#vaylin deserved better

[alakirist]

Well, I was told to scroll past which is a sure way to get me very curious, so of course, I read it xD.

I see what you’re getting at, and I think this was their intention, that both Arcann and Vaylin were broken in their own way, but they just failed to execute it. You say yourself that there should’ve been options to not use Vaylin’s conditioning, but the lack of those options means that the entire point of the story is lost, in my opinion at least. The tragedy of “a person being broken beyond any help” does not work if nothing of substance was even tried. The Outlander can’t refuse to use her conditioning, can’t show any sympathy over Nathema. Arcann never apologizes for betraying her, and neither does Senya. There were no good attempts, if there were and those didn’t work either than this would’ve been made sense and have been actually tragic.

Vaylin and Senya

Vaylin hating Senya should not have been something that should’ve used as a proof that she’s irredeemable and beyond help, and I think the writers intended for it to be so, unfortunately. Senya get her away to be tortured for years while promising that it would help her while Vaylin was a little child, that must sting horribly. It’s something some people would never able to forgive, it’s not even comparable with any irl forms of abuse considering the force’s involved, and while Senya did come to regret it but by that point Vaylin was not only abused, but her brain was tampered with both chemicals and force powers by that point, she was a broken person who was left in a nightmarish cage and forced to become a monster.

Now, of course, wanting to kill her is going overboard, but I don’t think hating Senya or wanting nothing to with her is. I hope that when they bring Vaylin back as Syl, she will have her own story focused around Satele and their newly formed relationship. Senya and Arcann are dead for some people, so the best way to include them for those that are alive would be a couple of interactions where Vaylin let’s go of her hatred and just says that she wants to live a life without them because she can’t get past them hurting her. It would be a very mature and bittersweet conclusion to their arc. And of course this would mean that for people for whom they’re dead they can still enjoy a full arc with Vaylin rather than it being severely trimmed down because you killed relevant characters two years ago.

2. Arcann, Vaylin, and glee

I see a lot of people say that Arcann didn’t show any pleasure in committing atrocities while Vaylin did, and I don’t think it’s fair. This is not the only variable in who deserves redemption arc or any sympathy at all, and not all of them get discussed.

First of all, Arcann did actually show glee. While I agree it was overall less than Vaylin but it’s still very much there. Just look at his Asylum fight. He says “You will hang on my wall for eternity”, after he kills HK he enthusiastically says “I can’t wait to kill all you friends”, at the start of the chapter he brags about killing scions because they are “blinded by faith and prophecies” while he makes hard choices and forges his own path, all while standing on a pile of scion corpses. He also says Mandalorians kamikaze-zing themselves is amusing. It may not be as much as Vaylin but to say that he takes no pleasure in his villainy is incorrect. Could they write this differently? Absolutely, they could portray Arcann as someone who tries to be a semi decent ruler who despite his tyranny, is not a maniacal mass murdered. They could’ve Mande Vaylin be the one who commits crimes, either pushing Arcann to commit them or going rogue and committing them herself. But they didn’t, and I don’t want to let bad writing slide just because the non-conveyed intent probably had more sense than the presentation. The presentation is what we god.

Secondly, there is body count. Now, of course both Arcann and Vaylin are responsible for countless of people’s deaths, and it would be silly to say one is more deserving of redemption because one of them has a bit more zeros on their number, but it is important to note that Arcann commits greater atrocities, they are just always off-screen. Vaylin kills three knights because she doesn’t like odd numbers? Arcann makes them all fight each other to death until one half kills the other(!!!). Vaylin bombs Voss? Arcann bombs five planets but we never see the process nor are those planets the players are familiar with in some way. Vaylin kills a comp? Well, so does Arcann, but he conveniently got a resurrection chapter just before the choice to redeem Arcann dropped(I know it’s easier to bring back a droid than a person of flesh and blood without force, but I’m willing to bet there was some sentiment of ‘people won’t hold HK against Arcann when it comes to Voss, so you know, now would be a good time to give him a resurrection plot’). Also, Arcann commits actual definable genocide as he exterminates a religious order, which are included in the Wikipedia definition just like ethical and racial groups. Vaylin does not, all she cares about is killing specific people. Yeah she kills people Arcann tells her to kill, including the scions and the 5 bombed planets, but she wouldn’t have done without Arcann’s command, so most of the responsibility hinges on him. However, this isn’t what I believe to be a pivotal matter in comparing the two. All the body count stuff does is just make me question whether Arcann deserves any redemption or forgiveness at all. I believe that a certain point the person has crossed a moral horizon where their ability to change doesn’t matter, they should die either way to deliver retribution to countless people they harmed in their rampage. Onto the next one.

