Schlagwort: meta

Rogue One Spoilers

comradeocean:

fuckyeahisawthat:

copperbadge:

meariver:

copperbadge:

BTW I saw Rogue One today and while

a) This is not my fandom
b) I was expecting Space Ocean’s Eleven not Space D-Day At Normandy holy fuck
c) I am so ignorant of Star Wars that I once thought an origami Star Wars Spaceship was a poorly-executed origami flower

nevertheless

a) Pretty great movie
b) K2-SOF MY HEART
c) Even though I was expecting it I still almost cried when CGI Baby Carrie Fisher showed up

Also, I told my parents before the movie “This is a movie that is so political Disney had to make a statement that it wasn’t political” and after the movie my mum said “I have literally with my own eyes seen live anti-nuke protests in the sixties that were less political than that movie.”

PS WOW Darth Vader’s outfit does not age well huh? I feel like the grainy quality of the original films hid a multitude of costuming sins on that one, holy textured trousers Batman.

wait, how was this political? i’m 27, am i too young to see it? was it like an anti-nuke thing or something???

(legitimate questions, i’m not tryna start shit, i just genuinely didn’t notice anything political about it)

WELL I AM HAPPY TO EXPOUND 😀 

The Empire has traditionally been a symbol for totalitarian regimes – it’s an insanely repressive and corrupt police state ruled over by an emperor where violence stands in place of reasoned law. The film takes a strong stance against this totalitarianism, casting the film’s heroes as enemies of the regime. Also, notably, it is a cast of predominantly people of color as the heroes, pitted against predominantly white men as the villains. 

So this is a movie about the first step in toppling a dictatorship, an empire, which America is uncomfortably close to being in letter as well as in aspect, both against other countries and against marginalized people in our own country.

Exchanges like “You would see the Empire’s flag across the galaxy?” “It doesn’t bother you if you don’t look up” are pretty pointed, especially followed by that same person saying “rebellion starts with hope” later in the film. This entire film is about people who were either active colluders in a totalitarian regime or passive subjects of it, awakening to the evil they live within and coming together with people who have spent their lives fighting it to throw the first punch in bringing it down. One woman trying to carry out her father’s legacy of sabotage becomes six people intent on finishing their mission becomes what, about two dozen soldiers assaulting a stronghold, becomes the entire Rebel Alliance engaging with the Empire, which results in the attainment of the Death Star plans that allow the Rebellion to strike a savage blow against the Empire in A New Hope. The power of one person to start a firestorm if they’re just willing to stand up to power is a pretty political message. 

It is, also, I think, extremely anti-nuke, yes. Every time the Death Star fires, you get a cloud that looks very like a mushroom (atomic bomb) or bubble (hydrogen bomb) cloud. The Death Star is the ultimate evil, because once you have it, you don’t argue with someone who disagrees with you, you just obliterate them. It’s rule by fear. And if the other side doesn’t have it, then we don’t even have “nuclear deterrence” (which is kind of an insane concept) – there’s just this one single planet-destroying weapon in the hands of a madman. America has a lot of nukes and we keep wanting to be the ONLY ones who have nukes…sound familiar?

Others who have seen the film more than once and know the background better than me can chime in, but in my view this was a film with an exceptionally political point to make about anti-authoritarianism, the essential corrupt nature of empire, the sacrifices that rebellion requires, and the priceless value of those sacrifices.

I haven’t check through all the reblogs so it’s possible someone’s already mentioned this, but it’s worth remembering the context of the original trilogy, released between 1977 and 1983. In the US, this was the period of the immediate aftermath of the Vietnam War–a war large sections of the US population (and eventually a significant portion of the US military) had come to oppose. This was a war where the US dropped more bombs on Laos, a country the size of Utah, than fell on all of Europe during all of WWII. It was also a war in which the most powerful military on Earth was defeated by a small guerrilla army sometimes fighting with literal sticks. (Remember Jyn’s line about one determined fighter with a sharp stick?)

For a guerrilla force the Rebels seem relatively well-armed, but it’s always clear they’re fighting an enemy much bigger and more powerful than them–often literally bigger (think of the recurring imagery of city-sized star destroyers and towering AT-ATs, plus the fact that the Death Star is big enough to be mistaken for a small moon.) 

The early 1980s were also a period of increased tension between the US and the USSR, a time when the world seemed as close to nuclear war as it had at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Apocalyptic destruction of an entire planet seemed like a very real possibility. (See also, the popularity of the Mad Max franchise during the same era.) There were huge anti-nuclear movements in the US and many other countries. I think the idea that the Death Star is a stand-in for nuclear weapons–and that people who would build such a thing are the bad guys–would have seemed like a fairly unsubtle political metaphor to many people at the time.

The thing about the original trilogy is that while the idea of the Death Star is terrifying, the actual effects of it are…kind of cheesy on screen. In Rogue One we get to see what it’s like to be on a planet when the Death Star strikes, and it’s terrifying. The strike on Jedha City is given a lot of visual attention and dramatic weight, from the giant rock tsunami to the view of the blast from the Death Star, which looks very mushroom-cloudy in nature. As for the strike on the vaguely Polynesian-looking Scarif, convince me that’s not supposed to evoke a South Pacific nuclear test.

