So English used to have the formal/informal you distinction, and “thou” was informal. Tolkien makes use of this in his books, whether it’s Fingolfin’s brotherly closeness (”Thou shalt lead and I will follow”) or Eowyn and Aragorn sharing a moment after her recovery and engagement (Aragorn’s ”I have wished thee joy ever since I met thee”) where he had previously used the formal “you” while she, in love and desperate to stop him from taking the Paths of the Dead, had used “thee” (”because they would not be parted from thee–because they love thee”). In general, Tolkien uses “thou” to show moments of high emotion and closeness.
But “thou” can also be fighting words, when used inappropriately. (Remember Shakespeare’s Tybalt telling Romeo “Thou art a villain”?)
Feanor’s confrontation with Melkor is a moment of emotion, but not closeness. Feanor uses the informal “thou” as an insult, showing how he looks down on Melkor, when he says, “Get thee gone from my gate, thou jail-crow of Mandos!” In case the point wasn’t clear enough, he proceeds to slam the door in the face of “the most powerful being in all Ea.”
Melkor must be furious. Feanor, a mere elf, not only refused him, but refused him rudely, showing even in his pronoun choice that he looked down on Melkor despite all Melkor’s power.
I’d make a point that Feanor never uses formal you when talking (I may be wrong but I don’t remember one instance, even in Tolkien’s extended lore), nor does anyone else. It’s still pretty poignant, however, that he would do it both to Melkor and, notably, to the Herald of Manwe (maaaybe Eonwe, but the name isn’t in the text.)
Then turning to the herald he cried: ‘Say this to Manwë
Súlimo, High King of Arda: if Fëanor cannot overthrow Morgoth, at least he delays not to assail him, and sits not
idle in grief. And it may be that Eru has set in me a fire
greater than thou knowest. Such hurt at the least will I do to
the Foe of the Valar that even the mighty in the Ring of
Doom shall wonder to hear it. Yea, in the end they shall
follow me. Farewell!‘
In that hour the voice of Fëanor grew so great and so
potent that even the herald of the Valar bowed before him
as one full-answered, and departed; and the Noldor were
over-ruled.
Here’s Feanor using the formal “you” even when angry:
But good point about the Herald of Manwe part!
Boy how could I forget the speech to Olwe of all things lol
But thank you for the reminder! Though I wonder if it isn’t a plural instead of formal?
Feanor, answering his door in the middle of the night, shirtless, unshaven, and holding a can of beer: Melkor, thou ain’t shit.
Okay I recently wrote a paper analyzing Harry Potter from a cultural studies perspective and it illuminated quite a few things for me (also if anyone has already had these thoughts and/or articulated them, I haven’t seen them).
SO FIRST OF ALL: the series makes it super confusing as to who is actually the oppressed group: muggles or wizards. The wizarding community is very much the minority group at least within Britain and is essentially in hiding in order to avoid persecution from muggles. From this position of oppression and persecution, you have Voldemort & co. rising up in an attempt to overthrow the oppressors and reverse the relationship as they see muggles as inferior and therefore with no right to dominate the wizards. In this way the wizards are portrayed as the bad guys, the leaders who want to eradicate their oppressors. This is framed as the primary cultural conflict throughout the story, muggles vs wizards.
The distinction between magical and non-magical is not a simple binary, though, which complicates the narrative. There are two sides, with muggles being just that. But on the ‘magical’ side, there is a spectrum and further divides within the magical community based on how much muggle ancestry a witch or wizard has. On one end of the spectrum is muggle-born, somebody with ONLY muggle ancestry, and on the other is pureblood, somebody with ONLY wizarding ancestry. (I also think that the pureblood culture is portrayed as being similar to european aristocratic culture but that’s for another time). Based on this, Harry as a protagonist is brilliant because he straddles the magical/non-magical divide owing to the fact his only living family are muggles, he was brought up as a muggle and still returns to the muggle world annually, while also falling smack dab in the middle of the blood-status spectrum as a half-blood. He was born and raised in no man’s land.
