#they want to blame everything on the jedi when the narrative makes it clear that it was his own decisions and actions that

[zykamiliah]

i love it when fandom infantilizes characters to the point of denying them their own agency.

"if people in cang qiong had treated shen jiu differently-" do you have any evidence that they mistreated him? or is it too hard a pill to swallow that shen jiu was the one who decided to close himself off and be an asshole. that cang qiong treated him just fine, that his martial siblings tolerated him to the point that even when he was suspected of murder nothing was done to him?

who forced shen jiu to abuse luo binghe? to abuse other disciples? those were his decisions, that was him acting in a position of power.

the moral of the story is not "shen jiu was misunderstood :(" the moral is: the person who was abused can also become an abuser. the one who suffers violence can be violent towards others. you, despite what you've gone through, have the capacity for kindness and cruelty. so be wise on how you decide to act, because your pain doesn't justify hurting others, and your actions will have consequences.

you have agency, you have whatever amount of power you have over your own life and the things you do have and impact in the lives of those around you and yourself. so maybe try being at the very least neutral to the world and yourself, if you can't be kind.

but no, shen jiu's mentality was "since I suffered, they deserve to suffer too". and by taking that path he perpetuated the cycle of abuse.

bingge is the same, because he could have stopped at taking revenge on shen jiu, but he decided to involve the whole sect and the rest of the world, no matter who was innocent. he was unnecessarily cruel, but so was his master.

both shen jiu and bingge had the capacity for some form of "niceness" (in the way they treated women), so it wasn't as if they'd never known some form of love. at some point in their lives, they stopped being abused children and became abusive adults.

and that's an expression of human behaviour that we have to accept as possible. the svsss narrative invites us to examine ourselves in this light, to witness our capacity for both love and hate, to realize that even in the most adverse of circumstances, there's always a small sliver of agency over how we feel and how we act. that, despite the things that defines us from birth through childhood, our decisions also define what we'll become in the future.

#svsss #svsss meta #shen jiu #this is something that's also very common irt how some people view anakin skywalker #they want to blame everything on the jedi when the narrative makes it clear that it was his own decisions and actions that #pushed him to the dark side #there are a lot of parallels between anakin and sj and bingge in this regard #i think there's a generation of people who were too sheltered and infantilized through a big portion of their lives and that had #very little power over their life through childhood and teenage years #and have not learned to be emotionally independent even after becoming legal adults #and end up projecting this kind of thinking in fiction #idk it's just a theory

[aerithisms]

I distinctly remember hating reylos/the ship itself before tlj even came out, so like that movie definitely isn't the root of it. I do think rian had a small part in why the movie *sucked*, but that's it. he just isn't the cause of that awful ship, or the cause of the terrible actions of the shippers. (I put a lot of the blame for tlj/tros sucking on kathleen kennedy, but I don't think one person can be at fault for the ship. people ship anything regardless of if it's intended in the source material, and the shippers saw abuse and went yeah that's a great enemies to lovers ship. plus they all wanted to bone adam driver and saw rey as the perfect character to project onto)

literally reylo as a ship/fandom phenomenon existed from the day the force awakens came out. i remember biting my nails in the cinema when i first saw the last jedi because i was worried the movie was going to validate the annoying reylo people and then being super relieved when it didn't.

that being said i actually really like the last jedi so we disagree there. my big gripe is that people seem to think tlj not only caused the reylo fandom but that it's also the movie that planted the seed of reylo and kylo ren's redemption happening within the narrative, when imo it very obviously is doing the opposite of that. i was so confident after tlj came out that there was no way reylo or kylo redemption would happen in episode 9 because tlj had closed the door on that idea. to me, the reason tros sucks is because it caved to the tlj backlash and walked back everything worthwhile or interesting that tlj had to say, including that both kylo and reylo suck. it renders the trilogy incoherent because it stands in total opposition to the previous movie's ideas. and i do agree with you that that stinks of studio meddling more than it does specifically jj abrams (though i'm sure he's not blameless).

i honestly believe that in a world where rian johnson got to write episode 9 without studio meddling, kylo redemption at least would not have happened. it's not that i think rian johnson is the best guy ever or that tlj is above any of the criticisms levied at it - again, i tend to agree that finn's storyline was messy, and i think the points it's trying to make about war profiteering are lacking in the same way that the class commentary in both benoit blanc films is kind of lacking. but nonetheless, the benoit blanc films do make it clear that johnson is at least enough of a leftist not to think a redemption story for the neo-nazi allegory character is a good idea. in fact his political commentary in those movies is very overt, in much the same way that kylo's refusal to change in tlj is overt. so how people think kylo's redemption (and consequently reylo) is johnson's fault, and not an invention of tros as part of all the spineless fan-appeasing that movie tried to do, is really baffling to me

#blahs #answers #don't know why i've always cared about tlj discourse so much i'm not even much of a star wars fan #it's just the star wars thing i've always thought was most interesting so i think it's frustrating that it gets so much shit #(or most interesting at the time it came out. i don't keep up with the star wars tv shows idk about those)

[ecoamerica]

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[smhalltheurlsaretaken]

So do you guys remember my post about Jedi meeting their birth families and being chill with it? 

I’ve been thinking a bit - a lot, for like a year - about all the headcanons around Jedi’s biological people, and there are really only two possible cases that seem to get explored: the pure of heart, flawed but loving, desperate parents who ‘had’ to give up their precious child to the Jedi and didn’t feel they had a choice (most commonly seen from the more Jedi critical parts of the fandom, but not always), and the horribly abusive no good parents at all who gladly dumped their baby onto the Order (which appears to be the way of some Jedi fans to ‘justify’ the adoption into the Order as legitimate, which really shouldn’t be the point because adoptions are just as legitimate without abuse factoring in).

What’s kinda sad is how little we’re willing to explore all the possibilities, maybe because we don’t want to be perceived as on the wrong side of the fandom by our own pals. We all deal with just so much bad faith discourse that we smooth out any sort of human drama and nuance to try and have clear cut narratives that are so black and white that they must prevent bad faith interpretations. Jedi have to be perfect pure angels that have never done anything wrong to be recognized as good, because we’re afraid that if we write them in an interesting way people will jump on the opportunity to accuse them of all sorts of stuff.

Well, I’m tired of vanilla fics and good guys vs bad guys when dealing with purely human everyday stuff. Bad guys are for the galactic battles, the epic clash of eternal forces. When dealing with how Jedi younglings come to the Order, we can have plenty of amazing, heart-wrenching drama and warm, happy moments where all sorts of good and regular people have different goals and meet and clash without anyone being at ‘fault’ or being to blame for it. I want to see (*sigh* to write) complex, difficult situations that can’t be perfectly resolved but where people do try and everyone feels like a *person*.

With that out of the way, what about:

- the unanimously proud communities, so honored that their daughter will represent their people and traditions among the Order, wear their clothing and bear their name

- the desperate mother with proud relatives, who doesn’t want to give away her child, but feels pressured into it by well-meaning relatives. The Master feels her reluctance and tries to reassure her, but she insists that it’s fine - and it is, she wants it to be, she wants to believe it’s for the best but it’s just so hard...

- Stass Allie’s parents, who saw their niece Adi GAllia go to the Order a few years prior. Their two families are influential on Coruscant, but with Adi already in the Order, do they need to send Stass too? Will people think they’re making a grab for power? Will Stass be better off over there, with her cousin? 

- Tiplar and Tiplee’s parents. How many children do they have, besides their twins? Is it easier to let your children go when you know they will be together? Did they make the Master promise they wouldn’t be separated no matter what? Did they dress them in matching outfits, or were the Jedi the ones to come up with that?

- the teenaged single mom who cries tears of relief when she realizes her baby will have a good life

- the single dad who can’t bring himself to let his daughter go, because she’s his whole world. The Master presses, not fully understanding, because she would would give up everything for the good of her Padawan, including her relationship with him if need be. The dad still says no.

- the struggling addict parent who is glad to dump that kid (but who still wakes up at night crying, cursing the Jedi, cursing themselves - who get their life back on track for their next kid, maybe? Who meets more Jedi and is thankful after all, or who never does and stays bitter, but better...)

- the family using the adoption for clout, and the consequences for the Order PR-wise, with the younger Jedi having to let go of the bitterness and the anger

- the communities with their own customs surrounding the Force that the young Knight or the wise Master’s inexperienced Padawan struggle to grasp and accept

- the happy parents who are mildly Force-sensitive themselves but didn’t know (or did know, and expected some of their children to be sensitive too), with the Master or the Knight pondering what their own life would look like as a civilian, maybe a parent themselves, maybe giving their own child to the Order like those are doing now. Would they do it? If they could met that hypothetical version of themselves, what would they say about the life they have? 

- the superstitious, incredulous or religious parents who are just glad to get a real explanation for the floating rocks, instead of all the theories and the judging and the gossip

- the ones who are desperately poor, and so very grateful, and the younger Jedi struggling with this, wondering if that’s why they were given to the Order as well. Struggling not to judge, because they wouldn’t be happy to give up their own younglings no matter what, right? Learning to be grateful, and understanding, and compassionate. 

- the parents who decide to give their child away against the community’s pressure, finding comfort in the Jedi’s genuine desire to support them

- the siblings struggling not to feel betrayed by their parents’ choice - and the jealous ones, the proud ones, the amazed ones, the ones who were just toddlers and spend their life holding onto faded memories

And on the flipside to all of that, what about:

- the Jedi who find a baby among dead bodies, like Mace and Depa, and are so thankful they could save this one tiny light

- the Knights filled to burst with warmth and pride as the three of them get this little toddler to giggle on the way home

- the baby who has been screaming in the Force for weeks, wanting to go home, and who finally gets to feel a presence caressing his mind gently, telling him someone is coming

- the Masters who hold the little ones at night, when those who miss their old home feel lonely or sad, rocking them and singing to them

- the Jedi who have their niece, nephew, cousin, or sibling arrive in the Creche, who call their birth family to reassure them that it’ll all be okay, and yes, ‘the child will know who I am, don’t worry, we keep our names. I’ll help them along the way, I’ll keep an eye on them.’

- the Knight who shows up somewhere and experience a supersonic boom because that’s the one, this little one will be his Padawan, he knows it

- the Knight awkwardly trying to comfort the parents, but she can see that they can see that the baby has already latched onto her, and she senses their turmoil

- the Master feeling that the child won’t be suited for the life of a Jedi, and saying that, even as it’s so hard to turn away from those sparkling baby eyes and that little mental tug 

- the Padawan balancing babbling triplets on his shoulders, because they’re from a species that makes a lot of babies

- the Master-Padawan pair visiting a child a lot during the transition period, and bonding with the other siblings as well

... Just... a mess of relationships and love on all parts, with understandings being reached, people finding peace and joy, and the opposite of all that, all acknowledging that there are no bad guys here, just complicated circumstances.

#headcanons #writing ideas #jedi positivity #jedi order #jedi culture #jedi younglings #long post #very long post #meta #(ish) #sw talk

[jadelotusflower]

It’s Cold in that Fridge: The Case of Nakari Kelen

Since The Case of Mara Jade has been doing the rounds again, I’ve finally gone back to this post that has been sitting in my drafts for literally years. So let’s honour this absolute badass who deserved better:

Once upon a time, the Star Wars universe was but six films (and a tv series) in the story of the Skywalker family. But beyond George Lucas’ story was an absolute boatload of books, comics, games, and other materials that made up the Expanded Universe. When Disney purchased Lucasfilm and the rights to the Star Wars saga, everything in this universe was decanonised and deemed “Legends” - some aspects of this universe were retained or re-purposed, others sit in Disney’s figurative vault and will likely never see the light of day (and seeing how the ST turned out, maybe that’s for the best).

But this transition between Legends canon and Disney canon was not so simple, because the nature of publishing meant that there were novels approved during the time of Legends canon that would be released in the time of Disney canon. In particular, there had been the planned trilogy “Empire and Rebellion”, set between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, with each novel from the perspective of one of The Big Three.  

Razor’s Edge (Leia) and Honor Among Thieves (Han) were released prior to the Great Canon Split of 2014.  But while the Luke-centric novel had been planned, it was not due to be released until well after the Split. So Heir to the Jedi (so called as an homage to the Legends progenitor Heir to the Empire) became one of the first books of the Disney canon.

What does this background have to do with Nakari Kelen?  Perhaps nothing, but I do wonder how the writing process was affected by the shift from Legends to Disney - was the novel a relic of the old EU with any reference the LFL storygroup didn’t like excised during editing, or was it a trendsetter for the new EU, a Sign of Things to Come?  

The most salient point being, of course, that Nakari Kelen - like so many love interests before her - was not allowed to go along her merry way at the conclusion of the novel, but was shoved into the fridge.

If there was one constant of the Legends EU, it was that Luke Skywalker’s love interests couldn’t catch a break. Mara Jade naturally lasted the longest relationship-wise, with almost twenty years of marriage to Luke before some bright spark decided she had to go (as per the aforementioned case study). But before Mara there was Jem, Shira Brie, and Gaeriel Captison (who came close to escaping the curse), and in the Legacy of the Force series they brought back sole survivors Akanah and Callista, only to kill them off for good too (and rather brutally, if I may add).

So perhaps when Kevin Hearne began writing HttJ within the confines of the Legends continuity, he was merely sticking to the status quo, or perhaps once subsumed by Disney they needed to make sure Luke's slate was clean (so to speak).  And I can’t put all the blame on Hearne since I don’t know whether it was his idea, or LFL mandated - but regardless it was a poor decision.

The root cause of fridging, imo, is limited imagination.  How best to cause your male protagonist pain if not kill off someone they love, or at least have strong feelings for? The answer is of course, easily. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The Luke Skywalker of HttJ is fresh from his victory in ANH, a lieutenant in the Rebellion: young, not dumb, and full of...