Rogue One is interesting because it mixes the Cold War imagery of the original trilogy with a whole bunch of other war imagery, from WWII to the present. So, visually, the Battle of Scarif looks like Space D-Day or Space Okinawa, but a better description of the balance of forces might be Space Tet Offensive. Jedha is Baghdad distinctly Middle-Eastern-looking, with occupying stormtroopers on a very tank-like transport vehicle getting attacked by insurgents who blend into the civilian population. In case you haven’t been following the analogy, in both of these case, the US is the Empire and the Rebels are a stand-in for the people of a small nation in the Global South resisting occupation.

So, yeah, Star Wars is kinda political.

I would say that rather than the Rebels, it’s Saw Gerrera and his fighters who are the direct stand-in for the anti-colonial elements of the small nations of the Global South resisting occupation. And the Rebels represent the more liberal/pro empire factions of both the Global North and South who are reformist and criticize their methods and tactics of resistance.

… which makes the movie’s politics even more radical since “the rebel alliance is shown as hesitant, cautious and not above using the same methods that the empire uses“ while it’s the ‘extremists’ who see that the empire can’t be negotiated with, and who the heroine agrees with. [source] so Rogue One’s thesis becomes “the ‘extremists’ were right all along and everyone needs to resist violently to succeed“ [source]

obviously ymmv given what your politics are, but I find that ~amazing~ for something out of Hollywood.

At the same time they do show that Saw Gerrera’s extremists are going too far. Things like getting civilians killed or their treatment of prisoners (especially since Bodhi is a defector, not an Imperial anymore) are rightfully not endorsed by the narrative. It pretty much looks like they’ve partially forgotten what they started fighting for (helping people) and are now just fighting the Empire because they hate it and because the alternative would be giving up. They’re not anywhere near as bad as the Empire, and they’re right to see that the Empire won’t compromise and must be fought, but their tactics do harm innocent people too. I like how Rogue One shows that.

I think the Alliance’s problem is that they consist of people with many different backgrounds and tasks. The politicians are used to handling problems with diplomacy and negotiations, so of course they prefer to try that first (they’d probably like to avoid a repeat of the Clone Wars too).

Meanwhile other Alliance members have already been fighting a war for years.

Admittedly, it takes the political group about 2 decades to see that it wouldn’t work, and the Death Star is the catalyst for that realization. Which leads to a split between the ones who are afraid and want to give up and the ones who believe they must keep fighting. And then the plots of the 2nd half of Rogue One and A New Hope happen, and everyone is forced to accept that Empire can’t be reasoned with and that the war has “officially” begun.

There is no Emotion? The Jedi Code and its Real-World Inspiration

kotorswtor:

Two conversations reliably recirculate on the SWToR Story and Lore boards. One is all kinds of chatter about the in-game romances. The other is how Jedi must really suck, because they are prohibited from having emotions. One of the big reasons I started this blog was so that I could have my two credits on common board topics consolidated for reference, rather than retyping them ten times a week. That sort of thing leads to anger, which leads to hate, yadda yadda yadda.

This point cannot be overemphasized: to understand Jedi and the Jedi code, you have to understand that everything from their dress to their swordplay to their espoused values are heavily inspired by media depictions of samurai. George Lucas is a huge Akira Kurosawa fanboy, and the screenplay for A New Hope was largely modeled on Kurosawa’s “Hidden Fortress.” It is entirely likely that the word “Jedi” was derived from “jidai geki,” the Japanese term for historical dramas. Jedi philosophy is modeled on Buddhism, particularly the Mahayana, Taoist-influenced versions of Buddhism like Zen that samurai tended to favor.

Disclaimer: I’ve done some in-depth study of Buddhist philosophy/psychology in college, but I am not any kind of religious expert. If any of this stuff is interesting to you, *LeVar Burton voice* you don’t have to take my word for it; there are a lot of authoritative sources out there. Gunaratana’s Mindfulness in Plain English (available here for free) is a good, highly-accessible breakdown of the stuff I’m talking about here.

Especially if you’re coming from a Western perspective, it’s easy to get misinformation about Buddhist (and Space-Buddhist) approaches to emotion. People tend to assume that what’s being advocated is repression (striving not to feel, stuffing feeling down into dark corners of your psyche and ignoring it, and/or self-flagellation for honest, spontaneous emotional expression). This is why a lot of gamers and Star Wars fans assume that Jedi must, on the whole, be miserable and that being a Sith must be a lot more fun. And to be fair, a lot of Star Wars EU material unfortunately takes and runs with that interpretation. But that emphatically is not what the Buddhist source material is talking about. It’s going to be hard for me to do justice to the entirety of this without rewriting a huge body of work that other people have already written more skillfully, but I’ll try to hit the high points:

Buddhist philosophy says that one of the biggest reasons that people suffer is that they instinctively spend their lives in a compulsive, unwinnable cycle of chasing after and grasping at things that make them feel good, running away from or trying to destroy things that make them feel bad, and ignoring things that don’t elicit good or bad feelings. When people can decouple feelings (which naturally arise out of all of the factors that come together to make perception, and aren’t in themselves good or bad) from a knee-jerk, impulsive response based on a feeling’s adjudged goodness/badness/neutrality, they make a space in which they can see the world clearly and make sane decisions rather than be lead around by the nose. Buddhists call the process of making that space “mindfulness.”

When Jedi say “there is no emotion,” they don’t mean that emotions are bad, or that they intend not to experience emotion. They mean that for them, feelings are part of the machinery of perception, not inherent attributes of the things and situations that prompt them to arise in peoples’ awareness. Jedi seek to honestly and fully enter into their emotions in the same way as any other sensory or extra-sensory input they can access, but without being compelled automatically to hold onto stuff that feels good, push away stuff that feels bad, or skip over stuff that’s boring.  If they can be aware of and honest about their emotions, but not hauled around by them like a dog on a leash, that lets them interpret the world around them without that miasma of compulsive value-judgement clouding their vision. If they can do that, it opens options for actions that they wouldn’t otherwise have.

littlesparklight:

culturevulture73:

corellian-smuggler:

Here’s the thing about the new canon.

