#we are ALL susceptible to propaganda

[stil-lindigo]

Source

While reading this interview with a West Bank settler, it's important to remember her views do not represent those of all Israelis just like Israel does not represent all Jews. There has been sizeable protest in Tel Aviv against the genocide (quickly squashed under Netanyahu’s police force just like all other pro-palestinian sentiment) but it’s worth reading to get insight into the minds of average people who cheer on Palestinian deaths, and draw up a chair to watch hellfire rain down on innocents. This is the impact of years of settler-colonial propaganda - a complete dehumanisation of a scapegoat population.

It also has to be said that ALL colonialist countries are complicit in encouraging this kind of extremism, by facilitating and stoking the fires of islamophobia post-9/11. Israel is not an outlier - this kind of sentiment is festering EVERYWHERE and attempting to detach yourself and your country's identity from it is like burying your head in the sand.

If you stand on the side of Palestinians in this crisis, you have to be prepared to recognise the signs of islamophobia and fascism everywhere, and stand against them.

[lurkiestvoid]

You're being targeted by disinformation networks that are vastly more effective than you realize. And they're making you more hateful and depressed.

(This essay was originally by u/walkandtalkk and posted to r/GenZ on Reddit two months ago, and I've crossposted here on Tumblr for convenience because it's relevant and well-written.)

TL;DR: You know that Russia and other governments try to manipulate people online. But you almost certainly don't how just how effectively orchestrated influence networks are using social media platforms to make you -- individually-- angry, depressed, and hateful toward each other. Those networks' goal is simple: to cause Americans and other Westerners -- especially young ones -- to give up on social cohesion and to give up on learning the truth, so that Western countries lack the will to stand up to authoritarians and extremists.

And you probably don't realize how well it's working on you.

This is a long post, but I wrote it because this problem is real, and it's much scarier than you think.

How Russian networks fuel racial and gender wars to make Americans fight one another

In September 2018, a video went viral after being posted by In the Now, a social media news channel. It featured a feminist activist pouring bleach on a male subway passenger for manspreading. It got instant attention, with millions of views and wide social media outrage. Reddit users wrote that it had turned them against feminism.

There was one problem: The video was staged. And In the Now, which publicized it, is a subsidiary of RT, formerly Russia Today, the Kremlin TV channel aimed at foreign, English-speaking audiences.

As an MIT study found in 2019, Russia's online influence networks reached 140 million Americans every month -- the majority of U.S. social media users.

Russia began using troll farms a decade ago to incite gender and racial divisions in the United States

In 2013, Yevgeny Prigozhin, a confidante of Vladimir Putin, founded the Internet Research Agency (the IRA) in St. Petersburg. It was the Russian government's first coordinated facility to disrupt U.S. society and politics through social media.

Here's what Prigozhin had to say about the IRA's efforts to disrupt the 2022 election:

"Gentlemen, we interfered, we interfere and we will interfere. Carefully, precisely, surgically and in our own way, as we know how. During our pinpoint operations, we will remove both kidneys and the liver at once."

In 2014, the IRA and other Russian networks began establishing fake U.S. activist groups on social media. By 2015, hundreds of English-speaking young Russians worked at the IRA. Their assignment was to use those false social-media accounts, especially on Facebook and Twitter -- but also on Reddit, Tumblr, 9gag, and other platforms -- to aggressively spread conspiracy theories and mocking, ad hominem arguments that incite American users.

In 2017, U.S. intelligence found that Blacktivist, a Facebook and Twitter group with more followers than the official Black Lives Matter movement, was operated by Russia. Blacktivist regularly attacked America as racist and urged black users to rejected major candidates. On November 2, 2016, just before the 2016 election, Blacktivist's Twitter urged Black Americans: "Choose peace and vote for Jill Stein. Trust me, it's not a wasted vote."

Russia plays both sides -- on gender, race, and religion

The brilliance of the Russian influence campaign is that it convinces Americans to attack each other, worsening both misandry and misogyny, mutual racial hatred, and extreme antisemitism and Islamophobia. In short, it's not just an effort to boost the right wing; it's an effort to radicalize everybody.

Russia uses its trolling networks to aggressively attack men. According to MIT, in 2019, the most popular Black-oriented Facebook page was the charmingly named "My Baby Daddy Aint Shit." It regularly posts memes attacking Black men and government welfare workers. It serves two purposes: Make poor black women hate men, and goad black men into flame wars.

MIT found that My Baby Daddy is run by a large troll network in Eastern Europe likely financed by Russia.

But Russian influence networks are also also aggressively misogynistic and aggressively anti-LGBT.

On January 23, 2017, just after the first Women's March, the New York Times found that the Internet Research Agency began a coordinated attack on the movement. Per the Times:

More than 4,000 miles away, organizations linked to the Russian government had assigned teams to the Women’s March. At desks in bland offices in St. Petersburg, using models derived from advertising and public relations, copywriters were testing out social media messages critical of the Women’s March movement, adopting the personas of fictional Americans.

They posted as Black women critical of white feminism, conservative women who felt excluded, and men who mocked participants as hairy-legged whiners.

But the Russian PR teams realized that one attack worked better than the rest: They accused its co-founder, Arab American Linda Sarsour, of being an antisemite. Over the next 18 months, at least 152 Russian accounts regularly attacked Sarsour. That may not seem like many accounts, but it worked: They drove the Women's March movement into disarray and eventually crippled the organization.

Russia doesn't need a million accounts, or even that many likes or upvotes. It just needs to get enough attention that actual Western users begin amplifying its content.

A former federal prosecutor who investigated the Russian disinformation effort summarized it like this:

It wasn’t exclusively about Trump and Clinton anymore. It was deeper and more sinister and more diffuse in its focus on exploiting divisions within society on any number of different levels.

As the New York Times reported in 2022,

There was a routine: Arriving for a shift, [Russian disinformation] workers would scan news outlets on the ideological fringes, far left and far right, mining for extreme content that they could publish and amplify on the platforms, feeding extreme views into mainstream conversations.

China is joining in with AI

[A couple months ago], the New York Times reported on a new disinformation campaign. "Spamouflage" is an effort by China to divide Americans by combining AI with real images of the United States to exacerbate political and social tensions in the U.S. The goal appears to be to cause Americans to lose hope, by promoting exaggerated stories with fabricated photos about homeless violence and the risk of civil war.

As Ladislav Bittman, a former Czechoslovakian secret police operative, explained about Soviet disinformation, the strategy is not to invent something totally fake. Rather, it is to act like an evil doctor who expertly diagnoses the patient’s vulnerabilities and exploits them, “prolongs his illness and speeds him to an early grave instead of curing him.”

The influence networks are vastly more effective than platforms admit

Russia now runs its most sophisticated online influence efforts through a network called Fabrika. Fabrika's operators have bragged that social media platforms catch only 1% of their fake accounts across YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, and Telegram, and other platforms.

But how effective are these efforts? By 2020, Facebook's most popular pages for Christian and Black American content were run by Eastern European troll farms tied to the Kremlin. And Russia doesn't just target angry Boomers on Facebook. Russian trolls are enormously active on Twitter. And, even, on Reddit.

It's not just false facts

The term "disinformation" undersells the problem. Because much of Russia's social media activity is not trying to spread fake news. Instead, the goal is to divide and conquer by making Western audiences depressed and extreme.

Sometimes, through brigading and trolling. Other times, by posting hyper-negative or extremist posts or opinions about the U.S. the West over and over, until readers assume that's how most people feel. And sometimes, by using trolls to disrupt threads that advance Western unity.

As the RAND think tank explained, the Russian strategy is volume and repetition, from numerous accounts, to overwhelm real social media users and create the appearance that everyone disagrees with, or even hates, them. And it's not just low-quality bots. Per RAND,

Russian propaganda is produced in incredibly large volumes and is broadcast or otherwise distributed via a large number of channels. ... According to a former paid Russian Internet troll, the trolls are on duty 24 hours a day, in 12-hour shifts, and each has a daily quota of 135 posted comments of at least 200 characters.

What this means for you

You are being targeted by a sophisticated PR campaign meant to make you more resentful, bitter, and depressed. It's not just disinformation; it's also real-life human writers and advanced bot networks working hard to shift the conversation to the most negative and divisive topics and opinions.

It's why some topics seem to go from non-issues to constant controversy and discussion, with no clear reason, across social media platforms. And a lot of those trolls are actual, "professional" writers whose job is to sound real.

So what can you do? To quote WarGames: The only winning move is not to play. The reality is that you cannot distinguish disinformation accounts from real social media users. Unless you know whom you're talking to, there is a genuine chance that the post, tweet, or comment you are reading is an attempt to manipulate you -- politically or emotionally.

Here are some thoughts:

Don't accept facts from social media accounts you don't know. Russian, Chinese, and other manipulation efforts are not uniform. Some will make deranged claims, but others will tell half-truths. Or they'll spin facts about a complicated subject, be it the war in Ukraine or loneliness in young men, to give you a warped view of reality and spread division in the West.

Resist groupthink. A key element of manipulate networks is volume. People are naturally inclined to believe statements that have broad support. When a post gets 5,000 upvotes, it's easy to think the crowd is right. But "the crowd" could be fake accounts, and even if they're not, the brilliance of government manipulation campaigns is that they say things people are already predisposed to think. They'll tell conservative audiences something misleading about a Democrat, or make up a lie about Republicans that catches fire on a liberal server or subreddit.

Don't let social media warp your view of society. This is harder than it seems, but you need to accept that the facts -- and the opinions -- you see across social media are not reliable. If you want the news, do what everyone online says not to: look at serious, mainstream media. It is not always right. Sometimes, it screws up. But social media narratives are heavily manipulated by networks whose job is to ensure you are deceived, angry, and divided.

Edited for typos and clarity. (Tumblr-edited for formatting and to note a sourced article is now older than mentioned in the original post. -LV)

P.S. Apparently, this post was removed several hours ago due to a flood of reports. Thank you to the r/GenZ moderators for re-approving it.

Second edit:

This post is not meant to suggest that r/GenZ is uniquely or especially vulnerable, or to suggest that a lot of challenges people discuss here are not real. It's entirely the opposite: Growing loneliness, political polarization, and increasing social division along gender lines is real. The problem is that disinformation and influence networks expertly, and effectively, hijack those conversations and use those real, serious issues to poison the conversation. This post is not about left or right: Everyone is targeted.

(Further Tumblr notes: since this was posted, there have been several more articles detailing recent discoveries of active disinformation/influence and hacking campaigns by Russia and their allies against several countries and their respective elections, and barely touches on the numerous Tumblr blogs discovered to be troll farms/bad faith actors from pre-2016 through today. This is an ongoing and very real problem, and it's nowhere near over.

A quote from NPR article linked above from 2018 that you might find familiar today: "[A] particular hype and hatred for Trump is misleading the people and forcing Blacks to vote Killary. We cannot resort to the lesser of two devils. Then we'd surely be better off without voting AT ALL," a post from the account said.")

[txmxkis]

my roommate told me something the other night that caused me irreparable psychic damage

[mars-ipan]

you guys ever think about the milgram shock experiments? i think about the milgram shock experiments a lot. they feel kinda relevant right now for some reason. hm

[ricoka]

I have requested a mail in ballot for our local parliament election like two weeks ago and it's been lying around unopened for a week now. I wish I had any clue who to vote for

[musashi]

legitimately do yourself a favor and unfollow anyone who keeps spreading the lie that "there were no Russian agents interfering with the 2016 election" like I cannot stress enough how susceptible you people are to propaganda. We have proof. We had full scale investigations into it. We have the data. And blackpilled leftists on this website are falling for it again. Be smart. Be rigid. Do not let them get inside your head.

You can literally read up on the IRA. Easily. All the information about it is readily available. There is a fucking Wikipedia page with tons of links to official documents. For the love of fucking God. You people cannot just believe whatever the nearest Tumblr funnyman tells you.

[thewertsearch]

I'm not surprised. After the stunt you pulled with that mind-control chip, you're lucky she didn't give you the Vriska treatment.

