#but with the knowledge we have from rotj it does make a certain sense that whatever qualms he has would register as pragmatic complaints

[anghraine]

I was revising and thinking about some of Anakin/Vader’s scenes with Tarkin in ANH, and I think there’s an interesting detail in there with regard to them and the Death Star.

When Tarkin threatens to destroy Alderaan, Leia appears to give up the Rebellion’s base, and Tarkin says:

“You see, Lord Vader, she can be reasonable.”

That’s a kind of weird remark, if you think about it. It might just be an empty rhetorical flourish, of course, but to me, it sounds more like a gloating “I told you so.” If that’s the case, it implies a separate conversation about holding Alderaan over Leia’s head, in which they disagreed.

Later, when it turns out that Leia lied, Tarkin is shocked!! and outraged!!! and Vader twists the knife by saying:

“I told you she would never consciously betray the Rebellion.”

Speaking of I-told-you-sos.

So they definitely seem to have disagreed about this. It’s not like Vader is on the side of the angels here; he ruthlessly works to recover the plans, stands by while the Death Star kills millions of people, and defends it in battle. At the same time, when you consider his earlier open contempt for what he terms “this technological terror,” it is intriguing that he finds reasons to voice opposition.

#vader: i don't have any MORAL qualms about it obviously. i just need to register my objection on religious grounds #vader: also we shouldn't use it against alderaan because that won't achieve anything. princess leia is too hardcore and you're all fools #seriously though i do think the framing of him as basically opposed but willing to defend it anyway is extremely anakin #like it's retcon logic and was probably just meant to highlight the spiritual fantasy side vs the more generic space lasers side #but with the knowledge we have from rotj it does make a certain sense that whatever qualms he has would register as pragmatic complaints #and religious griping #and he'd suppress them enough to keep eviling on #anghraine babbles #star wars #anakin skywalker #tarkin #hmm i think i'll add #anghraine's headcanons #bc it is one hundred percent my headcanon that there's always a certain amount of internal screaming going on w/ him #that registers in ways that allow him to pretend it's not happening—dogmatic or pragmatic disapproval and such #but i mean... it is a pretense. at some level he knows and feels that ... well. 'it is too late for me' doesn't come out of nowhere #:(

[forsythiaas]

TROS reaction + rant

Spoilers for the Rise of Skywalker 

Okay first the short section: Things I liked about the movie

1. Oscar Isaac’s butt looking great. 

2. Jannah is amazing, wish she had been introduced earlier.  

3. Cinematography on the old death star scene battle was stunning and felt like something we hadn’t seen before. 

4. John Boyega is great in this, even though he doesn’t get a ton of character development. Love the fact that he’s force-sensitive. (I know he didn’t love his character’s plot line in TLJ, but for me, that movie gave him way more interiority and let him be the one that someone falls in love with. In this one, he does a lot more running around, just shouting “REY.” )

Things I didn’t like because they didn’t work but not because they’re innately wrong 

1. Rey being a Palpatine. I would have preferred that they stuck with she is a nobody, but I don’t absolutely hate the idea of her being a Palpatine. In some ways, it’s sort of a cool idea that a Palpatine is the one who gets to continue the true Skywalker legacy. Her and Ben together prove that choosing the light or the dark isn’t a predestination sort of thing determined by your ancestry. 

But I don’t think they handled it all that well in this movie. There is no real explanation for it, the way Rey learns about it is odd, they don’t devote enough time for us to really understand how she feels about it, it retcons a lot of other stuff, etc. JJ should have stuck with the decision Rian made. 

2. Leia’s ending. I know Carrie Fisher’s death meant that we were never going to get the send-off she really deserved. Yet her death scene in this felt oddly bland (I was much more emotional at her flying across the stars in TLJ). I like the idea that she sacrificed herself to bring Ben back to the light, but I don’t understand how that even worked. Some people are saying that she gave her life force to him, some people are saying that she used it to project the memory of Han. Either way, it didn’t make sense to me. 

And the scenes that she were in were stilted enough that I think perhaps the movie should have just opened with her funeral like some people said. The only moment when I really got emotional about her death was when Chewie broke down. 

3. Ben/Rey Romance - Okay, the kiss I actually did sort of hate. But honestly, we saw Rey being a full-on corpse like two seconds before. Would you really want to kiss someone, then? And while the actors have good chemistry and the characters have always had...sexual tension, let’s call it...it never felt explicitly romantic. Especially because Ben is a WAR CRIMINAL. I get that they sort of try to separate Kylo Ren and Ben in this movie, but to me, they’re still the same person. Also, at the beginning it seemed like they were trying to say that Palaptine manipulated him from the beginning, but again, that explanation is not fleshed out enough. 

I was all for a Ben Solo redemption arc in this movie, but I think it being paired with a romantic connection between the two actually weakens the whole thing. I like the idea that they’re equal within the force, but it definitely felt out of character for Rey to kiss him. 

Things I HATED 

1. The sidelining of Rose Tico. This I could go on about for ages. In TLJ, we meet Rose, and she is just as devoted to the Resistance cause as Poe, smart, romantic, tough. I love that she is an engineer, not technically “special” in anyway, but she brings a real-life knowledge about how war really works behind-the-scenes. The fact that she’s grieving her sister in that film also adds so much emotional weight to the movie. For once, we see the impact that war has on an ordinary family. 

I wanted Rose joining the gang. I wanted Rey and Rose interacting, becoming friends. I wanted Rose’s engineering knowledge to come in and save the day at a crucial point. Even if she occupied more of a Lando in RotJ-like role (separate but definitely important) to keep the “trio” integrity intact (an obsession that JJ seems to have which I don’t quite understand because he didn’t even bother to introduce Poe and Rey in the first movie), I’d be okay, but for her to have like five lines? Shameful. 