Essentially they want us to watch the Original Trilogy, completely invested in the fact that our heroes will triumph, and then they want us to watch The Force Awakens and just be totally OK with the fact that everything we were just presented with over the course of three films is out the window.

They want Star Wars fans to spend several hours watching Han and Leia’s love story, watching them fight for each other, overcome personal obstacles to be together, make incredible sacrifices for each other–they want us to spend ESB and ROTJ rooting for them, want us to watch Han hold her close as they both smile at the end of the trilogy, want us to be happy and hopeful and thrilled that their true love has made it through–and then they want us to watch TFA and see that their marriage failed, and they want us to accept it.

They want us to get invested in our heroes–in Han and Luke and Leia–and desperately hope that they all make it through. They want us to be invested in their personal allegiances to one another to the point that we KNOW that Han will come back at the battle of Yavin for Luke and Leia, we KNOW that he’ll go out into freezing conditions to rescue Luke, we KNOW that he’ll run into Echo Base to rescue Leia on Hoth, we KNOW that Luke will ignore his Jedi Masters and abandon his training to go rescue Leia and Han on Bespin, we KNOW that Leia will risk her safety to go back for Luke at Cloud City, we KNOW that Luke and Leia will leave the rebellion and put themselves at risk to rescue Han, WE KNOW WE KNOW WE KNOW. The new canon wants us to sit there KNOWING ALL THESE THINGS, knowing that they are the most important damn things in the galaxy to one another, knowing that they’re family and that they love each other. They want us to know it and be invested in it and root for it–root for the strength of that bond and that loyalty and root for them all to make it through together–for all of them to triumph together. And they do!

And then TFA wants us to COMPLETELY CHANGE OUR MINDS and accept that all of that is destroyed. That bond is broken. Luke has abandoned his friends for some reason. Han has left Leia. Leia is all alone. And not only has that crucial bond just been cast aside, but their triumphs have all been undone. Empire defeated?? Welcome to Empire 2.0!!! Death Stars destroyed??? Welcome to Death Star 3.0!!!! Vader redeemed???? Welcome to Vader 2.0, and even worse, he’s your own damn son/nephew AND he kills Han!!!!!! It just takes their victory and deconstructs every single piece of it, and the only possible way that that maybe could have been tolerable would have been if AT LEAST they were still together, still true to the loyalty we knew, unstoppable and united no matter what new dangers they face, and they’re NOT. The Original Trio, the most beloved and iconic characters of all time, are just completely leveled to NOTHING. Fractured and broken up and reduced to these miserable un-versions of themselves. And the new canon wants you, as a Star Wars fan to accept this, because “Don’t worry!! We have these three shiny NEW heroes for you!!!! They’ll get a happy ending for sure!!!!” But??? What??? I don’t give a shit about their ending, what about the ending we were already supposed to have had???? The one you made me hope for for three damn movies??? The one I was lead to believe was true???? What about that ending??????

No, they decided that they were going to go back thirty years after the fact and change it.

But wait, you say, how did this happen??? How could these people at Lucasfilm who were claiming to “protect” Star Wars destroy Luke and Leia and Han like that?? How could they write a Han Solo who abandons Leia to do all the fighting all alone when there’s a fascist regime routinely trying to kill her and their son is a part of it and her brother has vanished without a trace??? How could they write a Luke who’s evidently turned his back on the galaxy–on the FAMILY–that needs him??? How could they have DESTROYED LEIA’S WHOLE LIFE????? ALL of their lives???? And for seemingly no reason!!!! They could have easily written a movie to introduce the new characters and create conflict without dismantling every single thing about our beloved trio and their dynamic. But they didn’t. They slaughtered them.

And then you listen to these people speak. And they start saying things like Leia clearly could never have been an attentive mother because she was too preoccupied with politics and her career. Han could never have been happy settling down and committing to something–not even his family–so OBVIOUSLY he left and he’s smuggling again. Han and Leia were too incompatible and could never have worked. Luke is off in EXILE because AREN’T ALL JEDI MASTERS SUPPOSED TO BE IN EXILE???????????

And you’re just. You’re floored. You’re blown away. It’s like those people didn’t even fucking WATCH Star Wars. Did they completely miss the fact that Leia’s character arc is about learning to care about things that aren’t the rebellion, and learning to rely on people–not just herself???? Did they not see how much she’s already lost–LITERALLY HER ENTIRE WORLD–and how much she had to suffer before she finally got something that was hers again? Did they not see the hell she had to go through to get it???? Did they really think she would throw that away after all that–did they think that LEIA of all people couldn’t have balanced a career and a family????