Nakari Kalen is an absolute Queen a civilian volunteer and crack-shot sniper who loans her ship Desert Jewel to the Alliance. Luke is immediately attracted to her, they bond over a mutual love of fast ships and leaving behind desert home planets, and engage in the inexpert flirting of two nineteen year olds while also risking their lives several times over.

I want to make it clear: I actually really like this book. It's a breezy read, almost serialised as The Early Adventures of Luke Skywalker, and is ofttimes genuinely funny. And credit where it’s due to Hearne, many of of the supporting roles in the novel are female. Other than Nakari, there's Soonta, the Rodian who gives Luke her uncle’s lightsaber, Sakhet the Kupohan spy, and the Givin cryptographer/math genius Drusil Bephorin. In a genre where male characters are often the default for these kind of roles, it was nice to see, but makes the regressive fridging of Nakari even more egregious.

Luke and Nakari make a good team fighting brain-sucking monsters and Imperials, but more importantly they have fun together - she encourages him to work on his Force skills, and he successfully moves objects with his mind for the first time (leading to Nakari adorably dub him "a little noddle scooter"). It's a very sweet, if brief, relationship, and a respite from the danger of the mission. They spend the night together (leaving the reader to decide exactly what happened behind closed doors), and share a kiss before splitting up to try and escape bounty hunters. No prizes for guessing what happens to Nakari immediately after she received the Skywalker Kiss of Death.

I assume there were two motivating factors for why Hearne and/or LFL couldn't let Nakari live:

1. If she survived, fans would wonder why she doesn't appear in ESB/subsequent material.

I recall this bandied about on forums back at the time of the book's release, and to that I say - so what? Fans are always going to wonder, and try to paper over the gaps in canon, to make up their own headcanons to explain any any perceived inconsistencies. It's certainly no reason to kill someone off.

It is in fact possible for two young people to have a romance that just fizzles, or doesn’t work out for whatever reason - it should not require great maneuvering or explanation. If Nakari doesn’t show up in the next book in the timeline, what about it? The reader is smart enough to assume she and Luke broke up, decided to just remain friends, whatever. But it seems that the only way for a female character to exit stage left is for her to die, which is bullshit.

And actually, there's no reason why she couldn't have shown up again. ESB and RoTJ cover a month and a few days, respectively, of Luke's life - just because there was no mention of Nakari doesn't mean she didn't exist at that time, whether or not she and Luke were an item. She could have made an appearance in a subsequent novel, or Rebels, or the comics - she could have become a recurring character, showing up when the Rebellion needed her, or - heaven forbid - even have her own comic/book/show! Her existence in Star Wars canon didn't need to begin and end with Luke Skywalker, merely to service his plotline and backstory and abandoning the richness of her own.

No, the only reason Nakari had to die was to facilitate this:

It was a blow to the gut, realizing what that sudden absence meant. I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, but I had felt Nakari's life snuffed out through the Force, and into that void where she had shone anger rushed in - anger, and a cold sense of raw power and invincibility...I took a step to join in the hunt but stopped, breathing heavily, unaccountably sweating even though I felt so cold inside and the power of the Force roiled within me... I shook with emotion and power, and none of it felt the way the Force had before...I saw what kind of space it was , a black hole that would always be hungry no matter how much I fed it. I might never feel warm again if I didn't get myself under control.

Luke feels the dark side and is tempted by the boost of power it offers him, but immediately identifies it as dangerous and unnatural. I can understand why Hearne wanted to include this - it is a book of firsts after all: Luke's first solo mission, his first time using telekenisis, and ending with story with his first experience of the dark side makes sense. But it wasn't necessary, which leads to:

2. How to push Luke to touch the dark side without killing someone he has romantic feelings for?

Also, obviously, shite of the bull (or nerf, if you prefer). Even if this brush with the dark side was absolutely necessary for the novel's climax, there's any number of ways it could be achieved. At this point, Luke is fresh from losing important people in his life - Owen and Beru, Ben, and Biggs - lumping another death on top of that a narrative trick for Luke to react not only to losing Nakari, but the others as well. But it's cheap, the first card in the deck, and why not show a bit of imagination? Luke is young and inexperienced enough at this point that any number of things could be the catalyst - the whole book he's struggling with his growing powers, why not try and reach too far in the firefight with the bounty hunters, his anger and frustration with himself in not doing enough trigger the dark side temptation? It would work thematically and doesn't involve a fridging that ultimately has very little payoff.

Because Nakari is killed less than ten pages from the end of the book - afterwards Luke grieves, but ultimately chooses to honour her memory and be grateful for what he learned with her, recommitting to becoming a Jedi. It's all very surface level, and once again a female character's death facilitates a male character's development. Was it so imperative that Luke lost someone he cared about as part of this story? Sure, this was a time of galactic civil war, and it's far from unrealistic that these stories have a high body count, but who to make collateral damage remains an authorial choice, and in this case Nakari Kelen was (a) a female character of color, (b) a love interest of the protagonist - not just of this book, but the entire Original Trilogy.

I don't know to what extent (if any) race had to play in the decision. I'm sure there was a segment of the fandom absolutely livid that Luke Skywalker kissed (and maybe had sex with) a black woman. Was her death LFL hedging its bets, or demonstrative of the general lack of attention/respect they show their characters of colour?

In any case this was a chance to stand out from the old EU and it's fridge full of Luke's dead girlfriends, but instead they chose to introduce and kill off Nakari for the sole purpose of Luke's manpain and character development, and that's gross.

And then there's this:

A grisly yet reliable fact about custom bounty hunter ships is that you can always count on them to have body bags stashed somewhere for the easy transport of their kills. They often have built-in refrigerated storage, too.

NAKARI IS KILLED AND LITERALLY STORED IN THE FUCKING FRIDGE I COULDN'T BELIEVE WHAT I WAS READING.

I really hope this was unintentional on Hearne's part, because yikes. He was halfway there, this book was full of interesting female characters who had agency - Drusil in particular was a delight with her super math and inability to understand human interaction. Nakari was full of life and fun - capable but relatable, showing a different side of the Rebellion and those that suffered under the Empire's rule. Fridging her in her first appearance is considerably more vile, because it reduces her to a footnote of Luke's story, a plot device to Help Him Grow, rather than a springboard to tell more of her own story.

Because Nakari was a compelling character ripe for spinoff potential. I would absolutely have read or watched her continued adventures, juggling missions for her father's Biolabs company and trying to aid the Rebellion, shooting her slug rifle and cracking wise, maybe even finding a way to amplify her mother's song Vader's Many Prosthetic Parts to really stick it to the Empire, or try and free the political prisoners on Kessel.

The old EU was made great by allies and enemies of Our Heroes showing up again to help or hinder them, and/or branching out into their own material. We fell in love with them, and followed their stories even as they diverged from the main saga, eager to read more about their lives.

Nakari Kelen never got that chance. In many ways, she exemplified what Disney Star Wars was to become: an exercise in wasted potential.

#star wars #star wars meta #heir to the jedi #nakari kelen #luke skywalker #fridging #it's cold in that fridge #star wars expanded universe #nucanon

[duelofthefatesmp3]

i DO actually wanna know how youd make kotor 3 !!!!!

this ask has been sitting on my inbox for so long on PURPOSE! i wanted some time to re read the revan book + watch some swtor gameplays so i could give a concrete answer about why the book and swtor arent satisfactory and what i would do instead (im not like. a storytelling god so i this is just my PERSONAL idea). under the cut!

to begin with, what's wrong with revan the book and swtor, mai?

i am very fond of swtor i think it was such a nice idea to have an "open" world game set in star wars old republic time. but ultimately, it was not a good conclusion to revan and meetra's storyline! now, i don't really know what happened in the development of the third kotor game (if there ever was a plan for one) but it's clear they dropped the ball on that and decided to start a whole different project. i don't think we can blame disney for that one, because it was announced on 2008, launched in 2011, and disney had just bought star wars that year. so who knows.

the thing is that it's painfully evident that a bunch of the story that was gonna be in the third game, ended up in the book + misc parts of swtor. much of the book feels like a gameplay.

now, it was clear when the book was planned that they wanted to keep revan's story open so when the game came out, they could have a cool Revan storyline so he could make a cool villain appearence and draw in some of that kotor nostalgia. which ehhhhhh. uh. i don't really think did any favors for revan's character. he didn't have a satisfactory arc (I'm not saying "a happy ending" because good arcs aren't always happy) but at least some closure?

revan went through many big events in his life. we didnt need to keep his ass in stasis for his fun villain moments 300 years later. we already had what we wanted from him: jedi turned sith turned jedi again to defeat a terrible threat. that was it we could have let it there and it would have been cool! but then they decided to drag and drag his story just to leave him right where he was before. he just suffered a little more in the in-between.

you could say he finally redeemed himself of all of his crimes this way, but wasn't that the whole purpose of the first kotor game (and would have been the purpose of the 3rd?)

swtor does not centre revan in his own narrative. he's a side character for the player to experience. and look, i get it, we've had a different protag on each game, why not have another one in this one. well, because the protagonist has no personal relationship with revan. meetra was one of his closest friends, and fought with him. there is a connection that can be exploited. but the swtor protagonist is just some guy 300 years in the future who happens to stumble into revan and his life. not even his descendants get to fully interact with revan.

also, there is the fact that revan is not the centre of the game itself, only of a particular storyline. and it's weird, because swtor could have happened without revan's involvement.

ms. meetra surik, ms. bastila shan, women of the world I'm sorry

so it's no news that star wars is misogynistic as fuck right. cause it is.

so you decide to make your gender neutral protagonist a guy. then you decide to make your other gender neutral protagonist a woman. cool. now let's guess who gets underdeveloped, turned into a plot device without reason, and promptly fridged in the most unceremoniously fashion just to fullfil some manpain moments. which one do you think got that treatment.

i know the revan book is supposed to be about revan, but why make meetra go through a whole arc just to undermine her character and turn her into the faithful servant of the guy? she leaves everything behind for him, sacrifices herself for him, hell not even dead is she not serving the guy. and she was the second game’s protagonist! she beat up a bunch of powerful people and now she’s just meh, there? she had so many interesting ways to interact with revan (meeting kreia, revan’s first master, encountering another force consuming entity, etc.)

meetra went through a whole arc about dealing with the guilt of doing something horrible and having the consequences of it cut her from the force. we see her broken, then slowly come back to the world and reconnect herself with the force, then stop running and face the consequences of her role in the war. thats such a cool character with tons of potential! and nothing happened!

then we got bastila who is. a whole deal. so you make her go through a “promising jedi who defeated revan, to questioning reluctant companion, to fell into the dark side, to was redeemed thanks to her bond to revan, who helped her come back because he’d been through the same experience” arc, and then you decide to push her to the side to have a baby?? which is... its clear that the writer didnt know what to do with her (or with the other characters outside of canderous) so hey, lets get her to marry revan and have a baby.

my ideal kotor 3

to preface, im not a game developer, so some of my choices could be stunted by what a kotor rpg can do lol. of course, it would follow the same mechanics and have the same format as the first two, because consistency!

the fun way to start the game, would be from scourge’s perspective. we get to play as a sith! i’d even say you get to change scourge’s name and gender and looks (i know sith have different looks)

in scourge’s storyline, we get from his arrival to normound kaas, to his talks with nissyris, to his missions working for her. in some of these, we can make scourge lean into the dark or the light side! fun! plus we get some exposition with dialogue options. it all continues untill we get to nissirys story about the emperor. we get a fucked up cutscene of his childhood and then BOOM when its over, we see revan waking up from a nightmare and their pov starts.

ok, as for revan’s story, since we’d have to pick it up from where kotor ended, i’d have a little cutscene of revan back into the ebon hawk, with bastila, and them telling the crew to take them to courascant. then cut to a council meeting where revan and bastila get scolded in private, then rewarded by the republic. i would also like to see some revan mournink malak’s death mayhaps. since he was their childhood friend and all.

i would 100% scrape the marriage and two years passed part. as the book said, the council had no use for revan aside from the legend(tm), so why would they stay in courascant. revan was very alienated from the jedi at that point, despite being back in the “light side”

then like, to revan asking around for meetra and other jedi from the mandalorian wars, we can cash in that atris cameo, then revan starts to have these visions about the sith emperor, and maybe we could get a playable dream sequence about revan’s fight with mandalore the ultimate (I KNOW I WOULD LIKE TO SEE IT.) and we get the whole exposition to mandalore telling revan that the sith are behind it all. i believe we should get a bunch of these flashback/dream sequences of revan’s past doing shit. cut to revan burying the mask in a planet, then back to the present. we see a bunch of mission and juhani scenes trying to reach him, but he keeps pushing them away. revan and bastila meet canderous, travel to the ice planet, meet clan ordo (god i love clan ordo) you get the whole quest, you decide weather to spare veela or not, maybe you get a cheeky mandalorian companion (force sensitive mando oh?) and leave canderous behind.

we can visit like, a couple more planets searching for clues maybe, etc. then when reaching nathema, you are forced to go alone as revan, get to explore nathema a bit (raiding ancient location yay) nathema as a location can be so fun because you can have it weaken you hp bar and also you cant use the force (which, in game is pretty cool)

then we get to scourge and nyssiris arriving to the planet, they fight but since theres two of them and revan doesn’t have the force, they beat the shit out of them, and while running away, they get in a fight with bastila and the companions in the ebon hawk (ebon hawk shooting game my hated). bastila manages to get a glimpse of revan’s thoughts before they take them away. but the ebon is so ruined it takes bastila, t3 and the mandalorian a while to fix it, and they get stuck into the unknown regions for a while. the ebon hawk is left in an outer rim planet with t3 fixing it, bastila and the mandalorian run back to the jedi council, only to get caught in the middle of the jedi civil war. we can have bastila choosing to hide in courascant and trying to make sense of what she saw, reading texts about the sith empire, trying to plot a course to where they took revan (more atris! but shes pissed at her now)

cutscene to meetra’s pov, leaving malachor v behind, getting calls from everyone at the hawk (atton my beloved) but just as she’s leaving she gets a force message from revan, calling for her to find him and sending visions of normound kaas. then, through her force bond with visas, she tells her not to go because they’re gay and in love and whatnot.

