#we've seen enough sith

[gffa]

One thing that caught my attention while watching The Phantom Menace in the theater, a movie I didn't expect to find anything new with after how many times I've seen it and analyzed it, was that Sidious mentions multiple times that he has to change his plans to fit the new circumstances. It got me to thinking about how Palpatine gets credit for his carefully crafted plans, but often times not for how flexible he is in changing them on the fly, especially in time travel fics where someone destroys one of his plans and that's the end of it. Which, I'm not advocating against, I love a good Take That Wrinkled Walnut The Fuck Down However You Gotta Do It fic and I don't want them to change! But in canon Palpatine makes note of things he's not expecting, like:

When Valorum sends the Jedi as ambassadors, it's not part of Sidious' plan: DAULTAY DOFINE: This scheme of yours has failed, Lord Sidious. The blockade is finished. We dare not go against the Jedi. DARTH SIDIOUS: Viceroy, I don't want this stunted slime in my sight again! This turn of events is unfortunate. We must accelerate our plans. Begin landing your troops. NUTE GUNRAY: My lord, is that… legal? DARTH SIDIOUS: I will make it legal. NUTE GUNRAY: And the Jedi? DARTH SIDIOUS: The Chancellor should never have brought them into this. Kill them immediately!

On the Trade Federation ship, after Queen Amidala has disappeared from Naboo, Palpatine originally planned that she would be forced to sign the treaty, and then brings in Maul to deal with this. DARTH SIDIOUS: And Queen Amidala, has she signed the treaty? NUTE GUNRAY: She has disappeared, My Lord. One Naboo cruiser got pat the blockade. DARTH SIDIOUS: I want that treaty signed. NUTE GUNRAY: My Lord, it's impossible to locate the ship. It's out of our range. DARTH SIDIOUS: Not for a Sith. This is my apprentice. Darth Maul. He will find your lost ship.

On Naboo, after Padme allies with the Gungans: NUTE GUNRAY: We've sent out patrols. We've already located their starship in the swamp....It won't be long, My Lord. DARTH SIDIOUS: This is an unexpected move for her. It's too aggressive. Lord Maul, be mindful. MAUL: Yes, my Master. DARTH SIDIOUS: Be patient... Let them make the first move.

Palpatine's plans aren't static, they adapt and change with the events that happen, just as the other characters react to new information and head in new directions for it, so too does Palpatine and I think it's interesting to note that part of what makes him such a good villain is that he has an outline for what he wants to do, he sets up the dominoes of what he needs, but even when they don't fall precisely into place, he generally gets what he wants. He originally intended that Padme would sign the treaty, the Jedi wouldn't be involved, and that would lead to a vote of No Confidence to oust Valorum, using the sympathy for Naboo as a way to boost himself into the position. But he didn't really need her to sign it and still managed to use the sympathy for Naboo to get elected, it ultimately didn't matter what happened to the planet, so long as it was in danger while he needed it to be, he could use it either way. Nor, honestly, do I think he ever planned for Anakin Skywalker's existence, he had no idea they would find such a boy on Tatooine or how useful he was going to be, that was another way he changed his plans once the opportunity arose. Or a lot of his plots in TCW--he has Cad Bane steal the list of Force-sensitive children and kidnap them, bringing them to Mustafar for some sort of program to use them probably not too unlike how he uses the Inquisitors later. That plan is foiled by the Jedi, the babies are returned to their families, and Sidious' plans fall through, but that doesn't really change the outcome. tl:dr: I don't think Palpatine gets enough credit as a villain whose plans shift and change along with the new events that happen, just as much as the heroes' plans shift and change when new things happen. Yeah, he's a great villain because he creates an impossible trap for people, but also because the thing about him is that he's incredibly charming and charismatic and he knows an opportunity when he sees one, that any one given plan might fall through, but it's not necessary to his overall plot.

[tarabyte3]

I've been thinking a lot about the recent episode of The Acolyte and I have some ✨thoughts✨

(The Acolyte Episode 5 spoilers!!!)

I think the narrative is intentionally making us, the audience, doubt the Jedi and paint them as possibly being the bad guys specifically because now Mae is the one that's going to hear Sol's story. We were encouraged to doubt him and believe he's going to confess something awful about that night to Osha, but instead, I think what he reveals is going to make Mae (and us!) have a change of heart in some way and realize we were wrong. I doubly believe that will be the case because the one casting the most doubt on the Jedi is Qimir, the villain that's also been manipulating and using Mae's anger.***

Because how do you kill a Jedi without a weapon? Easy, you manipulate them, too. You make them paranoid and afraid. You make them doubt themselves and each other. You hurt them in every way that matters. Then you step away and let them destroy themselves. That's a basic Sith tactic, and I think that's exactly what Qimir is trying to do with Sol. Either Sol eventually gives in to the anger and hatred he felt and falls (I highly doubt it) or Qimir wants to get Mae or Osha to turn on/kill him (maybe now he wants to try and make Osha his acolyte instead. Emphasis on try). We've already seen Sol is unwilling to activate his lightsaber when facing Mae because he doesn't want to hurt her (that entire confrontation in the streets), and Sol would probably choose death rather than ever use it on Osha. The girl he connected with and saved and keeps a hologram of and smiles at and loves.

Something terrible obviously happened that night, but I don't believe for a second it was the Jedi's fault. However, it was terrible enough to scar Torbin and make him take the Barash Vow, to make Sol cry, and to make Kelnacca retreat to the woods and hide. Perhaps they all feel guilt for what they couldn't do. Perhaps they blame themselves, which looks like actual guilt from the outside.

But hey, I'm prepared to be wrong and say so, I just don't think it would be very good *Star Wars* storytelling if I am. For 2 reasons:

1) It wouldn't make sense in the existing story. We've seen that Indara, Torbin, and Sol are compassionate, kind people. We saw how soft Kelnacca was with little Osha. Sol radiates warmth, he believed Osha, and he wants to save Mae even after everything she's done. Indara died to protect someone else. For as impersonal and professional as she was when talking to the Coven, I don't think someone that would make themselves vulnerable in a life or death situation to save even one person would be willing to kill an entire community of people unless it was absolutely, completely necessary. I don't think self-defense would even necessarily qualify, I think the Jedi would do everything they could to retreat first. The one caveat I can think of is if someone attacked Torbin. Then I could possibly see Indara as a Master protecting her Padawan, something Masters would give their own lives to do (as we see repeatedly during Order 66), and the situation escalated. (Could be why Torbin is injured and blames himself?)

2) The point of the story in Star Wars has always been that the Jedi are the good guys. They hold up the ideals of goodness and peace, and even though, individually, they sometimes stumble and fall short of it because they're still flawed, mortal beings, they always try to reach for the light. ("Jedi cannot help what they are. Their compassion leaves a trail. The Jedi code is like an itch.") If a group of them has done something unspeakable, unforgivable, and then covered it up (or worse, the Order covered it up), how do we ever trust the Jedi as the good guys again? It goes against everything they believe in. It goes against the story George Lucas created (or has ever said about how Jedi and the Force work). If this is the story being told, it will be a very bad Star Wars story, and I have to hope that's not the case.

***((Side note: The guy that just killed 6 Jedi and a Padawan did not make a good point with "You brought her here." Sol brought Jecki there, with many other Jedi, as her Master to teach her more about how to resolve conflict thinking they were only confronting Mae. And even then, Sol didn't make Qimir confront the Jedi and kill Jecki. Jecki's death is entirely Qimir's fault since he's the one that killed her. Also for a Sith to have "freedom" to be themselves is to allow them to do evil things through the Dark Side, which is ALWAYS evil. Full stop. The Dark Side twists and corrupts. That's how the Dark Side works. Qimir isn't some guy being oppressed because the Jedi are power hungry and unwilling to share the Force. Fascists shouldn't be allowed the freedom to be fascists.))

[jedi-order-apologist]

I couldn't figure out how to put it in to words last night when I was summarizing my thoughts on Visions S2, but I think "Screecher's Reach" does a really good job with the concept of the Sith/dark side as corruption, in how it takes familiar, positive elements we've seen in other Star Wars stories, and twists them. Everything is recognizable on the surface, but just...off. Unsettling in a way that isn't obvious at first.