NEPETA: :33 < we can always curl up in the pile again to talk about f33lings :33 EQUIUS: D --> Nepeta, for goodness sa%es, a man can only di%uss feelings for so much time […] EQUIUS: D --> We e%amined my emotional state until we were both bl00 in the face […] NEPETA: :33 < b100 b100 b100 b100 b100 NEPETA: :33 < i just love how you say that word! EQUIUS: D --> I know

How, exactly, does he say 'b100'?

Karkat's quirk manifests as literal shouting, so I think Equius is literally saying 'bee one hundred'. Fantastic.

EQUIUS: D --> Nepeta, I think it would behoove us to address the e%treme danger in a serious manner NEPETA: :33 < you mean about gamz33? h33h33! NEPETA: :33 < im still not sure if i can believe it! […] EQUIUS: D --> His is the richest and most noble b100d possible among the high land dwellers EQUIUS: D --> As such, he is prone to being more violent and unpredictable than any of us

I'm not so sure about that.

Like - sure, based on the sample we have, the top half of the hemospectrum does seem to produce more aggressive trolls. Terezi, Vriska, Equius, Gamzee and Eridan are all demonstrably more violent than their lowblood compatriots. But are their attitudes really a product of nature?

Take Vriska, for example. She was forced to be a killer by the blue-blooded lusus that adopted her. Yeah, she's violent and unpredictable now, after years of abuse, but her situation would drive any troll to desperate measures.

Do we really think Aradia wouldn't become a murderer if her mom was a hungry spider? Of course she would!

Then there's Eridan, a troll whose behavior could not stem more obviously from the classism that was ingrained into him by society. His culture reinforces the idea that violence is his right, and that it's particularly justifiable when directed towards his inferiors.

Would Eridan really be like this if he was raised on Earth? Wouldn't Tavros or Karkat also become shitheads if they were handed this kind of privilege?

Let's not forget Feferi - a troll who, by Equius's logic, should be the most dangerous of the entire cast. She's not, and I think it's simply because there's no one above her on the hierarchy. Who's going to tell the princess that she's a failure of a highblood?

From where I'm sitting, it really seems like highbloods are aggressive due to cultural factors, rather than biological ones. Their blood doesn't predispose them to violence - it marks them as trolls who are expected to be violent. A case could be made that hemospectrum position is, in effect, a secondary gender for trolls - an institution that enforces entirely artificial standards for their behavior, which are then internalized as 'natural' by the populace.

So no, I don't think Gamzee was 'biologically predestined' to be like this - I think he picked it up from somewhere. Maybe he was more susceptible to Alternian propaganda than we realized, or maybe someone like Doc Scratch was manipulating him from the shadows. It wouldn't be the first time he's goaded a troll into violence.

You ever roleplay so hard that you literally gain a cat's slitted eyes when you're pissed?

EQUIUS: D --> I will now seek the highb100d, Nepeta […] EQUIUS: D --> I will e%act caution, even when safety 100% to be 100% assured EQUIUS: D --> Even so EQUIUS: D --> I would still like to take the opportunity to say […] EQUIUS: D --> Goodbye

Oh, man.

Alright, sound off. Does anyone really think Equius is going to stand up to a highb100d? No?

Ok, great. Let's stop beating around the bush, then.

Equius is basically walking to his death here, and he knows it. The comic's really laying the death flags on thick, with a very clearly telegraphed 'final goodbye' for Nepeta. It's almost too obvious, but I don't think it's going to be a fakeout this time. We can't all be Kanaya.

NEPETA: :33 < well ok, goodbye! NEPETA: :33 < but you had better believe i will s33 you again soon, equius! EQUIUS: D --> Yes, you will

Yeah you will - the next time you go to sleep.

[lipglossboy]

Disgusting holy shit

and while we’re talking abt noah schnapp as a fandom, we should also be calling out brett gelman who is a HUGE zionist and is posting increasingly troubling calls for violence, is vehemently opposed to a ceasefire, and posts pictures of normal (aka non-famous/public figures) pro-palestinian protestors to his insta story, basically saying “find them” to his almost 1 millions followers

[starbeltconstellation]

I don’t think they are bad and some survived order 66 Quinlan Vos was one of them. But I do believe they lost their way by the end of the clone wars because most lost their way or watered down their beliefs becoming to caught up in image and pandering to the senate (palps *cough*) even yoda said basically that a dark shroud surround them (Sith made) but they made themselves susceptible to it with arrogance, becoming inflexible, and a strange combo of attachment and detachment. Even mace windu was attached to the republic which is one of the reasons he was so defensive and disliked Anakin he saw him as a threat to his republic.

I’m not trying to hate on the Jedi just make sure that in discussing the Jedi we remember the good and bad. The Jedi did a lot of good, they made one of the longest major peace times the galaxy had ever seen, that’s 1000 years of peace time after ending the Sith war. And actually Luke skywalker, Ezra Bridger, Ahsoka (rebellion), and season 4 Kanan were prime examples of what the Jedi were originally. I just think when palpatine started pulling strings and corrupting everything to take power it made slow brewing Jedi problems 10x worse as some Jedi like Barriss Offee’s master mixed up avoiding negative attachment with being cold and callous because while a Jedi master should avoid “possessive” attachment especially in a way that would hold their student back they should have a good bond with them because emotional bonds are one of the pillars of trust.

-that’s my take, I’m not sure what you meant by no Jedi haters though. So if this crosses your line then I’m sorry I can see myself out cause I don’t want to start a conflict 😅

Hello, anon. 👋

Firstly, I just want to DEEPLY apologize for the long wait in my response. 😅🤦‍♀️ I try not to get behind on asks, but life has been crazy for me at the moment, and especially with longer asks like yours, I really want to take my time and give a good and in depth response.

Now, just right off the bat: I don’t mind discussing things. As long as it doesn’t get nasty and full of insults. So I’m not about to bite your head off.

In fact, I am going to take the time to use your ask to refute all of these critical/anti Jedi points, proving how most of it is Palpatine’s propaganda that the galactic citizens/SW fandom has grown to believe because it’s easier to have a big bad scapegoat (ie; the Jedi boogie man) than for galactic citizens to grapple with the fact that they themselves are also a part of the problem because THEY are the ones who vote in politicians in the Senate (who are a lot corrupt, except like a handful like Mon Mothma/Bail Organa/Riyo Chuchi/Padmé/etc. And even Padmé wasn’t a complete saint like a lot of fans think, since she purposely hid Anakin’s Tusken massacre just because she didn’t want to give up her new hot murder husband who was obsessively adoring over her/loved her), and THEY are the ones who also got the most complacent, are they not? After all… if the fandom blames the JEDI… why didn’t the CITIZENS clock anything wrong until suddenly an Empire was telling them to hand over all their freedoms or die?

It’s really easy to sit back and say what you would’ve done in the Jedi’s position, because the audience has more information than they do. What Dooku and Qui-Gon told them is the equivalent of being told they saw a unicorn (Sith) in the wild. It’s not that out there that there’d be some doubts from the Council, and people seem to forget that the Council STILL said they’d look into it. But they aren’t magic. They can’t just snap their fingers and see that Palpatine is the Sith Lord. Especially with the Darkness cloaking their Force senses. I think it’s kinda… gross? To blame them for something Palpatine was causing (the cloaking Darkness) that was literally part of the plan to genocide them. Just a thought, but maybe that should be Palpatine’s and Anakin’s fault, where it belongs? Lol. Sorry if I sound a little snippy, it’s just this is a tired and running around in circles argument (although I do think your ask is a genuine one, which is why I’m taking the time to answer it and perhaps if not change YOUR mind, then change someone else’s that might read this. I’m trying to reach more across the aisle here, because both sides I’ll admit have moments where they only want to be defensive and not explain their positions).

It’s funny how people always point out that the Jedi missed brewing corruption (they totally knew about it and tried to fight against it how they could. But just like in real life, I’m unsure what people expect from them. To strut into the Senate and threaten/murder the politicians into submission? Because ya know… that was kinda the red flag Anakin gave off with that “They should be made to!” line to Padmé. Just saying. 🤷‍♀️ Just like anyone, Jedi know the politicians of the Republic are slowly being corrupt (just like MOST politicians in real life, and you don't see everyone condemning all US citizens because we don't go clean them out like assassins or something), but there isn't anything they can do about that unless you expect them to go in and wave their lightsabers around to threaten the politicians into submission. As if Palpatine wouldn't immediately twist that into his favor to say they were "trying to take over the Republic". (And oh wait—he did that in the movies! Funny how that works, huh?)

What I think is interesting about you and about a lot of Jedi fans (including LH, who is the writer of The Acolyte) is that you THINK you’re being “fair” to the Jedi, but you’re kinda… not? 🤷‍♀️😅 And I’m not saying that as an insult. I’m saying it because it’s true.

Let me explain: There are rabid anti Jedi fans known as the infamous Karen Travis’s who is basically a rapid and foaming at the mouth Jedi anti who believes they “got what was coming to them.🤢🥶” LH on the other hand (at least in HER head), views herself as Jedi CRITICAL (which is something you clearly view yourself as as well. And there’s nothing wrong with being Jedi critical. The problem is that a lot of times this “criticism” becomes condescending, whether intentional or not, despite maybe the person’s best intentions). And while there is a little bit of a difference there, it’s not as stark a line as fans would try to convince us pro Jedi’s to believe.

As I mentioned to someone else in my other ask: there are plenty of fair criticisms about the Jedi that I can acknowledge: the Shimi thing, for one, which is I think just a bad symptom of GL’s writing being more “metaphorical” than literal. Shimi HAS to stay on Tatooine because Anakin eventually HAS to murder the Tuskens in cold blood so GL can tell the story he wants to tell of how Anakin can’t let go, and so the Jedi are never given the opportunity to do what I truly BELIEVE they would’ve done, which is go back and free her, at least for the peace of mind of one of their newest initiate. The plot literally physically bars them from doing so.

And even THIS is not without its flaws, because they would ONLY have wiggle room to free Shimi after the heat of TPM problems had died down where they had time to do so… while walking past/avoiding eye contact with all of Shimi’s slave neighbors, because as specified before—The Jedi have no jurisdiction in the Outer Rim, and you bet your ass if they freed all those slaves and started a war with the Hutts with their little 10,000 strong army, the Republic would take one look and go “Lol, good luck with that,” and not help them at all, which would be basically suicide for the Order to try and accomplish on abolishment of slavery on the Outer Rim all on their own in the TRILLIONS of people in the galaxy. They do not have the MAN POWER for that. Not without the Senate army/clones. So how can they be blamed for this? WHY are one of the “space minorities” of the galaxy being blamed for something that should be the POLITICIANS’S job? Can you not see the double standard here? Genuinely asking, anon, because it’s always baffled me.

People want the Jedi to do something about it? Get on the Senate’s ass about it then—the REAL people who are responsible for all of the shit going wrong in the Outer Rim while they line their pockets and kiss up to clueless galactic citizens for votes come election time. THEY are the ones that should be responsible for the problems of an ENTIRE galaxy—not a small little minority group (which I’ve already come to realize that the Jedi are. They are a culture/religion/family, and 10,000 is but a drop in the ocean of the galaxy. They are so small in the grand scheme of things that it’s SCARY when considering how easy it was for Palpatine to lead them to almost total annihilation) that try and try and TRY as hard as they can, which is apparently somehow NEVER enough, for the galactic citizens AND the SW fandom itself.

And why is that? Why is it so HARD for SW fandom to relate to them? Why does LH (who I’m sure in her head BELIEVES she’s as progressive as they come, just as I genuinely believe you had the best intentions when reaching across the aisle to send me this ask, but at the end of the day still comes across frankly exhausting and a little condescending when you pick out the “good Jedi blorbos” who are ones that deserve to live and don’t have to be dehumanized as “emotionless/cold/callous” like you just did with Luminara just because Luminara chose to grieve in a way you and Anakin and many other rabid Anakin fans/anti Jedi’s view as lesser than) view the Jedi as some type of “space cops” who are “oppressing 🙄” the Sith as a representation of her religious trauma that she is clearly projecting onto them as something completely separate than what the Jedi Culture actually is? Why does she view them as “emotionally repressed” and “almost catholic-like”, and views the fucking SITH (literal SPACE NAZIS 😭🤦‍♀️) as a representation for her persecution as a gay woman?