then boom, she gets intercepted by bastila’s ship, with the mandalore and the other mandalorian (yes i do love having a bunch of mandos on board) and they go on their way to find revan.

now i want there to be an underlying message of “we can’t take our friends with us because we have to do this ALONE we’re powerful JEDI we don’t need our FRIENDS.” meetra gets asked if she wants to bring any friends and she’s like “no. we have to do this alone.” along the game you get constantly contacted by other game characters, you get the chance to talk to them or ignore them.

so, we get back to nathema, and meetra has a whole “holy shit this is just like darth nihilus but ten times worse. but i beat darth nihilus. i can do this!” then she finds peace in this place without the force, we get a whole speech about how the odds arent against them, they find a way to normound kaas, and get going.

in normound kaas i thought about them getting a whole mission about how to infiltrate the citadel, only to get helped by scourge. he joins the party, we get a little flashback of all the years he spent trying to make revan remember and they storm the citadel. we get to fight the dark council members, fun! then we get to free revan and the game switches povs. bastila hands the mask to revan and he has a cool “yes im revan im pretty cool” then a nice heartfelt yet rushed reunion with everyone.

then have a small CONVERSATION WITH MEETRA where she talks about the sith triumvirate she defeated and revan is impressed with her and is like “we are the last hope of the jedi, we’ve learned to walk between light and dark, we’ve done horrors but we can still make things right, our experience has made us more powerful etc.

then they fight the imperial guard, ALL OF THEM, meetra revan and scourge make it into the throne room, they all fight the emperor. meetra shows the emperor that she has seen the void, she has cut herself from the force, and she’s not afraid of him, revan supports her, talks about redemption and hope  and NOW.

NOW. how the alternate endings could go:

if you decide to take scourge through the light side, he manages to form a forcebond with meetra and revan since they’ve both teached something about the duality of the force, they get 100% stronger, but its still not enough. UNTIL. a bunch of ships (jedi and mandalorian, even non republic ships) arrive to dormound kaas, the gangs from each game storm the room and together they make the emperor and his guard a bunch of punching bags. they beat him! (unknow to them, this was a backup body because the emperor can do weird shit like that, and has only debilitated his plan, but he’ll come back dont worry). then they fly back to the republic, to tell the chancellor about the sith threat, and preparations for the war begin. meetra and revan get to live happily ever after for a while, then they die away from the jedi or the sith (waaah im thinking about them helping canderous rebuild the mandalorians, and them doing it since they killed so many mandos in the war)

BECAUSE IN THE END KOTOR IS ABOUT LEARNING TO PROCESS TRAUMA AND RECOGNIZE YOUR MISTAKES AND LIVE WITH THE GUILT WHILST TRYING TO FIX THE MISTAKES YOU MADE ALONG THE WAY. AND ALSO TO HEAL FROM TRAUMA YOU NEED A SUPPORT SYSTEM SO EVEN THOUGH IT MAKES SENSE TO YOU YOU SHOULDNT PUSH PEOPLE WHO LOVE YOU AWAY. AND THINGS AREN’T BLACK AND WHITE ITS COMPLICATED SO YOU DONT END UP BACK ON SQUARE ONE YOURE A CHANGED PERSON.

or

if you decide to dark side scourge further, he betrays revan and meetra, they all die, and the emperor unleashes his angry lightning or whatever on everyone + a bunch of visions of all the enemies of past mocking them, and their loved ones suffering. and since you’ve had that “im not calling my friends bullshit” no one comes, you die there, and the emperor is only stalled for a few years. swtor ensues. scourge becomes the emperor’s hand.

now you could of course bring revan and meetra up in swtor, but maybe only as force ghost guides, or have some of the other characters of the game have relevance (visas tries to heal the miraluka planet 2021)

WELL THAT WAS A LOT OF WORDS. HOPE THIS IS SATISFYING ENOUGH

#this is bonkers but ive been thinking about it since 2011 so. #wow 10 years since i played kotor. wretched little game. #also if i switch pronouns midway its because it would make it clearer #kotor 3 rewrite

[gffa]

@ap-trash-compactor replied:

1/7 I wanna preface this by saying I agree with everything you’re saying here but I think there’s another layer to how Raffa’s story functions both textually and meta-textually, and to what it illustrates about how many people in the Galaxy /might/ perceive the Jedi, which I personally haven’t seen addressed yet. Sorry in advance if this is something you’ve heard/read/discussed ten million times already, but... 2/7 If you took Raffa’s story out of Star Wars and put it into a contemporary drama, changed the word “Jedi” to the word “police,” and made the particulars about a high-speed car chase? I think it would sound pretty believable. And I think this illustrates something Palpatine does through the mechanism of the Clone Wars to make the position of the Jedi especially vulnerable or precarious wrt to public opinion. 3/7 Even if every single Jedi engages w the power and authority of their military or police role only in the best intentioned, most good-faith way imaginable (which the Umbara arc tells us doesn’t always happen), any time you are in a role where you, even have without wanting or intending to, exercise the power of life and death other lives, you will cause pain and be a target for resentment. Someone will lose someone, and be angry. 4/7 No matter how good or how well-intentioned or how compassionate they are, during the Clone Wars the Jedi are forced into the role of a state authority exercising the power of life and death. They are not only a cultural minority during the Clone Wars. They are also a branch of the state, and in that role they sometimes either kill people, or are involved in events where people die and where, no matter their intentions, they are the face of the state and the voice of authority. 5/7 Many of the military and police actions shown in different episodes of this series leave destruction in their wake. The Jedi’s participation is barely by choice and almost never by preference— but if you are one of the Raffas of the galaxy and your parents just died, the distinction probably does not matter much. I think this is a corner Palpatine absolutely wanted to paint the Jedi into, because it absolutely serves his goals. 6/7 There are not many Jedi during the Clone Wars. Certainly there are not many compared to the problems they are trying to fix. I have no doubt Luminara tried her best, wanted a different outcome, and gave Raffa all the comfort she had the time and the opportunity to give... But if you are one of the Raffas of the galaxy and your only direct experience of the Jedi is like the one Raffa describes? You’re probably primed to consume all of Palpatine’s worst lies. 7/7 If you’re Palpatine, making the Jedi rush from violent crisis to violent crisis doesn’t just distract them from the fact that you’re a Sith Lord — it also makes the Jedi into the face of a lot of negative, hurtful interactions with the state, which is going to impact the way people see them.

I think you and I are very much on the same page!  I have discussed this before (the public’s turning on the Jedi), but I’m always down for discussing it again!  Especially when I love pretty much allllll of this. If you’re Palpatine, making the Jedi rush from violent crisis to violent crisis doesn’t just distract them from the fact that you’re a Sith Lord — it also makes the Jedi into the face of a lot of negative, hurtful interactions with the state, which is going to impact the way people see them. You are spot on with your summation, to the point it’s almost hard for me to respond with anything because I feel like all I can do is bang my fist on the table and go, “Yes!  This is what I’ve been talking about!”  Though, of course, there is a lot going on here that’s making it complicated. This post that you’re responding to is focused more specifically on the theme of unreliable narrators + the close associations this season has had with Revenge of the Sith (the moments that make us sit up and go, “Oh, that’s foreshadowing for stuff in ROTS!” like Padme’s pregnancy, Anakin’s advice to Rex, etc.), but there’s also what you’re talking about here--that it’s been a long-running theme in the GFFA that public sentiment turned against the Jedi and that the causes of that are fascinating. I said a bunch of times that Rafa’s hurt in this episode is valid, that there’s room for both the Jedi acting with honorable intentions and that people don’t trust them, don’t draw comfort from them, that these things are not mutually exclusive and you’re hitting on exactly why--because they were put into a situation where, if they’re not 100% perfect, then they’re going to fall off the pedestal they’ve been put onto.  That any flaw they have will then get magnified a hundred times. Luminara seems to have made a point to go back and try to talk to Rafa, to tell her a phrase that is narratively meaningful within Star Wars on a meta level, like, that says to me that she has really good intentions!  But that Rafa doesn’t draw any comfort from it, as a non-Force sensitive and someone who probably is left to the Republic’s shitty welfare services (which isn’t the Jedi’s jurisdiction, they’re not social workers and we can’t expect them to be), doesn’t undercut Luminara’s presumed good intentions, just as Luminara’s presumed good intentions don’t undercut Rafa’s hurt. And that it’s understandable--because, as the Maul arc in season 5 says, the Jedi aren’t doing the things that they used to do, that crime is flourishing because they’re being so busy with this war they’ve been drafted into.  Even Star Wars: Propaganda makes it clear that public sentiment turned against the Jedi because of a cultural absence, rather than anything they actively did. This is all by design from Palpatine, that he’s keeping them so busy putting out tire fires on Ryloth (who were being slaughtered by the Separatists), on Mon Calamari (who were being enslaved by the Separatists), on Kiros (who were being kidnapped and taken into the resumed Zygerrian slave empire), that they don’t have time to do the things they used to, like take care of a lot of the criminal elements or the outreach programs that we see hinted at in the supplementary material. The Jedi had to make a choice between fighting in a war where entire worlds were being enslaved, that there were only so many of them and they were dying, that they died in droves on Geonosis in Attack of the Clones and they’re dying every day in the war, that they were literally one out of six billion in the galaxy at their height, and that they had a million expectations placed on them.  They have very little political capital/power, yet they’re expected to solve all the problems in ways that will last.  They’re expected to police the Underworld, but also not police the Underworld because then they’re restricting people.  They’re expected to be social workers.  They’re expected to fight and die in a war that the public itself refuses to stand up in.  And when they don’t live up to those impossible perfections, they’re torn down. This is not to set aside that of course there are instances of people like Trace and Rafa, where the destruction wreaked by chasing down someone like Ziro is going to sometimes cause people to get hurt and, honestly, I don’t feel like Rafa really blamed Luminara for that, given the acknowledgement of the crowded platform she was trying to avoid.  But if she had?  That, too, would have been reasonable and understandable!  That it doesn’t matter if the Jedi were doing literally everything they could, that doesn’t mean there’s not also room for Rafa’s hurt.  And that, even if I think there was absolutely nothing that Luminara could say that would have given Rafa comfort, that doesn’t make Rafa’s hurt/viewpoint any less empathizable. My blog tends to focus on the Jedi side of things because those are the characters I’m interested in, not because they’re the only element that matters. In the meta we’re responding to, a lot of the focus is on Luminara and the Jedi because that’s my jam, that’s the part I thrive on, but we’re definitely in agreement that Rafa’s feelings are not wrong and it’s not hard to see where they come from! I do take issue with the idea of--whether it’s true or not, we can all argue about it all day long, but it doesn’t matter if it’s true or not--that if the Jedi are remote and distant from the galaxy, that that narratively is approved of how they then “kind of brought their downfall (aka, violent genocide) on themselves”.  That’s something I’ve seen skirted around in commentary from the creators and I’m wary of it leaking into the narrative in a more substantial way.  But that’s an entirely separate issue from the fact that anti-Jedi sentiments exist in the narrative and that they led to the Jedi Purge/Jedi genocide. As part of the propaganda and manipulations Palpatine did, yes, absolutely, that is one of the most fascinating things!  And that doesn’t mean that there’s not validity to those feelings, even if they’re rooted in propaganda and manipulation! But that, just as there’s room for Rafa’s hurt despite Luminara’s intentions, there’s room for the Jedi’s good intentions despite the public’s hurt and/or mistrust. My thing is that I tend to look at why the Jedi act the way they do and I usually come away with empathy for how they got into the situations they did.  Like, take their alignment with the Republic, which was an organization with corruption down to the roots by the time of the Twilight of the Republic, that that association absolutely led to their downfall/genocide.  But what else could they do?  Being part of the Republic in that way allowed them to actually help people, to have negotiating power, to form treaties that would be honored even when they were no longer on a given planet.  If they weren’t under the jurisdiction of the Senate, they could not have helped as many people as they did, especially because how would they even be able to afford starship fuel or housing costs?  Would they charge people for their services?  That’s a disaster waiting to happen! There’s room for both “the best option for the Jedi was to be part of the Republic and try to improve the system from the inside, which is what they did” AND “the being part of the Republic is what ultimately fucked them”, those things are both true! but if you are one of the Raffas of the galaxy and your parents just died, the distinction probably does not matter much. I think this is a corner Palpatine absolutely wanted to paint the Jedi into, because it absolutely serves his goals. Spot on!  I have fun looking at what Luminara’s intentions likely were and what the context of the structure of the show entails, that Rafa’s character doesn’t have to be a reliable narrator to be valuable (and I say this as someone who actually really loves the unreliable narrators of SW, which honestly is almost literally every single character, very few are ones you can take at face value without seeing the circumstances for yourself), but to Rafa it doesn’t really matter what Luminara did or didn’t say, because that’s not what she was looking for or what she got out of that conversation.  I can’t say I would act differently in her position! And that’s exactly what Palpatine did.  He pulled the Jedi in so many different directions, made them responsible for things that literally no group could possibly have survived with public sentiment intact, and even if the Jedi had been literally perfect (which they weren’t), it wouldn’t have mattered, given that the entire point of the prequels is that you gotta choose between Shitty Option A and Shitty Option B. It’s the galaxy’s worst ever version of, “Which would you rather?” except its real and you have to play the game, because not playing gets you fucked over even faster, like it did with Mandalore.