Were they just twiddling their thumbs when HAN SOLO’S ENTIRE FREAKING STORY IS ABOUT REALIZING THAT HE’S NOT A SMUGGLER, NOT SELFISH, NOT THAT MAN ANYMORE–MAYBE NEVER REALLY WAS THAT MAN. LEARNING TO COMMIT–TO STAY WITH LEIA AND LUKE AND THE REBELS AND SACRIFICE HIMSELF IF NEED BE????? HIS ENTIRE GROWTH AS A CHARACTER WAS AWAY FROM SELFISHNESS AND FLIGHTINESS. HE BECAME A STEADFAST, BRAVE, DEPENDABLE MAN COMMITTED TO HIS FRIENDS AND HIS LOVE AND THE CAUSE. HOW DID THEY WATCH THOSE FILMS AND SAY “WELL HAN COULD NEVER SETTLE DOWN.”!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Did they not notice that Luke’s DEFINING characteristic throughout the original trilogy is his loyalty to his loved ones??? His utter refusal to let harm come to them–to give up on them?? His refusal to abandon them???? And then they want us to believe that he… abandoned them?????

So essentially the thing about the new canon is that people who don’t understand Star Wars are suddenly in charge of Star Wars, and they go back and ignore the characterization of three entire films and present us with material that is entirely contradictory of the original trilogy, and then they don’t understand why people have reacted negatively. 

And then of course you get fans screaming about how it’s REALISTIC this way.

When the fuck did you get the idea that Star Wars is supposed to be realistic??????? Star Wars is NOT about realism. It’s a Space Fairytale. An epic saga. It’s not supposed to be Game of Thrones grimdark jam in the tragedy. It was never like that for forty years. It was never presented that way. George Lucas was ADAMANT in making this point. And that’s why it resonated with so many people–that’s why it was such a success. Because it was uplifting. It was inspiring. It touched that part of our hearts where those fairytales live–where it’s possible for our heroes to go up against the forces of evil and WIN and have a happy ending. That’s why they gave Luke and Leia and Han the happy fucking ending!!!!

And the thing with the new canon is that they don’t care. They don’t care about “protecting Star Wars.” They don’t care about what Star Wars stands for. They don’t care about what George Lucas created. They care about money. They don’t want you to be invested in Han and Luke and Leia anymore. They want you to care about Finn and Rey and Poe, and apparently no one at Lucasfilm understood that they didn’t have to destroy the old characters to get people to like the new ones.

And for the record, just because the people delivering this truly appalling “new canon” horrorshow AU are Disney and Lucasfilm does NOT mean that I have to accept it all as true. They don’t understand Star Wars, they don’t care about it, they’re not its original creator, and I don’t have to accept a single thing they say.

That’s the thing about the new canon.

Yes. This, so much this. 

Imagine that you could write a generational story without destroying what came before. It’s not that hard!

It’s infuriating, because self-contained the OT’s story – the tragedies and losses and struggles within each of those three movies – is to make the ending a reward. Add the PT, made after the OT, and the OT’s ending is now not just a reward for our current characters and us as an audience – it’s a reward for all the tragedies, losses and struggles that happened in the PT and ended in pain.

And then the ST/TFA comes along and says ‘no’.

That reward there for things suffered, the growth of characters as well as relationships and the whole galaxy? No, it doesn’t exist anymore. Take this thing instead.

Thanks but no thanks.

For me, part of the problem is that we don’t really know the details of what happened between the OT and TFA. Maybe there are somewhat reasonable explanation for the situation in TFA (even if I don’t like the OT trio being unhappy anyway), but we haven’t seen those yet.

Like, we know that Luke left, but we don’t know what exactly he’s looking for – maaaaybe there’s something on Anch-To that was worth it, but right now I can’t imagine what that might be. We know that Ben turned to the Dark Side, wants to be President of the Darth Vader fanclub, and that Snoke had something to do with it. No idea how none of his family members noticed that he was being manipulated (even if Snoke was using telepathy), or how he was able to kill all the other Jedi apprentices. Same with Leia’s and Han’s marriage failing and Han going back to smuggling. Yes, I can believe that they would have had relationship problems, that Leia would bury herself in her work both out of necessity and as a coping mechanism

and maybe Han would leave for a while (but come back once things got serious enough that Leia had to start the Resistance!). Honestly, couldn’t he have been on some mission, possibly smuggling supplies for the Resistance, when he found the Millenium Falcon Rey and Finn? And then there’s things like R2 shutting down until the narratively convenient moment instead of doing what Luke woud’ve likely wanted him to do aka helping Leia…

As a result, it feels like no one has really achieved anything lasting. Like no one is getting a happy ending anymore (not even the new trio probably), because while I didn’t ever expect or want them to settle down and retire completely I did think they might be better off than during the war against the Empire, and they’re not.

Leia is

at least leading the Rebellion 2.0 Resistance, and while it’s a little disappointing that the New Republic isn’t supporting her until it’s too late, I don’t find that difficult to believe that the majority of the politicians who never fought against the Empire in any way would fail to recognize the threat. But Leia is still alone, with every person who was truly close to her gone. I’m also kinda bitter bc they didn’t mention her connection to the remaining Alderaanians at all. 

Han has left and is basically where he was in ANH except he’s more ready to go help the Resistance. And of course, Luke is the only Jedi once again. Perhaps he had managed to found a new Jedi Order, but seeing as it was destroyed, it feels like it wasn’t something that ever mattered at all. Hopefully that will change as we get more info, but why couldn’t they have introduced a remnant of his Jedi Order, fighting with the Resistance, with the different rules we’d expect from Luke’s Jedi. And also given a better explanation for his absence. 