It’s because—just like MOST SW fans in the US—she cannot fathom a culture outside of the lens of western philosophy. In her mind, the Jedi aren’t a “real 🙄🤢” family. In HER mind, the Jedi aren’t necessarily evil, but she still believes those “poor little culty Jedi 😔💔🙄” didn’t see they were ‘sewing their own destruction’. (Which is blaming them. It’s BLAMING the victims of genocide, and it’s to this day the most disgusting thing I will always remember about the show’s “your actions will cause the destruction of every Jedi in the galaxy” quote that made Twitter go wild with genocide apologia galore).

I’m not gonna repeat everything in the post I made to the other anon (this ask response is long enough already), but I’ll link it here in case you want to read it, because I do have some examples screenshotted of certain SW fandom dehumanizing the Jedi and showing genocide apologia, which proves that pro Jedi’s critique/defensiveness for the Jedi Order and their culture isn’t an overreaction or without basis, because it proves that blaming the Jedi for their own genocide is the NORM, even if people won’t admit so outright (still can’t believe The Acolyte just outright SAID it. I’m not gonna rub fans’s of the show’s faces in it, but because of that line alone, I’m SO glad that show was cancelled. Anti Jedi propaganda is already bad enough).

Also, I’m sorry to tell you this, anon, but the Mace Windu thing is just straight up wrong. I have never understood this Mace thing with the fandom. People act like Mace was personally bullying Anakin every damn day. Mace didn’t even hate Anakin. Just because Mace was a little stern with Anakin and didn't worship the ground he walked on didn't mean he hated/disliked him/was jealous of him (a frankly childish notion, in my opinion). They both just had different views over how to be a Jedi and in battle strategies during the war. It was never personal with Mace. Anakin MADE it personal, because he always took not being told "yes" personally, like it was a slight against him. He didn’t see Anakin as a threat to the Republic until literally the last free day of democracy when he looked at him and saw a giant shatterpoint all around Anakin. I think that would give any Jedi pause. Lol.

Mace was a fine Jedi who treated Anakin just fine. Just because he didn’t worship the ground Anakin walked on or treated him like God’s gift doesn’t mean that Mace was a bad person or Anakin was a “poor little guy” getting bullied by him. The thing with Mace refusing Anakin a seat on the Council is overblown. Frankly: Anakin didn’t DESERVE a seat on the Council. He might’ve been a powerful Jedi, but he was still hot headed and reckless and still had a lot to learn. And his temper tantrum when he didn’t get his way did him no favors either (look, I LOVE Anakin, but I’m not gonna be delusional about his faults, okay? Most of his problems were caused because he built them up out of thin air. He built up this rivalry with Mace in his head, when Mace was busy with his own life. Mace was not “out to get Anakin” or something. That’s—as kindly as I can say—something children tell themselves when angry at parents who tell them “no”, which Mace did a lot with Anakin). And I’m not gonna lie, anon. People have always seemed extra hard on Mace specifically, and while it might not be all of it, I think there’s a part of racism mixed in there with a proud black Jedi that isn’t afraid to stand up to the white and emo and hot future serial killer in the making (my hot Anakin! 🥰🥰😂). I’m not saying YOU specifically are being racist, but I’m just pointing out something that I’ve always felt reeked around the fandom opinion of Mace (more from the SW YouTube dudebro side of the fandom, but still).

I’m not gonna go and explain a play by play of all my points, because I got in a argument/discussion with someone on YouTube the other day (even though I know it’s bad for my blood pressure 😬😤😂), and I feel like the points I made there are perfect as a main response for this ask, so I’m going to place the screenshots here. This whole online debate came about when I was watching a SW lore video on Leia visiting Anakin’s grave after the ROTJ celebration and telling him she doesn’t forgive him, and one of the commentators called her a “brat”, which pissed me off. Lol. But anyway, we’ve been going back and forth the past few days, and I’ve basically made a mini pro Jedi manifesto, so I think all of the screenshots will answer most of your questions and also refute them to show how they are inaccurate and more of a fandom opinion that’s only come about because fans like Anakin and want to twist themselves into knots to blame everyone for his problems but him.

Here are all of the online person’s screenshots: you’ll notice how eventually he tries to justify Anakin killing the younglings as a “mercy”. 🥶🥶🤢 Yikes.

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Here are my responses:

Damn. Apparently there’s a screenshot limit. 😭 I’ll copy paste the rest:

Leia had every right to come and get closure if she needed to. Anakin personally tortured her himself after all. She has a personal stake in this through being tortured by their own FATHER that Luke doesn't have. Whether she wanted to go to make sure the person she viewed as a monster was dead, or to try and get some closure from what Luke had told her, it was within her rights to do so. She understood EVERYTHING perfectly. She knew who Anakin had been for years before the last five minutes of his death, and that was someone who'd terrorized the galaxy.

Lol, Anakin wasn't "fulfilling the will of The Force" as his reign on the Dark Side for 20 something years. He fulfilled the will of the Force when he finally got off his ass and killed Palpatine to end the last of the Sith. It's a copout to pretend any of his other actions were anything but his own choice, otherwise his 'redemption' means squat. She doesn't owe him anything just because he stopped the horror by killing Palpatine. It's the LEAST he could've done. You seem to believe that one action somehow should buy Anakin forgiveness in the eyes of all of his victims, and if they don't forgive him, then they're "brats" or something. Redemption doesn't work like that. You don't do the right thing because you'll get something out of it. You do it to be selfless and because it's simply the right thing to do. And I can tell you that Anakin would probably disagree with your opinion on Leia being a "brat" himself once he was back on the Light Side, because the whole point is that he'd be REPENTANT. Not being arrogant and expecting blind forgiveness for things that are quite frankly unforgivable.

Luke's forgiveness is a GIFT. It is NOT something that has to be the norm, and Leia is no less because she chooses not to forgive Anakin. She has every right to never view him as her father till her dying days.

Anakin had EVERYTHING to do with the explosion of Alderaan. This BS certain fans spout of "that was Tarkin" is nonsense. Anakin had agency. He could've tried to stop Tarkin or tried to leave the Empire way before that moment. Just because it was hard, he chose not to. EVERYONE on board the Death Star that weren't prisoners are responsible for the destruction of Alderaan. And yes, that includes Anakin. As I said before, Tarkin would only be given the highest sentence in court because he chose to order the planet destroyed. But Anakin would still be charged right along with him in a court of law. Just because Anakin had a traumatic life, doesn't excuse the things he's done. That's like saying a school shooter/serial killer has no agency over killing their victims just because they had a “hard life.” It’s a frankly illogical argument.

Anakin as 'Vader' could've choked Tarkin out right there. Who's gonna stop him? He's survived dozens of enemies in the comics. Him not having "authority" is a copout. Anakin was given plenty of authority in the Empire. He was just still Palpatine's lapdog at the end of the day. Hell—he could've grew a spine and left the Empire years BEFORE that moment. He does not get a free pass for "following orders".

Lol, Anakin does NOT have borderline personality disorder. That’s a fanon theory. That is NOT actually canon and George never said that. GL says Anakin fell because of his greed for power to never feel weak like he did as a child and because he was afraid to let go. The Jedi didn't fail him. He failed THEM. He's the one who fucking genocided them after all. Their entire culture is literally mental empathy because they're space wizards. There were times when Yoda and Obi-Wan all but BEG Anakin to open his mouth and say what's wrong, and he either refuses or is so vague that there's no way to glean what his main problem is (when Anakin talks to Yoda about Padmé and won't just ADMIT it's about Padmé). People can't help you if you don't meet them halfway. Anakin refused to do that. That's on him. Not on any of his victims. And even if he DID have borderline personality disorder (which is just a fanon theory), he'd STILL be responsible for his actions. It's amazing how much fans blame everyone else under the sun than the man who choked his wife. Lol.

I don't think Anakin is emotionless or incapable of care or goodness. That's the whole point of Luke, after all. I simply deny not giving him the agency to make his own decisions. He WAS a monster. What else do you call killing little kids who beg for your help? But the point of Luke is that Anakin ALWAYS had the opportunity to turn from his actions and be better. He just didn't find the spine until ROTJ. And that's great! He turned back to the light and his soul found salvation. But he is NOT redeemed in the eyes of anyone but Luke. It's laughable to think otherwise or that he wouldn't have been executed if he'd survived. And it's illogical to blame his victims and call them "brats" just because they won't forgive someone who was once basically space Hitler.

Despite what you may think, I love Anakin's character and the tragedy of him. I love that he found salvation in the end. But I DESPISE treating him like a child who didn't know what he was doing. He knew. He was selfish for twenty years. LUKE is who taught him how to be selfless. Everything else is on him. You can't call him the greatest 'redemption' of all time and then blame everyone else for his actions.

Because then what is there to redeem?

Nothing.

You can't have both. Pick one. 🤷‍♀️

What does it matter that Anakin as 'Vader' knew that Palpatine wouldn't praise Tarkin for such a cruel and useless thing in destroying a planet just to look a little tough? That doesn't mean shit. Just because Tarkin eventually gets what was coming to him, doesn't mean that Anakin couldn't have sped up Tarkin's demise right there. Good actions don't work like that: "Oh, it didn't really matter that he didn't try to save Alderaan! Because in the end Tarkin gets his karma!" (Anakin gets his karma too, by the way. You could argue from his burns or the fact that the only way he can 'redeem' himself is through dying by killing Palpatine).

I'm not sure what argument your making on if Anakin could've "talked" Tarkin into another way to get Leia to talk to betray the Rebels. I'm arguing that if he—or YOU—expected Leia's "forgiveness", then it implies there should've been some level where he could've done something different. I'm arguing he could've left the Empire years earlier if he'd grown a spine, or he could've Force choked Tarkin out right there and got him and Leia out of there somehow. Who's gonna stop him? No lowly soldier on board the Death Star could stand in his way. Palpatine would be miles away at that point.

He could've done something different. Fans just argue he was "helpless" in the sense that they don't want Anakin to be selfless to give anything up. The excuse that he was "stuck" and "had nothing left" is BS. Deep down, Anakin knows if he found Obi-Wan and repented that Obi-Wan would take him back. There's a whole arc about it in a comic when he's trying to bleed a Kyber Krystal. He just doesn't do it because he's too depressed and selfish to admit he screwed up his own life. He pretended for 20 years everyone betrayed him, when really it was the other way around, and that was too horrific to contemplate, so he pretended he was another person, when clearly he's still the same guy, only horrifically injured under the mask. He can only admit the truth after Luke offers him blind forgiveness.

It doesn't really matter that psychologists have "diagnosed" Anakin. He isn't a real person. He's a character that was written with a narrative purpose by GL. And GL was clear when he says the reasons Anakin does what he does is because he's greedy for power to not feel weak again and also because he's too afraid to let go. The writer of the character knows better actually. Isn't that what SW fans always say with GL?

Jedi are literally space Buddhists that GL describes as "empathetic space monks." Part of their culture is literally to be connected to all life around them. It's laughable to say they wouldn't understand a "simple person" in the galaxy. That's literally what they're taught to do in the Temple. Before the war, they were Advisors/ mediators.

Anakin had a fondness for Qui-Gon, but he did trust Obi-Wan. Maybe not enough to mention Padmé (he didn't trust ANYONE with that except apparently Rex, and l'm almost certain Rex found out on accident, because Anakin definitely doesn't care about Rex as much as he did Ahsoka), but he DID trust him. And he cared for Obi-Wan greatly. Just not more than his own wants and needs apparently. But that's true when it comes to Anakin choosing himself over all of his friends and family at the end of ROTS. The Jedi would've helped Anakin if he'd just ASKED without being so damn vague. Maybe they wouldn't have let him stay in the Order, but it's not like he'd be kicked out the door immediately. But Anakin wanted his cake and to eat it too, so he didn't tell him about his wife because he wanted to keep the power of being a Jedi. And guess what? The Jedi don't OWE one man the power to change their entire culture just for him.