#rafa martez #jedi order #meta #tcw spoilers #long post

[gunnerpalace]

The Hueco Mundo Arc was Bad and the Beginning of the End for Bleach

(I am here lumping the Arrancar and Fake Karakura arcs into Hueco Mundo because they all sort of form a set, whereas the Early Karakura and Soul Society arcs are just Soul Society.)

Since I have now completed one of my magnum opuses by explaining how seemingly nobody has really read the Hueco Mundo arc correctly for like... 10 years... I want to generalize some observations from it about how people also take away the wrong things about the characters too.

Chad is... a Chad. He is Ichigo's bro for life. but he’s also frankly kind of a bad friend and person as a whole. He'll go and die for Ichigo, but he doesn't believe in what he's dying for. He does it out of obligation because he doesn’t really believe in Ichigo either, as both the Xcution and TYBW arcs make very clear. He does this over and over again throughout the series and you’re left with the sense he’s really just kind of purposeless and nihilistic. He is almost looking for a cause to die for.

Renji is also a Chad. Also sort of a puppy. He basically does the same thing as Chad, except for Rukia. And much like Chad does nothing to really build Ichigo up or support him, Renji does nothing to really build up or support Rukia. He’s just there. And he’s driven by his guilt over Rukia and his own attendant sense of obligation. He’s self-loathing and also seems to basically be looking to die to atone for his sins against her.

Orihime is incredibly selfish. I previously linked it, but @hashtagartistlife​ has already done a great write-up on this. Orihime inserted herself into Ichigo’s affairs for selfish reasons (to get close to Ichigo), she went to Soul Society for selfish reasons (to “protect” Ichigo when he never asked for it), she allowed herself to be taken to Hueco Mundo for selfish reasons (same), and she goes on being selfish in later arcs. She does not learn. She does not advance. She does not improve. She ultimately does everything for her own sake.

Ichigo is also incredibly selfish. Sera also has done a write-up on Ichigo, but I will take a somewhat different (if related position). She characterizes Ichigo as self-centered rather than selfish, and I feel that is painting with too broad a brush. I would say that Ichigo becomes “merely” self-centered by later in the series. To begin with, he is also selfish. His desire to protect is for himself as much as it is for those he wants to protect. He is always trying to make up for the death of his mother and his inability to save her, but on his terms and his terms alone. At first, he wants to protect only when it is convenient to him (and tells Rukia as much). Later, he wants to protect even those he shouldn’t (who are trying to kill him). It is only much later, in the Xcution arc, where he will compromise his values and desires for others (by killing Ginjou). I would say that even rescuing Rukia was as much for himself as it was for her (and he admits as much, with his “I made a promise to my soul!” line that Renji parrots to Byakuya). It is only the events of the Hueco Mundo arc and fighting Aizen that cause him to grow up and behave maturely in the Xcution arc.

Rukia is selfless to a fault. She will blame herself for things that are not her fault (e.g., Kaien’s death, Ichigo’s suffering during the Soul Society arc) and give effusively charitable interpretations and leniency where it isn’t deserved (e.g., to Orihime for her role in her rescue). At the same time, she is also scarcely less prideful than Ichigo and will likewise make equally dumb decisions in the name of it, as Sera points out, if for different reasons.

Uryuu is the only one whose priorities are fairly well-adjusted. He tried to save Rukia from Renji and Byakuya because it was the right thing to do (despite his posturing about hating Shinigami). He went to Soul Society to save Rukia. He went to Hueco Mundo to save Orihime. He generally did his best in the Xcution arc. But he is also a loner self-sacrificing dumbass who tries to take on too much, as he demonstrated in both Xcution and TYBW, he too has his fair share of pride like Ichigo and Rukia, and his well-adjusted priorities are sometimes a poor fit for the crazy situations he winds up in (almost getting him killed by Full Hollow Ichigo Zangetsu for showing mercy when he shouldn’t, among other things).

They are, all of them, idiots.

And the whole point of the Hueco Mundo arc was to show you that, and to show you how their idiocy could go wrong. Their idiocy worked for them in Soul Society through luck (read: deliberate narrative construction) and then when faced with an eerily similar (read: deliberate parallel) situation in Hueco Mundo, everything went the other way (read: deliberately deconstructed).

Hueco Mundo was designed to tear our protagonists down through the exact same mechanisms by which Soul Society built them up. It was designed to undermine them. In some cases they grew from it as characters. (Ichigo, Rukia definitely did, Uryuu and Renji sort of did, and Chad and Orihime did not at all.) But this is why I characterize Hueco Mundo as a “dark mirror” of Soul Society. It was designed specifically to subvert everything Soul Society showed, by inverting the results. (Compare with “subverting expectations” for the sake of it, a la The Force Awakens vs. The Last Jedi, wherein things were not inverted but simply discarded, for good or ill. This is much more “stylistic” in comparison, and is designed to serve a point beyond itself.)

So... why?

I recently said this in response to another one of Sera’s meta posts:

I would argue that Bleach is only superficially more cohesive [than Naruto]. It starts with Ichigo as a nobody who tries to change things (to save Rukia) because nobody else will, and ends up with him being shoehorned into everything by everyone else as the chosen one while they all abdicate any real responsibility or role. It completely inverts itself in almost every capacity for no real meaning or reason.

Bleach really only makes cohesive sense to me as Kubo longform refuting the Monomyth in various ways; at first by splitting up his protagonist, then by inverting and mirroring the first effort, and then finally through this weird repudiation and assassination of his characters. “Fuck your hopes, beliefs, and dreams,” is one of the few arcs I can discern to the whole series.

Let me unpack that second statement.

The monomyth, or the hero’s journey, is a template of framework for understanding tales. The most commonly cited form was developed by Joseph Campbell in 1949 in The Hero with a Thousand Faces. It has a structure sort of like this:

There are some variations (e.g., Campbell puts the Gift of the Goddess much earlier). Let’s use Campbell’s structure and see how it fits early Bleach:

The call to adventure: Rukia's arrival.

Refusal of the call: Ichigo refuses to do her Shinigami duties.

Supernatural aid: Rukia turns him into a Shinigami with her glove. He goes on to learn the basics with her at his side, using various supernatural tools.

Crossing the threshold: Rukia's abduction by Renji and Byakuya (the guardians of the threshold). (Yoruichi is the helper, Kisuke is the mentor.)

Belly of the whale: the dangai and the kotetsu, and the entry into Soul Society

The road of trials: Ichigo running around Soul Society, then fighting Ikkaku, Renji, and Kenpachi.

The meeting with the goddess: Literally Yoruichi, Flash Goddess, giving Ichigo the flying wing and later the cloak, and also later his tenshintai training.

Woman as temptress: again, also literally Yoruichi, in the nude and tempting him.

Atonement with the Father/Abyss: Literally Ichigo fighting with “Old Man” “Zangetsu” to learn bankai.

Apotheosis: Learning bankai.

The Ultimate Boon: Rescuing Rukia.

Refusal of the Return: Staying in Soul Society for a week, not really wanting to leave Rukia there.

The Magic Flight: Having to run back through the dangai.

Rescue from Without: Kisuke saving them from plummeting to earth.

The Crossing of the Return Threshold: Ichigo going back home.

Master of Two Worlds: Taking his body back.

Freedom to Live: Having summer break.

Well, would you look at that? It’s basically beat-for-beat a perfect match. (You could interpret 12-17 a bit differently but you would get essentially the same overall result.)

If it’s such a perfect match, then how do I claim this is a refutation of the monomyth? Because Ichigo is only one half of the protagonist. Rukia is the other half. This hero’s journey... is really the journey of two people, and it is really a quest to find self-worth. That alone makes it a subversion of the monomyth.

Then we have the Hueco Mundo arc, which subverts and undercuts all of this. Not only was the victory incomplete but the journey will be repeatedly darkly, “first as tragedy then as farce.” As I said, all the behaviors that worked in Soul Society fail in Hueco Mundo.

The point is to drive home that having 16-year-olds save the world is stupid. Relying on teenage child soldiers is stupid. They got lucky the first time. Because teenagers are idiots. (Rukia and Renji, despite being somewhere between about 70 and 150 years old, certainly don’t act their age, so they can be counted too.)

Now, lest you think I’m being ageist here, it is rather obvious that Bleach is unreserved in its criticism: adults are idiots too. (Real life certainly bears this out.) But it’s harder to see that in the Soul Society and Hueco Mundo arcs unless you actually pay attention and think about it.

The arc that makes that explicitly clear is the Xcution arc, where we are again relying on 17-year-olds (whom almost entirely fail) and a bunch of absentee adults who shirk their obligations and responsibilities only to be pretty stupid when they do finally engage and continue to refuse to accept responsibility. (Isshin is a fine example, but by no means the only one.)

Then we have more of the same with TYBW, and it ends with nobody getting any satisfaction and everyone doing what they hate, in direct contradiction to their stated desires and their characters in general. (I could find many more analyses of this by myself and others but I can’t be bothered at the moment.) Literally everyone’s character was assassinated, including Aizen’s, Isshin’s, and Ryuuken’s.

So, we have a subversion of the monomyth through splitting the protagonist, we have a dark inversion of the monomyth to undercut it, and then we have the thorough destruction of our protagonists and authority figures which ultimately ends with them all being absolutely and completely compromised.

Add this on to my constant observations (the most recent being in a post on Yoruichi) that no one is allowed to be friends in Bleach, that no romantic relationships are allowed to exist in Bleach without death, and that family structures are always strained and estranged within Bleach, and what do you get? A treatise on the absolute and total breakdown of all bonds and connections, and the forsaking of all ambitions and dreams. Bleach is not a heroic tale, but a cautionary warning to make your peace with your lot in life, as everyone in it does.

It is the anti-shounen. It is the anti-monomyth. It is The Big Downer Series. It is designed, very carefully and thoughtfully, to make you feel bad, mistrust authority, and give up hope. No one and nothing is reliable, not even yourself: the world will betray you until you betray yourself too.

That... is the only consistent and persistent theme of Bleach as it actually exists as a whole. It was Kubo spending 15 years telling you to go fuck yourself.

And it really started terminally on that trajectory with the Hueco Mundo arc. It didn’t have to be that way. The Soul Society arc’s clever subversion of the monomyth could’ve been just that: a clever subversion and nothing more. Hueco Mundo is when Bleach started to suck because it’s when Bleach became about beating its readers down and making them feel bad. Surprise, it’s also when the readership started to drop.

(Now you could still save Bleach after Aizen’s defeat, but it’s messy because you’ve got that much more baggage again to deal with. But it ends sufficiently abruptly that you can do it, which is the whole point of like, Demons of the Sun and Moon, even if my thinking at the time I started that was not so explicit and clear as it is now. The question is: why would you want to when you can just cut back to earlier?)

tl;dr Bleach from the end of Soul Society onward is just Kubo increasingly desperately jacking himself off onto the rest of us about how much the world sucks, and everything from Hueco Mundo onward is compromised shit designed to push that agenda ahead of everything else, including telling a good story.

#Bleach

[daughter-of-water]

response

Friend, I say this very seriously as someone who loves reading extra-movie Star Wars material, has enjoyed the television shows and new canon comics, and loved the old EU: if it’s not explicitly in or at least hinted at in the movie, it doesn’t exist for 95% of audiences, especially when that extra UNNECESSARY material directly contradicts what is shown in the movies.

Normally I would agree with you but like I said, Disney is money hungry and stupid. They clearly intend for you to take the anciliary stuff as canon. In fact you have to in order to remotely understand the narrative. The Rise of Skywalker does jack all to explain how Palpatine is alive or even how Rey is a Palpatine. You only find that out in the TROS novelization that Palpatine is residing in a clone body and that Rey’s father is a failed Palpatine clone. That’s hardly extra or unnecessary. You denounce the outside material as contradictory to the movies when the narrative directly contradicts itself from movie to movie. There was not a single solitary indication that Luke and Leia had known from the start that Rey was a Palpatine. In fact we have this dialogue exchange between Luke and Rey:

LUKE: Who are you? REY: I know this place. LUKE: Built a thousand generations ago… to keep these. The original Jedi texts. Just like me, they’re the last of the Jedi religion. You’ve seen this place. You’ve seen this island. REY: Only in dreams. LUKE: Who are you? REY: The Resistance sent me. LUKE: They sent you? What is special about you? Where are you from? REY: Nowhere. LUKE: No ones from nowhere. REY: Jakku. LUKE: All right, that is pretty much nowhere. Why are you here, Rey, from nowhere?

He quite obviously doesn’t have a clue who she is, where she is from, or even why the Resistance would send her of all people. Rey Palpatine a clear retcon and it is just one of many. Because of this, you basically have to treat the newest version of canon as the canon even if it contradicts the older stuff.

The Force Awakens is very clear that Kylo personally led the Knights of Ren on the night of the Temple Massacre: “Han: He was training a new generation of Jedi. One boy, an apprentice turned against him, destroyed it all. Luke felt responsible… He just walked away from everything.”

Uh, how does this line make it clear that he led the Knights of Ren the night of the Temple massacre? We have Han, someone who wasn’t even there, delivering hearsay. He doesn’t even say that the new generation of Jedi were slaughtered. He uses the words “destroyed it all” and doesn’t even specify how.

The Last Jedi attempted to justify his presence and leadership of that massacre, but it never denied the fact that there was, in fact, a massacre that Kylo led (like…you can see the dead students who are clearly not dead from a “Force Lightning” attack). And Kylo explicitly says in TLJ that he is the one that set fire to the Temple: Kylo: Did he tell you what happened? The night I destroyed his temple, did he tell you why? —- Luke: By the time I realized I was no match for the darkness rising in him, it was too late. Rey: What happened? Luke: I went to confront him. And he turned on me. He must have thought I was dead. When I came to, the temple was burning. He had vanished with a handful of my students. And slaughtered the rest.