This portrayal of blood-status and the ensuing conflict is rather overtly analogous to racial relations, as it bears a strong resemblance to persecution of racial minorities throughout history, from the Jewish community in Europe to African Americans in the U.S. It’s also important to note though, that this reading is complicated slightly by the fact that there are some characters in the novels and films who are explicitly racial minorities. I’m not saying that this constitutes adequate representation or excuses the lack of racial diversity, just pointing out that this creates an intersection in some students’ identities. I think one of the best examples is Dean Thomas, a black British citizen who is also thought to be muggle-born.
The series is framed in such a way that the reader is encouraged to see the cultural conflict between muggles and wizards as the principal conflict, and to see these cultural differences as being roughly analogous to racial relations that have been documented throughout history. However, I think that the portrayal of different magical creatures in the novels actually presents a better example of cultural conflicts and vastly changes how we interpret the outcome of the novels.
I don’t think it’s a secret that the non human communities in the Harry Potter series bear a strong resemblance to non white communities in our world, but I don’t think that this receives quite enough attention or discussion. The theory that the goblins can be read as representative of the Jewish community is widely known, but I think that the centaurs, known mostly for their mysticism and astrology, bear a strong resemblance to the portrayal of Native Americans in American culture, and that the enslavement of house elves and the reservation-like living situation of giants are other strong examples of non-human communities in HP having undeniable similarities to non-white communities in the western hemisphere.
Here, the question of cultural dialogue really opens up in the series, and not in a particularly good way. These different cultures remain at the periphery for the entirety of the series, serving only to prop up or reinforce the human characters’ desire to ~do good~ and ~save the world~
The ending of the series is portrayed as the saving of the wizarding world, but actually, Harry does very little. He manages to avoid all-out war between the magical and non-magical communities, but he doesn’t resolve the underlying conflict. The Statute of Secrecy is still in place, the wizarding community is still in hiding, wizards don’t want to murder muggle borns anymore but they don’t seem to understand or appreciate muggle culture anymore than they did before. What is more, Harry doesn’t do much to improve the lot of the non-human characters, whose ‘exotic’ cultures were given only a cursory glance and then their plights forgotten. Goblins cannot carry wands; Hogwarts still employs house-elves without pay; giants still live in small reservations far away from humans; the centaurs still are treated with fear and awe. We are given the hope that the new Ministry with Hermione and Harry at the head can improve these conflicts, but even that relies on both characters’ humanity and magic. It reinforces British colonialist and imperialist ideology that it is up to the colonialists to save their subjects.
I got the impression that Harry is mostly fighting against Voldemort, but not for anything (like more respect and rights for Muggles/Squibs/Muggle-borns, house-elves, goblins, werewolves and others, or better law enforcement to ensure no one ends up in Azkaban without a trial again, etc.). He does not have an agenda of his own; I’m sure he would agree those things are important if asked but he does not really fight for them. His victory in itself only upholds the status quo.
And I understand that Harry had enough on his plate, but couldn’t he have had at least some thoughts about what should be changed about wizarding society after the war? We are shown all those things that are wrong with it and then there is no follow-up. (S.P.E.W would be an example of this, too.)
I think this is why the epilogue is so unsatisfying – as you said, there are a lot of open questions beyond the names of the Trio’s children, and all of them remain unanswered. That’s what fanfiction is for, of course, but it would have been nice to get some canon proof that the magical world is a better place than it was before the war.
Okay, so here is the problem. Poe is a Commander. He was raised in the resistance (his parents/he was born on Yavin 4). Poe is 32 now and he probably enlisted at like 17 or 18. So he’s been a pilot for a while! Idk how long he has been commander, but im sure he needed to fly well, with rank, for years before he was considered the best pilot in the resistance.
So then we have this whole “learning that the heart of our cause lives in the hearts of our people” thing that is a really classic thing to do in war films when the fiery new young captain has to learn how to be a leader but only after losing some of his squad.
And that’s where they lose me. Poe is a seasoned commander like, if this was a problem he was going to have, he would have had it a long ass time ago, probably on his first mission leading a squad.
Him having this issue at this point in his career just doesn’t actually make sense.