There is a matter of diminished responsibility. I don’t know much about it beyond a quick Wikipedia skim, so sorry if I’m making mistakes, but it seems like something that is used in courts to lessen the criminal’s sentence if there were strong mitigating circumstances as they were not completely in their mind. Vaylin, I believe, qualifies. It doesn’t help that the purpose and effect of many of the torture scenes isn’t clear and is just thrown there for edge, we know quite a bit. She had chemical implants installed in her brain, was forced to spend years on a planet that drives force sensitives to madness and hollows them out as people(just look at Lana’s reaction or what) became of Nathema zealots after prolonged exposure. She is also shown to have been suggested to rituals which in the trailer shown to forcefully have made her eyes go yellow. It seems to go beyond just abuse and torture, it’s actual brainwashing. She is never directly mindcontrolled in her twisted state, but the reason she ended up in this state was due to a uniquely mortifying experience that most Star Wars characters and literally not a single person irl can grasp. I think that makes jer legible for diminished responsibility.

Arcann doesn’t have that. I will say that I know many people say that comparing abuse is bad but in this case, I don’t think so. It would be bad if Arcann and Vaylin were not massive war criminals and this whole abuse discussion wasn’t central to how sympathetic or deserving of forgiveness at all they are. Arcann is never shown to have been victim of forceful rituals, his mind was never tempered with and while he did have harsh physical training with knights, Valkorion, but Valkorion never twisted him the same way he did Vaylin. The main source of Arcann’s rage is shown to be his father’s detachment or neglect, which is kinda the exact opposite of what he did with Vaylin. He took interest in Vaylin because she showed power, because she showed potential that he didn’t see in the boys. His treatment didn’t go behind being the victim of dismissal or neglect of a clever abuser, but that doesn’t put him on the same level as Vaylin or at least it shouldn’t. The force seemed to reinforce his inner evil, but it was never enforced upon him. Like Dooku, Maul, Anakin, many others, he was nudged towards dark side by a person who was pure evil, but he never has his choices or freedom taken away from him the way Vaylin.

Their cases not comparable as it this point I call bullshit of the narrative of ‘Vaylin being troubled from the start’(btw Senya says the boys were aggressive in one of the dialogues as well, so they weren’t perfect flowers either). I don’t see how a person that became evil of his own volition with a ‘push’ from outside forces is somehow better and more sympathetic or deserving of redemption than someone who was literally drowned forcefully in the sea of darkness, if we’re talking metaphorically.

but maybe their message is “it doesn’t matter how many crimes you’ve committed, what truly makes a person redeemable is that they can and want to change”? Perhaps, but they messed that up too.

3. Arcann’s ‘redemption arc’

Or to call it like it is, a brainwashing arc. Saying he chose to make amends is not too different from saying that the Imperial Agent choose to be a loyal servant of the Republic that hides info from their own organization. Okay, not THAT bad, but running up. He made no choice to become better, at all.

One thing he unquestionably chose to do was to save Senya. Does this show that he’s somehow capable of change? Not really. I guess you could say it’s similar to Vader saving Luke in the iconic ROTJ moment, but Vader’s redemption is just getting him a few peaceful moments with his son who forgives him before Vader dies. No one is forced to deal with Vader roaming around freely or not serving any punishment, this redemption arc is very much between Vader and Luke. If Vader actually did survive and got the Arcann treatment, I’d be very quick to call Luke a selfish asshole who puts one family member above the wounds that were inflicted on the entire galaxy.