Again, nothing in Kylo’s lines indicate that he willfully massacred students or even used the Knights of Ren to do it. He admits to the destruction of the temple which The Rise of Kylo Ren comic does imply may have been caused by a burst of Force energy on his part. In any case, he takes the blame for it. The flashback sequences and Luke’s dialogue tell us that Luke did not actually see Ben slaughtering his students. He saw the aftermath and assumed Ben must have done it.

Nothing in the movies or movie novelizations contradicts the basic point that Kylo personally led and actively participated in the Temple Massacre. Even in the comic you’re talking about, Kylo is still responsible for the “lightning strike” that destroyed the Temple and killed the students.

The point everyone has been trying to make was that the temple arson and the murder of the students was not a deliberately committed act. Ben did not roll up to the temple with lightsaber in hand and cut down all the Jedi in the building. It’s not first degree murder. It’s at worse voluntary manslaughter.

I’m tired of people trying to absolve Kylo of his actions. It truly baffles me, because people don’t do this with Vader; no one argues that Anakin killing the younglings or choking Padme on Mustafar somehow “aren’t his fault”; we as a fandom apparently have the nuance to understand that Anakin can simultaneously be a victim and perpetrator, so why so many people in this fandom REFUSE to acknowledge Kylo as a villain when literally the first thing we ever see him do on screen is massacre an entire village of innocents is baffling to me. Like…you can like a character that does shitty things without absolving him of said shitty things. It’s not hard.

Frankly, I’m sick and tired of people coming into my inbox to complain what a monster Ben Solo is and refusing to acknowledge that his narrative isn’t cut and dry because Lucasfilm flip flopped back and forth with what they wanted these characters to be. Even the so called village of innocents he massacred at the beginning you referenced was affiliated with the Resistance. Said village wasn’t just peacefully going about their day only to find themselves on the wrong end of a blaster. They immediately fired upon the shuttles carrying First Order personnel the moment they arrived in order to protect Poe and aid him in his escape from the planet. The reason no one argues Anakin’s culpability for the massacre of the younglings or the choking of his pregnant wife is because those events were shown on screen. We saw Anakin slaughter children with his lightsaber. We saw Anakin choke Padme using the force. We knew the reasons behind it. We didn’t see Ben Solo cut down his fellow students on screen. Instead we get this information second hand. This alone opens the door for things to be not as they seem. Palpatine’s manipulation of Anakin, furthermore, was not heavy on force use. He, as far as we know, did not exert influence over Anakin’s mind with the Force to imitate the voices of other characters. That sort of direct mind manipulation on a character automatically lends itself to discussions of culpability. 

#Anti Kylo BS #Kylo Ren #Ben Solo #Star Wars #Daughter of Water answers #Anons #submission

[padawanlost]

What do you think about the "Anakin doesn't really cares about the clones or their safety" discourse that has been going around lately?

Tbh, I haven’tseen a lot of that discourse recently so I can’t go on about specifics. But, aswe recently discussed here, Anakin did care about the clones (and I showed the receipts).No, he wasn’t perfect and he did fail to do anything to help or even recognizethe clone army was a slave army. HOWEVER, unless this discourse also involves “PloKoon doesn’t really cares about the clones or their safety”, “Mace Windudoesn’t really cares about the clones or their safety”, “Obi-wan doesn’t reallycares about the clones or their safety”, “Luminara doesn’t really cares aboutthe clones or their safety” or every single Jedi who also used the clones andwere even more emotionally detached than Anakin (and Ahsoka) then thisdiscourse is not really about analyzing the narrative, it’s about expressiontheories not supported by the narrative (canon and EU). Because, as I demonstratedon a previous post, Anakin, despite his MANY mistakes, showed more concernedfor the lives of clones than most Jedi, Senators or civilians.

Wasn’t Anakinthe only Jedi who sacrificed a bunch of politicians to save clones lives? Wasn’the the one who encouraged clones to pick names for themselves instead of usingnumbers? Wasn’t he the one who felt personally responsible for the death ofevery clone under his command? Who was willing to disobey military order to goback and help his men?

It’s notdarkness. I’m not dark. This isn’t anger— It was okay; they’d always told himso. He was fighting to save his men, and if he did terrible things out of compassion, out of love, then he wasn’tturning to the dark side. That was the Jedi way. For my mother. For my men. For Padmé. [The Clone Warsby Karen Traviss]

Impatience.Concern. Relief. Loneliness.Weariness. And grief, not yet healed. Such a muddle of emotions. Such a weighton [Anakin]’s shoulders. Months of brutal battle had left [Ahsoka] drained andnearly numb, but it was worse for Anakin. Hewas a Jedi general with countless lives entrusted to his care, and every lifedamaged or lost he counted as a personal failure. For other people he foundforgiveness; for himself there was none. For himself there was only angerat not meeting his own exacting standards. [Karen Miller’s Star Wars: CloneWars Gambit: Stealth]

Under [Anakin]’s careless confidence, shesensed a hint of that unhealed grief. The loss of greenies Vere and Ince duringthe Jan-Fathal mission … the loss of other Torrent Company clonessince then … his pain was like a kiplin-burr, burrowed deep in hisflesh. Anakin had abad habit of nursing those wounds, and no matter what she said, tactfully, nomatter what Master Kenobi said without any tact at all, nothing made adifference. He hurt for them, and alwayswould. [Karen Miller’s Star Wars: Clone Wars Gambit: Stealth]

[Anakin]looked at Ahsoka. “Fine. You can go. ButI want to be kept informed of Torrent Company’s status. Don’t make me chase youfor updates, is that clear?” She managed to smile. “Yes, Master. Thankyou.” “And Ahsoka …” He felt hisheart thud. “Tell Rex—tell all of them—that anything less than a full recoveryis unacceptable. Tell Rex I—” He had to stop. Obi-Wan was in earshot, and theywere not supposed to care so much. [Karen Miller’s Star Wars: Clone WarsGambit: Stealth]

[Anakin]hit the cockpit canopy switch, fast. “Obi-Wan’s fine, more or less,” he toldthe anxious droid, firing their fighter’s thrusters. “Ahsoka’s pretty bangedup, though. So are Rex and Coric. They’reon their way to Kaliida Shoals.” R2’smournful whistle said everything Anakin couldn’t … or didn’t want to.[Karen Miller’s Star Wars: Clone Wars Gambit: Stealth]

Rex. Coric. Ahsoka. And fourteen dead pilots. Scoresmore dead and wounded ground troopers. Why can’t we stop this? Why can’t we catch Grievous?Dooku’s only one man. How can he defy the entire Jedi Order? Who is his SithMaster? Why can’t we find him? Day andnight the questions ate at him. They ate at Obi-Wan, too, but somehow his formerMaster seemed able to live without knowing the answers. Or else he was justbetter at hiding his dismay. His fear. [Karen Miller’s Star Wars: CloneWars Gambit: Stealth]

All thisstuff are part of the narrative. it’s not an opinion, an interpretation or atheory it is a fact. It’s in the movies, tv shows, comics and novels. Look,Anakin was not a saint who never did anything wrong ever but people are takingthis bias against him too far. He fucked up A LOT and we all know it but that doesn’t mean we can stick everynegative adjective we know on him, especially when these attributes are not supported bythe narrative. Let’s blame Anakin for the stuff that was actually his fault.

Is Anakinguilty of not recognizing the clone army as a slave army? YES!

Is Anakinguilty of not caring about the lives of the men he was responsible for, havingmalicious intent and jeopardizing their safety on purpose? NO!

#ask #anon #anakin skywalker #clone troopers #gffa slavery #sw meta #meta: anakin #meta: clones #txt

[cienie-isengardu]

Well, the great difference between the Jedi and the clones is that while Jedi indoctrination makes for mitigating circumstances, they are still held personally responsible. Yes, the narrative may skirt around these issues, but it still brings them up - Slick calls the clones slaves, Barriss criticizes Jedi's part in the war, otoh Miraj argues that the Jedi themselves are akin to slaves etc. But the clones are blameless. They did not turn against their buddies and slaughter them with a clear head

2/2 to the audience it also feels different to slaughter a complete stranger or a passing aquaitance as opposed to a friend. In spite of all else, how could fandom not hate Wolffe and co. if they killed Plo for no reason than because a superior ordered it? As for the comparison to Kenobi, as opposed to clones he had very good evidence of Anakin’s crimes. If he had any doubt, it disappeared when Anakin strangled Padme. He might not wanted to be the one to deal with it, but there was no one else.

Firstly, I’m sorry it takes me so long to answer, I had really tiresome two weeks at work and couldn’t reply earlier. Also, I lost my first draft of the answer and needed to rewrite it entirety, so sorry in advance for possible grammatical mistakes and so on.

Secondly… Well, I’m not so sure if Jedi were truly held personally responsible in The Clone Wars animated series - yes, TCW’s narrative brought the issue few times, but never really addressed them in a way that made me feel the Jedi actually were forced to think over what happened. Slick’s accusation was pretty fast dismissed, because he was the traitor and “disappointment” and it was his selfish doing that killed so many clone troopers in the process. Barriss would never be brought to trial at all (and thus never openly criticized Jedi Order), if not for Anakin and Padme, the only people willing to prove Ahsoka’s innocence. But did Jedi Council take any blame for the whole fiasco? Not really. They just washed their hands of both Barriss and Ahsoka. Anakin & Plo were the only one who bothered to say “sorry” to Ahsoka, but rest of Council acted as it was the Will of the Force or her Jedi Trail and were now kind enough to allow her come back. In the end, Ahsoka’s departure was about how she couldn’t trust herself since Council didn’t trust her than how they failed a child in their care. I don’t know what happened to Barriss after trial (and since that was public thing, I doubt Jedi could sent her to their own top secret Ghost Prison), but did any Council member or the girl’s master even get involved afterwards? I don’t remember anything like that. Barriss’ words had merit but are easy dismissed - she is terrorist whose action killed innocent people. If she cared so much how Order changed for worse, why she used violence or did not speak about that in more civil way? How she can criticize Jedi when she alone put bombs and killed people?

And the queen Miraj? She was the “bad one”, so why Jedi (or audience that is supposed to cheer up for Jedi) should care for her claims and screwed up ideology/POV? She enriched on human trafficking, allowed to torture, abuse and dehumanization of captured people - what she really knew about Republic and Jedi corruption, if she alone wasn’t saint? Did she really meant that or did she just messed up with Anakin who was forced to obey her, otherwise dear to him people would be hurt? Or Asajj, who by most of time mercilessly killed people and never questioned Dooku’s evil orders until he betrayed her? See, the problem with accusations coming up from the bad ones is that, those characters do not have any higher moral ground to pass judgment or criticize anyone. I admit I didn’t watch TCW for a long time, so I may missed some more important moments (the padawans left behind, for example). But at the end of day, Jedi are the heroes and rescuers, even when some groups didn’t want to be bring into their military conflict. The villains may have valid points, but it’s easy to dismiss them. TCW did not bring criticism for Jedi from the good guys and for most of time, I feel like all accusation only reinforces Jedi false belief how flawless they were.

I mean that. Yoda, Plo and Shaak Ti may gave clones pep talk, but they would send them on suicidal mission without any remorse or doubt, if that was for the greater good. Saving son of Jabba the Hutt is the best example. Does anyone hold Jedi responsible for letting behind slaves in need, when they actually made a deal with slaver? Not really.

Or did any senator (citizen of Republic) even once asked why Jedi will not pay themselves for clone army whose creation they ordered without the senate’s knowledge, when republic budget was discussed? Did anyone asked how out-of-nowhere, there is a full army ready for a war? Did we even see Yoda to explain any Jedi matters to non-Jedi person (senators?) at least one time? Or being questioned by anyone? Not really.

That said, in some sources (usually Legends) Jedi were forced to rethink their choices or were blamed for things that went wrong. Like senator Ask Aak, who blamed Jedi for another lost battle and even questioned not only their ability, but the desire to defeat Dooku. Still, Jedi weren’t hold responsible nor their mistakes weren’t publicized (“Whispers of names that the Jedi would like to pretend never existed. Sora Bulq. Depa Billaba. Jedi who have fallen to the dark. Who have joined the Separatists, or worse: who have massacred civilians, or even murdered their comrades.” [RotS novel]). They did not apologized for action of Jedi who fell to Dark Side. They did not answer to senate or court the way average citizen would be forced to.

Let me quote fragment from Order 66 novel, between ARC troopers and Jedi master Zey that I think sums up pretty much the different idea of obedience:

“They killed us … They killed us all … Why?” […]

“Orders,” Ordo said. “You never read the GAR’s contingency orders? They’re on the mainframe. I suppose nobody thinks contingency orders will ever be needed.”

Zey leaned panting against the door frame as if he was about to collapse. “But why?”

“Because,” said Maze’s voice from outside the doors, “it’s neither your right nor your position to decide who runs the Republic. Who elected you?” […]

“Maze, what are you going to do now?” Ordo asked.

“I’ve never disobeyed an order,” said the ARC captain. Zey didn’t seem to have the strength to turn and look at his former aide, just shutting his eyes as if he was waiting for the coup de grace. “What am I supposed to do? Pick and choose? That’s the irony. The Jedi thought we were excellent troops because we’re so disciplined and we obey orders, but when we obey all orders - and they’re lawful orders, remember - then we’ve betrayed them. Can’t have it both ways, General.”

[…]

“I really must be going, General,” Ordo said. But he had to know. “Just tell me, is it true that Windu tried to depose the Chancellor?”

Zey raised his head all anguish and agony. “He’s a Sith. Can’t you see? A Sith! He’s taking over the government, he’s occupying the galaxy with his new clones, he’s evil…”

“I said, is it true?”

