r0gerr0ger

[r0gerr0ger]

I love the clone wars trio bc I see them all as different commentaries on the Jedi of the time.

Obi Wan is what the Jedi were.

Anakin is what the Jedi preached against.

Ahsoka is what the Jedi should aspire to be.

Obi Wan had the best of intentions: he wanted to save Anakin, to save Satine, to save Ahsoka. But in the end he failed due to Sith scheming. He was set up to fail, wether it be his dead master or the intergalactic war he was forced to fight in. And in the end Anakin did fall from the light, Satine was killed in Maul's quest for revenge, and Ahsoka walked away. He was a well-intentioned man with a good heart who was ultimately set up to fail by the Sith.

Anakin too wanted safety for his loved ones, but he took it to far. Instead of prioritizing those people, their wants and needs, he prioritized the way they made him felt. Instead of selfless love, he loved selfishly, which is exactlaly what the Jedi are against. They're not against love, they're against attachment. Anakin couldn't let go of Ahsoka: it corroded his faith in the Jedi, sowed seeds of resentment. He couldn't accept that Padme or Obi Wan didn't agree with his vision, because if they don't make him feel good, then they no longer love him. Anakin was a kind boy twisted by the Sith and his misguided attachment to others.

Ahsoka falls into a similar category as Obi Wan, except for one detial. She walked away. She recognized that the Jedi were unintentionally loosing themselves in war. And even through she was a spectacular warrior, a talented commander, she recognized that it wasn't supposed to be her job. She was able to let go of her attachment to Anakin and the 501st. She was a product of her masters and friends, of Obi Wan, Anakin, Padme, and all the others who influenced her growth. And even in the end, when her world fell, she still acted with compassion and understanding, which is exactly what a Jedi should be. Despite her discomfort with the twisted meaning of the title, Ahsoka embodied the fundamental traits of a Jedi. Not flawless, but an empathetic peacekeeper capable of embracing love and rejecting attachment.

Idk if I'm articulating it right, but the general idea is there.

[r0gerr0ger]

something that so many star wars fans somehow fail to realize is that george lucas always intended for the fall of the republic to be a completely unavoidable tragedy. that’s what makes it such brilliant storytelling.

placing the blame on just one party in the galaxy-wide farce that was the clone wars just isn’t interpreting the story the way its writer intended. neither is saying that all players should be held equally accountable. i don’t think the jedi were at fault for the state of the republic, and (despite the fact that he did horrible things) neither was anakin, on a galactic or governmental scale.

the real villain is palpatine, who shaped the government into a corrupt system by his own hand. the blame for turning a democratic republic into an authoritarian dictatorship (which it was long before it became the empire) under the noses of thousands of incredibly corrupt politicians must be placed entirely on him, and him alone.

by the end of the war, the jedi council recognized that they had already lost the ability to hold onto what it truly means to be a jedi. in their prime during the days of the old republic, the jedi knights were “the guardians of peace and justice.” they’re meant to as diplomats, peacekeepers, mediators, and public servants. when the clone wars began, they were essentially forced into being soldiers, generals, and quasi-politicians by palpatine and the senate. all of those things are antithetical to the jedi’s beliefs, but they had no other choice.

placing even the smallest bit of blame on the jedi for anything leading to the republic’s downfall—and their own—is not only unfair, it’s factually incorrect. the jedi order is a monastic organization. they have no say in the senate and no voting power. saying they’re corrupt, when in fact they were just as conned by palpatine as the rest of the galaxy, is victim-blaming and scapegoating.

palpatine shoved the jedi face first into fighting the war, and pretty much threw the clone army into their laps on top of that. the jedi had no say in the matter, and they certainly had no say in the war itself being started, either. because he controlled both sides, palpatine was able to make the CIS and the republic declare war on each other even though its citizens wanted the same outcome: political independence and survival. if not for palpatine’s schemes, the separatists would have been allowed to secede peacefully, the republic would have continued existing, and the war would have been completely avoided. but that was unfortunately not the case.

