultured, perfect strokes. It’s a few months after he arrives, long enough to think they won’t kick him out just for asking questions, but not quite long enough to know what’s normal yet. His own soul mark is several months away, not that he knows it. “Soulmates were one of the few things a mas--an owner couldn’t take away from a slave. They could get rid of the mark, but we still knew. They were important, something the universe gave us that we could keep, even if it was only in our memories. Why do Jedi try to make it not count?”

Obi-Wan gets a look on his face, the one he gets whenever Anakin has a question that’s more complicated and philosophical than what Obi-Wan was ready for, the questions about why that he has to think about because it’s all normal for Obi-Wan, who grew up here, in ways that it isn’t (and will never be) for Anakin with his Tatoo heart and slaveborn mind.

“It’s not about the depth of the relationship in and of itself,” Obi-Wan finally says. “It’s about how you go about it, how you let it affect you, and if you let it get in the way of your duties as a Jedi, or put yourself at risk of a fall. It’s... it’s not banned, exactly, to love someone the way one would expect to love a soulmate, but it’s discouraged for our own safety and health. Losing someone you love hurts everyone, but for a Force-user to lose someone they consider so dear to their heart, there’s always a risk of losing one’s stability and going Dark.”

Anakin doesn’t entirely understand, but he pretends he does.

Obi-Wan scratches at the stubble he’s trying to turn into a beard, and says, “Okay, let me finish getting dressed, and then I’m going to tell you a few stories. You said you like learning through stories, right?”

Anakin nods.

“Okay, so... Bandomeer, I think. Melida/Daan and Mandalore, definitely. And we can round it out with what happened a few days ago,” Obi-Wan mutters. “I--most of those are planets.”

“I’ve heard of Mandalore,” Anakin volunteers.

“Yes, most have,” Obi-Wan indulges him, but he looks a little nervous. “Anakin, I... these stories all have to do with some very painful times in my life, times when I almost left, or did leave, the Jedi Order. I think--”

“You left the Jedi?”

“For a year, when I was a little older than you, but I came back,” Obi-Wan says. “I’m... can you put on some tea? It’ll make this conversation easier.”

“Is it about your soulmates?” Anakin asks, clinging to the doorframe just before he exits.

“...one of them,” Obi-Wan says, passing a hand over the mark on his thigh. “It’s... she’s why Mandalore is on this list, but that story won’t make as much sense unless I tell you about Bandomeer and Melida/Daan first.”

“Because you left?”

“Because I already knew what leaving could cost me,” Obi-Wan corrects, gentle but oddly stern. “Go put on the tea, Anakin. I’ll only be a few minutes.”

-----

Three months after Anakin hears about the times Obi-Wan was forced to leave, did leave, almost left, and threatened to leave (for Anakin’s sake!), the name of his soulmate comes in.

“That’s not a name,” Anakin says.

“Anakin--”

“That’s not a name,” Anakin says, more upset than he’d like to admit. The soul mark sits neatly on one side of his lower abdomen, warm and precisely lettered and absolutely terrifying.

CT-7567, in a dark, desaturated blue.

“I don’t think your soulmate is a droid,” Obi-Wan tries to joke. It falls flat.

“They’re a born slave,” Anakin says, and watches Obi-Wan stiffen. “Droids don’t get soulmates. Slaves do, but sometimes ma--owners don’t let slaves have names. They just give ‘em a number and that’s it. Supposed to make us more pliant and keeps us from having thoughts of individuality.”

“Them, Anakin, not us. You’re free.”

Anakin looks up at him, lip wobbling, and he knows a Jedi shouldn’t cry, not when he’s already ten, but he wants to any way. “My soulmate isn’t.”

“O-oh, okay, we’re crying now,” Obi-Wan mutters, clearly overwhelmed, and pulls Anakin to his chest. “It’ll be alright, dear one. Your mark means you will meet one day, and when you do, you can free them. Alright?”

“Okay.”

-----

“Skywalker? Sounds like a slave name.”

It’s a refrain that CT-7567 hears almost every time one of the adults sees his mark. They mention Tatooine sometimes. One of the bounty hunters that covers their weapons training gets angry if people point out the slave thing, and CT-7567 isn’t the only person to get a slave for a soulmate. She doesn’t explain it often, but there’s an incident when Rex is three that gives him a little more information.

“That one’ll be angry,“ the bounty hunter mutters, her lip curling when she hears the cadets gossiping about their marks again, sees CT-7567 pulling up his shirt to show off his own. She’s always like that, about the clones who have slave soulmates. CC-1010, who knows everything about everyone, says that she used to be a slave before she killed her way out. She’s definitely scary enough. “Name like that... Tatooine, human, might be a slave or might be freeborn from a line of slaves. Either way, that one’s going to be angry about it.”

“How do you mean, sir?”

Her eyes flick to his, and then back to the slugthrower she’s cleaning. “Tatooine slave culture knows things. Your mark on this “Anakin” is going to be your number until you get a name, and they’re not going to make the mistake of thinking their soulmate is a droid. They’ll know you were born to a purpose.”

It takes another year for CT-7567 to learn that she means ‘you were born a slave.’

(It takes two more for him to pick a name.)

-----

Anakin is not the only one in the Temple to have this kind of soul mark popping up. He is not even the first. The Council is investigating it, apparently, but they don’t have much to go off of. It didn’t start until a year or two before Anakin came to Coruscant, but enough Jedi are affected by the CC and CT soul marks for it to be concerning. Anakin gets called in to provide some information on what he knows about slave-designations in these circumstances, which isn’t much, and is barely more than what they already know, but they assure him it’s helpful. Something about corroborating the information a raised slave is taught culturally with the information a Shadow can collect from a community that doesn’t trust them. Obi-Wan explains that it’s about how Anakin knows information that was collected and taught, instead of information that has to be gathered, bit by bit, and analyzed.

It’s a long way of saying that Anakin knows things that other people don’t, because he wasn’t raised in the safety of the Temple.

Anakin doesn’t know many of the others, but he does know one even before his soul mark comes in, because their Masters are friends. They talk about it, and three years after they first connect over this, something happens.

“It changed! Anakin, Ani, it changed!”

Anakin drops the datapad he’s been doing history homework on, and looks up as Aayla, already in the suite, grabs his shoulders and shakes him a little.

“Aayla?” Obi-Wan calls, coming out of the kitchen with a rag in one hand and a wet plate in the other. “What in the--what are you shouting about?”