Tl;dr I hope we get some good explanations soon, but right now I can’t help but be dissatisfied with the things listed above (and in some cases I’m not sure how convincing they can make those explanations).  

into-the-weeds:

amilynh:

peradii:

peradii:

  • luke skywalker is terrifying. 
  • no, shut up, come back.
  • you have to understand:
  •  to you or me he may not be; he may be all sunshine smiles and corngold hair and the biggest eyes this side of the galaxy, but imagine you’re Dagger (stormtroopers don’t get proper names), firing at a boy, only the bolts never hit. They sing to the side. You think that there’s something wrong with your blaster, maybe, but none of your friends can hit him either. Finest shots in the Empire, you are, but you can’t hit this boy. And he cuts you down. He wields a weapon whose name you’ve never learned and he cuts you down into smoking bloodless bodies and your friends die before you – only he leaves you. Knocks you out with a blow of the Force – and isn’t that a nightmare of its own, unseen hands blotting out your thoughts – leaves you there in the cooling blood of your squadmates.
  •  Imagine that you’re Cara Ilhyre and you’re a dancer for the Hutt and you hate it, of course you do, but it is a living, a living, and this boy comes in, fresh-faced and young and he says surrender or be destroyed only he and you both know that the Hutt do not and never have surrendered and when he says destroy there’s this grin on his lips, thin and sharp, and he’s kind, of course he is, but –
    • so you’re Cara Ilhyre and you’re a native of tattooine and like many of your specis you are force-touched and you were a girl, once, a very little girl, and your mother told you tales of krayt dragons who slumbered beneath the sands and gentled their young to their pearl-heavy breasts. krayt dragons are tender mothers, she had said, and it was meant to teach you something of the duality of nature, or to fear those with young to protect, or something; but all you can think is this boy, how he smiles as kind as your mother did, once, but you’re convinced that if you were to cut him down the middle you would find dragon-pearls in his ribs and fire instead of a heart
    • the boy cuts downs jabba’s goons like they are nothing, nothing, and afterwards, afterwards, you sense his sorrow. and somehow that makes it worse.
    • because you say, later, to your mother’s ghost (maybe) or to the desert, he knows that killing people is hard and that weighs on him and he does it anyway and –
    • and, you say, it isn’t as simple as: he makes the hard choices. he knew the hutt would fight. he wanted to burn them down, oh he did, and that sister of his –

reblogging my own post to add: luke skywalker  can wave his hand and choke you half to death, make you believe whatever he wants you to; he’s killed monsters and gangsters and the greatest weapon the world has ever seen – of course some people will fear him, because every hero is a villain to some, and the sunshiney marshmallow exterior does not mean that he’s not a force of fucking nature

#luke skywalker on the one hand yes cinnamon roll on the other #holy fuck really not #i just love the idea of our heroes being terrors when viewed from just the right angle #star wars

#this is what pretty much everyone in the luke skywalker fandom seems to forget#there’s a lot of emphasis on how pure and good and hardworking and whatever else he is#and he is!#but he is first and foremost and forever#A Fucking Terrifying Creature#people on Jakku (a junkyard planet by even Han Solo’s reckoning) have heard of him#and think he’s a made-up story#and guess what kiddos#made-up stories are not nice#the stories that people tell each other in the desert are about demons and monsters and vicious animals that will kill you with a look#and heroes who are (if you look very carefully in the right light) barely distinguishable from those demons/monsters/animals#Luke Skywalker is the boogeyman on worlds he’s never heard of and the threat billions of parents use on their children#and the worst part is#Luke must know all this#must have heard those stories and learned about these myths#and he cannot argue with a single one because here’s the thing:#he is pure and good and hardworking and whatever else#but he’s killed hundreds of thousands of people and he can invade your mind and move your body and kill you with a look#so he can’t ever argue against those stories and myths#because like Han said: it’s true#all of it (via @leupagus)

The Real Meaning of that Confrontation Between Jyn & Cassian on Eadu

priscillajeanohare:

A lot of people have made out that beautifully explosive and ultimately cathartic confrontation over Cassian almost assassinating Galen out to be something other than it is. As I discuss here, what’s at the heart of it is a question of trust, and it’s through this discussion that Jyn realizes how similar she and Cassian are for the first time (something he already knew, as I also discuss in the post linked above). But another layer of it is obviously how different they are in key ways and how it muddies the ideological waters and makes out neither of them to be wholly right or wrong. Objectively, assassinating Galen is not a morally good thing and as Jyn says, Cassian can’t talk his way around it. But even if it isn’t wholly good, does that make it unrealistic or uncalled for? 

Regardless of the right answer – and there really isn’t one – Jyn is allowed to be emotional about this, even if she says some hurtful things in the process. People make her out to be a spoiled brat in this scene, as if both of her parents weren’t murdered before her very eyes and as if she wasn’t abandoned by her only other guardian (who she retained love for but no small amount of understandable bitterness towards), whose cause was the Rebellion at age 16 – hence her abandonment issues and anger towards both sides. She was captured by the Rebellion and this mission was hers to complete and win her freedom or fail and die trying. She and Cassian aren’t exactly in equal positions at this point and there is mistrust inherent in that sort of relationship, where he is essentially acting as her non-optional handler on a compulsory mission she’s been forcibly recruited for – and what’s just happened has challenged and seemingly broken the tentative trust they’d built up to that point. Jyn’s emotions are valid and cannot be dismissed lightly as whining – “Oh boo hoo your parents were murdered in front of you! Suck it up.” Yeah…I don’t think so. Her self-preservation is a psychological defence mechanism that is likely all that kept her alive for years now. There are reasons she doesn’t want to devote herself to anything – she thinks nothing will devote itself to her. When stuff like that happens to you so young, it’s hard to undo the damage. 