There isn't anything wrong with having a set of rules for beliefs. Priests can't marry either. That doesn't make them “emotionless robots” that are “incapable of understanding human emotion” or understanding a struggling man's thoughts. As I said before, the Jedi cannot help Anakin if he doesn't ASK. You cannot condemn them in one breath for not helping him, while at the same time saying that it's fine Anakin didn't explain his problems with them, because they should've just been able to read his mind. It's hypocritical.

Obi-Wan had no other options but to follow Padmé to find Anakin. He NEEDED to find Anakin, because Anakin was fucking dangerous at that point in time, and had just helped genocide an entire culture. Not exactly father/husband material at that point. And even then, in the movies Obi-Wan doesn't reveal himself until it's clear Anakin isn't going to listen to Padmé. It's ludicrous to think if Padme kept arguing with Anakin that Anakin still wouldn't have strangled her in anger in that moment. Again, it appears somehow you're trying to put off this transgression he's committed on someone else again, and I cannot fathom why. It makes him far less interesting that way if he was just a "poor guy" who couldn't control himself.

What I find interesting is you can admit that Anakin doesn't have the information the audience does, which is why he thinks Palpatine is kind and is his friend, but you show no grace towards the Jedi, calling them "arrogant" for not realizing the Sith had slowly popped back up, as if they are somehow supposed to have the audience's information. The truth is that they don't.

Just like anyone, they know the politicians of the Republic are slowly being corrupt (just like MOST politicians in real life, and you don't see everyone condemning all US citizens because we don't go clean them out like assassins or something), but there isn't anything they can do about that unless you expect them to go in and wave their lightsabers around to threaten the politicians into submission. As if Palpatine wouldn't immediately twist that into his favor to say they were "trying to take over the Republic". (And oh wait—he did that in the movies! 🤷‍♀️ Funny how that works, huh?)

It doesn't matter if Anakin didn't "want" to kill kids/the Tuskens/betray Mace and his Jedi friends. What does that matter? What does it matter if he felt bad while doing it if he still DOES it? You wouldn't say a school shooter wasn't responsible for their actions just because they were sobbing the whole time they went around slaughtering everyone in the school. Anakin's responsible for his own actions, and just because he might feel "bad" doesn't let him off the hook. Even when he was masquerading as 'Vader.' Who cares if he was miserable 24/7? l’ll tell you his victims sure didn't when he decapitated them with his lightsaber or snapped their spines.

I'm not arguing about the people that forgave Anakin. I'm arguing over condemning people as "brats" that don't. (I personally think it's a copout to have Leia forgive him after reading some diary, so l'm glad at the least apparently new canon has her taking her entire life to get there). My point is there is nothing that makes Anakin's victims any less if they choose not to forgive him, because forgiveness is a GIFT. It isn't something you're owed. It's funny fans keep pretending he's owed that while condemning all of the Jedi as "arrogant", because I can't think of anything more arrogant than a man who was formerly one of the worst monsters in the galaxy thinking he's "owed" forgiveness. And just as I mentioned before, the Anakin after he came back to the Light wouldn't even agree with such a notion. He may ASK. But he wouldn't call Leia a "brat" for it. It's ridiculous to think that after the horror he'd personally committed to her.

I don't really care what your thoughts are on "Darth Mouse" as that's not what this conversation is about. GL describes Palpatine as the Devil, which is why Anakin can be turned back to the Light and Palpatine can't. But there is NO DOUBT that Anakin as 'Darth Vader' is seen as 'space Hitler' throughout internet culture (the Empire/the Sith is LITERALLY based off of Nazis). If you'd take a moment to google it you would see it's already a huge staple of internet culture. That doesn't make him emotionless or without goodness (he saved Luke, after all), but it IS still true. I don't see what's so hard about acknowledging his atrocities. He was a cruel and horrible monster for most of his life, and it only makes Luke's actions all the more miraculous when he somehow gets through to Anakin and makes him consider a heel face turn in the final hour.

Lol, honestly I also think you're a pretty strange person calling one of Anakin's torture victims a "brat" just because she didn't forgive him like dear saintly Luke. There is no shame in being kind like Luke (it helped him win after all), but there is NOTHING that makes Leia a bad person for not forgiving Anakin. I think you don't seem to contemplate just how BAD that is. Her FATHER tortured her for apparently HOURS. We have no idea just what he said and did to her during this time. He could've taunted her, for all we know. And I know, I know, you might say "He didn't know she was his daughter! 🤪🤪 " But that's not the POINT. The point is how he was cruel, and only seemed care when he realized she was his flesh and blood. Anakin's lucky Leia didn't spit on his grave. Because she WASN'T consumed by her anger to the point it was unhealthy. She just didn't forgive him and never viewed him as her father as long as she lived (because BAIL ORGANA was her father in all but blood). And that is within her rights. As I keep stating, Anakin is not OWED anything. His actions at the end of ROTJ are the LEAST he can do. He should be GRATEFUL to the opportunity Luke gave him and how Obi-Wan and Yoda were saintly enough to forgive him and help him become a Force ghost, because he quite frankly didn't deserve it. But salvation isn't always about what people deserve. Just like forgiveness, it's a gift. Anakin received a gift from Luke and Obi-Wan—but he is NOT owed it from Leia. And she isn't a "brat" for not giving it to him. It is important to stick to one's beliefs and principles. Leia stuck by hers. That takes courage and strength. She loved Luke but never agreed with him about Anakin.

And I also never called Anakin as 'Vader' a maniac. I called him basically a monster. Because he WAS. He helped kill thousands of people for Palpatine on the regular and continued to help genocide Jedi over the years, while ALSO still killing more kids over the years a handful of times too, even if he usually tried to avoid it (the Kenobi Show when he purposely snapped a kid's neck in front of his mother and dragged him through the street like garbage). Ironically, the more you learn and read about Anakin's atrocities, the more Luke's reaction becomes downright insane (while still saintly/miraculous), because NOBODY else (especially in real life!) would think someone like that had a heart deep down with a sliver of care left. That's what makes it miraculous Luke got through to him.

Lol, you cannot seriously be arguing that the maintenance workers on board the Death Star were "poor little guys." I don't know if you're aware of this, but even though there were probably volunteers, on the other hand, usually half the time in the military soldiers are ASSIGNED certain things like "mopping the floors" or "latrine duty" personally—so those people STILL were probably Empire officers. And even if they weren't, they still chose to be on the abomination known as the Death Star. Their sentence may be the lightest, but unless they were put there against their will they too would ALSO be charged. And also—with your argument—you're calling Luke's actions at the end of the Original Trilogy as a genocidal act or something, when really it was a necessary act to take out a planet destroying death machine. It's amazing how certain fans can try to twist things around to try and blame the heroes for something that is the villain's fault.

Here we go again with the excuses of "if only Mace wasn't mean to poor little Anakin" then Anakin wouldn't have had to murder everyone. Lol, is Anakin incapable of cognitive thinking? Because I promise you that if I was Ahsoka and heard that Anakin's reasoning for trying to kill me at one point in Rebels and betraying all of his friends is because a few people were "mean to him" I would just be pissed off at the gall of him to not take responsibility for his own actions. Even if a few people WERE mean to Anakin, that still doesn't give him the right to go on a murderous rampage. All his actions are still on him. That's like saying a school shooter is justified in his actions just because he was bullied. You calling Anakin a "Trojan horse" as if he planned any of that and wasn't just riding by the seat of his pants doesn't really make sense. Anakin didn't plan anything, and if you're arguing that BS theory that Anakin "balanced" the Force by genociding the Light Side to have it be even with the Dark Side (not true anyway since there were still more Light Siders than Dark Siders), then I am sad to say that you are objectively wrong. 🤷‍♀️

There is no way that "genocide is good, actually!" is the main theme GL had for a children's Trilogy. Anakin completed the prophecy when he finally got off his ass to kill Palpatine. He could've done that in Palpatine's office, or years down the line—either way, the outcome to complete the prophecy is the same: the eradication of the Sith. No more. No less.

Quite frankly, I think it's pretty gross to blame a culture for their own genocide, so the galactic community isn't doing itself any favors at that point anyway (including the SW community. It's always been a baffling fandom opinion to me). And despite what you and other fans may believe—the Jedi shouldn't have to CHANGE their entire culture/way of life for the sake of one man (Anakin) OR the galaxy's inhabitants who don't even TRY to understand them anyway (funny how Jedi are blamed for not understanding citizens, but what citizens try to understand them?).

They are not obligated to change their culture just for the right not to be murdered by a genocidal man on a temper tantrum.

Yeah, it's not surprising there were some among the population who "rejoiced" the fall of the Order. The war affected people's livelihoods and lives, and people get REAL greedy real fast when their day to day lives are affected by something. So yeah, it's no wonder they listened to Palpatine's propaganda to make the Jedi their scapegoat. Still pretty gross and disgusting, of course, but I can see how it came to be that way. Pretty ironic how people seemed to eventually miss the Jedi when they were gone, huh? It's not so fun dealing with an enemy (The Empire) when no space monk is standing protectively in front of you with a laser sword.

You DO know it's canon there were only 10,000 Jedi (not counting younglings and retired Masters) in a galaxy of TRILLIONS, right? It's illogical to expect them to be able to single handedly end slavery throughout the galaxy (especially in the Outer Rim where the Senate won't help them), or to expect them to be able to solve every damn problem in the universe like poverty (the lower levels of Coruscant). They helped people when they could. I don't know how, but you've seemed to have forgotten (just like most fans) that the Jedi ALWAYS tried to help. Even to the very end of their lives. It only makes it more gross to blame them for their own genocide. Lol, Luke barely knew shit about them except what he managed to scrounge up that hadn't been purged by the Empire (and a lot of that is from Legends authors, who didn't particularly like the Jedi anyway, so of course they'd write it like that and not as GL's vision of them being the heroes). The clones were treated terribly, and the Jedi did everything they could to make their lives easier (unless you'd prefer they sit on their asses out of the war to leave the clones under the command of people like Tarkin who didn't give a shit about them?), and it's illogical to blame them for the clones's plight. The SENATE are the corrupt ones and it's THEIR job to fix poverty and slavery and give the clones their rights. THEY are the actual villains of the prequels (besides the Sith), which is exactly what GL wanted to present to show the moral decay of democracy. And yet somehow people missed that and thought he was saying—"No, actually, it's the genocide victims who are wrong, guys!" when that couldn't be farther from accurate.

Dear LORD, here we go again with the excuses for Anakin's actions. Anakin "couldn't trust" Obi-Wan because of something kinda snippy/mean that Obi-Wan said when he was a TEENAGER?(The “pathetic life form/he’s dangerous line”, which he said when he was jealous/also—again—a teenager). Wow, way to hold a grudge. Lol. Doesn't that go against your whole argument about "forgiveness?" Didn't Obi-Wan's following actions towards Anakin then on in treating him like a brother show NOTHING about his care for him? Come on now. Let's be serious.

Why the hell WOULDN'T Obi-Wan go after Anakin? As stated beforehand, Anakin was DANGEROUS at that point, and needed to be put down. Anakin went against his fate to destroy the Sith, which put the prophecy on hold for a bit, so yeah, there was a "plan", which is why he lived, but that doesn't mean he wasn't dangerous and still didn't deserve to die at that point in time. He'd just killed kids like animals hours earlier. Again: not exactly husband/father material anymore.

Again, I feel like the implication here is that you're hinting that everyone misinterpreted the prophecy and that Anakin's fate was to bring "balance" by becoming a genocidal monster and "evening the score", and I am sad to say that you are objectively wrong. 🤷‍♀️ It's not accurate to state GL's original intent to a children's trilogy is that genocide to "even the score" was the correct answer. As stated again: Anakin completed the prophecy when he destroyed the Sith (ie; him and Palpatine). Full stop.