Knight Vos follows Aayla in--it’s a bit early to call him a Master, given that Aayla’s still not knighted, but it’s getting close--and leans against the door, arms crossed. “Kid was right. The mark changes when the soulmate picks a name.”

Aayla pulls down the shoulder of one sleeve, and Anakin sees that the designation number has changed. It’s not a regimented CC-5052 anymore, but a short, sweet Bly, with a flourish at the end that probably means this person is always going to be excited to sign their name.

“We already knew that,” Obi-Wan says. “When people transition, their name changes on their soulmate as well. This is the same thing.”

“We didn’t know that it applied to born slaves the same way,” Knight Vos says. “All we had was anecdotal evidence from the kid. Trustworthy, yes, but no data to back it up. And now we know.”

“I wonder how it’s meant to be pronounced,” Aayla says, and obligingly lets Anakin poke at the name that swirls on her shoulder in a vivid yellow against the blue. It’s pretty, he thinks. The handwriting and the color and what it means that the soulmates they’ve all gotten are finding ways to be people.

“How long until mine changes?” Anakin asks, even though he knows that nobody here has that answer. “Do you think all of them are going to find names? Or...”

“If they don’t by the time we find them,” Aayla assures him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders, “they will once they’re free.”

(In one life, the Jedi would have held their tongues and ducked their heads, hidden in denial and ‘we are their only option’ and ‘the Senate will use them regardless; we are a kinder fate than men like Tarkin’ and would never use the words ‘slave army’ to describe their men.)

(In this life, they are primed, from the moment a little freed boy explains exactly what a soul mark like this means to people like his, to see their army and say ‘we will free you.’)

-----

Rex

Anakin has his eyes fixed on the name from the moment his mark burns and twists and changes. He’s sixteen by then, and on a mission with Obi-Wan that prevents him from running to break into Knight Aayla’s room and show off to her the way she had to him. He’s not even on planet, but at least it’s not the middle of a fight. That could have been bad.

“Hey, Obi-Wan?”

“Hm?”

“I got a name.”

“For the assassin?” Obi-Wan asks, raising his head hopefully. “Did you get through to the guild?”

“...no, I meant, uh, my soulmate.” Anakin lifts his shirt, waits on that unfortunate dash of disappointment, and then Obi-Wan’s face lights up and the man practically scrambles over to get a better look. Anakin tries not to let himself read too much into it. It’s... nice, he thinks. That Obi-Wan is excited for him.

“I feel like half these individuals are picking names of exactly three letters,” Obi-Wan says, but he’s smiling as he almost touches the mark. He doesn’t, in the end, but Anakin wants to laugh at it anyway. “Rex, then. I look forward to meeting your young man.”

Anakin feels his face flare. “We don’t know that it’s a boy. I mean, there might be places where that’s a girl’s name. Or a species that doesn’t have our genders. Or--”

“I have a feeling,” Obi-Wan says, and laughs when Anakin pouts at him. “Oh, I wouldn’t bet my saber on it, but a few credits, at least. Nothing solid, but I was prone to visions as a youngling. Qui-Gon was never very good at dealing with the peculiarities of such a connection to the Unifying Force. He tried, admittedly, but he was very much a man of the present.”

Anakin spends the rest of the mission silently cheering on his soulmate for picking a name.

For taking that step to saying “I’m a person.”

-----

Someone tries to assassinate Senator Amidala. Anakin and Obi-Wan are assigned to protect her. There’s an incident with a robot, and Obi-Wan is... pulled aside.

(Anakin finds himself thinking, more than once, that he could have fallen in love with this woman if he wasn’t so attached to the idea inked into his skin.)

(Senator Amidala doesn’t have a soulmate. She’s free to choose, she claims. He doesn’t envy her, but he does respect this.)

(Anakin likes the security of the universe telling him that there’s someone he’s meant for.)

Obi-Wan disappears to investigate something, and returns just before Anakin and Padme are set to leave. He looks... grim.

“The assassination is more complicated than we thought,” Obi-Wan says. “As in, the main assassin was expecting this to fail, so we’d come find him after he killed the subcontractor.”

“So...”

“He wants to talk to us,” Obi-Wan says. “But, specifically, to the two of you.”

-----

“So, you’re Anakin Skywalker.”

Jango Fett is a shorter man than Anakin, shorter even than Obi-Wan, but he’s not small. The armor bulks him out further. There’s faint scars on his face, here and there, and he seems more amused than anything when Anakin slips in front of Padme to actually be the bodyguard he’s supposed to play.

“What’s it to you?” Anakin challenges, and pretends he doesn’t see the way Obi-Wan pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs.

Fett smirks. “One of my boys has your name on him.”

Anakin stops breathing for a moment.

“One of your boys?” Padme prompts, and Anakin tries to remember his job.

Fett’s smirk falls away and he palms his face. “Three million of them, and counting. I’ve had people cross-referencing soul marks as they pop up, in case anyone’s connected to someone... important. Special attention on the confirmed Jedi.”

“Three mill--you’re behind the ident number marks,” Anakin realizes. “The slave-born.”

Obi-Wan’s face looks carved from stone, and Anakin realizes that the mood he’s been in since he called Anakin and Padme was because he’d figured it out before he called.

“Yeah, Umiett said you’d be the one to make that connection,” Fett mutters. He shakes his head. “Listen, I’ve got three million clones that are more sentient than anyone told me they’d be, and I’ve spent the last few years trying to decide how to get myself out of this contract without abandoning them in the process. Tyranus gave me the job to assassinate Amidala, but I’d already had her shortlisted as one of the Republic members most like to help me get these boys citizenship and legal rights. Once I heard Skywalker and Kenobi were involved, turning this into a discreet way to get your attention seemed like the obvious solution.”

“You tried to kill me... to get my attention... so I’d help you.”

“I didn’t try to kill you. I subcontracted to a former acquaintance that I knew wasn’t good enough to get past two Jedi.”

“Right,” Padme says, seeming unimpressed. Anakin agrees. “Okay, three million sentients, all your children--”

“Clones.”

“--yes, something that’s very illegal in the Republic at that scale,” she says. “Unless--”

“Kamino’s in the Rishi maze. Dwarf galaxy, not actually part of the Republic. Isolated.”

“Okay, that’s... going to make this more difficult,” Padme says. “Where does your citizenship lie? Are you still Mandalorian? I’m not as familiar with your role in recent politics as I could be. I know there’s something about all violent dissenters being sent to Concordia, but you--”

“If I thought that hut’uunla Duchess would listen to me, I’d have already reached out,” Fett dismisses. “That’s part of why I focused on Kenobi and Skywalker when doing the research. Skywalker’s got the background to argue slavery, and Kenobi’s got connections in Mandalorian politics.”