The fact that this movie also never acknowledges Rose’s confession about loving Finn really angers me. Finn and Poe’s (very straight) romantic feelings are played for laughs in this, yes, but for Rose’s to just be completely ignored? Even if you thought her feelings for Finn came out of left field in TLJ, you have to admit it was a completely brave move to confess, an act that Finn himself can’t pull off in this one. Fine, don’t have them be together. Have her be bitter about it, have things be awkward between them, show that she still loves him, at least give us some acknowledgement that that confession actually mattered. 

2. General writing sloppiness - Macguffins galore. The jumping around constantly. Characters making sacrifices that don’t matter at all. Some truly terrible dialogue. This felt like 5 movies stuffed into one. 

Also not entirely related, but Poe is legitimately cruel to C3PO at certain points in this movie, and it’s totally played for laughs. Droid rights! 

3. The fact that the queer representation was like two seconds long. Hey, did you guys know Poe is like super straight? And Finn is like super straight? And they constantly are trying to get the attention of the girl they like. Oh yeah, Commander D’Arcy is gay, but you’re not interested in meeting her partner or learning her name or anything like that. Let’s have Poe hit on Zorri one more time. 

If we couldn’t have Finn and Poe get together, I was at least hoping there would be one successful romance in the movie. I think it would have been meaningful for the first black lead in a Star Wars movie to have found love (preferably with Rose, but I would have actually been okay if they hinted at a successful Finn/Rey romance in the end). 

Also, the hug between the three of them (Poe, Rey, and Finn) at the end didn’t really work for me. Compare that one to Luke’s hugs with Leia and Han in RotJ, and it falls completely flat. I like the idea that Rey has a found family, but to be honest, it doesn’t even seem like her and Poe like each other that much in this movie. 

4. NO ANAKIN - Anakin really should have been the thread that tied all three trilogies together. Up until this trilogy, he was the main character of the whole saga. He was the literal chosen one. To bring Palpatine back but not use Anakin at all or even really talk about his legacy makes his sacrifice seem completely meaningless. I’m not at all convinced that Palpatine won’t just return in another 15 years or that a new Empire/First Order won’t just appear in another year or so. There isn’t even any mention of restoring balance to the force, the whole thing that Anakin was destined to do. We’re back to Sith bad, Jedi good. 

#the rise of skywalker #rise of skywalker #RoS #star wars #rise of skywalker spoilers #RoS spoiler #star wars spoilers #rey #poe #finn #poe dameron #kylo ren #ben solo

[emeraldspiral]

Real talk, the only reason Anakin had to go to Jedi school to git gud is because he needed to be a kid when he left his mom and an adult when he began his romance with Padme. If the plot had called for it, he would’ve been a Master Jedi in a week because the needs of the story outweigh the need for “realism”.

Just look at Luke. His training lasted maybe a couple of days or weeks at most because it just wouldn’t make sense for Luke to stay out of the fight for years and years. He could only train for as long as it took Han and Leia to get captured by Vader, but he also needed to not instantly lose to Vader when they fought. Therefore, the amount of time it took for Han and Leia’s storyline to play out was the exact amount of time Luke needed to get good enough to face Vader.

Afterward, in RotJ, supposedly there’s a timeskip of a year, but you’d be forgiven if you thought, as I did, that only a few days or weeks passed, since there’s 0 mention of a timeskip in the film and no reason to think it would take that long to get to Tatooine or plan Han’s rescue. In fact, it seems out of character for a dedicated Rebel like Leia to take that much time off for one person, no matter how she felt about him. But I digress. Regardless of whether it was really a year or only a few days, the fact remains that Luke didn’t have any additional training during that timeskip. He only returned to Dagobah after rescuing Han, and upon arrival Yoda was on his deathbed telling Luke he was already ready, no additional Force training or lightsaber combat instruction required.

In any event, however much training he received, it was definitely significantly under ten years and, from what we saw, didn’t even cover lightsaber fencing, at least not nearly as much as lifting rocks and reading minds and other Force skills. Yet, he still managed to overpower Vader, the strongest Jedi/Sith to ever live. Because the story required him to be that powerful at that point so that he could complete his arc by rejecting the opportunity to slay Vader.

Now, let’s consider Rey’s skills, abilities, and accomplishments, starting with the dumbest of the dumbshit things people complain about when trying to use the “she’s too good at too many things/gets too good too fast” argument for why she’s a Mary-Sue.

First of all:

Why does Rey speak droid and Wookie (as if that’s a particularly uncommon skill)? Because she needs to befriend BB-8, so BB-8 can bring her together with Finn and because someone’s got to be able to understand Chewie once Han’s gone and that someone should probably be the one who’s going to be spending a lot of time alone with him co-piloting the Falcon when they go to find Luke. The better question to ask is why anyone cares about shit like that? Like, is that on some Mary-Sue litmus test somewhere? “Is bilingual in a world where most people are?” If you’re going to complain about something that stupid I have to assume you think character writing should work like Pokemon where you have to drop traits in order to stay under a certain limit, even if half the stuff filling up the quota is stuff like “can ride a bicycle” or “doesn’t burn the house down when they cook”.

