#basically are you ever so doomed by your narrative that the very god of vengeance goes daaaaaaamn | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

him-e · 6 years

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this might be a dumb comparison but would you consider star wars/skywalkers in general to be kind of like a greek tragedy? or at least inspired by greek tragedies? i just really love mythology and would like to think there’s some sort of connection in some way. thank you! :)

Definitely! Star Wars relies heavily on archetypes and psychological motifs, and many of them come from Greek and Latin literature. In the original trilogy, taken in isolation, you see more echoes of arthurian myths and classic fairytale elements than tragedy. It’s when you think of the three trilogies as a whole, particularly in terms of Anakin’s arc, his rise and fall and redemption and the repetition of the cycle with Ben’s fall just a generation later, that the Greek tragedy vibes become evident.

To put it in very simple terms, Greek tragedy typically revolves around a good/average man who has one “fatal” flaw (usually an error in judgment or hubris). Because of this, but also because of the crucial role played in the genre by the inevitability of fate and the cosmic order dwarfing humanity, fragile and powerless even at its best and at the mercy of much bigger and incomprehensible forces, the hero is bound to fall. And one fundamental aspect of tragedy is that the audience knows he’s going to fall, and watching the events unravel to the inevitable gut wrenching conclusion is cathartic. (see how the whole prequels experience is built on the premise that you know exactly how it’s going to end.) (also, side note, catharsis is a major reason why even today we need fiction, including “dark” fiction.)

The fall of the hero often takes the form of a heavily immoral act, a horrific crime against the aforementioned cosmic order that the hero performs either in good faith, as a result of his hubris, anger or passion, or because he feels he has to—be it accidentally killing your father and sleeping with your mother, sacrificing your own daughter to the gods, punishing your asshole ex husband by killing your own children, or choking your pregnant wife who has come to confront you after you slaughtered a temple of younglings. As monstrous as the act can be, the audience can’t help but sympathize with the fallen hero, because it’s clear he’s motivated by a desire to do the right thing (or to fix some wrong), he loves fiercely and intensely, he is (at least in part) a victim of circumstances, and the pain and punishment inflicted on him and everyone who he loves and who loves him is disproportionate. What happens to the protagonist is a metaphor of the fragility of human condition, in which sometimes a minor mistake or an unforeseeable chain of events leads to catastrophic consequences. Individual responsibility matters, but it’s always portrayed in tension with the cruel irony of a blind, irrational fate who tears good people and bad people down alike, which it often succumbs to, or is proven to be eventually irrelevant.

You can see how Anakin is in this sense the quintessential tragic hero. A good man raised in humble conditions but destined to be royalty, to be the hope of a galaxy, the fulfillment of a long awaited prophecy, who rises to a state of quasi-kingship (becoming a Jedi master, marrying a former queen), but remains ultimately a slave—to his own passions and fears, to destiny (as personified by Palpatineworking slowly to corrupt him), to the will of the gods (the Force), to the trappings and limitations of a corrupt society (the Jedi order and the republic). His one fatal flaw, loving Padmé, backfires and turns him into the very cause of her death.

Ben’s fall is also deeply tragic, as it’s the result of a twofold lapse in judgment: Luke’s (who falls for a second prey of his own darkness and briefly considers executing his nephew for the greater good) and Ben’s himself (who mistakes this one second of weakness for a truly murderous intent, and violentlyretaliates, and never stops acting on the false assumption that his uncle was really going to kill him).

Hubris and madness are two other crucial themes in greek tragedy and I can see the dark side as a fascinating space opera portrayal of both. And then, vengeance, and family—and even more relevant to star wars, the cycle of violence-pain-revenge. The original crime opens a wound in the cosmic order (you could also say: the Force becomes unbalanced) that spreads like a cancer dooming multiple generationsand is only really healed when there is a genuine will to step out of this cycle.

This is imo the key to understand the three trilogies in their entirety, and what they’re trying to do with the sequel trilogy in particular. Many people struggle with Ben’s fall because he “had everything”—i.e. was born in a time of peace, from a loving family of revered rebellion heroes, with unique force powers and someone to teach him how to use them, etc.—so his turning to the dark side is thrice as hard to swallow. Was he a bad seed from the start? Or did he just infuriatingly squander all he had? Other people complain that the new trilogy is built on a nihilistic concept, that evil always come back cyclically one way or another, that victory is never complete, that the heroes are bound to make the same mistakes over and over again, or that everyone is inevitably destined to be corrupted and lose hope (see the discourse re: Luke in TLJ).