“And I’m to be your voice in the Senate.”

“Not mine. The clones’.”

Anakin looks to Obi-Wan for guidance, because this man was involved with the attempted assassination, but...

“Who is Tyranus?” Obi-Wan asks.

“Oh, you’re going to enjoy this. The man calling himself Darth Tyranus is Count Dooku of Serreno.”

Anakin hasn’t heard Obi-Wan swear that colorfully since the last time he got stabbed.

-----

Things... progress. Quietly. Fett mentions there being a Sith in the Senate, something he picked up from a particularly ugly visit from the Count to Kamino, the kind of visit that involved veiled conversations intended as mocking, bragging monologues.

“He really is a villain,” Obi-Wan mutters, as if Anakin hasn’t seen him monologue to captured criminals on occasion, or get so caught up in The Banter that he lets something slip that he shouldn’t have.

Anakin and Padme go to Naboo to ‘keep her safe,’ and Obi-Wan hares off on a falsified investigation, keeping the Council updated the entire time. Anakin doesn’t like splitting up, not when so much is happening, but they have no idea who the Sith in the senate might be, if they even exist. Anakin doesn’t even have time to say goodbye to the Chancellor.

All this contributes, for Anakin is already stressed, and excited, anticipatory and afraid, and then the nightmares come. Padme’s more aware of his fears than she might have been, as much as they talk about slaves and freedom and how she makes things happen with words and legislation. Anakin’s a little in love with the idea of this woman, though he won’t act on anything until he meets his soulmate and figures out what they’re meant to be for each other, but... friends, at least. Padme is going to be a friend, possibly for life, and Anakin’s going to love her no matter what.

She coaxes out the truth, and then tells him, ‘well, your mother would know more about this than you, since you left at nine; it would be entirely reasonable to ask her for advice,’ and then smiles like they’re sharing a secret crush instead of plotting the violation of his orders.

They save Shmi.

(Barely.)

Padme doesn’t get the advice she was using an excuse from Shmi, but from a long, tired conversation with Beru Whitesun. As it turns out, when a family’s been freeing slaves for generations, they know what they’re talking about. Even Anakin remembers the Whitesun reputation. Padme’s notes are copious.

Anakin cares for his mother, and talks to his stepbrother, and gets an idea of who these people in his life are. He can’t imagine they’ll make contact often, but he’s glad to meet them. Cliegg--his stepfather, and isn’t that a thought--isn’t a particularly soft man, or a smooth one, but his gruffness has a different energy on Tatooine than it would on Coruscant. Anakin approves.

Obi-Wan calls. Padme explains. Anakin is shamed by his Master and then has to defend that particular title when Owen and Beru stare at him and the comm in matching horror.

“Master-Apprentice,” Anakin says, just a little panicked. “Not Master-Slave. He’s my teacher, practically family, not... you don’t need to worry. I promise.”

“I’ve seen them interact,” Padme says, and then shoots a small, smug smile at Beru. “Obi-Wan’s somewhere between father and brother to Anakin. It’s very sweet, when they’re together, and very entertaining.”

Beru, who’s had three days to get used to Padme, smiles and nods. “Alright then. I’ll take your words for it.”

Obi-Wan sputters a bit at the claim, in the background, and Anakin is... just a little upset by that.

“I think your mother would want to speak with him,” Cliegg claims, and Anakin hesitates, because this is a mission call, for all that gossip is happening, and he really shouldn’t break more rules after the big one he’s clearly, blatantly completely ignored to come to Tatooine in the first place. Cliegg holds out a hand, eyes on Obi-Wan. “As would I.”

“Well,” Obi-Wan says. “I suppose I do have a moment.”

-----

Anakin and Padme arrive on Kamino.

“Your mother,” Obi-Wan says, in lieu of a greeting, “is oddly terrifying, did you know?”

“She’s... still recovering,” Anakin says, brow furrowing. “She can’t leave the bed for anything other than the ‘fresher for weeks, probably. And she’s nice, how is any of that terrifying?”

“It’s her energy,” Obi-Wan notes. “Quietly intimidating, I’d say. Very odd, really.”

“What did you even talk about?” Anakin asks, and then blushes as Padme giggles at him, like she knows things that he doesn’t. She probably does. She’s older than him. Still.

“Ah, that,” Obi-Wan says, looking away for a moment and--blushing? Obi-Wan’s blushing? “She rather aggressively informed me of what is considered normal on Tatooine for a relationship that is, as Padme put it, ill-defined but close and familial.”

“Master, you--what?”

Obi-Wan rolls his eyes and steps forward, pulling Anakin into a hug. Oh. “I’ve been informed that the manner in which I show affection to you is rather understated and ambiguous, by Tatoo standards, and that leaving things unsaid isn’t enough.”

“...Obi-Wan?”

“I consider you my brother,” Obi-Wan says, into this hug that is stiff and uncomfortable, but sincere and full of effort. “And I do love you very much, dear one, even if I’m rather unpracticed in showing it in ways that would... translate, shall we say.”

“Oh,” Anakin says, because he can’t think of anything else. He hugs back.

There’s a moment there, where Obi-Wan relaxes and Anakin shifts, and everything feels just a tiny bit more right, and then someone coughs.

“If you two are done?” Fett drawls, and Anakin mourns as Obi-Wan huffs and pulls away, hands back to being tucked into his sleeves in front of him.

“Quite,” Obi-Wan says back, with the strained smirk of someone who’s been dealing with the same frustrating sentient for a solid week without the option of just bashing their face in.

Fett rolls his eyes, and gestures for them to follow him. “I’ve got a bunch of the Alphas and CCs waiting on you, along with anyone we know for sure has a Jedi soulmate. Kenobi’s already spoken with them all, got confirmation that we probably haven’t missed any connections.”

“I know the list of everyone who reported a CC or CT soul mark to the Council,” Obi-Wan huffs. “I have it memorized.”

“Because of Anakin?” Padme asks.

“His mark came in when he was ten,” Obi-Wan says. “I was his legal guardian until very recently. Given the circumstances, it was reasonable that most of the information on the ident-code marking situation be shared with me in the same way that his school reports and medical records were. He was a minor until a year ago, Senator, and as you so rightly pointed out, my role in his life is certainly that of the family member who raised him for the past decade.

“Master,” Anakin hisses, well aware of his blush. “You’re embarrassing me.”