Hmmmm, you're doing a whole lot of speculation on how Leia "might" react if she was put in Anakin's situation, but not actually taking into account how everyone makes their own decisions and people can react differently to things at the end of the day. This just feels like another way you're trying to excuse Anakin's actions and condemn Leia for her bitterness towards Anakin just because: "Oh, if only that brat went what he went through! 🤪 " And such an argument—in the nicest way I can think possible—feels like the platitudes children tell themselves when angry at their parents. ALL of your and rabid Anakin fans's arguments are, because it all boils down to: "It wasn't HIS Fault! It was THIS person's! Because they were MEAN to him and he got BULLIED! And all his friends didn't understand him (even when it's obvious they reached out plenty of times and tried)!" It's just a very tired and frankly going in circles argument. You keep bringing up all these external factors as if the Jedi didn't try at all to offer Anakin coping mechanisms (Yoda literally offered them, and his advice—whether you or others want to admit it or not—makes sense. In war, you sometimes have to be prepared you might lose someone, and with the vague knowledge Anakin gave him, I'm pretty sure Yoda thought Anakin was talking about Obi-Wan. If Yoda knew it was about Padmé, no shit he'd probably have different advice). Anakin's life was not horrible at the Temple. He had a horrible childhood and that would fuck anyone's head up and leave a scar, but once at the Temple he was offered a whole range of different options to receive help. The only difference here is that you just don't AGREE with the Jedi's beliefs in how they go about helping people control their emotions so they don't lash out at people.

Maybe a few people (kids) at the Temple said a few things to Anakin that could be bullying (and I've only seen ONE comic related to that), but it's ridiculous to assume that the entire Jedi Order hated him. It's illogical to think that, and it's just like the childish notion fans have that Mace (who you call a "motherfucker" for... again, what? Treating Anakin like everyone else and not God's gift?) hated or was jealous of Anakin just because he didn't tell him "yes" all the time.

The point is, Anakin's life was fine at the Temple. Maybe he got a little isolated and lonely, but it's not like people didn't reach out. Anakin just had trouble reaching back. And all of those excuses don't let him off the hook for his genocidal actions, which you still seem to be twisting yourself into knots to try and do. THAT is childish. Not Leia judging Anakin for who he was when she had the misfortune of being tortured by him. You're plain lying to yourself if you think you wouldn't react just like Leia in real life. Most people are not gonna be wondering to themselves why the "poor little serial killer" did what he did to their family.

Just as stated before, Anakin honestly didn't deserve shit at the end of his life.

He'd betrayed everyone he'd ever known and thrown them all away (Rex, Ahsoka, Obi-Wan, Padmé, the Jedi/501st, R2, etc) like complete garbage. He helped genocide the Jedi—the very Order that took him in from slavery—and then spent those next 20 years hunting them down like animals, while also in his free time killing whoever Palpatine pointed him to like a lapdog just because he was depressed and pissed he'd screwed up his own life. He'd murdered thousands of kids at that point (literally monstrous and unforgivable for most people. Certainly me. Which only makes Luke's forgiveness more meaningful) and there is a comic where he hunted down a Jedi just for the sheer purpose of ripping his youngling out of the man's arms so he could let Palpatine turn the baby into an Inquisitor.

I am sure there are compilations on YouTube of all the people Anakin killed and the people he'd tortured or made jokes at while he smirked over their bodies. Come back and watch those and then tell me again he "deserved" to find peace. Lol, Anakin didn't deserve shit.

And I know that me saying that will probably make you think I hate his character. I don't. Anakin's character is very dear to me and I'm GLAD he found peace at the end of his life. I'm just under no delusions that he was "redeemed" in any sense of the word that wasn't in Luke's eyes alone or that Anakin actually "deserved" peace, when it should be completely obvious he deserved to be condemned to the farthest pits of Hell. As I keep repeating again and again: Anakin's 'redemption' and forgiveness are GIFTS. It's not something he is owed or something he even deserves. It's something he's given from the people around him who are quite frankly better people than he ever was in his entire life. Luke taught him how to be selfless at the end of his life. Because of his trauma as a slave, Anakin never wanted to do that beforehand from the fear of being weak again, no matter how many tried to help. But Luke did, and he succeeded with getting through to Anakin and making him finally get off his ass to make the right choice.

Again, The Force may have a "plan" but that doesn't mean people don't have free will. Otherwise, they'd all just be mindless puppets walking around spouting nonsense. That's just another copout to try and excuse Anakin's genocidal actions and say it wasn't his fault because it was his "fate". It wasn't. His fate was to destroy the Sith (and NOTHING else, despite what you apparently believe about a BS argument that I admit is common in fanon that Anakin "evening the playing field" was his destiny or something). He tripped and dragged his heels on that for twenty years before finally completing the prophecy in the final hour before his death. No more, no less.

It's childish to not take responsibility for your actions. It's why even though I love his character l'm not gonna treat Anakin like he was a "poor little guy" who didn't have a brain. He had options and a support system (Obi-Wan/Ahsoka/Padmé/Rex/R2/etc) he could've reached out to if he really wanted to. But he didn't because he just wanted to be told he was right. That's on him and no one else, as I keep saying over and over, despite how many excuses for him you try to bring up. I will repeat again: you give Anakin a lot of grace, but apparently none to Leia herself. Why is that? It feels pretty hypocritical. It also feels pretty hypocritical to judge and blame the Jedi in one breath saying they "lost their way (incorrect)", while in another breath embracing their very own beliefs on love and forgiveness. So, which is it? Do you think the Jedi had a wisdom and empathy for forgiveness, or do you think they "lost their way?" You can't have both and pick and choose based off how you want to excuse and justify Anakin's behavior.

Ahhhh, and THERE it is. See, I knew this gross argument (that I admit is a common fandom opinion) was hiding in there somewhere! I'm honestly not going to give this opinion much time, because at the end of the day you and everyone else who believe it are objectively wrong. 🤷‍♀️ You wanna know how I know that? Because it's genocide apologia. And at the end of the day, when you say the whole purpose GL made for Anakin's story and the theme of SW is that "genocide is good actually!", all I have to do to refute that is to remind you and others that this is a CHILDREN'S trilogy and from the words of GL himself; SW's main theme is about hope.

So because of that, this gross "theory" is shown for what it is: immoral, gross and just plain wrong genocide apologia. 🤷‍♀️ It's also just wrong in general, because Anakin killed all the Sith at the end of the Original Trilogy, and it's now canon more than two Light Siders were still alive at the time, so that would be "uneven scales" which goes against this immoral genocide apologia theory to begin with.

Ahhh, would you look at that! You've had the gall to bring up another gross argument similar to your earlier one (which is a common fandom one, I'll admit) that Anakin showed "mercy" to the younglings when killing them, when it's obvious that's incorrect and he didn't show them anything but cruelty. And now you're giving this type of similar gross argument that genocide survivors were "freed" from the "slavery" of their own culture! I gotta hand it to you, it's a common SW fan belief, but every time I hear it, I still get amazed at the gall of someone who truly believes this is accurate each and every time. Because it's obvious you don't agree with their culture (not saying I'd be a good Jedi either, but the point remains), which is why you think them being "freed" from their culture is better for them so the genocide survivors can make "real families" because you don't view the Jedi as family! Because you only believe in the basic family dynamic. So yeah, this opinion is also immoral and wrong obviously, because it tries to twist Anakin's and the Empire's genocidal actions as "benevolent" and "cleansing the Order for something new." Which is, again, genocide apologia, which proves you are wrong, because it's illogical that genocide apologia would be the theme of a children's trilogy about hope.

A lot of these things you bring up about Anakin and Palagueis are things l'm not even sure are actually canon anymore or if they're from Legends. Even if they are canon, these again are not excuses for his actions just because Anakin may have had a penchant for darkness. Even if he did, it's still his responsibility to learn how to control it and not hurt people. Many Jedi need to be guided on the right path to not follow evil, which is what the Jedi already did every day. With all of the thousands of Jedi trained and only a handful turning to the Dark Side, that seems like a pretty good record. The Jedi didn't "lose their way." This is a tired and BS argument that I admit Filoni has brewed the more GL gave him more leeway with SW, because Filoni doesn't view the Jedi as heroes in the right like GL did. There is nothing to show they lost their way just because they joined the war, because they literally were given that choice or sitting on their asses to watch the galaxy burn, and you bet your ass if they did that then Palpatine would spin it around to the public: "Look at how they sit in their ivory towers and watch you suffer under the Separatists's hands! 🤪🤪” So there is literally no way they can win here. If you're talking about how some of their methods got dirty (trying to mind trick the bounty hunter), firstly: they were literally trying to save their own children from being tortured/experimented on/enslaved, which I'm pretty sure gives them some slack (unless you're only willing to give that to Anakin?). Secondly, Anakin also got his hands dirty plenty of times in the war, and is conveniently not criticized by the fandom as much as the Jedi are. Ironic, huh?

Anakin could've told Obi-Wan anything and Obi-Wan would've helped him. Anakin knew that. Anakin just didn't want to risk losing his Jedi authority in the Order, because he didn't want to have to choose between a life with Padmé and being a powerful Jedi. If he cared about Padme completely selflessly, why didn't he just admit he was married and ask the Jedi to help Padmé and make sure she stayed alive through their Jedi healers? That was an option.

He literally risked Padme's life because he keeps sitting on the fence to try and have both. Because despite what you and some of his fans believe—Anakin isn't OWED both. He doesn't deserve everything in the world just because he is the oh so mighty "Chosen One/Hero With No Fear". A culture shouldn't have to change their entire way of life just for one man to continue being married and to have his cake and eat it too by staying in the Order. Even in real life, priests still aren't allowed to practice and be married. That doesn't mean they're being "repressed" or that they're under some type of horrible "slavery" to suppress their emotions. It's just the rules of that culture. If Anakin didn't like the rules of the Jedi, he should've just left after getting their help to keep Padmé and his kids safe. But he didn't because he wanted to keep both. That’s on him. Not his victims.

I mean, yeah, no duh the Jedi Order would’ve had some problems after killing Palpatine and having to prove they he was a Sith that acted on both sides of the war. Palpatine did that really well, but it’s a bit illogical to assume they wouldn’t eventually find evidence in his office somewhere or on his data files. He did the things he did by planning his schemes some type of way. And yeah, for some insane reason being a Sith Lord “wasn’t illegal”, but being controlling of both sides of the war IS, which they could’ve proved after a while. So, if you are trying to argue that Anakin’s actions were for the “better” because it would’ve been too “hard” for the Jedi otherwise—you are still objectively wrong this way. 🤷‍♀️ It’s also just another way to try and excuse Anakin by pretending his actions that day on the final day of freedom of democracy didn’t matter, when it’s obvious that they very clearly did. If Anakin hadn’t cut off Mace’s hand, the war would’ve been won. Therefore, everything that goes bad in the galaxy is legit Anakin’s fault. 🤷‍♀️ Of course Palpatine has the highest blame because he’s the mastermind, but betrayers/backstabbing is always a worse breed of crime, because it always comes from a friend, which is what Anakin was to the Jedi/Obi-Wan/Ahsoka/Rex/Padmé/501st. He legit ruins all of his friends’s lives with that one swing to cut off Mace’s hand. Trying to paint it as anything else is simply incorrect, and takes away from his ‘redemption’ at the end of the Original Trilogy by trying to pretend he’s a “poor little guy” who had no choice.