So what about Arcann? He never hated Senya, him saving her was in character for who he was in KOTFE. He never hated his mother, he never openly defended her near Vaylin either, but he was far less enthusiastic about killing her as you said yourself. He even nudged Vaylin to remember some of the good times they spent with her in chapter 13, a failed attempt but it was still there. I don’t think he would’ve killed Senya even if she lied at his feet, defeated, at least not without enough hesitation to let her slip away. He felt all that while still bombing planets, bragging about genocide, hanging off the walls, and his carbonate collection. Both of those were path of his character. So yeah, him saving Senya after she mourns his loss and pouted out her heart is natural development and does not contradict anything we see from him before.

The ONLY case where he shows any remorse if he goes through a shady Voss ritual which ‘cleansed his rage’ and ‘washes away the hate’(it’s even in the dialogue). What happens if you kill Arcann’s mom? Well, he doesn’t t change at all, he remains the power hungry dictator with the only change is that he accepted the love for his mother and wants to avenge her. There is no learned lessons, there is no desire to fix mistakes. He could’ve been trying to become a better ruler and fix the mess his family created without wanting to ally with the Outlander. He doesn’t do any of that. To be fair, I once tried to look at Dark Arcann scenes with this particular interpretation in mind(that he learned some sort of lesson and wants to change, just without siding with the person who killed Senya) and there is nothing in the game to contradict is, so I will say it’s a viable headcanon, but it’s still headcanon. All we know for sure if that he is largely the KOTFE Arcann. I honestly really love the short non redemption arc in KOTET they give him if you choose to kill him, it shows that not everyone who can be redeemed should. And every time I think about how he bragged about being the master of his own fate, the more poetic it becomes that his fate was to have his execution broadcast for the whole galaxy to watch, the justice for countless people he harmed while he dies on his knees and has completely failed all of his goals.

His regret and desire to change comes from being subjected to a force ritual. There couldn’t have been many days passing between KOTET 1 and 6(since they all follow directly from one another as a plot thread), so it’s not like he had some long time to reflect. Even if he did, this being shown off-screen is unsatisfying and unreliastic. When he comes back, he is an entirely different person. He doesn’t care for power anymore, he is very kind and compassionate, apologetic, and shows zero signs of rage. He never struggles with it either, all of his words about it are superficial. he says he “fears that he becomes his old self” but we never see him lapse into the person he was, even for a moment, the show don’t tell principle is completely messed up here.

He just undergoes a complete 180 switch and no one in the Alliance says a word besides some very mild comments from Lana and Theron. Not Koth? Not Aric? Not the Star fortress companions that had to endure mini Death Stars on top of their home worlds? It’s ridiculous. The fact of the matter is that Arcann never ever shows remorse for anything but killing Thexan unless he’s actively brainwashed by Voss. And yeah, similar rituals were performed to some PCs in Vanilla, but they never forced them to have a complete personality switch. They served to cure actual tangible force diseases like Inquisitor’s mind being cleared of force ghosts. They never cured the entire personality and made people into completely different people. I find it very ironic that in KOTET trailer, they show force rituals being done on Vaylin as something that makes her turn evil and to the darkness. The do exact same thing with Arcann. We don’t even know if he was willing to do it, he was unconscious and Senya warns us that he will turn against us all if the ritual doesn’t happen. Vaylin never has anything like this done on her, the Holocron only frees her from direct mind control and Jarak procedure frees her from the command phrase, there is nothing that’s done to undo the force rituals or the damage that was done to her mind, it’s simply not attempted.

TLDR: Arcann’s actions and character after dies ex ritual is meaningless, he might as well be some Voss spirit they summoned to possess him.

4. Conclusion

As to whether the question of “does Vaylin deserve a second chance?”, I’m honestly not sure. I’m torn between lessening her sentence because of the diminished responsibility and sending her in a psychiatric ward. She definitely commited enough atrocities and I can’t say killing her is evil, even if she supposedly changes her way. 95% of my character killed Senya and Arcann, whether LS or DS, and they would do the same to Vaylin because they’re not interested in buddying up with chaotic mass murderers.