Obi-Wan looks at him, amused. “I’m told that’s rather the point, dear one.”

Padme looks away, clearly fighting back a grin, and Fett’s expression is mocking, at best.

They enter the section of the facility where other people are a moment later, and Anakin is... not quite as ready for the sea of identical faces as he thought he’d be. One small boy in different tunics from the rest runs up to Fett with a call of ‘Buir!’ and falls into step with them, grabbing Fett’s hand and peering curiously at the rest of them.

“This is Boba,” Fett tells them. “He’s the only unaltered one.”

“The one you claimed at birth,” Padme clarifies.

“Decanting!” Boba pipes up, and then smiles winningly at Padme. “I wasn’t born. I was decanted. He claimed me at decanting.”

Fett looks like he wants to run a hand down his face. “Yes, Boba’s the clone that was provided to me as part of the payment I demanded when I first signed on to the project. He’s the only one I technically have legal claim to.”

“All the others are Kaminoan property until claimed by the Senate or Jedi,” Obi-Wan adds, and Fett nods in his direction. “Preferably the Jedi, of course.”

“The Nulls are with Kal Skirata,” Boba pipes up. “He adopted all of them and Kaminiise didn’t care that much because they thought the Nulls were all failed experiments anyway.”

Fett grimaces at the look that gets him from Padme. “They’re not mine. None of them would have wanted to be, anyway, but it stands that I haven’t spoken with them in years.”

“They’re precedent,” Padme corrects. “One I should have been made of aware of if you want this to work. Can you put me in contact with this Skirata individual? What’s his, and their, citizenship status?”

Anakin steps back to Obi-Wan as Padme drills Fett for information, and keeps his eyes wandering for threats--unlikely, if Fett is genuine, and Obi-Wan says he is--and trying to figure out the best way to keep track of which clone is which. They do feel different in the Force, but Anakin’s not as used to using that sense for identification as most Jedi. He sees a few scars and tattoos, but he thinks he’s going to have to--

Oh.

“Anakin? Why did you stop?”

Anakin ignores his master, because one of the clones, one he can’t even see, is glowing so strong and right and calling to him...

“Anakin, please answer me.”

“I can feel him,” Anakin breathes out. “My soulmate. I think I can feel him, in the Force.”

“Ah,” Obi-Wan says, relaxing. “Yes, that tends to happen, when we look. Fett assured us that he’d be at the meeting, dear. Just a few more hallways to go.”

Those hallways pass in a blur, because he’s there his soulmate is there and--

A room, full of clones that look older than Anakin, for all that they can’t be, and more clones that don’t.

There’s a clone in full kit, helmet included, but Anakin knows, just knows, that this one is his.

“Troopers!” Fett barks. “Kenobi’s brought some friends in. Senator Amidala’s going to be working on the citizenship bill with us. The other Jedi is Anakin Skywalker. You can guess why he’s--”

The fully-armored soldier takes a half-step forward.

Fett sighs. “By the ka’ra, Rex, you’re going to embarrass yourself and me. Take your bucket off, kid, let him see you.”

“Some tact, Fett,” Obi-Wan snaps, and for all that it’s quiet and intended to be subtle, the clones absolutely hear him.

They also seem amused. Apparently Obi-Wan’s been hanging about for long enough that he and Fett have a dynamic, one the clones have gotten used to and find hilarious.

Anakin only sort of notices this, because the clone in armor, still unpainted, pulls off his helmet and for all that it’s the exact same face as Anakin’s seen a thousand times over in the last fifteen minutes, there’s something uniquely beautiful that has nothing to do with the blonde hair or the nervous smile.

“You’re Rex?” Anakin asks, even though he’s sure, he’s absolutely convinced, that this young man is his soulmate.

“Yes,” the young clone says. He looks about Anakin’s age, and Fett’s told them time and again that the clones are basically the age they look, for the most part. Anakin’s going to take it slow anyway.

“Obi-Wan already said it, but, um, I’m Anakin,” he says, and tries to find something to do with his hands that isn’t just taking his soulmate and hugging him ‘til all the suns set. He looks down, and settles for mimicking Obi-Wan and just tucking them into his sleeves. He looks up at Rex, and tries to smile, but he’s so nervous about all of this that it probably doesn’t look like much. He thinks he hears someone snickering.

“Oh good,” someone mumbles. “They’re both hopeless.”

Anakin snaps his head around and glowers at the little group the comment came from, but he has no idea which one said it. All four look amused, and have varying degrees of shit-eating grin in place.

“If you didn’t outrank him, Rex would totally be shooting you right now,” little Boba says. “I think he’d deserve to do that.”

Anakin doesn’t have to strain at all to hear Fett’s groan.

“Alright,” one of the older clones says, and everyone stands a little straighter. An authority among the clones? Official, or more of an informal primus inter pares situation? “Rex’ika and his Jedi can go get to know one another, and none of us are going to make fun of them for it, because I know damn well how many of you have been mooning over the idea of your soulmates despite knowing literally nothing about them.”

“So’ve you, Alpha!”

“You want a boot up your ass, Wolffe? Because if you keep talking, that’s what you’re getting.”

“Boys,” Fett says, and they settle down. “Now, the Senator has some questions for you, and you’re going to comply when she asks, because it’s going to keep your little brothers alive. You understand?”

One clone raises a hand, and Fett sighs.

“Yes, and little sisters, Valierra,” he adds. He mutters something under his breath that sounds like “kriffing Basic.”

(Anakin later learns that Mando’a is not a gendered language, and Fett’s frustration is entirely about the fact that ‘brothers’ isn’t gender neutral. Anakin tries to ask why he doesn’t just say ‘sibling’ or use the Mando’a word, and there’s apparently a whole thing with some instructors wanting to encourage the clones to learn to be Mandalorian, and others wanting to cut them off from anything to do with the planet.)

(Anakin... tries to understand. He’s still confused about why ‘siblings’ isn’t on the table.)

“Go on, Anakin,” Obi-Wan says, looking somewhere between amused and exasperated. “We can catch you up later.”

“I got enough from Beru,” Padme assures him. “You can pop in to help us fine-tune later.”

Anakin nods, just a short jerk of his head, and then looks to Rex. The man is glaring at a little at a little group of other clones, but when Anakin reaches out and takes his hand--takes his hand--Rex turns and stares at him with wide eyes and a flush that Anakin’s sure he’s mirroring.

“We should talk,“ he blurts out, and he can feel Obi-Wan’s despair at how completely inept Anakin is at this whole ‘personal interactions’ thing, but that’s fine, because Obi-Wan’s a bit of a slut, and Anakin doesn’t flirt with everyone he meets, and he’s been waiting for his soulmate like a sensible person.