For example, the repetition of a mantra. We've seen this before, but usually with something that invokes the Force. An appeal to strength and courage seems positive enough (and in another franchise might very well be), but it definitely seemed odd, not Star Wars-y...until it took a dark turn when the protagonist describes herself as "strong" in reference to her taking a life, and the appearance of a Sith. It made complete sense then.

Another example, the test in a dark side cave. We've seen this before, as a way for Jedi to face themselves and confront their fears. And the narrative seems to travel this route, until it's revealed that the test was not to face herself, but another being - and kill them. Luke fails a Jedi's test by bringing his weapon and fear and anger with him, and sees his own face when he kills the illusionary Vader. This short turns that on its head, with our protagonist passing a Sith's test by taking up a weapon already inside. She sees nothing (that's shown to us) when she kills the real, living Sith. She doesn't face her dark reflection, but it is her reflection since she goes with the Sith in the end.

And of course, the mentor and leaving your old life behind - usually positive in this franchise. But here, while it has all the same trappings of the more positive or bittersweet departures (even echoing Shmi's "don't look back"), the audience knows that the Sith doesn't have any good intentions here, and that nothing but misery waits for the protagonist, not the better life she's expecting.

[beecauseevan]

omg established buddie yes

movie nights!! with chris preferably

Silence permeates the living room, expectant and uncomfortably tense. Eddie shifts in his spot on the couch, cringing when his jeans rasp against the cushions. He steals a glance at Chris, who is transfixed by the images flashing across the TV screen. Next to Chris, just visible over his brown curls, Buck is chewing on his bottom lip. Despite that obvious struggle to keep his big mouth shut, he's not the one who breaks the tense silence.

"Oh man," Chris says. His fingers twitch, like he's fighting the urge to cover his eyes with his hands. "I knew you were old, dad. I didn't know you were ancient."

Buck's laugh is choked and startled and only grows louder when Eddie glares at him over Chris' head.

"That's not—" Eddie starts. "This was already old when I watched it."

Chris tears his eyes away from the TV just long enough to shoot him an incredulous look. "Are you sure?"

"I didn't know you were a nerd," says Buck, who watches documentaries for fun and really doesn't get to talk. "This is all new information."

"I'm not a nerd."

"This is pretty nerdy," Chris argues.

Eddie shakes his head and eats an indignant fistful of popcorn. This is what he gets for trying to educate the youth. 

It's Christopher's fault, really. 

"I want to watch something," he said earlier, at dinner, chewing on Buck's newly perfected version of Bobby's veggie lasagna. "Something with space."

"Star Wars?" Buck suggested, twirling his fork between his fingers. "We haven't watched Episode V in a while."

Disapproval scrunching up his face, Chris shook his head. "We've watched it like a thousand times, though."

"It's a masterpiece," Buck replied, making Eddie—who had introduced him to Star Wars—very proud. "Can't see it too many times."

Eddie didn't add anything to their back and forth, a quietly content observer, warmed from the inside by Buck's lasagna and from the outside by the presence of the two people he cared most about. 

"Or," Buck added, "we can watch Revenge of the Sith, if you want."

"You hate that one," Chris said.

"I don't hate it. I just think the original trilogy is better."

"You're wrong." 

"The original trilogy has Han Solo," Buck said. "And Yoda. And Luke."

"Yoda is in the prequels too," Chris argued. "And the prequels have Jar Jar Binks."

"That's—a good thing?"

Chris shrugged. "He's funny."

Buck glanced at Eddie, who hid his smile in his palm. "He has a point."

Buck's eyes said does he, but of course that's not what came out of his mouth. Buck might be a worse pushover than Eddie, if that is even physically possible.

"Fine," he said, "Revenge of the Sith it is."

"No," Chris sighed, stabbing his fork into the leftovers on his plate. "I want to watch something new."

And Eddie, naive and optimistic wounded heart that he is, suggested something he would soon regret: "I really liked Star Trek when I was a kid. We could check that out."

"The movies?" Chris asked. "We've seen the movies, dad."

Chris meant the new ones, and Eddie didn't have the strength to tell him that he was a little too old to have watched those movies as a kid. He let that comment slide and shook his head. 

"No, the show. The original one. With William Shatner?"

Chris shook his head, and a moment later, so did Buck. Eddie took a moment to picture the horrifiedly disappointed face Chim would make in response to that statement, then moved on. 

"You guys are in for a treat."

He meant it then, too. He really thought they would love it. 

Turns out childhood memories don't always depict reality in all of its grainy, puke-yellow flannelled glory. The show is a lot more rough than he remembers and it doesn't help that he started them off with the first episode of the first season, instead of one of the good ones. He thought this would be a hit and they'd end up watching it regularly, but—well. 

"Why do his eyes look like that?" Chris asks, frowning at the screen. 

Eddie just shrugs—Buck, who has never been able to leave a question unanswered, is already digging out his phone. 

"No googling," Eddie scolds him. "You're gonna ruin the immersion."

Buck waves him off, phone screen lighting up the smirk on his face. 

"I just wanna know why they're wearing pajamas," Chris adds.  

"Wish our uniforms looked like that," Buck says, glancing up from his phone just long enough to smirk at Eddie. "They're probably really cozy."

"Not very cool, though," Chris points out. 

"It's tinfoil," Buck cuts in. "Tinfoil contacts. That's how they got his eyes to look like that."

Chris frowns. "Ew."

"Guys," Eddie complains weakly. "This is a classic."

Buck has the decency to say, "I'm sorry," but the way he mumbles it against his palm, barely concealed laughter coloring his voice, tells Eddie that he's not that sorry at all. 

"You said the same thing about Die Hard," Chris points out. "That was bad too."

Eddie shakes his head, stunned, and looks at Buck, who shrugs. 

"He's not wrong."

"That's it," Eddie decides, while the tinfoil-eyed monsters continue to poach the crew of the Enterprise, "I'm moving out. I bet Chim will take me in."

"More lasagna for me," Chris says, entirely unbothered. 

Buck laughs, loud and clear, and Eddie puts his hands in front of his eyes and pretends, badly and unconvincingly, to be upset. He isn't, he couldn't be, even if this were his favorite piece of media in the whole entire universe as opposed to just a show he used to enjoy as a kid—he couldn't be mad, because it's hard to be upset when you're faced with such stark reminders of why your life is as close to perfect as it could possibly be. Eddie loves that Chris and Buck hate the show, because they hate it together. He loves being the center of their good-natured mockery, because it means they're teaming up on him. They're a family. Eddie's family. And he loves them more than life.

As the episode goes on—and it goes on for ages—Chris grows more and more quiet. When the credits start rolling, he's dozed off. His head is pillowed on Buck's arm and Buck sits perfectly still, which in itself is a little bit of a miracle.

"Think he'll wake up if I carry him to bed?" Buck asks quietly, carefully, like he'd rather stop breathing than disturb Chris, which, knowing Buck, might not be too far from the truth.

"Probably," Eddie says, "I think you're gonna have to move."

"I really don't want to."

"Guess you're sleeping on the couch," Eddie shrugs.

Buck sighs. Then he moves, and Chris blinks awake, yawns, and for a moment he's six again, so small Eddie could delude himself into thinking that all he needed to do was fold him into his arms and the world would never be able to touch him.

Then Chris groans and rubs his eyes and looks around, instantly annoyed in that way only a tired teenager can be, and Eddie is back in the here and now, and he finds he likes it just the same.

"Hey, sleepyhead." Buck pokes Chris' shoulder and Eddie watches, with a smile that almost hurts his cheeks, as Chris rolls his eyes, teenage stubbornness without any sort of sting, because even though he's biologically and socially obligated to find adults annoying and embarrassing, Buck is still his person. "You ready for bed?"

"Yeah, yeah," Chris grumbles.

"I can come with," Eddie offers, and gets the same kind of eyeroll in return, and feels a rush of warmth when he realizes that maybe—maybe he's still Chris' person too. It's been a long road since Kim, but maybe they're getting there.

"I'm not a baby, dad," Chris tells him, straightening up on his crutches. "I can brush my teeth on my own."

"Alright, alright," Eddie relents.