Heresy time: I don’t find Jar-Jar all that irritating. Yeah, his speech pattern is a bit dumb, and he has a lot of pratfalls, but he’s not that bad. He has a genuine role within the film and helps facilitate the plot at multiple points. Also, his surprisingly useful flailing during the battle has me convinced that he’s an untrained Force-sensitive. If Anakin can blow up a droid control ship completely by accident with his untrained Force powers, then Jar-jar can take out half the droid army with his.
Jar Jar was also useful in showing the arrogance of the Core Worlders and the Jedi. His very presence is useful in termed of character and world building. He, and more importantly his entire species and culture, was derided as “primitive,” by the Naboo, the Republic, and the Jedi. There’s a lot of social commentary to be made there on many varying levels.
That’s LITERALLY the point of Jar-Jar’s character in the narrative, god, thank you so much.
The POINT of Jar-Jar is that everyone, everyone, including the fucking Jedi who are sworn to protect all life in the galaxy and should damn well know better, dismiss him. It’s not due to his personality; Jar-Jar is deeply loyal, he’s kind, he’s eager to help, he’s very honest and very genuine. It’s entirely due to superficial things; his speech patterns are annoying. He looks weird. He’s clumsy and messes things up, he’s from the “primitive” marsh-dwellers who live in the swamps or something. So they talk down to him, they push him around, they view him with disdain, they wish he was gone. You know. Much like the fandom.
Everyone except Padme.
Padme is interested in him, she speaks to him with respect, she listens seriously when he speaks. Naboo is saved not because of the Jedi (who fight Maul and do nothing else) and not even because of Anakin’s trick with the droid control ship, because the Gungan army made that possible in the first place. Naboo is saved because Padme from the beginning treats the Gungans with respect.
Somewhat relevant, but… in the original draft of Attack of the Clones, Jar-Jar, now a representative of Naboo, has adopted a “proper” lifestyle and dialect of Basic, with the implication that he was essentially forcibly culturally assimilated in order to maintain Naboo’s respectability:
There’s a subplot wherein he struggles to maintain his adopted dialect, and flat-out refuses to keep it up around people he trusts, which leads to moments such as this:
So, yeah. There’s a ton of social commentary to be made surrounding Jar-Jar and the whole “primitive marsh-dweller” thing. Personally, I think it’s criminal that this got cut. (This characterization, and its corresponding dialogue changes, lends a much more chilling tone and subtext to the scene where Jar-Jar convinces the Senate to grant Palpatine emergency powers, by the way.)
Wow, did not know that, but it is so cool. I did know though that there was specism involved in the early drafts of TPM. The other Naboo, besides Padme, were unwilling to let Jar Jar on the ship to escape just because he was Gungan. That’s also why Jar Jar accompanies Padme and Qui-Gon on Tatooine, @redrikki, as Panaka said that he was “stinking the ship up.” The very fact that Padme befriended Jar Jar, (indeed she claims to have never met a gungan before, I wonder why…), and made an alliance with the Gungans speaks greatly of her character, as almost no one else on Naboo would have had the intelligence and humility to have been able to see past their bigotry to do it.
I can also only imagine what the Core Worlders thought of a “primitive species,” defeating the mighty Trade Federation, and moreover, the fact that Queen Amidala chose to ally with them over waiting for Republic assistance form the Core. Boy howdy….
Honestly, I do find Jar Jar slightly annoying at times, but his presence and his arc are not bad things at all. If anything, the crime is that his potential is under utilized.
(Also, Padme is awesome. I love her; I just had to say it.)
The key to Padme’s success is two fold and, in both cases, it involved listening to marginalized people. She took the time to talk and listen to Jar Jar and it lead to a valuable alliance. She took the time to talk and listen to Anakin, a slave boy Qui-Gon basically ignored, and it resulted in them having shelter from the storm, them getting the part, and the shot which destroyed the droid control ship. She took the time to listen to and acknowledge the concerns of the Gungan bosses and ended up with staunch new allies.
Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan, on the other hand, bullied Jar Jar into taking them to his people’s underwater city and nearly got themselves and Jar Jar executed. They lectured and mind tricked the Gungan bosses and found themselves nearly getting eaten on a faulty ship while traveling through the planet’s core.The Jedi Council refused to listen to Qui-Gon’s concerns and ended up getting him killed and facilitating the Sith’s rise to power.