Second:

Why is she an ace pilot (as if half the characters in Star Wars, both Force sensitive and non-Force sensitive aren’t also Ace Pilots, and also as if Rey has more than ONE SINGLE flying scene or had any trouble handing over the spotlight to any of the other THREE ACE PILOTS JUST IN THE SEQUEL TRILOGY)? Because she has to be a pilot because Finn can’t be, because he had to need Poe so that he could get his jacket, in order to catch BB-8′s attention, so that BB-8 could bring him and Rey together. Also, because it emphasizes Rey’s major character flaw; that she is the architect of her own misery. She has the means to leave Jakku but doesn’t, something directly acknowledged immediately after her one and only flying scene.

Third:

Why does she show Han up on knowledge of his own ship? Well, for one thing, she fucking doesn’t. She only knows about one thing installed in the ship after it left his custody. But even if you wanted to make the claim that this was supposed to demonstrate that she was some kind of Superstar Mechanic (as if mechanics are something rare and special in Star Wars) and that the reason for her being a Superstar Mechanic is just to get Han to like her, even that has a story-related justification that isn’t just about wish-fulfillment or using a cool character to shill for her. Having Han take a liking to her creates another opportunity for her to demonstrate her character flaw when she rejects his job offer in favor of returning to Jakku to wait forever for parents that don’t love her when there’s a man she already thinks of as the father she never had right in front of her. Also, having her bond with him makes his death at Kylo’s hands more personal for her, thereby creating a greater hurdle for her to overcome in order to come to have compassion for Kylo, making it more satisfying when she does.

Fourth:

Why does she have the Force when she’s already a pilot, mechanic, and proficient stick-fighter (as if any of those things are unique or special. Or more importantly, ever used at the expense of letting other characters shine)? Couldn’t she have been a Badass Normal? If this were just about beating bad guys and winning the war maybe. But it’s clearly not. This is about the old heroes passing the torch to the next generation. The main character was always going to be Force sensitive, always going to become a Jedi, and always going to replace Luke no matter what gender they were, who they were related to, whether they were a scavenger or a stormtrooper or secret royalty or Born of the Force or who, if anyone, they were going to be romantically partnered with. Rey needs to be Force sensitive because, as the main character, her ultimate purpose is to define what it means to be a Jedi for a new generation.

Fifth:

Why can she do things with the Force without training? Well, the only reason Luke needed a training montage was because the Force was a brand new concept for him and he was limited by his own ideas about his capabilities, and because the audience was going in blind as well and needed to hear the Force 101 lectures just as much as he did. Rey meanwhile, has no reason to think lifting rocks or picking up a lightsaber hilt is hard when she’s grown up hearing stories about Luke doing much crazier things. Between that, having Kylo demonstrate all those abilities to her beforehand, and also being able to access his training through the Force Bond there is 0 reason for her to need a training montage in-universe. But more importantly, because the audience has already gotten a crash course on standard Force abilities from the previous movies, a training montage would be redundant. We don’t need the same exposition given to us again anymore than we need to see Rey repeat the same character journey as Luke. The Force Bond and Rey’s preexisting fighting capabilities may be a convenient workaround to explain why Rey doesn’t need a training montage, but they exist because a training montage would be dead weight that adds nothing to the story. And that’s just the Force Bond’s ancillary purpose. Its much more important function is getting Rey and Kylo to stop fighting and start talking.

Sixth:

Why couldn’t Rey and Kylo at least fight to a draw or better yet, have her forced to retreat in their first battle? Why did she have to beat him at the very beginning of her journey? Doesn’t that make her too powerful with no room for advancement and him too weak, leaving no tension for future confrontations?

Because Kylo’s defeat isn’t about Rey at all. It’s not about making her look good. Kylo’s supposed to be at his lowest point going into TLJ. He’s supposed to look weak, not because the screenwriters think it’ll make Rey look stronger in comparison. They know damn well that the way to write a villain is to present them as an impossible obstacle to overcome. To hide any semblance of vulnerability in order to keep you in suspense as to how the hero could ever prevail against them. But that’s not Rey and Kylo’s dynamic. That’s Kylo and Snoke’s dynamic. Kylo isn’t the villain, he’s the “other half of the protagonist”. He doesn’t exist for Rey to be afraid of him. She’s meant to sympathize with him, which means he needs to appear vulnerable and human in front of her. They couldn’t build the romantic (or even platonic) connection the film clearly intended for them if Kylo actually did come across as threatening as people wanted him to be. The appearance of physical or emotional invincibility would be antithetical to the entire story they’re trying to tell.

Also, Rey isn’t even that good with a lightsaber. Kylo had been shot with a bowcaster, injured further and tired out by Finn, and handicapped himself by not aiming to kill or maim since he wanted to recruit Rey to his side and Rey still spent 98% of that fight running and only won because Kylo chose not to kill her when he had the chance.

Believe it or not, some dumbasses have actually heard all this and still tried to argue that Rey shouldn’t be in any fighting shape after hitting a tree hard enough to lose consciousness and that should nullify all the advantages she was given. If you make this argument, you’re being an anal contrarian fuck and you know it. Getting hit in the head is NEVER portrayed realistically in fiction. It is completely standard and in no way exceptional for a fictional character to awake from unconsciousness with no impairments. It has fuck all to do with trying to make characters look cool. It never has been and never will be a Mary-Sue trope.

In conclusion:

None of Rey’s abilities or feats are just there to make her look good. They’re either there to move the story along, or to add to her characterization and character journey, or to add to Kylo’s. Furthermore, they’re nothing special in the context of Star Wars, the stuff she learns quickly has in-universe justifications and it’s not even unprecedented for characters to git gud enough to match someone more experienced in a very short amount of time with no in-universe justification.