But once she sees how similar she and Cassian are (both child soldiers, for one, as she finds out in the course of their confrontation) and how easily they – and anyone really – could have been in each other’s shoes, she gains a whole new perspective on things and she comprehends the wisdom in his words about the Rebellion being built on hope – because it is all that would have saved her or him or that little girl in Jedha – and adopts his motto as her own. She ultimately helps the Rebellion for the same reason she protects the little girl in Jedha – because no one deserves to be alone and because with the knowledge granted her by her father, she has a real chance, however slim, to ensure a brighter future for the marginalized and oppressed everywhere. And because Cassian, in turn, realized he need not always follow orders in his service of the Rebellion and it is worth trusting his moral intuition sometimes, he assembles the team the two of them need to accomplish their original goal. They swap roles, in a sense – Jyn looks beyond self-preservation as Cassian always does and Cassian listens to his own intuition like Jyn does rather than following orders.

I think Cassian had an unconscious interest in Jyn ever since he saw her, probably – hence his decision to trust her with the blaster pistol, which I discuss here. He’d read her file and then he sees her and her temperament and the way she carries herself and realizes how different and how similar they are – how they both have missing pieces of each other. She’s got this fight in her to stick to her own beliefs that he gave up on a long time ago (i.e. how she typically sticks to protecting herself but didn’t hesitate to risk her life to save a small child), aside from his devotion to the cause, and he’s got this level-headed if worn-down idealism that she realizes she needs. Cassian is a fundamentally good person who feels morally dead inside even though he believes in the cause and it’s all he has – like Diego has said, he’d really rather be doing anything else, but for him, this is it. All the actions he took that clashed with his moral intuition have to mean something. When Jyn, in many ways his mirror (as Diego has also described her), takes up the cause and finds strength in hope because of him, she inspires him to assemble a team and revitalizes his faith that all those times he gave up parts of himself – emotionally and morally – were worth it in the end because here she is ready to throw herself into the fray and it is hard not to be inspired by an act of faith on the part of such a cynical and downtrodden person who he sees so much of himself in. And it was he who inspired her to fully devote herself to the cause to begin with, along with the knowledge given to her by her father that paved the way for the Death Star’s destruction. Cassian gave her a sense of purpose by explaining his own (“Suddenly the Rebellion is real for you? Some of us live it. I’ve been in this fight since I was six years old. You’re not the only one who lost everything. Some of us just decided to do something about it.”) and also became a physical and emotional anchor for her and a source of trust and belonging – “Welcome home.” 

Jyn and Cassian need each other and they met at the exact moment in their lives they needed to – and the universe needed them to meet. The Force needed them to connect to save the universe from oppression by beginning the long arduous process of doing so – without them, who knows how many more years of darkness people would have endured, how much further back the Rebellion might have been set. “Hope starts with them.” Ideologically, emotionally, and physically, their connection is multilayered and poignant and connects to the most important themes in the SW universe – faith, hope, redemption, and love for oneself and all living things.

6) Tolkien’s hero was average, and needed help, and failed.

This is the place where most fantasy authors, who love to simultaneously call themselves Tolkien’s heirs and blame him for a lot of what’s wrong with modern fantasy, err the worst. It’s hard to look at Frodo and see him as someone extra-special. The hints in the books that a higher power did choose him are so quiet as to be unnoticeable. And he wouldn’t have made it as far as he did without his companions. And he doesn’t keep from falling into temptation.

A lot of modern fantasy heroes are completely opposite from this. They start out extraordinary, and they stay that way. Other characters are there to train them, or be shallow antagonists and love interests and worshippers, not actually help them. And they don’t fail. (Damn it, I want to see more corrupted fantasy heroes.) It’s not fair to blame Tolkien for the disease that fantasy writers have inflicted on themselves. […]

Fantasy could use more ordinary people who are afraid and don’t know what the hell they’re doing, but volunteer for the Quest anyway.

It’s misinterpretation of Tolkien that’s the problem, not Tolkien himself.

“Tolkien Cliches,” Limyaael

(via mithtransdir)

The whole point of The Lord Of The Rings… like, the WHOLE POINT… is that it is ultimately the hobbits who save the world. The small, vulnerable, ordinary people who aren’t great warriors or heroes.

Specifically, Sam. Sam saves the world. All of it. The ultimate success of the great quest is 100% due to a fat little gardener who likes to cook and never wanted to go on an adventure but who did it because he wasn’t going to let his beloved Frodo go off alone. Frodo is the only one truly able to handle the ring long enough to get it into Mordor – and it nearly kills him and permanently emotionally damages him – but Sam is the one who takes care of Frodo that whole time. Who makes him eat. Who finds him water. Who watches over him while he sleeps.

Sam is the one who fights off Shelob.

Sam is the one who takes the Ring when he thinks Frodo is dead.

Sam is the one who strolls into Orc Central and saves Frodo by sheer determination and killing any orc who crosses him. (SAM THE GARDENER GOES AND KILLS AN ACTUAL ORC TO GET FRODO SOME CLOTHES LET’S JUST THINK ABOUT THAT). And then Sam just takes off the Ring and gives it back which is supposed to be freaking impossible and he barely even hesitates.

Sam literally carries Frodo on the last leg of the journey. On his back. He’s half-starved, dying slowly of dehydration, but he carries Frodo up the goddamn mountain and Gollum may get credit for accidentally destroying the ring but Sam was the one who got them all there.

Sam saved the world.

