#what if Bode asked Cal to help him instead of hiding from him?

[etoiline]

no day but today

for @bodecalweek 2025 day 7 prompt: rebellion

Bode confesses all his secrets under Cal's gentle pressing, and asks Cal for help in freeing himself and Kata from Denvik's control, a tiny first step into rebellion.

that's the whole thing, but you can read a little behind the scenes and leave a kudos or comment over on AO3 if you want to make my day.

Be sure to check out all the other awesome stuff that was made for @bodecalweek on Tumblr and in the AO3 collection!

[tobiasdrake]

So that is the end of Jedi: Survivor. I've said a lot of things about Cal, Bode, and Merrin over the course of my playthrough. Now, at the end, I have to say....

I take back none of it. Endgame spoilers ahead.

Merrin still suffers from Awesome Waifu syndrome all the way to the end. She is by far the most interesting character in the cast who outshines actual protagonist Cal Kestis, but who is relegated to simply filling the role of "The Girlfriend" and not getting to be explored in any capacity as an individual character in her own right.

And occasionally pitching in as sidekick whenever Bode isn't available; As is often the case in hetero romance writing, the girlfriend is prioritized far below the bromance in order of importance. She's the backup for when Cal's real emotional centerpiece isn't available to sidekick for him.

Bode, meanwhile, remains uninteresting to the end. Given how hard they were pushing the bromance, it was fairly obvious that he'd either die in Cal's arms or turn traitor. Those were the only ways this could end. Bode picked the latter, and y'know what?

There's a brief window of time when Bode is actually interesting. It starts at the moment he betrays you and ends when the actual final boss fight with him begins. Bode is a really boring supporting protagonist but he makes for a fairly interesting villain around 70% of the way through the game when the reveal finally drops. Sucks that it took that long for the game to finally start doing interesting things, but at least it finally happens, I guess.

But.

Even then.

He has a red lightsaber.

So even as his whole "I'm secretly a Jedi hiding in plain sight among the Empire to seek a better life for my daughter" nuance is being complex and interesting... He's also a guy who tortures rocks for fun. And you know how Star Wars is; They value bad guys racking up Evilness Points over complex and nuanced characterization. So it's only a matter of time before he leaps off the edge into the deep end.

And once you meet him on Tanalorr, there he goes. Lightswitching in a heartbeat from betraying Cal despite treasuring their friendship because his love for his daughter outweighs all other considerations to wailing on his daughter with Force Powers and trying to murder her because the Dark Side made him so evil and crazy and evil.

And you can't really be surprised about it. Because this is how Star Wars treats Dark Siders all the time. It's exactly what I was talking about when I said, it's entirely possible to write an interesting Dark Side villain but it's so easy to not do that instead. Bode could have been an interesting villain, but the Dark Side as a plot device makes it so easy to strip away the nuance at the last second and make him a one-dimensional monster, robbing the finale of any emotional weight.

When we met Bode, he was a cardboard cutout of a stock rebel character. His sole motive being that he wants to help Cal because he's mad the Empire fridged his wife.

And when we end with Bode, he's a cardboard cutout of a stock Dark Side villain. His sole motive being that he tortures rocks for fun because the Empire fridged his wife.

And then, of course, there's Cal. Who remains a slice of bread to the very end. Of all the Jedi characters who have existed in the Star Wars canon, Cal is one of them. And that's all the plot asks of him: Just to be a Jedi. Doesn't matter which. Any Jedi will do.

I don't regret the time I spent on Jedi: Survivor. The gameplay was more than enough to carry it along.

But the story really is some of the most Paint-by-Numbers writing I've seen in a long time.