#reylo #rey #kylo ren #ben solo #star wars #star wars tlj #tlj #the last jedi #star wars the last jedi #luke skywalker #anakin skywalker #mary-sue #mary-sues #mary-sue litmus tests #are a blight upon humanity #that have taught a generation #that writing #and writing critique #is about what boxes you tic #rather than the meaning #purpose #or execution #of the tropes used

[ariainstars]

A Plea Against  Reylo Clichés

Allow me to say my point of view about all the preconceptions and expectations that are coursing through the web these past months. I think I’ve read and heard them (almost) all by now… repeatedly.

I like both Kylo / Ben and Rey, I love the chemistry between the two of them and I would love to see them together and happy. I’ve also watched the whole Star Wars saga again in 2018, not once but twice, read a lot of meta online, thought about it all long and hard trying to get all the narrative threads together, and from my side I am rather certain that these two will be together in the end.

What I can’t stand, honestly, are the assumptions that are so freely being made about the WHY and HOW of their relationship and its development. The box of clichés is open wide and amply exploited, and honestly, it’s becoming unbearable.

 Rey is Kylo’s way to redemption / salvation…

Rey is madly in love with Kylo as he is with her…

Rey will save Kylo with her endless virtue and unending love…

Their love will bring balance to the Force and peace to the galaxy…

Excuse me, but no. These platitudes would have their place in a soap opera or in an old French or Victorian / gothic novel. Not that I mind such novels, but sorry, this is Star Wars. It never was cliché but always a deeply intriguing, original and surprising tale. If any of the above-mentioned expectations would come true, it would not only be boring and sappy, it would make no sense. 

Before you tear me apart, please consider the following.

There is no love theme in “The Last Jedi”, announcing that we are not dealing with two lovers.

Rey is almost a child; an innocent girl who has waited almost all her life for her parents to come back for her, and until almost the end TLJ always kept the dress and hairdo style she had when she was small. The impression she gives me is that she is rather immature and as of yet unaware of the nature of the tension between Kylo and herself. At first, she did not know that she is a Force user and that the Force had wrought a bond between them; while Kylo immediately realized it when he saw her in the first Force vision in TFA. Rey has by now learned more about her powers and how to use them, but he was trained for an unknown number of years by his uncle, and she still has much to learn. When she meets Luke, she is still searching for a father figure, and thus she is not in the least ready or willing to be someone’s mate. I daresay she understands by now that Kylo does not want her only due to her powers but also for personal reasons, but nothing indicates that she realizes what these are about. Rey has spent almost all of her life merely surviving; it is improbable that she has experiences with love and sexuality, possibly she does not even know much about them either. 

Rey smiles openly only at one person until now: Han Solo, who is a father figure for her. Finn is her best friend, almost like a brother, but even to him she smiles in a more retained way. And until now, she has not once smiled at Kylo / Ben. It would make no sense for her to openly detest and despise him for all she had witnessed him do during the events of TFA, to then madly fall in love with him after a few times of “Force skyping”. She understands him better now, sees that he is not all evil and that he also is a victim, and feels responsible for him; but that doesn’t sum up to undying romantic love. The fact that she doesn’t smile at him shows, in my opinion, that she doesn’t trust him. And she has every reason not to trust him, so far as she has known him.

When Rey ships herself to the Intrepid to find him it is not due to love. She clearly says to Luke that “This is how we could win. If I go to him now, Ben Solo will turn.” Though she grew up on a backwater planet, Rey is obviously familiar with the stories around the Rebellion and the Skywalker family - during Luke’s second “lesson” she practically retells the story to him. Similarly to Kylo, who desperately wants to emulate Vader, Rey searches for “her place in all this” trying to repeat Luke’s brave and desperate act at the end of ROTJ, which made Vader accept his internal conflict and turn. But just as Kylo can’t simply copy Vader, Rey couldn’t do what Luke had done expecting that the same thing would happen. She misjudged Kylo: she had to realize that he was not ready to turn back to the Light Side and associate with the Resistance. Albeit maladroitly, Kylo / Ben tells her that what he wants is for her to fight by his side, always. Rey misinterprets this as an attempt to lure her to the Dark Side, not understanding that his desire for her to belong to him springs mostly from an immature male possessiveness. 

As for Kylo / Ben, from the very first we see him everything he did had the purpose of tracking down Luke and making him pay for the trauma his master had inflicted upon him. He denies his family and is extremely angry with them; at the beginning of TFA Lor San Tekka only has to confront him with “the truth about his family” to bring upon his murder and the destruction of the village he lived in. Kylo is obedient to Snoke and says “the Supreme Leader is wise” as long as his agenda matches Snoke’s; but when he realizes that even by committing patricide he did not earn Snoke’s respect and is additionally mocked by him, he understands he was abused all of these years. As he is bereft of Snoke’s support, in steps Rey through their Force Bond. Backed up by Rey’s faith in him and her encouragement, he decides to get rid of his abuser and with her help, manages to do so. Yet nothing indicates that he has or ever had the desire to “rule the galaxy”. He feels that he has a responsibility, that his grandfather has left an important task undone, and mistaking Vader’s role he believes he must step in his shoes. Little does he know that Vader was the Emperor’s slave, kept like a rabid dog on a leash. And he knows even less about Anakin Skywalker, who was the Chosen One and supposed to bring balance to the Force. Kylo neither wants nor needs ultimate power; he needs purpose and belonging, and he believes he can find them only with Rey, who is his equal.

Ever since the first Force vision, Kylo has identified Rey as “his”, which is shown among other things with the pictured language in the movies - like when he carries her away like a bride, or the Force connection where he does not cover up, giving the impression that the two of them are in an intimate relationship, like a married or engaged couple.