Chris goes off on his own and by the time Buck and Eddie are done with the dishes, the rest of the house is quiet, including Christopher's room. Eddie glances at Buck, standing by the sink, and finds Buck looking back at him. He's wearing yellow rubber gloves and an apron and the smirk on his lips is not entirely innocent. 

"Hey."

"Hey yourself," Buck says, stripping off the gloves in one smooth motion. Eddie wonders what it says about him that that kind of turns him on. "You know, I thought Star Trek was all about homoerotic sexual tension. Didn't feel much of that."

Eddie blinks. "What?"

"Captain Kirk and the guy with the," Buck points at the side of his head, "ears."

Eddie feels a smile coming on and bites down on his bottom lip. He can't be that easy. "You know about that but you don't know who William Shatner is?"

"I have niche interests," Buck tells him, hands finding Eddie's hips. His smile is brilliant. His hands are cold. The sleeves of his hoodie are still rolled up. Eddie loves this man to the core. 

"Hm." Eddie sways closer, wraps his arms around Buck's shoulders, brings their lips together in a lingering kiss. "Boy, do I have the episode for you."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," Eddie hums. Another warm kiss later, he laces their fingers together and leads Buck back into their living room, turns the TV back on. "This one is called Amok Time."

[ahsoka-in-a-hood]

I’m sorry you’re dealing with bullshit

Do you have any stupid silly Palpatine headcanons? My favorite is that he is terrible at talking about art. #1 threat to his political career. He had a ghostwriter for his “Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise” speech.

Ah well we've gotta fire shots to keep the rent low sometimes and all that.

Oh god yeah. The way he switched his naboo aesthetic out for plain black robes and austere sith shit the minute he was emperor is so telling. Palpatine hates art, and he especially hates having to pretend to care and know about art.

This isn't exactly a headcanon, but you know that one page about Dex feeding him a rotten meatloaf one time? And he just had to choke it down and pretend it was great because it was a political occasion? I do not understand the mechanics of how this came to occur, but it is my number one most understandable palpatine moment. it justifies every atrocity. if someone fed me rotten meatloaf on purpose and i had to smile and choke it down, i would spend the next decade wanting to skin them alive.

In general, I like to think that this is what palpatine's life was like. I like to think that he hated every second, pretty much. He endured a lifetime of politics and over a decade of the chancelloship, and he never even managed to have fun. It was all staked on the idea that it would be worth it to be emperor. This is what made him nuts. This is what made his brain want to kill him with knives. He loathed it. He woke up every morning and convinced himself that only emperorship and total power would make all of this worth it.

….idk if this is a hard headcanon, but it's a fun one.

Anyway Dex probably saw the writing on the wall when the former chancellor he had once pranked started cackling and electrocuting people for being annoying, and got himself well out the way.

On a more palpakin-y kind of note, i like to think there were some wink wink nudge nudge comments about anakin, hotshot 20-something general, being seen around him a lot. I don't think Palpatine liked this either. I don't think he liked people assuming he was just a sleazy old man, when his real interest in anakin was so much more interesting and mystical. Alas, it was a good enough smokescreen, so he bit his tongue and let the rumor go. He had to let so many things go, for so long. His brain is ten thousand knives stabbing him every day.

[rebelsofshield]

Some scattered Acolyte theories (spoilers for episode five)

The use of Kylo Ren's motif to accompany Qimir has to be intentional. It's one of the few themes from any of the films to make an appearance in the show so far and pairing it so clearly with Qimir at the episode's close must be doing more than simply recycling a familiar musical cue. From what we've seen, Qimir doesn't seem to have much in common with Kylo/Ben as a character. While Kylo Ren was a villain defined by his conflict and the weight of family legacy, Qimir is a self-declared nobody who comfortably inhabits his Dark Side beliefs.

So what if it's instead a callback to the Knights of Ren as a group? The exact origins of the Knights has yet to be established but we know from Marvel's Star Wars comics that they are an independent group of Dark Siders that have existed for quite sometime, possibly even further back than the events depicted in the Prequel Trilogy. While they would eventually morph into their own organization with separate ideologies and goals than the Sith, the musical callback alongside the visual similarities between Qimir's aesthetic design and Ren and his followers makes me believe that The Acolyte could be showcasing us the creation of the Knights as a purposeful offshoot of the Sith. It would be a fascinating storytelling detail if the Knights of Ren themselves began as an intentional red herring planted by the Sith to prevent discovery by the Jedi. One of the biggest questions hanging over The Acolyte is how exactly the Jedi missed this opportunity to discover the Sith over a hundred years before Palpatine executes their millennia long revenge scheme. While we already know that bureaucracy, ignorance, and fear of political scandal are factors at play here, the creation of the Knights as a scapegoat and smokescreen by the Sith feels like another element that's in play.

Hell, it even makes Ki-Adi Mundi's skepticism of Qui-Gon's claims in The Phantom Menace make more sense. What reason would he have to believe that the attacker Qui-Gon encountered on Tatooine was a Sith when a similar threat a century earlier ended up just being a member of a gang troublesome Dark Side offshoots. A problem, sure, but not the return of the Jedi's dreaded nemesis.

I spent much of the first few episodes of this show convinced that Sol was a fundamentally kindhearted man who was a witness to a terrible mistake the Jedi made on Brendok. Sol's tenderness towards Osha both in the past and present timelines of The Acolyte feels genuine and I'm not inclined to think that he's a devious enough liar to completely fake care and compassion for over a decade. I am, however, coming to wonder if Sol is perhaps hiding much more than we may think and might be one of the guiltiest parties at work here.

Much of this comes down to Qimir's inference that Sol did something to Osha. This feels like a much more pointed and personal accusation than Sol simply being present for the disaster on Brendok. Sol did something to Osha specifically.

It's obvious from how "Destiny" is directed that we are not getting the entirety of the story. Osha's perspective is shown and the events are confusing and chaotic. The Acolyte goes out of its way to make sure we barely see Mae or Mother Aniseya's experiences of that fateful night and I had assumed that we were dealing with a Rashomon set up that would reveal the truth after seeing different vantage points. But now, I'm beginning to doubt that what we even got from Osha is truthful. Even before she blacks out and wakes up aboard the Jedi's ship, there's a lot about what's depicted in "Destiny" that just doesn't make sense. A small fire spreads faster and quicker than it ought too. The witches all appear dead with no visible wounds. Sol's appearance is too sudden. Too much doesn't add up.

Basically, I'm starting to wonder if Sol used the Force to erase or twist certain memories in Osha's mind to cover up the violence on Brendok. Maybe the conflict between the Jedi and Aniseya's coven started out as a peaceful confrontation that escalated into violence through mistake and misunderstanding, but perhaps Sol is so concerned about the truth getting out that he would go as far to alter the mind of a child to keep his secrets. I've always felt that part of Sol's devotion to Osha comes from a sense of shame, but maybe that guilt runs much, much deeper than we think.

The other big leftover mystery from "Destiny" concerns the means and intents behind Osha and Mae's creation. Part of me does still genuinely think that the witches, being a matriarchal single gender culture, birthed both girls as a to ensure that their culture and tradition is passed onto another generation. I don't see Aniseya's ambitions stretching further than her coven on Brendok, particularly in how she views the Force as a Thread that cannot be pulled on without creating consequences. However, while the intentions may be fairly benign, I do not believe that Osha and Mae's creation was a bloodless act. The witches are clearly nervous about the Jedi discovering the true nature of their creation and it seems to stretch beyond their general distrust of the Order. Life doesn't come from nowhere and perhaps costs other lives in the process.

Now, here is where I put on my tinfoil. Like we're entering 2015-2017 Snoke theories territory here. I think Darth Plagueis assisted in the creation of Osha and Mae. One of the few things we know about the canon version of Plagueis is that he was obsessed with finding ways to use the Force to create life. It seems very possible that he might have collaborated with another Force sect for the purposes of experimenting and exploring these possibilities. The witches get the children they want. Plagueis gets knowledge that he deeply desires.

It answers the question of how Qimir knows so much about Mae and Osha in the first place. Sure, Sith are resourceful, but in order to manipulate Mae into becoming his Acolyte he would have to not only know that she existed but also possess extensive knowledge about her past. This feels like information that might come easily to Plagueis's current apprentice. And Sith apprentices sure do love training acolytes to help get their way to the top of the whole Rule of Two situation.