Anakin could’ve “defeated” Palpatine multiple ways. Just as I mentioned before, just because The Force had a “plan” doesn’t mean that everyone was puppets walking around on a string, because then free will wouldn’t exist. Anakin could’ve helped defeat Palpatine in his office that day in Revenge of The Sith by either taking the swing himself or either standing back and just letting Mace finish the job. He’s still The Chosen One that way, because his choice is still literally the defining action that saves democracy that way. He also could defeat him the way he does in the Original Trilogy, which is taking him by surprise to save Luke by throwing him down the reactor shaft to kill Palpatine. Either way gets the job done. He doesn’t need to physically fight Palpatine to get it done himself. He’s just the catalyst for what happens to the galaxy because of HIS choices alone, which proves how he has agency and understood why all his actions were wrong and just didn’t care. He didn’t need Luke for that in Palpatine’s office. All he had to do was grow a spine and let Mace take the final swing. He failed to do that and doomed the galaxy for twenty years because of it. 🤷‍♀️

Ahhh, there you go again with the gall to pretend that what Anakin did was “mercy” for the younglings just because the imperials would’ve done horrible things to them too! Gotta hand it to you, one has to have a lot of nerve to believe such an argument such as this (which I acknowledge is a common opinion among rabid Anakin fans), but it’s still gross and hilariously wrong every time I hear it repeated. So, just as I stated to you before: you and anyone else who has this opinion is WRONG, because obviously Anakin murdering little kids like animals is not a mercy. Anyone with any type of heart and soul should be able to realize that. What Anakin did is not and will never be a “mercy”. It was a cruel and dehumanizing act towards kids who were begging for his help. What would ACTUALLY have been mercy is what I stated before: Anakin snapping out of it to save the kids and lead them out of the Temple to save their lives. THAT is mercy. The only reason you continue to spout this BS argument that is common among rabid Anakin fans is to try and twist yourself into knots to deny Anakin agency and pretend he had “no choice” but to kill the kids for “mercy”, when it’s clear that this opinion of yours and anyone else who believes it is gross, immoral, and just plain wrong. 🤷‍♀️ It’s as simple as that.

Anakin WAS taught to understand, accept and manage his emotions correctly. That’s LITERALLY what “control” means: MANAGING your emotions so you don’t lash out at people in your anger, which is what the Jedi always warned their members against doing. The only difference here is that you just don’t agree with their beliefs, and are inadvertently portraying them as a culture who “suppresses” their emotions, when from the movies and TCW show it’s obvious that you and anyone who has this opinion is wrong. 🤷‍♀️ There are literally scenes that show it’s about being MINDFUL of your emotions so you don’t let them control you. Not to pretend they don’t exist. Anakin had all of these Jedi teachings available to him. The only difference is that he thought he was above the rules and that they didn’t apply to him. All of which eventually bit him in the ass, because he refused to listen to anyone and be told “no” without getting angry.

Qui-Gon was kind to Anakin, and Anakin had a fondness for him, but it is NOT canon that if Qui-Gon lived Anakin wouldn’t have fallen. That’s just a fanon theory that fans pretend is canon. You know how I know this? Because if you look it up, George Lucas straight up SAYS in interviews that Qui-Gon living wouldn’t have changed anything for Anakin not falling to the Dark Side. The “Duel of the Fates” is just what the song writer titled the song as a metaphor for the fight between light and darkness, but that doesn’t mean that because Qui-Gon died it was impossible for Anakin to grow a brain and a conscience and make choices of his own. GL literally knows better, because he’s the writer, which is what SW fans always say, right? Because anyone that believes that Qui-Gon dying “sealed Anakin’s fate” is simply using it as another copout/excuse for Anakin’s actions to pretend like all of his choices weren’t his own fault. Obi-Wan was a fine teacher for Anakin, and just because he wasn’t perfect didn’t mean he “failed” him. The truth is that Obi-Wan did everything he could, but Anakin refused to accept Obi-Wan’s help half the time. That’s on him and nobody else. He failed Obi-Wan. Not the other way around. Obi-Wan only thinks he “failed” Anakin out of misplaced guilt because he’s a better person than Anakin could ever hope to be who actually felt guilt for his actions, when Anakin in turn during that time at least felt nothing but entitlement and anger towards friends who wouldn’t join him on the Dark Side.

Dooku also doesn’t have any room to talk. He might’ve noticed corruption in the Senate, but the second Dooku joined the Sith and the Separatists and started helping enslave planets and killing people, he lost all credibility and became a big old hypocrite, just like Anakin became after ROTS.

So far, every single opinion you have given is just one excuse after another for Anakin’s actions to try and put the blame on someone else (usually the victims of his genocidal atrocities). And all of them are incorrect and immoral and wrong. 🤷‍♀️ Because half of it is genocide apologia or trying to twist Anakin’s actions from killing the younglings as “benevolent mercy”, when that is obviously WRONG and the biggest copout I have ever heard in my life. You also try to excuse Dooku’s actions, which is also wrong, because Dooku is a literal war criminal at the end of ROTS, so all of his opinions mean squat at that point, because he’d become the very thing he’d hated at that point, just like Anakin would eventually come to be from his own shitty choices. Therefore, every single thing you have brought up is not “facts.” It is simply an opinion that has become huge in fandom spaces because people like Anakin’s character and are biased against him and want to pretend he was a “poor little guy” who couldn’t make decisions, when it is clear there were a million other decisions he could’ve made.

I will then bring this around back to my original point: Leia Organa is not a “brat” for choosing not to forgive someone who was once one of the biggest monsters in the galaxy who TORTURED her (her own flesh and blood FATHER) just because Anakin might’ve had a hard childhood or a few people “being mean to him.” She doesn’t owe him anything, because specifically everything that had gone wrong in the galaxy up to that point was ANAKIN’S fault, and it is the LEAST he can do to kill Palpatine and fix it, so she doesn’t owe him anything for him killing the Emperor either. It’s great Luke found it in his heart to forgive Anakin, but it will NEVER be acceptable to call Leia a “bad person” for not forgiving Anakin, who is canonically the space Hitler (proven) of the Star Wars galaxy. She doesn’t owe him shit, and again: Anakin is lucky she didn’t spit on his grave.

Again: this doesn’t mean I hate Anakin’s character. But unlike you, when I like a character, I don’t need to excuse their every action to pretend they are “poor little guys.” Anakin was a horrible monster for most of his life, but I’m still GLAD he found salvation and peace in the afterlife. But he did NOT deserve it. He deserved to be condemned to the farthest pits of Hell, and I am under no delusions about that. He’s lucky the people around him (Luke, Yoda, Obi-Wan and Ahsoka) are far better people than he ever was while he was alive and were able to find it in their hearts to offer him forgiveness, because he never showed them that same kindness or grace, and obviously didn’t deserve their love or loyalty. It makes it all the more saintly that they gave it to him.

​You’re correct that I said earlier I didn’t want to continue this conversation because I feel like we’re going in circles. But if you’ll recall, I also stated if you kept messaging me then I would respond to the best of my abilities.

My final message to you on my points is the one I left before and also this following one, and then I will wish you farewell, considering we’re obviously never going to agree. Maybe someday someone will come across this thread and read my thoughts and see the logic in not believing genocide apologia is the theme of a CHILDREN’S series about hope. Either way, the conversation is basically finished. I’m not going to repeat everything I have said that discredits your points again, as nothing I’ve said has gotten through to you apparently. The reason in my last message I brought my point back around to Leia not being what you call a “brat” is because that was the original reason I replied to you to begin with. The other stuff in this final comment you send about Leia “owing” Anakin for her birth, which is why she “owes” him forgiveness is also wrong as well for all of the reasons I stated earlier. The parent argument is just another excuse because Anakin was a deadbeat dad. Lots of kids write off their terrible parents every day.

Every other thing you bring up about the Jedi and Mace and the Council has already been refuted by my points earlier to show them as incorrect, even if you don’t agree. The final thing is of course you repeating Anakin has no agency and shouldn’t be blamed because the Force had a “plan”, but again, I’ve already proven in my earlier messages that type of immoral and genocide apologia argument about it being his “destiny” to genocide the Light Side is wrong, because—again—Star Wars is a CHILDREN’S series at the end of the day, and it is completely illogical and absurd that “genocide is good, actually!” is the main theme of a CHILDREN’S trilogy about hope.

I will respond to you no further now. I am satisfied with the points I have made debunking your claims, and will definitely come back to this as a reference if I need to debate someone in the future. I will only leave you with a vague thanks that things managed to stay mostly civil besides us calling each other “strange”. But then again, I know we were both probably getting annoyed. Still, it’s a rare thing to have a mostly polite debate on the internet, so I’ll give credit where credit’s due. 👍 Goodbye, and hope your day is well.

-

As you can see, there’s a lot of genocide apologia in this guy’s arguments (literally disgusting), and there were times I got a little snippy (it gets frustrating defending genocide survivors over and over), but for the most part, I tried to be polite, because I wanted all my points to remain strong. If you are willing to listen to my perspective, I think you can admit some of his arguments echo your own, even if you’re obviously not as blunt and frankly gross about it as him.

Take the show The Acolyte, and how it’s supporters argue that it’s only “critiquing” the Jedi and showing them as “flawed”, which is what you wanted to get at when you sent this ask, no? To “make sure that in discussing the Jedi we remember the good and bad.” Well, my response is… why is that needed? You’ve seen all my points and examples about how being anti Jedi is the larger fandom opinion and how Order 66 is quietly thought to be partly “their fault”, which is literally one of the grossest opinions to have and I’ll never sugarcoat that. So, why is it NEEDED to point out their “flaws” with every post on how they didn’t deserve their genocide? Why does that matter? Why can’t it just be agreement: the Jedi didn’t deserve to be slaughtered like animals? Why is it “oh, but we must remember that they were flawedddd and complacenttttt. 😔💔 After all, if only they just hadn’t been mean to poor Anakinnnn. Then he wouldn’t have been ‘forced’ to help murder them all. 😔💔” Like… do you not HEAR how condescending that sounds? 😭🤷‍♀️🤦‍♀️

Why do the Jedi have to be the “perfect victims” for fans, otherwise they either “deserved what they got” or were “arrogant” and “brought it on themselves?” Why aren’t the MURDERERS/BETRAYERS blamed for the collapse of a galaxy (Anakin and Palpatine), when THEY were the ones responsible and who pulled the trigger? The point is that it’s frankly just weird how much certain fans bring up that “oh, don’t forget they were flawedddd! 🤪🤪🤪” on a post that is mourning the loss of their culture. I promise you that your “special little blorbos” Kanan and Ahsoka (the REAL her that hasn’t become Filoni’s mouthpiece) would probably not enjoy the way you describe them as “oh, but YOU’RE one of the good ones!” And I say that with all the politeness I can manage.

Funnily enough, the writer of The Acolyte, LH, kind of echoes your sentiments, which just aren’t as “benevolent” as you may genuinely believe. In her show, there’s no DEPTH or honestly real THEMES of SW put into the show. It’s all flipped around to the Dark Side being “liberating”, which is so far from true it’s literally laughable. 😭😒 And I’m getting ticked off that when genuine criticism from pro jedi fans come up, somebody just HAS to say—“This show is just portraying the Jedi as not perfect! 😌” 😬😤🫠 And I swear I’m gonna lose it one day, because it portrays the Jedi as more than imperfect. It portrays them as emotionally repressed, barely competent “space cops”. 🙄 (Fucking HATE that term antis use for them so much, because it’s what they argue about saying the Jedi ‘deserved’ their genocide because they’re an ‘institution’ and not a “real” family. 😬😬🤬🤬 Ohhhh, I’m gonna go off on someone one day. Lol.) And these are just my frustrations. It’s not personally directed at you at the moment, anon. It’s just me kind of venting all my thoughts on this post.

I even had a fairly decent comment on my tumblr post about my critique of The Acolyte from a fan trying to save it, and they basically said the same thing and that it’s from the Sith perspective so it’s skewed. But it’s not. 😭😭 Because the showrunner’s views literally mirror the villain’s and then they become her mouthpieces. The show is completely anti Jedi while trying to pretend in a condescending way that it’s only Jedi critical in a way like—“Ah, those poor little culty Jedi. 😔😔💔 Some had good hearts… but their culture doomed them to be wiped out… 😔💔” 😒🙄😤🤬

I just… fucking HATE that show. 😭 SO much. And I know certain fans loved it, so I apologize if people enjoyed at least certain parts, but I’ve read a tumblr post that broke down the show really well and how hollow it is. The characters barely have time to interact and get to know one another before they’re all killed off (Yord and Jecki and Sol, who were fan favorites), until only Osha and Quimir remain—because at the end of the day, THAT’S what this whole stupid show was about. 😭🤦‍♀️ It was about a Reylo fanfic writer getting to play in her sandbox.

