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#should be another season
xxlumos · 7 months
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Let me look at you 💖
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celestial-artisan · 2 months
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Lucifer: Sitting and doing paperwork all day is killing me... Alastor: You won't die from that. Lucifer: It's a figure of speech, idiot, use the great tool of empathy! Alastor: Alastor: The King of Hell has died! Lucifer: Don't you have something called 'middle ground'?
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bookwormcosplays · 9 months
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Temptation Crowley Cosplay
Do not repost.
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sunsetsimon · 5 months
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i think one of simon's favorite seasons is winter. why?
simon likes the quiet of winter time. the light dim, the only sounds coming from the fireplace lit in the corner of the room. you're both reading a book, occasionally gazing out of the window to monitor the silent snowfall. it piles up quickly, coating the entire neighborhood in a layer of bright white.
he loves hoodies, they're basically his entire wardrobe. simon dresses for comfort over style and wears a lot of neutrals, so it only makes sense. when it's really cold he'll layer it with the thick jacket you got him and throw on a beanie. and don't even think about leaving without being bundled up, he'll pull you right back inside with a frown.
he likes how there's less people out and about on the colder days, when the wind is blowing. he's more relaxed, not constantly watching everyone for anything suspicious. it's fun listening to you squeal as you nearly run to the next shop, trying not to blow away with the strong gusts of wind and he's just following you laughing. simon's used to bad weather and his huge body provides a lot of heat, so he doesn't have to struggle like you.
finding every excuse he can to cuddle you and be close. oh no, the blanket is in the wash! guess you have to come crawl into his shirt to warm up. oh no, you forgot your gloves! guess simon has to hold your hand in his pocket so you don't freeze. he plans these things out, i swear.
walking out from his hot shower and smelling the soup you're cooking makes him feel so cozy. you're wearing matching outfits, plaid green sweatpants and a white long sleeve t-shirt. he pulls you in close, kissing you softly, resting his forehead against yours in pure bliss. this is what being happy is to him.
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I used to think that the reason I wasn't satisfied with Izzy's death was because I was too attached to his perspective as a character and couldn't focus on the big picture of the season and the main Gentlebeard relationship enough. I mean, I was still convinced that his death and the way it was carried out was a shit writing decision, but everyone else outside the Izzy Canyon circles seemed fine with it, so I was starting to think that maybe they were right.
So I looked back on the rest of the season and rewatched the finale... And realised something that I'd been trying to ignore because it was too painful to admit. A huge part of why Izzy's death hit so hard (in a bad way, not that delicious masochistic pain of having a beloved character die a good, narratively satisfying death) was because throughout this season he was the only character who actually had a satisfying arc and development. Practically no one else did. I didn't actually care for Gentlebeard this season, not the way I cared in S1. From episode 1 to 8 and a half, Izzy's arc was crafted with more care, kindness, subtlety and narrative weight than the main Gentlebeard arc which, in comparison, felt like a string of choppy beads badly tied together in an approximate shape of an arc, but collapsed as soon as you looked at it too closely.
Yes, we all know this season suffered for being 2 episodes too short, but I don't think that's all there is to it. This is starting to feel like GoT season 8 all over again. Would it have been better if it wasn't so rushed? Maybe. Or maybe it would have been even worse because this season just didn't seem to know what to do with itself or the characters. The themes and symbolism are all over the place and completely inconsistent. Ed and Stede's characters are practically back at the same place they left in S1. All they did was bounce off the walls back and forth with no real growth. As soon as they took a step towards fixing their relationship or growing as people, they either tool three steps back or it just got dropped. Stede letting fame get to his head? Interesting and realistic development. And how was it resolved? It wasn't. Stede and Ed being whim prone? I'm glad they brought it up. And then they just fell for another whim and it was presented as a satisfying ending.
Ed went from the Kraken, to taking the first steps towards being Ed, then suddenly all the way to being Ed by way of a Night of Magical Healing Sex that he he didn't actually want to happen because he wasn't ready. And then all of a sudden he pivoted to abandoning Stede and piracy and becoming a fisherman... for 5 min. And then back to Blackbeard again because two fishermen were mean to him for 5 minutes. And then abandoning it again to open an inn. How was any of this even remotely coherent or satisfying? They didn't even have a single conversation about any of it. Ed had more proper closure and communication with Izzy during his dying scene than with Stede and the rest of the crew put together. Izzy's arc got sacrificed to do the heavy lifting for Ed's arc and became nothing more than a shortcut to speed run his character growth. Except it didn't even lead anywhere. "Ed, they're your family, they love you" no they don't, he didn't even have a single positive conversation with any of them except Fang. Of course this could have been the point, and Ed could have seen Izzy's death, his own discovery of found family and his dying words as a pretext to repair his relationship with the crew. But he just left them and stayed with Stede instead.
Sure, you could say this was only the second act of the story, and S3 will resolve everything. But the second act is still meant to move the story and the characters forward in some way. Yes, of course if we get S3, I imagine Stede and Ed's life as innkeepers won't exactly be idyllic. But the problem is that the conflicts they'd have will only be a rehash and repeat of the same conflicts they've already have, or were supposed to have, this season. Multiple times, even. We already know that Ed is simply unable to live with himself no matter what life he chooses. The title of S1 was literally "wherever you go, there you are". We already know Stede's love isn't enough to fix him. We already know their goals in life are completely opposite. Maybe they could have shown Stede realising, after his humiliating in S7, that piracy wasn't all it was cracked up to be or he isn't suited for it, and that's why he chose to leave it behind and open an inn, but that's not the explanation we were given. It was just another whim. They literally didn't learn anything this season. They had two baby conversations in E4 and E5 and didn't take anything from it, just kept doing the complete opposite of anything. "We're both prone to whims, let's take things slow" became "let's take things extremely fast by moving in together permanently and becoming entrepreneurs". They never talked about the actual, deepseated, longstanding trauma issues they needed to resolve before they could even begin to have a proper relationship. They literally got a heavy-handed glimpse in what their life would become if they just stuck together without addressing their own personal issues, and chose to do that very thing. It that's what S3 is going to address, then why were Anne and Mary part of this season instead of the next one?