So what does this mean for Osha and Mae's future? There are many different directions to take their story from here and my thoughts about where they are headed as characters ultimately comes down to how definitive of an ending this (and maybe only) season of the Acolyte has. But to me, the groundwork seems laid for a particularly dark ending that sees Osha and Mae trading places. This has already happened in some sense given that Mae went undercover as her twin sister at the end of "Night," but I think The Acolyte is setting up an inversion of Light and Dark between these two.

Given her newfound proximity to Qimir, it feels all too likely that Osha slowly begins to learn the truth about what happened on Brendok and I don't imagine she's going to take it well, especially if my earlier theory about Sol proves correct. Depending on the degree of secrecy and lies, I could see Osha, even momentarily, lashing out violently at Sol upon learning the truth. And maybe she does the one thing Mae never could. Kill a Jedi without a weapon. We end this season of The Acolyte with Osha embracing the Dark and taking her sister's place.

So, where does this leave Mae then? We've also already seen evidence that of the two sisters, Mae is the woman who is most hopeful for a reunion and reconciliation between the two. Hell, she abandons her Dark Side revenge quest almost as soon as she learns that Osha's still alive. Mae may not be without sin, but with each episode I become more and more convinced that she's not a villain. She's a girl who lost everything is eager to cling to even the slightest shred of hope she can. And maybe, come season finale, that hope might be that she can save her sister from the Dark. That would be a hell of a set up for season two. If we get a season two that is. (Please make it so, Leslye.)

[autistic-puffin]

AHSOKA SPOILERS AHEAD

(also, long post apparently)

i'm actually kind of obsessed with this latest tidbit from baylan. the fact that he decided to reframe the fall of the jedi both as something inevitable, a repeated pattern throughout history, and that they had coming due to their own weakness, instead of what it is (genocide).

we've all seen how different jedi responded, how some became inquisitors or otherwise turned to the dark side, how some turned their backs on the force entirely (like kanan tried to), how some stayed completely hidden and separate (yoda), how some ended up training new jedi (like kanan also did)

it's really interesting to me that baylan is aware of the other "wild" jedi (bokken jedi, apparently), and considers himself different and separate from them, but shin still associates herself with the bokken jedi. when they first appeared, given their red lightsabers, i figured they had to be more sith-aligned, though probably not outright sith. if they're gray enough for shin to still consider herself as jedi-trained before baylan corrects her, then that's super interesting to me also.

the other day i rewatched the first two episodes of rebels. the very first episode opens with darth vader telling the grand inquisitor to hunt down the force sensitive children - and any surviving jedi that could train them. i am beyond obsessed with the apparent inevitability that jedi will train new jedi, but moreso also with the different ways we see this play out.

there's kanan, who retains his jedi identity (obviously there were some bumps along the road with that) and has a proper padawan he trains/raises to be a jedi.

there's ahsoka "i am no jedi" tano, the "part-timer", who does also apparently take on a (basically not force sensitive) padawan and abandons her. we also see her refuse to train grogu.

and now there's baylan skoll, who trains a padawan to be "more" than a jedi, who seems (at least sometimes) reluctant to kill other jedi, who has semi-fond memories of the temple, whose padawan seems actually uncertain about their status as jedi or not.

both ahsoka and baylan definitely exist in the gray between jedi and sith, with ahsoka basically still being a jedi and baylan being much more dark side-adjacent.

it's just so fascinating to me that we've seen multiple jedi/former-jedi/jedi-adjacent people that are so bitter and disillusioned with the jedi order, so critical of their failures and shortcomings, that they seem to ignore the reality of what happened. they were massacred. their home and the center of their culture was burned, their children were murdered, they were shot down by their own troops in the field, they were chased and hunted down and killed. regardless of the very real flaws of the jedi order, they didn't deserve that. no one does.

i think baylan's reframing makes a lot of sense as a classic trauma response. "this bad thing that happened was actually for a reason beyond palpatine's agenda, the jedi were too weak." because if there were real reasons, then it's preventable. he also, though, views it as a continuing pattern in history. the key thing here is that he thinks (apparently) it's a pattern that he can stop. he seems to both think it was the fault of the jedi for their weakness but also an inevitable pattern of history. he addresses both by raising his apprentice to be "more" than a jedi and by this mysterious plan to stop the cycle of history from repeating itself.

this is the longest post i've written about star wars in a minute and i'm not entirely sure my thoughts have made sense (definitely doubtful they'll be read). i also haven't looked at what people have been saying for this week's episode, so it'll be hilarious if someone else has already spoken on this. it's turning around in circles in my brain. i just think the post-order 66 jedi are really really interesting and i think about them a lot

[laz-laz-ace-pilot]

Thinking about Jedi Younglings

So there's a lot of discussion at the moment about how younglings join the Jedi (and the Jedi 'stealing' children) and it made me think about the different scenarios that Jedi might come across when finding Force-sensitive children.

I wonder how often the 'ideal' situation happens; when a child is found, they're strong enough in the Force, and both child and parent want them to join the Order. If there are often complications, and what a Jedi supposed to do?

If the child desperately wants to join the Order, but the parents don't, who takes priority? Are there different planetary rules about child autonomy versus parent rights like we see with global child rights versus parents rights in the US? If the child runs away from home to join, are the Jedi obligated to return them home? Do they have a duty of care if the child may face punishment for leaving? And abuse in general - if the Jedi have reason to believe the child (or any child) may face abuse, do they have a duty to intervene, even if it gets them the reputation for being 'child stealers'?

What cultural differences affect the choice? We've seen groups that don't believe in using the Force refuse to allow children to join the Jedi, and the culture of repression that child then grew up in. Are there groups that believe strongly in giving their children to the Jedi, to the ideal of selfless service to the universe? Are there parents who believe in non-attachment, and recognise how much their child could offer to the galaxy, but the child doesn't want to leave? Planets that remember the Sith, or dark-side users that negatively impacted their world, who fear a child not having Jedi training? Parents who know their child would be better off with the Jedi but can't risk fraternising with them due to affiliations with the Hutts etc.? Parents who agree but only if they're stationed on their planet's outpost Temple. Parents who drop off non-Force-sensitive at Temples hoping it will offer something better?

I just think there are so many different scenarios and conflicts to explore and more nuance to the issue than 'the Jedi just steal children'.

[obi-wan-hoe]

I have to be honest, I hate the, "I'm no Jedi," line. Don't get me wrong, I actually enjoyed it in Rebels. It fit. Ahsoka was confronting Vader, a Sith who's committed atrocities all over the galaxy, hunts down any remaining Jedi, and who'd just revealed that he'd "destroyed Anakin." She's overcome with anger in that moment.

I don't think it was supposed to be a high moment for Ahsoka.

In the Star Wars community people seem to think this was "badass" and shows how Ahsoka is a "grey jedi." How? Before this moment, she's seen still following some of the Jedi Code, and we've never seen her use the dark side. I can not stress this enough, just because a force wielder isn't a Jedi, or turned away from the Jedi, doesn't make them a "grey jedi."

One of the most overused term ever.

That being said, I wasn't stoked about the line being in the Ahsoka trailer.

[autisticsupervillain]

It's Fictional Throwdown Friday!

This Week's Fighters....

Darth Vader vs Kirby!

Conditions:

Legends Vader vs Kirby as of the Forgotten Land.

Scenario:

Kirby is reading about that time Pearl beat the shit out of Homelander at a little league baseball game in the news when the Alternian-Galactic Empire suddenly invades Popstar. Darth Vader, now servant of Her Imperious Condescension after she murdered Palpatine, demands they surrender. Kirby refuses.

Analysis: Vader

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away there lived a chosen one. A being so powerful in the Force that he was destined to become the most powerful Jedi who ever lived, restoring balance to the Force.

Unfortunately for the Jedi, that's not how it played out.

Anakin Skywalker was born as a slave to a virgin mother on the desert planet of Tatooine before being taken in by the Jedi Master Qui Gon Jinn. Unfortunately, Qui Gon was murdered before Anakin could be made his apprentice, so the Jedi Council made Anakin Obi-Wan's apprentice in order to abide by his last wishes.