But Vaylin certainly deserved better treatment from the game and is imo by far the most sympathetic member of the family. If they want her to be a tragic person that cannot be saved, then show other people making attempts. Show Senya saying the words she did in Echoes while Vaylin is still alive, show Arcann apologizing and admitting that he mistreated her, too, show the Outlander extend genuine sympathy to her instead of using her conditioning. Without it, the story falls apart, and in this case, it was not a good story

Unpopular opinion

But before we start, some warnings are on the way.

Don’t waste your time on this post if you are a big fan of Vaylin. Just scroll.

I’m not kidding. I know there are a lot of people who wants to have a redemption arc for Vaylin, and this post is more likely gonna make these people angry at me, and none of us want this, so just scroll. 

It’s not Vaylin hate post though. I like her, and I don’t want to spread hate any more than there are already. If anything, Vaylin deserves redemption no less than Arcann or anyone else. Yet I have some “but” about it, and this is there you better scroll.

If anything, you are free to hate and unfollow me. Just do not misunderstand me. That’s the only thing I ask.

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[oriental-tragedy]

here, I brought you one of the most tragic villains I've ever seen

she didn't deserve this 😭

[swtorpadawan]

Vaylin and Goals

I know a lot of people want a Vaylin redemption story.

The argument is that Vaylin is at least as deserving of redemption as Arcann, if not more so, taking her childhood into account.

I imagine most of you know that story.

For me... i don't so much want to see Vaylin redeemed, per se.

I want to see a Vaylin who isn't in pain.

Because everything she does in KOTFE and KOTET and Echoes of Oblivion seems to have an undercurrent of pain attached to it. Pain and desperation.

I just... want to see who she'd be if she was free of that.

Would she be someone better? Someone who would cry in her mother's arms?

Would she be what Valkorion said she was? A monster who needed to be controlled?

Would she be someone who listened?

Who would she be?

Is this just me?

@fleeting-sanity @storageofdust @swtorramblings

[badsithnocookie]

dragged anya (ls bh) through echoes. yes this is my first time through i have a Lot to catch up on. initial thoughts

scourge's pissbaby tantrums get more annoying the more i am forced to witness them

so sweet of lana to give anya a romantic goodbye in lieu of her actual boyfriend, koth. she did lose her shit a little when half the alliance wanted to tag along but yeah

man the scions were such a waste of a creation. but that is true of almost everything about zakuul so like

oh god scourge's man on the inside is dk revan kill me

"she fought revan's cultists on yavin, idk if she'd trust him" buddy you are more untrustworthy than dk revan. case and point: not telling kira about this

oh god its meetra surik #notmyexile

why is darth marr here. like is this just a greatest hits parade of everyone vitiate has fucked over. their force ghosts have nothing better to do so they're going to come flex on tenebrae cosplaying himself after watching 'vitiate's greatest hits' clips on force youtube

watching vaylin fuck him up though? glorious. even if she deserved better etc etc we all know the speeches by now but still. even in death she is more powerful than he could ever be and if broadsword ever turn her into an antagonist again i will... uninstall again i guess

...but after that one cutscene we get nothin. except for a lot of speculation that i expect to be unresolved until [checks calendar] 2040 at the earliest

lol. lmao even

oh goody lana watched my girl while she was sleeping again. im so glad we got Miss Compulsory Romance watching out for us at all possible times

wait did nothing seriously come of scourge just. not mentioning he was buddying up witha guy he fucking murdered

i like to imagine kira tearing him a new asshole on the way home but like

the whole way through im just. yeah hc this is eirn and awenyths no good very bad buddy movie Part 2

(part 1 was ziost)

[valleyofthemachinegods]

She finds him halfway between the landing pad of her ship and the complex, looking entirely the exiled-yet-redeemed husk of a man she'd taken him for. It's almost whimsical how he looks, staring off into the landscape, the slight breeze billowing the white fabric that adorns him nigh-hypocritically. Hildr-- and that is who she is today-- isn't entirely surprised; a deaf man could hear the whispers that follow him, the accusations. It's warranted, she knows; the same for her, though they dared not to create cause for her eye to fall on them.

Commander or not, she is just as guilty as he is.