I remember everyone saying they wanted Ed and Stede to reunite as quickly as possible in S2, and I get why. They have great chemistry together. The season is about them. But for it to work, spending more time apart is exactly what they needed. They needed to learn how to live with themselves and others, first. Romantic love alone can't fix you as a person. You have to fix yourself first. Community can help (as with Izzy's case), but you still have to put in the work. In retrospect, I'm glad that Izzy didn't get a love interest this season - because he wasn't ready yet, and had to learn how to have normal relationships and friendships with other people before attempting an intimate romantic relationship, lest he ended up falling head first unit another toxic mutually dependent relationship. That's what Stede and Ed should have tried too. Instead the show just ended up using Izzy's death as a quick surgical fix, robbing Ed of his agency and having to do the hard work repairing himself and his relationships with other people. There's a sad irony in getting exactly one character's arc just this, and then using it as a sacrificial lamb to patch over the main character's arc.
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I have a new essay for everyone its called "OFMD S2 is an insult to Con O'Neill both as a person and his legacy in his acting career as a queer man"
Like, this man did not spend his ENTIRE FUCKING CAREER playing almost exclusively openly queer or heavily, heavily coded queer characters to be treated like this??? In fucking 2023??????? He got better, more queer happy endings in the 80s and 2000s, the fuck?
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I think it's incredibly telling that David felt like he had to hide what he was doing with Iz' character arc from Con till it was too late in filming. Hey, hey David? What did you think he was gonna do if he knew beforehand what was happening?? David? David do you think he would've walked? Do you think he would've used his leverage both as the fan favorite and integral part of the story to demand BETTER from you and everyone else writing the show?
Con has been making queer art since the fucking 80s when he was in his 20s. He has openly talked about trans rights and the fight against homophobia that we have been fighting for years and decades. I can't imagine what kind of push back he had to deal with to get all the gay shit he was doing to come to fruition. I can guarantee that at least part of the reason he doesn't have as big of a career as he absolutely deserves is because of how openly queer he has been since the start. I think if Con had been allowed to have some input in the direction of Izzy's character that something like this wouldn't have happened, at least not this messily and uncompassionate.
I legit can't imagine how fucked he must've felt after being given the genuinely very beautiful Unicorn scene and then be casually taken aside and told "lolol anyway Izzy is gonna die now, without love and without the acceptance he had already been given". But at least he was given a cuddle????
Anyway watch Dancin' Thru The Dark. Its on YouTube and it's about an openly genderqueer/bi man who goes on a sad but fun music adventure and it's actually really really good. Con sings and its a fucking bop AND he doesn't die at the end or watch Bedrooms And Hallways, it's a fun romcom about a found family of all queer people doing stupid gay shit. Also you can see Hugo Weaving's entire dick and balls in one scene and if that's not better gay rep then ofmd s2 then idk what is
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onaperduamedee · 7 months
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"Moiraine Damodred..." "No, if you have ever loved me, don't do this." "I command you to close the Waygate."
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quietwingsinthesky · 6 months
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it ever hit you out of nowhere that castiel is living in a dead guy's body and the show just does not care. it does not care. jimmy novak might as well not exist the moment he or claire is out of sight. cas stole a guy's body and his face and his life, and we can't ever talk about it or discuss it in detail because of how fucking horrifying it is that sam and dean's best friend just walks around in a dead guy suit. there's not even a human soul in there anymore. it's just a corpse. stone-cold body snatcher indeed.
#castiel spn#spn#this is not like a Castiel Crime (tm) to be clear. this is more me being (un)surprised that the show is Like This.#castiel is a horror story he is so much a horror story in the rapture#and then they just uh. never bring up again how horrifying and fucked up this is for another like 7 seasons#and when they do its to briefly go :( claire lost her dad :) but its okay! she forgives cas for it!#which!! NO SHE SHOULD FUCKING NOT!!!#but we can't have that discussion. we can't talk about that. because to acknowledge that it's fucked up would mean making cas kind of. evil#in a way that would vastly improve his later character arcs btw. if we had to reckon with not only this massive transgression#but with the fact that cas himself STILL DOESN'T SEE IT AS ONE.#that on a lot of fundamental levels. he is still functioning as he did in s4. a lot of that base programming is still there.#something something how cas never changes out of his suit under his trenchcoat#but it's like. jimmy said yes. so it's fine. that's what it is to him.#anyway. i wish they hadn't been scared of making all three of the boys more fucked up in later seasons.#thank GOD for dean being interesting in how he becomes Worse <3 because they were not bringing that for castiel.#again. good version of spn where jimmy's bloodline is an off-shoot of the lucifer vessel bloodline. explaining a) how lucifer Got In There#and b) letting lucifer possess claire later so that the two of them can have daddy issues together.#something about cas being the monster-not monster that jimmy let in that destroyed his life.#something about lucifer being the monster-not monster that castiel lets in later. the cycles. they are cycling.
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antianakin · 1 year
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Unpopular opinion: I think Ahsoka is at her best and most interesting in the first two seasons of TCW and has only gotten progressively less nuanced as the years have gone by.
Ahsoka in TCW intentionally has flaws. They're pointed out more than once, there's ENTIRE EPISODES dedicated to Ahsoka having to fix her mistakes or being punished for disobeying orders or having to learn how to be better after she messes up and hurts people. Ahsoka has to keep learning lessons from Tera Sinube, and Aayla, and Luminara, and Padme, and Yoda.
But by the time you hit around season 4, Ahsoka starts being PERFECT. She is suddenly FLAWLESS as far as the narrative seems to see it. Even if she's doing the wrong thing, you're supposed to recognize that she is doing it for the right reasons. She's constantly level-headed, wise, and often treated as though she's practically an adult Jedi by the other Jedi around her despite having been young to be a Padawan at all and with only 2 years of training tops. It's no wonder so many people were so ready to believe that the Jedi were ready to Knight her at the end of the Wrong Jedi arc, Ahsoka's being written as though she's suddenly 25 years old with a decade of training, similar to how we see Obi-Wan acting in TPM instead of the barely trained child she should still be.