Anyway, my point is I don’t think you’re “anti Jedi”, anon. I think you’re “Jedi critical”, yes. But not in the benevolent way you believe. I think you are unknowingly being benevolently condescending in the way The Acolyte tries to be by saying, “Ooohhh, those poor, culty Jedi. 💔😔😔😔 If only they weren’t so emotionally repressed like robots (dehumanization)… maybe then they could’ve changed their culture so they didn’t have to be ‘cleansed’ for a ‘better galaxy’. 😔💔💔” It’s just… stuff like that. 😭🤷‍♀️🤦‍♀️ Which is… SO exhausting for us pro Jedi fans to hear over and over and over like it’s a valid take, when it’s just really not. But I wanted to explain my thoughts in a way I hope was mostly polite. I probably sound a little bit snippy, but it’s just because I’m frustrated at having to defend genocide victims again. That’s all.

I guess I would just… encourage you to rethink your thoughts? Because when you take into account what the Sith/Empire represent (Nazis) and then what the Jedi genocide is a metaphor of… your ‘argument’ looks less and less cute. 🤷‍♀️😭 I’m just saying. Some may not like me comparing it to real life, but there are plenty of Asian fans/aroace fans/Jewish fans that heavily relate to the Jedi for this very reason, and I refuse to allow their opinions to be silenced, because fiction is for everyone, and SW has ALWAYS been political, which means it’s literally MADE to be compared to real life.

Anyway, I hope this long meta post maybe changed some minds, if not your own. I’m gonna leave links to other big pro Jedi blogs that have better and more organized meta posts than me about this stuff, where they go in depth explaining how the Jedi are the good guys and how what happened in the Prequels was never about “the genocide victims are in the wrong, actually!” and was more about the SENATE becoming corrupt and rotting democracy from the inside out, which made it so easy for Palpatine to slither into power. 10,000 Jedi aren’t gonna easily change that. But the politicians CAN. They were just too selfish to do so. The Senate/Sith are the real villains of the Prequel trilogy. Not the Jedi (literal genocide victims). Anything less than viewing it like this is just… wrong. 😭🤷‍♀️

Here are the big Pro Jedi meta blogs I talked about:

-

Tags:

@ensomnia

@heartfairy

@fangirlteallie

@shoniwake

@lemons-to-limes

@lexskiss

@spidersaye

@selenaftmarvel

@silverwoodj

@ajtaals

[smallgodseries]

Yes, it’s a filthy habit.  Good luck finding one of his followers in this modern world who isn’t aware of that.  We know that shame doesn’t work to change any other human behavior, but we assume those who crave the calming drag of smoke into their throat and lungs will be somehow susceptible, as if they, like any other house on fire, yearn to be extinguished.  Some do.  Many don’t.

Madiel is not kind to his followers.  He calms them, yes.  He quells their appetites.  And all he demands for these great gifts is the yellowing of their teeth and the aging of their skin, the sweetness of their breath and the lushness of their hair.  When they come to him knowing the exchanges on the table, he has no regrets for what he takes for them: it is the way of the universe, after all, that nothing should be had for nothing, and he is a god.   Why should he be the one to pay, when his followers are so very, brutally willing to do it for him?

Madiel is not kind to his followers, and yet he loves them all, from the knowing to the unwary, the ones who have been convinced by gods of propaganda and peer pressure to come to him with their hearts in their hands, ready to pay anything for a drag and a light and a moment of release.

Those gods, he hates.  If only the willing came to him, then the toll that he exacts would be so much more fair, and so much less likely to exact the fury of the other gods.  But so many are tricked into his arms, and while he will welcome them and make them feel at home, he would rather not have had them to begin with.

But shame is not, and was never the answer.

[stil-lindigo]

when people talk about educating yourself on the origins of ideologies like zionism, it isn’t to ask for sympathy but to show that fascism always hinges on the same rules - dehumanisation and other-ing of scapegoat populations in the pursuit of power.

fascism is, at the end of the day, uncreative and there is value in recognising the signs. When an entire ideology is dependent on the inherent depravity of a certain identity, it is worth some scrutiny.

[furiousgoldfish]

online narcissists: narcissistic abuse doesn't exist!

also online narcissists: infiltrate the community of specifically victims of narcissistic abuse who have asked to not be interacted with by narcissists, then attack them for revealing the tactics and manipulations of the abuse that supposedly doesn't exist, shamelessly police the victims of abuse on what language they're allowed to use to talk about abuse and then smear campaign and cancel them for 'being ableist about their abusers', speak on victim's stories of abuse in defense of the narcissistic abuser, minimizing and rationalizing all abuse with 'they're mentally ill', insisting the blogs and personal resources of survivors of narcissistic abuse need to center the narcissists themselves and spread positivity about them, even if those blogs are made by the victims of abuse! then cancelling and smearing people for not centering narcissists and for daring to make their personal blogs about themselves, insisting for 'some reason' that they need to have access and acceptance specifically in the community of the abused and mentally ill victims who are susceptible and groomed to not see the signs of abuse and who are easy to victimize again, insist that 'not all narcissists' knowing damn well that those who are abusive will absolutely benefit from this and manage to get new victims because it's now ableist for victims to recognize signs of narcissistic abuse and call them out, easily disregard humanity of victims and any member of the community if that member fails to spread propaganda and defend narcissists, demand for deletion of abuse resources and flinging insults and attacks at abuse survivors who make them.

me: I'm sure this is totally non-abusive, normal human behaviour. surely any non-abusive human goes and attacks the victims of abuse and demands access to them, against their consent, and polices their words and conversations to center them specifically. Nothing suspicious to see here folks. Better make sure you're not ableist and calling any of this out.

Walking all over victims of narcissistic abuse is easy and safe, because you can tell there won't be any backlash or cancelling, none of us will smear you or call you the worst human being who is hurting the entire world, just to make you guilty for hurting us. Opposing a narcissist, however, will do all of that. It's always safer to side with abusers than to be in their way. And a lot of the community of abused people are scared, and will go the easy route, especially if it's shown as 'morally correct'.

But it is at a cost to all of us. We need to have courage to stand up to this. If we want to have a community that doesn't shelter, defend, and prioritize abusers over victims, we need to fight for it. It doesn't do us any favours to have narcissists in charge, who will stay on top by silencing victims and molding the community to be as easy to abuse as possible for them. Even if you deep in your heart believe that 'not all narcissists are abusive', our stories are telling you that those who are extremely dangerous exist, and defending narcissists in general, makes sure that more victims come to those abusers, and are unable to call it out. Is it really worth defending them if you're risking people becoming permanently traumatized for believing you?

[traegorn]

https://www.tumblr.com/traegorn/765103105336606720/hey-so-that-was-a-weird-condescending-response-i

It feels like there's two different kinds of camps of thinking when it comes to Russia in this kind of situation:

That they're the only ones responsible, or that they're not responsible at all and it's all America's fault.

It's a deeply America-centric mentality that plays out in both directions, with people who want America to be the grand omnicausal villain doing their damndest to diminish the role other evil empires like Russia play. Or on the flipside, they blame everything on foreigners and refuse to hold America accountable for its own history of atrocities.

Same America-centrism, just from different angles.

I mean, it's a discussion about American elections specifically, so I'm not sure how you don't center America in the discussion? And it would be weird to discuss the topic without doing so?

That's like discussing the Chicago Bulls but claiming the discussion is too NBA-centric.

Mostly it's called people don't want to admit how fragile our democracy is or how susceptible to propaganda we all are. Like the same thing was tried in 2020 we're pretty sure, but it didn't work that time around because there were other overwhelming factors (and a lot of us were looking out for it).

And while other things can also be blamed for Clinton's loss in 2016 (including overconfidence in the polls and the fact that for decades a misogynist machine had been specifically targeting Clinton), the Russian interference was a large enough one to make the difference in the margins. Like, minus leftists falling for it, she likely could have won.

But again, of course it's an US centered discussion. We're literally discussing the US.

[qqueenofhades]

https://www.tumblr.com/qqueenofhades/742700762243727361/you-can-tell-you-work-in-academia-with-how-much

Hi, sorry, Asshole Anon here (I’m not giving myself that nickname to lash out, I’m saying it because I was an ass)

To clarify: I mean “I don’t know what to trust anymore” in that “people whom I normally respect and would otherwise agree with are now sharing material that I find either morally indefensible or overtly simplistic, and at the same time people on the ground in Gaza are saying that Hamas IS a liberation organization, so I trust their word, but there is also the existence of the “We Want To Live” protests, and the fact that there’s now apparently a protest against a child that got killed that isn’t widely reported, with an attached video of said protest from somebody on the ground in Gaza, but it’s in Arabic, there are no subtitles, I cannot speak Arabic, and I don’t trust Google Translate”

I just want an objective sense of what is happening on the ground. I want to know what is and is not propaganda, because I (white, raised in a liberal(?) household, surrounded by white people) am especially susceptible to it. Once I have that objective sense of what the people in Gaza want, then I will be able to effectively and efficiently advocate for shit. But that also necessitates listening to orgs like Standing Together, B’Tselem, people IN Israel who want this shit to stop, and hoo BOY that ain’t gonna fly with those people I mentioned because of:

1. BDS saying that the org “normalizes the occupation”, but they’re made up of Palestinian activists and anti-apartheid veterans, I can’t discount their statement, not fully.

2. Netenyahu’s… Netenyahu

3. Twitter’s doing a great job of asserting that everyone in Israel is a — quoting directly here from a half-remembered Tweet — “genocidal maniac”, or wants the bombardment to happen. (Which I know for a fact is not the case, if the protests calling for a new election are anything to go by)

That’s not even getting into the domestic stuff. I’m in an org rn and I’m getting the sinking feeling that they’re gonna drop this thing like a hot potato when a ceasefire gets called. Just sucks.

Anyways, back to improvement. Just closing this out

I agree that we're currently in a paradoxical state where there is simultaneously ALL THE INFORMATION EVER and ACTUALLY NO INFORMATION AT ALL, and that's what makes it difficult to sort out true from false. It's also what contributes to compassion fatigue, where we are able to get extensive real-time information and/or eyewitness accounts about pretty much any tragedy or catastrophe anywhere in the world, and social media has created a space where we are expected to both immediately react to all that information and to do so in the "right" and "correct" way. Which is basically impossible, and is also what burns out young well-meaning people so hard, where they insist that there's nothing to be done except The Revolution, because they have been so inundated with this torrent of human suffering and it seems like small steps are in fact useless. I am a historian and I can tell you upfront that humans are simply not made to process that volume of information about ALL THE BAD THINGS EVERYWHERE. It's also impossible to have an informed opinion on all or sometimes any of it, but there is still the pressure to visibly do so and to do it in a way that fits in with what everyone in your peer group is saying, even if you don't understand it. So yes -- that is absolutely very difficult, and it's hard to filter or parse it.

That said, I don't think we actually need to have painstaking piece-by-piece analysis of every single piece of information out there, because there are in fact so many competing narratives, perspectives, fake news, disinformation campaigns, opinions, etc., and it will lead you to the same information paralysis: there's just too much of it to even start processing, and so your brain just gives up and reverts to those same simplistic cliches and things that "feel" right, regardless of whether or not they are. When you're trying to decide on the fine details of something, it helps to have an overall sense of the context and narrative that they're operating in. So for reference, these are some broad and basic analytic paradigms that I personally use when reading or thinking about any material in regard to the Israel/Hamas situation in particular:

No person of basic good faith and human decency wants the current situation in Gaza to be happening. However, the person/group that has the power to call it off -- i.e. Netanyahu and the current Israeli government -- has not done so despite increasing pressure from Western allies, because the situation is beneficial to Bibi personally and he sees more use in continuing it than making the decision for it to stop.