"Arcann," she greets, noting the way his body shifts, as if surprise had conquered the Force, as if he hadn't felt her presence long before she'd announced it.

-- conjecture, possibly.

Still, Hildr finds a place at his side, letting the scenery draw her gaze in the same way it always does. Odessen truly is something to behold, a rarity, and certainly not for the sake of a balanced Force.

"Commander," he returns her greeting at last. She feels him shift again, uncertain. It's curious, unexpected, and she wonders if he'll offer her any insight into his head.

"You haven't said why you spared me."

Ah, there it is.

She prefers it when he is less forthcoming.

"You haven't asked," she hummed in response. The tips of her gloved fingers drum against the railing, less impatient than they are a manifestation of idleness.

She can feel the sidelong glance he gives her. This is a familiar exasperation, previously encapsulated in her dry quips during battle.

The Commander deigns, just this once, to be forthcoming. "It's complicated," she admits, resting her chin in her hand. "Multi-faceted."

The silence he offers her is well-deserved, she thinks. Arcann patiently waits for her to continue, and she must realize that she's brought this on herself. How easy it would be to simply leave it at that-- but it wouldn't be fair, not to him. Owing him something, for all of the blame and unuttered projections she pins to him, a small token in retribution.

"Do you remember what I said to Vaylin?"

"That we can choose to be better." It sounds better coming from him.

"I didn't do it for Senya," she says quietly, with an edge from an accusation that simply wasn't there, the distortion of her mask hardly allowing the words to filter out. That's the first lie: she places much more on Senya than she'd ever admit. "And I didn't do it for you either," lie number two, "yet I can't deny how selfish I am. Blame it on our bad childhoods, but there is something in you that's also in me."

I'd be afraid to let that die, she omits, because what would that mean for me?

"If you can change, there's a possibility that I can too." There's something weighing her down, an anchor in the syllables, a vulnerability that she had yet to cut out of herself. Hope had been extinguished from her long ago, somewhere aboard a young girl's ship adrift in the fringes of Wild Space-- so whatever this is, she thinks she can allow it. Her hand drifts to his, metallic-skeleton from the darkest spaces between the stars, rests on top of it.

Again, the silence sinks between them, snowdrifts in an endless tundra. It isn't uncomfortable, though her breath is only released once lungs begin to strain.

"We can choose to be better," he says again, lowly, at last, and with a sort of understanding that she loathes. If there is anything else, she is closed off from it. Not unkindly, he removes his synthetic hand from under hers. "If you found something redeemable in me, after everything, then it is in you too."

For all that she is, she can't look at him. The rejection doesn't sting because she doesn't let it: because she knows that friendship is a long stretch for someone like her. She recalls Aurine complimenting her dead eyes, once.

"Of course." Her gaze is drawn again to the black durasteel of his arm, glinting in the sunlight. She traces it up to his ruined face, now directed at her.

"And," she deflects, "If I'd killed you, who would be left in the galaxy to suffer with me?"

[swtorramblings]

Seen on Twitter. Good lord, even six years later.

“ A lot of people have issues with the fact that Vaylin can’t be redeemed. I think they may be missing the point. Just like in our world, sometimes a person can’t be saved. Broken beyond repair. Arcann is redeemed because he wasn’t as far gone. He wasn’t insane.”

Look, if I’m not allowed to talk about this and what crap it was, if I’m supposed to let it go because of the years that have past, this kind of thing ALSO shouldn’t be going around six years on to annoy me. Just, take your own advice, people, and let it go.

Or, simply grasp that other people reacted to it differently, and don’t post bullshit like “you’re missing the point”. This is not too much to ask.

Again, if he’s NOT broken, he’s WORSE, because he’s a monster and doesn’t deserve to be saved. If he’s not broken, and can be saved while someone that underwent unimaginable torture MUST die, it’s just a horrid message. And if she IS broken, too far gone to be saved, we should have been allowed to TRY, and instead we were forced to torture her ourselves.

Earlier this same person was gushing about how great KotET was for showing us different reactions to abuse and how they just figured out why Vaylin blamed Senya. I let that one go. This one just got me, though.