The moral of the Phantom Menace is that listening to and treating the marginalized with respect leads to positive things, while arrogant dismissal of the powerless leads to bad. It’s the same message as the Rebel’s alliance with the Ewoks in RotJ, so clearly it’s one near and dear to George’s heart.
honestly, im done with all those articles that blame the fans for not liking the last jedi, like ‘fans didnt like the movie bc the things they personally wanted to see didnt happen’ no. i didnt like the movie because i expect some good story and writing and not a mediocre one shot fanfiction by rian johnson.
This has definitely been a premeditated and organized play. I’m sorry, but I’ve seen so many articles stating the exact same thing: that fans are just mad that they didn’t get what they wanted, or else that the only people who didn’t like TLJ disliked it because of racist/sexist/political reasons. And in my opinion, it stretches belief a little too far for these different critics and separate sources to have all arrived at those very drastic and specific conclusions separately. I’m not saying that money was being passed around but…
Wait yes I am.
Disney/Lucasfilm is currently faced with a reality wherein audience ratings of the film are unprecedentedly low. The movie is doing consistently worse than did TFA in the box office.
So what do they do? First, they immediately discredit fans. At once. They try to take control of the narrative and influence public thought: spread it around that it wasn’t our fault, it’s the FANS’ fault for being so entitled. Any RATIONAL fan obviously LOVES the movie. It’s only these ungrateful, impossible-to-please fans who disliked the film, because, as stated, they’re impossible to please. That, or the fans who hate TLJ only hate it because—yes, we’ll say that they’re upset because we included so much representation and racial diversity and women!!! Those fans are just mad because they’re ignorant, sexist/racist people!! That way we make ourselves seem even better and progressive and the complaining fans won’t be able to criticize us without seeming racist or sexist.
By creating this rhetoric, no fans with legitimate criticism are taken seriously. It is a deliberate manipulation of viewers—trying to persuade people to ignore any negative reviews they hear or read by planting it in their minds that any negative stance is unwarranted and invalid because there’s nothing to possibly dislike about the film.
You’ll notice that many of us are in fact shouting ourselves hoarse about the character assassination of Luke Skywalker, the implications of “humanizing” a nazi murderer, the misogyny in writing a woman who is enticed by the man who tortured and assaulted her, and the racist implications of prioritizing this villainous white character while demoting the black male lead to a subplot and saddling all three POC characters with poorly developed, poorly executed plots. But none of those actual criticisms are being discussed. In fact, they are being deliberately ignored.
And the thing is that this strategy is—to a degree—working. Maybe not as well as Disney/Lucasfilm might have hoped—the box office numbers are evidently now almost half what TFA was making at this point, but it is certainly working here on tumblr. It’s particularly eye-opening how many people are parroting Rian Johnson’s exact sentiments about fans whining about disproven theories and unmet personal desires. How very interesting that this response is used as a be-all-end-all argument when not one of those people is actually addressing our very real points.
I could literally write a five page essay with citations painstakingly explaining why I feel The Last Jedi is incompatible with the preceding films as a continuation of the episodic saga, and STILL the only responses I’d get would be “you’re just mad you didn’t get what you wanted.”
Um, yes. I am mad. I’m mad that the story no longer makes sense. I’m mad that it’s inconsistent. I’m mad that the moral implications of the Star Wars universe are now, ahem, going down a path I can’t follow. But no one seems willing or able to respond to those criticisms, are they? To actually engage in an analytical conversation regarding our criticisms.
Instead they’re sticking their fingers in their ears screaming about fan entitlement.
Which is exactly what Disney and Lucasfilm were hoping they’d do.