Kylo does everything that comes to his mind to keep Rey close: abducting and imprisoning her, reading her mind, offering her his knowledge in the Force, even offering her the power to rule the galaxy with him. This goes to prove his immaturity: Kylo believes he needs to impress the girl he wants so he can win her. Yet the only time Rey actively holds out her hand to him, showing him sympathy, is when he opens up to her showing his vulnerability, his capacity to listen and his emphatic nature. But he is still too immature to understand that this is what Rey actually wants and needs - someone to listen to her and understand her, not someone who can impress her with his “strength”. The moment of understanding between the two of them is interrupted, very fittingly, by Luke, who is a hermit and a bachelor and knows little to nothing about the dynamics between man and woman. Rey and Kylo / Ben only get a glimpse of how things could be if both would open up and see the other the way he is - not a Dark Side or Light Side user; underneath it all they both are abandoned, confused and frustrated children. 

Kylo / Ben was isolated from the rest of mankind by his abuser, and the moment Rey offers him her hand is probably the first touch of kindness and human contact he has had in years; it is not surprising that he will reach out to her. In the elevator dialogue, when Rey offers him her help, he briefly caresses her face with his eyes - a sure sign, I believe, that he is moved by her faith in him and is by now in love with her; but as I already said, his feelings are not requited. Rey, on the other hand, does not understand the nature of his feelings for her, she merely senses that he wants to possess her and does not want to be possessed. Which is why she leaves him after the Throne Room battle.

Many fans assume that Kylo / Ben and Rey are Anakin’s and Padmés reincarnations; I agree that they are, at least partly - they are also very much themselves. But this goes to prove that Rey’s decision to leave Kylo is perfectly right: Rey must NOT be at Kylo’s side to redeem him. Padmé had married Anakin hoping to save him from himself, and initially he had indeed been better, but on the long run his attachment to her proved to be ruinous. Anakin was isolated; no one really appreciated him and took him seriously, least of all the Jedi who envied and feared him due to his power, his strong emotions opposite to their emotional detachment, and his intelligence which often saw through their narrowmindedness. Anakin’s attachment to Padmé was fatal because she was the only person who believed in him, literally until her last moment. Kylo / Ben too is isolated and trusts only Rey. If she had stayed by his side or would return to be with him and “save” him, the same situation would arise. Padmé had known and loved Anakin since he was a child; she was as beautiful, strong, intelligent and good as any woman could be, and still her love could not save him. It would make no sense if Rey would succeed where Padmé failed. Kylo must find another way to his redemption; it’s not Rey. And she, on her side, still has a lot to learn and must go her own way before they meet again. 

The other reason why Rey cannot be the key to Ben’s redemption is the fact that it would not fit thematically. Anakin / Vader had fallen in order to save the woman he loved and his unborn child; he redeems himself in order to save that child, who is now a grown man and carries his mother’s heart within him (he basically repeats Padmés dying words to Leia, though unconsciously). Ben Solo did not fall for love, or in order to save anyone; it would not make any sense if he would redeem himself for love. Rey played an important role in giving his life a new direction, as did Han and Luke; but he has to find his own way to redemption and to a life of his own, free from the nightmares of the past, at last.

The idea that “romance” is based upon the woman’s superior nature pushing the man to become a better person for her sake is age-old and well-spread. Anyone can believe what she wants, in that respect, but I have my own point of view. Please humour me a little, I am older than most of you here. 😊

There is nothing romantic, in my opinion, with a woman “saving” a man from himself; it’s disrespectful towards the man’s dignity and his free will. Him wanting to be a better man for her is not romantic because it would give her a role and an importance in his life that no woman, being only human, deserves. With such a development, the guy winds up being the woman’s pet, or at best a surrogate father who will spoil her, give her anything she wants, adore anything she says and do whatever she asks him to.

In any case, the above scenarios would put Ben into a passive role, someone who cannot decide who he is and what he wants to do with his life, but needs a woman to tell him respectively guide him. Which in my opinion is offensive to say the least. If anything like that indeed happened, it would prepare the ground for an unbalanced, sickly relationship.

According to the director himself, Ben and Rey represent each “one half of our protagonist”. Central person of the saga always was Anakin / Vader, and his dilemma came from not managing to bring the two extremes of his self together - his wish to protect others, and the power to do so. What Ben and Rey must first and foremost learn is to love and appreciate themselves. They both have still a long way to go before they accomplish that. No love for another could ever be great enough to fill in their weaknesses and insecurities; it would only lead to interdependence. Rey is a very independent young person, because she had to survive on her own ever since she was small; Ben on the other hand has been dependent on someone else’s support and approval all of his life, a sure sign of a personality with a strong tendency to co-dependence. If he would try to “become a better man for her” (so much for the cliché), he would never become his own person and heal the rift in his soul.

Although a fairy tale, the Star Wars saga is and always was based upon a stringently coherent approach on the human psyche. The psychology / philosophy of Star Wars is very much Freudian, with the Light Side representing the Super-Ego (the conscience) and the Dark Side the Id (the libido, i.e. life-force). Never in the whole saga did anyone say that the Light Side represents goodness and the Dark Side evil; as Luke amply explains in TLJ, the Force is a natural energy which encompasses both light and darkness, and both sides can’t exist separately or wipe one another out. Though in this instalment they officially represent the Light and Dark Side, Rey and Ben did exist without one another for a long time. It would be preposterous to assume that Ben has to “come to the Light Side”; they both need to make peace between the light and dark aspects inside themselves, forming a strong and mature Ego that can actually interact with one another, and also with others. The whole point of the Sequels is Balance, not the ultimate victory of the Light Side (courtesy of the female hero).