“Yes! It was our duty as Jedi to stop him.” “What’s a Sith?” Maze asked.[…[

“Like Jedi,” Ordo said “only on the other side. Mandalorians fought for them thousands of years ago, and we got stiffed by them in the end. We got stiffed by the Jedi, too. So, all in all, it’s a moot point for us.”

“Palpatine’s probably the one who had you created” Zey said. He was lucky he was still breathing. Ordo wasn’t sure why Maze hadn’t just slotted him. “Why couldn’t you see what he was?”

“Why couldn’t you sniff him out with your Force powers?” Ordo asked. “And why the shab did you never ask where we came from?”

Jedi Order was politically untouchable organization until now. Jedi matters were only for Jedi. The outsiders didn’t have much to say about that nor could put them on public trail (Ahsoka was a special case). Jedi ruled themselves on their own way. But the moment when Mace Windu and Council members attacked Chancellor - a legally elected leader - this changed everything. We know why they did so, but for average citizen of Republic? This was just coup. No one cared for Sith or Dark Side of the Force. Council tried to take control over Republic and so all Jedi paid the price. It’s unfair and cruel, especially for all children killed in Temple and padawans who suddenly lost their masters and friends and remained alone in the cruel galaxy. It’s unfair for all those Jedi that never had anything to say about Order politics or Yoda/Council decisions. But they paid the price and since then Jedi were blamed for everything bad that happened or forgotten for good. But to that point, Jedi rarely were hold responsible for their crimes or ignorance. And TCW made it quite clear, all bad things happened because of Sith’s doing or Jedi who fell to Dark Side or corrupted politicians & greedy people or mad scientist and so on.

But at the same time, clones weren’t blameless. Jedi blamed clones for “betrayal” when troopers suddenly followed someone’s else (legal!) orders. Some people actually don’t think that much about reasons behind clone action, because they don’t see them as human beings. Clones were breed to war and obedience, so it’s easy to dismiss their feelings or beliefs or inner pain, if they really didn’t like Order 66 but still did as were ordered.

I saw Revenge of the Sith in cinema in 2005, way before knowing that much of clone wars era, but even then I didn’t hate clones. For sure I don’t blame them now. Frankly, I wouldn’t mind seeing someone shooting down Yoda for sure. In a way, Jedi had a chance to save themselves during the three years of war. They could dig and dig all the mystery of clone army yet they never did much about that. They took clones (and their obedience) for granted and that was used against them.

Kenobi had a solid proof of Anakin’s crimes. And you know what he still said to Yoda then? I will not kill Anakin.

Despite everything that Skywalker have done, Obi-Wan didn’t want nor feel to be emotionally ready to kill Anakin. And yet he did what Yoda ordered him; he used pregnant woman to get to Anakin (and revealed himself in the worst moment, really). But the worst part of that? He shouldn’t be sent after Anakin. Skywalker should be stopped faster than later, yes. Should be brought to justice, YES. But Palpatine was the biggest threat then. Yoda shouldn’t be so fucking arrogant to think he alone will kill Darth Sidious, when Mace Windu and three other members of Council get killed in less than, like what? Two minutes? And since Yoda felt death of Jedi in the Force I pretty sure he could put all pieces together how quickly they died. My point is, Skywalker fall to Dark Side was important stuff to deal, but death of Palpatine should be prioritized over everything else. Too sure of themselves [Jedi]  are. Even the older, more experienced ones. Yeah, shame Yoda never thought he may be the most arrogant one. And to the end of his life, Yoda had never been held responsible for that arrogance, while hundreds of Jedi paid the ultimate price.

#star wars #jedi #clone troopers #order 66 #my answers #my rant #yoda #anti yoda #more likely #sorry it took so long #to answer

[thedreadvampy]

hi how the fuck have so many people come out of watching the last jedi convinced that kyle is going to get a redeeming arc when the whole of his/rey’s arc in the film as far as I can tell was designed to build up to the clear statement that redemption has been offered to him many times and he is actively refusing to take it, and that his decision has been made again and again to remain in the Dark. like, he would not turn back to save his father, he would not turn back to save his mother, he would not back when luke tried to make amends, he would not turn back for rey. he cared about rey because he thought he could turn her, and to turn someone from the light would prove he was right. he killed snoke not because it was the right thing to do but because THAT’S WHAT SITH DO, killing your master and seizing their power is an expected rite of passage for sith. kylo ren is insecure and desperate to be impressive, to be seen, to be feared, to have power, and that’s what tlj was about on his end. he may well have built a thick shell of victim complex, like many violent people do. it’s not my fault it’s my parents/that my uncle didn’t trust me/that I was manipulated/whatever, oh it’s so hard, anybody would have snapped if they had to go through what I went through. but that doesn’t mean he’s RIGHT and every light side character exists in opposition to believing that narrative - Rey and Finn have both been wounded, hated, manipulated, abandoned and hurt, but they have both made the active choice to care about other people and to do what they think is right. Leia and Luke have both been through unspeakable tragedies and chosen to fight for what’s right. Poe starts tlj with the same basic problem as Kylo Ren - he’s ego-driven and his insecurity and arrogance keeps getting people hurt or killed - and his narrative arc is contrasted almost directly to Kylo’s - where Kylo repeatedly and actively chooses to remain with his self-centered worldview and ultimately makes the choice to go all in on Being The Most Powerful, Poe is confronted with the consequences of his behaviour and the realisation that the rebellion is bigger than him, and he takes that on board and tries to change it.

Kylo Ren’s storyline flirted with the possibility of his redemption because it needed to present the possibility to be effective. See, we know Kylo, unlike Anakin, doesn’t value his family enough to have much bearing on his decision to turn. We know this because he straight up shanked his father and twice in tlj tries without too much compunction to kill his mother along with everything she believes in. But there could still be a chance, right? So Rey is here, Rey who believes in the best in people, Rey who learns his backstory in the way most flattering to him - through him, and through the people who feel guilty and blame themselves, not Ben - and truly believes that he can be saved. Rey works singly and with focus on the task of Redeeming Ben Solo. Rey is willing to sacrifice everything to bring him back. And he rejects redemption even then. He has killed Snoke. He has killed everyone keeping him there. He has a person willing to support him in leaving the First Order, /begging/ him to come with her. And he chooses instead to become the most powerful member of the First Order. He isn’t ignorant of its impact, he isn’t unaware of any other path, he isn’t trapped or held, he has MADE THE ACTIVE CHOICE to choose the Dark Side in a way we’ve never seen before. Anakin choose the dark side on a patchwork of lies and manipulation, because he was scared and he wanted strength to protect the few people he had, and he had no real support network, and he was always watched over and under the control of his master until they both died. Not so here. Kylo chose the dark side despite being supported and loved, despite knowing the damage it did, and to give him more power than his family had. And then he continues to choose it as he murders his family, as people who love him sacrifice everything to give him support in leaving, and after nothing remains to keep him in line. It’s a CHOICE for him in a way it really isn’t for Anakin, tbh. And that’s HIS ENTIRE ARC, his arc is knowing at any time he could choose to do the right thing and constantly and repeatedly choosing not to.

Han reaches out to him, tells him they blame themselves and they’ll support him when he comes home, and Kylo kills him

Rey does everything that she can, she almost dies for him, and he tells her she’s nothing without him and then, when she won’t turn, she’s forced to run away as Kylo claims power for himself.

Like, it’s not that i have a problem with people WANTING Kylo Ren to be redeemed (although I personally don’t). I just don’t understand how many people genuinely believe that that’s the ultimate intention for the story. I feel like we watched two different films here. I feel like the entirety of tlj was setting up the clear closing message ‘Kylo Ren is irredeemable because he has chosen to reject redemption’.

#star wars tlj #the last jedi #tlj spoilers #star wars #kylo ren #Like the whole fandom seems convinced of this! #You've got people going 'I like tlj because it sets up a redemption arc for Kylo Ren' #and you've got people going 'grrrrrrrrr tlj is the Worst how dare they set up reylo and a Kylo Ren redemption plot' #and I don't know what film these people have been watching because what #And I liked tlj a lot and there's a lot to unpick and I have some criticisms and some praise #But it's rather predicated on the overarching message of choosing not to change #Which apparently WASN'T THERE IN THE FILM Y'ALL WATCHED or something #So how am I meant to discuss it?

[zachsgamejournal]

COMPLETED: Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

Done! Mixed feelings: at first I thought, wow the 2nd half really picked up! But then upon reflection, I still feel jerked around...

Combat

I "think" the combat isn't about parrying, it's about breaking your enemy's block. With that assumption, I felt I was more successful in combat. It didn't make me like the combat. In a sense, it just doubles/triples the enemy's HP. But I unlocked the double damage skill and didn't hate the combat as much.

Dathomir

Everything about this place reminded me of Legacy of Kain. From the tombs to green eyed zombies. Also, zombies?? You meet Marrin, and she's my favorite character. She's got a blunt style that I like.

In a sense, this world represents everything wrong with the game. Like Bogano, the objective is clear and then there's a collection of contrived obstacles getting in the way. You get to the front door, the bridge is broken and you drop down to a pit. You must climb out of this pit just to get back to where you already were. And then, you get to tomb entrance and a stupid cutscene breaks your lightsaber. Now you must leave the planet and go through a whole level to build a new saber, just so you can re-do much of Dathormir and get back to the tomb entrance.

Traditionally, in gaming, this isn't bad. It's an excuse to have more game. For someone that just wants more scenarios within which to kill things, it works.

The problem with this game is that it presents itself as a story driven experience and fails to deliver much story. They took Uncharted gameplay, but they didn't take its story strategies. Uncharted is at its best when you're adventuring with a companion. Fallen Order's companions are stuck in the ship and provide little commentary.

Another problem is that the level design can't decide if it's "open" or "linear". For the most part, there's a linear progression, but contrived surprises distract progress from the goal into divergent sub-quests lacking diversity and narrative value. As the player wanders through linear paths that switchback on themselves, the player unlocks shortcuts. In the end, the level becomes more open, but confusing. And annoyingly, the spaceship where you start and end missions is always at the edge of the map. It should be at the center of the map to increase accessibility.

After Dathomir, we head to the inquisitor’s planet, which is an underwater facility. The level was thankfully much more linear and about reaching the end (I was done). The worst part was a “dojo” area that sent waves of enemies at the player. I rolled my eyes for 5-10 minutes straight. Like you haven’t made me fight enough??

We then get to the boss fight with Trilla. After that’s done, there’s a semi-fight with Darth Vader. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to fill. At first I thought, “Damn...I don’t want another boss fight.” But then I told myself, “But fans that like the fighting would totally want to fight Vader!” Thankfully, for me, it wasn’t so much a fight as a timed-button event (kinda), and didn’t last long. We all escape and blah, blah.

Story

The second half of the game seemed more enjoyable. But I’m not 100% sure it was. Just seemed that way. After a bunch of bullshit we go back to Bogano. We try to use the young-Jedi finder to locate force sensitive children. During this sequence, Cal has a vision, basically of the future. It shows him training Jedi kids, the kids being attacked and murdered by the Empire, and Cal submitting to Trilla. I’m sure many guessed that this would end badly, but I think it would have been interesting if there had been multiple visions, one where they succeed, and one where they fail (at least). Maybe it’s player choice, or maybe they question is it worth the risk?

There’s a not-really-plot-twist that your robo-pal sacrificed his memories of his former Jedi master to protect the secrets, but I guess trusted Cal to find them and...actually, I don’t know what we did. I know finding the cube and destroying it kept it out of the Empire’s hands, but I’m  not sure if the Jedi whose holograms inspired our travels had the same fear/intention.

So that awful cutscene on Dathomir. At one point, Cal is confronted by a vision of his former master. The Jedi Master berates Cal and challenges him to a duel. I think it’s dumb cause the vision-master has a completely different attitude than memory-master. So I don’t buy, at all, that Cal is emotionally affected by this obvious tomb-defense trap.Also, we play through the flashback of the master’s death. What happened and why Cal (stupidly) feels responsible for his master’s death.Clearly, his master didn’t blame him or thought he made mistakes. Clearly he had a nice and patient master.

I think they should have given the player 1-3 objectives. And after failing to do them in time, the master has to sacrifice himself to save the player. This is “almost” what happens in a cutscene, but it’s a cutscene, and clearly not an issue. And then when vision-master confronts Cal, instead of being so aggressive, he should have been more disappointed and undermining:

“For years, I trained you and you never took your lessons seriously. Never could do anything on the first try. And it cost me my life. How many more lives will be lost due to your weakness. You would have made a terrible Jedi even with training, but now--you’re nothing.”

But I have a completely different idea: What if the Jedi archeologist we’re following was Cal’s master. Cal was always somewhat directionless at the temple because his master was rarely there. Now tracking his master, Cal is filled with anger and sadness. He cared for his master, but also never knew him. Where he fails now as a Jedi, he doesn’t know if it’s because of his master or because of himself. This kind of doubt and pain could be exploited by Trilla. And when Cere comes into the picture, it’s complicated because we can’t trust Cere. Also, this holograms wouldn’t just have been worthless plot dumps, but opportunities to inspire emotional moments. PLUS, you could have Cere questioning the master for not being around when the Sith took over the senate. Even have the master questioning himself: is his mission worth it, or is he avoiding the war?

Ah well.

In the end Cere uses a light saber to fight with Cal, except she’s always in another room because there’s one thing this game hates: companions working together. I kinda think Cere should have bought it. The torch of hope would then be passed to Cal. And while Cal and what’s his face fly off to find their next adventure, we see a ghost of Cere and Trilla saying: “We’ll always be with you, Cal.”

So: DONE! I’m going to start playing Breath of Fire 4 again (forgot I left that unfinished), but also gonna download another Star Wars game. Maybe “Dark Forces 2″??