What the fuck do you MEAN “extended isolation”. I mean, I shouldn’t be surprised by this shit anymore – and yet here I am, shocked and amazed and surprised. Literally the entire fucking point of RotJ is that Luke is bringing balance to the Force, and that includes doing away with the practices of the old Jedi and ushering in a new age. This included relationships and love and connections. That’s not “extended isolation”.
why did we give Star Wars to people who don’t understand Star Wars
Not that there was that much “extended isolation” in the old Order either, they just mostly interacted with fellow Jedi – which is obviously impossible for Luke and Leia anyway. Luke’s own training didn’t require isolation either, it’s just that Yoda had chosen to live on an isolated planet. I don’t know where they even got the idea from.
more thoughts on luke’s portrayal in that flashback
one thing that’s bothering me about luke’s portrayal in the last jedi – and specifically the scene with kylo ren in the flashback – has to do with the fact that luke is not a cinnamon roll and never has been. given that, this movie isn’t just a departure from the sweet farmboy who grew up to be a jedi. it’s a change in how luke responds to the temptation of the dark side.
luke is certainly that farmboy, but he’s not just that. he is tempted by the dark side multiple times in the original trilogy and gives in to anger and revenge multiple times as well. however, this means we have evidence of what luke is like when he’s tempted by the dark side. make no mistake, that’s what the flashback scene with kylo ren is about. examples of luke being tempted by the dark side in the original trilogy include: the cave, taking vader’s bait at cloud city for the duel, the scenes at jabba’s palace, and lastly, the throne room scene.
given that we have seen what luke looks like when he is angry or when he is tempted by the dark side, tlj’s interpretation is even weaker and sloppier in its handling of luke and kylo ren’s backstory.
The point where I became certain that TLJ had more respect for Kylo than for Finn was when we were shown how their wounds from the end of the last movie were treated.
We see the stages Kylo goes through to heal his, from freshly-bruised-up-&-bandaged to a team of droids meticulously stitching his cheek back together with synthetic skin. Rian Johnson himself even went out of his way to have Kylo Ren’s scar redesigned from the last movie, because, as he said, “it looked goofy.” With so much time and effort put into a single scratch on the face, that must mean Finn getting stabbed in the shoulder and nearly having his spine severed by Kylo Ren’s lightsaber will be talked about and dealt with in great detail!
Nope.
Neither of Finn’s wounds, which were so severe they put him into a *coma*, I’d like to remind you, are ever mentioned or seen. Meanwhile, we get about six scenes centered on Kylo’s lil boo-boo.
“But Pop, he was in that bacta suit thingy! Obviously the Resistance had better healing technology! Don’t be so nitpicky.”
Mhm. Yes. The struggling, underfunded, undermanned Resistance has better healthcare than the evil superpower run by all the richest people from the former evil superpower. OKAY! SURE!
They don’t mention Finn’s wounds once. Not once. Even if you think TLJ is the greatest Star Wars movie to date, think about that for a second. Think if they had just glossed over Luke having a metal hand, or skipped straight to Han being right as rain the moment he was pulled out of carbonite he’d been stuck in for years. How cheated would you have felt? How many great scenes would have been lost?
Rian Johnson has some real problem with male maturity. He took two oldest members of the new cast and gave them storylines about boys.
Keylo is fucking 30 yo, he’s been in his edgelord-space-nazi-killer-of-innocents phase for 10 years now. And yet he’s framed as a “boy” by the narrative, starting with Snoke literarly calling him that, to showing him constantly vulnerable and emo and and cowering or having emotional outbreaks (*cough* tantrums *cough*) He was childish in TFA but in TLJ it’s actually given a sympathetic angle, he’s not “childish” he’s young, delicate and conflicted, he’s “coming to know himself” and all that bullshit. He’s also given a “tragic” backstory and is constantly shown to be somehow abused by older people (snoke, luke). Almost up untill the very end, he’s shown to be coerced/forced/influenced by the circumstances and people older and stronger than himself.
He’s thirty (30) and he’s given a tragic “coming of age/discovering oneself” story fucking 10 years too late.