And then you hit Rebels and she's literally making entrances BATHED IN LIGHT LIKE AN ANGEL, incapable of being beaten by anyone except Darth Vader himself, she's got lightsabers of PURE WHITE LIGHT, and the other two Jedi characters treat her like a Master. And then she dies, walks off into the shadows, and comes back swathed in white robes and with a white staff, haloed in light like a wise shaman of some kind.
At least Din manages to push back against her choices in The Mandalorian, it's probably the first time we've seen Ahsoka have an opinion that someone else disagreed with and that the narrative explicitly treats as WRONG, forcing her to reconsider and make a different decision.
But by The Book of Boba Fett, she's schooling Din now, back to being the wise shaman who knows everything and can do no wrong.
In Tales of the Jedi, Ahsoka is practically perfection incarnate: more skilled than any other Jedi, more compassionate and connected to the galaxy than anyone else, someone who tamed and rode on the back of an apex predator before she could walk.
I want Ahsoka to have FLAWS again, I want the narrative to let her be WRONG and reap the consequences of that, I want to see Ahsoka LEARN SOMETHING again, I want to see her GROW as a character for the first time in over a decade.
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lalasknives · 3 months
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Dana's dumps better have a pic of Terrence and Luca that continues this legacy right here. If we need the filming of another season, so be it.
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good-soupmens · 8 months
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Ik the good omens fandom has different takes on God as a character, but I like the idea that she DOES have an ineffable plan, and Heaven is doing their absolute worst job carrying it out.
Most angels never talk to God, and they're usually selfish, they don't do the right thing (only what they're told), and it's even possible they're working under a corrupt power (like the Metatron). I like that theory because Metatron IS the barrier between God and the angels. He could easily lie to them and change plans, and we the audience know that "friendly old man metatron" swindling Aziraphale is not what he seems.
But from the beginning, we see inconsistency. Crowley falls from heaven after asking questions/hanging out with the wrong group while Aziraphale is allowed to lie about the flaming sword and change Heaven's plans. God can see how much he cares about humans and the earth by his actions (Crowley being the same), which makes me think that him getting away with it is intentional, not inconsistent or neglectful. ESPECIALLY if Aziraphale and Crowley run heaven and hell respectively in season 3. They have the power to change things, just like they stopped the world from ending the first time. I think Crowley and Aziraphale ARE the ineffable plan.
Their love could bridge the gap between opposing forces in a way that it couldn't if they were both angels. After all, both heaven and hell think they're doing the better thing while they're both not. Crowley and Aziraphale are the best of both sides.
If bringing them together was God's plan, it'd be a powerful story for queer Christians!! A lot of us have been hurt by the church, but we hold on to God's love, which doesn't fail us. We stay in a religion with a history of fighting queerness not because we're all brainwashed, but because we wholeheartedly believe in a God that loves us. Sometimes I see good omens' heaven as an analogy for toxic churches, and I'd love nothing more than for Aziraphale to realize heaven is working against God. Not to mention God using a gay couple to save the world/save heaven from corruption?? I'd kill for that storyline
Secondly, Aziraphale's devotion wouldn't have been for nothing. If God was awful the whole time, it defeats the times he and Crowley reached out, and the moment in the GOs1 finale where Crowley says, "what if you're going AGAINST God's ineffable plan?" to Gabriel and Beelzebub. (It'd almost defeat the purpose of her being the quirky narrator following their story, too.)
Even Crowley, never fooled by "heaven is all good" calls for God in his time of need ("God listening? Show me an ineffable plan.") (Possibly when he reaches to the sky in order to stop time) (Calling for God before Satan in the burning bookshop) (Looking up and muttering "God" after realizing Aziraphale is going to leave him in s2)
Lastly, after the trauma that both Crowley and Aziraphale went through, with Crowley falling and Aziraphale coming to terms with heaven's corruption (and both being mistreated by their side) it'd be nice to have been for a reason. They have every right to grieve and be angry for all that they went through, and the centuries that they weren't supposed to love each other, but I believe the series will end on a positive, sweet note, like the rainbow after a storm.
Like Job, they're losing almost everything (their relationship as it was, the bookshop, and the life they carved out), but they have each other. I think they'll lose everything to save EVERYONE, and in the end, the reward will top the pain. No holding back, no forces hunting them down, just them together after a PAINFULLY long time with everything they'd wanted.
We know that God doesn't get around to answering many questions, but her speech to Job was in part to say "trust me"
She laid the foundations of the earth. She made every living thing. Job couldn't see past the destruction of his life, but she has a plan. Job is a valuable human being, but he doesn't have the power and knowledge of God. God will share her plan when he can make a whale. Otherwise, he can trust that "Most things are fine in the end"
*Aziraphale voice* That's ineffable!
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championofnyx · 17 days
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Something about Fig, who ended the month's long night, becoming the champion of a Sun Goddess. About Fig, through her faith that is new but devotion she has practiced every day of her life, restoring Ankarna to her domain like she restored the sun back to the sky. Fig finds clarity through her rebellion and having the conviction to enact change in the world around her that seems to be becoming more and more hostile to her friends.
Fig. Archdevil of Rebellion. The Dawn Bringer.
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spookyscarysnails · 2 years
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omg Hunter blushing when Willow flexes
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gardenoblues · 15 days
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Woe...what a night.
The relief in his eyes when she said she wouldn't judge him so easily. The delight in his face when she said she would've taken it further.
The curious tilt of her head, thinking how he knew she got expelled, and with no hesitation she'd do it again. His reaction to it; the evident joy that he couldn't hide.
Then all goes to hell when he says;
"I knew there was a reason I liked you."
Her face softens as he says it. Thee Wednesday Freakin' Friday Addams.
It sealed it. A validation.
Someone liked how unhinged she was, a normie even, accepted her for who she is. He was different from the snobbish, insufferable elites she had met in the school she didn't want to attend. He gets his hands dirty and not like the Nevermore brats too spoiled to know how a coffee machine works.
And it all made sense at the end why she was so into him too.
Him being a normie was fine.
She couldn't have foresaw or imagine him as an outcast.
But him being both of two worlds was so unexpected, it stung. Everything he did was a mockery of her shortcomings, and they both knew it. Him more than anyone else.