Seriously, though, it’s crap like this that makes me despair that the video game industry, and especially EA, is never going to do better. I’ve seem people insist recently that we never used the command phrase on her, and that she was CODDLED by her family, and I just can’t odd any longer.

[reallystellacadente]

What I Wanted for Vaylin

I had always planned to write my own version of the events of both Knights of the Fallen Empire and Knights of the Eternal Throne. But I don't think that will happen. So I’m going to just put together the bits I have written as a collection of short stories, so to speak.

For my version of Chapter 8 of KOTET, Vaylin does not die, but of her own accord, she transcends. She is there in the Outlander’s mind for the fight with Valkorion, too. Again, of her own accord. Then she is gone.

And then this happens some time later, though time is not important anymore.

Tython

Jayel and Releth Blaymuir waited. And waited. Their daughter, too young for an official name but who would have been called Dannai, was in the Maker’s hands now. She’d been born, barely alive. Her surrogate had caught a fever and did not survive the birth. Now, it looked like Dannai’s heart would not survive to be given the name they wanted for her.

“She’ll make it, love,” Jayel said, his gruff, farmer’s hand covering that of his husband of six years.

“I can only have hope, Jay.”

“That’s all she asks.”

#####

Nowhere, and everywhere

I thought being rid of Father would make things better. I thought watching Mother’s form fade from the Outlander’s mind, would make things better. Watching Arcann, his broken body, attempt to convince the Outlander he was worth saving. I thought these were my vengeance. But I was wrong.

Transcending on Odessen changed me. Triumphing over Father changed me. I am better, but my existence continues and that is not better at all.

Because now I am alone. Truly alone. I don’t know where I am, or what “where” even is now.

Yes, I am free. But it’s dark and ugly and nothing makes me happy. I don’t want to be free anymore.

There has to be a place for me. I will find it.

~~~~~

Tython

Surgeon Maya Gormley stepped away from the table, leaving the rest to the Maker and the staff. Two nurses were crying as they cleaned up the baby’s chest. Her assistant would sew her up so her clan could have their burial. Her fathers would be right outside the surgical suite’s doors. It was Maya’s job to tell them she failed. She could not save their daughter.

~~~~~

Here, and there

I don’t deserve a second chance. But I want one. The Outlander would have given me one, and that made me angry, before, when I was trapped in the body in the life I hated. The body whose Force power I could never control except to do the wrong thing. Until the end, of course. I freed myself. I left the useless throne for others. I was done with it anyway. It was my time. I didn’t need Mother or Arcann or the Outlander.