I am positive that the aim of this part of the saga is Ben Solo’s redemption, and that he and Rey will be together. But this is not a love novel, it’s the story of a family. George Lucas’ saga always had a unique approach and did not simply follow cardboard patterns which we all have read and watched and heard countless times; it’s not likely that the Star Wars saga will end with “(romantic) love conquers all”. There will still be a lot of drama as our protagonists have to grow and mature; they both have to find themselves before they can safely and happily be together, and use their powers for the best, for themselves and the ones they care about.

The downside to this, I admit it, is that I assume that in the final chapter Ben and Rey will go on separate ways for a long while before finding together in the end. As Reylo’s, of course we would wish them to spend as much time together as possible. But honestly, I don’t see much ground for this in the first half / two-thirds of the film, because they first have to go each on his own path. And personally, I don’t mind that as long as they will together, and happy, in the end. 😊

So, keep calm and ship Reylo. But please, try to look beyond the “romance” clichés or I fear you will be in for a huge disappointment. At worst, they make the man the woman’s pet, and at best, they are based upon wishful thinking. Please try to give Lucas’ story credit where it’s due. It will end amazingly, I’m certain about that, but as Luke already said: “This is not going to happen the way you think.”

Happy Sunday and please, as always, be respectful in your comments.

#star wars #star wars sequel trilogy #reylo #rey #kylo ren #ben solo #love story #bendemption #episode IX #anakin skywalker #padme amidala #han solo #romance

[starspatter]

I think you should do ALL THE ASKS :D

WELL ALL RIGHT THENA - Ships that you currently like a lot. (They don’t have to be OTPs because not everyone has OTPs.) Friendships, pairings, threesomes, etc. are allowed.1) DCAU TimSteph2) ItsuHaru3) Logan x Diana Prince4) Itsuki Koizumi x Kyouya OotoriB - A pairing–platonic, romantic or sexual–that you initially didn’t consider, but someone changed your mind.*looks at WonderWolf and SuperBats*C - A ship you have never liked and probably never will.BatCat.  Even back when I wasn’t a fan of Batman I remember I read one DCAU comic involving Catwoman, and her character just didn’t appeal to me.D - A pairing you wish you liked but just can’t.Any Kagepro ships tbh.  Idk I’m just not really invested in the romance of the series.  I prefer them all as friends/platonic.E - Have you added anything cracky/hilarious to your fandom? If so, what?Ahaha…  I’ve contributed a fair bit of Kagecrack through vids/posts, though I think my favorite are these BTAS crossover edits.Also Kyorange and Skitzo!Kyon for TMoHS.  (Plus the “genderbent cast is the previous generation” theory if that counts?)F - What’s the longest you’ve ever been in a fandom?Well I’ve been a Pokémon fan since elementary school.  While I no longer watch the show/play the games, I still follow the new generations and RP on occasion.G - Have you ever had an OTP? If so, do you remember your first one? Who was in it?Eeyup.  While I don’t ship too often, when I do I ship HARD.  ItsuHaru was my first real “obsessive” OTP, but I think the honor for the *very* first ship I had goes to… Cody x Ken from Digimon S2, in a sense. *shot* ^^; Idk I was just really focused on the idea of them making up and becoming “friends”. XP Though I also shipped Ken with Kari too bc of the Dark Ocean stuff.  (Also Gary Oak x Molly Hale from Pokémon but that’s a whole other story. >.>; )H - What is your favorite source text for fandom stuff (e.g., TV shows, movies, books, anime, Western animation, etc.)?I’m still mostly a weeb so animu is my go-to, but I’ve been branching out to more Western stuff lately.  (Although when it comes to Kagepro the songs are still the best medium. =3=)I - Has Tumblr caused you to stop liking any fandoms, if so, which and why?Steven Universe.  While I still love the show, hearing about all the toxicity in the fandom really turned me off so I just try to avoid it.J - Name a fandom you didn’t think about until you saw it all over Tumblr. (You don’t have to care about it or follow it; it just has to be something that Tumblr made you aware of.)Again, Steven Universe.  Also Over the Garden Wall and Bojack Horseman (the former of which I still really recommend you see).K - What character has your favorite development arc/the best development arc?I’m also gonna say Sunset Shimmer from Equestria Girls.  She went from being a seemingly one-off villain to a fully redeemed good guy and leader in her own right.  Though she still has her insecurities, it lets her relate to and help others in the same situation to not let those feelings of inadequacy or jealousy overcome them.Also Midna from Twilight Princess.  Her change of heart from servicing her own needs to selfless sacrifice after observing how hard Link tried to save others mirrors my own feelings when I met Link in OoT/MM and watched him grow into a true hero, working to help both the people of Hyrule and Termina even when he had no obligation or was openly blamed for Ganon’s rise to power.L - Say something genuinely nice about a character who isn’t one of your faves. (Characters you’re neutral about are fair game, as are characters you merely dislike. Characters that you absolutely loathe with the fire of ten thousand suns are exempt, as there is no point in giving yourself an aneurysm over a character that you hate.)So I’m not a big fan of Dick Grayson in the DCAU (or any of his animated adaptations aside from Lego Batman; his YJ version being especially egregious) since I see him as rather childish and bad at dealing with conflict, but he’s admittedly a lot better in the tie-in comics, which give him some much needed development as Nightwing (whereas he barely got any screentime in TNBA).  There he acts as a genuine big brother to Tim, and is shown to not be as nearly as bitter at Bruce as the Old Wounds ep would have one believe.  I also like that they highlight Dick’s fondness for music, wherein his musical knowledge actually comes in handy to solve a couple cases.M - Name a character that you’d like to have for a friend.All of the Mekakushi Dan, SOS Brigade, or Host Club tbhN - Name three things you wish you saw more or in your main fandom (or a fandom of choice).1) More Kagepro content in general2) More DCAU TimSteph 3) More ItsuHaru