As much as she couldn't stand the fact that being a psychic, a raven, and missing the most crucial part of the puzzle humiliates her to the bone, it didn't change the fact that, yes.
Yes. All was done, blood was shed, tears were wasted and lives were taken.
He was suddenly the monster wreaking havoc in town. Disemboweling bodies in the woods, lying as if it were walking, killed his therapist boy-monster.
He wasn't just Tyler Galpin; a part time barista, and a wide eyed boy ready to comply with her whims.
He was, and is the Hyde.
Walking freely in town wearing the same innocent face that managed to fool her and stayed out of her radar. With his bigot, normie, sheriff father.
All smiles and sunshine in the daylight, but at night the shadows consume him.
"Of course the first boy I'd kiss would turn out to be a psycho killing monster. Guess I have a type."
Yeah girl you have a type.
And it's a temperemental beast with a mind of its own.
And it all started with a cup of coffee he had made for her. And those damn words she held in the back of her mind every time she does something unpleasant or disappoints her family or the head of the wretched school.
"I knew there was a reason I liked you."
But this time, it wasn't Tyler Galpin's voice echoing in her shabby mind.
It was her voice that she tried to suppress as her ribcage claws out of her chest. Denying any hint of affection.
There is always an explanation why things are the way they are, and why people act the way that they do.
And it was in front of her all this time.
Even now that Tyler is splayed bloody in the open.
There it is.
The reason why she liked him.
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brookheimer · 11 months
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i feel very mixed on shiv's ending, particularly her choice to return to tom -- i think it makes sense from a thematic/character arc perspective and is a powerful yet devastating indictment of both shiv and the world that created her as well as showing that the cycle of abuse will always continue to cycle, that shiv will become her mother etc, but i also think it does not make sense from a character/internal logic perspective. it's a choice that makes sense from the writers, but not from shiv, not yet. it could've been a brilliant ending to her character, but is tainted for me by the less-than-ideal execution of it, which felt very rushed, making shiv's final submission to tom feel forced by the show rather than forced by the situation or honest to her character. the ending is not inherently misogynistic from the writers' side as i've seen some criticisms claim (it is a dark but real portrayal of misogyny within capitalist society and how it's internalized within the white women who end up at the hips of the CEOs who run it), but i do understand how it could feel that way. the show fails at building up to (and thus convincing us) that the version of shiv we currently know would so immediately subject herself to her mother's fate, so instead of it feeling like shiv's hand was forced by patriarchy to place herself into her worst nightmare, it instead feels like the show itself was the thing that forced shiv to take that route, which does leave a sour taste in the mouth. it doesn't feel like the result of a choice shiv would make or the impact of patriarchal society bearing down, it just feels rushed and thus wrong. shiv would've benefitted immensely from a few more episodes or even just a few scenes dedicated to teasing out her newfound willingness to subject herself to immense disrespect in order to remain close to power, but given that her entire character has always been defined by her inability to do just that unless forced to (which i don't think she was in this situation as she could've easily not waited in the car for tom, not put her hand in his, but she did), her return to tom feels hard to comprehend, and her near immediate submission to him hard to stomach.
(read more under the cut because jesus christ did this get long)
in my mind, at least, i've always understood shiv as being respect-driven rather than power-driven -- she wants power, yes, but more than anything she wants to be taken seriously and respected and seen as a legitimate player, and time and time again we've seen her blow up situations that would've been very advantageous long-term because she felt disrespected and needed to speak up and force people to take her seriously (which, ironically, typically results in the opposite). shiv's overarching goal is power, but her immediate necessity is always respect. her dignity is her number one priority at any given moment, even when it shouldn't be, even when it stops her from attaining the success and power she wants. i can kind of understand shiv going against kendall because of this -- she's always had a very, very narrow lens whenever she feels like she's being disrespected, and even though it is infinitely more humiliating for your (somewhat ex) husband to betray you and boot you out of the CEO position behind your back at the behest of your supposed closest ally (and for you to still vote for them after that!!!) than it is for you to magnanimously allow your brother to be CEO (which would publicly be seen as a choice, as telly etc said - sibs need to stand united behind one chosen CEO - rather than shiv being out of the loop and fucked to infinity), the narrowness of her vision upon seeing kendall about to win makes it impossible for her to think about that legitimately. it's not just jealousy, it's indignity: shiv feels she earned CEO through her machinations with mattson and feels genuinely sick seeing the loganified kendall grinning at the head of the table, hearing his "that's fucking right" and witnessing his cocky entitlement to the job that belonged to her. so, she does what she always does when she feels disrespected, when she feels her dignity is at stake, and impulsively blows everything to fuck, including her own best interests. that makes sense for shiv, at least somewhat -- i still think that as much as she wouldn't want ken as CEO she'd feel like at least w that outcome she'd be seen as a player and a deciding factor, whereas with mattson/tom she'd be viewed as a pathetic fucked-over nothing woman pawn etc (a situation of unparalleled indignity imo), but i can rationalize her choice to go against ken anyways as being part of the narrowed field of vision she always gets upon feeling disrespected by men in her life that makes it impossible for her to think strategically (and i guess even though the disrespect was greater and more humiliating from tom/mattson than ken, ken was the most recent most present and most lifelong source so that's all she could focus on; seeing him like logan was too much to bear). it's hard to imagine shiv publicly throwing her vote behind two men who publicly fucked her as humiliatingly as mattson and tom just did, even if the other option is kendall, but i think that's part of it -- it's fundamentally illogical, even from her disrespect-lens, because there's just something about kendall specifically being in charge that she's never been able to stomach. it's visceral and impulsive. it's not meant to make "sense." it's just what she feels she has to do to preserve her own dignity, even though it works directly against those same interests realistically. it wasn't executed very well, making it hard to entirely buy it given just how publicly humiliating the alternative is, but it can still be chalked up to her historically one-track-mind when it comes to indignity by the hands of kendall in particular. it's a last-ditch attempt for shiv to at least feel like she's maintaining her dignity, her self-respect, as counterintuitive as it actually is. it makes sense. i can stomach it.