During his time with the Jedi, Anakin suffered numerous tragedies that would cause him to lose his faith in the Jedi Order, from the loss of his mother, to numerous betrayals from closely trusted friends during the Clone Wars. This lead to him turning to the Dark Side in a desperate bid to save his wife, massacering the Jedi Order during Order 66. Ultimately, Anakin was defeated by Obi-Wan and left to die on the lava planet of Mustafar, losing all of his limbs and most of his skin in the process.

Surviving only through shere rage, Anakin was put into a prosthetic suit, complete with mechanical limbs and lungs to keep him alive. Anakin Skywalker died that day, and Darth Vader was born as one of the most powerful Sith Lords the galaxy had ever seen.

Darth Vader came from the Rule of Two, an order instituted by Darth Bane to make the Sith far stronger than they ever were before. A Master would take an Apprentice and gradually teach them everything they knew. The Apprentice would then kill the Master and take an apprentice of their own. Each loop of the cycle would make the Sith stronger, concentrating the full power of the Dark Side in two individuals to completely eclipse all but the strongest Sith in history. This would make Vader stronger than 90% of all the Sith who've ever live. As a result, Vader should be much stronger than Darth Nihilus, who could devour the life force of entire planets.

According to George Lucas himself, Darth Vader is roughly 80% as strong as Darth Sidious during Return of the Jedi. The same Sidious who could call upon Force Storms even during Revenge of the Sith, punching holes through the fabric of 5-D hyperspace.

Now that we've established where Vader's raw power lies, what can he do with it? Firstly, Vader is a master of telekinesis, in both power and application. He's percise enough with it to target specific organs, such as the heart or lungs, and powerful enough to match the grip of Galen Marek, who could pull Star Destroyers out of the atmosphere. He's even creative enough with his telekinesis to channel the lightning from a nearby storm into his lightsaber, allowing him to throw it without injuring himself. Hell, most Jedi are outright trained to be able to manipulate the molecules of objects with their telekinesis, though this process takes so much concentration that you'll never see it used in combat.

Vader is in fact proficient in the all the standard Jedi techniques, such as the Mind Trick and precognition. As a matter of fact, Vader's precognition is so advanced he can use it mid combat, such as when he caught lasers that were explicitly stated to be moving at light speed with his telekinesis.

Vader is also proficient with Tutaminis, a technique that allows him to catch, deflect, and absorb energy projectiles with his bear hands. His use of Force Stun allows him to paralyze opponents who aren't too much stronger than him, and his connection to the Dark Side allows him to feed on the negative emotions of both himself and others to bolster his power. Darth Vader's battlemind technique allows him to boost the stats, morale, and concentration of everyone under his command. His connection to the Force allows him to see how powerful his opponent is and Force Scream allows him to obliterate entire buildings just by screaming.

This is made all the worse when you realize that Vader can do all these things with a gesture or even just a thought. While Vader prefers to gesture while fighting, he doesn't have to. There are several occasions where he's shown he can harness his powers just by thinking about it or even sometimes just by getting angry enough for it to happen passively.

Even without his powers, Vader is one of the greatest lightsaber duelists to ever live. Having fought on the front lines of two galactic wars, Vader has defeated some of the greatest martial artists in history. As Anakin, he's defeated Count Dooku, the reigning grandmaster of the Makashi lightsaber form and as Vader he defeated Obi Wan Kenobi, the all time master of Soresu. As Anakin, he was straight up the third or fourth greatest fighter in the galaxy and he's only gotten better sense then. Not to mention he's wielding a weapon that can cut through nearly anything through sheer heat.

However, Vader does have a few big weaknesses. For one thing, he's never going to be as powerful as he could've been. The amount of flesh he's lost means he's never going to get any stronger than he is by Return of the Jedi. Hell, prior to A New Hope, he was actually far weaker than Anakin. It took him years of training and recovery to reach his peak again and surpass his former Jedi self.

Secondly, lightning can short out his suit and suffocate him. This... isn't as big a weakness as it's made out to be. Galen Marek, someone who has beaten Vader twice, was blasting him with lightning for several minutes while both amplified by rage and absorbing lightning from a nearby storm. All it did was incapacitate Vader. The only reason Palpatine's lightning killed him in seconds was because he was simply that damn strong.

Darth Vader is one of the most terrifying villains to ever step onto the big screen. A walking instrument of Death whose mere breathing gives nightmares, Vader is easily the most dreaded Jedi killer in Galactic History.

Analysis: Kirby

Kirby, Kirby, Kirby. It's the name you should know, they're the star of the show, Kirby's the one. While this impossibly powerful little puffball's backstory is by an large a mystery, the widely accepted explanation is that they are a reincarnation of the immense god-like being known as Void that came about as a result of Void interacting with positive emotions. They are the positive counterpart to Zero's and Void Termina's dark and hateful incarnations, who came into being as a result of Void interacting with powerful negative emotions.

As a result of this, Kirby is paradoxically both horrifyingly powerful and unrelentingly cute, cuddly, and friendly. They may aspire to no higher cause than eating cake, making friends, and sleeping, but I do not exaggerate in the slightest when I call their power godlike. Kirby has been stated several times to have infinite power and has defeated beings amped by the Master Crown, which was stated to have the same. This alone would make them universe level at least, but they have feats that put them well above that. The parallel dimension known as... Another Dimension (great name guys, not confusing at all) is shown to contain at least sixteen universes, with Magalor's defeat destroying all of them. It's even stated to transcend time itself.

But Kirby has far more than just raw power on their side. As a matter of fact, they are well known for their versatility thanks to their Copy Ability. With it, they can inhale an enemy or object into their maw and transmute it into either a star shaped projectile or a copy ability, allowing them to copy a wide variety of powers from their defeated foes. They can combine these abilities, store them for later, or transform these powers into allies who can fight alongside them. And provided their opponent is too big for them to inhale, Kirby has ways of copying their powers anyways. By tossing their ability at their foe as an energy projectile, they can transmute enemies into copy abilities or they can just scan enemies outright with the copy ability known as... Copy.

These copy abilities come in a wide variety, ranging from those that grant Kirby mastery over a specific weapon to those who bestow Kirby with some form of elemental power. Notable ones include ice Kirby, who can freeze foes solid even if they can survive in space, cook Kirby who can transmute enemies into food, magic Kirby who can use magic for a variety of purposes, ranging from summoning food to summoning allies, and Copy Kirby, which can copy the powers of whoever Kirby scans. Their most powerful Abilities can even do damage to the fabric of reality itself, ranging from their Ultra Sword cutting holes into other universes to Time Crash, which creates an explosion so powerful that it damages time itself, effectively allowing Kirby to stop time.

Even without their Copy abilities, Kirby is remarkably tough. Their incredibly small size of a mere eight inches makes them remarkably tough to hit, they can regenerate from being impaled in an instant, can inflate themselves with air and fly through the sky, and summon a warp star to help them fly across the galaxy in seconds. And if all that sounds like a lot for one little pink puffball, Kirby can just speed dial up three other identical Kirby's to help kick your ass on command. Or throw a Friend Heart at you to forcibly befriend you.

And if you somehow make it through all of that and manage to kill Kirby? They can simply come back as a ghost, steal your life energy, and regenerate their body from nothing. Unless you can kill ghosts, Kirby's just gonna come straight back.

Having said all that, Kirby isn't perfect. While they are shown to be strangely technologically and scientifically adept, they have also shown to be incredibly naive. They've been manipulated into doing the villain's bidding on more than one occasion and they tend to simply jump headlong into situations without any kind of plan.

While Kirby may not be Nintendo's strongest character as is widely believed, they are every bit the godkiller you've heard they are. The next eldritch terror that steps foot on the peaceful planet of Popstar is gonna end up like all the rest, running for it's goddamn life.

Throwdown Breakdown:

Shockingly, these two should he able to fairly match each other in a lot of ways. As far as speed and strength goes, both can fight and kill beings who can destroy 5-D realms that transcend space and time and navigate those realms themselves, so they should be about even.