Both miss the point, in my opinion. The way I see it, it all ties back to Anakin’s original crime—his tragic, blood-soaked fall to the dark side, order 66, and most importantly Padmé’s death—and how that crime was a cosmic wound that tore the balance of the universe apart and was never fully healed. So it reverberates across the galaxy, onto his progeny, and his progeny’s progeny (Ben).

Luke did begin to make things right—by choosing to reject violence he gave Vader the chance to sacrifice himself to to kill the emperor and save his son, which earned him his redemption. And…it’s a good way to end a story if you want it to end there, but if you want the story to continue, then you have to face the fact that it’s only a partial, and in many ways convenient solution to a much larger problem. Vader’s redemption did nothing to eradicate the deep-seated political views of those who were still loyal to the Empire and fighting for a dictatorship in the moment when Palpatine was killed. It wasn’t enough for Luke and Leia to actually embrace their lineage and come out as Vader’s children, if Bloodline is to be believed. It wasn’t enough to shield little Ben from Snoke’s attentions—in fact, Anakin’s blood is exactly what put a big ol’ target on Ben’s back, with nothing of his grandfather’s post-redemption wisdom to keep him on the right track, only the myth of his legacy, a myth that as we’ve sadly seen can be easily misconstrued and exploited and that Leia and Luke never properly explained to Ben either. Anakin just died, and if that single sacrifice was enough to save his soul, it actually didn’t do much to fix the countless wrongs he contributed to create during the two decades he served the Empire as lord Vader. The galaxy bled because of him. And he just died and left his children to clean up his mess. Lucas’ original idea that Vader’s redemption brought balance to the Force is a good happily ever after, but only if you don’t really plan to deal with the consequences.

More on a thematic level, RotJ represents a perfect fairytale ending on almost all fronts but it leaves a question unanswered: was Anakin wrong to love Padmé? Is romantic love wrong? Aside from Han and Leia—whose marriage didn’t end well anyway—romantic love comes out of this narrative as a tragically negative force. Specifically, romantic love for a Jedi. If you consider the first six films, the logical conclusion is that the Jedi were right, after all, to forbid romantic attachments, because look at the mess Anakin made. Anakin destroyed himself and Padmé. It was only Luke’s familial love that made him come back to the light—Luke, the eternal celibate Jedi. Familial love is good, romantic love is poisonous. The narrative absolutely implies this reading.

So although RotJ’s ending fixes everything on a superficial level, the wound keeps festering underneath, there are still many things that weren’t made right, and this is why only a few years later Luke is still so haunted by the darkness and still so afraid that a new Vader is possible that he actually considers killing his nephew for a split second. This is why the ashes of the old Empire don’t die out, but instead give birth to a new tyrannical power; and why Leia cannot be free to live her life in peace with her family, but still feels committed to a rebellion that never ceased to have reasons to exist, even after the Emperor’s death.The gods (the Force) aren’t satisfied, if you will, so they keep punishing this family. The original evil has not been completely exorcised. Love, personified by Padmé’s unacceptable, unnatural death, hasn’t been vindicated. The balance is not restored. And Ben falls.

The sequel trilogy is set to heal this wound, for real, this time. It’s also why it has a much darker tone (despite the superficial humor) than the original trilogy. It’s not impossible for a tragedy to have a happy ending, but the resolution must have the same tone, the same gravity of the premise. The prequels are a tragedy, and the original trilogy is essentially a fairytale, a hero’s journey—they’re basically two different genres, and Vader’s last minute redemption seems (and is) inadequate once you’ve seen all three movies of his very detailed and nuanced fall to the Dark Side.

We’re watching, through Ben, the tortured redemption arc that should have been written for Vader if this story had followed a chronologically and stylistically linear narrative. Through Ben and Rey, we’re watching a reconciliation of the Dark and the Light side, whose unresolved conflict, worsened by the repressive puritanical policy of the Jedi order, originated the schism in Anakin’s soul. And we’ll also (hopefully) get the answer to that question I said earlier, and see the redemption of romantic love.

#anon #asks #sw asks #sw for ts #sw**#///#greek tragedy #house skywalker #reylo for ts #just a little #mmm i hope this makes sense

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