(“Or a romantic,” Vos had pointed out, once. “Most people date at least a little if they don’t meet their soulmate by, like, fifteen. I mean, culturally I understand why you want to wait until you meet your soulmate, but it’s not really a matter of sensibility, just personal preference. Obi-Wan’s not less sensible for sleeping around.”)

(Anakin does not like this argument, and so he ignores it.)

(Well, no, he agrees that people should be allowed to flirt if they want, but he doesn’t like the implication he’s gotten from a few other padawans about how he’s ‘awkward’ for not knowing how to talk to people that he wants to impress somehow.)

(So, he’s going to claim it’s sensibility.)

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”

“Kriff off, Ponds!” Rex barks out, immediately pinging on the exact clone that said the words, and Anakin bites a lip to keep from laughing at them both.

“Out,” Fett orders. “We’ve got shit to do, stop being a distraction.”

“Being a distraction, my dear, is a skill that Anakin’s put far too much effort into developing just to drop it on your command,” Obi-Wan says, light and airy and not at all like he just dragged Anakin and Fett for no Force-damned reason.

“Come on,” Rex mutters, tugging Anakin to the door with a blush that only grows as the other clones catcall them on the way out of the room. Anakin hears at least one particularly dirty comment get cut off by a smacking noise and a reprimand from a clone he thinks is probably Alpha.

The second they’re out of sight, Rex slows down, and glances back at Anakin.

Anakin tries to smile in encouragement. He’s not sure it works, really, but Rex smiles back, so it can’t be that bad.

“Here, Alpha told me to use the mini conference room,” Rex tells him, when the get to a nondescript door with a number on it. “It’s not completely secure, but we can lock the door so it’s mostly private.”

“Can I kiss you?” Anakin asks, and then has to fight to not clap a hand over his mouth.

He was going to go slow. He was a moron who’d promised himself to go slow. Rex is mostly an adult but there are ways in which he isn’t, and Anakin might not be fully an adult either, but that’s not really an excuse, and--

“Yes, please,” Rex says, and oh Anakin really likes the shy grin on him. It’s pretty.

(This man, he thinks, could easily bench press Anakin a few times over, but he’s blushing like a storybook maiden, and he’s doing it for Anakin.)

Anakin moves slowly, because this isn’t something he has much practice with either, but he takes Rex’s face in his hands and leans in, pressing their lips together with only the slightest tilt of his head, just barely less than chaste, and a firework goes off inside his ribcage.

His soulmate! He’s kissing his soulmate!

There’s a ‘stop projecting’ nudge from Obi-Wan in the Force. Anakin tosses up a shield and focuses back on the kissing. He pulls away, and the goes to just... peck a bit. Just small, chaste, tiny kisses because he doesn’t want to stop. Because for all that they just met a few minutes ago, this feels right.

Warm hands, larger than his own and steady in a way he thinks he really likes, settle on his hips.

“We--mm--really should talk,” Rex manages, and Anakin... well, Anakin stops kissing him.

Rex apparently likes it as much as Anakin does, because he lifts up onto his toes to kiss Anakin again before fully breaking off. He grins, clearly sheepish, and shrugs. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Anakin says, and then Rex pulls him down to press their foreheads together, radiating warmth and hope and affection that Anakin hasn’t earned yet, but is definitely going to.

“This is a Keldabe kiss,” Rex says, and his nose brushes against Anakin’s as he shifts. His hands are still on Anakin’s waist, and Anakin decides to wrap his arms around Rex’s shoulders. It’s nice. “I like, um, I like the other kind of kissing too, but this means a lot to me, and it’s one of those Mandalorian things they actually let us pick up.”

“Fine by me,” Anakin says, and he, hells, he hasn’t even asked for proof of the soul marks, but he doesn’t need to, really, with the Force as insistent as it is. “So. Talk?”

“Yeah. Let’s talk.”

[captainsway]

Satine Kryze, the New Mandalorians, and Fandom Misconception of Mandalorian Culture

If you’re a fan of Mandalorians and like to read fanfiction, you’ve probably read at some point that the New Mandalorians have committed ‘cultural genocide’. That Satine Kryze is a fanatic who is doing everything she can to destroy Mandalorian culture and that she has a watered down version of what it means to be a Mandalorian. And I’m here to tell you that this simply isn’t true.

This is going to be a long read. I will go into the history of Mandalore, what it means to be Mandalorian, as well as how it relates to our own history, so please, buckle in. Also, I will state that there are spoilers for The Clone Wars and season 2 of The Mandalorian.

Most of what we know about Mandalorians is from Karen Traviss and her Mandalorian books - she wrote many books about Boba Fett and even about a lot of clone troopers during and after the war. She’s also well known for starting the creation of Mando’a, the spoken Mandalorian language. However, Karen Traviss is also well known for hating the New Mandalorians and even the Jedi. She has (TW here) equated Jedi ‘apologists’ to slave owners and N*zis. She has been a big name for Star Wars for going into Mandalorian history and culture, however, she has a lot of discourse surrounding her and how she interacts with fans including the fact that she apparently doesn’t even read other Star Wars books that aren’t her own. A lot of people have seemed to have taken her rhetoric about Jedi and Mandalorians as fact, even though she is one author and has written from an extremely biased position of refusing to understand Jedi beliefs and the fact Palpatine, the Separatists, and the Senate were to blame for a lot of what happened in the clone wars. The Jedi were conscripted and refusing to understand that is what leads to ‘Jedi were slave owners’ rhetoric. However, that is a completely different conversation and not relevant to this post about Mandalore.

A lot of Mandalorian culture is from the Legends books. They have a long standing history of war, conquering, and allying themselves with the Sith. They started out as a group from Coruscant called the Taungs who were driven out by the native humans and became nomadic until conquering the planet they called Mandalore after their warlord. They continued their Mandalorian empire until the Sith wars and the Mandalorian wars, the latter of which was the time of Revan and the KOTOR games. I personally haven’t played KOTOR and don’t know enough about that point in Mandalorian history, but I do know that there were many wars, genocides, and violence. It was after the planet Mandalore was devastated by the Jedi Order and the Republic and turned into a barren desert that couldn’t sustain life, that the cultures began to shift and the major factions known as the True Mandalorians, Death Watch, and the New Mandalorians came to be. 

(Mandalore after the Mandalorian Excision at the hands of the Republic (Legends) or their own civil wars (TCW). The Mandalorians used biodomes to sustain life on the planet.)