again, shiv's fatal flaw (in logan's eyes and aside from her original sin of being a woman) has always, always been her inability to shut up and make the smart move in situations where she feels she's being disrespected or not taken seriously. if shiv stayed quiet during that dinner with the pierces, maybe she would've been logan's CEO, but no, she couldn't stop herself, she needed to feel she was being taken seriously, she burst out 'cmon, dad, just tell them it's going to be me.' she is unable to play it smart, to keep quiet, to win when winning means perceived disrespect. she's allergic to it. even on a personal level, she shoots herself in the foot constantly because of this: she is unable to let herself have the things she wants because she can't put herself in positions that open her up to disrespect and perceived inferiority. she can't be vulnerable because she needs to be respected. tom asks her if he could 'try to make love to her' in episode one of this season, and even though she clearly wants to, she says 'no, i don't think so, tom.' tom tells her he 'wants her, wants this' back in episode six, and even though she clearly wants that too, she draws back and says 'well then you shouldn't have betrayed me.' shiv is fundamentally incapable of allowing herself to remain in possibly advantageous situations when she feels at risk of being seen as lesser, of being disrespected, of being perceived as weak. that is her response to patriarchy. when patriarchal forces bear down, shiv is unable to grin and bare it -- she has a short fuse, a sharp tongue, and an inability to entertain even a second of being treated like The Woman, of being looked down upon, especially when it's for her gender. it's the one thing she cannot do, cannot let herself do, and it's why she fails to "win" over and over and over again. she shoots herself in the foot the second her patriarchy disrespect sensors tingle. she makes the wrong choice, the dumb choice, the one that makes her feel like she stood up for herself in the moment but ends up leaving her powerless and helpless in the end. that's the only explanation for why she chose to vote against kendall (the clearly better option for her long-term as she'd 1) be respected as part of the decision, as someone who helped choose the CEO rather than a Woman who got fucked over and had the door slammed in her face by her husband and close ally simply because she possessed a womb, and 2) probably be head of ATN or some other area of waystar, she'd have actual power within the company and be respected as a legitimate source of power rather than the CEO-to-be made CEO's humiliated wife -- if she was capable of making the smart, selfish choice in terms of power instead of having a hair-trigger reaction to gendered disrespect and cocky male superiority, she would have voted kendall. but she is not capable of doing that. she never has been. so she voted tom and mattson.
so what i still cannot for the life of me understand is what would compel this shiv, the one who cannot stomach indignity even when power's on the line, to immediately return to tom's side the second he beckons her, which is like five minutes after he becomes CEO (the job she was promised) by mattson (who gave it to tom instead of shiv because 'why get the baby lady if i can get the man who put the baby inside her?'). it makes perfect, cruel, devastating sense from a show perspective, and that's what most people are talking about, understandably. it's a devastating yet unavoidable, inevitable outcome. she's left with no other choice once she makes the decision against kendall, and patriarchy compels her to play the good wife to stay close to power. except, like... she does still have a choice. she does not have to go back to tom's car. she does not have to sit patiently waiting for him. she does not have to quietly congratulate him on his victory. she does not have to place her hand in his. these are all choices she made very voluntary. they're choices between maintaining her dignity and self-respect at the cost of future power versus maintaining the potential for future power at the cost of her dignity and self-respect -- the classic siobhan roy conundrum. she's been faced with it time and time again (even just five minutes prior with kendall) and she has never, not once, chosen the latter of her own volition. she hasn't been able to. that's her fatal flaw. maybe i could stomach her going back to tom if she didn't congratulate him, didn't place her hand in his when he expectantly held his out -- then some dignity would be preserved, maybe. but her complete and total submission for the sake of future power does not make sense with her lifelong inability to do just that. it makes sense that this would be her eventual endpoint, but we have seen nothing that implies shiv would so willingly subject herself to this feminine submission of wife and mother before person or source of power, to the complete and utter humiliation of being the quiet wife at the side of the man who knifed her in the back (and notably handed said knife by the man she thought her closest ally) in order to steal the job she fought for her entire life and, in her opinion, had earned. maybe she would come back to him eventually, for love or (more likely) for power, but it is incredibly hard to believe that shiv 'impulsive when faced with indignity' roy would be capable of immediately and publicly playing the role of the good wife after such intense and public humiliation at the hands of her husband.
really, the way i feel about the shiv ending is similar to how i feel about the daenerys ending -- unlike most people, i really wasn't that against the daenerys outcome. i thought it made a lot of sense and was interesting, devastating, and fascinating. i thought there had been a few signs all along and that that ending for her would make sense and be far more interesting than a Hooray ! Girlboss ! ending. however, it was poorly executed -- it was rushed. it did not make sense from where daenerys was at that point in the text. it could've worked, it could've worked brilliantly, but it needed more time to build and fester in order for her ultimate turn to feel earned rather than forced for the sake of the point the writers wanted to make. that's kind of how i feel about shiv. i get the ending and i don't think it's inherently bad or misogynistic or anything, but it feels like the writers saw the possibility for a shiv 'mommed' ending and immediately took it, with little regard to what actually made sense for shiv herself to do in that moment. outcome > character. that's frustrating for me particularly for succession because my like number one reason for adoring succession as much as i do is their consistent refusal to operate the way most media does (using the characters as instruments to achieve the plot/outcome the writers want), instead prioritizing following the characters themselves in a way that feels honest and real. it's character-driven, not plot or ending driven. i think that this fell by the wayside a few times in the latter half of this season simply because there was so much that needed to happen in such a short space of time (especially during the finale), but in my opinion, at least, the most egregious case is shiv. given more time, more development, more build-up, the last shot of her hand in tom's would've struck the chord the writers wanted it to -- and for some people, it did anyways! but for me, it rang out and fell nauseatingly flat. it felt hollow and wrong and unearned. shiv could end up becoming her mother, that feels entirely possible, but not in this particular sense, not yet. in what world would siobhan roy willingly choose to be seen as nothing more than a woman hanging off her husband's arm, especially when said husband had publicly humiliated her and ruined her entire life just five minutes prior? when, just five (metaphorical) minutes prior, she was the one poised to be CEO and everyone knew it? when now everyone will see her on tom's arm and whisper and gawk? she has become her worst fear, yes, but unlike kendall, it does not feel earned. it does not feel like she has actually become her worst fear. it feels like the show forced her to. not patriarchy or the situation or her own desire for power, but the show itself. that's what feels so shitty.