Similarly, I do believe that both can counter each other as far as mental resistances go. Kirby can't be controlled by planet enslaving forces like Dark Matter, but neither can Vader by basically any telepath in the Galaxy, so things like the Friend Heart are moot. Truthfully, they do have a lot of counters for each other's hax, with both having ways to reflect the other's projectiles back and Vader having a way to hit Kirby even as a ghost (force users are consistently able to kill ghosts, such as Galen Marek killing the ghosts of Darth Desolous and Darth Phobos in the Wii version of The Force Unleashed)

What actually determines the outcome here is logistics. A lot of Vader's abilities would be rendered difficult to achieve just boring logistical reasons. Remember how much trouble Palpatine and Dooku had hitting Yoda due to being a fast moving, small target? Apply that to someone as bulky as Vader trying to swat a fly and you get the dynamic here. Direct physical combat goes Kirby's way just due to them being so damn small.

Meanwhile, Vader is more than precise enough to hit Kirby with Force abilities, but the actual damage he could do with them is questionable. Kirby doesn't really have a heart to crush and they're flexible enough that crushing wouldn't likely work anyways. Force Choke? Kirby doesn't need air, they can survive in space.

Sure, some of this goes the other way too. Kirby can't suck up Vader because he's so big relatively. But he still has no resistance to transmutation and abilities like spark directly exploit his weakness to electricity. Whereas nothing in his arsenal exploits Kirby's shortcomings the same way.

This comes to a head when comparing their experience. Darth Vader is a terrifying Dark Lord that's personally fought on the forefront of two galactic wars. But, Kirby fights menacing overlords and master swordsmen like him every day, whereas nothing Vader's fought is remotely analogous to Kirby. Especially considering their relative versatility over him.

Darth Vader is the most imposing Dark Lord the galaxy far far away can offer. Unfortunately, that just makes him another Tuesday for Kirby.

This Throwdown's Winner is.....

Kirby!

[grifonecoronato]

Annoyed at the Argument that The Acolyte Breaks Canon with Ki-Ad-Mundi

I really wish this argument would die already.

In this scene in episode 8 of The Acolyte, where Vernestra briefs the small council on the rescue mission they're about to undertake, Ki-Ad-Mundi's mere presence annoys orthodox Star Wars fans.

They call it "canon-breaking," because, according to some books published long ago, Ki-Adi-Mundi was supposed to be born 38 years after the events of The Acolyte... and this matters.

Also, more to the point, Ki-Adi-Mundi's presence here makes it impossible for him to utter his 𝔡𝖊𝖊𝕡𝐥𝕪 𝒓𝘦𝕝𝖊𝚟𝚊𝓃𝘵 𝒂𝔫𝗱 𝒗𝓮𝒓𝒚 𝗶𝘮𝔭𝗼𝐫𝙩𝙖𝑛𝖙 𝑙𝗶𝐧𝚎 during The Phantom Menace...

"[...] the Sith have been extinct for a millennium."

I don't enjoy writing about lore, but I'll do it for you here.

Why This Line Makes Perfect Sense

Yes, even in the continuity of The Acolyte, the line from The Phantom Menace makes perfect sense, because to be Sith is to be part of a culture, a secret society. It's one dark side tradition among many.

All Sith are dark-siders, but not all dark-siders are Sith.

In fact, during the meeting of the small council in The Acolyte, other present Jedi offer alternative possible explanations for what happened to Sol and his team, namely thatit could have been:

...a fallen Jedi...

...a splinter order...

...something else entirely!

There are enough threats to Jedi all over the galaxy, that the likelihood that it originates from The Sith is almost laughable to the people in-universe.

(maybe it's not laughable to us in the audience that the Sith are responsible, because we're expecting the Sith to be there... but then again, we've seen the trailers for The Phantom Menace, while the characters of The Phantom Menace are hardly aware they're in a Star Wars movie)

Alternate Universe: A Conversation Between Special Agent Qui-Gon Jinn and MI5 Director Ki-Adi-Mundi

As a thought exercise, imagine if the conversation between Qui-Gon and Ki-Adi took place in 2024, and instead of Jedi they're secret agents.

In an earlier scene, Qui-Gon was attacked by a rival spy, and now he tells M all about it.

QUI-GON JINN: "I was attacked by a mysterious man." MI5 DIRECTOR KI-ADI-MUNDI: "How terrible. What do you know about the man who attacked you?" QUI-GON: "He was a trained spy. My only conclusion can be that it was a member of the Black Hand." KI-ADI-MUNDI: "The Black Hand...?" QUI-GON: "Yes". KI-ADI-MUNDI: "You mean the Serbian secret society responsible for the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which caused World War I... in 1914? That Black Hand?" QUI-GON: "The very same". KI-ADI-MUNDI: "... why...? Why would you possibly assume that THE BLACK HAND is responsible for this attack? I mean, of all the groups that could possibly attack you... Russian Foreign Intelligence, Mossad, rogue CIA, drug cartels, disaffected youth... why do you conclude that it HAD TO BE a secret society from Sarajevo from 110 years ago? They're long dead!"

In the end, Ki-Adi-Mundi is a character, and characters have roles in a story. Ki-Adi-Mundi's role is meant to be a skeptic, whose long-lived experience teaches him to not seek the first answer that comes his way.

He's a foil for the protagonists, who we as the audience know are ultimately right in their suspicions.

But in-universe, Ki-Adi-Mundi has seen a lot of stuff, and so he's able and willing to accept alternative, more reasonable explanations than the tales of a Jedi suffering from heat exhaustion on Tatooine.

[thehollowprince]

It's lovely to see someone talk so openly about the acolyte while bringing good points to their critique, not just hating it because it's a trend on the Internet.

I wanted to love it but the story has to be patched up a lot to make sense, and even then it wouldn't.

I never understood Mae's motivation? In episode 3 she seems to hate Osha because she doesn't want to do the ascension, is not like her, likes the jedi and later decides to attempt killing her. She still hates the jedi and sol after all these years, knows her master will Shish kebab her but she is stupid enough to tell Silly Qimir her plan?? She isn't thinking that her master has the means to find her somehow?

And Qimir too, he gets hopeful Mae will kill sol after Osha mentions her vision and forgets about wanting Osha as his acolyte?? What? This just makes him look like he'll switch sides for his benefit instead of caring about Osha and having feelings for her.

I try my best to be critical of everything I watch, and this show was no exception. I wanted to like it, I truly did. I know some people won't believe that, but despite Headland's repeated remarks in interviews hinting at her stance on the Jedi, the show had an interesting premise. A murder mystery set in the High Republic. But that wasn't what we got. We solve who's committing the murders in the opening scene of the show and know what her "motivations" are before the end of the second episode (which aired simultaneously to the first).

And that's where this show really falls apart. I know I've talked about this before, and I'm not the only one, but the lack of motivation for the characters' personal choices made no sense. They just did things, not because it was a natural progression from who their character was portrayed to be, but because the plot demanded it.

Why did Mae turn on Qimir and decide to turn herself into the Jedi?

Because we needed to set up all the Jedi standing in a row so that the "Sith" could come up behind them and initiate a lightsaber battle.

Why did she then decide to resist the very arrest she just wanted ten minutes before?

So that we could get a cat fight between her and Jecki.

Why did she decide to switch places with Osha at the end of that episode?

So that we could get Osha alone with Qimir and show how she was really the evil twin the whole time.

And that's just one character in one episode! (And yes, I do consider Day and Night one episode. It was just split in two so that Disney could squeeze another week's worth of subscriptions out of people). The flashbacks show us Mae trying to kill Osha, and then the present day shows us her trying to "rescue" her. She wants Sol to be turned into the Republic to face justice for his crimes, but then just stands there while Osha kills him. And like I said, that's just one character!

Sol seems dead set on rescuing Mae, which we only got a reference to in the penultimate episode, only for him in the finale to be really concerned with the Vergence, despite no prior indication of that fact.

Qimir himself was determined to kill Mae for betraying him only for him to go out of his way to engage Sol in combat. He then literally just stands there the entire scene while Mae, Sol, and Osha talk. Same thing with Day/Night, where he "had" to attack the Jedi because he needed to protect his secrecy, despite the fact that none of them even knew he was there.

Characters just did things because the plot needed them to so that they could get to the next thing that Headland imagined. This show was a poorly connected, almost schizophrenic, series of moments inspired by other media that they slapped the Star Wars aesthetic on and called it a day.