#Zach's Game Journal #COMPLETED #Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order #Stadia #They should have let Amy Hennig finish her game

[ruindil]

I hope you’re as Pro-Jedi as much as I am.

Oh Force, you have no idea. I’m completely 1000% PRO-JEDI. (anyone who isn’t might want to skip this post, because I have a lot of feelings about Star Wars and the Jedi Order) 

Warning: long, long meta ahead :)

I’m one of those fans who grew up during the prequel era. So when I first watched Star Wars, I got to enjoy both the Original and Prequel Trilogies at the same time. And I fell in love with it. I loved the simplicity and sincerity of the OT, but the nuanced complexity and tragedy of the PT captivated me. I’m a sucker for that kind of thing. So predictably, I was enamoured by the most tragic character, Obi-Wan. His sense of duty and how he always tried so hard and remained bafflingly kind despite all the horrible things that happened to him. It was so lovely and heartbreaking to watch how he tried and tried and yet he still lost everything but didn’t hate the galaxy for it. And the more you love and understand Obi-Wan’s character, the more you realise that what makes him such a great person is that he is quintessentially a Jedi. 

Unfortunately being Pro-Jedi is a very unpopular stance among Star Wars fans. I have met so many fans who believe that the Jedi Order was some sort of emotionally-stunted, oppressive cult that deserved to be exterminated, and to be very honest, it breaks my heart every time I hear someone say that. Because it’s not true. Not in the slightest. Obviously, these people don’t understand what they’re saying. There’s lots of evidence in EU material. 

Allow yourself to feel the emotions, then let them go.

- Jedi Apprentice #17: The Only Witness

First case in point. This is what the Jedi mean when they say ‘there is no emotion, there is peace’. (There’s also the Old Jedi Code, but that’s a whole other story) The Jedi philosophy isn’t about shoving down your emotions or suppressing it, it’s about acknowledging it, accepting it, feeling it. And then releasing those emotions and letting go. 

And the code isn’t asking a person to constantly not feel. It’s about releasing negative emotions or emotions that could distract you in a particular moment. (Let’s say you’re sparring and you can tell you’re winning and you start feeling all excited. That same excitement, if not released, could very well cause you to act hastily and allow your opponent to best you.) 

Then we have Anakin Skywalker. A lot of people blame the Order for Anakin’s fall, saying that the Jedi didn’t understand Anakin because he was emotional and they didn’t allow him to be with Padme. And here’s what I have to say to them: no matter what kind of training the other Jedi initiates received, all children are prone to feeling their emotions very deeply. Just look at Obi-Wan, that poor boy was so obsessed with being perfect, yet he still struggled with his temper and his fear and anger well through his childhood.

Yoda had always told him that anger and fear drove him too hard, that if he didn’t learn to control them, they would lead him down a path he didn’t want to follow.

“Befriend them, you should,” Yoda had advised. “Look them in the eye without blinking. Use faults as your teachers, you should. Then rule you, they will not. Rule them, you shall.”

Yoda’s wisdom was engraved in his heart.

- Jedi Apprentice #1: The Rising Force

Fear and anger are the same things Anakin and Obi-Wan were criticised for. The difference, I think, is in their response to the rebuke. Anakin got angry about it, and Palpatine fueled this by filling his head with the idea that because he feels all this, he is special. Palpatine is preaching exactly what anti-Jedi fans are saying: that the Jedi are the bad guys because they think emotions are bad. 

Obi-Wan takes a very different approach to the rebuke, he acknowledges his weakness and listens. Contrary to what Palpatine tells Anakin, the Jedi do not shun emotions. Yoda clearly says that ‘befriend them, you should’ , Jedi are supposed to be familiar with their emotions and accept them, but they must be able to control them and if they need to, let them go.

Anakin’s relationship with Padme was not bad in and of itself. The trouble came because Anakin could not draw the line between loving and possessing. Marriage is against the Jedi Code not because Jedi believe love is evil or anything. It’s more because the Jedi recognise that it can be difficult to avoid attachment when you’re in such a committed romantic relationship, and they understand that it could cause a conflict between vows to the Order and vows of marriage. The rule isn’t there to make life difficult or painful for the Jedi. It’s there to protect them from attachment. They can still feel what they feel, but they can only love from afar.

In the end, attachment is the final and only enemy of the Jedi. Attachment to a person, to emotions, that’s what the Jedi are against. They are allowed to love, allowed to feel, but they aren’t allowed to possess. And that there is the important difference. Anakin loved Padme, no one doubted it, but when faced with the thought of losing her, he could not let go.

And that’s not to say that the other Jedi did not face the same pain as Anakin. They may not have had romantic partners, but they had family. This is another aspect of the Order that I adore, and Obi-Wan says so himself.

I’ve lived my life in the structure of the Jedi Order. Yes, it was an organization with a goal- but it was also a family. I said it myself: Anakin was my brother. I had many brothers and sisters. And fathers and mothers. And even a strange little green uncle. I don’t have that home now. I don’t have that family. Almost every friend I’ve ever had is dead.

- Kenobi, John Jackson Miller

Each lineage was family, initiate clans and crechemates are family. Each Master and Padawan pair was family. They loved each other, but they had to learn to let go.

Okay, final point. Anakin was prophesied to bring balance to the Force. What exactly does that mean? We don’t get a clear answer, but we can speculate. This comic is from a recent Darth Vader comic, and it is about how the Sith obtain red kyber crystals.

When I first read this I thought it was an excellent way to mirror the Sith’s relationship with the Force. The Jedi believe in serving the Force, in surrendering to its will. The Sith use the Force for power. (This point can be quite controversial, because domination and power is commonly the narrative of Western stories whereas servitude and surrender is seen more in Eastern fables and such.) 

Anyway, I like to think of the Sith as a corruption in the Force. They are like poison or a virus. The same way they make kyber crystals bleed, they pour their anger and hate into the Force and make the Force bleed. It is an anomaly and an unnatural state of being for the crystals and for the Force. And that’s because of the kind negative emotions (anger, hate) and negative energy they are emanating. The Force becomes corrupted by all the negative energy and that corruption manifests itself as the Dark Side. So by this theory, bringing balance to the Force isn’t about two Sith and two Jedi (this is probably the stupidest theory) nor is it about Gray Jedi (I have very strong feelings against the very notion of a Gray Jedi. It’s just utter nonsense.). Bringing balance is about removing the virus and corruption in the Force. It is about destroying the Sith.

So, The Last Jedi is coming out soon-ish, and I have to say I’ll be very disappointed if they chose to go with the Gray Jedi or the extinction of the Jedi route. I know it’s what a lot of fans want, but it isn’t what Star Wars has been about. To end off, let’s have a gorgeous quote from our favourite Jedi.

“We are not saints, but seekers,” Obi-Wan said, repeating a Jedi saying.

- Jedi Apprentice #2: The Dark Rival

The Jedi do not think they’re perfect, but they certainly always do their best. And I am so sick of this fandom for constantly criticising them and blaming them.

#sw meta #jedi order #pro jedi #pro jedi order #anakin skywalker #obi wan kenobi #sw #jedi order appreciation

[gffa]

ANAKIN SKYWALKER, ATTACHMENT, GREED, AND THE DARK SIDE: The Making of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, page 213:

"No human can let go," Lucas would say of [the Yoda-Anakin scene]. "It's very hard. Ultimately, we do let go because it's inevitable; you do die and you do lose your loved ones. But while you're alive, you can't be obsessed with holding on. As Yoda says in this one, 'You must learn to let go of everything you're afraid to let go of.' Because holding on is in the same category and the precursor to greed. And that's what a Sith is. A Sith is somebody that is absolutely obsessed with gaining more and more power - but for what? Nothing, except that it becomes an obsession to get more." "The Jedi are trained to let go. They're trained from birth," he continues, "They're not supposed to form attachments. They can love people- in fact, they should love everybody. They should love their enemies; they should love the Sith. But they can't form attachments. So what all these movies are about is: greed. Greed is a source of pain and suffering for everybody. And the ultimate state of greed is the desire to cheat death."

Star Wars: Attack of the Clones commentary track, George Lucas:

“The fact that everything must change and that things come and go through his life and that he can't hold onto things, which is a basic Jedi philosophy that he isn't willing to accept emotionally and the reason that is because he was raised by his mother rather than the Jedi. If he'd have been taken in his first year and started to study to be a Jedi, he wouldn't have this particular connection as strong as it is and he'd have been trained to love people but not to become attached to them. “But he has become attached to his mother and he will become attached to Padme and these things are, for a Jedi, who needs to have a clear mind and not be influenced by threats to their attachments, a dangerous situation. And it feeds into fear of losing things, which feeds into greed, wanting to keep things, wanting to keep his possessions and things that he should be letting go of. His fear of losing her turns to anger at losing her, which ultimately turns to revenge in wiping out the village. The scene with the Tusken Raiders is the first scene that ultimately takes him on the road to the dark side. I mean he's been prepping for this, but that's the one where he's sort of doing something that is completely inappropriate."

Star Wars: Attack of the Clones commentary track, George Lucas:

"The scene in the garage here, we begin to see that what he's really upset about is the fact that he's not powerful enough. That if he had more power, he could've kept his mother. He could've saved her and she could've been in his life. That relationship could've stayed there if he'd have been just powerful enough. He's greedy in that he wants to keep his mother around, he's greedy in that he wants to become more powerful in order to control things in order to keep the things around that he wants. There's a lot of connections here with the beginning of him sliding into the Dark Side. “And it also shows his jealousy and anger at Obi-Wan and blaming everyone else for his inability to be as powerful as he wants to be, which he hears that he will be, so here he sort of lays out his ambition and you'll see later on his ambition and his dialogue here is the same as Dooku's. He says "I will become more powerful than every Jedi." And you'll hear later on Dooku will say "I have become more powerful than any Jedi." So you're going start to see everybody saying the same thing. And Dooku is kind of the fallen Jedi who was converted to the Dark Side because the other Sith Lord didn't have time to start from scratch, and so we can see that that's where this is going to lead which is that it is possible for a Jedi to be converted. It is possible for a Jedi to want to become more powerful, and control things. Because of that, and because he was unwilling to let go of his mother, because he was so attached to her, he committed this terrible revenge on the Tusken Raiders."

Star Wars: Attack of the Clones commentary track, George Lucas:

"The key part of this scene ultimately is Anakin saying "I'm not going to let this happen again." We're cementing his determination to become the most powerful Jedi. The only way you can really do that is to go to the Dark Side because the Dark Side is more powerful. If you want the ultimate power you really have to go to the stronger side which is the Dark Side, but ultimately it would be your undoing. But it's that need for power and the need for power in order to satisfy your greed to keep things and to not let go of things and to allow the natural course of life to go on, which is that things come and go, and to be able to accept the changes that happen around you and not want to keep moments forever frozen in time."

Interview with George Lucas, BBC News 2002:

"Jedi Knights aren't celibate - the thing that is forbidden is attachments - and possessive relationships."

Interview with George Lucas, Time Magazine 2002:

"He turns into Darth Vader because he gets attached to things. He can't let go of his mother; he can't let go of his girlfriend. He can't let go of things. It makes you greedy. And when you're greedy, you are on the path to the dark side, because you fear you're going to lose things, that you're not going to have the power you need."

This is a collection of quotes from George Lucas to further clarify what the dark side and attachment mean within this specific universe.  It’s often too easy to conflate attachment with any kind of love, but George Lucas directly states many times over that that’s not what attachment is--instead, it’s linked to possessive behaviors, which is where Anakin’s problem comes in, that he rejects distinguishing the two. The narrative intention is that, yes, avoiding attachments for a Jedi is a good thing, because Anakin’s attachments are what cause him to become Darth Vader.  George Lucas says this many times, it’s never about how, oh, the Jedi’s teachings are bad, oh, the Jedi are toxic or they reject love or whatever.  Rather the opposite is explicitly stated!  No, it’s not about anything other than how it’s straight to the point--Anakin’s inability to accept the difference between compassionate love and possessive love, his refusal to let go of his attachments, is what causes him to be Darth Vader. It’s never about how the Jedi adhere to the light side--which George Lucas also says is a good thing, the entirety of his explanation about what the light side and dark side are, how the light side leads to true joy, while the dark side leads to unhappiness, are how he fundamentally set up this world.  That the movies are centered around the themes of good vs evil, about selflessness vs greed, and that “the world works better if you’re on the good side”.   The light side is fundamentally the good side, that’s just how the Star Wars universe works. George further states:   “If he'd have been taken in his first year and started to study to be a Jedi, he wouldn't have this particular connection as strong as it is and he'd have been trained to love people but not to become attached to them.” If he’d been trained earlier, he would have been fine. The problem is not the Jedi’s teachings, the problem is that Anakin refused to take them to heart.  The dark side is objectively bad in the Star Wars universe, you must face it and train yourself away from it, “[The] only way to overcome the dark side is through discipline. The dark side is pleasure, biological and temporary and easy to achieve. The light side is joy, everlasting and difficult to achieve. A great challenge. Must overcome laziness, give up quick pleasures, and overcome fear which leads to hate.“ --George Lucas, The Clone Wars interview, 2010 And, in doing so, Anakin is defying the path he should have been walking.  “It's fear of losing somebody he loves, which is the flipside of greed.  Greed, in terms of the Emperor, it's the greed for power, absolute power, over everything.  With Anakin, really it's the power to save the one he loves, but it's basically going against the Fates and what is natural. “ --George Lucas, Revenge of the Sith commentary

#anakin skywalker #jedi #jedi order #george lucas #attachment #dark side #meta

[millicentthecat]

Leaders, Not Heroes: Some Meta about Kylo and Snoke in TLJ

This post contains spoilers for The Last Jedi.  It is also a Dark Side Positive post.  It was posted on 12/17/2017 after seeing the film twice, so there may be errors.