According to Wookiepedia from the Legends (ie, not canon) era, the Republic established a government, but the New Mandalorians were a break off of that. They didn’t follow the Republic nor did they love it, but they did believe in non-violence and peace. They followed the Kryze family who maintained the Duchy in Sundari on the planet Mandalore. Sundari was the capitol alongside Keldabe, the former being for the New Mandalorians while Keldabe was for the planet Mandalore. Many people had left the planet after the devastation to more lush planets or moons, such as Concord Dawn. Satine Kryze herself was from Kalevala, another toxic desert planet in the Mandalorian sector who relocated to Sundari. She was born to a warrior clan and grew up in the culture, but wished to move past that for peace. There was another person from Kalevala who maintained the royalty and also became a senator for the Republic, but he mostly represented the planet itself. 

Again, a lot of this history and the ‘New Mandalorians stemming from the Republic installed government’ is from Legends; some of which Karen Traviss wrote, some of which is written from Boba Fett’s perspective (for example, calling the New Mandalorians ‘Faithless’ was from The Bounty Hunter Code and written from the perspective of Boba Fett. This should be taken with a grain of salt from an unreliable narrator viewpoint.) The Clone Wars show, which is where the New Mandalorians first physically appeared, states that they formed after the civil war to rebuild Mandalore, without interference from the Republic. Any violent Mandalorians were exiled to Concordia except the Protectors who were sworn to protect the Concord Dawn system. How anti-Mandalorian can Satine truly be if the Protectors swore to also protect her and the New Mandalorians? Also, any Mandalorian was free to leave Concordia as ‘Old Mandalorians’, but they had no desire for revenge because there was no reason to do so. They were free to maintain their beliefs and practices as long as it wasn’t on the planet Mandalore where the New Mandalorians kept their main city.

There’s a severe misconception as to what it means to be Mandalorian. I’ve heard arguments that you must follow the Resol’nare, the Six Actions, in order to be Mandalorian. However, I argue that there are many ways to be Mandalorian, that it’s a difference with species/race/ethnicity, religion, and culture. You can be born into Mandalorian space and be Mandalorian. You can follow a specific culture or creed and be Mandalorian. You can be adopted by a Mandalorian and raised by then and be Mandalorian. Just as there’s no one way to be a certain ethnicity or race in our world, there’s no one true way to be a Mandalorian. Jango Fett was born on Concord Dawn, in Mandalorian space. His parents were farmers. Even if he never was adopted by Jaster Mereel and became the Mand’alor of the True Mandalorians, he still would’ve been Mandalorian, just like his family. We’ve all heard the phrase ‘no true Scotsman’ and I believe it applies to Mandalorians as well.

However, let’s go with the argument that the Resol’nare makes someone a Mandalorian. The argument is that Satine Kryze doesn’t follow this and that is what makes her an agent of cultural genocide. The Resol’nare states:

Education and armor, self-defense, our tribe, our language, our leader. 

Reminder that the Resol’nare was created by Karen Traviss, who we spoke about earlier. Also, the Wookiepedia Legends page for the New Mandalorians states that they’ve broken from the Resol’nare (again, thank you Traviss), but it’s more that they don’t follow a Mand’alor, rather than none of the actions. Let’s break this down and see how Satine Kryze does follow the Resol’nare.

The first one is easy: Education. In one of the episodes of The Clone Wars, it focused on the school in Sundari: 

Satine’s own nephew, Korkie Kryze, attended and the main focus was to raise new leaders for Mandalore. The entire episode revolved around the students and Ahsoka Tano uncovering a corruption plot to destabilise the New Mandalorians by Almec, who later joined forces with Death Watch. Also, one of the forefronts of the New Mandalorians is technological advancement. They put their studies and trade into engineering and technology as well as transportation (Legends, established by Traviss).

The second, armour. This is a sticking point for a lot of anti-New Mandalorian fans who believe that Satine Kryze makes Mandalorians give up their armour.

This is a picture of Satine Kryze, Prime Minister Almec, as well as Korkie Kryze in the background. Look at the two people in the middle. See what they’re wearing? These are Mandalorian Royal Guards and they wear armour. New Mandalorians literally had a police unit called the Mandalorian Guards who wore armour, so this is kind of a moot point, showing fanon they are wrong about this. A lot of the Royal Guards were made from the afore mentioned Mandalorian Protectors.

Just because many New Mandalorians chose not to wear armour, doesn’t mean they were not allowed to wear it. One could try and argue that only the police and guards are allowed to wear armour, but the fact of the matter is: there’s still armour for the New Mandalorians. Also, interesting note but all the cadets from The Academy had the Iron Heart, which is a symbol more commonly seen on Mandalorian armour. I think it’s safe to say that is an easy adaption of the culture.

Also in that vein is the ‘self defence’ idea. There’s a lot of belief that the New Mandalorians have no means of defending themselves, that they shun every form of violence. As I’ve just shown, that’s clearly false. They use batons, stun guns, and even hand to hand combat in order to defend themselves. The Royal Guard used force staffs in order to deflect blaster fire, very similar to how the Jedi use their sabers. Even Satine Kryze has used non-lethal weapons of her own:

In the episode mentioned before, The Academy, it is shown that you don’t need guns or lightsabers to defeat your enemies and protect others. Ahsoka didn’t have her lightsaber and yet her and the cadets (including Korkie Kryze) managed to save Satine and uncover the criminal black market on Mandalore. People like to say that New Mandalorians’ creed of ‘no lethal weapons’ means they’re defenceless or ‘erasing culture’, but we’ll get into why this is a misconception with even deeper concerns later.

‘Our tribe’ is easy. The New Mandalorians follow a specific creed of non-violence and they follow that in deference to Satine Kryze, who we can even claim is ‘our leader’ as well. Each creed follows their own leader: the True Mandalorians followed Jaster Mereel and later Jango Fett, Death Watch followed Tor and Pre Vizsla, and the New Mandalorians followed Satine Kryze. All three can claim tribe and leader. 

As for ‘our language’, as mentioned, Karen Traviss had originated the spoken language. Mando’a is rarely spoken in the animated series and is more shown in writing. The written language has been sparked once more by season 2 of The Mandalorian. A lot of fanon claims that Satine Kryze erases the language of Mandalore and forces Mandalorians to stop reading or speaking it, a very common cultural genocide against indigenous people. However, this is also false. It’s shown that there’s written forms in several of The Clone Wars episodes, and Satine Kryze herself even speaks it to a Death Watch bomber, click this link for proof and the translations. The written form was actually made by Philip Metschan when asked by George Lucas for Jango Fett, thus there was very little translation into actual Mando’a and why it’s a fan theory that there’s different dialects of it.