i wouldn't necessarily call the writing misogynistic as a result of this, as it's less a flaw of misogyny and more a flaw of bad, rushed writing that could happen to any character. it's the same as with daenerys -- although (somewhat unlike succession) there were many, many aspects of GoT's writing that were deeply misogynistic, especially in the last season (just look at fucking brienne), the core issue with the daenerys plotline is not one of misogyny but of time. they did not give daenerys the time needed to become the version of herself seen burning down the city. that could've easily been a focus of previous episodes, but it wasn't. they simply did not develop her enough for that turn to make sense yet. it could make sense, hypothetically, at some point down the line, but at that point it felt sudden, off-putting, and wrong. shiv could easily become her mother. that's been made evident especially regarding her relationship to pregnancy/children, love, and vulnerability (or the lack thereof). but for this ending to make sense, we would have needed to see signs of shiv imitating her mother's willingness to be relegated to the sidelines, to bring out the food while the men eat and make deals, in order to remain tangential to power. that is a concession shiv roy had never been willing to make prior to the last five minutes of the entire show. other signs of shiv imitating caroline or falling prey to patriarchal norms throughout the show are not enough to undo shiv's fundamental refusal to weather gender-related indignity even when doing so would benefit her. in my opinion, that's why the final five minutes of shiv's plotline were so unsatisfying.
shiv could become her mother, and her ending could be a devastating portrayal of the inability for even rich white women to escape their original sin of being a woman in a man's world, as well as a dark, ironic criticism of both women like shiv and the patriarchal world that breeds them into existence. but because the show did not develop shiv in this particular direction and because her entire character thus far has been defined by her self-destructive insistence on being respected at all costs, shiv's ending did not land the way it could've, or should've.
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yukipri · 1 year
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I saw somewhere someone says it wasn't the Jedi fault what happened at Galidraan, they were there to arrest and investigate, not to kill, and it was the mando who attack first. Is that true ? I didn't read it
Ahh fandom misunderstandings about Galidraan continue.
Understandable, given it's from a relatively obscure base media but the event comes up a lot in fan works. I'll do my best to break it down.
All you need to know about the Massacre on Galidraan
The following info is all from the Legends comic Jango Fett: Open Seasons, specifically focussing on the 3rd installment, Winter. Here's a photo of my physical copy I have open as I type this, so you know I'm not pulling this info out of my ass.
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First, some crucial facts:
1: Galidraan was not a Mandos vs Jedi conflict.
It may appear that way at first glance, and likely seemed that way to many outsiders across the Galaxy who only read about the massacre in a heavily censored news article. But while the battle was the True Mandalorians fighting against the Jedi and ultimately all dying except for Jango, that is not what the conflict was about.
2: There were 4 factions involved in Galidraan.
People oftentimes boil it down to Mandos vs Jedi, but that isn't accurate, because there were 4 parties involved:
The True Mandalorians (Haat Mando'ade; Jango's people)
The Jedi
Death Watch (led by Tor Vizsla, who killed Jaster, Jango's mentor)
The Governor of Galidraan
I have no idea why some fandom takes on Galidraan forget to mention the last two, when they are why the massacre took place at all.
3: The party responsible for the conflict on Galidraan was DEATH WATCH, with the Governor of Galidraan as their accomplice.
&
The Jedi were used, and the True Mandalorians were victims.
You can endlessly debate whether or not the Jedi or the True Mandalorians could have taken different actions to have possibly prevented the massacre. And it's true, it might have been possible! There were certainly other actions that both sides could have taken.
HOWEVER. That discussion can ONLY take place after understanding that both sides were very intentionally, and very MALICIOUSLY manipulated by a third party.
This was not a normal Jedi vs Mandos clash. Neither the Jedi nor the True Mandalorians would have fought (would have even been on the planet in the first place!) without these manipulations, so to ask which of the two was to blame without first understanding that Death Watch set them up is failing to get Galidraan at all.
Here's what happened at the Massacre of Galidraan:
Jango and the True Mandalorians took a job from the Governor of Galidraan to kill his political opponents. The True Mandalorians are mercenaries, and this was just a job for them. It's also implied that Jango knew in advance that the Governor of Galidraan had been harboring Tor Vizsla and funding Death Watch*, and he intentionally took the job in order to get the Governor to owe him and pay him with information on them.
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Jango and the True Mandalorians killed the Governor's political opponents, just as they were hired to do, and upheld their agreement. When Jango goes to collect payment, it was a trap—Tor Vizsla and Death Watch were waiting for him, and attempted to kill him.
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Jango escapes, but his jetpack is damaged, as are his comms (or perhaps more likely, his comms were intentionally blocked). This is important because Jango now knows explicitly that they were set up: that the Governor of Galidraan was always working with Death Watch, and that he and his people being called to this planet was a trap in order to kill them. He tries to warn the True Mandalorians (Myles, his second, to be exact) to evacuate, but is unable to reach them because of his comms connection.
Back with Death Watch and the Governor, after Vizsla fails to kill Jango, they watch as the Jedi land on planet. The Governor states: "Yes, as you [Tor Vizsla] instructed, I begged for [the Jedi/the Republic's] help. Informed them that the Mandalorians were slaughtering political activists, which is basically true."
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So, let's get this straight: the Governor of Galidraan, who personally HIRED the True Mandalorians to get rid of his political opponents, is now calling the Jedi to say "Oh no the Mandalorians are killing political activists!" And he did so under the explicit orders of Tor Vizsla. He explicitly backstabbed the True Mandalorians.
Should note that the True Mandalorians do follow a code, and only killed the specific people considered a threat (aka combatants). The True Mandalorians did not touch civilians, but as you can see from frames above, Death Watch goes ahead and kills them to make false evidence against the True Mandalorians and therefore justify their slaughter.
Again: Death Watch/Tor Vizsla and the Governor of Galidraan EXPLICITLY set up the True Mandalorians/Jango.
Next: Jango gets back to the True Mandalorians' camp as soon as he can, and arrives just as a large group of Jedi arrive, led by Dooku. Their lightsabers are already drawn.