I’m sure if I look long enough I will find my second chance.

~~~~~

Tython, a breath later

Maya walked toward the surgical suite’s doors. Right before the autosensor opened it for her, she heard one of the nurses, Kayl, cry out.

“The baby. She’s back!”

Maya flew back to the table. All the sensors were reading optimal life signs. The baby’s dark red skin was starting to recolor. Her left nublet of a lek twitched, then her right. 

“Get the incubation tent set up. Give her heart and lungs all the support they need,” she ordered.

After ten minutes, the child was breathing on her own. Rina, the other surgical nurse, had put a sterile gown on the child. She was young enough, they could heal that scar up and no one would ever know how close she’d come to death.

Her fathers were crying out in the hallway, for joy. Maya made the nurses promise not to tell them how close she had come to not making it. As the baby lay sleeping peacefully, she reached in the tent and patted the child’s head.

“I hope you make something of this second chance, little one. You have the Maker’s touch all over you.”

[empressvaylin]

Remember Vaylin grew up her entire life knowing nothing but pain and violence, even love to her was expressed as violence and that’s tragic.

[khanlusa]

God, I remember arguing about Vaylin with someone who tried to make the extremely awful “point” of well you know what if she was born crazy? as a means to justify why she didn’t deserve to be redeemed but Arcann, who glassed five populated planets out of spite and wounded ego, did.

And I aged 10 years then and there.

[secretfeanorian]

[shimmersing]

Just throwing in my two credits: the Consular absolutely could have healed/shielded Vaylin from Valky with the shielding ritual (or a variant etc, all about accommodation over here!) from Chapter One, I posit. We were fuckin ROBBED, fam.

So you know that lovely little piece of characterization where Vaylin is shown to be much more powerful than Lana at the beginning of KOTFE because she can destroy the door that Lana can barely keep open?

I’ve been replaying the Consular storyline, and there’s a moment where a durasteel containment door won’t open, so the consular rips it open with the force. Exactly like Vaylin did, only to a much bigger and thicker door.

Now, Vaylin was still under the effects of her Nathema conditioning at the time she tore open the door, but she was also acknowledged at the time to be “extremely powerful in the force, even for her family.”

So my question is, just how powerful is the consular?

They were more powerful in the force at age four than their own master was at fifteen (also similar to Vaylin, who was so powerful as a child that Valkorion sent her to Nathema).

On Taris they accomplished a feat Lana Beniko (who has been shown to have a close connection to the force) would have found impossible. One that only Vaylin was capable of.

During the same mission on Taris they also picked up and threw a massive piece of ship debree that was crushing a man.

They survived shielding an entire group of Jedi from a Sith plague using a ritual that was supposed to be deadly.

They become a Jedi Council member and one of only three Barsen’thors throughout all Jedi history while still extremely young (this of course depends on headcanons but they were likely under the age of 25).

I posit that the consular is perhaps more powerful with the force than anyone else alive, except for Vaylin and Valkorion. More powerful than the Warrior, the Knight, and even the Inquisitor.

I think all this combined is why it makes sense for Valkorion to want the consular. The consular isn’t just a Jedi, but the most powerful living Jedi. Just as powerful as Vaylin before she unlocked her powers in KOTET. Valkorion would’ve wanted the power the consular had, and that’s why he chose to use the consular’s body. Had he succeeded he would’ve had the combined power of Vaylin and the consular, both of whom were born with power that rivaled Valkorion’s own, and he spent several centuries accumulating his power.

[clan-cuyan]

Tempted to write a series of transcripts that's just... Vaylin in therapy

[a-master-procrastinator]

I headcanoned that (insert a headcanon) and now I’m angry at SWTOR writers for not making it real.

[roguescarlett]

y’all remember how angry and bitter I am over the treatment towards Vaylin?: Especially with this particular part with Imperial Agent?  Yeah, seriously. What the fucking FUCK, Valkorion??? Saying that Agent’s conditioning was barbaric and wrong, yet it doesn’t matters when he does the exact same thing on his daughter. This will never sit well with my OCs, tbh.

[swtorramblings]

Yeah, thinking over a new thing with Vaylin starring and it's making me think old thoughts, skip if you wanna. But did Vaylin deserve to die?

I'm honestly not sure. I mean, she certainly did terrible things, killed a great MANY people, tortured others, took free will from the GEMINI droids, and on and on. I still feel as though the story was telling us that she had no true agency, that she was doing these things because of what was done to her. That the person she was had a choice in what she did, but not who she was, if that makes sense. That leaves me leaning towards, no, she did not, in spite of her many crimes.

And, not to put too fine a point of it, but Arcann did the same crimes but we can save him. I know I've mentioned it before, but if I'm going to talk about this at all, it should be mentioned.

But, I've for a long time felt that death should never be a punishment, exactly, but only given to those who are a threat that it's been proven is impossible to handle any other way. It has nothing to do with "deserving" it. She is absolutely still a threat. The only truth Valkorion ever spoke. And the only way I can see to deal with that threat if she won't let us help her, while tearing down the base, is to take her powers or imprison her on Nathema. A fate she herself would consider worse than death.

And because that's the way these stories go, would eventually escape from, but I digress.

Thing is, though, killing her was never the problem for me. I don't like it, but I understand it. The problem was proving at almost every turn that we would hurt her just like her father would if she lived. That dying or killing us all were her only options. And then pretending that this was all her fault. That's what always has been my problem. Make no mistake, we had a couple of lines that were a bit better, just not enough to make up for the bad.

Not bothering to tag since I'm just kind of blathering while being a bit emotionally down and Vaylin is my central support villain.

[pupcrimes]

the couple that fights together, wifes together