(New Mandalorian console from The Academy with written Mando’a.)

Thus, we can safely say that the New Mandalorians do follow a lot of Mandalorian culture that fans say they do not. I’ve also seen many fans say that ‘weapons is their religion’, quoting Din Djarin from The Mandalorian from season 1. However, in season 2, Din is questioning his beliefs as he meets more and more Mandalorians and finding he’s not one of the few remaining. It’s a fascinating study into diaspora and finding one’s culture, but it appears that some people are not also following along. Din has left behind many things he thought were truly Mandalorian - he’s left his people, he’s lost his home, and he’s even removed his helmet in front of others for the love of his child. After he met Bo-Katan Kryze (Satine’s sister who joined Death Watch), he’s been questioning his beliefs and what his place is in the galaxy. We’re finding he’s from a specific zealous sect of Mandalorians, but that doesn’t make him less Mandalorian. He was a foundling (we don’t know if he’s from Mandalorian space), and he’s taken in his own foundling. Mandalorian fans like to say that love of children makes a Mandalorian, so why must weapons and war make one and not love and peace? Mandalorians can love their children and tribe and still be Mandalorian. Weapons and war is what leads to cultural death and that is what the New Mandalorians are trying to prevent.

It’s a bit concerning that this fanon has been so pervasive throughout fandom. It may have originated with Karen Traviss or not, but it has been stated in many fanfic that Satine Kryze is committing ‘cultural genocide’ and has a ‘watered down version’ of Mandalorian culture. It’s so pervasive that people actually believe that Death Watch is better than the New Mandalorians. Death Watch came to be because of the True Mandalorians in Legends and the Mandalorian civil war in canon. In Legends and new canon (via The Mandalorian), Jaster Mereel made the Supercommando Codex, outlining a new structure for Mandalorians to also move past wars. He believed that Mandalorians should become bounty hunters and soldiers for hire instead of fighting amongst themselves. Tor Vizsla took offence to this and created Death Watch who believed in Mandalorian superiority. They wanted to go back to the Mandalorian empire and stoke war amongst the sector. Death Watch repeatedly worked to destabilise the New Mandalorian rule, to the point where Pre Vizsla, Tor Vizsla’s son, was the governor of Concordia, pretending to be an ally to Satine Kryze while he was secretly working with Dooku and the Separatists.

Death Watch committed many atrocities and acts of terrorism. They bombed civilians at a memorial for peace, and after Vizsla was ousted as governor of Concordia for being the Death Watch leader, one of his first acts was to enslave the women of the Ming Po tribe from the planet Carlac. When the men tried to save them and make Death Watch go away, Vizsla ordered the women dead and the town destroyed. 

(Satine and Obi-wan witnessing Death Watch’s terrorist bombing.)

(The Ming Po people, who are obviously Asian coded.)

Their entire group of people were based on Asian cultures and it’s uncomfortable as an Asian to see people redeem or idolise Pre Vizsla and Death Watch. He committed mass murder genocide against them after enslaving and terrorising them. 

(Carlac, where the Ming Po tribe lived. Note the building structures, the gate which resembles a Japanese torii, and the trees which resemble cherry blossom trees.)

Pre Vizsla and his fanaticism with Death Watch is what directly led to the destabilisation of Mandalore. He teamed with Darth Maul to lead a coup against Satine Kryze and an army to Sundari which led to Satine’s and Pre’s own death. Maul installed Almec as Prime Minister and Mandalore was under civil war once again. This continued until Rebels when Bo-Katan Kryze was given the dark saber by Sabine Wren and she became Mand’alor; unfortunately, the Empire destabilised Mandalore again and that’s what led to the events in The Mandalorian show. Fanon continuously believing that the New Mandalorians’ bids for peace led to cultural genocide is what leads to believing actual genocide is better. Even if people understand Death Watch is bad, there’s a false equivalence saying ‘New Mandalorians and Death Watch are just as bad’ which, again, we’ll get into later.

(Obi-Wan Kenobi arriving on Sundari to save Satine Kryze during the coup.)

Another claim against the cultural genocide argument is the fact that Satine and the New Mandalorians kept artwork of Mandalore’s violent history. They are in no way erasing their past, but instead keeping it as a reminder of what they need to move past.

Murals of Mandalorians killing Jedi and other people. The second is in the Sundari palace where Satine resides. People like to claim this is hypocritical, but it’s meant to show that they are not forgetting their past. That peace is what they must aim for lest they go back to their violent ways.

I have also seen people say that the New Mandalorians are ‘white supremacist’ and that has coloured their beliefs of them. I agree that I recoiled in disgust when I saw the shot of the lackluster New Mandalorians in their full white, blond hair, blue eyed glory. However, that is an animation choice and not the fault of the actual New Mandalorians. Most Death Watch people who are shown are also white with blond hair and blue eyes. In fact, Satine was a politician who often hosted several non-human species and negotiated with them. 

(Scenes from TCW episode ‘The Voyage of Temptation’ with Satine Kryze and Obi-wan Kenobi with aliens and humans of various colour and shape. In this episode, Death Watch attacked the ship.)

You do know who did have a problem with aliens? Death Watch. From The Bounty Hunter’s Code, written in part by Jason Fry, there is this:

(Picture taken from the book by a user on discord. Thank you again!)

It states that Mandalorians in Death Watch must have ‘human faces’ and that non humans are ‘outsiders’ and ‘beast species’. Very reminiscent of anti-immigration views and general racism against black and brown people. And yet, there is a general belief that Death Watch is not racist because of the Wren family from Rebels where Sabine Wren is a clear person of colour. Hopefully, readers can tell what an allegory is at this point.

A problem I believe is that there’s a severe lack of understanding on what cultural genocide truly means. It’s defined as ‘acts and measures undertaken to destroy nations' or ethnic groups' culture through spiritual, national, and cultural destruction.’ As proven, Satine and the New Mandalorians have their own beliefs, but they do not destroy their history; instead they adapt them to what they believe the future is aiming for. They do not suppress nor destroy language, or artwork, or historical propaganda. They cannot be colonisers as they live on Mandalore themselves. They exile people, yes, but the people on Concordia had representation who Satine listened to and trusted before he was revealed to be a terrorist. The Mandalore system is big with multiple planets and habitable moons, and Old Mandalorians were free to build their lives anywhere in the system or galaxy, as long as it wasn’t on the planet Mandalore near the New Mandalorians. 