This show had its good moments, to be sure. The action was the best we've seen in Disney Star Wars, and this show did (albeit unintentionally) confirm that the Jedi are these compassionate people really just trying to better the Galaxy and the Dark Siders are completely selfish and concerned only with their wants (even if the showrunner tries to pass that off as a good thing.)

I'll say again as I close this off. I wanted to like this show. It had so much potential. But it was all squandered in the most ridiculous of ways.

[bikananjarrus]

some thoughts on the acolyte episode 6*

(*reminder that this is my opinion and is based off a first watch. my opinion may change after sitting with the episode a bit more; and i will reserve final judgement on the show as a whole once it's all out)

let's start with what i liked:

it was nice seeing more of venestra (lightwhip!!! hyperspace visions reference!!!), and she felt the most like vernestra in this episode so far to me.

it seemed to me that they were hinting at vernestra being qimir's master, which i am not at all opposed to. also if she took a crack at him with her lightwhip and kicked him out of the order, i trust her judgement asdfsdjkl. that's my girl! regardless, she at least seemed to maybe suspect qimir was responsible for the murders, so even if he wasn't her padawan, maybe she still knows who he is/who his master was, and i'm eager to see that play out.

manny is fantastic as qimir. he has a very calm presence that i don't think we've ever seen from another sith/dark-sider before. (like the closest i think would be dooku, but dooku still had to work under palpatine, and really, who could ever be truly calm in that situation lol.) but manny's presence as qimir is really refreshing, and he definitely has a gravity to him, and it was really great seeing this calmer appearance to him after his slaughter last episode. (wish they would focus more on this duality than just playing up the "manny hot, villain hot, that's good enough." like yes, manny is a beautiful man. but i would like to see a beautifully developed character more)

some things i am disliking at this point in the show (and which became a bit more apparent with this episode):

it does not feel great sidelining the black woman lead(s) for male characters and their man pain (ie qimir's apparent tragic backstory and sol's probable Bad Shit that he did on brendok). it's fantastic having asian leads as well, but it sucks that it has to be at the expense of the leading black woman (especially when amandla has been leading press and has been advertised as THE main character).

going off that, i feel like osha and mae's development is not where it should be at this point in the show. obvs we have 2 episodes left, there's still time for more answers, and i'm guessing we're going to be building to a final confrontation between them. but i still feel like i barely understand their relationship outside of "mae is obsessed with getting osha back, and osha lowkey hates mae and thinks she's a criminal." it's just very surface level for the relationship that is supposed to be the central conflict of the show (with their relationship with sol being the very close secondary conflict).

i feel like we started to touch on the fact that, even though they have a conflicted relationship with each other, there's still a deep connection there. they're twins, and they have a shared history, a shared traumatic event from their childhood. but i barely even feel like they're sisters at this point :/ even pitting them against each other, the conflict between them feels flat. i didn't think their scene at the ep5 had as much weight as it should've, so unless there's some serious development in the next 2 eps, i don't have a lot of hope for their final confrontation being super emotionally satisfying.

and now on top of that, osha is getting more face time with qimir than her own sister. she's asking more questions than she has the rest of the show now that she's with qimir. it's um. hm. 😐 i think qimir and osha's relationship is intriguing (and amandla and manny play off each other really well), but it's with the villain that we get to see most of osha's development? idk, it just doesn't feel great. especially when mae was introduced as his student first, and they just gave us a throwaway "eh, mae didn't want what i want, i made a mistake with her" and that's that.

(i'm hoping next episode they actually give us more of mae's side of the story, but i'm also now nervous that sol's war crimes are going to take the focus, and not mae's journey from the night of the fire on brendok to how she ends up with qimir)

pacing in this episode itself was fine, but as far as how it fits into the pacing of the show overall is not great. this is a mystery show, so it's fine that there are still some unanswered questions. but it feels like there are A LOT of holes right now, and it's a lot to cover in two episodes.

like this episode didn't move things along as much as it should have, probably. everything with qimir and osha, fine. but why did we spend so long on sol's ship being stuck in space? i get they were trying to build up to him and mae finally confronting each other, but the tension was not there. and i get his judgement was clouded with grief and all that, but i just don't think it needed to take him that long to figure out it was mae. i think it would've been more satisfying if he'd figured it out right away, and we actually got him talking about brendok in this episode. like we already KNOW he was involved in whatever happened on brendok, and it was shady enough that master torbin killed himself over it. so like just tell us already please. and then spend the last 2 episodes resolving it. him talking to mae about brendok (telling her the truth) would've also played really well off of qimir and osha's scenes (with him telling her what she wanted to hear; probably some truth, definitely some lies in there too).

if the season was 12, or even just 10 eps, fine. it feels like they’re setting up for a s2 which would also be fine, IF i thought a season 2 was guaranteed. (But with how much hate the show has gotten, I can see them not investing in more.)

overall, mostly solid ep (the performances continue to deliver), but i think the pacing issues are rearing their head again, and i really don't like that osha & mae keep getting sidelined in THEIR show :/

[bereft-of-frogs]

I have a new crackpot theory that is sure to get proven wrong

under the cut for spoilers and...length...(got out of hand)

I wonder if Torbin's crime was leaving Mae behind.

This is like, the opposite of the other theory I've already commented on (that the conflict sparks because the Jedi also want to take Mae) but idk. Maybe it's not what we think.

Vernestra in this last episode seems particularly upset that Sol never mentioned the possibility that the other girl lived (it seems like Sol never even mentioned that there WAS a sister), maybe because she was afraid exactly what ended up happening would happen (Mae gets scooped up by the Sith) and also neither Torbin nor Indara seem particularly surprised that Mae's still alive. It is possible that Indara thought it was Osha, but she does see the mark and that's when she's like 'what are YOU doing here' so it seems like she knows it's Mae and isn't like 'omg you're alive what' so it definitely seems like she knew Mae survived. And Torbin specifically says he's been waiting for her.

Sol is the only one insisting that she had to be dead, and no one could have survived the fall. So maybe, with his attention on Osha in that chunk of time we're missing between them escaping and her waking up, he doesn't notice Mae surviving, but the others encounter her on their way out and choose deliberately to leave her alone for some reason. (Maybe they're spooked by her power, she definitely seems like the stronger of the twins and obviously she's got some real dark stuff going on already.) And that might be something the Council would get upset about, judging by Vernestra's reaction. And enough to feel profoundly guilty about, leaving behind an 8 year old because you were scared of her power?

Whether Kelnacca knew she was alive or not remains to be seen (or might remain a mystery idk), but judging by all the marks he's drawn all over his walls, it seems like he was investigating something about the coven's power or history?

Anyway, also I'm currently placing all my money on it being Qimir behind the mask lol. I rewatched that monologue and obviously the voice has been altered but I feel like there are a couple lines that suspiciously resemble Manny Jacinto's cadences. Also that tonal switch when he tells Mae 'he'll kill you' (I saw someone else point out there was also a tonal shift when he tells Osha 'you look just like her' that's kind of suspicious), the fact that he knows so much and keeps prodding her on the riddle...it's SO him. I'm not discounting there being another Sith master though (maybe that he's the apprentice and someone else is pulling the strings)...

...I do just wish people would stop theorizing it's Vernestra haha. As I said before, if Vernestra turns out to be Sith it would take Leslye Headland, Justina Ireland, and Tessa Gratton all coming, in person, to my home to explain themselves for me to accept it. Otherwise, I would have to just believe it's two separate characters that happen to share the same name, species, and relative age. Hey, what a coincidence!

Just with three books left in the series, and judging by where we've just left Vernestra, it would take something MASSIVE to get her to the point of 'yeah I'm going full dark side'. And I feel like it would just be an asshole move to hijack that storyline with such an extreme twist this late in the game. Like...idk maybe they would but...it would be an asshole move to take someone else's character and 15+ books into a series be like 'oh surprise twist that undermines everything'. And you cannot say 'well it's been 100 years maybe something happens in between' because that's just shitty storytelling, it hasn't been 100 years for me, it's been four days since I finished Temptations of the Force, you cannot ask me to reconcile the Vernestra Rwoh who confronts the Eye of the Nihil herself and gets them across the stormwall, with a secret Sith manipulating everything from the shadows based on stuff happening off-page/screen. I cannot see it.