Poe is 32, a commander in the Resistance, a rank you don’t just get overnight and without loads of field experience, and yet, somehow, he’s regressed in TLJ to a stage of a young, hot-headed, irresponsible buck, a kid with too much audacity that needs to “learn a lesson”, needs to mature by being put down. During the entirety of the first half of his arc, he’s not once treated seriously by neither the narrative nor the other characters. He’s treated like a disobedient child who needs to be taught a lesson. Leia, his superior officer, slaps him to punish him. Then when she gets to him during his mutiny, she just wordlessly stunts him into unconsciousness as if he’s not worth any negotiations, any reasoning, cause he’s just a stupid child. The same thing happens later when Holdo and Leia leer over unconscious Poe and say they like him cause he’s a troublemaker – they are two military leaders saying that about a subordinate officer who’s just lead a mutiny, like, they are not once treating the situation with the gravity it deserves. The whole thing is framed into a loving and wise parent forgiving a petulant child for acting out, but it’s a grown ass man, a Captain leading a rebelion against the military chain of command!
And, apart from all of the above, any “coming of age and learning important life lessons to be less childish in the future” storyline given to a 32 y-o grown ass man is completely illogical
Of course it’s symptomatic that the white vile villain is given the sympathetic, “sweet child o’mine” story and the latino hero is reduced to an agressive, irresponsible teenager.
And it’s also symptomatic that the story about being young and finding yourself somehow bypasses the characters who actually need that story.
Rey? She’s like, a literal teenager who did not really have a childhood, she’s nineteen and thrust into a completely new world. She needs to learn about it, she needs to find herself in it. Instead she’s given the tired “woman tries to safe a douchebag” trope.
Finn?? He’s just a little older than Rey, he’s just pretty recently finished his childhood years without having an actual childhood, he’s just come of age and symulteniously has just freed himself from under soul-crushing abuse. He needs a “finding oneself” story on so many levels. His “coming of age” story has so much potential angles to it, so many themes to explore! Yet the only thing he gets to know abt himself is that he’s a Rebel scum (and isn’t it Resistance scum?) but the actual road to him starting to identify with the movement is just not shown at all. You don’t actually see what he’s transitioning from, because the “personal to political” shift in his involvement is just barely sketched out.
tl;dr: rian gives teenager storylines to grown-ass men, and not actual teenagers or young people and that’s fucked up and also racist and pretty sexist, the end
also, as a coda—I love that finn’s first instinct once he throws his lot in with the resistance is glorious pointless martyrdom, to the point that rose has to physically stop him from throwing his life away
I mean this is finn, whose bone-deep sense of self and hunger for life broke almost two decades of stormtrooper programming! and he’s ready to die! what on earth could possibly….?
mostly I like this idea because it enables me to believe that when finn thinks of heroism and The Cause, that circuit is still wired wrong in his head, tangled up with all the first order propaganda, the latent programming whispering that he’s just cannon fodder. This is what he’s good for this is how he’s meant to serve the first order the resistance; don’t you want to kill the thing you hate, don’t you hate them, the enemy who threatens you, threatens your squad, isn’t that worth your death?
(rose isn’t wrong, they are fighting to save what they love. just—so is the first order. everyone is fighting to save what they love, that’s the part that makes this so fucking awful.)
(what the first order wants to save is worse. that’s how you know.)
anyway, I love the idea that even now, finn thinks in the violent, objectifying (as in, it turns people into objects) vocabulary the first order gave him. I just….really want him to be unpicking all the wrong shit left in his head, slowly but surely.
I like this idea. But also…
Can we really say Finn’s actions were pointless?
At that point, the last stand of the Resistance with no real hope for rescue that anyone was sure of at the time, surely there is no option but to continue the attack even if it is suicidal. The scene is clearly meant to rhyme with Poe’s dreadnought attack at the start of the film, but there (since no-one was aware of the tracking yet) it at least made some sense to conserve their forces and strength for another time.
Here?
If Luke hadn’t turned up – and they had no reason to know he would – everyone would be dead. If you’re going to die anyway, choose how you do it – and if they had managed to destroy the cannon then they would have saved everyone else inside.
This is obviously a Watsonian critique of the fact that Rose’s actions only make sense if you assume characters have knowledge of what’s going to happen in the plot in the future – that she had a hope of rescue that doesn’t make much sense in story. Obviously I don’t think the film should have had Finn die even if it did save everyone. They just ought to have approached the whole issue in a different way rather than forcing Poe to learn a lesson that didn’t apply in these very different circumstances and which basically amounts to ‘don’t try too hard and wait for your leaders to pull something out of their ass to save you all – you don’t need to know the details’.
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