so in a galaxy thrown into an unavoidable war by its own secret dictator, with an army of sentient slaves suddenly at their command, and the risk of billions of deaths at the hands of the droid army imminently approaching, what do the galaxy’s official peacekeepers have no other choice but to do? be peacekeepers. why wouldn’t the sworn defenders of the galaxy be out on the battlefields trying to end the war? if they sat in the temple and did nothing, they simply wouldn’t be jedi.

the jedi were forced into a lose/lose situation. every religion and organization has faults, but that doesn’t place any blame on them for the catch-22 they were trapped into falling for. when the clone wars started—and the key point here is that it never should have in the first place—the jedi still needed to be jedi. unfortunately for them, that meant having positions of power not meant for them being thrust upon their shoulders. they couldn’t drop the burden, because that meant actively choosing not to save lives—but the other option, becoming soldiers despite the tenet of their beliefs that dictates they shouldn’t, was no better.

see what a cruel trap palpatine set? it’s like a fish being caught in a fisherman’s net. the net is spread out across the ocean floor, and the fish swim above it, not knowing that the trap is waiting to be drawn in around them from below. in the end, when the net starts to tighten, dragging them closer to the surface, they can’t swim fast enough to escape from the middle to the edge—and to safety—before the net is completely tied. it’s the cruelest kind of trap: the kind that gives you just the right amount of time to think you can escape while being sprung just quick enough to make actually escaping impossible.

in the end, the order actively chose to fight the war because they needed to. there was no other way to continue on as who they were. militarizing the order was not the right choice in a vacuum, but this was not that; this was a situation in which every galaxy-changing choice was the wrong one. the jedi knew they were making a decision that drew them farther away from their beliefs, but it was the lesser of an infinite list of evils, and they didn’t see the walls closing in on them until it was too late.

lucas himself has even said that the order was not corrupt or decaying from the inside, nor did they make a series of bad choices that ultimately led to their own destruction. they were always just trying to do the right thing—but unlike literally everything else in fiction, the jedi order’s death was completely unaffected by any of the choices they made. no matter what they did, they were always going to lose. the fall of the republic wasn’t caused by its defenders choosing what they saw as the least bad choice. it didn’t come down to any decisions, political or not, that the jedi council made with the limited tools that they had. it certainly didn’t come down to one emotionally unstable twenty-three-year-old’s slow descent into insanity, either. the republic and the jedi would still have been destroyed with or without anakin’s unhinged nervous breakdown.

anakin, just like the order, the republic, and the separatists, was taken advantage of by palpatine. even if a person’s choices are their own, they don’t exist in a vacuum.

anakin would have made better choices if not for palpatine, but he didn’t. the jedi order would have kept the peace if not for palpatine, but no matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t. the republic, and democracy with it, would not have crumbled if not for palpatine. not the order, not anakin, not the separatists, and not the republic.

in the end, they were all just pawns in a decades-spanning plan, one that none of them saw coming until it was too late—and by then, it was already irreversible.

[r0gerr0ger]

something i don't see talked about a lot when people discuss how much the jedi, and specifically the jedi order's teachings on attachment, are / are not to blame for anakin turning to the dark side, is that all the other fallen jedi from the prequel era fall for reasons OTHER than than difficulty with the order's stance on attachments. most of it is because of the senate / the war and nothing to do with the jedi's philosophical teachings

lmk if i'm missing anyone but dooku. nahdar vebb (kinda). pong krell. quinlan vos. most of these guys fall because they're convinced it's for the greater good of the whole galaxy (and then there's krell who turns after a vision of the republic falling and basically gives up on the light side because he sees it as futile now). but then you've got anakin who falls to keep padmé. it's solely for his good and he's not thinking about anyone else. and obvs the guys turning to the dark side "for the greater good" have big ego issues among other things but i feel like it shows the jedi's teachings on attachment aren't doomed to turn people to the dark side like some people imply but just that anakin cannot accept / apply them

[r0gerr0ger]

i'll wait for you

'Don’t leave me Master.' Luminara looks through the glass at her daughter- No, not daughter. Never daughter-

[r0gerr0ger]

Well this is fun, isn’t it? Luke turns and looks at her, grins.