And let’s not forget Pippin and Merry, who get damselled out of the story (the orcs have carried them off! We must make a Heroic Run To Save Them!) and then rescue themselves, recruit the Terrifying Ancient Powers through being genuinely nice and sincere, and overthrow Saruman before the ‘real’ heroes even get there.

Let’s not forget Pippin single-handedly saving what’s left of Gondor – and Faramir – by understanding that there is a time for obeying orders and a time for realizing that the boss is bugfuck nuts and we need to get help right now.

Let’s not forget Merry sticking his sword into the terrifying, profoundly evil horror that has chased him all over his world because his friend is fighting it and he’s gonna help, dammit and that’s how the most powerful Ringwraith goes down to a suicidally depressed woman and a scared little hobbit.

Everything the others do, the kings and princes and great heroes and all? They buy time.  They distract the bad guys. They keep the armies occupied. That is what kings and great leaders are for – they do the big picture stuff.

But it is ultimately the hobbits who bring down every villain. Every one. And I believe that that is 100% on purpose. Tolkien was a soldier in WWI. His son fought in WWII. (And a lot of The Lord Of The Rings was written in letters to him while he did it.)

And hey, look, The Lord Of The Rings is about ordinary people – farmers, scholars, and so on – who get pulled into a war not of their making but who have to fight not only because their own home is in danger but so is everyone’s. And they’re small and scared but they do the best they can for as long as they can and that is what actually saves the world. Not great heroes and pre-destined kings. Ordinary people, doing extraordinary things because they want the world to be safe for ordinary people, the ones they know and the ones they don’t.

Ordinary people matter. They can save the world without being great heroes or kings or whatever. And that is really important and I get so upset when people miss that because Aragorn and Legolas and Gimli and Gandalf and all the others are great characters and all but they are ultimately a hobbit delivery system.

It is ordinary people doing their best who really change the world, and continue doing so after the war is over because they have to go home and rebuild and they do.

If nothing else, I have to reblog this for the phrase “hobbit delivery system.” So accurate it hurts.

(via elenilote)

What I love too is how even the foretold king and the assorted great heroes themselves all come to recognize that their main (and by the end, only) role is to distract Sauron. To the point that by the end they’re all gathered up before the black gates of Mordor in order to keep his attention focused on them, with only the hope – not the certainty – that they can buy Frodo whatever remaining time he needs, if he’s even still alive.

One thing the movies left out but has always been such a key part of the books for me was how when the hobbits returned home, they found that home had been changed too.

The war touched everywhere. Even with all they did in far-off lands to protect the Shire, the Shire had still been damaged, both property and lives destroyed, and it wasn’t an easy or simplistically happy homecoming. They had to fight yet another battle (granted a much smaller one) to save their neighbours, and then spent years in rebuilding.

(via thebearmuse)

I desperately want to read and write more things like this.

(via neurodiversitysci)

kalinara:

culturevulture73:

threadsketchier:

peradii:

see i know that we all like to make fun of luke skywalker, hick farmer from the back of nowhere, thinking that shooting womp rats with the space equivalent of his dad’s old rifle is somehow sufficient preparation for taking down the death star; but i love the idea that actually womp rats are six foot abominations of teeth, spines & poison and bulls-eyeing them is actually excellent preparation for the rebellion. think about it: swarms of six foot rats, and some skinny kid with an outdated weapon taking them out, cool as paint. hardened soldiers whisper scary stories to each other, about the monsters who scavenge in the sands, stripping a camp of everything living in five seconds flat, and luke just saying oh, womp rats? they’re nothing. great with a bit of butter and some toast.  

REMEMBER THAT HE TOLD WEDGE, “THEY’RE NOT MUCH BIGGER THAN TWO METERS” LIKE THAT’S SOME MINOR INCONVENIENCE

BIGGER THAN TWO METERS

Wedge: So, you’ve been to Tatooine

Han: Yeah

Wedge: Womp rats?

Han: Sure. Chewie uses ‘em for bowcaster practice. Kinda gamey tasting. Sandy colored fur, lotsa teeth, little over two meters…

Wedge: Luke wasn’t lying???

Luke (head inside X-wing panel, tinkering): Why would I make THAT up?

Honestly, I’ve always thought that farm work on Tatooine, unintentionally, must have provided a fairly excellent groundwork in establishing Luke’s baby Jedi skills outside of an academy context.

There are of course the aforementioned womp rats, which are both terrifying and a fantastic way to develop shooting skills.

There’s beggar’s canyon for piloting.  And if Phantom Menace brought us nothing else, it actually showed us the living death trap that is beggar’s canyon.  He’s not like zipping around the Grand Canyon, he’s literally goofing off in a place that killed off a shit ton of professional pod racers.  So needless to say, Luke’s had a chance to develop scary good reflexes, information processing, and spacial relation skills.

The Lars’s economic status means that they had to make do with ancient, crap equipment.  Luke would have learned how to make incredibly fine tuned repairs, and keep shit going forever.  And sure, he never built a C3PO or a pod racer, but honestly, if he found the materials to do it, he probably would have used them in a moisture collector.  

And there’s even combat experience.  From what we know about Tatooine, a farm like the Lars Homestead, would have been at risk for attacks by raiders, Jabba’s goons, and any of the terrifying hellbeasts that populate that planet.  It’s not like Jedi temple training or anything.  But Luke definitely learned to be cool under pressure, even when outnumbered or with really old, shit equipment.