The governments of Western allies, therefore, can voice disapproval of Israel's actions (which they have been doing more and more frequently) but unless Netanyahu himself makes the choice to end the war, it will not stop. The West has recently given more and more signals that they are not prepared to countenance the ongoing destruction and genocide of Gaza, but yet again, Israel is its own sovereign country with its own powerful government, military, intelligence services, etc. The "anti-imperialists" who think the collective West can just reach in and turn off the violence whenever they please, and have just refused to do so because they're "bad people," are not being realistic. Western allies can exert pressure and leverage, but as long as Netanyahu himself wants to keep going, he will.

"People in Gaza" and "people in Israel" are not homogeneous blocs who think exactly alike. Some people in Gaza support Hamas. Some people do not. Hamas support has recently grown as a result of Israel's post-October 7 response, but it is not unanimous or unquestioned.

Hamas is the entity that started the current war by attacking Israel on October 7 and murdering/raping/kidnapping 1,000+ Israeli civilians. Hamas is also associated with Russia, Iran, Hezbollah, and other terrorist regimes/states, which are often defended by Online Leftists simply for being "anti-Western," regardless of how heinous their actions also are.

Netanyahu was wildly unpopular in Israel for MONTHS before this current war, due to his autocratic attempts to neutralize the Israeli Supreme Court and make the country even more of his personal fiefdom. There were huge, massive, ongoing protests against his naked power-grab for almost all of 2023, and he was so preoccupied with pushing it through that he ignored warnings from the Israeli and Egyptian intelligence services that Hamas was planning a major attack. These anti-Netanyahu demonstrations have continued and ramped up in intensity even in the middle of the war/attacks on Gaza.

As such, painting every single Israeli as mindlessly supporting the current actions of Netanyahu and the Israeli government is antisemitic nonsense and reflect the current Western Leftist tendency to assume that "all Israelis" and "all Zionists (read Jews)" are evil and personally responsible for this.

Israeli Jews have a right to exist and to reside on the land currently called Israel. Modern Israel was founded in 1948, three years after the end of WWII and the Holocaust, the greatest incidence of antisemitic mass murder in history, which is a fact that cannot be ignored and which western leftists eagerly calling for its total eradication and treating it as an illegitimate "white western settler colony" nonetheless do in fact repeatedly ignore.

This is why many Jews do not feel safe in other countries, because there has literally been thousands of years of history proving that they often aren't, and which the rabidly antisemitic response to the current conflict is doing nothing to dissuade.

Jews have had a presence in the land alternately called Palestine, Israel, the Holy Land, Judah, etc., for over 2,000 years, and their entire religion and history is founded around the exile from Jerusalem. That is the history that the current state of Israel is drawing on. It does not vanish just because it is inconvenient for western leftists to acknowledge.

Israel currently has a militant far-right government (after tending toward rightist/right wing domestic politics more generally, partially due to post-Holocaust trauma) that has deliberately erased, ignored, and violated the equally valid claims of Palestine and Palestinian people to that same land, and which is currently committing full-scale genocide against them.

Palestine and Palestinian/Muslim people have the same right to exist on that land as Israel and Israeli/Jewish people (and Christian people, and none-of-the-three people). They both have equally long and historically relevant claims to this land and one of them (in an ideal world, which we do not live in) should not be artificially prized over the other.

However, this land is some of the most bitterly and violently contested in the entire world, for the last two thousand years and counting, and there is no one good guy, simplistic answer, or quick way to stop it. The three Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) have fought bitterly over Jerusalem and its associated territories for a cool few millennia, and human nature being what it is, there is no way for one person, group, organization, government, etc to just step in and make it stop.

The Western/American leftist response to the current conflict has often made absolutely no attempt to take into account any of this troubled and complex history, and has reduced the whole thing down to whichever antisemitic and/or anti-Democratic Party soundbites will get them the most traction on social media. This often rests on whitewashing any moral responsibility belonging to Hamas and defending them no matter what, labeling all Israeli Jews as "evil genocide supporters," and assuming that if Biden wanted to magically shapeshift into Netanyahu and give the order to make it stop, he would, but he's "just not doing it," ergo something something Trump Would Totally Be Better!

These people also often call themselves "anti-imperialist" while thinking/demanding that America swoop in and play Big Global Policeman Daddy (as it indeed has often done in the past) and spank all its naughty children (but if it actually did do this, etc etc it would be evil). Biden could very much do more and has not necessarily done enough, but he has also done more than any other American president in history to shift away from unconditional unquestioning support of Israel only, and to advocate for a Palestinian state, a lasting ceasefire, and other basic precepts of Palestinian self-determination and dignity of personhood. These two things can be true at the same time.

I don't necessarily expect everyone to agree with every single fine detail of these statements, but I do expect them to at least make a basic effort to let all of these facts to inform their response, and not just the ones that they most agree with and which most fit their ideology or preferred conclusion. So that's one way to approach the situation, even if we obviously can't wring every single drop of meaning out of every single competing piece of information or evidence, because there is just too much of it. When we have a broader understanding of the space that we are operating in and the precepts that are factually true, we are able to make better judgments about who is trustworthy, who is worth listening to, what message they are pushing, and whether it corresponds with reality.

Good luck. I'm sure you'll continue to think about this and take the steps that you feel are best. It is all any of us can do.

[david-goldrock]

I've had many discussions with my mother as Americans regarding how we'd feel and respond to this were it not for being Jewish, I think it's a reasonable (and even a bit scary) question to ask. all the liberal principles I held dear and believed in are now enveloped by people and organizations that have descended into violent antisemitism and anti-Israel positions, would I be susceptible to that if I didn't know better? and I only know better because I have that personal knowledge - which is why it's gotten so bad. most people aren't Jews, have never known a Jew or an Israeli, and aren't educated about any of this, the societal antisemitism and the terrorist propaganda is working on them (and we know sadly it's working on some American Jews too), preying on them in a way that they think is empathy and don't understand is actually ancient genocidal hatred.

I like to think and hope I'd still hold the morals that I hold and still stand against terrorism and with the Jewish community, but I can't actually know that bc it can't be separated from who I am. we could all fall to this in other circumstances.

a Harvard/Harris poll was just released that said Americans overwhelmingly support Israel, so I want to believe that the screaming jihad supporters causing the most harm are a loud minority. we definitely do have an antisemitism problem though, and it's worse with the younger generations so what is really worrying is that it will continue to get worse in the future.

.

[saintsenara]

At what age do you think Snape joined the death eaters? And when do you think he got the dark mark? (it's hard for me to believe that all death eaters got them right when they joined, but if you think differently, I'm open to reading why)

thank you very much for the ask, anon!

i'm currently writing a big "snape's experience in the first war" fic - scylla and charybdis [don't be put off by the pairing! it's really all about politics! don't be put off by that either!] - so this is, unsurprisingly, a question i've spent a lot of time musing on.

the timeline i'm laying out in the fic is that snape's first contact with the death eaters as an organisation comes in the summer of 1976 - when he's just finished his fifth year of school and is, since his relationship with lily has only just broken down, raw and angry and unmoored, and primed for radicalisation.

it's clear in canon that the death eaters were recruiting openly at hogwarts during the 1970s, especially within slytherin, by exploiting not only the social networks caused by all the pureblood families being interrelated, but also the social ties which existed between recent graduates and those still at school. lucius malfoy - for example - is heavily implied in the text to be one of voldemort's primary sources of new recruits, and to be the person responsible for putting snape in touch with the dark lord specifically.

[it's also clear that this is an element of voldemort's recruitment process that the order are spectacularly naive about - the reaction to harry's belief in half-blood prince that draco malfoy has been marked as a death eater is a case in point. slughorn's complete unwillingness to do anything about the death eaters looking for fresh meat is a key part of this - but dumbledore's failure to intervene is also significant.]

i decided, then, to have lucius tell voldemort - whose operation would need potions for all sorts of reasons [poisons, healing potions for terrorists who can't just rock up at st mungo's, illicit brews for the black market] - that he knows a potions prodigy who, as he's uncovered through his network of contacts at hogwarts, is sympathetic to the dark lord's cause. voldemort then begins a long, multi-stage vetting process to test if this is true - snape is instructed to make a potion of dubious legality and deliver it to one of voldemort's agents, who reveals the criminal use it will be put to. when snape doesn't contact the aurors, the process repeats, with him gradually moving up a chain of command - from a low-level petty criminal [voldemort's version of mundungus fletcher] up to the dark lord's spymaster general, augustus rookwood. having passed the test with rookwood, he is then permitted to meet voldemort.

my view is that snape spends the final two years of his schooling being subjected to a voldemort-sanctioned charm offensive, the most important part of which is the dark lord promising him a salaried job as a potioneer once he leaves hogwarts.

i say this a lot, but it's clear in canon that snape was particularly susceptible to voldemort's propaganda because he believed [not incorrectly!] that the dark lord would offer him opportunities which his blood status and class background would ordinarily deny him - and i think we can assume that the wizarding version of academic science [which - as i've said here, in a longer meta on snape's training, seems to retain its early-modern structure, and therefore rely on personal wealth rather than institutional settings] is one of the things he believed he had no chance of pursuing.

and so, when snape graduates in 1978, i think he becomes a death eater full time - working for voldemort on a stipend paid by the malfoys.

i don't think that he's given the dark mark until he's been in voldemort's service for several months. but i don't think he's kept from it for too long either.

[not least because snape's entire relationship with the mark is hubristic - he's so ashamed of it in the second war because he was so proud of it in the first - which means that he has to be given it before voldemort settles on harry as the child referred to in the prophecy in the latter half of 1980.]

my view is that voldemort doesn't have a set timeline for granting the mark, but instead offers it to his followers whenever he thinks it will be most useful [to him] for him to do so.

draco malfoy, for example, is clearly marked the second voldemort decides to use him to kill dumbledore - and voldemort does this as a way of emphasising the utter disregard in which he holds lucius malfoy following the prophecy debacle, through taking ownership of [and quite literally branding] his son. i think regulus is given the mark similarly quickly after joining the death eaters - not because voldemort has any particular interest in him but because, as i've said in this meta on him, regulus is evidently accepted into voldemort's inner circle because he's related to other prominent death eaters, and so giving him the mark is a way for voldemort to keep these death eaters [bellatrix in particular] happy.

on the other hand, i am certain that peter pettigrew doesn't receive his dark mark until 1994, after he's restored voldemort to the semi-body which allows him to be moved, brought him to england, and helped him contact barty crouch jr. and put the plan to kidnap harry in motion - and i also think that voldemort dangled the promise of the mark [without ever seriously intending to grant it] over him in 1980-81, as a way of keeping him loyal, deferential, and eager to please. he's implied to be doing something similar with fenrir greyback in deathly hallows.

voldemort, master manipulator that he is, will have been very well aware that snape's fundamental pathology is a desire for respect. the teen snape wants to be recognised for his brilliance - and, indeed, his superiority - by those who currently consider him beneath them. he wants james and sirius to cower before him because they recognise that he's fundamentally better than them - despite their wealth and their social position - and he wants lily to choose him over james because she recognises this too.

and so i think snape would regard a quick dark mark as a participation trophy - something someone like regulus gets because they're a toff, but not something which indicates that voldemort holds the bearer in high esteem. but he's also not going to be prepared to wait for years with the mark dangling over his head like a carrot, because he'd regard that as voldemort being perfectly willing to give the posh the mark just for being rich and annoying, but not being willing to recognise that he's the superior recruit.

what he'd want - and what, i presume, he gets - is to be rewarded with the mark for doing something specific for voldemort which he thought displayed his brilliance perfectly, and which voldemort was happy to indulge him in thinking.

and i have two suggestions for what that could be:

a. snape assists voldemort in the creation of the potion which guards the locket-horcrux [not, of course, knowing exactly what it would be used for], which adds another layer to his involvement in dumbledore's death [and - which is relevant in scylla and charybdis at least - also involves him in regulus']. b. voldemort gives him the mark for reporting the prophecy.