O - Choose a song at random. Which ship or character does it remind you of?Growing Up - Run River NorthDefinitely a Timmy Todd/TimSteph song now that I think about it.  Especially the lines “I found my way without your help, with a broken family” and “monsters in my head”. ;(P - Invent a random AU for any fandom (we always need more ideas).…Tbh I’m really liking the “Legion x Ouran” idea lately. XD *shot*Q - A fandom you’ve abandoned and why.Hm…  I don’t think there are any I’ve really “abandoned”, per se.  Most of them are still there, just not at the forefront anymore.R - Which friendship/platonic relationship is your favorite in fandom?All the relationships in Kagepro *shot*S - Show us an example of your personal headcanon (prompts optional but encouraged)Molly Hale from the third movie is the god of the Pokémon world.  Just… don’t ask lol.T - Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending?Already answered, but I’ll add a few of my favorites for DCAU TimSteph:1) Tim cuts his own hair after RotJ (or rather just lets it grow long) since he doesn’t trust anyone else with sharp objects around him.  Steph is the first person he allows to trim his hair for him (even though she has no experience with it either), since I imagine him feeling comfortable enough around her that he even falls asleep like Sousuke does with Chidori in Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid.  (For context, he was raised as a soldier from an early age and this is what happened when they tried to take him to a salon.  Played for laughs, but probably an accurate portrayal of people suffering from anxiety/PTSD having to deal with mundane tasks that trigger them.)

2) Similarly, Steph plays piano to help calm Tim down whenever he’s having a panic attack.3) After RotJ Tim refuses to wear red for a long time until Steph knits him a red scarf and tells him it “suits him” bc red is the color of heroes.

As an aside, I also recently like the idea that Logan was at Lex’s party in the DCEU and saw Bruce and Diana together, based on this playlist that I made.  U - Three favorite characters from three different fandoms, and why they’re your favorites.Gonna talk about a few I don’t mention too often nowadays.

1) Link from The Legend of ZeldaLink will forever be my greatest true love.  He’s the first real “hero” I believed in, and he honestly changed my life at one point to actually want to be a better person.  While that faith has faded and I don’t think I can ever reach his example, I still wish I had that kind of courage and kindness - or at least be able to inspire others in the same way he did me.2) Meroko Yui from Full Moon wo SagashiteIf Link was the first (and only) person I ever truly fell in love with, Meroko was the one who taught me what “true love” was in the first place.  I won’t say too much since I still sincerely hope you will check out the series someday, but suffice to say there’s a scene towards the end where she makes a choice that shows how much she has personally grown, and come to understand what it really means to “love” someone wholeheartedly.

3) Gary Oak from PokémonThis is a bit of an odd one, but Gary is a character I related to a lot when I was an adolescent since, of the main series cast, he was the first and one of few to really change his “status quo” by quitting training and deciding to become a researcher instead.  In my eyes it seemed like a shockingly conscious choice to “grow up” in a world where you can ostensibly remain a “child” forever, and I both admired and deplored him for it (especially at that tender transitory age I was going through at the time, where it feels like you’re being forced to “become an adult” whether you want to or not).

V - Which character do you relate to most?Already answered.W - A trope which you are virtually certain to hate in any fandom.Romance in general is really not my thing, so I dislike when it’s the focus/the writers feel the need to pair every character.  I’d rather leave things open-ended most of the time.X - A trope which you are almost certain to love in any fandom.Family/friendship stories + tragic adopted children wanting to be heroesY - What are your secondhand fandoms (i.e., fandoms you aren’t in personally but are tangentially familiar with because your friends/people on your dash are in them)?X-Men, Kingdom Hearts, Dangan Ronpa, Fate/Stay Night, Various Magical Girl series, Various RPG Horror games

Z - Just ramble about something fan-related, go go go! (Prompts optional but encouraged.)I feel like I’ve rambled enough already phew. OTL Thanks for asking though. =P

#cryptoriawebb #starspeaks

[sethnakht]

Vader for the Character meme thing,

do I like them: like is not strong enough a word. j’adore this crazy murderbot, he’s like my emotional support animal. that being said, it would probably take writing a book to figure out why I would sell the moon for this trash can

5 good qualities: urk lbr he doesn’t even have five emotions

At his core, he loves wants his family intact and safe - wants to be loved.

He has a code - a very twisted one, but it’s more than one can say for most - of honor. That is to say, he asks for the very best from his men (Kreel, whom he even trains and sort of implores to carry on the legacy of the Jedi) and rewards merit (Piett) and sacrifice (Trios) regardless of gender (his female aide in Purge) or species (bounty hunters), if only so long as it is in his own interest to do so and without ever taking steps to change the status quo. Genuine or even grudging respect leads to some of his strangest comments (Kenobi was a teacher, if a failed one) and actions (the first time he tries to kill Aphra, he asks her to hold still - as though this would make asphyxiation less painful; what’s especially notable in this instance is that he doesn’t go for the death she fears most). On a related note, he seems to respect opponents who value dedication and sacrifice and (perhaps even in a certain way connected to his Force religion) life, who in effect share his honor code and/or zealotry - most prominently Leia.