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Dooku says to them: "You stand accused of murder. Surrender now and we will ensure that you are fairly treated."
The girl next to Dooku, presumably young Komari Vosa, adds, "But fight us, and we will bring swift justice!"
Jango's response: "Mandalorians, open fire! And shoot the loudmouth first!"
And so the battle begins.
Without any of the previous context, sure, it might be easy to say "Jango's responsible, he fired first." But take a moment to think about what led up to this moment.
Jango knows, explicitly, that Death Watch and the Governor are working together.
He knows that Death Watch just wants him dead, and in fact very literally just escaped being killed.
He knows that he and his people are caught in a trap, and that Death Watch and the Governor want them all dead.
He probably isn't sure how they're going to be killed—until he arrives back at camp, and sees a shitton of Jedi with their lightsabers drawn, who are accusing them of a crime they did not commit. And he must have thought, ah, that would do it.
This isn't a normal encounter with the Jedi. It's true that Mandalorians have reasons to dislike Jedi as a whole, but Jango didn't shoot first because of that.
Jango shot first because he recognized that the Jedi were the weapon that Death Watch and the Governor chose for the execution of himself and his people. And he wasn't wrong.
Could Jango have maybe stopped to have a gentlemanly chat with Dooku and say "Good sir, we did not commit any murder, you were told false information and are being manipulated and we the True Mandalorians have been set up. Please put away your lightsabers so we can talk"? I mean. He could have. But.
With all of the context above, his decision to raise arms also makes sense.
After the battle, all fo the True Mandalorians present have been killed except Jango, as well as roughly half of the Jedi. Many of those Jedi were killed by Jango himself, with nothing but his bare hands—this is how he gains his infamous reputation as a "Jedi Killer." But to him, he was acting in self-defense.
The Jedi—or rather, at least Dooku—realize that they have been used only after the fact, and that they've done something horribly wrong and have killed innocents. Surrounded by the bodies of Jedi and True Mandalorians, and having just watched Jango strangle one last Jedi, Dooku says:
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"What have we done...?"
In the "present" of the comic (pre-clone deal), Dooku also tells Sidious about Galidraan, "It was a misguided mission from the start. And not the first of the Council's many...poor decisions."
So what happened afterwards?
Jango alone was captured alive, and for some darn reason the Jedi turned him over to the Governor of Galidraan*. The Governor sold Jango to slavers and he was forced to work on a spice transport, until an opportunity arose to escape.
After escaping, did Jango seek out the Jedi?
No.
He beelined straight back to Galidraan, where the Governor, who had sold him and worked with Death Watch, had taken his armor (Jaster's armor) as some sort of twisted war trophy. He recovered his armor, and threatened the governor to get info on Tor Vizsla's location.
After that, did he go on a revenge campaign against the Jedi?
No.
He went straight for Tor Vizsla, who was PERSONALLY responsible for the deaths of the True Mandalorians at Galidraan. And he fought him. And killed him.
(or more specifically, injured him then let dire-cats eat him alive. Looks like Fetts have always had good luck with animals)
So that's the facts about Galidraan.
After Thoughts:
I hope this breakdown of the events makes it explicitly clear that Death Watch and the Governor were at fault for Galidraan, and that it was never a Mandos vs Jedi conflict. The same thing would have happened had Death Watch chosen a different executioner—though to be fair, not much can kill a trained group of Mandalorian mercenaries like the True Mandalorians.
Could both the True Mandalorians and Jedi have taken different actions that could have averted tragedy? Possibly. But just as likely, had Jango tried to talk, word would have reached the Jedi's ears that oh no, more Mandalorians are slaughtering the Galidraan women and children! (what Death Watch was doing while the True Mandos and Jedi were fighting) and then one of the more hot headed Jedi like Vosa probably would have been like "These negotiations are a distraction! Even now you're killing innocents—we fight!" And the True Mandos would have been killed anyway.
Again, they were set up. The True Mandalorians to be killed, the Jedi to be used as their ignorant executioner. They were not the only parties involved, and any attempt to peacefully negotiate their way out of it would have been hindered by the true aggressors, who already had contingency plans at the ready. And also, both parties were already expecting certain things of the other: Jango knew the Jedi had been sent to kill them (though not why the Jedi believed they should), and the Jedi thought they were a bunch of murderers, not a professional group simply hired for a job.
This is just my personal take, but while I don't think either Jango nor Dooku acted unreasonably at the time of the battle, there were two points where I think they could have made better decisions (marked with * above):
1) When Jango decided to take a job on Galidraan in the first place, knowing in advance that the Governor was friendly with Tor Vizsla and Death Watch. Admittedly, the comic doesn't provide much context for this, and perhaps the intel Jango had suggested a more distant connection, or something else to imply the Governor would be willing to rat out Death Watch. It seems almost cute that Jango goes ok, well I don't want to just randomly bust this guy's door down to threaten him for info on my arch nemesis, so I'm going to do a job for him and get him to owe me, and then we'll talk.
If there is one not so intelligent move Jango made, it seems like this one, though again there's not much context so perhaps it does make more sense.
2) When the Jedi give Jango to the Governor of Galidraan. I don't know about the rest of the Jedi, but Dooku at least seemed to sense that something had gone horribly wrong with the mission immediately after the battle, before they took Jango into custody. But despite KNOWING this, they didn't take the time to thoroughly investigate (better late than never) before handing Jango to his enemies on a silver platter. I would say that the Jedi ARE pretty responsible for this part, especially since they had reason to know better.
This action of the Jedi handing Jango over also implies that even if Jango had complied and he and all of the True Mandalorians had surrendered to the Jedi in hopes of talks, the Jedi would have handed them all over to the Governor (and Death Watch) to either be turned into slaves or executed. So no, I don't think that would have worked out well at all.