The Tragedy of Bail Organa: A Character Analysis

weary-hearted-queen:

Bail Organa is, by all rights, a moral and righteous man. Throughout the course of the Prequel Trilogy, we see him again and again making good and moral choices, even if they are not the easy choice. When looking at the Jedi Temple burning, Bail Organa flies toward it himself to see what is happening; when Bail Organa realizes that the Jedi are being slaughtered, he risks his own life to save those he can. (And yes, he did risk his own life–if Palpatine had realized that Bail had helped Yoda and Obi-Wan, do you think that Bail would have lived long?) Without prompting, Bail steps forward and offers to take one of Padme and Anakin’s children–even though he knows that to do so will put himself and his wife (and even his world) in danger, because he knows that he can give that child a better life than she would have had anywhere else they might have hidden her. (“She will be loved,” he said. “She will be loved.” And that was that.)

Yet, especially in light of the events in Rogue One, we cannot say that Bail Organa is a good man.

Over and over again, throughout the course of the many years separating Revenge of the Sith from A New Hope we see Bail Organa make morally grey–and even morally black–choices. When confronted with the reality that the High Council will not authorize the fleet to go steal the Death Star plans, Bail circumvents them and ensures that the fleet is sent anyway. Even though to do so will place Leia–and the entire galaxy, if she is discovered by Vader or Palpatine–in great danger, Bail a) makes her Crown Princess of Alderaan (an incredibly public and visible position, though presumably that also afforded her a measure of protection as Palpatine should have thought twice about moving on the Crown Princess of Alderaan); b) cedes his Senate seat to her, likely for political and Rebellion-related reasons, placing her in close proximity to both Palpatine and presumably Vader for extended periods of time. We have also seen him authorize a handful of dubious actions in Star Wars Rebels, though ultimately all of those choices ended positively.

Was he right to make those choices? Yes. We, as the audience, can see that the choices that Bail makes are the correct choices to make. He was right to ensure that the fleet went to aid those stealing the Death Star plans. Leia would not have been nearly as effective of a leader, politically and publicly, if she had not had the Senate seat, etc. All of his choices, as shown in Rebels, end well.

Furthermore, did he make the choices he made for the right reasons? Yes. He makes every single one of the choices he makes throughout the series to undermine and defeat Palpatine and his tyranny.

But were those choices good choices? No. No they were not. They were manipulative, dangerous, and often even in direct contrast to the ideals for which he fought.

And that is the tragedy of Bail Organa.

Because Bail Organa is a moral and righteous man–but he is a moral and righteous man who is forced to break and even, in a fashion, become corrupt for the sake of what he believes in.

Bail Organa is forced to become–or, at least, to make choices that mirror–the very thing he has sold his life to defeat: a powerful, manipulative, scheming leader with absolute (or unchecked) power.

But you know what? I think Bail knows this. He knows what he has done. He knows what he is becoming.

And that is the greatest tragedy of all.

Because we have a moral and righteous man who, because he is moral and righteous, is willing to sell his soul to defeat evil.

Why would Luke Join the Emperor, anyway

letslipthehounds:

Why is the Emperor so sure Luke would join him if he turns to the Dark Side?  No seriously.  Vader, I definitely understand, and I bet Luke does too.  Family and everything, which is actually a fairly strong draw.  But the Emperor?  No.  Luke has just spent four or so years as a fairly prominent member of the Rebellion, dedicated to ending the Empire, and with it, the Emperor’s rule.  He has no connections to the Emperor, and the Emperor knows it.  Does he just think that Luke will join him to get power, and that’s enough? 

Because honestly, even Vader recognized that Luke needed more than power.  (Father and Son, end this destructive conflict, etc.)  Even if he did turn, why would Luke join the Emperor?  Even in Return of the Jedi, when he’s facing the Emperor, he doesn’t seem very respectful.  Yeah, he calls the Emperor “Your Highness”- but shouldn’t that be “Your Majesty”?  He’s also not afraid to call the Emperor overconfident, and, basically, sass him.  (Soon I’ll be dead, and you with me.)

Luke, even if he does turn, is more likely to continue to oppose the Emperor, honestly.  Just because he’s using the Dark Side does not mean he won’t continue to oppose the Empire, continue to fight the Empire.  And actually, that would probably be a pretty interesting story- one where Luke has turned, but he’s still a part of the Rebellion and is absolutely wrecking havoc on the Empire.  But I digress.

I think ROTJ era Luke could join the Empire, if he’s given a good reason- like his father- but on the whole, he’d need to have more of a reason than power.  Family, making the galaxy better, things like that.

I wonder if perhaps the Emperor just sees Luke as a second edition of his father, and therefore, as soon as he turns, he’ll be an obedient servant.

Yep. I totally agree, the only possible in-universe explanation is that Palpatine has grown so arrogant that he assumed Luke would be just like his father at the same age and didn’t think of how much effort he’d had to invest into making sure Anakin turned. That’s actually two logic mistakes (maybe his age is catching up with him? or he’s out of practise when it comes to manipulating people into joining him?) 

I suppose it’s also possible that he thought that even if Luke defeated him, he’d still end up a Darksider and try to take over the Empire so the SIth would still have won, but that really doesn’t seem like something Palpatine would ever do. I mean, he’d never consider dying and letting someone else rule the Empire an acceptable end, Luke wouldn’t even be a proper Sith, as you said he might keep fighting for the Alliance even with the Dark Side… Actually, I don’t even remember where I saw this theory, but it’s definitely veeeery unlikely. 

The explanation from behind the fourth wall is that George Lucas probably didn’t think of it at the time, though.