There’s a reason he’s more effective than any other villain in the OT, and I think it’s this – he has empathy with his victims. Instead of destroying Leia’s mind, he chooses to understand her - it is Vader, not Tarkin, who pieces together that Leia will only ever reveal the base by going “home”. He understands Luke less well but is still able to lure him to Bespin - once again, I tend to think, because he understands Leia well enough to know how to make her broadcast pain.

This is not exactly a quality, rather a skill, but he is very good at manipulating the arrogance of others, at hiding in plain sight, at subverting expectations. As a slave it seems he learned the value of knowing as much as his master and more and also of hiding how much he knew - and so he is a master at appearing dumber than he is and showing his hand only through clipped sarcasm and/or during the sudden finishing blow. For what it’s worth, this lifelong strategy of never quite being what he seems - of allowing himself to be underestimated - makes it possible for him to get the jump on Palpatine.

Dedication. By his own admission, he’s a slow learner, but if he recognizes the need to learn something my sense is that he becomes obsessively focused on mastering it. This is speculation based on how much of a planner he is in both ANH and ESB. Perhaps he plans as a result of the hard lesson learned from being slower and more ungainly than he once was, but perhaps this tendency also reflects his need for control and absolute mastery of knowledge or a situation.

3 bad qualities: selfishness, which also covers his confusion of possessive and compassionate love and his gigantic, nearly unconquerable ego and his grudge-keeping; stubbornness, since once he convinces himself he is right about something he is never going to be totally unconvinced and since it works into his repressive complexes; MURDER

favourite episode/etc: easily ESB. I’ve talked about this before and perhaps too often so I’ll keep this short: the camera work and lighting is phenomenal (he dominates the camera bewitches it plunges the screen into darkness; he also owns the creepiest scene, the shot exposing his scarred head), plus we get to see him at his worst, at his most ruthless and possessive and malicious and clever.

otp: vader/pain. seriously, though, I have trouble imagining any sort of non-gen relationship with him - trouble imagining him wanting it (black swan theory: the suit and the extent of his burns and his guilt over Padmé and his utter devotion to the Force - he’s very Jedi as a Sith, almost completely unattached except to Palpatine). Also hard for me to imagine anyone wanting or, better: succeeding in getting close enough. Aphra makes for an interesting exception in that regard - she enters his life at a stage when, thanks to Luke, the rules are changing for him; she loves to live dangerously and to reanimate dangerous things, to put them into circulation once more; she seems to see him not as some man with power but as a living relic-weapon/extraordinarily volatile and powerful and scary object, which is arguably precisely how he wants to be seen (as Vader as mask not as that weakling); they have certain shared interests - fetishes - even beyond droids and weapons, if one recalls how he used to crave fast speeders and dangerous stunts; plus she’s smart enough to recognize a ticking time bomb, to not expect a future. But even here, I admit that I can’t imagine him letting anyone that close except to kill them until a post-ROTJ situation

brotp: if one can find a way to convince him not to kill them, Ahsoka and Aphra both make for wonderful foils, not least because both can find ways to unsettle him with their respective forms of honesty, because both know how to find and create the windows through which he can be reached. I have particular love for Ahsoka - Anakin loved her and she loved him, and that’s not something either can just forget, plus she’s got a sharp eye for his bullshit and an equally sharp tongue and can actually defend herself (whereas Aphra would have to escape) if he lashes out. She’s surpassed her teacher in many ways, and even if he can’t admit it, there’s pride to be felt (something of his old self to be loved) and lessons to be learned there.

ot3: if I can make this about gen, then let me say that I especially adore the particular gen combo of vader + leia + character growth that you, dear @chancecraz, have mastered

notp: vader/one of his kids omg

best quote: all of his lines are the best! but if I had to pick just one, it would be: “The Force is with you, young Skywalker. But you are not a Jedi yet” — the sheer malice expressed in the “yet” always gets me

head canon: he’ll never be free of the suit, at least not entirely. There’s an idea I like from old canon, I think it was that he was given an opportunity to upgrade the suit shortly before ANH, but decided against it because it would have involved shutting down his life support and have potentially killed him. In my head, he’ll always have a panel in his chest and tubes in his throat, even if he can ultimately reach a state where he doesn’t need a full or even partial mask. There’s also a psychological aspect to this fantasy of mine — I don’t think he would ever be able to give up some of the advantages the suit offered. Anonymity, the unreadable surface that let him subvert expectations so well (and spared him from having to emote or be seen as a burn victim), etc. For many reasons, I also think it would take quite a bit of work on Luke’s part to make Vader adopt Jedi robes again, to so completely negate the suit and his history by returning to that heroic role. The mental image I have of a post-ROTJ Vader thus tends to cover his face in sun-protective turbans and scarves and sight-enhancing goggles (to look, in other words, much like Rey in her establishing shots) and to adopt a dress similar to what he wore as a boy on Tatooine — a combo that offers even greater anonymity than the suit, that lets him blend into masses, that marks his choice to free himself from slavery but also as one who once was a slave, that keeps him from ever having to look anyone straight in the eye and silently lets him make his point to his children that no, he does not want his scars removed, no, he is never going to be Anakin Skywalker the Jedi the Hero With No Fear who btw was a Weakling and Never Should Have Existed —while still acknowledging that there are ways to be Anakin Skywalker, ways perhaps the Sith and Jedi made him repress, he can now invent or reclaim.

#asks #chancecraz #honestly chance I should be asking YOU this #not rambling on and on as is my wont #i'm sorry this took so long #and that it IS so long #long post #darth vader #memes #feel free to critique / push back against a reading