(I'm going to give at least Dooku the benefit of doubt, since the comic shows that at least he (and possibly he alone of the Jedi present) recognized that something was wrong. I'd hope that as the leader and presumably most senior member of the group of Jedi, he'd have some sort of authority, but then again, this is the Senate. He might have tried to at least delay Jango being handed over to the Governor until an investigation was conducted, but was perhaps held back by too much legal tape, and had to watch as someone he was sure was a victim was handed over to a suspicious party. Maybe he personally did an investigation afterwards and found that his bad feelings were correct, but when he tried to bring it up with the Council/Senate, he was told to forget about it. That would certainly shatter what remaining faith he had in the Republic and the Jedi, and possibly also lead him to search out Jango specifically as a candidate for the clone project—but again, this is purely speculation. Either way, Galidraan forms a potentially very fascinating connection between Dooku and Jango that predates Sidious.)
On the Jedi:
While the Galidraan conflict isn't about the Jedi, and they were simply used, I think internally, it does reveal some deep flaws in the Jedi Order as a whole, and that Dooku's criticisms of how they acted are fair. Dooku tells Jango, "[Galidraan] was the last of my foolish errands for the Senate. And the Jedi."
The Jedi are supposed to be peacekeepers, are supposed to understand and help people across the Galaxy, which their connection to the Force is supposed to help with. But by becoming an entity controlled by a political power that responds to mission requests through that chain, the Jedi are at risk of being used for various political agendas, sometimes to terrible consequences—like at Galidraan.
The quote above shows that the orders for the Jedi came from the Senate, who got them from the Governor of Galidraan. The fact is that the Jedi are a completely external force with zero familiarity with Galidraan or its current happenings, who were summoned by a government to do their bidding. If there was any investigation done, it clearly wasn't enough, and the Jedi were essentially turned into super deadly government attack dogs.
Galidraan laid bare the great danger that the Jedi can be, when their power is given to the wrong hands. Again, the Jedi were used—but that they could be used, that they likely have been used in the past and will be used in the future so long as they are beholden to a Republic whose orders they must follow—that's something to think about.
Again, it's not about Jedi vs Mandos. Sure, the fact that the Jedi have bad history with Mandos may have affected the lack of depth in their investigation. But it could have just as easily been "Group of X people are murdering innocents!" and the very same thing could have happened. This conflict revealed far less, "wow the Jedi really hate Mandos!" and more, "the Jedi and the Republic have a flawed relationship, and obeying government orders does not necessarily a peacekeeper make."
Given that the Jedi decided to give Jango to the Governor, I think it's very likely that no deep investigation was ever done into Galidraan, and if it was, it was covered up. After all, it's against the Republic's interests to show that they passed manipulated info to the Jedi, because they can't have the Jedi wanting to question future orders or worse, refuse to obey! And in a way, it's against the Order's interests to show that they not only fucked up by going to the mission at all, but further fucked up by handing the last surviving victim to the enemy after the fact. Add to that the fact that Death Watch was on site actively manipulating evidence and muddling the truth, and Jango no longer has anyone left alive to vouch for him so it's only his word, it's very likely that the truth really never got out of the small circle of those personally involved.
Perhaps the Jedi taught about Galidraan internally as a cautionary tale about being careful about the orders they're given. But given the above, I think that's incredibly generous and frankly unlikely.
On Jango Fett
This leads me to a final point: I disagree that Jango passionately hates and wants revenge on the Jedi.
At least, based on this story, as well as his depiction in the Bounty Hunters video game (which is supposed to be a sequel to this comic, even though its depiction of the start of the cloning contract isn't mutually compatible with the version in this comic) Jango doesn't actually really appear to care all that much about the Jedi at all.
You can say what you will about his actions, but he always has a very clear target for who his enemy is, and he goes straight for them. Immediately post Galidraan, it was the Governor of Galidraan and then Tor Vizsla specifically—not even the rest of Death Watch!
And while there isn't all that much official info on what Jango did after he killed Vizsla until he was pulled into the cloning project, I see zero evidence that he was consumed by revenge, or that he attempted to hunt down the rest of Death Watch or kill any Jedi despite the harm they have done to him in the past.
In fact, from his depiction at the start of the Bounty Hunters game, which I think is the best source of this period of his life that I can think of, it looks like Jango just kind of threw himself into bounty hunting work. After all, one does not have the reputation as "best bounty hunter in the galaxy" overriding "former Mand'alor, leader of the True Mandalorians" unless he did, well, a lot of bounty hunting.
He was a loner who didn't have any friends, which implies he didn't go looking for any surviving True Mandalorians—and there must have been, not everyone could have been in that battle. I suspect it's out of guilt, but that's a separate discussion. He didn't go hunting Jedi specifically, because presumably not many Jedi (who still identify as Jedi) have bounties on them, and "Jedi Killer" would certainly be a reputation louder than bounty hunter if that was his main focus.
But no. He was just a sad, lost dude who's really good at killing people so continues the Honorable Mercenary traditions of his people who are now gone, all by himself. Even the contest that lead to him being chosen as the Prime clone was originally just another job, and he just happened to meet Montross in the process, but he didn't really go out of his way to hunt him down either, despite how he was personally responsible for Jaster's death.
However—if you don't know that about Jango, and again don't have a full understanding of what happened at Galidraan (which again, I doubt many people do), I think it would be very easy to go oh! The Jedi killed all his people! So of course he hates Jedi!
(Which then provides a reason for why the Sith would think he would want to work with them to hurt Jedi—but does NOT explain why the Jedi would not think it suspicious that he's the Prime clone for an army supposedly made to help them. But that too is a separate exploration.)
All of this makes Jango a very fascinating character for me, and I could go on to explore his motivations and actions so much more—and in fact I do!!! All of those explorations of Jango and his motives and past are included as a large part of my fic, The Prime Override! So I won't go into it more here, this post is long enough, but you can check out my thoughts there! (LMAO sudden self-promo)
But anyway!!! I hope this whole thing was interesting for you, and that it helped you understand what happened at Galidraan better!
Again, the comic is Jango Fett: Open Seasons, written by Hayden Blackman, art by Ramon Bachs, Raul Fernandez, and Brad Anderson, published by Dark Horse Comics in 2002.
While I believe the standalone comic is out of print (I had to hunt down my copy on ebay), it's all included in Marvel Unlimited's digital comic library. It's also in the Star Wars Omnibus: Emissaries & Assassins collection, which might be cheaper because it's more recent.
As tragic as Jango's past is, it's one of my favorite Legends stories and I recommend reading the story for yourself if you can!
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