In their first scene together Snoke acts as if he feels betrayed by Kylo.  I didn't transcribe the dialogue, but it communicated something very much like... "I had faith in you to be more like Vader.  I know some part of you isn't really in this.  You failed me, and I'm angry, but I'm giving you pretty much infinite second chances, so...pull it together?"  It's like a tough-love pep talk.  And also some amount of "damnit Tiffany, I believed in you!"

Snoke uses force to discipline his right-hands.  I compare that to the moment when Rose stuns Finn.  To prevent him deserting?  Or when Leia shoots Poe for disobedience?  Snoke challenged his people and pushed them in a way that was definitely controlling and high-pressure.  He was a leader.  Snoke was the leader of the First Order.  I know I'm eulogizing.  If you don't want to read a eulogy, please scroll by.

Instead of responding to Snoke's pressure / pep-talk by committing himself, Kylo breaks.  He snaps in half under the pressure.  Kylo is very distressed by two forces: his desire to please others and his desire to protect himself.  Those things shouldn't have to be mutually exclusive, but they are, and they have been ever since his mom and dad left him in an unsafe place.  Maybe even before he was born.  Because Star Wars isn't a safe world.  It's an extreme, competitive world where you fight for your life unless somebody loves you and you're willing to die for them.  If you're willing to die for someone, you do.  That's what really happened to Kylo Ren.  He grasped this conflict, probably at a very young age.

When Snoke confronts Kylo in that first scene, Kylo shifts hard into self-protect mode.  He spends the whole rest of the movie there, with his fear.  The Kylo who's committing all that violence against everyone, all that violation, is acting in defense and in fear.  Even his interactions with Rey are geared towards turning her and neutralizing her.  What he's doing is reasonable for someone whose priority is to stay alive--but only half of Kylo wants to be alive.  The other half wants to do what others' want him to do.  And people want him to die.  For Kylo, loving others, giving them what they need, that means death.  Luke Skywalker looked at him and wanted him to die.  THE Luke Skywalker!  Kylo can't be in a mutually loving, mutually trusting relationship because nobody is looking out for him and what he needs.  (What does he need to be safe?  No Jedi or Sith.  No Leaders, No Gods, No Masters.)

Which brings me to Snoke.  Overall I think Snoke trusted himself and his people kind of a lot.  He didn't mind telling people his plans.  He could listen to dissent.  He could tell his people everything in a grand monologue and then hear them and respond and say, "hmm, your ideas are shitty and you're wrong."  Or, "hey that's actually an amazing idea."  I think this is very much the Snoke we saw.  He was honest about his plans and clear about his feelings.  He announced them.  He gave praise and admiration when he saw something he respected (a lot!!!!) and he expressed displeasure and disappointment in things he didn't.  When you look past his scars and his “creepy” tone and diction, that’s what’s there.  The awkward metaphor about “rabid curs?”  It literally communicates, “weak and damaged people are still useful, necessary, and important.”

Snoke builds a bridge in the Force between Kylo and Rey and manipulates Kylo's emotions surrounding Rey.  This, he confesses to.  It was part of his plan to draw Rey in.  Now, there isn't a single good goddamn reason why Kylo would have killed his Master AT THE PARTICULAR MOMENT HE DID if it weren't for hopes of building something with Rey.  Snoke nursed those hopes (not secretly!!! from "bring her to me" in TFA, we know what he's about).  "Snoke ships it" is usually a Kylux tag, not a Reylo tag, but I remember writing about Tempest AU and mentioning that Snoke, like Prospero, might bewitch his apprentice into loving an adversary for political reasons.  If I knew Snoke was capable of that, Kylo almost certainly knew.  I think the part of Kylo that wants to love and help others was probably very willing to be a part of such a plan.

But TLJ Kylo is self-defending Kylo.  So rather than go along with Snoke's "bring the girl to me" plan, he makes his own.  "Renperor" actually turns out to be a pretty effective plan for him--if his goals are to self-preserve.  I don't blame him for going that way and I definitely don't blame him for resisting a favored cultural narrative that demands he submit to people who don't respect him and don't treat him how he needs to be treated.  

I also don't blame Snoke for failing to give him the support he needs.  I'm not sure anyone could.  I think Snoke did his best as a leader and I don't blame someone who trusts his allies for their betrayal.  His plan was ambitious.  The monologues the movie gives him--"I know everything my apprentice thinks!  I cannot be betrayed!"--approximately--are self-confident and invoke the idea of hubris.  "Hubris" is a religious concept which, like vanity, is mostly used for victim-blaming anyone with aspirations.  Because really: Icarus flew too close to the ground.

Conclusion: Snoke's death hurts me.  It hurts me even when the movie tries to make betrayal seem silly and casual.  I understand Johnson's desire to subvert tropes, but sometimes you have to stop seeing tropes and patterns and see people.  Vader destroying Palpatine was intense for a reason.  

Snoke’s death also hurts because I feel the story tries to blame Snoke for it.  And like.  Nobody can control everything.  Trusting your team means giving them rope to hang themselves--or YOU.  And nobody's a perfect leader.  The whole movie is full of "how to deal with failure" type stories.  Luke, Rey, Finn, Poe... they all have these stories like "it's ok to be wrong sometimes!  you can fix it!"  But Snoke screws up with Kylo and Kylo kills him.  He makes mistakes--building a bridge in the Force, manipulating Kylo's feelings about Rey, presuming he has any idea how those feelings work--essentially, failing to anticipate needs--and that's it.  That's the ballgame.

I have feelings about that.  I feel The Pressure.  The "don't screw up or you'll die" pressure.  The victim-blamey "don't screw up or you'll die and it'll be your fault for being too vain and proud and flying too close to the sun" pressure.  Demonstrations like that just strike the chord in me that's mortally insecure about taking charge or using my voice to try and help.  But failure doesn't make you a bad leader and Snoke's not a bad leader.  He just failed to anticipate how Kylo would react.  Sometimes people need things you can't expect.

#snoke #kylo ren #reylo #the last jedi #tlj spoilers #dark side positive #dark side positivity #meta #supreme leader of my heart #kylux mention #general hux mention #i changed the title for spoiler reasons

[dracox-serdriel]

The Force Rises - Chapter 2: The Rogue Sentinel [Star Wars]

Title: The Force Rises [AO3] [LJ] [FF] [Tumblr] Chapter: The Rogue Sentinel Universe: Star Wars Pairings: Reylo (Rey/Kylo Ren | Ben Solo) Word count: ~1,600 Spoilers: All Star Wars movies through The Last Jedi. Rating: NC-17/MA (eventually) Chapter summary: Rey finds herself in a solitary quandary.

Rey continues to grow into her powers, carving her own path with the Force, while the Resistance rebuilds and regroups, gearing up for their next battle with the First Order.

The Force Rises Chapter 2: The Rogue Sentinel

Rey woke up warm, like a furnace had been placed under the sheets next to her. She could only assume that the sun was to blame, heating up her bedding to an almost unbearable degree.

She begrudgingly decided to get up, if only to close the window. She found her eyes glued shut, forcing her to rub the crust away to open them properly, and even that was an enormous effort. Her arms - no, her entire body - felt heavy, resisting her every move.

That didn't make sense. She had been fine when she had crawled into bed.

Rey blinked, confused by the deeply red light flooding the room with hues of orange and brown with yellow slowly overtaking them all. It was nothing like she had ever seen, yet instinctively, she knew it was dawn all the same.

As if to confirm the time, her stomach growled, giving her the push she required to roll out of bed, despite the protests of her limbs.

Once her feet were under her, she stretched up as she took in a long, deep breath, attempting to best her stiffness, but it wasn't enough. So she continued through the few other stretches that she knew, hoping the next one would unstick whatever muscle she had managed to injure without knowing.

She felt better, certainly, but not entirely right. A second roaring growl of hunger changed her priorities, so she dressed hastily in a loose robe, tunic, and her arm wraps. She tucked her blaster into her belt as she walked out the door.

The downside to her private quarters was how far it was from everything else. She had to walk over fifteen minutes to the mess hall, which was nearly empty. She couldn't read the signs - the language of this planet seemed to have an alphabet of deceptively simple cubes and triangles, some with incredibly slight variations - so she followed her nose to the kitchens.

She had never seen so much food in her entire life. The few people who were there - natives of this planet, she presumed - encouraged her to take dish upon dish until she couldn't carry any more. She returned to the mess with plates of colorful fruits, creams, biscuits, and so many things she couldn't name.

Eating alone had never bothered Rey, but after months of sharing every meal and living in close quarters, it was unsettling to sit in this empty dining hall with its enormous, cavernous ceiling. She tried to pace herself, but everything tasted so good.

She'd been living off rations for too long.

She wondered about what she might do with the rest of her day. Normally she would work on the Falcon. She had always loved mechanics; one of the few joys she had as a child was pulling things apart and figuring out how they operated, how they broke, and how to repair or improve them. It came easily to her, but there was always something else to solve, something new to learn. She could immerse her mind in the wiring or submerge her imagination in the circuitry and forget herself - heartache and stomachache alike - even if only for a little while.

Would I know that about myself if they hadn't abandoned me on Jakku?

The thought appeared like a dreadnaught from light speed, obliterating her appetite. She numbly began to wrap the remainder of her meal in spare cloth. She could have it later.

She returned the emptied dishes to the kitchen, thanking everyone she saw before grabbing her bundle of food and starting the long walk back to her room.

She had thought that she had obtained some kind of closure the night previous. She could finally admit to herself that her parents weren't ever coming back, that they had never planned to come back. It stung like a newly broken blister before the callous, but it wasn't the interminable ache that she expected it to be.

But it still hurt.

Didn't closure mean she could move on? Or at least that she could get through the day without thinking about it? Was she stuck asking questions that she can't answer?

Rey quickened her step. She always had a drive - no, a need - to understand things, to look past the form and see the function, but people didn't work like that. She learned that the hard way on Jakku, more than once, but the lesson never seemed to stick.

Knowing why they did it won't change anything.

She'd give anything to be able to turn on her heel and head off to the Falcon. There was always something to repair or upgrade, and it was exactly what she needed right now. But Chewie, Poe, Finn, and Rose were on a munitions run and wouldn't be back for days.

What had she been thinking when she agreed to come here instead? General Organa had mentioned time to center herself and clear her mind, but Rey never did those kinds of things. She didn't want relaxation, and she certainly didn't need it.

Maybe General Organa had more acuity with Jedi mind tricks than she let on.

As soon as she got back to her room, Rey riffled through her rucksack. She didn't have a ship to fix or a mission to complete, but there was no way to clear her head with still hands.

And there was an entire world outside this building with not a spec of sand in sight.

Yes, a bit of exploration was just what she needed. She emptied her rucksack of anything she wouldn't require for the day before tucking her food bundle on top. She filled her canisters on the way out of her room, determined to break into a sweat as soon as possible.

It may have been wiser to inquire about the area before wandering off into it. She realized that when she was traversing a particularly unpleasant descent to the enormous lake she could see from her room.

She cursed herself the entire way down, but she quickly forgot it when she arrived at the water's edge.

This could be the most beautiful place in the galaxy.

Rey found a place to eat while watching some kind of aquatic creatures darting through the water without a ripple to betray them.

She hadn't realized how long she'd been there until she noticed she had eaten everything she'd brought with her.

Maybe this whole centering thing isn't so bad.

She could feel it here, the Force. She didn't have to concentrate or focus. It was right on the surface, like the air in her lungs or the sweat on her brow.

She was at a loss for how she managed to stay by the lake until the sun began to go down.

She began her ascent at a rapid pace, not wanting to get caught out here at night with only her handheld torch for light, but her progress slowed to a crawl when she hit a steep part of the mountain. She hadn't passed it on her way down, which was concerning. She had been so certain that she had followed the same ridge.

And it was getting dark. Fast.

Too fast.

She grit her teeth and pushed ahead. She had survived worse than a late night hike. There was nothing to worry about.

Yet, something in the back of her mind wouldn't stop worrying.

She made it to the halfway point just as twilight fell. She could've pushed on, had she not reached a sheer cliff edge.

She must've gone clear around to the other side of the mountain, along the fortified edge. How did she manage that?

Without rope, she had to walk along the mercifully flat passage that, with any luck, would put her back on the right path. She strapped her torch to the exterior of her rucksack to keep her hands free, but she had to adjust her pace to match her limited line of sight.

A profound loneliness struck her without warning. In the last five months, she had found friends and a new family in the Resistance. She wasn't just some scavenger in the desert anymore. She was the last Jedi, the new hope of the Resistance. It seemed everybody knew her name.

But she hadn't been this alone in her entire life.

Apart from General Organa, nobody she knew had any understanding of the Force.

Not nobody.

The very last thing she needed when stuck on an unforgiving mountain in the dark was to start thinking about him. She reached out, following the Force along the hard line of rocks before her, trying to distract herself from the one avenue of thought she loathed even more than that of her parents.

Rey's foot abruptly jerked in one direction, a loose rock sliding out from under her. She fought for balance with her bo staff but ultimately lost, tumbling over the edge.

She scrambled to draw upon the Force, but she wasn't certain how to direct it to soften her fall. She gracelessly crashed into a boulder before she caught herself.

Most of her injuries were minor scraps, but her ankle throbbed and burned.

No, this centering thing is rubbish.

She leaned against the boulder to keep her weight of her bad leg while she scanned her surroundings with her torch. She needed to regroup. She wasn't going to get anywhere until she could at least bind her ankle.

There was a shallow cave ahead. It would provide enough cover to build a fire without hiding it from anyone who might go looking for her. She would check out her ankle and rest while she figured out her next move.

One thing was clear: no matter what else she did tonight, she would not be thinking about Kylo Ren.

Chapter notes: These first two chapters were Rey-centric, but the next chapter will start opening the narrative to other characters. I hope you've enjoyed it so far!

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