I DO however totally see where the cracks could form with her relationship with the Senate. I bet you the Senate accepts Marchion Ro's deal to save them from the blight and the Jedi feel betrayed by that and that's why she's like 'fuck the Senate, we do this on our own'. I think that would make sense for her last big unresolved relationship arc, her issues with Elzar, because Elzar has just committed to being the liaison between the Order and the Senate. (I do think they're going to get over though, Elzar mentions twice that he wants to give her Stellan's lightsaber and he doesn't, I don't think they'd do something that significant off-page, I bet that will close out this arc on a good note.) And it would be some juicy conflict between her and her non-Jedi friends, like I'm sure Cair and Jordanna having seen the effects of the blight, would be on board with doing whatever it takes to stop it, but I can also see some of the Jedi characters feeling betrayed by that, like they've been left to deal with the Nameless on their own for so long and now they feel like they're getting sold out by people they thought they could trust to the exact person who's been killing and torturing them.

Also just practically, it seems like by the time of the show Vernestra is an important enough figure in the Order's hierarchy that people would like....notice if she was fucking off all the time to go secretly be a Sith? Idk, I guess Palpatine had time to multitask but I think he was doing most of his Sith-business while still hanging around Coruscant, it seems like the Sith are out on the Outer Rim a lot, you'd think people would start to get suspicious if Vernestra was gone for long stretches of time. I guess she's done that before lol maybe they're just like 'oh Vernestra's off on another one of her unsanctioned walkabouts', and it is kind of sus that she's so upset Sol didn't tell her about both girls if the theory that the Sith wants both twins is true, but...yeah to get me to accept this they'd have to come explain themselves to me personally. XD

Idk. I almost convinced myself there it's a possibility. But we haven't seen the lightwhip scene yet, and that looks like a forest, it feels more likely she's going to go confront Mae's master herself, and that would just be an unreasonable level of subterfuge for the audience to accept (on the level of 'Indara is the Sith master and faked her own death in the first episode' theory)

Anyway, how did this become novel theorizing and also Star Wars fandom stop theorizing my favorite Jedi ladies are secretly Sith, leave my girls alone--

ETA: I definitely also think there's a reason the Sith (maybe Sith, I guess I should stop assuming) wants the four Jedi dead. They definitely witnessed something that night that they shouldn't have and I think got distracted by their own issues with what went down, but it looks like Kelnacca was close to figuring it out. Proof: after Mae tells Qimir she doesn't care about revenge anymore, she's just going after her sister, the master comes to kill Kelnacca himself, also feels like solid evidence of Qimir being the master...

ETA: wait I talked myself out of the most suspicious thing, why would she be so obviously upset at Sol for not telling her about Mae if she was the Sith master and would have known from the start? Unless she's playing him? But idk that break in frustration appeared genuine. I'm back to being reassured that it's not her. That would be SUCH an asshole move with only three books left to go in the series and none of the dangling threads of Vernestra's storyline having really anything to do with dark side struggles. (She struggles more with despair while she's mourning and being like slightly judgy of Elzar, it doesn't seem that serious. They're definitely going to focus on whatever this mysterious path she got from the ghost of Mari San Tekka and her unresolved issues with Elzar. Ok I'm back.)

[isaackuo]

Qimir is Koril's Master?

I'm calling it now - Koril is "Darth Teeth" and Qimir is her master.

My "evidence":

Ki-Adi-Mundi is aware of this case, but he's the one in The Phantom Menace who insisted the Sith had been extinct for a thousand years.

Koril's body is suspiciously absent from the end of episode 3.

As for Qimir ... waves hands at everything

So, my guess is that the Jedi defeat "Darth Teeth", and discover that she is Koril. But they know Koril is a witch, and the Thread/Force training of her witch coven is close enough to Jedi/Sith martial arts styles that they don't suspect she's a Sith.

When, a century later, Qui-Gon reports of another Zabrak force user using a red light saber, Ki-Adi-Mundi is like, "Sure, but that doesn't mean he's a Sith Lord."

But if Darth Teeth is like Darth Maul, or any of the other helmeted Sith we've seen so far, she's not the Sith Master - she's at most the Sith Apprentice. So who is Mae's master's master? I'm guessing Qimir. I hope that the reasons to suspect him are obvious enough.

[shadowmaat]

The Jedi were evil all along!

I debated replying to the thread I saw condemning the Jedi as "rigid" and implying they weren't that different from the Sith, but I would have been the only voice of dissent and given that one of the replies was from a Red Hat Cultist veering off on a frothy anti-Obama rant, I figured it was safer to just make my own post.

Look, no one is saying the Jedi are perfect, but they sure as fuck aren't evil, either. If you're basing your entire opinion on the thoughts and experiences of one individual then your view is incredibly flawed and you should maybe think outside the narrow hole you've dug for yourself.

From what I can tell, some of the worst critics of the Jedi seem to be fans of Anakin Skywalker. Or at least a carefully curated version of Anakin who was a perpetual victim and never did anything wrong. It seems to boil down to "if the Jedi had just let Anakin be openly married to Padmè, nothing bad would have happened!" Which is... certainly a take.

The one argument I see trumpeted over and over (and over) again is that the Jedi prohibition against "attachment" is terrible and wrong and makes them no better than the Sith. This hinges almost entirely on the idea that "attachment" is the same thing as "love."

It isn't. Fans have spent decades explaining why it isn't only to have their reasoning mostly ignored in favor of the more angsty/tragic idea that the Jedi were forbidden to love. 🙄

"Attachment," IMO, can best be summed up as a literal interpretation of this ever-popular gif:

[img: Rosa from Brooklyn 99. She's holding a small yellow lab puppy as she says, "I've only had Arlo for a day and a half, but if anything happened to him I would kill everyone in this room and then myself."]

Anakin has, admittedly, "had" Padmè for three years instead of a day and a half, but when he thought she was going to die, he killed everyone in the Temple, then killed her, and then continued on a murderous rampage for the next 19 years or so.

"Attachment" is dangerous for anyone, but especially for someone like Anakin, who has additional powers at his command, rigorous training in how to use them, and three years experience as a war leader.

Personally, I also have questions about whether or not marriage is actually forbidden among the Jedi or if Anakin just assumed it was because "attachment." I can see it not being a common thing, and I can also understand a relationship coming under scrutiny to insure that it's a healthy form of love that won't interfere with a Jedi's ability to do their job, but it wouldn't surprise me if Anakin never looked into it because it would mean "sharing" Padmè with others.

Even if marriage wasn't allowed as a whole formal, legalized thing it doesn't mean Jedi can't form relationships. It would, as usual with the Jedi, be about balance. Can someone balance their personal relationship with their commitments to the Order? Can they set their loved one aside to do what must be done? Or will they drop everything to immediately rush to their loved one's side regardless of the risk to others?

We all know what Anakin would do; we've seen it with our own eyes.

The point is, condemning the entire Jedi Order because they didn't give Anakin everything he wanted, when he wanted it, and without question is a little bit of a stretch. Plus, all jokes about his inability to keep a secret aside, it isn't as if he ever went to them to discuss things.

"Well, he didn't think he could trust them because they hated him!" Uh, no, they decidedly didn't hate him, he just believed they did. It all hinges on his beliefs, not reality. And while you could certainly blame Palpatine for reinforcing his beliefs that the Jedi can't be trusted and that everyone hates/is jealous of him, it isn't as if Palps made that up out of thin air: he built on the seeds already within Anakin.

"That's because the Jedi-" No. Insecurities are rarely rational, and while you can argue that the Jedi "didn't do enough" to help Anakin, there are a few salient points to remember:

Anakin isn't the only Jedi in the Order; they have thousands of people to consider.

You have to know there's a problem in order to help.

The person has to be willing to accept that help in order for things to change.

The last two points also apply to those who would condemn Obi-Wan in particular. He has to KNOW a problem exists and then he has to talk his way around to try and get Anakin to accept his help. I know from personal experience just how heartbreakingly difficult it is to help a loved one when they won't admit there's a problem or they won't listen to your advice.

I can think of a lot of ideas that would be fun to experiment with in terms of making changes to the Jedi Order, but most of them involve adding more distance from the Senate and none of them are about catering to the specific (perceived) needs of one Jedi.