War isn’t fun, Jyn snaps back. Grow the fuck up farmboy.

[r0gerr0ger]

Tl4j discovering Luke’s old nickname of Wormie? Maybe from Din who spends time on Tattione still?

I think DIN finding out would be funny enough

(commission info // kofi support!)

[r0gerr0ger]

siblings!!!!

[r0gerr0ger]

I always think it's funny when people try to say Cassian isn't a good spy because of what we see of him in the movie as if that isn't the whole point of his arc. I agree, he's absolutely off his game during this mission. he's having doubts, he's thrown off by Jyn and her presence and their connection, he's questioning killing Galen, and it all throws him off-balance. but that doesn't mean he was always like this on his missions - in fact, I'd argue that the implication is that he was NOT usually like this, and this is all very new and out of character for him. it's the circumstances of this mission, and it's Jyn and how much he sees himself in her that makes him act this way. he's finally starting to allow himself to consider what he thinks is right and wrong, and all the conflicting emotions are definitely affecting him in a way that they don't normally. additionally I think he's super burnt-out by this point but that's just my interpretation. the fact is though, he's a Fulcrum and a canonically well-respected and capable Intelligence agent, and that is for a reason. you don't get to where he was by being a shitty spy.

[r0gerr0ger]

i send the swarm

You who I called Brother How could you have come to hate me so? Is this what you wanted?

The Ten Plagues of the Sith.

Anakin comes to, sees red. Staining his palms; coating his skin from fingertip to elbow. Pooling beyond his hands, planted on the wet floor. Reaching, reaching. A river; an ocean. The air stinks of iron, and ozone. Of plasma. Anakin’s ‘saber hilt is hot against his thigh. He breathes heavy. He wets his lips, and tastes blood. He looks upwards, yellow eyes searching, and sees a child lying at the ocean’s edge.

[r0gerr0ger]

i feel more free than i have in years, six feet in the ground

doomsday by lizzy mcalpine

[r0gerr0ger]

in fics where luke gets plopped into the prequels i want every jedi within ten metres of him to think hes the weirdest jedi theyve ever seen. he has negative lightsaber form. he doesnt know what a kata is. he handstands when he meditates. his solution to sith is to try and have a chat. hes a political radical who keeps suggesting revolution. you ask him what the jedi code is and he says "kindness and compassion and helping those in need :) ". you ask how he used the force like that and he says some shit about how you are a luminous being limited only by your mind. the councils authority is just a suggestion. he is somehow the new favourite of both qui gon and yoda

[r0gerr0ger]

the first conversation between vader and leia in anh is So funny like it implies a lot about the previous times they’ve met

[r0gerr0ger]

So in TCW Padmé and Satine are friends. And it's implied that after Satine and Obi-Wan reconnect they stay in touch. So everyone's friends, right?

"Everyone is friends," is what I'm imagining Padmé thinking when Satine is on Coruscant some time, and she wants to spend time together, but Padmé and Anakin already have plans, so Padmé is like, "let's just invite Satine and Obi-Wan along? We're all friends, it's just friends hanging out together."

And then the four of them are all, like, getting drinks together and everyone is pretending not to be dating and pretending not to know the other couple is dating, and it's the weirdest double-date in history, but they end up having a good time anyways

[r0gerr0ger]

commission for @turinturambarr!

(commissions are open!)

[r0gerr0ger]

it just occurred to me that all tl4j except luke knew and met saw gerrera. not only that but ahsoka, cal, and ezra all have DRASTICALLY different experiences with him. they’d all be talking/gossiping/telling crazy stories about him while luke just stands there like 🧍🏻??

luke rlly did just show up to the rebellion 20 minutes late holding a starbucks and STILL walked out as one of its no.1 most important players

[r0gerr0ger]

Took a break from my final projects long enough to finish up The Pantheon! A year in the making lol!

[r0gerr0ger]

mater dolorosa.

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