Going back to the ‘Republic installed the New Mandalorians’ take, it is canon that Satine Kryze and the New Mandalorians resisted the Republic’s attempts to install a military occupation in Mandalorian space. Vizsla committed terrorist acts and attempted assassinations to murder Satine and he was backed by the CIS to create disorder on Mandalore. Joining the Republic at least peripherally had allowed the New Mandalorians to maintain trade and peace for their people, but when war came, they stuck to their beliefs and created a neutral system. In fact, the Republic cutting off trade, food, and supplies was essentially attempting to blackmail the New Mandalorians to participate in a war. Also, sending the Jedi isn’t a sign of Republic approval; even in The Phantom Menace, the Republic wouldn’t do anything for Naboo and Qui-gon Jinn and Obi-wan Kenobi were only sent as a favour to the then Chancellor Vallorum to investigate what was going on. The Jedi served the galaxy, even if their allegiance and oath was to the Republic, and that includes Mandalorian space.

(Qui-gon Jinn and Obi-wan Kenobi protecting Satine Kryze.)

I do understand why it’s awful to see a group of white people with the same model types to preach about peace and non-violence, especially when the only other known Mandalorian at the time is a brown man. However, that I will fully put on Dave Filoni’s shoulders as he wanted to make the Mandalorians closer to Nordic Vikings (something I believe was mentioned to him by Lucas). The Mandalorians may have been inspired and influenced by other cultures, but for The Clone Wars, it reminds me of and reflects the current state of USA. The USA has a long history of wars, genocide, and violence. It started with white colonists killing and enslaving indigenous people and black people and has continued to be the leader in military and police funding in the world. And yet, whenever people wish to progress past that (for example, enact gun safety laws, defund the military and the police, enact healthcare, remove racist symbols), there are people who claim that they’re trying to ‘take American history away’ or ‘take our rights away’, etc. It’s what has lead to the state the country is in now. 

I find it highly disturbing that fandom is hating on New Mandalorians and claiming it’s cultural genocide. It equates to modern times and how people like to claim that ‘liberals’ are trying to ‘take America’s guns’ because we’re tired of war, police brutality, and school shootings. Because we want laws to remove guns from safe spaces and make it harder to obtain weapons. This isn’t cultural genocide. This is progression of society. On January 6th, 2021, we saw an attempted coup where right wingers stormed the American capitol, live fire was shot and a woman killed, where they were actively looking for Democratic congress people to hold them hostage and possibly kill them. I maintain that fiction reflects reality and this is true in this case. The New Mandalorians wish for peace and do not wish for violent weapons in their space and enact laws to do that. However, the galaxy is bigger than America and Old Mandalorians can go anywhere else in the galaxy or even the Mandalorian system. Several countries have enacted anti-gun laws and prevent weapons from being in the hands of violent people. We have labelled white supremacists as domestic terrorists and remove statues of names of slave owners and other awful historical people. I ask you this: how is what the New Mandalorians doing any different? If it’s because you believe the propaganda from Traviss (and Jason Fry, don’t think I don’t see you), then you need to reevaluate your source. It is not a bad thing to see violence and wish to move past that and instead focus your resources to innovation, humanitarian efforts, and, yes, pacifism.

I mentioned earlier that people like to equate Death Watch and the New Mandalorians. It’s generally like how people say ‘Antifa is just the same as fascism’. In fact, I saw a comment on a fic that generally says something similar:

Name removed and the fic will not be mentioned, but it equates the New Mandalorians and Death Watch to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her other POC congresspeople who wish to help people, and literal terrorists. Honestly, there’s a lot to unpack from this singular comment and I’m not sure I have the energy to do so. Death Watch isn’t like ‘Islamic’ terrorists. They’re like the white supremacist terrorists we see in the USA who planted bombs around various political buildings because they wanted violence against the Democratic party. This comment is just shitty victim blaming and promotion of violence. Pacifism isn’t ‘dangerous’. It isn’t ‘suicide’. It’s an ideal we should actively strive for.

I’m tired of seeing writers and fans say that the New Mandalorians commit cultural genocide. I’m tired of the misunderstanding and the attack on pacifism and the refusal to believe that peace is an option. It may not be feasible in the universe of Star Wars, but in that case, it’s not feasible for the USA and our own long history of war and we might as well give up. I ask that you at least do some research on the New Mandalorians before writing them and if you refuse to do so, then at least tag your fic as AUs and not actual canon fact. It’s the same with the Jedi and the propaganda that is passed along for them; you’re believing anti-New Mandalorian authors who aren’t accepted as canon. And for fuck’s sake, every time you praise Death Watch and say that they’re good, or that Pre Vizsla is an alright guy and redeemable, or that Obi-wan Kenobi of all people think that Mandalorians are better off being warmongers, then you’re wasting my time and helping spread bad (and, yes, racist) takes.

EDIT: Since this is still going around, I’m going to add that 1) there are very prominent Maori pacifist groups that are still being oppressed. The Mandos have a lot of Maori influence because of Temuera Morrison and it’s great that he’s bringing his culture to Star Wars, but the greater Mandalorian cultures are *not* based on them. Whether it’s TCW or Karen Traviss, none of the writers had the authority to make Mandos Maori (and Traviss very obviously fetishised them). 2) People keep claiming ‘pacifism is something governments can claim to oppress others!’ and yeah, it can be an excuse, but very often it’s an authoritarian government, *not* a pacifistic government. Do you know what happens to actual pacifistic governments? Groups? They get attacked and genocided. It’s literally what happened to the New Mandos in TCW. They were attacked and killed and their way of life was obliterated thanks to Death Watch and Maul. They weren’t forcing their way of life on the greater Mandalorian population and honestly? Stop acting like *pacifism is bad*. There are legit pacifists out there and people have *constantly* been actively against war all throughout history and they’ve been *murdered* for it. Recall what happened to Vietnam War protestors??? Recall the smear campaign against France for not getting involved in the Iraqi War??? The New Mandos can reflect any point of history in the real world. Acting otherwise is *your problem*. Can pacifism be used poorly? Yes, mostly when you’re ignoring the plights of others around you in the name of pacifism. Are the New Mandos an actual good example of pacifism? No, and no one would claim it would be and I blame that solely on the shit writing of TCW where war is treated like a game half the time. But acting like pacifism as a whole or pacifistic governments or ideals is bad is fucked up and wildly dismissive of the large number of real pacifists.